DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT A PART OF THE PLOT!
Authoress' note: OK, before the story, I would like to emphasize something. This story is COMPLETELY fictional. Nothing in this story (all chapters) should be carried out in the real world, as it may be a little violent and whatnot. Please be a wise reader and do not imitate the plot, especially the pranks. Thank you for your patience for reading this. Now, on with the story! ^_^
Chapter 6 – NEW MISSION ACCEPTED
"Attention, everyone! Mr. Saïx might want to send us on a mission soon!" Zexion announced from the opposite of the table, but all of us were too happy to notice his futile efforts, because the mid-year exam was over yesterday. Zexion wanted to yell at us again, but once he saw our relaxed expressions which had been so tensed up in the past few weeks, he decided not to go against it. Every one of us were engrossed in our own activities, I somehow managed to connect my GPS device to YouTube, thanks to Roxas' help. I was watching a movie featuring school mysteries and crime scene investigations. I asked for my friends' recommendation on any movie of this sort these days. The plot was kind of mysterious and epic. Just when I was getting to the best part, an announcement came in through the PA system, again.
"Sorry to interrupt, Counter Crime Group 13, you all are wanted in the Discipline Room now. Thank you." Hmm, what was that about? We should probably head over and see.
In the Discipline Room…
Knock knock! "Come in." Mr. Saïx was behind stacks and stacks of documents and papers. We entered the room and waited for the next instruction. "… Is your group investigating the arson of the Chemistry lab at the moment?" he asked, still sorting out the papers.
Zexion said, "Yes. We tried picking up some evidence at the site; there were only broken pieces of glass and matches. Also-" "OK, hand the case over to Counter Crime Group 27. I have a more important mission for you."
Huh? What? Case forwarding? Whatever. We were having a great headache while dealing with this arson case. Let us see if we could improve our luck with this switch up.
"There is an upsurge of rebelling against the prefects recently and it's initiated by a few frequent rebels. The cases you reported concerning the pranks they pulled on you were only the opening act. More prefects may become new victims," he said after sorting out some more documents. I listened attentively.
According to what he said, more and more prefects were threatened and spoofed. Up till now, prefects and helper prefects in the 8th Grade reported nothing, except for us. Therefore, they were considered as high-risk groups and were warned to be more cautious, especially those from the first four classes. He wanted us to prevent more pranks and threats from happening.
"Crap," I thought. Ignoring Classes K2A, K2B and K2C for the moment, K2D was situated beside Classes K2L, K2M and K2N, the last three classes in 8th Grade of Kingdom Hearts High School. These classes were known for deteriorating discipline for years. Would these "good neighbours" of ours wage attack on us? I could probably handle one class, but there were three this time; were five students enough?
Back at our headquarters, I suddenly realised something important. "Oh! I forgot! I had asked Naminé to help me with the investigation of the arson! I have to inform her that we have forwarded the case." I was about to rush out to find the blond girl, Demyx caught my arm and said, "No need for that, she is absent today!"
"Oh, really? Well, guess I'll have to wait till tomorrow."
"Oh right! Nemix, is our GPS device still on?" Roxas turned his head to look at me and asked. I replied, "Yeah, why?" "You'd better save the tab and exit now, the server's gonna be down afterwards and if you don't do that, you will have to search for the website like mad the next time you go online." "Server down?! Holy Bananas! I couldn't hand in my Civic Education project today because of that!" I recalled me being a train wreck yesterday over a few pieces of papers. Yikes, without wasting time, I saved the tab, bookmarked it for good measure and exited.
The next day! I was strolling on the sidewalk to school, under the big, bright and blazing sun. Good god. It was only ten in the morning, but why was the screen of my GPS device displaying an air temperature reading of thirty-three degrees Celsius?! I did not like being turned into a roasted duck… Sure, I did not mind getting tanned, but the weather was literally killing me!
Suddenly, a fresh cool breeze sent a noise to my ears. What happened? Hmm, it sounded to have come from the opposite side of the road. Why not check it out?
I followed the sound and finally I arrived before a long flight of stairs. There was a tuition centre at the end of the stairs as the signboard indicated.
