Part 1

This is an enclosed space, without sound, without light.

Ran Ibuki laid on the floor there, squeezing her body as tightly as she could. She breathed, lightly; it looked like she was asleep.

Awaken her

Let her wake up on her own

In order to avoid adding undue stress to her mind, my consciousness slowly crawled up to Ran Ibuki's brain, and applied a light stimulus to awaken her.

Ran Ibuki opened her eyes and awoke from her dream.

The cold floor chilled her cheeks, and caused her to jump from the floor the moment she awoke.

But before she could stand up straight, her head crashed right into the ceiling.

Shaking in pain, she bent back down again, rubbing her head while looking around. She couldn't see a thing.

She tried to remember just what'd happened the last time she'd been awake, but a mysterious foreign mist shrouded those memories.

A single silhouette stood out in the mist- a girl in a school uniform, with an opened notebook in her hands.

Ran Ibuki stared at that silhouette, and realized that she must have been in a very unfortunate situation.

It'd been too long since she'd gotten to eat a page from the notebook.

Her heartbeat, the pain from her solar plexus, and the sweat that couldn't be wiped away from her brow no matter how hard she worked, all reminded her,

That her symptoms were about to act up again.

Ran Ibuki tried her best to ignore her increasingly frenetic heartbeat, and, with a practiced hand, pulled out a notebook from a hidden pocket on the inside of her jacket.

Touching the rough leather cover of the notebook made her feel a little better, and her heart settled down a little, like a clownfish who'd found an anemone to hide in.

She wanted to open the notebook, but given how dark it was, she decided not to for the moment.

Ran Ibuki: ...Gotta find a place with light...

- Ibuki Ran (伊吹 兰) -

Late Heisei

Investigation 3, Alacrity 3, Charisma 3

Temporary Points

Memory currently suffers flaws, but clearly understands that her goal is to find her girlfriend, Yasu Sakura (佐仓 安).

Suffers from schizophrenia, and hallucinates vividly when under severe pressure. Long-term use of Olanzapine and the support of Yasu Sakura have helped her recover mentally.

Has been systematically educated in logical analysis and deduction, but her memory loss might hinder her abilities.

She licked her lips, staring at the clearly questionable listings there, and decided to try her best to remember the past, to warm up her brain if nothing else.

Ran Ibuki: Alright, let's start remembering. Gotta make choices carefully.

Ran Ibuki: I'm an investigative journalist, but when I reached the scene of the crime to conduct some interviews, I discovered that the victim was my lover. What should I do?

Stay calm and begin to investigate the scene

Steal the police's investigation reports

Charge through the police cordon and kiss the corpse

I've illustrated a stunningly accurate portrait for a client, but He refuses to pay me the agreed-upon payment for my work. What should I do?

Find out why He doesn't want to pay me, and resolve the conflict

Steal treasure greater than the value of the compensation owed me from His home

Convince His nemesis to join with me to gain revenge upon Him

Ran Ibuki: I'm standing in front of an old two-floor apartment. Nobody answered me when I knocked on door 102. I'm wondering if a potentially-disappeared friend is home or not; what do I do?

Find a spare key near the door

Pick the lock

Lie to the landlord and say that you're the resident's little sister, and get the key from the landlord

Ran Ibuki: Because I left my homework in class, I went to school at night. Just when I was about to unlock the door, I saw a stranger in the classroom. What should I do?

Carefully distance myself

GTFO

Tell her a wonderful joke

Ran Ibuki: After getting shitfaced with my friends last night, I woke up with a hangover the next day, and found that in the midst of a pile of my snoring friends was a corpse. What do I do?

Notice that the corpse is still wearing shoes, help her take the shoes off, and put the shoes at the welcome mat where they belong

Twist yourself a bit so that you're not touching the corpse anymore and keep sleeping

Take a selfie of everyone, including the corpse!

Ran Ibuki: My lover is about to commit suicide by jumping from the edge of the roof. What should I do?

Notice that the cops are approaching, and try to delay her through a conversation- but to no avail

Run over and grab her- but to no avail

Tell her that you want to be together with her as you head into the future- but to no avail

She can't help but wonder what the person who brought her to this place wanted from her.

She pulls her hand back from the handle and turns off the flashlight on her cellphone, leaving behind only the dim light of the screen itself.

Hugging her own legs, she leaned against the wall and stared at the phone's wallpaper.

That was a selfie of Ran Ibuki and a different girl with the exact same school uniform.

It was her long-lost lover who'd been missing for four years, Yasu Sakura.

Ran Ibuki closed her eyes, letting the memories of her and her lover wash over her.

Even though many of her memories weren't so clear anymore, she could still remember everything about the two of them as though it'd just happened.

Recalling the way their shared story had ultimately ended, she raised her head without hesitation.

Gotta find a safe place, and stabilize the rising pressure.

If at all possible, she didn't want to have to eat any more paper.

Ran Ibuki leaned by the window, and stared out through it. She had no clue why she was here in this old school.

