Chisaki was a good girl. She never disobeyed her parents, she did her best to make sure all her homework was done on time, she tried to make sure her fellow students were on track, and she was always interested in what her teacher had to say.

So even she thought what she was doing now was out of character for herself.

She was a primary school student, at only nine years old, with short black hair and glasses.

And that made the fact that she was out by herself so late all the more unusual. But the fact was...

It wasn't just one of her friends. Two of them, Sakura and Taro, had both disappeared. Up and vanished without a trace. No-one knew what happened to them. Not their parents. Not the police.

There wasn't a single sign of anything. They weren't... they didn't seem to have died, or anything like that... it was just like they'd evaporated into thin air.

Chisaki thought of herself as smart. She thought of herself as mature. And she was worried... she thought, maybe, it would be possible for her to find something out, something she could tell the police. So they could save her friends.

So she'd snuck out at night. She knew her parents would be mad at her, but if it was for her friends' sake that was okay, right?

At least that's what she'd thought at first. She'd originally intended to meet her other friends here... but they couldn't get away from their parents.

So she was alone.

It was dark.

No-one was around.

Chisaki couldn't help but be scared. She couldn't help but worry. But at the same time, if she could find anything, anything at all that would help the police find Sakura and Taro...

It was worth being scared, right?

And then she heard it, from the alleyway...

"Chisaki-chan...?"

Sakura! That was Sakura's voice!

"Chisaki-san!"

Taro too?!

Excitement rose in the young girl's heart as she turned, immediately rushing into the alley. She'd found them! She'd found her friends! She-

The alley was empty. She heard a sound from behind her, a long shadow fell over her, and-

---

It was a dark, dreary, rainy day.

Naturally, there were few people walking out and about, unless they desperately needed to be somewhere. And even if they did, most of them were taking public transit or personal vehicles. There wasn't anyone in their right mind who would willingly be out for a walk when it was raining heavily enough, and this certainly qualified.

But regardless of that fact, there was one girl who seemed quite content to take a stroll right through the rain to her club's meeting place. Perplexing as this was, it became all the more unusual when she was observed more closely.

She was a petite blonde girl, her age difficult to discern form her youthful features and short height. It was unlikely anyone would place her older then perhaps thirteen, and many would place her a year or so younger.

If one were to ask her how she felt about such comments, it was unlikely they would hear anything particularly happy in response.

In her right hand, she held a black cane. She didn't seem to need it to walk, and yet she was using it all the same. Speaking of her right hand...

Her entire right arm was bandaged. Not a single piece of flesh could be seen underneath, the bandages extending up beneath her sleeve. Exactly why this was would be a complete mystery to most observers, as the range of movement that she exhibited with the limb indicated she was entirely uninjured.

But, perhaps, the strangest thing was the fact that there was an umbrella beside her. No, she was not holding an umbrella. Many observers would simply assume that was the case, as it was impossible that an umbrella would simply float beside someone.

But common sense could override the truth, in some cases. And to be fair, the umbrella was not simply floating beside her.

It was being carried by a girl, taller then the blonde, in a stylized kimono. Only the blonde herself, and others versed in the supernatural, could see this fact. They could also see the lengthy tongue hanging from the umbrella, and its single large eye.

Suzuki Tomoko, the intermediary between humans and youkai, had a club meeting to hold. And given the recent circumstances, it was going to be a particularly important one.

Seven disappearances. Seven children, both boys and girls, had disappeared in the last month in the local area. That wasn't even considering disappearances across the entire city that could be tied to these incidents. Each time, there was absolutely no sign of them.

It was as if they simply vanished into thin air.

As she reached the club's meeting place, the door opened ahead of her courtesy of her companion.

Indeed, she wasn't going to let this carry on any longer. She most certainly couldn't.

What sort of self-respecting intermediary could possibly let children continue to up and disappear? This wasn't a regular human perpetrator, not when the disappearances happened so swiftly and so without any evidence. Tomoko was certain of that.

No, the perpetrator had to be some sort of inhuman entity...

But who? And why?

These questions would have to be answered.

But first...

"Hello, everyone," began the blonde-haired girl brightly, "Today is the third meeting of the Miyama Occult Investigation club!"

