She struck out, again and again. They died, over and over. Every night the died, every night that oily black substance splashed across her body, ran down her legs, and pooled at her feet. Over and over she would be tossed away, over and over she would be thrown across the city. And yet she would keep returning. She'd always return with the light of the moon.

Every single night. She'd been doing it every single night. She couldn't give up. She wouldn't let herself give up. Even if her body broke down and shattered, she would never give up.

This was the reason she existed.

The purpose of her birth.

The only reason she was alive.

Her target stood tall and strong. If she was destroyed here, it would be in attempting to fulfill her purpose.

She would try again tonight.

Just like every other night.

---

It was that dream again.

The blue velvet couch. The circular room. The walls were made out of a metallic substance, that also appeared blue. Attached to them were a variety of screens, each of them displaying a different image. They all had one thing in common, though, as the images were each a different angle on the same thing. A dark city, shadowy, and seemingly empty. It had this air of familiarity when looked upon, and yet it also seemed completely alien. The sky was starless, and yet somehow it was no simple black void. Whirls of color seemed to distantly turn in the night sky, like twisting nebulae of purples and blues.

The most noticeable feature on each screen was the enormous tower. Lined with spotlights aimed towards the very top of the structure, it was a dark monolith that stood above all else. It gave off an even more alien situation the a simple view of the city did.

With how strangely absorbing these screens were, it was easy enough to miss that the room was no longer empty.

What appeared to be a little girl dressed in some sort of stylized miko outfit now sat on the couch, the red and white standing out quite clearly against the blue backdrop. The bells in her hair jingled as she rose, suddenly clutching a silver case in one hand as she approached.

She cocked her head to the side, quietly.

"Nothing more then a human consciousness," she commented, with a sigh, raising her suitcase. "... Nevertheless, we'll be meeting soon."

The suitcase fell open.

---

It wasn't as if the last class of the day never heralded sleeping students. However, for some of these students to all share the same dream, a dream they had experienced multiple times prior, was somewhat disconcerting. Still, it was hardly as if they all knew they'd experienced it simultaneously.

The bell rang. The day was heading towards its end.

The halls were filled with students. Many of them were nervous. The main topic of conversation was Strange Gospel. It wasn't hard to see why. The news of the disturbing imagery the phone app had displayed was impossible to escape from, and now that people who had used the app had begun to disappear... well, needless to say, there were a lot of people who were scared. Was there a connection? Had someone been using the app to track its users and do something terrible? Was the phone app behind it?! Was there something occult afoot? These possibilities swirled through conversation endlessly. Students were clinging to various theories. Some even thought it might be some kind of 'end of the world' scenario.

A lot of the idle chat seemed to have been absorbed by Strange Gospel.

Of course, that wasn't the only topic on everyone's mind as students steadily began to filter out of the school after classes and club meetings had concluded. Relationships, television shows, music, various other rumors... one particularly strange one pertained to a weird girl wearing a trenchcoat that had been sighted in town. Apparently, she always wore headphones and tended to vanish and reappear at random, never seeming to interact with anyone.

As the flow of students headed away from the school, some of them, those who had experienced the strange dreams, may just find themselves running into one another...

One way or another, something would change their world tonight.

@PKMNB0Y@Dblade26@Mercurial@TheFake@RolePlayerRoxas@PKMNB0Y@Crimmy

"...God dammit, I swear this project's gonna be the death of me..."

With very slight bags under his eyes, the young man grumbled to himself as the day reached its end. He had long since changed out of the school's uniform and back into his usual attire—the good old vest, collared shirt, and tie combo that never failed to make him more confident about himself. It was a bit of a hassle, having to change into these clothes at the end of each day, but he never knew what opportunities could strike at any given time.

Thus thought Motoyama Keita, whose opportunism knew no bounds. While his lunch break had (sadly) been shot through by some weird dream, he found himself attributing it to all the work he had been putting into understanding Strange Gospel.

