The club fair had been such a weird experience for Tsukune. Moka had dragged him to just about every table looking at clubs. At least half of the clubs had made Moka feel super uncomfortable, the photography club worst of all. The other half of the clubs would have destroyed Tsukune's body and spirit. A shiver ran down his spine as he thought about the looks the hunting club had given him.
Clubs had lined the hallway with tables, putting up posters and putting on displays, all to try to attract new members. Most of the clubs were fairly normal, if a little boring. Chess club, chemistry club, candle making, even film club. However this was Youkai Academy, not some lame human school. Tsukune had seen Black Magic Club, Psychic Club, and Holy Haters Club.
Moka was looking at some of the pictures on the Tea Ceremony Club's poster so Tsukune decided to take a look at the table across the hall. By the time he turned around she had wandered off to god knows where. The human boy felt another tingle along his spine and turned around to find a young woman in a swimsuit moving towards him.
"Hey there cutie, would you like to join the Swimming Club? There are plenty of us waiting to welcome a nice young man such as you." The woman said bending over slightly so that her breasts were pushed up by her arms.
"For some reason I feel like it would probably kill me." Tsukune blurted out before he could stop himself. He instantly felt regret for his words. It wasn't usually like him to be impolite, but the last week everything happy and pretty had almost killed him.
"What is that supposed to mean." The girl said sounding hurt. The effect was lost on Tsukune as her mouth curved into a snarl that seemed just a bit too big for a human mouth.
"Oh. I, um, just meant that it seemed too good to be true." Tsukune backpedaled trying to avoid a confrontation. "I was never much of a swimmer. I almost drowned as a kid…"
"Or maybe he meant that you will probably eat him considering you are a mermaid." A voice cut Tsukune off.
Everyone in the vicinity was suddenly quiet. They all turned to where the voice had come from. A young man sat leaning against the wall between two booths.
The boy was the definition of average. He appeared to be a couple years older than Tsukune. His build was in no way special, with slicked back brown hair on top. Other than the dark circles under the boys brown eyes that made it look like he hadn't slept in a week, the boy was perfectly normal. His outfit was a little off though. He wore the normal Academy uniform, but instead of the regular jacket he wore a long brown trench coat, and on top of his head was a brown wide brimmed fedora.
"I mean correct me if I am wrong, you are a mermaid right. They do the whole drag people down below water and eat them thing. You could be a Kelpie I guess, to pretty to be a Grindylow." The man looked her up and down. "Too leggy to."
"Why I never." The girl growled, opening up a mouth full of pointy sharklike teeth. "I should rip you to shreds."
"But you won't, will you? You are far from water, and you have no idea what I am. For all you know I am a Kirin."
The girl looked the boy up and down apprehensively before answering.
"I doubt it. I won't lose any more prey today by fighting you though." She snarled pushing past the boy.
The boy walked up next to Tsukune and put his hand on the humans shoulder.
"That was a close one." The boy said chuckling and watching the mermaid girl saunter away having regained her earlier composure. "I thought for sure she was going to eat us."
"Then why did you get involved?" Tsukune asked.
"You seemed to need a little help." The boy shrugged. "Besides I hate having to take the case of the missing swimmers every year."
"Case?" The human asked.
"Oh right you have no idea who I am. I'm Sensaku Ken, Youkai Academy's Number One ace detective." Ken said tipping his hat and turning to leave "If you are interested in the Detectives Club then drop by old greenhouse shed, building 17Gh."
Tsukune watched Ken leave with more questions than answers. Just as the boy reached the end of the hall Moka appeared in sight as well. Ken tipped his hat to her and then disappeared from sight. The pink haired vampire caught sight of Tsukune and ran up to him. Her voice snapped Tsukune out of his questioning.
"Come on Tsukune, we have to find a club before the end of the fair." She shouted grabbing Tsukune by his upper arm and dragging him back through the crowd.
In the end they couldn't find anything they could both join. They had even ended up getting dragged into a fight between the judo and karate clubs. A quick release of Moka's seal had allowed them to escape, but the whole fair had turned into a two friends ducked into their homeroom to avoid the fight.
"That was close." Tsukune said dropping down in his usual desk.
"Why are all the clubs either boring or creepy." Moka complained sitting down as well. Tsukune couldn't help but admire how cute the vampire girl was. She looked completely unruffled even after taking out both the Judo and Karate Clubs simultaneously.
"You could always join the Newspaper Club." Their homereoom teacher said popping up as if from nowhere. "They are about to meet right here."
