Rinne

"Kyaa!!" "NOOO!" "Hisashi! What did you do!!" The three witnesses each had a different reaction with Kyoko screaming, Rei falling to her knees in despair, and Takashi gripping his bat tighter, looking ready to swing at her.

He was stopped from doing anything rash and foolish when he noticed a new flame making itself known. It was a ghastly pale blue and it flickered weakly on Hisashi's forehead before slowly rising up into her palm. His body slumped down to the ground completely motionless.

Takashi couldn't take his eyes off this new flame and somehow instinctively knew exactly what it was though his mind tried to deny the incongruity.

"Hisashi? What? I don't understand" Rei was the one to give voice to his thoughts, confirming he wasn't the only one with the same suspicion.

"Indeed. Although it's weaker than it should be, I can still work with this in the future." Cyrina nodded her head looking at the small torch flickering in her palm.

She turned to stare at the now lifeless body half expecting it to get up and start walking, but it remained motionless as it should, confirming a few theories she had been making over the past few hours. Seeing as it wouldn't be getting up she opened another golden portal underneath it and watched as it sunk into her gluttony storage.

"Sensei! Please explain what's going on! What happened to Hisashi?" Rei was panicking even more now and Cyrina belatedly realized that this would likely become a common occurrence if she kept dodging the subject like she usually does. It was always such a pain awakening the regulars so she usually delegated it to others to save herself the trouble. She sighed out in slight annoyance while trying to ignore the agonizing burning in her chest.

"There's no need to shout. I'll try to answer a few questions but we really don't have much time left. We need to start moving before night falls." Cyrina said before holding out the torch in her hand for them to see. She had a bad feeling that once night fell the real nightmare would begin.

"This is a torch. The proof of one's existence. I really don't have time to explain things in detail but while it's not technically correct, for the sake of time we'll say it is essentially his soul. I was able to use one of the properties of my flames to forcefully draw it out without destroying his body like doing so usually would." Cyrina tried to explain, completely oversimplifying the concept but quickly enough to get the point across.

"Since his body is without its torch it is essentially in suspended animation for the time being. Should we find a cure later on (or I can get my power back) we might be able to save him. I know some people that might be able to do something if they get a hold of his body so we'll have to wait until we can meet up with them." She reasoned while allowing the little torch to float away as it started circling around Rei and Takashi's heads.

"Then why did you apologize to him?" Takashi asked with suspicion evident in his voice as Rei started to poke at the little blue torch, finding it lukewarm at best. Kyoko just looked like a gaping fish and hadn't been able to add anything to the conversation for a while now.

"Two reasons. One having your torch ripped out hurts like hell, even if it's only for a second" She said while reaching back into her golden portal and pulling something out.

"And two, I still need to put his torch somewhere and I don't have any better alternatives," She said with an evil smirk when out of her storage appeared a cute stuffed toy lion.

Hisashi's torch, as if instinctively understanding what was going to happen, tried to float away as quickly as it could but was dragged back by a phantom force with just a wave of her hand.

With a practiced hand, she implanted the torch into the toy and blew life into the little stuffed creature, creating a Rinne.

Rinne are objects of the world given artificial life. She was luckily skilled enough to also give it autonomy so he would still be able to move around on his own. Thanks to her ability to forcefully draw out torches, unlike the artificial Rinne her kind usually created, she didn't have to worry about constantly supplying him power. However minuscule it would have been.

The group watched with fascination as the little stuffed lion rose and began to move around on its own, moving its arms in front of its face and twisting and turning to get a better look at itself. Looking at the gobsmacked group it appeared to try and talk but nothing came out, making it look down in depression before glancing back at Cyrina.

"I'll have to modify it later so you can communicate but it should work fine for now," Cyrina said, checking the stuffed Hisashi out a bit before handing him over to Rei.

"Hisashi, is that really you?" She asked with hope evident in her voice then squealed a little with joy once she got an affirmative nod from the stuffed lion. It was odd, she could tell it was him at a glance even though he wasn't in his body. It was like her mind just acknowledged the thing she was looking at was Hisashi even if a part of her recognized otherwise.

