Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

July 22, 1969:

They really did it. They made it to the moon.

Yugi Amane stared at the tantalizing video with the rest of his classmates, but he wasn't paying attention.

Tsuchigomori Ryuujirou, Amane's homeroom teacher, had noticed. Amane had always been one to love astronomy, and frankly, Tsuchigomori was a bit disappointed that Amane didn't seem nearly as interested in the moon landing as the rest of his peers.

Tsuchigomori had noticed a lot in the way of Amane's behaviors. How he was uncomfortable with being stared at or touched. How he always seemed to "forget" the date of the change into the summer uniform for about an extra week. How he loved science, specifically Earth science, but was failing the class. Along with most of his other classes. How he fell asleep often during lectures, skipped class, and sometimes vanished from the school entirely for days at a time.

But above all, he noted the cuts and bruises Amane showed up to school with. Of course, everyone else saw it too, but all they did was spread a bunch of rumors. Tsuchigomori had taken it upon himself to help patch Amane up from time to time.

The situation was worrying, so one day Tsuchigomori found Amane's book in the 4 O'Clock Library. He was almost surprised when he read what would happen: Yugi Amane would become a science teacher at this very academy.

But of course he would. On second thought, nothing could have made more sense. He sighed with relief at the reassurance. Everything would work out.

Despite already knowing what was happening, he still constantly pestered Amane with questions about the injuries, but to no avail. Amane was as quiet as he was stubborn.

As his class was infatuated with the moon landing video, Tsuchigomori glanced at Amane, whose eyes had drifted from the screen to the sky outside. He saw that his student had numerous new cuts on his wrists and forearms that weren't there the day before. He made a mental note to help Amane clean up a bit when he had the chance.

At the end of homeroom, while everyone was leaving, Tsuchigomori called out, "Yugi."

Amane jumped slightly, startled, before answering, "Yes, sensei?"

"That's really something, isn't it?" Tsuchigomori asked, gesturing to the screen, where the video was muted but still playing.

"Oh, yes. It is," Amane replied softly, glancing up at the video once more with a small smile that Tsuchigomori knew was fake.

The next morning the Yugis were found dead in their house.

Chapter Text

July 24, 1969:

Walking into homeroom had never been so difficult. Tsuchigomori was the teacher, but he felt like a student arriving to be scolded for something stupid.

How could this have happened?

As he walked in, all of his students stared at him quietly. No one was rushing to finish homework or joking around as usual. Naturally. Each of them had already heard some version of the story, but they were waiting for a real answer.

It was almost painful for Tsuchigomori to glance at the window row, where Amane used to sit doodling, daydreaming, or sleeping.

It felt like everyone in the room was holding their breath. The only noises were Tsuchigomori getting out his attendance papers and the droning of construction machines outside.

Tsuchigomori drew in a deep, quiet breath before moving to stand in front of his desk and address the class.

"I am sorry to report that... a fellow student—Yugi Amane—has committed suicide." Tsuchigomori inhaled again, slowly, shakily. It wasn't something he had ever imagined himself saying. "His brother has also passed..."

He tried and failed to read his students' expressions. For the sake of keeping it short, Tsuchigomori had omitted multiple pieces of the story. It would be in the newspaper eventually, and he would leave it to the press to share the rest of the story.

"...It is believed that it is due to the fact that he suffered physical abuse among other issues at home, however, the investigation has not yet ended. So if you wish please pay your respects to Yugi Amane and Yugi Tsukasa."

Nobody cried. Nobody looked especially surprised. It was just quiet.

Yugi Amane was a gust of wind in a hurricane; appearing and dissipating without a trace. Some people simply aren't remembered as they should be.

The drone of the construction machines grew.

…

Tsuchigomori had a planning period, but the last thing on his mind was lessons. He had to figure out how the future changed.

For a long time he had kept Amane's book in a drawer in his desk. That way he could quickly get answers whenever something stood out from Amane's usual appearance or behavior.

He hadn't looked at it since the Friday before the moon landing. It had still been vibrant white, as if displaying the vitality of the boy. Vibrant because he was going to survive.

He was supposed to survive.

The book had indeed lied—the bright, happy boy who first walked through the school gates had been as good as dead for over a year.

Tsuchigomori almost hesitated when he went to open the drawer though he already knew what he would find. And surely enough, a thick, black hardcover book sat in the same place as the week before. Nothing else had changed. It felt cruel to Amane's memory that everybody's life continued on the same; the only difference was that they had one less person to start rumors about.

But his homeroom teacher knew—Yugi Amane was so much more than what met the eye. He and his family deserved a better memory than a small article in the newspaper that everyone would discard without sparing a glance at.

Tsuchigomori picked up Amane's book and flipped it open to the last pages. The book didn't seem any thinner. Rather, everything was blank.

He turned to the first page. April 5, 1968. All of the information was still there.

He turned to Amane's last day. July 23, 1969. He found it was covered in black. It wasn't synonymous to the red coloring of the books when the future was read by someone other than Tsuchigomori; it was much different. It looked like an ink spill that was hastily dried: the page was wrinkled, illegible, and it began to crack when bent. He looked at the previous page.

July 22, 1969

Today's big events:

- Yugi Amane watches the Apollo 11 mission in homeroom. The television is brought in specifically for this day.

- Yugi Amane is found by Tsuchigomori Ryuujirou while skipping class, hiding behind a window curtain in his homeroom classroom.

- Yugi Amane loses his house key and has to climb in through a first-floor window when nobody answers the door.

Nothing had changed. Why? Why wasn't there some sign of Amane's plan for that night and the resulting fatalities?

Amane half-jokingly told his homeroom teacher what a worrywart he was once while he was bandaging the boy's arms. But now, Tsuchigomori couldn't help but wonder why he couldn't have worried more.

After checking every single page after the twenty-third, Tsuchigomori ripped out all of the blank papers and threw them away. He didn't want a representation of the time his student was supposed to have left.

Unable to bear looking at his deceased student's book any longer, he carefully closed it and buried it in his lesson plans in the drawer. He wouldn't look at it for a long time.

A very human feeling was boiling in the pit of his stomach and tightening his chest that he didn't like. It was time to move on.

Walking from his classroom to a staff meeting, he decided those guilty thoughts wouldn't be revisited again.

…

Tsuchigomori was never one to do laundry. He didn't exactly know how to, as a supernatural, and only went to some cleaners every now and then if the day was being especially cruel to him.

That was, at least, until one of his coworkers asked, "Hey, isn't that the same jacket you've worn all week?"

The overworked, spider-like homeroom teacher was too tired to make up a lie, so he just shrugged and took a long drag from his pipe.

However, the interaction did make him realize that he hadn't actually taken the time to go to the cleaners in weeks.

With the help of School Mystery No.2, Yako, and the hundreds of thousands of items lying around in her boundary, he had gotten a washing machine. A very old, dusty, broken down one, though.

Despite his annoyance at Yako for butting in the situation, payday wasn't for a while and he had no other way to go about efficiently cleaning his clothes. Yako wasn't eager to help Tsuchigomori either, but it gave her an excuse to use the comfortable shelter of his desk for a nap later on.

So there they were, in his candlelit boundary, trying to figure out how a washing machine worked.

"You gonna get that awful machine working anytime soon?!" Yako called from a perch on one of the highest shelves. She was trying to sleep and the machine's screechy, caterwauling, not-at-all-washing-machine-noises from each attempt to run it were quite annoying.

"Why don't you give it a try then, Ecchinoccocus?"

"I did my part by getting it for you," Yako said matter-of-factly.

Tsuchigomori sighed. "If you're not gonna do anything, then why are you still here? Go back to your boundary or something."

"Can't you see I am doing something? I'm trying to sleep, which I could be doing if you'd get that dang thing to run properly!"

"Sleep somewhere else if you're not gonna stop whining, Ecchinoccocus."

"Hmph."

"I won't let you sleep under my desk anymore."

"Ugh, fine," Yako groaned in defeat and hopped down from the shelf. "But just so you know, I can't actually do much in the way of helping you." Yako held up one of her paws.

A loud, metal screech was followed by a string of grumbled words from Tsuchigomori. "Just grab my jackets from over there," he said and pointed to where they hung on a coat stand. Yako pretended not to notice that the stand had been stolen from her boundary and, using her two front paws, successfully yanked both jackets off the stand without tipping it over. She made sure not to rip them, either, because Tsuchigomori definitely wouldn't let her sleep under his desk if she did.

Without looking behind him, Tsuchigomori said, "Good, now make sure I don't have anything in the pockets, okay?"

Yako grumbled in response and went to search the pockets. She found some pens and Bekko candies. As she dug around in the last pocket, her paw hit something cold and hard.

"Ne, No.5, what's this?" She pawed it from the heap of white fabric onto the stone floor. "Why are you carrying a rock in your pocket?"

She barely finished her question when Tsuchigomori was holding her by the tail with one hand and putting the rock the pocket of his pants. "Don't ever touch that again," he warned threateningly.

Yako didn't hesitate to break free of his grasp and bite his hand. "You tryna die?! Never grab me by the tail like that unless you plan to lose a limb!" She landed softly on all fours and stalked out of his boundary. "Tch. Emo," he heard her mumble before nudging open and walking through the door to the school library.

Once she was gone, Tsuchigomori took the rock back out of his pocket, turning it over in his gloved palm and examining it from every angle.

"Even a rock like this... can go that far."

In each memory he recalled, Tsuchigomori saw something different he could have done. Something different he could have said.

And, maybe, if he had, Yugi Amane would still be alive. He would be walking home now, with his twin brother at his side.

Soon they would have been taken into their aunt's custody. They would have moved out of town, far away from their ruinous parents. They would have lived happily, and, come the passing of ten years, Amane would return to Kamome as a teacher.

What a good future. Almost like a dream. Tsuchigomori couldn't help but think that perhaps the future written in Amane's book always was a dream.

A hope of a brighter tomorrow, a convenient future of the day he would finally be free. Perhaps he had been freed, only in a different way.

Or he could be stuck, still suffering somewhere. Tsuchigomori couldn't shake off all of the possible situations his former student might have been suffering; they haunted him like petty spirits. All of the possible situations that could have been avoided if he had taken action while he still had the chance. He swallowed, fighting against the lump in his throat. No human emotions.

Tsuchigomori pocketed the rock once again.

Guilt was a human emotion. No guilt.

He gave up on the laundry machine and left his boundary.

…

Tsuchigomori was seated at his desk, checking the day's attendance before he would turn it in to the faculty director. Yako was asleep under his desk. He couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him. Every time he looked up, though, all he saw was the small flutter of the window curtain.

He came across the page for Class 2-2. His homeroom class. He scanned the list of names and the markings next to each name.

The list blurred and re-focused as he skimmed to the last few on the page.

Ohto Iro

Ryouji Fukura

Shirota Aida

Tanaka Eito

Tomoya Nagisa

Yugi Amane

Tsuchigomori stared at the empty square next to his name. Yugi Amane had not shown up to school today. Yugi Amane would never show up to school again.

"Excuse me, sensei?" a small voice called next to him. He looked up to see Izumi Yuno, a girl in his homeroom.

"What is it, Izumi-san?"

"Ano... I... um, I'm sorry for not being in science today. I-I had to go to the nurse." She gave a deep, apologetic bow.

"It's all right. I assume you've come to ask for the homework sheet?"

Izumi raised her head. "Y-Yes."

"I'll get it for you." Tsuchigomori stooped over to get today's worksheets out of his drawer, his fingers skimming over the cover of Amane's black book.

