CHIYU SHOUKEI

The Archery Club really seemed excited for something that Shoukei wasn't even sure would come about. She did say she'd try, but that didn't mean it was going to 100% happen. Aah, she'd gone and given people false hope again. That was bad, but she pushed those negative feelings out of the way. She could try and dwell all she wanted on it, but it wouldn't change stuff, and besides, she needed to focus on talking to the rest of the clubs. A quiet sigh left her mouth as she turned away from Hoshitani and the others; this was seriously going to take a while. She'd just have to squeak her way back to the door and-

Eh?

What the hell?

Ehh?!

Shoukei's head whipped back and forth, eyes widened in shock. Her long pink hair was floofing about already, the jerky motions very representative of how she was feeling. Where was the door out of the archery practice room? She blinked her eyes. Nothing had changed at all. Everything around her was a strange blue ... elevator? The rumbling of the floor beneath her suggested a downward motion, and she certainly was feeling a bit more weightless than usual. The assumption stuck in her mind as she quickly studied the surroundings; there were certainly things that she'd find in some fancy hotel elevator.

But none of that explained why she was in some blue ... velvety elevator with a host of other people!

She pinched herself roughly on the cheeks with both hands. Aaarck, that hurt. She wouldn't be pulling as hard next time, she decided, her hands rubbing against the soft, reddening skin. Okay, this was a reality she was seeing, unless it was a really, really, really deep hallucination. It'd explain why she could see Hoshitani in the same position, unchanged from the archery gear, but she recognised some of the others too - like that disciplinary committee woman.

And how is the elevator even fitting us all?

She wondered why she'd so quickly accepted the elevator thing. She didn't know either. The treasurer closed her eyes and cradled her head in her hands, releasing a long, frustrated sigh. This was not her day. Was she really dreaming? The pain from earlier wasn't helping her prove that. She pulled her hands away, opening her emerald eyes once more. Nope. It wasn't a dream. She was still in this weird yet strangely familiar elevator, and the other students were hanging around too.

I'm pretty sure I've played this video game befo-

The elevator halted.

Screens. A couch. A girl in a kimono. Lots of blue.

This was a dream. She had to be sure of it. But it felt so real, no matter how ethereal everything was. Even if she wasn't somebody who remembered her dreams that well, this looked exactly like what she had experienced during those weird sleep cycles. And yet it wasn't a dream, because she could feel herself breathing, feel herself tasting the air, feel the beat of her surprisingly-not-panicking heart, and it all told her that everything was real.

Her eyes too.

The eyes trained on the approaching brunette girl. Shoukei quietly wondered why the bells. But there was a nagging question inside her, one that she wasn't sure if she should-

"Aren't you supposed to be a guy?" the pink-haired girl blurted out suddenly, the question leaving her mouth before she could even think things through. Aaah, crap, she'd gotten panicked and lost in the weirdness and yet that was still the first question she had to ask!

And someone else'd already beaten her to the punch too!

Manami had not immediately noticed anything had changed, still waiting for Keita's reply to her nugget of wisdom when he started look around with a confused look on his face. Wondering if he had noticed something amiss, she glanced around the store as well, noting with some incredulity that they were, in fact, no longer in the store at all. Curious.

What?! What the what?! Manami's alarmed thoughts blared through her mind, as she spun on the spot, as if searching for a backdrop indicating they had merely stepped off a studio set or something. But... how could you walk from the setting of a store to the inside of an elevator - one filled with several others, at that - with no visual cues? Hell, she was standing perfectly still!

Manami was on guard, dropping the basket at her feet as she took in the others. She quickly realised that many of the faces were familiar. She saw them occasionally at school, right? And they all looked equally lost and perturbed. So they were all in the same boat, huh...?

The elevator opened up, revealing something... distressingly familiar inside.That overly-blue room, the TV screens showing a strange, disturbing city... and a little girl.