This caused the pressure building up on her to reach the limits of her tolerance. Not even the ice-cold air could stem her sweat. With a trembling hand, she tried to wipe them away.

Even though she was missing many of her memories, Ran Ibuki was certain that she was no stranger to anomalous events like this.

She couldn't remember any of the specifics. All she could remember was that they were each invariably awful experiences.

She couldn't remember the specifics... but she remembered that all of it had to do with her quest to find Yasu.

Ran Ibuki: Okay, I've gotta find a way to get out of here, so I can keep looking for miss Sakura...

Ran Ibuki decides to waste no more time, and strides forward.

Look back at the underground chamber (Investigation 2)

Spend Temporary Points

Wait a minute. If this is just a school- why would a school have such a bizarre, tiny underground chamber in the first place?

With questions in her head, she turned to the trapdoor she'd just left...

Only to find completely ordinary flooring there, without the slightest hint of a hinge or crack.

The whole thing was seamless, like a single solid slab, the door to a vast vault of gold, immovable and secure.

Ran Ibuki: T-the basement is gone!? How-?!

In the face of this impossibly ordinary floorboard, her barely-maintained strand of sanity frayed and tore asunder.

She started scratching her head, trying in this fashion to relieve the stress that'd built up on her.

Ran Ibuki: Miss Sakura... help me...

???: The corners of my mouth began to twitch, trying to stop the anomalies from emerging from my body. But I had to open my mouth, I had to purge it- I had to purge it!

Ran Ibuki: Miss Sakura... help me...

???: The pain of my head and the torment of attempting to dry-vomit caused me to fall to my knees.

???: My cellphone fell from my pocket, struck the ground, and the screen lit itself.

Ran Ibuki: Miss Sakura...

???: I turned and stared at the floor, pulling my hair, and bringing my legs as close to my body as I could.

???: It was those memories, that blame, that loneliness which tore at me. They birthed phantasms, opened their mouths and spoke, and forced me to depart from the well-trodden roads, and flung my reason into the black magma that coursed besides me.

???: Stress, fear, and the unknown energized them, and empowered them until they could almost take away my everything.

Ran Ibuki: But... Miss Sakura...

???: Back bent, fists clenched, my notebook fell out of my jacket and splayed open on the floor, revealing a blank empty page.

???: I saw that page in the periphery of my vision. It was like the softest of down mattresses, or the finest of meat delicacies. But more than either of those, to me, it was most like... the fine smoothness of miss Sakura's skin.

???: My fingers were pulled towards that page, slowly but steadily, as though it were possessed of magnetic force.

???: When I touched the page, that familiar sense of safety and the hopes of impending salvation rushed into my brain.

???: My fingers ripped off a small piece of the page, and crumpled it into a small ball, and threw them into my mouth, and without even chewing them I'd swallowed the elixir into my stomach.

After a long silence, Ran Ibuki steadied herself and stood back up, leaning on the wall for support.

Ran Ibuki: ...I can hold on for a while longer, now. Let's go...

Ran Ibuki: ...So, where to now?

Ran Ibuki licked her lips, as though she'd tasted the sweetness of curiosity.

Detect an anomaly after all (Investigation 5)

Leave

Spend Temporary Points

Ran Ibuki notices... that the dust up here is enormous, coating pretty much everything, and the walls are much less well-kept than the first floor walls. Some of the wood is even rotting.

Ran Ibuki: Hmmm. Maybe the people here only really operate around the first floor, and don't take good care of the second floor?

She can't figure out what the intent of damaging the stairwell was, and she's not ready to risk investigating dangerous areas on such a poorly-maintained floor with rotting wood supports, so she returns to the first floor.

Ran Ibuki looked towards the classroom by her side.

The moon was at the perfect angle to illuminate the room with soft azure light, and it helped Ran notice that the storage drawers in the desks had textbooks in them.

This raised Ran's interest. She wondered if there were any Eclipse Worms in the room.

Ever since that time she'd been cocooned by the eclipse worms, Ran had taken particular care to avoid those things whenever she could.

She would much rather not be locked off by those things for a whole week again.

Once Ran was certain that there were no mysterious writhing shapes in the darkness, she decided to investigate the classroom.

Recall

Ran Ibuki can use the journal to substitute herself into previously read books or events she's experienced personally, and engage in calibration of her visual acuity, central nervous system, and brain gray matter. However, the results are often different from the predicted ones.

Bookmark

A device which can store Ran Ibuki's memories in the notebook, to achieve a certain astonishing thing

(the details of which are unclear due to Ran Ibuki's memory loss).

However, the original bookmarks have already been expended by Ran. Thus, only imitation bookmarks are available at the moment, which can only achieve the memory-storage part of the full functionality.

Remembrance

The notebook creates memory recall points based on Ran Ibuki's deep unconscious.

By providing her own blood to the notebook, Ran Ibuki can travel through these recall points to send her consciousness back to that point in time, and change her decisions within that recall point's constraints, and thus gain knowledge of results different from those she remembers.

