Convergence

Part 2 : Chapter 4

Little reminder of the characters at the bottom :)

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February 2005

Utahime: "Have you heard from Kashimo?"

Mei Mei: "No, nothing."

Utahime: "It's been more than two weeks since I last heard from him!"

Mei Mei: "Maybe he went on vacation?"

Utahime: "It's weird... plus school is started in a few days..."

Mei Mei: "He might have gone with his girlfriend somewhere."

Utahime couldn't help but think that something was happening in Kashimo's life.

They will soon enter to their 3rd and last year of highschool, and yet it had been several days since their teammate Kashimo had given any sign of life, neither to Utahime, nor to Mei Mei, nor to anyone else in highschool. Utahime had tried to call him over winter break, but his phone kept ringing in the void.

Their last mission together back in January ended rather badly, and since then Kashimo disappeared.

During this mission, they unfortunately failed to save a little boy in an orphanage.

The poor child had finally succumbed to his injuries: the curse that took possession of his mind convinced him to stick several times a fork into his neck.

This was unfortunately not the first case of death during their missions together. Utahime, Mei Mei and Kashimo had seen many terrible things.

Utahime couldn't remember how many times she vomited after one of their mission.

The sight of bodies torn apart, disfigured or completely dismembered by curses had traumatized Utahime's mind for several days. She had often wondered if she should really continue her studies.

Since the end of their first year, the numbers of students only dwindled. Several of their comrades decided to stop their study as exorcists to return to the "normal" system. Aïko was one of those people, and truth be told, Utahime thought it was a reasonable choice. You really had to be crazy, or suicidal, to continue down this path.

Risking your life day after day to save human beings made no sense. Especially when the non-exorcists didn't even acknowledge your actions and sacrifices.

In Utahime's class, which was mostly composed of children from Japan's most prestigious exorcist clans, dropouts were however quite rare.

But, a few ended up in the hospital after missions that went wrong. Naoya was one of them.

He had been seriously injured, and no one had seen him at school for the last three months... Utahime was very happy to no longer have to endure the young boy's mockery since his injury.

Even Ryō, who was extremely strong, had ended up with one arm in a cast and several scars on his body.

Utahime didn't know which lucky star was watching over her in secret, but so far she had never been hurt. In fact, she was extremely grateful to her two teammates, Mei and Kashimo, who always protected her. During their mission together, Utahime usually used her "siren spell" spell to manipulate the minds of the curses she met, but when that didn't work, she used her "amplification" spell to increase the occult energy of her teammates. Especially the occult energy of Kashimo.

As the months passed, Utahime became closer and closer with Ryō and her teammate Kiko. When Utahime met Kiko for the first time, she thought she would fall out of her chair.