he Kyôto University is ranked among the top universities of the world, but classes became considerably more boring after just a few weeks of adjustment to the new environment. Japanese literature is, after all, not a very demanding subject and requires only interest and the willingness to have read a library’s worth of books at the end of one’s life. Thus, for a person who already started reading many of the required books from a young age, out of pure interest, the course offers plenty free time. There was the option to skip ahead in the curriculum and try oneself on the required readings of the coming years, but few were willing to do so. Acceptable results in exams could be achieved without preparation at all and when studying for them, the outcome was almost always a perfect score. However, that results in a slump; interest in the academics begin to decline and one soon starts to look for excitement outside one’s own field of study. Oftentimes that marks the beginning of when one's grades drop, as the dwindling amount of interest is proportional to the time spent studying for exams.

I was in this kind of slump after only three weeks into the first term, something that usually took other people much longer; either it was proof that my personality lacked the diligence oftentimes ascribed to the Japanese people as a whole or I was that much of a genius – at least I seemed to have the inborn attribute of a genius to slack off whenever it was important. It did not help that I actually came from Tôkyô and did not know anybody in my courses; nobody would straighten me out like my friends did in high school or my parents did at home. In either case, I was aware of the upcoming exams and doing my best to ignore them while pursuing my hobbies.

Ever since I was small I had an interest in the supernatural, especially in Yôkai and Yûrei; the stories my grandmother had told me when I was just a little child had instilled fear but also excitement in me. From Manga to modern books and soon classic literature, I was soaking up the knowledge about the spiritual world instead of the uninteresting things taught in school. I could be considered an expert in the field of Japanese mythology and folklore, but nowadays only black on white grades and certificates counted; therefore, my parents forced me into a field of study in which I could turn my excessive – and probably useless to the modern society – knowledge into a profession. Obviously, my interests lay elsewhere, as I did not feel that I had to prove anything to anyone; I was simply interested and wanted to know more, preferably down to every single detail.

However, I had no illusions about the world I was trying to explore; Yôkai and Yûrei do exist in reality and are but means to explain phenomena in an age when science was still insufficiently advanced to do so. With the scientific revolution of humanity came the decline of mythology and folklore, and as an interesting concept I pursued states, “as less people believe in them, their powers dwindled and soon they vanished into their own world”. The romantic implications of this statement were not lost on me, despite my sober understanding of the fact that it was but wishful thinking. Even if they left to their own world, as long as it had no interaction with the human world, their existence had as much impact on reality as the existence of aliens who avoided Earth’s detection.

Certainly, I was stupefied to read about the “Sealing Club” in the list of extracurricular activities, when I was looking for something to do to lift me from my understandable but unnecessary slump. The club description read that it was a club for necromancers, and I wondered why the university would allow for the existence of something that sounded so fishy. Yet, I felt attracted to the idea and there were little other choices of interest; even though I liked sports, I did not feel like joining the competitive clubs that chanted about winning – and nothing else - and I was already in a literary field of study, so the literature or cultural clubs were, despite meeting my interests, not a choice I would consider. Due to my excessive free time after class, in which other people had to quickly skim the books I had already read many years ago, I decided that taking a look at the “Sealing Club” would do no harm. I could always walk away if it was a gathering of weird people who tried to summon an army of skeletons or believed that Aleister Crowley could be found in their family tree in the form of a name blotted out by a coffee stain.

The club room was at the end of a hallway, which resembled a gallery of rejects; all the clubs were lined up in descending popularity, starting with the Traditional Art Appreciation Club, followed by several avant-garde topics with the word “club” attached to it, no matter how unfitting that seemed. Finally, I stood before a door which looked like it led into a broom closet. There was no classroom sign adorning the wall but instead what seemed to be a piece of scrap paper was pasted onto the door to signal to the unlikely seeking that this was indeed the room of the “Sealing Club” they were looking for. This certainly made a bad first impression and I had to wonder what kind of people would lower their standards to accept such an environment to spend their extracurricular activities in. Though, somehow I was not surprised that the club in question did not provide any humane facilities, considering its description.

However, I was wrong about the people attending the club, just about as right as my first impression of the room had been. Upon knocking on the door, a female’s voice answered and I turned the doorknob that had - judging by the creaking sound it made - completely rusted hinges, to find exactly what I had expected about the room; it seemed to be a better broom closet, only that there were no cleaning utensils. The owner of the voice that had answered the door was a blonde girl wearing a purple dress with white frills and a bonnet. She was sitting on a standard issue university chair and reading a book of which the content could not be judged by the cover. Her appearance was normal, as opposed to expectations; in fact she was quite beautiful and as a foreigner was instantly engraved in my memories. She continued to read the book without looking up at the person who had just entered the room, apparently not interested in whoever it was. My first thought was that she was the sole member of the club, but a club could not exist on one member alone, unless that was the explanation for the clearly lacking facility she had been given.

Despite the size of the room, it was full of books, folders and files, many of them labeled with names of places or mythological beings. It instantly piqued my interest, considering it was my field of study; the club’s description appeared to be misleading, since not a single object of occult could be found in the room. Sometime after my eyes had been wandering about the backs of the books and compilations found on the cramped shelves, the girl closed her book and turned her purple gaze towards me. Our eyes met and without a word, she stood up from her chair and walked over to the only table in the room, on which an ancient monitor, the likewise ancient desktop and an old printing machine shared the space with piles of unsorted loose paper sheets and two cups of cold coffee. From this observation, I concluded that there might be at least one more member in the club. The blonde girl lifted a few sheets of paper and folders before finding what she had been looking for; approaching me unabashedly, she held out the single sheet of copy paper, filled with lines of printed text. Apparently it was the club application form, as her formerly expressionless face lit up in a slight smile when I took the paper in a dumbfounded manner.

