SailorStar9: This is Chapter 23. Read and review.
Disclaimers: I own nothing, except the pairing, I hope.
Chapter 24: Broadcast of the Campus of Death
Impossible. Ryu was stunned as the video turned off.
"Where is that?" he asked, replaying the video.
"You can see the clock tower." Touya added.
"Amakusa-kun!" Asabuki gasped as Ryu dashed out, the three following him out.
Upon arriving at the clock tower...
"From the angle of the tower, I'm sure we saw the building, which means..." Ryu reasoned.
"Hey, this building isn't being used anymore." Asabuki pointed out as they stopped before the old school building.
"No, look." Ryu objected as he approached the crossed wooden boards used to seal the door. "The boards are old, but those are new nails. Somebody pulled them out and changed them recently."
After pulling the boards off, he ran in.
"This way." he turned to his left and took off.
"How can you tell?" Asabuki asked as they followed him.
"The other routes are covered with spider webs, but not this one." Ryu replied. "That means somebody has been here recently."
"Amazing, Amakusa-kun." Tominaga remarked.
"This is it." Ryu stopped at the fourth last door.
Using a cloth, he slid the door open to find an unconscious but relatively unscathed Ami.
"Ami!" he gasped and rushed to free her gag. "Hang on, Ami!"
"She's alive." Asabuki breathed in relief, Ami waking up as Ryu worked her binds.
"I'm glad." Touya added.
"Ami, wake up." Ryu told her after freeing her.
"My head..." Ami muttered as she stirred. "Not so loud please."
"I'm glad." Ryu added. "You're safe."
"Can't say the same for Kogure-san though." Ami remarked.
Asabuki and Touya screamed at the sight of a very dead Kogure.
Kogure. Ryu thought.
After the police arrived...
"They were broadcasting the murder over the net?" the detective-in-charge exclaimed.
"Yes." Touya stammered.
"Um, Detective."Asabuki started. "There's something about this that bothers me."
"Who are you?" the detective asked.
"Asabuki Maya."Asabuki introduced herself. "I was one of the students who found the body. There's a student in our class, Oobayashi, who's kind of a delinquent type. I saw him once..."
Flashback
"You're telling everybody I'm the Collector." Oobayashi growled, after throwing Kogure against the roof fence.
"Damn you!" he pummeled Kogure to the ground. "Bastard."
"He's got to be the one who did it!" Asabuki insisted. "And later..."
"OK, OK." the detective told her. "We'll listen to what you have to say later."
"Excuse me." Sakuma entered. "I'm Residence Hall Director, Sakuma."
"Oh, there you are." the detective looked at him. "When's the last time you saw Kogure-kun, the victim?"
"Right after dinner, two days ago." Sakuma replied. "I thought he went straight back to his room."
"He's got no friends, so he's always like that." Tominaga supplied.
"What are you doing?" the detective demanded when he saw Ryu over at the chutes. "You can't mess with te crime scene!"
"Look at this, Detective." Ryu added. "The dust has been wiped away on this deck. In other words, this is where the criminal put the camera when he shot the video."
"What of it?" the detective asked.
"Don't you think it's odd?" Ryu inquired, walking towards the window.
"Look." he stopped before the window. "Normally if you shoot form that position, the light would come in through here and you would not be able to see the victim's face."
"But Kogure's face was clearly visible in that footage we saw." Asabuki pointed out.
"It's likely the criminal used a portable light, or something, for movie making." Ryu added.
"He even prepared lightning then." the detective noted. "Is it just the peculiarities of a pervert?"
"No, probably not." Ryu objected. "The criminal here, isn't just a simple pervert. This is more like a pre-meditated act of a very smart person."
That evening in Ami's room...
"Are you really alright?" Ryu asked, sitting on the chair in front of her computer.
"You've asked that for the umpteenth time, you know?" Ami remarked.
"And yes, I would be." she replied. "Though, I still hadn't gotten the chloroform out of my system yet."
"It's only 7.30." Ryu looked at his watch. "I'll stay here for a little while longer."
"So, if someone see this and gets the wrong idea, whose fault will it be?" Ami joked.
"That won't happen." Ryu chuckled. "Thanks to that 'detective group' you made, nobody would think it's strange if we're together."
"And," he added. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight. Even after a student was killed, and you may think this is awful, but I still need to think and ask, 'Why? Explore deeper... stop.""
