Disclaimer: See chapter three. Or two. Or, to be a rebel, ONE.

A/N: My feels have pretty much died and will be killed once they have been respawned this week, due to TFioS, SnK, and Free!. So, I have no idea how this chapter will turn out. Probably very crack/angst-y. #oh the crack references

"Sting!" The white dragon slayer was welcomed at the table with joyful shouts.

He himself looked shaken, but relived. Understandably, considering it's not everyday you escape death's grasp. Rang the doorbell and ran.

"Then... Baccus..." The voice is muted, it could've come from anyone at the table. And just like that, Sting's high from simply being alive is dulled.

For a moment, up until Levi opened the door, you could hear a pin drop in the dining room.

"Hm... I thought..." Levi was muttering to himself, but looked up and started when he saw that all eyes were on him. "Good morning...?"

"Morning," came the half-hearted reply.

Then, "Levi, let us out!"

"Two of us have died already! Who's next?"

"Why us?"

"Aigoo, settle down, SHUT FACE!" Levi's eyes were on fire, not literally, but he was mad. "I am not responsible for this, and I'm telling you everything I know already. Okay? I don't like this situation any more than you do, but no one gets out of this house alive until the others are dead. It's set that way. You'll see what I mean later today.

"Now that we're all quiet. Breakfast will be served. Eat well, you have a long day ahead of you." With that, he swooshed out and let Sasha and Zoe in with the trays.

"I-I'm not hungry," Milliana said quietly. She hunched her shoulders and sat still with her head bowed.

"Milliana, eat," Kagura demanded.

Erza shot a worried look over to the cat-woman and exchanged glances with Kagura. She sighed wearily and stood up. "I'm going back to my room, do you want to come, Milliana?"

"Er-chan... I'll come. Thanks." She stood up shakily and bowed repeatedly as she left behind Erza.

They left a silence that no one wanted to break behind. And breakfast ended with only the soft clanging of forks and spoons on plates, pushing the food around, not eating.

"Welcome to day two of Rue Manor. Unfortunately, today is not even close to the last day here in this wretched place. Before I say anything else, I'd like to apologize for my outburst earlier... Moving on, Baccus was killed in his sleep, yes? His body has been moved to the morgue for a group of you to examine. The last known whereabouts is the kitchen, and the scene of death is his bedroom. I will give you one minute to decide where to go. Choose wisely."

"Erza-san, I have a favor to ask," Kagura said. "Would you accompany me and Milliana to the kitchen?"

Erza looked at Kagura curiously for a second, and Kagura gestured to Milliana, with her head down and hunched shoulders. Immediately, Erza got it. She nodded, saying, "Of course. I was planning on that anyway, Lucy and Natsu are going to the morgue and Gray is going to the crime scene."

"Thank you," Kagura said with a sigh.

"No problem. She's my friend, too, you know, and I'm worried about her." Erza changed her gaze to the cat like woman when they got closer. "Milliana, how are you?"

"Good," she replied shakily, "thank you, Er-chan."

"Mh. Let's go then," she gestured to Sasha, who was waiting for them to join the rest of the group.

The walk to the kitchen was very quiet, no one was tempted to talk. The doors were opened with a creak, revealing the messy kitchen. It wasn't very surprising, but not exactly unexpected either.

Well, there were glasses lined up on the table. Baccus was a big drinker. But there was also a splattering of glass, a dark puddle and maybe vomit on the floor, and a couple of things knocked over on the counter top. There could've been a struggle, but it seemed more to be a drunkard stumbling around than anything else.

Slowly, the mages - if they could still be called that - entered, almost as if they were afraid that whatever had killed Baccus would get them too.

Annie and Adrian circled the island, looking at one spot by the line of wine glasses and the bottle of From the Vine wine intently.

"Hey, guys," Annie said, not looking up from the table, "come here." Once they had all complied and were gathered around the table, Adrian continued.

"Don't touch anything, do you see this yellow-ish powder? You have to look really closely. Whatever you do, do not touch or smell it. Do not taste it, do not get close to it. It's probably poison. I don't know enough about the colors of poison to tell, but I remember reading a list of the top ten most deadly poisons and arsenic was number two. One of the forms it comes in is yellow solid crystalline."

"So you think Baccus was poisoned?" Eve asked.

"Yes."

"Someone could have slipped it into the bottle, effectively ensuring that Baccus would drink it when he came down at night," Annie confirms.

"That- that's horrible," Milliana whispered hoarsely. On either side of her, Erza and Kagura look distinctly uncomfortable, both making the decisions to hug the younger woman at the same time. It soon became a group hug, someone bringing Adrian and Annie into the huddle, too. They stayed like that for a while, until it was time to leave. They were still a family, after all, even if one of them was a murderer and two had died. They shared one fate: death.

"At least there's more to work with than Beth's room," Alexia said, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't work. Instead, she got glares or glances thrown her way, and she wondered why she even tried. Not everybody thought like she did, after all, not everybody can understand her train of thought, even when she herself can't sometimes.