@Pyromania99@Vega7285@AzureKnight@Rune_Alchemist@Raineh Daze

Shimizu Kaori
Occult Investigation Club Room

---

Ah, rain. Rainy days brought back some unpleasant memories sometimes. Dressed in a black school uniform and a longer than usual skirt to help cover any extra appendages, Kaori would sit a tray of baked goods on the middle of a table, feeling quite pleased with herself. She had made these just this morning, and were still mostly fresh! Ah, she poured every ounce of love, sweetness, affection and maybe just a tiny bit of Jorogumo venom that she could manage.

She made sure to get here early just so she could do so, wanting mostly everyone to be able to enjoy themselves. A bit of cleaning and house keeping too. Oh, and to make sure she was in the perfect position so she could greet Tomoko. She heard, well her friends, a certain number of little spiders would inform her that Tomoko was approaching before she even opened the door.

"Tomo-chaaaaan~!" Immediate upon walking into the room, Tomoko would feel herself being almost knocked over by Kaori. The spider had nearly jumped on her and knocked her over. "How was your day? Did you eat properly? I made some snacks~" Innocent questions, accompanied by the not so innocent act of her shoving Tomoko's face right into her chest while her other hand started...groping the other girl's butt. "Ehehehe, though maybe you'd like to snack on me insteaaaad~?"

_{@VitaVitaAR @Rune_Alchemist}

---

Before leaving for school this morning, young Shuichiro told himself that it was going to pour today. Lo and behold, he was right on the money - sounds on the outside were drowned out by the afternoon rainfall. He'd normally try to ditch, but his old lady said that she would deck him across the countryside if he even so much as thought about it. Besides, the ramen shop he would've gone to was probably closed due to the rain anyway. Bored out of his mind, the young fox said backwards in his chair with his chin resting on the top of it. A certain arachnid entered the meeting room as he slumped.

"Hey Kaori-chan, this is suuuch a drag… Wanna play with trading cards or something?" Shu said.

He noticed Kaori walking near the table with a tray of pastries; his mouth began to water a bit as she placed it on the table. Just as she sat them down, the class prez had opened the door and announced the start of the meeting. The spider girl promptly jumped at the club head, groping her in her usual fashion. Classic Kaori. However, Shu focused his mind elsewhere - the tray was now left defenseless.

Of course he wasn't as mean as to gobble up every morsel, but it shouldn't be a problem if he took a bit extra for himself~

"Yep, mhmm." Came Shina's voice from the back of the room. She was laying out on a couch the clubroom somehow managed to get. "No, I said work on building a relationship with the clothing shop we talked about..." She was silent as she listened to whoever was on the other side of the phone. "Yes, get your sister to get to it. I need you to deliver some packages~" Silence again, "And if you eat that your career is good as done....Yes. Exactly~ Get to work, I don't pay you to eat my food~" With that, she hung up and settled her phone away. "Really, you leave one cheesecake at the office and all the workers think they're entitled..."

Well, her business business was settled for now until those two got back to her. "Now, what do we have here? Tomoko is here? Ahh, and a damn fox." She wasn't exactly shy in saying aloud. Well, of course there was Kaori who was once again harassing Tomoko. Not that she was one to complain, really. She kind of harassed everyone, though they might not know it was her that did it. Well, she'd leave Tomoko and the spider alone for now. She made her way over to the table and sat at it. She just needed to wait until the meeting started mostly, though she sort of wanted to hug the tiny Oni girl. She was adorable and really didn't seem like "human" contact and it would be funny to see her squirm a small bit. Just a small bit.

Still, she looked over at the Fox Boy that seemed to be taking extra snacks. Not that Shina really seemed to care much. After all, she didn't really trust the spider that much when it came to... about anything. A megapervert and she wasn't sure what insane ingredients she would put in her cooking. "Well then, fox. You look like an absolute glutton right now." Commenting on his taking of extras. "I mean, you go ahead. I'll be glad it's not me or Tomoko that suffers from whatever that spider puts in there~ That said, you said something about playing cards? I'm game. Wanna bet on it~?" She had a mischievous smile that could only say that she was up to no good which was a safe bet. She was hardly ever up to anything good.

As far as Homura could tell, the dynamics were already well-established for the club, by now. The first couple meetings had been surprisingly normal, at least content-wise. She had to wonder just what sort of dirt the president had on some of the other members, though. Regardless, the scene currently playing out before her was no longer surprising.

