The group is currently riding on an average speed accelerating car, with the dark-haired girl as the driver—her name still unknown—.
"Uhm…" Miki started, scratching her cheek sheepishly. "We still don't know each others names don't we?" She finally pointed out.
"Oh." The others just said, feeling stupid.
The coal haired girl chuckled warmly—music to their ears—and introduced herself.
"Momo, just call me Momo." She smiled.
"Momo… uhmm no surname…?" Miku asked, hesitating, feeling guilty for asking when she saw Momo's smile falter a bit.
The said girl just shook her head.
"'Kay…" She said, rubbing the back of her neck. The others also felt the awkwardness around them and decided to introduce themselves, ignoring their own curiosities.
"My name's Gumi Megpoid!" The greenette started, her voice quite loud, but it's pretty reasonable since she sits far from the front.
"The name's Furukawa Miki." The redhead followed by, the others did as well.
"Aria Planetes."
"Akita Neru." She promptly said then continued on gathering information in her phone.
"Megurine Luka."
"Well you probably already know me since uhm, yeah you called be by my name and all." Miku said, clasping both of her hands at the back of her head in a laid back manner.
"So Momo-san," Neru started, her attention fully on the driver, seemingly done with her typing session on her phone, her eyes twinkled with curiosity. "Do you perhaps, know something about this, occurrence?" She asked and tried to be polite as much as possible, but still sounded blunt, much to her annoyance.
Momo raised an eyebrow at the taller blonde. Yes her words were polite but the expression she's currently wearing right now didn't match with it, she looked irritated, her eyebrows twitching in annoyance. The others just stared at the blonde, wondering if she somehow, didn't like Momo, she doesn't like strangers in general after all.
Neru noticed that she was being stared at and straightened up. "Sorry for that…" She cleared her throat. "Uhm so yeah that."
These people… are weird.
The dark haired girl thought, as she nodded slowly, her gaze steady in front of her as she drove, taking a turn left already halfway to their destination. "Before that," She started. "Tell me the things you have learned first before I share mine." Her sky blue eyes still on the road, her face serious.
They just stared at the coal haired girl, especially the taller blonde who's giving her suspicious looks before she opened her mouth to answer. "Okay." The group looked at the two of them, feeling the tension in the air. The taller blonde wasn't the type to give in to other people's conditions, she always have her way with people, sometimes even using violence for them to just abide her, but this however, was an exception, much to the group's surprise.
"Here's what I got after surfing the net," She started, her gaze on the driving dark haired girl never wavering. She gave in to her because she felt that she was important, that she somehow really knew anything about this outbreak, and she will risk anything just to get the info, she wanted this madness to end so that she can move on with her life and just live peacefully. Also, the girl was so damn shrouded with mystery, the taller blonde wanted to know more of her.
"From the recent news that I've got, things that I think has some relation to this are the recent childnappings, the unknown explosion in the city and the famous scientist, professor Tarazuki's disappearance." She said as she recalled all the information that she had gathered this whole time, the wild spread infection has already been all over the news, and it seemed that their school was the last one to experience it. She also took notice of Momo's eyebrows twitching when she mentioned the latter, why is that?
"Oh? Why is that?" Momo asked, showing interest at her info and the blonde herself. While the said blonde just ignored what she saw for a while and continued talking.
I'll deal with that later.
"A scientist, and a famous one at that, disappearing? Isn't a bit too suspicious? And two days before this chaos happened too. If we piece all of this together it makes sense doesn't it?" She took another breath before continuing, she doesn't know why but something about this exchange unnerved her. "Children with careless parents suddenly disappearing, who knows where they could be? There's a high chance that those cases are somehow related to Tarazuki's, what if they were taken so that scientist could experiment on them? I learned that he's pretty obsessive with how can a person excel at something in particular too so it somehow makes perfect sense, he's also highly influenced, so I wouldn't be surprised if he gets off the hook if he ever did a crime."
"And that explosion," She added. "It happened just an hour before this outbreak, and he was already missing at the time. You already know what to think next." She shook her head. "Y'know in my opinion, I think it's him, all of this points at him, and is more likely to be him." The blonde sighed as silence took over the whole van when she finished talking, the others absorbing what she had just said, and unknowingly nodding at it.
"Him." Momo suddenly blurted out of blue, making the others look at her, including Neru. "Yes it's him."
"He's my current lead, and I was actually planning on going to the other side of the city to investigate the explosion site but met you guys." She added.
"Wha—"
"Wait, how did you already know it was him?" Luka questioned, cutting Neru, clearly perked up at the data being passed around. Neru grumbled and sat back in her seat, and did not argue with Luka since her question also caught her interest.
"I have sources." She gave a close ended answer with a flat voice, which the others understood as a "don't want to talk about it" gesture and did not press on further, leaving them in a yet another awkward silence.
After a few more turns on the road, the van they rode finally stopped at their destination.
They found themselves in a forest, in front of a big seemingly abandoned mansion's gate. The mansion looked eerie, it had a futuristic but old aura with it, whatever it was, it's definitely something the group couldn't describe, but felt an odd secured but unhappy feeling when they where there. Making them pretty bewildered with what was happening to them feels.
Been so long since I saw this house… Memories of momo's family came flooding into her head,
===
"Momo." A man in his mid forties said, his voice filled with despair, his ebony hair, clothes—appearance disheveled as if he had fought someone in a fight. Momo was a matured child, she knew that, but her parents didn't. They didn't know that she inherited their ability, the ability for ones brain to function so quickly, to understand so quickly, analyze, familiarize—to put it simply, to be so incredibly adept in learning.
But due to the things happening around them, she felt like she regretted ever being matured in her age, she just wanted to not understand anymore, to be all just innocent and ask things she doesn't know. To be completely clueless in this living nightmare, to not know what will happen after it.
"You need to stay strong alright?" He added, his eyes glimmering with tears at the corner of his eyes.
"Always remember that we love you, and always will." A woman who looked slightly younger than the man said, her tears streaming down her beautiful face, her once straight and curl-free raven hair now the opposite of it. Even though they looked like in a bad shape, for Momo, they're still beautiful.
Momo did not like what was happening one bit, she knew what was happening, they were leaving her. Leaving her all alone, and she will probably never see them again. She overheard their plan before, they were planning something ridiculously drastic, to blow themselves up. She didn't ask, and looked for answers herself, until she finally got it.
A man, a certain man was behind all of this, and his name, is Tarazuki Ikuzu.
===
AN: I know the update took so damn long, and it is indeed short but forgive me, life's been trolling me these past few weeks, but in a good and bad way. HAHA. And I admit, I've been also procrastinating, don't we all DX. Actually this chapter's already been written looong ago in my doc, just didn't have the time to expand and publish it. So for the sake of just publishing, I only added some things to it then huwala. AN UPDATE IS HERE! But a shitty one at that. DX. Anyways, see yah next time and since I'm currently in a 2 week Christmas break from school, which started last Friday I guess I might be updating often now! :DD