Mystery No More - jshk + OCs

Chapter 3

The rain poured down on the students running towards the Academy for shelter, prompting Kou to dash quickly to Tsuchigomori, lest his overdue homework in his hand become soaked. When he arrived, a raven-haired girl immediately rushed to him, clutching her phone in her hand.

"Minamoto-kun!"

Kou turned.

"Eh? Araki-san, what's going on?"

The girl looked concerned and questioned him almost immediately. "Have you seen Rin-chan?"

"Rin...? Oh, you mean Tanaka-san? No. Why?"

Araki sniffled. "S-She didn't come to school today. None of us have seen her since Monday. Today's Wednesday... A-And her aunt said that she hasn't seen her since Monday morning either."

Kou scratched his head. He pitied the crying girl. His eyes sparkling with charming determination, he patted her on the back with a small smack. "It's okay, I promise I'll help look for her. Maybe I'll ask Tsuchigomori-sensei about it when I hand in my homework!"

Araki smiled under her tears. "Thanks!"

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"Good to see that you've handed in your homework exactly two days after it was due. Make sure this doesn't happen again unless you want me to talk to your parents."

The boy nods. "Will do, spider-sensei."

Tsuchigomori sighed and put the worksheet of mostly wrong answers back onto his desk. It was barely legible anyways. "...You said there was something you wanted to ask me?"

The exorcist sat up straight. "Right! I wanted to ask whether you've seen Tanaka-san?"

Tsuchigomori stopped smoking his pipe to think. "Tanaka Rin? No, but I hope she doesn't get another late strike today. I don't think she's out sick either since her aunt hasn't emailed the school. Why are you asking?"

The traffic-earring boy sighed. "Araki-san... she said no one in our class has seen Tanaka-san since school finished on Monday."

Silence.

Tsuchigomori's eyes widened. "So she's missing?"

"I'm thinking that's possible..."

The spider teacher grabbed onto Kou's shoulders, taking him aback. It was unusual for the lazy old hag to suddenly move like that.

"Listen, Minamoto. This is just a hunch, but what if her disappearance is linked to the new..." Tsuchigomori paused, coughing out the last few words in distaste, "rumour going around?"

Kou took a while to think, pulling himself away from his teacher's hands. New rumour...

"You mean the one about the door?" His mind clicked.

"You bet. She could have summoned him and failed to pay the price..."

Both of them sat in silence, realising the possible situation. The image of multiple students in the hands of an anonymous ghost entered the young boy's head.

"That's terrible...!" Kou shook his head, "This is bad! This is really bad! We need to go save her!"

"Hold it there, Minamoto." Tsuchigomori sighed, "You can't just go barging into a new mysterious boundary all by yourself expecting to save anyone. It won't work."

"Then... Should we go to Hanako?" Kou asked, willing to do anything in order to save the poor students.

"...Maybe so."

(time skip to after school brought by your Authors®)

"HA-NA-KO!"

The choppy-haired boy appeared from the cubicle, waiting for Yashiro to arrive. The late afternoon sun shone through the glass window, casting rays of light on the tiled floor.