Reincarnation
Chapter 14:
The wind speed picked up as Will spoke and the rain began to drive against Ciel's school uniform, making it cling tightly to his skin.
"Who died?" Ciel enquired.
"Mr. Gove, the science teacher. He teaches Trancy and he was due to start covering your Physics class next week," Will informed him and a strange look crossed his face. "His body was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs this morning; it seems that he fell down and broke his neck. The school is closed at the moment, however due to impending exams Year 11 students can attend normal classes except sciences if they wish. The science department and the crime scene have been closed off by the Police."
"Are the Police still here?" Ciel asked after digesting the information. He wondered why Will was telling him all of this. There would be mass panic if the head teacher of a school informed every pupil that asked that there had been the suspected murder of a teacher. There had to be a significance.
"The Scene of Crime Officers just left, but there is an officer stationed at the entryway to the stairwell where the body was found and the other entrance is blocked off. That said, there is an unguarded way in. Trancy, give me your school organiser," Will requested.
Alois blinked in surprise as the reaper had never talked to him directly before. He fished his dog eared organiser out of his messenger bag.
Will raised an eyebrow at the state of the organiser as Alois handed it over. He turned to the back page which had a printed map of the school. He circled one of the stairwells on the first floor corridor with a fountain pen.
"This is where the body was found; it is one of the staircases that connects to the science corridor. The door on the floor above is blocked off and the door at the bottom is guarded by a police officer standing outside. This means that if you managed to get inside the stairwell you would not be discovered as no one is actually in there."
Ciel caught his meaning. Will was suggesting that he secretly entered the crime scene which was actually against the law.
"How do I get in without being seen?"
The corner of Will's mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile but could not. "I'm afraid that it requires good athletic skills so Trancy will have to enter first and then help you."
Ciel scowled, annoyed that everyone seemed to think that he was bad at sport because he was pale and short.
"What do I have to do?" Alois asked and pumped his arm muscles to annoy Ciel.
"Trancy, there is a vent in the stairwell with one of the entrances being in the corridor just outside the stairwell. You need to crawl through it and once you are in, unbolt the door for Phantomhive. Then when you leave, do the reverse," Will paused for a second before adding, "Do not get caught."
Will moved aside to allow Ciel and Alois to enter the school building which seemed like a graveyard to due to the ominous air and the lack of students.
"Doesn't this feel like a video game," the blonde comment happily as they headed towards the science department.
"Real life doesn't have a second chance button," Ciel replied, then he remembered his parents and best friend had been reincarnated which proved that it was slightly possible to have a second chance at life. He smirked wryly.
10 minutes later, after walking through the school corridors they approached the door to the stairwell that housed the crime scene. The science prep room was on the first floor, but the actual science corridor was on the floor below. The double doors to the stairwell were blocked off with blue and white tape that said "Police line do not cross".
Alois and Ciel exchanged looks when they saw how high the entrance to ventilation shaft was. Alois raised an eyebrow at Ciel who sighed heavily.
"All right, you can stand on me," he relented and bent down.
Gracefully Alois stepped onto Ciel's back and reached up to tug the cover off the ventilation shaft, moaning about what it was doing to his nails as he did so.
"Do you think that anyone will catch us?" Alois asked as he stared around nervously, for he was about to crawl in.
"No. I think that Spears has planned this down to detail. We haven't passed any students or teachers since we walked through the English department," Ciel answered thoughtfully. There was definitely something going on with the headmaster. "But, hurry up! I can't support your weight for much longer."
The blonde nodded and began to crawl through the narrow passage. As he waited for Alois to unbolt the door from the other side, Ciel pondered the significance of the death.
It wasn't normal to have a death in school. If he wasn't born into the family that he was and was not aware of the existence of Grim Reapers and Demon, then he would have dismissed the death as just being an accident, but because he was Ciel Phantomhive he couldn't just walk away from it like a normal person.
It could not be a coincidence that he and Alois had mentioned the deceased teacher to Sebastian the previous day and he then turned up dead the next day.
He jumped when he heard a sound from behind him. Alois stuck his head out of the unlocked door.
"Are you coming in or not?" he hissed. "For now the Police Officer outside the other door has his back towards it, but he could turn around at anytime."
Ciel followed him in and they crept down the stairs quietly and slowly in order to make as little noise as possible. As they neared the bottom he spotted the chalk outline of where the body had been. The body had been taken away, but the evidence had been left behind, sealed in plastic bags.
Ciel picked one up gingerly and noted, with surprise, that it contained a potato. He took a photo of it using his phone and gestured at Alois to do the same for the crime scene. He would have whispered, but he felt nervous as there was only a thin wooden door and a strip of safety glass between them a Police Officer. Through the strip of glass he could see the back of the Police Officer's fluorescent jacket.
He rotated in order to take in the crime scene. The outline of the corpse was lying a metre away from the last step which was suspicious- if the victim had slipped and fallen down the stairs he would have been found closer to the last step. If he had been pushed with force he would have fallen faster and landed further away from the staircase.
