Chapter Text
Sunlight streams through the windows, puddles of light distributed across every surface that the rays touched. The air inside the music room is warm but not quite hot, a soft breeze rustling the curtains from the single open window as pink mokke crowd around a fluffy black one with one bent ear, a purple ribbon with a bell tied around it. They're conversing softly in the corner where the sun shines on their backs, glinting off of the black mokke's bell ribbon.
A soft sigh echoes a second later, and underneath another window, one whose window seat was lined with plush pillows and a pink blanket with yellow triangles all over, half of it trailing on the floor. Alongside it, a sleeved arm hangs, the fingers of the hand bandaged up with gauze, a red and yellow beaded bracelet brushing against the blanket. The hand is clutching a black book that's half opened, one side of it showing a room covered in mirrors with one large one in the center while the second one, half hidden by fingers, only has the words 'mystery' and 'hell' visible.
The blanket shifts as another sigh echoes, quickly followed by a slight hitch in breath. Soon after, a dull thud echoes as the book falls out from the hand's grip when the owner flips themselves around. Eyes the color of cave torches stare up at at the ceiling with an unreadable expression.
Everything hurts.
His skin itches under his blazer from five days ago and the abhorrent summer heat. Every brush against his arms makes him want to crumple up and die in a corner. His stomach gurgles uneasily for the umpteenth time since this morning, the thought of food making him want to run to the bathroom. So, he hides. He holes himself up in the music room, letting Gyokuto hang around his brothers and sisters, thinking that a nap will get him back to normal, drive away all the negativity swirling in him before it starts leaking out.
All it does is make it heavier as he wakes up from moving his arm a little, smacking his elbow against the window. The hit isn't what hurt, but his arm stretching nearly made him kick the wall as he throws it over his eyes. Maybe he needs sleeping medicine. Maybe he needs to do an all nighter until his body forces him to rest. Maybe—
"Tsukasa!"
A voice shrieks his name, letting it echo, and Tsukasa doesn't bother moving when he feels the air get colder. The mokke scatter like mice, squeaking angrily as the smell of ozone hits his nose and he feels Gyokuto hopping onto him, wiggling to hide in his pocket. The air gets colder around him as the smell gets stronger, making Tsukasa sigh internally as he sits up, blanket draped over his shoulders. So much for a nap. So much for peace and quiet. So much for being alone.
And yet, there is a warmth in his chest as he peels his eyes open to stare at Kamado floating in front of him, head tilted and hat sliding off just a bit. "There you are," he says with a huff, "I've been looking for you everywhere." Kamado sniffs, arms crossed, and Tsukasa's eyes flicker down to his dictionary as he bends to pick it up, placing it back on the window seat.
He adjusts his blazer cuffs, fingers twitching as he suppresses the urge to wince, and his gaze lingers on the glowing string around his pinky. "Why?" His brow raises as Kamado shrugs.
"Why not? Can't I spend time with my assistant?"
"You usually don't do that a lot," Tsukasa says with a roll of his eyes as he gets up, blanket trailing on the floor. "And if you wanna spend time with me so bad, introduce me to another mystery. So far I only met Yako, Tsuchigomori, and uh, whoever the Hell of Mirrors one was. I still need Tsuchigomori's information, and I guess I'll make Aka the new Number Three—"
"What about me?" Kamado points to himself, eyes wide and smile big. "I bet I'd make for a cool entry, don't you—"
"No way."
"Ek! Rejected?!" The ghost crumples as if he's just been told he couldn't cook anymore and Tsukasa rolls his eyes once more as he settles himself in front of the piano. "Tsukasaaaaa, come onnnn, I'd make a cool entry, admit it, say I'd be cool!" Before Tsukasa can get his hands on the keys, Kamado's pounced on him, pulling at his face and whining like he's been told no potato jellies for two decades. "Tsukasaaaaaa, come onnnn—!"
"Agh! Hey! Get off! Off!" Tsukasa raises his hands, finding small satisfaction in how Kamado yelps as his bracelet delivers a mild zap to him. He lets go instantly, floating upwards and sticking his tongue out while rubbing his wrists.
"Ugh! That bracelet has got to go. I hate it!"
Sliding his fingers along the piano, Tsukasa shrugs. "Sucks to be you," he says as he taps his foot on the floor, trying to find a beat. He adds humming a second later before his fingers start to press down on the piano keys, a soft melody beginning to play. Like a switch, Kamado flops down onto the piano, elbows propped up on his knees as he watches, staring at Tsukasa with big blue eyes. It used to unnerve him, that unblinking stare, but now Tsukasa plays without looking up, warmth filling his chest and making his stomach settle at the feeling of eyes on him.
