The Spirit Society

“Sasaki-sama! Won’t you please go out with me?” I heard someone make a heartfelt confession as I approached the corridor outside of class 3-A. I arrived here as promised to have Sasaki guide me to the Spirit Society club room.

“I’m sorry Totsuya-san, but I can’t accept your confession. I have too much on my plate right now, but I’m very flattered to know that you feel that way about me.” There he was in all of his bishi-boy glory, dashing the hopes and dreams of yet another hapless schoolgirl.

The scene reminded me of Kaneko’s own confession to me. I suppose that while this poor girl got rejected, at least the object of her affection didn’t literally keel over and die.

“Ah, Sato-san, good to see you again,” Sasaki turned to greet me warmly, smiling in a way that managed to even charm me. I didn’t have a thing for guys, but I couldn’t lie to myself, something about him made me really empathize with all of the girls he managed to attract without even trying. Perhaps it was just because he was bordering on androgynous, but if he was having this much of an impact on a straight guy, the kind of things he did to those who were actually attracted to him must have been game-breaking.

“Ah, yeah, you too,” I replied, scratching the back of my head.

“Sato? Haru Sato?” the girl turned to me with a look of abject disgust. “You really shouldn’t associate with the likes of him, Sasaki-sama, he’s part of the infamous pervert trio.”

Ah, so my reputation precedes me.

“Oh? Is that so?” Sasaki tilted his head. “I haven’t gotten the impression that he’s all that unseemly. In fact, I understand he has a perfectly respectable girlfriend.”

“Him? There’s no way, there must be some mistake, or she’s as pathetic as he is.”

That pinched a nerve. “Call me whatever you like, but my girlfriend is a wonderful person. I honestly don’t deserve her,” I said, shooting her a disappointed look.

“Hmph! I think we can agree on that much at least,” she spat back at me with venom in her tone before walking away puffing out her chest in a pompous way.

Sasaki smiled at me apologetically, “Sorry about that.”

“I dunno if you’re gonna believe this,” I began, leaning in close, “but I think you dodged a bullet with that one.”

Sasaki burst into his iconic charming laughter, which was growing steadily more and more familiar and welcome. “I think you’re probably right,” he admitted, wiping away a tear at the corner of his eye. “All right, let’s go.”

We began walking through the halls and the sight of the two of us together resulted in more than a few shocked faces, especially among the girls. It was easy to see why. Sasaki was pretty, charming, and a total lady-killer. I, on the other hand, was commonly despised thanks to my association with the school’s two most infamous perverts. The sight of the two of us together must have been like oil and water.

“Hey, uh,” I began, “thanks for being so cool with me. I never expected one of the most popular guys in school to be so nice to someone like me.”

“You’ll find that above all other things I value honesty a great deal,” Sasaki said. “So, to be totally transparent, when I first heard you were going to be the next one to join us, I was concerned.” Man, my reputation really did precede me. “But I also believe in giving everyone a fair chance. Turns out you’re a perfectly reasonable guy, and quite funny. I honestly think that if you leaned into that sharp wit of yours, you’d find yourself with quite a few female fans yourself.”

I laughed, “I don’t think that’ll ever happen.”

Sasaki smiled, “I’m not unique in my open-mindedness, you know. And the trait is definitely not restricted to a single gender. If you continue to treat your girlfriend well, word will spread that you’re different than the company you keep.”

“Well, I probably shouldn’t be looking forward to being popular with the ladies if I already have a girlfriend, should I?”

Sasaki shrugged, “I suppose if popularity isn’t your goal, then there’s no reason to worry. You might find that it ends up happening whether you like it or not, though. Do you think I want it?”

I rubbed my chin, thoughtfully, “Good point.”

The halls were getting steadily more deserted, we were fast approaching a section of the school that didn’t have much in it. It had a few classrooms that were decommissioned or only used as auxiliary classrooms in case of years where there is an unusually high student population. Otherwise, they were just used for miscellaneous storage.

“Speaking of your girlfriend, she didn’t follow you, did she?” Sasaki asked.

“No, Suki-chan already went home. I told her I was going to stay in the library and study. She seemed kind of disappointed actually. What exactly am I supposed to tell people I’m doing here after school if the club isn’t official?”