Kaori had brought sweets. Shuicirio was already helping himself to said sweets. One would hardly know they weren't just ordinary students. Homura refrained from taking any baked goods just yet, mostly out of propriety and waiting for the meeting to begin before helping herself to refreshments, and not out of mistrust at all. "Afternoon," she returned Tomoko's greeting.

"Should I put on some tea," she offered as she made her way over to an electric kettle on a desk by the wall. "It's a good day for it, and would probably go nice with the snacks."

Like the others, Akari was nominally a student at the school. From slipping into the premises clubroom just as school had ended, and the distinct lack of a uniform worn, it would have been impossible to guess. But despite this, she made a valiant effort to blend into the room's background, moving a chair off to one corner and pulling out a book to read while everyone showed up. Hopefully, she could spend the entire meeting like this, and just go home afterwards.

It didn't help that everyone here was so... outgoing. Almost everyone. Akari felt that Homura had the most compatible personality out of the entire club, but she was way too scary! What if she wanted to do some youkai hunting or her family thought this would be a great opportunity to finish what Watanabe-no-Tsuna started or...

Oh no, she was looking this way. Tea? Oh, no, Akari shook her heaed vigorously at that. She wasn't a big fan of tea anyway, and she already brought her own drinks along. And this way she wasn't at risk of being poisoned somehow. Hopefully, she wouldn't mind. Hopefully.

After having experienced Kaori's attitude and affections for a considerable length of time now, Tomoko had learned to be prepared for this kind of treatment.

The karakasa wasn't the only friend she brought along today.

Letting her surprised decoy 'enjoy' Kaori's affections, Tomoko stepped to the side and around the clingy jorogumo, ignoring any muffled pleas for help.

"Tea would be lovely, thank you," she said, in response to Homura.

She cast a bright smile around at the assembled students. Yes, she'd done quite an excellent job at putting together various supernatural attendees at Miyama, and it hadn't taken very much effort at all!

"I'm sure you're all curious about our first order of business today, so I won't delay any longer," she continued, retrieving the daily newspaper from her bag. She didn't often read them, but picking up a copy seemed like it was a wise idea for illustrating the task at hand.

"Tada~" Tomoko declared, presenting the paper, or more specifically one of the articles.

The article in question was one that detailed all the publicly-avaliable knowledge on the recent rash of children's disappearances. There wasn't much, but it was enough to establish the fact that there was little to no evidence, and no way of knowing if the disappeared children were alive or dead.

Though given the length of time since the first known disappearance, the outlook was growing considerably more grim.

"Seven children have disappeared this month alone," she continued, "Without any evidence, with no sign of a struggle. Nothing is left behind at all. Even if I didn't have a few friends letting me know they thought something was going on, I think this would be plenty of reason to suspect it's not simply a human kidnapper, isn't it?"

At the very least, it was clear that Tomoko was taking the matter seriously, even if she had presented the newspaper article in such a lighthearted manner.

"I have my suspicions as to what it may be, but I'm curious if anyone else does," continued the girl as she put the newspaper down, waving her real hand idly, "Speculation and conversation are the best path forward!"

Indeed, assembling a plan of action meant discussing that plan of action first.

Tomoko had no intention of allowing another child to disappear, so letting the perpetrator go another night wasn't an option.

Meanwhile, the shapeshifted mujina in Kaori's grip squirmed frantically. She'd altered her usual human form to be identical to the intermediary, but she hadn't been told why this was happening.

Only now did she understand.

@Raineh Daze@Vega7285@Pyromania99@AzureKnight@Rune_Alchemist

Homura nodded at Akari's decline of the tea. The other girl tended to get skittish around her for some reason, but she still communicated well enough, and there really wasn't reason to be bothered. Once the kettle finished boiling, she prepared a pot of tea, and brought it and some cups over to the meeting table. Homura of course poured a cup for herself, and another for Tomoko.

"So, kamikakushi in the literal sense," she began, after Tomoko had explained the situation. "Sounds like something we should look into, all right. Sadly, it could be a lot of things." Homura spares Kaori a glance. "So nothing immediately comes to my mind just from disappearances. A namahage, maybe? Or...isn't there a couple urban legend sort of things that grab kids?"

