Hello from Japan! So, my host family's house has wifi, so I'll be able to check in with you guys from here. I'll be very busy throughout the weeks, so, again, I might be a bit slow with the updates. The plane ride gave me a lot of time to write, luckily, but since then, I've been awfully busy. Not to mention, a bit sick! My body wasn't ready to handle a japanese cold, haha.
wmsm5ever
Ding ding, you noticed the reference! Yeah, I was definitely referencing Renee's death in this chapter. Although I have to say, I didn't even THINK about the ballerina part till I read your review (I might have swore a little when I figured it out, which disgruntled the other plane passengers considerably). I actually played in one of the three Doubt Academy games, so I'm a big fan of them, but I prefer to keep my FF life and my tumblr life separate, so I'd rather not elaborate on who I was.
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Somewhere quiet, a young girl in a white kimono was slowly regaining her consciousness.
'Hmm..?'
'Hi Natsuko!'
'Akari..? Where am I..?'
'We don't really know, but we think it's purgatory. You died. Don't worry, it's not that terrible with other people here. Right Itami?'
'I suppose not.'
'See?'
'...'
'Oh, almost forgot to mention it- You were murdered. Sorry about that.'
'Wha... Who did it?'
'I thought spirits knew all.'
'Dying doesn't significantly improve your IQ. You start to remember after a while- in my case, at least.'
'Oh...'
'Hey, don't be scared! You're not alone here. Come on, take my hand.'
'Where are we going?'
'I don't know, but it'll be better.'
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Back down on the plane of existence, things weren't going as well.
There was actually no screaming this time. There was a shocked silence, staring at the mangled body in front of them. The stench was ignored in favour of horrified, unbroken staring. This didn't even seem real.
Even Olivier was fearful, hands visibly shaking as he slid on his plastic gloves. "O-Ok... I can investigate this one on my own if none of you want to go near h- it." He corrected himself as he almost referred to the corpse as 'her'.
"Maybe... Maybe that's f-for the best." Umeko, the girl who'd had several spats with Natsuko since day one, was no less petrified than anyone else. "I think... I think I'm gonna go back to sleep."
With that, she fell backwards, banging her head on the doorframe and sliding onto the ground, unconscious. Several students jumped at the noise.
"Ah..." Himakuta bent over, gently tugging Umeko out of the room, leaving her sitting against the wall just outside of the freezer. He remained out there for a few more minutes, and the sound of retching was heard.
Regaining his bearings, Olivier spoke up again. "Ah, so... If you do want to stay with me to investigate, you're welcome to. Otherwise, I recommend you go out and look for evidence." He tugged on a surgical mask he had stored in his pocket as he finished.
"... I'll stay." Haru raised her hand. "She was... Good to me. I'll help."
Olivier nodded. "That's very kind of you, Miss Haruna. Here," He handed her an extra pair of gloves and a flu mask, "You may want these."
As Haru slid them on, there was a shriek from the front of the crowd.
"GAAAAAAH!" Shion screeched, jumping backwards and falling into several people.
"Wh-What? What is it?" Ritsu, who had been one of the people Shion ran into, grabbed her shoulders to steady the hyperventilating girl, who was taking off her shoes for an unknown reason.
"I-I stepped in it!" She wailed, kicking her shoes far away. One rolled over, showing a small piece of... god knows what organ stuck to the bottom. "I stepped in it!"
"Please calm down!" Yohaku, although he himself was looking green in the face, did his best to reassure her. "It was just a little misstep, you're ok, you're fine, please, just breathe."
Shion's breath slowed as he spoke. She eventually stopped hyperventilating, merely staring down at her sock feet.
"Hah... Some sort of Super High School Level Good Luck I am..." She muttered.
"It was just one little accident. I'm sure your luck is intact." Yohaku patted the top of her head.
"... I think we should go now. Let's crack the case- for Natsuko." Iko, who had been staring at the scene in shock this whole time, put his head up and smiled.
"... Yeah! Let's get going. We can do this..!" Chiemi announced, voice wavering, but certain. With these two announcements, the remaining members all left the room in search of clues.
"Well then, Haru. Ready to begin?" Olivier turned to his newfound crime scene assistant.
"That's one way to put it." Haru was purposefully not staring at Natsuko's face.
Suddenly, the two felt buzzing in their pockets. Simultaneously, both took their student ID cards out of their respective pockets to find that the case file had been updated.
