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

∙Eighteen∙

    Amane finished entering the boundary and rubbed his head. "I'm never gonna get used to that," he mumbled. He saw (Y/N) not far ahead of him, searching around and peeking into rooms.

    "Where is she?" She was agitated, quickly dashing from one room to the next. As Amane glanced around, he realized that this boundary looked like an old schoolhouse overflowing with sunlight, but something was off. Nothing looked quite solid, and everything looked like it came straight from the past. There were no light bulbs, only gas lamps mounted on the walls, and the door plates displayed words that Amane could just barely recognize.

    "What is this place?" he asked the frustrated spirit. She continued her search as she explained, gesturing for him to follow her

    "It's an old schoolhouse, not too far off from where Kamome stands now. I've heard about it, but not much. All I know is that the fox spirit that tends this place was connected deeply to it somehow," she rounded a corner, maintaining her quick pace that Amane kept up with, but she was only met with still scenery, "Whatever connected her to here though must've been something special for her to maintain it like this. Everything is absolutely pristine."

    "Yeah, it looks nice, but how is it supposed to help us?"
    
    She grumbled. "Nothing will if we don't find that damn—" the boy heard a gasp, then saw a flash of something fluffy and white, "—fox!" (Y/N) reached back to grab Amane's hand and lunged forward after the fox. He stumbled for a moment, but righted himself and sprinted just behind his friend. The tinkling of bells and (Y/N)'s pace was the only thing that told him they were still on the right track, but he knew he couldn't fall behind. 

    The ghost on the other hand, was somewhat struggling to keep up. She was much more accustomed to floating through the air, but now she was having to compensate for the fact that she had to make sure Amane could keep sight of her. Floating never takes this much energy, she thought morosely. Nevertheless, she focused on the fox ahead of her and kept a tight grip on Amane's hand. The air in the building seemed to whip past them, and the sunlight began to fade. The two caught the damp scent of rain and the howling of wind in the distance, and it was rapidly approaching the building.

    (Y/N) was leaping haphazardly from desks in an attempt to chase the fox ahead when Amane noticed the building was becoming warped. Smooth corners of paintings on the walls were all of a sudden curved and spiked. If he had been able to stop and look close enough, he would've seen the thin, barbed spikes that were emerging from the walls. The very same thin spikes that (Y/N) slammed her hand into as she was propelling herself around a sharp right corner. The boy was thrown off guard by her muffled exclamation of pain and sudden stop. She tried pulling her hand back, only to wince and quickly try to extract her hand from the wall a few more times. Blood was trickling down the wall, getting absorbed into it, and the rest of the walls seemed to begin seeping with blood as well.

    "Hana-chan, look." The blue-ringed hakujoudai warbled in (Y/N)'s ear, who was still highly concentrated on getting her hand off of the wall, and it turned her attention the the other walls as Amane had been trying to do. Her face drained of color, and not because of the wall siphoning her blood.

    "Amane, I'm sending you out of here."

    He turned back to her incredulously. "What? No you're not! You're stuck there!"

    "Yes, I am." She lifted her free hand to gesture the hakujoudai towards him, covering her face in a way that Amane could no longer see her eyes. They began to circle around Amane, as they tend to do when transporting him elsewhere. He frantically tried swatting them away, but they merely dodged him and continued. He felt the breeze kicking up around him as he looked frantically around for a way to stop them. Hana-chan won't stand a chance without them, I can't leave her defenseless! The desperate boy grabbed her free hand and forced it down. That didn't stop the orbs circling him, but he felt he could at least get through to her now that their gazes met.

    "Just stop and think for two seconds! I don't know what's about to happen but you're not going to just send me back."

    "Fine! I don't have time to argue. Look out for anything dangerous while I get free. Do not try anything alone." Amane nodded before (Y/N) had the chance to change her mind, so she sent away the hakujoudai to watch ahead and behind them. It seemed like she was just becoming aware of the warped building, and worry grew in her mind.

    What kind of twisted place has she made? wondered the ensnared spirit. While Amane was watching, she turned back to the wall where the thin spikes were now growing through her hand. It was all she could do to not move as the barbs were digging into her flesh and around her bones. In her right hand she summoned her weapon, and this time when Amane caught the flash of it, he saw what it was. It was a yawara made of dull brass, but the end shone like polished gold. It was sharpened to a point, and seemed to have a slight edge near the end. She hadn't noticed him watching and used the yawara to deftly break off the spikes surrounding her hand. They were growing back rapidly, but she was faster in slicing off the spikes a hair above her hand. She turned to look at the boy who was now observing her.

    "You might not wanna look, kid." Before the wall had a chance to grow back the spikes, she ripped her hand off of the wall with a muffled cry of pain. The barbs had done their brutal job and shredded apart much of her hand. Despite being a ghost, anything within a boundary could still cause her great harm, and the "blood" she was losing was causing her form to fade and her power to weaken.

    "If I knew saving her was going to go like this, I would've gone the long way around," (Y/N) muttered to herself. She sliced at the bottom of her skirt and gripped the strip of cloth with her shredded hand. Amane looked away, feeling sick at the sight as she wrapped the gore with the cloth. He could hear her suck in quick breaths of pain as she held one end with her teeth, then she wrapped and tied it with the other hand.

    Amane looked back. "Hana-chan, are you ok?" She glanced down at her hand, the red cloth already getting dyed an ever deeper shade. The girl winced as she tried to flex her fingers, then decided against it altogether. She opened her mouth to answer, but a light jingling was heard down the hall where the hakujoudai couldn't have seen it.

    "I guess I have to be for now," she responded. A white fox, the size of a great dane, rounded the corner ahead of them. It wore a bib the color of the ghost's skirt with a bell attached, and on either ear were three more bells, jingling with every step it took. The fox walked pridefully, slitting its already narrow green eyes at them. Three kitsunebi, orange and yellow with a stripe of blue separating them, floated around. They looked very similar in shape to the hakujoudai.

    The fox jingled forward calmly, looking serene amid the warped scene. It sat down around ten feet away from them, the silence only broken by the downpour that had arrived at last. A few more moments passed once it began before the fox spoke.

    "It is not as easy as you think to pass through my domain, Hanako-san." The cold, mature voice was decidedly female, and Amane stood at (Y/N)'s side. The hakujoudai returned to her, and the fox continued. "My name is Yako, and you may not pass until you defeat me, unless you're ready for your friend to move on."

A/N
IT IS DONE! Finally! I apologize again for the wait! Thank you all for the continued votes, comments, reads, everything! I hope you guys are ready for a fight next chapter, and the goal is going to be a chapter a week, so next week will hopefully be the next chapter.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and have fun stuffing your face! I know I'm going to!