Chapter Thirty-Three: Celebrations and Mysteries

"Yeah, yeah! ASUKA-SUKA! Yeah, yeah, ASUKA-SUKA!"

Dachii, Akari, Luca, and Marachii continued their journey on the giant King and Queen float. While some people booed at the guys, others praised Akari as they went through the streets.

"We should get off soon. We have patrol to do, and it's already afternoon."

"Maybe THEY do, but we don't have to really do anything until nighttime," Dachii said, taking in the full warmth of the sun.

Luca just stretched out. "Come on, these are NOBLES. RICH PEOPLE. They can buy up the entire festival of prizes, they wouldn't go as far as steal."

"You never know."

Marachii looked around, admiring the views. "It is nice up here, but the General or the Director won't be mad?"

"They will," Akari stated.

"Fujii won't," Luca replied.

They drove by a park, and they saw a scene of chaos in it: chairs knocked over, leaves and people on the ground, and Hikari slowly getting up.

Akari immediately stood up. "There she is!" She jumped off the float, making her way to the park. The boys stared after her.

"Do we…go after her?" Marachii asked, looking at the glares of the Voltians around.

Luca yawned and tossed some beef jerky in his mouth. "Sure. she's someone we can hide behind if the going gets tough."

He jumped off the float and the other two looked at each other before following him. They walked alongside her as Hikari noticed them and ran up to them.

"Guys! Guys! I got news! Big news! Like really important!"

"Yes, Kari? What's wrong?"

Dachii grabbed Akari by the shoulder and pointed. "THAT'S, what's wrong."

Arata stood up, dusting himself off. His eyes locked with Dachii's. "HEY, it's the S-1 chumps and their little humans!"

"Great. Just great. Hasn't he broken enough things already? I don't need my ears broken too."

He pointed a finger at Dachii. "You're a weird one! All that damage you did! Yeah, I'mma need my rematch, since you think you're tough stuff!"

"What? YOU'RE the one that damaged me—-!"

"And you, Princess, I'll need that rematch too! You got lucky with your little energy moves, but now I'll work you like a tool!"

"Okay. Have fun."

"Oh yeah, pinky! Wolf boy! You two aren't safe either!"

They both groaned. Marachii hid behind Dachii, hoping Arata wouldn't notice him. "Anyway. it's bout my time to stuff my face. Out of the way, chumps."

He tried to walk through Akari, but as if he hit a brick wall, he fell right to the ground. "Ahem. Anyways. Out of the way."

He bumped through Luca and Hikari, as Marachii breathes a sigh of relief. "Good, I almost thought—-"

"And stop being a wuss, tech-boy!"

"Dang it."

Dachii stared at him, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I see why he is unliked."

Hikari cleared her throat and stood back in front of the others. "Well, back to what I was saying, guys! I found a little girl!"

Luca clapped for her in response. "Nice."

"I'm serious! I think she was being held hostage or something, because her "dad," wasn't a Voltian at all! He had fair-colored skin, not glowing skin!"

Akari tilted her head to the side. "A human took one of us hostage?"

"I…guess? He didn't seem fully human tho, he gave off something…terrifying."

Luca pulled out some more beef jerky. "So what is he, a dwarf out for revenge? An orc in a human disguise? A transformed monster?"

"I don't know!"

"All dance members, please proceed to the check-in facility if you haven't done so now." They all heard Yoritomo's voice buzzing through the intercom, which seemed like a prerecorded message.

Akari folded her arms. "We should all get back to our stations. Wait, Hikari, where's Fujii?"

"He…disappeared."

"Disappeared to where?"

" I don't know!"

Akari shook her head. "Well, let's go back to the booths and regroup from there."

"Yeah, the food booths are where I saw the girl! Maybe we could investigate there?"

"Sure, good plan."

The two girls began to walk, and the guys reluctantly followed them. Arata looked back at them from down the block, glaring.

"They must be up to something. I wonder what." He turned and walked away, curiosity on his face.

Meanwhile, in Shizuka's house…

"Yeah, I'll call you back."

"What happened? Did you find her?"

"She's dead. Murdered, and brutally from the looks of it." His voice seemed to waver a bit as he spoke, hands slightly shaking.

"WHAT? Are you serious?"

"Yeah, it's bad. I'll let you know what I can find."

He hung up the call and studied the area. Shizuka's eyes were open in terror, and she had a painful expression on her face. One appendage had impaled her by the neck, and the other through her side, but he noticed an odd wound on her chest.

"That seems older than the other wounds. Was she killed away from this area? There isn't any blood on the floor..." he wondered.

He looked around the room. "Gotta be a ladder here somewhere, so I can get her down properly."

He ruffled through various closets in the basement until he found a foldable ladder. "Perfect."

He took it and set it up under her, climbing it until he was able to reach her chest. He gently pried the corpse down and jumped back down to the floor.

"I'm sorry, Shizuka, but I promise I'll find your daughter and whoever did this to you."

He took a closer look at the wounds on her body. "Okay, this chest wound is for sure older. It's stained her shirt much more than the other two wounds."

He gently lifted up her shirt. "And the bruising, yeah, she was killed by an impalement wound to the chest. So why hang her up? To hide the cause of death?"

He looked at the message written on the wall. "The target has been found? What is that supposed to mean? Who were they expecting to find the corpse?"

He walked up to it, taking a whiff. "Oil paint." He tried to wipe it with his finger, but it had already been dried. "So this was definitely an older message. Written at least half a day ago."

