19
"Ugh..." Opening my eyes, white panels of the ceiling greeted my vision. My head was in too much pain to even put it on a scale. Looking around, I could see drapery around the bed that I was sitting at, meaning that I was in the nurse's office.
"Mhm~" Hearing someone humming some kind of tune, I moved a bit of drapery to see who it was here.
"Excuse me?" Standing in front of her computer, it was the woman that I managed to detail out before I was knocked out, I called out for her attention.
"Oh? It's nice to finally see you awake, Shinzou-kun." Her woman sounded... very woman-like. Like... very woman-like.For someone who looked so young, it's a big surprise to hear someone sound like that.
"O-oh, yeah..." Noticing that I hadn't responded quickly, I tried my best to control my embarrassment.
"Fufu, no need to be so nervous, with a fall like that, it will make sense for you to take a moment to process things a bit more slowly. Is your head still hurting?" I raised my hand to feel a cloth over my head.
"Yeah..." I managed to respond.
"I see. Now then, onto more pressing matters," Spinning the chair at her left, she sat down and moved her head forward a bit, allowing it to rest on the knuckles of her hands. It almost looks as if she was interested in analyzing me. "What happened back there?" She asked with her brows narrowed.
"I... I got pushed by someone." I answered, rubbing the side of my head.
"Pushed? Did you manage to see who pushed you?" I shook my head for an answer, even if it did manage to hurt while doing so.
"The only thing that I managed to see was..." I paused for a second. If I tell her that I saw a green butterfly flying around, then she would think I'm crazy. "You coming to help me."
"Hm. Well, it's not going to be easy to find out who did it. If anything, the person who did it might have something against you, Shinzou-kun. I thought you were the type to not engage with others. How exactly did you manage to gain an enemy?" I would like to know how she knows how I act since I'm not the one to put myself out there, but I shouldn't right now.
"I wouldn't know. It's been like a week since I got shot, so it shouldn't be possible for me to gain one." Whoever it was, I can tell that they're affiliated with the supernatural world. I can get that correct, but why did they want to kill me?
"For someone who got pushed down the stairs, you seem rather calm enough to even bring up that instance." I flinched as a response. Even with this short amount of time being immortal, I kind of got used to dying. I got to make sure to not make anyone else think that I'm insane or something.
"W-well... It wouldn't be good to try to go after someone with vengeance or anything. That'll just make me worse than the person that pushed me..." Well, I guess I kind of saved myself.
"Still, I was more than likely expecting you to be sweating profusely and panicking the moment you woke up! What a surprise you showed me, Shinzou-kun!" Who exactly is this woman again? I mean that's general expectations for someone who just woke up from being pushed from down the stairs, but... oh, I see now.
"U-um, I never got your name." I quickly changed the subject.
"Oh, where are my matters?! You may call me Choco-sensei if you please. As you can see, I'm the school nurse!" Yup, I could barely tell if you are or not.
"Thank you... Choco-sensei for helping me." I bowed my head a bit, one for the pleasure of being saved, and two, because my head was still hurting.
"You don't need to be so polite, Shinzou-kun! Just treat me however you like, and I'll be sure to do so in return. Hmm, well, if you are polite, then I should be polite as well..." Well, before this gets out of hand, I should probably get going now.
"W-well, I suppose I should get going now, Choco-sensei. Thank you very much for treating me." As I stood up, I felt my left wrist get grabbed. Looking to see Choco-sensei looking up at me from her chair with a serious look, I started to get nervous. Not only that, the feeling was coming back again.
"I-is there s-something wrong, Choco-sensei?!" Responding with a smile, she raised her left hand to reveal a notebook.
"Now that's a reaction I didn't expect. Well, I guess I should when boys your age have been going through puberty. Anyway, this here is Shinzo-kun's notebook. He wanted you to have it for the notes that you missed for your earlier class. You have a good friend here, Shinzou-kun." I would like for her to not compare this problem I have for a general understanding of puberty, but I don't think I can convince her otherwise.
"T-thank you, Choco-sensei. I'll be leaving now!" Taking the book into my right hand, I quickly snatched my hand away and ran for the door, leaving Choco-sensei into whatever kind of surprise she had.
-Holonatural-
There were only two classes left on this hectic day. Sadly, I don't think that I'll be thinking too much about planning because all of this thinking is just making my head hurt even more. Might be even worse than Ina-chan's... abilities.
"Shinzou-kun?" Hearing my name being called, I turned around to see a male standing there with glasses on. His blue spikey hair looked a bit familiar though...
"Yes? Is there something wrong?" Pushing his glasses up a bit, he cleared his throat before speaking again.