Yes, the very same one that everyone and their dog seemed to be talking about these days. Just the spontaneity of its popularity was enough to have him test the application out, if only to attempt to delve into its mysteries and understand what made it work. The recent incidents only served to bolster his curiosity; while some other people in the programming club seemed to be sticking to less... Dangerous matters, there was no good way to get him to stop. After all, the thought of him cracking this whole mystery and getting the whole school back to normal was enough to drive him. He'd had enough of people pestering him, asking him if anything new came up.

This was painfully slow work, and he damn well knew it.

The only feasible explanation the boy could give for his repeating dream was some sort of subliminal message on part of the application itself; whether or not it was intentional was a matter entirely it own, but the answers would likely come within grasp eventually.

"...Alright. I think that's all, then," he said, looking at himself in the bathroom mirror as he tightened the tie around his neck and picked up his bags from the hook from which they hung. Today was another day of work, and at the very least the lunchtime naps meant that he had a bit more energy in his tank to power through more code.

Now, if only his bento boxes didn't have to be scarfed down every day...

---

"Ah, god damn it I'm sick of that language! Who even decided it was a good idea to write a language in something that arcane?! How the heck is it even functioning?!" Keita shouted as he slammed his right arm down on the table, his right eye twitching for a few moments before he calmed himself and smoothed out his clothes. The time for extracurriculars had ended, and with it the time had spent in the programming club as one of its senior members. People would occasionally poke him for help, and that was fine, considering it meant not having to puzzle out that code for a few minutes.

But even if it was irritating, the payoff felt like it could be worth so much more than the effort he had put in thus far. And so he kept going, regardless of his irritation at the entire thing.

Packing up his equipment (namely, his laptop and mouse), Keita sighed and, with a weary smile, waved goodbye to the rest of the club members. They had become used to his exasperation by this point, and it wasn't as if such feelings were unfamiliar to them, either.

And so Keita walked past the school gates, bags slung over his shoulder as he continued onward.

Maybe he'd head home... Or get some ingredients to make some food instead. That bento definitely wouldn't last him the night.

"Hotaru, Hotaru!"

A young girl dashed through the flow of students, darting in between bodies, making her way to another young woman, lurched over and dragging herself forward. Catching ear of the siren-like calls of the girl quickly intercepting her, Hotaru glanced over and let out a weak smile, forcing her arm upwards to give a half-formed wave. The other girl beamed with joy, a smile reaching seemingly from each border of her face.

"So, you want to come over again! Aiko is home so we can probably get her to make us some Castella if we bother her enough"

Hotaru chuckled slightly at the thought but politely declined, raising her hand up to dismiss the suggestion.

"Not today, Kyoko. I have to go to the church before the priest leaves." she explained, swinging her backpack onto her shoulder. "It's imperative that I speak with him, and I'd rather not have to go all the way to his home and bother him."

Kyoko frowned slightly, stamping her foot a bit, "Hotaru! You and all this Christian stuff. You better not be becoming a Jesus freak or something."

Hotaru smirked, "I assure you I am not. It's just that..."

"What"

"Well, last night, I had a dream"

Kyoko's face twisted into a puzzled expression, "A dream, about what?"

"It...It's hard to explain. It was just, dark, and empty, it felt so unnatural. And with the news of the things that have been appearing on that..app, if you could even consider such a monstrous thing a simple phone app! I think something evil is happening, and with people talking about end times..."

"No! Okay, Hotaru, no!" Kyoko snapped at her friend, drawing the attention of some passing students who congregated to gawk at the girls' argument. "I'm not going to tolerate you thinking such stupid things! There is nothing evil or "satanic" about the app. I've talked to several people already who think it's just a hoax. They've made pretty good arguments."

"Look, the whole talk of this thing is just unnerving me, and I think I need to talk to my priest to ease my mind."

Kyoko said nothing, simply frowning at her friend

"Kyoko"

"Fine, fine"

"Good," Hotaru said, mounting her bike as she looked back at the girl opposite her. "I have to go now. I'll call you later. Bye"

As she peddled down the street towards the priests home, thoughts raced in Hotaru's mind. The cognitive vortex was beginning to give her a headache.