Shimizu Kaori
Occult Investigation Club Room

---

"...eh? Eh?" Kaori blinked, looking from the Tomoko in her arms to the Tomoko walking away from her. "Two...two Tomokos?" She'd look back to the one in her arms, then back to the real Tomoko all the while not letting the one in her grip go or giving her any sort of leeway to wiggle out of the embrace. Had she died? Was this heaven? Was she given a gift by the gods for being a good little spider? Ahhh, she could hardly contain herself!

"Eheheheh~!" With a loud giggle, Kaori would pickup the Mujina, completely uncaring of the other youkai's struggle. "Tomo-chan, you shouldn't have! Ehehe, I'll be sure to take her home with me and make sure nothing bad happens to her~" The Mujina, would find it hard to respond since her face was still shoved in Kaori's chest as the spider would take a seat at the club table, sitting the girl down in her lap and not releasing her as Tomoko got to explaining what they were doing here.

Oh dear, oh dear...someone snatching up little girls that wasn't her? Oh that wouldn't do at all! Some other, nastier, meaner youkai surely was doing such unwholesome and terrible things to them! It made her loving little spider heart angry...of course, she was completely aware of the look she got from Homura.

"Ufufu, what's the matter, Homu-chan? Giving me such a passionate seeming glance~ Now's not the time you know?" Teasing aside...hm. There were many youkai known for kidnapping children, or people in general...and she was guilty of that, but she had mostly behaved herself since she met Tomoko. "Do we...have any more information, Tomo-chan? We can narrow it down to those that specifically like to target children, but without other information it feels hard to speculate..."

Hina tumbled out of her secret treasure room with a melon soda and a box of animal crackers in hand. She sipped the soda like some sweet elixir, and it replenished her not at all. All the money she spent on snacks could have been donated to a worthy cause, and might have gone on to help groupings of Humans in need. But the only cause she cared about... was the state of this soda coursing through her Youkai body. And also finding the secret penguin animal cracker. It had been a long night of owning scrubs online at UMvC3, but someone had to do it. Humans had to learn that all their practice, dedication, and devotion comes to naught in the face of the infinity that is a Youkai as immortal and long-lived as her. And also, Soul Fist spam is bullshit.

Hina looked vaguely around the clubhouse, and noticed that pretty much everyone was here today. It was probably a super fun new case. She put her box of animal crackers down and crawled to the table where Tomoko had presented the newspaper article. She nodded as she read the paper, and soon would give her valuable and probably correct opinion.

"Alright, I see everyone is just huddled up in my house without asking," she muttered, looking around at the other club members (it was a club room and not her house). Especially the Humans, "that's cool. Uh... paper says there's a sale at Don Quijote. That is indeed very suspicious because all their prices are rock bottom already. There's also, ah... kidnappings. Oh."

Hina scratched her head, slightly embarrassed that she'd caught onto the wrong thing, but if it turned out that sale is also a Youkai's doing, she knew that she would look super smart.

"Uuuhhh Nurikabe," she said, going directly to her default answer, "one of these days it's gonna be one of those funny wall guys, and everyone will praise my genius~ do we know what time of day these kids disappeared? All at night? Some during the day? Were they being naughty? Maybe it's a Human after all. I think you underestimate them, sometimes."

Hina climbed up on the table on her hands and knees like a cat, and swiped up as many Spider Cookies as her tiny hands could hold, getting crumbs all over herself and the table.

Children were disappearing? Oh no, that was bad, she just wanted to go home normally and not have to worry about strange youkai that couldn't tell the difference between a (very) small teenaged oni and a child. She couldn't just stay here until the problem cleared up on its own, all her stuff was at home and the Zasshiki-Warashi would start demanding she pay rent or something if Akari spent the night and she didn't have enough to drink to just give it away like that...

The girl opened one of the drinks in the plastic bag she had brought along, thinking who it could be. If they could solve it without going anywhere, then that meant Tomoko could fix the problem and she could just go home normally, right? Youkai that were interested in kidnapping children and keeping them, rather than potentially turning them into dinner or some such...

The bottle of definitely-not-fancy-water was placed on the side table Akari had ensconced herself at as she looked at everyone present here.

"I-It isn't Kaori, right?" Just look at how tightly she was holding the not-Tomoko!

Occult Club Meeting

---

"Keep your comments to yourself, Ms. Funbags." Replied Shu to his senior club member. "I wasn't making that offer to you!" He said, rejecting her offer due te knowing better.

