EX Chapter 2

[Sachi]

#s://i~imgur~com/GYRYO21~png

“You idiot!” A grainy voice yelled out of the Skysensor hanging around my waist. Shocked, I grabbed it and held it close - just to be sure I wasn’t hearing things. “You’ve gone to the one place I can’t help you out of! Everything’s ruined!”

I felt my relief at Zonko’s presence turn into annoyance. “Hey, don’t blame me for this!” I shouted back at her. “How was I supposed to know I’d end up here?! Niwa’s information should have been reliable. I can’t believe I let myself get scammed like that…!”

“Her info is reliable, Scamon Yuta! The problem is what you asked for! Did you not even consider that Naho was the one lying about everything?”

I tried to shout something back, but she was right. Hindsight is 20/20, but I should have realised something was off… It wasn’t professional, it was all lowercase, and she disappeared right after posting it! What was I thinking?! I slumped against a wall and heaved a huge sigh. Zonko continued to rattle on through the skysensor. I flicked the keychain it felt like the voice was coming from, just to vent my frustrations. Zonko’s words blended together until I could no longer understand them.

“Are you listening?!” I was not. She groaned to bring me out of my trance, then probably repeated herself. “I have no idea how you’re going to interact with this place. It goes against every kind of logic there is. BUT! And this is a huge BUT, and I’m not repeating myself again, so you better LISTEN!”

I looked down at the skysensor. I didn’t say anything in response.

“Find the ones you came here with. If you do the charm again, it might reverse it. That’s the best idea I can think of.”

“It’s not just me here? I can find Ryo-tas? And Niwa? And… Inuzuka?”

“Obviously! Gah, you’re such a hassle!”

“Where are they?!” I begged. I was shaking the skysensor like I was trying to get information out of it, even though I knew it really wouldn’t do anything.

“How am I supposed to know? You’re lucky I can even contact you to begin with. Now listen. No matter what you d-”

Her voice starting crackling in and out. I panicked and twirled dials back and forth to try picking up her signal again, but it didn’t do anything.

“Downs… Base…. ot that?”

“No! No, I don’t got that!”

The grainy static that surrounded her voice stopped playing through the speakers. She couldn’t reply any more.

The old hallways were silent again, and I felt lonely. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Zonko, but what she told me couldn’t be ignored. I stood back up and examined my surroundings. The hallway extended both in front of and behind me into the darkness, so it didn’t really matter which way I decided to go.

I walked slowly over the crumbling floorboards. Whenever I heard so much as a creak that wasn’t mine, I jumped like a surprised kitten and shone my phone light onto it. I never so much as saw a thing, but it’s always when you least expect something that it jumpscares you. That’s how horror works…

I passed by some classrooms, but I couldn’t open any of the doors. At least I could use their names to orient myself a little. 2-A and 3-A are next to each other, and I think I saw 1-A and 1-B a little while back. Okay… so I’ll probably find 4-A around the next corner, right?

I turned and searched for the first door I could find. It read “Science Lab”.

…The design wasn’t symmetrical. Maybe there wasn’t a 4-A to begin with? Why’d they make the floor in this shape, then? That’s just annoying…

Turning the other way brought me to a staircase heading up. I made sure it was stable - it looked like it’d collapse if I so much as brushed it wrong - and went upstairs. On whatever floor this was, I found two bathrooms. As if my luck couldn’t get any worse, it was the boys’ bathroom that was boarded up… If I need the toilet, I’m gonna look like a complete creep!

Well, you gotta go when you gotta go, I don’t think anyone could blame me. But the thought of Zonko reappearing and lambasting me just because I had to use the girls’ bathroom sent a shiver up my spine. Whatever. I held my breath and opened the girls’ bathroom door.

It stunk. It stunk like pee and vomit and probably blood and pus. I had to hold my nose just to look around. The stink was coming mostly from the faucets, but they were all clogged with hair and goop, so I wasn’t about to get my hands dirty just to drain them. I headed over to the opposite end of the room to them, but the smell didn’t get any better. One by one, I kicked open the stall doors (Because it seemed badass, but remembering it now, if there was a girl in there I’d look even worse than a creep…) to see if any of the toilets were still intact. They were all super old-fashioned, but they looked like they would work. So, that’s one worry dealt with, I guess.

