(Haruhi's POV)
After figuring that there had to be a secret room at the Sohma's main house, we decided that it was best to tell Tohru, Yuki and Kyo about it the next day after school. Since they can just tell Momiji and Hatsaharu about before they go home. I don't think we have enough clues, but it's better than not having a clue at all. After 6 months we finally have lead.
W're all in the club room now that classes are done. The Hitachiin twins were already going through the internet and asking the police on any updates, of course making sure to emphasize that they were looking for the princess Lucy Heartfilia, now Lucy Suoh, to make sure that they were not taking the situation lightly. After all, everyone knows that given a good bribe, the police would just shut the case immediately and claim that she's gone for good.
I noticed this before, but Hikaru and Tamaki-senpai are the ones taking this far more personally than the others. Sure, we're all close with Lucy, but we also know that regardless, she's a strong girl. I can get why senpai is sensitive with the whole situation, but Hikaru? Kaoru did keep on teasing Hikaru for the whole month that Lucy was here, and both he and Lucy were pretty close... could Hikaru..?
(General POV)
While Haruhi was lost in thought as she sat on one of the club's couches, Tamaki had walked over to her and was snapping his fingers in front of her face, a glass of water in his other hand. It took almost 3 minutes before Haruhi noticed what he was doing. "Haruhi~! You okay?"
When she finally regained her sense of reality, Haruhi blinked twice before looking up at Tamaki, who was smiling at her, and returned the smile while grabbing the glass. "Oh, hey senpai. Thanks for the drink." She said while finishing the glass.
"What were you thinking about? You seemed pretty deep in thought." He asked, sitting beside her and relaxing his body.
"Oh! Uh... I was just thinking about Lucy is all. Haruhi said with a quirky smile before recomposing herself. There was no way she could tell Tamaki that she thinks Hikaru might like Lucy, especially with the current situation despite knowing Tamaki's personality.
Tamaki on the other hand had a curious expression, but decided not the question it further before turning to look at the rest of the club searching for clues on Lucy. "I see..." He said before turning to her. "Did you call Tohru yet by any chance?"
The brunette took moment to take in his words and then immediately remembered what she was supposed to do. In a quick motion, Haruhi jumped, grabbed her phone from her pocket and dialed Tohru's number, sitting back down as she did so. It took about 4 or 5 rings before she heard the call had connected and she beemed in happiness to hear her cousin's voice.
"Haruhi?" Tohru asked. She was with Yuki, Kyo, Momiji and Hatsuharu and luckily they were just about to separate ways until Tohru had stopped to answer the call.
"Tohru hey!" Haruhi greeted. "I know you're always with Yuki and Kyo but are their cousins who are helping look for Lucy also with you by any chance?"
"Huh? You mean Hatsuharu and Momiji?" Tohru asked, getting the 4 Sohmas attention as they went by her side to hear what was going on. Tohru nodded to all 4 of them before bringing her phone away from her ear and putting it on speaker phone for them to hear. "Yeah, they're here with us Haruhi. You're on speaker... but why? What's up?"
As Haruhi began explaining that maybe there was a secret near Akito's room in the main house, Honey came running to Tamaki with the glowing communication lacrima. Which meant Fairy Tail was trying to contact them. Honey set it down on the coffee table, the other hosts going towards them as the call connected to reveal Lisanna, Wendy, Carla, Mira and Levy on the orb.
"Hey guys! How's the search going?" Wendy asked after greeting them.
"Not so good, but we think there may be a secret room near Akito that may be where he's keeping Lucy." Hikaru explained.
"It´s only a guess right now, but Haruhi is talking to Tohru and the Sohmas right now to check it out." Kaoru added.
"What about you?" Kyoya asked, coming into view. "How's trying to figure out what Akito meant by his words?"
"Nothing yet unfortunately... but we did find some interesting news." Levy said, the hosts confused as to what she meant. I mean, they were looking for Lucy. So what interesting news could be important at the moment?
Haruhi heard what Levy said and thought that maybe Tohru and the others would like to hear about it too, when she finished explaining, Haru and Momiji told her that they heard Akito talking to someone that was not in his chamber which definitely alludes to a hidden room of some sort. Maybe what Levy and the fairies had found can add to the evidence.
At that thought, Haruhi went to kneel in front of the lacrima and put the phone on speaker so that Tohru and the Sohmas can listen in. "Hey Levy! Tohru, Yuki, Kyo, Haru and Momiji are listening in. If it's about Akito, I figured they should hear about it too."