During the process of recall, Ran Ibuki can only observe and perceive; she cannot control her own actions. Furthermore, recall has absolute precision.

Eclipse Silkworms

Creatures which devour light. All light shone upon these creatures are consumed, and so they cannot be directly observed. Infrared observation reveals arthropod-like animals similar to silkworms in morphology.

At maturity, they form cocoons which continuously leak black liquid. In actuality, this black fluid is a substance which possesses the same quality of light-absorption.

Ran Ibuki was once swallowed by a cocoon for seven days. During this period of time, the eclipse worm fed her with an unknown nutrient (the details are unclear due to memory loss). After seven days, the cocoon spontaneously disappeared. Immediately after that, the area around Ran Ibuki suffered a total eclipse of the sun lasting twenty-four hours.

Besides losing her vision for seven days, no abnormalities were found in her physical condition.

Gotta get out of here and find miss Sakura

Pitch black

Kidnapped??

I'm wearing a school uniform, not hungry either

Winter uniform

Ran Ibuki: So someone's wiped the blackboard here recently, then...

Find the syllabus (Investigation 4)

UseTemporary Points

The fine, sandlike texture of the chalk dust caused Ran Ibuki to have a small hallucination. She turned her head to the window and listened to the waves.

She and Yasu Sakura had lived by the sea for too long.

Ran rubbed her fingers, causing the chalk dust to drop back to the blackboard tray. The sounds of the waves stopped immediately.

She noticed the syllabus taped to the blackboard, then, and bent down to investigate it in detail.

Ran Ibuki: Language, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Only four subjects. And they only have classes in the morning; the afternoon timeslots have nothing but 'free time' written on them.

Ran Ibuki: The courses look easy, but what does 'free time' mean exactly? ...Club activities?

Ran Ibuki: Whatever, let's keep investigating.

Ran Ibuki: It's nice to see some textbooks in my mother tongue, but why is everything here translated from japanese to chinese? Who is the target demographic this is for? If the students here are japanese why aren't they using textbooks in japanese? If they're chinese, why are they studying literary works from a different cultural tradition?

Ran Ibuki: These textbooks have notes written on them by the students, presumably. But the students haven't written their names in the front covers. That's... weird.

Ran Ibuki: What does it mean?

Ran Ibuki: ...Nope, I've got no idea what it might mean.

Ran Ibuki: Only seven of the desks have textbooks in them. Does this allow me to conclude that there are only seven students in this class?

Still, she felt that her condition was relatively good; steady pulse, quick mind. Ran Ibuki always entered an excellent condition like this whenever she ate a page, like an athlete taking a swig of a refreshing ice-cold beverage.

She looked around, and idly noted that the design of the school building was rather old. Diagonal wood pillars supported the ceiling, and the windows were fixed in place by wooden latch bars and thus unopenable.

The walls were yellowed and coated in cracks; the building had clearly been built a long time ago.

As Ran walked, she stroked the wall with her trailing hand, feeling the texture of the surface.

The rough sensation from her fingertips reminded her of the first time she'd touched the notebook. She attentively used her fingertips to feel the tiny bumps in the texture.

For some reason, doing so made her heartbeat hasten in pace, in a healthy way, as though she was caressing the supple waist of her lover.

Ran shook her head and concentrated on the path in front of her.

She saw a turn in the corridor, leading to an exit shining under the moonlight. It felt unrealistic to her, for a moment, like an artificial light indicator you'd see in a videogame placed to tell you where your objective was.

She ran for it anyways.

When Ran arrived, she found five racks of shoeboxes, stereotypical for a school, most of them thoroughly empty.

Ran decided to take the opportunity to investigate a little bit here as well.

She expected that, surely, the shoeboxes here would have nameplates. Otherwise, how would you know which box to put your shoes in?

The plaques on the shoe cabinets didn't have any real names on them. Just numbers- arabic numerals from 1 to 7.

Ran Ibuki wondered if she should stay here longer to investigate these shoes, or if she should just leave as quickly as she could.

She immediately decided that the most important thing to do was to get out of here, and not to sit around and investigate the mystery of the shoes or whatever.

Ran Ibuki: Front door's not locked either...

Ran Ibuki: At least I've gotten outdoors... where should I go from here?

She pulled at her hair for a few moments, before turning back to the school.

Ran Ibuki: ...I'll wait for morning before I head out.

Ran Ibuki: I just got out of there, let's not go back in immediately.

Ran walked into the gym. It was terribly dark in there. She groped her way around the walls, but couldn't find a lightswitch.

Raising her head, imagining the distant, unreachable ceiling, an unspeakable fear grew in her heart.

That, alongside the creepiness of being alone in the gymnasium, as well as the chill that seemed to pervade the place, made Ran think that, in comparison, at least the cold wind of the outside had some vitality to it.

