disclaimer: I do not own Detective School Q. I own only Shizuko and a few characters. and the plot, i guess.

Chapter 2: The Investigation Begins

The next day proved to be dark and rainy for DDS. Kyu burst through the classroom door of the old school building, dripping wet.

"Aw, man! I'm soaked!"

Kyu looked at the rest of his classmates. They too bore signs of having gotten caught in the rain. Meg was trying to wring out water from her clothes and hair. Kinta was hanging up his wet jacket to dry, and Kazuma was squeezing rainwater out of his "lucky" hat.

Only Ryuu remained fairly dry, although his blue-tinted hair had specks of rainwater among the strands, and the bottom of his slacks seemed to have been doused with water from puddles.

Shizuko walked through the classroom door, wearing a trench coat. She looked like she had stepped right out of an old detective movie—or right out of Mr. Hongou's closet.

Kazuma laughed. "Nice outfit!"

Kyu had to laugh too. "Hey, Shizuko, you really look the part! But Halloween's over, you know."

"At least I'm dry," replied Shizuko. "You, on the other hand…" She let the sentence hang in the air.

Kyu looked down at his dripping shirt and pants. Shizuko raised an eyebrow as she took off the trench coat to reveal a perfectly dry pair of jeans, leather boots, and a white button-down shirt.

"Well, you have a point…" Kyu trailed off.

Meg and Kinta laughed.

"Class Q!"

Everyone jumped at the sound of Mr. Hongou's voice.

"Mr. Hongou!"

"Make yourselves presentable. Principal Dan wants to see you," Mr. Hongou barked.

"Oh, it's all right, Hongou. Don't fuss."

Principal Dan rolled his wheelchair into the classroom.

"Good morning Class Q. I received a phone call today from a gentleman about a series of mysterious events that have occurred at his home. Everything happens in his library. Every morning when he comes in, there are signs of it having been disturbed or even put completely out of order. But the door to this room has a very good lock on it, and there are no signs of forced entry."

"I feel that there is more to this case. Class Q, I want you to investigate this strange happening and put the man's fears at ease. He's afraid that a ghost is doing all this."

"Mr. Dan?" asked Shizuko timidly.

"Yes, Shizuko?"

"Am I to be included in this investigation?"

"Of course you are. Feel free to help your classmates in any way you can. This is your first case, am I right?"

Shizuko ducked her head shyly. "Yes, sir."

"Then this will be your chance to prove yourself. Make Class Q proud, and DDS as well."

"I'll do my best."

"Very good. By the way, the gentleman's name is Mr. Hashimoto. His house stands on a cliff overlooking the sea. Be prepared to stay for a few days, there is a nearby inn close to the sea. That's where you can stay."

"Yes, sir!" chorused Class Q.


"I'm starting to have second thoughts about accepting this case," gulped Kyu. The others nodded in unison.

They were standing in front of Mr. Hashimoto's house, situated on a small cliff, the back of the house facing the sea. It looked slightly forbidding. It was quite an old-fashioned house, with an strange aura surrounding it. With the afternoon sun setting, it looked creepier that ever.

A dragon-headed knocker made of brass was right in front of them. They all looked at one another, unsure of what to do.

"We should knock," Ryuu suggested.

"Kyu, you knock," said Meg nervously.

"M-me? But Ryuu should do it, he suggested!" Kyu protested.

"Don't be such a baby, Kyu," said Kinta, whacking Kyu on the head.

"If you're not scared, then you do it," said Kazuma

"I'll do it," said Shizuko, getting impatient with all the delay.

She reached for the knocker. The dragon's red eyes seemed to glow threateningly. When her hand was inches away, she hesitated for a few seconds. Then she lifted the knocker and let it fall once...twice…three times.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sound echoed through the house. Class Q waited with bated breath.

Silence.

"Well, looks like no one's home. Just an old knocker, how boring," said Kinta offhandedly.

"Maybe we should go back to the inn," said Kazuma.

Eeeee.

The door opened a little. At first everyone was scared, but then, a kind-looking face peered through the crack."Yes?" the man asked in a friendly tone.

"Oh! Uhm, hello, sir! We're from DDS," Kyu said, flustered.

The man pulled the door open all the way. "You must be the detectives. Come in," he said. "and don't look so scared. The house may look a little forbidding, but it's actually quite nice here." He held the door open, beckoning them in.

Hesitantly, Kyu stepped over the threshold. Everyone else followed suit.

The gentleman closed the door. "My name is Mr. Hashimoto. I called DDS because I had nowhere else to turn. The police are pretty baffled over my case."

He motioned them into the sitting room. "Please, sit."

Kyu, Meg and Shizuko sat on the couch, while Ryuu placed himself on one of the couch's armrests. Kinta and Kazuma each sat on one of the tapestried armchairs, while Mr. Hashimoto pulled up a chair next to the coffee table. A tea tray was sitting on the table. "I had the maid make us some tea. Why don't you have some?" he said, pouring the tea as he spoke.

When everyone had settled down a bit, Mr. Hashimoto began his story.

"This all started a few weeks ago. I've only lived here for a little while, and since I got used to the monotony of this place, it really surprised me to see the library being disturbed. I do occasionally take books out of their shelves, but I return them. One morning I noticed that several books had been taken from the shelves and scattered on the floor rather hastily. I asked the maid about it, naturally, but she had no idea what I was talking about."

"This has happened several times, now,and I'm starting to get a bit uneasy about all this. I lock the door and shut all the windows tight in that room. Only Yuriko and I have the key to the library. I trust her, and she has sworn to me that she has had nothing to do with these odd happenings. She has even said that maybe a ghost is doing all these things, because he doesn't seem to need to go through the door, he passes right through the walls!"