Sasaki looked around him, seeming to make sure the two of us were well and truly alone before he replied, “Well, we only spend two hours at most in club meetings, and we spend it inside the spirit realm where time moves more quickly. Here’s a math problem for you, if every ten minutes in the spirit realm equates to one minute in this realm; how much time would go by here if we spent two hours there?”

I thought about it for a second. Two hours was one-hundred and twenty minutes, divide it by ten by removing the zero and you get, “Twelve minutes? Oh, huh, that’s not very long at all.”

“Not in the least. Pretty easy to find a reason to slip away for twelve minutes. A couple of the other club members use the excuse of needing to use the restroom. Furthermore, only one hour of it is spent on important matters, the remaining hour is usually independent training. So, if you’re really in a hurry, sensei will let you cut out early and only six minutes will pass here.”

“That’s pretty crazy,” I admitted.

“You’ll get used to it. the time-flow difference can be pretty convenient at times. We’re here, by the way.”

We had stopped inside a stairwell on the ground floor, since we had descended the stairs to get here, it was a dead end.

“Uh, I don’t see anything, this is a dead end.”

“That’s because our club room isn’t in the mortal realm. It’s time to teach you how to enter the spirit realm.”

“Oi, Rei-kun!” someone called from the top of the stairs. He was a guy slightly taller than us with short, spiky, dark red hair and gleaming crimson eyes. He looked quite fit and had the air of a delinquent about him.

“Good afternoon, Touma-kun,” Sasaki replied.

The redhead noticed me as he descended the stairs, “Oh, you must be the new guy.”

I bowed, “Haru Sato, class 2-B. Nice to meet you.”

He grinned, “Touma Miura, class 2-A. Likewise.”

“I was just about to show him how to go into the spirit realm,” Sasaki explained.

“Oh, I see. Say, Haru-kun, do you play videogames, by chance?” Ordinarily the fact that this stranger had referred to me so familiarly would have gotten on my nerves a little, but this guy was so affable that it didn’t actually bother me. He had an aura about him that made me want to like him, despite his rugged exterior.

“Uh, yeah. Mostly just fighting games, though. I’m really into Master Fighter.”

“Yo! Me too! I’ll tell you what, though, my girlfriend is an absolute legend at the game. We should get together and play sometime.”

Sasaki politely cleared his throat, “Um, was there a point to this tangent?”

“Actually, there was. Go on ahead Rei-kun, I’ll take him from here.”

Sasaki looked skeptical, he even raised an eyebrow, but then shrugged, “Very well, see you in a few minutes, Sato-san.” Then, suddenly, Sasaki vanished into thin air.

“What the—!?” I jumped, looking around myself in a panic.

“Yeah, when you go to the spirit realm you disappear from here. Keep that in mind when decide to go there,” Miura explained. “Anyway, if you play games then this will be even easier for you to understand. To start with, close your eyes and imagine a gamepad. Your favorite one or the one you find most comfortable.”

I did as instructed, imagining my elite XBone controller, the one I used to play Master Fighter.

“Now, pick a button on the controller that you want to associate with being able to transport to the spirit realm. Preferably something out of the way that you won’t press accidentally.”

Well, since by entering the spirit realm I will be effectively slowing down normal world time, that was kind of similar to a pause function. I decided to designate the select button.

“Okay, now imagine yourself pressing that button.”

I pressed it and felt an incredibly strange sensation. It was like my body had been jerked in an unknown direction I couldn’t readily identify. When I opened my eyes, I was staring at a slow-motion version of Miura. Everything here was deathly silent compared to the low rumble of the school I was familiar with. That settled it, I was definitely in the spirit realm now, and sure enough, when I looked at the wall directly in front of the stairwell, there was a door there.

About ten seconds or so passed before Miura suddenly started moving in real-time, “Aha! Excellent work, Haru-kun. You caught on pretty quick, I remember it took me ages to figure it out. I spent so long trying the first time that I actually missed my whole first club meeting.”

“So, all I need to do to come over here is imagine myself pressing that button on a controller? Is that how everyone does it, it seems really specific.”

“Well, what you’re literally doing is activating a part of your brain that you’ve never activated before by creating associations. You could technically do that with anything, I guess, but my girlfriend and I play a lot of games so that’s what we use. Eventually it’ll become so second-nature to you that you won’t even need to visualize anymore. Kinda like when you just know where the buttons are on a controller without needing to look after you get used to it. C’mon, let’s go before sensei gets mad at us.”