Ugh, maybe I just need some water, she thought, catching sight of a convenience store nearby.

I guess I have time to get some water. Father Joji won't be gone that quickly

Hotaru pulled into the parking lot, quickly chaining up her bike and darting past a group of smoking delinquents loitering on the walls. Water was all she needed.

It was no doubt apparent to the students that Manami was acting slightly off today.

The current head of the disciplinary committee, as always, stood by the school's gates at the end of the school day, keeping a stern eye on her peers. Or at least, she was supposed to be. Normally, she would reprimand anyone getting lazy with their appearance just because school hours were over, or if they were simply leaving too fast for her liking... but today, her eyes wandered over the others and she said nothing. She simply folded her arms, lips pursed as troubles ailed her thoughts.

Things were getting extremely hectic lately. Her usual complaints aside, lately that stupid app had been all the rage (and led to so many phone confiscations - popularity of apps meant nothing before the rules, damn it!), and she'd pegged it for trouble ever since the start. Not because there was anything overtly sinister about the thing - apparent predictions aside - but because it could, and most certainly was, a disruptive influence to the students.

And now, users of the app were disappearing.

Manami wouldn't be an immediate guess as a user of Strange Gospel, and that guess would be correct. That said, she had most definitely seen it in action during one of her first confiscations. As if showing the stupid thing's features would change her mind. That said, the fact it managed to show she would be twenty yen short for a sandwich during lunch the next week was... concerning. She considered the possibility that it was a video someone took from awhile ago and uploaded to the 'net like a creepy weirdo. But something niggled at the back of her mind, denying this could be the case.

And then, the spate of disappearances that only seemed to target users of the app... Manami didn't consider herself easily intimated. Her background and personality certainly showed she wasn't afraid of confrontation... but this was just too strange. How were her schoolmates disappearing? Was she a target too? Manami didn't even possess a phone that could download the app, but why did she have the horrifying feeling that just seeing the app in use had 'marked' her?

And then, on top of that, there was apparently a stranger in a trenchcoat hanging around?!

It spoke of Manami's incredibly self-restraint to prevent herself from screaming into the air in frustration, potentially freaking out . Lazy, slobbish students she could deal with. This was just getting riidiculous!

Ah, yes, the cherry on top: a recurring dream she could not understand, nor did she have a strong desire to at the moment. She leaned against the school's boundary, her present task momentarily forgotten. It sure took a lot to take her mind off of her duties, and damn was there a lot on her mind right now.

The only time she saw anything any more was when she dreamed. Even awake, so many years after the accident, it took more and more effort to imagine a world beyond what she could hear and touch. One with colour and depth. Even in her dreams it was rare to actually see anything. Except for that one.

She woke with a bit of a start, hearing silence around her and maybe the last echo of her cane falling to the floor. It was after the end of club activities. The turnout for judo had been below average, not that she could blame anyone if they wanted to hurry home before dark. Not that she had much reason to fear nighttime more than any other time of day, but even she had installed that app, if only out of boredom and curiosity.

Haruko had fallen asleep on a bench outside of the club room. Her fingers brushed over the watch like device on her wrist.

Oh, It's only been a couple of minutes.

She stood and tossed her bad over her shoulder, grabbing her long white cane from where it had fallen. The blind girl navigated the well memorized path out to the main entrance, walking out through the gate. She was suddenly aware of how hungry she was.

It took a second to recall the bookmarked location of the convenience store nearest to her house on her phones GPS and then she was on her way again, cane tapping rhythmically on the sidewalk.

After school, Maiko would always inevitably find herself at the local Mainichi Shinbun distributor. She worked there, after all, and she had a paper run to do today much like any other day, even if the city was going to hell in a handbasket. Strange Gospel had affected her life as much as anyone elses; more so in fact, as not everyone who had touched it had found their own family disappearing on them. But people were definitely disappearing, and stuff like that didn't go unnoticed.

Leaving her bike at the door, Maiko went in to her workplace, greeted by the familiar sight of one Mr. Kawachi, who was basically her boss. Before she started work, she always came in to chew his ear off for a while. "Heya, Mr. Kawachi. What's happening?"

