I, NECROMANCER OR HOW I (ALMOST) STARTED THE APOCALYPSE

[k4rn0]

I, NECROMANCER OR HOW I (ALMOST) STARTED THE APOCALYPSE
​

CHAPTER 1: A STORMY NIGHT

Storm Clouds loomed over the city like would-be in-laws over their daughter's new fiancee.

It was a particularly big conglomeration of clouds, all black and thick and heavy with water, with thunder booming and lightning flashing all over the place just like would-be in-laws. The wind howled like an army of tortured spirits marching to Hades as the clouds bore down upon the city. Darkness swept up above and down below the city, consoled only by the occasional bolts of lighting and the feeble electronic lamps that stood defiant to the end of their lives.

People began taking notice of the sudden changes in the weather -it was hard not to- and promptly began filing away like scattered moths. Most refuged beneath the buildings and shelters closest to them. Others took buses or taxis or went to the underground train. This storm, they thought, would be a very big one which no sane person would dare or brave against.

It's a very fortunate thing then, the digger thought as he picked up a shovel full of dirt and tossed it over his shoulder, that he's only three quarter sane* in comparison to the normal human being living around him. Truly his insanity is a blessing in disguise.

He had come prepared for the storm, you see. Tucking himself in thick yellow raincoat, not unlike the ones seen in the movies, a pair of umbrellas, in case he needed to be a gentleman to a lonely woman lost in the storm, and large sheet of plastic, should he be unable to finish his work for tonight*. Though thankfully that last one won't seem to be the case.

He arrived at the site just before dark but had not begun working until an hour later, unsure on where to actually dig until he remembered that he only had a few hours before the storm rolled in and the soil became too soggy and wet to dig anything at all. At which point he abandons all sense of guilt and shame and begins digging.

His stomach growled furiously, reminding him that he went out before dinner and had lacked the foresight to bring some snacks along.

Thunder sounded in the distance and the first drops of the rain fell on his face.

He grimaced and continued his work. He had dug too deep to be stopped now, big storms or no.

Beneath his breath he cursed the Japanese' funeral traditions of cremating their dead. Was it so hard to just dig a hole on the ground and toss the deceased there? But nooo apparently they must have an elaborate funeral process before burning the body and keeping the ash in one place or another. It didn't help that Japan has a very small population of christians.

Tracking a burial site which was meant for actual bodies instead of cremated remains was a chore in and of itself. He searched relentlessly on the town's library, spending many hours in them, surfed through the treacherous waters of google search, before finally finding something in the old town archive. It was a land certificate for the building of a small church on the outskirts of the city and among the allocated lands, some parts were used for burial, Christian burial with no fires involved except for small candle fires for the guest and those of more hellish disposition for the souls unfortunate enough to have less than the necessary virtue required.

The church itself was small, more of a chapel really, but the ground was properly consecrated to a fault and the waters were actually hallowed and, as a plus, it was a catholic church!

His shovel hit something hard. It was no rock or stone, he could not have mistaken that thump for something else.

Gleefully, like a child on Christmas eve, and technically he was still a child, being fourteen and all, he began shuffling the dirt around until he saw the unmistakable features of a coffin. He would have danced right there and then if he had the time.

He pried the lid open with his bare fingers. By now, his boots were dirty with mud and he had to be careful not to slip on anything or he might find himself a reluctant occupant of an already filled apartment. He did not want that. Especially since his would-be roommate did not seem to be the nicest person around to be with. He even stank.

It was true. A horrid smell ran a marathon around his nose before settling there and reproducing in all the wrong places. It was nearly intolerable. Had it been his first experience he would have passed out*. Despite this, his mind debated on whether the stench was due to his roommate's lack of a proper bath in years or just plain biological decay. He shrugged. Not like it mattered anyway.

The corpse was not particularly tall or short nor was it particularly handsome or ugly. It was a corpse. It's very hard to tell anything about who they were by their bones alone unless you're an expert.

"S-so uhm," The boy hesitated for a moment. "S-sorry about the whole d-disturbing your eternal rest schtick. But the thing is uhm…" He trailed off and looked at the bones lying before him, unsure on what to say.

Really, how the hell were you supposed to explain the act of digging someone up from their supposed eternal rest to make use of their bodies for nefarious purposes beyond human comprehension?

The corpse glared at him. It seems to have said something along the lines 'Well then, get on with it! I don't have all night you know.'

"I-I suppose you're right," The boy said, clapping his hands together, sending tiny sprinkles of water into his face. "Let's do this."

He took out his book.

It was not an old book nor was it a particularly big book. It was not the kind of book one would expect when thinking about a spell book, not a dusty old tome long kept in the shelf for centuries unend gathering dust, not a forbidden journal with torn and worn out pages the color of sickly yellow. It was not the inches-thick book of thousands of unending pages of magical rituals written in blood. It was definitely not a book someone would expect containing horrid and elaborate rituals only done beneath a thunderstorm or a blood moon*.

In fact, if one were to take a closer look, it was not a book at all but rather an amalgamation of printed word and pdf documents printed, stitched, and bundled together in old leather leather covering to make it look like a book from a very, very, far away distance.

The boy squinted at the letters.

The problem wasn't the water, he had enchanted the pages to keep them dry at all time, but the darkness. It made it hard for him to read the letters.

Indeed, the storm was a bit of a mixed blessings. On the one hand the rain had kept him away from all but the boldest of would-be interlopers that might be disturbed by what they saw. On the other hand, he couldn't make out the letters much less read them out loud.

Fortunately he had also foreseen this.

He grabbed a flashlight and held it in his armpit.

There! now he could read them.

And so, beneath the shadow of the night, beneath the hail of rain, the boomings of thunder, the flashing of lightning, and using a magic book printed out from a nearby internet cafe because his printer ran out of ink, the boy stretched his hand and began chanting.

"Vessel of the deceased long parted," He intoned in a deep bellowing voice vaguely baritone-like. "Of Adam's flesh and Eve's blood taken and crafted."

The wind roared and howled as if nature herself was distraught.

"Nine long months beneath the darkness.
A lifetime of light and then another darkness.
Hear me, O' Cask of the Soul!"

The trees shook, either in fear or reverence. Shaking so violently they were nearly uprooted from their positions.

"I am he who collects the bones!
I am he who calls upon the rotten!
I am he who collects the flesh!
I am he who calls upon the forgotten!"

Lightning flashed all around, thunder groaned and growled near him as the very fabric of reality was torn asunder

"I am the Necromancer! I am INSERT NAME HERE and I-" He stopped. "Hang on a second."

As if on cue, the wind stopped howling, the trees no longer shook, and even the thunder and lightning took a confused pause to process things out between them. The fabric of reality returned to normal as if nothing had ever happened in the first place.

"Insert name here, bla,bla, bla," he muttered beneath his breath and flapped a few pages. "bla, bla, bla, blood, bla, bla, bla, shadow."

The hail of rain did not stop even as he continued his readings but the thunder and lightning seemed to have come to a pause as if waiting in impatient anticipation.

"Sorry about that," He said when he was finished and then added. "I haven't edited these pages you see. Too little time. I was a bit excited when I found it online and went on to print it and so..."

He flashed a sheepish smile at the corpse, even scratching the back of his neck and all.

The corpse stared at him.

"Uhm. Y-you wouldn't mind if we start over will you?" He asked hesitantly.

If the corpse still had eyes and those eyes could kill with a sight, the would-be necromancer would've been dead ten times over.

Instead, a tiny little worm squirm out of its eye socket.

"Right! Thank you,"

He took a deep breath, outstretched his hand, and began chanting once again.

The wind picked up speed, the tree shivered, thunder rhymed, and lightning flashed over the cemetery. The fabric of reality stretched and wavered.

"-And so, by the command given unto me, I order you to rise up and become my slave!"

Purple vapors rose from his hand, bubbling from his skin as if it were a cauldron of chemicals and potions. A wine colored wisp shot out from his palm towards the corpse.

The corpse's eyes lit up producing the same effect as a pair of flames burning with tartar cream.

"Yes," The boy whispered with excitement. "yes, yes, yes!"

The corpse shook. It opened its mouth as if breathing air for the first time in centuries.

"Yes, yes, rise my minion, rise!" The boy's voice grew louder and shriller. "Rise up from your grave! Rise up and become my slave! Rise up and- urk!"

The corpse did just that.

It raised itself up so quickly that it collided with something soft and squishy between the boy's legs.

The boy finds himself going under.

"My unmentionables!" He cried in pain. "Oh God, I'm infertile now! Oh God, my mom can't have grandbabies now! Oh God she's going to kill me!"

He muttered a few more things under his breath.

The newly made zombie simply stood there looking at him. If it could think, it would ask 'This is the guy who raised me up?'

He doesn't look that impressive it would have thought. He was too skinny for one. And too pale. His long black hair was tied into a ponytail that was more practical than fashionable. He was wearing an oversized yellow raincoat and was currently squirming above the coffin like a newly made eunuch who had undergone the process without proper anesthesia.

It was a good thing then that it couldn't think anymore otherwise it would have killed itself by now.

"Augh," The boy rose with great reluctance, still clutching the sore point. He looked around, noticing that they were still standing above the zombie's previous coffin.

"Right, uhm… perhaps we should get out of here?"

The zombie's only answer was a vacant stare.

"O-okay," He said, standing straight up. "I think we should get on a bus or something. This rain's the worst."

They did not manage to get on a bus.

It was not for lack of trying or because a bus driver had taken a good look at the pair, particularly the skeleton, and, like any sane man would do in his position, promptly fled the scene. No. It was simply because there was no bus.

They waited for a full fifteen minutes on the station, the boy with the printed out magic book and umbrellas and shovel and flashlight and rain coat, and the zombie, newly introduced to unlife. Both of them standing there, waiting in the storm.

"Ugh," The boy groaned after glancing at a mickey-mouse themed watch. "this is taking too long."

He looked past the storm, towards the light of the city shining bravely amidst the sea of darkness.

He thought of his mother and his sister. How worried they must've been over his whereabouts.

Then he thought about how angry they would be if he so much as broke curfew the night before his first day in school and he remembered the saying about hell and women scorned.

Niccolo Machiavelli once wrote that fear is a greater motivator than love. He couldn't be more right on this occasion.

"Come on," He said, gesturing to his zombie. "My house is not that far off, anyway."

Above them the hail of rain did not stop.

Lightning flashed as an unlikely pair made their way through the darkness.

Unbeknownst to both of them it was the beginning of something.

Something exciting and terrifying.

_______________​

A fox eyed the pair from a distance.

It could not see clearly through the storm as it could have been in a good, sunny weather but it could see without a doubt the thin, scrawny necromancer followed loyally behind by the unmistakable figure of a servant who, missing some important parts of his body, should by all rights be resting right about now.

It growled before running back into the darkness.

A thousand miles away, a woman awoke from her sleep to the sound of distant thunders.

"Oh, fuck," She said, aptly describing her situations.

_______________​

*It was more of a mediation really. Members of his families often argued on whether he was half sane or five sixths sane and so settled for three quarters just to cut to the middle of things.

*Of course, being a proper practitioner he could have used a simple umbrella spell and continued his work. But he did not have the necessary material and he did not want to miss dinner. Plus a mysterious plot of land being magically protected from the storm was more likely than not to draw unwanted attention.

*It was true. Literally. He passed out for half an hour after his first grave robbing and was woken up by a very confused priest and a few police officers. With a pair of handcuffs and more than a few questions. His parents were not amused.

*It was, however, the kind of book that contained underlined sentences, double underlined sentences, footnotes written in neat handwriting and bright red marker, and sticker bookmarks jotting out of its pages and color coded for the reader's own convenience.


AN: And we're done, hehe. Never thought I would began writing this down this soon.

Believe it or not this began as an Oregairu fanfic in which I thought how awesome it would be if one of the character (I won't mentioned who) is a teenage Necromancer. Soon however I realized that it was too precious to just be another fanfic and so decided to write this down as an original fiction.

Edit: Like usual, thoughts and feedbacks are deeply appreciated

 

[LordEdric]

Fun idea, I'm interested to see where you go with this. Might I suggest using animals? They are less likely to have people care about their corpses

 

[k4rn0]

CHAPTER 2: GHOSTLY APPARITIONS

Twelve years earlier

One of the biggest lies he had ever been told about the life of a ghost, Henry Greene thought as he floated through the countryside, is that they are fundamentally tied to the place where they died.

This was mostly untrue.

While some poor souls were unlucky enough to be anchored or cursed to a certain place for eternity. Most ghosts were free to wander about the earth as they please when they found that they couldn't pass on to the afterlife. They were, for the most part, completely harmless spirits unless provoked and were generally keen on staying away from humans like all manners of sensible supernatural spirits.

The reason why most ghosts chose to stay around the place of their death, has to do more with sentimentality and familiarity rather than necessity. Simply put, they have nowhere to go and nothing else to do. They would sit on the bed where they die or around the corridors where they were murdered, and pondered deeply on the poor, terrible life choices that led to their (seemingly) untimely deaths.

They would go about the places where they do their daily routine, trying to interact as much as they can with the world around them. They'd float near their grieving and mourning loved ones, unable to console or to comfort them. They'd watch their spouses remarry and their children having childrens of their own, without being able to communicate with them forever. Without being able to be seen or to be heard by them, to touch and be touched.

A handful managed to find peace and move on after a time. Others waste away in their own thoughts and regrets, becoming little more than empty shadows and husks vainly clawing at things no longer possible to them. Some went mad, turning into wrathful spirits that thrashed and raged all over their place, decrying their (seemingly) unfair treatments and, in extreme cases, persistently refusing to believe that they were dead.

Well, bugger those people, Henry thought when he heard about them.

He had spent his life as a penniless salesman doing boring, and, frankly, unfulfilling jobs, for people he neither liked nor respected outside of a professional level. He was one of those people who worked twelve hours a day, receiving a cheque only slightly above the minimum wage requirement, and was not promoted despite decades of exhausting services.

When he died, he died as a lonely man with neither wife nor child to grieve for him. No one attended his funeral outside of his close family and the burial he was given was quite shoddy by burial standard. The priest had been a sputtering mess who could drown a man with his spit, his brother-in-law gave a half-hearted eulogy that he suspected was written only a few hours ago, and they also misspelled his name on the tombstone. How the hell did they manage to get the last one he did not know and did not think he wanted to know.

So when he was given a new chance at (un)life, he decided that he would make the best out of it. He read books he did not have time for back when he was alive, finishing many mystery, science fiction, and fantasy novels he never got to buy. He even managed to read a draft of Winds of Winter and glimpsed the outline of A Dream of Spring when he dropped by George Martin's house just before season 8 of Game of Thrones came out. He watched new blockbuster movies at the front row seat in the cinema without paying a single dime and sometimes got to watch it alongside the actors themselves.

He travelled around the world, going to places he could only see in his dreams or on the internet. He climbed the pyramids of Giza, floated above the Eiffel Tower, ran a marathon along the Great Wall, and picked on George Washington's nose at the Rushmore Monuments. He had learned that life was too short to waddle in self-deprecation and depression. So why should he throw away this new chance, this newfound freedom he now possessed?

Currently, he was relaxingly walking -or at least something akin to that when you don't even have legs- through the York countryside. Summer was still as wonderful as ever. And even though he couldn't feel the warmth of the sun on his skin anymore, he appreciated the clear weather and the bright atmosphere it gave off. It also allowed him to take in the most of the sight before him. And what a sight it was.

Hills and valleys rose and fell like waves on the ocean, vibrant with life. Emerald green grass and tall English Oak stretched unending to the horizon. Veritable plains of verdant flowers reverberated by the wind as far as the eyes can see; in hues of red and blue and gold. Golden fields of wheat and other crops were neatly and efficiently laid as if placed there just to give an eye candy or some. Above, the sun stood tall and proud and magnificent against a bright blue sky. Around him he could see the farmers going about their lives, cows and sheeps roaming the fields, birds happily singing in the trees, foxes digging holes on the ground, etc.

He'd felt the need for a bit of scenery change after Istanbul, something distinctly European, mountainous and north-European but also a bit sunny. The Scandinavian countries were what came first to his mind, perhaps Norway or Denmark or the Baltic States? Unfortunately he had been to those places before and while they weren't bad per se he'd encountered some...happenstance.

A most terrible incident occurred involving a priest and a racoon and before he knew it he was floating ragged from an army of stark mad and clearly angry cultists led by a drunken priestess living in the woods bent on sacrificing his lost soul to the great forest god whose statue he'd accidentally destroyed*.

Suffice to say that he'll probably stay out from any of those countries for about a few decades or so. Plus Norway has too many trees to really enjoy the scenery unless you go up the mountains.

After a bit of deliberation, some research in the library, and more than a few hauntings on a nearby internet café, he decided to pay a visit to the British isles. It was a rather quiet country as far as countries go and perhaps a bit of quietness is all that he needs after all. Plus it was the summer months and he heard very good things about the United Kingdoms in the summer*.

Something caught his eyes as his incorporeal feet tread down from the top of another hill, upon the old road that looked as if they have never been cleaned in centuries. A monstrous black figure stood out against a sea of evergreen and he stood for a while to stare at the grotesque Victorian architectural achievement.

He floated up to take a closer look.

Henry had seen his fair share of creepy derelict mansions in his travels across the world. But this building, which stood out more in the countryside than a big, hairy Viking in a British tea party, was pretty much on the cream ten percent of the upper class when it comes to creepiest of the creepies.

It stood on the top of a lonely hill at the end of an old road with as many holes as a swiss cheese. A tall wall, nine-feet high, surrounded the estate it was in brick and barbed wire. The land around the mansion might have been a very beautiful garden once but now it had fallen to decay and disrepair.

The statues were so broken down you could only guess their previous shape. Bushes and vines and long grass had overtaken the flowers and fields and turned the garden into a hazy maze of undergrowth. The trees freely reigned their branches over the land like would-be tyrants. It was a miracle he could identify it as a garden at all.

He had not even begun with the mansion itself. The walls were old and shriveled and covered in vines. The paints had peeled off in so many places it looked like a cow after being brought to a tanner's workshop. The woods were so bristled and frail he'd bet money on a sudden wind bringing them down in one fell swoop.

Most of the windows were dingy and drab and covered in dust so thick he knew that they had not been cleaned in centuries. Gnarling gargoyles leapt from balconies and corners, dozens of them adorning the mansion, adding to its bleak and dark atmosphere. It must've been from at least the middle of the nineteenth century, Henry thought. Only those old times Victorians could think of such work and call them art*.

And yet, the most terrifying thing of all about the mansion was not the ruined gardens, the disrepaired building, or the gargoyles. But the fact that it was occupied.

No. Really.

A car was parked in front of a mansion. It wasn't a very old car, not that old anyway by car standards. It was not a car Henry expected to see in a mansion that old. It looked so out of place -more like out of time, really- that it could be compared to a modern car parking outside of a tavern in a wild west setting.

The only things wrong with that sentiment is that;
a) it was not a silver DMC DeLorean but a black-as-pitch 2003 Bentley Continental GT,
b) it was parked outside a derelict has-to-be Victorian mansion not a wild west tavern, and
c) it doesn't look like it could carry a time machine, not a very big one anyway.

Besides the car, Henry noted the lights, however unlikely and absurdly the notion sounded, coming out from the windows. It was not the bright red and orange of a fire but actual white and yellow from modern electrical lamps. They were only a few of them, sure, but the implication of their existence was critical to his conclusion. At least Henry thought it was.

From outside, he could see vague shapes moving through windows and he could hear talking coming up from the upper floors.

Who would like to live in a place like this?

Nobody, that's the answer. Nobody sane and in their right minds. A few thoughts came out from the back of Henry's mind. None of them were good. A coven of witches taking refuge in the derelict mansion. A satanic cabal summoning hordes of demons. Perhaps a few ghost hunters seeking to unravel the supernatural with science and modern equipment.

(The last one was a bit unlikely though, Henry did not see any vans that could carry such heavy equipment for ghost hunting and the Bentley was far too small for that he was sure.)

Now, Henry was curious and he was a ghost, with all the perks and handicap that entail. A curious Henry, his acquaintances will tell you, is a bad thing. A curious and ghostly Henry with not many rules binding him down is pretty much a recipe for disasters.

Sure he could die a second time or something. But it couldn't be much worse than his first death could it?

He heard muffled sounds coming from the second floor above.

He shrugged. "Nothing ventured. Nothing gained." And with that, he floated up to get a closer look at the mansion's not completely sane occupants. As he flew up and up and up several things

He expected to see, with completely justifiable reasons of course, a coven of witches brewing potions in a black pot over roaring pits of fire or huddled around a magic circle.

He expected to see, after a bit more thinking, a satanic cabal or illuminati meeting over a bloody sacrificial ritual intended to summon the Antichrist.

He expected to see, after forcing his imagination to work overtime, an alchemist with a bright red Philosopher Stone turning bars of lead into gold.

He feared to see, not without a very good cause he'd assured you, another bunch of crazy cultists hell-bent on turning his soul into dinner for their incomprehensible masters in the shadows.

What he most certainly did not expect to see was an overworked mother sitting on a desk, one hand on the phone and another hand furiously typing on the keyboard.

She was not exactly a witch. While the disheveled brown hair she has would give that impression, she was only about late twenties to early thirties at the latest. There was no sign of wrinkles on her face, though the way she frowned and scowled and scrunched up her face would probably give her that if she's not careful in the next few years. And while she wasn't exactly beautiful, she was most certainly above average.