"Hey guys!" Tohru and the Sohmas greeted through the phone.
"Really? That's great!" Lisanna cheered delightedly.
"Okay so basically, Wendy, Carla and Lisanna found another magic book like Lucy's - the one that has empty pages but once asked a question or given a command, it's pages become filled with information." Levy explained. "At first we asked about Lucy, but the pages remained empty. So I decided to ask about Akito's activites from the last 6 months."
"Makes sense since if it has nothing on Lucy asking about Akito's actions through the duration of Lucy's disappearance will give us a strong lead on where to look." Yuki noted.
"Exactly." Wendy said. "But what we found had nothing to with Lucy. In fact, there was no mention of Lucy in its pages."
"However, skimming through all the boring details, there is most certainly a hidden room in Akito's chambers." Carla added. "He had kept a girl locked in for quite awhile and is constantly shouting at her through the walls of his room. She has absolutely no idea as to why she's there nor why Akito needs to keep her there."
"What? Why would he do that?" Kyo asked. "Even for Akito, there has to be a reason."
"Did you get a name Levy?" Tohru asked, through the phone.
"Yeah, and a picture after asking the book to show me her face." Levy said, looking at the image in front of her. "She has pink wavy hair and has kind of light brown eyes, seems almost the same age as Lisanna. Her name is Aya Lilith."
"Aya!?" Tohru, Yuki and Kyo shouted.
"You guys know her?" Mori asked, looking towards the phone, an eyebrow raised.
"She transferred to our class just yesterday!" Tohru exclaimed.
"So that's why she despises us, Akito's had her locked up for who knows how long!" Kyo shouted.
"Despises you?" Kyoya asked. "By you, I'm assuming the Sohmas. Not Tohru, right?"
"Yeah! She said really mean things to Yuki and he didn't even do anything to her!" Momiji exclaimed. "She even threatened him! Saying that we will pay because of what we did to her! But it was all Akito!"
"We've known for awhile that Akito has been talking to someone in his chambers, but we don't know who Aya was until today." Haru explained. "Heck, no one in the main house probably knows of her existence and ties to us either. I can vouch for that."
"So what should we do?" Honey asked, before his eyes lit up. "Do you think that maybe Aya knows where Lucy is!?"
"Huh?" Everyone asked.
"Hm... Honey-senpai's got a point." Kaoru agreed. "Clearly there's something weird going on and the book knows nothing about Lucy's whereabouts. We know Akito took her with the help of Shigure... and no one seems to be able to find a trace of Lucy within Sohma house."
"But... if Aya has been kept secret for awhile now... and know one in Sohma house was made aware of this... then maybe Aya knows other hiding places of Akito's, maybe even the place where he's keeping Lucy!" Hikaru announced, following his brother's thoughts.
"Tohru, she doesn't know that you're friends with Yuki and Kyo yet right?" Tamaki asked, resting his hands on the table as he leaned closer to the phone.
"No, we were planning on letting me and my friends get closer to her so we can show her that Yuki and Kyo aren't bad people." Tohru explained.
"Okay, so while you do that, we will continue to monitor what we can over here at Ouran. We'll call you if there's any updates from Fairy Tail since we have the lacrima with us." Kyoya instructed.
"I'll keep analyzing the text in the pages about Akito, I'll contact you when I find something else that may be a lead." Levy added.
"Roger that!" Everyone said in unison, both calls disconnecting.
Unknowingly, behind the walls where Yuki, Kyo, Tohru, Momiji and Haru were talking the hosts and the fairies, someone hid in the shadows, watching their interactions and overhearing their conversation. They raised an eyebrow, tilting their head in confusion at what they just heard. In their head, nothing they heard made any sort of sense and surely they all couldn't have been completely serious.
"What...? They're looking for... Lucy?"
Just before anything else, they realized that the group of 5 was headed toward their way and almost immediately they ran away in silence, the Sohmas and Tohru not knowing that they were even there during the whole conversation.
"Whew now that that's over with, let's get back to work." Lisanna said as she winked at Wendy and Carla.
"Yeah, now that we know about Aya, maybe she can help us find Lucy." Wendy said in a hopeful manner. "Maybe she's even friends with her and can help us when she and Tohru become friends."
"That would be a splendid turn out now, wouldn't it?" Carla said.
