Before the Seven Mysteries (Amane x Reader) {Abandoned}

∙Ten∙

    Knock. Knock. Knock. The teacher looked at his classroom door, wondering who in the world would be knocking at this time.

    "Tsuchigomori-sensei, can I come in? We have to talk." He sighed when he heard (Y/N)'s voice. The spidery man knew it had to be serious since the ghost rarely knocked, and she hasn't used his proper name in a long time. He put down the pen he had been using to grade papers and carefully moved the stacks aside onto his gradebook. He figured they could wait.

    "Yeah, (Y/N)-chan, come in." He sipped from his mug when the girl opened the door. She peeked around behind her to make sure no one was following, and left a hakujoudai there to warn her about anyone coming. The girl pulled up a chair in front of his desk and sat down. Her movements were kind of slow and uncertain. Tsuchigomori could tell that the girl had been shaken up by something. She didn't even comment on his use of her real name.

    "How'd the wish granting go?" he asked casually, and he leaned back in his chair. The girl clenched her fists and looked down. There was a darker stain of red on her skirt, a handprint, where she had wiped it off. It took a lot of effort to tear her vision from it and answer her former teacher's question.

    "It wasn't the wish granting that was the problem, it's what happened after that. There's a Minamoto attending the school again, in the high school division. I barely made it away from her," she turned her right hand over to look at it as she explained everything that happened in the hallway. Blood was dried in the creases of her fingers. She had to hide it from Amane when they finished their walk to the school gate in silence.

    Tsuchigomori took a second to respond, carefully choosing his words to not upset the girl more. "I heard about her today. Tiara Minamoto, a third-year high school student and recent transfer to the school. She's also the new top of her class." He straightened out one of the papers that had begun to shift from the breeze in the room. He often had his classroom window open for the fresh air. "I had planned to warn you about her tonight, but I'm clearly a little late."

    "I only managed to escape on a bluff though. I guess it was better than revealing my tsueshiro, but it's going to put the student I bonded with in a lot of danger," she tried rubbing off what was left of the blood, and Tsuchigomori offered her a wipe from a desk drawer, which she took gratefully. "You've heard more stories than I have, and she's already sworn to 'free' him from the bond then eliminate me. It wouldn't exactly be out of character to use him to get to me though. I'm worried most about that." She tossed the wipe into the garbage and looked back to her hakujoudai. It remained stationed at the door, and warbled that nothing was wrong.

    "Then we'll have to keep her from meddling. She's going to be tough if you couldn't win against her now, and I won't stand a chance. Fighting isn't really my thing," he said, shutting the drawer. "This council you want to create, do you have everyone in mind that you'd like to have on it? The sooner it gets done, the sooner this kind of problem can get resolved."

    "I have them all in mind, but I don't know how to get to all of them. I need to change their rumors so I can speak to them all and hopefully get them on our side. It seems like some have claimed pieces of the boundary and it exists separately from the rest of it, so that will make it difficult." She narrowed her eyes at him. "You already know how all this is going to play out, don't you?"

    Tsuchigomori frowned at her. "Just because I can read into the future doesn't mean I have. I'm not worried about you carrying this out, and I have no issue with your plan to lead the school's supernaturals. You were a very responsible student and that hasn't left you in the afterlife. . ." He wore a mocking grin. "For the most part at least."

    "Jeez, talk about rude," she replied, fanning away fake tears with a smile. "Oh yeah, I have one more thing that I probably should've mentioned a few days ago." 

    Tsuchigomori scowled. "Forget what I said about being responsible."

    "Look at least I'm telling you now!"

    "Just say it, will you?"

    Her tone quickly became serious again. "Fine. The student that wished to go to the moon and that I'm now bonded to is Amane Yugi. Today he mentioned that you make him come here every day so you can patch him up from. . . whoever is hurting him. What do you know about his future? I want to know if he's going to. . ." She trailed off and fiddled with her hands, knowing no matter what the answer was she wouldn't be able to change it. While she focused on that, she missed Tsuchigomori's darkened expression.

    "Don't get too attached to humans, (Y/N)-chan. You should know better." He leaned back and sighed, answering her question anyways. "It is quite strange that he can see you. He's going to graduate from here and become a science teacher at this school to share his love of the stars. He hasn't said anything about it yet, but he still has a few more years to show interest." The man rubbed his chin, deep in thought. "It's possible he has a high level of spiritual energy, or has become more sensitive to supernatural presence recently. It may even be due to the arrival of that Minamoto." Another thought struck (Y/N).

    "What about his brother, Tsukasa Yugi? I met him while speaking with Amane yesterday, and he could see me, too. I haven't been around him long enough to know if he can encounter other supernaturals though." Tsuchigomori shrugged.

    "I haven't read up on him, and I've never had him in my class. He's come to get Amane from here after school before, so I know that he's an eccentric little brat that likes to make messes and a lot of noise." He absentmindedly straightened out his lanyard. (Y/N) thought it was odd for Tsuchigomori to speak this way about a student, but she had realized Tsukasa's love of shouting. The spirit guessed it was more than just a few times Tsukasa had gotten Amane.

    "On the other hand though, he seems to genuinely care about his brother. If I were you, I'd try to get him on my side before Minamoto or a powerful, chaotic supernatural appeals to him. It shouldn't be hard since Amane is already with you. Now get out of here and go make a plan, I have papers to grade." He smiled genuinely while he made a shooing gesture, and (Y/N) smiled back.

    "Thanks, Tsu-sensei." The girl got up and returned the chair to its desk, then walked out of the door with a wave to the teacher. The hakujoudai were at their places above her as she made her way back to her bathroom. Another breeze drifted through Tsuchigomori's classroom and sent a few papers skittering. His extra limbs grasped them quickly and carefully, as much as he wanted to crumple them in annoyance at nature in that moment.

    He carefully replaced his papers on the desk as they should be and returned to reading over them, scribbling out the grades onto the sheets and in the gradebook. Despite this being common and tedious work for him, a sense of dread was making itself known.

    This won't end well.

A/N
I write waaaay too much. It's not like I have much else to do at the moment though. It's a little hard having to work around things when not everything has been revealed in the manga yet, and depending on how long it takes the current story arc to finish (ooooh I was so mad when I saw what happened to Hanako in 67), I may have to postpone this in the future. That's a long way off though, I'm pretty sure. Well, with how quickly I'm putting out chapters it may not be, but we'll see.
I know this chapter is pretty boring, but Eleven is already in the works, so that should be out soon!

Until next time!