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04/04, 23:56

M.Arisu

hey... anybody who's awake to see this. hope you're not having too much trouble sleeping.
get rest when you can. work together when you can.
all we can do is keep trying, but i'm hopeful for this year.
feels weird to say... but it's all going to be gone soon, so...
anyways.
see you at school tomorrow.

Any replies on the forum go unresponded, and at the stroke of midnight, the past year's worth of messages are completely gone from the PDA forum, including any sent over spring break. Hope you have a good memory if you were in the middle of a conversation! Though you should really be in ...whatever you've managed to make your bed... because tomorrow is a big day.

04/05, 06:00

The silence continues until six in the morning with the toll of the clock tower bells, and anybody near the locker area will hear two women in mid-conversation as they phase through the front doors, heels clicking on the ground: "-—didn't even have the decency to finish the job! And now I have to— oh, stop crying, for goodness' sake! I swear—" It's a one sided conversation, mostly, and one that stops short the moment the women spot the students lingering around. While the younger woman, recognizable as the assistant principal, hurriedly scrubs at her face with her sleeves, the unfamiliar older woman with the oddly dissonant voice scowls intensely. "I don't need this on the first day of school! Students trespassing over break! I can't believe it! I don't have time for this—" she huffs, shaking her head and stomping down the hall towards the faculty office. "Miss Nene, I expected better of you! And you! Miss Ritsuka— the two of you shall report to the faculty office after the entrance ceremony. I expect a full report of everybody involved. Now behave yourselves and go to the auditorium."

Goodbye...

The assistant principal is left behind and looks confused and distraught. She sniffles and ducks her head a little, draws a shaking breath and stands a little taller. "I'm so sorry. I'll hear you all out after- after this is done. Alright?" She too heads towards the faculty office, trying her best to smile at those she passes by. While they may be followed, they seem to phase through the faculty office doors which remain closed and locked, and cannot be interacted with until after the ceremony.

Until then, other students start to filter through the front door, seeking out friends and chatting about their breaks, remembering about homework and asking if anybody actually did it so they can copy off them before classes start, laughing at any mention of being locked inside the school all break because what?? that's silly. A handful of students wear yellow armbands on the left sleeve of their uniform, marking them as members of the student council, and these student council members go around finally removing the gorinto from the window sills, tossing the rocks into a bag without any apparent ill effects, and collecting the snacks in a separate bag— though they'll offer the food to anybody they pass who looks hungry enough. Which is a lot of you. One or two might give a short lecture about the importance of eating breakfast to start the day off right. Other student council members busy themselves in the locker area, posting the new homeroom assignments and updating the school calendar to reflect exam dates and breaks for the coming year, or help setting chairs out in neat rows in the auditorium in preparation for the entrance ceremony.

04/05, 08:00

The opening ceremony starts at 8, with students and staff moving to the auditorium to sit with their homeroom class, calling characters out by name and dragging them over to their seat— physically if need be, and they're much stronger than they look. Unlike the graduation ceremony, characters are not forced to come to the entrance ceremony, but the moment they take a seat, they find that they can neither speak nor get up again until the ceremony is over.

The assistant principal stands behind the podium on stage, looking rather nervous as she glances down at the watch on her wrist for it to be time, and clears her throat before addressing the room. "Yogen High welcomes you, all our new students," she pauses, beaming at the row of first year classes before her gaze sweeps over the rest of the student body, "our transfer students, our returning students, our... repeat students..." Looking at you, Norton, Gawain, Abel... "I, um. You may have noticed that I am standing in for our principal today, who is currently... unavailable... and didn't exactly leave any notes to go off of..." She wilts a little, but trucks on nonetheless and continues the address, promising that the teachers will pass along any important announcements, expressing her belief in the potential of young minds, and wishing everybody a fulfilling school year. The ceremony concludes in a little under an hour, and the spell binding the students to their seats is broken, allowing everybody to rise and leave.