Tsuchigomori quickly gave himself a mental reminder to not think about his former student and reached for the science worksheets underneath the book.

"Here," he said, closing the drawer and handing her the paper. She accepted it with a smile.

"Sensei," she almost whispered, "it's the Star Festival in town tomorrow night, right?"

"I believe so."

"It's so late this year... but anyways, I was thinking, um, that I would use my wishing slips to pray that Amane-kun is doing well. I don't think... he has anyone else to do that for him."

"I see. That's very kind of you, Izumi-san," Tsuchigomori replied.

"I just... thought you should know that he's being remembered... and that we all regret not talking to him more, or including him more... and..." Her voice trailed off and she looked as if she might cry.

Of course it was about regret. Regret towards the dead is stronger than any other emotion towards the living.

But Tsuchigomori felt it too. Since he had heard the news, all he had been thinking about were things he could have or should have done.

Izumi wiped away a tear forming in her eye and sniffled. "On Tuesday, while we watched the moon landing video... Amane-kun always liked astronomy, so I thought he'd be interested... but he wasn't paying a-any attention... I should have realized something was wrong. I should have talked to him that day, then maybe he wouldn't have g-gone off and... and..." Izumi broke down in tears, repetitively wiping her eyes and sniffling.

"Izumi-san."

She said nothing.

"Izumi-san," Tsuchigomori said, more sternly. She opened her eyes to look at him properly. "Don't go assuming that any of this was your fault, okay? It was out of your hands."

She drew in a shaky breath and nodded slowly. "R-Right."

Tsuchigomori nodded curtly and looked back at Amane's name on his attendance sheet.

"I'm s-still going to pray for him. Him and his brother. At the festival. Well, th-thank you for the papers, sensei."

"Of course."

"See you tomorrow." She gave a shallow bow before turning and leaving Tsuchigomori alone in the quiet classroom.

He could have sworn he saw someone dashing out of the classroom in the corner of his eye, but when he looked up, nobody was there. It was probably all in his head. It had been quite a week, after all.

He looked back down at the attendance sheet. He scratched out Yugi Amane's name.

…

July 25, 1969. It had already been five days since the moon landing. Two days since the future was permenantly altered. Tsuchigomori hadn't told any of the Mysteries about the truth of the situation and as of late, Yugi Amane's book was still stashed in his drawer safely.

Tsuchigomori always arrived hours early to school because, well, he never actually left. Most days he just pretended to leave, and went to the convenience store instead for some Bekko candies (they were his favorite and the Mokke liked them, so it also took care of their pestering for candy). When he got back, he would retreat to his boundary for the rest of the night.

However, Tsuchigomori had been feeling rather fatigued from the long school week. He shut himself in his boundary for the entire night to grade papers in peace and quiet. In the morning, the Mokke came around and started searching through his jacket pockets. He wasn't worried. They wouldn't take anything that wasn't candy.

But then he realized—he had run out of candy. And the only thing left in his right pocket was...

"Candy?" came a high-pitched, curious voice from a Mokke, holding up the round moon rock.

"No! Not candy!" Tsuchigomori tried to grab at the rock.

"Candy!" the Mokke celebrated in unison.

"No! Give that back you little—"

But the Mokke were already hopping away with their newfound treasure. Tsuchigomori groaned in annoyance and quickly chased after the small supernaturals.

The sun was beginning to rise as the offending supernaturals dashed through the building with the stolen moon rock, Tsuchigomori right behind them. Finally, after about ten minutes of chasing, the Mokke were exhausted and chased into a dead-end. Early-morning sunlight was already filtering through the trees and windows.

"We surrender," one said.

"We give you candy," added another, holding up the rock.

Tsuchigomori sighed, yanking the rock away from the Mokke. All they did was waste his time. Naturally. As he turned around, he saw the small flutter of movement again.

A supernatural? he asked himself, noting its speed. He walked to the intersection between the hallways and looked both ways. There was nothing.

Tsuchigomori told himself not to think of it and, keeping a delicate grip on the moon rock, walked to his classroom early.

To his surprise, there was already a student there when he arrived, seated at their desk. "Are you all right?" he asked while putting his bag down, not looking up. "How did you get in so early?"

He froze when he looked up, seeing the student's amber eyes staring back at him.

"Y-Yugi?"

Chapter Text

"Y-Yugi?"

"Um... g-good morning, sensei," he greeted timidly.

Despite always being exposed to the supernatural world because he was a supernatural, Tsuchigomori was still reeling. "Yugi... h-how did you get here?" he asked, sounding slightly more intimidating than he intended to.

"I walked," Amane said quickly, looking startled. "Am I... in trouble, sensei?"

"N-No, of course not, just... why did you come here specifically?"

"I just...just didn't know where else to go..." he answered. "I-Is it a problem? Because I can leave, if I shouldn't be here..." Amane got up quickly and moved towards the door. Tsuchigomori pretended not to notice how his student floated an inch above the ground rather than walking normally.

"No, it's okay. You can be here if you'd like."

"Really? Thanks, sensei."

He was calm. Too calm to be dead.

Tsuchigomori saw Amane smile before sitting back down at his desk. Tsuchigomori went back to organizing the day's worksheets and lecture guides, occasionally glancing up at his student to observe his appearance.

The chair could be seen through his chest. His arms were still covered in bandages, which were see-through like his body. Tsuchigomori imagined the afternoon sun shining through the windows. He would be barely visible.

Tsuchigomori had failed to notice the kitchen knife Amane had been holding behind his back when he stood up to leave. Now it lay out on his desk, clean and shiny. Unlike Amane's summer uniform, which was tattered and bloodstained.

"Sensei?" Amane asked meekly.

"Yes?"

"What're they working on next door? The construction zone?"

"Hm? Oh, that. They're planning on building a new school building right next to this one. They're setting the foundation, I think."

"Oh. A new school?"

"No, it's still Kamome. Just a new building with nicer, newer classrooms."

"But these classrooms aren't that old..." Amane said, more to himself than his teacher.

"Aren't they?" Tsuchigomori smiled. The school itself was at least a thirty years old, and poorly funded when built; it had only been through one or two renovations throughout its years. But then again, Amane had gone here for just above one year, so of course it felt new to him.

“They’ve been working on it for a while,” Tsuchigomori continued. “You never noticed?”

”I never noticed,” his student replied.

Amane had always been a daydreamer, paying more attention to his imagination than real life.

It felt wrong to think about him in past tense. He had died, but he was sitting right in front of Tsuchigomori, talking about a construction site. He didn't seem any different. Maybe a bit more talkative, but looking back, his few conversations with Tsuchigomori had been about his mysterious injuries, so naturally they weren't lengthy.

This conversation felt much lighter.

Amane had shifted his attention to picking through the objects remaining in his desk.

"Ne, Yugi."

"Hm?" he hummed in response.

"Today in science we're learning about neutron stars. You're more than welcome to stick around for the lecture, if you'd like," Tsuchigomori offered.

"Thanks, sensei," Amane said, pulling fragments of ripped erasers out of a small pencil pouch.

"Now, I forgot the papers I graded last night in my... car, so I'll be back soon. You can stay as long as you'd like."

"Mm." Amane nodded once in acknowledgement and Tsuchigomori left the room.

When he returned with the papers, the classroom was empty.

…

Yako was sitting on a window sill and grooming herself when a curious voice called from behind her.

"What are you?"

She turned around and glared at whoever talked to her. It was a student—no, a ghost—with dark brown, choppy hair and amber eyes. He held a kitchen knife in his right hand, keeping close to his leg as if to protect it.

"What's it to you, brat?" she spat.

"Oh, sorry for bothering you, Miss Fox."

"What did you just call me?!" Yako demanded.

The boy looked very startled. "M-Miss Fox...?"

"Yearghh!" Yako jumped at the boy and began clawing at his hair.

"Ow, ow ow!" he exclaimed, trying to pull Yako off his head. Eventually she gave in and landed in front of him on all fours.

"Hmph. Impudent brat. My name is Yako, No.2 of the Seven Mysteries."

"The Seven what?"

It was obvious the boy was not following and Yako was shocked. "You seriously don't know about the Seven Mysteries?" she asked.

"Um... no?"

"Ugh, I don't have time for this. Go find the rotten old spider or something and he'll explain it to you." Yako stalked off with her tail in the air.

"The rotten old spider?" she heard him repeat before she scampered off into an empty classroom.

Yako decided she would have to ask Tsuchigomori about the boy. He was a former student, clearly, but just a ghost. Shouldn't he have been in the Far Shore already? Exactly how hard was he trying to stick around the world of the living?

But most of all, she noticed the blood on his uniform. It was still red, meaning it wasn't very old. But Tsuchigomori hadn't said anything about a student dying, and most supernaturals weren't tapped into human news. She didn't expect him to say anything specifically to her, but the kid's soul was sticking around for longer than it should; that was something he was supposed to report to the rest of the Mysteries.

Not that Yako cared. Nope. Definitely not. Why should she bother herself with human issues?

She definitely wasn't worried about Tsuchigomori's recent behavior. It took some strong emotion for him to act so quickly as he had when they were trying to do laundry in his boundary.

Something was wrong. And it just didn't feel right to her. Not that she actually cared about that rotten spider.

Obviously.

…

Period 6: Science with Tsuchigomori-sensei. Yugi Amane often skipped it when he was alive.

He loved science, specifically astronomy, but it took the slightest difference in his appearance for his teacher to bombard him with questions he had no intention of answering.

But now, he was dead. So all that was behind him, he figured.

And Amane loved the stars, perhaps second only to the moon. And the life cycle of a star was quite interesting. So there he was, sitting at his desk with the rest of his class.

Invisible.

Somehow it felt the same as when he was alive.

Tsuchigomori no longer called his name for attendance. Amane didn't expect him to, of course. His name, after all, was always just a word on a page. A whisper on someone's tongue. A rumor floating about the school.

He was "Yugi Amane".

"That 'Yugi Amane'. Yes, the one who... "

"That's what I heard too."

"Are you sure?"

"Really? Where'd you hear that?"

"Yeah, that's what they told me!"

"I also heard he's..."

That was just "Yugi Amane". A person his peers created for mere conversation topic. But it was never truly him. And it never would be, now.

But that was his life, wasn't it? Always a vessel for others' satisfaction.

Tsuchigomori's voice snapped Amane back to reality. "Please turn to page twenty-six," he instructed. Tsuchigomori's voice felt more nostalgic to Amane, knowing he would never be physically present at a lecture again.

Amane forced himself not to become strangely sentimental, knowing that his teacher could still see him.

"Now, look at the diagram at the bottom of the page. That's the life of a red supergiant. The sixth sequence in its life is that of a neutron star. It occurs when a star at least eight times the size of our sun experiences a supernova; the residual energy forms a small star. Most of you probably know that a black hole forms after an especially large supernova, but that's not always true."

Amane smiled. He already knew all of this after all.

He got up out of his desk, careful not to move his chair and make noise. He saw Tsuchigomori's eyes following him while continuing the lecture. Amane floated around the class, weaving through the rows of desks and looking at all of his former peers. He tried to name some of them.

"Black holes aren't visible. The reason we know they are there is because of the objects seen moving around them. Where black holes lead is unclear, while there are multiple theories."

He found Ohto Iro, two chairs behind him. Izumi Yuno was next to him. The boy closest to the door was... Fukura Something-ji. Probably.

"Neutron stars, however, are visible. They are dim and small; if there is remaining radiation from the supernova, the star rotates and appears to have a slightly pulsing light. They are called Pulsars in that case."