Mr. Hashimoto got up wearily from his chair, and walked over to the mantel over the fireplace. He leaned his head on it despairingly. "I have a feeling that there is something in this house that I don't know about," he said, as the rays of the early rising moon, streaming in from the open window, played across his face.


"The way he talks about it," Kyu began, "It's like he's willing to believe that a ghost is doing it just so there's an explanation."

Class Q was now at the Nogisaka inn and they were talking animatedly about the mystery as they were waiting to be led to their rooms.

"Well, we haven't seen the library yet, you know. Let's wait until we see it before we draw any conclusions," said Meg.

Ryuu was staring into space as usual with his brow furrowed. He was thinking really hard.

"I have an idea," said Shizuko. "Kazuma, can you find some information for me?"

"Sure, what do you need?" replied Kazuma, opening the laptop he carried everywhere with him.

"Well, Mr. Hashimoto said that he'd only been living there for a while, right? Well, I have a feeling that this case I linked to the former owner of that house. Can you find out who lived there before he did and when that person died?" said Shizuko.

Kazuma began typing furiously on his computer.

"Hold on a second, how do you know that the former owner is dead?" asked Kyu, surprised.

"Simple.If someone was snooping around, then it must be something that involves the former owner, since Mr. Hashimoto doesn't know about it, or so he says. And if I were to poke around a creepy house like that, I'd obviously have to wait until the owner was dead so I could do stuff without arousing suspicion. "

"But then again, I'm assuming that the owner was an old man, or somewhat old, anyway. I think an old man used to live there, based on the design of the house. And aside from that, the burglar knows a lot about the house, so I'm betting Mr. Hashimoto didn't notice the comings and goings until the burglar started getting desperate."

The rest of them looked blankly at her, as though she'd just spoken an alien language.

"What?" she asked, with an oh-you-didn't-think-that-was-obvious look on her face.

"Excuse me, your rooms are ready," interrupted a young lady in a kimono.

"Is there a room for each of us, then?" asked Kyu.

"Actually, we're pretty booked tonight. We only have three rooms left."

"WHAT!" cried Kinta.

"But we managed to put two beds in each room, so I think you'll be able to stay. "

"But…but…" Meg trailed off, speechless.

"I'll leave the rest to you. Here are the keys." Dropping the keys into Kyu's hand, the young woman left, her kimono flowing behind her.


"Now what?" Kazuma asked, irritated.

The three keys were on the table, bearing the numbers 7, 8, and 9.

"All right then, so everything's fair, it'll be a raffle," Ryuu said.

He tore a sheet of notebook paper into six. He wrote the numbers on the slips, so that two bore the number 7, two bore the number 8, and two bore the number 9. Then he folded the slips of paper and dropped them into an empty cup that was standing nearby. Then he shook the cup, to jumble up the pieces of paper.

"Right. The number you pick will be the room you're staying in, then, and whoever has the same number as you, will be your room mate. We draw the slips together," Ryuu said.

"One…"

Everyone reached for the cup.

"Two..."

"Three."

Everyone looked at each other for a second. Then they laid down their numbers on the table.

Kinta and Kazuma had drawn the number 8.

Meg and Kyu had gotten the number 9. (I couldn't resist putting them together in one room.hehehe.)

And (obviously) Ryuu and Shizuko had bagged room number 7.

Kyu, Ryuu and Kinta picked up their room keys from the table.

"So, we'll meet again tomorrow morning to go to Mr. Hashimoto's house, okay?" said Kyu.

"Just a second,"Kazuma interrupted. "Shizuko, I have that information you wanted. The former owner? You were right, he was an old man." He turned his laptop to face them.

An image of a creepy-looking old guy leered out at them. His graying hair, matted and unkempt, hung around his thin, wrinkled face. His mouth was a narrow, stern line, and he had a gash across one cheek. But his eyes were the most terrifying feature—two light green eyes that seemed unnatural, that brimmed with evil that was unspeakable. They threatened to drain the very life out of anyone who dared to look at them. "His name was Mr. Fukujima." Kazuma continued.

Kyu swallowed a lump in his throat. "He sure was a scary-looking guy."

"Well, he was an inventor who specialized in all sorts of booby traps. He would sometimes rig them inhis home, and once, one of the traps that he set up scared a burglar so badly that he ran off into the nearby woods and wouldn't come out until hours later," Kazuma explained.

"Nice guy," Shizuko said sarcastically.

"Apparently, that house used to be full of his work and all sorts of weird things. He had some weird hobbies, like an entomology collection—"

"Entomology?" asked Kinta.

"An insect collection," said Ryuu, Kazuma and Shizuko at the same time.

"Oh," said Kinta.

"Yeah, and he was a taxidermist as well," continued Kazuma.

"A taxidermist?" asked Kyu.

"Someone who stuffs animal skins," replied Ryuu, Kazuma and Shizuko.

"Oh, so that's what it was called," said Kyu sheepishly.

"Anyway, do you know when he died? And what happened to his inventions?" asked Shizuko.

"Right, well, he died just last year. As for his inventions, no one knows where they went. Either he got rid of them for some reason, or they're hidden in the house somewhere."

"Hmm. One more question. Did he ever invent something of value?"

"Again, no one knows."

"Well, thanks for your help, Kazuma. You really cleared up a lot of things for me."


rants: yeah, this chapter was crappy too. there may be a possible KyuxMeg pairing here in the future chapters. PLEASE REVIEW!
chapter 3: A Nightmare in the Darkness
expect a lot of sappiness.or crappiness. whatever!