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The final school bell rang throughout Kamiyama High School, signalling the last period for the day was over. Classrooms were filled with chatter and sounds of chairs being pushed as people were standing up, ready to leave the school as soon as possible.
Toya was already standing up, leisurely packing his notebooks back into his bag. He was minding his own business until he heard a voice from behind.
"Yo, Toya." Akito came into view from the side, bag slung over his shoulder and displaying a grin. "I found this new cafe that we should go to. With all this studying and brain power I'm using, it's making me starve to death."
"But Akito," Toya started, eyes still focused on his notebooks and bag. "You barely do any studying anyway and you don't pay attention in class either."
"Oi."
Toya didn't elaborate on his words. Instead, he opted to focus on closing his bag and shifting the strap over his shoulder.
"I suppose we can go to the cafe today." He said, going back on topic. He then checked his phone as well for any notifications, "Kamishiro-senpai hasn't mentioned anything new yet, so it's not like we have anything else planned."
"That guy is probably busy anyway with that new human friend of his."
Akito looked displeased, rolling his eyes at the thought of Rui.
"We haven't seen this new guy yet, but I wonder what's so special about him to get the attention." He scoffed, shrugging his shoulder. "Anyway, let's get going. Hopefully, we can grab a seat."
—
They headed out from school directly into town together, following Akito's map on his phone towards the location of the new cafe. They weren't in too much of a hurry to run, but they wanted to secure at least a seat, so they walked with fast strides, though it was mainly Akito.
"From the pictures I've seen online, I've got a feeling that it'll be good." Akito scrolled through a few more posts of the cafe, already imagining the taste of the pancakes.
"Yeah, I believe you." Toya replied, absentmindedly. "I'm looking forward to their coffee selection."
When they finally reached their location, they stopped in front of the small cafe, tucked away between other buildings and potted plants decorating the exterior. The cafe itself was simple and cozy and thankfully, there weren't a lot of people.
"It's good that there aren't a lot of people." Toya noted. "Where do you want to sit?"
"The weather is nice and warm today, so let's sit outside."
A waiter from inside came out, noticing Akito and Toya standing at the front. Menu in hand, she proceeded to guide them to an empty table with two seats and placed the menu in front of them.
"Are you two ready to order now or would you like me to come back?" The waiter asked.
"I'm ready to order now." Akito said without hesitation. "I would like to order five plates of pancakes, please. With extra cream, extra fruits and extra syrup as well for all of them."
There was a long pause after that. The waiter froze up upon hearing Akito's order before recomposing herself.
"S-sir, are you sure you want to order that many for yourself? I can promise you the portion size is fairly big so you don't need to worry about that." She looked at Akito with visible concern.
Akito, on the other hand, was nonchalant with everything. "If the portions are big anyway, that just makes it better. I just have a big appetite, that's all." He said, "Oh and also, can I get a cup of coffee with milk and sugar as well?"
"Al-alright..." The waiter muttered, speechless at what she was writing down for a one-person order. She then turned to Toya with a smile, albeit a nervous one, and asked for his order.
"Just a cup of black coffee, please."
The waiter made a mental sigh in relief.
Once the waited left, Toya glanced at Akito.
"You really ordered five plates?"
Akito looked at him, slightly offended. "What? You say that like it's weird."
"It is weird to them." Toy confirmed. "You're going to scare people if you keep ordering huge quantities of food."
"It's fine. It's not like I'm harming anyone."
They decided to change the topic, continuing their conversation about whatever was going on at school, their studies (minus Akito) and their interactions with people.
When the food finally arrived, they could barely see the wooden table with all the plates of pancakes on top. Toya had only occupied a small part of the table with his coffee, whilst Akito hogged the rest of the space.
Akito wasted no time and devoured the pancakes with ease. It took him less than fifteen minutes to finish all five plates of pancakes, barely leaving anything on the plate.
Toya was casually sipping his coffee, taking in what was normal to him of Akito's appetite. This was certainly not the first time he'd witnessed Akito's appetite.
"It's still impressive how you have a big appetite and can finish so quickly." Toya commented.
"Being an uwabami, I can't help my appetite being so endless. It's either a blessing or a curse because I always feel like I'm starving." Akito patted his stomach, his hunger finally sated.
"Oh right, I forgot I needed to give you something."
Watching Akito leaning back on his chair, visibly content, Toya suddenly remembered he had something waiting in his bag.
Akito blinked, "You got something for me?"
Toya nodded and reached for his bag, resting it on his lap as he unzipped it. He rummaged around for a moment and once he felt it, he pulled it out, revealing a small hairpin.
"This is for you."
Toya held it out in front of Akito; a delicate flower rested at the top of the hairpin.
