Beyond the horizon, the sun illuminated the shimmering haze of pollution. In the far distance, the silhouette of the skyline pierced through the warm glow like a jagged mountain ridge. Awaiting the starlight and the silvery moon, the shadows of the trees danced upon the cedar fence, leaves flickering like a candlelight.
Amid the perfume of the summer blooms, they felt the cool air of the evening wash over their beings. As the trees began to hide their bold greens, cloaking the presence of day and masking them in the velvet starlit blanket of the evening haze in which the moon slowly shied out and revealed it's presence.
A certain blonde haired five-year old had been wandering around, playing outside for a bit after dinner as the witch waited for her on the front door steps, the time being the young girl's bedtime already. "Tiara!" Her voice emanated and echoed out, calling for the youngest Minamoto child.
There was no response for a full minute until she heard the crunching of gravel. "Nora-oneesan!" The high pitched and familiar voice called out, her rapid foot steps approaching, running toward Nora who spotted the young girl as well as her .. companion.
"Princess .. what is that?" The witch stared in horror, something that was rather rare but .. she couldn't help it as Tiara grinned happily. "I found this, can we keep it?" Apparently, the young five year old was serious about keeping the Mokke. It wasn't just a Mokke. It looked absolutely horrid.
Petrified and still, yet twitching in certain places. Missing a few patches of hair, and it's usual color as it was bathed and doused in grey and blue. The pitiful Mokke looked like a rabid animal as Tiara stuck it out for the witch to hold. "Tiara--"
"He's kind of dirty, but can you use magic and clean him, Nora-nee?" She asked innocently, peering over to him. Nora wouldn't dare contaminate her magic as she chuckled nervously and pat the young girl's head. "Let's ask .. Teru .." She was not going to deal with that yucky Mokke.
If Teru wasn't good at house chores, he had to be at least good at bathing a creature. Besides, he was a science nerd anyway, that part of him sometimes terrified her. He liked doing experiments on supernaturals every now and then while they were on patrol, testing out the potency of his experiments on them.
He was a practical mad man, and that was something she would never be afraid to admit, considering it was true.
"Teru!" The witch called out for him as the light thumps of footsteps coming down the stairs had rung out, a mop of blonde hair peering midway down the staircase as he was met with his sister and Nora, the witch pointing a thumb at the Mokke in Tiara's hands as he immediately grabbed a towel from the bathroom.
"What's this, Tiara?" Her elder brother asked with a hesitant chuckle. Her curiosity was going to be the death of them as she dropped the seemingly half dead Mokke into the white towel that Teru took from the bathroom as she grinned broadly. "It's going to be my slave! I found it!"
"And it's very dirty, so Teru-onii is going to clean it for you so that you can keep it, alright?" Nora pat the young girl's head. "I am?" He asked as Nora turned back to him with a sly and cheeky smile. "You very much are." She picked up the young five year old as Teru stared at the hideous Mokke in his hands.
"Now, let's wash your hands Tiara, and Teru .. Wash your hands too, otherwise I won't be within a two meter radius of you." The witch had quickly made her exit to the bathroom, away from the deranged Mokke as Teru stared at it blankly before placing it inside a basket that he stole from the living room table.
Given a short break today after exorcising during daylight, the two of them were able and allowed to sleep properly for a single day before returning back to their usual duties.
Nora had curled up on the bed and fell asleep first, not wanting to wait for Teru since he would be preoccupied with .. cleaning the infectious Mokke.
However much to the witch's surprise when she had woken up ever so slightly on the very edge of the bed on the left side, which was usually Teru's side, the witch had realized that the mattress was much bigger than usual as she sat up, squinting to read the watch on her wrist where the hands read it to be two in the morning.
"Don't tell me he's still cleaning the Mokke?" The witch muttered to herself, rubbing her eyes as she breathed out a tired sleepy sigh. No matter, at the moment, her body was screaming for sleep more than it was to satisfy her curiosity on the sadistic male's whereabouts. She had a feeling he would be fine anyways.
And fine he was when Nora had woken up, he was in the kitchen with a mug of coffee in his hands, a pair of reading glasses and a book. Perfectly normal, but no Mokke in sight as Nora raised a brow at him. "You wasted a free day, pulling an all nighter, and .. killing the Mokke?" She asked hoarsely.
He glanced at her from his book. "I didn't kill the Mokke .. It ran away." He avoided her prying glance as she glowered at him. "And what does Princess think about this?"
" .. She doesn't know .. yet." He said with a reluctant smile. " .. So you scared it into running away? What were you doing to it?" The witch asked curiously as the exorcist continued to avoid her eyes, meaning he was blatantly hiding something. "I was cleaning it ..?" His statement sounded more of like a question.
