Chapter Text
Looming before one Hajime Hinata, was the gigantic Hotel Mirai. In the middle of the touristic phenomenon, the tropical island of Jabberwock, the building stood tall, shining below the bright afternoon sun.
Or so it would’ve, but it was now close to midnight. The brunet could only gaze upon the borderline skyscraper towering over him before a bright full moon. Looking up was a bit of a hassle with his vacuum looking green and black Polterbullet RL (yes it was a stupid name), attached to him like a backpack, but his neck had eventually gotten used to it. He needed to in his line of work.
Inside his earpiece, his colleague and friend Chiaki gave him his usual pre-mission briefing. “Alright. As you know, tourists from this hotel had been falling in comas from having their spirits taken out of their bodies by a ghost.” It had been a while since Hajime had a mission any close to that. He practically forgot that legitimately deceased ghosts could do that, however it must be an overly powerful one, which meant this was going to be a long night. “The ghost and the spirits have hidden themselves within this hotel. Your objective is to capture the spirits and the ghost within your Polterbullet RL-” He still thought that name was stupid. “-and leave so we can put the spirits back where they belong. I think.”
“Alright. Mission start.”
“Mission start!” He could just hear her smile. She would never get tired of that quote.
His white sneakers hit the highly polished stairs before the tall door, and he pressed on it. Nothing. “Entrance’s door is closed.”
“Try the underground passage.”
The brunet could only hear the wind blow over the silence. “There’s an underground passage?”
“Yep. That’s basic dungeon crawling.”
Except this is not a dungeon. He wanted to say very loudly.
She gave him the directions to the side of the hotel. He arrived before a large green trash can, and behind was a hidden door.
“Oh wow there really is one.”
“Basic dungeon crawling.”
“Yes yes I know.” He continued pushing the large can out of the way for him to be able to swing the passage’s door wide open.
With that done, he opened it and slid himself inside, and like all classic horror clichés, the doors slammed behind him.
He reached to open it again to check, but it wouldn’t budge. “Of course.”
“Basic dunge-”
“I can tell you’re tired-” If she kept repeating the same quote she really must’ve grinded on that one RPG too long. “If you want a nap just do it now. I got inside anyways, I can call you if I need you again.”
“Are you sure?”
He would rather have her sleep now than later in a more dire situation. “Yes.”
“Okay then-” He then heard a very loud bang followed by snoring.
He sighed loudly.
He gripped the end of his machine in hand. For the uneducated, it would look like the shaft of a shotgun, but the connoisseurs would know this was a Light Cylinder, created to send flash grenades to blind ghosts, right up for the sucking.
By “sucking”, it was literally sucking inside the machine. The shaft would transform into a vacuum shaft at the press of a button to suck in any spirits, or ghosts, or anything really. His beloved weapon against the paranormal. He clicked the shotgun like shaft to load a flash grenade. This sound would never get old.
It was what one would expect of a hotel basement, laundry room, shelves with dirty sheets… The rattling of the laundry machines echoing against the walls made him a bit nostalgic of his apartment. The dim lights would remind him of those late laundry runs he would pass after an overly long working evening with documentaries playing in the background.
He passed the laundry room into what seemed like the parking. White rectangular marks on the floor, and a few cars in the middle of them near the wall. There was also a large gate with a giant red button next to it. Might as well press it.
With a punch, the switch was pressed and the gate slowly lifted itself up. Sparks of electricity flew from the switch, which made Hajime back off and anticipate all the ways this could go wrong. Sure enough, after a few seconds of lifting, the gate crashed back down with a humongous noise as the button fried, lifting quite the amount of dust with it, making Hajime cough.
He backed up, and now started hearing rattling near the other end of the room. Definitely not natural. He readied his Polterbullet RL and ventured deeper into the zone. Something glowy caught the corner of his eye, and he hid behind a corner.
Slowly peeking, he had found his first ghost. One was lying down a bunch of bundle sheets on top of a shelf as some type of makeshift bed. Peculiar behavior knowing that ghosts didn’t need to sleep. The transparent form had just as transparent clothing, a long green coat and a white shirt with a red symbol, white unruly bedhead hair, a thin build and a lower body reduced to a ghastly dark green trail. Didn’t look tough. Could serve as a good introduction to the night.
The spirit was writhing on the shelf, he had probably been waking up from the loud sound of the gate, his ghastly grunts was proof enough of his frustration. Hajime tried to search his mind to know which person this spirit was the consciousness of, as he read through all of the files concerning the victims, but it seemed his lack of sleep got to him, as he couldn't manage to remember anything.
He felt bad that the ghost before him belonged to an innocent guy, currently sleeping on a hospital bed with an IV shoved up his arm. He wouldn’t even be aware his spirit would just cause mischief around with no sense of consequences or impulse control, and he would have to remember he did in that state afterwards. Yep, something right out of a nightmare. Nevertheless, it was time to catch this fella and get him back in the body he belonged.