"What do you think?" He held up a copy of the paper, the latest issue to be printed. "Strange Gospel. Everyday, Strange Gospel makes headlines. You'd think it was the only thing happening in the world."

"Well, it is super serious business, sir..." She had told him about what happened to her brother.

"Yeah, I know." He sighed. "I dunno, it used to be these things would resolve themselves eventually, but despite how long this has been going on, nobody seems to know the first thing about it. Even these stories are mostly scuttlebutt. I just wish something will be done about it sometime soon."

"You and me both, sir."

"Yeah....something up with you, Maiko? You don't look as chipper as usual."

"Oh, uh, I guess I'm just feeling a little tired lately." That wasn't entirely true, however. Even with her brother's disappearance, she had been keeping up her regular schedule without missing a beat. Anyone that knew her knew how full of energy she could be. But on today of all days, she had fallen asleep at school. She never slept at school, even when she was bored stiff. Not to mention there was that wacky dream she had, which was the same dream she had many times before. More than feeling tired, she felt worried. Like something weird was happening to her. "Surely there's something else in the good ol' Mainichi?" She asked, trying to change the subject.

"Eh, there's the usual about politics and war and climate change. Well, there is a local story that's worth a laugh..." He pointed to the story in question. "'Mysterious trench-coat girl seen again!' Honestly, who cares about a random girl wearing a trench-coat running around? It's like they felt they had to write about something other than Strange Gospel just to pretend there's something else going on. It's stupid, I tell you."

"Haha, yeah, that's weird." Maiko had heard about this one. She had to agree that she couldn't see why anyone would raise a fuss about one person. "Anyway, I guess I had better get to work. See ya later, sir!" She grabbed her delivery bag and made her way to leave.

"See ya...and be careful! Goodness knows there was enough reason to worry on the streets before." Maiko could guess Mr. Kawachi was talking about the disappearances. Between Strange Gospel and these weird dreams, Maiko did worry she was going to go the same way as her brother. Sometimes she cursed herself for having too strong a work ethic not to just go home and lay low. All she could do was try and get her run done faster than ever.

"100 yen please"

Hotaru lazily shuffled her hand into her pocket, scrounging up a handful of coins, listlessly allowing them to flow out of her palm as she rotated her hand to the left, snatching up the bottle of water and tearing off the cap and taking in a mouthful of water. Hotaru nodded slightly to the clerk and turned to exit.

In that moment, the heaviness of tiredness began to take hold on Hotaru, as she sat herself on the curb of the store, holding her head, seeking to drown out the sounds of nearby people, and not collapse of exhaustion on the streets. Each shutter of her eyes was permeated by images of her recurrent dreams, with a low groan of exhaustion sonorating from her. In spite of her eyelids falling as if of leaden construction, Hotaru took another sip of her water, as she struggled to get energy up. If only a few more hours of rest could have been kind enough to stick with her in that night.

"Ugh, better get myself up, lest I end up another headline in the paper", Hotaru mused to herself, as she jerked herself up suddenly. The young men near to her were loudly chattering, their bawdy laughter pounding into Hotaru's already throbbing brain, increasing the spinning of her tired vertigo. While she had worked on drowning out this chatter, it also meant she didn't hear the clacking of an object on concrete, and with her quick, effortless motion, she couldn't help but hit into a young woman behind her. Hard.

One of the delinquents watching let out a hearty laugh as the two girls collided, with the others watching with grins obscured behind their hands. Hotaru reeled back, shaking herself back to reality as her eyes focused on the target of her collision. Eyes widening as she saw the white cane in her hand, and the familiar face.

"Ah! Haruko! I'm so sorry!" she stammered out, unsure of what to say or do. It was unlikely that she was hurt at all; any one in Judo could no doubt take a harder blow than anything little Hotaru could deal out, but Hotaru couldn't help but feel bad for running into her so carelessly.