And so, she retraced her steps, closed the gym door, and returned to the courtyard, hugging her shoulders in pursuit of a better place to visit.

Ran Ibuki: A campus this large, it's GOT to have a dormitory, right? Let's try to get in, find an empty room, and hide for the night.

Ran Ibuki: Hell, at the worst, I could steal some curtains from the dorms and use them as blankets for a night.

The light was so timely that Ran Ibuki worried if they were actually the shining lures of some horrible anglerfish that sought to prey on her.

But Ran wanted to know if there was anybody else here, and she believed that, even if there was some risk to it, even a risk of coming into conflict, at the least seeing other people would help her understand just what kind of situation she was in right now.

As long as she was sufficiently careful, she'd be fine. This wasn't even the most dangerous situation she'd ever been in, not by a long shot.

She touched her precious notebook again, for good luck, and then ran towards the light.

Ran Ibuki felt like her face and ears were all twitching due to nerves. Her eyes spun unnaturally in their frames, fearful of missing even the slightest movement.

Carefully, she shuffled her steps, and arrived at a fork in the hallway.

On the left side of the fork were the stairs leading up to the second floor. On the right-

As soon as Ran looked towards the right, she halted her steps and hid behind the wall.

She heard the sound of footsteps and water being poured. Peeking her out barely, she looked towards the sound.

To the right was an open kitchen area. A woman was standing in the interior area of the kitchen, with her back towards Ran. She was rather tall, and she was holding a can of fruit-flavored tea that she was pouring into a cup.

Ran scrutinized her form carefully.

Ran Ibuki: (...Looks like she's got no weapons on her. It's hard to tell what level of fitness she's at due to the uniform, but it's most likely that she's just an ordinary civilian.)

Ran Ibuki: (Her hair looks wet. She probably just got out of the shower.)

Ran Ibuki: (Her age looks similar to mine. Perhaps I could consider initiating contact.)

Ran Ibuki: (But, how would she perceive me? A thief? A home invader? An escaped convict?)

Ran pulls her head back behind the wall again.

Ran Ibuki: (Whether or not it was the students who locked me in the basement here, either way, I am a person who definitely isn't supposed to appear right here right now.)

Ran Ibuki: (Sure, I'm just a victim here, but any student's natural reaction to a stranger showing up in their dormitory would be alarm and hostility.)

Ran Ibuki: (Not to mention the very real possibility that it was the students who locked me up in the first place. I should reconsider and find a controlled approach that maximizes my chances of-

???: Oi.

The appearance of a student at the intersection caused Ran to gasp in fear, as their eyes met.

As Ran had predicted, she looked rather displeased about this state of affairs.

Looking at her ear piercings, and the fangs that peeked out between her lips, Ran thought of the feral cats that lived under her apartment for some reason.

She was taller than Ran, though, and she cast a shadow on Ran's face just by standing over her. It made Ran feel diminished and stressed.

A few stray memories of how she'd suffered at school came into Ran's mind, unbidden, and she quickly blinked them away and returned to reality.

???: Who're you? What're you doing here?

Ran Ibuki: (...Looks like she doesn't know about my situation. Let's try conversation for now.)

Notice her ouroboros bracelet (Investigation 4)

Reassure her and placate her emotions (Requires Charisma 6)

Introduce yourself

Use Temporary Points

Ran Ibuki: D-don't get mad, I just got lost...

Ran Ibuki: It's so cold outside, I wanted to find somewhere to hide, and I saw that the lights were on here, so...

Ran raises a hand towards the female student, hoping that a handshake will help resolve the awkwardness between them.

The female student relaxes her shoulders slightly, and after considering Ran for a moment, shakes her hand.

???: Alright, tell me your name first.

Ran Ibuki nodded.

Ran Ibuki: My name is Ran Ibuki. First name Ran, last name Ibuki.

Ran Ibuki: But we're all speaking chinese here, so you can also call me Lin Xinlan.

???: ...What the fuck are you talking about?

The female student scrunched up her brow and stared intensely at Ran.

???: How could I possibly be speaking chinese? You're speaking japanese right now, aren't you?

There was no question that the sounds that Ran was perceiving from both her mouth and the other person's mouth were both the most utterly unremarkable standard chinese.

Ran Ibuki: (What's going on? I'm clearly speaking chinese, and she's also...)

Ran Ibuki: (...No, I can test this.)

Ran Ibuki: A LOT OF JAPANESE (This is ACTUAL japanese, isn't it??)

As soon as Ran spoke those words, she clutched her mouth with her hands.

She'd spoken those words with japanese grammar and prounciation, and she was certain that she'd felt her mouth form the correct shapes for such.

But what she heard was completely unremarkable chinese coming out of her mouth. It was like there was a parasite living in her mouth, controlling her mouth for her.

The orders given by her brain and the movements of her muscles were in alignment, and yet the results were completely different.

Ran: (Wait a second. Up to now, I've only seen... written text has only been in chinese or arabic numerals... and that book which was obviously a japanese textbook but translated into chinese for some bizarre reason...)