Miura opened the door, which revealed a corridor behind it. The hall looked a lot like an ordinary school hallway, and if one somehow managed to wander in that’s exactly what they’d probably think. There were even windows looking outside, but oddly enough it wasn’t the school grounds that were visible through them. Instead, there was a massive forest that stretched as far as the eye could see, and a sky that was slightly tinged with violet.

“Teach can do a bunch of really crazy time-space stuff thanks to her grim magic. This is a little pocket dimension inside the spirit realm that serves as our base of operations. Phantoms are barred from entry, and the door is always unlocked so you’re welcome to come here anytime you like. It’s got some classrooms, a gymnasium, a dojo, there’s even a relaxing open-air bath.”

“Um… grim magic? What’s that?”

“Oh, Rei-kun hasn’t explained that to you yet?” Miura asked. “Well, don’t worry about it yet. We can explain it when we get there. By the way, when did you die?”

“Yesterday, around this time, actually.”

“Ah okay, so I’m guessing you didn’t have any nightmares yet?” He asked as we began approaching a classroom door. The sign above it had “The Spirit Society” printed on it.

“No, I don’t think I had any dreams last night at all,” I replied, wondering where he was going with this.

“Mentally prepare yourself tonight then. Dunno why, but for some reason you always have nightmares the second night after you get revived. Never the first though. Teach says it’s something to do with your subconscious mind not fully believing you aren’t in a dream until the second day. So, by the second night everything sinks in, and your brain has to process the fact that you died.”

“O-oh,” I said, nervously. I hated nightmares.

Miura put a hand on my shoulder reassuringly, “Don’t worry about it, Haru-kun, you’ll have everyone’s number after the club meeting today. If you need us, give us a call no matter what time it is. We’re all in this together.”

I smiled, “Thanks, Miura-san.”

“Don’t sweat it, and just call me Touma will ya?”

Then he opened the door to the classroom and stepped on side, “Oi, everyone, I brought the new guy.”

I stepped inside and then bowed deeply, “My name is Haru Sato, third-year class 2-B, I’ll be in your care.”

“Crazy bastard crossed into the spirit realm on his first try, I got a good feeling about him,” Miura clapped an approving hand on my back as I rose back up.

Just as Sasaki said, there were six other people in the room besides me. It seemed like Miura, Sasaki, and I were the only guys, the rest were all girls. Two of them I recognized immediately while the remaining two were only vaguely familiar, people I’d seen in the halls but had never met.

The one person that shocked me the most was the woman standing behind the podium at the front of the classroom. I recognized her dark brown hair done up in a bun, glasses, and brown eyes. She was absolutely gorgeous in the way that only mature women could manage, and her breasts were legendary for being the biggest in the school. Many rumored her to have H-cups. Most importantly, she wasn’t a teacher at the school, she was actually the school’s principal, Anka Yamazaki.

“Kouchou-sensei?” I asked, wide-eyed. I couldn’t believe our principal was a Shinigami.

“Good afternoon, Sato-san. Feel free to refer to me as your teacher while here in the club, as that’s the role I’ll be taking,” she said and smiled at me.

“Yes, Sensei,” I bowed again.

“Next up is—” Miura started but got interrupted by a short girl jumping up into his arms and planting a kiss on his lips, “Ah, Tacchan!”

She giggled, dropping down to the ground and turning a bright smile to me. She must have been the girlfriend Miura mentioned. She was about a head shorter than the redheaded man with aqua blue hair and gorgeous navy-blue eyes, a stark contrast to her boyfriend in nearly every way. She was incredibly cute; he was a lucky guy.

“I’m Taki Hinata, third year class 2-A. Touma-chan’s my boyfriend,” she added and giggled, confirming my suspicions.

For his part, Miura wrapped his athletic toned arms around her shoulders and hugged her from behind, “She’s the only girl who can tame me.” He winked and laughed.

By now the remaining members had gathered around me. One of them was someone else I recognized immediately with her coppery orange hair, icy blue eyes, and F-cup breasts. She was the class representative from my own class.

