Why hello there! I think the latest chapter for this fic is due. Thanks to all of my followers for reading this fic, to my beta Potter4me, and to Nyasol for the reviews. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail isn't mine and never will be. Darn shame, isn't it?

Lahar and Lucy stepped out of the Fairy Tail guild hall into the misty courtyard that served as the Rune Knights' base of operation. As they passed one of the blue and white tents, Lahar motioned to one of his knights, a tall, thin man with a crooked nose and a weak chin, who approached the pair. Lucy figured that he was the go-fer, considering that this man looked weak enough to be knocked over by a stiff breeze. "I need you to find the current residence of the guests from out of town that attended Ms. Sturm's birthday party. We believe that the killer may have connection to the hometown of the Sturm and Markester families, but we need more information about it," Lahar said to the man.

The knight nodded and asked, "Where will I be able to find you once I obtain their location?"

"Ms. Heartfilia and I will be taking a closer look around the scene of the crime. You should be able to find us there," Lahar replied. He then walked across the courtyard, where a group of six other knights were waiting for him, and ordered them to escort Lucy and himself to the crime scene.

As the group walked into the street, Lucy turned to Lahar and asked, "So, um, have you even been to the crime scene yet? And how are we even going to get there, what with this fog and all?"

"I have been there briefly once before already, "Lahar replied, "and the fog looks like it's thinned out enough to see where we are going." Sure enough, while the weather was still overcast, the fog was slowly dissipating, until Lucy could see almost to the end of the street.

Walking through town escorted by Rune Knights gave Lucy a somewhat uneasy feeling, as none of the knights, with their grim expressions, looked particularly inclined to speak to hear. In fact, they were so unexpressive that Lucy briefly entertained the idea of knocking one over to see if the knight would fall over and break. Maybe she could knock them into each other and watch them fall like dominoes. A silly idea, like the ones that Natsu would think of all the time, except that Natsu probably would give one of the knights a shove.

The trip was much worse that when she and Juvia had been escorted earlier that day, considering then the fog was thick and the streets were nearly deserted. Now that the weather had improved, Magnolia's citizens emerged from their homes to go about their daily business. As they scurried around the group of Rune Knights, many gawked at Lucy as she walked past them. She had done odd jobs for many of these people, whom Lucy recognized. Lucy's face turned red with embarrassment and she felt like a prisoner instead of someone who was on equal terms with Lahar.

Eager to break the eerie silence that had befallen the group, Lucy turned to Lahar and said, "Is it more difficult, compared to non-magical work? The investigating, that is. I mean, what with magical murders not leaving as many traces, isn't finding evidence harder?" Ouch, Lucy thought. That kind of awful sentence structure wasn't finding it's way into any of her writing.

Lahar paused for a second, as if contemplating Lucy's question, then replied, "You would think that it's harder, but it is really not as bad as you might imagine. While magical crimes are harder to trace by conventional crime-solving methods, we have ways to trace which spells are cast and by whom, so I wouldn't call it harder. Just different."

Eventually the stream of people passing the group slowed to a trickle, then stopped, as they drew closer to the crime scene. Finally the abandoned market square came into view, with a pair of Rune Knights guarding the entrance. Eager to be away from her stoic escorts, Lucy ran into the square and looked around. Behind her Lahar was asking the guards if they had seen anything suspicious. Nada, apparently.

Before Lucy lay the burned buildings around the square; the worst damage was at the opposite end of the square directly across from the entrance, where the former businesses were merely blackened husks. The buildings farther away from the blackened area exhibited less fire damage, but they were also severely dilapidated, showing how long the area had been abandoned. The ground was paved with hard cobblestones that were unlikely to yield any footprints.

Drawn by curiosity, Lucy walked toward the building that she suspected to have contained the center of the blaze. As she neared the remains of the building, she noticed that there were more cobblestones under her feet that were blackened and cracked, attesting to the heat of the fire. Suddenly, Lahar came up to her from behind and said, "I have a pretty good guess as to how and who started this fire."

Knowing exactly who Lahar was talking about, Lucy retorted, "You can't prove that Natsu or any other Fairies did this. Besides, we aren't here to investigate old fires." Despite this, Lucy had a sinking feeling that Natsu would end up having to be involved in this case. While Lucy really wouldn't have minded his presence, Natsu's skills and attitude were more likely to disrupt than aid the investigation.

Behind her, Lahar said, "In that case you should come back to the center of the square, where Silvia died. We're going to attempt to cast one of our tracing spells to find out who did this." Lucy looked back and saw that the knights had traced a wall of shimmering text that rose several feet in the air around the spot where the corpse had been found. The Rune Knights completed their spell, and a pillar of brilliant blue light shot into the sky over the text wall.

The pillar of light split apart into a myriad of beams that enveloped the entire square, and Lucy could make out one line of text in the text wall: April 22, X784 11:30PM. The date of the murder and the estimated time of the murder. Out of the blue light, two figures coalesced: one was certainly Silvia, held aloft and struggling in the crushing grip of shimmering blue water, also made of blue light. A ways away from Silvia, near where Lucy stood, was the form of a woman, her body mostly obscured by mist. Despite how close Lucy was to the woman, she still couldn't make out her face. Based off of this, Lucy realized that the blue light replayed the murder from the point of view form the wall of text–the point of view of the victim in this case.

However, the water that covered poor Silvia was not coming from the mysterious woman, but from somewhere deep in the ruined building that Lucy and Lahar stood in front of. Immediately the pair rushed into the ruined building, following the stream of water made of blue light that emerged from the building. Unfortunately, before Lucy and Lahar could find the source of the water, the spell ran out of power and the blue light vanished. Despite this hideously predictable setback, the two wizards continued to sift through the ash, looking for any usable evidence. Lucy uncovered a vial that contained some kind of viscous fluid–actually, it looked more like a vial of snot than anything else. However, Lahar uncovered a far greater prize–a trapdoor that had clearly escaped burn damage, located below a thick layer of debris near the back of the ruined building. Suddenly, before they could open up the trapdoor, a piercing scream cut through the air behind them, along with a rumble and something that sounded like rushing water.

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