Alois nudged Ciel. "I'm done," he mouthed.
Ciel nodded and they left the stairwell in the reverse that they entered. Alois crawled out the vent and dusted himself off.
"Any theories so far?" the blonde enquired once they were out of the vicinity of the crime scene.
"It was murder," Ciel answered cryptically as set his bag down on the floor and sat down on a plastic chair.
The pair had adjourned to the school hall which was devoid of people for once. Ciel browsed the crime scene photos on Alois' phone to view the evidence. There was several evidence bags with bloodied potatoes along with scalpels and potato corers.
"He must have been carrying equipment for a practical," he mused. "The prep room is upstairs, but his classroom is on the floor below. The scalpels were thrown in the air when he fell and he landed on them when he fell which explains the blood."
Alois rolled his eyes. "Sorry for being slow, but how can you tell that this is murder?"
"Oh, sorry."
Out of his history exercise book Ciel tore a page and drew some rough sketches which explained the position of the corpse and what the position would be if the teacher had fallen down by accident.
"I understand now," Alois brightened up. "You're so smart, Ciel."
"I've just read too much Sherlock Holmes. You're the one with all the gossip. Tell me everything you know about Mr. Gove."
"Well, he's single, his breath sometimes smells of tobacco so I guess that he is a smoker. He isn't well liked for pupils that had him last year for Biology, a majority of them did not get above C which is a pass grade..." Alois paused. "Do you think that one of them murdered him?"
He looked over at Ciel who made a face that indicated that he wasn't too happy with the theory, but had no other suspects that he could think of.
"I can't think of any other motives at the moment. What else do you know about what happened last year?"
"The main thing that he messed up was the coursework which was on the subject of Osmosis."
"The movement of water?"
"Yes. Their practical mainly involved chopping up potato cores, submerging them in sucrose solution and observing weight change. The results were then used in the actual coursework which he marked incorrectly and the mistake was never picked up until the coursework was moderated by the exam board," Alois explained.
Ciel raised an eyebrow. "Potatoes. There were a few found next to the dead body, covered in blood. You also need something to cut a potato with- there were also bloodied scalpels. I think that we have established the motive for the murder. Now all we need are suspects."
The security camera in the corner of the hall caught his eye. He knew where to go to establish suspects. Security cameras were dotted in key locations around the school. As the pupils affected were in Year 11 they have all left in the summer of the previous year so it would be easy to spot them using the video footage.
"I think we need to go and visit Ronald Knox."
The detective due found the school security guard in his office talking loudly on his mobile phone about getting together people for a group date after work. He looked up as they entered without knocking, and ended his phone conversation immediately.
"What do you want, Phantomhive?"
Ciel perched himself on Ronald's desk. "The camera footage for this morning."
Ronald's eye twitched for a second before he answered. "You can look, but you won't find anything there. I've already given copies to the Police."
That's my theory out the window, Ciel thought to himself disappointedly. He had been sure it was right, or at least very possible. It was time to go back to the drawing board.
"Surely, there's not harm in double checking," Alois interceded. "It would at least tell us who was in the vicinity at the time."
The reaper seemed to consider it for a few seconds before he stood up and beckoned Ciel to sit in his chair. He brought up the camera footage on his computer screen and selected ones from 6:00am and onwards. The camera in the car park showed all the teacher arriving one by one and running into school through the lashing rain.
"As Spears has asked you to investigate I can't exactly say no, but you won't find anything out of the ordinary," he warned and sat himself on a chair in the corner of his office to watch Ciel. "It's also a hint."
"The fact that there is nothing significant recorded?"
Ronald didn't answer. Alois moved to watch the footage over Ciel's shoulder.
"Ooh, Miss Moore just picked her nose and ate it- she's a Food Tech teacher; she should know better," Alois commented with a giggle.
"Alois, it's a murder investigation..." Ciel sighed and itched his head. The only people in the school prior to the murder were teachers and he couldn't imagine any of them suddenly murdering a fellow teacher unless there was an inciting cause.
"There's Mr. Gove," his detective assistant pointed to a figure on the screen.
Ciel perked up and watched the science teacher enter the corridor still dressed in his outdoor coat and gloves. A few minutes later he could be seen entering the prep room and coming out carrying a box of equipment. The victim then turned into the stairwell where the body was found. The timestamp on the video said 7:30am.
"There's no camera in the actual stairwell so we can't see what actually happened," Ciel said disappointedly and rewound the video back to check for anything that he might have missed the first time.
As he did he thought he spotted something move across the video a few seconds after the teacher entered the stairwell so he paused the video and zoomed in. On the screen was a dark black blur. Whatever it was, it was too fast to be picked up by the camera.
Ciel narrowed his eyes. It had to be something not human and the only otherworldly being that he knew that wore black and would murder someone was a certain demon. A demon named Sebastian Michaelis.
Abruptly he stood up and turned to Alois. "We're going now," he told him in a tight voice.