“You already know me, but, Fumiko Ando, third year.” She shook my hand, “I knew something about you seemed different today, and not just because you got a girlfriend. Welcome to your new life as a Shinigami.”

I nodded at her and turned my attention to the final club member. By far she was the shortest in the room, probably only managing about five feet tall. Her dark brown hair was done into a pair of cute pigtails with small magenta-colored skull ornaments tying them in place. Her big eyes sparkled the same color as these ornaments. She had very soft-looking pale skin and her skin wasn’t the only thing that was soft-looking about her. In terms of bust size, she was second only to Yamazaki-sensei.

This fact actually made me remember who she was, vaguely. I didn’t know her name, but Ishibumi was obsessed with this girl, and he referred to her almost exclusively as the “short-stack goddess”. Evidently, short girls with big boobs was his type.

“My name is Shino Yamazaki,” she said, airily and cutely, “I’m a second year in class 1-B. Fumi-chan said you had a girlfriend, is that true?” she looked strangely disappointed.

“Uh, yeah. Suki Kaneko from my class.”

Her expression went from slight disappointment to sudden glee, “Suki-chan? She’s so pretty! I keep trying to talk to her, but she always runs away.” That was strange. I would have to ask her about that later. “I hate when people make fun of her.”

“Me too,” I agreed. “Wait, did you say your name was Yamazaki? Are you related to Sensei?”

“She’s my younger sister,” Yamazaki-sensei said.

“You can call me Shino, so we don’t get confused,” the shorter girl smiled sweetly at me.

“By the way, you’re one of us now, Haru-kun,” Miura interrupted, “which means Kaneko-chan is our friend too. If I hear anyone in the halls bad-mouthing her, I’ll give them a pounding!” He punched a fist into his open palm.

“I won’t result to ****,” Sasaki said, “but I will also do my best to discourage it.”

“Just let me know if you hear any of it. I know some people in the disciplinary committee,” Ando added, pushing her glasses up on her nose creating an intimidating gleam of light.

I actually felt myself tear up a little. Here were these almost complete strangers offering to defend the honor of a girl they barely even knew. “You guys don’t have to do anything like that,” I said.

Hinata shook her head emphatically, “Look, being a Shinigami can be tough work. As long as you’re here with us, you may as well be family. A slight against one of us is a slight against us all.”

I couldn’t help but smile. This was genuinely touching. I vowed to work hard to make sure I didn’t drag any of these guys down.

“Now that introductions are out of the way,” Yamazaki-sensei began, “we should get down to club business. Since we have a new member here with us, we will explain the basics to him, that way he’ll be ready to begin hunting when the time is right. Let’s all sit down, everyone. This should also serve as a review for all of you, yes, that includes you Miura-san. I know you’ve been here the longest, but that’s no excuse to grow complacent.”

“You got it, teach,” Miura replied in an exasperated tone, collapsing into one of the chairs and kicking his feet up on the desk.

Before the lesson actually began in earnest and I took my seat, Yamazaki-sensei directed my attention to a blackboard next to the door. On it was a simple chart with the names and cell phone numbers of each of the club members. She had me add my own name and number to the list and create contacts for each of the other members.

“As Hinata-san so elegantly put it, we will need to come to rely on each other in nearly every situation. The closer our bond with each other, the better we will be at coordinating as a team to take down phantoms. I encourage you all to get along, and if there is any tension between members, bring it up with me so we can resolve the matter as quickly as possible. We share each other’s contact info so we can call on each other in our times of need or in case of emergencies. I’ve used some of my magic to make sure they will function even in the spirit realm as long as you’re within the prefecture.”

“Who is ‘Ronda Himeki’?” I asked, noting the name at the very bottom.

“She’s my friend,” Ando replied. “She graduated and isn’t a student here anymore, but she’s still a Shinigami like us.”

“She is an emergency contact only. Do not resort to calling her unless I am unable to be reached,” Yamazaki-sensei said. “She is quite busy.”

It was on that note that I realized everyone but Shino in the club were third years. Evidently, they were also all eighteen years old—Shino had been held back a grade at one point. Yamazaki-sensei explained that while people of nearly any age can become Shinigami, the Grim Reaper does not ask minors to hunt. Once they turn eighteen, however, they will be trained and join a group. Apparently, there were a number of other students at the academy who were Shinigami, and who showed quite a lot of promise, but weren’t old enough to be trained yet. Shino mentioned that she had been a Shinigami since middle school, and actually discovered one of her Grim Gifts by complete accident.