School lets out for the rest of the day with classes starting the next morning, and while many students take the opportunity to leave, some linger around the school. Gossip is flying already with news of the transfer students caught breaking into the school over break and what punishments they might get, rumors of what happened to the principal ranging from a family emergency to hospitalization to death, complaints about the water pipes not getting fixed over break, and general excitement over upcoming events listed on the bulletin board by the lockers, in particular new club advertisements, fortune telling ads, and a Charity Auction to be hosted the Monday after Golden Week next month.

April

School is school... The first thing teachers ask at homeroom Tuesday morning is for students to hand in their spring break homework. Didn't do it? You're on their shit list now. Characters are not forced to attend class, but patrolling faculty and student council members will heckle any truant students into going and can be a pain to deal with. Classes aren't taught terribly, though. The second year math teacher has a knack for easily digestible explanations, even if she writes and erases the board a bit too quickly to copy. The third year literature teacher combines weekly analytical essays with film studies, and is showing Child's Play, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Silence of the Lambs, and Where the Red Fern Grows this month. The first year biology teacher brings eyeballs and frogs and rats for dissection during anatomy lessons, and if you have a special request for a specific eye color, give him a day or two and he can deliver. 2-A's homeroom teacher can be seen stealing chalk from each of the second year classroom she rotates through and is offering extra credit to any students who sneak her chalk without asking questions.

New students will quickly learn that merit points are awarded for a full day's attendance, turning in homework, participating in class and clubs, scoring 80% or higher on quizzes and exams, etc. Less predictably, the PDA may sometimes ping for a single merit point when hanging out with a friend or arguing with a classmate, with stronger emotions (positive or negative) when interacting with somebody else more likely to trigger a point, and if students are abusing this system, it's kept out of the faculty's eyes. As the month goes on, sometimes a student comes to class with a cut eyelid, or a busted lip, or bandages wrapped thick around a wrist, but they always deny anything more than clumsiness or an accident or having pets who very aggressively show their love. Sometimes it's harder to hide, when a bloody nose drips onto the ground or bleeding knuckles brush against the wall, and those near enough to see blood touch the building will find that everything sort of... shifts... Just for a second. The feeling of vertigo that stops almost as soon as it begins, the world tilting without slotting back into alignment. You feel a bit nauseous. Just a little.

You go to the bathroom to splash water on your face and the pink looks a little darker, a little more solid. On the fourth floor, the water has stopped running in the bathroom sinks altogether, and students are told to go downstairs to do their business so that they may wash up after. With more students milling around the bathrooms, it's much easier to notice that people's reflections in the mirrors are just a bit off, lagging that split second long enough to be impossible to ignore once aware.

Every day you have homework. A new essay for something or other is assigned each week. Nobody wants to do group projects with a slacker who can't promise to meet up after school to get it done. Like clockwork, the school empties out at 6 PM each school day, leaving those behind to their own devices. There is no school on Sundays. Golden Week marks the end of the month, and guess who's going to be stuck at school for an entire week with only vending machine junk food to live off of if they aren't able to make progress concerning their living situation? Yeah.

Charity Auction

At least students have the charity auction to look forward to and work towards. Information about the auction set on May 10 can be found on the bulletin board, and appears to be put together by the student council as an annual event and an incentive for students to start the year off strong in earning merit points. Both students and staff are encouraged to donate to the auction, with the items collected and put on display in the auditorium behind locked glass cases. On May 10, students will be able to bid on items using their merit points, those who donate will receive 10% of the winning bid towards their item, and the school will match donations 100 to 1 point with proceeds going towards the "Save A Brain Foundation."

Throughout the month, glass cases lining the walls of the auditorium start to fill up with donations. The most popular donations seem to be physical items: possessions such as jewelry or gaming consoles, or artistic creations such as hand sewn clothing or paintings. There are placeholders for things that can't be put on display all month, such as placards with a picture or description of homemade food that won't be prepared until the auction date, or the promise of fishing lessons with the guidance counselor or a dinner date with the school principal (pending availability). At the back of the room stands the largest case, with the skinny black cat often found lying on top of it as if guarding it, although it will run away when approached.