But, there was some truth to her words. Baccus' bed was messed up, obviously slept in and there was throw-up on the floor in this room, too. A dim yellow mixture of food and purple, soaking the plush carpet and emitting a sour stench. Hibiki pointed out a trail linking the restroom and bed, widely spread lines of dragged feet. The places where his feet supported his weight were obvious, the carpet pressed down and dark. Baccus had made several trips to the toilet and slept fitfully - if he even fell asleep at all.

"I guess he had an upset stomach," Alexia noted before turning her head and dry heaving, trying her best to keep the bile down. Nobody found this funny in the least either.

"The morgue," Levi announced, opening the door with a bow.

Gray nodded to the butler as he passed, distracted by Baccus' swelled and pale body.

There was a sheet of paper - a form of some sort - lying next to him that Armin immediately picked up and read.

"Poisoning," he said simply. "That's all it says. He died from some sort of poison." The paper shifted in his hand, revealing another sheet under.

"Hm?" Sting picked it up off the floor, where it had drifted down after Armin had failed to catch it.

"'Symptoms: swelling, pale skin, garlic breath, blood in urine in system, alcohol in his system, alcohol poisoning, possible excessive sweating, saliva found in mouth postmortem'," Gray read from over Sting's shoulder. "'Poison symptoms: Cyanide - almond scent, se-"

Orga had taken the sheet, unwilling to hear Gray drone on about poisoning more. After scanning it, he said, "The symptoms listed compare the most to arsenic."

"So Baccus died because he was poisoned by arsenic? But wouldn't the killer be dead too?"

"Yeah. Maybe it was alcohol that killed him and some dud was placed to make it seem like Arsenic?" Gray suggested.

"It could be anything, really," Armin corrected. "But one way to tell who it is would be to look for swelling of the hands."

"Look for someone with a swelled hand?"

"Or pale. A fat or pale, or both, hand."

"Arsenic," Lucy said.

"Probably, but Armin suggested alcohol poisoning," Gray told her.

"Sounds plausible, if Baccus hadn't lived life perpetually drunk," Erza scoffed sadly. She did remember those fights with Baccus, good natured of course, to maybe finally decide who was stronger. They had come to a stalemate every time, or one or the other was distracted and had lost because of that. They were equal in strength.

"Yeah, so arsenic," Gray said.

Natsu and Happy hadn't said a word the whole day, going around with their arms crossed and not paying much attention to their surroundings. They seemed to be in deep thought, deep enough to walk into walls. Multiple times.

"Here's what happened. You opened a bottle of wine and slipped poison into it, knowing that Baccus would definitely come fore a drink."

"And drink he did, setting up a line of ten glasses, with one broken on the floor."

"He threw up, then stumbled up to his room."

"He wouldn't stop vomiting, probably a result of the excess alcohol in his system."

"And he died. There, in his room, with no one to witness it."

"You are one sick person, I've said it twice and I'll say it for the rest of my days."

"Armin..."

"Alexia..."

"Rogue..."

"... Kagura..."

"I... I don't know who you are, but..."

"Why in the world would you do this?"

"Congratulations, Armin. You've been spared by the killer," Levi said this with a legit smile. Or at least the hint of one. "Here's what really happened:

Baccus is a damn fool. I set up a bottle and thirteen glasses for him and, not suspecting anything, he drank.

Cracked one of my favorite drinking glasses, too.

I think this one was definitely too easy. The only people to guess different-

... well, you'll see.

Baccus did not, in fact, die from alcohol poisoning, though that was fun to watch.

I think he'd have died from it long ago if he could've.

It was arsenic. I even gave you a sheet! How could you have missed it!

Can I just tell you who's next to die?

This isn't fun anymore, you guys are so idiotic!

I'll make a mass murder if I have to!

At your current levels, I could get away with killing all of your masters and no one here would suspect a thing.

Except maybe Hibiki and Armin.

Possibly a few of the other, smarter ones.

But the rest of you are dead.

One. Last. Chance.

This next death could possibly be the easiest of them all and whoever gets it wrong will die.

It doesn't matter how many of you guess wrong.

Dead. All dead.

The simple insanity of this message leaves them all in shock and fear.

Sting: Spared

Alexia: Spared

Lucy: Spared

Annie: Spared

Natsu, Happy: Spared

Lyon: Spared

Milliana: Spared

Hibiki: Spared

Gray: Spared

Rogue: Spared

Erza: Spared

Ren: Spared

Orga: Scared

Eve: Spared

Kagura: Spared

Rufus: Spared

Adrian: Scared

The residents of Rue Manor woke in the middle of the night to a scream and pitch-black darkness. The power had cut off and another one had died.

A/N: Okay, so it was only the first part... Makes sense, this took me a while to write.

Who do you think died? Orga or Adrian? How?

Comments, questions, concerns?