"You never change, do you?" Ami shook her head. "I let my guard down for one second and this happens. Hongou-sensei is so going to skin me."
"I see you haven't lost your sense of humor." Ryu noted amusedly.
"Don't make me deep-freeze you." Ami mock-glared.
"As if you could." Ryu joked.
"You... joke..." Ami blinked in surprise.
"It's called humor." Ryu smirked as he stood up and walked towards her.
"I just rarely use it." he added, pinning her to the bed and kissing her deeply.
"What brought that on?" Ami teased after they broke off.
"Consider it an early compensation for missing on lunch." Ryu replied, getting off her when his cell rang.
"Way to spoil the moment huh?" Ami remarked as Ryu chuckled when he answered the call.
"Yes?" he asked. "Asabuki-san?"
In Asabuki's room...
"Ah, Ryu-kun?" Asabuki asked as she watched the television. "There's something about this case that I wanted to show you."
"About the case?" Ryu echoed.
"Yeah." Asabuki replied. "I've only been in this school for six months or so but I knew Kogure before that. By which I mean, Kogure went to the same middle school that was attached to this one. So did I. And so did Oobayashi, and Touya, and Tominaga too. And actually..."
"Somebody's here." she added, hearing a knock on the door. "I'll call you back."
"Yes?" she answered her door after hanging up.
"What?" she opened the door.
In Ami's room...
"Should I be jealous?" Ami teased after Ryu hang up.
"You're a tease, you know that." Ryu remarked.
"And you love me for it." Ami winked.
"Can't say I don't agree." Ryu agreed, claiming her lips in another kiss.
"Asabuki-san hasn't called back." he noted after their small make-out session.
"Yes?" Ami got up and answered her door.
"Touya-san!" she blinked.
"Mizuno-san, I, ummm..." Touya stammered, before gasping when she saw Ryu in Ami's room.
"You got it wrong!" Ami quickly thought of a cover up, knowing where Touya's though pattern had gone. "We were just talking about the case."
"But..." Touya started.
"What's wrong?" Ryu asked.
"I saw a strange message on the BBS." Touya replied.
"On the BBS?" Ryu echoed.
Ami looked at the teen at the computer. Ryu nodded and opened the message board.
"An incredible live broadcast?" Ami blinked when Ryu scrolled down to the newest message.
"It's almost 9 pm." Touya added.
"This is the same as when Ami was kidnapped." Ryu noted when the 'Snuff Theater' screen popped up.
"Look at that, it's the dorm." Ami added once the image came on. "He's shooting the film with a camera and sending the footage using a cellphone and a laptop."
The camera then turned to face a door and someone opened the door, letting the person in. the screen then shot the clock in the room.
"Damnit! Where is that?" Ryu cursed after the room's owner took a vase from her cardboard. "Whose room?"
"Asabuki-san!" he gasped when the camera now showed Asabuki's frightened face as she backed off.
Touya screamed as a vase came down on Asabuki's head, Ami gritting her teeth in frustration.
Rushing out of the room, the three headed off to Asabuki's room, Ryu bursting in through the door.
In Asabuki's room...
"Asabuki-san!" Ami exclaimed after seeing the unconscious Asabuki on the floor, a bruise on her forehead.
In the dorm...
"What's doing on?" Murasaki-sensei asked as Sakuma and Tominaga dashed into the girls' dorm. "It's late."
"Asabuki-san has...!" Tominaga informed her.
"I'm sorry!" Touya apologized, pushing past Sakuma and Tominaga as she dashed out of Asabuki's room.
"Amakusa-kun, Mizuno-san, what is this?" Murasaki-sensei inquired upon arrival.
"She went to call an ambulance." Ryu informed the teacher.
"Was it the Collector?" Sakuma asked.
"Why would they attack Asabuki-san?" Tominaga asked.
Ryu looked away as he recalled what Asabuki had told him.
Flashback
"Ah, Ryu-kun?" Asabuki asked as she watched the television. "There's something about this case that I wanted to show you."
If what she was going to show me was a hint as to the identity of the criminal... Ryu thought.
"Ami, have you been in this room before?" he asked.
"Yeah." Ami replied. "Though I just saw a little bit of it."
"What has changed since then?" Ryu asked. "Anything?"
"Hey, what are you saying?" Sakuma asked. "She just took a quick look, she can't remember that."