"… KABAM! PAK! SLASHAA… BAM!" Whoa, why did the noise grow louder? And I thought I heard things crashing and falling. What the heck was going on?
As if on cue, my answer came, just not verbally. Soon, a black figure scrambled frantically down the stairs, as if running away from something. Somehow it seemed familiar to me. So I hid beside the foot of the stairs, like a predator waiting for the time to strike. When I heard a footstep on the floor next to me, I extended my arm and caught whoever was there. I pulled the person away without looking his or her face first, and when I did, guess who was it?
"… Naminé?!" I widened my eyes as if paralysed. Holy Bananas! How did she manage to get… Coca Cola and tomato sauce all over her?! Being tugged away all of a sudden, she was not able to utter a word. She was just as shocked as me.
Just then, a voice came from the top of the stairs, "Hey! Naminé Fluctus (Latin for "wave")! Don't you dare to run away! Get back here! NOW!" Uh-oh, judging the tone, this person was going to chop off Naminé's head, pull out her bones and swallow her alive… Of course, my response was… the thirty-sixth strategy of the Thirty-Six Stratagems: RUN! RUN AWAY! (This was an ancient Chinese literature illustrating a series of stratagems used in politics, war, and civil interaction. The thirty-sixth one was literally similar to what Demyx said while escaping the Underworld in the game.)
We hid here and there, running from a random bush to another one. Finally we hid behind one of the biggest bushes we could find. The bush was thick enough to hide us from whoever was hunting us down. I was the first to throw questions at Naminé, "What did you do? Why did this happen? Who did you offend? Why was she after you?" After some Q&A session, I had the summary of the whole story as below…
Naminé was following her usual routine. She went to the tuition centre as usual, which was the crime scene. The students (more like gangsters) who also attended the tuition were from our school, but they were not in the first ten classes. Before today, Naminé caught them bringing many contrabands despite numerous warnings and brought the students to Mr. Saïx. Maybe they held a grudge against her since then. So, before Naminé arrived at the tuition centre, they prepared a mixture of Coca Cola, tomato sauce, sugar, salt and pepper and kept the mixture in a one-litre bottle. They decided to ambush her. The end.
The gastric acid in my stomach was boiling with rage. I bolted up after hearing the whole story and gritted my teeth. I said, "That's it! They messed with the wrong person! Don't worry Naminé, I'm gonna avenge you! C'mon, let's settle this at school!" Yeah, I was kind of quick-tempered and impulsive. Maybe I should ask Zexion to teach me how to keep my cool.
"Eh? Weren't you guys investigating the arson of the Chemistry lab? Why…?" Naminé asked.
"Oh, right. I was so furious I forgot; our group had forwarded the case, now our mission is to put an end to the uprising against the prefects," I said. "So, if I had any information, who should I inform?" She asked again. I answered, "Er, Counter Crime Group 27 or Organization XIII! Hehe!" Naminé was confused, "Ah? Wh-what Organization? Thirteen?"
I rubbed my nape and said, "Sorry, I forgot again, my group had a new name of our own, Organization XIII! Lucky number thirteen, right? Haha…" "Oh… OK…"
After I flung the headquarters' door open forcefully, I practically exploded. I basically bombarded the surprised boys with everything that happened. However, they reacted differently.
"Not those people again! What were they up to this time?!" Axel was the one with the biggest reaction. He lost his cocky and indifferent attitude. I guess he had not got over the camping-in-the-hole incident. Roxas stared at me with widened big blue eyes. Demyx's Geography notes fell from his hands with a "plop" on the floor. Zexion's left eye twitched more obviously this time, and his cobalt blue eyes narrowed in annoyance. Conclusion: all of us were pissed off.
Zexion was the one who spoke first, with suppressed anger, "It seems like we cannot procrastinate this anymore, can we?" I said, "They were the ones from the last few classes. If the first few classes were also involved, things will go out of control." Roxas stated, "You mean K2C?" Well, it could be a possibility, but who knew?