He's mood immediately perked up at Homura's offer of tea. "Yes please~ To say it'd go well with these cookies would be an understatement."

Shuichiro look at the scene of Tomoko fooling Akari with her double, but it defeats the amusement since the spider didn't really seem to mind. "Nice karakasa." He said.

Sigh. The prez decided to get down to business at that point, how droll...

Apparently there's an issue involving multiple cases of missing children, based on the info or rather lack thereof it was obvious that the kidnappings were yokai-related.

"Hmm. You know, I'm no saint and enjoy my fair share of pranks, but abducting kids is a bit much yeah?"

Before he could ponder the case further, his thoughts were interrupted by Hina, who decided to gobble up as many cookies as she could. Shu chuckled and shook his head. He then turned to the Tanuki.

"And you say that I'm a glutton..."

Shina made an evil giggle and smirked at the fox sitting next to her. "Coward~" The Tanuki stood up and stepped away from Shuichirou. She couldn't really blame the boy. She was unnaturally lucky after all! Now, Tomoko was talking about some sort of child disappearance. Normally, she'd probably complain about not getting paid but now that she was getting coerced into this whole "club" thing. Now~ She needed to protect her perfectly favorite little thing in the club. The Zashiki-Warashi girl was cute of course, but nothing held a candle to the adorable little Oni girl sitting in the corner.

"Kaori kidnapping little girls you say~? My dear spider, I thought you were over that phase." Shina teased, her tail would swish back and forth if it were out at the moment but she was, of course, in her perfect school disguise. She fell to her knees next to Akari and swung her arms around the poor girl's neck. "Don't worry my cute little Oni~ I'll make sure the pervert old spider doesn't touch a hair on your pretty little head." She teased, smirking towards where the spider was holding the mujina whilst pulling the Oni into her chest as if to protect her before relaxing a small bit.

"That said, I don't think it was Kaori. Less so because I trust her to be a safe person but moreso because I don't think Tomoko would allow her to do such a thing. Though it doesn't stop me from worrying about what you'd do to everyone in the room." She seemed convinced that, if left alone, she would do a number of travesties to the girls in the room.

"The issues of Kaori being a perverted old lady aside, did you have an idea of what this kidnapper may be, Tomo-tan? An old creep? Youkai? Urban Legend? Chupacabra? Debt Collector!?" The last seemed to be the most worrisome to the Tanuki as the mere mention made her pull Akari even more into her chest. "Ahh, sorry Akari." She seemed at the least a small bit apologetic that time.

Tomoko listened for a few moments to the various proposals presented from across the room. Some of them were sound, though the less said about the 'chupacabra' the better. Indeed, it was clear that everyone present had done some real thinking! Not that she needed this sort of assistance, but it was sometimes useful to have other people thinking for themselves! She did pause a moment to eye Kaori as she fondled the squirming mujina. After all, given the jorogumo's past, well, noting what she was doing when a cute girl was so close to her was important.

A namahage would torture and terrorize children.

Some legends spoke of yamauba devouring them.

Urban legends spoke of a myriad of phantoms that would target children.

Kappa had an entire legend around them attacking people, most frequently children.

And, of course, a depraved human being could have abducted the children. Murdered them, abused them, or both.

All of these could have been the perpetrator.

And one was more likely then the others.

"There sure are a lot of yokai who like attacking children," mused Tomoko as she leaned back in her seat, "Normally, that might make it challenging to figure out our culprit. But it's not so difficult when you have your wonderful intermediary and club president here, is it?"

She flashed a smile towards the assembled club members as she rose to her feet, the bow in her hair bouncing.

"Since some of your suggestions are logical based on the information we have, it would be a struggle to figure out which one makes the most sense. At least, at first glance," she continued, "But how many of the child-eating yokai are known for their willingness to visit the city? These days, many of your child-hungry youkai aren't too fond of visiting populated areas."

The blonde girl picked up her cane. Indeed, it was possible some creep was the perpetrator as well.

"We could be looking at a human perpetrator, that's true. But if that were the case, I don't think anyone would have spoken to me," she continued. "I'll admit right now it's based on conjecture and hearsay, but I have a strong feeling about this. Those who guessed at urban legends might just have had a little bit of my wisdom rub off on them."

Winking, Tomoko raised one finger beside her head.

"Just a little!"

But the fact was that they still didn't have enough information to go off of.