Tsukuyomi? Manami tilted her head slightly. That was... certainly an uncommon name to have. Her clothing was stylised, but recognisable as a miko outfit (Manami had to gulp down the urge to scold the girl for needlessly modifying her uniform in such a manner), so maybe it was a weird tradition her family had? All first-borns were named after Tsukuyomi or something?

She stepped forward to address the girl, leaning down slightly. Manami was, as probably expected, not exactly wondrous with kids but she certainly had to try, right?
"...Hello, Tsukuyomi-chan, I'm Yamada Manami. Just call me Manami, okay?" she offered a small, if somewhat worried smile, "please ignore my colleagues' rudeness. They're just surprised. Er... you called this a 'hollow space', right?"

There was a crashing noise as someone banged into something. Haruko turned away from the counter towards thew commotion to say something.

Suddenly the world disappeared and for a moment the ground dropped out from under her. Gone were the sounds of traffic, the air conditioning in the store and even the wind. All there was was the feeling of people around her and the sensation of movement. Haruko froze, her default reaction in any unexpected situation, with her cane in one hand and the bread in the other.

Then the sensation stopped and people began to speak. The first wasn't one that she recognized but it and the bells struck her as familiar. So she remained quiet, listening and completely lost.

It didn't take long for Shuusuke to realize he was no longer in the store.

He had, only a few seconds ago, landed hard on his rear after all. So as he shook his head to clear the stars in his vision (not caused by his synesthesia, for once), he suddenly found himself somewhere completely different.

It took Shuusuke just a bit longer to wrap his head around this whole situation.

He found himself in an elevator, surrounded by several other people. People, he realized, that also went to his school, judging by the fact that most of them were wearing the school uniform.

He slowly stood, before taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes in disbelief. He put his glasses back on just as the elevator opened up to a large room that looked way too familiar.

A dream, then, he thought.

And then just as quickly, he dispelled that notion. That wouldn't have been his first conclusion in a dream, and a quick pinch and twist on the back of his hand confirmed that.

So then... this was real?

What was more believable, the fact that someone had set this up as a prank and managed to get him and a bunch of people in this situation (that, he had to remind himself, he had found himself in in less than a second)? Or that this was all... what was this even?

Shuusuke found himself, for the first time in quite a long time, completely lost.

HOSHITANI YUUGA

I should’ve changed beforehand.

Yuuga blinked. This was… not ideal. He had no idea where he was. And he was still in his kyudo uniform. Which meant that all his stuff was back at school.

Can’t even call for help. Phone was in my bag.

The towering boy looked about, taking in the surroundings. Looked like an opulent place. A fancy karaoke room maybe. Definitely something out of the price range for a usual mixer. But he digressed. What stood out to him most was the number of people he knew that were with him. Yuuga ran through his mental catalogue again, trying to get some bearings of these schoolmates. Perhaps there would be a trend among them?


All in all, no real rhyme or reason why these particular students were brought here. Nothing that Yuuga could think of, anyway. By the time he finished examining the last person, a small girl in some kind of miko outfit (cosplay?) had bounded up to the group. Yuuga failed to muster any intelligible response besides a quiet “Oh…uh…wh-what, where are we?”

The Hound and Motoyama had already asked the necessary questions. Yuuga regretted missing his chance to make some sort of rousing comment.

"..."

For a few moments, Hikaru silently observed her surroundings. This was, of course, the place she had seen in her dreams. What she had previously assumed to be the product of a late night no longer seemed to be so. The detective elected to remain quiet, however. The small girl with the bells in her hair and the miko outfit had a number of different questions to answer to, given the strange situation they now found themselves in. As a result, Hikaru decided that the most natural option would be one of observation. She would allow others to ask their questions first, and observe her surroundings and the responses of the girl in question.

Who, for her part, seemed rather stunned for a moment. Not one, but two people had just questioned her gender?

"Ah... that's... Look, what does it matter?!" she suddenly cried, letting out a huff and folding her arms. Was she... pouting? Certainly that shattered some of the mysterious image around her, but it wasn't long before she had regained her composure. "... In any case, this place is where I can most freely interact with humanity. You're humanity, aren't you?"

