#((so whenever he's around 'the anomalous biwa' he's like. there's a ghost there.))

[ficoandleo]

'It makes sense if you think about it. After whatever happened last year.'

Leo stared blankly into the last frame of the youtube video on his screen, leaning his chair back to balance on two legs. The corner of the library he'd tucked himself into for research was quiet enough, with even the cats rarely poking their heads by to check on him. Technically he wasn't looking into anything restricted that he'd need to hide for, but he didn't want the noise to potentially be a distraction.

'The weird thing is that there clearly aren't many ghosts around here.'

He drops the chair back down and looks through the Clash memorials. It's a lot of people. Mostly human. He tabs back over to the recent memorials made for victims of the anomalous inpatient. For a while after that there were quite a few ghosts around the campus and the ruined hospital. Leo could sometimes hear the airy, echoey whispers of their voices when he passed by. One or two were strong enough to be seen. In the days following it got quieter and quieter until the only sounds were the living. He remembered seeing students from a few different houses going to the area now and then. Kusanagi, too.

One of those students was a friend of one of the Vagastrom students--he remembered him bringing them over, convinced something was haunting the area.

Ex-Clementia then.

Darkwick was just laying damn near any ghost on campus to rest without letting them stick around and resolve their business? Even if they aren't dangerous? Kind of scummy, but probably just a precautionary measure. Spirits were a little unpredictable.

'A video would be a bad idea then. Too much publicity.' He's only cruel for no reason when it's funny. There's not really any humor in double-shotting a guy who doesn't deserve it. 'But it'd still be interesting to know what's going on there. I'd just have to find a covert way to ask. . .they might be monitoring our messages too much for me to go through YouTube.'

In person would have to do. At some point. Just another thing on his eternal to-do list! Leo stretched and groaned, listening to the pop of muscle and crack of bone and every other reaction his body gave to the movement.

If Taro Kirisaki(Zenji Kotodama, rather, using his name would probably attract too much attention) was a ghost that meant ghouls' souls were probably still intact enough to leave spirits behind, even if they weren't very strong spirits. More importantly if his ghost was still hanging out after this long it meant whatever demon he'd made a pact with hadn't come for him. That or something kept demons from coming to Darkwick, which was unlikely considering how little was really known about demons. If pact-makers did, at some point, unconsciously(?) consume their demons after making their pacts then the demons' souls probably didn't integrate with their own. Either they were neutralized(erased? Laid to rest?) or they were housed within the body and released on death. And there were no records of unknown S-class anomalies or demons appearing after the death of Taro Kirisaki. He died at Darkwick General, there would have to be a report somewhere if something like that happened. That or it was kept majorly under wraps.

And of course no one wanted to talk about The Clash so asking would be difficult right now. He needed a better rapport with the third and second years to get them to talk. But even Romeo didn't want to talk about it too much, and Leo was one of the only people Romeo trusted right now!

Leo exhaled sharply through his nose.

Why is it that everything kind of interesting was always just out of reach? It was like being edged on entertainment and knowledge. That was only fun when there was a good payoff.

Maybe Zenji would prove to be a good payoff in the end. He probably wouldn't know anything--or he wouldn't tell him anything--but maybe he would at least be entertaining.