“What’s a Grim Gift?” I asked, raising my hand.

“When you first met ****-sama he probably said something about them to you,” Sasaki said. Now that I thought about it, he had said something along the lines of not throwing me into the dark without a light.

“There are three types of Grim Gifts,” Ando continued, “Grim Gear, Grim Magic, and Grim Cores. Every Shinigami is revived with one of each automatically.”

“Grim Gears are artifacts from ****-sama’s own personal armory,” Sasaki explained. “They can be a weapon, a piece of armor, or even an accessory. These items confer supernatural benefits to their user, and often aid in the destruction of phantoms. For instance, this is mine.”

Sasaki stretched out his hand and in a burst of pale light he was suddenly gripping what looked like an ornate hunting rifle with a wicked-looking bayonet beneath the barrel. It was a black and silver gun with many bone-like motifs and strange arcane runes etched into the long black barrel.

I was fascinated not only by the expertly crafted weapon, but also by the method with which he summoned it.

“Grim Magic are special magic spells that you can cast to do lots of interesting things, for instance…” Hinata picked up the explanation from there and then presented a closed fist to me. Suddenly, her fist and arm because surrounded by an aura of cackling electricity before dissipating, “That was my ‘Shock Shield’ spell. Anything that touches me while I have that up gets a nasty jolt!”

That was really fucking cool. I was beginning to get excited about what kind of magic I could use.

“Your first spell is kind of random, but if you study that spell enough, you can actually create whole new spells,” Ando explained, “for instance, I already have three spells, and Sensei has dozens of them by now.”

“Finally, there’s Grim cores,” Miura said, standing up and then giving Sensei a look. She nodded at him, mysteriously, and he proceeded to stand next to Shino, his hand resting on the back of a chair beside her. “Cores are passive effects that are constantly active no matter what or activate automatically in certain situations. They usually enhance aspects of yourself through supernatural means. For instance, Shino here has the ‘Adonis’ Grim Core which grants her super strength but also…” without warning he then lifted up the chair and swung it through the air at the tiny girl.

Wait—what the hell is he doing!?

There was a loud crash as the chair exploded into fragments of debris that scattered across the classroom. I expected there to be a spray of blood as well, given how hard he clearly swung that thing but there was absolutely nothing. In fact, Shino hadn’t even flinched. She just turned a curious look up at her club-mate.

“Didn’t that hurt? What the hell, Miura-san!?” I exclaimed.

She shook her head making her dark brown pigtails flip back and forth, “Didn’t hurt at all.”

“And I put my full **** into that swing, too,” Miura said. “Her core also gives her **** physical endurance. The only stuff I’ve ever seen that can seem to hurt her is energy-based things like fire or electricity. Anything physical, whether sharp or blunt, can’t harm her if it comes at her with enough **** to normally be a problem.”

“For the record, not even my bullets can pierce her skin,” Sasaki said. “In fact, it almost seems like she has a Kevlar-like quality where she becomes even more resistant when there’s more ****. She can still feel and be affected by very low-impact things or things that come slowly, but there are very few occasions where something like that can actually cause physical harm.”

Wow, that was pretty incredible. She was like that one western comic hero, Superguy.

“So, how do I know what kind of gifts I’ll have?” I asked.

“A ritual must be performed to expand your subconscious mind,” Yamazaki-sensei replied. “It’s actually quite simple, and you’ve already performed the first step by coming here to the spirit realm.”

She then grabbed a piece of chalk and began drawing something on the board. It was some sort of strange magic circle filled with arcane symbols I didn’t recognize. Around the perimeter of the circle was four smaller circles, each with a different word inside them, “soul”, “mind”, “will”, and “form”. Once it was finished, Yamazaki-sensei gestured for me to join her at the front of the classroom. I followed her and stood in front of the strange, arcane thing.

“This is known as a ‘circle of self’,” she explained as she pointed her finger around the perimeter, “and everything inside is a seal. The seal is locking away your gifts, preventing you from accessing them.”

“How come?”