Tsukune started at the cat woman's sudden appearance. He hadn't seen her when they came in. He wondered if she had noticed him staring at Moka.
"OH the Newspaper club. That sounds like fun, doesn't it Tsukune." Moka said excitedly.
"I don't know." Tsukune replied thinking back to his run in with Youkai Academy's Number One ace detective. Moka looked excited though. He sighed internally and gave in to the cute look on the vampire girl's face. "I guess we can check it out. It is about to meet."
It turned out Tsukune's lack of enthusiasm for Newspaper Club had not improved. It had in fact grown, if that was possible. After an hour and a half of waiting the only other member of the club had shown up and then gotten Moka and the girl he had recruited to put posters up high so he could look up their skirts. Tsukune had walked out after getting in an argument with Moka over whether the older student was a pervert or not.
Not knowing what to do Tskune had headed towards the building Ken had told him about. A quick looke at the school map revealed it was almost a mile away. That wasn't even far compared to some of the buildings on campus. Youkai Academy appeared on the map to be several miles across. Tskune had no idea what half of the buildings were used for.
Tsukune found the building he was looking for tucked behind the greenhouse. The door of the shed had an old sign hanging off of it designating it as the greenhouses shed, but another much newer sign was nailed to the door. It read Detectives Club Around Back - .
Sure enough the human boy found a staircase at the back of the building leading up to a landing on the second floor. Tsukune walked up and knocked on the door.
"Come in." Ken's voice said from inside.
Tsukune opened the door to a dark sparse office. Across the room from Tsukune a large desk sat in front of the only windows in the room. Sitting behind the desk with his feet up was the familiar figure of the young detective.
"Take off your coat and have a seat." Ken said putting down a folder and turning to face forward in the desk. "Grab a drink as well if you want."
Tsukune looked to his left and noticed a coat rack to his left holding a familiar trench coat and hat. Next to the rack was a table with a coffee maker and cups. Under the table was a mini fridge.
The boy looked around the room. The wall to Tsukune's right had a large cork board with several pieces of paper tacked to it. On the opposite wall was a couch and several floor to ceiling filing cabinets.
Ken waited for Tsukune to take a seat across the desk from him from beginning.
"I see you are considering joining the Detectives Club. Let me go over what we do real quick." The detective said shuffling some papers. "We take cases from other students and solve them. This can including anything from missing objects to mysterious noises. Here at Youkai it can even mean missing persons."
"Missing persons?" Tsukune asked wearily.
"Yes. I won't put you on one of those until I know you can handle it, but from time to time a student goes missing and we have to find out why." Ken answered. " You will of course have to put in some paperwork , and go through some basic training. From what I have learned you can handle yourself, but you might still get into some trouble."
"Learned about me? You just met me"
"Ah yes but you are a rather prominent figure among the first years. You are friend to a powerful Vampire, and the only one that can release her sealed powers. Not to mention the envy of all the boys just for being seen with such a cute girl. You got the attention of a Succubus as well. All that attention can be bad for you as a detective, but the renown may also help you get information." Ken tossed Tsukune the folder he had been reading earlier.
The papers inside the folder were a portfolio on Tsukune himself. It had his middle school grades, his school ID photograph, information about him, and listed Moka as a known associate. He started when he read the last box at the bottom of the paper.
"Human. How do you know I'm human." Tsukune shouted terrified.
"I have a source in the administration." Ken said shrugging and leaning back in his chair. "Relax it isn't like I want to eat you. I had that opportunity the moment you stepped in the door. Besides I don't even eat humans."
"How do I know you aren't lying."
"I already told you I would have eaten you already. Asking questions is good, but asking questions without changing the question is useless. " Ken sighed. "Look you don't have to join the club if you are worried. I just thought you might be good at it. As for why I sought you out to begin with, I like mysteries. I wanted to figure this out."
The boy pointed to a sheet of paper in Tsukune's folder. The paper was a direct copy from Tsukune's school file. Most of the personal information was blacked out, and at the bottom in large red letters it said Sealed: Special Project. The signature was in flowing script followed by their title, Headmaster.
None of the words made any sense. Tsukune had no idea what he was reading. It even took him a minute to collect his thoughts.
"I know this is a lot. Think through it and come back tomorrow. I have your training case set up, something about a peeper, I already have a lead." Tsukune just picked up the paperwork Ken handed him and walked slowly back to the dorms deep in thought.
"I don't know what game you are playing old man." Ken thought watching his new partner trudge out the door. "I find an intriguing folder on my desk about a young human at a monster school. I don't know why you want this kid to have my attention, but he has it. Now lets see where this goes."