Axel went straight to the point, "Where do we start? This time, we're not dealing with a Chemistry lab." We all contemplated… "… That's it! Why don't we cooperate with prefects from K2A, K2B and K2C? Besides increasing their awareness, we can also gather more info," I snapped my fingers and shared my idea. Demyx chimed in, "Eh? Not bad, I agree with Nemix!" "Sounds practical," Zexion approved.
Now we divided the work: I was in charge of K2A, Roxas took K2B and Axel was in charge of K2C. Demyx would watch for any signs of attacks from K2L, M and N. Zexion would issue instructions while helping Demyx. Despite being prefects, I usually did not interact with other prefects outside of our group. First question before the mission: Who were the prefects in K2A?
"Beep…!" I printed out the information in the resource room. The paper slid out of the printer like a child from a slide. I caught the paper and read it. There were five people on the list.
OK, so these five. But who should I go for first? I could not handle five at one time. Fine, activating random pick mode! Tap! My finger landed on "The Chosen One" as I put it: Ventus Lychnus. How familiar… Oh yes, Roxas' elder twin brother who occasionally stopped by and chatted with him in our classroom. Alright, Agent 007- I mean, 207 reporting for duty~!
First things first, what should I do to get to know him better? I mean, we seldom talked to each other. We normally acknowledged each other's presence by a slight polite smile. What a headache, I was never good at the befriending method of walking towards someone, sticking out your hand and saying, "Hello! How are you? Can we be friends? That would be awesome!" I was very shy to say the least… What to do?
But, the gods above aided me in constructing a communication channel. That day, Mr. Cloud announced our Math test results, and I was lucky enough to score eighty-eight marks. The point was not the mark itself, but the lucky numbers. In Hokkien, (a Chinese dialect) "eight" meant "fortune". That meant double fortune for me! And to my greatest luck, Ventus happened to score the same marks, too.
Now, would you not call that perfect? Both of us were about two classes apart, he being the first class student while I was in the fourth, yet we had the same marks for the same subject! This was definitely a GREAT coincidence! The gods still loved me. After that, he also knew about the "coincidence" and I guessed that somehow sparked his interest to get to know us better.
It was two weeks later. I had some important matters to attend to, so I headed towards Block 2, where K2A, B C, E, F and G were. K2D and the rest were very far away from there. I happened to come across Ventus when I passed by a corner. The clock on the wall indicated recess time.
"Hi! Good to see you again," I greeted him.
"Hey, Nemix. What a coincidence!" He saw me and smiled.
"I was looking for you, so why don't we talk on our way to the canteen?" I suggested.
"Sure, why not? Let's go," he agreed.
We strolled down the corridor and talked about random things. Without realising, we had arrived at the E-Classroom. "Our group is investigating the case of the upsurge against the prefects, and the high-risk groups happened to be the prefects from the first four classes in 8th Grade. That means us," I said with a sigh. "I think you guys should be more careful though. Your class is very near to the last three classes," Ventus said. "You had a point there, Ventus. *Sigh* Those people wouldn't give us a break," I shook my head slowly while commenting. "How many times do I have to remind you not to address me by my full name? That's weird since we're friends, you know," Vent- I mean, Ven poked my shoulder. "Oh, right, I forgot… Hehe…" I said, smiling like an idiot.
Just then, a whole bunch of girls resembling a massive tornado/sandstorm appeared out of nowhere and came towards us. Luckily I was a member from the Chinese Martial Arts Society, while Ven himself took up mountain climbing as a hobby, we were able to react quickly by sidestepping with our backs against the walls. After the "storm" "subsided", we regrouped in the middle of the corridor. I almost lost my temper, "What the HECK?! Those annoying fangirls again! Who were they rushing to see so badly this time?! What the hell?" This phenomenon was everywhere at school lately, and yet the reasons were unknown.
"Chill, Nemix. At least they didn't hit you," Ven tried to cool down my fury. I took a deep breath to calm down. "Fine…" I muttered. We then continued our way to the Prefect Meeting Room.