"But ma'am-" She said in a fast hitched tone of someone who just knows that shits are about to go down and was trying very hard to avoid it. "-We can't do that! It'll put the investors on-"

She was cut off by a loud, shrill voice from the other side. Henry imagined a three-quarter aged woman, big and fat, with too much makeup on her face speaking in spits and sputters.

"I understand but-"
"...!"

"Ma'am, please, with all due respect-"

"...?!"

"N-no, ma'am..."

"...?"

"Y-yes ma'am."

She put down her phone and stopped her typing. A sigh as heavy as the mountains stretched out across her mouth. She sank into her chair down to the pits of despair.

"What am I going to do?" She asked no one in particular, placing both hands on her face. A dejected silence following not long after.

Realization dawned on Henry like a cruel epiphany.

She was a corporate slave. Just like he was.

Beads of ethereal tears ran down his cheek and he felt the need to sniff.even though didn't have a nose anymore.

He placed a hand on the feeble woman's shoulder as she slunked down her chair.

"There, there," He said, tapping his fingers gently so as not to phase through his shoulder. "I know how you feel."

The woman sunk deeper and deeper.

"Don't worry," He said, in the encouraging tone of a general who knows defeat is near and is trying to keep his soldiers from faltering. "It will all be better. I promise you. You just have to woman up and get through this shitstorm, ya hear me? You'll get through this smelling like roses and perfumes."

He was about to say more but a small, high-pitched sound interrupted him.

The woman raised her head and Henry trailed her gaze towards another side of the room. For the first time, Henry noticed the presence of a small child standing quietly inside a cradle at the other side of the room. He -Henry knew it was a he by the blue clothings he put on- was a fairly small child, no more than two years by Henry's estimate.

The child poked his head over the bars of the cradle and gave a big, warm smile that seemingly brightens the room.

D'aww Henry thought.

"Y-you're right." the woman said, wiping her tears and straightening her back. "I mustn't give up. I'm going to get through this all right!"

And with that she began typing at a speed of a hundred letters per second. Her eyes burning anew with ferocious determination not dissimilar to a small dying campfire being doused with a barrel of nitroglycerin. In the middle of a dry forest. In the summer.

Henry finds it both heartwarming and only slightly unsettling.

He shivered and walked purposefully towards the cradle.

The child was a bit paler than other children his age. Ebony hair thinly covered his head. He wore a blue shirt and a diaper. He looked at Henry like he would any other stranger. With a shy, meek gaze. Henry smiled friendly at the child who, after a time, returned it likewise.

"Well I must tip my hat to you, sir," Henry said, making a motion just like so. "You're certainly a more inspiring speaker than I am,"

He nodded his head in acknowledgement which was returned by a bobbled head.

He laughed and turned around, making for the window, stopping just a few steps short to look back at the child.

The child stared at him.

"Take care of your mother, alright?" He said, turning around and making for a cool, badass exit…

Or at least he would have done so had one peculiar thing not occurred to him.

He turned, once again, towards the boy, who was staring at him.

Not staring at his mother.

Not staring at something at a distance.

Staring at him.

...

Henry frowned. He looked past his shoulders to see if there was anything funny going on behind him. When he didn't find anything. He raised a single finger in front of his face.

The child stared more intently this time.

He moved his finger to the left.

He noted the boy's head moving at the direction he was pointing at.

He moved his finger to the right.

As he expected, the child's gaze chased after it like a cat set upon a red laser dott .

Huh.

He strode back towards the crib and stared at the little child bobbing his head up to meet his stare with one of his own.

"So you can see me, huh?" He said.

The child's only answer was a smile.

Very few people could actually see Henry. Most of them were dead. Most people, living, breathing people simply couldn't notice the presence of ghosts at all. Some were able to perceive just a little bit; hair standing at the back of the neck, a sudden chill pervading in the air, perhaps catching a passing shadow at the corner of their eyes. He had experiences with those people. The majority of them were seances, psychics, occultists or even a witch doctor or two.

For someone to actually see him though?

Well he could count with the fingers of one hand the numbers of human beings still alive on this planet that could see him as well as though he was standing in front of them and not use all his fingers. His thoughts turned reluctantly and inadvertently to the crazy priestess back in Scandinavia.

He shivered. No, this was different. For one, it was a boy. And he looked perfectly sane if looking a bit worried.

He realized, abruptly, that the child's smile had died a few seconds ago and he was now staring at him strangely in a manner that explicitly asked him 'Okay now you're scaring me, sir. Is there something on my face?'

He had never been mistaken for a pedophile in his life and he wasn't about to start right now.

His first instinct was to excuse himself and make for the windows but if he did that the child will think he was a creep or something! His image of himself will be ruined forever! He could never see himself in the mirror again*. No, if he has to make an exit it must be with style. Like James Bond. Or Clint Eastwood. Or Chuck Norris.

An idea struck his head. His eyes widened. Of course! Why hadn't he thought of that before? If someone were to put a lightbulb on his head it would probably be set alight right about now*.

He looked towards the child in the crib and smiled.

"Hey kid," He asked. "Wanna see a magic trick?"

Magic trick. Literally one of the oldest tricks in the book to distract people.

The child tilted his head as if to say 'Go on.'

Hook.

"Watch this," He said, folding the four fingers of one hand over the lower half of their thumb, and placing it right beside the folded thumb of another hand.

The child looked intently at it.

Line.

Henry grinned. He had watched some videos on YouTube and had been practicing his magic tricks for some times now. He was fairly confident in his new found skills.

With a sudden movement he jerked one arm away from the other.

"What's this? My thumb!" He cried out, one hand holding what seemed to be the lower half of the thumb while the other holds the upper half.

Sinker!*

Except it wasn't a sinker. If anything it was floating up faster than a helium balloon in open air.

Henry had expected something akin to awe. Perhaps fear. A cry or a gasp maybe.

He did not expect a confused and slightly miffed look of a customer who'd learned that there had been a discount party in his nearest supermarket.

"Eh? Eh?" Henry asked, holding the two hands near each other. Perhaps the child simply didn't understand what was happening?

The child yawned. 'Is that it? Really?'

Henry cringed. "Tough crowd."

"Oh, that's a very neat understatement you have right there." A voice spoke out.

Henry was not startled. He merely felt some incomprehensible urge to jump away. Definitely not startled. No sir.

He turned around to see a ghostly apparition of a woman walking towards him.

She looked like she could've been in her thirties or fifties. It was hard to tell with a ghost. She wore a very fine gown of purple silk, handmade and exquisitely stitched with silver and golden threads. Her hair was tied to a neat bun which complimented her features rather nicely. Her face was a bit too long and her eyebrows slightly too large but it didn't matter overall in Henry's opinion. An amused smile played across her lips as she looked sweetly at the boy who looked back at her and smiled.

"Interesting little fellow isn't he?" She asked, standing beside Henry though her eyes remained on the boy. "I wouldn't bother with that magic 'trick' earlier, if magic it truly was. It wouldn't do much good anyway."

"Oh?" Henry asked, willing the girl to explain what she meant.

"Indeed, some of the servants upstairs tried to scare him away once. They used everything they have; moving chairs, knocking doors, flying toys. The usual. It didn't work. The best they got out of him was an interested glance or two."

She placed a finger on the child's forehead who tried to snatched it with his hands which merely phased right past the finger.

"D'aww. Isn't he so sweet?"

Henry shuffled his feet on the floor.

"Who's the cutest one? Who's the cutest one? You are, you are."

Henry coughed.

The woman looked up as if she had just first seen him standing there. "Oh, I do apologize for not introducing myself properly."

She raised herself up and gave Henry a curtsy.

"My name is Irene Torrington," She said, her knees bent and back straight as a board in a perfect movement reminiscent of a plie Henry's seen in a ballet. "11th of June 1834 to 16th of March 1869. And you are…?"

She smiled sweetly at him.

If Henry had a face he would blush right about now. It was not his first experience talking to a girl but it was his first talking to one so pretty.

"Uhm the name's- I mean- that is to say-" Ah! Get a grip, non-existent brain! "My name's Henry Greene, 4th of April 1987 to-" Henry frowned, searching through the mist of memories. The only thing he came up with was a very intelligent "Err…"

Finally he gave up. "Sorry, can't exactly remember the exact details but it's been less than a year."

The lady, for she was almost certainly one, laughed. "So young, indeed! And don't trouble yourself, there's no need. Not many of us can remember the day we die, anyhow. Most simply chose to forget about it altogether."

She shrugged. "Not something you want to be reminded of, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it kinda sucks." Henry nodded in agreement.

"There's an understatement again just now. Though I'm sure the funeral must've gone well. It must've been cathartic to see so many people care about you, No?"

Henry thought of the spitting priest, on his brother-in-law's half-hearted eulogy, and the misspelled name on the tomb. "Kind of… so and so."

"Ah. A bittersweet experience. I understand." The woman looked at him with a sympathy he was sure was misplaced. "My own funeral went along the same line, as the saying goes. It was hard to see my own family during my funeral. Seeing my children's tears passing down their cheeks without me being able to brush them aside. My husband's silent sorrow without me being able to comfort them. My siblings…" She trailed off with a sniff.

Henry wasn't sure he should be having this conversation.

"Gregory was a big man with his own family but he looked like any lost ten year old left alone in the market. Peter was working overseas so he couldn't come. Little Anya asked why I was sleeping and why no one bothered to wake me up. It was so sad and yet…" Here she pulled a handkerchief and blew her nose. "and yet I felt a bit of relief, if you will. Perhaps, even happiness, dare I say. You must think me a cruel woman for putting it like so. But the thing is, seeing them grieve for me, it made me realize just how precious I am to them. It made me feel…"

"Loved." Henry finished. "It makes you feel like you actually did a lot of good in the world. That you left some mark or something in it."

"Yes," She nodded. "I knew you would understand."

Henry did. Kind of. It was actually the opposite, if he was perfectly honest.

There must've been something written across his face for the woman seemed abashed when he looked at her. "Ah. I apologize for boring you with my stories. It must've been an unpleasant experience. My mother used to lecture me about it all the time. I was too talkative, she said, too much of a blabber mouth. I speak too much and most of them to people who don't actually need or understand anything I said. I apologize for being a burden and -"

"No," Henry shook his head. "You're not being a burden. I can understand the sentiment." And he really could. Henry was a sixty percent extrovert. He felt that urgent need to socialize and be with a group,talk to someone, anyone about something and anything. It was hard doing that when you're a ghost most people couldn't see let alone hear. The only reason he could not show off his extrovertedness back when he was alive has more to do with workload than anything.

"Thank you," She said, sighing in relief. "I forgot to ask. What brings a ghost like you here to our mansion?"

"Oh! Uhm, nothing really. Was just walking by when I saw your mansion on top of the hill. Thought I'd check it out for a bit. See if there's anything interesting in it."

"Yes," The woman nodded. "Our mansion does have that certain appeal to it."

She looked sadly at him.

"You should've seen it back in its prime. The Torringtons were once a wealthy family. Small but respected throughout the land. This mansion served as our abode and our home. It was a lively place, once upon a time, full of laughter and life. We would host a feast every month in our halls and tea parties every two weeks in the garden tended by our servants and stewards. And the flowers that bloom here, Mister Greene…" She sighed, a soft mournful sigh that speaks of better times. Of endless summer and unending spring.

"Must've been an impressive place,"

"And it still is. Though unfortunately not in the way I would prefer." She shook her head. "But I am getting ahead of myself. Would you like a tour of the mansion, Mister Henry Greene, unless if you're preoccupied that is?"

Henry thought about it for a moment. It's not like he has anything better to do. And the chance to talk with an actually sane ghost for once, doesn't seem like a bad way to spend his afternoon.

He shrugged. "Lead the way then, Miss Torrington."

The ghost lady giggled. "Please. Call me Irene. Such titles make me feel old."

"Well," He said, smiling softly and arching his back into as formal a bow as he could muster. "Lead the way then, Miss Irene."

It was the beginning of something, Henry knew. Something beautiful and wondrous.

_______________​

*It was actually a Neo Paganism gathering, Henry had unknowingly chanced upon them in the woods. And the drunken priestess was not really drunk and was not really bent on sacrificing him so much as believing him the lost soul of a Viking Draugr wandering the earth looking to do harm and mischief that needed to be put to rest. Which is only a little bit better. Henry's terrible grasp on any Scandinavian languages did not help in the slightest.

*Alas, Henry Greene was one of those peoples who'd tragically died without learning of the difference between the United Kingdoms, Great Britain, Britain, and England.

*It should be noted and underlined with great importance that Henry's knowledge on Victorian people only went as far as a couple of Jane Austen movies, a few novels like; Frankenstein, Dracula and Sherlock Holmes, and the many prose and poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

*Not that there was much to see anyway

*Not entirely inaccurate, mind you, some ghosts have been known to emit small amounts of electrical charges, if they try hard enough.

*No, Henry did not know the true meaning of that statement. He simply thought it was cool if he began thinking like that.

_______________​

It was still raining when they reached the house.

The street drain and sewers were viciously gulping down the rain with a speed that would not be dissimilar to that of thirsty travellers in the desert downing waters from an oasis and yet puddles still remain on the road and sidewalks. The boy walked in the lead, in quick but careful strides, avoiding any spot even suspected of being slightly slippery. His bare hand held an umbrella and flashlight*. The skeleton followed him like a loyal servant, carrying the shovel on one hand and the other umbrella over his head.

They arrived after a full hour of walking, standing outside of a house in the suburban district. The boy, cold and hungry and tired and soaking wet despite the raincoat and umbrella, the zombie standing impassively without a care or weariness in the world as rain water dripped and hung circles round his umbrella and the stare it gave could make all but the most daring man pause.

The house was a two-floored, japanese style building the color of old yellow, though it might as well be black in this darkness. It was flanked on all sides by a tall fenced wall. There was a sign warning visitor about guard dogs which the boy thought odd since they didn't have a dog*. It has a wide courtyard and a garden in the back. Bright light glimmered from the numerous windows, promising warmth and comfort to those who would come in.

Home. At last.

Well not home. Not really, the boy thought. That honor would always go to his grandfather's old mansion that lies on the outskirts of York*. Even so, the japanese house came as a definite second. The room temperature was not too hot in the winter nor too cold in the summer but stayed just at the perfect temperature. It didn't have an old family library or a mysterious study room or wide corridors and stairs to run up and down on but it did have actual room heating and a state of the art video game console*. Plus the lack of dust meant less chores.

As any fourteen years old will tell you, less chores are always a win.

"So this is my house," The boy said. "And your new home."

The zombie stared silently at it for a while.

It suddenly occurred to the boy that the newly raised skeleton might have lacked a few important anatomy to actually make an intelligent comment. He shrugged. At least he tried being polite even if the thing can't actually understand him. And a gentleman, his great uncle told him, must always be polite.

"Right, let's just get in." He moved towards the bell button...and stopped.

He looked towards his new companion.

He didn't manage to get a good look at his servant back in the graveyard. Now that he did, though, he realized that it might not be in the most...presentable of state. The clothes he was buried with, for one, were not in a very good condition. The body had been in the coffin for so long that most of the clothings had been disintegrated, those parts that didn't have sort-of meld with the skin and turned a dark shade of green so putrid one could mistake it to be dyed in a vat of human vomit. The skull was missing a few teeths and instead of eyes, a pair of small purple flames danced in its sockets. Its mouth was also consistently opening and closing like a fish out of water.

What would his family do if he brought a dirty corpse like this to the front door?

His mother came to the forefront of that image. He could see her as if she was standing in front of him, eyes twitching with the rhythmic consistencies of a broken clock, staring at him with a glare that would turn ten medusas to solid statues that were not so much as carved stone as rock broken down with a hammer and shaped into vaguely half-serpentine, half humanoid figures.

His father stood besides her, frozen like a snowman in the middle of a blizzard before promptly taking off his glasses, cleaning them with a ferociousness only rivalled by hardcore OCDs, and putting them back on and gaping at him like a fish when the corpse did not dissapear.

His sister sat in the background. Smiling.

He shivered and shook his head. Nothing good will come when thinking about how she would react.

Next question, where should he hide a newly resurrected corpse in his house?

He looked towards the old family shovel he'd procured from the shack held tightly between the zombie's bony fingers.

He could dig a new grave, ordered the zombie to lie there for the night and then come back in the morning to find a proper place for him to stay...

The puddle gathering around the courtyard put an end to such thoughts.

Even if he managed to dig a shallow grave fast enough through the mud, there was no guarantee that the rain and storm will not wash away all his work while he sleeps. Plus the commotion from all that digging might draw unwanted notice from his household and when his family saw what he's up to…

He shivered. More violently this time.

Come on, brain, think!

He looked towards his house, specifically towards the light coming down from the windows of his room on the second floor. It wasn't as big as his old room from the family's mansion but it was his room. His fortress. His patch of heaven. He remembered something the saleswoman had said to his family when they came to review the house. On the ceiling, just above his very room there was a hatch leading directly to the attic.

Hmm...

"Hey, can you climb?" He asked, genuinely curious. The pages had been very vague on what zombies can and can't do and he hadn't bothered to research further, partially because he was too excited at the time, partially because most of the useful notes on zombies weren't in English or Japanese*. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but for now that would do.

A decaying head stared at him for a long while before walking steadily to a nearby wall. It placed a decrepit hand over them and began to lift…

And fell flat on its back.

The boy sighed. "The back door it is, then."

Fortunately it was unlocked. Curfew was still an hour away and the boy doubted that his sister would lock the door with the knowledge that he was still outside the house. He'd left a note and all, explaining that he'd gone outside and will probably be home after dinner so she should leave something at the table ready for him.

The back door led directly to the kitchen and the boy opened it with the most silent of creaks. He poked his head in first. He squinted his eyes, struggling to see in the dark. The lights were turned off but it never hurts to be cautious. Finally, when he was sure that the coast was clear, he opened it a bit more, but not all the way through, and pressed himself between the gap. The kitchen was as silent as a cemetery and the lack of light only added to that remark. His footsteps reverberated on the wooden floor, echoing in the halls and corridors of the house.

Safe he thought. Now all he needs to do is open the door and let the zombie in-

There was a flash of light.

The boy covered his eyes with his hands as the sudden brightness invaded his pupils. Having spent the last few hours in the dark, with only the dim light of an old flashlight to guide him, he was unprepared for the kind of light brought by a fully turned-on room LED.

He hissed. Light! Too much light! Too much light! With great efforts he forced himself to look past the light.

The kitchen looked exactly just like the way he had left it. It was quite big and spacious for a kitchen. The cupboard, stove, furnace, fridge, and sink were placed on one side of the room. There was a large table in the room with chairs neatly placed around them. There were four chairs. Three of them were empty. The other one...

He froze when he saw the twenty year old woman sitting on the remaining chair conveniently facing him.

"Hello, Shiro-kun," Misato Torrington-Amaya said in a nice, sing-song voice so sweet it could give a man a cardiac. It was the only explanation he could come up with on why his heart stopped beating so suddenly when he heard her speak.

Shakily, he raised a single hand. "H-hi, M-misato-chan."

His sister smiled like a shark.

"Now, care to tell me where the hell have you been?" She asked in English with the fluency of the bilingual she was.

It was the beginning of something. Shiro Torrington-Amaya knew. Something terrible and terrifying.

_______________​

*The plastic sheet having been dumped on a recycle garbage disposal he'd found on the way.

*They did have a cat. Though not one that was alive.

*To be honest it was an unfair comparison at best and a rigged competition at worst. Anything less than another derelict mansion with dark secrets in the countryside would pale when put right beside it, in more than one sense of the word.

*As state of the art as a 2006 PS3 could get anyway

*Most instructions on actual summoning of a zombie are written in Latin, Greek, Haitian, a few in ancient Elder Futhark, and a plethora in the many languages of Africa such as; Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Kongo, Tshiluba, Bambara, Fula, Twi, Lingala, Chichewa, Gbe, Wolof, Kikuyu, More, Kirundi, Sotho (including the northern one), Luhya, Kanuri, Umbundu, Tswana, Shona, etc.

_______________​

Sorry for the late update. This one was suppose to be posted about a week after the first one but college got in the way so.... yeah. Trying to add a bit of flashback background happenings. This will probably occur in the next few chapters until we finish this Arc.

In the meantime thoughts, criticism, and suggestions are appreciated as usual.

 

[k4rn0]

Chapter 3: Unfortunately, He Still Can't Understand His Sister

People liked to say that his sister -well, stepsister, really- is a pretty girl but Shiro would like to object. Misato wasn't pretty -Misato hadn't been pretty in four years- She was beautiful.

She looked so similar to him, but at the same time she was everything he wasn't. Her ebony, straight hair shyly touched the tip of her shoulders, unlike his which grew so long and so fast he had to tie it to a bun or a ponytail or have it cut short every few weeks or so. While his skin was too pale, Misato's was just the right paste of fair to pass for a princess. Her body was the golden proportion made flesh while his was so skinny and short people could not mistake which of them is the eldest and, in some unfortunate cases, mistakes their relationship for a more filial one.

The only small consolation he had was his eyes. He inherited his mother's mismatched grey and green, something that always drew attention towards him, while his sister had to make due with a rather, in his opinion, common pair of blue skies. Ironically people said that her eyes were the prettiest thing about her but Shiro disagreed. That certainly wasn't the case right now.