"But we don't have enough information to come to any conclusions. Dubious conclusions about nurikabe aside, Hina-chan's questions are the right ones. Unfortunately, I don't have any answers. The kidnappings have happened in broad daylight, in the evening, from crowded locations, from lonely ones, even right behind the parents' backs. The only consistency is in the victims, and the lack of evidence."

Even the Intermediary couldn't produce evidence from thin air. But she had a plan to fix that.

"So," continued Tomoko, "We're going on a little field trip to talk to a witness!"

Given Tomoko's nature, it wouldn't take too much difficulty to understand who the 'witnesses' she mentioned were. There were no human beings who saw the crimes or knew anything about them...

At least, there were no living human beings.

"Today's club activity will be spirit invocation~!" declared the short girl brightly.

@Raineh Daze@Vega7285@Pyromania99@AzureKnight@Rune_Alchemist@Octo

Shimizu Kaori
Occult Investigation Club Room

---

"Weh? Little Akari is accusing me~" Kaori responded with an all too fake pout. "I suppose I'll just have to hug my little comfort Tomoko harder to ease away this pain~" Aside from squeezing the Mujina harder and rubbing its head, as Tomoko and the others continued, the spider would content herself to stay silent. So no more information was to be had then. Whisked away all at varying times without rhyme or reason. Tomoko was right, too. Most youkai would stay away from such popular areas...

Unless, of course their natural habitat was a more metropolitan area. As Tomoko was saying, something about modern urban legends and such seemed to fit more than more traditional Youkai. Something created because someone believed it to exist? So a potential Youkai of modern descent that liked kidnapping little kids. Sadly, she was less familiar with such modern Youkai.

"...Ah? Old? I'm not sure what you mean, you trash loving racoon. If you're going to insult me at least make it a fun one that I can enjoy, hmph. I'm no older than the cute little ghost currently making a mess on the table." Was she upset? No, not really. She didn't mind the insults, and if anything she was always amused when someone tried too. She'd have played with the Tanuki a bit more, but at the moment a more pressing matter was at hand.

"Ah! A spirit Invocation, ehe. Yes that's perfect." Shina would find a spider descending from the ceiling and deciding to spin a web in her hair, making a mess of it as Kaori would turn to Tomoko. "Ehe, isn't my Tomoko just the smartest?"

If anyone else in the room had opted to hug the shy girl, she would have overreacted... and likely gone completely still so as to not potentially break someone's arm by accident. With the tanuki wrapped around her head and promising to protect her from... debt collectors, for some reason, her response was far more subdued: simply a luminescent blush as she was pulled into the much older youkai's head, and a plaintive "Aunt Shiiiinaaaaa, I was drinking..."

Whatever this abducting youkai was, it sounded scary. It could pop up in broad daylight even if nobody was there? What if it got confused and went for the wrong person, or if it got stronger after eating children and decided it wanted to work its way upwards? Akari wasn't intimidating at all! She would have to bribe Hina to stay here after all if it wasn't finished today.

"C-Can't I just stay here? I can't hit ghosts!" And ghosts were scary too! You couldn't hit them and get them to stop whatever they were doing! All she had to rely on was strength, why did they need to go upset an onryo or something by accident when asking questions as well? She didn't want to watch a creepy video and die!

Hina, beautiful, talented, and without a doubt the coolest and most popular girl in the room, immediately took some paper and a pencil out and began drawing. She needed to express herself, to get the others to understand her genius.

"I'm not a glutton," she shot at the fox boy, cookie crumbs all over her face.

"I don't even need food, I just eat it because it's there," she exclaimed, unaware that this made her sound even more gluttonous and very insensitive to everyone who actually needed food to survive.

Her line art was coming along quite nicely. It was only a sketch, but she was, despite her idiotic posturing, both quick and talented as an artist. Of course, she was still listening to Tomoko, but this picture could be important to the investigation later.

"Hm... hm... urban legends, you say... maybe if it turns out they all went missing in the bathroom, it'll be Hanako the toilet ghost. Big fan of her work, scaring Humans all the time," Hina said, nodding, "but... yeah~ it might be good to speak to a ghost. They don't have much better to do than hang around watching people, and they're- hey!"

Hina scowled at the spider, attempting to screw her face into something scary, but only succeeded at making herself look like a child about to throw a tantrum for a cool toy.

