Ugly Truth

"Hmmm... So he rarely shows up in school huh... Well this is tough" Daisuke comments. Sitting across him on one of the box thrown out here in this forgotten alley of the school, is Mizuki. Similarly pondering the issue at hand.

"What do we do? We can't exactly get his help" she remarks.

"No, even if we get his help, it won't solve the actual problem at hand. Relying on the illusion to win her love wouldn't fix anything, instead it only damages her" he explains.

"What do you mean?"

"The ghost don't work for free, especially for humans. If it does any favor, it usually also takes something back. You've seen what Kirei chan looks like yesterday, that's the result of her Reichitsu getting eaten and also tainted from long exposure to foreign Reichitsu, the ghost's"

"Getting eaten?! How long can she survive that?" Mizuki's shocked by his rather graphic statement.

"It's not as bad as it sounds, it'll take a while to consume a person's Reichitsu completely because they regenerate steadily everyday. The contamination from that exposure is the bigger problem, If she keeps this up her physical condition will get worse and her spiritual immune system will get compromised, making her vulnerable to more ghosts from now on"

"That's not good! We have to separate the ghost from her right now" Mizuki suggests.

"Don't be hasty. You won't get to do that so easily, remember what I said about a completed possession, it'll harm her too"

"But, then-?" Mizuki still impatient, worrying about the girl's condition.

"Don't worry! You've done a great job collecting the information we need, now it's my turn to carry out the next phase of the plan" A smirk colors his face.

"Still it's funny how you went about getting that. That whole conversation was hilarious. I was just giving you pointers but I didn't expect you'd follow them exactly" He laughs.

"S-shut up! Forget about that this instant!! Forgeeeeeeett!!" Her face flushes red while she keep hammering his head.

And the bell rings.

Later that evening,

They're in the train, it's the one Kirei takes back home after school. Mizuki is in the other car while Daisuke is in the same one Kirei's in, right across her too. Mizuki can only observe them being so close together a few meters away. She recalls Daisuke's entrance into the train earlier

'what's with that acting earlier? pretending to be in a rush and dropping his stuff in front of her. are you in a teen drama or something?' irritated, it's plaguing her mind.

"Umm, thanks for helping me out earlier" Daisuke said nervously, like he's awkwardly trying to start a conversation. Although he looks, slightly different now compared to his usual appearance. He looks taller, his eyes rounder. Going for the soft giant appeal.

"Ah don't worry about it! It's nothing" Kirei responds, similarly jittery. She'd gone through several confessions now that she's figured out he's making an attempt. But

'Has there always been someone this hot riding this train before? I never seen him'

Her mind is riddled with curiosity.

'no no no! Kirei chan! You can't do this, your heart already belongs to Hizashi kun! I don't even know this guy'

"That uniform, you go to Hokubu High too?" Daisuke continues.

"Eh? Uh yeah... Do you know someone who goes there too?" She replies, assuming he's from a different school because Daisuke is wearing a different uniform than his Hokubu uniform.

"Owh yes my sister studies there too. I was just running some errand for her"

'Uwaaahh, he lies as naturally as he breath'

Mizuki thought, listening from the other car.

"Oh really? What's her name?"

"Aaahh you wouldn't know her, she mostly keeps to herself" flustered, he tries to cover tracks of his fake story.

Mizuki just smiles awkwardly watching him lose his cool briefly.

He notices Kirei glancing at the stop lists, ready to hop off on the next stop

"We live in the next town over but she prefers Hokubu High"

"Oh I see..." Kirei responds short

'he's from my town... does that mean he ride this train often?'

They look like they're hitting it off pretty well from Mizuki's perspective. At some point, she looks very distanced and distracted. She's supposed to be his

"I'll tell you where to go, wait for me there after you get off here" Mizuki notices that note sliding slowly out of her hand grabbing onto the train handle. It's Daisuke's order.

Hopping off the station, as Kirei makes her way out, her eyes meet with that of a middle aged man. She didn't pay much attention to him but the man trembles in fear. Almost in disbelief, staring at Kirei like he'd seen a ghost and then running off in panic in the other direction. Even if Kirei didn't notice him afterwards, Daisuke took notice of that encounter. Observing from afar, while holding open a scroll. After analysing it and turning his gaze towards Kirei, he puts it away.