Admittedly, perhaps, he was a bit biased on his thoughts. She has, after all, caught him with his head at the edges of the cookie jar and the glint in her eyes reminded him of a cat looming over the shivering figure of a very small and very frightened mouse.

"So are you just going to stand there until I say otherwise or something?" She asked, flashing him a smile that did not reach her eyes.

"S-Sorry!" He nearly shouted the last part. He walked towards her, placing down the umbrella and putting off his boots and raincoat.

Stay there and don't draw any attention, Shiro commanded as he drew himself a chair and sat right opposite to Misato.

They settled into a somber and, in Shiro's part at least, uncomfortable silence that stretched on and on and on. Misato seemed content to just sit there and smile at him as the storm washed over their house. She smiled as lightning and thunder flashed and rhymed outside of the kitchen. She smiled like a patient old wolf, content in knowing its prey could never escape from its grasps.

She sat there, smiling at him. Though it was not voiced, he could feel the accusation spoken against him.

Some people would, in this situation, liken her to a wolf hiding behind the cloth of a friendly, smiling sheep. Oh if only that was true, Shiro wailed. For it was not a wolf that now hid behind his sister's sweet smile and sugary words. It was the Crawling Chaos itself, The Haunter of the Dark, the Howler in the Night, Blind, The Faceless One borne in the Outer Space and mentioned only in frightful, frantic passings found in the deepest and darkest parts of the Mad Arab's writings.

Finally when he could hold it no longer, he raised his head and spoke, a mistake he should have known not to make.

"S-so I thin-"

Misato spoke at the same time. "Where have you been Shiro-kun?"

Shiro winced. That was her tactic. Let her opponents speak first and interrupt them as early as possible. It threw them off-balance and negated any sense of confidence they may have had. Shiro had seen firsthand the effectiveness of such methods in the occasions when he had a chance (read:forced) to bore witness to his sister's (in)famous conversational skill. It worked against confident bachelors of the business world like modern guns to 11th century mail armor. Someone like Shiro never stood a chance in the first place.

"I-I Was-" Shiro coughed and caught himself. To stammer in the face of his sister's onslaught would be akin to cutting off one's hands while surrounded by a pack hungry, big white sharks. He took a deep breath and composed himself. "I left a note, Nee-chan."

"A pretty vague note if you ask me." Misato held out a piece of yellow sticky note. It read:

Misato, I have a business to attend to. Will probably be back after dinner. Please prepare some food - Shiro

"Quite strange, don't you think?" She asked of him.

Shiro coughed and looked to an empty corner in the room. "A-and why is that?" Shiro asked.

"It's rather short for one," Misato pointed out. "No clue on where you're going. No precise time on when you'll go or when you'll return. No specific reason outside some vague business attendance. It's almost as if you don't want me to know where you're going and what you're doing."

Shiro gaped. "A-and my other notes are different?"

"I don't know," Misato shrugged. "Why don't you read them yourself?"

She reached beneath the desk and from it held out a yellow sticky note. The letters were smaller and more closely lined with little space in between. It read:

Dear Misato

I have some research I wish to conduct in the nearby library concerning the history and the old layout of the city. I will be out of the house from 10:00 a.m. to 03.00 p.m. I have brought within my person a considerable sum of money so you need not concern yourself on matters of my lunch. Despite this, it would please me most greatly if you do not eat the last slice of pizza found in the second section of the fridge, inside the purple Tupperware as I plan to have it for my evening meal.

P.S. Tanaka-san have been giving me weird looks ever since I met him last Tuesday.

P.S.S. The printer is running low on ink. I advise buying from Tanaka-san who also possesses a computer shop right beside his internet café.

-Your brother, Shiro Torrington-Amaya

Shiro stared at the note.

"What about this one?" Misato asked, taking out another note written in smaller letters and tighter space between them.

Dear Misato

There is an assortment of digital files in my possession I desire to put on print. Unfortunately, our printer seems to have run out of ink. For this reason, you'll be able to find me in Tanaka-san's internet café between 1200 Hours and 1300 Hours. After that I will take myself on a tour around the town and will be back at home in the 1700 Hours at the latest. Like my previous ventures, I have within the contents of my wallet a hefty sum of Japanese Yen from my allowances so you need not be distressed about my well-being.

P.S. It would be very much to my delight if you do not eat the piece of cake lying on the table. I have taken a bite out of it and found that it has not... aged well. In fact, I think it better if it is thrown to the garbage bin lest others be put on mortal peril.

P.S.S. What's a chuunibyou? Tanaka-san seems to be in the belief that I am one. The rough translation I found is Middle School Second Year Syndrome. I will be most thankful if you would enlighten me on this subject.

-Your brother, Shiro Torrington-Amaya

She never did actually tell him what it means now that he remembered.

"How about this-" Misato's hand was barely moving before Shiro's hands clung to them.

"Okay! I get it!" Shiro shouted. He just knew that if she were to take out more he'll be here until morning at the very least.

"My point is that it's all just very secretive, you know?" Misato asked, still maintaining that saccharine tone to her voice. "Ne, you were never this secretive before, Shiro-kun. It's as if you have something to hide. Something you don't want people to find out."

She held out her hand and placed it on his cheek, gently stroking it. "Not even your dearest onee-chan."

"Eep!" He withdrew himself almost immediately, blushing furiously all the while.

"In fact," His sister continued on as if nothing had happened. "I would go on to say that you've been pretty effy lately, Shiro-kun."

"W-what do you mean by that?" Shiro asked fearfully, holding his cheek. He could still feel his sister's skin brushing against his.

"Hmm? You didn't notice? Ever since you moved to Japan you've always been cooped up in the house, Shiro-kun, doing nothing but reading your books, playing your video games. and browsing through the internet. You never go outside the house unless it's a family trip or unless told to and you barely even leave your room except for meals and the bathroom and to buy books in the bookshop. I almost thought that my cute otouto had been turned into a NEET."

"What's a NE-"

"And then, two months ago everything changed. You started going out more. At first only to a library and around the old town but soon you would go on tours around the city for hours, to the point where you started missing your meals. You'd asked about the town and its history as if you had not been living here for almost half a year. And when I told you about the many cool places they have, you're actually paying attention instead dozing off like you used to six months ago."

Scary. Has his sister always been so observant? He held back a shiver from running down his spine.

Time. He needed time. He needed to distract his sister until he could come up with a believable story.

"Was I really that bad?" He asked.

"Oh, definitely." His sister nodded vigorously. "Before you were always like-" Misato dropped her trademark smile and settled for a more sombre, tired expression. The lid of her eyes were half-closed and she looked as if she had taken an overtime shift and when she spoke, the tone was not dissimilar to an overworked office worker. Shiro would even go as far as to say that it reminded him of his mother back in the early years of his life.

"'Ugh, why must nee-chan talk about that new shopping mall or that spring festival? I don't care about any of those things. I don't want to go there, anyway. I want to barricade myself in my room and spend my day with books and my old laptop. God, I wish I could be back on the old mansion at least there I don't have to deal with so many new people.'" She dropped the act and smiled at him. "By the way that's very sneaky of you, Shiro-kun, trying to make me go off topic so you can come up with something to placate me."

Gah! She'd seen through that?!

"Of course, I did. I am heiress to the family business after all. It's my duty to pick up things like these." She said. "Back on track. For Shiro-kun to employ such uncharacteristic deception means that he has a secret he really doesn't want others to know about. The question is what could it be?" She stood and began circling about the room.

"Hmm... for Shiro to leave with such a short notice means that it must've been abrupt," Shiro shifted uncomfortably in his chair as she walked behind him. She's not entirely wrong, the ritual had demanded that it be done under certain nights and under certain conditions.

"For him to leave with such vague explanation means that it's something he doesn't want to be found out and doesn't want to be disturbed from, not even by his dear sister." From the corner of his eyes Shiro could see her as she closed her eyes and rubbed her chin. "Then there's the deception and the distraction. Shiro's definitely involved in something fishy," She opened her eyes and looked straight towards him. "But it's also something that makes Shiro-kun very happy, isn't it?"

He felt the instinctual urge to sink into his chair.

"Six months ago Shiro-kun was a NEET who could barely leave his room, let alone the house for more than an hour." Now she was standing right in front of him, a mad, dangerous gleam visible in her eyes. "Now though? Shiro would go on trips and 'sightseeing' across the town for hours. Sometimes from morning to dusk. He would even miss one or two meals at home. And Shiro-kun would never miss a meal at home before. And when he came back it was always with a tired but still excited glint in his eyes. It must've been something fun to make Shiro enjoy himself like this. The question is what is it?"

She slammed the table in front of Shiro and closed the distance between their two faces. "What kind of activity could Shiro-kun be doing that would make him so excited and happy in such a short amount of time?"

Their faces were an inch away from each other.

"Is it possible that…?" Misato whispered and suddenly her face took a harder, sterner expression. Shiro wanted to look away but he forced himself to stare back at her. He's a Torrington, dammit! The honor of his family demands that he face this situation with as much courage and bravery as he could muster. He will not falter. Not in front of his sister, no less. He brave himself against whatever accusation she may have-

"Shiro-kun could it be that you are doing drugs?!"

…

The human brain is one of the most remarkable and, perhaps, the most important tool of mankind. It has many different, vital functions essential to our survival from long term memory storage to fast-paced decision making done in the split of a second. It could operate even under severe stress and pressure to help us in gathering and processing information and getting us through troubled times. Despite this, it's worth remembering that it's not invulnerable, nor, even, infallible.

Indeed, there have been well-recorded cases of the human brain's failure to function in certain moments where extreme levels of stress and pressure are suddenly applied in such a short amount of time that the brain simply cannot properly process it. In cases such as these, it's not unlikely for humans to fall back on more baser and instinctual response. These could range from direct physical response, like jumping away and running in circles all over the place, to more verbal ones, from the more coherent, understandable, and comprehensible ones like 'What the hell?', 'What the fudge?', 'What are you talking about?, 'What.', to the more incoherent, intangible, and incomprehensible like 'Huh?', 'Hah?' 'Wha-?', and of course;

"Eh?"

"Was it heroin? Perhaps it was coke? LSD?" Misato's stare became harder.

"W-wha-" Shiro tried to compose his scattered thoughts. Whatever accusation he expected from his sister, it was most certainly not that. "Wh-what are you saying?!"

"Ah it's true then that you're doing drugs?"

"I- c-ca- wha-" Shiro threw his hands into the air and in the loudest, clearest volume his voice box could muster he shouted. "O-OF COURSE NOT NEE-SAN! WHAT KIND OF PERSON DO YOU THINK I AM?!"

"So you're not doing drugs?"

"NO!" His sister's face fell back and he held a tiny bit of hope that that was perhaps, wishfully, with a freshly taken red strawberry on top, the end of it .

It died a miserable, lonely death in the alley when his sister asked again. "What about alcohol then?"

"I- Wh-?" He was about to retort when his sister's face inched closer towards him. For a few moments her nose sniffed all over his face like a tracking hound before she pulled away and shook her head. "Nah, Shiro doesn't smell like alcohol," She said. "but then what could it be?"

Shiro's opened mouth was ready to answer, but his hands held it back. No matter how much he wanted to say it, he did not think that raising dead bodies in the graveyard is a good answer. No, actually it wasn't a good answer at all no matter the circumstances now that he thought about it. You don't just say 'Hey sis, I had just raised a zombie with what is a forbidden dark magic ritual found online. You wanna to see it?'. It's not something you say to your sister for normal conversation material. Also, he's pretty sure there was a grammar mistake in there. Somewhere.

His sister's gasp shook him from his reverie. "Could it be…?"

She placed both hands on her mouth, closed her eyes, and shook her head.

"No, no, no. Shiro-kun can't be doing that? Could he?" She whispered. Once again, she rose from her chair and began pacing about the room, this time lacking the composure she previously had. "That doesn't make sense. It's too early for this kind of thing right? Right?!"

Shiro just knew that whatever it is she's thinking about won't bode well for him. Part of him wished that she would just say dark magic ritual so this could all be over with. He steeled himself for whatever would fly from her lips, truth or no, he braced his mind, readied his nerve, and-

"Could it be that Shiro-kun has finally found the perfect and ideal woman to be his wife?!"

-He was still caught off guard despite all of that.

Shiro was not floored. At all. Because that wouldn't be the appropriate reaction. No. The appropriate reaction would be crashing himself to the ground and banging his head multiple times on the wood just to make sure that this wasn't some elaborate lucid nightmare his occult-addled mind had conjured up in the middle of the night. But that wouldn't solve anything, would it?

"N-Nee-san," He said, deliberately dropping the affectionate for the honorific. His voice sounded more sombre than usual. Sue him, he was dead tired at his sister's antics. "That's also not it." It was more of a plea rather than a statement. A plea for her to stop this line of dangerous thought before it could hit the cliff and explode into a thousand tiny pieces.

"But it would make sense, wouldn't it?" His sister asked back. "Think about it for a while. Shiro-kun had been a cooped up, lethargic, attic NEET ever since he arrived in Japan. He barely got out of his room, let alone the house, and spent most of his time reading books and playing video games on his PS3. One day, perhaps through online contact or perhaps in the rare occasion when he did go out of the house, he met a lovely girl who caught his interests. He began talking and chatting to her and found her to be a great person whose company he greatly enjoys. One thing led to another and suddenly their relationship blossomed and Shiro realized that he has feelings for her. And just now he had left the house with only a vague note to give a heartfelt, teary-eyed confession to her!"

Good God, did she even breathe?! Shiro wondered.

"Nee-san… " He said, mustering his strength. "It's not a girl."

His sister's gasp told him what a mistake it was. "Hah? Was it a boy then? Shiro-kun you know you can tell your nee-chan any-"

"It's not a boy either." He said, raising his hand before she could finish. "I'm not dating anyone, Nee-san."

"But it makes sense!"

Shiro coughed. "B-be that as it may. It's not what happened."

"But what is it then?" His sister asked. "What could happen to Shiro-kun or what could Shiro-kun be doing that would warrant such drastic changes?"

Shiro sighed. It wasn't that he couldn't lie but simply that he couldn't lie well enough to deceive his sister. Misato has lived with him for almost her entire life. It is impossible to come up with any believable lie, she knows him too well to fall for any of his tricks. Telling her the entire truth was unthinkable and even telling her half and bits of truths would only sparked her curiosity further than before and he could only deceive her for so long.

His mind began to race. No matter which path he chose there doesn't seem to be any smooth ones. Tell a lie and she'll call him out on it, try a half truth and she'll double down on him, say the complete truth and it will end in disaster. There's not a single good option in there… so…

Shiro's eyes widened and the gears inside his head began to turn.

There was a flaw in that plan. Many flaws in fact, but he couldn't see any other way he could go about it. At worst he'd probably buy himself a second or two.

"It's… a secret Nee-san." Not a lie nor a half truth but an entire truth. It really was a secret and he really wished to keep it so. He expected his sister to protest, to assault him with a barrage of questions that would blacken the sun, he expected her to cry or plead or beg him for a more complete answer. He expected threats and blackmails, interrogations and trap questions where he is doomed no matter how he answers.

He did not expect Misato to lift her face up and say. "Oh, Okay then."

…

A palpable silence reigned over the air accompanied by a cacophony of other things. Surprise. Disbelief.

"…What?" Shiro's ears must've heard wrong. It was the only thing that makes sense.

His sister turned to face him. "You said it was a secret right?"

It took Shiro more than a second to register the question. "I- yes?"

"Well then, we'll leave it at that," Misato said, straightening herself abruptly. "It's your secret to keep. You can do anything you want with it. I have no right over it." She stood up from the chair she was sitting on.

I-It worked?!

"I- aren't you going to-" Shiro caught his tongue before it could say anymore.

"What? Interrogate you for hours on end until you give in your secrets? Attack you with a series of questions until you slip up? Blackmail you until you tell the truth?"

Shiro nodded numbly.

"I suppose I could do that," Misato admitted easily enough. "But what would be the point? Sure, finding out about my cute ototou's secret is probably fun, but then you'd probably hate me for it if I did it in this case."

"Not hate…" Shiro said lamely.

"Then it would upset you, not in a cute kind of way, and make things awkward between us for a while. And that wouldn't be fun at all wouldn't it?" Misato stretched a hand. Shiro did not protest as she patted his hair back and forth. "There's teasing and then there's that. Please Shiro-kun, I'm mature enough to know when lines are drawn and when to stop. Have some faith in your nee-chan will you?"

Shiro could only answer with a nod.

"Just uhm-" She looked at him in the eyes and the first time in their whole conversation she seemed hesitant. "Just… promise me you're not going to do anything dangerous at all? Like drugs or underage sex."

"Y-yes Mii-chan." He managed to say using the nickname he'd invented back when he was a child.

"Shiro-kun just used his nickname for me! Wah! I'm so happy!" Before Shiro could shout or scream or cry or do anything of the sort, Misato had already enveloped him in a hug that could've crushed his spine.

"Gah-" The attack was sudden, delivered with neither warning nor mercy. Shiro knew Misato had a black belt in Aikido but this kind of strength is downright ridiculous!

"Air!" He gasped, struggling to make himself be heard. "Air, nee-chan. I need air!"

"Whoops." His sister said, releasing him instantly. "Sorry. Didn't think it would be that tight."

He dropped unceremoniously unto the chair.

The motion, though small and insignificant, was enough for something to slip from one of his eyes. One of his visions turned blurry for a moment before the tiny sound of a glass colliding on the wooden floor made him realize what had happened.

"Shoot!" He cursed, immediately lowering himself unto the floor.

"Eh? Shiro, what are you doing?"

"My contact lens," He said as his hands probed at the wooden floor guided with half his usual eyesight. "I must've dropped it some-There!"

He grasped a small, curved, thin piece of plastic with his index finger, placed it on the table, and lifted himself off the ground.

"Contact lens…?" Misato trailed off for a moment before snapping her fingers. "Ah! that reminds me!"

She reached into the insides of her coat. Shiro realized that she was wearing her favorite tan-colored coat. She must've been fresh from the university if she was still wearing it.

"Where could it be- Aha!" Misato pulled out a small black case and placed it in front of Shiro. "There, your new prescription glasses."

She opened the box to reveal a pair of glasses framed in black. Shiro reached in and placed it near his lensless eyes, checking to see if it was the right prescription. He saw his sister, standing clearly in front. He looked about the room, satisfied that he could see them as clear as always

"You know, I think you should keep the contact lenses though. You look much better in them than with your glasses." Misato said.

Shiro snorted as he placed the new glasses down and reached towards the lens still held in his other eye. Not a chance for that to happen. No offence to his sister, but he would pick glasses over contact lenses at every single chance he got. They weren't a bother to attach and detach and are much, much easier to clean whenever they got dirty. After a few seconds of struggling Shiro managed to lay a finger on the contact lens and release it from his eye.

The familiar feeling of the glasses frame on his face was a welcomed old friend.

"Thanks nee-chan," Shiro said.

"Your welcome, Shiro-kun." She looked towards the clock hanging on the other side of the wall. "Oh, look at the time. It's almost curfew we should lock-"

"I'll lock the doors, nee-chan," Shiro said quickly. "besides, you look quite tired. You've just been from the university by the looks of it haven't you? You're still wearing your coat."

"Hmm?" Misato looked down towards the coat she was wearing. "Ah yes, of course. There was a group assignment yesterday. I've just arrived from our meeting to discuss how we should approach it."

"Sounds interesting. What's it about?" Misato was a college student who majored in Business Management at a nearby university.

"Something about certain business practices and theories of someone I couldn't pronounce the name of. You know? the usual."

Shiro nodded.

"Oh! By the way, there's some leftover sushi in the fridge and a bowl of Miso Soup for dinner. I could heat the last one up if you want?"

Shiro shook his head. "No. It's okay. I can do it myself." He said. "By the way is mom and dad…?"

Misato shook her head. "No. They left this evening for a business trip. Probably won't be back until tomorrow at the very least."

"I see…" Shiro said.

"Well, I'll retire to my room then," Misato said, stepping towards the door leading to the corridors. "Good night, Shiro-kun."

"Good night and uhm nee-chan…" Shiro hesitated. Misato halted just a foot from the door. She looked at him curiously. "...Thank you."

Misato nodded. "You're welcome, Shiro-kun." And then she left. Leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Shiro looked at the door for a few long seconds.

He sighed.

Even after all these years, his sister is still an enigma he couldn't solve. He shrugged.

'Please Shiro-kun, I'm mature enough to know when lines are drawn and when to stop. Have some faith in your nee-chan will you?'

The memory of those word brought a smile to Shiro's face.

His good mood lasted until he was hit by a car.

_______________​

AN: Took me quite a while to finish this one. Last exams certainly did not help in the production process. As always thoughts, suggestions, and constructive criticism are appreciated

 

[Grink]

I don't know if how I thought contact lenses were made is wrong or not, but I'm pretty sure they aren't made from glass.

 

[k4rn0]

I don't know if how I thought contact lenses were made is wrong or not, but I'm pretty sure they aren't made from glass.

Click to shrink...

Whoops, thanks for the save

 

[k4rn0]

Chapter 4: Morning Hijinks

4 years earlier

It was a quiet autumn evening, and it might have been a pleasant one too - had the weather been more favorable.

