(This is a joint post between Cinia Pacifica, Katsucha, BlinkXPoke, TheLoneGentleman, and Gahald_Mills, BagMan, and Montacia.)
“We should probably avoid being in vicinity of the janitors and guards despite the Ghost Badge’s effects,” Aoi whispered to the group. The four stood before a fork road, when Aoi peeked to the left - from the corner of her eyes - she found a man in white coat walking towards their direction. They were now inside the hospital - after entering through the backdoor, they came across a rather perplexing spot.
Shiraishi sneaked out from below Aoi and peeked along with her. “Damn, that guy is coming our way, what to do?!”
”If only someone could distract him” Ine commented. She wished that he would walk away but to no avail.
As the man came, Aoi walked out of the group and stood in front of him. Naturally, she took off the badge after noticing that they were in a blind-spot of the security cameras. She could feel the emotions of surprise and the others wanting her to stop. However, she had her best card to play for this situation.
“Hey, you got tasked with patrolling here?”
“Ah, yeah. What about you?”
“I was, too, strangely. I just got this section done, you should head to that direction now since I’m yet to cover that… unless you’d like me to go for that, too?”
“No, that’s alright. I just got back from my break, might as well do my job.”
As the man walked past the group straight, he didn’t bother turning to the right to see the transparent group lying in wait for his disappearance from the scene.
After he left, everyone sighed; feeling greatly relieved.
“Man, I almost skipped a beat, you scared me! What the hell happened, though? I’m so lost,” Shiraishi asked, seeing Aoi’s Alice for the first time, it was truly breath-taking how the man didn’t doubt even for a second.
“It’s her Alice. When she uses it, any act and persona she takes on feels like it’s real.” Shouta explained to Shiraishi.
”It sounds super useful” Ine said, wishing her own Alice was as useful.
Shiraishi was impressed, she honestly assumed that it was a kind of a Pheromone Alice. “Cool, I didn’t think I’ve heard of such an Alice before.”
“I wish you would have told us that you were gonna use it, though!” He whispered in a slightly upset tone to Aoi.
“I would if I had the time to!” Aoi retorted, “Or would you prefer to be caught?”
Shouta sighed. Aoi was right; she had to do it, or else, they would have been caught. “Just let us know next time. You almost gave us heart attacks.” He looked around the corner, and in the direction of the guard walking away. “Yeah, we should get going. Let’s move up.”
Mio had been ready to jump out as the situation seemed dire, however seeing that Kiriya was going to deal with the approaching man, she quickly slinked back into her hiding place. Although she didn’t have a ghost badge, stalking without being caught was a skill Mio had picked up over the years. Letting go of her held breath after the man walked past, she focused her attention once more to the group ahead of her.
As the group ventured deep into the hospital, Aoi commented. “Isn’t this place a little too silent? As if we came to some secret science lab or something,” this was particularly accurate because such scenes do often happen in movies, and they have the similar vibe that this place exuded.
“Did they remove the patients for that Reo, perhaps?”
“Eh? How’d they do that, though? We’re talking about patients here!”
“How’d I know?! This is Alice Academy, all sorta strange things can happen here!”
“Why would they remove patients, though? They’re here for some reason or another, right? They can’t just remove them for a celebrity, can they?”
“Ah! Hide!” Aoi exclaimed upon abrupt realization of hearing footsteps.
“Hey! Apparently some boy sneaked into the hospital using the main entrance!”
“I heard that too. They even reported finding a guard knocked out!”
“Damn, we gotta catch this guy fast then, use the Alice restraints they gave for emergencies! Or just use your Alice!”
“Got it!”
As the conversation ended, the two sped off to a corridor that seemed to go to the side where the group was slowly advancing, Aoi and the others looked among one another with bewildered faces.
“Holy crap, was someone from the other group found out?!” Shouta exclaimed in a whisper.
“The possibility is there. There are also possibilities of other Reo’s fans to come too,” Aoi said what she thought. “We should confirm nonetheless,” Aoi then pressed her finger over the earring that she wore - activating it. “You guys had trouble or something? What’s this about a certain boy causing problems around the premises, even going as far as knocking someone out?”
“Oh, so it wasn’t Fushiki-san going berserk for whatever reasons? Otherwise, I assumed they'd mistake Shiraishi for a boy, honestly.”
“I’m not a guy, thank you very much!” Shiraishi spat out sarcastically, desperately trying to keep her voice low.
“H-Hey! I can control myself! I won’t just go off randomly like that!”
“We weren’t caught or something! And I wouldn’t do that anyway!”
“Fufufu, relax. We haven’t had any sort of trouble so far, either.”
“Wait, then, who’s starting all this commotion?”
Hyuuga Aoi reported. “We have heard about a certain boy causing trouble, from Narumi sensei in fact.”
“W-Wait, Narumi sensei?!”
“Surprise, surprise! We spotted Reo-sama, he was walking along with Narumi, having a strange conversation… ”
“Anyway, there are two stairs leading to the second floor, you guys are supposed to take the one closest, of course. We’re taking the other one, and are following Reo-san. Careful not to run into them, or us for that matter… ”
“As if we’d want to.”
“I’d love to!” Aoi said with starry eyes.
“HUH?!! This isn’t the time for that!!” Shiraishi blurted out with a frustrated yet comical face. She didn’t expected that from Aoi, at all, a bead of sweat ran down at the back of her head.
“We can join up with them later, but didn’t you want to see Hoshimiya-san, first?” Shouta reminded Aoi. He’d rather see Ichigo, himself, as he wasn’t as interested in Reo.
“Haha… sorry, I sorta got carried away,” Aoi said with a forced smile. “Anyway, this commotion could be taken to our advantage. With them distracted, we can rush to the stairs now.”
Shouta let out a chuckle. “I was just thinking the same thing. Let’s do it!” He lead the way, checking all directions for any remaining guards before proceeding onward, and stopping at the top of the stairs, waiting for everyone else and checking ahead.