A.N: These chapters keep growing... I don't know why this one's so long since I don't think much actually happens, but I gave up worrying about it. What do you think of Chance? Hope you all had a good New Year, thanks for reading :)


It was one thing to promise something, another to make it happen. Matt couldn't help reflecting on the intrinsic truth of this over the next few weeks. In order to 'encourage' him, Mello had taken his PS2. And his N64. And his Dreamcast. Even his Gameboy had mysteriously vanished over night. Matt leveled a weary glare over his book in the direction of the blond. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gone so long without decapitating a zombie or shooting someone in the head.

Returning his gaze he tried to force his mind to focus. 'It seems in addition to the complication of various schemas formed in early childhood, there were other outside forces influencing the killers state of mind….' Interesting though the subject was, today his brain did not want to focus. He set the book down, and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed to rest on the floor. Lifting his goggles to allow himself to rub at his bleary eyes he reflected on how much work studying was.

Actually, it was a little damaging to his pride to see in class how Mello automatically knew every answer, could solve every problem with ease. Not that the blond ever noticed, absorbed as he was in Near's accomplishments rather than his own. It was just, Matt supposed, that he too had believed arrogantly that he was capable of being more than number 14 or 11 or whatever, but because he had never tried, he'd never noticed how fierce the competition between rankings was, assuming it would be a simple matter to win the bet. Which would make it all the more galling if he bombed tomorrow's test and stayed in the same position.

Resolutely he stood, shaking his head as if he could shake off his doubts that easily, then grabbed a cigarette carton and walked out, failing to notice how Mello jerked his head up to watch him go, blue eyes narrowed contemplatively.

Back outside, in the now familiar shade of the holly bush, he lit up, listening with distant interest to the wheezing sound of his breathing. At least it was sunny today, he mused, blowing out a thin trail of smoke, the familiar acrid chemical taste already soothing his over-wrought mind. All he could do now was sit the test tomorrow and hope he passed. If not, who knew if he'd ever get his consoles back.

The day of the test was a surprisingly sunny one, given that it was still only late February, but Matt barely noticed. He felt nervous as they waited sedately outside the doors of the classroom. Well, that is, everyone apart from Mello waited sedately.

"Nervous Near?" Mello was grinning manically, looming over the small white-haired boy who ignored him, looking only at his finger puppets. "Hey! I'm talking to you," Mello shoved Near in the chest, making the younger boy stumble, but not look up, to Mello's contrition. "That's it!" Mello snarled, raising a fist.

To Matt's relief it was then the classroom door was opened, revealing row after row of equidistant desks in the long room. They filed in past the teacher, going silently to their desks. Matt found himself seated behind Mello, with Chance one desk away from him. The plain girl looked up as he glanced over, and their eyes met briefly, her expression turning sour as she saw him.

Uncomfortable Matt focused on his desk and the facedown inch-thick booklet on top of it. Unconsciously he wiped his sweating palms on his jeans.

"You may begin."

Several hours later Matt exited the room along with a rush of chattering students.

"-was really hard this time…"

"-once you figured out it was a negative integer it…"

"-really hope I get moved up now."

He slouched along, hand deep in pockets, aiming for the door whilst fumbling for a cigarette. "Sorry." He muttered as he nearly walked into someone. He looked up, "Oh, hey."

Mello was stood in front, gazing blankly at a patch of carpet. At the sound of Matt's voice he seemed to snap out of his daze, and looked up sharply. "How'd you do?"

Matt shrugged "Okay I guess… I'm not sure I'm gonna make third though."

Mello half-smiled. Matt started; it was quite possibly the only smile he'd ever seen Mello give that wasn't full of malice; it made the blond look almost friendly. "It doesn't matter. I didn't really expect you to get there that quick." The blond broke into his thoughts, confusing Matt even more; had Mello just offered reassurance?

Mello walked off, leaving Matt to stare dumbly after him. A few seconds later another thought occurred to him and he took a step forward, calling after his retreating roommate. "Hey! Does this mean I get my consoles back?"

"Sure. If you can find them."

Chuckling in spite of himself, Matt found he felt almost relieved that Mello was still taunting him. He didn't know what to make of a nice Mello.