She cocked her head to one side, eyeing the assembled students. "You felt that way when I contacted you before."

So the dreams were some form of contact...? Hikaru nodded to herself. Her initial shock had been replaced with a desire for answers.

The question about the unpaid groceries went absolutely ignored.

The next question Tsukuyomi chose to address was from... ah, Manami? Yes, Yamada Manami. It was impossible not to recognize the straightlaced student. A model adherent to school rules, to say the least. Hikaru noticed what she could only assume now was a goddess show a mild twitch of irritation at having a familiar honorific applied to her, but in this case she didn't make any sort of outburst.

"This is a hollow space, a location in which the mediums of the collective unconscious and the waking world are uninterrupted," Tsukuyomi explained, "While there's nothing stopping from me appearing to you anywhere I so choose, this location allows me the most freedom. This hollow space is located in my domain, as well."

Tsukuyomi's domain... At that, Hikaru had to speak up.

"So, you're saying that this 'hollow space' is located within the moon?" she asked, her voice calm and level.

"... Ah? Yes, you could say that," Tsukuyomi replied, with a nod, "But regardless, there's more pressing matters to attend to. All of you have seen Strange Gospel, haven't you?"

Was that what this was about? Was this... deity... it still felt so surreal to realize that was what Tsukuyomi must be, also concerned with Strange Gospel? Just what was the phone app?

"Its origins are not of your world," Tsukuyomi continued. Behind her, one of the screens lowered itself, and suddenly stretched, expanding wider and wider, displaying in full the bleak cityscape. The strange sky. And yet... somehow, so recognizable... "It came from the Apocrypha. In order to stop it, you'll need to go there, as well."

@PKMNB0Y@Mercurial@Crimmy@RolePlayerRoxas@TheFake@CondorTalon@banjoanjo

Keita's right eye twitched as literally every last of his questions went unanswered. Even for a girl who had adopted the name of the god of the moon (and that aside, Tsukuyomi was traditionally a male name), there was only so far rudeness and apparent contempt could go. Before he could press the matter any further, though, the other people in the area began to speak up as well. Deciding that the matter of groceries meant less at the moment than the apparent spiriting away of the entire grou-

Wait. Hold on. This was related to Strange Gospel? Now things were starting to click.

"...Oi. Don't say stuff like that so carelessly. Putting aside the concept of 'hollow space' aside, you just said that this whole thing was related to Strange Gospel, didn't you?" he asked, the synapses firing off in his head left and right as if they were klaxons blasting out at full force.

This feels really dangerous right now for so many reasons, but I have to ask--!

"So if we're here physically, and that... Thing is related to Strange Gospel, are you telling me that you have something to do with all the people going missing? Are you the one who distributed the app in the first place?"

Though the questions felt marginally accusatory in nature, the programmer couldn't help but be curious. Too many things were lining up far too conveniently for conclusions like this to not be drawn, after all.

Things were only getting more and more bizarre as far as Maiko could tell. It seemed this "Tsukuyomi" was a touch sensitive. Maiko was beginning to seriously doubt the credibility of this girl. Surely this had to be some kind of trick? Maybe they were on some kind of elaborate prank game-show? A billion conspiratorial thoughts were erupting in Maiko's mind. But in spite of it all, Maiko chose to focus on what the others were saying. It was somewhat important that she knew what was going on, after all. As it turned out, the discussion of just what this place was flowed into a discussion about Strange Gospel. It just had to be Strange Gospel, didn't it? Even when spirited away to some bizarre new location, Strange Gospel followed them here too.

When Keita spoke up again, he raised a very interesting possibility; that this "Tsukuyomi" had something to do with the app. Latching onto those words, Maiko started on the first train of thought that came to mind. "Oh my god, have we been kidnapped!? Is this what happened to everyone else!?" She was basically spouting conspiracy theories without much thought as to whether they made a lick of sense now. She wasn't really in a state of mind to slow down and carefully consider what was going on. In fact, that was generally something she wouldn't have done from the get go.

