One morning, in the high school of Tengu City, a teenager was walking down the hallway of the building.
He was Caucasian in appearance, about sixteen years old with black hair styled to resemble Tom Holland's hairstyle and blue eyes. He was dressed in a high school uniform consisting of a long-sleeved white shirt, a black blazer with school emblem, gray pants, a blue tie with black and gray stripes, and black shoes. Concealed under his belt and jacket was a small box large enough to hold a deck of cards, and hanging from its neck was a pendant representing a scythe of fancy design.
He stopped in a classroom with the door closed. He wasn't alone in waiting outside the door, there was a girl with a stunning beauty.
She appeared to be the same age as him. She had pearly skin and long black hair partially tied with a red ribbon, with bangs covering more of her left eye. Her right eye was colored. She was wearing a female version of the high school uniform.
"Oh, hello. Are you new, too?" She asked as she noticed the teenager's presence.
"Uh... Y-yes." Said awkwardly the teenager having obviously fallen in love with the student.
This made the latter giggle.
"My name is Kurumi Tokisaki. And you?" She said and held out her hand.
"Nathan... Nathan Farewell. Nice to meet you." Said Nathan, trying his best not to look stressed.
"Likewise." Said Kurumi, amused by the boy's reaction.
Soon after their teacher opened the classroom door and waved them in. It was a rather young looking woman with a pair of glasses and wearing a pink shirt and a yellow skirt.
They entered the classroom and each of them wrote down their name on one side of the board and turned to face the class, where almost all the boys had their eyes turned to Kurumi.
"Would you like to introduce yourself to the class?" Asked the teacher.
Kurumi nodded at her suggestion and turned to the class.
"Hello everyone, my name is Kurumi Tokisaki. I hope we all become great friends." She said. "And just so you know, I'm actually a spirit."
This information, dropped like a hair on the soup, took Nathan and three other students by surprise: a boy with blue hair, a girl with white hair, and another girl with dark purple hair.
"My name is Nathan Farewell. I hope we can get along well together." Said Nathan, doing his best not to show that Kurumi's revelation had shocked him.
"Okay..." Said the teacher still a little disturbed Kurumi's announcement as she looked around the classroom until she saw two empty seats at the back of the room. "There are two seats at the back of the classroom."
Doing as their teacher asked, Kurumi and Nathan walked to the empty tables and chairs next to each other at the back of the room and sat down immediately. With the new students introduced, the lesson could begin.
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A few hours later, after class, Kurumi asked if someone could give her and Nathan a tour of the school, and the blue-haired student who was identified by his classmates as Shido raised his hand.
The tour went well overall, despite some friendly teasing from Kurumi. Shido tried to understand by talking to her why she claims to be a spirit. Kurumi remained evasive.
Once he had left the building, Nathan started to walk home. As he walked, he could see Kurumi right in front of him. When he saw her, he ran up to her to say hello until she accidentally bumped into a guy who was with two other men who looked like a three-person gang.
"Oh my goodness, I'm sorry. I guess I didn't see you." Said Kurumi after accidentally busking a gang member.
"Hey, wait a minute, sweetie." Said the gang member she bumped into as he and his friends walked a little closer to her. "You bumped me and you think you'll get away with it?"
"Hey, she's not bad. What's your name? We're going for a ride." Said another gang member.
Nathan, sensing that something might happen to Kurumi, snuck up behind the trio and tripped one of them, causing him to fall and surprising the other two and Kurumi.
"Hey, you got a problem?" Asked a member of the trio still standing.
"And you?" Nathan shouted back, annoying the gang.
They decided to teach Nathan a lesson and tried to hit him. Unfortunately for them, the teenager was trained. In the end it was he who taught them a lesson. In just a few seconds the gang was on the ground unconscious and being pummeled.
"Thank you for saving me. If you weren't there, who knows what would have happened." Said Kurumi in a slightly dramatic tone that Nathan guessed was simulated.