The sky was a dark grey expanse broken occasionally by the blood-red motes of the dying sun. Thunder boomed across the hills and fields of the countryside. Lightning surged through the clouds like spears of white, flashing in an instant and disappearing as if they had never been. Winds howled like shrieks of banshees, tossing away dry, broken leaves in their wake. Yet even so, rain had not come yet - though it would come soon enough.

The air was frigidly cold, unnaturally so for a late autumn evening, winter seeping between every bark of the wind and every crack in the clouds. The trees shivered in the cold as the grass withered thru and fro. The hills and fields of the Yorkshire countryside were empty and quiet, a stark contrast to the howling winds and booming thunders of the sky above. Few living things stayed beneath the shadow of the storm.

Nearby, a lone wolf waited patiently for the rain inside a broken log. His thick fur rising at the dropping temperature and his jaw lined into something akin to a grimace. Not far away from him, a lamb, separated from her herd not so long ago, kicked at the intertwined vines that caught her leg, trying to get away from the storm. Her baying and bleating was the only sound of any living things that could still be heard beneath the clouds and winds and the threat of rain.

A figure passed quietly between them, and wolf and lamb alike shrunk from its shadow.

In an old, ruined, though still perfectly habitable, mansion overlooking the Yorkshire countryside, a ghost sat reading a book.

One of the few things Nicholas Torrington liked about modern inventions is how easy it is to turn on the lights. There was no need for oil or wood, no need for a lighter or a match, and far far smaller chance of a fire hazard. A simple switch is all that is needed and you're good to go. For a ghost who likes to read and who can barely move objects about it was a God-given gift.

Now if only the other ghosts would stop playing with them so much that they could barely last for more than a few weeks or so…

This treatise on numerology was especially one of the things he'd been looking forward to reading. Very enlightening, if somewhat worn and frail. It required a particularly delicate touch on the paper. Frankly that was less of a problem than finding some time to actually read the bloody thing. What with people moving all round and about the place and rudely turning off the lights when he was still reading, he could barely finish a page let alone an entire book. It was very annoying.

With his grand niece, Sarah, married once again, and Ritsuka, her husband, out on a business trip and young Misato sleeping over with her friend in the city, only young Shiro was left alone in the mansion. He planned to make use of this free time as best he could. In particular, he planned on finishing this treatise tonight before moving on to other things.

Life, or, well, unlife in his case, in the mansion can be quite dull and boring for the most part. Which was fine for Nicholas. He'd led a far more interesting life than most, as a soldier, an Occultist, and, of course a Magician, with everything that entails; dangers, excitement, and the likes. A dull, boring afterlife, spent reading through the family's Occult books and walking around the countryside on the weekend is more than a welcomed change of pace.

His appearances only serve to reflect this; a thirty something man with average height, drab brown hair cut so averagely neat, and grey eyes so averagely dull. In fact, he was so averagely dull and boring that most occultists and persons of the supernatural who'd had a chance to meet him, both humously and posthumously, mistook him for a completely average non-supernatural, normal person or former person.

That's the thing with most people. When they think of a Magician, they almost always think of something like a wizened old man or a dreary middle-aged scholar wearing long robes and pointy hats and carrying staffs and wands and what not.

And Nicholas had tried. Oh how he had tried his hardest to look the part, but he simply couldn't find them to be bearable or, well, wearable. The robes had been long and heavy and impractical. The pointy hat on his head made him look awkward, aside from being very itchy. And crafting wands and staffs was such a pain in his damned arse that he simply didn't bother with it.

Eventually he gave up on the whole endeavor and contented himself with wearing a simple grey set of suit and slacks, white shirt and socks, and black shining shoes and tie. The kind of items you could get anywhere on the planet with a decent tailor.

Lightning flashed just in front of the window, bathing the room with light in a single instance before fading away. From where he sat just beside the window Nicholas could hear the small, gentle, almost inaudible, but steadily growing tapping of rain water drizzling down onto the roofs and windows of the Torrington mansion.

He frowned and looked at an ancient grandfather clock, older than he was, standing on one side of the room. It was 5 PM and young Shiro had yet to return from school.

It was not the first time his great grand nephew had come home late from school, playing with what few friends he has or spending time in the school library, but in those cases he would usually inform his parents, and by extension, Nicholas, either through a message on the phone or a note in the fridge. There was none of that today, at least none that he could remember.

Perhaps he might have left a message and Nicholas hadn't picked up on it?

Hmm, it's certainly possible.

He raised his hand and concentrated for a few seconds. Smoke and mist emerged from his palm, forming into a glowing, ethereal bell between his fingers - one of the advantages of being a mage in his previous life.

He rung the bell.

It made a small chiming sound and a ghost emerged from the floors beneath him.

He was tall and bald and splendidly dressed in a butler's uniform. He might've been handsome too, if not for the axe carved between his eyes.

"You call me, sir?" The ghost butler asked.

"Thadeus," Nicholas said, turning to face him. "Have you heard anything from Shiro? It's been a few hours after school. He should've arrived here by now."

"Young Master Shiro? Can't say I have, sir." Thadeus said. "The telephone hadn't been rung since this morning. There hadn't been any messages last time I checked a few minutes ago," His brows furrowed. "Could be that he forgot. You know how children are these days with all their phones and gadgets and video games and what-not. That or his phone might have a problem or two."

Of course, Nicholas sighed. Shiro could simply have forgotten to inform them. Or his phone might've ran out of battery or is simply broken.

Yet something was telling Nicholas that it was none of those things. A sort-of instinct or a sixth sense honed by decades of dabbling in the Occult and the Supernatural that he still had even in his state of unlife.

"Of course," Nicholas said, finally. "Well, just keep an eye and ear out for him will you? Not that you have one, but you understand what I mean do you?"

"Of course, sir."

"Very good. Dismissed."

But even as the ghost butler phased back into the floor, darker thoughts entered Nicholas' mind though he had long since been deprived of a brain.

Shiro was young and though he was fairly mature and smart for his age there was still that gullibleness, that innocence shared by most children on earth. It won't take much for someone much older to trick him or to-

Nicholas bit his non-existent lips, a growing knot of unease and worry forming in his non-existent stomach. Maybe he was overthinking it, but how could he be sure?

He stood up from where he sat and looked at the window, the old yellow Hebrew manuscript almost forgotten. Rain pounded mercilessly on the glass window. Even without a single line of nerves, Nicholas could feel the cold, biting winds blowing outside. Try as he might, he couldn't see much of anything in the darkness.

"Perhaps I should look for him myself?" Nicholas asked himself. "Or send someone to look for him, but with the weather as it is it, even a ghost would have a hard time to-"

His thoughts were interrupted by a crashing sound of ancient woods being slammed against one another. Unless something had collapsed there was only one thing that could make a sound like that; the main doors.

It must be Shiro.

He sighed in relief and floated down to the entrance hall beneath him, surfacing through decrepit and dusty floors and walls. Yet when he arrived, he was greeted by a bewildering sight.

At least a dozen ghosts crowded the hall that led to the main entrance of the mansion, huddling so close together that Nicholas could barely see the small, shivering figure standing at the edge of the door.

"Shiro?" Nicholas asked, the name not quite rolling off his tongue as smoothly as he would have liked. Damn his mother. Why couldn't she just give him a good English name like everyone else?

Almost at once, the ghostly crowd turned in surprise towards him. Some of them dispersed and parted away, allowing him to look at his great grand nephew.

Even as a child, Shiro always appeared small in comparison to other children, but Nicholas was surprised to see, right now, how tiny, how fragile he looked.

He was short, a point not helped by his bent legs and hunched backs. His clothes were wet, dripping with rain and making it cling onto his body. His long black hair was shaggy and wild and unkept, drops of water coursing through them. His pale skin seemed sickly, as if all blood had been drained out of him.

If Nicholas didn't know any better he would have thought he'd turned vampire and not the sparkling kind like in that terrible movie young Misato gushed about. He had seen from a distance that Shiro was shivering, but he did not realise how much of an understatement it was. He was shaking. Violently. As if every gust of wind was enough to make him quiver in cold.

"Shiro?" Nicholas asked again, approaching the boy slowly. Faintly he realized that the doors of the mansion were open and he could see, at the furthest edge of his vision, the bicycle Shiro used to get to school every day laying unceremoniously on the mud. "What happened?"

Shiro looked up suddenly, as if hearing his voice for the first time. He sprang up and ran towards him, phasing through a few ghosts on his way. When he reached him, Nicholas could see that he was clutching something in his hands.

"I-I-" Shiro tried to speak but his voice broke and failed. Tears streamed down along his cheeks and he fought hard not to cry.

"Shiro, what is-"

But instead of answering him, Shiro held out his hands.

Blood. That was the first thing Nicholas saw. So much blood clung to Shiro's palm and his fingers that for an instant Nicholas wondered how it was that the boy's clothes managed to avoid being stained by it. Then he realized that they didn't. Something wet clung along the sleeves of Shiro's shirt, too dark to be mere rain water.

The second thing he saw was a small, white figure, clinging between his tiny fingers.

There was an instant of silence. For a single moment there was no sound but the howling winds, the beating rain, the thunder, and the breath of two living creatures. One loud and fast and heavy. The other, so small and inaudible it could barely be heard.

He looked up to see Shiro staring at him. His mismatched eyes wide and frantic and on the verge of breaking down, tears trailing down from their corners.

"I-I found her o-on the street," He croaked. "I d-don't know wh-what happened to her..." He shook his head and held up his hands. "P-please. H-help her."

It didn't take even a fraction of a second for Nicholas to decide a course of action.

"We can't do it here. We need to go to the laboratory. Follow me," And with that he turned round and marched away from the wide open doors, Shiro following close behind him.

The sound of the storm died down the further they went into the mansion and as they did, somehow, Nicholas knew that we wouldn't be able to finish his treatise tonight.

_______________​

"Master, wake up,"

No response. Only a slow, soft, rhythmic breathing. Almost inaudible.

"Master. Please wake up. Today's your first day in school."

There was a mumbling sound. Something between "brbl" and "mmhh" and sound strangely like "mrrhmbl". The definition of which, if one were to look up the Oxford dictionary, positively means gibberish.

The prone body lying on the bed turned to the other side.

He sighed. He really didn't want to do this. Really really didn't want to do this. However, desperate times called for desperate measures. And if that's what it takes to get his master off bed, well…

He hopped up to the nearby desk where a phone lay unperturbed. With great difficulty he turned it on and began the arduous task of answering the password. It was hard to do this without any fingers, but he'd done this so many times that he knew the process in and out like he knew the back of his master's hand. Once done it was only a matter of finding the correct application.

In one moment there was only quiet. Nothing but the gentle breathing of his master and the sound of soft tappings on the phone.

In the next moment there was a loud grating blare, blasts of drum beaten so hard they almost sound like they were about to pop.

And in the moment after that there was a scream and a yelp followed by something crashing hard against the wooden floors and a man that was not so much singing as he was screeching as hard as he could on the microphone.

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I ROCK AND ROLLED
IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I DID THE STROLL

A few moments later there was a groan and a cry. "Fjolnir!"

Fjolnir looked down as a pale hand shot out from the tangled mess of sheet and body and pillows. "Good morning Master. It's good to see that you're awake so early!"

OOH LET ME GET IT BACK, LET ME GET IT BACK
LET ME GET IT BACK, BABY, WHERE I COME FROM

"Fjolnir!" Shiro cried again as Led Zeppelin sang in the foreground.

"Yes, Master?!"

"Shut it down!"

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME, BEEN A LONG TIME
BEEN A LONG LONELY, LONELY, LONELY, LONELY, LONELY TIME

"I'm afraid I can't, Master!" He shouted. "I'm a bit indisposed at the moment!"

YES IT HAS
BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE THE BOOK OF LOVE
I CAN'T COUNT THE TEARS OF A LIFE WITH NO LOVE

"Ughhh..." Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Shiro stood up from the comfort of his sheet and pillows. He walked towards the desk and pressed the pause button on the front screen of his phone.

CARRY ME BACK, CARRY ME BA-

"Ahhh, Master, Why did you turn it off? It was getting to the good parts." Fjolnir asked.

Shiro ignored him and instead rubbed his eyes with both hands, wiping the last traces of sleep from them. After a while, he looked around. The world was a confused, blurry mess, a jumble of color tossed and scattered about the room with only the vaguest idea of forms. He looked at Fjolnir. The only thing he could see was a blob of white, vaguely bird-like, perching nearby.

He searched near his bed until his fingers brushed against the frame of his glasses. Shiro put them on. His vision cleared in a blink and he could see a young, albino crow, with feathers and beaks as pale as milk and a pair of cherry-scarlet eyes hopping from the desk towards the window where faint trails of sunlight were sneaking through the curtains. Without warning, he opened them.

Instantly, the room was engulfed in the bright, golden light of the morning sun.

Shiro hissed at the sudden intrusion of the light. Fjolnir, meanwhile, spread his wings far and wide, bathing in their glory as if he had been kept inside the room for a few months.

Shiro's current room was a far cry from his former room in the old Torrington mansion. It did not have the familiar antiquated and decrepit atmosphere he had grown accustomed to over the years, true. It is, however, far, far more lively and vivacious than any part of the old mansion. The room has modern electronic bulbs that did not flicker and die every three weeks, ceiling and floor that were not covered in dust and spider webs, and clear windows free of grime with a good view of the outside world. The paints were bright and colorful and untarnished, and the air conditioner was completely functional.

The new room may not be as large as the old one back in England, but it was large enough to house many of his belongings. There was a large, metal bookshelf that filled one side of the room. On the other side opposite to it, was a small, old television, the kind you would see inside your grandparent's house or care homes for the elderly. Beside it, was a large wooden study desk, complete with a lamp and a sizable wooden cabinet, containing his more… esoteric materials.

"Ah, nothing like a good old morning sun to wake up to, don't you think so, Master?" Fjolnir asked him a few moments after he was finished

"Next time," Shiro said, turning towards the crow. "Don't wake me up with Led Zeppelin."

"But Master," Fjolnir gasped. "Whatever would I use to wake you up?"

"I don't know. Mozart? Beethoven? Friggin' Sabaton would have been better."

Fjolnir had tried those and they rarely worked, if ever. The only thing they did was put his Master into an even deeper sleep than before. Even Sabaton. Especially Sabaton..

Of course, he couldn't tell his Master this. "Sure, whatever you say Master,"

Shiro narrowed his eyes. He knew he was lying. And he knew Shiro knew. They stared at each other for a few moments.

Shiro was the first to break. He chuckled softly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Haha… I really overslept, didn't I?"

"You did," Fjolnir said.

"How long…?"

"Mhhh about an hour or so, give or take," Shiro flushed in embarrassment. "You're getting better Master. Next time try not to do a dark magic ritual the night before school, will you?"

"I c-can't help it, okay? My curiosity got the better of me and well..." Shiro shrugged. Fjolnir had lived with him long enough to know how passionate Shiro could be, especially in regards to his supernatural studies.

"By the way," Fjolnir continued. "I was wondering about our new... friend. You're not going to keep him here forever, are you?"

"O-of course not!" Shiro denied hotly. He might be a Necromancer and a Dark Magician, but he is most certainly not without rules and boundaries of his own.

"I'm just going to experiment with the spell for a little while," He said. "At most, he'll be here for a few weeks or until I've figured out all the nooks and crannies of the spell itself."

"Thank God. I was worried for a moment there," Fjolnir said, sounding relieved. "So how did it go, the spell I mean?"

"It went… well enough," Shiro said after a while. He walked towards the study desk where The Book lay and sat. With a wave of his hand, the pages shifted by themselves until he found the one he was looking for. He took out a pen and began writing, all the while continuing to speak with Fjolnir, who listened attentively from the side.

"Aside from almost being discovered by Misato, I think that all things considered it was a success. The casting went smoothly for the most part despite some… difficulties," He winced as he remembered the part where he was supposed to put his name on. What is this, a CYOA? "But the result speaks for itself. Though there seemed to be some restrictions on the… on our new friend."

"And those are?" Fjolnir raised his head, a gesture for him to continue on.

Shiro took a deep breath. This was going to be a long one. "Well, while he managed to perform basic motoric functions inherent for a fully capable human, like walking and grabbing onto things, he seemed to have a hard time doing anything beyond that. For example, I tried to ask him to climb the wall, but he only went a step above before falling flat on the mud. Now, of course, this could be because he lacked the, erm, necessary components to climb or it could simply be because of the spell's inherent limitation."

He wrote it all down inside The Book and continued speaking. "Personally, I suspect the latter or perhaps a combination of both. If it is the first, then how come he is still able to walk and piece himself together without a single strain of muscle or joint? One possible answer is that the spell creates artificial muscles and joints that enable it to move. But if that's the case then why can't it do the same with missing bones?

"This, of course, brings us to the nature and mechanics of the spell itself. How does the spell really work? Does it work like, say, a puppeteer, creating a link between me and our new friend? Making it so that he moves at my command? Possibly. But wouldn't that mean that he required constant attention all the time so that he didn't suddenly drop dead again? He seemed a tad too independent for something like. Perhaps it works like an automaton? AlsopossiblebutIsuspectthatitissomethingmorecomplicatedthanthatandtwhy-"

"Master breathe!" Fjolnir cried.

Shiro did so. He took a lungful of air and breathed. In and out. In and out.

After a few moments he calmed down, though his mind was still in a rush. So many questions. So little time. It was going to be a long work and a tiring one, but it was also going to be fun, he knew. He only wished Gruncle Nicholas was here by his side. He'd probably be doing experiments by now. Damn the neighbors.

He finished his writing with a note to do more experiments in the near future.

"So," Fjolnir continued, walking towards. "What's next on our Evil Necromancer agenda? Communing with the Damned? Summoning Demons? Trying to turn another PS3 into a PS4 through the powers of Dark Magic?"

"Hey, I told you, I've already taken care of that."

Thump. A small sound echoed through the room. Thump.

Shiro and Fjolnir, boy and crow alike stared warily at the small chest sitting ominously in one corner of the room.

A few more heartbeats there was only silence as if the sounds had never been.

Fjolnir stared at him. If he has any eyebrows, one of them would probably be raised.

Shiro coughed. "Mostly taken care of that."

Fjolnir gave a long-suffering sigh. He opened his mouth to say something, an objection, anything, but he was interrupted when something white came into his view.

"Meow," A bundle of furs leapt onto the desk, raising her head to stare at Shiro in the eyes.

She was a very beautiful cat. A munchkin, with furs as soft as silk and as white as fresh-fallen snow. Her tail swooshed through and fro as she moved about the table in a graceful, elegant manner like a Victorian Lady or whatever is a cat equivalent to one. Her right eye was a jade marble that glistened with light and life and her left eye…

There was a hole where her left eye should have been. A gaping hole, easily seen whenever she raised her eyelid, whatever left of it anyway. A portion of the left side of her face was marred with scars and scratches and rots and decay. Shiro wasn't sure what happened to her, but it must've been painful by the looks of it.

"Meow," The cat said again, placing a paw on her head. It told Shiro all he needed to know. He stuck a hand and petted her. The cat gave a satisfied purr.

"Hey there, Hel," He said, moving his hand to scratch her chin. "Enjoying yourself?"

Her only answer was another soft, satisfied purr.

Hel had been half-dead when Shiro found her in the wet street of York in the middle of a storm. He had patched what parts of her he could, though the left side of her face remained unsalvageable, even with grand uncle Nicholas' help.

But Shiro didn't care about how she looked. He had seen too many dead bodies to notice really.

Fjolnir's eyes twitched a bit for a moment before he sighed and said. "Well just, just make sure it doesn't end up like your last experiment, will you?"

"It won't. I promise," Shiro said, still scratching Hel's chin. "Besides, even if I want to keep our new friend around, I don't think I can."

"Oh?" Fjolnir would have raised an eyebrow if he had one. "And why is that?"

Shiro placed a hand on his chin and hummed thoughtfully. How should he say it?

"Well it to put it simply, the energy expenditure for this spell is crazy," Shiro began. "I d-don't know the exact details of how the Essence is utilized or how much is exactly spent, but it's certainly more than my usual spells. My reserve is still recovering at the amount used from raising it. And then there's the upkeep."

Shiro stifled a yawn as he said this. He felt tired. Even though he had spent the night with a good, long sleep. He moved to sit on his bed, Hel clutched between his hands. "Suffice to say it's not the same as a rat or raven. The Essence upkeep is bigger I calculated. Even when he's not moving around I still have to maintain a stable connection with him to sustain the spell."

"Can't you simply sever it momentarily and reconnect it whenever you want to command it? That way you can save more of your Essence for when it's actually needed."

Shiro shook his head. "No. The connection is also needed to stave the corpse from decay. Without it, the corpse will start to decompose and I don't think I can hide the smell from my family." He sighed. "Which is another thing entirely. I also don't think I can keep something like this away for too long. I'd say it could last for at most a month before Misato starts suspecting something."

And wasn't that a terrifying prospect?

"Huh. If that's the case, why not use Sympathy." Fjolnir asked.

Shiro straightened up. The logic was sound. "You… have a point there. I guess I just haven't thought of that."

He shook his head, bleariness still gathering inside it. To be perfectly fair, last night he was far too tired to do anything more than eat his dinner and send the raised corpse - he really needed a name for him - to the attic before going to bed himself.

"I think I'm going to do that right now. Fjolnir please grab the knife on the third cabinet and-"

"After you prepare for school perhaps?" Fjolnir's head gestured towards something behind.