Inside the case is a body.

OOC

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✽ The plot will only move forward as things are discussed and acted upon, and clues distributed during app acceptances are meant to be shared and connected, so don't be afraid to ask questions and dig into things! I am here to enable.

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Yeah, Kouji Seki, that's the one! He's a really nice guy; pulled me out of one of those weird shrine trances on the day I woke up and offered to come over to "my place" when I started complaining to him about the food shortage over break.

I had to turn him down for obvious reasons, but still. Good dude all around.

[Ritsuka nods along with Shuichi. She hadn't really thought about it that hard—she's no Moriarty or even Holmes—but thinking back on it...] This place was really hard to find, yeah. I wasn't even looking for it intentionally, I literally just tripped over the floorboard while I was roaming around the tower and found it like that.

The note does say to be careful, though. I don't think the faculty knows about this place, but maybe some of the other students do. At any rate, it should be a bit more secure than yelling about how we're all from other worlds on the network publicly.

[Kouji Seki... hmmm, why does that name sound like it'd fit in a crossword puzzle—]

Seki... maybe K. Seki?

Hang on— [It's easier to just show them rather than explain, so. He takes a moment to pull out the broken PDA, offering it first to Ritsuka (though it's probably safe to say she'll show Shuichi too, sharing is caring).]

I found this over spring break, in room 1-C. I don't know if it can be fixed, but you can still see part of a message on it... I think it may have been addressed to Kouji.

[ time to assume ritsuka did ]

Ah... you're right. The portion of the name that's still readable seems to match.

[ There are other parts of it that look easy enough to reconstruct from the amount of blanks as well. "After" dark, when it's "silent"...? Is it trying to say "best" time to try...? But try what exactly? At the very least, that alone seems to make it pretty clear the message is talking about something at school. Unless there are other places in the world that turn mysteriously silent at the stroke of midnight.

But Shuichi's going to assume the two of them are likely drawing the same conclusions, so instead... ]

I found something too. It's the reason I was keeping an eye on 3-B, but... the classes were shuffled, so it might not mean anything.

[ Still, he'll share. Reaching into his pocket, he's gonna fumble for a moment before he tugs something out with a careful touch -- though unlike Clamor, he doesn't hand it over, he only holds it for them to see. It's a photo that might include a familiar figure to them as well, though he flips it soon enough to reveal the message on the back. ]

...give me, like. Five minutes. I need to check something. [Ritsuka holds up one finger, pauses, holds up five fingers instead, and then hustles out of the clock tower.]

[??? ritsuka?????

she's gone before he can say anything but, okay, don't do anything crazy...

He sighs, turning his attention back to Shuichi for now—bad eyesight means he has to lean in a bit to read the message on the back, so sorry for the slight invasion of personal space. A class photo isn't anything too surprising on its own, but the lone graduate being present is a different matter... and now another connection to 3-B, too. Curious.]

Hmm. Do you think they know each other? It's probably worth asking him about it, either way.

[ XX minutes later, Ritsuka and Kouji hustle back, and he is very ?? ??? at seeing Shuichi and Clamor here. What a group of people to hang out with. ]

Uh. Hi. What's this about?

Clamor found a weird PDA. I think the message that's on it is supposed to be for you.

Oh, this is Kouji Seki, everyone. He's a friend of mine.

[ Since Ritsuka was gone without much... in the way of choice but to wait for her, we'll just assume Shuichi showed Clamor the photo more in detail, and also shared his thoughts on whether there might be some special meaning to being in specific classes. The blanked-out last digit of the year is also concerning. It's something worth asking about, at least indirectly, like Clamor also said but anyway.

As soon as he starts hearing footsteps up the stairs, he hides it back in his pocket for now out of a natural sense of caution, and then looks up. ]

...S-Sorry. What Fujimaru-san is saying is correct, but ah... we didn't think she might drag you here on such short notice.

