Chapter Text
"Well this kid isn't creepy at all." Minato floated beside his sister, both of them staring at the strange boy at the counter. He asked the brunette to sign her name on the sign in sheet. Hamuko signed her name as the strange boy had asked. But then the mysterious child did something strange. He looked Minato in the eyes.
"Would your brother care to sign as well?" This was strange for two reasons. One, Hamuko and Minato looked nothing alike, there was no way someone could assume they were siblings just by looking at them. Two, Minato was dead. A ghost. Only Hamuko could see him.
So as a logical reaction, both twins said similar things.
"You can see him?" Hamuko asked.
"You can see me?" Minato asked.
"I can see him." The boy said.
Minato, too stunned for words, just picked up a pen and signed his name. Hamuko on the other hand wasn't letting that go. She asked the boy a flurry of questions, none of which were answered. "How can you see him? Why are you in this dorm? How old are you?" The boy simply smiled and picked up the sign in sheet.
"No one can escape time. It delivers us all to the same end. You can't plug your ears and cover your eyes." A flick of the wrist, and the sheet had disappeared. "And so it begins." The boy disappeared as well, enveloped by the darkness.
"What the fuck." Minato said.
"We've seen weirder." Hamuko said.
"Who's there?" Said a girl, voice filled with alarm.
~•~
"What a weird fucking night." Minato floated next to his sister again, parallel to the ground this time as she lay in bed.
Said sister decided it was time for some snark. "First the midnight thingy happened again, that 12 year old prison escapee could see you and vaguely threatened us, and then we nearly got shot. I thought it went rather well!"
"You forgot the part where you had a gay panic over the redhead. Kirijo-senpai, right?" He fired back his own snark.
"I can't help it! Have you seen her?" Hamuko huffed.
Minato rolled his eyes, but let the topic drop. "How'd they get guns in the first place? This isn't the US. You can't just buy them at the supermarket. You think our dorm has Yakuza ties?"
"Ughh. I don't care right now. I'm tired. Shut up and go to sleep."
"I'm a ghost."
"Do it anyway."
"Fine. I'm gonna explore the dorms."
~•~
The train to school was fairly uneventful, even if Minato's commentary and Takeba's presence kept Hamuko from taking the nap her music was trying to lull her into. She hadn't gotten as much sleep last night as she had wanted. She had almost felt like she was being watched.
The rest of her day passed without much incident, just reading syllabi and having her teachers either give an overview of the course or scold the class for using their youth wrong. In one case, the teacher just infodumped about samurai. She slept through most of it. He didn't notice.
Finally, the last bell rang. "Thank god. If I had to read one more syllabus I would've died a second time." Minato commented from beside his sister's desk.
"You could always go somewhere else and stop bothering me." She whispered, to not seem crazy. She began gathering her things as her brother responded.
"You know what happens when I go too far from you." She did, in fact, know this. That he felt like his soul was draining away when he was too far from her. Like he was about to pass on. It was something neither of them was ready for.
Hamuko sighed. "I already have enough trouble focusing on class without you talking in my ear the entire time." She still spoke in whispers, careful not to let the living hear.
Before Minato could respond, a voice came from behind Hamuko.
"Sup dude?" A boy wearing a baseball cap and a relaxed grin walked up to her desk. "Haha, you look like a deer in headlights."
Hamuko was suspicious. People never walk up to her for no reason. And that intro wasn't the most reassuring. "Who are you? What do you want?" She asked.
"Me?" The boy looked momentarily taken aback. She felt a little bad. But his smile was back as quickly as it had gone. "I'm Junpei Iori. Nice to meet ya. I transferred here when I was in 8th grade. I know how tough it is being the new kid. So I thought I'd check up on you, make sure you weren't freaking out on your first day."
That was a lot to take in, but as soon as she processed it, she realized it was actually very kind. She blinked. She genuinely had not expected that. Minato seemed to have the same reaction.
"Huh, I was expecting him to try to hit on you." Her brother's running commentary was unhelpful as ever.
Hamuko heard someone sigh, and then start talking behind her. She recognized this voice as Takeba's. "At it again, huh? Honestly, is there any girl you wouldn't hit on?"
"Nevermind, I guess he is." Minato continued being a nuisance.
"Did you ever think you might be bothering someone?" Takeba definitely had history with this guy.
"What? But I was just bein' friendly."
