==Team 1: Tsugumi and Susuki==

"So, let's review the first rumour," began Susuki, striding down the hallway toward the back exit of the school building. "A group of students have claimed that there is, quote, 'a ghostly rustling' from amongst the waste bags around the back of the school when students go to visit the bike racks. Reports also claim that students who go to investigate disappear for long periods of time and when they return they have an otherworldly expression on their faces. Food has also been going missing. Do you have any thoughts on this, Tsugumi-kun?"

"I'm not sure how much I want to lend credence to unsubstantiated rumours, Susuki-senpai..." she sighed.

"Yet you're part of the occult club? It did strike me as unusual that 2-B's honour student was attending such a... niche club."

"You don't have to bring that up..." pouted Tsugumi. "I spend most of my time in the club studying anyway, or listening to the details about whatever baseball game Yuuna watched recently, also while studying."

"So you're saying you find this all a bit-"

"Illogical?" Tsugumi intervened. "A little bit. Oh, uh, sorry for interrupting." She tipped her head.

"Oh, it's no worry. I have my own reasons for being here too."

The two of them passed along the covered pathway to the bike racks. The sun was already setting, so the ring of trees surrounding the school boundary was alive with the sound of restfully chirping cicadas. One of them had come to sit on the streetlamp, the light of which strengthened in contrast as the minutes wound by.

"Is it that set of bags over there?" asked Tsugumi, gesturing to some black bags that were strewn a short distance from the streetlamp in the shadows.

"Yes, that looks to be the case."

"...Which of us is going to approach?"

"I was planning to, but it's not fair of me to take away an occult club member's chance to potentially encounter the occult, so... rock, paper, scissors?"

"S-Sure."

They dealt their hands, with Tsugumi throwing paper and Susuki rock, leading to a victory that Tsugumi didn't seem entirely satisfied with.

"Well, it's not quite tarot cards, but we've come to decision," Susuki stated. "Whenever you're ready, Tsugumi-kun."

Tsugumi began to creep toward the bags, away from the safety of the bike rack and the light. With each step, her movement slowed, and when she was within metres of the bags, the first rustle burst from the pile, causing her to freeze in place.

"It's not real, it's not real..." she repeated to herself. Maintaining that mantra, she continued forward. "Why did I join the occult club... I could have just gone to the library after school and studied there..."

With the black sheen of the bags being all that betrayed the darkness' looming presence, Tsugumi thought back on her decision. "But Shintaro... he'll be there when I get back. If all it takes to see him again is doing this... then I can manage." She adjusted her glasses as she made the final few steps toward the rustling, which was now more vigorous and violent, the shattering of bottles stalling Tsugumi's hand but not stopping it anymore. Her hand hovered ever closer until it made contact, and the sound came to an abrupt end.

"Meow," said the pile.

Then a cat popped out. A familiar calico cat.

The cat we saw at Shintaro's apartment? What is it doing so far away?

It approached Tsugumi and sniffed her hand, and, realising she had no food, hissed and leaped away, picking up and carrying a half-eaten fish in its mouth.

Tsugumi looked depressed at herself for even being convinced that something scary or supernatural might have been there.

"I supposed the reason people disappeared for so long when coming here was to coddle it and give it food..." she lamented, withdrawing her now limp hand.

"Otherworldly expression, was it? I do get like that with cats sometimes," reflected Susuki. "That's one rumour debunked."

==Team 2: Shigenori and Yuuna==

"Ugh, you again..." groaned Yuuna.

"Likewise..." responded Shigenori.

Keeping some distance between them, their lumbering footsteps echoed down the empty evening hallway as they walked.

"Excuse me?" she leaned in toward him, prompting him to flinch and curl himself into a ball. 

"You're useful at least, I'll give you that after last time," she chuckled. "Besides, you know way more than me about this supernatural crap, so if any of these rumours do end up being true, I'm trusting you to, uh, delve into the unknown on my behalf."