When I was moments away from kicking open the final stall door, I started hearing heavy footsteps coming from downstairs. Hell, heavy is an understatement. I heard them all the way up here. They must have come from huge boots, a huge guy, or both. I found myself more curious than afraid, for some reason. I found myself tracing his footsteps from the floor above to try and figure out where he was going. They went a little left, out of my range, then gradually started getting louder.

Oh Kuma!… Whoever it was, they were coming up the stairs! What if they were some creep trying to perv on women?! They’d find me in here, get the complete wrong idea, and then I’d be the perv! Or… maybe they’d be disappointed at not finding any women here, and they’d take out their frustrations on me instead?!

I had to ask myself if I was always this crazy or if it was a symptom of getting stuck in this weird old school, but I really didn’t have the time to think of an answer at that moment. I backed away from the door slowly, careful to not make any noise on the creaky floorboards, which was more difficult than you might think. I was stopped suddenly when I collided with something behind me. Something incredibly soft, like a neck pillow…

A soft hand covered my mouth, and the other constricted me from behind. The one over my mouth smelled nice, and kinda familiar. I was pretty sure it was a girl. If this were any other situation, I would have loved this.

The girl put her mouth right up against my ear. I could feel her hair brushing against mine. It felt intimate.

“Don’t make a sound,” she whispered. “Come with me.”

[Sachi]

#s://i~imgur~com/GYRYO21~png

To be honest, what was I supposed to do in a situation like that? I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'm already a perv... So do I wanna face the girl, or the guy too? Any guy would pick the girl! It's just natural! So, I didn't say anything. I just stood there and she took my silence as an agreement to come with her. With her arm still wrapped around me, she backed up into... whoa, whoa, wait, one of the stalls?! That's not okay! 

The stall door didn't have a lock on it, so I guessed her plan was to hide us in there until the guy walked away and then she'd give me an earful. But actually, that didn't happen. She pushed the back wall in a certain kind of way, and it... it fell back! And I thought they'd call me pervy! They've got a whole peephole secret passage built into the place! And anyway, isn't this an elementary school?!

The girl - who I still hadn't seen the face of - brought me into the secret passage area and shut the fake wall behind us. Now we were in somewhere way darker - I couldn't even see my hands. I heard the heavy footsteps finally enter into the bathroom proper, and the girl reminded me with a whisper to keep my mouth shut. I had no complaints about that.

It sounded like the guy was doing pretty much what I did. One by one, he threw open all the stall doors and had them bang against the stall walls. I guess it must have been because I was inside the building's walls, but it was far louder than it was before. I had to put my hands up against my ears to stop them from bleeding. My face scrunched up like a wet paper towel. Honestly, it was torture. 

When the guy was finished kicking in all the stall doors, he moaned like a zombie and left the room. He slammed the door behind him, of course. Both me and the girl breathed a sigh of relief, but apparently the danger wasn't over yet. She told me to stay quiet and climb down carefully.

Climb down?

Well, apparently, there was a huge-ass ladder here as well. Whoever was in charge of constructing this weird hidey-hole had some serious time on their hands. I descended down in the pitch black, careful with every rung that I didn't go falling into the abyss below. What an embarrassing way to go that'd be, huh?

It was longer than I thought it would be, and the whole time, me and the girl both climbed in silence. I heard running water at the bottom of the ladder. When we stepped off, my socks were damp in a matter of seconds. I grimaced, desperate to get out of the wetness, when I realised something.

"Wait - We just left a bathroom, didn't we? Don't tell me this is sewage! Gaaaah! That's disgusting!" I tried kicking the water off of my feet, but since I'd just place them back in a few seconds later anyway, this only served to send dozens of droplets flying through the air.

"It's not sewage," the girl replied matter-of-factly. That did calm my nerves. I mean, it's not as though it smelled particularly bad, but I got the feeling she was only saying that to placate me. Either way, this wasn't her final destination, because she kept walking, and I kept following. We had to crawl through a... well, a crawlspace, in order to get ourselves out of the well. When we could finally stand up again, she slid a closet door aside, and we arrived (utterly soaked) in a reaaaaally old-fashioned break room.