While Amane floated back to his seat, he accidentally knocked Izumi's textbook off of her desk. He almost tried to catch it, by reflex, but remembered that that would be worse; which resulted in the heavy textbook landing painfully on his foot, to his dismay.

Injuries as a ghost felt... different. They made his whole body ache for a physical form. Especially his torso, where he already knew his wound still remained. His foot felt as if it had been stabbed right after falling asleep, forcing Amane to freeze in his place before the pain subsided.

Izumi gasped in shock and quickly apologized to Tsuchigomori before picking up her textbook. The pain gone, Amane floated towards Tsuchigomori's desk.

"Pulsars were discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell, an astronomy graduate at Cambridge University in England."

He saw that the middle drawer on the left hand side was slightly cracked open. Moving closer, Amane caught sight of a black book hastily thrown under a pile of worksheeets.

"Hayashi-san, please read aloud starting on page twenty—" Tsuchigomori's head snapped back to Amane, and he rushed over and slammed the drawer fully shut. Amane yelped at his sudden action and backed up towards the wall with his hands up.

The entire class was confusedly staring at Tsuchigomori. "Um... sorry. That's drawer's always breaking," he tried to explain, not effectively doing so. "Right. Hayashi-san, please, from the top of page twenty-seven."

…

After his last science class, Tsuchigomori found Amane on the roof of the building, looking at the construction site below. He was right before. In the sun, Amane could barely be seen.

"Kid, when I said you could join in for the lecture, I meant you could sit and listen, not cause a ruckus."

Amane turned around, startled. His eyes calmed when he saw that it was Tsuchigomori.

"Just never try to open that drawer again, got it?"

Silence.

He sighed. "Seriously, Yugi. Still won't talk, even now?"

"Ne, Tsuchigomori-sensei," Amane began without meeting his teacher's eyes.

"What is it?"

"Tsukasa... he's... he's okay, right?"

Tsuchigomori grimaced, unsure of what to say to the desperation in Amane's eyes.

But Amane wasn't finished. "Tsukasa... he was always so tough. I was the weaker one, s-so he tried to protect me, and now... but h-he's still alive, right?"

A look of guilt washed over Tsuchigomori's face. All of it could have been avoided. All of this.

Tears had begun forming in Amane's tired eyes. "Th-the Star Festival is tonight, he can't miss it... he can't... he loves the katanuki, and—and the firework show..."

"Yugi..."

"We b-both always loved the firework show, a-and every year I wished to be an astronaut, and he wished to s-stay by my side forever... b-but it's better for both of us if—if he stays here, right?" Amane fell to his knees and broke down sobbing, repeating I only wanted to protect him again and again in a blubber of words.

Tsuchigomori hesitated. What could he say?

What should he say?

He knelt down by Amane's side and patted his back in a way he hoped was reassuring.

"It's okay, Yugi. It's okay," he said, genuine sympathy in his voice.

Eventually, Amane calmed down, and wiped the remaining tears from his eyes as he breathed shakily. He slowly got up, and Tsuchigomori did as well.

"Well... I guess there's no use worrying about it now, right? It's in the past..." Amane said, switching to a lighter tone.

"Yeah..." Tsuchigomori agreed.

"Oh, right! Speaking of the Star Festival, have you ever gone, sensei?"

"N-No, I haven't." Tsuchigomori furrowed his brow, confused by the complete flip in Amane's mood.

Amane hummed in response. "Well, it's super fun! They've got katanuki and candy apples and a great fireworks show!" He used hand gestures and spoke animatedly. That meant liked the festival. In the few times Tsuchigomori had seen Amane genuinely happy, he had discovered how his behaviors changed when he was.

Tsuchigomori smiled. Even after death, he was the same.

"Hey, I think I can see some stands from here!" Amane exclaimed, leaning over the railing. "Can you see them, sensei?"

"Yeah, a bit."

Amane floated up to stand on the top rail of the fence.

"W-Wait, what are you doing? Stop that!"

"Sensei, you worry too much. I'm just getting a better view," Amane answered with a small chuckle.

But I didn't worry enough, Tsuchigomori thought. That's why you're...

"Yugi, get down," he said sternly.

"Come on, it's not like I'll die. I just wanna see the festival! It's probably starting in an hour or two, right?"

"Yugi, get down from there. I'm serious."

Amane spun around on the ball of his foot, balancing so he wouldn't fall.

"Yugi." The harshness of his voice told Amane that it wasn't a request.

With a sigh, Amane obliged and floated down, landing softly next to his teacher.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"It's fine," Tsuchigomori said, pausing before asking, "Yugi, what's your favorite food?"

"Um... donuts. Why?"

"No reason. Just a question." Tsuchigomori took out and lit his pipe. "Now," he said, taking a long drag, "I have to go to the convenience store 'cause I'm not skipping dinner tonight like I did yesterday. I'll be back later."

Amane frowned slightly. "You won't go home?"

"I will. I just have something to attend to here before I do."

He turned on his heel and left Amane alone on the rooftop.

…

Light from the setting sun shined through the windows of Kamome.

Two female students crept through the hallways until they came across a certain classroom. The taller of the two knelt down and, brushing her long blonde hair out of her eyes, pulled out a bobby pin and began to pick the lock.

The other girl, a short girl with a purple bob, knelt beside her. "Aki-chan, are you sure about this?" she whispered.

"Shh," the blonde girl, Aki, hushed.

"Okay, but isn't this a little—"

"Be quiet. And relax. It's not like I've never picked a lock before."

The purple-haired girl quieted down after that. After about two minutes, the door unlocked with a metal click.

Both girls walked in and immediately went over to the teacher's desk. Each moving to one side, they yanked open the drawers and sifted through the papers. Most were science related, mixed in with a few receipts from a local convenience store. Lots of Bekko candy purchases.

While the purple-haired girl shuffled through random objects on the desk, Aki opened the middle drawer and saw right away: a thick, black book. "Ne, Hina-chan," she whispered. "I think I found it."

The purple-haired girl, Hina, pocketed something from the desk and snapped her head up in surprise. "You did?!" she whisper-shouted and peered into the drawer her friend had opened. Aki picked up the book, throwing some loose worksheets and a small rock on the floor around her.

"Let's have a look here..." Aki's voice trailed off as she ran a fingernail along its spine. "Looks like it really is his. Make sure you take notes on anything I point out, okay?"

Aki found nothing of interest for a large portion of the book. She didn't need to know about how he went to the Star Festival with his brother, or wrote to his aunt and cousins weekly after they moved to Kyoto.

She didn't need to feel sympathy. She needed to find undeniable proof of his sin. She found nothing. Just the sad life of a sad kid the world was meant to leave behind.

However, she found it peculiar that the last page of the book was covered in something that looked like black ink. She squinted, unable to read anything that once might have been on the page.

"Shoot! I hear someone!" her friend whisper-shouted, effectively stopping her train of thought. "What do we do? Do we take it?"

"No, just gather anything that was in the drawers and put it back in."

"Got it."

Hina hurried to gather the papers that had been strewn about the floor, failing to realize that the small rock by Aki's feet belonged in a drawer too.

Aki tore the last two pages out of the book as Hina piled the papers back into the drawer and slammed it shut. She folded them and shoved them in her pocket.

"Get over here," she hissed, pulling Hina over to a desk in the front row and kneeling on the floor.

A male teacher they didn't know walked by.

"Yeah, I don't see it anywhere," Aki said loudly, effectively catching the attention of the teacher. The volume at which she spoke told her friend to play along.

"Really? I could've sworn I'd left it in science! Ugh, it was my favorite," Hina added loudly, over-dramatizing her voice a bit.

The teacher stepped in through the open door. "Are you girls all right? What are you doing here so late?"

"Oh, sorry sensei," Aki apologized, standing up and giving a shallow bow. Hina followed her actions. "My friend just thought she forgot her pencil case here, but it looks like she left it in another class."

"I see, but how did you two get in? The classroom doors are locked at this time of day."

"See, that's what I was telling her when she asked me to come here with her! But for some reason, when we got here, the door was unlocked."

"To be honest," Hina chimed in, "I thought the door would be locked, too, but I figured it was worth a shot. It's my favorite pencil case, y'know? I guess sensei forgot to lock the door before he left."

Aki nodded in agreement.

"All right. You two should go on home, it's late. I'll lock up here, and you can look for her pencil case on Monday."

"Hm... okay, then. I guess that'll do, won't it, Hina-chan?"

"I suppose. Well, thanks sensei. We'll be going now."

Both Hina and Aki gave one last bow before walking out the door, shocked at how smoothly their plan went.

"Hey, at least if our first career choices fail, maybe we can take up acting," Aki joked once the teacher was no longer in earshot. "But most importantly," she added, pulling the book pages out of her pocket, "we have something to research."

Hina broke into a coy smile and held up a classroom key. "And next time this will be much easier."

Aki laughed. "Oh, Hina-chan..."

…

Yugi Amane was very tired. He just wanted it all to end. He thought dying would be a release, but it had just been a door to another hell. He felt himself beginning to fade, slowly, each passing hour becoming more difficult to stick around. He desperately wanted to let go, but his mind told him something else:

I don't want to die again.

Dying once hurt enough. He wasn't about to jump on an opportunity for round two.

The dull ache in his stomach had returned by the time the sun had set. His mind was filled with questions he wanted to ask, but he didn't know who could give him an answer.

Above all, Amane felt lonely. Lonelier than he did when people flat out ignored him. Because when he was alive, people still knew of him. Now he was past tense. Something that had happened, and passed.

But he was there. Quietly.

That, to him, was worse.

He was still on the rooftop, looking out at the world he tried and failed to leave. The sun had set completely, and the Star Festival had started in the distance. Amane could see the lanterns from the stands and the lights near the big wishing tree. They lit up the horizon beautifully, like stars on Earth.

Amane didn't know what he expected would happen when he died, but it surely wasn't this. He felt as if he was asleep; as if any moment now, his mother would gently shake him awake and half-heartedly scold him for sleeping so late.

Once more he floated up to the highest rail of the fence. Since the rooftop was below him, he could hover. Just a step forward and he would fall without any near ground to float off of.

Watching his footing, he carefully walked on the railing. As he grew more comfortable, his eyes shifted to the festival on the horizon.

"Ne! Ne, Amane-kun! Stop that, it's dangerous!"

"Yugi, get down from there. I'm serious."

"Come on, Amane. What are you so afraid of?"

At the Star Festival, Izumi Yuno wrote her wish on the countless wishing slips she had collected.

Perched on a window sill in the school, Yako contemplated the looks of one of Tsuchigomori's coworkers.

At the local convenience store, Tsuchigomori counted the money he had brought compared to the price for a pack of donuts.

On the roof of the school building, Yugi Amane rhythmically stepped along the top of the fence to a song in his head. He turned to look at the rising gibbous moon behind him. He tipped his head up towards the stars.

He let himself fall.

Chapter Text

The next morning dawned bright and early. The air was cool and crisp; morning dew clung to the grass. It was shaping up to be a beautiful Saturday. It was a morning Tsuchigomori typically would have thought nice—if it wasn't for the relentless pestering of a fellow School Mystery.

Yako had started the conversation by casually mentioning how good-looking the PE teacher was, and then she mentioned the weather—both red flags. Yako would never make small talk with him unless she wanted something. Then she mentioned a brown-haired student with blood on his uniform, and Tsuchigomori stopped in his tracks.

"You know something, don't you?" she asked.

"No."

"You do."

"I don't."

"Liar."

"Incorrect."

"You do know something! I, unlike a certain gloomy spider, am not an idiot. And yesterday, you came back from that human store with donuts. You hate donuts!"