"Rumours are indeed the natterings of a layperson," posited Shigenori, "but I think any sort of information, evident or no, should be investigated. We did not discover what was unknown to us by just sitting around comfortably with what we already knew to be true. Unless any of those claims are about ghosts. Because that would be ludicriously unfounded."

Double standards much?"

"Fair enough, knock yourself out. What was the one we're checking out again?"

"Ahem... The raincoat devil," uttered Shigenori in an exaggerated, deep voice. The act made Yuuna stop in her tracks and fire him a perplexed look.

"Y'know, your whole thing about believing and investigation almost, and I emphasise the almost, sounded cool until you said that."

"Say what you may, the raincoat devil is a well-documented rumour in schools. I doubt so many people could be delusional about the same entity across the whole of Japan without it actually existing. I personally believe it may well be an alien sighting, given how effective of a full-body disguise it would be."

"Or... it could just be that a lot of people wear raincoats."

"...Maybe. But what if there is a raincoat devil? That is what we are here, as the occult club on official business, to investigate."

You're not even in the club. And stop saying 'investigate'.

"Unless of course by devil they mean a ghost. Then I might begin to entertain mass hysteria as the reason."

So devils and aliens are forgivable, but still not ghosts?

==Team 3: Fushigi and Shintaro==

("An investigation? Who are we investigating?")

(Well, uh, you see, it's... Me...)

("You? Should I tell them to stop then because you're here?")

(No, no, definitely don't do that. We just need to find a way to divert anything that might give me away. Lips sealed.)

I made zipping gesture over my lips and Shintaro awkwardly did the same, wondering what on earth it meant.

Usually, it's my job to keep Shintaro's secret... why does the role reversal have to happen now?

A song blurted out from beside me and I was reminded that Fushigi had joined us. She flapped around and grabbed her phone, silencing it.

"Oop, hehe. Uh, ignore that."

Before I had a chance to process it, Ghazam, my handy spiritual lyric recognition, kicked in: 'Monster' by Reol.

Fushigi was pinching and running her fingers down her bangs, lips pursed, as if expecting a negative reaction out of Shintaro. Instead, a reaction even I didn't expect came instead. 

"That is... um..."

Struggling, Shintaro fidgeted until he was able to remove his phone from his pocket. He opened it with his fingerprint and swiped through it until he found what he was looking for, presenting it to Fushigi.

"This woman?"

There was a screen displaying an image of Reol on the artist page above a selection of songs that Shintaro had already listened to.

"I like her music a lot. It was recommended to me by this device because of Shintaro's past listening trends."

"You listen to her too?" Fushigi asked, connecting her fingers behind her back and tilting her body forward as if creating a question mark with her pose.

"Yes."

There was a glint of a different nature in Fushigi's eye for a second, but then she regained her composure, if you could call it that.

"Hah, yeah, I mean, everyone must know about her by now. It's not like I'm a fan, I just changed my ringtone to something recognisable to hide my real tastes. Moldovan brass band music and Romanian doina is a bit much for the uninitiated. Have to protect their poor eardrums."

She spun on the spot and fired some finger guns down the hallway.

"Our rumour is 'toilet ghost'. Flattering, right?"

"There is a spirit of a toilet? Are toilets sentient? Can they die?" asked Shintaro

"I wish, I'd love to meet a dead toilet."

("Nare, are you a toi-")

(Finish asking that and I'll make you dead.)

On our way to the toilets in question, we strolled by the classroom that the girls' sports teams use for changing, and a certain scent caught my attention. The obscured fragrance of lycoris... I could barely make it out, but it was there. I wondered if it was me who had left it behind, but I would have known if it was me.

("Are you not coming with us, Nare?")

(I am, just give me a second.)

I opened the door without thinking, and Fushigi spotted it moving of its own accord.

"Maybe our ghost isn't in the toilet after all. Wasn't this where Susuki was saying she had her clothes taken? Smart place to look, Shintaro. Galaxy brain move."