[ Someone has to apologize, and if Ritsuka won't... ]

[it's a very nice photo, they are appreciating the photo and all the hard work the photographer must have put into it for the next x minutes until Ritsuka pops up again with her +1.

Well. This is a bit sudden, but at least they're cutting straight to the point.]

Aha, yes, sorry... we were just discussing it now, anyway. We don't know for sure who it was addressed to. [like TECHNICALLY izumi sena also fits...... you never know okay

He's also a hell of a lot more reluctant to hand over this Important Clue™ to Kouji, sorry kouji but you're suspicious for not being a transfer like all the other cool kids, you'll just have to settle for reading it out of Clamor's hand while he holds it out to you if you want to see all the gritty details.]

"After dark when it's silent", "be careful not to touch it", "stay warm"... does this mean anything to you?

[ Every time this happens, he wants to say something about not needing to be introduced to people he's gone to school for years with, but maybe that's just presumptuous of himself and he's not as known as he thinks. But known enough to believe some weird message is addressed to him?

He doesn't make any move to take the PDA from Clamor's hand, and barely gives the device a look. ]

Individually, or together? [ How's he supposed to make sense of that with zero context? ] Look, if somebody's messaging me, I'll check my PDA later to respond to it. And if it's for me, it's sort of my business, so...?

[ He looks at Ritsuka, looks at Shuichi and Clamor. Why bring him all the way up here when she could just tell him he's got a message waiting? ]

We're trying to figure out if this message is something we should be worried about, and since it could be addressed to you I was wondering if you might have any idea what it means. I know, I know, it makes us all sound super paranoid! [Ritsuka raises her hands defensively.] But with the weird PDA message we all got from Maya over spring break it's a little concerning.

Either that or somebody's playing a prank on all of us.

W-Wait, Fujimaru-san. That doesn't... really explain it.

[ What Ritsuka's been saying still isn't answering Kouji's question... And so, Shuichi has no choice but to take on that task himself before this gets any worse, though he tries to conceal a deep breath before starting. ]

...For Seki-kun's sake, I think we should go back to the start of this for a minute. The truth is... even if you went back to the classroom to check your messages, it's most likely not on the boards anymore. That's because... Clamor-san said he found it during spring break.

[ But everything from before was erased with the start of the year, right? ]

Furthermore... the PDA it was visible on appears broken, so there's a possibility that the owner had typed it themselves. And it never sent.

[He nods to Shuichi's explanation. There's more he'd like to add to that himself... but it wouldn't do any good to overwhelm the boy with information. One step at a time.

The initial reaction does tell him something, though, and he retracts the PDA a little—not out of distrust, but simply because Kouji doesn't seem that interested. If those suspicious words don't mean anything to Kouji, either they're missing an important piece of context or he really doesn't know what it's about.]

We do have reasons for asking, but it's a bit difficult to explain... well, it might not have been for you after all. The name is hard to make out, but you came to mind first, and then Ritsuka ran off to fetch you, apparently.

[ Yeah, he has no idea what message Maya sent either. Some people are asleep by midnight? But he gives each person his attention as they speak in turn, making as if he's biting his cheek to keep himself from interrupting until they've said what they needed. ]

During spring break, huh... Where'd you find it, Clamor? If it was left behind during break— or before break, or whatever— it probably belonged to somebody who no longer attends the school or they'd come back to look for it. ...maybe.

[ It's a broken PDA? It's pretty much useless if it's broken... At least he wouldn't think a current student would break it on purpose. ]

[Ritsuka is markedly bad at explaining things, so she just nods along with Clamor and Shuichi as they do a much better job than her.

She really wishes that she had a way to prove to Kouji that she wasn't crazy if spilled the beans to him, really. Having to dance around the topic of... well, everything to try and get him to understand how dire the situation was for them was frustrating.]

Someone who no longer attends...

[ He's gonna echo it because something about it is making him think; and of course, the answer to that question is Clamor's to give so Shuichi doesn't, it's just. Clamor did mention where he found it, so... ]

But... do the homerooms get shuffled as well? Because if it's only the students that move...

