Mystery

Sayaka was running around the mansion frantically, hoping to locate Ruri quickly. The second she realised Ruri wasn't keeping Reira company, she knew something was wrong. It had been too long since anyone had seen her. She wasn't the type to get lost. Even if something as big as this mansion was throwing her off, it still wouldn't take that long of a time for her to find the stairs and navigate her way back to the living room. The top two floors even looked exactly the same!

Sayaka wondered if maybe Ruri had gone to visit her brother in his room on the third floor, so she decided to head there. She had ascended the staircase from the first floor and when she reached the third floor, she heard an awful sound. Was somebody…vomiting?

She glanced over and began walking down the dark hallway until the vomiting noise got louder. She finally saw that Ruri's room had its light on, illuminating Serena puking into a waste-paper basket in the corridor.

"Oh my!" Sayaka rushed to the other girl's side, kneeling down to rub her back "Are you okay?"

Serena tried to shake her head, but in doing so came dangerously close to missing the waste-paper basket as dinner came up her throat again.

"Sayaka, is that you? Have you seen Ruri yet?" Sayaka looked over her shoulder to see Shun coming down the corridor the same way she had, staring at them.

"Sayaka, Kurosaki…" Serena forced out in a pained tone once she had finished this round of vomiting "You might not want to-"

"Serena? Is someone there?" Sayaka heard Gongenzaka call from inside Ruri's room. Why was he in there?

Apparently Shun thought the same thing.

"What's going on in there?" Shun frowned, choosing to peek inside the room to see what he was doing.

"No, Kurosaki, don't—!" Gongenzaka yelled out, but it was too late.

Shun's eyes widened in horror at the sight before him. Then a pained wail filled the mansion.

"Ru-Ruri's dead?" Allen's voice rose two whole octaves as he spoke, his words causing everyone in the room to gasp and some to cover their faces in horror.

Shun's wail had summoned Dennis, who had been requested by Gongenzaka to gather everyone down in the main room. Gongenzaka had helped Serena downstairs, carrying the wastebasket with him. Sayaka, moving as if in a dream, as if this all wasn't real, was now rubbing her back while Rin was holding a glass of water for her. Shun had demanded to stay by Ruri's side once he'd calmed down to the point of being able to communicate properly, but Gongenzaka and Yuto refused to let him. Yuto spent several minutes trying to convince the still hysterical Shun to come downstairs and telling him staying next to her dead body wasn't going to fix anything. He had finally mutely nodded in agreement. Shun was now sitting on the sofa, just staring blankly at the wall, Yuto choosing to sit solemnly next to him so that he wasn't alone.

"I-I can't believe someone's dead…" Yuzu gasped, trying not to cry.

Yugo kept patting her back sporadically, as if he thought that may comfort her.

"And you said she was struck from behind?" Yuri asked, sounding worriedly interested "Struck, as in…?"

"A knife" Gongenzaka answered. "Or some sharp object. Her back was cut and she bled out."

"Oh my!" Sayaka covered her mouth, not taking to the details of what had happened to her best friend very well.

Others flinched at the description.

"So she was murdered" Sora concluded. He was sweating a bit, as if he expected everyone to turn on him for speaking. "She obviously couldn't have done that to herself, right?"

Everyone glanced around awkwardly, not sure how to respond.

"That means…that someone in this mansion had to have done it" Allen voiced something they didn't want to hear.

"Are you sure it someone didn't break in?" Yugo tried asking.

Gongenzaka shook his head. "Nothing in the room was broken or missing, as far as I could tell. But the room wasn't locked, so…"

"Ah!" Everyone turned to Sawatari who had just slammed the phone back down in its holder "I can't get a hold of my parents! They won't pick up!"

"Huh?" Dennis looked over his shoulder at the house phone "You can't?"

"No, obviously" Sawatari began punching in another number "I'll try calling the police station."

"Maybe there's a possibility that someone from outside was able to get in elsewhere and killed Ruri!" Sayaka squeaked.

"All of the windows and doors are locked up tight" Yuto shook his head "We would've felt a cold draft from the blizzard if a window had been opened or broken."

"Plus, like I said, I couldn't find anything missing when I inspected the room, and it didn't look as if anything and been moved or taken" Gongenzaka explained "In fact, nothing in the room had been touched." He turned to Serena "All you girls did was unpack your rooms and come back downstairs, yes?"

"Y-yes" Serena sniffled, wiping up tears from her cheeks "The three of us – Sayaka, Ruri and I – had made sure all of our things were there, and Sayaka and I were getting ready to go back downstairs to the living room. We were gonna wait for Ruri, but she told us to go on ahead because she was going to go to Reira's room to get Reiji. She was just going to put away her jacket first. So Sayaka and I left and then…" Serena began crying again. "I-If we hadn't have left her…"

Sayaka's eyes were unfocused, staring straight ahead, like she immune to everything, like she existed completely separate from the word.

"Serena" Gongenzaka placed his hand on top of hers comfortingly "Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault."

"But that means that Sayaka and Serena were the last ones to see Ruri" Rin commented.

"What are you saying?!" Serena all but lunged at the other girl on the sofa.