???: Hey, uh- can I call you Ibuki? Why'd you clam up all of a sudden?

Ran: Nothing. Just- yeah, just call me Ibuki. You?

???: My name is Sai Yano (夜野 彩). I'm a student here.

Sai Yano

Investigation 4, Alacrity 7, Charisma 5

Uniform is a long-skirted sailor uniform. First student encountered by Ran Ibuki at the school. Not very good at blunting her words, but holds no hostility towards Ran.

Loves swimming. No matter when, as long as there's an opportunity, you can find her at the swimming pool. She says that while she's in the water, it's like she can hear the voice of her little sister.

Very handsome face....

The musculature on her arms is really pretty!

She's got a little fang

Ouroboros bracelet- possibly chuuni?

Was Sai already familiar with this sort of thing?

Had there been many past cases where a mysterious intruder entered the school, and run into Sai...

And then was never able to leave?

Well, if that was the kind of thing going on, then the next plot-beat would probably be meeting a bunch of allies stuck in the same situation, and then getting whittled down slowly one by one by the monster until in the end the protagonist and their female companion were the only survivors of the nightmare.

No, that's just the plot of a third-rate horror movie. Get yourself together.

Sai: Well, it's pretty late. You should get to bed. I'll introduce you to everyone else tomorrow morning.

Sai: You can sleep in my room tonight.

Ran: Your room? This suddenly?

Sai: Everyone else has a roommate. Only my room's empty, that's why.

That wasn't really what Ran was asking.

Ran: Is... that okay, though?

Ran took a quick look over the layout of the area while she talked.

There was a dining table in the open kitchen, and on the other side of the dining table were the stairs to the second floor. Under the stairs was a passageway leading to deeper areas of the dormitory building.

Ran took the opportunity to memorize the layout of the area. It was clearly a spacious building.

If each room had multiple people in it, and Sai Yano's room was the only one with an empty bed, that implied that the number of students here might be greater than seven.

Ran: I'm a stranger to you, though, right? You'd imagine that you'd be more cautious with a stranger.

Ran: (And me? Should I trust a stranger like her?)

Sai, in response, chugged the last of her fruit tea, before saying,

Sai: Eh, you're the same age as me, and you seem decent.

She started washing her newly emptied cup. The sound of the water falling into the cup made a pleasant splashing sound.

Sai: Unless you're telling me you are here to cause trouble, then?

Ran: Of course not. I'm a good person.

The way that Ran stressed her words caused Sai to laugh.

Sai: Well, there you go, then. Come with me.

Sai: Don't forget to take your shoes off at the door.

Head upstairs with Sai Yano

Ask Yano where the bus station is, and leave this place immediately

Ran returned to the entrance of the building, and used the opportunity of depositing her shoes in the shoe cabinet to inspect every inch of the shoe cabinet.

Sai just calmly waited for Ran to finish doing her thing.

Ran counted the number of shoes. There were seven pairs of shoes; most of them were various kinds of student-appropriate shoes, but a pair of short boots stood alone at the very bottommost layer of the cabinet.

Ran: (So there really are only seven.)

Sai: Oi, are you still not done??

Sai's yell gave Ran a bit of a spook, and she reflexively scrunched her shoulders up as she answered Sai.

Ran: Sorry, I'll be right there!

Ran closed the cabinet. She did not place her own shoes in the cabinet, but rather left them, toes pointing outwards at the main entrance, and headed upstairs with Sai.

The second-floor hall wasn't long. On the left was a balcony from which you could see the bottom floor; on the right you could quickly reach the end of the hall. At the end were four doors, none of them with any identification on them. Exactly the right amount of rooms for seven people, if Yano was telling the truth about having a room to herself.

Design-wise, the building felt less like a student dormitory, and more like an ordinary civilian residence.

Sai Yano opened the closest door, and invited Ran Ibuki to head in first.

Ran nodded and headed in and immediately began rummaging all over everything without asking permission, while Sai got to work putting blankets out on the lower bunk.

The decorations in the dorm room were rather simple. Besides the rather minimalistic posters on the wall, there were only standardized furnitures and little in the way of extraneous decoration.

Ran wondered if this was because of school rules, or if it was just Sai's own personality.

She looked around a bit more before settling on the windows.

The darkness outside the windows was endless and melded seamlessly with the night sky, as though a veil of shadow had been cast over the whole dormitory.

Sai: Okay that's enough rummaging around for you, time to get in that lower bunk and sleep.

Ran: Oh, uh... okay.

After that, Sai didn't say much. After climbing to the top bunk, she used a switch at the head of the bed to turn off the lights.

Seeing the situation, Ran got her phone out, using it to light the path to her bed.

She took off her socks and outerwear, and got into bed. The warmth of the bed warded away all cold, and relaxed her.

The situation had developed much more calmly than Ran had imagined. She quietly anticipated being able to leave this place tomorrow with the help of the other students, and to set off once again on her journey to find Yasu.

