Fated Meeting:A Principal, A Spiri And a Silver Haired Demon

Ryosuke yawned. He had the early shift at the gates today; the most boring one. The janitor would come in her car, the few students that lived off-campus would, and then no one for hours. If the principal caught him on his phone, he would get a slap on the wrist, which in Kobayashi terms meant bad, bad things. The man had a mean wrist slap.

However, this morning was a little more interesting than usual. The janitor came in on foot, and literally so. Most of the time, when people said they came on foot, they really meant that they came on sneakers, boots, heels or sandals, but this morning, the previously pink-haired, now silver-haired janitor came in on foot. And in what looked like sleepwear.

Ryosuke shot a curious look at her. Her left hand looked weird, not to mention she hadn’t shown up for a week. He decided to call the principal.

“Lieutenant?”
“Lieutenant? Who is that?”
“... Principal, I mean.”
“Better. Talk to me.”
“The janitor came in on foot, sir, and I really mean on foot, she’s not wearing shoes.”
“... Okay…”
“Her hand is weird, too. And she’s wearing night clothes. I think she’s going to her closet.”
“Alright. Thanks.”

The principal hung up and sighed. Ever since Darren and Ryuusei had reported a strange sort of shrine in her closet, he had been watching her closely. And then, she disappeared. And then, the hospital was attacked by a villain. And then, she came back shoeless and careless, and seemingly carless as well.

It was a little too many coincidences. He decided to take a closer look himself.

He checked his gun and ammunition. One could never be too sure. He put them back in his shoulder holster, a loaded USP .45 under his left armpit, two spare magazines under his right, the both of which hidden under his suit jacket. He headed towards the closet.

He examined the shrine. It was somehow more and less weird than he imagined it: a white figurine sitting on a woven throne with Halloween decoration around it. It was puzzling. On first sight, there wasn’t any blood or dead animals, which was a reassuring sign.

He wondered how the janitor had been hired again, found out that he could not remember. This new job required remembering too many things at once, and his brain had to make space from time to time.

He heard a door open and turned around. He spoke in a calm voice.

“Hello, Setsuna-san. Please notify us beforehand when you take vacation time. We need time to organize a replacement, you understand,” he said professionally. His glare was professional as well, but it was the glare of a different kind of professional.

It was the drilling glare of a professional killer who was smelling too much bullshit to his taste. “Do you mind telling me about your vacation? I sure do hope it was worth missing a week of work,” he added conversationally. His glare was the same, but it now drifted to her left hand. He said nothing. Sometimes, staring was worth a thousand words.

“Well, I don’t know yet,” answered the principal, quite honestly so.

He was, to say the least, confused. If it was a fake story, it had been invented extremely quickly by a liar of great skill and merit. Everything fit in the timeline. The problem was that the things that fit in that timeline were quite… Outlandish, to say the least.

She got kidnapped. They cut her fingers with bolt cutters. He glanced at her fingers. Two were indeed missing, replaced with something white, something bony. The fingers click-clacked against her other hand, which was all white and bony.

He looked at her incredulously while she went on about masked heroes rescuing her and saving the villains. It was all a little cartoony, but then again, he was seeing similar stuff on TV. It was a strange world in which they lived in.

“Two things,” he continued. “First, you understand I’m gonna have to look into this story a little more before I believe you. You do seem injured, but it doesn’t seem to be much of a bother to you. Do you mind explaining this to me? Your file doesn’t mention a quirk.” Principal Kobayashi was all about the files.

“Second, if you were saved by professional heroes, then that is a point in your favor. Do you perchance have their aliases? If I could get them to confirm the story, it would clear… Some, suspicions off you.”

He looked at her in the eyes, marking his own dramatic pause. Behind the piercing stare, he was thinking. Darren and Ryuusei hadn’t reported anything weirder than her little shrine. He had seen weirder in the army. His instincts were not warning him against her either. He decided to press his interrogation further. He wasn’t about to trust her just yet, or anytime soon really.