"Victim: Natsuko Sonoda. Victim Age: 17. Approx time of death:
"There's a stepladder over in the corner. Can you go check the drawers and sinks while I go get it? I'm going to remove the body from the ceiling." Olivier turned to Haru.
She nodded back at him. "You got it, chief." Trotting over to the left side of the room, being very careful to not step on the blood and various splatters of gore on the floor, Haru went to investigate the countertops and drawers.
Olivier pulled the stepladder over, carefully balancing it on the slippery red puddles. It wasn't too hard to get her down from the low ceiling, although Natsuko was heavier than he anticipated. Carefully laying down the corpse, Olivier had just stepped down from the ladder when...
"Uh, Olivier? You might wanna see this."
Haru was staring into the sink, looking somewhat revolted. Moving up next to her, Olivier peered into the sink.
"What seems to be the ma- oh."
The sink had about a centimetre of water in it, as the plug was firmly sat in it. There was a single spoon floating about, silver reflecting across the harsh lighting above it. More notably, there were red swirls mixed in with the water, joining several white stringy pieces of... something.
"... Those are bits of skin off of Natsuko's anterior chamber." Olivier spoke monotonously.
"Come again?"
"We're looking at the remains of her eye."
"Ewwww!" Haru brought a hand to her masked mouth, looking revolted.
"So... It seems the spoon was used to remove her eyeball. Human eyes, once removed, are easily broken up. So the culprit must have removed it, dumped it in the sink, and it splattered everywhere." Olivier spoke with such calmness that Haru couldn't help but inch away from him.
"Uh huh..." She looked worried. "So, uh, what now?"
He shrugged. "If you kept investigating the counters, it'd be useful. I'll look over the body."
"Right, right." And with that, both students started their work.
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Meanwhile, Himakuta and Iko had teamed up to gather alibis and information. So far, they'd ran into Chiemi and Shion, who had been sleeping, so neither one of the girls had a solid alibi. However, entering the swimming area led to them meeting up with a much less polite person- Saburo.
"Good morning, Saburo." Iko called out to the brunet boy. Saburo was digging through baskets around the pool, carelessly dropping goggles and flotation devices on the ground as he went along. He turned to look at the two boys.
"Oh, hi." After such a gory death, even Saburo couldn't choke out a cruel word. He just walked around the pool towards both of them. "What do you need?"
"We're looking for alibis," Himakuta piped in. "Can we have yours?"
Saburo sighed. "I don't have one- I was sleeping. Sorry."
"Aww... Thanks anyways." Himakuta slumped his shoulders, huffing. Iko gave the blacksmith odd look.
"That's it? No checking for confirmation?"
Himakuta shrugged, pulling a lollipop from his pocket. "Well, nobody can confirm or deny it, right? No point in asking anymore questions. Come on, we should probably go check out the rest of the group."
Iko shrugged, and turned along with Himakuta. They had almost reached the door when...
"... Wait."
Both boys turned to see Saburo standing in the same spot, staring at the ground. He was messing with his hair nervously. "I don't know if this will help, but I have information."
"Huh?" Iko cocked his head. "What would that be?"
"I met Natsuko in the hallway at... What, an hour before she... You know. She told me something about the otaku who doesn't know what an iron is and the blonde with the obvious daddy issues."
Himakuta and Iko both squinted a bit at his less than polite descriptions of Ritsu and Chiasa, but let him continue nonetheless.
"She told me about her secret. Well, she didn't tell me what it was, but she said she dropped it in the hallway, and the two of them found it." Saburo made hand motions as he spoke. "Natsuko was really upset- she said that she was sure Chiasa read it. Told me that Chiasa was going into her room when Natsuko walked by, and Chiasa snapped at her, called her a bunch of names, all that fun stuff. Natsuko was a mess. I told her it would be ok, and she just left." He stopped talking, and glared at the two other boys. "I'll beat the snot out of you if you tell anyone I have nice feelings sometimes."
"Chiasa..? She doesn't seem like the type to do something like that." Himakuta raised an eyebrow, ignoring the threat.
Saburo merely shrugged. "I don't know if she was telling the truth, but I'm guessing the secret was really bad, whatever it was. Natsuko wouldn't really have a reason to lie about something like that."
"Thank you for the help, Saburo," Iko smiled weakly. "Make sure you investigate to the best of your abilities!"
Saburo stared at the ground before lifting his head to look at both of them, the smallest hint of sadness on his face. "I will. I'll avenge her."
The archer went back to his business, and the two other boys left to look for any more information.
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Ritsu and Chiasa were wandering the halls together. There was no talking between the two of them, just a large, empty silence.