Ven was ahead of me, but something was off about him. Ven's speed decreased slowly. He slowed down and then he came to a halt. His thin frame curled up and he collapsed to the floor.
Holy Bananas! I scrambled towards the blond boy and knelt down beside him. I shook his right arm and asked frantically, "H-hey! Ven! You alright?!" Ven's left hand clutched tightly to his head, like suffering from a serious headache or something. I swore I saw his cold sweats dripped onto the floor. It must have been very painful. Amidst panic, I came to a conclusion that it could be migraine, so I shakily asked him, "… T-the pills! Where's the migraine p-pills?!"
He was in such an intense pain that he could not utter a word. His shaky cold fingers pointed at his right pocket. I put my hand in it immediately and fumbled for- nothing?! Without thinking, I searched the other pocket, but it was also empty! "V-ven! It's missing…" No response came. I pulled the limp blonde up slightly to check up on him. He had passed out from the pain.
"This is BAD," I thought. I had to send him to the infirmary, NOW! I put his right arm over my shoulder and held his waist to carry him. But I was in such a panic that my legs wobbled and both of us fell to the floor. I fell forward and the blonde's body hit my back. Well, I somehow acted as a cushion to break his fall, but now I could not get back up. "Somebody! Anybody! Help! We need help here!" I shouted while trying to wriggle myself free. I heard a series of footsteps about ten seconds later.
"Nemix? Ven?" I looked up to see a startled Riku before me. "Riku! Wait up!" Sora was here too! Thank goodness! I said, "I have no time to explain this, but Ven needs to be in the infirmary now!" Riku then knelt down to pull a comatose Ven up. After the deadweight had been removed, Sora pulled me up as well. My legs were limping a bit thanks to the impact earlier. "Thanks, guys," I held my sore elbow and said. "No problem. Sora, I'll take Ven to the infirmary, you go and tell Roxas about this," Riku called over his shoulder. "But, can Nemix walk?" Sora looked concerned and I reassured him, "It's OK, Sora. I can walk to the infirmary. Go and get Roxas, alright?" "…OK." After that, he left quickly. I told Riku to proceed without me. I limped behind him.
I arrived at the infirmary much later to see Ven lying on a bed. Seconds later, Roxas barged in. I filled him in the whole story. The others in our group also arrived with Sora. Roxas thanked Riku and Sora. "No bother, Ven's my best friend's cousin. Glad to help," Riku said. Sora nodded and said to Roxas, "That's what cousins are for, right?" "Oh right, thank you too, Nemix. Sorry about your knees, though…" Roxas said to me. "It's alright, Roxas. It's only a bruise. You're welcome," I said with a smile.
"KKRRIIIIIIINNNG!" The bell went off. "Holy Kingdom Hearts! It's Miss Larxene's lesson!" Sora yelled. Riku muffled his mouth and said, "Keep it down! This is the infirmary." The brunette nodded vigorously. "You should go, or else she's gonna maim you guys for being late…" Axel said. "Right! Bye guys! Say hi to Ven for me when he wakes up!" Sora said and dragged Riku out.
Silence settled in. Demyx said, "We could always ask for a pass from Mr. Saïx, we just have to wait until he wakes up." "It must have been those troops of crazy fangirls! They must have stolen the pills when they stormed past us!" I said, fuming a little. "If not, he or she must have hidden themselves in the flock, waited until they passed by you two to take action," Zexion analysed the process calmly. Kudos to him for being so calm and collected in an exasperating situation like this. I would have blown up the whole school due to fury.
"That's odd…" Axel mumbled to himself, frowning slightly. I asked, "What's odd?" "No one here knew that Ven had migraines. How would anyone come up with the idea to steal the pills?"
Zexion: "… You have a point. All of us only realised that after this incident."
Demyx: "And he NEVER had migraines in school in the past, too."
Nemix: "Maybe he did not tell anyone about his migraines when he had them in school? He never told anyone, including prefects. Roxas had never told us too."
Axel: "I asked the prefects in K2A while on my way here. They had seen this small pill bottle of Ven's, but they didn't know what's inside. The bottle had some 'Da Vinci Code' on it, as they put it. It may be the name of the pill, so they paid no mind to it."