In front of the station, Daisuke waves to Kirei signaling that he's walking home in the same direction and inviting her to walk together. The calculative expression he'd had earlier is no more, back to the cheerful face he'd used with Kirei in the train earlier. Almost like he never noticed that encounter at the train station in the first place.

Meanwhile, Mizuki follows his notes and start heading there immediately. After a while, she almost arrives at the spot Daisuke instructed her to. Looking up on the sky and checking her cellphone as she's moving, checking the time, it's getting late.

"Mou, stupid Daisuke! Getting all flirty and clingy with her. Does he really need to go that far just for this case? Or is he doing it on purpose? Isn't he just taking advantage of the situation?"

She mutters to herself along the way.

"Why am I so mad about it in the first place? Ugghh this is all his fault!!!"

As she's thinking out loud by herself, some passerby in the vicinity can't help but let out a small laugh on the maiden's grumbling.

"Why am I even doing this in the first place? I-I.." she couldn't finish her sentence, surely she had an important motivation for chasing this case. But she's having a hard time recalling it. That in turn makes her mad.

"Arghh! this is all his fault!!!"

Suddenly She feels a tingling, it came from her right palm, from the note. She has arrived to the spot Daisuke instructed her to. The exact location is right around the corner, the one she's heading towards.

"That's... a kyokan..?"

She recollects herself. Casting away her earlier rage and refocusing on the task at hand. However, as she's turning the corner, the sight wasn't something she's prepared to see. Her eyes widened in disbelief, her body froze in response.

Though she's not in her SP form, she sees the girl in the same way she saw her from atop that hill yesterday. But this time even more distorted. Or rather, her flesh is falling off, some bones were showing, like her body is starting to decompose. The lethargic, drained, zombified Kirei is hanging by several threads to the figure above her. A haunting image of a woman, stretched out, like she's pulled away from the girl upward.

Tied to the horrifying creature are SP threads, coming from different directions but ultimately they all trace back to Daisuke. He's been slowly peeling the ghost off of Kirei this whole time.

However what really caught Mizuki's attention, is the terrible state the real Kirei is in. Her eyes sparkles with romantic longing, but apart from the decomposing section, her body seems so frail, like that of a very old woman. Wrinkled and darkened, her posture crouched but at the same time desperately reaching upward.

"Kirei san..." A tear wells up in Mizuki's eye. The length at which the girl has to suffer just to gain this false illusion. It's absurd to think anyone would put themselves through such thing.

"Mizuki kun! Pull off the thread! I'll distract her!" Suddenly Daisuke's voice echoes inside her head.

With tears falling from her eyes she run straight towards them, ignoring the monstrosity of the ghostly figure being repelled by Daisuke looming above her. He has his hands full already trying to distract Kirei and peel off the ghost, it's all up to Mizuki to tear the apparition off.

The ghost notices Mizuki approaching and throws it's hand towards her, stretching and flying towards her as she evades them. But one of them does hit her, or so the ghost thought but it's arm just passes right through her human form. Mizuki was surprised to find that out too, but then quickly continues rushing towards the ghost, reaching for the very few slim thread linking it to Kirei.

HHOOONNKKKK!!!!

Suddenly, coming from her front is a big truck, blasting it's honk as it passes through the small alley, chasing Mizuki off the road.

In reflex, Mizuki leaps far back and turn at the nearest junction to avoid the passing truck. Maybe she was too focused on saving Kirei that she never noticed it approaching. But after that, she sees no passing vehicle after she'd taken the turn. It couldn't be that fast. And it didn't make any turn either to escape completely from her sight. Unless it was never there in the first place. Merely an illusion.

She turns back towards the street where they're in and sure enough, this time a pack of stray dogs is guarding them. Growling at her. She hesitated at first, but then proceeds slowly. Their bark jumped her a bit but she still maintains her pace. As they run towards her, she desperately fights her brain's fight or flight response, denying her natural reaction to escape, facing them head on, closing her eyes as they jump at her.