The sight of a student out of uniform crossed Manami's vision, and, grateful for the chance to distract herself from thoughts of Strange Gospel, immediately donned her disapproving expression of disapproval. It conveyed disapproval to the target.
She strode to the student that had caught her eye, a dark-haired boy that, for some inexplicable reason, had decided to change out of their uniform before leaving school. Why?! She didn't care that the school day had ended, it was the duty of the students to proudly wear their uniforms until they returned home! Changing before you'd even left the building was nothing more than disrespectful to the expectations placed upon them!

"...May I ask why you are dressed like that?" Manami addressed him from behind. Her tone was a tad more confrontational than usual, perhaps due to the stress of recent events. Regardless, she wasn't one to lose her composure over this - it annoyed her to no end, but flying off the handle immediately did no one any favours, even if someone was a repeat offender.

@PKMNB0Y

The sound of an all-too-familiar voice caused Keita's pace to slow to a halt, his shoulders slumping down a bit at this usual routine. Every year since she took at spot, every day since he began to swap clothing after classes, the same old song and dance would play out.

Well, it wasn't as if he was breaking any rules, per se, but that never seemed to stop him from being held up.

He had almost forgotten about Yamada-san being her usual self. Maybe getting away with it every so often after the whole Strange Gospel incident had lowered his guard. Oh well.

"Yo, still on duty after classes as usual, aint'cha, Chief?" he asked, turning around with a smile on his face. "As for the answer to that old question... Well, you already know, right? Class is long over, and it's much easier to change in school than right after I leave it. Besides, it's not like I'm one of those bigger offenders, like that delinquent crew. Though I guess you really can't chew them out if they're never here to begin with, right?"

The other students seemed to not mind the scene as much, if only because it played out so often over the course of their high school careers—fair was fair, though; routine events like these were seldom a cause to speak up. Instead, their attention was... Still focused on that app. It wouldn't have been far off for him to say that it had possessed the school's collective psyche at this point, but that fact reminded him of something else to pass on—information.

"Oh, right, before I forget: still been workin' on trying to decode that app everyone's been all abuzz about. Progress is pretty slow, but I made a breakthrough earlier today with one of the networking guys in the club... Kind of. We tried finding the server that the app connects to, but apparently whoever made the thing had the connection routed through at least twenty different proxies before it kinda... Disappears. Connections don't just disappear like that, so the data coming in and out is pretty shady stuff... Adding onto what's already causing mass anxiety, I'd rather keep that info under wraps. 'course, I assume the people on the case already knew this, but I don't think they'd just tell a student about it, right?"

With a sigh, Keita pulled his bags back up onto his shoulder and slipped his hands into his pockets with a shrug.

"In any case... Your gatekeeping almost done for the day? You looked like you were about to doze off or something. I'm one to talk, though; thankfully, it was a quick nap during lunch, else you'd be on my case about that too, right?" he joked, waiting for a response.

She almost heard the sudden movement too late, due to the construction noise. Even so, she was always on guard in case her foot was turned by an unexpected curb or piece of little that she might have missed. With her cane had already extended, she caught Hotaru easilly enough with her arm.

It took a second of thought to place the voice.

"Oh, Hotaru. Your home is this way?"

She held onto the other girls arm, making sure she had her balance.

_{with: @Nerevarine}

The thoughts that swirled through the dark red-haired head of Yamamura High School's steely detective were remarkably disjointed. To her consternation, none of it made very much sense yet. At least, so far it didn't. The app was very nearly indecipherable, coded in an extremely complicated fashion. There were discernible patterns, but none of those patterns were indicating anything clear. Worse yet, any attempts to trace the videos went through multiple proxies before finally vanishing. It didn't make any sense. As for how to connect the app to the disappearances, it seemed to lack any way of tracking its users. To put it simply, evidence was quite a bit difficult to come by.

In spite of this fact, Sasegawa Hikaru was not shaken. Even if local law enforcement was struggling with the case, she was not referred to as the Lightning Detective for nothing. Her speed at discovering and analyzing evidence was not possible to deny. If it was nearly impossible to analyze the app itself, then perhaps Hikaru would be able to discern patterns in the disappearances themselves. Adjusting her hat, she proceeded down the street. There were a few of her fellow students she had been directed to question. Among them was one Umeda Maiko.