[ Then if it was in 1-C, it either means that the person left for reasons other than graduation or... maybe that classroom used to be for third years before. ]

It was in one of the desks in 1-C. [no reason to lie about that, so. maybe Kouji can think of someone? He shrugs.] No one's come looking for it yet, so you're probably right that they don't go here anymore. Either that, or it was stolen and left there by the thief, but I haven't heard anyone talking about an incident like that.

[and since there was only one graduate, and they probably weren't a first year...... yeah. it's looking pretty grim for our mystery PDA-owner.]

[ Kouji just sort of gives Shuichi a look like he should know that about homerooms because he's a second year but is just thinking out loud or something. But sure, Kouji will humor him. ]

If it was found in 1-C, that student would either be a first or second year, depending on if they were held back or were able to move onto the next grade. [ So no, 1-C is always a first year classroom, but a student from 1-C may have been held back and shuffled into another first year classroom, so he can't say exactly what class they'd be in. ]

Honestly, I don't think it's going to be worth the effort finding who sent the message or who was supposed to receive it. You're gonna have to ask every single person in the entire school like you did with me, and still not guarantee you'd find somebody who recognizes it— and is willing to admit it.

[ He points at the PDA in Clamor's hand. ]

If you're going to get hung up on anything, it should probably be that warning. It said not to touch something? Don't ask me what, though.

...yeah, you're probably right. [Ritsuka sighs, crossing her arms.] This kinda stuff is always bad news back home, though, and we always ignore it until the very last second when it becomes a big problem, and I don't just want to say, "Well, it can't be helped!" [did her voice just get several orders of magnitude squeakier for a second there] and move on like it isn't something we should be concerned about.

[ It, uh, sounds like Ritsuka leads a tough life somehow -- at least, assuming the "back home" is referring to what he thinks it is. Not that he was doing any better before this himself, but you know. ]

Actually... It wouldn't necessarily be the entire school. We don't have a clue for the sender, that's true... but we have one for the intended recipient. Our names on the bulletin boards follow a very specific format, right?

[ He glances at Kouji as he says that, but not really for a particular purpose; it's more that... he's the one Shuichi's explaining for right now, since the other two had been on the same page on their own. ]

There's still one letter left visible of the addressee's, so we know that their last starts with S. And, judging from the amount of blank space that comes after, it can't be a very lengthy name either. For example... I doubt that my own would have fit.

[ Since... his also fits the starting letter bill, but no one would think it was him due to that. Anyway, now this is finally more addressed to the other two. ]

Ah... Seki-kun is right though. There's something we've overlooked. Namely... that the person this was meant for might not be on the roster anymore either.

[Maybe... it really was meant for i.sena all along...

or maybe not. Clamor doesn't have much to add to this particular thread of the discussion, since he has no idea who might've sent it or who else it could be for. But he does offer Kouji a warm smile before putting the PDA away.]

It might make more sense later, if we ever discover what "it" is... anyway, you should be careful too, Kouji. It could just be a prank, but I'd feel guilty if we didn't at least tell you about it.

[He's still not sure what to make of the "normal" students around here, but Kouji seems like a good kid... if he's real, then Clamor wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him if it can be helped. Like, I don't know, getting stabbed in a hallway or something random like that.]

[ "Back home," like Kouji isn't already under the impression that Ritsuka lives on the streets and scraps for survival. For now, though, he just shrugs, leaning back a little as if to remove himself from the conversation without actually doing so, because it doesn't appear as if he has any more insight into the matter. ]

Yeah... thanks for the head's up, I guess. I won't touch anything weird at night, and I'll make sure I have a jacket with me at all times. Cross my heart.

[ If that's what the take home message is supposed to be, anyways. And then he gets stabbed and it doesn't even matter. ]

Am I okay to leave now? You guys should make sure to eat lunch too, instead of hanging around conspiracy theorizing all of break.

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Charity Auction

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