"The way the books were lined up on that shelf, has changed." Ami replied.
"No way, you can remember?" Tominaga was stunned as Ryu approached the said shelf.
"I am a Recorder." Ami replied.
"Recorder?" Murasaki-sensei echoed.
"People with such incredible memories that anything they saw, heard, knew, anything they experienced was stored in their consciousness for access at any time. They didn't forget a single thing." Ami explained.
"The part changed a lot." she pointed to the shelf.
"Videos." Ryu blinked after removing a book to check the back of the shelf.
"There are a lot." Ami agreed after the rest of the books were removed.
"You guys..." Murasaki-sensei started.
"Let's call the police!" Sakuma suggested and went off.
"This is strange." Ryu noted, noticing the clock. "Tomorrow isn't a day off, but she has her alarm set for 9."
"Classes start at 8.30 though." Ami pointed out.
"Oh boy, I know that look." she sighed, noting her partner's serious expression.
After the police arrived...
"What?" the detective exclaimed. "Then the criminal broadcast this murder live?"
"Unfortunately." Ryu replied.
"All right, check the alibis of all the students and teachers." the detective instructed.
"Asabuki-san liked horror, huh?" Murasaki-sensei noted.
"Have you known her for a long time?" Ami asked the teacher.
"Yes." Murasaki-sensei replied. "She was in the movie club at the Academy's middle school. I was the advisor then."
"Teacher, can you come here for a second?" the detective requested.
"Yes." Murasaki-sensei replied and walked off.
"Ami." Ryu started.
"This video wasn't here a while ago." he noted, looking at the tape recorder.
"Did someone put it in?" Ami mused.
"No, it's was probably recording." Ryu replied.
"This counter is busted." he added, pressing on the malfunctioned record button.
"The tape is totally rewound." he noted, pulling out the recording tape.
"Let's look." he replaced the tape back in the recorder.
"So then, here is the problem..." the game show announcer started as the tape played.
"It's a quiz program that starts at 8." Ami noted. "Is this what she was recording?"
"But it starts halfway through though." Ryu pointed out.
"I see." he realized what was going on when he glanced at the clock. "That's it!"
"Okay Mr. Genius, mind sharing?" Ami smiled.
The next day...
"Oobayashi-kun right?" the detective asked. "Where were you, at around 9 o'clock, last night?"
"I was outside the school." Oobayashi replied.
"With who?" the detective asked.
"I was alone." Oobayashi replied. "I got a message on my cellphone, with a girl's name. It said she's be waiting at a nearby park."
"And who was there?" the detective pressed.
"Well, nobody ever came." Oobayashi answered.
"Don't try and fool us!" the detective hollered.
"It's true!" Oobayashi insisted.
"Listen, there are only ten people in the school who don't have alibis for the times of the murder!" the detective shouted. "You're also the only one who's strongly connected to the victims! You were in the same middle school as them and you were in the same movie club too, right? In other words, you're the criminal!"
"Wait, detective." Ryu intervened. "It is unlikely that Oobayashi-kun is the perpetrator."
"What? You're awfully confident." the detective remarked as the two DDS students walked in.
"Actually, this incident involves a clever trick with alibis." Ryu added.
"What?" the detective echoed.
"I shall explain now." Ryu replied. "How the Collector avoided suspicion, by using the Internet and an alibi trick."
In the auditorium...
"First, look at this." Ryu started as he played the 'Snuff Theater' onscreen..
"Thos footage was broadcast over the Internet last night." he added, showing Asabuki's incident.
"Look closely." he remarked when the screen showed the door, rewinding as Asabuki let the person in. "You can tell that she is inviting the criminal into her room.", rewinding the screen several more time and pausing at the 20 second-mark.
"Oobayashi-kun, this is you, right?" the detective accused. "You knew her since middle school so she let you inside without suspecting a thing."
"Is that so?" Ryu challenged as Oobayashi shook his head.
"Remember what she said when Kogure Junya was killed?" he reminded the detective.
Flashback
"He's got to be the one who did it!" Asabuki insisted.
"Would you really let someone, who you thought was a murderer, into your room like that?" Ryu asked. "She wouldn't have acted like this, unless it was a person whom she trusted to come into her room at night, don't you think? So when you think about it, her lack of suspicion here, is proof that Oobayashi is not the criminal."
"Right?" Oobayashi added. "Even without that, she always used to hate me."