Umeda was, from the picture that Hikaru had been provided, a rather sporty girl who sported an energetic attitude. It was only a cursory analysis of the slightly older girl from a still image, however. Hikaru would have to meet her, first, in order to discover anything of value.

As such, Hikaru had decided to approach the girl's place of part-time work. It would be a simple questioning session, relatively unintrusive and a simple bid to gather information. After all, Umeda Maiko was hardly a suspect. Still, it was best for the interrogation to occur in a timely fashion with few delays.

What luck it was, then, that she intercepted the girl carrying a bag of newspapers.

Swiftly, Hikaru made her approach.

"Umeda Maiko-san?" the redhead began, "I'm Detective Sasegawa Hikaru. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Of course, it was likely that the girl already knew of Yamamura's new detective... as a boy.

@Mercurial

As if her day couldn't get any weirder, Maiko was currently being interrupted by a police detective. But not just any police detective, but one Sasegawa Hikaru, the boy detective of some small fame. Maiko had a few friends that were already smitten with him. In fact, that was the whole reason she found out he existed; a whole lot of nattering gossip from her immediate social circle.

"Oh golly gee! The pretty boy detective is questioning me! My friends are going to be so jealous." She spoke in jest. Aside from the fact that she appreciated this meeting was almost certainly purely a matter of police business, she wasn't really all that fussed about Hikaru, unlike the rest. While it was curious to have a detective at their school, Maiko had never been one to swoon over random pretty boys. She was still going to tell certain people about this, if only to have a giggle at their reaction.

"I kid, I kid. But yeah, you can ask me whatever you want. But if it's about my brother, I don't know what I can tell you that we haven't repeated, like, a billion-trillion times now to just about everyone." Mostly it was her mom and dad doing the repeating, but she remembered that initial period after the disappearance all too well. She had heard the "basic facts" enough times to have them burned into her skull. She didn't know what Hikaru expected to learn from her, but she had no reason not to tell him whatever he wanted to hear.

@VitaVitaAR

Hikaru couldn't help but let out a sigh at that initial reaction. Try as she might, she couldn't really understand just why the girls at her high school suddenly latched onto her like that. It had become somewhat frustrating clearing her locker of love letters almost every day, and having to turn down several confessions didn't seem to dissuade them. Indeed, the mindset of these girls was perhaps a mystery that Hikaru would never solve. But then again, romance was hardly one of her main pursuits, so she didn't particularly care to understand the motivations behind it. Unless a romance pertained to a case she had taken on it was simply irrelevant.

"Nevertheless, it's important I ensure that we have obtained all the facts, even if it means going over information that's previously been discussed," the short-haired detective explained. To be perfectly frank, Hikaru personally held doubts about the aptitude of some of the local detectives. At the very least, though, Soma-san was the respectable type who threw himself into his work. Some of the others, however... well, they could have missed some details in Hikaru's opinion.

"To begin with, do you recall any strange behavior prior to the disappearance? Did your brother do anything out of the ordinary?" she asked. Even if there wasn't, it was important to establish the victim's whereabouts prior to the crime. If it was as Hikaru suspected, there would have been little to no change in the victim's habits. Beyond, perhaps, nervousness about the nature of Strange Gospel, but that was a trait shared by both victims and potential victims.

Everyone who had used Strange Gospel, including Hikaru herself, was categorized in the latter. If worse came to worse, the detective even considered using herself as bait.

@Mercurial

@TheFake

Hotaru shuffled herself up, locking her hand around Haruko's arm and leveraging herself up, feeling as if the very fluids in her head were struggling to counter this, acting as gravity's aide. Never the less, Hotaru caught her balance once again.