"First, you don't get to decide my likes and dislikes. Second, what's donuts got to do with this?"

"Why else would you be getting donuts if not for that human ghost? You know he's been here too long, shouldn't you be encouraging that he moves on to the Far Shore?"

Tsuchigomori sighed, unlocking the door to Class 2-2.

"No.5, what is it about that boy? What... happened to him?" There was genuine concern in Yako's voice, whether directed at Tsuchigomori or Amane, he couldn't tell.

But the word guilt made that human emotion start to form in his chest again, and he just wanted Yako to disappear and everything to disappear so he could be alone and suffer what he deserved for letting his student die.

Yako paused. "...No.5?"

Tsuchigomori stepped in the classroom and slammed the door in her face.

"Wha—hey!" she shouted from the other side, clawing at the door. "I try to be nice for once and this is what I get, you gloomy spider?! Fine. Ignore me, hide that kid from the rest of us, and suffer the consequences when it comes to that. I'm going to find Handsome-PE-sensei." With that, he heard her trotting steps recede down the hallway.

As he walked over to his desk, the first thing he noticed was the moon rock lying on the floor beneath his chair. He immediately opened the middle drawer and haphazardly threw all of the worksheets inside on the floor around him.

He sighed with relief—the book was still there. After cleaning up the floor, he quickly shuffled through all of the objects in the other drawers and the ones on his desk, only to find that everything was accounted for except the spare key to the classroom that he kept in a jar of pencils. He froze.

Whoever had broken in was planning on coming back.

…

Aki was never one to get sick easily. When she told her parents the night before, with an over-exaggerated cough, that she didn't think she could work the next day, her parents nearly sent her to the emergency room on the spot.

Her father was already dialing 110 before she could convince them that it was just a slight fever and she was fine. And, with great reluctance, they decided she could stay at home in her room.

But Aki wasn't sick. Rather, she had an investigation to conduct that could not be disturbed—well, except for having her mother's famous chicken soup. Which she ate for lunch.

Once both of her parents had gone off to work, Aki spread out the stolen book pages and the newspaper article from a few days ago on the kitchen table.

She picked up the book page with the least recent date and read:

July 21, 1969

Today's big events:

- Yugi Amane learns of the moon landing at school from Tsuchigomori Ryuujirou.

- Yugi Amane's father returns from his work trip, drunk and without money. Yugi Amane tells his twin brother to hide in his room until their father is sober.

- Yugi Amane writes to his aunt about his and his brother's living situation. The letter is destroyed before it can be mailed.

Nothing strange. Naturally, Aki didn't expect the evidence to be plain and staring her in the face. She read the next page.

July 22, 1969

Today's big events:

- Yugi Amane watches the Apollo 11 mission in homeroom. The television is brought in specifically for this day.

- Yugi Amane is found by Tsuchigomori Ryuujirou while skipping class, hiding behind a window curtain in his homeroom classroom.

- Yugi Amane loses his house key and has to climb in through a first-floor window when nobody answers the door.

Still, nothing stood out. She looked at the newspaper article. The title was in a large font, all capitals, below a picture of a house with a red roof:

4 PEOPLE FOUND DEAD, COULD IT BE A FAMILY SUICIDE?

Aki skimmed the article, though she had already memorized the whole thing.

They had been found by their neighbor, who heard screams coming from their house. She ran over in her night slippers; it was still dark outside. She screamed when she found the bodies. 

She could have sworn that she heard a small child wailing upstairs, but upon searching, found nothing.

She called her husband over, her husband called the police. They arrived shortly after.

The intervals of the deaths were too close to be sure who died first. There was no note.

The wife used a noose.

The husband overdosed.

The two sons had only one weapon between them: a large kitchen knife.

Only one set of fingerprints was on the handle.

Yugi Amane's.

It wasn't any new information. Sure, that was sort of proof, but no one was a hundred percent sure of what had happened. Aki needed hard evidence of the boy's actions.

"Aki," a female voice called from the stairs behind her, startling Aki and interrupting her train of thought. "Time's running out."

"I know, sis," Aki replied quietly, without turning around. "I'm just... preparing."

She chuckled. "Always planning ahead, aren't you, Aki?"

The corner of Aki's mouth tugged upwards in a small smirk. "Always."

…

Yugi Amane had learned five things:

1. The pink rabbits were called Mokke, and they liked candy and were generally harmless.

2. He could only touch things if he tried now—as a new spirit, his connection to the near shore was much stronger and it took little to no effort, but it kept getting harder and harder to interact with the living world.

3. Phasing through people was... an odd feeling.

4. He might want a change of clothes soon. His tattered, bloody uniform wasn't exactly an inviting look.

5. Weekends at Kamome were painfully quiet.

Amane had been following his homeroom teacher around all day before the latter agreed to tell him a bit about supernaturals if Amane would stop following him around everywhere.

While in awe of the new information, Amane remembered an important question he had wanted to ask: "Sensei, why are you here if it's a weekend?"

"I have work to do here."

"Are you even allowed to be here?"

"Sure. I'm a staff member," Tsuchigomori answered, not fully sure himself.

Amane wasn't done with his questions. "Sensei, why are you able to see me?"

"That's..." Tsuchigomori began before checking his watch and beginning to walk away, telling Amane he was running a bit late to a meeting.

It was now dusk. Amane never considered how quiet the school would get with nobody in it; it felt as if the silence had multiplied tenfold as the sky grew dark. He had walked the same hallways countless times, yet it felt foreign without the regular bustle of students and teachers. Alone in the building, besides coming across the occasional roaming Mokke, he liked make small noises by bumping into a chair or running his hand across the locker doors. He liked to walk. He focused his energy on making his feet as solid as possible and walked down the silent hallways, listening to the rhythmic tapping of his shoes.

Somehow it made the school feel a little less lonely.

Amane had always hated being alone.

Eventually, the searing ache in his stomach returned, and he stopped his walking. He phased through the door to Class 2-2. When he was alive, the room felt like a prison cell. Now that he was dead, it felt more like a safehouse. The only place that felt the same.

He floated over to the window sill and sat, hovering slightly over the wooden frame. The same place he stood when he was alive, wishing desperately to be able to fly away from this place with the birds in the sky. Wishing he could become a star, and sit back and watch the world he hated suffer without feeling any of it himself.

Wishing he could be anyone but Yugi Amane.

He looked outside with a sigh. There wasn't any point of reminiscing about the past, right? 

The moon hung in the sky; a waxing gibbous. A light that looked like he could just reach out and grab and keep safe in his palm forever, but in reality was so very far away. How foolish it was that he once thought he could go there.

The ache from his stomach wound grew more and more intense by the minute. Being in his human body hurt. Being in a ghostly body hurt. When would it all stop hurting?

He was startled by a sudden voice behind him. "'The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.'"

"Hm?" He turned to see none other than Tsuchigomori.

"Carl Sandburg, right?" He walked towards the window and leaned against the frame opposite of Amane. Illuminated by the moon, Amane could see that his teeth looked just a bit sharper than they had earlier. He brushed the thought off.

"Mm," he hummed in response and looked back outside.

"Yugi. You said... your favorite food is donuts, right?"

"Yeah..."

Tsuchigomori pulled a small package out of his pocket and held it out. Amane turned to fully look at him. "I got you these from the store yesterday. Have you had them before?"

Amane gently took the package from his hand. It was a small box that said there were four miniature plain donuts inside. Amane almost smiled.

"Thanks, sensei. But, um, am I able to eat?"

"Well, you can taste the flavor, and feel the texture, but you don't actually consume any of the food... it's a bit strange, and might take a while to get used to."

Amane nodded in acknowledgement before asking, "But isn't it kind of a waste?"

"You like them, though, don't you?" Amane nodded reluctantly and Tsuchigomori smiled. "Then it's worth it, isn't it?"

Amane didn't answer, and instead looked back at the moon outside. He didn't feel like it was worth it to waste anything on a dead person, let alone a murderer.

He knew he didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve anything.

But above all, he knew that Tsuchigomori wouldn't let up if he refused, so instead he changed the subject.

"Ne, sensei, why can you see me?"

His question was met with silence. Looking at his teacher, he could tell he was trying to come up with an answer.

"Are you like, one of those 'Seven Mystery' people?"

"H-How do you know about them?" Tsuchigomori asked immediately.

"I met one of 'em. Number... two? I think that's what she said. She was quite energetic."

"You met No.2?"

"Mhm! Do you know her, sensei?"

"You could say."

Amane furrowed his brow. "You still haven't answered my question."

"Which is...?"

"Don't stall, sensei. I asked why you could see me. Then I asked if you're one of the Seven Mysteries."

"To be fair, that's two questions," Tsuchigomori pointed out.

"Just answer!" Amane pleaded. "Are you or are you not one of the Seven Mysteries?"

"I guess you could say I'm... something like that. Point is, I can see and interact with supernaturals and apparitions," Tsuchigomori explained. "Happy?"

"Sure!" Amane answered, satisfied. "And speaking of, what are the Seven Mysteries anyways?"

"They're seven supernaturals that help keep the balance between the supernatural world and the human world. There's tons of rumors about them. You're never heard of them?"

"Not once."

They both fell quiet for some time.

Amane spoke again. "Sensei, have you ever wished... to go to the moon?"

Tsuchigomori paused before responding. "You know, I never really thought it possible. But look at what they've done. They have a flag up there, now, you know." He pointed up at the moon. "And it's hard to think of the limits of humanity if we managed something as incredible as that, isn't it? It makes you curious. It makes you think: 'where will we go now?' Doesn't it?"

Amane smiled. "Yeah."

Where will I go now? he thought.

And he realized he didn't have an answer.

…

Amane didn't find Tsuchigomori on Sunday. He figured he might be in the school because he knew how often his teacher was at school. But, after searching the entire school inside and out, he concluded that Tsuchigomori was nowhere to be found.

Not that he needed anything, but he was getting a bit tired of the school's weekend silence. So instead, he sat down under a tree outside and pulled out the small box of donuts he had been gifted the night before. Just as he was about to attempt to bite into the first donut, he heard the creaky school gate open.

He immediately snapped his head up, expecting to see Tsuchigomori. Instead, his eyes met those of a tall girl in a middle school uniform with icy blue eyes and long, blonde hair.

Amane's eyes shifted to her hand. She was carrying a sword.

"Oi! You're Yugi Amane, right?" she called.

"Y-Yeah..." Amane replied slowly.

Suddenly she held up her sword, and it was engulfed in—lightning?! Amane's mouth dropped open in shock, and his donut fell out of his hand and onto the grass.

"Isn't it time you disappeared?"

Chapter Text

"Please, you can stay, you... you have to stay..."

"Aki, you know I can't. I know I can't. Believe me, I don't want to leave, but I have to. So, I have one last favor to ask of you."

"Wait, please—"

" Aki."

"What do you...?"

"I'm asking you to exorcise me."

"What?! N-No, I—"

"You'll make it quick now, won't you, Aki?"

…

"Isn't it time you disappeared?"

Amane didn't understand what was happening. He didn't know what to do. He just ran. 

Willing his legs to move faster and faster, he headed directly towards one of the school walls. The girl wouldn't be far behind, he needed a barrier. He needed time. 

He heard electricity crackle behind him there was something looming overhead—a cage, but its bars were... lightning?!

Amane phased through the wall, praying it would protect him from the lightning cage. However, he didn't have time to figure out if it did; he just continued to run, phasing through anything he could, without looking back.

Finally, Amane phased through a wall on the second floor and found himself in the girls' bathroom.

I shouldn't be here, he thought, and then paused.

