DxD: Analog Destruction

Tutorial Stage #8. - Walking Corpse.

Three days had passed by in a blur. Kyu was glad that the woman's lair was so far away from the school. It was easier to avoid that way.

Despite staying away from the site of his almost-execution, the boy's unease hadn't lessened.

To distract himself, Kyu decided to put all of the supernatural oddities happening around him on the back burner, at least for a bit. But the school had proven so dull that the boy wanted to focus solely on the supernatural once again. The one thing that kept him entertained was the shared joke between him and his homeroom teacher.

The last few days he had shown up with his ribbon tied around his hand like knuckle wraps, he replaced the shoelace of his left sneaker with it, and yesterday he tied it around his torso which bunched up his blazer occasionally. Today the ribbon was tied around his neck like a choker. Kyu had mixed feelings about this spot, but he was rapidly running out of places to tie the ribbon.
When he walked into the classroom where Takahashi-sensei awaited, her immediate response to finding Kyu's new ribbon location? Loud, hearty laughter. "You went with that? Isn't that a little--"
"Fruity? Yes, but I'm trying to stay original while I still can. Eventually, I'll just have to wear it like a normal person." Kyu said as he stopped in front of her desk.

The few male students in the classroom fell silent as they tried to listen in on Kyu's conversation with the teacher. Unbeknownst to the boy, Takahashi-sensei had her own little cult following similar to the other popular girls, and her fan club wasn't thrilled with the idea of the boy's sudden friendship with the woman.

"The dress code really isn't that strict. You could leave out the ribbon." She said. The boy was silent for a moment. His face fell. "WHAT?!" He yelled. Some of the listeners jumped on the spot after his sudden outburst.
"You mean I've been paranoid that Shitori-san will find me in the hallway and beat me with a stick for nothing?!"
"Well... yes." Takahashi said. She privately agreed with the boy that Shitori was the type of person to assault people for violating school rules.

"I don't know whether to be happy or absolutely infuriated." Kyu explained as he took the ribbon off. He held it between his hands and snapped it as if threatening to strangle somebody.
"So, how loose can I get with the uniform?"
"There's not a guideline, the student council will step in if you go overboard." She stated.
"So is there like a general ballpark, or...?" He attempted to get a concrete answer from her.
"Just don't go overboard." She warned.
"But how much is too much?" He pressed.

She smiled kindly at him before remembering that class was to begin shortly. She ushered him away and Kyu rolled his eyes at her and returned the smile. When the boy sat down at his desk he immediately unbuttoned his blazer and the topmost button of his shirt. He shoved his ribbon into a pocket and kept his focus on the lesson all the while feeling just a tad more comfortable. 

On his lunch break, Kyu paid a brief visit to the old schoolhouse. He didn't get close-- In fact, he stayed on the dusty baseball field located perhaps twenty meters away from the schoolhouse. The boy had felt the presence of the building since he had set foot on campus, it had lingered at the back of his mind all day. It was so obvious he didn't know how he hadn't noticed the eerie feeling emanating from the building before.

His brief investigation into the Occult Research Club had come to a halt since the System had led him into a death trap. His curiosity still ran rampant inside of his mind despite his near-death distraction.
The lack of information he had on the supposedly famous club felt wrong. He contemplated asking them up front, but the mere thought of going up to one of those creatures and asking "So, what's up with you?" Was so laughable that the boy couldn't contain a snicker.

However, a mere second's worth of thought into the idea suddenly stopped it from sounding so ridiculous. They didn't know he was onto them. In their eyes, he was just another student.
The only problem was the magical aspect. Kyu had no idea if they could sense his magic the way he felt the presence of something unnatural in their clubhouse. Years of experiencing different medieval fantasy media had taught him that if magic exists, it likely leaves traces.