I threw myself out on the tatami mat floor and closed my eyes. It smelled pretty bad, but my heart was going a million miles a minute. I needed a rest before I dealt with anything else.

"Whew," the girl sighed as well. She shared my sentiment. Come to think of it, I still hadn't got a good look at her until now... I slowly opened an eyelid...

She was sitting on an old cushion. I know cushions don't have expiration dates, but this one was definitely past its theoretical one. It didn't even look that much more comfortable than sitting on the floor. She breathed heavily. Her hair wasn't too long, and actually, it looked kind of familiar. I wondered if I had seen her somewhere before...

And then I noticed them...

Yeah... I could recognise this cup size anywhere...!

"Ryo-tas?!" I jumped up manically. I couldn't believe how lucky I had gotten. It hadn't even been that long since Zonko's call, and I'd already found one of the three people I came here with! Things were looking up!

"That was dangerous, Gamo-tan," she said. "If Ryo-tas wasn't there, you'd have been smashed into a pancake by now."

"Yeah, I got that feeling too," I laughed. "That guy seriously wasn't playing around. I really thought he was going to beat the mincemeat out of me!"

There was an awkward silence. Ryo-tas usually plays along with my jokes. I wondered if I'd accidentally said something to upset her?

"Gamo-tan," she frowned. Oh man, I actually had. "Ryo-tas... isn't kidding. That man wouldn't have been satisfied with just hurting you..."

There was a second slightly longer silence. This one was a little less awkward and a little more, uh, tense.

"W-Was he that much of a perv?" I did my best to lighten the mood, but Ryo-tas' expression didn't change. She looked as if she was figuring out the best way to tell me something. I felt kind of concerned. "Hey... Did he do something to you?"

"Not to Ryo-tas," she said. "But..." She motioned toward the entrance of the room. Not the one we came through - I guess we came a roundabout way through the secret closet passage - but the actual main door entrance. My head felt like a rusty machine. I knew I had to turn it. I knew she was trying to show me something, but my mind feared what that thing might actually turn out to be.

I had to look...

But what if looking was the worst mistake I make in my life?

No, I had to look. Ryo-tas was telling me to look. It's something she'd already seen, and she thought it was important enough that she had to save me from that guy because of it.

I swallowed my saliva and swiveled my head a little too quickly. I hope I didn't look too eager...

There was something sitting by the entranceway... Like, I dunno... the torso of a mannequin?

I got up from my spot to take a closer look. I swatted away a fly that was buzzing in my ear. The mannequin's torso was wearing a school uniform I didn't recognise. I assumed it was some kind of prop, but I had to wonder where the thing's head was...

Squish

Ew. Had I stepped in even more water?

I looked down at my foot and frowned. 

Maggots wriggled around in the red mess I had made. I immediately kicked my shoe off and fell back onto the tatami mat.

"W-W-What the Kuma!?! What the Kuma! is that?!" I crawled backward with speed I didn't even know I had. I kept going until I was propped up against the wall. Ryo-tas hadn't moved from her spot, though... No way... Had she seen this thing already?

"Sorry, Gamo-tan. But this was the easiest way to make you understand," Ryo-tas said. She was staring off into the distance in a completely random direction. I guess I was glad she wasn't used to seeing it... "That's what Ryo-tas meant. If she hadn't helped Gamo-tan... He might have ended up like that boy."

[Sachi]

#s://i~imgur~com/GYRYO21~png

"Thi-This has to be some kind of mistake! You're not seriously telling me there's a murderer running around, are you?!" I gasped for breath and shivered. Ryo-tas didn't answer. I guess she thought she'd said enough. "No way..." I was speechless. There was so much I didn't know, and it just got even worse.

"This room isn't safe," she said. "We need to try and find one with a candle. He doesn't like those rooms." She stood up and stretched, but I was still flopped out on the floor in shock at the thing I just stepped in. I didn't like how she was acting. It's hard to put into words, but I guess I didn't like how calm she was acting. 

"Find a room with a candle?" I repeated her words back at her in an attempt to show off how silly they sounded.

"Yeah."