Rin stood up, moving across the room and holding her hands up defensively. "I'm not implying that you did anything, I was just pointing it out!"

"Hey, leave her alone, she didn't mean anything by it!" Yugo quickly jumped to his girlfriend's defence.

"Tch!" Sawatari slammed the cordless phone back down into its holder, causing everyone to turn toward him. "I can't get ahold of anyone!"

"Really?" Yuzu blinked "How come they're not answering their phones?"

"That is rather unusual" Yuto commented "How many times did you try calling?"

"I called my parents four times and the police station three!" Sawatari replied, obvious frustration in his voice. "It rang and rang and rang forever, but no one picked up!"

"Well, what do we do now?" Allen asked in a defeated tone.

"The only thing I can think of is for everyone to just return to their rooms and lock the doors" Rin inputted.

"I'm a little worried about separating everyone" Gongenzaka folded his arms "But if we stay in at least groups of two, we should be okay."

"Y-Yeah" Serena agreed.

"I'm still worried about not being able to get ahold of the police" Yuto mentioned.

"I'll keep trying with my mobile phone – maybe they'll pick up for that" Sawatari promised him.

The group all said their good nights, hoping to get the death of Ruri off of their minds, at least for now. It wasn't going to help if everyone stayed in a state of panic and couldn't get any sleep.

After a few people left the room (Yuto shooting Shun a worried glance before he decided there was nothing he could do by staying so instead helped Sayaka up to Rin's room, with it being the furthest away on the girls' floor from Ruri's), Yuri observed Shun, Yuzu, Serena, Gongenzaka and Yuya were still left. Yuya and Shun still weren't in much of a state to move. Serena still felt a little sick, but Yuzu promised that once they made it to her room that she could rest. But that hadn't been what she was worried about.

"Yuya's still acting strange…" she said wearily.

Yuri had noticed that as well. It was understandable for Shun to be in his condition after seeing his little sister dead in front of him, but Yuya had been wide eyed and silent ever since returning from first checking out his room. Extremely unusual behaviour, considering how joyous he normally was. Even if he had eaten too much at dinner, it still didn't make any sense for him to be acting this way.

"Yuya" Serena spoke softly, still weak from all the vomiting she had done earlier "Hey, are you okay? What's wrong, Yuya?"

Yuya glanced over at her, which actually startled her. He opened his mouth slowly to speak, but then quickly closed it and turned away.

"Yuya?" Yuzu now spoke up. "What is it? Tell us!"

Yuya began shivering. "I-I can't…"

Yuri wanted to say something, but didn't want to interrupt the girls. Yuzu and Gongenzaka knew Yuya best, and Serena had served on the Lancers with him, so it was probably easier for Yuya to talk to them rather than him.

"Please, Yuya" Yuzu pleaded.

"…I-I know…I know…"

"Know?" Gongenzaka questioned, sitting down on the sofa next to where Yuya was lying "Know what?"

"…I saw…"

"Saw?!" Gongenzaka and Yuzu gasped.

Serena squeaked and her eyes bulged.

"Saw?" Yuri spoke up, interested in what he was going to say now "Saw who murdered the girl?"

Before Yuya could respond, Shun sat up and gasped loudly, eyes wide.

"Reira!" he suddenly shouted, rising up off the sofa and rushing out of the room.

"Where the hell are you going?!" Yuri yelled after him.

When Shun didn't respond, he groaned and ran after him. They were supposed to be staying in groups of two after all, and it was clear the squad back there weren't going to leave Yuya anytime soon. Better make sure Birdbird didn't die or they would probably blame him for not watching out for him.

Reira's room was on the third floor, but when they arrived they found someone already standing outside his door.

"Yuto?"

"Hey guys!" Yuto exclaimed, raising his head at Shun's call "What's going on? Sawatari was worried about Reiji and Reira so I said we'd check on them."

"Why are you by yourself?" Yuri asked. He thought the plan was to stay in groups of two. He better not have run up here after the Xyz idiot for nothing.

"Well, I was walking down here with Yugo, but Yugo said he suddenly had to use the bathroom and to just meet him down here" Yuto explained.

"M-Move!" Shun stammered impatiently, nudging Yuto aside to enter the room.

A moment after entering the room, he suddenly fell to his knees and began shaking. Yuri rushed in behind him, followed by Yuto. A strangled sound escaped Yuto's throat.

There was blood plastered all over the room. The only two occupants of the room were covered in it. Reiji was face down, just like Ruri had been, near the base of the bed with a huge gash in his back. Reira was lying on his back in small the bed with blood all over his face. There was no sign of him being stabbed, but it was hard to tell with the bloody blanket covering him.

"O-Oh…Oh god…" Yuri stammered, gripping the doorframe for support. He may have been an Academia solider during the Interdimensional War, but that amount of blood was something he'd never been confronted with before.

Suddenly, the three that had just walked in jumped at the sound of shuffling. They all stared in shock when Reira sat up and rubbed his eyes, unknowingly smearing the blood on his cheeks as the teddy bear he'd been cuddling fell to the bloody floor.

"Nii-sama? Where did you go?"