Ran: (The bed feels so warm despite it being winter, and for some reason, it seems easy to talk with Yano-san.)

Ran: (Thanks to her, my situation's improved so much. I should really thank her.)

Ran: Yano-san, I-

Sai: Shut up and sleep.

Ran: ...Okay...

"You're always hiding here by yourself, aren't you? What's wrong?"

Yes, miss Sakura, I've always been alone, ever since you, found me.

"I'll help you wipe your tears, so tell me what happened."

I'm sorry, miss Sakura, I'm only good at crying, I can't even speak clearly. I'm afraid of pain and I'm afraid of being bullied. I didn't want to get wet, and I didn't want the pencil box I saved up money to buy to get smashed.

"Don't worry, from now on I'll always be with you."

I know, miss Sakura. But I still want to become, that most important person, to miss Sakura.

"I'm very happy you could say that- really, very happy."

Me too, miss Sakura.

Even if the poison has spread inescapably throughout the entirety of the body, we'll never split apart from each other.

"Hang on, you're so clumsy with your hands, ouch!"

Surely miss Sakura's expression, so different from the face she normally wears, is one that only I can see.

Now you and I have a special relationship, don't we?

"Ran, from here on out, we'll never be apart again."

Of course, miss Sakura. ...Miss Sakura?

don't leave me

miss sakura!

i'm here!

yasu!

yasu!

don't!

Sai: Hey, time to get up.

After all, after Yasu Sakura's disappearance, she'd already eaten eighteen full pages out of the notebook to stifle the increasingly serious symptoms of her illness.

Sai: You're okay, right?

Decent hairdo.

Sai: You lookin' at something?

Ran: Ah, nothing, I just- uh, cool hairstyle.

Sai: Somehow feels like you're not exactly complimenting me. Whatever, get up already.

Ran got up, and noticed that Sai was holding a small baggie of- something. She dangled it, and Ran's eyes tracked it as it swung back and forth like a pendulum.

Sai: You can stop staring at it. That's the bag for my swimsuit. I'm going to get a swim in before the morning meet.

Ran: Swimming? There's a swimming pool here?

Sai: No shit. What, you think I'm going to backstroke across the courtyard?

Ran: I noticed it last night but didn't make much of it- despite the fine furnishings of this place, they don't have private bathrooms. I guess that means even the sinks where you brush your teeth are communal.

Sai: Oi, Indou. You're on duty today, right?

The person that Sai addressed as Indou turned around, with her hands crossed before her, and made a light bow to Sai.

???: Good morning, miss Yano.

Sai: Yeah, good to see you too, I'm entrusting you with her. Ibuki, come over here.

Ran: Okay okay okay sure, boss.

???: Wh-wh-wh-why is there a stranger?! Yano-san, who is she?

Sai: Calm down, Indou, take a deep breath.

Indou apparently took Sai at her word, and began taking extremely deep breaths, heaving her head back with every intake. It was a little comical.

Ran: (Indou, huh. Like the character for 'dog'. She is kind of cute, like a little puppy.)

Ran: (What's with the traditional getup, though? And outfits like that aren't supposed to have that kind of flowery decoration on them, right?)

Ran: (Now that I think about it, the design looks a bit similar to Sai Yano's sailor seifuku uniform.)

???: Okay, I'm calmed down now. I think.

Sai rubbed the back of Indou's head affectionately.

Sai: Great, then I'm leaving the rest to you. Bring Ibuki to the classroom, will you?

Sai: Oh, yeah, by the way, last night after I came back from my swim, I found that the baths were outta water.

Sai: Make sure you let Asakura know about that, and tell her to come fix whatever's wrong in the afternoon.

Ran: (So, that means that Yano's wet hair was from showering over at the swimming pools, then.)

Ran: (But her hair seems like it'd be a hassle when it came to swimming. Curious.)

???: Okay, Yano-san, I'll remember to pass it on.

Sai: Good. So, Ibuki, just stick to Indou and you'll be fine. Don't bully her or I'll beat you up.

Ran: Where'd you get that impression of me from??

???: You're Ibuki-san, right?

???: I'm Tama Indou. It's nice to meet you, Ibuki-san.

Ran: (She's speaking in chinese- or at least that's what I'm hearing- as well, but if I bring that up I'm sure it'll be the same as last night with Sai.)

Ran: (I'm also curious about her outfit. Maybe she's an exception to the school uniform rules here.)

Tama Indou (犬童 玉)

Investigation 4, Alacrity 4, Charisma 7 (oh no she's the adorable one)

Uniform is a yukata. Impeccably polite to everyone, and very restrained in action.

Attempts to conceal her self-image of inferiority by humbly claiming the blame for all mistakes committed around her, under the belief that doing so will avoid others becoming irritated with her.

Besides miss Sakura's childhood pictures I have NEVER seen such an ADORABLE little girl

Hairbuns: adorable

Tiny height: adorable

Yukata?