"No!" I yelled. She jumped back a little, so I probably scared her. "How can you treat this so casually, Ryo-tas?! There's a murderer running around! You're acting like this is some kind of game!"

"Ryo-tas is just telling you what she knows..."

"A-And how the hell did you figure that out?! We've only been here for an hour, maybe TWO at most! And in that time I've just been wandering aimlessly, and I haven't found anything but dust! A-And you're telling me you found dead bodies, and you found that guy, and you figured out how he worked?! Why are you acting like this is normal?! Isn't it crazy to you?! We don't need to 'find a candle'! We need to get our asses out of here and contact the police!"

Ryo-tas looked sad and confused. She was like a little girl getting into trouble for something she didn't even know was wrong.

"Th-The way you're looking at me makes it feel like I'm the crazy one!" I got to my feet as well, and I could feel myself getting angrier. I don't know why I kept going. I guess I was frustrated. I wanted to let out all my fear and anxiety, and Ryo-tas was the only person I could let it all out on. "Why aren't you scared of any of this?! I don't get it! I DON'T UNDER-"

"Of course I'm scared!" She screamed, louder than me. That shut me down immediately. I couldn't find the words to strike back against her, and even if I could, I'm not sure I'd have wanted to. She was sobbing in the middle of the room. Her face was covered in tears.

I... I'd never seen her like that before.

"Maybe Gamotan woke up later, but Ryo-tas has been here for hours on hours! All alone!" She clenched a fist tight, and I worried I was about to be slapped, or socked in the face or something."Ryo-tas was with that boy!" She held her hand out toward the corpse on the floor. "Do you know his name, Gamotan? It was Tohru! Ryo-tas saw Tohru-kun die and she couldn't do anything about it! He'd been here even longer than us! He's the one that told Ryo-tas about the candles! And Ryo-tas had to watch him..." 

I wanted to apologise. But she kept on going.

"When he died, Ryo-tas had to walk around alone, knowing that man could be around any corner! Ryo-tas was so happy to find Gamotan alive! So Ryo-tas doesn't understand why Gamotan is yelling at her like this!"

I hung my head and sat back down. Ryo-tas was gasping for breath after her outburst (although calling it that makes it sound like she's wrong... everything she said was pretty reasonable). "I'm sorry," I mumbled. She didn't reply. 

There was something itching at my brain, though. Some discrepancy between the both of our stories. It didn't really make any sense. I knew she was still kind of riled up, but I had to get the answer to this so I didn't go crazy. "Ryo-tas, how long have we been here for?"

"Eh?" She wiped her tears with her sleeve. "Maybe a day... It's hard to tell time." She took out her phone and flipped the screen over to me. "Nearly two whole days... September 1st, see?"

I opened my own phone and found the discrepancy right there, clear as day. "Mine says it's still August 30th. It's only been a few hours since we performed the ritual."

"Poyaya?" Ryo-tas brought out her usual catchphrase, and I felt a little relieved she was feeling more like herself. "That's weird. Is Gamotan's phone set to another time zone?"

"Why would I do that? And anyway, for a time difference that big, both of us would have had to have set it to some random island in the middle of the ocean..." I took both of our phones and navigated to the settings. "Nope, both of us are on JST. But your phone's two days ahead of mine..."

"Eeeh... but Ryo-tas never messes around with those settings. There's never any need to."

"Yeah, that's what I mean. We haven't done anything, so the error must be on the side of the phones. Uhh... I think magnets mess around with technology. Have you seen any of those around?"

"Magnets?" Ryo-tas tilted her head quizically. "Ryo-tas hasn't seen any."

"Uh... Maybe some kind of electromagnetic field or something..." I struggled to come up with an answer that would explain things. My head started to hurt a little.

"Ryo-tas has an idea!" She shouted jubiantly. "Gamotan's thinking way too hard. What if Ryo-tas just got here before Gamotan did?"

"What? But we did the charm at the same time."

"Yeah, yeah, but what if Ryo-tas and Gamotan got here at different times? Ryo-tas was thinking, it was weird that Gamotan could be sleeping on the floor for so long and not be woken up by anything. If Gamotan slept in the middle of a hallway, the big guy would have got him for sure."