He opens his mouth, words on the tip of his tongue, before the sound of the door slamming open makes him whip his head towards it just as a three pronged blade goes flying towards them. Immediately, one of Kamado's hitodamas knocks it off course, causing the crackling weapon to slam into the floor, and in one second flat, he's dressed in his cloak, staff crackling with lightning.
Nene stands frozen stiff in the doorway, gripping her remaining sai with wide eyes. Silence stretches for a moment, settling on their shoulders, before Kamado lowers his staff. "Well," he starts, head tilting to the side. "Good morning to you too, Miss—"
"What did you do?!"
Like a banshee, Nene shrieks out her words, lunging forward into a run with her sai raised high, and Kamado raises his staff, blocking the hit towards him. Metal screeches against metal, sparks flying in the air, and Nene jumps back, lips curled into a sneer. "What…?" Kamado's brows furrow as he raises one. "What are—" but, again, Nene lunges, swinging her sai haphazardly in the air, and Kamado is quick to twirl his staff in response, blocking all attempts of her sinking the three pronged blade into him before, with a well timed slice, he knocks it out of her hand. It crashes into the floor, embedding into the wood, and Nene squawks as she stumbles back, gripping at her wrist.
Kamado grips his staff tightly, looking between her and the weapon he had just knocked out of her hand. She's rubbing her wrist, glaring, but doesn't dare move a step closer, as if she's realized her mistake in going in guns blazing against the seventh school mystery. "Is something the matter?" Kamado's head is tilted, though he keeps his cloak and staff raised, and he looks Nene over, gaze lingering on her wrist. "Usually, you aren't one to cross my path, Miss Yashiro." His formal tone makes Tsukasa's head spin when he compares it to a few minutes prior where he whined and flailed because he didn't get what he wanted.
A stark contrast to his usual bubbly and bright persona, Kamado stands tall, the complete antithesis of Minamoto Kou. "I…" Nene trails off for a moment, her face scrunching up as her glare slides away from Kamado to stare at the floor instead. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she huffs, turning her head away.
"Well, maybe, if you didn't attack me out of nowhere—"
"Then how about you show us?" Tsukasa stands up, blanket dropping from his shoulders to pool on the piano bench and trail against the floor. He watches Nene whip her head up to him, staring with wide eyes and an open mouth. "If you can't tell us because you're scared of not being believed then show us." He tugs on his blazer cuffs, stepping forward as Nene bites down on her bottom lip.
Again, silence settles onto their shoulders as she marinates over the decision. Tsukasa does the duty of ripping the sais out of the floorboards. When he turns back, walking forward to hand her weapons to her, she looks up as she takes them, her mouth opening quietly.
"Fine," she mutters, pocketing her weapons as she takes a step back. "I'll take you guys to the problem, but he better promise not to do anything suspicious, got it?"
Behind them, Kamado has seemingly reverted back to his bubbly personality, floating over with a lopsided grin on his face. "Doing suspicious things? Me? Never! Don't worry your pretty little head, Miss Yashiro. Come on, have a little faith in me, Tsukasa does!" He tips his hat forward with a bow, cloak billowing behind him, and with a huff, Nene turns on her heel, marching out of the music room with purpose in her stride.
Tsukasa glances at Kamado's smiling face with a roll of his eyes before he follows after her, feeling the ghost's cold presence behind his back, seeping into his bones. "What do you think she's all freaked out over?" He doesn't bother glancing back as he talks, gaze set forward at Nene's back as she leads them down the stairs towards the school entrance of the old building.
Kamado hums, and Tsukasa thinks he might be tapping his chin in thought as he answers. "No clue, but considering she thinks I did something, it's probably supernatural related and if that's the case…"
"Then we're either gonna meet a mystery or have to change someone else's rumor, huh?"
The ghost floats up to his line of sight, a wide grin on his face as he nods his head.
"Bingo."
Today was supposed to have been a normal morning. She was supposed to have woken up because of her alarm, getting up to tend to Black Canyon before getting on with the rest of her process to waking up which included, but were not limited to, taking a shower because baths were out of the question versus getting splashed with water in tiny droplets like rain, brushing the scales off her skin so her mom didn't ask any questions, eating a nicely made breakfast before brushing her teeth, and then getting dressed in her uniform, complete with her sais in her pockets.