“I’m gonna level with you, Setsuna-san. You are quite odd, but you are diligent in your work. I don’t want to fire a hard worker for being odd. But if you are in danger because of where you work, I want you to come to me and tell me things. If you keep hiding stuff like that, I’m really gonna have to fire you. Matter of security. I can’t trust near my students someone who won’t tell me about these things. I find it very suspicious that you went to your closet acting like nothing happened. You should have called us at the first opportunity if only to ask for help.” He paused again, glared for effect.

“So you’re gonna tell me things today, Setsuna-san. And after you tell me these things, I will look into them to see if you’re lying to me or not. You might lose more than your job if you’re not being honest, Setsuna-san. Crimes of negligence are a thing when you work with children, you know.”

The principal was now resting with his arms crossed and his back against the locker. He would not stop staring at her while she told her story, looking for any signs that she might be lying. His instinct still wasn’t having an issue with her, but Kobayashi Touma had as a principle to doubt even his own instincts.

The principal hadn’t moved an inch, and he was still staring at the silver-haired janitor. Outwardly he gave off the same air of menace, but inwardly he was thinking and remembering.

He remembered Togashi screaming and banging on the door of the room where they locked him in during his outbursts, and how the shouting became sobbing and crying. Togashi had been a head taller than him and twice as wide at the shoulders, but they had shipped him back home a crying mess and honorably discharged. They gave him a medal. They found him a year later, in his room, the medal around his neck, sucking on the barrel of a gun. Togashi had been a gentle bear, perhaps too gentle for the life of a soldier. His letter said that he could not stop hearing the voices.

They wrote him off as a casualty, a statistic, something to be studied critically and unemotionally by the army shrinks, valuable if regrettably obtained information for PTSD research. They sent his parents flowers.

Kasey Setsuna was not Togashi, but Kobayashi Touma couldn’t help but think of Togashi when he saw her like that.

No, he told himself, I need to be cold, I need to be true, I need to be a professional. He was in charge of a lot of kids now, some who lost their parents, some who fought against their influence, and some who had a loving family but still needed a teacher. He could not go easy on Kasey, not because she reminded him of Togashi.

But he knew what isolation could draw out in men, women and everything in-between. Togashi must have felt alone, desperately alone. He must have felt like no one could help him, like he was being dragged and kept into a corner, and that he only had one option left.

Kobayashi did not want to think of that, no more than he wanted to think about what the apparently quick-healing janitor would do if she felt trapped. He took great pains to maintain his iron composure and said, slowly, as sternly as possible: “Crimson Skull and the Overseer. Are those the aliases of the ones who saved you?”

In a softer tone, he added: “If you were held for a week, then let me apologize on behalf of everyone that we couldn’t save you earlier. As for your work…” He glanced at her left hand again. “I think today qualifies for paid leave. I need to investigate before I can let you back to work, I’m afraid. I believe you, but given what’s at stake in this school, my belief alone isn’t worth shit. What the Ministry wants is cold hard fact, not belief.”

“I’ll look into that,” answered the principal when the janitor told him the names. Crimson Skull and the Overseer. The names weren’t familiar. He inscribed them in his mind and moved on, but he didn’t move from his position in front of the locker. “My apologies, but your locker will have to be investigated as well. You understand.” He didn’t ask; he stated.

She was alive, at least, and Thundershock was indeed behind bars, but somehow the latter wasn’t much of a reassurance. His organization didn’t fall into chaos, and his attitude as far too casual. Something was afoot. No matter how much she reminded him of Mina, he couldn’t afford to be lenient with the janitor.

“Indeed, you can still drive her to school like you do, but the building is off limits. Speaking of this. You mentioned another job. From the looks of your cars, it looks to be a well paying one too. That will also be a matter of investigation, so if you wanna tell me about now, I’d appreciate the trouble it would save me.”

His arms crossed and his glare as cold as ever, he added: “And you still haven't told me about your hand.” His gaze shifted to the bony hand in question once again.