Chapter 2
Death on the Moon

Seiran and her purple-haired friend rushed into the scene of the accident and saw a piece of white cloth on the floor that was covering something underneath it, obviously the dead body of Dr. Kagana. Seeing them here, one of the policemen investigating the place asked, "Who are you people? How did you get in here?"

"They're from the lunar army, serving under Captain Yorihime," said a policeman who followed them into the place. "Therefore, they have the right to come in, and one of them claims that she was with the person who died some time before."

After being given the permission to get close to the body, Seiran walked up to the white cloth and slowly lifted it up to look underneath it. What she saw made her horrified and drop the cloth immediately. "How… How did this happen…?!" she asked.

"Her head was struck in the back multiple times until it shattered," a forensic scientist told her. "Something like this can only be the result of being bludgeoned by someone. We are still looking for the murder weapon."

"So this is a murder?" asked the purple-haired rabbit.

"It appears to be the case," said the forensic scientist. "Looking at the way her skull was shattered, we first suspected that it was that rock." He pointed to the tricolored rock. "However, we found no traces of blood on it, but we plan to do a proper scan of it later to see if blood used to be on it but got wiped off."

"That's the rock we found while scouting out there!" said the purple-haired lunar rabbit.

A policeman approached Seiran and that lunar rabbit and asked, "Analysis shows that she died about thirty minutes ago. You were with her before her death, were you not? Can you please join us in an interrogation?"

"No problem," said Seiran.

Eirin and Toyohime were in the living room, the latter happily eating sliced peaches. "Boy… Yorihime sure went crazy lecturing me…" said the former. "I know she's always been that kind of person, but I feel like the notch has been turned up…"

"Yeah, she did change a bit after the hell invasion," explained Toyohime with a mouthful. "She's really upset that she wasn't really able to do anything during that incident, other than helping people flee to the dream world. She made herself stricter than before in order to not lose to something like this again."

"It's not a bad thing wanting to be more serious, but I think she's taking this a bit too far…" said Eirin.

"You're not the only one who thinks that…" said Toyohime as she picked up another slice of peach using her fork. "I told her to loosen things up a little, but she wouldn't listen and came up with reasons to justify her actions and behavior… She's even trying to force it into others… The lunar army has to scout the surface of the moon every day to make sure that there are no enemies out there… They've been complaining that this is pointless, but she wouldn't listen…"

"I'll try to see if I can talk some sense into her," said Eirin. "Keeping up that kind of attitude isn't exactly a good idea. She's going to wear herself out being too worried about many things sooner or later."

"Hope you can do something about it," said Toyohime with a mouthful once again.

Seiran's interrogation was over, and nothing suspicious was found regarding her, so she was let go. While walking on the street with her friend, the latter said to her, "Cheer up! I'm sure they'll find the killer sooner or later and bring him to justice."

"I don't think I'm going to be able to get that horrifying image of her dead body out of my head…" said Seiran.

"Thinking about it, even though we are soldiers, we've never really seen heavily wounded people or gruesome dead bodies before…" said her friend.

As they were talking about this, a blonde rabbit munching on dango approached them from the front and called out with a mouthful, "Seiran! Kagome!"

"Oh hey there, Ringo!" said Seiran, trying to look cheerful.

"I heard that someone from the Lunar Science Central is dead," said Ringo. "'tis true?"

"Yeah… We went there to see the body… It was horrible…" replied Seiran. "You'll probably lose your appetite after seeing the corpse…"

"Nah, I think I can still eat just fine," said Ringo. "Sleeping, maybe not… What exactly happened?"

"A scientist there is found with the back of her head smashed open," replied the purple-haired rabbit, Kagome. "They haven't found the murder weapon yet, but they suspect it to be the rock we found while scouting."

"Oh, the one you told me about when I asked you what you brought back when I opened the gate for you from the watchtower?" asked Ringo.

"They didn't find traces of blood on the rock, though, but a thorough investigation on it will be done soon to confirm things," said Kagome.

"Let's hope the killer gets caught soon," said Ringo as she finished up her dango, and then she took out another one from a paper bag full of it she was carrying. "Hard to think that something like that would happen… No crime has happened here for a long time already, at least serious ones…"

"Yeah, we've only had petty theft, minor vandalizing, and littering… Can't believe that a gruesome murder would happen all of a sudden… Let's hope this doesn't happen again…" said Kagome.

Just then, Seiran's mobile phone sounded, so she answered it. "Hello? What?! All right! We'll be there at once!"

After hanging up the phone, Kagome asked her, "What happened?"

"The police just called, saying that one of their forensic scientists is found dead, killed in the same way as Doctor Kagana!" replied Seiran.

"What?!" asked Kagome in shock.

"Wait… They have your phone number?" asked Ringo with a mouthful, not shocked by the news at all.

"Yeah, since we found that rock, they figured that they should let me know if they find out anything regarding this incident," explained Seiran. "Anyway, I'm going back to the Science Central."

"I'm coming along!" said Kagome.

"Me too!" said Ringo.

The trio ran as fast as they could to the Lunar Science Central. Just as they entered the building, there was the sound of an explosion accompanied by a violent shaking. Even though the shaking lasted only a second, it was still enough to make almost everyone who felt it fall down. Seiran, Kagome, and Ringo got back up after the shaking stopped and smelled smoke.

"Was that an explosion just now?!" asked Kagome.

They saw some people running down the hallway and towards the place the explosion was heard, so they followed them. They eventually arrived at a room that had its door blown away, and smoke was coming from in there. When they looked inside the room, they were shocked to see the whole place ruined and charred. No bodies could be found, though they saw small charred pieces of what might be the remains of those who were in the room when the explosion occurred.

There was also a large hole at the back of the room from which people outside were looking into. Some of them were injured by the explosion as well.

"What… What happened here…?" asked a scientist who came over.

Kaguya hummed cheerfully as she placed the tricolored rock Rei'sen brought her onto a table in her room and then wiped it with a piece of wet cloth. "There! You'll look nice here!" said the Lunarian princess. "Perhaps I should give this thing a bit of waxing to make it look shiny and nicer to touch."

She then left the room. After she was gone, a mosquito she didn't notice was in the room flew to the rock and landed on it. The rock started to glow, and then the mosquito caught fire. The fire eventually burned out, leaving nothing but a tiny pile of ash on the table that used to be the mosquito.

"Welcome back!" Eirin said to a bounded Tewi, thanks to the rabbit demons, with an unsettling and "evil-looking" smile. Standing next to her was Yorihime, who, in Tewi's opinion, looked like a raging demon that just stepped out of hell to go on a killing spree.

"I'm… I'm sorry…" she cried.

TO BE CONTINUED

Kagome is my OC.