Hamuko was thoroughly excluded from the conversation at this point. So she decided to interrupt. "Actually, he was just checking up on me. He said he knew what it was like to be a transfer. It was pretty nice of him."
Iori grinned again. "Finally! I've got someone to vouch for me. Yuka-tan always assumes the worst."
"That's because you're usually up to the worst." Takeba fired back.
Honestly, both twins were having a hard time keeping up. Hamuko zoned out until she heard Iori ask her a question.
"By the way, do you guys know each other? I heard you two came to school together this morning. A couple of cuties like you, walking side by side… The whole class was buzzing about you."
There goes the goodwill Hamuko had for him. Might as well be snarky about it.
"Yeah, she pulled a gun on me the night we met."
Takeba's eyes widened, and she laughed awkwardly. "Haha, very funny Arisato!" Her expression and tone didn't match her words. She looked mad.
Iori just looked confused. As he opened his mouth to ask a question, a commanding voice called from the doorway. "Takeba. Come with me. Now."
Hamuko turned so fast it gave her whiplash. "Oh! Hi Kirijo-senpai!" Her face lit up, and her brother took notice.
"Gayass." He said simply
Kirijo blinked, and nodded at her after an awkward pause. "Arisato." Takeba sighed and walked with her senpai away from the classroom. Hamuko visibly deflated.
"You're such a disaster." Sometimes she hated her brother.
~•~
Several nights later, frantic knocking rang out at the dorm door in the middle of the night.
"Hamuko, you've got company." Came Minato's voice.
"I can hear, dipshit." Hamuko groaned in response.
The aforementioned girl got up to answer the door, hastily throwing on her uniform. A very elegant, definitely not sleep-addled "huh?" escaped her lips when the door opened to reveal Yukari.
"Come with me right now." The urgency in her voice shook Hamuko from sleep. "Take this." She handed the other girl a naginata. Hamuko just stared at it until Yukari grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the room and down the stairs.
"Add 'Dorm mate handing you a weapon.' to the list of weird things that have happened at this new school." Minato floated beside the two fleeing girls, seemingly lounging on a non-existent chair. His sister neglected to respond. She didn't want Yukari to think she was crazy.
"What are we running from?" Hamuko asked as they reached the back entrance. Her question was answered almost immediately with a thud that shook the entire building coming from the door. Yukari's eyes widened in fear. "That! Run back upstairs!"
Hamuko internally thought "I just ran down them, will you make up your mind?" But outwardly said "Oh shit.", then ran back up the stairs.
The unidentified menace chased them all the way to the roof, Minato following along, seemingly unfazed. They closed the door behind them. It was there that Hamuko and Minato recognised the green sky and giant moon. Midnight had come.
"There… we should be… safe…" Yukari panted, out of breath.
"The sky is... green again." Hamuko was equally out of breath, despite being in fair athletic condition.
"Again? You've seen this before?" Yukari looked surprised.
Hamuko nodded. "Every night." She didn't always stay up until midnight, but ever since she could remember, Minato had seen it.
Before Yukari could reply, there was a slimy, wet, sticking sound in tandem with the sound of metal against concrete. Repeatedly. In alarmingly increasing frequency and volume. Until finally, a blue mask attached to an oily black head and neck appeared over the edge of the roof. This was swiftly accompanied by a worrying amount of hands wielding knives attached to the creature. It scuttled forward towards the girls.
Yukari drew her gun, and to the twins' dismay, aimed it at her own head. She hesitated with a finger on the trigger, shaking all the while. The creature grew closer until one of its attacks knocked her back, causing the gun to fly from her hand. The gun landed in a pool of red liquid Hamuko really hoped wasn't blood. She picked the gun up. There was no way she could kill that thing. But she didn't want to be on the receiving end of those knives. This would be painless. She aimed the gun at her head, and fired.
Minato disappeared. Orpheus appeared.
"Holy shit Hamuko, what did you just do, why am I this?" Orpheus' voice called. "I-" he was cut off by his own scream of pain as his body was ripped apart from the inside to reveal a monster shrouded in coffins.
The new creature let out a roar, drew a blade, and viciously tore into the black ooze, spraying a viscous black liquid everywhere. It was disgusting. The entire process took less than a minute, and when it was done, the monster squeezed one of the black ooze's limbs until it popped with a sickening squelch, before letting out a roar and fading away. Orpheus was revealed underneath once more, looking horrified as a mouthless entity can be.
Then Hamuko passed out.