Zexion said, "Wait! You said 'Da Vinci Code'?" Axel was caught off guard by his sudden reaction, but he shrugged, "Of course! Why?" "… If students in K2A, especially the one prefect placing first in 8th Grade do not know what the name was, that means-" I suddenly caught the drift and finished his words, "That means no one would know what it is, let alone stealing it! Unless they possessed this sort of knowledge!"
But then, who would be the one that held such knowledge of identifying names of drugs?
"There is a wide range of possibilities as to who is the culprit. We cannot only target the students from the first few classes or the seniors," Roxas put a finger under his chin and said. "The prefects are also suspicious…" Demyx said out of the blue. "No way, you mean mutiny?" I said, surprised.
"Shhh! Ven's waking up," Axel cut through our discussion.
We turned around to face the bed. Ven had this tired expression on his face. The migraine must have drained all energy from him.
"You OK?" Roxas was the first to get close to Ven and said. He nodded slowly, trying to sit up. We helped him to sit up on the bed. Ven adjusted himself and said, "Is the pill bottle stolen when the fangirls thundered pass?" Zexion ran his hand through his bangs and said, "Possibly."
Ven crossed his arms in front of his chest and said, "Actually, I felt someone pushing my right thigh when they passed by. But I thought perhaps it was just an accident because it was too crowded." Suddenly-
"Gla-gla-kraka…" A sound which sounded like dried beans dropping on the floor was heard… at the door. Axel immediately darted out to see what was outside. No one was out there, but he felt something touching his foot. He looked down and see- guess what?
"What the hell? Really? After all that sound, it's only a pill bottle?!" Axel grumbled loudly, close to yelling.
"PILL BOTTLE?!" The four of us shouted. Ven quickly covered his poor ears…
Axel brought the bottle over. Being sharp on the eye, I saw a tiny part of a paper strip sticking out of the bottle cap. "Eh? What's this?" I opened the bottle, pulled out the paper strip and unfurled it. It read:
"Don't get too cocky just because you're a prefect. Stop your investigation, or everyone else is gonna get it!"
"Goddamn it, what stupid paper is this?!" Roxas was so mad that his eyes made me flinch. Gulp! "Great, no handwriting left behind. The culprit typed this out from a computer," Zexion said quietly, afraid to trigger another "volcano".
"… Computer?" Demyx mumbled to himself. Suddenly he shouted, "I got it!" "Fire away," Ven was also curious about what was going on.
"E-Classroom! Someone has been to the E-Classroom to type and print out the paper!" Upon hearing this, I instinctively rubbed the words on the paper gently. The words became blurred and illegible; the ink had not dried up completely. That meant this paper was printed not long ago!
We left Ven to rest in the infirmary while we rushed to the E-Classroom. "Crap, where is the place?! Not in this block?" Demyx panicked. "Dem, don't forget that E-Classroom had been renamed as 'Computer Lab E' three days ago," Axel reminded. I looked up; we were there.
Zexion said, "It is 3:50 p.m. now, this place is closing at four. I will go and negotiate with the CDMU to let us to stay longer, should we need to." When he finished, we all went into the room.
While Zexion was talking to the CDMU duty group leader, I was assigned to gather information and look for clues. The others were to check the printers, computers and all that crap. I hoped we could get this done and over with fast.
I asked the CDMU students some questions. These were the results I got:
a) The users today: One teacher, two students;
b) Suspicious person: No (Comment: Of course not, they were too busy with their duty to notice that anyway);
c) Particulars Before Use (PBU) recorded for all users: Yes;
d) Departure time: About 1545 hours. The teacher just left, no one else left in between the mentioned time;
e) If anyone left, did they return: N/A
f) What they were doing: The teacher was looking for teaching materials. Students were typing and printing something;
g) What was typed and printed: Unnoticed, but the paper was mainly blank (Comment: Aha!);
h) Who did that: Unclear (Comment: Burst my bubble…);
i) Computer used: Computers with numbers 17, 18 and 32;
j) Computers which the students used: Numbers 17 and 32;
k) Did the users come in simultaneously: The students came in almost together, with a time difference of one to two minutes. The teacher came in much later;
l) Did they bring any pen-drives, CD or anything of the sort: No for all users.