It was a Sunday. He was a boy in the girls' bathroom. He wouldn't be found here.

But then he remembered: he thought the same when he was alive in various hiding spots around his house.

As simple as a game of hide-and-seek.

As terrifying as a drunk father.

And he had been found every time.

…

Tsuchigomori was spending the Sunday locked away in his boundary. Usually, it would have been a nice, relaxing day, had it not been for an important question weighing on his mind.

He still didn't know why the future changed.

It wasn't some everyday event. This was the first time he had seen it happen. If he was going to try to figure out why, though, he would need Yugi Amane's book.

The thirteen-year-old at the center of it all. He had single-handedly changed his fate and the fates of those around him. But was he anything more than a pitiful, scared child?

Tsuchigomori walked to the classroom, the light shining through the hallway windows harsh on his eyes. He opened the door to Class 2-2. Nothing looked out of place, luckily, so there likely wasn't another break-in.

He opened the middle drawer on the left side and picked up the black book that sat inside. He flipped to the end and froze, his hand hovering just above the page. He hadn't checked the state of the book after the break-in.

The latest date in the book was July 20, 1969. The last two pages were gone.

Someone was searching for information about Yugi Amane, but not just any information.

Information about his crime.

…

Amane didn't know what he expected to gain from running away. It was a losing battle, wasn't it?

It's not like there was any point of him staying on Earth anyways, was there?

If he let himself be destroyed, wouldn't he end up going to... Hell? He didn't like the thought, but he knew: it was what a murderer like him deserved.

He slowly floated out of the bathroom, where he had been hiding for the over half an hour. If he was going to be killed, he didn't want to be helpless, beaten within an inch of his life, trying to escape. He wanted to die knowing it was his choice; he wanted to feel some ounce of control over himself and his actions.

He wandered around the building in search of the exorcist girl. After about ten minutes, he came across her in the school's garden.

She was still holding her sword at the ready, with occasional bursts of lighting engulfing the blade. She was looking, almost lazily. Amane could tell she had experience.

"Ano..." he called, his throat tightening as he hid his knife behind his back.

She whipped her head around and tightened her grip on the handle of the sword. It was clear she was prepared for a fight.

"I... I'm not here to fight you," Amane said, stepping closer. 

She glared at him. "Whatever plan you have, it won't save you," she spat. "You won't be getting anywhere by clinging to this world anyway. Give up. And suffer the consequences a murderer like yourself more than deserves."

"...Okay." Amane gently set the knife down on the grass and put his hands in the air, dropping to his knees. "I surrender."

While not letting her guard down, the girl smirked in predetermined victory. He heard her whisper a few words before returning to normal volume and saying, "Don't worry. I'll make this quick."

She lunged towards him, another cage of lightning bursting from her sword and taking shape in the space around them. She brushed past him, her sword gauging just below his collarbone.

He bit back a cry, fighting the tears starting to form in his eyes; he repeated It's what I deserve again and again in his head like a mantra.

He could feel the satisfaction radiating from her expression as she pulled the sword out and he fell on his side, curled up in agony.

Blood spilled from the open wound. His mind was fuzzy from the electric shock he received from the blade.

He wouldn't allow himself think that he wanted to live.

Because he didn't want to live. He just didn't want to die, either.

The girl kicked his good shoulder so he rolled on his back and placed a foot on his chest. She pointed her blade down and drove it into his lower thigh.

Amane cried out; the girl standing over him blurred as tears overflowed in his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut and silently begged that soon it would all be over.

The sword was twisted harshly and pulled out of his leg. He forced himself not to writhe or fight by instinct, expecting a final blow; but nothing came.

He slowly opened his eyes. The exorcist was still standing over him with wild eyes and a crazed expression, whispering a name he didn't recognize. When she noticed Amane staring at her, she glowered.

"It's time to die, now," she told him and raised her sword.

Amane braced himself for a searing pain that never came. Suddenly the weight of the girl's foot on his chest was gone.

"That's enough of that, Minamoto-san," a familiar male voice called.

Amane tilted his head slightly and, through his hazy vision, saw Tsuchigomori. With... more than four limbs?

The exorcist let out a short laugh. "No.5, it's nice of you to stop by. Where's Hanako-san, now? Has she finally been sent to Hell as she deserves?"

Tsuchigomori ignored her words and walked calmly over to Amane, kneeling by his side.

"Yugi, are you able to move?" he asked.

Amane responded by slowly heaving himself into a sitting position, trying to hide the amount of pain he was in.

"I won't forgive you," the girl called harshly from behind them, "for what you did. You're all monsters that should be purged from this world. And we won't stop until you are!" With that, she turned around and left.

"Yugi, can you walk? Or... float?" Tsuchigomori asked, but his voice felt muffled in Amane's ears. "Yugi? Yugi, are you all right?"

The world blurred and blackened around him, and Amane felt his last ounce of strength leave his body.

…

When Amane opened his eyes, he was in a dark room. Moonlight shined through a window on the wall, illuminating the floor.

He was sitting on the living room couch. He was calm.

Looking down, he saw his hands were covered in blood. A fouled kitchen knife sat next to his thigh. Scanning the floor, he saw the body of his brother at his feet, a large pool of red surrounding his body.

Tsukasa...

He looked so peaceful. As if he had just fallen asleep.

Amane smiled at his brother. Tsukasa would wake up soon, after all, wouldn't he?

"Ne, Amane, Amane!" a voice called from behind him. He turned to see a younger Tsukasa, smiling, holding out a new astronomy magazine. He whipped his head back around to where his brother lay just a moment ago to see nothing but a pool of blood covering the wooden floor.

Amane's seat on the couch gave way, and he fell into a black abyss. 

He was falling fast. He landed with a thud on the ground, still surrounded by blackness.

A voice. "I tried to be the best brother I could be, Amane." 

Amane turned towards the voice. He saw Tsukasa. He saw warm light filtering into the living room. 

"Yugi-kun, you can talk to me." The school rooftop. A sunset far away.

Class 2-2. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You have no idea how much I've given up for you, Amane-kun."

"I tried to be the Tsukasa you loved so, so much." His house. The large yard.

"I could have given you to him right then and there." Birthdays. Summer nights.

Stargazing. "I wished to stay by your side forever!" 

The Star Festival. Kamome.

His bedroom. "What would you have done?"

A locked door.

He saw a younger version of himself, pounding on the door, hoping it would give way, calling for his mother. Helpless.

A useless, pitiful child.

"Ne, Amane, do you ever think about just giving up?"

He heard his own voice answer. "Ano... what's this about, Tsukasa?"

"Well, you can't give up Amane. Because you have to stay by my side forever."

And he fell again, falling deeper into the past, into the life he loathed—

Oh, right. This is...

His eyes snapped open. He jolted into a sitting position, glancing around frantically, taking in his surroundings.

The infirmary. Past dark. Alone.

...a dream.

…

After an hour of watching over his student, Tsuchigomori left the infirmary and returned to his boundary.

What would Amane say when he awoke? What should he reply? Would the young Minamoto return? Why had the future changed? Dozens of various questions weighed on his mind.

First things first: the future. There had to be a way he could figure out what had happened. He couldn't find anything from Amane's book, even with the missing pages.

"Ne, Tsuchigomori-sensei. Tsukasa... he's... he's okay, right?"

Yugi Tsukasa. It dawned on Tsuchigomori that he had never once looked for the boy's book. When the twins were alive, Amane's book was always enough to get answers from. Because Amane was a victim.

He only had a few, vague recollections of Tsukasa's actions from Amane's book. But where, truly, did he stand in the entire situation?

Tsuchigomori decided he would find Tsukasa's book. Since Amane's future had changed, that meant Tsukasa's did too. What did his book look like compared to his brother's? It was worth searching for.

He spent about ten minutes just finding the right section to look in. Although it was his library, sometimes it was even a maze to him. What he saw on the shelf multiplied his worries and questions tenfold.

He found Yua Emi. He found Yuri Keito. Yugi Amane's was safe in his desk.

He checked once, twice, thrice.

But he never found Yugi Tsukasa.

…

Monday felt so much louder now that Amane knew what the school was like on weekends. He welcomed the bustle, though. His dream from the night before had left him feeling disoriented; he didn't even know that ghosts could dream.

He needed a wave of normality to wash over everything. And that normality would come in the form of his homeroom teacher.

Towards the end of the school day, he floated over to Class 2-2 to pester Tsuchigomori. And, all pointless bothering aside, he had some important questions to ask about what the girl exorcist said.

However, when he arrived at the classroom, he found that nobody was there. With a sigh, and nowhere else he wanted to go, he sat down at his old desk and looked at the board. There was a carefully drawn model of a small star's life cycle. Slowly, Amane got up and floated his way over to the chalkboard.

He traced a finger across the small pictures that represented each stage; the chalk didn't smudge. He whispered each one to himself as he made his way across the board.

"Nebula... Protostar... Main Sequence... Red Giant... White Dwarf... Black Dwarf..." 

When he reached the end, he paused. It amazed him, how something so bright and beautiful spent its whole life burning itself out of existence. To the point it was invisible. Hypothetical, even. No one was sure if Black Dwarf stars even existed. 

But Amane believed they were there. Just as quietly as him.

He jumped when he heard the door open. He was always easily startled, he knew. He turned, expecting to see his teacher.

Instead, he saw a girl with purple hair and purple eyes. She froze upon seeing him—wait, seeing him?

"Um, sorry, I just came to return something," the girl explained, holding up three pieces of paper: a newspaper article, a page that Amane assumed was from a book, and one of which looked like it went through an incident with ink.

His eyes followed her as she moved to Tsuchigomori's desk, opening a drawer and placing two of the papers in the back cover of a small, black book. She put the book back, placed one paper on top, and closed the drawer. Lastly, he saw her putting something small and metal back in Tsuchigomori's jar of pencils.

"Anyways... what's your name?" she asked calmly once she was done.

Amane hesitated. "Y-Yugi. Yugi Amane," he answered, instantly regretting it.

A look washed over her face. A look of knowing. He was that 'Yugi Amane'. There wasn't a person in the school who hadn't heard his story by now.

But luckily for Amane, she seemed to get over it quickly and introduced herself. "I'm Akane Hina. Nice to meet you, Amane-kun. Oh, is it all right if I call you that?"

Amane hummed in response. He couldn't care less. He just wanted some answers.

"Ano... Akane-san—"

"Call me Hina-chan, 'kay?" she interrupted with a smile.

"Oh, okay... um, Hina-chan, why can you see me? Are you like... an exorcist?" His voice was small, nervous about what the answer might be.

"Oh, you already met Aki-chan, didn't you?" she asked sympathetically. 

"W-Who?"

"Minamoto Aki-chan. She's my friend, um, and she's from the Minamoto clan. They're a family of exorcists. Don't worry, though. I'm not an exorcist. The Minamotos and the Akanes used to work together, though. The Akanes had the Kannagi, who was raised to marry God and keep the town safe. But, well, that was a while ago. Some oni servant to the Minamotos went on a rampage a while ago and a bunch of people died, so since then we haven't been sacrificing Kannagi," Hina explained thoughtfully. "The Minamotos, though, they're still exorcists. The Akanes just don't work with them anymore. So yeah! But our families are still kind of close, even after all this time, so Aki-chan and I were practically raised together."

Amane fought the urge to sigh. Hina talked a lot, and Amane was never partial to extroverted types of people. Except his brother, of course.

Not knowing how to react that much information, he just nodded with a strained smile. He did learn something he wanted to know, though. The exorcist's name was Minamoto Aki.

