[AQ/X-Mod] What's in News? [Yasuko K/Juon]

[Miuna]

Past the strange, wooden door that stood in their way was a glimmer of light, breaking through the tiny cracks around the frame and bursting out into the pitch black tunnel. A bit of time and the two explorers would find their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Unlike the hole in the ground the room was fairly large, natural light still unavailable but not nearly as suffocating as the tunnel behind them. Dust coated nearly every inch of the room, those familiar footprints from upstairs evident here as well. They circled around multiple times before leading back out into the tunnel.

Along the walls of the small room were bookcases filled to the brim with various materials, yellowed paper sticking out with news headlines peeking from a few. There were shorter bookcases under the overhanging second floor with the same materials. A staircase stood on one of the walls, leading up to a short balcony with a reading counter and even more shelves. The covers were indecipherable in the low light, the amount of dust covering them thick with the stagnant air in the room. In the highest corners, spiders spun ever-expanding webs to catch their prey.

On every single bookcase, between every single shelf a single sign was etched into a gold plated sign.

Please Do Not Remove Anything From This Room.

[Yasuko Kobayashi]

Calli was screaming as she fell, terrified of landing on the floor with a splat. Or maybe even, falling forever and ever into the abyss; never being able to end. But then somehow, in some form of a miracle, she managed to have enough of a brain to brake onto the air as hard as she could - and she was successful, stopping barely inches from the floor. She breathed a sigh of relief - before falling splat onto the floor again. Owwwwww She rubbed her face before she stood up slowly.

As Juon brought out his phone, Calli turned towards where the light was flashing at - and she immediately squealed. There was a door! A door beyond the trapdoor! That was big and huge and looked like it contained loads and loads of secrets! Springing from her position, she looked first at the third-year, giving the other an excited grin. He was holding the light after all. "Let's go check it out!!" she said, pointing at the door. She soon quickly looked back up the hole, intending to call the other fairy down - only to stop, wondering if she knew his name. Did they introduce themselves to each other? She had no clue - but she soon had a totally brilliant idea! Excitedly, she cupped her hands around her mouth, yelling upwards. “Thief! World’s greatest thief!” She couldn’t help a giggle at the end; that title was so cool! “There’s a door! A big ol’ door! We gotta find out what’s behind it!” Without even waiting for anyone, she zoomed straight across, disappearing behind the opening of the door. She was just too excited!

“Go down there?” Yasuko echoed, her voice clearly sounding unsure. But Calli was already down there - and judging from the squeal down below, she was sure the brunette fairy had already gone off on her own. With a sigh, she gingerly touched the rungs of the ladder with her foot, before she slowly climbed down the hole. Whatever this was, they were already deep enough into it, so might as well see it through. Hearing the multiple squeals from behind the door, the girl could only cover her face with her hands, slowly pulling them down with a groan. It was clear that she probably couldn’t pull the Guardian Character away if she tried. And perhaps…not with Clip around either, whom she was slowly beginning to understand that he was likely just as bad as a troublemaker as Paii. Or maybe he's worse. With a glance of apprehension at Juon, she walked over to try to pry the door open wide enough for them to go through.

"There are books!" The Guardian Character cried, zipping here and there as she did so. Books and books and books! What kinds of stories do they tell? Who wrote them? How long ago were they written? Were the stories about the school? Maybe school secrets? Maybe even maps, or treasure or something or other! Or maybe a collection of rare books about all kinds of topics around the world? But she frowned, she couldn't see any of the titles under all this dust! Who treats books this way anyway, leaving them to be covered full of dust like that?! "I can't see a thing!" she whined, before taking in a deep breath and blowing as hard as she could on one of them. She thought it was a brilliant idea! Then she could totally see the titl--oh wait. Her actions soon sent a great big cloud of dust everywhere - and she coughed, flying away from the cloud.

[Juon]

"Yeah!" Clip was more than eager to agree to Calli's whims, floating after her at zooming speeds and making no hesitation in slipping behind the door right along with her.

"Aw, it's just books? Laaaaame. Gimme some real treasure!" he immediately complained, beginning to search around for anything--anything--of non-reading-nature to try and claim as a prize. It didn't seem like there was going to be anything, though, unless he searched out a spider from one of the webs in the corners of the ceiling...

Juon turned back toward Yasuko as she descended, repeating simply, "Yes, down there," before heading to do so with or without her. He pushed open the unusual door, squinting a bit as the light hit them again, and turning off the flashlight from his phone as he opened it more fully, throwing the light from the room back into the rest of the tunnel, and heading further into the room itself.