"You're so cute!" She said hugging the plushie and nuzzling it in between her bountiful breasts. Flustering the silent Hisashi while he also thanked whatever god was out there that he was still alive to experience this moment.

"Cyrina-san...are you some kind of god?" Kyoko was the one to ask, having just witnessed her coworker essentially create life? maybe? The question also drew the attention of Takashi who was watching Rei and the plushie with a little envy, as well as the duo in question.

"God huh...not exactly but it's also not that far from the truth anymore," she said evasively while taking a final drag of her rain stick before it was all used up. She would have to wait another hour or so before she could use another one or else she risked oversaturating her body with too much rain flames, potentially even accidentally stopping her own heart.

"In any case, the time for stalling is over. We need to start moving. We'll make our way through the school and try to meet up with a few survivors then we can work from there. Our ultimate goal is to find a secure shelter before nightfall," Cyrina said after completely assessing the information currently available to her. There was strength in numbers so it would be smarter to gather a few extra hands, so long as they could pull their weight. She also wanted to know if her guardian candidate and Shizuka had turned. If they had she would personally put them both down so they could rest in peace during this nightmare.

"B-but Cyrina-san, how are we supposed to make it through all of 'T-T-Them' when they're blocking the exit? Will you be clearing the way with your magic again?" Kyoko asked, clearly afraid of going down into that mess, but perhaps drawing confidence from Cyrina's confession, decided her best bet was to stay with her.

Cyrina on the other hand only grimaced at her words, scaring the woman a bit thinking she might have offended her. Not wanting to get left behind she was about to apologize but Cyrina spoke before she made a fool of herself.

"No. Don't expect too much of that going forward for the time being. I'm not exactly in peak condition at the moment, so I'll only be able to do something like that a few more times today at best. And while magic isn't necessarily wrong, I ask that you simply refer to it as flames from now on. Having what I do be compared to that imitation called magic is slightly insulting." She said while giving Kyoko a look that did not allow any arguments.

Magic was basically a rip-off lite version of what she could do seeing as the art was created through observing and mimicking what her kind and others were capable of. To have her be compared to those revolting 'mages' left a horrible taste in her mouth. There were very few of them who ever managed to earn her respect, such as erica.

"Y-Y-Yes Ma'am!" Kyoko said, giving her best attempt at a salute unconsciously. This was also a pretty common occurrence in the school as Cyrina just seemed to give off this air of authority that commanded respect from all in her presence. It left not a few to speculate that she may have been a former royalty from some unknown kingdom or something.

The conspiracy theories surrounding the mysterious teacher was a very popular topic of conversation in just about every social group in the school. Though the woman herself always seemed exasperated by the trend.

"Sigh. Rei was the water working when you went to check for supplies earlier." Cyrina decided to ignore Kyoko for the moment and focus on getting off the roof.

"Eh? Ah! Yes, there's a toilet in there and the water was running fine!" Rei was surprised at the question directed to her but quickly recovered and answered dutifully.

"Good. Takashi, grab the hose from around the corner. Rei, give Hisashi to Kyoko and help me gather anything useful left in here. And Kyoko, for the love of god take off those heels already." Cyrina said before making her way into the club room to stock up on anything useful while Kyoko fumbled with her shoes.

There were some food and water bottles as Rei had said earlier. Enough to last the four of them three days or so if they didn't act like gluttons. More if they rationed. She luckily still had quite a bit of food stocked up in her storage so she wasn't worried about that in the immediate future. Ever since she had been poisoned she had been forced to actually eat to conserve energy rather than just sustain herself on Ishtar's power of existence like she usually did. So she made a habit of throwing various snacks and goodies into her storage space whenever she felt like it. It wouldn't last forever but It wouldn't be a problem for now.

With the assistance of Rei, they found a couple of supplies that might come in handy later like the tape from earlier, a few sleeping bags and blankets, some pots and pans, a miniature grill, some coal and lighter fluid, a couple of flashlights, a compass and a couple of binoculars.