"Anyways, I just came to return some stuff, so I should be on my way. My parents will get worried if I come home too late. It was nice meeting you, though. See you around, Amane-kun." She turned on her heel and exited the classroom.

Amane sat back down at his desk and waited for Tsuchigomori.

…

Minamoto Aki always hated supernaturals and apparitions. Her whole family did. 

What was there to like about them? They disrupted the balance between the shores. They clung to life so desperately. For what? They would have to cross over eventually. There was no such thing as "living forever". Above all, supernaturals were dangerous. Most of them who had enough spiritual substance to stick around were guilty of something—murder, kidnapping, you name it. They were like cockroaches—no, less than cockroaches. Pesky. Loud. Annoying. Scum.

She had gone through the process of exorcism many times: trap, disarm, destroy. A simple three-step process. She had done it more times than she could count, and yet, she had never seen a supernatural or apparition simply give up. 

Usually the only conversation was a declaration of power when a supernatural claimed that they were unstoppable—only to be exorcized moments later.

Yugi Amane. He came to her, ready to be killed, like a lamb for slaughter. He knew his place, he knew where he belonged. If he did, why was he still clinging to the Near Shore? It had almost been a week since his death. He should have left.

But what truly struck Aki's core was the fact that he cried. A murderer, let alone an apparition, crying. Because of the pain? Because he knew he had to depart from the living world? Aki couldn't tell. He was the first apparition or supernatural she tried to exorcise that cried. She didn't know what to make of it.

Still, she knew it made her hesitate, and it gave School Mystery No.5 a chance to intervene. She didn't have to give up upon his arrival, but she wasn't prepared to go up against a School Mystery just yet.

"Ne, Aki." A voice whisper-shouted from the top of the stairs. "Are Mom and Dad gone?"

"Yeah," Aki called back, and a tall, lean girl with choppy blonde hair walked down the stairs and into the living room where Aki sat on the couch. 

"So, how did it go yesterday?" she asked, sitting down next to Aki.

"Um... I couldn't find him. He must have been hiding somewhere," Aki lied.

"Mm. Well, what about today?"

"Didn't go to school. Mom and Dad still think I'm too sick to leave the house."

"Then what did you tell them yesterday to let you leave?"

"Nothing," Aki replied simply. "They were at work when I left. And I even had time to give Hina-chan the research papers to return to No.5."

The girl smiled. "Stealing now? Gee, I think you're starting to act like me."

"Not stealing! Just—just borrowed... I guess," Aki said defensively.

"Oh, Aki," she laughed before leaning in and half-whispering, "that's still stealing."

Giving Aki a reassuring pat on the shoulder, she got up and left, and shortly after Aki noticed the lights in the kitchen flicker on.

She ran her hands through her hair and sighed. She was running out of time.

…

Tsuchigomori didn't return to his classroom for the rest of the day. Amane, who had waited for hours for the return of his teacher, was unspeakably restless.

He had as much energy as he did questions. What exactly had that girl come to return? Why did Tsuchigomori hide that he was a School Mystery? Why did his torso hurt so much even if he was already dead? Was he really going to disappear, even if he wasn't exorcized?

Most of those questions wouldn't be able to be answered without Tsuchigomori. But one thing he knew he could figure out—what Hina had come to return.

He floated over to Tsuchigomori's desk. Picking through the pencil jar, he found a small, metal classroom key. He figured it belonged to Class 2-2. Next he went to the drawer he saw Hina open and put the papers inside.

He opened it slowly. The first thing he saw was the newspaper article, sitting on top of the black book. It was an issue of the Full Moon Gazette.

There was a picture of... his house.

The title read: 4 PEOPLE FOUND DEAD, COULD IT BE A FAMILY SUICIDE?

He picked it up and began to read.

Chapter Text

Amane felt sick to his stomach.

Words on the page jumped out at him and stuck in his mind. Every sentence was a torturous attempt to choke the truth out of his mouth because the right words were on the tip of his tongue and he knew it and everybody knew it and how could he have been so so ignorant.

He had killed three people.

But only one's blood was on his hands.

His shaky grip on the article released and it fell softly to the floor. He wanted it to fly away from his wretched presence with the rest of the truths he ignored.

Staggering dizzily, he left the classroom and floated down the hallway and out of the building because he needed to go somewhere, anywhere away from the truth.

Murder. Knife. Noose. Overdosed. Suicide. Yugi Amane.

Go away go away go away.

He phased through the school gate. He floated mindlessly through the streets, telling himself he wasn't going anywhere in particular.

He floated and floated and floated for hours. The searing pain in his stomach already returned. He just wanted to keep going, keep floating until he ran out of energy and passed on to the next world.

He wondered why Tsuchigomori saved him. A murderer.

It was so obvious, how could he not have seen it before? The questions about his injuries. The rooftop. The donuts. The exorcism.

Tsuchigomori felt guilty. And pity.

Amane almost cried out of anger. He didn't need pity. He didn't need handouts because of guilt. What he needed was to suffer for his sin. He needed to disappear.

Why couldn't he just disappear?

It was starting to get dark. Amane blinked away the tears forming in his eyes and looked around. He found himself to be standing in the middle of a very familiar road. He looked to the left, and there stood the same house in the newspaper article.

The Yugi Residence.

The porch was taped off. Amane floated slowly through the front yard, up the porch steps, and to the front door.

He put a hand on the doorknob, wondering if it would be unlocked.

What would he find if he went inside?

His hand dropped to his side.

He didn't go in.

He couldn't.

...

Tsuchigomori found the Full Moon Gazette newspaper article on the floor by his desk. The stolen pages had been returned. The drawer had been left open. Upon searching, he discovered, the spare key had been returned too.

But the news article wasn't his. The two most possible situations immediately dawned on him:

1. The thief dropped the newspaper article while leaving and didn't realize. (Not entirely likely, considering the thief's previously demonstrated stealth, but not unlikely either.)

2. Yugi Amane had found the article and knows what happened.

From the second it crossed his mind, Tsuchigomori had a terrible feeling that it was the latter of the two. He immediately set out, looking all around the school grounds for his former student.

He couldn't even begin to imagine the state Amane must be in. Should he have done more to hide it from him? Or should he have told him right off the bat what happened to his family?

Tsuchigomori knew that if he had done anything about it, he would have just tried to hide it. Pretty lies are always favored over hard truths.

The teacher roamed the property, inside and out, checking every hallway, every classroom, every storage closet. Heck, he even checked his own boundary, only to find Yako there, taking a nap. Again.

He explained the situation, for some reason expecting advice as a response, but all that came was a "Why should I care?"

After angrily telling No.2 to go back to her boundary, or at least to her staircase, Tsuchigomori did another loop around the school, checking behind curtains and under desks. Nothing. There was no sign of him anywhere.

Had he left the school? Or worse, had the Minamoto girl gotten to him?

Immensely tired, Tsuchigomori reluctantly returned to his boundary. It was already dusk, and he had work to do before he could go to the convenience store to stock up on Bekko candy.

He decided he would give Amane time, knowing the boy must need it. If he wasn't back the next day, then he would search harder and get help. Perhaps he could ask some of the other Mysteries, or maybe some Mokke to help look out for him.

...

Amane returned to the school around dawn on Tuesday. As soon as he floated into Class 2-2, he was bombarded with questions by Tsuchigomori.

"You're so pushy, Tsuchigomori-sensei," was all he could reply. He knew he couldn't answer any of his questions without acknowledging what he had learned.

"I'm just worried, Yugi—"

"I'm not asking you to worry about me! So stop it already! I didn't need your pity when I was alive and I sure as hell don't need it now that I'm dead!" he shouted at his teacher, causing the latter to recoil in shock.

"Yugi—"

"Just leave me alone, sensei," he interrupted coldly.

"...Okay, then."

Tsuchigomori went on to organize his attendance book according to the day's schedule. He didn't look up at his student at all.

Meanwhile, Amane pretended to rummage for something left in his desk—for some reason, all of his belongings were still there—but truly he didn't want to leave the room. As angry as he was at his teacher, he was safest in Class 2-2 with Tsuchigomori. The outside was terrifying, he had learned, from last night as well as from his run-in with the exorcist Minamoto Aki.

Eventually, Tsuchigomori left the room, leaving Amane alone with his thoughts.

For the next few days, neither would bother each other, nor pay any attention to each other. Amane was no less angry and Tsuchigomori was no less worried. They would simply stay in the same space, the safety of Class 2-2, until one left, and the other eventually followed, making sure to go in opposite directions.

...

Friday, August 1st. 

The change of the month came abruptly; after his death, Amane couldn't care less about the date. 

But when he looked up at the calendar in Class 2-2 and saw the month, he realized: the world really was leaving him behind.

All he could do was watch as he was slowly forgotten.

He spent the day in the library, among the dozens of books. Specifically astronomy books, which were always his favorite when alive, and remained so after death.

In the dimly lit library, Amane was alone. But not lonely. He was surrounded by something he loved, so the unforgiving and constant feeling of loneliness temporarily ceased eating him up inside.

For the first time in weeks, he was entirely calm, dare he say happy. He floated through the shelves, picking through the books. He opened certain ones and flipped through them before gently placing them back in their places. He looked at diagrams of planets, of Earth, of places so much bigger and brighter than he ever could be.

And he felt so small.

But not insignificant.

He smiled, and he read, and he didn't have a care in the world because even if he was going to disappear, he had now. In that moment, it was enough.

He read for hours, immersing himself in the beauty of space. It felt so incredible, so close, that he finally understood how it was so easy to believe he could have gone to the moon. He was always one to find comfort in delusions of happy futures—and when reading about such things he loved, those fantasies felt miles closer.

His thoughts were interrupted by the soft stepping of shoes on the carpeted floor. He turned to see a familiar girl with short, black hair and pale blue eyes. Her look was slightly eerie, the way her eyes skated across her surroundings, standing out immensely against her dark hair. But despite all that, it was easy to tell she was kind.

Amane knew. When he was alive, she was one of the few who treated him like a human being with feelings. Every day, she greeted him with a smile.

"Good morning, Yugi-kun!"

He usually replied with a nod of acknowledgement or a mumbled greeting. A few times, she even invited him to have lunch with her and her friends on the rooftop. He decided to go, once, before he knew better. Afterwards, she stared calling him "Amane-kun". He didn't particularly mind, but when others began starting rumors about her, he knew it all had to stop.

As she looked across the library, he noticed how her eyes focused on him.

He looked down and realized he was still holding a book.

He grew nervous as she stepped closer and closer, looking curiously at the book. Amane set it down quickly as if it had burned his hands.

Izumi watched it for a few seconds before furrowing her brow. She looked back at Amane and asked, "Could you pick the book back up?"

Amane was entirely confused. He had brushed past her just a day before in the hallway and she didn't spare him a glance. Was she actually able to see him?

"Please?" she begged.

With a sigh, Amane picked the book back up. What harm could it be?

Izumi was instantly smiling from ear to ear. "Thanks!" she exclaimed happily. "Are you a ghost?"

Amane answered a hesitant yes, but Izumi didn't seem to have heard, because the next question she asked was whether or not he could talk.

"Ne, what about this?" she asked, taking a folded notecard and a pen out of her pocket. "Can you write?" She held out the pen and placed the notecard on a nearby table. Amane looked at her, and then the notecard.

Amane took it. He knew he shouldn't have, but he did. He refused to believe that it was because he felt guilty for ignoring her when he was alive. 

"So... are you a ghost?" she repeated.

She watched carefully with wide eyes as he wrote down his answer. 

Yes.

"Are you... like, one of the Seven Mysteries?"

Something like that.