"The hell..." he started, glancing around at the tall walls and the shelves lined with papers and records and folders. His eyes trailed carefully over the sign that clearly read Do Not Remove Anything and raised an eyebrow before approaching one of the shelves, noticing that nothing was labeled anyway.

Turning toward the balcony, he gave a suspicious look toward the staircase--maybe he'd send Yasuko up that; she was smaller and lighter and he didn't exactly trust the wood. Even if it may not have looked any older than the rest of the building, it was quite certain that this room did not see much use, from the feeling of practically stasis in the air; at least, aside from the fresher footsteps. They couldn't have been the only ones to have found this. But what was so interesting about this room that it had to be hidden--and found?

"Did you know about this?" he called toward Yasuko, before turning toward one of the taller shelves on the main floor, pulling out one of the folders at random to take a peek at its contents.

[Miuna]

The spiders in the corners jumped and ran as the two entered the room, clearly displeased that their feasting time had been interrupted. They scattered into the tiny cracks and holes in the wood without any trace left behind. The house centipedes were a bit braver, motionless on the walls even as the two stepped towards the shelves. Dust rose high in the air as they moved through the small area, a new set of footprints marking themselves on the old floors.

The book that Juon had pulled out was fairly recent, the date on the front cover marking back to the late 1990s. As he opened it a single newspaper clipping fluttered in the air, the sudden disturbance causing only the slightest change in the yellowed paper. The spine of the book had already made a rather satisfying cracking noise as it was opened for the first time in years. The newspaper clipping read as followed:

It was difficult to read in the dark but the black text was still fairly visible once the two had adjusted to the low lighting.

[Yasuko Kobayashi]

The moment Yasuko walked into the room, she could feel the dust tickling at her nostrils - and she stiffened visibly. She was stupid, of course she should have expected this; a secret room that was only accessible via a ladder that could only be revealed via a hidden lever? It was practically screaming a high-possibility-of-a-potentially-unused-room-and-thus-it-will-be-full-of-dust. Though really, she probably was the only one of the few people that was this sensitive to the smell of dust in the air, considering her insistence on avoiding anything that triggered her asthma. But ugh, she didn’t really want anybody to know about it - especially not Juon.

Except she would rather come out of it with her health intact. Or at least, just being okay.

Without taking a breath in, she fished around in her pocket, before she pulled out a handkerchief - a triumphant smile on her face as she did so. Wrapping it around her face, she tied a knot off behind her head. It was a makeshift barrier, but was a barrier nonetheless. If anything, she still had her inhaler with her to use in emergencies.

She probably looked odd, with that pale blue handkerchief tied around her face like that.

“No I didn’t,” she said, her voice muffled as she stared up that staircase. “Did you?” she asked, almost out of instinct. Though judging from his motions and his words, she doubted that he knew about it as well. Walking in a little gingerly, she only then noticed the footprints on the floor. “Looks like we weren't the only ones who found this place." It was more of a statement than a question. In any case, why did a place like this exist anyway? It was obvious it was kept hidden...but what exactly did it want to hide? Though, now that she thought about it, this room certainly looked like it hadn't been used in years. "How old is Seiyo anyway?" she asked - and stopped, as she noticed her coughing sprite. With a sigh, she pulled a tissue out of her pocket, plopping it straight over to the Guardian Character, before she resume walking over to the bookshelves. "And what is this place? Some kind of extra storeroom? But why have an extra storeroom and let it gather all of this--" she pulled a disgusted grimace as she waved her hand. "--ridiculous dust."

The sound of a binder being pulled open alerted her, and she turned around to see Juon bending over one. "Did you find anything?" she asked, walking over and leaning over him to see what he might have potentially found. She blinked at the newspaper clipping. "The opening of the...planetarium?" she said, with a raised eyebrow. Now that this came up... "Honestly I always thought it was a strange building to have on a high-school campus. I mean, isn't it really expensive to build something like that?" she voiced, before she read on. "Oh, so it was some ex-student astronomer who built it. Man, how much money did this--" she squinted at the words. "--Inoshita Kagetarou have, to do something like this?"

Calli, on the other hand - and once she had rubbed all of the dust off of her and blew her nose onto the tissue paper - was pouting at the books. There were no labels on them! A part of her wanted to go and see what Juon had found, but surely these books can't hide their contents from her forever! She tried to pull one book out.