Done… What a headache… Who in the world did this?
"It couldn't be the teacher, since he didn't type and print out anything in the end. But which student did that? Hmm…" I thought.
I walked slowly and arrived at computer number 17. The computer was still on, but Roxas noted that the user of this computer had not opened Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint etc. I went to computer number 32. The user recently opened Microsoft Word, because the icon was highlighted.
Not many people touched its keyboard, since a fine layer of dust deposited on it. I flipped through the record book beside the computer; the last user used the computer three days ago. What nerve, the culprit left no evidence! The answer to the questions on the PBU was a lie!
"How did it go? Found any evidence?" One of the student who I questioned earlier asked me. "Mind your own business," I thought. Did it matter to you if I found anything? Why did you care? Unless- Eh? Unless… you felt guilty?
I could not figure out anything for the moment, so I decided to mess this girl who might had better things to do than talking to me. I said, "*Sigh* Yeah, there's nothing here… Why are you so curious? Was it because you…?" I intentionally trailed off, looking straight into her eyes without faltering. This girl whose name was… Lynn Green, as per her nametag, had a glint of anxiety in her eyes for a split second. Her hands must have beeb clammy; she fumbled and wiped them on her skirt. She also stood deadly still and straight. "Ah? It's nothing, I just thought that you guys were looking everywhere for clues, as you put it. It must be tiring, huh?" While she was talking, her iris deviated between my face and something behind me. What was she looking at? Something was fishy here!
Alright. I had played enough, therefore I continued my investigation. I did not want Lynn or anyone to suspect me, so I strolled towards the place she was looking at before. "A printer?" I thought. The switch was still on, so someone must have used it earlier. Nothing else was on the table. Looking downwards… There was a piece of white paper, its sides a little curled up. There was a small quadrilateral cut-out on the upper part. No way… This was it!
I took the paper and spun around to get Zexion. Just then, someone suddenly ran into me and we crashed into a heap. I fell onto the cold concrete floor on my butt. That freaking hurt my hips. And there were papers in the air. Oh my god… I also heard a voice, "Ow… That hurts. Oh no! My papers!" I bit my lip to suppress the pain and looked at the person - Lynn Green!
I had no choice but to help her to collect the papers. I then tried to get up. Zexion hurried over. He pulled me up and asked, "Are you OK?" "Yeah, I'm fine- What?! My paper! Where did it go?!" No time to lose! I jumped up immediately and raced towards Lynn. I grabbed the papers away from her roughly and flipped through every sheet, all of them were perfectly unused A4 sheets! How great, I lost the only clue.
Five minutes later, we left Computer Lab E. At the door, I extended my hand to my back to scratch. That was when I felt something on my back. I pulled it out- "THAT PAPER! Oho! Great!" I shouted. "My god, how'd you pull a paper out of your back?" Roxas asked, bewildered. Axel guessed, "Maybe the paper was accidentally stuck to your back when you crashed?" I said, "I also found some interesting clues from this trip to the computer lab. Since the culprit missed it somewhere in there, they will have to return to the scene. Toda- No, let's come back tomorrow."
"KKRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNG!" It was time for the next class, we had to settle Ven's problem before we could go back to our class. We escorted Ven to his classroom and then we ran back to our classroom in another block. Phew! That was tiring!
Night, so dark yet so pleasantly cold. The gust of breeze blew in a slow and steady pace. It caressed the leaves on the evergreen trees and danced with the dried leaves on the vacant street. The rustling of the leaves and the wind were like magnificently composed music that sounded harmoniously and blended into one unique melody, accompanying the lonely crescent in the dark sky, hanging high up to guard the city. Under the gentle, mysterious and yet cold moonlight, every movement and activity in Kingdom Hearts High School also decreased its tempo. It was such a quiet night, but who would expect someone to sneak into the sleeping campus?!