"Eugh..." I shuddered at that thought, but I couldn't exactly say she was wrong. His footsteps alone would have been enough to wake me up from halfway across the building, on a completely different floor. It really wasn't an easy truth to accept, though. It kind of threw all the laws of physics and all that stuff out the window. "So, I guess to put it in simple words, our buses left the station at the same time, but arrived at the destination at different times?"

"Yeah! Ryo-tas got here first, so her phone kept counting! And Gamotan got here later, so his phone hasn't counted forward as much!"

"That's kinda dumb," I said.

"Ryo-tas thinks it's weird, too. But it makes the most sense, doesn't it?"

"Guess so..." 

The atmosphere in the room had improved a lot from just a few moments earlier. Me and Ryo-tas were talking about weird supernatural stuff the way she always did... The only difference was that I didn't have my computer, and that we weren't in a cafe... Ah! "Ryo-tas, what about Izumin? Do you think he wound up here too?"

"He didn't take part in the charm, but Ryo-tas doesn't know for sure... We should keep an eye out for him!"

"Jeez... Another thing on our to-do list, huh? Okay, I'll add that on top of 'find a candle' and 'get our butts outta here.'"

"Good goals! Good goals!" Ryo-tas pumped her fist in the air and cheered for me. I felt like a natural leader when she was hyping me up like this. "Fight on, Basariters!"

"Yeah! Let's fight on!"

[Sachi]

#s://i~imgur~com/GYRYO21~png

Ryo-tas and I clasped our hands together and knelt over Tohru-kun's body. I was the one who came up with the idea. I wanted to thank him for taking care of Ryo-tas while our timelines were jumbled up.

"Tohru-kun," I started. I hadn't really done this type of thing before, so I wasn't quite sure what to say. I wanted to turn to Ryo-tas for help, but she had her eyes shut tight. She must have been thinking of everything Tohru-kun did for her... I didn't want to take that moment away. So, I had to prepare the speech all on my own... How was I meant to do it? 

I knew how.

I just had to do it like I always did.

I gulped, because I was sure that what was about to come out of my mouth would be nothing short of embarrassing.

"HEY, BASARITERS!" I yelled. "Today I'd like to give a very special shoutout to Tohru-kun! He was an essential ally in KiriKiriBasara's exploration of the abandoned school building! And a fellow victim of the Sachiko Ever After charm! Tohru-kun, I'd like to thank you from the bottom of my heart! Not as the NEET God Gamotan, but as myself, Gamon Yuta! Thank you for keeping Ryo-tas safe until I got here! I only wish I could have thanked you in person, but rest assured, we at KiriKiriBasara won't forget your sacrifice! I'll put you in the "Special Thanks" section of our blog the moment I get back home! I promise!"

I was sweating. There was a reason I was a blogger, not a vlogger. This whole thing was kinda out of my element... I glanced to my side. Ryo-tas still had her eyes closed, but she was smiling. It was a really happy smile...

That's how I knew I was doing the right thing.

"And as a promise to you, we'll solve the mystery of this school! We'll solve the mystery of the charm, and tell your friends and family what happened to you! We'll give them closure! You don't need to worry!"

I leapt to my feet! I was starting to get into this!

"And not just for you! For every lost soul in this school - we'll let you attain rest! We'll get this guy thrown behind the thickest bars the system can find! We'll avenge each and every one of you! Ryo-tas, are you with me?!"

"Yeah! Ryo-tas is with Gamotan all the way!" 

Ryo-tas stood up as well. We held our hands together. We weren't praying for Tohru anymore. That's because we didn't need the help of Gods any longer to help him find peace. We'd do it all on our own...!

I squeezed Ryo-tas' hand. She squeezed mine back with equal intensity. That's how I knew I was still alive. I could feel her warmth, and she could feel mine. We'd conquer this, debunk it all, and get back home... together!

"Gamotan, Gamotan!" She said. "Can we say it together?"

"Heheheh..." I laughed like someone from a manga. "We're both part of KiriKiriBasara. You don't need to ask permission."

"Alright!"

The both of us cleared our throats.

"Alright, Basariters... Keep your eyes peeled..."

"AS WE RIP THIS SCHOOL APART!"

--EX CHAPTER 2 - END--