Taking the hairpin from the other, Akito examined the details of the flower and on closer inspection, he realised why it looked so familiar.
"This flower... isn't it from one of your earrings? Why are you giving me this?"
"Yes." Toya answered, his expression nonchalant. "You told me they were pretty, so I thought to give you one to keep."
"That doesn't mean I want it, dude!" Akito blushed.
Back then, he had only said it absentmindedly, not paying much attention to his words and how Toya would remember them and act upon them.
However, upon hearing Akito's words, Toya's gaze unexpectedly dropped, "Oh, I see..."
His gaze only dropped ever so slightly, but being his partner, Akito immediately noticed the change and already felt bad for being the cause.
"But I'll take it anyway." Akito held the hairpin close, "You already turned it into a hairpin, so I might as well keep it. I appreciate it, thank you. I'll make sure to wear it on my days off."
Satisfied with Akito's answer, Toya nodded. "Mn, I'm glad."
They stayed at the cafe for a while longer, chatting about trivial things to each other and enjoying their time with the warm sun and light breeze around them.
—
The sunset settled over the streets, lantern light flickering on one by one as night was slowly approaching. After their date at the cafe, they decided to head back to the Kamishiro estate and on their way back, they walked past the high school.
With his arms stretched behind his head, Akito walked on the pavement beside the school gate with Toya when they both suddenly felt a foreboding presence within the school.
Akito looked over at Toya, "You feel that too, right?"
"Yeah." Toya answered, eyes fixed on the school building. "There are yokai there. Evil yokai again in the school building."
"Let's check it out."
The air around the school building felt wrong. It felt heavy and stagnant, different to the usual atmosphere that they were used to. Jumping over the gate with ease, they entered the building.
Inside the building, it was completely empty, not a single soul in sight. As the sun continued to set, long shadows stretched across the corridors, clinging to the walls and floors, casting an eerie presence the two barely acknowledge. Unafraid of whatever lurked within the dark, they moved swiftly up the stairs to the third floor.
They could sense the core negative energy within one of the classrooms on the third floor; it pulsed with a deep thump. Humans may not be able to sense this feeling, but yokai definitely can.
When they reached the classroom, Akito slid the door open and the two entered. It looked ordinary at first, rows of desks and appearing organised and clean. They stood where they were for a moment, eyes scanning the whole room until they noticed the shadows beginning to move unnaturally.
The shadows stretched and slithered before it rose, emerging into a physical appearance. Multiple yokai of all lower class emerged from the shadows, some big and some small, but all surrounded by the same negative energy.
"So now they finally decided to show up." Akito muttered, closing the door quietly behind them.
Akito and Toya quickly exchanged glances before shifting into their true form. Light formed around them, their appearance only slightly changing from their school uniforms to their traditional yokai clothing. Horns formed on the top of Toya's head and small patches of scales were planted around Akito's body and once the light ceased, they stepped forward.
Truth be told, they were technically human-like already, so when they had to blend in with humans, they simply took just the horns and scales off and called it a day.
It was a good enough disguise as long as they didn't start going around using their abilities.
"This will be a bit difficult for me if I don't want to wreck the entire school building so I'll be heavily relying on you, Toya." Akito said, cracking his fingers ready.
"Of course, let's make sure we don't ruin anything."
As a uwabami, his abilities were more on the larger scale. This included storms and floods, both unnecessary in their current situation unless he hated school that much to release a natural disaster and destroy it.
Toya's abilities, on the other hand, were more precise and controlled. As an oni, his dark energy can be used in smaller spaces with very little damage to the surroundings compared to Akito's.
Before the evil yokai could do anything, they split off, taking separate fights as they knew the other could handle it alone.
Toya used his dark energy to create shadows of his own and splat the yokais down, taking them out efficiently without doing much. These yokais weren't anything special; most likely lower-classed yokais and nothing more.
The only problem was the fact that it's becoming common now, where lower-classed yokai would appear once in a while.
Being in a closed-off space, Akito relied on his physical abilities. He lunged forward and jumped onto one of the taller-looking yokais, wrapping his arms and legs around before squeezing tightly until the yokai burst.
They were halfway into finishing off the yokai when all of a sudden, one of the smaller yokai dashed past Toya and headed straight for Akito, who was occupied with another yokai.
Seeing the yokai going past him from his peripheral vision, Toya let out a shout.
"Akito, watch out!"
The warning came a bit too late and despite being small in stature, the small yokai landed a strong hit into Akito's side.
"Fuck!"
His body slammed hard against the wall, which earned a curse under his breath. Toya swatted one of the yokai in front of him away and rushed towards Akito, but he was a second too late before another yokai struck Akito, sending him flying.