Then, she'd wait in the living room until Amane and Aoi, sometimes with Mitsuba in tow, came to walk with her to school. Her mom would leave for work around this time, reminding her to give her friends the cookies or brownies or whatever she baked the night before. From there, she'd go to school, arguing with Amane the whole while before they separate to head to their own homerooms. She'd accompany Aoi, laughing at whatever she said while keeping an eye out for any supernaturals before they were bombarded by their classmates who flocked to Aoi like she was a goddess and suffocated Nene as if she was the next best thing since sliced bread.
That was how her mornings went. That was her routine.
And today, on July first, everything came crashing down when she and Aoi went to homeroom. For a moment, she had thought it had been a dream, that she had fallen asleep in class and was having a nightmare, but pinching herself did nothing but give her a bruise as she stared at the absolute mess of her classroom.
The plants had overgrown, the desks were crumpled and rusted, dust surrounded the floor, windows were broken. Everyone was panicking about their items as well. A girl crying about her lunch that had gone moldy and rotten, Yamabuki muttering about the destroyed textbooks. Aoi had looked the worst, Nene thinks, her face blank, eyes as dark as obsidian, pools of ink that stared at the chaos around her with a detachment that made Nene shiver in her school slippers.
She had to get to the bottom of this.
She had to fix things.
And so, she cornered (or at least tried to) the only person she knew who could be behind such cruel acts. The mokke were annoying, but they wouldn't go that far (could they even do this level of destruction?), and she had no interest in meeting the mermaid again, not that she was a candidate when Nene realized there was no water on the floor of her classroom, so that left only one person for her to interrogate, to threaten into turning her classroom back to normal so Aoi could stop looking so lifeless.
Nene just hadn't expected for the seventh school mystery to be nothing like she thought he was. Sure, she knew she stood no chance against him even as she lunged like a feral animal desperate to get out of a corner, and she knew, deep down, that the boy couldn't be that cruel, but Aoi's lifeless eyes flashed in her mind far too much for her to let it go.
And yet, she stands in front of her destroyed classroom, a ghost by her side and her best friend squinting into the room. The silence that envelops them is suffocating and for a moment, Nene is ready to snap, breaking it into pieces just to stop the feeling of dread consuming her, but then Kamado hums, tilting his head to the side. "It looks like time's jumped forward for everything—"
"I know! The desks are all rusted, windows are broken, our classroom plant has turned into a tree which obviously means—"
"Kamado!"
A familiar voice echoes through the air, cutting her off, and Nene finds herself turning to see Mitsuba storming down the hall. Kamado looks excited to see him, a bright smile on his face as he too turns. "Mitsuba!" He cheers, already floating in the air. "What's up? Why do you—woah?!" He yelps as Mitsuba grabs at his collar and yanks him down, shaking him around like a ragdoll.
"Don't you 'what's up' me! Tell me why the hell I walked into homeroom this morning and thought the school had a nursing home?!"
Kamado can't answer, being shaken around and all, so Tsukasa takes over instead, Nene notices. "So you're saying time jumped forward for your classmates too, Mitsuba? Like Nene-chan's classroom?" His head tilts, a finger on his chin, and then he blinks, eyes suddenly as bright as a lantern. "Could this have something to do with the Clock Keepers? You told me they manage the time of the school but never told me much, remember, Mitsuba?" Like a switch, Mitsuba pauses, blinking as he suddenly lets go of Kamado and nods.
"Uh, yeah, I—right. They would be the ones behind this, huh? But did their rumor get changed? Do we have to fight number one of the mysteries now?!" His voice raises an octave as he panics and Nene looks between the three, head spinning as Tsukasa pats Mitsuba's back with varying levels of 'I'm sure it's not that bad' coming out of his mouth. Kamado, on the other hand, seems to be in thought, head tilted as he furrows his brows.
It takes less than a second for him to slam his fist onto his open palm. "I got it!" Lightning sparks from him as he exclaims, making Nene shuffle away, shoulders tense. He doesn't seem to notice as Tsukasa and Mitsuba both give the ghost identical looks of disbelief. "What? Don't look at me like that! I may be the boss but they seemed perfectly fine in that meeting we had about the now deceased third mystery and what to do with the new one!" He huffs, rolling his eyes. "But Tsukasa's right, the only supernatural strong enough for this level of chaos is a mystery and the only one that controls time is—"
"Uh, hello? New exorcist here—just what are you talking about?!" Nene finally hisses the words out as all three whip around to face her. She glares at them, her mouth curled into a pout. "You've been talking like I'm invisible! Who are the clock keepers and how are you so sure they're involved in this mess?" Her arms cross as she glares at Kamado in particular. "How do I know you aren't just saying stuff to get me off your trail? Mitsuba-kun could have been told some faulty information, and Tsukasa-kun doesn't even know about them. It's awfully convenient that you know."