She took in what she could from the exchange, although whatever visual aides that were present wen unappreciated. The she recognized Keita's voice rom nearby.

"I don't really think that we were kidnapped. I'm sure that we can go any thime. And that aside, I doubt that Tsukuyomi ha anything to do with creating Strange Gospel. She's all but asked us to put a stop to it at this point."

Haruko reoriented herself towards where the voice of Tsukuyomi had been coming from.

"So just what do you expect of us and why us?"

CHIYU SHOUKEI

... We're on the moon?

"Wait okay so ... we're on the Moon, and there's uh ... stuff with our dreams?" asked the pink-haired girl awkwardly, the words flowing out of her without thinking. Everything was just too confusing for her head to wrap around; they were on ... the Moon? Along with some girl who claimed to be a god(dess?). And it was connected to all the Strange Gospel things and dreams going around and ... Apocrypha? It was the origin of that app? What did the Bible have to do with anything? "Okay um, can we get like, a more straightforward explanation?"

Throwing in the terms "collective unconsciousness", "hollow space", "Apocrypha" and others out of nowhere just sounded just way too fantastical for her brain to handle. She'd long given up on it being a dream, but if this was supposed to be reality (at some point she'd probably start panicking), then she wanted something that could be given to her straight without needing to think too hard. It had been a long day, and her brain was already tired. Even something like "there are bad guys here that are doing bad things that you need to beat up for being bad" would be better than nothing. Otherwise things were just getting weird.

An idle thought came to mind. Could she give money to this girl and get a blessing? Or were those shrine visits (ack, right she'd forgotten to go to the New Years one) a lie and that didn't work? It was a pretty off-topic train of thought so she immediately shelved it. Shoukei just wanted to get something that made sense.

Except her slow-moving brain wasn't letting her.

Aaargh.

Manami was silent as she listened to Tsukuyomi's explanations. Her expression was stiff, revealing nothing, but the studious girl's mind was reeling from the revelations. How? How could they be on the moon?! There was too much that was impossible about this... but the little girl before her was so serious in her words, and the current situation was already ludicrous enough... this was just utterly insane.

Mana couldn't help but tense slightly when Keita raised the possibility of this girl being the originator of that stupid app. She wanted to dismiss it immediately, but with everything that had happened in the last few minutes, she wasn't sure what to think. Although Haruko did point out a logical counter-argument. Manami straightened, eyes fixed to the screen with a tight-lipped frown.

"...We're to stop it?" Manami muttered, "...Forgive me, Tsukuyomi-chan... er... Kami-sama? But all of us here are, well," she gave the group another quick glance, "...No more than mere young adults, some of us still receiving education. I cannot see why we would be of any more use to you than trained professionals in this situation."

HOSHITANI YUUGA

Collective unconscious? Did that mean they were unconscious…together?

Yuuga rubbed his chin. Maybe that’s how they all got to the moon. Man, of all places to get kidnapped and taken to...

At the mention of Strange Gospel, the long-haired boy frowned. He quit that app ages ago, back when all the creepy stuff started happening. He could understand a tech whiz like Motoyama being called to solve whatever this goddess’ problem was, but a guy like him? Kids like him? No offense, but what was this girl thinking?

Yuuga was unable to deny the mystical aspects of these revelations. Even if this was some elaborate scam or advertising campaign for the app, they wouldn’t have been able to hack his dreams, right? All this stuff about ‘Apocrypha’ and ‘hollow space’… He’d just have to learn about these things in his own time. Hopefully Tsukuyomi would explain it.

Still, the whole thing about them putting a stop to whatever these Strange Gospel problems were still troubled Yuuga.

“Er… yeah, Yamada-san has a point. Shouldn’t you be getting the police or…” Yuuga remembered that they were on the moon, “I dunno, some astronauts to help you out? We haven’t even graduated high school yet!”