"Then, who is the criminal?" the detective burst out. "We checked all the students without alibis and he was the only one who is suspicious.!"
"That alibi itself, was a trick." Ryu replied. "Actually, when I saw this footage, the thing I was most interested in was..."
"The alarm clock." he fast-forwarded the tape to 25 seconds. "Why did they go through all the trouble of showing the alarm clock? It was because anyone who saw this, would think that the incident took place in real time. But, at 8.30 on the night of the murder, I got a call from her. At that time, someone went to her room."
"What?" the detective exclaimed.
"Probably, the person who went into her room changed the clock's time when she wasn't looking and then attacked her." Ryu concluded. "And then, at 9, broadcast that video over the Internet. That was the alibi that they used."
"That does make sense." the detective admitted. "But without any proof, it's just a crazy theory of yours."
"We do have proof." Ryu corrected.
"What?" the detective gasped.
"Look at the alarm setting of this clock." Ryu pointed out. "It's set for just before 9. School starts at 8.30, why would she set her alarm for 9?"
"This is the answer." he showed the audience another tape.
"A video tape." the detective noted. "What's on it?"
"Actually, just before she was killed, she was trying to record a video program that she wanted to watch." Ryu replied, replacing the tape.
"This program always starts at 8, doesn't it?" Touya asked when the quiz program came onscreen.
"Yes." Ryu agreed. "The video contains a recording of this program that starts halfway through."
"What does this mean?" Sakuma asked.
"What she really wanted to tape, was a movie that started at 9." Ryu replied. "But the timer on her VCR was broken and so she couldn't set it to automatically record. So she set her alarm for 9 and was going to press the record button then. But, because the criminal secretly changed the time, she unknowingly pressed the record button earlier than that. In other words, this is proof that by changing her clock, the criminal wanted the murder to look like it took place in real time, therefore giving themselves an alibi. So an alibi for 9:00 means nothing."
"OK, let's recheck everyone's alibis." the detective instructed.
"Yes!" his subordinate replied and the two walked out.
"Detective, may I check the contents of the videos in Asabuki-san's room?" Ryu requested.
"Give it a try, Mr. Detective." the detective chuckled.
"He doesn't look like a bad guy." Ami remarked.
"Yeah." Ryu agreed.
In Asabuki's room later...
"There are a lot of videos here." Ami remarked after Ryu removed the last tape.
"What's wrong?" she asked when Ryu noticed something.
"Those numbered videos..." Ryu started. "Number 7 is missing."
"That means what she wanted to show us was on that tape." Ami followed his reasoning.
"Let's watch the tapes that are here, starting with number 1." Ryu suggested.
"I knew you were going to say that." Ami sighed.
"My eyes are so going to thank me for this." she added sarcastically.
"This is from the movie club Asabuki-san said she was in." she noted when the video played.
"That's Ogura Emina, who went missing!" she gasped when the camera turned to Ogura who was combing her hair.
"And that is the Residence Hall Director Sakuma and Murasaki-sensei." Ryu added as the camera turned to the two. "They look like they are the club president and advisor."
"That's Kogure-kun and Asabuki-san." Ami noted when the screen turned to the two students, Kogure holding up a reflector screen under Asabuki's instructions.
"Oobayashi-kun and Tominaga-kun and Touya-san." she added as the camera turned to the three. "They were all members of the movie club."
"Looks like we've narrowed down the range of suspects." Ryu noted.
Later in the auditorium...
"Hey, is the criminal really one of them?" Ami whispered to her partner.
Ryu hushed her.
"That brings back memories." Murasaki-sensei remarked as the video played.
"Well, some of us have changed a lot since then." Tominaga noted.
"Are you talking about me?" Oobayashi demanded.
"Stop it!" Touya chided. "Why? We were all friends back then."
"Once you get to high school, you all become rivals." Sakuma added.
"That was fun." Touya reminisced. "We used to watch the movies we made, at Sakuma-sempai's dad's movie theatre. Or have my father, who worked in the prop business, show us sets."
"More importantly, let's think about the murder." Tominaga reminded her. "That's why we're here, right?"
After showing the videos...
"Thanks for helping me out back there, Amakusa." Oobayashi remarked as the audience exited. "That was amazing!"
"Yeah, to think the clock on the video was set 30 minutes ahead." Tominaga agreed.