"Cleaning it .. You weren't even in the house last night, so tell me, with what methods were you supposedly cleaning the Mokke with?" The witch continued to interrogate him as he took a sip of his coffee, remembering last night's events at the school in which he had snuck in and borrowed the laboratory with a syringe in his hands.
"Nothing .."
"Really? This is nothing, Teru?" Nora's eyebrow twitched as the male dragged her down the hall by the back of her uniform along with Akane. The bell had just rung, signalling the end of the school-day. Akane had run to the copy machine to grab out their newly printed flyers for a fundraiser when he had come back, pale and blue with a screech.
Claiming that the entire school had turned into zombies, leading them into their current predicament.
They watched a blur of pink flash across their eyes as it leapt onto a student, biting them on the neck as they slowly became Mokke zombie. "Nora, this is the time you do something. I'll take you to the supermarket and I'll let you get whatever you want."
Although the witch had her own card and money, Teru oversaw a good majority of the transactions, one of those being her food. She had been eating sweets so often that they were worried she would become pre-diabetic. Which is why, he was often taken along with her whenever she wished to buy something from the store, and he would judge whether it was allowed or not.
She was feeling rather lazy today, that being her magic drain from yesterday had taken quite a bit out of her. An ability to stabilize the entire school temporarily from collapsing on a structure that was thousands of square feet and over two stories tall, in addition to still having her seal on was tedious and left her sore the next morning.
That morning being today. She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Deal."
With a double clap of her hands, the two boys as well as the witch they were dragging along with them, had found themselves teleported within a dark place with lockers. Four zombie students surrounding them as Nora signaled them to be quiet as she snapped her fingers, a black hole spawned at their feet as they fell, teleporting somewhere else in the school.
"Even Hanako turned strange .. What's going to happen to us?" A quiver of a voice had echoed out as Akane approached one of the lockers within the locker room. Nora had deliberately teleported them the place closest to Kou, since the locker he was currently in had no room to fit five people.
Akane clicked on the flashlight as he opened the locker slowly, however, much to their surprise with a thud when the mop of blonde hair leapt out and whacked him over the head with his golden spirit staff. "Pft." Nora and Teru stifled a laugh as their vice president went crashing to the floor, glasses knocked off his face as his eyes stared wide at the spinning ceiling.
"Maybe you gave him a concussion .." Nora poked the boy's head with her finger. "Akane-kun!" Yashiro shouted to her classmate in worry as she tried to shake the boy back to his senses to no avail.
Teru's laugh echoed out in the locker room as he covered his mouth. "Your attack is really something, Kou."
The two had just realized that the three student council members were still unaffected and okay as they stared at the one unconscious male and the exorcist duo in relief. Yashiro leapt into Nora's arms as the older girl pat her head. "Natsuki-senpai!"
"We came here to help." Nora said with a small grin. "You two did well on your own." He ruffled both of their heads before hauling Akane over his shoulder as they headed into the Gym Storage room where he laid the boy against a desk. In the case that he woke up with a concussion, the two would pay for his hospital bills graciously.
"Have you calmed down a bit?" Teru asked as he flipped over the chalkboard. The two underclassmen nodded their heads. "Yes.."
Yashiro raised her hand hesitantly. "Um .. Is this affecting the entire school? Everyone including Hanako has been infected .." She pointed out. Nora let out a hum. "I'm actually not sure about this either." The witch shrugged as they all turned to Teru who smiled.
"Let me explain, this likely cause is probably Kegare." He drew the word on the board as they all stared at it dumbly. "Kegare?" Nora wasn't an expert at disease and illness, no matter how long she lived.
"Yes, it means that their power has been completely drained and their energy dries up, making them human nor spirit. They become so hungry that they can't think of anything other than eating. And moreover, as such, Kegare can infect both humans and spirits alike like a disease." Teru drew a sketch on the board.
Kou pursed his lips. "Then why does everyone want candy?"
Teru blinked before smiling blankly. "Ah that. It's probably because the cause of this Kegare is the Mokke." He said simply as Kou shot up out of his seat. "Then if we could just find the one who started the infection!?"
Nora narrowed her eyes at Teru. "Didn't we have a dirty little Mokke last night, looking like these Kegare infected ones? And who was the o--" She was cut off mid-way as Teru spoke over her deliberately. "That's right, Kou. But, it'll be difficult to find the one out of the infected ones as well."
"Oh yeah .." Kou mumbled, back to square one. Yashiro fiddled with her fingers. "But they've always been healthy .. So why would they suddenly get sick?" The young girl had spoken Nora's thoughts as Teru avoided her drilling gaze. "Ha well .. Someone probably brought an infected Mokke in from outside of the school .."
