"Not exactly, Lydia, but a good point. While those two were indeed bloodthirsty and demonic, they were not demons. Rather, a mere Fragment of a demon was forcibly implanted into them, causing them to act like that, and giving them terrifying power."
"So...they were just possessed by a demon? That's...reassuring," replied Lydia, "But we did defeat one, right? And damaged the other one?"
"Yes and yes. Makoto here defeated Lilly's Fragment. However, she is still unconscious after the events of last night. It will be some time before she can wake up and tell us what happened to her. Hisao's Fragment was 'damaged' by Osamu here, forcing him to retreat."
"So that means we'll see him again," said Makoto, quietly. She could still remember his terrifying face, those powerful fingers locked on her friend, the blows he delivered do her body as she desperately tried to save her...
"I'm...afraid so, Makoto," said Nurse, taking note of the fear in her voice.

"Damn, we couldn't even slow down this one, and it wasn't even a real demon! As you said, it was just a possessed human. Minion or agent or whatever. An actual demon would probably be far stronger... We can't use the Lens in such a trivial fight, how are we supposed to survive through this? It's not like we get months between attacks to restock or train or upgrade our facilities... In this rate, we only get weaker and tireder."
All of those cool weapons and charms and gadgets from yesterday were incredibly helpful, but will they really be able to even the odds for long?
"It keeps like this, people are going to die", she finishes, looks around nervously and than lowers her head and quickly adds "Sorry to state the obvious like this..."
Some things are better left unsaid.

"You're exactly right Hitomi, which is why we must act now to prevent that from happening if we can.", Sousuke replied. "But we'd better act fast. With an opponent like this, surprise might be one of our strongest allies. If the enemy's leader figures out what we're up to, they'll probably put all their efforts into stopping us, and there's no way we'd be a match for them then.", he said grimly.

"Which brings me to my next question, sir.", he added in the nurse's direction. "What is our target, or objective, at the moment supposed to be exactly?"

"Like I said before, I have a theory that our true target is not a demon; rather, a human possessed with the will of a demon. To help, I've hired another student to observe the student body for any suspicious activity. In fact, he's the same student both Lydia and Hitomi encountered. Kenji?"
"Yeah!" yelled a voice from outside, "I'm out here!"
"You can come in now."
The door opened, and the boy with thick lenses and an out-of-season scarf walked inside.
"Kenji, you have the data I specified?"
"Yeah, dude, I've got stuff," he said, slapping a thick folder on Nurse's desk, "on everyone you wanted to keep tabs on, especially those girls," he said, moving in the same way as someone would while winking, but, due to his thick lenses, his actual eyes were obscured, making the gesture seem out of place.
"Right, then. Thank you, Kenji."
"A-HEM."
"Ah, yes, your 'payment'," Nurse realized, pulling out a rather large bottle of alcohol.
"Perfect," said Kenji, licking his lips in anticipation, "You're all right, Nurse. Later!"
Kenji exited the room, opening the bottle and chugging the liquor like it was water.

"Well, now we can continue," said Nurse, cautiously flipping open the folder Kenji had given him. It was rather dirty, with odd stains on one side.

"Can we... do you really think we can trust this guy? I am not questioning your judgement or anything here, it's just that a dirty, gullible, somewhat unintelligent recluse who takes payment in alcohol just doesn't seem like... You know what I mean? Like... perhaps we shouldn't give him so much important responsibility? I am not sure I'd trust him to carry my bag for me, so maybe super-secret-demon files are too much?..."
She moved uncomfortably in the chair, taking another look at everybody. Mental filters, girl. Regular people get them when they are seven years old, don't you think it's about time for you?
"I'll just shut up..."

"Super-secret-demon files?" Martin raised an eyebrow. "And yeah, is an alcoholic student fine, Nurse?"

He was amazed by the Kenji show before his eyes as well...

"Alright, so you think the culprit is someone from within the student body? I guess that makes sense, but I kind of feel the same way about this Kenji guy nurse. I've heard... things about him, and he just seems like a pretty strange character.", Sousuke added to the comments of the other two.

"That being said, I'm sure you must have decent reasons for trusting him sir. I just... don't quite understand them at the moment. Could you please enlighten us?"

"Well, to answer your questions, Kenji, despite his...odd behaviors and odder beliefs, has inadvertently developed a way to gather information without seeming like it's for anything important. To the rest of the outside world, he appears to be an individual 'spying' on students in search for a preconceived feminist threat. While no such threat exists, I can assure you, the fact that he can gather such data on an individual's location, their behavior, and who they're talking to is a key element here. A while back, I gave him some names of persons that may be our target. It may be biased in some terms, but the raw data suggests a much deeper meaning."
Nurse flipped open the folder, revealing the first student.