Shiro looked at where he pointed. At the Mickey-Mouse clock atop one side of the wall.

"Oh. Uhm. Yeah right after that." He had almost forgotten that today was his first day in school. He should probably get ready by now. "Thanks for reminding me Fjolnir."

"You're welcome, Master. That's what any good familiar would do of course!"

Familiars. Animals whose minds had been artificially enhanced with human consciousness, giving them the abilities to talk and think and do complicated actions beyond their primitive, rudimentary instincts. Theoretically they are bound to the caster who gave them their enhanced consciousness, making them servants and slaves in all but name.

Theoretically. That's the keyword. Theoretically they were supposed to be little more than slaves and servants to be ordered about at the caster's pleasure. Sure, they could talk and think for themselves, but at the end of the day they are merely the extension of the caster's will. At least that's what the spell's description said.

Shiro was convinced that somehow along the way the spell had gone off the rails. Familiars were not bloody busy-bodies with a habit of waking their masters up using the dark and very forbidden branch of Occultism known as Led Zeppelin. All the while retaining that air of polite composure and innocence that screamed 'only doing my job' like a small, feathery tax collector.

That. Or the spell could have been written by an arrogant mage too prideful to admit that he or she couldn't control the very creatures they made.

"Master, come on. You're going to be late if you keep spacing out like that!"

"R-right. Of course."

_______________​

Thirty minutes later, Shiro was walking down the stairs towards the kitchen, wearing the uniform of his new school; black blazer and black pair of slacks, white shirt and a scarlet tie. It was a bit bigger than he would have liked, perhaps a size or two off from his actual size, but it was the smallest size available. His school bag was slung across his shoulders, filled with books for today's upcoming lessons. His hair, brushed neatly and tied into a polite low ponytail.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day or so Irene and Henry loved to say. He considered it a bit of a hyperbole but certainly not without some truths within it. Having enough nutrition in the morning was essential to get through the day. Misato was already in the kitchen by the time he arrived, pan and kettle above the stove, plates and cutleries lining the dining table, and various foodstuffs on the kitchen stall.

"Good morning, Nee-chan," Shiro greeted her.

"Ah! Shiro, you're awake," Misato turned towards him, wearing a pink apron over her pajamas. "Good morning to you too. Please have a seat."

Shiro sniffed. The air smelled of oil and eggs. He looked at the stall where a variety of foods were scattered about; a bowl of rice, some fried oil, a few chicken breast, vegetables, and alike. He took an educated guess. "Fried rice?"

"Hehe, got it right on one," She beamed him a bright smile.

Shiro returned it with a smile of his own. "I'll help you then."

"What? There's no need-"

"Please, Nee-chan. I insist."

Misato sighed but smiled nonetheless. "Fine. Help me with the chicken first will you?"

Shiro nodded, placed his bag on one of the chairs, and immediately set out to work. He washed his hands before taking an apron hanging from one side of the kitchen wall, tying it round his body, and grabbing a kitchen knife. Soon enough he was cutting out the chicken breast into dices, carefully cutting through the white meat like he had done so many times.

Cooking together had become something more than a habit for both of them. It was almost a daily routine. Their parents weren't home as much as they used to and when they did, they were usually too tired to do anything but sleep and lounge around, perhaps order a takeaway iif Shiro and Misato were particularly lucky that day. Learning to cook quickly became a necessity for him and his sister, if they were ever to have good, warm, home-cooked meals.

They started small. First, by making simple, light dishes; omelettes, sandwiches, tea, coffee. Then they escalate, slowly and steadily making more and more complex dishes until they'd become quite adept at cooking various meals, western and Japanese alike; fried rice, pasta, fish and chips, miso soups, and the likes. They didn't always succeed and the foods they made didn't always taste as if they were cooked by a master chef from a five-star restaurant, but Shiro would gladly take them instead of the takeaways they were used to.

They worked seamlessly like they had done a thousand times before. Before long, Shiro was placing the diced chicken meat into the frying pan filled with oil and rice, tossing and stirring it around the place as Misato handled the vegetables. She cut them into small pieces and then poured them into his pan. She also cracked a few eggs on another pan and placed some beans into the coffee machine.

In a short amount of time, their breakfast was finished; two plates of fried rice and half-fried eggs, and two mugs of steaming hot coffee were on the dining table; one completely black, the other creamed and sugared to such an extent that calling it 'coffee' was a bit of a stretch. Shiro's stomach grumbled and his mouth watered as the smell reached him.

"Itadakimasu," They said softly before they began eating or, in Shiro's case, stuffing as much food into his mouth as humanly possible. Sue him, he was starving. The sushi from last night could only satiate his hunger so much. He needed to get something inside his stomach, especially after yesterday's activities.

"Shiro, slow down," Misato chided softly. She was eating at a much slower pace than Shiro. Calm, methodical, and unfailingly polite is how she ate, just as a proper business heiress ought to.

Shiro nodded slowly as he swallowed a lump full of food. He held himself back and ate slower than he would have liked, but that didn't mean that his hunger had completely subsided. He ate heartily and slowly and he would have preferred silently, but it seemed Misato, being the only extrovert between the two, had other plans.

"So," Misato began. "you're a little later than usual, this morning. Did something happen?"

"Nah," Shiro answered quickly. "I just overslept a tad. Nothing to worry about."

"Oh good. By the way, I heard some really loud noises coming from upstairs a few minutes ago. I was worried for a bit. What was that?"

"That?" It seemed that it was too good to believe that Misato had not heard the ruckus he'd caused. "That's just my alarm." A really annoying, feathery alarm.

Misato raised an eyebrow. "Your clock doesn't have an alarm."

"It was from my phone." Not completely a lie. He picked up the coffee mug, carefully sipping the hot liquid, before he began chugging it down like a sailor would his ale. A Yorkshire lad he might be, but his nightly activities required something stronger than your average Earl Gray to sustain himself with.

"Ah. Well, it's good to see that you put so much care and preparation for your first day in school." Misato said, beaming at him. Shiro was glad that the coffee mug covered his face, he wouldn't be able to look at Misato in shame. "That said, are you excited for your first day in High School?"

Shiro placed down his mug and hummed thoughtfully for a while.

"Maybe? I guess," He shrugged. "I mean, I don't think I hate it, but, well, I'm not exactly thrilled for it, you know? I just hope that the lessons won't be too hard." At the very least studying was something he was used to. His forays into the supernatural had not all been dark rituals in the middle of a storm. It had taken a lot of reading, patience, research, and practice to make sure his hobby didn't end up eviscerating him or scattering his atom into the Abyss Beyond.

Misato frowned. "That's... not exactly what I meant." She said, "What about other things?"

"Other things?"

"Friends," Misato clarified. "Cliques, Socializing. You know? Meet some new people? Hang around with them from time to time? Do crazy, reckless teenage stuff while you're at it?"

"Oh," So that's what she had meant. It was this conversation. Again. "Uhmm I- well, to be honest I…" He trailed off for a few moments before clearing his throats. "W-well, to be honest I… haven't seriously thought of it."

Misato looked at him, one of her eyebrows raised ever so slightly. "You… haven't seriously thought of it?"

"It just… slipped my mind." Shiro admitted. "I mean, I don't have anything against making new friends, of course, it's just that… you know, I'm not good at all this social stuff." That was an understatement if he ever heard one. He shrugged helplessly. "And besides, don't you think this is all too soon?"

"Too soon?" Misato said loudly and slowly, drawing up and quartering every syllable as if making sure that she hadn't heard wrong.

"Y-yes? This is my first day at school right? Don't I h-have more important things to do like, urm, my studies?" And the Occult. He added mentally. Researching the Supernaturals took time. Time that he could not spare on such… luxuries.

Misato was now not merely looking at him. She was practically staring at him. Intensely. Like a Doctor who'd found a curiously-shaped tumor in the middle of an operation or an inquisitor who'd come across a Witch in the middle of summoning Daemons. There was something in her eyes; exasperation, despair, frustration, and...pity?

Slowly, she placed her spoon down and set aside her plate, the fried rice forgotten for the moment. "Shiro-kun," She said and somehow he knew he was in deep trouble. "How long have you lived in Japan?"

"Umm… six months?"

"And in all that six months, how many new friends have you made from here?"

"...None?"

Misato took a deep breath and sighed. Her face dropped to the of her face and Shiro could hear her mutter. "Lord help me," so softly that he barely caught it. After a few moments, she quickly straightened herself back up.

"This." She said, "This is what I'm afraid of Shiro-kun. Six months into your new life and you haven't made a single friend. Honestly I should be surprised, but I'm not." She sighed again. "Damn and here I was hoping you going out into the city meant that you finally found some friends to hang out with."

Shiro stayed silent. He couldn't think of anything good to say.

"Look, Shiro-kun," Misato continued. "You can't keep going on like this. You need to have friends. Other people to talk to and have fun with and help you through life."

"I have you," Shiro replied before he could stop himself. Almost instantly, he placed his hands over his mouth, but the damage was already done.

Misato laughed. It wasn't a cruel or a mocking one, but a good natured one. "Hahaha I'm not going to be there for you all the time, my cute otouto, even if I want to. I have my own things to do. While I appreciate that you hold me in such high regard that doesn't change the fact that you still need other people to rely on." She patted Shiro on the head. "Besides, this is your first time in High School. Your Springtime of Youth. You should enjoy it with others while you can."

"I know," Shiro mumbled.

Misato stood up from her chair and hugged Shiro from behind. He hugged her back. "I know you love me and I know that you haven't had the best… experiences in socializing," Involuntarily, almost automatically, Shiro's grip tightened. "But please, try to befriend others, will you. It won't hurt to try, will it?"

"No it won't." Shiro agreed softly. What else could he do? "Thanks, nee-chan."

"You're welcome, just think about what I said will you?"

Shiro nodded numbly. Misato let him go after a few moments. They resumed their meal in silence. Though Shiro did not fail to notice the occasional glances Misato sent his way.

"Thanks for the food." They said after they finished their meal. Just as Shiro was about to rise from his chair, Misato slapped a hand over her head and turned to Shiro.

"Ah, I almost forgot," She reached into the pocket of her pants and fished out her phone. "You know how I'm an alumni from the school you're going to?"

"Yes. What about it?"

Misato was busy swiping her finger across her phone. "I'm guessing you're not really familiar with the layout of the area, right?"

"No," Shiro admitted. He'd only been to his new school twice. Once for the entrance examination. The other one is to pick up his uniform. Both times he'd only spent a short period inside and he wasn't exactly wandering about the place.

"Well, I called in a favor and one of my kouhai, that is, underclassman, has agreed to take you in for a short tour around the school ground. Would you mind if she did that?"

Shiro shook his head. "No, of course not. That'll be pretty helpful, actually."

"Good. I've sent a picture of her." At the same time she said it, a small ping echoed from the inside of his pocket. Shiro took out his phone. There was a picture of a younger Misato, wearing the female version of his school uniform. Beside her, a dark-haired, fair-skinned girl stood, smiling nervously at the camera.

"Her name is Maekawa Ryo," Misato said. "She's a second year in your new school and vice-president of the Student Council."

Shiro raised an eyebrow. "Won't she be busy with the opening ceremony?"

"Nah," Misato said, shaking her head. "She's fine with it. I already asked her."

Shiro nodded. "'Kay then," He put on his shoes and opened the door. "Thanks. I'll see you later, nee-chan!"

As he passed by the fence he heard his sister cry out behind him. "See you later, Shiro!"

_______________​

The spring sky was a clear blue breadth that stretched far into the horizon, occasionally broken by wisps of white clouds travelling through the air as birds sang happily in the distance. It was bright and it was hot, a far cry and a fitting contrast to last night's storm. There were scattered puddles clinging on the corners of the road and pavement, a reminder of yesterday's deluge as he walked down the quiet sub-urban area.

A soft breeze swept over his face, smelling of sand and saltwater. To the east, the sun blazed mightily over the city, rising as if from the ocean itself, its golden light glimmering in the deep blue waters, stretching from the edge of the horizon to the beach and then trailing upwards to the city proper. A scene that would have and most probably had inspired dozens of painters in the past.

Shikawa, that is, the city he lived in, is divided into five distinct parts by four rivers, three of which were fairly small while the other one is larger than the other three combined. All of them leading east, directly into the sea. Bordering them to the south and west were mostly mountains, woods, and countryside areas, while to the north there was a road connecting to Shikawa the other metropolitan area within the prefecture.

Three of the city's five parts were relatively traditional, only undergoing modernization in recent years. One of them was even supposedly constructed during the Sengoku era. The other two parts were more advanced, built in or immediately after the Showa period. Shiro's neighborhood was placed approximately in the latter, on the western most part of the city near the mountains, and the second most modern part of town there is, Midoriyama town.

This place wasn't called Midoriyama for no reason. Even as he trudged through the sidewalks, trees shadowed every single of his steps. He could not go more than five meters before he encountered a single tree or a piece of shrubbery, whether they are placed in the pavements as decorations or inside the gardens of the many houses of his neighborhood. Every single one of them, green and blooming and so full of life after months beneath a harsh winter. To the west, opposite to where he was heading, a large mountain strained against the ground, reaching up into the heavens themselves.

Interspersed between the trees and shrubberies were modern Japanese-style houses. Most of them have little differences than his own except in paint and wall color. New visitors sometimes have a hard time navigating through the streets because of how similar the houses were. Occasionally some other buildings came into view; a grocery store or a small shop, nothing big or particularly eye-catching though. Except for perhaps one place. And that is where Shiro is headed.

Eventually after little more than fifteen minutes of walking he arrived at his destination.

Rusty iron gates and decrepit wooden walls were what greeted him as he passed them by and entered it. The old train station stuck out amidst the more modern buildings of the neighborhood like a sore thumb. Most of the main building was made out of wood and stone. Supposedly the station was raised during the period of the Meiji Restoration with the neighborhood only being built at a much later date.

But despite its ancient appearance, the inside of the old train station was surprisingly modern. It had taken little more than a few glances for him to catch sight of the state-of-the-art computers and machines inside the main office of the train station. A few vending machines were put near the place where would-be passengers sat waiting for their train. There was also a television, wifi, and a public phone charger. All for the sake of convenience and comfort.

Very few people were waiting in the passenger car as he entered the train. In all, there were little more than a dozen or so people. Most of them, overworked office workers and salary men and/or women, going by their shirt and suit and the bags in their eyes. Not surprising considering how early in the morning it was.

Despite waking up slightly later than usual, Shiro still managed to get in here early and, to be perfectly honest, he preferred it that way. He had personally experienced the infamous mayhem of a Japanese rush hour during a family business trip to Tokyo and he was not keen on experiencing it again.

Whoever knew that so many people could cramp into one train door so fast? Certainly not him.

He chose a lonely seat, just beside the window, allowing him a view of the outside world. It was almost as if he was looking through the passages of history as green, semi-countryside suburb houses gave way to silvery, more sophisticated buildings of the most modern part of Shikawa. This part of the city, for the most part, constituted relatively square office buildings and industrial factories. The architecture of which Uncle Henry would have called boorish and Grand Uncle Nicholas would have called a curse and an insult to any respectable architect of his era (Not that he had any rights to or so Uncle Henry loved to say whenever Nicholas was out of earshot). A little thing they have in common despite their many differences.



Still, Shiro could not help but feel awed as he stared up and passed by the shadows of the city's many skyscrapers. Tall, grey buildings, some of them consisting almost entirely of glass on one side of their surface or more so that the light of the morning sun reflected splendidly. Others were less decorated, but no less impressive, behemoths made of steel and concrete, standing proudly in the middle of the city. All of these as the opulent opal waters of Shikawa's four rivers flowed peacefully beneath them.

No matter how many times Shiro stared at the scene before him, it always brought a sense of fascination and admiration. He had grown up, for the most part, in the countryside of Northern England. Buildings such as these weren't exactly a common sight to behold. He had travelled to other cities, like London for example, but his visits were seldom and their nature being mostly related to the family business left little time for him to admire their more modern and sophisticated architecture.

"Attention passengers, shortly we will arrive at…"

Shiro reached inside his blazer and took out the old family pocket watch, a gift from Nicholas before his departure to Japan. The train ride had taken no more than ten minutes. After this, it was about a five or ten minute walk to school. All in all, a total of thirty five to forty minutes to get to school. Which was marginally better than what he had to endure back in Yorkshire.

He exited the train. The station was occupied, though scarcely so. Not just by the usual office workers and salaryman, but also high school students, people about his age. Some wore uniforms not too dissimilar to his own, differing only slightly in the color of their tie or blazer, others wore black uniform reminiscent of a priest's cassock only with pants and without the distinct white collar. They huddled around one another in small little groups, chatting away to pass the time or engrossed inside their phones.

Outside of the station, the streets were, for the most part, empty. There were only a few people walking around the pavement and even fewer cars travelling down the roads, most of the buildings had a locked door or a closed sign. Even though he was near the most modern part of the city, the place around him felt more like a ghost town.

He looked up ahead of him and managed to catch a glimpse of the main school building looming overhead a few hundred meters away from where he stood. A large, rectangular building painted brown and pale-beige. A few other smaller buildings surrounded it and he knew, by experience, that there was a wide open yard for sport purposes at the back of it.

He arrived at a crossroad. The traffic lights were red, but when he looked left and right, not a single vehicle was on the road.... No. Wait. One lonely car streaked along the road. Unblemished black reflecting the morning sunlight as it bolted through the asphalt at such pace Shiro was sure it was dancing near the speed limit.

Just as he was staring absentmindedly at the car, a voice cried out from behind him.

"Mai-chan wait!"

Shiro turned just in time to see a blonde-haired girl, nine or ten years of age, smiling happily as she ran down the pavement. A pink school bag round her shoulders, hair tied to a pair of pigtails, white shoes tapping softly on the ground as she passed him by.

Behind her, a fair bit of distance away, another girl was also running down the pavement. She was more around his age, hair the same shade of wheat-blonde as the first girl, wearing a high school uniform consisting of a white shirt and a black blazer much like Shiro's own. But unlike the first girl, her steps were much more heavy, and she was visibly struggling to breathe as she ran after the younger girl.

The younger girl turned and shouted. "Come on, nee-chan. I don't wanna be late!"

"Just wait a minute, will you?!" The older cried out, catching the attention of nearby pedestrians.

"Come on, nee-chan, you're so slow," The younger girl stuck out her tongue as she said this.

Siblings. Shiro thought instantly as he watched the interaction between them. Even without the similarities, their brief exchange of words reminded him of his younger days with Misato. Back in England. Back in the Torrington Mansion.

He did not have much time to ponder that thought for at the very same second, the younger girl made a turn and bolted past him to cross the street. So fast he'd nearly missed her.

She strode forward.

One.

Two.

A stumble. One of her legs crashed onto the other before she could take a step.

Her body gave way and she fell onto the asphalt road.

Dimly, as if from far away, he heard a cry behind him. A name. But his entire attention was fixed on the fallen girl.

His eyes darted towards the traffic lights. The previously red light dimmed and was replaced by a yellow one. Yet that only brought a hairbreadth moment of relief before he heard the loud, unmistakable sound of a car klaxon blaring into the air.

His gaze shifted and he looked, in horror, as the single, lonely car he'd observed earlier rushed towards the crossing. It wasn't slowing down. Why isn't it slowing down?!

The girl was still lying on the asphalt road.

Get up! Shiro wanted to cry, but his words died before they could leave his mouth when he saw, almost imperceptibly, the slightly awkward angle of her ankle.

"Mai-chan!" The cry behind him was louder. Clearer.

More panicked cries ensued from other pedestrians.

The traffic lights flared green.

Yet the car was not slowing down. If anything it seemed to have picked up speed as it inched closer and closer to the girl who lied frozen and transfixed like a deer caught in literal headlights.

A sudden realisation dawned on him.

"MAI-CHAN!"

Afterwards, Shiro was never certain on what truly happened. What drove him to do the thing he did. Whether it was fate or luck or instinct or divine intervention that urged him on.

Just when the car almost came into his view he moved.

Shiro was a quick runner. His acquaintances and classmates in England will tell you that. He ran jogs around the Northern England countryside every weekend morning. He could've easily become a professional if he ever bothered, but that didn't really matter at the time.

He was fast enough to grab the girl and tossed her back behind him, away from the onrushing car...

...But he was not fast enough to get out of its way.

There was a thump, the sound of screeching tires on asphalt, metal crashing against metal.

For a single moment he saw the perfect, clear sky. Blue. Unblemished.

In the very same moment he saw the grey asphalt road rising quickly to reach him.

Something fell into the ground, breaking upon impact.

Pain laced through his leg, his arm, and then his entire body. He screamed.

Nearby the birds flew far away.

_______________​

It was a miserable winter morning.

Above, dark clouds loomed, as gray as the ashes of a fire, as impassive as carved rocks beneath the earth. Snow seeped through every crevice and crack between each and every one of them.

Below, the ground was a cold barren wasteland, not a patch of grass, not a single tree, only earth as dark as the sky over his head, covered with fresh-fallen snow.

His only company looked down on him like a king would from his throne. Eyes, usually warm with mirth, he found cold, judging and calculating his every move.

He felt small, standing in front of him. In front of this figure, so familiar, at the same time, so unrecognizable. And yet he did. He must.

After an eternity, the figure finally spoke. "And? Did you find it?"