Before Nora could voice her complaint, being interrupted for what seemed to be the umpteenth time that day, a groan from the now conscious vice-president had caught their attention.
"How long was I asleep for .." He groaned, holding his head that was throbbing. "I have to go rescue Ao-chan quickly .. Ao-chan, Ao-chan .. No .. Candy-chan?" He looked at them with sunken eyes and a pale blue face as the two, Kou and Yashiro let out an earthly cry. "He's infected!" Kou shouted.
The vice president latched onto Yashiro as she screeched. "Stop! I'm your friend! He's become a candy zombie too!" Out of desperation, she had grabbed the closest thing to toss at him, which happened to be a can of juice as it plopped onto his head, dousing him from head to toe as he blinked.
"You're not Ao-chan." He said bluntly, seemingly cured. "Akane-" Yashiro had called out until Kou had leapt from behind him. "I got you now, zombie!" With a swing of his staff, Akane was knocked out cold light a light as Nora couldn't stop herself from laughing this time. "Kou .. Akane already returned back to normal."
Teru was crouched on the ground as he picked up the can of juice, handing it to Nora who read what it was. "Salty Tangerine .."
Yashiro snapped her head to the pair. "Oh! Yes! I was drinking it!" She said as Teru let out a hum, looking to the witch who had the same thought process going on inside of her head.
"It's tangerine!? Maybe tangerine as an effect on the Mokke, Teru-nii, Nora-nee!?" Kou tried to suggest in the spur of the moment as they panicked, Mokke and student zombies banged against the door, causing the two to jump while their two upperclassmen were thinking about something. "No.." The girl replied to the boy's failed observation.
"They're all swarming us! What do we do Teru-nii!?" Kou exclaimed as Teru pat the witch's head. "So it seems that I had been hoping to leave early today .. But shall we do a bit of an experiment, Nora?" He asked the girl who sent him a stink eye before sighing. "I have to follow your orders, don't I?" The witch inquired as he merely smiled brightly at her.
"Of course not, it's optional, equivalent exchange. Just meaning if you refuse, I get to refuse something as well." Teru reasoned, much to her annoyance.
"Um .. Senpai!" Yashiro pointed at the door as Nora waved her hand dismissively. "I'll send you kids to the rooftop. Teru is going to drag me along while we try and find something." Those were the last words uttered by the witch before she waved her hand and in a fellow swoop, they dropped into a hole and reappeared on the empty rooftop that looked down on the school.
The two teenagers ran down the hallway and darted to the science labs. "So, Nora, you wouldn't happen to be able to conjure salt out of thin air, would you?" Teru asked jokingly as the witch raised a brow at him.
"If I could summon anything I wanted out of thin air, I would get a bat and hit you over the head right now." She told him bluntly as she leapt on top of the counters, rummaging through the shelves, her hand patting through the empty storage, muttering a string of incoherent words as the item she was looking for was nowhere to be found, seemingly, Teru had the same result.
She teleported them to the next side of the building over where they continued to rummage through cabinets. "Nora, you said you used to be a shrine maiden right?" Teru had called out for her from the other room as she froze, questioning the relevance to his question. "If you're going to suggest me to just magically purify them all with divine energy, you'd be crazy. There's too many infected people, I'd just be wasting my energy then because they'd get reinfected."
He let out a chuckle. "It was worth a shot."
"In my fifth life, I was a shrine maiden for a decade, maybe longer. I forgot. I died when some old guy I turned down had ambushed me in an alleyway." Nora explained nonchalantly as he stopped for a moment and turned around to stare at her. He wanted to say something, but said nothing. "Found it." Teru breathed out the words of relief.
"Can you teleport us to Kou and Yashiro?" The exorcist asked the female who shook her head. "I'd probably teleport us mid way through the mark and we'd plummet to our deaths."
He let out a chuckle as they climbed to the rooftop where they spotted Kou and Yashiro on the roof top below theirs, which was a rather large leap. Drawing his blade as the infected students drew closer to their underclassmen below, Teru let out a swipe of his blade as bolts of black lightning rained down and electrocuted them.
"Okay Nora, we're going to jump." He picked up the witch into his arms as she blinked. "That's over a thirty meter jump. Downward."
He smiled. "I know."
It only took a second for him to leap into the air and perfectly on his feet on the next rooftop where Nora had concluded that Teru was an absolute lunatic. "Are you guys okay?" He asked the two who were on the floor, frightened for their lives. Kou turned around toward his two elders.