Meanwhile, Shuusuke was busy trying to piece things together. The odds of this being a prank were remote. Not... impossible, but remote. Shuusuke didn't ask any of the questions. They were all being asked, by the other students, as this girl... Tsukuyomi? Yeah... gave her explanation.

Manami and Yuuga were quick to ask why she had chosen them, of all people. And... well, Shuusuke agreed. Why them? Not in the same sense as the other two, but... why Japan? Why Yamamura, of all places?

He thought back. They definitely weren't the only ones to have used the app. So... why them?

And then there was something else that bothered Shuusuke. It wasn't in what Tsukuyomi said, but rather in what she didn't say.

"What, exactly, are we stopping?" he spoke, for the first time in a while. His voice was dry, hoarse, and so he swallowed and spoke again. "And what happens if we don't?"

Tsukuyomi narrowed her eyes.

"If I had created Strange Gospel, why would I be telling you where to go to stop it?" the miko girl asked, cocking her head to one side and making the bells jingle again. "I'm not responsible for the kidnappings, either. Anyone who disappeared is likely within Apocrypha, if they're still alive."

She gestured towards the screen again.

Before she could respond to the other questions, Hikaru was quick to interject with her own.

"Then what is Apocypha? What's been taking people there?"

For a few moments, Tsukuyomi was silent.

"... the Apocrypha is an echo, a reflection of your world within the physical space of the collective unconscious," she explained, deciding it was best to start with that. "It exists within the space created by humanity's existence, but is rejected by their reality. It's an apocryphal retelling of your world that can't coexist in the same space as it, but nevertheless exists. As for what's been taking people there..."

The goddess's eyes became somewhat downcast.

"I don't know yet. It's difficult for me to tell."

Hikaru frowned, slightly. She had hoped that someone like this would be able to provide more information on... whatever the culprits were. But perhaps trying to approach the situation from this angle was not the best idea. This was an unconventional situation, after all. It was still hard to believe it was even real, but... Hikaru had to stay calm. She needed to know why they had been selected just as much as everyone else did, after all.

"Strange Gospel originated from inside the enormous tower-" Tsukuyomi gestured to the tower visible in the dark cityscape, "-Which appeared several years ago and began to release dark creatures. I introduced the Apocrypha update in order to stall it, but it's beginning to recover."

"You still haven't explained what Strange Gospel is doing," Hikaru pointed out.

"Strange Gospel is creating fate from possibility," the small brunette girl quickly replied, "It's reaching into the infinite library of possibility that is the Akashic Record and drawing out possible futures. Once these futures are seen, it becomes crystallized. While there's no such thing as fate, when someone perceives a possible future it becomes their only future. By doing this on a large scale, Strange Gospel is being used to create a single future that cannot be deviated from."

Hikaru stared for a moment. Certainly, there were some things there that she didn't understand, but what did all of that mean? A single future? "What kind of future?"

Tsukuyomi shook her head. "I don't know. But I don't trust it. All of you have been exposed to Strange Gospel, and all of you were able to receive my contact. That's why I picked you."

The small girl raised her suitcase, which fell open. Inside was... a set of variously-colored USB drives?

"I'm sorry if this doesn't explain everything clearly, but I need people capable of receiving my contact through their dreams so easily. You can use Soul Arts," she continued, "These tools will grant you some sort of power that can let you combat the tower's spawn and enter it, in order to stop Strange Gospel."

At the goddess' initial response, Keita held himself back from making the logical comeback—that the program had some inherent flaws in the design or some sort of internal oversight that had resulted in a massive security failure or something of the sort. A lot of shoddily-made programs had that sort of backdoor or accidental problem, and even some larger programs had similar issues in the past (though they were usually patched out soon after they were discovered), so saying as much wasn't particularly wrong by any means. But if letting this girl speak meant drawing out more information (if the apparent detective's questioning was anything to go by), then he was fine with staying quiet for a while longer.

The fact that she had sent the patch out, though, at least answered one of the questions on his mind. The young man still wasn't entirely sure how far he could trust the girl in front of them, but the surreal nature of all these events made it difficult to refute anything at the moment. It sucked, but all he could do for now was...