"Oh, yes, not far from here, but I was actually on my way to the Church"

Church was probably a bit of an overstatement for the little building on the outskirts of the town. What once had served as a small roadside bar had been bought out by a catholic organization from one of the large cities in Japan, and converted into a church. It was small, but served the miniscule number of christians in the area, totaling to 7 people including Hotaru and her parents. The resident priest, a foreign Brazilian man of Japanese descent, usually did not stay long when it was not a sunday, returning to his home in a neighboring city quite quickly.

Hotaru frowned when she realized how much time was spent in thought on the curb. "Well...I was planning to go anyway" she spoke solumnly. No point in biking out now. "Guess I've got nothing to do now"

"Well that's just it, officer..." Maiko began with a heavy sigh. "...'strange behaviour' was entirely in character for Masato. See, he was the kind of person that liked to do things to, uh, 'prove he could', if you take my meaning. It was almost as if he enjoyed making our folks worry. For instance, he once went into some dodgy nightclub, took pictures of it and everything, and then told dad exactly what he did. My dad's a real stodgy type, you see, so he knew it would tick him off to learn he went to some nutty place like that. It didn't even faze him when he got chewed out and punished for it." Maiko had a hundred and one anecdotes she could tell about her brother, but she imagined the detective didn't want to hear them all. Besides, talking at length about Masato would probably make her get all depressed.

"So yeah, he basically did things that would be considered weird like it was any old thing. He even kept checking that bloody app after the nuthouse content started showing up on it. He told me the images didn't bother him, and even claimed he'd seen worse. Not too sure about that though, considering what I'd heard. He was so sure they would fix it in a short while, like it was just some big prank that would blow over. Not long after, he up and vanished on us. You'd think it might help to know he went to strange places on a whim, but they checked around the city, and nobody saw him. Not one person. It's like he just vanished in the middle of the street somewhere. Poof! Gone in an instant!" She had gone over the events of the days surrounding his disappearance over and over in her own head. Even now, she couldn't think of a single thing that might actually explain where he went, or at least nothing they hadn't already looked into. Repeating it for the umpteenth time didn't help a lick.

Taking a deep breath, Maiko decided to wrap up her spiel. "That's really all I can think to say. Anything else would be speculation, and if you want that, I can just hand you one of these papers. It's really good speculation in our papers though, I'd recommend it over anything else!" Even if Hikaru wasn't interested, Maiko felt obligated to make a pitch for Mainichi.

@VitaVitaAR

Hikaru listened quietly as Maiko had given her explanation. Indeed, this had confirmed her suspicions at the very least. Nothing out of the ordinary(at least for Umeda Masato) had occurred leading up to his disappearance. Not a single change had occurred in the way that he behaved, he didn't even express any concern about the disturbing imagery that Strange Gospel began to display after its Apocrypha update. As a result, Hikaru could at the very least fully confirm there was no warning to what was about to occur, to threat. It made sense, in most cases one would expect that one of the victims would have attempted to tell their friends and family that someone was threatening them, or at least to begin behaving strangely. The suddenness indicated to Hikaru that it was abrupt and without any sort of warning.

While this had been speculated upon, it was nice to gather another source of information that seemed to confirm it. Still, she had at least one another question to ask of the girl.

"What are your experiences with Strange Gospel?" Hikaru asked, waving her hand to indicate her lack of interest in the newspaper. It wasn't anything she hadn't seen before, and idle speculation, no matter how informed, was still idle speculation. The newspaper wouldn't be able to provide her anything new at the moment.

@Mercurial

"The severity of your actions means little; an infraction is an infraction," Manami countered Keita's excuses with her usual sharp tone, never wavering in her resolute compliance with the rules. Granted, the rules didn't expressly forbid changing clothes after school, on school grounds, but more and more students seemed to be growing ignorant of the implied intent behind words these days. And it totally had nothing to do with Manami perhaps reading too much into text at times.

The strict student had plenty more to say - most of it recycled from the trillion other discussion she'd had - but Keita's update on the app kept her silent for now. She listened intently, managing to more-or-less follow what he was talking about. Computing was not her forte, but she was hardly oblivious to the subject. As far as she could make out, at least, whatever the source of Strange Gospel was, the developer had not only managed to create many fake locations... but completely hide the true source, even to someone she could consider somewhat specialised in that field. Well, as much as a high-school student could be, maybe.