"Teru-nii, where have you been?" He had tears welted up in the corner of his eye as Nora chuckled.
"Sorry, sorry, we went to go get some of this." Teru held out the jar in his hand as Yashiro read the label. "Sodium Chloride .. Salt?"
Nora nodded her head. "More importantly .. Run." Teru grabbed the witch and pulled her along while Kou grabbed Yashiro's wrist as they ran to the edge of the rooftop where the pool was located below. Nora widened her eyes in horror. "Teru. No." She spat at him as he tightened the arm he had wrapped around her, encasing her figure against him as she squirmed.
"It's alright Nora, I'll catch you." He chuckled. That wasn't what she was worried about. "I'm getting underpaid for this, especially considering i'm about to get my fur wet in nasty chlorine water where kids pee in." Nora hissed at him as he merely smiled.
"Teru-nii, Nora-nee! What do I do with this!?" Kou snapped them out of their own world as he shook the jar like a miracah. Teru took the glass jar from his hands and placed it into the slender pale ivory hands of Nora.
"You're not going to do anything, but Nora will. Okay Yashiro~" Teru pulled all three of them against his chest as the fall down to the pool was right below. "The pool!? Teru-nii .. you don't mean—" Kou was cut off by the witch's cold and monotonous voice. "He very much does."
"If you're scared just close your eyes." He grinned at the two, buying some time by stunning the zombies with his lightning. "Teru .." The witch began lowly, growling at him as he held his hands up in surrender. "I don't like this plan."
He chuckled. "It'll be alright."
"You won't be when this is over." The witch pinched his side as he masked the look of pain with a smile. "They're your little kouhai right? Them too? Especially when you know that you can save them." He pointed at the hoard, reciting her words from yesterday. "Relax." He whispered into her ear as she frowned, he felt her body untense as she sunk into a moping frown.
"I'll buy you whatever you want when this is all over, but we've wasted too much time. Since you were a shrine maiden, you know how to purify this stuff, right Nora?" She nodded her head and continued listening. "Great! I'm gonna need you to do exactly that. You can cushion the impact on the water by adjusting our weight for a split second right?" He asked as she wordlessly nodded once again. He was asking her to do quite a lot of things at once. Nora wasn't happy but she was a witch of her word.
"Now this is where you come in, Yashiro! You're going to pray for your senpai. Now ... Let's go." Yashiro let out a scream as they began to lean backward, spiraling downward in the air. Teru wrapped his arm around the witch's neck as he leaned in toward her ear. "Nora, when I tell you, open the jar." Teru had a crazed look on his face with a wide grin as his eyes widened with excitement and thrill as he held up two fingers, an index and a middle one as he readied his spiritual power.
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
At that exact moment, Nora unscrewed the lid, the salt seemingly shinier and more sparkly than before, courtesy of her raw divine energy she hadn't used in some time. "Good work." Teru waved his finger, muttering a prayer incantation as the salt evenly distributed in the air as it coated and spread itself around the infected zombies.
With a sharp gasp just a mere inch away from the water, Nora snapped her fingers. Once they made contact with the water, Nora could feel all four of them get submerged underneath as the pool gently rocked for a moment before sloshing back and forth. She saw her hair sprawled out all around her while submerged in the deep liquid. Immediately, she felt two hands around her waist as they lifted her up to the surface where Teru greeted her with a smile.
She breathed out a tired sigh, panting from holding her breath, resting her head on his shoulder in lethargy as he pat her back. "See? That wasn't so bad. You did a good job, Nora." She barley was able to nod her head, wanting to vomit from the day's events, feeling sick and nauseous.
"Haa .. that was scary .." Yashiro muttered as she leaned on the ledge of the pool, her arms were scaled and a smile of relief was washed over her face as Kou looked around the pool where they were dozens and dozens of bodies floating around. "Well they're all quiet but .. are they okay?" Kou asked wearily. "Yokou, Satou, wake up." He shook them with a nervous expression as Teru chuckled.
The witch wrapped her arms around him, nuzzling into the crook of his neck as he stroked the back of her head. She wanted to cling onto him and get out. It was freezing and she could feel her bones shiver .. but even still, he remained warm. "Are you okay?" He questioned as she weakly nodded. "I hate gravity.. and water." She muttered foully. He took that as a sign that she would be alright.
"Your friends will be fine, they'll wake up in a bit." Teru said reassuringly as Yashiro hauled herself out of the water and stared at all of the unconscious people. "It seems like the Mokke-chan have returned back to normal too. I'm glad but .. why?" Yashiro questioned.