"Hideki Matsumoto, first-year. Wheel-chair bound due to polio. Was seen outside the main building talking in hurried tones on his mobile phone."

Nurse flipped to the next page.

"Emi Ibarazaki, third-year. Double-leg amputee due to car accident. Seen talking to Matsumoto two hours after Matsomoto's phone call."

Lydia's eyes opened wider as she heard Emi's name being called out.
"No way," she thought, "Ibarazaki? The twintailed girl who never stops running? Seems too far-fetched to me...but...could it be possible? Maybe it's all a ruse to throw us off..."

"Shiina Mikado, third-year. Uh-" Nurse paused as he tried to read the data, which was obscured by some odd, dark stains, " Ah. Seen with Shizune Hakamichi at all times during the day. Both seen late at night, walking on pathways around the gym and library buildings. Works as a translator for Hakamichi, who is both deaf and mute. Both communicate to each other via sign language. Also, Hakamichi is also listed here, for the same reasons as above."

"So, we've got four students who may or may not be demon-corrupted humans, possibly plotting to bring madness unto the world," said Makoto matter-of-factly, "Who should we target?"

"Well, that's up to you. I'd be much too obvious if I called each student down for a 'checkup.' Form teams to observe each student. Choose carefully -- your skills and abilities may be necessary to observe these students over the next few weeks."

OOC: Well, guys, it's up to the characters to decide who to track! Post who you want to take down, then pick a partner. Remember, you may be able to use your skills and abilities to your advantage. Post your decision, then we'll continue.

"Well, I know some sign language, which might be enough for me to see what Mikado and Hakamichi are talking about," said Makoto, "So I'll take a look at those two."
"That Matsumoto kid is in my class; I can see what he's up to in and around school," said Lydia.

I'd like to pair up with Lydia. I'm the brawls, she's quite some brains. I guess we're good together

"Well, I don't speak sign language. And I don't think three people would be needed to deal with a girl in a wheelchair. I guess I'll go after Ibarazaki. Hopefully she wouldn't try to run away".
I don't think I can outrun anyone here. Including Makoto, and she has no legs. No way in hell I'll be able to catch that girl if she tries to run. She never quite striked me as the clever type, though. So maybe I'll be able to trick her into talking?...

"Hmm I see. Yes, Kenji would be quite useful then wouldn't he? Anyway, I think I'll go with Hitomi then. It might well take two people to keep Ibarazaki in place and besides that, Hakamichi seems a bit intimidating to me anyway.", Sousuke replied, then got lost in thought for a moment.

The couple of run-ins I've had with her over the past few years were enough to convince me it's better to stay well out of her way... that aside, I don't know sign language so...

"Um, anyway sir, what do we do if it turns out our target is the person we're after? Obviously the first thing to do would be contacting you but is there anything else we should do when we find that out?"

Osamu lies there listening to his friends discuss their plans.

"I will remain here recovering." he says with a light laugh. "I hope you guys do well. As soon I can walk well I can probably do some sleuthing of my own."

He turns back to reading the files about the demons thinking of any possible strategies he could come up with should they get into a fight with them again.

"How could I help my friends while I am stuck here in bed?" he says to himself in a tired thought. "No use in complaining about it, can only do what you can do for the moment."

He then turns to his friends with a smile.

"I wish you all good luck, you know where to find me if you want to talk or discuss things."

"Actually, Osamu," said Nurse, "I want you to visit Ms. Satou when you can. She should be waking up in the next few days. As for the rest of you, if you do confirm that your target is the enemy, report to me as soon as you can. Be discreet; they may be on to us, but they can't do anything with witnesses present, especially in broad daylight."

Nurse closed the folder, then turned to everyone.

"Well, that's all for tonight. Please get ready for school tomorrow!"

"Yes, sir!" saluted Makoto.
"Right," said Lydia.

Hitomi checked her watch quietly. Was it too late to continue with her personal investigation? Probably. Dinner comes soon, and after that everybody would be getting ready to sleep. Not a good time for interviewing ex-lycanthropes. She didn't feel particularly hungry. It wasn't rare for her to skip dinners. Or meals, generally. Must be some kind of psychological conditioning thing, you convince yourself that eating is bad and such. Like a bulimic, except she had less of a saying about the whole physical sickness that followed. Yes, not eating wouldn't actually make her less likely to get a fit, but at least it wouldn't be as messy.
But yesterday was a hard day. And tomorrow may also be. So maybe she should eat anyway?...
She left the room without making eye contact with anybody else and started walking in the general direction of outside, hoping that she'll make a decision about it soon.
It's really a wonder how much a person can contemplate something like whether or not to eat dinner when she knows there are demons on the loose and she is partly responsible for taking care of them.

