“So yeah. That’s how Shinki got us out of the slammer.”

Shitto let out a sigh of relief, then began to unwrap the bandages that were around him.

“Hey! You sure you should be doing that, Shitto?!?!”

“It’s fine. Shippai came and fixed me up.”

“Oh.”

Shitto began to put on his clothes from behind the curtain. As he took a turn around the cover of the curtain, he smiled and waved at Yami.

“Well, how do I look?”

“Um, how do I put this…”

Yami drew a line across his left cheek.

“You got a scar like this!”

Shitto reached up and touched his cheek. Sure enough, he felt the raised skin on his cheek. It had a jagged appearance, and travelled diagonally from near his earlobe close to his mouth.

“Honestly, Shitto, it looks kinda badass.”

“Does it?” Shitto chuckled. “Let’s go.”

Rikai’s phone read 11:31 p.m. as she sat on her bed, clutching her pillow. She turned her head to look out her window, allowing the warm yet mysterious moonlight to flow directly into her eyes. Looking back down at her phone, she clicked the middle button at the bottom, unlocking the phone and allowing her to open an icon that had a mail logo. About to tap a conversation labelled “Shinki”, Rikai paused to glance at a conversation labelled “Yami”. In the conversation bubble, it read:

Recent Message: Yami, we really need you at….

Tapping “Shinki”, Rikai began to furiously peck at her phone with her fingertips. As she hit “send”, her message was delivered to Shinkai.

Rikai: Hey Shinki, can I talk to you about Yami?

Shinki: What’s up?

Rikai: Well, I went to visit him today, and me and him got into an argument. I don’t think we’re friends anymore…

Shinki: I don’t think that’s the case at all!

Rikai made a face of bewilderment at her phone.

Rikai: What makes you say that?

Shinki: When I went to get him out of jail today, he didn’t seem angry about you at all. He seemed frustrated with the circumstances, if anything.

Rikai smiled.

Rikai: I’m SO happy to hear that! But wait, what was that you said about getting him out of jail?

Shinki: I didn’t get him out of jail, but I convinced my father to drop the charges.

Rikai: Who’s your father?

Shinki: The mayor.

Rikai’s jaw dropped.

Rikai: Well, thank you for getting him out!

Shinki: No problem!

Rikai began to set her phone aside as she felt it buzz in her hand. Turning it on again, she saw that the conversation continued.

Shinki: Since we’re on the topic of boys, who are you going to homecoming with?

Rikai: I was actually hoping that Yami would ask me. Why do you ask?

Shinki: Just curious. Good night!

Beep beep beep

Yami hit his alarm clock. Groggily doing the same routine as normal, Yami began to walk out of his house.

“Yo!”

Shitto waved to Yami from down the sidewalk. Yami walked up to him and they continued down the sidewalk together.

“I can’t believe we got two weeks off from that incident. Knowing Sifuku, we’re lucky to get holidays off!”

“Shitto, our teacher died, and the halls and classrooms needed to be repaired.”

“Oh, right. I guess I’ve never had to go through that before.”

“Neither have I, until now.”

They continued walking along, petting the dogs and stopping to wait for Rikai as normal, yet Rikai was nowhere to be found.

“She must be sick. Let’s keep going, Yami.”

“Yeah.”

“I hope she’s okay…”

Entering their classroom, Yami saw the back of Rikai’s head and ran up to her.

“Hey, you didn’t walk with us today?”

“No, I didn’t feel like it today.”

Offput by this response, Yami rubbed the back of his neck.

“Ah, I see. Well, I’ll talk to you later, I guess.”

“See ya.”

“Sorry, Yami. I just need to think about some stuff.”

As the final bell for the day rang, Yami walked into Posche’s room. Setting his bags on a table, he walked into a closet, leading into the library of the Jinsei no Hogo. Grabbing a book from a shelf and walking out of the door, Yami locked the door behind him. Placing the book in his bag, he saw Posche walk into the classroom.

“Hey, Mr. P. I heard you needed to speak with me?”

“Yes. I have found some very troubling news.”

“Well? What is it?”

“One moment.”

Posche began typing on his keyboard, opening webpage.