"Hmm, If things were still normal I would have probably written them up for some of this," Cyrina muttered seeing the obvious code violations present in the room. She found it awfully suspicious the current location had a direct line of sight with the track field, swimming pool, and girls dormitory. But, she put it out of her mind as it was no longer her problem and just stored the items in her portal.

Leaving the peepers club she could see Takashi had already retrieved the hose and was angeling it through a small opening in the barricade, ready to let loose. Kyoko had gotten her heels off but her long legs were shaking like a newborn deer. Cyrina worried if she would become dead weight but resolved herself to at least attempt to keep the woman alive, if for no other reason than she might make for a decent nanny once she reunited with her daughter.

Seeing Rei gather up her spear and Takashi's baseball bat, Cyrina opened a portal again and took out some guns, mags, and a few holsters. Once they got off the roof she wouldn't be able to open portals with such minuscule cost so it was better to have everything she might need on hand. Luckily she also carried regular bullets on her since it would be foolish to use her flames to deal with every problem she came across over the years.

She didn't keep many of her guns in her storage since Revy and Rika both liked to borrow from her every now and then. She only had her treasures on her at all times. Her two personal CZ 75 treasure tools she enchanted with autoload and sound suppressors a few years ago. The P226 and the 92F she received from Rika and Revy on her birthday last year. Her Walther WA2000 sniper rifle of which only 176 were ever made. She didn't trust Revy not to take it out and sell the damn thing.

She also had her two Deagle's but decided it would be best not to use them as she was fairly certain 'They' were attracted to sound. Revy had heavily objected to her silencing them as apparently "The bang is half the fun".

She wished she could go back to fighting with her fists like she used to but she had to keep excess movement to a minimum. She wanted to sigh thinking about how she normally would have just flown away from the school with her flames a few years ago.

She also had a few presents for others in her storage since she was never sure when she would meet them so now was a good time to start handing things out. She called out to Rei as she took one more item out of her storage.

"Rei, use this instead. I intended to give it to you for your last competition but now seems as good a time as any," she said bringing out a masterfully crafted spear perfectly fitted for her height. Rei squealed in delight again and began inspecting her new weapon and taking a few practice swings.

"Thank you, Sensei! I love it!" She said whilst hugging it close to her.

"Un. Kyoko, hold on to this. You only have twenty shots so don't use it unless your life is in immediate danger. I don't have time to teach you how to reload so you'll have to make them count for now. Those 'things' are attracted to sound so leave the fighting to the rest of us for now and just hold on to Hisashi." Cyrina instructed Kyoko before handing her the P226 and a holster to keep it in.

Kyoko timidly took the gun while Cyrina quickly showed her how to turn the safety off.

"What, nothing for me?" Takashi asked sarcastically, seeing that she had no intention of giving him anything. He never liked Cyrina ever since she stole Rei from him so he couldn't help but challenge her every time they spoke, which wasn't often.

"Unfortunately I don't have anything for someone with your skillset or lack thereof. Use the bat for now since it's foolish to go into a battle using something you're completely unfamiliar with." Cyrina quipped having decided against handing him her last handgun due to his words.

Call her petty but she is more than capable of handling any of 'Them' that slip past Rei or got too close to Kyoko. She was under no obligation to help him or anyone more than she already had. Had it not been for the fact that Rei would be upset should something happen to her former crush she'd have likely told him to stay on the roof by himself.

The current situation was tense so she had let him off for now but if he continued his one-sided rivalry she would make sure to put him in his place.

Takashi only clicked his teeth after her dismissal and a pointed glare from Rei. Even Hisashi in Kyoko's arms was shaking his stuffed head at his friend. Of course, he knew exactly what he was feeling but he had long ago accepted that he couldn't dictate how someone else felt. He knew he lost his chance with Rei after he found out about the blackmail situation after it was resolved. He would always regret that he decided to blow her off that day to go to a movie.

"Now that we're ready, Takashi, Rei, you'll both take point. Kyoko stays in between and I'll take up the rear. Kyoko, remember what I said about firing. We don't want to attract too many of them. Hisashi, just try not to get dropped or something." Cyrina said to the group.

After receiving an affirmative nod from everyone she turned the valve to start the hose.

"Good, let's move out!"