"Or that the clock was set for night, not morning." Touya added.
"By the way, I'd like to ask." Ryu replied, showing them Tape Number 6. "Do you know what was on the tape, that came after this one?"
"Dunno." Oobayashi answered.
"It was a long time ago and this is the first time I've seen these tapes." Sakuma confessed.
"If you remember anything, let me know." Ryu requested.
"But who do you suppose did it?" Sakuma wondered.
"It looks like seeing these videos was pretty hard for the criminal." Ryu chuckled once everyone else was out of earshot. "He cracked just a bit. All we need now is a motive and to disprove his alibi for Kogure Junya's death."
Just then, his phone rang.
"Yes?" he answered the call.
"What?" he gasped.
In Ryu's room...
"What is this?" Ami asked as the entire hate message flooded the computer screen.
"'Anime, I hate you.'" she recited as Ryu scrolled down the page. "'Anime, die.' Huh?"
"Kogure-kun wrote all these?" she inquired over the cell phone.
In DDS...
"Ryu-kun asked me to look at the school server, so I had them show it to me." Kazuma replied over the handphone.
"But they are all different names." Kinta pointed out.
"On the Internet, one person can easily pretend to be many, bu using different handles." Kazuma told him.
"Anyway, read the last one." he requested.
In Ryu's room...
"The last one?" Ami echoed as Ryu scrolled upwards.
"'To the many of you who hate me, this is my last message.'" she read.
"'I'm going to kill myself.'" she blinked when Ryu revealed the last sentence. "No way! To kill yourself because of online abuse?"
"It's not impossible." Ryu pointed out. "There are people who fall in love and marry just from message board posts made on the Internet."
"What?" Ami asked when Ryu noticed something.
"Right here where they are insulting 'Anime'." Ryu started. "They input it in romaji and forgot to change it to hiragana."
"What of it?" Ami asked, already knowing where his thought train had gone.
"This 'anime' is an anagram." Ryu replied.
"A.N.I.M.E." he opened the word processor and typed in the letters.
"If you type it backwards," he added, the word 'Emina' appearing below 'Anime'. "Look at the romaji."
"Emina." Ami read.
"By Emina, you mean... Ogura Emina?" she blinked. "Then the one Kogure-san was abusing over the Internet was Ogura Emina? And so she killed herself?"
"It looks like we have got our motive." Ryu concluded.
"I think we may be jumping to conclusions here." Ami noted.
"What are you doing?" Sakuma demanded.
"Nothing, really." Kyu stammered.
"Only authorized persons are allowed here." Sakuma informed him.
"Well, I'm not exactly authorized, but..." Kyu protested.
"What?" Ryu looked at his chuckling partner.
"I should have known they would come here, sooner or later." Ami giggled.
"Come with me." Sakuma proceeded to drag Kyu off.
"I'm not a suspicious person!" Kyu insisted as Ryu and Ami exited from the room.
"Just as I guessed." Ami remarked and stopping Sakuma. "Kyu."
"Ami! Ryu!" Kyu looked at the two.
"What?" Sakuma gasped, releasing Kyu. "You know him?"
"I heard this crime was getting really big, so I just..." Kyu replied.
"You came?" Ryu finished his sentence.
In front of the abandoned school building...
"This is the place Kogure was killed?" Kyu blinked, after the three had met up with Megumi.
"It's quite likely that the criminal also used an alibi trick here." Ryu replied. "But I don't know what kind of trick yet."
"Anyway, let go in." Kyu climbed over the police tape.
"Keep up the good work!" he walked past the officer on guard.
"Hey!" the officer dragged him back and tossed him out. "What do you mean, 'Keep up the good work?' This place is off-limits!"
"They aren't going to let us in easily, are they?" Megumi sighed.
"I'm so jealous of these ants, they can go in and out as they please." Kyu complained, looking at the ant trail.
"Ants?" Ryu echoed.
Kneeling down, his eyes followed the ant trail that was emerging from the small gap of the door.
"You're right." he noted. "But why are there so many coming out of an uninhabited building?"
Looking down, his eyes focused on the brown object three ants were carrying, his mind whirling. Reaching down, he plucked the object from the ant's grasp and took a quick sniff.
"I see." he realized. " I get it!"
"Ryu, that's..." Kyu gasped.
"The trick in Kogure Junya's murder!" Ryu replied.
SailorStar9: Now that's done, read and review.