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Watson calls back to the others.
"They've been making this tunnel a while. The hole's new, bu I'd say they've been planning something using this for a while."

I was going to ask Satoshi actually. He's friends with nearly everyone, so he might know someone. I was looking it up on Google last night and some message boards were talking about stuff like this. It just happens randomly and nobody knows why.

At that, Satoshi perks up.
"Huh? Me? Why?"

They called it stuff like "adolescence syndrome" or "Abnormalities".

"Abnor...oh. Now I see. One sec."

Satoshi looks over at the others. Takeo feels a rush of air around his back, probably where Hanako is. Satoshi's phone, left on the counter, lights up, switching to the messaging app.
"Is Kou-chan okay?"
"You guys know what those are, right? The rumours, everything?"

As the group discusses lunch plans, before they can order anything, they see a young man, probably just out of middle school.

Of course, from his scruffy brown hair, the eyes he shared with his sister, and awkward gait, they could recognise him any day. Kousei Saihara had arrived.

---

"....He's grown up. Last time I saw him he was barely chest height. Now....he's taller than you, I'm pretty sure."

"He is. You....still don't want us to tell him about you, right?"

"Not yet. I don't want to face my family like this, Satoshi."

---

Satoshi turns around to the others, whispering as he approaches.
"Alright, you know the deal. Don't tell Kou-kun about Hana-chan. Besides, if we tell him his sister's here but he can't see her, it'd kill him."

The young man approaches them as Satoshi finishes whispering.

"..."

Satoshi greets him with a grin and a wave.
"Yo, Kou-kun! How are you?"

Kousei opens his mouth as if to speak.
"..."
"....Kou-kun?"

Kousei then sighs, frustated. Closing his eyes, he whips out his phone and types something in very quickly, before showing it to the others.

Sorry. My voice is gone. I can't talk. Don't know what happened. Parents will freak out if they find out. Please help.

Satoshi gazes again somewhere to Takeo's side, nodding briefly, before handing her the tissues. An invisible hand picks them up and begins using them to clean off the blood.
"You tell them to take it up with us, Takeo. That was Hanako, by the way. She's....well, not happy with you. And also thankful she doesn't have the phone right now. Maybe I should start asking Kurenai-senpai to look out for you."

"Rodolfo Pacciolo! Or Rodolfuccio to fellow guards."

"Why! How can ruffians be defeated if not through a glorious charge?" he asked, using a hand to comb his mustache while casually kicking and stabbing at the door behind him to get it open like it was normal.

Watson seems....unperturbed by the bombastic new addition to their crew.
"Watson. Just Watson will do."
Watson adjusts the cuffs of her jacket as she goes and checks the trapdoor and the area around it for any signs of the origin of the troopers; drops of water, scraps of cloth, anything. She turns to the others.
"We should open it at least. Cover me, in case someone's down there. The last thing we need is a surprise guest."

What follows is sheer, unrivalled insanity.

As the gigantic dracolich mounted by the self-proclaimed Master of the Necromantic Arts falls down, its heads liberated from its neck, Thanatos dismounts, floating in the air with magic, hands outstretched as if daring Shoes to come at him.

And come at him Shoes does.

Shoes hurls her spear at him. Enchanted with demonic magic as it was, it was the bare minimum she needed to tangle with such monsters. The spear lands true, soaring through the air with a red aura, the power of demons coursing through it, pinning down the skeletal wizard with the first hit as he collapses into the tangle of bones that was once his mount.

Shoes barely has time to exult even briefly in her victory before a blast of dark energy, a black pillar coursing with reddish lightning, smashes into her, throwing the would-be conqueror aside with almost contemptuous ease. Thanatos pushes himself to his feet, shaking his head.

"Not bad. Not bad at all-"

Wasting time on talking, however, just gets him another spear, this time in the back.
...
One of the odd properties of the weapons formerly belonging to the Demon Generals is that they return to their wielders. While some prefer to use their magic to enact ranged attacks, such as Belphegor with her mastery over wind magic, and Lucifer with beams of light, at least on the rare occasions he fought, others preferred to use their weapons like lethal boomerangs, striking an enemy before calling their weapon back to their side.

As wielder of the spear of the former General of Wrath, Shoes was now the owner of Persecutor.

Which meant she could recall her spear as she pleased.
....
And so it was, with equally contemptuous ease, a spear through his ribcage, that Thanatos kneels down, defeated.