“Old Bonesy wants to make sure you don’t accidentally use your powers until you at least have an idea of what they are,” Miura replied. “That said, the seal can be broken before this ritual if you’re in genuine danger. That’s how Shino found out about her gifts by accident.”

Yamazaki-sensei then pointed to another part of the circle, “This section will give you the names and descriptions of your gifts as inherent knowledge within your mind once the seal is unlocked. Unfortunately, the descriptions are often vague or cryptic, so figuring out what they really do is often an experimental process.”

I nodded, “So what do I do to release the seal, then?”

“Simply place your hand in that big empty section in the middle.”

“It’ll feel a bit weird, just relax and the feeling will pass,” Sasaki encouraged.

I nodded and steeled my resolve. I was about to find out what kind of cool stuff I was going to get. I was actually more than a little excited.

I pressed my open palm into the empty circle and felt something immediately wash over me. It was definitely strange, as Sasaki warned, but not exactly in an unpleasant way. I could feel my heart beating intensely, but not painfully, and my skin was weirdly scratchy. Sort of like several points were being poked by something sharp. Then there was a strange scent, it was familiar to me, it was the smell of flowers.

When the feeling passed, I removed my hand and looked at the magic circle again. The center portion was no longer empty, instead a perfect artistic rendition of a particular flower in full bloom was present. It was a rose framed in a nest of thorned vines.

There was silence until Yamazaki-sensei spoke at last, “Welcome, Haru Sato-san, to the Spirit Society.”

---

I collapsed in bed and let out an exhausted sigh after finishing my homework. Today had been very eventful. It was my first day with my new girlfriend, Suki Kaneko, it was my first day as a member of the Spirit Society, and I had unlocked my Shinigami potential. The names of all my gifts were known to me now.

I pulled off my necklace and looked at it wonderingly. This was my Grim Gear, a pendant at the end of a long silver chain with spikes poking out at regular intervals. The pendant was shaped like a heart made of exquisitely-cut ruby and was set into a silver frame depicting thorny vines.

Thorn Heart

The name was carved into my very soul, and I could remember it perfectly when I wanted to. I could also remember the basic description of its powers; it would basically let me summon thorny vines to entangle or whip my foes. I had no idea how to actually do any of that, but Suzuki-sensei assured me we would figure it out in the days to come. Unfortunately, my Grim Gear was the only coherent one in terms of what it could do, the other two were very ill-described.

Crimson Rose

That was my Grim Magic spell, and its description only says it “makes one’s heart beat for another for one minute”, which was annoyingly vague. I had a couple ideas about what that could mean, but frankly I was at a loss. The true mystery was my Grim Core.

Blooming Rose

This one’s description said, “reveal your heart unto mine, and they shall beat together”. I couldn’t even begin to decipher that one. Sasaki pointed out that the Grim Cores are never very clear or direct, it’s always sort of a mystery how they are supposed to work. Yamazaki-sensei then assured me it would be everyone’s job for the next little while to help me figure out how all of my gifts worked.

But I didn’t just learn my new Grim Gifts, I learned a lot of things after that. Firstly, I should never spend a grand total of ten hours or longer inside the spirit realm per day. Evidently things started to get weird after that, and it could have a negative effect on my psyche. Additionally, I learned the that as Shinigami we only needed four hours of sleep to feel well-rested, which explained why I hadn’t been fatigued throughout the day today. Combining this with the fact that we could enter the spirit realm in order to slow down the day’s clock meant that time management was going to be very easy.

I admit, I did try to go into the spirit realm to do my homework when I got home, but I got spooked out of it when I saw a phantom shambling around my apartment. I had no idea if the formless gray blob was hostile or not, but I definitely didn’t want to take any chances before I knew how to defend myself. In addition, to my infinite despair, all the progress I made with my homework while I was in the spirit realm didn’t seem to carry over into the mortal realm. I would have to ask Yamazaki-sensei about that at some point.

I did my homework the good old-fashioned way, checked for texts from Kaneko, and then collapsed into bed, thinking about the day. It was already two o’clock in the morning, I actually heard my father come home from work, an event I’m normally asleep during, and I was only barely growing tired. I supposed it stood to reason Kaneko wasn’t awake, she wasn’t a Shinigami, she still needed the typical eight hours.

I finally dozed off after a while, thinking about my girlfriend.