Slowly, ever so slowly, he nodded. "I did."

The figure raised an eyebrow, surprise evident on his face, a crack on his mask which he swiftly covered.

"Well, what is it then?"

He did not answer immediately. Mulling over how to put his answer into words. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of different ways he could go about explaining it.

In the end, he answered with but a single word.

_______________​

The first thing he noticed was the sound. Not a singular overpowering noise, but a cacophony of warring voices clashing against one another. A symphony of chaos that should have made it impossible for him to distinguish each individual voice from the other.

Some were mere whispers inaudible to his ears. Others were cries and shouts so loud, it hurt them to hear.

"Did you see that?! That car just-"

"Look away sweetie, don't look at the..."

"Quick, someone call an ambulance!"

"Hey you alright there, kid?!"

"Oh God, it's so terrible-"

The second thing he noticed was the pain.

Molten lead travelled down his leg, coursing through his veins, burning through his muscles, seeping into his bones. He tried to move, but the moment he did, he felt pain stabbing through his leg and he collapsed back onto the rough asphalt road. He couldn't see it, but he could feel blood dripping through his clothing. A sudden chill pervaded through the air. He tried to breathe but-

The shadows encroached him in an instant.

They crowded over his prone and broken form. He finds himself in the centre of a mass of bodies. Everywhere he looked, dark figures with vaguely human outlines closed in around him like vultures. Feet shuffled carefully centimetres away from his body.

-His breathing hitched. The air was suddenly tight, the atmosphere cramped. As if he was lying on a coffin buried deep beneath the ground. Every breath he took was now a labor. Every breath he took only served to suffocate him. He breathed too much and too little. Not enough oxygen was going through his brain.

Numbness swept over him. Yet somehow he could feel the tears trailing off his eyes, the pain burning through his body.

Was he going to die?

He shivered, but not from the cold.

"Hey! Move out of the way! Give him some breathing space damm-"

No.

He tried to take a lungful of air, but he couldn't. The air tightened more and more. Another breath drew a sputter. The next one a gasp. His breath grew shorter and faster.

He couldn't get enough air. He needed air. Need it to survive. To get those damned oxygens into his lungs and pumped them into his quicklydepletingblood-

He couldn't think. Only one thing came to his mind.

He didn't want to die.

"-said get out of the way! I'm a-"

God, I don't want to die. Please don't let me-

-Suddenly the crowd parted. The encroaching shadows dissipated. Light returned to his vision.

A form hoovered over him. A gentle face.

"Hey kid, can you hear me?" The voice was soft, but firm. He couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.

"Y-yes," He managed to say through his gasps.

"Good." They looked down towards his legs and winced. "Yeah. No, I don't think you'll be moving around any time soon. Not without a stretcher at least."

He gulped.

"You're breathing alright there?"

He inhaled a lungful of air and breathed. In and out. In and out. In and out.

He could breathe.

"I-I think so," He said.

The person nodded and moved away to the edge of his vision, light fell on their face, and he realized that it was a woman. She was older than him. Perhaps around Misato's age.

"Yeah? Hello?" There was something in her hand. A phone. "I'm going to need an ambulance on the-"

He focused on his breathing. For a few moments, the voices swept over him. In one ear and out the other.

In and out. In and out.

He could breathe and that was all that matte-

"-victim is a young teenage boy, probably a middle or a high school-"

School.

That one word resonated something within him. Something important.

Then he remembered.

"Ugh," He tried to stand up, but a hand pushed him gently back down on the ground.

"Kid, what the hell-" Whatever it was she wanted to say was cut off when he made another move to stand up. "Hey, stay down! You're going to hurt yourself if you move around like this."

"I-I n-ne-need to go to school."

"You need to lie down before you make your injuries worse. You're not going anywhere with a broken leg like that." She looked him in the face, concern showing through her expression. "Is there someone I can call, your parents or siblings perhaps?"

Misato. Shiro thought suddenly and was glad of his sudden difficulty of speech. She'd be worried sick if she ever found out what had happened to him. There was no way he would be able to face her. Not after their conversation last night and this morning. Not in what was supposed to be his first day in school.

She'd prepared something for hadn't she? What was it? An introduction? No, that's not it. A guide? A map? What was it?

He shook his head. A thousand thoughts invaded his mind.

His parents. His mother. His father. They were still on a business trip. They'd rush to his side the moment they learned of his accident. What would happen afterwards?

Nothing good. That's what.

He needed to get out. He needed to leave this place. But he couldn't. Not with a broken leg. Perhaps with a spell-

No. Too many people. He wasn't thinking straight. He looked towards the woman, now busy with her phone.

"-No, he's not bleeding that much. No. With his legs as it is I can't put pressure unless I-"

He was about to say something to her when a cry broke out.

"Oh dear, is everyone alright?!"

The mass of bodies around him parted slightly, allowing Shiro a glimpse of a middle-aged man, garbed inside a wrinkled black suit and a driver's hat, raggedly running towards the crowd.

Just behind him, a single black car was parked in front of the… No. Not in front of it. It wasn't immediately clear, but upon a more careful look, he could see an ugly dent the hood of the car had made when it hit the street lights.

Instantly the people around him converged on the newcomer.

A man from the crowd pointed towards him."Hey you! You're the one who drove that car right?"

"I-I'm so s-sorry I wasn't looking-"

An old woman roared at him. "Wasn't looking? Wasn't looking?! You hit a little boy and all you can say is you weren't looking?! What kind of-"

He could not discern what else she might've said, interrupted by shouts and cries of the assembled crowd turned mob, their full attention towards the driver. More and more people were drawn in by the ruckus. Only one person remained beside him.

"Shit." The woman who'd been tending to him said. "I better go before they lynched him or something, you're going to be alright if I leave you for a while kid?"

Shiro looked down at his legs. "I-I think so."

She nodded and ran towards the crowd who seemed ready to tear the driver apart.

Leaving him all by himself.

...

"I- I'm t-terribly sorry-" The driver stuttered and stammered.

One man took a step towards him. "Sorry? Sorry?! What good will that do? You broke his legs! He got hurt because of you!"

The woman came between the driver and crowd, holding her hand up in the air. "Now, now, we should all calm down here before-," She was cut off by a cry from the crowd.

"Calm down? Calm down?! He nearly ran a boy over! And you want us to calm down?!"

"It was an accident," She hissed. "And blaming this man won't help the victim. He needs help. The ambulance is on it's way and we're not going to help him if we just stand around and-"

"We should call the police, that's what we should-"

"I'm sorry but uhm," The driver fidgeted as the crowd stared at him. "Where is this boy you're talking about?"

The next few seconds were so silent one could hear a pin being dropped.

"Are you blind or something?" Another man asked. "Can't you see him lying over there bloody and with a broken leg?"

"I-"

"He really is blind isn't he?" The old woman from before said. "No wonder. With eyes like that, how he couldn't have seen a boy running across the street-"

The driver could no longer hold himself. "B-but there's no one there!"

"Wha- Can't you see...the...boy…?" Whatever it is the rest of the crowd was about to say died a long drawn out death as they looked, as one, behind them and saw...nothing.

The road was empty. Where the boy was lying not a few seconds ago there was now only a small pool of blood.

An ambulance parked not a few moments after. A first-aid medic rushed out frantically to the sight of a confused and bewildered crowd staring at an empty patch on the road. "Right. So where's the crash victim?"

_______________​

The crash victim was sitting outside the school walls approximately a hundred metres away from the crash site.

Shiro groaned as he rested his head against the outside wall of his school. The moment he did though, he felt a sudden need to lurch forward and struggled to keep his breakfast inside.

There was a reason why he hated using that spell, beyond simple pragmatism and the need to keep his abilities secret from the people around him. But even the worst of the spell's aftereffects can be considered a mercy when compared to the immediate pain that assaulted his legs the moment his nausea subsided.

His breath came in short, ragged bursts, tears formed at the edge of his eyes. He was glad that there weren't many people around him and the ones that were were too far away to notice the awkward angles of his leg. He wondered what they thought seeing him sitting idly by. Probably thought him a delinquent or something.

That thought brought a small smile to his face which quickly died the moment another stab of pain was sent through his broken leg.

Yes. Of course. His broken leg. How could he forget that?

Dragging himself with it was probably a bad idea. No. It was a bad idea. There are very good reasons why doctors all around the world told people not to move around so much when they were injured. He'd probably made it a few times worse than before he dragged himself with it.

Shiro looked around himself. He realized shortly that he was sitting under the shadow of a tree that had grown on the other side of the school wall. It's looming branches provided him with some form of shelter against the sun.

He looked again at the streets and roads, still as empty as when he'd first seen it. He could probably get away with it without being seen. There were very few people close to the school at this time in the morning and most of them weren't looking in his direction.

Still, better safe than sorry.

He placed an index finger on the part of his pants that was soaked with blood and drew something on the ground. As he did so, he whispered a few choice words in a voice too low for anyone to hear. His blood alone should be sufficient to maintain the ward for a few minutes without his help. More than enough time for him to do what he needed to do.

The air shifted slightly, almost imperceptibly around him. When he was sure that no one was looking his way, he hastily rolled the sleeve of his pants.

The wound opened for the world to see and the urge to spew forth his breakfast returned with a vengeance. He put a hand over his mouth and shook his head. He should not have been deterred by such a sight. He'd seen wounds and injuries far worse than this. But the thing is, it was very different when it was him experiencing those same wounds and injuries himself.

Gently, very gently, he placed both hands on the open wound. It hurts, but he soldiered on nonetheless. The moment it subsided, the moment he felt comfortable, or at least as comfortable enough as he could get, he closed his eyes.

In the darkness, his wound seemed to pulsate with a life of its own, he could feel the veins around it churning with blood, making it throb and throb and beat and beat like a second heart. The pain was even worse than before, intensifying a hundredfold as his sense of touch increased to make up for his lack of sight.

A thousand thoughts invaded his mind the moment after he closed his eyes. Thoughts of pain and blood came at the forefront. Images he'd seen; of corpses and carcasses, of the different ways to meet one's end, of different ways to hurt one's own body flashed before his eyes in an instant. Reluctantly he found himself comparing those images to his own wound, how it was worse and better than some of the things he'd seen.

He thought of family. Of Misato. Of her words and request to him at breakfast. Of the horrified face she would make when news came of what had happened to him. He thought of his parents. His mother, tears breaking through the cold businesswoman mask she'd worn through the years. His stepfather, ever meticulous and careful with his own expression, brooding beside her. His father. A shadow in the mist of memories.

In one instant, his mind wandered back to his wound. He could feel warm blood pressing through his fingers. The familiar sensation reminded him of Hel. Reminded him of Nicholas and the old family craft. Of the things kept for centuries in the basement of the old Torrington Mansion, locked deep inside its vaults unknown to any in his family but him. All these thoughts and more swirled round and round about his mind, fleeing as quickly as they came only to be replaced with another.

It was chaos. Madness. It would've been enough to drive someone to a panic or a mental breakdown. Thinking of the pain alone would have been enough to make him pass out from the shock. And it was so easy to give in to them. To let these thoughts guide his actions. And yet he didn't. Or rather, he mustn't!

He took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. He pulled them towards him and held them whirling inside himself until, like the eye of the storm, he alone stood, unbending, in the face of a vast, tumultuous tempest of emotions. And then, as he exhaled his breath, he tried to put them all aside. The fears. The worries. The pain. All of the emotion. All of the thoughts of what would and what could and what did happen, silenced and suppressed, for the moment.

He continued on like this for a while, inhaling and exhaling, sorting out his breath. In and out. One and two...In and out...

This was not a magic spell, merely a mental technique Nicholas had taught him, to clear his mind, to prepare him for what was to come. It was not an easy process by any means and one only made possible by years of training and upbringing. Indeed, he had struggled at first, resisted even when Nicholas had tried to teach him, but his continued efforts finally bore fruit and he was glad that he'd learned it.

One and two... In and out....

What he was about to do was no mere catrip. Not a simple trick spell that could be done on the fly. It needed concentration. It needed focus. It needed a clear mind.

One and two...In and out… One and two...In and out...He continued on.

He felt his heart slowing down to match his breathing…
Felt the pain, not subsiding, but moved to the side, the sensation becoming a background noise in his mind…
Felt his mind wandered off into the comforting darkness...

Then, when he felt calm and at peace, or as calm and as peaceful as he could be with his current state. He began.

"Blessed earth as the Element."

"My father's flesh as the Vessel."

"My mother's blood as the Conduit."

It bore a thousand different names, across a thousand different places, and a thousand different cultures. In Polynesia and Melanesia there exists the concept of Mana; the gathering of universal life force into one's being. The Indian had something called Prana and believed that it flows through channels called nadi. In China, they developed a system around a mystical force called Qi.

No matter the names they have or the language used to call them, they all, in truth, refer to the same thing; Essence, a universal life force that exists across all creation. All living beings possess it, but only a handful have the ability to naturally connect and manipulate it. Those born with a Core. Those with the potential to rise above mere Occultists and become Magicians. Shiro was one of them.

"Let the hallowed water flow."

"Pouring upon sacred soil."

The sensation that engulfed him was immediate. In an instant, a floodgate had been opened, and a torrent of power washed over him, almost drowning him with their sheer immensity. His chest burned as if his heart was set on fire. Electricity danced at the edge of his finger trips. His lungs were filled with water. His legs turned to stone. His head evaporated to mists blown by the wind.

A sudden surge of power and energy flooded his senses. He could see sound travelling through the air like ripples on a pond, hear the sun blazing down from above like an overbearing choir, smell gravity pulling him down the earth like freshly forged iron, touch the fragrant smell of spring flowers hovering around him-

"Washing all pain, grief, and woe."

-And then it was gone just as suddenly as it came, his Core quickly stabilizing the Essence that had poured out from his spiritual body into his physical one. In a single span of a second, the sensation that had threatened to overwhelm him faded into memory and Shiro was left with vague remembrances, echoes, and phantoms to remind him of it.

The Opening process done, he took a few precious moments to catch his breath. Then carefully, very carefully, almost as if grasping upon flame, he delved deep within himself, and reached out towards the Essence gathering inside of him.

To some it came strong. Powerful. A force of nature threatening to consume their entire being. An inferno blazing across a dry forest in the middle of summer, a blizzard that blinded the world in white, or a storm raging in the peaks of a mountain. Others were more tamed, controlled; the gentle evening sun across a twilight sky, a small stream flowing beneath a bridge, or peaceful waves rolling harmlessly along a beach.

"To embrace the unworthy sinner."

"And absolve him of his sins and faults."

Darkness. That was the image that his mind conjured whenever he drew upon it. Not a malevolent, over-encompassing darkness where evil things lurked. Not an infinite void or chasm that consumed all in its path. Not an expanse of black nothingness, bereft of creation. But a peaceful night, a soothing darkness that encapsulated him in a comforting embrace and guided him gently to sleep. In the background, he could almost hear the sound of rain gently rapping against the walls and roofs and windows of his room.

He drew upon its refined form and gathered it close to his heart. Cool it was, and crisp, but more a gentle autumn breeze or a rainy wind instead of a biting winter chill.

He breathed and felt as it grew within him, felt as the Essence coalesced inside his Core, brought forth from the reserve inside his spiritual body. More and more he drew unto himself. He held it firmly, but not tight, just enough to keep it from dispersing and for more to seep in. Balance is a thin rope to walk on. A moment's distraction is all it would take to ruin his efforts.

And when he felt that he had drawn enough, when he felt his Core filled with as much Essence as he needed, gently, very gently, he guided it down towards his hands. Instantly he felt a sensation travelling down his hand and into the wound like cool water or crisp breeze. It swept over skin and muscles and broken bones, bringing some form of comfort to them.

Then came the hard part.

"Blood for blood and Flesh for flesh."

"Let it mend what is broken."

"Knit back what is torn."

The crisp wind that had peacefully swept over him turned to freezing winter chill, cool water becoming sharp daggers of ice that repeatedly impaled his wound.

He feels terribly cold suddenly, as if he was standing naked in the middle of a fierce blizzard that whitened the world. Wind biting deep through skin and muscle and bones. He shivered and quivered. His teeth chattered and grit they almost felt like they were to break. From there it would only get worse.

Pain. That was the only thing he could feel. Pain as his Essence stabbed at his wound. Pain as it tore through skin and flesh alike. Pain as it slipped through his veins and coursed through his bloodstream. Pain as it fried his nerves and burned his marrow. Pain as it grinds his bones to dust. PainPainPainPainPainPainPainPain-

He realized that tears were trailing down his face, but he ignored them, instead, continuing the spell.

"Bind what is separated."

"Restore what is lost."

It was not a true healing spell in the traditional sense, rather it was also an attempt at accelerating the body's regenerational capabilities to an incredible, superhuman degree, compressing weeks and months into mere seconds and minutes.Because of that there was a risk that the process would start to cannibalize the body in search for more energy.

That was where the Essence came in. Beside accelerating the body's regeneration and occasionally moving parts of the body to restore it to its previous state, it also functioned as a pseudo-nutrient so that the process won't instantly kill him. There was still the pain though. Human bodies were not supposed to heal this quickly. Fast forwarding the natural healing process only leads to worsening pains, even though he had constructed the spell with a pain inhibitor in mind, he had not perfected the entirety of it.

"Heal."

The pain burned like never before. A howl was about to escape from his throat, if not for the hand over his mouth. Even with the ward he'd placed, he wasn't sure that it would be able to hide his scream. His other arm thrashed about the place and his mouth let out groans and cries.

He could feel as his muscles were ripped apart at their seams before being knit back together, as damaged tissues and ruptured blood vessels were destroyed almost as fast as they were being replaced. He could feel fragments of his bones reconstructing themselves, his cells regenerating at such speed, it had become unbearable. Healing that would've taken weeks if not months done in a fraction of that time.

It might have lasted for a few seconds, or it might have been a few minutes at worst, Shiro didn't know nor did he care. The agony made it feel like it had lasted far, far more than that, though he knew that was impossible. Finally, finally, after what felt like an eternity, it subsided, slowly but surely, bit by bit, until he realized he couldn't feel it any longer.

He looked down at his previously broken leg and sighed, in tiredness and relief. The wound was closed, flesh and skin stitched back together as if nothing had ever happened in the first place. His leg felt...normal and despite an awkward feeling and a bit of painful memory, he couldn't tell if there was anything wrong with it. The only thing that looked out of place is the small puddle of blood from where he sat and a few holes torn across his pants from where the car had hit him.

A pity he didn't have something that could repair his clothing. Then again, if he did, Shiro doubted he could use it anyway. A quick check confirmed what he'd suspected before. His reserve was running ragged. Between yesterday's ritual, the short-distance teleportation, the warding, and the healing, he'd come to hair's breadth from using his own lifeforce.

"Gruncle Nicholas is going to kill me if he ever finds out…" He whispered. Slowly, carefully he began to stand up, propping himself up with one leg while leaning against the school wall. It was an awkward motion, especially when he tried to stand also with his newly healed leg.

He almost stumbled and fell before catching himself with both legs, but he managed quite. After a few seconds, he felt comfortable enough letting go of the school wall. He took a step and then another. A few more gingery steps later and no one would have suspected that he'd been involved in a car crash not a few minutes earlier.

He picked up his bag which had been laid unceremoniously beside the place where he'd sat and was about to set out to his school when it happened.

He heard it. Small and miniscule and inaudible as it was, but he heard it. A small rustling sound above him. He looked up towards the shadow of the tree, so tall and large, that while its trunk sat comfortably on one side, its branches loomed high on Shiro's side of the wall.

He stared at it for a few moments. He could've sworn there had been a rustling sound. Perhaps a squirrel or something. Or perhaps his mind, reeling from the shock of the crash, was playing some tricks on him. Or perhaps it was only his parano-

There was another rustle. This time, some bits of twigs and leaves fell and he caught a shadow moving between the branches. There it was. Moving again, slithering through them with incredible grace, leaving a bit more leaves and twigs to fall down around him. It-

The branches burst apart in a shower of leaves and twigs, Shiro raised his arms to cover himself-

And was greeted with a plump grey tomcat caught right between them.

It stared at him curiously with bright jade eyes as its tail whoosed about the place. Shiro stared back at him for a few moments.

"...Huh. Perhaps I was a bit paranoid." He said. he should probably check for a concussion or something later on.

"Meow." The cat said, reminding him of its presence.

"...Yeah I should probably let you go." And he did just that, placing him right in front of him. It left without any fuss.

Just as Shiro was about to walk away he heard another rustle from the trees.

He looked up and saw a large shadow descending quickly towards him.

He did not have time to scream before darkness overtook him.

______________________
​

Author's Note: So this chapter had been a long time coming. Firstly, I would like to apologize for my readers for the inconveniences this chapter's delay. I was originally going to post this in July but IRL stuff prevented me from doing so and by the time I was finished with my personal matters, the holiday had ended and i was to study again. I finally managed to scrap by some time to finish this off.

One of the reasons this chapter took so long to write is probably because of the fact that I really haven't planned that much. You all probably knew that this thing started off first as an Oregairu fanfic instead of an Original Fiction of mine. Which meant that I would have to start everything from the ground up; characters would have to be made or rewritten, setting changed, etc. Perhaps one of the most difficult thing I have to tackle is the magic system. How would it work? How would it function? Ultimately these are questions that must be answered. I don't want to just write Magic as something that happened because it happened.