Manami appeared to be lost in thought for a few moments, not immediately replying to Keita. This whole situation was pretty disturbing, and it was frustrating just how little she could do. Doing whatever she could was a noble enough idea, but her possible actions were just so limited!

...Well, she could at least make sure no sstudent was left alone after school.

"...I suppose I am done," Manami eventually replied, glancing at the school gates, "given your refusal to adopt proper, healthy sleeping habits, I suppose I should escort you home, lest you fall asleep at the nearest bench."

She nodded and released her classmate.

"I see. I was just on my way home after my club meeting."

Haruko turned and found the door to the convenience store with her cane.

"I was going to buy some bread here but haven't really planned past that."

She felt out the location of the furthest aisle and then paused.

"I usually get the clerk to help, but since you're here would you mind? I was looking for the bread."

_@Nerevarine

"Hey, you know just as well as anyone else in this school that we've loooong since abandoned healthy sleeping habits cramming for tests or working on assignments or projects or whatever else they throw at us. If you threw the book at people for nodding off, we'd probably have to get caffeine through an IV or something to dodge punishment, y'know?" Keita responded in kind, walking alongside Manami with bags still casually slung over his shoulder. "Actually, rather than head home straight away, I was thinking about grabbing some ingredients at the supermarket near my place. Wanna tag along? Though, uh... I guess the stuff they'd be selling around now wouldn't be the quality I'd like in a dish. Gotta get to the produce early to get the best vegetables and all that..."

The young man let out a somewhat disheartened sigh before closing his eyes and silently calculating a few things in his head before nodding.

"Yeah. That'll do. Maybe."

"By the way, I gotta ask: you ever checked out my dad's place? I know it's a bit on the pricy side and all that, but the stuff he makes is totally worth the cost. No stupidly small serving sizes, either, since he hates that kinda stuff," he mentioned offhandedly before hastily tacking on another comment at the end. "Totally not trying to get more customers or anything for him, though, y'know? But, uh... I think all this 'Strange Gospel' stuff is causing a few of the regulars to not come as often. Man, everything ends up connecting back to that damn app. The sooner this mess is handled, the sooner we can get back to our daily lives."

With his cheeks now tinged a faint shade of red, Keita turned away from Manami in slight embarrassment before shaking his head and refocusing his thoughts. Awkward as that plug may have been, it was totally worth a shot. Maybe she could go with her parents or something. Every customer on the list was a good one, and though he himself knew little about the restaurant business, he could tell that not having customers was never a good thing.

"My experiences with it?" She replied quizzically. "Nothing special, I'm afraid, officer. Well, I did start using the app later than others did. My dad's a bit techno-phobic; he didn't even want me to have a phone until my mom twisted his arm, and even then it was just supposed to be for emergencies. I only got the app after Masato bugged me into trying it myself. Obviously, I got the predictions just like anyone else. It showed my front wheel tire getting punctured on a street just around the corner from here, and sure enough, it happened. It was neat for a while, then that Apocro-whatever nonsense started. I heard about it from my friends, so I haven't touched the thing since. I certainly never noticed anything weird happening recently, either. No shadowy kidnappers, no demons from hell, nothing." Those two last statements may have seemed out of left field for anyone unfamiliar with the situation, but anyone that would have surely heard at least one conspiritorial rumor about Strange Gospel and the disappearances. Even Mainichi was at least mentioning the crazy ideas people had come up with, like the ones Maiko just mentioned.

"You, uh...you don't think it's actually related, do you? I mean, I just can't see it. Well, I mean, I can and I can't, you know? It's like, I know it's too big a coincidence to ignore, but I just don't get how this one app could make people disappear, even if it's the weirdest thing since ever. Are the police actually considering it?" At the back of Maiko's mind, she knew that Hikaru probably wasn't about to share anything about the police investigation, but she tended to just ramble out what was on her mind. Even if they were looking into it, she could imagine they still didn't know the first thing about what they were dealing with.

@VitaVitaAR