Wait, if she made the patch, then he could totally get her to explain the dynamics of that godforsaken code! Somehow. Probably. Hopefully?

"...So. USBs, huh? I'm not really sold on the whole 'contact through dreams' thing right now, but I have to ask... Why USBs? Do we just, like... Plug them into our PCs or something? I have a laptop on hand to run whatever's on the—actually, wait, given how crazy this has all been so far, maybe I'd be better off assuming that they aren't just normal USBs, now are they?" he quipped before remembering the groceries on hand. Right.
That was still kind of a problem.

"Hey, uh... Back to my earlier problem. You know we get arrested and fined for shoplifting these days, right? We can't exactly... Uh... 'Help' you if we're stuck in a jail cell, now can we?"

Frankly, that excuse felt like Keita's only way of rectifying the situation at hand... And from having to deal with more problems once this weird mess ended. Ugh.

Maiko was partially satisfied that they probably maybe weren't kidnapped, but she still couldn't wrap her head around what was happening. The others went on talking, seemingly blithely accepting they were talking to the real Tsukuyomi who was feeding them a story about Strange Gospel and some other wacky nonsense. Were they really supposed to just stop and accept that there was an evil dark tower in a mystical world with "dark creatures" coming out of it? When did dark creatures become a thing? The only thing the "goddess" mentioned that Maiko actually knew about was the "Akashic Record". This was something Maiko had heard about; the notion of a mystical record sitting in an ethereal plane that could be looked into by trained individuals. But that was a Buddhist concept, and they were supposedly talking to Tsukuyomi. Was the pre-Meiji syncretic faith system the true religion after all?

Maiko was called back to reality when they were presented with the case of USBs. Now they were being offered "powers" in the form of computer storage devices? She was starting to wonder if this person was just trying to feed them as much nonsense as possible to see where they would just give up and walk away. Speaking of walking away, Keita once again reminded her of more regular concerns. "You know, I really need to get back to work too..." She added to his line of questioning. Frankly, she'd rather go back to work than keep trying to nut out what the heck was going on here.

CHIYU SHOUKEI



A crystallised what future?

It wasn't too hard for someone to guess that Chiyu Shoukei was, as of this moment, very much confused. The explanations the girl was giving them were a bit too much for her exhausted brain to comprehend, especially when they were ... trapped on the Moon or something? She didn't know, but they definitely weren't in Kansas anymore or however that movie line went. It all sounded like some weird dream, except she'd pinched herself earlier and her cheeks were still red from that, so there was absolutely no way that was going on. She was 100% standing around in some place with a girl who believed herself to be a god.

Aah, she thought to herself, nodding sagely. This is the point where I'm supposed to be panicking.

Except she wasn't panicking. Because she wasn't in danger or anything. Just ... stuck in some weird place. And if she could believe the girl - Tsukiyomi - then they could go home. And she could just go along with it all, head home, do her homework and fix up all the stuff she needed to do that was important, and brush it off as some sleep-deprived super hallucination or something the next morning if she wasn't able to get some sleep.

A-ha-haha-ha yeah nah.

Infinite library of possibilities? Akasha? Soul Arts? There was this way too much weird for her to just casually forget and pretend didn't happen! Aaargh, this wasn't supposed to be an anime! Her normal, average day-to-day life made sense to her: struggle with buildup of homework, deal with annoying student council things, wonder if the economic crisis would screw her over, lament the lack of boyfriend despite having not even tried to get one, murder, et cetera. It didn't have - wasn't supposed to have - people plonking them down into some dreamscape thing to talk about vaguely metaphysical concepts or something! She closed her eyes and pinched her forehead in frustration, letting out a quiet groan. This wasn't like, anything she was expecting the day to go.

Except it was going that way.

Aaargh.

Okay brain, settle down for a sec ...

No matter how tired her neurons were, she needed them to work a little bit more. Because she was in a weird place, and the important thing was getting an idea of how she could get out of it. So she could go back to her perfectly normal school life and not hang around like a weirdo which she totally wasn't.