Lastly, but not least more importantly, is my lack of Beta Reader. I don't know if this is the case with other people, but I've been begging for a Beta since day one and still haven't received one yet. The only one even remotely close to one is one of my family members with a much better English than mine.

The next chapter will introduce some new major characters. I've already written them up for the original draft of this chapter, but since the rewrite was already taking this long I decided to do that for the next chapter. We're also going to see some reveal of Shiro's motivations as well as the Torrington's family magical secrets.

Have a good day folks!

 

[k4rn0]

Chapter 5: School's First Day Part 1

For the second time today, Shiro couldn't breathe.

In one instant, an oppressive force weighed down upon him, pressing his chest against the cold hard pavement, preventing him from taking even a gasp. His throat felt choked, as if someone was pushing a large piece of rock on it. The sun was above him, clouded by intertwining strands of red and brown as if he was walking beneath an autumn forest.

Then abruptly it all ended and he found that he could breathe again. He did so and immediately made to stand up, but something blocked his view and before he could do anything about it, a voice cried out beside him, drowning all other sounds.

"OH MY GOD ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!"

He blinked. The voice that called out to him was undoubtedly a girl and he realised that it belonged to the face above him.

"Did I break something? Where does it hurt? Someone call an ambulance!"

"I-I'm okay," Shiro said, cutting her off before she could go into panic mode. He rubbed his temple with one hand and shook his head.

"Oh, thank God. Is there anything-"

Shiro straightened himself, opened his mouth… and stared.

A pair of bright brown eyes stared back at him through a face framed by chestnut strands. Her skin was fair and smooth without blemish, there was enough makeup on her face to accentuate their colours, but not so much so to the point of being obnoxious. Her brown hair which hung just a few centimetres shy from her shoulders seemed to burn in the morning light, gleaming bronze and gold as they basked in the rising sun. Concern and worry was etched into her face and her lips moved, though he almost couldn't hear a word of what they were saying.

"-nything at all?"

It took him a moment to realise that he'd been staring. Heat suddenly rose through his cheeks and he fought the instinctual urge to turn his face to the other or to bury them in his hands. He opened his mouth yet again, but the only thing he could muster was an intelligent "Uhhhh…"

"Huh? What's that?"

"Nothing!" Shiro said suddenly. "Nothing at all. I don't need anything."

"Are you sure? I could run up to the infirmary and grab some-"

"Yes," Shiro managed more firmly this time. He tried to stand, but found her body blocking him from doing so. "Urm, can you please move away a bit? I need to stand up."

"What? Oh!" She jumped away almost instantly like Hel each time Shiro tried to put her on a tub of water. "I'm so sorry."

"It-it's fine," Shiro said, standing up and beginning to dust himself off. The girl stood right next to him. When he was finished he looked at her, more properly this time.

She was tall, taller than he was, frustratingly so. She wore the same black blazer and white shirt like him. But while he wore a pair of black slacks with his tie fixed in a simple oriental knot, she wore a knee high skirt with black and red checkerboard pattern and her tie was shorter, without a point, and tied to a bow. She was…she was staring at him. There was a wariness and uncertainty in her posture, as if she was worried might keel over anytime soon. It made for an awkward atmosphere that only grew with each passing second until, whe he couldn't stand it anymore, Shiro broke it.

"I-is there something wrong?" He asked.

The girl blinked like Shiro had just poured a bucket of ice cold water on her face and suddenly straightened herself out and said. "Sugawara Ayaka!"

"What?"

"Sugawara Ayaka. That's my name." The girl said and bowed towards him. "It's nice to meet you."

"Oh, urm, my name is Shiro Torrington-" He paused, remembering about the Japanese tradition of putting their surname first. "I- I mean my name is Torrington-" He stopped again. "What I meant to say was Amaya-Torring-Shir- Gah!" He threw himself up and bowed. "Amaya Shiro, at your service."

There. A nice, perfect, flawless introduction. Shiro patted himself back only to roll back on it when he heard the sound of restrained guffaws in front of him. He raised his head to see the girl, holding both hands over her mouth as she tried and failed to restrain her laughter.

"Hahahaha- '' Eventually the dam broke and she began laughing uncontrollably. Shiro felt his face lighting up like a christmas tree.

"Sh-shut up!" Shiro tried to say, embarrassment returning with a vengeance. "Don't laugh!"

His words seemed to only feed fuel to the raging fire and the girl laughed even harder than before.

This is so embarrassing!

Eventually she managed to stop herself after a few seconds. "S-sorry about that," She said. Though she was apologising, Shiro noted the wide grin still plastered on her face. "It's just, it's been a while since I had a laugh like that."

She smiled at him. There was something about appearance at that moment that caused Shiro to pause and his scowl to fall. Perhaps it was the way her eyes danced with a playful mirth, promising mischief and troubles. Perhaps it was how her shoulder-length hair tossed and tousled in the morning wind. Perhaps it was her smile, so earnest and sincere and cheerful that it almost reminded him of-

"Again, I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to laugh so hard at you," It seemed the girl took his expression as something else entirely. "But honestly though, what are you doing here?"

"Huh, what do you mean?" Shiro asked, raising an eyebrow.

"This is a high school," Sugawara-san stated obviously, waving her hand at the buildings over the wall.

…

Shiro stared, waiting for her to continue on, instead an awkward silence settled across them.

"...Yes?" Shiro said tentatively. "And?"

"You know, high school," She said a bit more slowly this time. "What are you doing here? Were on your way to your own school?"

Shiro blinked. Twice.

"Sugawara-san, this is my school."

…

"Oh," Sugawara-san's eyes widened. "OH!"

Yes, oh.

"Oh. Urm, when you say this is your school, you mean like, you go here as a student right?"

"Yes!" Shiro said, a bit louder than he meant to. "I go here as a student. Can't you see my unifo-" He cut himself short.

A sudden dread crept up to his chest. It couldn't be that, could it?

"...Sugawara-san." Shiro said, voice suddenly cold and aloof.

"Y-yeah?"

"How old do you think I am?"

"A-ah, well. I think you're sixteen or-"

"Before I told you that I'm a student."

…

…

"Tw-twelve?" Shiro's eye twitched. "Thirteen, maybe?"

Crack.

'I KNEW IT!'

Shiro's palm was balled into a fist hard enough to bend iron. He took a deep breath. And then another. It wasn't much of a problem back in elementary when all kids looked the same. So what, when he's a tad shorter than the rest of the boys in the playground? However, it steadily grew worse the older he got, particularly in middle school, especially in middle school. He'd thought that he'd managed to grow a bit since then.

'Guess I was wrong' Shiro forced himself to calm down and then said, "Sugawara-san, I'm almost fifteen."

…

"O-oh. Hehe. S-sorry about that. I guess, you just look a bit young and I just assumed that you were…" She trailed off, unsure on how to continue.

Shiro huffed. "Well, what were you doing anyway?"

Sugawara-san blinked "Pardon?"

"You were up there in the tree up there weren't you? What were you doing there?"

"Oh, that? I was just trying to help Casper get down from the tree."

"Casper?"

"You know, the cat? Grey furs and green eyes? A bit plump on the stomach? She has a habit of climbing up trees and getting stuck in them. I thought I saw her jumping down here."

Shiro remembered the cat from before and nodded. "She did. I just caught her a few moments ago and sent her off her way."

"Really?" Sugawara-san's eyes brightened up. Shiro nodded. "Thank you so much for that."

"Is she your cat?"

"Nah," She said quickly. "It's just that I'm friends with her…caretaker."

That was… an odd way of putting it. "Her owner is your friend, then?"

"More like she owned her rather than the other way around." She muttered beneath her breath.

"What?"

"Nevermind," She said quickly. "Anyway can you point me to where she go so that-"

"Aya-chan!" A cry interrupted her words. They turned to see a girl running towards them from the end of the street.

Sugawara-san smiled when she saw her. "Ryo-senpai."

The girl, Ryo-chan as Sugawara-san called her, stopped a few feet in front of them. She was perhaps as tall as Ayaka, with long ebony hair tied to a single braid flowing down one shoulder and olive-grey eyes behind a pair of black, thin framed glasses. She was clad in the same black blazer, white shirts, and red skirt as Sugawara-san, though she also wore a yellow armband on her right hand that-

Something moved between her arms. A round, grey head popped up from her clutches and Shiro blinked when he saw the cat from before.

"Thank you so much." The girl said to Sugawara-san. "I'm so sorry for the troubles I've put you through."

"It's fine, senpai. Really. I'm grateful I could be of some help."

"You weren't hurt when you were looking for her, did you?"

"Nah, I'm fine." Sugawara-san said, waving one hand aside as if it was nothing, though Shiro noticed the way she subtly rubbed its elbow with her free hand and the slight brisque whenever she moved her body around. "Just took a bit of a fall, that's all."

Despite the nonchalant way she put it, Ryo's face grew suddenly worried. "That sounds so serious! You should go to the infirmary."

"There's no need, senpai. I said I'm fine, didn't I?"

Ryo hesitated, measuring Sugawara-san up and down. "Well, if you're sure…" Her eyes trailed, immediately finding Shiro standing next. "And who is this?"

Sugawara-san turned towards him. "Oh, him? He's the guy who found Casper. Really helped me a lot when I was chasing her outside the school walls,"

Shiro frowned. That wasn't what-

Ryo's eyes lit up. "Really? Thank you for your help."

She took a step towards Shiro, getting so close it actually made him very nervous. "It's actually…" His eyes darted towards Sugawara-san who gave him a pleading look. "...fine? I mean, it's not that much of a problem."

"Nevertheless, thank you so much, oh!" The girl perked up as if remembering something. "My name is Maekawa Ryo, a second year student. Nice to meet you." She bowed.

Shiro bowed back automatically. "Amaya Shiro,"

"Eh?" Shiro lifted his head. Maekawa-san's eyes widened in surprise and she looked at Shiro as if she had just seen him for the first time. "Amaya…Shiro…?"

"Y-yes?"

"You mean, like, Misato-chan's brother?"

Shiro's ears perked up. "Yes. Amaya Misato is my older sister."

"Ah I see! So you're the one Misato-chan talked about this morning."

"Talked about…?"

"Hmm? Didn't Misato tell you? She asked me to give you a tour around the school grounds."

Shiro's eyes widened and then it all came rushing back to him. The conversation at the breakfast table, Misato hugging him, and then offering him a guide to take him around the school. He fished out his phone from his pocket - sturdy little thing - and took out the picture Misato had sent to him. The similarities weren't very obvious at first. The girl in the picture had her hair down and no glasses, the one in front of him wore a loose side braid on one shoulder with thin framed glasses pushed up against her nose.

"Hehehe. Not what you expect, right?" Maekawa-san chuckled.

"N-no." Shiro agreed nervously.

"Yeah," Maekawa smiled, her olive-grey eyes glinting warmly at him - if Shiro winced hard enough, he could almost see the same shade of moss on the girl in the picture. "Misato-senpai really helped me back then with picking up my looks."

Sugawara-san coughed from the side, catching their attention. "Well, senpai. If there isn't anything you need anymore, then I guess I'll be preparing for the entrance ceremony."

"Oh yes, of course. Again, thank you so much for your help in finding Casper." She held Casper up, who was visibly struggling to get out of her grasp. "D'aww, you little troublemaker you." She pressed Casper against her cheek and began to nuzzle, much to the cat's consternation.

Sugawara-san nodded. "You're welcome. See you in the entrance ceremony, also," She turned towards Shiro. "It's nice meeting you, Amaya-san. I hope we get to know each other better in the coming days."

She gave him a smile and grin when she saw him blush. Shiro could only stammer out an intelligent, "Yes. O-of course,"

She laughed, it sounded wonderful, melodious, and began to walk out of the scene.

Just when Shiro thought that was the end of it, Maekawa-san called out to her. "Ayaka-chan!"

Sugawara-san turned around with a slightly puzzled look to her face.

Maekawa-san smiled. "It's good to see that you're back."

Silence.

Then Sugawara-san smiled back at her and said, "...Of course. It's good to be back." She turned around and began walking again. "Take care, Ryo-senpai!"

Maekawa-san stared at Sugawara-san's back until she faded out of view. Then she sighed. "...Take care of yourself too, Ayaka-chan." She turned towards Shiro. "Well, then shall we go on our tour then?"

Shiro could only nod.

___​

They walked in silence for a while, Shiro following her only half a step behind. The morning sun was high in the air, bristling brightly across a clear blue sky. Students were beginning to pile and gather around the entrance. They wore the same uniform as him and Sugawara-san, though some also had a yellow armband tied above their elbow like Maekawa-senpai. It wasn't quite bustling yet, but it was getting a tad bit more crowded than what Shiro was comfortable with.

"So you're Misato-chan's brother, huh?" Maekawa asked, slightly turning towards him. Her arms were still wrapped around her cat, clutching her as if fearing she would get off and run away which, by how much she restlessly moved and struggled, was not quite far off. "I admit that you're not…quite what I expect." At Shiro's curious look she hastily added, "Not in a bad way, of course! It's just that, well, I expect…someone…someone…"

"Someone a bit like Misato?" Shiro asked. At Maekawa-senpai's hesitant nod, he chuckled. "Yeah. I get that a lot. We may not look similar, but she's my sister and we get along very well." He smiled.

At his smile, Maeakawa's expression seemed to have lifted somewhat. "I see…"

They reached the main front entrance of the school, a wide, rolling metal fence gate. There was a security post to the right of the gate and the side of the wall to the left of it was marked by the school name written in two lines. The first line was written in Japanese while the second line was written in English.

"So where do you want to begin?" Maekawa-senpai asked, half turning towards him. By now, Casper had stopped struggling against her hold and was even snuggling against her, eyes closed and seemingly droopy, but not sleeping yet.

"Honestly? I'm fine with anything." Shiro said. He wasn't in any particular rush, there was still time for the entrance ceremony. He'd arrived particularly early in the morning to avoid the usual rush hours.

Maekawa hummed quietly. "Why don't we start from behind? First we'll go to the back of the school complex then we can go to the main school buildings before finally going to the classroom."

"That sounds good."

Maekawa nodded.

From the front, the main school building looked perfectly square or at least rectangular. However, a trip passing through the main corridors into the back of the school revealed it to be more of a U-shaped structure. Between each wing was a heavily decorated courtyard. A cross shaped walkway ran through a grassy field darting with intricately placed bushes and trees. Flowerbeds and benches flanked each side of the walkway while a small water fountain sat at the centre of it all. A few students loitered around the place, sitting, gathering in groups, chattering away the time, playing with their phones and the likes.

"It's very… beautiful around here." Shiro said.

Beside him, Maekawa chuckled. "Yeah, I know, right? We have the gardening club to thank for that."

"Gardening club?"

"Yup. While our school does hire a few professional gardeners from time to time, most of the maintenance here is done by the students."

Well they certainly have done a very good job at it. Shiro wondered if he could hire them to fix the garden outside the Torrington Mansion. He doubted it would work, but it would be worth the try just to make great great grandaunt Irene ("Just call me Auntie Irene, Shiro,") smile.

Beyond the courtyard, they found themselves walking on the side of a large, clean, grassy field encapsulated by an oval track line. "And this field is for?"

"It's the soccer field," Maekawa answered without missing a beat. "Currently the goal boxes are undergoing maintenance and the lines for the field haven't been repainted yet."

Soccer field. That reminded Shiro of something Misato once said. "How good is she?"

"Who?"

"Misato," Shiro clarified. "I remembered her saying something about joining the soccer club."

"Oh that! Yes, she did actually join the soccer club and she was really good. One of the best, even. The soccer club under her managed into some of the more renowned competitions in the prefectures."

Shiro chuckled. That sounded like Misato alright. Talented and excelling in everything she does. Well, he doesn't begrudge her that though. Just as Misato was talented in one aspect of life, he was talented in others. As they trailed around the sports field, Shiro asked a few more questions just to keep the conversation. Nothing as deep as before, just simple about the various sports clubs which Maekawa happily answered.

"What about you, Amaya-san?" Maekawa asked after she answered one of his latest questions. "Do you play any sport?"

"Not really," Shiro said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just… do some jogging and exercises back home."

"Hmm, jogging huh? Perhaps you should consider joining the track field team?"

Shiro froze.

I'm sure if you tried hard enough, you could become a professional!

"-maya-san?" Maekawa asked beside him. "Amaya-san what's wrong?"

"N-nothing," Shiro said. "Nothing's wrong." He's been saying that a lot today, he realised. He should probably stop saying that.

Their walk finally led them to a series of buildings at the very end of the school ground. To his right were half-a-dozen simple, traditional Japanese buildings surrounded all around by decorative trees and bushes. A small L-shaped stream ran as a border separating these buildings from the rest of the school parts. To his left was a modern square building with tall glass-pane windows standing on the upper half of it, the shimmering sun reflected upon them.

"And these are…?"

"Well the one on our left is the gymnasium. It's only finished last semester so it hasn't seen much use."

"And the ones on the right?"

"Those are the dojos. The school had many traditional Japanese martial arts clubs, so they just decided to dedicate an entire section of the school grounds for it. Originally the school only had judo and aikido, but as time went on, we also founded a few other clubs. Now we also practice karate, kyudo, and even kendo."

"Kendo," Shiro repeated the word. "That's sword practice right?"

"Not quite?" Maekawa said. "I guess you can call it that, but it doesn't really fit. We only really use bamboo swords instead of live ones. Why do you ask though? Are you interested in joining the kendo club?"

Shiro shrugged. "Maybe I don't know. I guess I'll have to see."

"...is harder than I thought." Maekawa-senpai murmured, turning away from him.

"Hmm? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing." She said quickly. "Now,Why don't we get back to the main school building?"

They turned back, entering the main school building from behind, passing the field and the courtyard and entering the corridor of the main school building.

"So where to now?" Shiro asked.

Maekawa hummed quietly, Casper clasped between her hands, and looked to the left, where most of the arriving students seemed to have gone. "Well to the left is where the classrooms are," She turned to the right. The side of the corridors there were emptier. "And the right is where most of the main school facilities are. So why don't we go to the right first before dropping you off in the classroom?"

Shiro shrugged. "Fine by me."

"Great. Let's get going then."

The main school building itself comprises three different floors and is divided into three different sections; the northern section, the middle section, and the southern section. The northern section is, as Maekawa said previously, where the classrooms are. The middle section meanwhile is used mainly for administrative purposes; the teacher room, the student council room, the janitor room, etcetera can all be found in the various floors of this section. Finally the southern section where they were heading is where most of the in-door facilities, minus the dojos and gym, are located.

The first floor of the southern section is reserved mostly for the cafeteria, separated by glass walls and doors from the rest of the school. Long narrow tables and chairs lined about the room. Numerous foodstands flanked the sides of the room, though all of them are closed. There was a toilet at the far corner and another series of glass walls that lead to the courtyard.

"The cafeteria once had open access to the rest of the school." Maekawa explained. "Students also used to buy food here to eat at the courtyard. However, last year, the head of the gardening club complained that the students were making a mess of things, so the glass walls were erected and people were forbidden to eat in the courtyard."

"I think he did the right thing." Shiro said. He couldn't exactly blame the head of the gardening club, whoever he or she is. Having to tidy up a large courtyard after every lunch would be annoying, especially considering the efforts they've put into it. One only had to glance at the courtyard beyond the glass walls to see that they were already probably working very hard.

Maekawa winced. "Yeah, just don't let some people hear you say that." She said, "There were a lot of complaints back then from some of the students. A fight almost broke out, and it's still a sore topic even today."

Shiro raised an eyebrow incredulously. "Over something as simple as that?"

Maekawa shifted. She seemed uncomfortable thinking about it. "Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. Let's just say that it's more of a culmination of events rather than a single happenstance and leave it at that."

Shiro opened his mouth to say something, but the expression Maekawa-senpai wore told him not to ask anymore questions, so he closed his mouth shut.

Just like how the first floor was reserved mostly for the cafeteria, much of the second floor is mainly used for the library. There was a small shop beside it that sold school supplies and another toilet on the far end of the floor. The library doors had an open sign hanging beneath their window. They went inside. A cool, soft air swept over them as the doors opened and Shiro sucked in a breath.

It was not the biggest library he had ever seen, true, but it was certainly one of the most luxurious. All the bookshelves were made out of metal, instead of wood, lining along the sides from one end of the room to another. Round tables darted about the centre of the room, surrounded by colourful chairs. There were also computers, about half a dozen of them sitting in one corner of the room. Long bright lines of LED lamps were placed above the ceilings and there were two ACs hanging on the higher parts of the wall opposite to the entrance.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Maekawa asked, turning to him.

"Y-yeah," Shiro muttered. "They really spare no expense for this place, don't they?"

"Yup. You have our principal to thank for that. He's an avid book reader and this place is basically an extension of his personal collection."

They walked around the place for a bit. Out of curiosity he picked a book up from the shelf closest to him and was surprised when he saw the language written on it.

"English?" He asked, lifting it up so Maekawa could see it.

Maekawa nodded. "Yeah, the library keeps many foreign books here too. Not just English though, there's also a few French books, and even one very big Russian novel too, if I'm not mistaken."

Well that settles it. He's definitely going to spend most of his hangout time here.

There must've been something in his expression because Maekawa raised a curious eyebrow at him.

"Is reading your hobby, Amaya-san?"

"You could say that," Shiro said. He examined the book he'd picked up and frowned. It wasn't just any English book, but an English translation of Plato's The Republic. He never thought that he would find something like this at the library of his new school.