He wondered if it was because she would have defended herself or if she wanted to take advantage of these guys.
"It's nothing. Besides, I didn't like the way he looked at you. It was like you were a piece of meat to them." Commented Nathan. "So, do you want me to walk you home? It'll be much safer that way."
"Sure, why not." Kurumi agreed.
With that said and done, Nathan and Kurumi went home together for the rest of the way. During this time, they both talked about their hobbies, favorite songs, favorite food, normal questions that people who met for the first time and got along with would ask. He enjoyed every moment of the conversation and so did Kurumi.
When he arrived in front of his apartment, Nathan took his courage in both hands and proposed to Kurumi that he take her on a date for the end of the week, which she accepted.
The week passed and the day of the appointment arrived.
He was wearing the clothes he usually wore outside of class. A jacket with a large pocket, a white shirt, jeans and a pair of sneakers. Once that was done, he headed straight for the town square on foot. It was a long way, but Nathan made it and arrived at his destination.
He waited for a moment and Kurumi arrived, dressed in a black dress.
"Hello Nathan." Said Kurumi.
"Hello, Kurumi." He said before looking at her outfit. "Woah, you look great Kurumi."
Kurumi blushed at his compliment.
"Thank you. So, where do we go first?" She asked.
"Well..." Said Nathan thinking of an answer. "There are a lot of nice stores in this area, so why don't we walk around and find out a few along the way?"
"Sure." Said Kurumi before taking Nathan's right arm. "Ready?"
"More ready than not." Said Nathan as he nodded his head.
Nathan and Kurumi started their date. It started out a little slow, but they both immediately had fun during that time. They had a bite to eat, went to pet stores to see cute kittens, looked at new books, and did a little shopping.
An employee gave Nathan some pancakes and he paid him immediately after taking them. He and Kurumi walked to a table near the park and each took a pancake, which they were about to eat.
However, a noise they started to hear stopped them in their tracks. It was a meow.
They turned their heads and they could see a group of guys holding ball guns, they also noticed that they surrounded a cat and used it as a target. They seemed to enjoy it because they laughed hysterically.
Nathan clenched his fist as his blood boiled. He looked at Kurumi and saw that she was also angry at what they were seeing.
Kurumi was about to get up and help the cat and punish the offenders in her own way. However, Nathan beat her to the punch and once he got close enough to one of the offenders, he flipped him over and fell to the ground. While the rest of the group was surprised, Nathan took the cat in his arms and stroked it affectionately to reassure it as it returned to where he and Kurumi were eating their pancakes.
"Hey, what are you doing. You're ruining our fun." Said one of the group members.
Without saying anything, Nathan, holding the cat with one arm against his chest, directed his free hand to the deck box at his waist and quickly pulled out a card.
In one second the pistols of all the group members were sliced in half as a monster resembling the Reaper's image stood over Nathan holding a scythe. The group of delinquents were overcome with fear as the reaper swung his blade at them. The offenders collapsed to the ground.
"Don't worry, Kurumi. I'm not a monster. Apart from the fear they felt when they saw what I summoned, they felt nothing when they died." Said Nathan in a cold tone before looking at the little cat he was still holding, which was looking at him while his claws held it.
"Meow."
This little meow softened Nathan's gaze and he began to stroke the cat again, making it purr.
Kurumi felt the energy emanating from Nathan when he used the card. She was amazed by the power that seemed to come from a normal human.
Nathan sat back down in the chair where he had been sitting earlier and his appointment with Kurumi quickly regained its calm. Although their meeting took a different turn when they started to feed the cat with small pieces of pancake while talking to the cat. This amused them a lot, making them forget about the group of dead delinquents some distance away.
That's when Shido arrived.
"So Shido, what do you see?" Said a voice of a girl in her early teens from an earpiece the boy was wearing.