The three blink, glancing at each other, before Kamado clears his throat. "Well…" he trails off, head tilting to the side. "They're my employees, so I kinda have to know? Though I can get your suspicions, Miss Yashiro, I'm truthful when I say I had nothing to do with this mess. The three clock keepers are the first school mystery with the power to control the school's time. There's three of them, hence the plural. One handles the past, able to go back to any time in the school, the second handles the present, able to stop or slow time down, and the last one…" he pauses, as if for dramatic effect.
"The last one moves time forward."
Only Tsukasa makes a noise at the words, snapping his fingers. "So that's our culprit, huh, the third of the clock keepers?" She watches Kamado nod at the words, his smirk lopsided, and then sees Mitsuba huff, rubbing a hand over his face.
"Oh, joy," he deadpans, "just what I needed—another supernatural adventure that's probably gonna be as deadly as the last one."
Is he…talking about whatever happened with school mystery number three?
Kamado only snickers, throwing an arm over Mitsuba's shoulders. He does the same to Tsukasa, his grin nearly splitting his face. "Aw, come on, don't be like that! This time, we have Tsukasa to help us and Miss Yashiro too!" At the words, she jolts and takes a step back when Kamado and the two glance at her. "You'll help us, won't you?" Kamado tilts his head, smile dropping a little and Nene wants to say no, she wants to tell the ghost that she'd never, in a million years, work with a supernatural, but Tsukasa is staring at her, wide eyed, and so, she swallows, a lump in her throat, and puts her hand out.
The trio look at each other for only a second before they each put their hand on top of her own. "Then it's settled," Kamado starts, his voice dripping with excitement, "with our combined powers, let's teach the clock keepers a lesson!"
For some reason, as they throw their hands up in the air in unison, Nene feels a strange warmth blooming in her chest as she watches her best friend laugh alongside the one person she's been taught to hate.
A quiet giggle echoes throughout the halls as a small girl barely the size of a toddler hops around, her twin pigtails bouncing alongside her movements. A clock hangs from her neck, swinging to and fro, and she pauses as she catches sight of a couple of teenagers walking about. Her eyes brighten, sparkling as she exclaims aloud. "Ooh!" Without any hesitation, she jumps forward, her pointer extended, and giggles loudly as a clock appears above them, the sudden sound of it ticking getting louder and louder as the hands spun forward.
Smoke envelops both her and the teenagers as she laughs, jumping away, and in the place of youth stands old women with canes, moving as fast as molasses as they argue bitterly about the 'good old days.'
Eyes the color of the sky during the setting sun, a deep color of orange like fossilized amber, glare at the girl's retreating form. "That little..." the owner of the eyes curses to themselves as they duck away from the corner, rushing after the laughing pigtailed girl. As they run down the hall, however, their sight lands on the fruits of her labor—old men and women loitering about, destroyed classrooms and rusting equipment. Their teeth grit together at everything, blood boiling beneath their skin as they turn a corner and spot the girl once more surrounding another group.
"Mirai!" They yell out her name a second too late as she turns the hands on her clock forward, and the sound of ticking echoes in the hallway before it suddenly stops as the teenagers are enveloped by smoke. "Oh, for the love of—!" They hiss as the smoke dissipates to reveal old men and women and lunge forward, fingers barely able to grasp at Mirai's coat sleeves before she was gone again, leaving them to fall to the floor with a thud, face smacking against the wood.
Her giggles echo as they push themself to their feet, and yelps when something smacks them against the head. "What do you think you're doing, young man?!" An elderly voice squawks at him as he turns his head, mouth agape.
"Hah? Oh, come on, you can't just forget me that easily. Wa—"
"What a ruffian, attacking the elderly like that!"
Another smack against his head alongside a woman's yell cuts his sentence short as he holds up his arms to shield his face as more blows start to land. "Ow! Guys! Hey! I'm not—!" But, his protests fall on deaf ears as his friends continue to squabble and rummaging through his pockets, he pulls out an old pocket watch, pressing down on the top button and hearing the world come to a blissful silence. Carefully crawling out from the horde, he scrambles to his feet, glancing at his now frozen friends with a wince.
"Sorry, but I have important things to do so…just wait for five minutes, okay?" Despite not receiving an answer, the boy pats one of them on the shoulders before another giggle catches his attention and, with a curse already leaving his mouth, he turns and races back down the hallway.