(Shoes has equine rage!)
(Shoes' hooves thunder!)
(Thanatos' Daunt activates!)
(Thanatos shall face the darkness with solemn fire!)

Shoes initiates!
Hit Rate: 34 to hit
Hit: 9, hit!
Critical: 10, crit!
Thanatos takes 167 damage!

Thanatos loses a Life Point!

Thanatos retaliates!
Hit Rate: 75 to hit
Hit: 47, hit!
Shoes takes 32 damage!

Shoes uses up one life!

Combat 2:

(Shoes has equine rage!)
(Shoes' hooves thunder!)
(Thanatos' Daunt activates!)
(Thanatos shall face the darkness with solemn fire!)

Shoes initiates!
Hit Rate: 34 to hit
Hit: 14, hit!
Critical: 3, crit!
Thanatos takes 167 damage!

Thanatos is defeated!

The skeletal armies called by Thanatos collapse, as their owner simply....raises his hands in surrender?

Right. A spear through the ribcage, as it transpires, isn't actually all that much of a problem if you are in fact all ribs and no organs.

"....excellent. Finally. A real master to call my own."

He lowers his head in respect.

"I serve the strongest, and I have been bested. I am yours to command, my Dark Queen."

The night goes on, and the group finally decides to cook food and eat. It's a rather odd experience; though Minato and Satoshi took over cooking duties in the end, and some conversation was exchanged, the entire thing felt odd. You hadn't done this for years, not since...

Oh, and of course, Hanako's plate gradually disappearing into thin air. If the text messages hadn't convinced you that Hanako was hovering just out of sight, the fact that she was actively consuming the food should have. As was the fact that she then volunteered to do the dishes, causing the sight of dishes floating in the air being wiped by an invisible figure.

Yet the question hovered at the back of your minds as you were a group once again since that fateful day.

Why was Hanako here again?

---

The next day
Satoshi sighs, staring at the leftovers from last night.
"....Hanako."

She fell into view, frowning.
"Yes?"

"You really think....things could go back to how they were? I mean, I'm not sure, but....could they?"

"If anyone could pull it off, it's you, Satoshi. But...it's been so long. Two years....."

"Two years and I never stopped thinking about everybody. Trust me, Hanako. When we find out why you're here, we'll all do our best."

"Thanks. I...well, I suppose this would be so much easier if I wasn't....well. Two years too late to worry about that, huh?"

Hanako exhales. It was habit, rather than necessity; ghosts didn't need to breathe.

"We should at least figure out if there's a way to get everyone to see me. I don't want to keep tapping away at a phone. And you can't keep me all to yourself, Sato-kun."

Satoshi snorted.

"Hey, you're the ghost. Maybe you wanted me all for yourself, and that's why I'm the only one who can see you. Think about that?"

"Being your summer beast isn't my idea of spending my free time. Besides, you'd never listen to me. You'd be too busy doing your...Satoshi thing. Speaking of which....where are you meeting Kou-chan?"

---

Kousei had asked (and then Satoshi had subsequently communicated to the others) to meet him at old Uncle Honda's eatery at the market. It had been there since they were kids, been there since their parents' childhoods and would probably be there until the end of time.

Old Uncle Honda was one of those people who seemed to never age, who seemed to have appeared, fully formed as a vaguely middle-aged man who was happy to dish out bowls of udon in the middle of the market. It was not the local favorite - that would be Auntie Nana's eatery around the corner - but Satoshi's group used to gather there, and Satoshi and Hanako had a soft spot for his udon.

Nowadays, it was the new terrible trio who hung out there; Natsuo Honma, Kousei Saihara and Yelena Akasaka.

If the rumours were anything to go by, the three of them, roughly the same age and being younger than Satoshi's group, had found each other because they were outsiders. Yelena was half-Russian and clearly a foreigner (and it didn't help that her school nickname was that of a character from an anime she resembled, a character rather appropriate to Satoshi and Hanako's current situation), Natsuo was one of the smartest children in school and preferred the company of books to people, and Kousei had somewhat faded into the fringe since Hanako's death. Still, Satoshi couldn't help but smile as he thought about it. Kousei, at least, landed on his feet after Hanako had left their lives.

So it was there Satoshi and Hanako waited for the others to appear.

"Focus, knight. We're not here to save princesses."
F15, clap Crusher D's cheeks