Chiasa had been planning to bring up yesterday, but the sudden announcement and the horror that had just unfolded had thrown the idea far from her thoughts. Romance was the farthest thing from her mind as she hurried down the hall.
They ended up stumbling upon Shion and Kin, who were speaking quietly to each other. Both of them turned to Ritsu and Chiasa.
"Oh, hello." Kin did their best to stay composed, although their hands were shaking. Shion was quietly staring at the two of them, seemingly too frightened to speak.
"Hi!" Ritsu spoke with a forced cheeriness to his voice, trying to hide his obvious distress. "How is the investigation going?"
"Well, we think we found something." Kin took a step to their right, where the door to the gym was, with Shion shadowing them. They opened it, and motioned for the two of them to come inside. Ritsu and Chiasa spoke quiet thank yous as they entered.
Inside the gym seemed normal. There were no body parts, no bloody messages, nothing that would indicate anything having changed.
"... So, ah, what is it?" Chiasa asked after a silence.
"It's this," Kin took a few steps to the right, putting their hand on the handle of a sword. There was a line of katanas, all set neatly in their stands, excluding the one Kin was touching. "We noticed it because it was in the stand backwards. And when you pull it out..."
Kin grasped it tightly, and tugged it out. The end of the blade was stained crimson.
"Yikes. So, I guess that's our murder weapon?" Ritsu cringed a little at the blood.
Kin nodded. "That's my best guess, anyways."
Shion, who had been silent the whole time, looked up at all three people. "It's too bad it doesn't really give us any information on the killer, huh?" Even though Shion speaking up while she was in such a stressful scenario was unusual, nobody really marked it as such.
"Yeah, it's a shame. Make sure to tell us if you two find anything new, ok?" Ritsu asked, Chiasa nodding beside him.
"You got it," replied Kin with a curt nod. With that, the tomb builder and visual novel creator left the room, searching for more answers.
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The incinerator room groaned, heat radiating from it. Yohaku and Chiemi stood at the entrance, beating the heat for the purpose of the investigation.
"So, like I was saying, we should probably check the incinerator area... I would suspect that a culprit could easily burn evidence, considering Monobear leaves it unlocked." Yohaku spoke. To prove his point, he grabbed the handle of one of the two large iron doors and pushed it open with ease. Chiemi cocked her head.
"How did you know that?" She asked, somewhat perplexed.
"Monobear put me on garbage duty for the first day we were here. He merely said that he didn't trust us with the keys, and he left it open." Yohaku took a step inside, holding open the door for Chiemi, who followed him.
Inside was even hotter. Orange light radiated from the large incinerator in the back of the room, creating splashes of orange and red light all over the otherwise dark, grey room.
The two of them looked around, being careful not to get too close to the incinerator. For the first few minutes, their searches were completely fruitless. And then...
"I found something!"
Yohaku peered over at Chiemi, who was waving a small piece of paper in her hands. She hurried over to him, wiping the sweat from the heat off her forehead.
"Look, it's a piece of paper!" Chiemi held out a notebook scrap so that Yohaku could see. It bore a few words.
'Natsuko Sonoda, you are a... After your mother could no longer do it, thanks to her still recovering from childbirth, you took it upon yourself to take over her job. Of course, soon you were in high demand! You didn't just stop at... No, soon it was webcams, submitting videos to... Naturally, aren't you scared of what will happen if anyone else knows?'
Yohaku squinted at the paper, several words and pieces torn out or hopelessly blacked out by coal dust. "So, this must be... Well, whatever Natsuko's secret was."
Chiemi nodded. "Yeah. D'you think that the culprit might have tried to burn her secret, but lost part of the paper here?"
"It seems like the only logical explanation," Yohaku wiped sweat from his forehead. "Maybe we should go. The heat could start to take it's toll soon."
"Definitely." Chiemi replied. Both students kept eye contact briefly before nodding and hurrying to the door, closing it behind them and plunging most of the room into pitch blackness again.
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All other investigations were halted with a crackling of the loudspeakers.
"Alright you bastards, your time is up! Head down to the elevator again, and we'll begin our second school trial of life and death!" Monobear's voice squeaked over the speakers, causing most of the students to flinch. Their minds were associating his voice with negativity, and rightfully so.
Everyone headed down to the elevator area, all of them deathly silent. After such a case, nobody knew what to say.
Akari. Itami. Natsuko.
Three people were dead. One of them had been condemned by the rest of them.
What a cruel reality.
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Alright, there you go! Please leave a review!