Chapter 6: Not-So-Evil Spirit

My name is Yuuki Nao, I have a terrible secret. Seriously, no one would believe what my secret is even if I tell them with utmost honesty... Eww. I just said “utmost honesty.” Now I wanna puke.

What? Are you retarded or something? Stop staring at me, stupid. I'm not telling.

My name is Alyssa Searrs, I have a terrible secret.

I see dead people.

Munakata Shiho was possessed.

Being the only granddaughter of the head priest in Fuuka Shrine, Shiho had been helping out her grandfather around the shrine as a miko since she was little. Although she was afraid of anything mildly scary, growing up in a shine with hundreds of years of history, she had unwillingly seen her fair share of supernatural phenomena.

She never thought she would be part of a phenomenon, though.

The person who first noticed that there was something strange about the girl was Tate Yuuichi. He thought Shiho's constant mumbling, twitching, and glaring was just her moping over “that” incident. But when one morning he saw the girl's crazy new hairstyle, he knew something had gone terribly wrong. Tate had tried to talk to Shiho, but all she would say was an incoherent mantra of “maki maki.”

“I sense an evil presence haunting you,” said a blonde child, whose sweet but humourless voice snapped Tate out of his thoughts. The child was holding an aqua-haired girl's hand, and both of them were looking too serious to be making fun of him. Wait, that girl is Miyu Greer from my class!

Tate scanned his surrounding and realized he was in front of the church at Fuuka Academy. He must have been really out of it to have wandered off course on his way home from school. “Um, excuse me, but who are you?”

“I am Alyssa Searrs,” the child said and raised a hand to point at Tate's face. “And you have been cursed by an evil spirit.”

“Huh?” Tate looked around but didn't see anyone behind him. He pointed at himself and asked curiously. “Me? Cursed?”

“Yes.” Alyssa nodded. “By someone possessed by a spiralling evil spirit.”

“Spiralling... Maki maki?” Shiho! Now that makes sense... Somehow. Tate eyed the child suspiciously. There was something unsettling about this Alyssa girl that he didn't like very much. “No, this isn't right. You almost had me fooled, kiddo. Just run along with your big sister there and don't talk to strangers. They might be bad people... Ah, I don't mean I'm a bad guy, 'cause I'm a good guy. Anyways, just go home, alright?”

Miyu's expressionless face twitched almost unnoticeable at Tate's reply. “You are being rude to Alyssa ojou-sama. I suggest you show more respect when addressing her in the future. Otherwise...”

“You're scaring people again, Miyu. Can't you relax a bit sometimes?” Nao poked her head out of the church door and waved at Miyu and Alyssa. “By the way, Sister Yukariko is looking for you two. She said something about an exorcism. I think she has finally lost her mind.”

“Good timing. Just as I thought...” Alyssa gave Nao a thoughtful look before gesturing Tate to follow her into the church. “You there, come. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Tate shrugged and did as he was told. What's the worse thing that could happen?

“Ahhhhh!! Help! Let me gooooo!”

Nao grinned broadly and bent down to stick a piece of duct tape over Tate's mouth. She hadn't had this much fun since, well, last weekend. “Be a good boy and stop struggling. I used an entire roll of duct tape on you. You should know you're only going to hurt yourself if you keep this up,l” the redhead said gleefully to the man who looked like a fly trapped in a spider's web.

Tate made a few noises at Nao's comment. Too bad she couldn't make out what he was trying to tell her. She guessed it would be along the lines of “let me go” or “you're all insane.”

Nao left the poor man lying on the railway tracks and swiftly climbed back up on the platform. “The bait is ready, and now what?” She asked.

“We wait. The evil spirit should show up soon.” Alyssa said.

Nao laughed. “Alyssa, Alyssa, Alyssa. You're still too green. Now let me teach you a trick.” She pulled out her shiny new cellphone, which she bought with the money earned from selling life-sized posters of naked men (who shall remain nameless) in the Student Council Room, and took yet another (oops) picture of a bounded Tate (again) lying (fully clothed this time) on the railway tracks, and then sent it to every cellphone in Fuuka.

“I'm very sorry, Tate-san.” Yukariko said apologetically to the young man. “We are only doing this to save some poor, tortured soul from the evil spirit. There is no other way. You must understand. It's for the greater good.” She said, and held up her rosary toward the sky. “Begone, evil spirit! We shall send you whence you came!”

At that precise moment, a shrill cry of someone, or rather, some thing, pierced the peaceful evening.

“Holy... What the hell is that?!” Nao's jaw dropped at the sight of a giant pink tentacled monster coming their way. Taking a second look, Nao realized that the tentacle monster was, in fact, a girl with her eight massive bundles of hair propelling her across the town like a mutant octopus.

“Oh Lord, have mercy...” Yukariko took several steps back. “The evil spirit seems to be so much stronger than we've anticipated. We can't handle this on our own.”

Alyssa nodded. “There is a way. We need to invoke the spirit of something equally powerful to help us. We'll need a medium for this. Nao, would you give us your help?”

The redhead sighed. “Alright. But you'll have to pay me for this.”

“Money is not a problem,” Alyssa said. “That man there will, for sure, pay you handsomely for your service.”

Nao sighed again. “I guess I'll have to do it. There is no helping it. I'm such a good person, I feel sorry for myself sometimes.”

If Tate were not gagged, he would have been puking in disgust at Nao's comment right about now.

“So what do you need me to do?” the redhead asked.

Alyssa waved the redhead to kneel down in front of her. Nao did, and Alyssa put a gem-set earring on her left earlobe. “Yuuki Nao, the pure maiden who bears my seal. I shall invoke the spirit within you,” she chanted, and kissed the gem.