Shintaro nodded reflexively, but he hurried toward me as I ventured further inside. Not long after the door had opened, I noticed the curtains jostle on the far side of the room. A chilling breeze filtered across, the desks lit with evening glare, and stray papers from the day were disturbed from their sleep.

So... this search wasn't as fruitless as I first thought. Is someone really on to me already?

"Shintaro? Anything unusual happening?" called Fushigi from outside.

"...No. Everything is usual. Don't be alarmed."

("Nare, is anything unusual happening?")

(Not right now. Although I guess there is one thing.)

("What is it? Are we under threat?")

(That wind that came through the room a moment ago...)

("Oh, it was just wind. I thought you were used to living on Earth, where there is wind all the time.")

(No, no the wind itself isn't unusual. It's the fact the window isn't open.)

Fushigi tilted her head to the side like a puppy.

(Let me handle this, Shintaro. Any longer in here and Fushigi will wonder what's happening, or worse, think you've gone insane. I'll meet you in the toilets in a few minutes, stall her in there if you can.)

("Stall her in what way?")

(Say something about there being ghosts in there. You should have a lot of practise about seeing ghosts now, being around me all the time.)

("I see. I will distract her.")

"Fushigi, I will tell you about gothic lemon DNA, follow me."

"Sounds epic."

With Shintaro escorting Fushigi out of the room, I lifted the curtain to the side and gazed at my reflection in the window. I scrunched my nose, twitched my eyes, pulled on my cheeks, and it mimicked every move I made. And it was this fact that made me wary. Ghosts don't have reflections.

It warped into an ashen face and peered back at me, inset with piercingly playful yellow eyes and a mop of green hair tied into high pigtails by golden bows. There was no way the being before me was human, and I was all too familiar with the nature of what I was seeing...

"To think that there really was another spirit in the school," I said. "You've caused a lot of trouble for me, you know."

She floated out from inside the window, checking that the coast was clear. 

"Don't worry, you're not tied to anyone here, at least, as far as I can tell, so I'm the only one that can see you... Wait, why am I reassuring you? Would you care to explain what's been going on here? I was almost caught."

"Wasn't that your own fault?" the other spirit mentioned. "Going physical and stealing human clothing for a disguise? There'd be hell to pay if I reported it." She folded her arms.

"W-W.. You know I'm a story spirit? Okay, okay I take it back, just please don't say anything. How do you know this much? Are you with a different branch sent to spy on me? An agent of the Grand Storyteller?"

"Nope."

Thank goodness...

"Nothing special, really. I wanted to be a story spirit too," she stated, pulling back the hair covering her cheeks and revealing a barcode-like tattoo, the same one that I had on my face, which I instinctively showed by copying the action. "As you can see, I got pretty far in the process."

"What made you change your mind?" I asked, sitting down on one of the chairs and lolling my head back on the rest. 

"Honestly? Just seeing how manufactured everything was." She floated down to my level. "Nothing felt natural. Everything felt like it existed to be broken, or to be seen through, or manipulated. I don't think I wanted to live an afterlife like that. I mean, you must have had doubts, right? Maybe you still do?"

"...Did you come here to convince me to quit?" I catechized, turning to look her in the eye.

"No, no, nothing like that. I was just passing through and realised that I'd wandered straight into a story scenario. I was curious. To see what kind of story spirit might be here. To see who'd chosen that life"

"Well, here I am. That spirit is me."

"So, did you?"

"Did I...?"

"Have any doubts, or regrets."

"I... I did, once. Quite heavily," I admitted with reluctance.

"And what made you keep going as a story spirit?"

"That's a story from a long time ago."

"Tell ittt," she demanded, balling her hands, her eyes dewy with anticipation.

"I... haven't got time."

"Yes, you do. How long this chapter ends up being is your decision. You can't weasel your way out of this one, I know how this business works."

"But this story isn't about me."

"Who said it isn't? That's why I couldn't handle being a story spirit. Every story has more than just one side to it. I can't be in charge of one part knowing that there's so much more going on around me."

"Damn it, fine. But can I at least tell the story in a new chapter?"

"...Alright."