"I see Nathan and Kurumi with a cat. Kotori, are you sure that a spirit-like energy has appeared here?" Asked Shido.
"Yes, look around them, you should see something. I'd be surprised if Kurumi made her presence felt on purpose." Said Kotori.
Shido did as she asked and covered his mouth as he noticed the lifeless bodies nearby.
The person talking to Shido from his earpiece gasped as a drone levitated high enough not to be seen and looked at the bodies.
Much higher up, a girl who looked like a female version of Shido, wearing a revealing outfit, but also armed to the teeth with some kind of jet pack, was watching everything, especially Kurumi and Nathan.
"Who is this person? And you Nightmare, what do you want?" She thought.
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Later, after their date was over, Kurumi and Nathan went their separate ways. Nathan still had the cat with him and, deciding to keep it, quickly bought the bare minimum to take care of it before going to buy more the next day.
During the night a shadow formed on the floor of the room and Kurumi came out.
She was wearing a dress made of black and purple frills, giving her the appearance of an elegant gothic Lolita with uneven twin tails that mimicked the minute and hour hands of a clock. On her head, she wore a large crimson mesh bow to hold her hair back. She also wore a red and black necklace on her neck. Her left eye was uncovered revealing a golden eye with the face of a clock inside.
Despite the darkness, she could see very well into the room, noticing drawers with a variety of card games in them. She turned her gaze to Nathan and brought up a flintlock pistol, which she pointed at him.
"Yud." She said before shooting him.
Strangely enough, there were no bullet holes on or around Nathan after the shot. However, Kurumi put a shocked expression on her face before walking away.
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It had been a few days since Nathan had his meeting with Kurumi, during which time news of mysterious murders throughout the city began to surface. No one knew who or what was causing them. After school was over, Nathan planned to talk with Kurumi and ask her to come to his house for dinner. But he did not know what was going to happen.
Suddenly he heard a very strange noise and everything around him became darker.
"WHAT THE...?!" He said as he looked around in shock.
There was a sound of gunfire and Nathan understood by the sound where it was coming from.
"The roof!" He realized.
Without hesitation, he headed for the stairs that led him to the roof of the school. As he ran, he could see his classmates lying on the ground, unconscious. After a few minutes of running, he finally reached the stairs and ran as fast as he could until he reached the door that led to the roof.
He stopped to take a breath and pulled a card from his deck box.
"I was hoping I wouldn't have to reveal myself so much right away... but I don't have a choice... damn it, I should work harder in sports." He said as he prepared to open the door.
"KURUMI DON'T DO THAT!!!" Screamed a voice on the roof that Nathan recognized as Shido's.
Nathan's eyes widened when he heard what Shido had said.
"Kurumi!? What's wrong with her!?" He thought as he began to panic.
"DON'T DESTROY THE SCHOOL WITH EVERYONE IN IT!!! IT'S ME YOU WANT!!! LET THEM GO!!!" Screamed Shido.
"I like it when you beg me Shido, but I'm afraid I can't do it, because I like to destroy things." Said Kurumi's voice from outside, which made Nathan freeze.
"No... it can't be her. She may have claimed to be a spirit, but that doesn't mean she would do something like that." He said, completely in denial as he looked at the door for a few seconds. "Only one way to find out."
After taking a deep breath, he grabbed the door handle, opened it and immediately went out to see if what was going on, hoping to be wrong. Unfortunately, his suspicions were correct. Before his eyes were Kurumi herself and many copies of herself holding Shido, Tohka, Origami, Kotori and the blue-haired girl who had them when he killed the group to save the cat.
He shook his head in disbelief.
"So it's true..." He says in shock as he holds the card in his hand.
Kurumi turns to see him and her eyes widen in shock.
"Oh no." She says.
"He found out, this is not good." Thought Shido as he looked at Nathan.
At that moment Kotori summoned a fire cannon.
"Never take your eyes off your opponent." She said.
Nathan saw her pointing her massive weapon at Kurumi.