Makoto returned to her dorm, eager to rest in her own bed after several days of the rather itchy hospital ones.
"They never tell you about those kinds of things, do they?" she said to herself as she booted up her computer to work on some homework she had missed out on for that day. Yamaku's network had most, if not all of the assignments online these days, for the students who were frequently ill or otherwise unable to actually attend class. Not to mention that it was a top-grade T1 connection, thus ensuring that data could be transferred without any issues.
After finishing up, she decided to do some research on her targets.
"Both Hakamichi and Mikado are the heads of the Student Council. Not that there's much to Student Council; that Hisao character's the only other member there. There must be some connection between the two...[ic] she though as she continued.
After a few more searches, (Perception, 7) she found some surprising info. The three of them had the same homeroom together.
[ic]This could mean something. Could there be a correlation between these two and Hisao's kidnapping? I should follow this lead tomorrow," she thought, yawning as she settled in for the night.

-----------

Lydia decided to hang out a bit more after the meeting had ended to chat with Martin and Osamu.
"So, Osamu, you doing all right? This whole magic thing must be a lot for you, eh?"



OOC: Second semeter's in full swing for me! Lots of stuff going on. Apologies for the delay.

In the end, she decided to skip dinner. Food is overrated, anyway. Most people don't actually need to eat half as much as they do. Sure, you end up tiny, scrawny, and sleepy, but you can always blame genetics for that. It's not like her mother was a tall, curvy bombshell (neither was her father, and she was thankful for that). Besides, small and scrawny is beautiful in Japan, right? Yamato Nadeshiko and stuff. So no worries.
Now with a clearer purpose, she harried her pace towards the dormitories. Get a full night's sleep for a change, go to school tomorrow, interrogate Ibarazaki, then see if there's any time left for other things.

OOC: You're not the only one who's busy lately Hama, so it's fine with me.

"Right then sir, thanks for the info, and I'll be heading back to my room to get ready." With that, Sousuke left the room.

Get ready for school he says... As though he could possibly expect us to just go back to our everyday lives after being exposed to something like this. I mean, I guess we'll just have to try and do it one way or another, but this whole thing is just so ridiculous. Like we got put into someone's fantasy or something.

Once he arrived back in his room, Sousuke remembered something. Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be coordinating this effort with Hitomi aren't I? Guess I got caught up in the moment of the nurse's report and forgot to talk to her afterwards. Oh well, I'll definitely have the chance to do so tomorrow.

With that thought concluded, he quickly realized that he was getting hungry, so he decided to head in the direction of the cafeteria. Maybe if Ibarazaki herself is there, I can take it as a chance to start some preliminary observations on her. Better not get too close just yet though...

He arrived at his destination after a short while, but found that there were not too many people there anymore. He figured that's what he got for winding up being lost in thought for so long, in retrospect. He headed towards the food line.

Martin clearly was interested in Osamu's answer to Lydia's question.

How did Osamu do all that stuff anyway... a road from a crippled student to a magic hero thingy. Woah!

He nods to Nurse.

"Understood."

Then Osamu turns to Lydia as she asks her question.

"So far it has been an interesting experience. There are times where I see everything around me at once and times where I can sense things around me. I am still trying to get a grasp of it all still. By no means I am mastering it yet, more like acting as a vessel in a way." he says as he turns to look at them. "There are still things I need to learn without hopefully killing myself in the process. The guardian that resides in my mind is ensuring that at least. There were a few times I nearly lost it out there."

He then shows them the scar on his right hand when he did the blood pact. Slowly the black marble comes out from it.

"That marble is how I talk to the guardian. Weird huh?"

He then reabsorbs the marble back into his hand.

"With time I should be able to cast spells properly and with more focused control, and not act like a puppet to this power. Maybe I will get a better understanding of it all. All I know is I carry in my mind ancient knowledge that I am still trying to figure out."

He then looks at Martin.

"I heard you were a tinkerer of some sorts. Maybe once this is all over we can start an Engineering club or something for the school. Always good to see others doing that stuff. But anyways, you both better head off and get some rest. You know where to find me if you ever need to talk. I don't plan on walking anytime soon."

She took another shower, made some final "pre-sleep preparations", took her medicines like a nice girl who wouldn't like to have another seizure during her sleep, and went to bed, hoping that this time she'll be able to fall asleep quickly and that she won't dream about anything too mentally scarring.
At least the Nurse implied that the next few days won't be as frantic as the last few. Fighting monsters may be a little more bearable if you get a full night's sleep once in a while while you are at it.