Reading is a hobby of his, albeit one was born more out of nurture, boredom, and opportunity. His mother and stepfather had limited his gadget use when he was a child, believing it to be harmful to his growth or something. In the end, the only source of entertainment came mostly from either playing with Misato or reading books. By chance, his mother had inherited a vast collection of those in the family library which was surprisingly well-maintained compared to the rest of the mansion.

"Really?" Maekawa asked. "Then what kind of book do you read?"

Shiro had been too engrossed in the book and Maekawa had asked the question with such casual air that he almost slipped up. "Me? I read Occ-," He bit his tongue. "-Occasionally some fiction. English and Japanese. Mostly though I read…philosophy."

"Philosophy?" Maekawa asked, tasting the word. "Aren't you a bit too… I don't know about you for those kinds of things."

Shiro placed the book down and chuckled. "Yeah my… relatives said the same thing really."

"So what kind of philosophy are you into?"

It took a bit of time for Shiro to answer that question. "The esoteric kinds, really. The authors are practically unknown. My family had a few of those kinds of books back at our home in England. I doubt I would find those same books here."

"Hey, don't sell our library short. We might be able to surprise you," Maekawa playfully said and Shiro chuckled.

The rest of the second floor contained the laboratories; biology, physics, chemistry, even maths. The doors were locked tight, but Shiro could see inside of them through the windows, catching glimpses of measuring tools, thermometers, test tubes, flasks, rulers, plastic body organs, and the likes.

The third floor at first glance seemed to almost consist only of empty classrooms, but a closer inspection revealed otherwise. One room looked quite a lot like the libraries with a few rows of bookshelves lining one side and a few desks and chairs placed neatly around the centre. Another room had a variety of art supplies; canvas, paints, brushes, and decorated to a fault with paintings, sketches, and even a life-size human statue while the one next to it contained musical instruments and recording devices. There was even one room that could only be described as a meeting room, for lack of a better word, with a round table at the centre, a bulletin board on one end, and a movable learning board. Perhaps a business or entrepreneur club?

"And this is where most of the in-doors clubs are." Maekawa explained as they went through the completely empty section of the floor. "So things like the Art Club, the Tea Ceremony Club, the Music Club, and the likes can all be found here. It doesn't see much use except for club hours though and occasionally when they are needed for some practical lessons, so it's pretty empty most of the time."

Their reverberating footsteps and Maekawa's explanation were the only sound that could be heard inside this part of the third floor, making for a silent, almost eerie atmosphere.

"What about the rest of the third floor?" Shiro asked, more to fill the silence than anything.

"Well, there are the third year classes in the northern section, but since they're focusing on their study, most of their time is spent in the classroom. Most of the centre section in this floor used to be relegated for storage rooms or extra classrooms, but I heard that the school plans on building a few new ones below, so now the rooms were mostly abandoned."

Shiro raised an eyebrow at that, but did not speak. That sounded a tad wasteful in his opinion, but then again he doesn't know much about school management so he doesn't really have any right to judge.

"Anyway, that's mostly it for the Southern Section of the school." Maekawa said. "Now, why don't we go to the Northern Section? We'll go to the third year classroom first on the other side of this floor and then make our way down to your own classroom. Sounds good to you?"

Shiro nodded and Maekawa turned to go through the corridors that would lead them to the third year classroom…only to suddenly stop at the entrance of the corridor.

Shiro was so surprised, he nearly bumped into her. "Senpai?"

There was no answer, Shiro took a few steps around to look at her face. Maekawa-senpai's face was hard as stone and as pale as spoiled milk. Her lips tightened to a straight line, trembling, her eyes intense, looking forward like a deer caught in a headlight. Beneath her arms, Casper suddenly sprang up, ears down, eyes open wide, and mouth carrying a sound that was half a hiss and half a growl.

"Maekawa-senpai?" Shiro asked.

Still no response.

Finally, he tapped her lightly on the shoulder. "Senpai?"

She yelped suddenly in surprise and turned. When their eyes met, she immediately schooled her expression. "O-oh. S-so-sorry, what was that?"

"You were…zoning out earlier?"

"O-oh?" Maekawa said, twirling her braid on one hand. "I really was, wasn't I?"

She laughed. It sounded more nervous than anything.

Shiro merely looked at her. "...Are you alright?"

"I'm alright." She said quickly, far too quickly. "I'm very much all right, why wouldn't I be?"

Shiro stared at her, not convinced in the slightest, but unwilling to press further. "...Should we get on with the tour then?"

"The tour…" She stole a glance at the corridor, so fast, he nearly didn't catch it. "Actually I have a better idea. Why don't we just go down to the second floor, go through the corridors there, then make our way down to your class. Sounds good right?"

"I…" Shiro began, only to stop at the pleading, almost desperate looks in her eyes. "...Sure?"

"Great!" She said suddenly, turning and marching back to the stairs in strides that were half a run, and leaving Shiro dumbfounded. "Let's get going then!"

He ran to catch up to her…but not before looking back at the corridor for an instant.

"Amaya-san, hurry up!"

"Coming!" Shiro said hastily. What was that all about?

___​

Maekawa-senpai didn't talk much as they walked back to the second floor and around its corridor. Where before she was quite enthusiastic and talkative, explaining the different parts of the school in clear detail, now her explanations were short and curt, getting to the point almost immediately. It was as if he was listening to a completely different person than the one he'd met scarcely an hour ago. Glancing at her, it wouldn't be a completely inaccurate assessment. Her skin was a palor shade paler than five minutes, her knuckles white, and lips shivering ever so slightly that if it weren't for her words, Shiro wouldn't have been able to notice it at all.

"A-and this part of the centre corridor is u-usually reserved for the teachers and staff." Maekawa said, beneath her arms, Casper remained as uneasy and as troubled as when Shiro first saw her, moreso, even. "So things like the teacher room, the staff meeting r-room, the janitor room can all be found here…"

She trailed off, leaving them in an awkward silence. It has been like this for the past few minutes with Maekawa-senpai giving short explanations before going silent when she ran out of things to say.

Finally, Shiro couldn't take it anymore.

He turned abruptly to face her causing her to stumble a bit and give out a small, startled yelp. Casper hisses slightly at the sudden jolt. Without missing a beat, Shiro asked. "Maekawa-senpai are you sick?"

"Sick?" Maekawa shook her head. "N-no I'm not sick. Why would you think that?"

Shiro raised an eyebrow. Can she not see herself? "It's just… you're a bit paler than a few moments ago. Your mouth is shivering like you're in a cold and you're also sweating quite a lot by the looks of it."

Maekawa frowned, then she placed a hand over her forehead and looked at it. Her widening eyes told him how surprised she was when saw the salty droplets gathering on her palm and fingers, yet despite all that, she shook her head.

"I'm fine, Amaya-san. Really. It's nothing." She smiled at him and it might have been enough…if it wasn't so stiff and shaky and looked so obviously forced that even without the previous signs he was able to tell that there was something wrong.

"Are you sure?" Shiro asked. "If it's about the tour, then you don't have to push yourself so hard, Maekawa-senpai." They've already covered most of the schoolground anyway. "You can just tell me where my class is and I'll be on my wa-"

"Maekawa-senpai."

They turned as one to face the newcomer.

An older Japanese boy walked calmly towards Maekawa, ignoring Shiro, a pair of thinly framed glasses between his eyes, and a yellow armband like the one Maekawa wore tied around one arm. Shiro blinked when he saw him. He was tall, taller than Maekawa by a wide margin and taller than Shiro by even more than that. If he wasn't at least a foot taller than Shiro, Shiro would eat his magic book. His figure was augmented by a broad set of shoulders that seemed to protrude out from his blazer. His face was hard as if carved from granite, with strong square jaws, a wide clean forehead creased with frowns, thin lips made more for scowling than smiling, and hairs cut in a neat, almost military, fashion. His expression was dead serious, his dark almond eyes boring everywhere he sent his looks. He'd merely steal a glance at Shiro, not even giving him a second one, but it was enough to make him fidget where he stood. Strangely Maekawa seemed unperturbed by him, she even smiled at him warmly.

"Minori-kun, what can I do for you?"

He straightened himself and spoke. "Maekawa-senpai. I was looking everywhere for you."

"Is there something wrong? Has something come up with the event?"

"No," The boy, no, the young man shook his head. "Everything's going fine, actually. I was only told to give you this by the President," He gave her a single piece of paper he was holding in his hands.

"Ah, yes. This is the opening speech, I believe?"

"Correct. The president also wanted to remind you that the ceremony would begin in approximately an hour as scheduled."

"I see…" She said, reading the contents of the paper up and down. "I'm supposed to read all of this, yes?"

"Not all of it," Minori said. "Only the broad strokes would suffice. We don't want it going on for too long."

"Hmm, well, thank you for giving this to me." Maekawa gave him a smile, but he merely shook his head.

"Don't thank me just yet. You still have to memorise the outline of the speech, senpai."

"Yes, yes I know. Don't fret over it, Minori-kun." Maekawa said, waving him aside. He nodded and made a turn, but before he did his gaze fell on Shiro.

"And who is this?" He asked, staring hard at Shiro.

"Hmm? Oh this is Amaya Shiro. He's an underclassman I'm showing around school. Amaya-san is Fujimura Minori, head of the disciplinary committee."

Well he certainly looked the part, if nothing else. With a slight fidget, Shiro bowed. "A-Amaya Shiro, pleased to meet you."

"Amaya Shiro is it?" Strangely he did not return the gesture, instead he looked at him up and down, narrowed his eyes, and said. "What grade are you?"

"I'm a first year student," Shiro said.

"A first year, huh?" Minor- Fujimura-senpai asked coldly. "May I ask if torn uniforms are the norm in your previous school?"

Shiro blinked. "What?"

Fujimura-senpai did not answer, but instead pointed down towards Shiro's pants. Shiro followed his direction… and saw the torn holes on his slacks from where the car previously hit him. They were small, almost small enough to be unnoticeable unless you were really looking for them.

"Eh, Amaya-san, what happened to your uniform?" Maekawa asked from beside him, only now noticing them.

"I…" Shiro began nervously, shuffling slightly at suddenly being the centre of attention. "I had a bit of an accident."

"An accident?" Maekawa asked. "When did this happen? Were you hurt?"

"When I went to school," Shiro answered truthfully. "And no I wasn't hurt," Anymore at least. "Just a car that passes over the red lights. I thought I made it out just fine. It must've scraped me by."

"That was quite careless of you." Fujimura-san said coldly. Shiro frowned and felt his bile rising, but before he could say something he might regret later, Maekawa-senpai stepped in.

"Okay that's enough of it. Minori-kun, please refrain from such comments." The boy frowned and opened his mouth, but closed it after Maekawa's stern looks. She turned to Shiro. "Amaya-san?"

"Y-yes?"

She smiled warmly at him. "Meet me before during the first recess, I'll see if I can get you a new one. Okay?"

"Yes, thank you senpai."

"Good." She nodded and turned to Fujimura. "Is there anything more, Minori-kun?"

The boy shook his head, if he thought of anything about Maekawa's words he didn't show it.

"Okay then. You can go back to your duties if you have one."

The boy marched back without another word, not even a glance back at their direction.

Maekawa stared at him until he disappeared, then she turned to face Shiro. "Sorry about that. Minori-kun is a bit standoffish and cold, but he means well."

Shiro merely nodded. "Again, sorry about that. Anyway, if any of the teachers asked you, just tell them what you told me and say that you have my permission in any case."

She spoke as if the teacher would allow his torned uniform just because she said so. Maekawa must've been really well-liked or influential to speak so confidently.

The rest of the tour seemed relatively peaceful. Maekawa seemed to have gotten over her earlier nervousness and was as talkative and chatty as when he first met her. Not that Shiro had forgotten about, nor had he stopped pondering about in the lulls between her sentences when he wasn't responding to her. He didn't think it wise to bring it up though, not when she seemed so uncomfortable even thinking about the idea and certainly not when she had been nothing but amicable and nice to him.

Still as time went on, he did notice something strange about her. He noticed that she was nervous. It wasn't the nervousness from before, at least it doesn't seem like it. Her lips were not trembling nor were her skin paling like before, no, instead she was stealing a glance towards him every now and then. Each time he spoke, commenting or responding to her explanations or questions, she seemed to listen quite attentively, hanging on his words, and then staying silent for a few seconds as if expecting him to continue. Was it his torn pants? He wondered.

Eventually, when they were back in the corridors of the first floor, Maekawa spoke up. "Hey, Amaya-san, can I ask you a few questions?" Shiro turned to face her and she made a gesture as if to raise her hands which was hampered by the plump grey cat between them. "N-nothing much, really. You're free to not answer them if they're too personal or something. It's just, well, I just want to get to know you better is all."

Shiro blinked, surprised. Not many people said that to him. Most were simply content to leave him be. Where did Maekawa-senpai's interest come from? Was it because he was Misato's brother? Probably, that but couldn't be all of it, surely. No. Looking back at the past hour of interacting with her, Maekawa-senpai seemed like the nice and popular girl in school. The kind that could and would get along well with everyone. It should be no surprise then that she would want to get to know him better, especially since he's the brother of one of her senpai.

Maekawa-senpai must've taken his silence as a refusal because the next words that came out of her mouth were. "Y-you know what? Nevermind. I'm so-"

"No, no," Shiro said immediately, shaking his head. "It's fine. You can ask your questions."

"Really?!" She exclaimed, suddenly getting into his personal space.

"Y-yes?" Shiro tentatively said. She looked like a happy little puppy or a kitten with how her eyes glinted with enthusiasm. "Sure, ask your questions." Shiro said, preparing himself for her question…

"Oh, okay, hmm…" She tapped her chin with one hand. After a few moments she asked her first question. "What can you tell me about yourself?"

…and nearly stumbled when she asked for it.

Maekawa turned a surprised expression towards him. "I-I'm sorry, was that a bit too much-?"

"What? No!" Well, maybe. To be perfectly honest he was expecting something a bit more specific. Like his age or his previous school or even something about Misato. "It's…a bit too broad. To answer that question…" He trailed off, not quite sure where to answer. He was rather unremarkable when it comes to his ordinary life. The only thing interesting he could think of about himself waht his dealings with Magic and that is not a good conversation material. "I… to be honest I don't think I can answer that question easily."

"Oh?" Maekawa asked tentatively, suddenly looking very hurt like a kicked kitten. Stop making that expression towards me!

Shiro coughed and turned away, not willing to see her expression anymore lest his heart melts. "B-besides. Didn't Misato talk to you about me?"

She must've had. Misato was outgoing and open to everyone around her. No doubt she was all but too happy to share detailed stories about her cute little otouto, especially all the embarrassing ones that-

"Actually, she doesn't talk about you very much."

He whipped his head back at her. "What?"

"I mean, it's not like she doesn't talk about you at all!" Maekawa said hastily. "It's just that, well, she doesn't share much detail about you in particular. We - me and Misato's other friends - know that Misato has a brother, but we don't know much about you and Misato is usually very hush-hush about it."

"She is?"

"Yup. In fact, I didn't even know what you looked like until this morning. Some even went as far as to say that Misato was lying when she said she has a brother."

Shiro was stunned. "That…doesn't sound like Misato at all."

"It really doesn't, does it?" Maekawa chuckled. "But then again, everyone has their secrets. Perhaps she just wants to keep her family life private?"

"I…I guess so." There was no other explanation Shiro could come up with at the moment.

"Still it only made me more curious. How come no one had ever seen you before around Misato, especially when we visited her apartment?"

That was an easier question. "Probably because I was living in England when Misato went to High School."

That brought Maekawa to a grinding halt. She stopped and turned to Shiro. "Wait, what?"

"She never told you about it?"

"N-no," Maekawa said, slightly confused. "She didn't. Why would you be living in England?"

"Because my mother is English."

"...Huh. Misato never told me she was half-English."

"She's not. Misato's a full Japanese."

"Eh? But didn't you say that you're half-English?"

"I am half-English," Shiro affirmed. "But Misato and I aren't blood-related. We're step-siblings actually. My mother has me from her previous marriage before meeting Misato's father."

"O-oh," This time it was Maekawa-senpai who turned beet red. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude."

"It's fine," Shiro said, waving his hand. "We're actually very close with each other, so much so that we might as well be related."

"Hehe, that's good to hear." Maekawa-senpai said. "I also have a little brother too. We're very close with each other and in fact he's entering this school as a first year. Like you."

"Really?" Shiro said. "Well then I guess I'll give try to befriend him then,"

"Please do." Maekawa said quickly. "Takahiro is in dire need of friends."

Takahiro. So that's the name of Maekawa-senpai's brother. "Why? Is he bad at making friends?"

"No, on the contrary he can be very sociable when he wants to. However he's a…driven individual and most of his time is spent either studying or doing club activities."

Shiro chuckled. That almost sounded like him. However he frowned when he realised that he hadn't answered Maekawa's original question.

It seemed unfair really.

"Well back to your first questions," He said. "To begin with…I don't actually know."

"Huh?" At Maekawa's slightly stupefied expression he continued on.

"I don't actually know what kind of person I am. I have hobbies. I like reading and playing games. I do exercises regularly, but not often. And I don't actually have any particular goals as of yet," He looked towards Maekawa who was hanging by his every word. "I'm sorry. I'm not making sense aren't I?"

"No!" Maekawa said. "I understand you perfectly. Based on what you said I'm guessing that you actually don't know what exactly you want or what you're passionate about, yes?"

"Y-yes?" He answered uneasily.

Maekawa smiled at him. A smile that made him feel guilty. "That's alright Amaya-san. Not everyone knows exactly what they want during the beginnings of high school. Actually, now that you have said that, you actually remind me of myself before I met Misato. Oh we're here."

They reached the northern section which contained the first year's classroom. People around his age - most of them taller than he was, frustratingly - gathered in and around their respective classes. Most seemed content to spend their times outside of class, chatting around their cliques and friend groups. Sunlight glimmered from the near end of the corridors to their right

"Well, I'll leave you here then, Amaya-san." She turned to him. "Again. Don't be too hard on yourself, Amaya-san. Take your time. Learn what you're actually passionate about and enjoy your high school life." She flashed him another smile and he had to turn away, rubbing his neck in a nervous manner. "See you later.

Shiro forced himself to turn and smile back at her. "See you later too, senpai and thank you for the advice."

She nodded, turned away and marched back to the corridor.

Shiro waited until her retreating form disappeared out of sight, until her reverberating footsteps were drowned out in the chatter and bustles of the morning of the first day of high school.

Then and only then, when he was sure she was out of sight and hearing, he let his smile drop. He felt like punching himself on the head or strangling himself. It was what he would've done if the circumstance had been reversed. Technically, most of what he said wasn't a lie. In fact, they were all true if you look at it from a certain perspective. He truly didn't know what to do with his life…his ordinary life at any rate. His other life though, the one filled with magic and skeleton and talking crows were a different matter entirely. That, however, doesn't change the fact that he'd deceived Maekawa-senpai who'd been so nice to him, going as far to take him on a tour around the school ground, even if it was at Misato's request. He stole a glance at the corridor, fearing that she would emerge again to surprise him. When she didn't he sighed.

Don't be too hard on yourself, Amaya-san. Take your time. Learn what you're actually passionate about and enjoy your high school life.

He shook his head. Maekawa-senpai's words, spoken not five minutes ago, rang in his ears and refused to leave. It was spoken in good nature, but she was wrong on one account.

He'd already found what it is he was passionate about.

He closed his eyes, reaching deep inside himself, towards the centre of the storm and beyond. There was no overwhelming sensation this time when opened himself up, nor a sudden surge of energy that threatened to consume him. What tiny pinprick sensations he did felt were quickly put down. Despite that he could still feel it, the comforting embrace of the darkness and cool winds sweeping over him. It was faint, the wind no more than a slow-moving mist and the darkness no more than a memory of a dreamless sleep, but it was there. And it was enough. More than enough.

What little there was was scant, a mere fraction of what could have been, but like a siren's song it held him spell-bound where he stood. He listened attentively to it and drank deep the well of feelings it invoked within him, enjoying every single moment of the process. The pain of opening himself up, the inhuman sensation that nearly overwhelmed him, the calm and reassuring dark that hugged him like a blanket in a cold room, and above all else, the thrum of power that filled his being. That feeling of strength, that feeling of power, it was the best feeling of all, the one he enjoyed. He loved it, thrived on it, and was powerless in the face of it. He wanted to learn about it, to know more about it, to uncover its secrets and master them, to reach their fullest potential, and above all else to-

He clenched his fist hard enough to draw blood and took a deep breath. And then another. One and two... In and out... Just as he'd practised. One and two... In and out....

Perhaps that's why I failed

He shook his head. The memory was painful and brought down his mood by a few notches, but it was necessary.

And with that sobering thought, he opened the doors of his classroom and entered.

___​

So this chapter turned out to be bigger than I anticipated. I'll be honest I was thinking about continuing this, but if I did it would have taken me another month to finish at least, especially with college. I decided to divide this chapter in two parts. I'm kind of one of those slow writers, but I like to think that I've steadily growing my word count per day. I have only seriously taken it in recent years.

On another note I'll put up a pole to see whether people prefer short-burst update or longer, bigger updates. Despite this, IRL can be quite sudden and I apologize in advance if my upload rate does not live up to its promise.