"Don't compare yourself with me, granny. It makes me sound old. I'm only older than everyone when it benefits me, but otherwise I'm young and adorable and everyone should give me stuff."

Hina put the finishing touches on her picture, and proudly presented it to everyone. It was a picture of a Nurikabe with sunglasses and a skateboard, and it had its hand on a wall behind a blushing Tomoko. The picture was titled 'Nurikabedon' and Hina smiled proudly. It was a rough sketch, but well done. She would pin it to the investigation board later, with all her other cool pictures, most of which involved other club members in swimsuits.

"See? You could definitely get kidnapped by something like this. It's so cool, but also funny..."

Then, Akari said something that turned on some alarm bells. Ghosts were borderline unpunchable. That could be a problem, in case the ghost wanted to do something scary. Hina's eyes widened.

"Ghosts are scary and unpunchable," Hina, the unpunchable kinda-half-ghost exclaimed, "h-how are we gonna deal with something that terrifying?"

"Meaningful glances aside, I don't actually believe you're the type to do such a thing," Homura started with Kaori. "Were all the victims female? Or male? Either might suggest something."

They really didn't have a lot to go on, though. Just a list of currently unsolved disappearances, so there's definitely going to be a need to get on the case, as it were. Homura tried one of the cookies with her tea, while Tomoko explained the plan. Asking a spirit to catch a spirit sounded like the right idea. Certainly better than harassing any onmyouji around in case they had a shikigami who happened to notice something.

"That's definitely one way to get a lead. It's been a while since I did anything like that, but it's not like I'm an expert at calling someone up. I can help with drawing up the ofuda, at least." For a yokai hunter, Homura really was more the meathead type, unfortunately.

"Hey now," a bright voice like steel on steel rang out from Homura's sword caddy. "If you can't hit a ghost with your bare hands, you don't have the right tool, that's all." Mizuki was, of course, referring to herself. "Not that you should need to fight anything you're calling up yourselves, unless you really screw up."

Homura couldn't help but crack up at Hina's pun. "I guess that could work." She also did her best to give a solid answer to her question about ghosts. "Usually, one deals with ghosts with means other than punching them. Toss some salt at one, or have the right charms and you can trap them or chase them away, that sort of thing."

The Tanuki ignored what the spider bit back with. "Whaaaattt~?" Shina cooed as Akari mentioned that she couldn't hit ghosts with her fist. "I'm pretty sure your Mama was all about that in the past." She gave a small kiss on the forehead and then put the alcohol in the girl's hand. "None of the urban legends I'm aware of kidnap kids. Most of them just tear them into gruesome messes that I don't want to be around."

Shina swatted away any spider that was in her hair at this point and poofing into a smoke cloud. When the smoke quickly disappeared, she had transformed herself into a pale woman with long hair covering her face (also taking care of any spider web in the process.) "Am I beautiful?" She said, slowly walking up to Hina in an exaggerated fashion. "No? Then die!" Shina said, putting her arm out toward Hina before stopping mid-way. "Or something like that." Another cloud of smoke and she was back to normal.

"Anyway, you all can only think about hitting things. A lot of these urban legend type deals you just have to outsmart them." Shina mused, "That aside, Tomoko-chan mentioned Spirit Invocation~ How exciting~ I mean, I'm just here because Tomoko-chan 'convinced' me to so just about anything is exciting compared to sitting around~ Come on, Akari. Let's finish up the drink~ Or should I help you~" The woman teased, making fun of the small girl a small bit. "I'm all ready when you are Tomoko-chan~"

Occult Club Meeting

---

"All those crumbs on your face say otherwise, you dullard~" Mused Shu. He may have like to stuff his face every now and again, but at least he had decorum.

He responded with indifference towards the tanuki's insult. While he would like to beat her in a game of chance and rub her nose in it, he just wasn't in the mood.

The prez began listing off possible culprits of the case, which ended with her declaring they'd be going on a field trip of sorts to get testimonies from eye witness. "Fine by me, beats sitting around in this dusty room

Everyone, particularly Akari, voice their concerns in regards to dealing with ghosts. Obviously you can't punch ghosts... Although it's troublesome, someone like me would have no problems. I can utilize talisman magic with quite handily, Homura, so worry not." He said, flickering his hand.

"So Prez, shall we go ahead and get this invocation under way?