“Take a look at this, Yami.”

Yami sat in the chair that Posche had just risen from. Looking at the webpage, there was an Eye of Horus. There was a lack of text.

“What is so special about this website, Mr. P?”

“Take a look at the source code.”

Pressing F12 on the keyboard, a panel full of HTML code appeared on the screen. Unphased, Yami began scrolling through the code.

“You’re right. There’s far too much code for just this image. If you look here, there’s all sorts of random text.”

“Yes. But if you look in the document, it’s hidden by the background of the page. Try highlighting the text.”

Dragging his mouse across the webpage, the text began to appear highlighted. As it began to become more highlight, Yami gulped.

“Now delete the image.”

Deleting the code that called for the image on the webpage allowed the highlighted text to become complete. It read:

Shifuku Mayor knows something that we don’t

“So there you have it Yami. The Shifuku Mayor knows something that we don’t.”

“What am I supposed to do about it? And why does this matter to us?”

“This website was posted on a forum that fellow echoes use. I need you to hack the mayor’s computer and scrounge around for documents.”

“And how do you suppose I do that? The office constantly has people in it. It’s not like I can just pop a USB into his desktop and expect no one to notice!”

“Ah, but we are fortunate that this happened now, Yami.”

Posche sat down in his chair.

“Have you asked anyone to homecoming yet?”

Yami looked at Posche with confused eyebrows.

“No? Why do you ask?”

“You better start asking, because it’s this weekend, and I need you to attend.”

“Eh?”

“The only window of opportunity I see in the near future is this weekend. While the office is closed, AND while students are allowed inside of the building! It’s the perfect opportunity!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean?”

“Well, Yami, you are going to infiltrate the office while everyone is in the cafeteria dancing their night away. Inside, you’ll hack the mayor’s computer and find whatever he is hiding.”

“Why can’t you do this yourself?”

“Because I wouldn’t blend in as well. I am a chaperone, afterall. So to leave my post would be alarming. In any case, you better get asking.”

“I’d love to help, Mr. P, but I don't have tickets, and they’ve already sold out.”

Posche handed Yami two pieces of paper.

“Here. One for you, and one for your date.”

“Why do I need a date to do this?!?!”

“You want an alibi in case you get put in jail again, right?”

Yami sighed out of frustration and snatched the tickets out of Posche’s hand.

“Don’t have too much fun, Yami!”

“Don’t get beat up by an old lady on your way home, Mr. P.”

As Yami walked down the sidewalk back to his house, he began to think to himself.

“This’ll be my first homecoming, won’t it? I’ve never been one for dancing at social gatherings, but maybe the date will be fun. Wait, I’ve never been on a date before! What will we do? Will she come over to my house before, or will we go out to eat? Will I have to meet her father? What’s gonna happen?! I guess a more important question would be who should I ask?”

As Yami asked himself this, he paused at the corner that Rikai would join him and Shitto at on their daily trip to school.

“Maybe I should ask Rikai. Of course we wouldn’t go on a date or anything, but at least we’re good friends. What am I saying, she’s mad at me. I can’t ask her. I could ask Shipp- No, I guess that wouldn’t be a good idea either.”

Yami continued to walk down the sidewalk until he bumped into Shinkai.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you there, Shinki!”

“Oh, no problem. What’s up? You looked pretty deep in thought.”

“Nothing, really. I was just thinking about who I was gonna ask to homecoming.”

“You haven’t asked anyone yet?”

“No, I just got my tickets today.”

“I see. If you want, I can go with you!”

“R-Really?”

“Yeah! It’d be tons of fun! I’ve never gone on a date or anything before, though...”

“Neither have I! It’ll be fun, though!”

“So can I assume I’ll be your date?”

“Yeah! What do you want to do before we go to the dance?”

“Well, you could come over to my house and meet my father!”

Yami rubbed the back of his neck.

“I think I’ll pass on that, sorry.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry.”

“How about we just go somewhere to eat?”

“Sounds good to me!”

“Cool! Text me your address, and I’ll come over and we can go get some food!”

“Sounds like a plan! Bye bye!”

Yami waved to Shinkai as she walked away.

“Holy shit I got lucky.”