Miyu's eyebrow twitched. Just a little bit.

Nao blushed. Just a little bit as well.

And then all hell broke loose.

“Give me back my onii-chan now!” Shiho shrieked, the eight strands of tentacle-like pigtails served as powerful springs and propelled her off the ground. She landed on top of a moving train with a heavy thunk.

Nao landed on top of the train on all fours without making a sound. “What kind of evil spirit are you? You look like a stupid tentacle monster out of a bad hentai anime.”

Shiho was more than a little surprised to see Nao on top of the train. “How did you get here? For your information, octopuses are not stupid. And those are arms, not tentacles!”

“You look stupid to me.” Nao whipped her arms at the octopus-possessed girl and thick strands of threads came shooting out of her hands. Shiho's tentacles lashed out just in time to swat those sticky projectiles away.

“Spider, I see,” Shiho scoffed. “Why must we fight? We're both eight-legged. Join me. Together we should rule the world. All you need to do is returning my onii-chan to me. That should be easy enough for you.”

“I would love to, but,” Nao licked the blade-like claws extending out of her fingers before giving her opponent a Cheshire smile. She really liked those babies. Being possessed by a spider spirit sure had its perks. “I am the heroine in this story, and you are the bad guy. We don't mix. Oh, by the way, if you don't get out of this girl's body soon, I'll really hurt that stupid man you care so much about.”

“And you call me the bad guy?” Shiho huffed in indignation. “If you dare hurt him, you're so gonna pay!”

“Then be a good evil spirit and let me exorcise you.”

“Never!”

A small, black shuriken suddenly cut through the air and struck the metal roof of the cart right between them. “Hold it right there!” a third voice shouted. Nao and Shiho both turned toward the direction of the intruder. A masked figure clad in a black bodysuit and cape had appeared on top of the train out of nowhere when they weren't paying attention to their surroundings.

Nao made a face at the black figure. “Who the hell are you? Someone who is possessed by a bad fashion sense?”

“Of course not! I am the...”

“Wait up, Akira-kun. I can't run that fast,” said another masked figure clad in a bright red vest, neon green shorts, and a blinding yellow cape while slowly climbing out of a nearby window. “Ah, I think I'm a little stuck. Would you give me a hand, please?”

Nao slapped her un-clawed hand over her forehead. “Lookie, lookie. The Boy Wonder here is the epitome of bad fashion sense.”

“Taku... I mean, Robin, didn't I tell you to stay inside the train? You don't have to tag along every time,” Akira scolded and pulled her cheerful sidekick up.

“Who are you circus freaks?” Shiho's eyebrows twitched at the sight of the newcomers. Things had gotten really ridiculous.

“We're not circus freaks,” Takumi explained nicely to the octopus possessed girl. “Akira-kun, I mean, the Secret Ninja of Justice, the Dark Knight, the...”

Nao interrupted the boy's lengthy introduction. “I think we got it.”

“Then you must understand why we're here. You two have been causing a lot of trouble to the citizenry of Fuuka. Stop whatever you're doing now and get off the train!” Akira ordered firmly.

Two more heads and two sets of camera phones came poking out of the windows near where the heroines were. “No trouble at all. Keep going. This is great material,” shouted Chie over the noise of the train.

“I think we can probably make a movie out of it. A trilogy, even,” Aoi added. “Takumi-kun, nice outfits. Did you make them yourself?”

Takumi scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “Sort of. I just did the sewing. Akira-kun drew the design, and onee-chan helped me pick out the fabrics.”

“You people stop talking amongst yourselves and pay attention to me! Me! I'm rampaging here!” Shiho stomped hard on the train while her hair-tentacles lashed out at all directions to help make a point. “Curse you all! Maki maki maki maki...”

Nao jumped back and spun more webs to block off Shiho's tentacles. Behind her, Akira quickly tossed a hail of shuriken to pin the berserking girl's hair down on the train. “See what you meddlesome people have done? A simple exorcism has now turned into a complete disaster.” Nao scowled at Akira and her sidekick before she yelled at Chie and Aoi. “You two, stop filming us and call Sister Yukariko now. Tell her to untie side-burn boy and move him away from the tracks before the train squashes him into a puddle of human stain.”

“This is an exorcism?” Takumi asked with apparent amusement in his voice. “I thought we were fighting crime.”

“Well, running amok while being possessed by an evil spirit is not exactly lawful. But that's beside the point,” Nao said, and nimbly dodged another tentacle attack. “Less talking, more hitting, Wonder Boy. Since blackmailing didn't work, now we need to thoroughly beat up this person so the evil spirit would have no choice but to leave its host.”

“Why didn't you tell me earlier it's an exorcism? What a waste of my time.” Akira dug out a small package from her utility-belt-of-limitless-crime-fighting-tools and threw its contents at Shiho. The octopus-possessed girl instantly doubled over in pain and collapsed on the train in a lifeless heap.

“Wow. That's amazing. What did you do?” Nao asked.

Akira sighed. “It's just some salt. It's the most basic technique in exorcism. Don't you people know anything?” She shook her head and took out another package of salt from her belt. “I think you're possessed as well. Let me guess: spider spirit?”

“Yup. Alyssa called the spirit to possess me so I can fight on equal ground with that octopus spirit. Neat, eh?”

Akira sighed again and threw the package of salt over Nao's head.

My name is Yuuki Nao, I have a terrible secret.

I am a good person.

Author's Notes: Crazy Muse came. I wrote. Sorry for the long wait. -Blows kisses at Dr. Leebot-