Proceed quickly… Avoid the securities… Up the stairs… Here it was, Computer Lab E!
The person opened the door and sneaked in silently, without a sound. The person then shut the door carefully, trying to hide the revealing bad intentions. After switching on the torchlight, the person began searching the floor frantically.
"Oh snap… Those annoying people who couldn't get their hands off people's business ransacked this place, and there were still some evidences left! What to do now? … Where was it? Did I leave anything here?" Those must have been their thoughts right now.
No time to lose! I walked out from behind the cupboard and switched on the lights. "Nice to see you again, Lynn Green. What a coincidence." I crossed my arms in front of my chest and half leaned against the door. "Wha-?!" She panicked and jumped. Due to the sudden increase in light intensity, we had to squint our eyes to see things. That was why I had to lean against the door, to prevent Lynn from escaping when we could not see clearly.
"It's already half past eight, why are you still here? Was it because you…?" Hey, which copycat was that? That was my line hours ago! Copyright issues, dude! It was Axel. "Talk, were you the one who typed and printed the threat message strip?" Zexion came out too. Demyx also blocked the other exit. Roxas remained hidden.
"I dropped something, obviously! If it wasn't for you being a klutz who walked into me, the papers wouldn't have flown all over the place! And I won't even drop my stuff here. Now you are calling the kettle black, pot?" She retorted. Oh puh-lease! What a stupid excuse! "Can't you get it another day? It's not like anyone here is going to steal it. The door's always locked, you know," Demyx said.
"Quit fooling around! You are the one who stole Ventus' stuff! You could have killed him!" I boomed. "Ventus? Who are you talking about? What do you mean I stole his migraine pills? What are you saying?" She glared at me venomously.
I continued, "I checked the fingerprints on the bottle, and proved that you were the one who did it! And the fingerprints from the keyboard matched those on the bottle. All evidences pointed towards you, what else is there for you to deny?!" I slammed the table with my tightly clenched fist to emphasise seriousness.
One… Two… Three seconds of silence…
"… Hmph, you're lucky enough to discover the fingerprints…" Lynn gritted her teeth furiously and said. "Ventus was the one who didn't know any better! He stole the chance to represent the school in the International Computer Science Competition from Seifer! He asked for it, you can't blame me for that!"
I nodded and said, "Very well, Lynn, thank you for telling me the truth." Demyx then said, "Eh, that's not right, 207; didn't you return Ven his pill bottle after we found it? We didn't get the chance to check the fingerprints on it, how did you…?"
Ha! That was exactly why I thanked her. You still had not caught on, had you, 135? I smirked, and then Demyx realised, "I got it now! Firstly, we never mentioned that his bottle and pills were stolen and that the pills were meant for migraines, but she understood it correctly without any hints; secondly, until now we still don't know which computer the culprit used, so there's no way we can get the fingerprints! So that means-" Zexion continued, "That means what 207 pulled off just now was a mind game, making the culprit to spill the truth without forcing her to. Not bad, 207, my lessons did pay off." Zexion nodded in approval and smirked.
"STOP! I don't understand, that paper…" Axel interrupted. "It is true that the paper exists, but it was only a decoy," Zexion paused for a while and then continued to explain, "I was trailing behind the group when we headed to Computer Lab E, and I found this paper in a corner at the foyer when we passed by. So I cut out a piece of it roughly to the size of the message strip, brought it along and then secretly dropped it under a table for 207 to discover. This caused Lynn to panic completely and grabbed a stack of paper to intentionally crash into 207."
"Since you were so nervous throughout the whole ordeal, you must be the culprit, if not the co-conspirator! And you confessed to us just now. Now spit it out, is there a mastermind behind all this?!" I continued.
Lynn Green was not amused. She spat, "You all are tricksters! All you know is manipulating other people's thoughts and psychological reactions-" "Get it straight! I was just following where your internal struggles led me. You must have been thinking 'why the evidence still existed' and 'didn't I get rid of them' or something similar," I interrupted her this time.