"Phantomhive, before you leave I have a message to relay from Spears," Ronald called out after them.
"What is the message?"
"When you make your contract you have to do it in the presence of a Grim Reaper. He thinks that there is a chance that you might not adhere to the instructions that he gave you."
Ciel left the office without bothering to reply. Alois shot him a concerned look as they walked down the corridor at a fast pace.
Once Ciel was sure that no one was around he stopped in the middle of the school hall.
"I know who committed the murder. I also know their motive," he said, now absolutely sure that this theory was correct.
"Who?" Alois knew the answer from Ciel's reaction, but he asked anyway.
"Sebastian Michaelis."
"How did you deduce that?"
Ciel held up one finger. Despite the seriousness of the situation he couldn't help but enjoy the fact that he felt like Sherlock Holmes demonstrating his brilliance to Watson.
"The Grim Reapers know that he did it which is why Spears got us to examine the crime scene and Knox let us watch the camera feed. If it wasn't him then there was no way that we would be able to solve the crime without viewing the body or knowing the results of a post mortem."
"How do they know that he committed the murder?"
"Cinematic Record. One of them judged his soul and must have viewed his final moments and seen who the murderer was. They also seem to be able to sense a demon's presence so it was obvious to them."
Alois weighted Ciel's explanation and frowned. "You've made some valid points, but you don't have any solid evidence.
Ciel held up another finger. "A demon doesn't leave behind solid evidence. All he left behind was a black blur on the security camera footage. It was him rushing past the camera at high speed to enter the stairwell."
"But why murder Mr. Gove? I know we said that he was a bad teacher, but that isn't enough of a motive."
"Remember what Spears said, he was going to start covering my Physics lessons. My grade would have slipped which would be detrimental to my education. He wouldn't be "one hell of a butler" if he let his master's grades drop. The school must have sent a letter home to inform my parents of the change in teacher and he must have read it."
The blonde version of Watson took in all of the points that his intellectual superior had listed and added a query.
"Why go to all of this trouble in the first place?"
Ciel began to pace across the hall. "Act 3, Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet. The events of this scene set off the chain of events that results in the tragic end of the play. This is an equivalent. He knows that I know that he is a demon. He has left behind evidence that he committed the murder so I will have no choice but to confront him and admit that I know everything. This will results in making a contract for my soul and our stalemate will be over," he said a little sadly before adding. "The reapers are not doing anything to interfere so I will make the contract as quickly as possible."
"Are you absolutely that you are right about all of this?"
Ciel smiled. "I'm very sure."
His ancestor had given him the main hint that he had needed to solve the mystery. He had described how Sebastian had set up a false witness to testify that Alois was to blame for the fire that had killed his parents.
"I have realised all the trouble that Sebastian went to in order to frame Alois Trancy for the death of my parents. This had proved to me that he was willing to do anything in order to consume my soul."
Now he was going to have to return home for the final time as a free human and then he was going to sell his soul to a demon. But he had to give Sebastian the message that the other Ciel Phantomhive had wanted him to give.
Alois picked up on his best friend's mood. "I suppose the time has come."
"It has. Alois, you've been a very good friend to me and I don't blame or hate you or your ancestor for what he did to the other Ciel."
"Thank you, Ciel. I enjoyed my time as your friend and in the unlikely event that you somehow escape the Grim Reapers and Sebastian, you can run away with me. I've been thinking about it for a while. I was just created as a pawn in this chess game and my use is about to end," Alois said with a smile, knowing that he was never going to see his best and only friend ever again.
"Good bye, Alois and thank you for helping me. I might see you again after this, but I don't think so. Everything comes to an end tonight."
The headmaster of Weston College stared out the window of his office at the figure of Ciel Phantomhive fading into the distance. A shadow of a smile flickered across his face He turned to his work colleagues.
"He has worked it out. Everything begins tonight."
"For us at least," Ronald affirmed.
"For the brat, everything ends, apart from his heartbeat," Grell agreed with a high pitched cackle. "I can't wait to have Sebas-chan under my control!"
Will used his death scythe to hit Grell over the head. "We have been waiting for this moment for 35 years. Do not ruin it Sutcliffe."
"It begins to tonight," Will said to himself quietly. "Finally."
The demon butler was dusting the bookshelves in the library when he heard his young master enter the house. Judging by the lack of noise he was alone. Sebastian smiled.
Murdering the inept science teacher had paid off. Their stalemate had ended.
Some of the events in this chapter are based on real events that happened at my school. There was a coursework fiasco last year, but the mistakes were picked up one week before it was due to be moderated by the exam board and the students used that week to correct all the mistakes.
The teacher is named after Michael Gove who is the Secretary of State for Education and no one is very fond of him at the moment in school and the January exam series has been terminated and keeps trying to completely change the curriculum.
This is the last chapter that I can upload until the end of my summer exams as I am very busy at the moment with coursework, assessed practicals and exam revision.
I will upload once I have finished my exams in June.