* * *

The second the scoreboard went up the next day Mello went to look. Heart hammering, he roughly shoved his way through the crowd of students, ignoring the angry cries and dirty looks as he elbowed his way to the front. Grabbing onto his rosary, he made a vain attempt to pray; please, please, please…

Obviously God wasn't convinced, what with his track record. Mello let out a string of curses and slammed his fist into the wall. Ignoring the whispers and scared looks, he turned on his heel and walked out, not even having to shove his way past as the sea of students parted at his expression.

On his way out he passed Matt, who looked pretty glum. Obviously the boy had already seen the scoreboard then. Mello felt his face twist into an ugly smile; Matt wasn't the only one disappointed. Too bad for him. Mello wasn't in the mood to comfort, even if he had been the type of person to offer. Instead he ignored the red-haired boy and headed towards the front entrance. He needed to get out of here.

5th. Logically Matt knew he should be pleased. He'd gone from 11th to 5th over the course of a few weeks. Distantly he heard a few people congratulate him, but he couldn't bring himself to answer them. Why was he so bothered about this? He'd only been doing it for a bet, hadn't he? He didn't really mind smoking outside that much; it was a pain, but not as much as studying had proved to be. So why did he care he'd lost?

"Congratulations."

He looked up and wished he hadn't. It was Chance coming to gloat. She stood in front of him a condescending smirk on her thin lips.

"It was really good to get to fifth, I mean, you tried your best didn't you?"

Yes, he had. Matt pushed himself up from the wall he'd been leaning against, and walked past Chance, unable to force a retort through his angry mouth. He had tried, and as Chance had so gleefully pointed out, he had still failed. Mello had said something like that once; if you didn't win, then no matter how well you'd done it was irrelevant.

As he walked out into the dimly lit corridor he could feel his anger and disappointment crystallize sharply into something else: resolve. Not even knowing what he was doing really, he let his feet guide him through the corridors until he ended up stood in front of a door.

Unlike the other doors in the house this one was oak, and darkened with age. Hesitating briefly, not sure entirely what he expected to gain from this, Matt raised his hand and knocked.

A brief silence, then the door opened. Looking vaguely surprised, Roger stood in the doorway to his office. "Hello Matt, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Awkwardly Matt adjusted his goggles, "I'd like to speak with you. About the scorings."

Roger looked down at his young charge, still puzzled, then nodded, "You better come in then."

Matt followed Roger in, closing the door softly behind him, and then looked around Roger's office with interest. He had been in here before a few times; Roger made a point of speaking to every child under his care one-on-one now and again, but he was still impressed with the place. It was a medium sized room, with oak paneling and several bookcases tightly packed with books. Light streamed through the large bay window that looked out onto a flower garden, already beginning to bloom.

He sat himself down in front of the large oak desk, and looked across at Roger who steepled his fingers and waited for him to begin.

"Is it possible to change your ranking? I mean, before the next text." Matt blurted out.

Roger raised a bushy eyebrow looking startled. "You've only just taken a test, and you did very well if I remember." He shuffled through some paper on his desk, and then looked over a sheet. "5th, an impressive improvement from 11th. While I'm pleased to see your ambition I think you can wait until the next test in June."

"But that's ages away!" Matt exploded, half rising out of his chair. Catching himself, he sat back down. "Sorry, it's just… I feel like, if I have to wait that long I might stop caring or something." He sighed and looked down, sure that Roger would just say keep trying and then dismiss him.

Thoughtfully Roger looked at the lowered head, observing how the boy held himself rigid, as though he was really having trouble controlling himself over this. Matt wasn't the sort of boy he expected to hear this sort of thing from; the boy was generally relaxed towards his studies, many teachers complained too relaxed, wasting his potential. It was interesting to see Matt was finally beginning to show some competitive spirit. That was what made him say what he said next.

"It is highly irregular for someone not in the top three to take on a case, but if you really want -"

"Thank you!"

Roger smiled in pleasant surprise at the eager young face beaming at him, "Well then, I think I have a small case that's open at the moment, nothing too complicated at first, but…"

* * *

Back in his room Matt grabbed a backpack and started showing clothes into it. He glanced around the room for anything else he might need, added his laptop and some hacking gear, then sat down on his bed and looked over the brief.

He'd already read it and Roger had gone over it with him too, assuring him that he wouldn't be doing this alone, he was merely going to observe and help if possible with the team of police looking into this crime.

