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portals to the 16th century are kind of a big deal
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Ha. No.

"Not any worse than usual. Uh, I zone out sometimes, but I always do that, it isn't new or anything."

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"Mm. You've been sleeping all right?"

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Also no, also for totally unrelated reasons.

"Pretty well. Uh, I fell asleep over my homework last night, but I think that was because it was one in the morning. - I want to get into a good high school."

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"You need to sleep to do that!" He sighs. "Have you noticed any pain? Headaches, nausea?"

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"Oh, a little bit. Headaches, mostly, no nausea. I've been taking over the counter stuff for it, though, so most of the time I don't even notice."

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"It's probably not that serious, then. Still, if it doesn't clear up in two or three weeks, you should come back so we can run some tests and make sure everything's all right. And wear a helmet, next time you ride your bike. It could have been much worse."

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Doesn't she know it. "Yeah. I will."

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Sota's waiting for her outside the office. "Did they say whether you're okay?"

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"I am already enough of a disaster that it's impossible to tell whether I have any brain damage. - it's fine, Sota, he said there was nothing to worry about. Do you remember which room your friend is in?"

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He does, in fact, remember. He's quiet, for a while, while they walk over to it.

 

"Kagome, do you believe in evil spirits?"

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- well, she can hardly say no. "I guess so. Why?"

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"...it's nothing."

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Thaaaat doesn't sound like nothing, but they're at the room, now.

There's a little boy, just Sota's age, lying in bed with an oxygen mask on. His mother is sewing a kimono in the corner. Sota's brought a tower of paper cranes with him, because Sota is actually an enormously thoughtful and considerate child.

It's been six months, apparently, that the little boy's been in a coma. She had no idea. She knew that Sota went with Ayako to the hospital sometimes, but - what kind of sickness puts you in a coma for six months? His mother says it was a fire, smoke inhalation. She wonders whether you can wake up, after that long. She can't possibly ask. She supposes it must happen sometimes.

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There's a little girl, hiding under the bed. A little girl who, as soon as she's noticed, rips out the lines connecting the comatose boy's mask to his oxygen supply. The medical equipment falls over and crashes, the nurses come running - and then she's gone.

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- woah, woah, woah. She knows that girl. That's the girl she saw setting off other people's fireworks in the park a couple days ago. The one who disappeared into a bunch of flames, and was surprised that Kagome could see her.

The nurses herd them out of the room while she's thinking about this, and Kagome doesn't protest. 

" - Sota. What were you saying earlier, about evil spirits?"

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"Oh. Things like this happen a lot, when people visit Satoru. It used to be that lots of kids from our class visited and brought him things, but then bad things would happen to them. They'd get pushed down stairs when there was nobody else at the top of them, or they'd get almost run over by cars, or the hospital equipment would break. So after a while, everyone else stopped visiting."

"The other kids say that it's because an evil spirit is haunting him. And - you know all about spirits, and demons, and stuff, so - I was wondering whether you knew anything that we could do about it."

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Wow, Sota is a good kid.

Kagome has, uh, absolutely no idea what to do about that, since this isn't a toad spirit that you can exorcise by hitting it with flaming hairspray, which is the only kind that she has any experience with. But this is, in fact, the kind of problem that she goes around solving, these days.

" - I can try. But I don't see why a kid who was caught in a fire would be haunted by an evil spirit."

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"I can show you where his apartment was. Would that help?"

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" - maybe, yeah. Let's go look."

 

The apartment is still visibly a burned-out husk, even just looking at it from the outside. The windows are shattered, and there are scorch marks on the outer walls.

"That's the place?"

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"Yeah. I heard that people tried to clean it up, but there kept being accidents when people went in, so it's been like that for six months."

"It was a really bad fire. Satoru got really sick, and his older sister Mayu died in it."

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Oh. Oh -

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A flowerpot falls down from the apartment, just about right where they're standing. There's nobody visibly above them who could have pushed it.

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Well, lucky how Kagome is getting lots of practice at tackling people, lately! She whisks Sota out of the way and looks up.

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"IT'S AN EVIL SPIRIT!"

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"Sota, you're fine." But something's up there. If she can just see it -

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