Again, without a word, she sat back down on her chair and picked up the book at the same place she had been reading previously. The whole chain of actions had taken less than a minute, but I felt overwhelmed by what had happened just now. Lifting the white sheet of paper to take a closer look, I realized that it was not an application form; it was a questionnaire, in multiple choice format no less. The questions and possible answers were more than curious and I found myself reading them all, disregarding the occasional glance from the blonde girl.

They read:

1. If you could travel back in time, to what time would you go?

[a.] Asuka Period.

[b.] Heian Period.

[c.] Kamakura Period.

[d.] Edo Period.

2. If you could choose to interview a mythological being, which would it be?

[a.] A Vampire.

[b.] An Oni.

[c.] A Yôkai.

[d.] A Kami.

3. If you found a mythological being, would you:

[a.] Create a cult around it

[b.] Try to make society accept it

[c.] Make it into a pet

[d.] Begin a friendship with it?

4. A nearby shrine is torn down in your neighborhood, what are your thoughts?

[a.] I am sad for the historical and cultural value that disappears with it.

[b.] I feel sympathetic for the Kami who loses its place of worship.

[c.] I fear that it will invite ill fortune into the neighborhood.

[d.] I don’t feel anything in particular.

5. If you knew there was a world different from ours, what would you do?

[a.] Try to go there.

The last question was especially interesting, considering that it spoke volumes about the creator of this questionnaire. From this sheet alone I had been captivated by this “Sealing Club” and decided to join it, but first I would have to seriously consider everything I read so far and choose the answers.

While I made my choices, I stopped feeling the glances of the blonde girl, as she returned to being immersed in her book again. When I finished, I handed over the sheet and was met with a purple gaze; the girl looked as if she was assessing me before turning to look at the answers I had provided. Her eyes skimmed the page and it seemed that she came to a conclusion from the information she gained through my responses to the unusual questions. She walked over to the cramped table and pulled out another sheet of paper; this time it was the club registration form.

“Hello, my name is Maribel Hearn. As the president I welcome you to the Sealing Club.”

I had not been able to hear her voice clearly earlier when it had to pass questionably solid wood, but she finally spoke in a neutral-cheerful tone. It had a ring to it that could not be found in people who had grown up with the Japanese language from birth, even though she spoke free of any accent. I found it to be enjoyable and did not mind listening to it some more, as she continued.

“Please fill out that form; then we can start with the club activities. Ren-chan will be coming soon.”

For one reason or another I felt that her way to pronounce words and phrases reminded me of somebody, but I simply could not put my finger on it; maybe it was just my imagination or I was over-thinking things. I quickly filled in the registration form and handed it to Maribel, confirming my enrolment in this small but surely interesting club. The blonde girl took the sheet and once again skimmed it, like she had done with the questionnaire before.

“So your name is Kagami Kyôma. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, I’m looking forward to your contributions to this club.”

Fitting for her apparent foreign nature, Maribel did not bow but instead gave me a charming smile and held out a hand for me to shake. Before I could do so, the door behind me was slammed open, causing the door knob to hit me in the waist full force. It propelled me forward and sent me falling right toward the blonde girl before me, but no comical scene where I would push her down or bury my face in her chest occurred; she sidestepped skillfully and I dropped to the floor without anything to hold onto.

The person who had just entered the room causing the unfolding of this unfortunate event was a girl around the age of Maribel. A black hat was adorning her dark brown hair and she wore a white shirt, tied with a red necktie, and a black skirt with white frills. Her black leather shoes stepped into the room resolutely and very nearly trampled me.

“Huh, weren’t you just talking to somebody, Merry?”

Her words implied that she had not noticed me in my miserable state, lying on the floor holding my painful waist. Before she could step onto me, Maribel stopped her and pointed down at me; from the astonished response from the other girl I gathered that she really had not realized that she had just knocked down the latest member of this club. The newcomer held out her hand and I took it; she pulled me up with more strength than I would have expected of her slender body. Her demeanor showed that she was an energetic girl and probably less composed, compared to the club leader.

“Hi, I’m Usami Renko. Nice to meet you! Sorry for that, does it hurt?”

The girl finally introduced herself and performed a quick bow, during which her hat swayed dangerously but did not drop off her head. Renko then proceeded to greet Maribel with a hug, which was accepted reservedly with an apologetic smile directed at me. Replying with a resigned sigh, I gestured that I was fine.

It seemed that all members were now gathered and would begin club activities, whatever they might be; I half expected it to be a club that read obscure literature and gathered little known sources about Japanese folklore and mythology. However, reality betrayed my expectations, as the three of us would set out to visit a location dubbed by Maribel and Renko as “a point of interest for the supernatural”. In fact, they provided me with a choice among several of such places. It appeared that my preferences were being tested.

The choices lay between the Hôryû-ji, Kasuga Shrine, the Tôdai-ji and the Hashiderahôjô-in, all of them very old Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines. I realized that all choices were in places that took at least an hour to reach, but it was still not that late a time to wonder about heading out to somewhere far away. Especially since we were students, whom I assumed were all living on their own and had no curfew to observe.