It was a simple enough matter of arson; someone had set fire to a church. No one was killed; an elderly lady had been rescued from the blaze but she suffered no worse injuries than smoke inhalation and shock. Police were treating the fire as suspicious because of how quickly the fire had grown before the fire department were called, but were also considering the possibility it had been started by accident by the elderly lady, who had lit a candle, then fallen asleep while praying.

Briskly Matt placed the small folder in a side pocket, then left his room, going down and out into the drive to get in the sleek black sedan waiting to drive him to the village.

Stepping out of the car an hour later, Matt took the opportunity to acclimatize himself to his surroundings. The village, from what he'd seen of it as they'd driven through had been a stereotypical sleepy English village, with cobbled pavements and funny lopsided houses with warm red tiled roofs or funny straw thatches that sat like wigs on top. The church was about five minutes drive from the village center, but that distance and the sprawling, overgrown graveyard was enough to ensure a fair amount of distance between the church and any other buildings. One of the reasons that the fire had had enough time to cause so much damage.

Matt was stood in front of the village's police station, an old fashioned looking building built from stone like everything else here. As he walked towards the doors one opened and a friendly looking man caught sight of him.

"You must be the kid, wow, you're younger than I expected. Come along in."

Matt held his tongue at being called the kid, and stepped in. There was a small reception area with a bored looking copper behind the desk, but Matt didn't have much time to look around before his new friend called to him halfway up a narrow, rickety looking staircase, "Come on, I'll go through the case with you in my office."

His 'office' turned out to be a small room made smaller by the sloping ceilings and number of filing cabinets the man had managed to squeeze in.

"Well, Wammy's sent you, so I guess you must be pretty smart. Do you have any previous experience?"

"No." Matt admitted, eyeing the man curiously. He'd mentioned Wammy's, but Matt wasn't sure why some country officer knew about that. Who exactly was this man?

As if he could read the question in Matt's face the man chuckled, "I haven't introduced myself have I?" He laughed apologetically then offered Matt his hand, "Call me Steve, I'm head honcho here, which isn't saying much I know, and to answer what you're wondering, the reason I know about Wammy's is that my father's an old friend of the founders."

Feeling better now that he'd had some of his doubts addressed Matt took the man's hand. He had a warm, strong handshake, and Matt found himself instinctively liking him.

" Now, Roger and I use this connection to our mutual benefit; they get to send some of you lot here for experience, we get help with any tricky crimes."

"And is the crime tricky?" Matt asked, leaning back in his chair.

Steve shrugged, that easy smile on his face still, "It should be reasonably straight-forward, we've got no shortage of suspects; the problem is motive and opportunity." Reaching behind him, he grabbed a slim manila folder and tossed it casually over to Matt, "Take a look for yourself."

Matt flipped it open and began reading at high-speed, processing and storing the information instantaneously. According to the files the fire had been reported at 7:02 pm, but forensics said judging from the smoke damage and extent it had spread, the fire had probably been going strong for some fifteen minutes before that. People with keys to the church were the vicar, the caretaker and the woman in charge of flowers and choir practice.

Statements had been taken from all of them, but the vicar had been in town at the time of the fire, and there were several people including the police officer on duty himself who'd seen him. The caretaker however, had no alibi. The woman was the one who'd fallen asleep and got caught inside the church when it was on fire; police had questioned her but she said she couldn't remember anything and police didn't want to push her too much when she was still shaken and upset. There was another possible suspect, a local youth who sung in the choir, Ricky Holness. Despite being only a few years older than Matt he already had a police record for ABH, petty theft and vandalism, notably targeting the church itself on several occasions. So far he seemed to be the lead suspect.

Matt closed the file; mind already whirring as he formed his initial conclusions, unaware of the impressed look Steve shot him after witnessing him read the file in just over a minute.

Any of these suspects could have done it based on the information he had here, he would have to wait until the follow up interviews before he could narrow it down, and there was always the option it was an entirely different person. Now he was determined to solve this case, not only to rise to the rank of third, but also to insure the criminal was caught before anyone was killed; arson was generally a serial crime perpetrated by exceptionally violent criminals, and there was a statistically high chance of arson leading to rape or murder. He was almost completely sure the arsonist hadn't been aware that there was someone inside the church, but that was of no importance. Ignorance was not an excuse, especially when someone's life was endangered as a result.

Matt clenched his fists in determination; the criminal would be caught!