"You know, you got the wrong guy…" Roxas had decided to make his grand appearance now. "Ventus?! Why are you…?!" She was shocked. "I was the one you were supposed to attack, not my brother, Ventus. How dare you make my brother suffer…" Uh-oh, Roxas was getting mad. She shut up, her face portraying an expression of "better not say anything, or anything goes". I said, "Wanna know what I understand about your thoughts right now?"
"After I presented the evidences to you, you thought, 'Since all evidences were all directed towards me, I'll just admit it'. Actually there's no such thing as fingerprints, your acts alone were suspicious enough," I said.
"… Impossible. Naminé must have told you all something…" She mumbled very softly. Axel, who had the sharpest hearing, said, "Naminé?! What?"
I could see the chance was slipping away, so I sent a signal via eye contact to Zexion. Zexion noticed and took his shot, "About that, we already knew everything." Now I was the one who was surprised. "What? I was the first one to see Naminé… She told me nothing of this…? I thought you are going to interrogate her?" I thought.
Lynn was even more scared now, "What? She told you everything? Crap, the pranks for prefects from K2A, B and C…!" Huh? Oh I got it! Good one, Zexion! Looks like you were not the Cloaked Schemer of our group for nothing! He said that just to make her to spill more beans to us. Good going, 006! But Lynn discovered what she had done, so she spun around and ran towards the door.
Being the "goal keeper", I could not afford to waste any more time! I was closing in on her back, but she reached for the doorknob. Out of instinct, I shot out an arm and grabbed her hair! Phew! I could not resist the urge to mock, "Miss Green, I must say that your hair is not only strong, but also too long and unfit for school rules. A warning to you, better cut it or tie it up properly!"
The next day, we took her to Mr. Saïx. After continuous interrogation (with perhaps an itty bitty bit of torture), she confessed everything. The attack on Naminé was her doing, because she thought Naminé overheard her plans at the tuition centre. In reality, she did not hear or witness anything at all. She stole the pill bottle for revenge on Roxas, but she got the wrong person because Roxas and Ventus were identical twins. She could not tell the difference between them.
At the same time, Counter Crime Group 27 had finished their investigation on the arson of the Chemistry lab. The truth: Someone had filled a bottle with hydrogen gas and fluorine gas. This was done just before the teacher came in. The teacher then mistook the content of the bottle as pure hydrogen gas and directed the gas into the combustion tube to demonstrate the experiment of copper displacement by hydrogen from copper (II) oxide. To ensure all the gas had been displaced by the hydrogen gas to prevent explosions due to heating of mixture of air and hydrogen gas, the teacher collected the gas at the end of the combustion tube and tested it with a burning wooden splinter. Both hydrogen and fluorine reacted rapidly and vigorously. Thus an explosion occurred. To make things more confusing, the culprit switched on the Bunsen burner to leak natural gas. They thought people would perceive this as a gas leakage accident. But they missed something: The location of gas leakage was too far away from the site of explosion, and the teacher only used a match to test the gas, not the Bunsen burner… so, yeah. Everything was settled!
"Cheers! Mission accomplished!" The five of us proposed a toast (the drinks were orange juice. We did not have rum like Mr. Luxord did…) to celebrate our success. I was so glad that it was finally over.
"静かに~" [The lyrics of Hikari -PLANITb Remix- (Short Edit), I do not own this!] Ah? My GPS device's notification ringtone rang. Maybe it was from my parents.
I opened the mail box and my expression changed into a grave one:
"That was only the appetiser. There are more to come for main courses! Do not expect to leave the dining table soon!" From: KeishaToCease Q [Authoress: What sort of a name was that?]
"… Fine, now that you, O mysterious one, decided to intervene, I would play around with you to see what you're up to! Don't regret then," I thought when I passed my GPS device around for the others to see.
Whatever you were cooking up, just take your shot!
~ CHAPTER 6 FIN ~
TO BE CONTINUED
Holy Bananas! What a long chapter! Sorry if it starts to get crappy. If you have the time to rate or comment, please kindly do so. I would appreciate that. I hope you guys like it. Stay tuned for more updates, if I have time to upload more of them… Haha. Bye!