Ghost of a Chance

After School Hex (Part 5)

The sun was beginning to set.

"... No hitogata here either," Hitomi said with a sigh, brushing her dirty hands off on the pants of the gym uniform that she had borrowed from the lost and found so she wouldn't get her kimono dirty while digging. She had tried searching in some bushes along the side of the building. She figured that would be a good place to hide them since there was already exposed dirt, so it wouldn't be as obvious if the jusha tired burying them there than somewhere in the grass-covered lawn. 'I wonder how everyone else is doing...' When she thought about it, everyone else's reactions when Mai told them that Naru wasn't really an onmyouji were pretty funny, especially Bou-san's. John had to hold him back. "Maybe it's about time I tried to take another look..." she said, removing her eye patch and opening her blue eye. She covered the green one. "!" she gasped as she turned around, stopping when she saw a large concentration of the lights she had seen earlier. They looked like they were buried very deeply beneath the earth, further than 6ft, but only a short distance over from the spot where she was currently standing. Hitomi lowered her hand and saw that she was now facing a chain-link fence. It was to mark off the construction site of a new building they were adding to the campus. The grass was tall and looked completely undisturbed from her angle, but she decided to go in and check it out anyway. Fortunately, the gate wasn't locked. It was just an empty lot, so Hitomi decided to try covering her eye again and walking until she was right on top of where she saw the lights. Moving carefully, she slowly inched closer and closer to the lights. She was almost right on top of them, when her toe bumped into something hard, and she tripped.

"Wha—!" she cried out in surprise, flailing her arms wildly as she tried not to fall and face-plant on the slab of concrete she had just run into. Fortunately, she managed to catch herself. 'I-I'm glad no one was around to see that...' she thought, sweat-dropping, as she let out a sigh of relief. "But what is this doing here... Ah!" she gasped when she realized there was a manhole in the middle of the slab, and someone had already opened it partially. "Of course!" Where better than to hide so many hitogatas without drawing too much suspicion! She decided to check it out and make sure before reporting back to the others. Hitomi gritted her teeth as she pulled the heavy metal manhole all the way off so that she could climb down. Very carefully, she lowered herself down into the hole, placing her feet on the ladder rungs. It was a good thing she happened to be wearing boots that day.

"Hitomi!? What are you doing!?" Naru yelled from outside the lot, startling her. She had been so busy focusing on not falling, that she hadn't seen him approaching the fence at all.

"I think I found the hitogata!" she yelled back. "They're down here!"

"... Down there?" Naru asked.

"Yes! It's right on top of where I saw the—Ah!?" she cried out in alarm when something suddenly pulled on her, and she slipped down a rung.

"Hitomi!" Naru shouted, throwing the gate open.

"S-Something's pulling on me!" Hitomi yelled as he ran toward her. She tightened her grip on the ladder and cautiously turned her head to look and see what it was. "!?" Hitomi's eyes widened when she found herself staring down at the ghostly apparition of a man who had blood streaming down his face and a devious toothless grin. It had its arms entwined around her. "... No...!" she cried when it pulled harder, and she started to fall.

CLP!

Hitomi's eyes widened in surprise when she felt someone grab her by the wrist, and the ghost disappeared. She looked up and saw that Naru had somehow managed to catch her.

"Geez... You idiot...!" he said, looking shaken.

"... Na..."

"You're okay," he told her. "Calm down, and put your foot on the ladder. You can do that, right?"