Levy looked at the 3 girls with a sad smile on her face. Even though she was delighted with the task to help research about Lucy's location, she couldn't help but still feel responsible and guilty for everything that had happened. Lucy didn't deserve all this ignorance and kidnapping. She's so strong, that she endured months of ignorance from the guild and even continued to have hope that her family would remember her again.
At least that's what Levy thought. Maybe it was karma getting back at Fairy Tail, teaching them that bad things come when you forget ones family member. Now... Lucy's the one who has to pay for it. It made Levy angry. The guild regrets everything, sure that much is true. But, Levy knew well that they refused to accept that they had done what they did, preventing them from even getting close to the step of forgiveness.
"Levy!"
The solid script mage snapped out of her thoughts and looked to Carla, who had called her name. The book that held the information on Akito's activities was glowing in an uncontrollable manner and the pages began to flip quickly, one to the next. Their eyes widened as Lisanna went to call Gajeel and the others, including Team Natsu and Makarov in absolute worry and urgency.
When they came in the archive room, everyone's eyes widened to to see words appear randomly, scattered through the pages as they flipped from one another. Images began to draw themselves in and many random, yet clearly significant words became more emphasized than most. A surge of magical energy poured into the room, it almost felt like the ground was shaking at the sight.
All of a sudden, the book stopped and left itself open to one page, the light gathering to shine from its center and illuminate something above it. The fairies got closer and soon an image formed in front of them like a ghost.
It was Lucy. Or what seemed like a fractured figure of her.
This Lucy looked like a porcelain statue of a doll, but it had cracks throughout her entire body. She stood still, her eyes closed and lifeless. A literal statue of a broken doll. The pieces continued to fall from her body, soon breaking completely and dispersing into the unknown, leaving a glowing light. Presumably her magic or the fragments of her soul. The fairies unaware on how to interpret the vision they were seeing.
"What the heck is going on?" Natsu asked.
"Lucy... she just broke into a million pieces?" Gajeel thought aloud.
"I've never seen such action." Makarov added.
Suddenly, the light moved from its position. And as it did, the new pieces began to form around it and a new porcelain figure was created. Looking like a vessel to encase and protect the light from the outside. The figure seemed like a person, but had no face to distinguish who it was to become. And it ended, just like that. The vision did not move anymore and now the fairies had to take in what they just saw.
Lisanna and Mira then looked over at the book, making out the words on the page that it left itself open to. They could see letters and words moving around the page, trying to piece themselves in a proper structure, a troubling puzzle. Lucy's name suddenly appearing before scrabbling themselves together to create a jumbled mess of letters. But what surprised the 2 Strauss siblings was that it used Lucy Heartfilia instead of Lucy Suoh.
The letters arranging themselves as so: AUYAELIFLRITCH
"Why would they arrange Lucy's name into letters that don't make any sense in that order?" Lisanna asked.
Gray and Erza went to look and they too thought it was odd that the book decided to show them all this all of a sudden. "Could this be some sort of code? A hint perhaps?" Erza questioned.
"But the book isn't supposed to give hints." Wendy said. "The book is supposed to give as much information as it can on the subject you ask of."
"Hmm... Levy what did you ask when Lisanna, Wendy and Carla brought you the book?" Lily asked.
"I asked if it could show us the location of Lucy, using both Heartfilia and Suoh, but the book revealed nothing for some odd reason. So I decided to ask it about Akito's actions during the duration of Lucy's disappearance, which gave a lot of boring details save for the one about a girl that he's kept locked up for some while now." The bookworm explained.
"A girl he kept locked up?" Gajeel asked, crossing his arms.
"Her name's Aya, she transferred to the school Tohru goes to just recently." Wendy added.
"Well, clearly the book is trying to tell us something important about Lucy." Juvia said. "There has to be some reason that the book decided to mess up with her name."
"Yeah, if there is nothing on Lucy, then we should investigate just what this code is trying to tell us. Hopefully it will lead us to know at least what happened to her." Gray agreed.
"Good idea." Happy complimented.
"We girls will stay here and help Levy try to decipher the vision and this code." Mira said. "Master, try to contact the council or any other guild that might have any idea as to just what this book is."
Everyone nodded in an agreement and went straight to work on the task at hand. This was the closest hint they've had in 6 months and now they had a chance to fix everything.
"Don't worry, Lucy... we'll get our revenge soon... and they will all pay."