"You are... the student that had sacrificed his life for the class, right?" Eh?
"Yes... I am. Is there something wrong or...?" With the way he looked at me with his glasses, it makes me believe that he was taken off guard or something.
"N-no! It's just that... I wasn't expecting you to be..." Oh, so this about expectations, huh? I could never understand the part of society that relies solely on the fame of others, only to be a bit disappointed when they don't look the sort.
"Listen, whatever you have to say to me can just not come out. I don't care what you were expecting me to look-"
"T-that's not it! I wasn't expecting someone who spends most of his time alone drawing and such would do such a thing! I'm not trying to sound rude at all!" He had cut me off, but his reasoning was... adequate at best.
"...Is there anything else?" After his outburst, he fixed his glasses again before speaking.
"No, there is nothing else to say. Other than... the fact that you reminded me so much of Ina-chan." Ina-chan? How exactly does he know her?
"Ina-chan? I don't remember someone with that name attending here." A lie on my part to make them believe that I know some classmates' names, but even then, he shouldn't know Ina-chan. She doesn't attend here anymore.
"A-ah, I know but... she was a rather lonely person that used to be the art clubs' president. It was sad to hear that she just... disappeared all of a sudden. I once thought the reason was because she was dealing with something with her family. And I also thought that she disappeared because Minnie-chan and I were too aggressive on her with her duties." Wait, this person was that guy I saw in Ina-chan's memories?
"I... barely knew her, so I wouldn't understand," Could I... possibly get some info on her? "But, I think I do remember seeing her from time to time alone. Did she... have a reason for that?" Maybe if I learned something about Ina-chan, it might help understand her point of view of the world.
"Ina-chan was someone that was... hard to approach. With the amount of time she spends on the pages of her book, it was kind of hard to interrupt her thinking process. She didn't talk to anyone and didn't have any friends that I know of. If anything, her disappearance was mysterious. I can't imagine how worried her family must be right now." I could only lean on the window of the hallway to my right as I listened to him.
"Hm?" As I saw a blue car stop at the gate of the school, I became interested as that car was familiar to me. As the door opened, a man came out of it, revealing-wait, is that my dad?!
"Sorry that I couldn't-" Before he spoke further, I ran past him, going into the direction of the staircase. With my eyes still focused outside, I could see my father running towards the school building with panicking movement.
-------Holonatural--------
"Dad?" After finding the correct staircase that led to the main doors, I stopped at the bottom of the stairs when I saw him looking around for rooms in the hallway. The tie that was on his neck looked all over the place, his red shirt wasn't tucked into his pants, and he was just basically breathing heavily.
"Haru!" After running at me, he hugged me as if he had just found his missing son. I was able to feel the sweat from his shirt on my face.
"Dad, I don't think now's the time for this." Backing away from me, he grabbed my shoulders before analyzing my face and arms.
"Are you okay, Haru?" With his relieved expression, I nodded my head.
"Yeah, other than the headache I have after waking up, yeah. I'm okay." His shaking breath attempted a sigh, before smiling down at me.
"That's good. I had gotten a call from the nurse that you had fallen down the stairs and left work as soon as I could. Come on, we're getting you home." With his hand on my back, he pushed me forward to start walking.
"Are you sure you should be here, dad? I mean, you must've left work in a hurry." He began to ruffle my hair a bit, before stopping to realize that I had a headache.
"Bold of you to assume that I wouldn't leave work to check on my son, Haru. You must have some low expectations of me." I sighed, before opening the main door.
-Holonatural-
"Haru, are you okay?!" After feeling the buzzing of my phone in my pocket, I looked at my text to see Kiara-chan texting me. How exactly did she know about my incident? I'm actually nervous about telling her about how exactly I fell, but...
"I'm fine, Kiara-chan." I texted. But even before I was done texting, the bubble around Kiara-chan's name was already beginning to type.
"Thank goodness! I had gotten a text from your father that you had fallen from the stairs! What happened, Haru?! And be honest with me!" I don't even need to be around her to tell that if we were in person, she would be crushing my ribs with a hug right now.
"Supernatural. Something or someone pushed me down the stairs when I didn't notice them." I couldn't hold the truth from her if I could.
"The supernatural?! Haru, are you like a magnet for danger or something?! Do I need to protect you at school, too?!" With how ridiculous that sounded, I aggressively typed back.
"What? No, Kiara-chan! If you were revealed to be part of this craziness, then who knows what will happen!"