Things she could parse:

a) this was weirdo land

b) this dame claims to be a moon god (mental note: donate to local shrine)

c) Strange Gospel is bad stuff and this is probably all its fault??

d) Are Soul Arts -

"-magic powers?" she blurted out. Ack. Shoukei immediately moved to correct herself. "Soul Arts, I mean. These USBs. They're uh, magic?"

And they uh, had magic abilities to ... stop Strange Gospel? She wished her brain worked better. But magic USBs was ... where everything was going? They needed magic USBs to stop the bad things of Strange Gospel? It wasn't something she was very believing in, but was like ... pushing this conversation along the quickest way to get back to normal stuff?

All at once she took a couple of steps forward and cuffed Keita on the back of the head.

"Nobody goes to jail for a little shoplifting."

Haruko paused for a second, thinking.

"If you get arrested they might kick you out of school though. Then you'd have all the time you need to sort this out."

She mulled over the other things that were said. There was no telling what form these powers might take or what kind of opposition they might have to face.

"So is this an all or nothing deal? I can't see you bringing all of us here if only a few will do."

As usual, Manami was just barely keeping up with this conversation. Her expression revealed none of the confusion rumbling through her mind as she parsed the information. What alarmed her the most was that any future witnessed became inevitable. Maybe questioning such a thing was silly at this point, but... could that really be true? If... if anything remotely dangerous was seen through the app, that event was going to come to pass, no matter what...?

Tsukuyomi then presented them with... USB drives? The goddess mentioned something about soul arts... was that another app or something installed on the drives? Unfortunately, the device wouldn't be of much use to Manami; all she had was a family PC at home, and nothing that was both portable and USB-compatible. Well, at least not without an adaptor or two. Either way, having to go back home, then make her way back to this space and towards a tower, filled with Tsukuyomi-knows-what, seemed a little bit counter-productive.

Still, it was hard to just flat-out refuse. The surreal situation was doing a good job of preventing the disciplinarian from just outright dismissing the whole situation, but it was still far too difficult to just blindly accept the scenario and agree. Even if it was for the greater good, even Yamada Manami had to pause for a second, here.

As the others asked their questions, Manami eventually stepped towards the little girl, kneeling down slightly. As mad as the situation was, she could at least accept a USB drive, and see what was installed on it? It could be passed on to a professional, or her parents, basically anyone with actual qualifications, and they could deal with this mess.

"May I?" Manami asked, reaching out a hand to take one of the offered USB's.

"... Shoplifting?" for a few moments, Tsukuyomi stared blankly. "... If there's anything that you need to do, you'll be returned to the place from which I took you. I can't do that very often, so you'll have to take a different route next time."

Hikaru decided to remain silent for the moment, and allow the others to have their questions answered. Instead, she approached the suitcase quietly, peering at the USB drives. Each one was a different color, and somehow there seemed to be more then the suitcase should have been able to fit. And yet, at the same time, they all had their own sport in the case. It was almost difficult to look at, somehow, as the human brain attempted to understand how that was possible.

"Soul arts use the soul of the wielder in order to produce their function," Tsukuyomi continued, answering another question. "If something does not possess a human soul, it won't be capable of using them. I can't tell you what abilities any of these have, but I can say that the first Soul Art you pick will be the one most suited to you. As for your numbers..."

She paused for a moment.

"I took as many as I felt might be needed. The creatures of the tower are many in number."

Glancing at Manami, she added, "Please, take one. I don't want to waste any more time."

Hikaru, too, took one of the Soul Arts. The moment she did, the palm of her opposite hand began to tingle, strangely. Frowning, she raised her hand. She hadn't done anything unusual, and yet...

Had the soul art caused it?

"Once you take a Soul Art, the place on your body where it can be inserted will begin to respond," Tsukuyomi swiftly explained. She was clearly growing impatient.

@PKMNB0Y@Mercurial@Crimmy@TheFake@RolePlayerRoxas