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Katsuragi Yako tries to avoid the stares of the people passing by her on the street. They can't be blamed, the sight of Nougami Neuro and her is pretty outrageous. He has a tight grip on her head and is dragging her, as she struggles to follow after him.
Yako manages to pull away. "I can walk on my own just fine, Neuro!"
Neuro turns to look at her, a smile on his face. The smile is sadistic and Yako knows very well what it means. He calmly pulls out a ball of fur.
"what's that?" Yako asks intimidated.
Neuro with a blank smile puts the ball of fur onto the pavement, and it comes alive with sharp drooling fangs protruding from it mysteriously deep mouth. Once it eyed her ankles Yako knew to run. Reminding herself to thank her instincts later as she ran into the direction of a growing mystery.
Once arriving at the college, the little ankle biter curls up and falls asleep. Neuro picks it up and puts it back to wherever it came from, then looks down at the winded Yako with a huge satisfied grin. "Yes indeed you are capable."
Yako knew she shouldn't be surprised by his sadistic nature after all the years of knowing and experiencing it first hand, but it still amazed her the lengths he would go to satisfy such sadism.
"It's here, Slug!" Neuro says excited to move on.
Entering the school, they see it's swarming with police. Yako walks over to the police she recognizes and works with often, and asks them about what they've learned of the situation. Meanwhile, Neuro makes his own observations. He looks at the surrounding humans being held back by the yellow caution tape; their faces full of sentimental expressions, coated with tears and quivering lips. He quickly becomes bored with such a scene, and turns to look elsewhere, but his nose is assaulted by a horrible smell—the smell of death. The scent leads him to a room with flashing lights and more grim faces. A murder apparently. Judging from the smell. It must have taken place last night.
A group of police officers leave a man leaning against a wall the farthest from the room with the body. He refuses to look anywhere near the room. He must be the one who found the body. Neuro heads into the room with the corpse.
The scene is gruesome. Some odd machine is placed in one of the toilets in the men's bathroom, and stuck to this machine—or more accurately, struck through—is the body. Neuro narrows his eyes taking in the scene trying to process it's mysteries. Yako approaches the man leaning against the wall. "Imada-san, I'm Katsuragi Yako, may I ask you some questions?" The man tries to smile politely at her as he nods and straightens himself, but his frightened exterior betrays the kind gesture. Yako tries giving him a smile that might comfort him. The man sighs heavily and runs his fingers through his black hair. "You know, I've always wanted to meet you, ever since you were still the "high school detective", but I always hoped it would never be like… THIS!" He says quickly, glancing at the room of the murder then looking back at Yako. His eyes were dark and glossy, and his face looked tired. He's clearly taking the day's event very hard.
"I'm sorry," she says simply to him, but truly means it. He nods his head slightly, never taking his eyes from hers. Bringing the situation back on topic, Yako goes on to start asking questions. "Imada Takumi, you found the body of your student, Minami Kameyo, this morning in the men's bathroom,. Correct?"
"Yes, I found her there, but I'm not her teacher." He calmly answers.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Then do you know who is?"
"Well, I don't know everyone yet, but I think Tanaka-san taught her, he often spoke about how bright she is… uh, was."
Yako writes down the name while asking.
"You're new here?" She asks.
"Yeah. My first year teaching, got lucky getting this job…. So I thought." He answers shyly running his fingers through his hair once again.
She trys to ignore the gloomy topic threatening to take over again, So she continues questioning. "Do you know of anyone else?" Yako already knew of the others, had already gotten their statements. This sort of question was repetitive but necessary, to get the best facts.
"I'm on better terms with the students, actually. But I do go drinking with Yoshida-san, he told me last night how Minami-san walked out in the middle of his lesson earlier that afternoon."
Yako has what she needs and begins saying her thanks when suddenly a loud, pained scream rushes through the room.
"Kameyo-chan!"
This must be the victim's best friend the police couldn't get a hold of earlier. Yako bows politely at Imada Takumi and excuses herself to help the others calm the hysterical young woman down
After a long several minutes, the girl is calm once again and Yako is slowly talking to her about the victim. "She left class early to meet you, to see a movie? And after the movie she went straight home."
The sniffling woman takes a moment before answering. "Yeah, she didn't like going out much. She preferred staying home, so she would always return as fast as she could." The girl again starts to cry. "I should have walked her home… It's all my fault!"
Everyone in the area looked at her instantly. Not the best thing to say at a crime scene.
Yako shakes her head to defuse the police officers who look like they're about to spring on the poor girl. She pats the woman on the shoulder. "It's not your fault," she says, turning around to look into the men's bathroom with a look of detest.
Though at this point, anything is possible.
It was late when they finally took the body away and there was no evidence to close the case. Such an awful thing going unsolved for even one day is a horrible feeling of failure and tends to consume your mind with taunting roundabout thoughts of "what if."
Yako looks to Neuro who is standing next to her. He may not feel exactly what she feels, but from the look on his face it's pretty clear he gets the gist of walking back to their office, Yako is unnerved by the silently fuming demon and tries offering him words of comfort, hoping he doesn't take it as an act of pity.
"It won't be long and you'll soon be able to eat." She thought that sounded helpful enough.
"I didn't go hungry." Neuro says in a concentrated tone
Yako is confused. The crime isn't solved; there was no mystery to eat. "Then how?" She asks.
Mostly talking to himself, he says only a little of what's actually going on in his head."The murder weapon itself was a puzzle, an advanced one by human standards even by some demon's standards."
Minami-san couldn't solve it. Yako says frowning.
"She died because she couldn't solve the puzzle." Neuro says grinning slightly. "Apparently the human was thought of as smart, and somebody wanted to test that."
They walk silently in their own thoughts, contemplating possibilities. That is until Neuro throws Yako into a gated yard, barking growing louder. "Look Louse, this sign says: 'Beware of Dog.' Why is that?"
"Neuro! That's not funny!" Yako yells from the other side of the fence.
Neuro smiles with a goofy blank look on his face.
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