"And if it was a problem, then I'll figure something out! Haru, if you don't have someone there to protect you, then who will? Who's going to help you if you do manage to get attacked there? You don't know how to protect yourself, and you don't know how to fight!" I... actually wanted to scream at her, but she had her points. I can't fight and I can't protect myself. If anything, the moment someone sees me get killed and revive, then I will be the one in trouble.
"And what do you suppose we do then? I'm back into a corner with everything going on with this stuff, so what do you think I should do?"
"I could... go there as a teacher, probably. I do know how to speak multiple languages." I sighed before rubbing my temples.
"Or... you could just teach me how to protect myself?" If I could learn a thing or two about this... Phoenix Feather, then I might learn something on protecting myself. However, it took a few seconds for her to respond.
"Absolutely not. As I am a Phoenix, the natural body heat that my body gives out is enough for me to sustain myself. I don't know that much as to how the feather is reacting with your body, so I don't want to risk you using anything related to it. The worst case scenario is you blowing yourself up." I sighed again.
"You talking to Kiara?" As I was still in my car, I turned to my dad.
"Yeah, she was... incredibly worried." My dad laughed in response.
"Hey, I did text her out of the blew, so no wonder she was worried. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to leave work, so I texted her to see if she could get you."
"Well... I'm actually happy that she didn't."
----------Holonatural---------
Finally home and in my room, I sat my bag down before sitting down on my chair. With everything that had happened, I was surprised that I was sane enough to keep walking right now.
Ina-chan.
Calli-san.
And that green butterfly person is out to get me. I might seriously be an attraction for these kinds of dangerous situations. What a good time to live this kind of life. Constantly hunted while at the same time of dealing with school and everything else...
Is this really something I should be happy for?
I mean, I want to make sure the world around me isn't changed by those who greedily want to, but... what am I going to do with my own life? I was so focused on how miserable I was before this change, but... how exactly how am I going to live a normal life with this going on?
"My own answer is that I can't." I breathed out a sigh of frustration. Who's to know if something else might-
"Are you talking to yourself, Haru-kun?" Spinning my chair around, I looked at my bed to see...
"I don't think I should be surprised anymore." Sitting right on my bed was Ina-chan herself, looking at me as if there was nothing wrong with this situation.
"I heard that you fell from the stairs today, Haru-kun. You should be more careful as to where you would run to next." She giggled.
"I don't think I need advice from you. I managed to lose you inside the cave, so I'd say I got a sense of evading my enemies." I noticed she was back to wearing that outfit that I had first seen her with.
"Well, I guess you have a point. But, as for your sense of surroundings, I'd say that you suck at that." She started to look around my room with interest.
"I'm sorry I can't notice you teleporting or whatever you do." I was a bit nervous as to why she was here, and how she was able to get here. It looks like whatever I do or go, she will always find me.
"You know my little Takodachi," She spoke while bringing one up in her hand out of nowhere. "I can see everything through their eyes and switch places with them. I had two that were just lucky enough to squeeze inside your bag when you weren't looking." It... happened in the art room, didn't it?
"Regardless, what is it that you need? If you're planning on taking me back there, I won't be going-" Before I could finish my sentence, I felt something wrap around my neck. It wasn't aggressive, but it was just enough for me to panic a bit.
"Without a fight? Haru-kun, you wouldn't be able to fight me, let alone win against me. If you didn't notice one of my tentacles, then who's to know what else you lack in?" It wasn't choking me, but the amount of times it wrapped around my neck was enough to make me scared as to what would happen to me.
"Then... what do you want from me? You have the strength and abilities to get anything you want, so why bother with me?" I could see her smile that words out maliciousness.
"I want to play a little game, Haru. Whether you want to or not is up to you. Are you interested?" It took me a moment before nodding my head. I might not know what it might be, but I might have the chance to figuring out as to how I can deal with her.
"Good! Now then, while it's not like a game, I would rather call it a mutual exchange. I will help and give any information needed for these artifacts that you need, only if you agree to my desire to accompany your life." What is that supposed to mean? And how exactly does she know that I was after the artifacts?
"What do you mean by that? You're just... going to follow me through my life?" It wouldn't make sense since I'm immortal.
"Something like that. We can play games together. Um... we could go to the movies together. Um... we could find the artifacts together. We can achieve world domination together..." World domination?!
"Are you being serious?!" I lowered my voice for my dad to not hear me. "Why would I join you on doing something as crazy as that?!" She laughed a bit, before waving her hand.
"I was joking! Learn to take a joke, Haru-kun!" I am not the one for jokes right now.
"Very funny. How about you tell me the actual reason you want to do this?" Even if I was afraid, I managed to show some kind of glare at her. To that, she only smiled.
"Even if I told you, you're going to have a hard time convincing me otherwise."