Teru pulled Nora out of the water as he placed her in a sitting position on the ledge where her legs were still dipped in the water and her head hung low. He stayed in the water, his hands remaining on her waist to assure she didn't go unconscious and fall forward back in. He brushed a thumb against her cheek before smiling at the first year. "Why indeed ..? Saltwater has a purifying effect. Even so, poor quality saltwater like the one we just used now normally wouldn't be effective. The reason it worked was because of you two."
"Eh?" Yashiro tilted her head. "Nora was a former shrine maiden with divine energy that could increase the potency of the salt, turning it into perfect material for purification. Although since it had been some time since she manifested her divine energy, your prayer helped her quite a bit." Teru explained as the girl made an 'o' shape with her mouth, admiring her senpai.
"Nora is a very special witch." He said with an almost proud smile, running his fingers through his golden locks. His clear cerulean blue eyes curled into light crescents. Yashiro couldn't help but let a sound of awe escape her lips.
From her perfect angle, they looked like the most perfect two human beings that couldn't have been anything short of soulmates. They were like a match straight from a heavenly fairytale and this was a scene straight from a movie. They were so .. pure together .. "Ah Hanako!" Yashiro spotted the familiar apparition floating in the water as Kou swam to him. "Is he okay!?"
Teru got himself out of the water, pushing himself upward with his arms and jumping out, wringing a good majority of the water out of his shirt. "Okay you two, make sure to get some towels from the nurses office before everyone wakes up. I need to get Nora wrapped up before she catches a cold and makes a bigger fuss at me."
As Yashiro had said before .. they were the most alluring pair practically made for one another. She watched as Teru picked Nora up in a bridal style as the younger girl resisted a squeal.
Oh how she wished to be Nora. The witch's head leaned against his chest and his arms were curled around her protectively with a soft smile graced onto his features. Nora clinging onto the sleeve of his button up as Yashiro covered her mouth.
Even when soaking wet from head to toe .. they were absolutely breathtakingly ethereal that she couldn't help but wish for that to happen to her some day.
"I hate you." The witch muttered spitefully as he let out a hearty laugh. "You probably do, for now."
She frowned, breathing a sigh. He could feel her body shivering. "Are you cold?" He inquired as she stared at him with a raised brow as though it weren't obvious enough. "I .. want a heating blanket and red bean pudding .. and Dorayaki .. and Taiyaki .. and curry buns." She listed aloud drowsily as he listened in amusement.
"Anything with red bean paste, right?" He asked as she nodded her head meekly. "Alright. We need to stop by the market for tonight's dinner anyway. I'll get you everything you want."
She raised her head up for a moment. "Even if I tell you that I want to buy the entire bakery?"
He stopped walked and stared at her with a blank smile, blinking. "Now, now, Nora. If we bought the entire bakery, we wouldn't be able to have the same desserts that you like." He tried to reason as she hazily blinked. "Oh .. that's right .." She mumbled as he chuckled.
The witch could feel the reverberation of his chuckle echoing against his chest as she began to ease her breathing. Teru looked down and Nora was out cold.
Night had already fallen and the hoots of owls had echoed out in the midnight dark. "I still can't believe that all happened .. But I'm glad everything is back to normal now! What happened to the Mokke who started the infection?" Kou asked. The three of them had just returned from the market, the boy carrying two bags of vegetables and dinner ingredients in his hand while Nora held her bag of sweets, Teru carrying a basket.
"Oh that .. It's already been properly purified after we bathed it in some salt water. We can keep it as a pet." He held up the basket where the fluffy little Mokke sat, much cleaner and cuter than before, it's fur now extremely soft and puffy. Kou gaped his mouth wide. "Keep it!?"
"Actually, it was our princess who had found it. After it caught Kegare, she asked me to clean it. But purifying it at home could be dangerous and so--"
"-- It escaped." Nora finished her sentence with furrowed brows and a scary glower that narrowed her scarlet eyes at the exorcist who flinched and smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head as Kou too, stared at his older brother. "Then Teru-nii .. Today's incident was your fault." The blunt accusation made the older male stiffen.
"Ah .." He had no excuses to give. "Hmph. No dessert for you today." Kou turned around and stuck his nose up in the air with a huff as Teru's face morphed into a pleading puppy. "Ehh?~" He groaned, looking to Nora hopefully in which the witch had cradled the bag of sweets closer to her chest and away from him.
She had a heating blanket draped over her head like a hood, her hair still ever so slightly damp but her clothes much drier as she had stolen a spare white button up from Teru tucked into her skirt. "Good luck on exorcism duty tonight." The witch had said coldly as he let out a whining whimper.
"Nora-" She cut him off with a glare as he decided to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the way home.