"Oh no..." He said, overcoming his shock to become serious again.
Kotori's gigantic cannon began to emit huge amounts of energy and a few seconds later she pulled the trigger, firing at Kurumi. The girl's copies tried to block the attack, but it was too strong for them and they were quickly defeated.
Immediately after seeing this, Nathan held up his card. A pink card with an illustration of a red and blue spiral with a white flash in the center.
"Negate Attack!" He said as the illustration of this card appeared in front of Kurumi, blocking the attack of Kotori.
Suddenly, everything went white and silent. Once the white glow faded, everyone could see that Kurumi and Nathan had disappeared.
"Where... where are they?" Asked Kotori in shock as she saw what had happened.
The duo was now in Nathan's house, he had taken advantage of the light to use another card to slip away.
"You saved me?" Asked Kurumi, surprised.
"Of course I did. I had no reason not to. We are friends after all." Answered Nathan, before surprising the girl with his next statement. "How do you know about my abilities?"
"I... I don't know what you're talking about." Said Kurumi as she looked away.
"Please don't make fun of me. You were surprised when I used Cursed Trump Card, but not when I blocked the attack earlier or the fact that I teleported us here. So, how do you know about it?" Asked the young man again as he sat down on a chair in his living room.
Kurumi sighed before shrugging off her new outfit and returning to her student hair and outfit, sitting down next to him, and finally answering his question.
"The night after our date, I broke into your room, and used one of my powers to see into your past." Admitted Kurumi as she felt something rubbing against her ankles.
She looked down to see what it was and saw that it was the cat they had saved from the gang on their date. It was rubbing against her and purring, happy to see her again. A feeling that was shared by the teenager who took him in her arms.
"Oh, it's you. How are you?!" She said, letting herself be carried away and cuddling the little animal while petting it.
Nathan was touched by the sight of Kurumi pampering the cat. She realized what she was doing and started to get serious again, even though she was starting to blush.
"So uh... you know where the others are? I only looked at the one piece of your past and what concerns your powers... that's it." She asked.
"No. But something will happen when they are in town too. I still hope they won't cause too much trouble, but I have my doubts about that." Answered the teenager as he placed his deck box on the table.
Kurumi just looked at him with a thoughtful expression. She found it amusing that he wanted to protect people like her, but seemed to have no problem going after humans if he felt it was necessary.
She could see a little bit of herself in him in a way.
The two friends spent the rest of the day at Nathan's house. Kurumi stayed at his house at his request in order to keep a low profile, because he preferred to know that she was safe at his house rather than outside and risking another attack.
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A few days passed and Nathan continued to go to class, pretending that the incident with Kurumi had not happened. When he left class Shido asked him to follow him, which he did with some suspicion.
Once out of sight, he and Shido were teleported to what appeared to be the control room of a ship with a seemingly small crew.
"Where am I?" Asked Nathan as he looked around.
"You're on the Fraxinus. Ratatoskr's base of operations." Answered a woman who turned out to be Nathan and Shido's science teacher, Reine.
She was a young woman of average height, with a rather pale complexion, gray hair and blue eyes that always seemed to be dark circled.
"Mrs. Murasame?" He said spotting the woman before turning his attention to Shido. "Tell me this isn't some 'all our teachers are part of a secret organization' thing?"
"It's not..." Said a girl's voice in her early teens coming from higher up in the room.
Nathan looked over to where the sound was coming from to find Kotori sitting on a large seat that looked like it was made for the commander of the ship.
He immediately recognized her as the one who had almost killed Kurumi if he had not intervened.
"Nathan, this is my sister Kotori... she's... she's the leader of this place." Said Shido, aware that his classmate would not believe him.
"Are you telling me that this ship is run by a loli? What about the one that almost killed Kurumi if I didn't stop her attack?" Asked Nathan in an incredulous tone.