[Juon]

"Uh... pretty old, I think," he tried while cracking open the binder, only to be greeted with a small puff of dust and the newsclipping to fall out. "I think I remember reading in the pamphlets from when I was looking at schools it's from like... the 80's? ... But it seems like most of the buildings seem newer than that, including this one. But this room makes it feel otherwise... either that, or it's just been neglected since it was built, or something..."

Bending down to slide the fallen slip of paper in hand, he was back up straight by the time that Yasuko had appeared over his shoulder. He scanned over the article a few times, ignoring her commentary at first until he'd finished looking it over, before straightening up again. "Astronomers must make a lot of money, I guess," came his attempt at formulating an answer. "But, maybe like... real astronomers; not like Kirishigi-sensei. The kind that work for, like, NASA, or something? ... Like, it's NASA, how can they not make a fortune, right?" He seemed to be jumping to conclusions, but his answer felt very solid in his head.

Slipping the article back into the binder, in a quick squeeze of the hands he closed it with a soft poff, before sliding it back into the slot on the shelf from which he'd discovered it. "Do you think everything in here is stuff like that? ... I wonder why they're all kept separate from everything. Are they trying to hide it, or whatever?"

Clip, meantime, had decided to come out of hiding among the shelves, floating over to Calli to see what she was trying to attempt now--from the look of it, she was trying to claim some treasure for herself! He wouldn't have that--and so he zoomed over to help her get the book out; but not for her sake, only so that he could find out what the treasure was, too.

[Miuna]

The spiders in the corners crawled closer as the two examined the newspaper clipping, using their webs to fall onto the opened binder to inspect it themselves. They seemed to be quite curious themselves, ignoring the humans that stood atop them staring down at the very same piece of paper. There was more skittering off to the side signaling tiny movement as everything started to come to life. The room was definitely devoid of human activity but that didn't mean every other organism had left it alone.

On the bookshelf with Calli and Clip, the bookshelf creaked, releasing its hold on its inhabitant and allowing for the hardcover novel to fall the to the floor. A plume of dust rose into the air as its corner was dented, the sound echoing all the way down the tunnel. Some of the pages stuck together but a particular section opened revealing records of student store sales for the last twenty years. There was nothing particularly outstanding in it outside of a handful of purchases all grouped around the same autumn months. It seemed students had a knack for confessing during the colder seasons, a large number of green marble purchases signifying plenty of summer flings turning into something much more.

As the echoing died down, there was another sound. Something was echoing back through the tunnel towards them, a knocking coming from the storage room that they had first entered from. Someone was looking for them.

[Yasuko Kobayashi]

Yasuko was confused about it all. Now that he mentioned it, it was true that most of the buildings in Seiyo seemed to be new, yet the room they were in right now seemed a lot older than the rest of the academy. She paused, as she stared down at the newspaper clipping in the binder. What was the meaning of all of this then? "You have a point," she began, raising to cup her chin.

She simply shrugged at his answer. She didn't know anything much about NASA to confidently say it was true or not, but the answer sounded like a good one, so she didn't question it in the end. "I guess," she said, watching as he straightened up and put the binder away. She furrowed her eyebrows at his question, tilting her head as she pondered on it. "Maybe," she said, scratching her head. She really didn't understand it all. "But why hide it? I mean, unless they have something to hide, but what would that even be? I mean, the opening of the planetarium doesn't seem suspicious to me. What would a school want to hide?" The girl stood there as she mulled over possibilities, before letting out a snort. "Government secrets maybe?" she said, half-joking. When she did make jokes like that? Calli must have been rubbing off on her.

"Oh hi Clip!" Calli chimed with a bright smile. Was he helping her? That was great! All they needed to do was pull it out and then they could have a look through it all to see what kind of things it was hiding! Oh oh, it was coming out; all they needed was one more pull--!

But the sound of a book slamming into the floor completely startled the first-year, and she whipped her head up, to see the two fairies floating over at the bookshelf. Goddammit, what did those two Guardian Characters do now?! "Calli!" she hissed, quickly walking over towards the book to pick it up in a hurry. That was so loud; what if somebody had heard them? "What in the world did you do now?" she said, glancing over at the opened section. Sales? Why would a book about sales records would even be doing down in a place like this? If it was a place to hide things, why would this even be doing here--

But the sound of something made her blood run cold.

She didn't dare breathe. Somebody must have heard them and was now coming towards them. Turning around slowly, she looked back at Juon with wide panicked eyes. What should they do?!