"Ne, can you... commission another ghost here, or something?"

It doesn't work that way.

"Oh, I see..." she said sadly. "Then, do you think you might be able to find him and tell him for me?"

It depends.

"Mm." She swallowed. "You see, I—I was wondering if you could try to talk to Yugi Amane for me? Do you think... you could do that?"

Amane felt a pang in his chest. He wrote his answer slowly, and she watched intently as the pen moved across the paper. 

I'm afraid that isn't possible.

"Oh, that's okay, then," she said. "Thanks anyways. I'm Izumi Yuno, by the way. What's your name?"

Amane paused. Should he tell her? He wasn't sure, but he figured no good would come of it anyways. 

You shouldn't give your name out so easily, he wrote, before clicking the pen shut and dropping it on the table. He put the book back on the shelf.

Izumi paused and stared at the paper for a minute. The she collected her pen and notecard and moved to the history section of the library, likely picking up the book she came for.

Amane looked at a calendar on the wall under the clock. August 1st. The next Monday was circled. The start of break.

He realized he had something he needed to do first.

...

Amane floated around outside the school building as the students began to leave. When there were seemingly no more students in the school, he was about to give up, but he spotted Aki with Hina under a large tree near the garden.

He immediately floated closer, trying to act as casual as possible. Hina saw him first.

"Amane-kun!" the purple-haired girl called. "Hi! Come over here!"

Amane saw Aki's grip on her sheathed sword tighten. He hesitated.

Stop it, Amane, he chided himself. This isn't time to be a coward.

He couldn't hear what Aki said, directed at Hina, but the purple-haired girl hesitantly walked away. Aki began to pull out her sword.

"W-Wait," Amane interjected. "I'm not here to... you know."

Aki's eyes narrowed, but she sheathed her sword. "Then why are you here?"

"I... I wanted to thank you. F-For sparing me,"

"'Sparing' isn't the right word."

"Well, I guess," Amane said.  "But still. Thank you."

Aki kept her glare. "Are you sure you should be thanking me?"

"Yes," he answered without hesitation. "Ano... you're Minamoto Aki, right? I'm Yugi Amane." He held out a hand.

"Put that away," Aki spat. "I'm not looking to be friends with an apparition, let alone a murderer."

Amane quickly retracted his hand. "Oh, I see," he mumbled.

Just then, Hina came back with dirt on her hands. "Okay, Aki-chan. The flowers all look okay! Why were you so worried about them all of the sudden?"

Aki turned away from Amane and gently grabbed her friend by the wrist. "Come on Hina-chan, we should be going now."

Amane still stood alone under the tree when he felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He blinked, concerned, and waited for the pain to die down before beginning to float back into the school.

He was right in front of the doors when he felt another ache. Then another.

It wasn't dull, like it had been previously. He felt as if his torso was on fire. Nearly doubling over in the process, he floated into the school, feeling weaker and weaker by the minute. He wasn't sure where to go or who he should see.

No. Not who. He knew he had to deal with this on his own.

As for the former, he chose a familiar location.

A place to make him feel better.

...

The weak feelings came quietly. Like a flutter.

Tsuchigomori was grading papers in his boundary and he felt his strength waver. Only for a second. He brushed it off.

It came again before he was going to leave for the convenience store.

He figured it might just be the uncommon cold, though he hadn't been near any infected spirits recently and it wasn't the time of year that he usually got it.

Brushing it off once more, he continued with his evening routine. He tried to ignore how the cashier seemed quite scared of him when he went about paying for his usual purchase—he was smiling, so did he really look that intimidating anyways?

As soon as he walked out the door, he felt it again, stronger. So much so that he had to lean against the front windows for support. 

And, as he did, he noticed his appearance: the purple mark on the side of his face was visible and his teeth were too sharp to belong to a human. He quickly snapped his head down, fearing that he would see more legs than a human should have, but luckily, he still had two.

But something was happening. Something bad.

As he rushed back to the school, feeling weaker by the second, he ruled out the possibility of it being the uncommon cold. He didn't feel sick, just powerless. And if it had been the cold, he would have completely transformed into his supernatural form, considering how poor his strength was.

Tsuchigomori hurried through the school, through the library, and into his boundary. He thought, perhaps, that being closer to his source of power would help improve his strength.

Staggering, he slowly made his way to where his yorishiro was kept. He felt drained; he felt as if part of him was missing.

He opened the entrance, his vision repetitively blurring and re-focusing as he made his way through the cave-like tunnel. At the end, there were three doors.

He opened the one on the far left and walked into a room with no walls in sight. An open sky, near dusk, was above him. Clear water lapped at his feet. It resembled the land near the Far Shore.

A small, half-destroyed train car sat a few feet away. Small pedestals holding glass-housed gems littered the space around it.

Tsuchigomori made his way inside the car, minding the door, which had fallen in front of the entrance. He nearly fell over out of sheer lack of energy as he scanned the inside of the car for a small brown box.

"I haven't found anything to treasure in this world, so I can't take up your offer."

"Then how about I give you something to treasure?"

After locating it, he slowly picked it up and opened the lid. Inside sat a small gold coin. 

His brother's.

Tsuchigomori almost smiled, before he realized: the seal that used to be on the coin was gone. 

His remaining strength left his body, and he collapsed, the box falling out of his hands and clattering on the floor. The last noise he heard before blacking out completely was the light ringing of his brother's coin as it settled on the floor.

...

"You've got a fever, so you have to stay home!"

"N-No, I'm fine..."

Amane stumbled into the infirmary. It was empty.

"Hold it right there, young man."

He doubled over. He tried to land on the nearest bed, but was too weak to muster the strength and phased right through it, landing painfully on the floor.

"Really, I'm fine, I—"

"No, you need to rest! It won't hurt to miss one day of school."

Amane groaned in pain and slowly stood back up.

"It's not a big deal, I just can't miss today!"

"What is with you these days?"

He edged over to the sink. Looking up, he saw two exhausted amber eyes and a pale, pained expression staring back.

"Skipping class but always staying out of the house? Not eating? Not to mention your cuts and bruises that you refuse to explain!"

Amane's eyed the bandages still covering his arms.

"Don't act clueless! You know, you've always known! Don't act like this is a surprise!"

His eyes shifted to his bloodstained shirt.

"How dare you speak to me like that?! If you would just stay, I would protect you! Both of you!"

He gently touched the bloodied fabric with the tips of his fingers, knowing that not all of it was his own.

"Seriously? How can you say that, when you can't even protect yourself?!"

Amane squinted, nearly falling over again in pain. He wanted to empty his insides into the sink and curl up and vanish.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered, his voice cracking.

"Get back here, young man! You have no excuse to talk to me that way!"

He lifted a shaky hand to the bandages on his right arm. Carefully, he unraveled the first few inches closest to his hand. The scars were horrid; they were covered in crusted, dry blood. The skin around the edges of the wounds was a sickening shade of yellow-green, which was beginning to blacken.

Amane felt bile rise in his throat at the sight of it. He swallowed and took a deep breath before moving both of his hands up to his shirt's neckline. He undid the first button.

His throat thickened; he didn't want to look, but he had to know.

He undid the next button, and the next, and the next, and so on. When he was done, his shirt fell open, revealing his wound.

He looked away as soon as he got a glance. It was somehow worse than his arms. The flesh around the wound looked similar; blackened, stringy, sickening. But the wound was wider than a gauge from a blade.

Amane expected a lot of things, but he did not expect to be rotting. 

Quickly re-buttoning his shirt, he fought the urge to vomit.

Even if he didn't oblige to the pain forcing him to leave the living world, he knew that soon his ghostly body wouldn't exist. Not in a way he could function properly, at least.

He was going to disappear. He always knew that, but acknowledging his own body's state, it was painfully clear that he couldn't outrun it for much longer.

And all the while, a question imposed upon his troubled mind: why fight it?

...

Minamoto Aki hated Yugi Amane. She hated that he was an apparition. She hated that he clung to the Near Shore. She hated that he was so ridiculously naïve. She couldn't stand his stupid amber eyes and stupid brown hair. But above all, she hated how hard it was to hate him.

He was a murderer. And yet, he didn't seem like a bad person. Aki despised the part of herself that didn't want to exorcise him. Because she had to; it was her duty as a member of the Minamoto clan.

As Aki walked home, she pondered her plans to exorcize Amane. He would be passing on soon, she figured, so she wondered what the point of exorcizing him would be. After all, he was also under the protection of School Mystery No.5. Regardless of whether or not she needed to exorcize him to get him to pass on, it would be a struggle if she tried.

Preoccupied with her own thoughts, Aki was surprised when she found herself in front of her house already.

"I'm home!" she called as she stepped inside. "Mom? Dad?"

She took her shoes off and looked around for her parents.

"Nee-chan, they're still at work! You can come out if you'd like," she said up the stairs.

There was no response.

"Nee-chan?"

Nothing again.

Panic coursed through her nerves.

Was she found?

"Nee-chan? Saki-neechan!" she repeated, dropping her bag at the foot of the staircase and dashing to the second floor, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Nee-chan, are you there?"

She ran into her sister's room. No one.

Hurrying over to the bathroom, and then her parents' room, she heard a clatter.

Coming from her own room.

She bursted into her bedroom and saw: the lamp next to her bed was on the floor, the shade bent at an awkward angle. Small exorcist beads from her sister's old bracelet were scattered about the carpet.

And then there was Saki, leaning against Aki's bed for support. Breaths labored, trembling.

Her usual buttoned shirt was on the floor and was replaced by an old, loose t-shirt. The other shirt was thrown on the floor, covered in dried blood. 

Aki's eyes widened. Her grip on her sword loosened and it fell to the floor with a thunk.

"Aki," Saki whispered, "I think it's happening."

Chapter Text

Despite it being mid-April, light snow still swirled through the sky, melting upon contact with the Earth.

People came in and out of the house every hour. Extended family, neighbors, friends.

"An accident" they called it. Everyone offered their condolences. They offered prayers. They didn't offer tears.

In the corner of the kitchen, with her legs folded up to her chest, Minamoto Aki seemed to be the only one crying. Her face was red and her eyes were swollen; her hair was tangled from her furious tugging and playing with it as she tried her best not to break down in front of the guests.

Not even her parents seemed sad enough for such an immense loss, that Aki wondered if perhaps it was all just a nightmare. In a few moments, she would wake up to her grandparents calling her down for dinner, her parents scolding her grandparents for yelling so early in the morning, and the smell her sister's favorite western breakfast: overly burnt toast..

Staggering, she stood up, her black dress wrinkled, strands of hair strewn across her face. Sitting on the kitchen table was a white envelope; it was a cash donation to the Full Moon Gazette. Money for silence.

She heard the family elders arrive at the front door; they were the only ones who knew what actually happened. She heard pleasantries being exchanged, sympathy being expressed.

Then she heard something different. Despite everyone's voices being muffled from the other room, she heard, loud and clear, "I mean, you would think she would have at least been able to defend herself a bit. Being the daughter of Haruki, and ending up like that? It's hard to believe that's the truth."

Aki couldn't tell who said it, but she heard her mother's voice reply, "I know. Honestly, if I knew something like this would happen, I would have had the family focus more on Aki's training rather than Murasaki's. I always thought she showed more potential anyways, but Haruki was hesitant to put Aki out there over her sister."

Then her father's voice came in: "Well, in hindsight, you're undeniably correct. Perhaps now it's time for Aki's training to be advanced. We'll need her to assume Saki's place as soon as possible."

Another voice: "This will certainly tarnish our legacy for some time, but I'm sure Aki will be entirely capable of surpassing her sister."