Wearing hand bracelets? Woven kind of like in shintoism? Shrine maiden?

Ran: (Way too lawful...)

Tama Indou: Alright, then, please allow me to escort you to your classroom, Ibuki-sama.

Tama: I mean, Ibuki-san.

Ran: (She called me what?)

Boots: also adorable

The rustic environment made Ran a bit nostalgic, and she wound up thinking about the time that she and Yasu visited Yasu's granny in the countryside that one time.

Yasu Sakura's granny was a bit weird, and she always called Ran 'little raccoon' for some reason, but she was exceedingly gentle and kind with her graddaughter.

When the two were fishing beside the river, her granny would often wheel a little hand-cart on by and bring them chilled watermelon. Though every time, the portion that was supposed to be for Ran always got eaten by the granny herself.

Ran: (Even though I didn't really want to be called 'little raccoon', miss Sakura always said that raccoons were adorable, so I had no choice but to allow her granny to keep calling me that.)

Ran: (Wait, what am I even doing.)

Ran: (Almost let myself get caught up in the class atmosphere here. I'm not here to study!)

Tama: I'm sorry, miss Ibuki. There are only us seven students here, and no teachers.

Tama smiled, as if she'd remembered something cheerful.

Tama: Well, eight now, including you, miss Ibuki!

Ran: (Okay, no, deep breaths. It's fine. You are not here to solve the seven mysteries of the school, or whatever. You are here to figure out a way to get out so you can get back to looking for miss Sakura.)

Ran: Okay, so, there's no teachers. Swell. Do you know where I can find a bus station, then?

Tama: Ibuki-san, I'd love to help you, but it's impossible to leave right now.

Hm. Yeah, figured it wouldn't be that easy. Still, if Ran could learn what the nature of the obstruction was, she'd be able to come up with a plan for it.

Tama raised a hand and pointed towards the northwest.

Tama: If you leave the school, and then left, there's a tunnel that'll take you to the local village.

Tama: But, a collapse blocked the tunnel with stones, so we can't leave through it, and there are no other ways out of the area.

Ran: FUYCK SHIT FUCK FUCKSG WEAG WGGOD SD DAMNIWGG FT FUCK

Ran: (Hm. That's not so bad. I was worried it'd be some kind of supernatural situation. If it's just a mundane, regular old nonmagic nondemonic nonoccult nonanything road blockage, then there's definitely reason to be hopeful.)

Ran: An accident? So, when exactly did the tunnel get blocked?

Tama: I don't know. When we found that it'd been blocked up, that was a whole year ago.

Ran, for real this time: ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?! A YEAR?!

Ran: You've been in here a year?! You haven't seen or talked to your families in a whole year? And, if the road is blocked, then nobody can get in here, right? So what've you been eating? Are you telling me you had a year's worth of supplies stored in your school??

Ran: Even if you do, aren't you afraid you'll run out? Why hasn't the road been fixed even after a year, what's taking so damn long??

Tama: I... I don't know...

Tama: The school always has food to eat...

Ran sighed.

Ran: Look, even disregarding the food thing, you all have basically been locked in here for a whole year. Don't you think that's incredibly weird?

Tama had broken eye contact with Ran, and was looking straight down at the ground while nervously fidgeting with her fingers.

Tama: I... I don't know...

Ran saw Tama's timid reaction, and for a moment, Ran thought she was looking in a mirror. She immediately lowered her voice, partially in contrition.

Ran: I'm sorry, I got too excited. But- you really aren't worried about being trapped here?

Tama: Well... in terms of being trapped...

Tama: I mean... until we graduate, we're supposed to stay at the school anyways.

Tama: I'm sure the tunnel will be fixed by then, so as long as we can leave by then, we'll be fine.

Tama: I'm sorry... miss Ibuki.

Tama: Can we hurry to the classroom? I'm afraid I won't have enough time to do the cleaning...

Tama Indou's eyes were moving around nervously, avoiding making contact with Ran's own gaze.

Ran was practically hearing a clack-clack-clack sound. It was like she and Tama Indou were gears aligned in the opposite direction, and their teeth were getting snagged on each other.

Ran decided to capitulate and spin in the same direction as Tama for now, so they'd stop clashing so badly.

Ran: Ah, hm, mm, sorry. Yeah, let's go, then.

Ran: (A year...)

Ran: (No matter how you think about it, being trapped in a school for a whole year can't be called normal.)

Ran: (Let's go in and meet the other students for now. With any luck, I'll find someone who agrees with me and wants to get out of here like I do.)

Ran Ibuki: Uoooohhhhh, miss Sakura, when can I see your face again?

Ran: (Wait, she has a signal on her phone?!)

Ran: (I need to get my hands on that phone, maybe I can make a call or figure out where we are or SOMETHING-)

Ran: Hey, Tama-chan, did you get a text message or what?

Tama: Oh! It's nothing, just- my roommate loves sending me text messages after she gets out of bed, every morning. And the contents are pretty funny every time.