The brunet, on tiptoe, slowly crept up to the distracted paranormal form. Steady and easy. He had already loaded a flash bang, so he didn’t need to make any noise to load a new one, he carefully lifted up the Light Cylinder and aimed at the enemy. Just a little more-
The brunet heard something burst beneath his foot, he looked so see a bursted bubble wrapper. He stared up, and this time, the ghost was staring at him.
Screw it. He shot the grenade.
Hajime closed his green eye and let his unblinded red eye see through the flash of light. The machine’s shaft switched to vacuum mode, and he could feel a grip on the small tornado of air he was absorbing. He might’ve failed the surprise attack but that flash bang was always effective. He pulled on his machine, and sure enough, it was slowly sucking up the spirit who was struggling.
The brunet grinned, he missed that feeling. He gripped the shaft with confidence, and to counter the ghost trying to escape the vacuum, he was walking backwards to let the air pull him in.
He could feel it, he was getting close to absorb the ghost-
Until he felt something foreign under his foot. That something made him slip, and he had to let go of his Polterbullet to catch himself to avoid getting hurt.
His hands were on the cold ground, and he looked up, expecting an attack to dodge from his enemy. Instead, the ghostly man stared at him as he floated above him. The ghost buster didn’t have the time to even stare back or wonder why he was staring, all he could think about was grabbing his weapon back to defend himself. In the next second, as he pointed his machine up, all he could see was the ghost tail of the spirit disappearing into the ceiling, the white haired spirit escaping.
Hajime fell back on the ground with a grunt as he realised what happened. He had failed his first capture. That stung.
Nonetheless, the show must go on, and he slowly got up with a grunt, and he dusted his hands on his clean white button up, in between his green tie and the tight black chest harness that held his Polterbullet RL against him.
His eyes wiped over the room, and it was caught by something shining in where the ghost was sleeping. Two shiny spots on the clean ranged sheets.
Hajime walked up to the shelves and analyzed the shiny objects. They were two button-like objects, shining yellow, with numbers on it. One marked -1 and the other 0. It was so shiny it borderline looked like some kind of lightbulb...
A loud yawn echoed through his ear piece. “I’m back…”
“Welcome back…” He pocketed the objects and ventured deeper into the basement.
“You don’t sound very happy.”
He kept a sarcastic comment for himself. “Yeah, the first ghost I found got away.”
“That’s too bad. Maybe it was a forced loss fight though! Next time you can beat him!”
“Thanks..?” He didn’t know if that was a compliment.
“What did the spirit look like? I want to look up who it belongs to. Just in case.”
“Well…” In the distance, he perceived the end of the parking, and doors reminiscent of a luxurious elevator as he described his recent enemy to Chiaki.
The typing on her computer ended as Hajime’s description came to an end. “Alright, I’ll receive the records in a bit. I think.”
“Thank you Chiaki.”
“No problem.”
Hajime arrived before the elevator, and by curiosity, pressed the button. After a few seconds, a ding echoed and the door opened to a shiny luxurious room which beared a miror at its end. The brunet cautiously walked in, and instead of seeing elevator buttons, they were only holes in the walls. “Great. The elevator’s missing its buttons.”
“That’s... not good.”
He left the elevator to search for the stairs. Normally, it would be around the elevator. However, next to it was only a plain grey wall. “Chiaki, where are the stairs?”
He heard her typing, probably searching his position in the hotel. “It should be right in front of you.”
In front of him was a big pile of nothing. “It isn’t.”
He could just hear her shrug. “I guess there’s no stairs then.”
“How come this place has no stairs!?” This was a high class hotel, there should be stairs.
Through his com, Chiaki addressed his question. “There were stairs, but the paranormal activity made that so the ghost could warp the space around them. The “master” of this hotel is keeping the stairs hidden. I guess it would be like a fast travel mechanic once you’ve beaten the final boss. They probably wrapped the hotel as a whole too. Changing room layouts and floors. I think.”
Right, paranormal activity could do that. Hajime was the first one that could attest to that anyways. “Great. How am I supposed to get all the way up?” In that moment, he remembered the object the ghost he had failed to capture left behind. “Wait…” He dug in his pocket to fetch it, and his memory finally triggered. “Those are elevator buttons!”
He opened the lift’s door once again. In front of the army of holes, he held out the button marked -1 to insert it in its spot. Against his will, the shiny object flew out of his hand to roll itself into its emplacement.
He held out the 0 button as well, and it did the same, placing itself next to the other. “Well, that’s practical.”
“What happened?” She asked.
“The spirit left behind elevator buttons. And those just… put themselves back in place.”
“Is the elevator working now?”
He pressed the second button. The doors closed, and the lift shot up. “Yep.”
He heard claps. “Level one complete!”
Hajime smiled. “Well, more like minus one.”
“Still! You completed the tutorial!”
“Yeah, the tutorial…”
This was going to be a long night. He hoped it at least wouldn’t be boring.