Aki wanted to run in there and scream at them and tell them that they were all morons because their daughter just died but all they can care about is the family's legacy. Tears began to overflow again and her whole body was racked by the sobs. Eventually, sobs turned into hiccups into a fit of coughs, and she could surely be heard in the other room but she didn't care because they didn't care about her sister at all.

Though she knew breaking down wouldn't do anything. If she wanted to make them mad, or hurt, or feel something at all, she would simply need to ruin something they cared about.

She eyed the envelope sitting on the table. She picked it up, hesitating to make sure she still heard talking coming from the other room. The envelope was crisp, clean, and visibly holding a large sum of money.

Aki tore the envelope twice. Then, taking the money, a larger amount than she had ever held in her life, she ripped every single piece to shreds and let the fragments fall to the floor, like the snowflakes outside.

...

Amane's mind was going in circles.

He wanted to disappear. He didn't want to disappear. He wanted to be exorcized. He wanted to salvage his remaining time on Earth. He deserved to go to Hell. He didn't want to go to Hell.

Was there a Hell for him to go to? Or would he simply cease to exist? Or would he go somewhere else?

As odd as it seemed to admit, dying offered minimal answers as to what happens after death.

He spent the night and most of the next day in the infirmary, pondering his death, his life, and how much time he had left.

I don't want to die.

But it's what I deserve, isn't it? (That's right...)

I had no purpose in life, so it should be the same now, right? (Exactly.)

So I should just disappear, shouldn't I?

Amane slowly fell into a dreamless slumber, half-hoping he would vanish in his sleep, half-scared of closing his eyes as if it might be the catalyst that sends him to burn in Hell.

I should disappear... but...

He yearned for opposites—both death as well as life.

I'm scared.

No, that wasn't it.

Really, more than anything, he wished for an end to his pain. As easily as it could come about.

...

When Tsuchigomori came to, he was lying on the floor in the Bookstacks. His strength was still depleted, but he had enough energy that him passing out again wouldn't be a danger. At least, he hoped it wouldn't.

As he sat up, he noticed a bunch of small holes in the cuffs of his jacket. He stood up, hearing a familiar voice talking to him:

"Finally, you gloomy spider. I was starting to think you were dead, I was planning on taking off your limbs to be ornaments in my boundary." It was none other than Yako, No.2 of the Seven Mysteries.

"What... what happened?"

"What do you mean, 'what happened'? That's what I should be asking you! Why didn't you say your yorishiro lost its power?!"

Tsuchigomori was surprised by how worked up Yako was getting. "Well, I—I just didn't know anything had happened to it until I noticed the seal was gone," he explained defensively.

"You moronic emo! This is a big deal! You've been too occupied with following that dead kid everywhere and now you've lost control over your boundary!"

"Quit shouting, Ecchinoccocus. It ain't that big a deal, I'll have the whole thing fixed soon."

"Ugh. Can't you see this is going too far? Just let that kid be and we'll find out what happened to your yorishiro," Yako proposed.

Tsuchigomori immediately refused her offer, insisting he would take care of it on her own. Yako then scoffed, called him impudent, and stalked out of his boundary muttering about how she should have taken off his limbs when she had the chance and left Tsuchigomori to ponder about what happened to his yorishiro alone.

He tried to recall the cases in which a yorishiro no longer holds the power of a School Mystery. The first one was if a kannagi took off the seal. The second was if he destroyed the yorishiro himself. He struggled to remember the third—he was sure it was the most important of the three, based on what he had been told—but his mind drew a blank.

He decided to focus more on it later, and in the meantime he returned to his classroom to see if Amane was there.

Okay, maybe he did see Yako's point a little bit. But she didn't understand—the future had changed permanently; it was a matter of utmost importance.

He was surprised to find that the boy was not in his classroom. (He even checked behind the curtains for good measure.) But Tsuchigomori didn't know what he would have said to Amane if Amane had  been there, if he would have said anything to his student at all.

He went over to his desk to make sure the moon rock was still there; it had been stowed in the same drawer as Amane's book for safety. He sighed with relief once he saw it. Without warning, the third possibility of a yorishiro losing its power hit him: if the object no longer remained the Mystery's most prized possession.

...

It was the first day back after summer break, and Amane was relieved to finally hear the school bustling with students again. He wandered throughout the halls in the early morning as students started to fill them, pausing in front of Class 2-2. Tsuchigomori wasn't in there. He didn't need him to be, Amane told himself, moving on to follow some Mokke as they trailed one after another towards the hallway near the third-floor bathrooms.

Unfortunately, they ended up leading him to the spare classroom where a terrifying supernatural resided: one who roared "Give me your legs!" at any passerby who could see it. And occasionally tried to chase a pair of legs down for itself. (Amane had a less-than-enjoyable run-in with it some weeks prior, because of which he retreated to the safety of Class 2-2 despite another one of his teachers being in the middle of a lecture, which of course, had to be about suicide awareness.) (And frankly, looking back, he might have rather had his legs chewed off than to have listened to such a horribly delivered, far-off-the-mark lecture.)

The boy concluded that it would be safer on the school grounds outside, where most supernaturals preferred not to go during the day. To his dismay, however, once he made his way to the large tree in the schools garden, he found that someone was already there: a tall, blonde girl—whom he immediately realized to be none other than Minamoto Aki—was sitting in the shade of the tree, hugging a sheathed sword tight to her chest.

Chapter Text

Amane stared at Aki for a moment. Her eyes were swollen and red. Her knuckles were white as she clenched her hands into fists, the handle of the sword painfully being pressed into her shoulder by her folded arms. 

Amane hesitantly floated closer to the girl until he was noticed. Her eyes narrowed upon seeing him, but she didn't unsheath her sword. Amane assumed he would be violently rejected. However, Aki stopped glaring and shifted her gaze away from him.

"What do you want?" she demanded weakly. Amane noticed that her voice cracked as she said it.

"I... um, I was—er...are you...," he struggled for words. "Are you...okay?"

Aki still avoided eye contact. "What's it to you?'

In truth, Amane wasn't sure why he cared. His first instinct was to simply ignore her, but he didn't. Sure, it was probably the morally correct thing to do, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was more than that.

Perhaps, he pondered for a moment, it was that she reminded him of himself? Amane shook the thought off as soon as it entered his mind. She was trying to kill him.

Aki shifted awkwardly where she was sitting. Amane couldn't tell if she was embarrassed, annoyed, or a mix of both.

"Sit down," she said, and it didn't sound like a request. He quickly sat next to her (while making sure to keep a safe distance just in case) and asked her what was wrong.

He was unsure if he should expect an answer or not, but he got one. It took Aki a while to get her words out, though.

"Did you hear...maybe around half a year ago...about a girl who died in some 'dreadful accident'?" Amane couldn't recall whether he had or not, but Aki didn't wait for his answer. "Not many people do know about it, except some of the girl's friends, teachers, and family, and Hina-chan, of course..." Her voice trailed off and she stayed silent for a moment. Amane noticed tears in her eyes threatening to spill over. 

Aki sucked a sharp breath in. "Actually—well...I know you obviously wouldn't know this, but I have an older sister. Her name's Murasaki. And, while I've been training for the past few years, she's been the one going out and fighting and exorcising supernaturals. My parents have always been so... proud of her.

"They were so proud that, well, they sent her alone to face dangerous supernaturals more and more... and... um, one of those supernaturals she was sent to fight was Hanako-san."

"Hanako-san?"

"The, uh...the seventh School Wonder. There were... a lot of creepy rumors about her life. You know, like, people would say she shot her father with his own gun, or that she poisoned her baby  sister... things like that."

Amane subconsciously grimaced, and Aki paused for a second. He gestured for her to continue.

"Anyways, nothing could be proven because no one really knew who she was when she was alive, but still, Hanako-san was the most dangerous and cruel of the Seven Mysteries. Since her position was important to the safety of the school, the Minamoto clan let her be for some time. But one day, she granted one of the students' wishes—it was a death curse that the student wanted to put on someone.

"The clan realized we had to do something, so they sent my Nee-chan to go exorcise her. It happened at night. I guess—I mean, we don't really know—but Hanako-san must've put up a good fight, so Nee-chan retreated. She...um, she was on her w-way—" Aki's voice began to break again, "—sh-she was on her way home. But Hanako-san decided to chase after her. Hanako-san left the school and—and killed her..."

Her eyes filled with tears as Amane could do nothing but attempt to process what he was being told. Aki continued, "She—she almost made it home... she was right there, and—and nobody seemed to care afterwards, anyways, not even my parents, it was only me. They paid the Full Moon Gazette to keep the situation away from journalists.

"About a week later I started to see her. I—I thought it was just my imagination at first, but she said things, and did things, and she kept persisting, telling me it really was her. I kept her a secret from everyone—she hid in her room, and came out only when I was home. And it was easy, it was working, and it was like she was alive again," she explained and wiped her tears, only for her eyes to glaze over once more. "But then things started to change. Nee-chan was d-different. She was weaker, and her temper was shorter, and she kept asking and asking for me to exorcise her. I said no, because why the hell wouldn't I, right? But she asked again, and again, and she raised her voice, and she told me, 'I don't belong here,' and she begged even more.

"I still refused, and she tried to do it herself, and—and it was the beginning of break, and now..." Aki's voice quivered as she buried her face into her folded arms, "...and now she's gone."

Amane didn't say I'm so sorry, like most probably would. He hated it when people acted as if someone's death was their own fault. Instead, feeling a small need for retaliation since she had tried to kill him (he wasn't going to let that go), Amane replied, "That was really stupid of you."

He could practically feel the pang of confusion and annoyance suddenly hit Aki. It was wonderful.

"I mean, in case you couldn't tell, being dead sucks." To prove his point, Amane poked the trunk of the tree, only for his finger to phase right through. "And it sounds like your 'Nee-chan' wasn't too fond of sticking around anyways, so who couldn't you have just finished the job for her?"

Aki looked up, dumbfounded. Amane continued to talk.

"Don't look so surprised. It's your fault she left the way she did, so what're you doing crying about it now?"

There was a difficult silence in which Amane had to try his best not to continue on a tangent.

"...You're right," Aki eventually admitted. Frankly, that shocked Amane more than he had surprised her. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have tried to keep her around like that... that was childish, and—and stupid... and I was risking so much for so little, wasn't I?"

"Uh... sure. Yeah," Amane agreed.

"Then... I don't know. What am I supposed to do?"

"I mean, I don't know. Also, aren't you like, twelve? No twelve year old should have to deal with this much emotional weight," he commented, though he wasn't fully sure why.

Aki wiped her eyes once more. "Hm. Says you."

"Touché," he responded. He didn't want to question exactly how much she knew of him.

"By the way, sorry for...y'know. Almost murdering you."

Amane wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Um...no worries." (There were definitely still worries.) "Just... please don't try to kill me again."

Aki leaned back against the tree, now appearing to have relaxed a bit. With a lopsided half-grin, she answered, "Eh, no promises."

Her reply, naturally, made Amane feel a hundred times more nervous to be around her. "Oh. Well... uh..."

"You can leave now."

He felt as if he had been blessed. "Oh thank God."

He quickly got up. Even when Aki wasn't wielding her magic-lightning-sword that Amane still didn't completely understand, she was a little terrifying. It wouldn't be until that evening that Amane realized the multitude of new questions he had to ask Tsuchigomori.

And, as he floated away and heard Aki call after him, "If you tell anyone about what I said today, I'll kill you!" he knew a friendship had blossomed between the two of them.

Or rather, he was fearing for his life. 

But those were basically the same thing, weren't they?