"That's exactly why you're here." Said Kotori, doing his best to ignore Nathan's comment against him. "We've never heard of a Male Spirit. So tell us where you came from."
"Already, for starters, you talk to me better. I'm not one of your submissives. And second, I'm not a Spirit but a cartomancer." Answered the teenager deciding to play cards on the table, and if the situation requires it in his eyes, less friendly.
"A fortune teller?" Said Shido in a curious tone.
"I have no reason to tell you about it." Explained Nathan, giving Shido an accusing look.
"That's good, I don't trust you either." Said the teenage girl resembling Shido as she stepped forward so Nathan could see her.
"Mana!" Said Shido disapprovingly.
"Sorry big brother, but it's true. Not only did he kill humans, but he also prevented us from destroying Nightmare." Retorted Mana.
"Nightmare?" Asked Nathan.
"That's the code name assigned to Kurumi as a Spirit." Answered Shido.
"I see. So you're more shocked that I killed humans and saved Kurumi, than that you were going to kill her. As for the ones I killed at the park, do you know why I did that?" Said Nathan with restrained anger in his voice.
There was a short moment of silence in the room, for no one knew why he had taken the lives of these people.
"What were they doing?" Shido finally asked.
The teenager with the cards looked at Shido with what seemed like the outline of a smile. He seemed pleased that he was the one who had asked the question. Probably, because he seemed to be the most sympathetic of the group.
"They were shooting airsoft at a little cat at close range. Just for fun and without giving it a chance to escape." He answered, surprising everyone. "It's fun, isn't it? As soon as the target changes from an animal to a human, it's more serious."
"But this is not the same..." Mana tried to retort.
"In what way? Spirits are similar to us in every way, the difference is that they have a power that allows them to defend themselves more strongly against those who prey on the weak." Said Nathan.
"We try to save them. Other companies, such as AST or DEM, attack them and kill them or worse." Retorted Shido.
"He's right!" Said a voice from the entrance of the room.
At that moment Tohka and a little girl with blue hair and eyes with a bunny puppet with a pirate's eye cape enter the room.
"Y-yes! Shido saved us..." Said the little girl.
Nathan remembered seeing them as spirits when he saved Kurumi. He quickly placed two cards in the direction of each spirit and put them in his deck box. Then he decided to give this organization the benefit of the doubt.
"And I suppose you are one too?" He asked as he looked at Kotori who nodded his head. "... I will help you when I can. However, I have my own business to attend to. So don't get in my way."
"And can we know what those matters are?" Asked Kotori.
"Just tell yourself that I am not the only fortune teller in the world, and soon dangerous things will happen. And we have no way of knowing the proportions. Especially with the two organizations you mentioned earlier. But trust me, it's going to be a bloodbath." Warned Nathan.
The crew took his warning to heart and took him and Shido back to where they had started.
The day continued and when it was over, Nathan took out his phone and started a call on the way home.
"Hello Dad... Don't worry, everything is fine for now... No, as far as I know, I'm the only one here for now... Yes, I know. I know I shouldn't use them all the time... I know I shouldn't do it again, but I remind you that last time this jerk didn't give a damn about what I was proposing, just because I'm a kid... I know I went overboard, but what would you have done if you had intervened: "be careful, the next time you talk to my son like that, I'll throw you out". Be serious for a second, you think he would have changed his mind... Yeah well, in the meantime he has learned his lesson. Well, I'll leave you to it, I have something to do... I love you too. " He said before hanging up and continuing his journey.
Much later, at nightfall in different parts of the city, eleven people, each with a deck box, were observing the night sky.
"Si vis pacem..." Each of them said at exactly the same time.
At the same time, Nathan was also looking at the sky from his bedroom window, Kurumi was sleeping in a guest room and the cat had fallen asleep on the couch.
"... Para bellum." Said the teenager along with the other eleven people, without taking his eyes off the sky, as a huge invisible dome now surrounded Tengu City.