Unable to stabilise himself from the first impact, Akito couldn't defend himself from the second and the direction of the impact led him flying into the window. The window shattered as his body crashed through it, glass exploding outward as he fell and disappeared from Toya's view.
"Akito—!"
Toya's first instinct was to go after Akito to see whether he was okay, but all the yokai started surrounding him. The number of yokais seemed to have increased as well, probably because of the negative energy this has created.
Rage surged through Toya, his disdain impossible to contain any longer. Toya's surroundings reacted to his intense emotion, glaring at the mob of yokai. He then closed his eyes and immediately, the air seemed to drop even more as his energy intensified.
Hands raised and clasped together, small purplish white onibis started appearing around Toya. He opened his eyes again, revealing silver that glowed violently as his eyes narrowed.
The beads around Toya's neck also glowed and floated as if there was an invisible force; it looked as though the beads could barely contain Toya's powers, wavering and quivering under the pressure.
The beaded necklace around his neck was gifted by Rui to suppress his actual powers. Before Toya joined Rui's army of yokai and Akito, he couldn't suppress his powers and therefore brought destruction everywhere he went.
So when Akito found him, Rui had given him the necklace to help. In terms of strength, Toya was seen to be the second strongest in Rui's yokai army if he didn't hold back his potential.
The yokai recoiled back, realising the immense danger they were in. Giving no room for mercy towards the yokai, Toya silently commanded the onibis and they shot towards the group of yokai.
Despite the onibis being small fireballs, they weren't actually hot if a human or other yokai touched them. They were only dangerous if Toya wanted them to be.
When the onibis landed on the yokai, their bodies were instantly engulfed in flames. The yokai were the only things that were burning, whilst everything else was left unscathed.
Toya watched with an indifferent expression, eyes glazed with spite. He wanted the yokai to suffer more, this was not enough for what they had done to Akito.
Whenever Akito was injured in any of their previous missions, Toya would get worried easily even if it was a small injury.
After all, he was still grateful to Akito, who had found him. So watching him being flung outside, Toya thought it was only fair if the yokai suffered more.
He was about to raise his hand, ready to increase the heat's intensity when suddenly, warmth covered his eyes.
"That's enough." A voice called out from behind.
Akito's voice was close and steady.
Toya froze, his hand halting from mid-motion as another hand intertwined with his.
"I'm fine." Akito continued. "You don't need to lose it, Toya. If the beads breaks, we'll be in trouble."
His hands were gentle as they covered Toya's eyes, grounding him.
Toya's breathing evened out, he then turned to face Akito.
"Are you alright?" He asked, voice filled with concern.
"Of course, I just landed on my ass so it's a bit sore there."
Toya scanned Akito from head to toe and other than his hair and clothes slightly being a mess, he was actually fine.
The pressure in the room eased. The flames and onibis faded away, leaving a pile of black ashes on the floor. He didn't realise it before, but he had already taken out all the yokai in the room with his flames.
Relief washed over Toya as he let out a sigh, his energy stabilising itself back to normal.
The classroom was quiet again and they began clearing up the area, which wasn't a lot. The pile of ashes had already faded and the negative energy was disappearing as well. They left the shattered window and broken glass alone, opting to find a stone and just use the excuse that someone accidentally threw it or something.
"I hope they don't find it suspicious." Toya muttered, looking down at the glass pieces littered around the floor.
"It'll be fine. At least there wasn't anything else that was damaged."
They were still in the middle of their conversation when hurried footsteps echoed down the hall.
"Woahhhh—! You guys already defeated the yokai?!"
Bright blonde hair popped out from the door, eyes wide as he took in the empty classroom.
"Oi, Rui! We don't need to worry about it, they've taken care of everything!"
"Fufu, I know."
Rui's voice could be heard down the corridor, seemingly like he was just leisurely walking without a care. As the nurarihyon, he doesn't have much to worry about.
"Then why did you let me run all the way here?!?!" The other shouted back.
"You were just so fast on your feet, Tsukasa-kun."
"That's not the point!" Tsukasa turned and rushed back to where Rui was, seemingly ready to throw hands at the other.
Akito and Toya watched as Tsukasa had first briefly popped up before disappearing again, likely to return with Rui in tow.
first popped up and now is gone, but will most likely be coming with Rui in tow.
"...Who the heck is that human?" Akito flat-out said, with a blank unimpressed expression displaying on his face.
Toya took a few steps and stood next to Akito, "Assuming he knows Kamishiro-senpai, he must be the human that he's been so fond of recently."
"Fantastic." Akito muttered. “Come on, let’s go find them and report back. We can just leave the broken window, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Mn, hopefully. Are you sure you’re alright?”
As they left the classroom and Toya still scanning Akito’s entire body for any injuries, they walked out to meet up with the other two.