Tama smiled happily.

Tama: My roommate is Asakura-san. Miss Sai brought her up in passing, I believe?

Ran: (Dang.)

Ran: (I guess the phones the students here have must have some kind of special modification that lets them talk to each other even without a signal.)

Tama: I'm sorry... I don't understand much about phones...

Ran: (Her thoughts are as adorable as her appearance eeeeeee. I wanna pet her on her hairbuuuunssssss....)

Tama Indou jogged into the classroom quickly after that, reaching the storage cabinet and opening it to extract the broom and dustpan, before beginning sweeping the room, starting from the rear row of seats.

Ran: By the way, Indou. I notice you've got all these desks, but there's only seven students, right? Why do you have so many desks?

Tama: Oh, that.

Tama took a long breath, apparently very pleased with the fruits of her labor.

Tama: It was like this when we showed up here.

Tama: We thought about cleaning up a bit, but the tables are heavy so we never bothered to move them.

Tama: So we decided to just keep the place as it is. And we can use the spares as extras if we ever need them.

Ran: (This explanation is only just barely reasonable. It's the same sort of question as how the dormitory building only has rooms for seven people despite it clearly being large enough to house many more people.)

Ran: (It's not incredibly strange by itself, but there's surely a more parsimonious answer to all of this.)

About the difference between Indou's outfit and the school uniform

Praise Indou and tell her that her clothes suit her (Requires Charisma 5)

Use Temporary Points

Ran: By the way, Indou, do you not have to wear the uniform?

Ran: The outfit Sai wears is the regular school uniform, isn't it?

Hearing Ran's question, Tama Indou stopped her sweeping. She didn't turn towards Ran, and spoke in a tiny voice.

Tama: My, my outfit here is a uniform too... Everyone picked the ones they liked most to wear, I chose mine with the rest of my classmates...

Tama: You've noticed it, haven't you, Ibuki-san? All the outfits the students were here have the same color scheme.

Ran Ibuki: Chose yourself? You're saying that everyone here wears a different uniform?

Tama lowered her head, and crossed her hands nervously. Her legs were glued to each other in tension as well.

Tama: ...So even miss Ibuki feels that I do not deserve to wear the uniform, too, then...

Ran: What? I was just-

door opening sound

???: Hm?! Who are you?!

???: So what's your name? Are you a transfer student? When'd you get here?

Ran immediately noticed the crest on her uniform's chest. It was clearly sewn on after the fact, and not the crest of the school itself.

Before she could answer, though, another student entered the classroom.

???: What is it, Aya, did something-

As soon as she saw Ran, the smile on her face fell away immediately.

???: Who are you?

Ran: I've gotten lost, and-

???: How'd you get in? We're in the mountains, and the tunnel road's been closed off.

Ran: (Finally, someone here that's willing to ask what the hell I'm doing here and not just go along with the flow like everybody else.)

Ran: (Still, I can't just tell her I don't know anything anyways, that'll just make her suspicious of me.)

Ran: (My best hope is to just kind of blunder my way through this conversation and wait until the topic changes. I have a feeling she's going to be very useful to me in the future.)

Ran: I was looking for someone, but somehow I,,,

???: ???

???: You haven't actually answered my question. You're hiding something, aren't you?

???: Okay Miho that's enough, you can stop bothering the new girl now.

The student- Aya?- put both her hands on Ran's shoulders, and looked rather happy about it.

Aya: It's rare for us to get a new student! We should try our best to get along.

Aya: You're Ran, right? I'm Aya. Aya Toyama.

Aya Toyama

Investigation 5 Alacrity 6 Charisma 4

Wears a track uniform on top of their school uniform. Constantly smiling cheerfully; seems almost naively innocent.

Only willing to speak jokingly with Miho Takei. She's afraid to speak sincerely with Miho.

Excitable, superficial?

Crest on uniform- what's it mean?

Neck choker

Just slightly taller than Indou maybe

Rock-n-roll fangirl??

Aya: And that extremely cute-looking but standoffish person over there is Miho Takei.

Miho: Aya, I feel like you should stay away from her.

After Miho's last word, she retreated back to her own desk, as though she'd lost all interest in Ran Ibuki.

Aya: Don't worry, Ran-chan, Miho always talks like that, but I'm sure she's very happy that we've got a new classmate too!

Miho: Not in the slightest.

Miho Takei

Investigation 8 Alacrity 2 Charisma 6

Miho Takei

Investigation 8 Alacrity 2 Charisma 6

Uniform is a western-styled suit. Calm and collected, and is the only student to express suspicion about Ran. However, she seems to also have benevolent intentions towards Ran.

Ran sees her in a positive, appreciative light, but Ran can't quite explain where this appreciation comes from.

Teardrop mole, incredibly pretty (not as much as miss Sakura of course)

Very long legs, and ideal proportions

Pretty smart too apparently

Patterns on the neck of her uniform- somewhat strange?