Be rubbed his chin. "But who would write this? Was it a human? No, I doubt, those bones are 100% not any human bones or weapons. Maybe a dwarf? A monster?"

Then he took a deep breath. "Even so, whoever it is, I need to find out what they're targeting. Or WHO."

He used his watch to take a couple of pictures of Shizuka's body, and then he called Yoritomo.

"Hey, Yoritomo, I need you to send the cops to Shizuka's house right now, and make sure my squad keeps their eyes and ears open."

"Got it! Did you find anything that could help find out what happened to her?"

"She was hanging from the ceiling, strung up like a puppet by BONES. But her chest wound was the one that killed her, and based on that and this message left in her house, she'd been dead for at least half a day."

"Message? What message?"

"That's the thing. Something, or more likely, SOMEONE, isn't safe at that festival. Someone's being hunted."

"What?"

"Send the cops. And inform the other team members! Call Akari! I'll send you her number."

"On it!"

He walked up the stairs. "What is going on…what plots are taking place right now?"

Meanwhile, back at the Asuka Festival…

"See? It was right there!"

Hikari pointed to a dark alley near the food booths. "In that alley. They disappeared into it."

"Okay, so we search the alley then."

Akari filled her arm with energy, which lit up the alley like a torch as she walked in. Hikari followed. "They went into a door, I think."

Dachii stepped back. "Well, I'll leave the detective work to them. Not my style."

Luca nodded. "Yep. I agree."

Marachii raised his hand. "I'll go! I'm a bit of an analyst myself."

He followed the two girls deeper into the alley. A metal door was on the left, with a handle to open it. Akari tried pulling the door, but she failed.

"Damn it. Locked."

Marachii looked at the door, feeling around. "Maybe it needs a key or something? There could be a secret way to—-"

Akari ripped the door off its hinges without much effort. "That's the key. Let's go inside."

"Well…okay then."

They walked inside, and they found what appeared to be a secret apartment of sorts, with no lights at all.

There was a couch in the living room, a table in the middle, and a bookshelf on the wall. A mini-kitchen was in the corner of the room, and in another corner was a door. There was also a small hallway.

"We should spread out and search the area," Akari said. Each of them went to look in a different part of the apartment. Hikari went to investigate the kitchen, Akari went to investigate the hallway, and Marachii checked out the door.

"Yuck, whoever lives here doesn't know how to cook at all," Hikari noted, covering her nose. "Burnt chicken and pork, just terrible."

Akari looked in the hallway but only found one room: the bathroom.

"Bathroom hasn't been kept clean. Whoever lives here is just nasty. Definitely not one of us."

Marachii took a look at the door in the corner. Just like the one they entered, it had a handle that was locked, with no keyhole in sight.

"Hey Akari…?"

"Yes?"

"I need your help again."

She walked out of the bathroom, standing next to him. With practiced ease, she kicked open the door.

"You can do that too, you know."

"Yeah…but my powers are unstable. Last thing I need is to tear apart this entire building. With us all in it."

Akari rolled her eyes. As Hikari walked over to join them, they entered the secret room and found only a bed, a desk, and a closet.

"Wow. There really aren't any devices in this place. No TVs, watches, lights, hell, do they even have AC?" Hikari asked, looking around.

Akari walked up to the bed, feeling it out and pulling off the covers. "Well, there definitely isn't anything here. Check the desk."

Marachii walked over to the desk and opened it. There were a bunch of papers written in a language that he couldn't understand. "Uh, can anyone read this? It's not in any language that I'm familiar with, ancient or otherwise."

Hikari walked up to take a look. "Funny. I can't understand this either…not even a SINGLE word!"

Akari grabbed the papers. "Are you sure, it's probably just some complex text. I doubt it's that hard."

She took a glance at it and immediately put it down. "Sorry, never mind. You're right."

"If BOTH of you don't know who wrote this, then what could have left this message behind? A translator?"

Akari tapped her chin. "Maybe a dwarf who's out for blood. Or some human trying to play a joke."

Marachii had an unamused look on his face. Hikari looked into the drawer again and found one last piece of paper.

"It…will be acquired…"

Marachii scratched his head. "So they're looking for something? Something like what?"

Akari took a closer look at the paper. "Handwriting isn't like ours. But they could be looking for some technological artifacts we have in our vaults."

Just then, she got a call on her watch.

"Director Yoritomo? What's wrong?"

"Princess Akari! A dancer for the dance competition, Shizuka Nakamura, has been found MURDERED in her home!"

Akari's eyes widened. "Lady Shizuka? How could a celebrity like her get killed?"

"Her murder was premeditated. It seemed she was killed by some inhuman bones."

Everyone gasped in shock.

"But more than that, the perpetrator, or perpetrators, are looking for a target. Me and Fujii assume they want a person."

Hikari immediately rushed over. "Well, we found a paper with a message that indicated they were looking for something, and I found a scared little girl who seemed like she was being held hostage!"

Yoritomo gasped. "A little girl? Shizuka's daughter? What was her hair color?"

"Gray…it was gray."

Yoritomo went silent for a moment. "That's her. If she's still alive, they must need her for their target."

Akari lifted an eyebrow. "Well, what should we do?"

"We need to draw them out, save that girl, and protect the target, all without causing suspicion to the other attendees."

He waited a moment again before speaking. "Their most likely plan is to when for the Dance Competition, which everyone will attend."

Hikari and Akari both had their mouths open. "What are you suggesting?"

"We don't want the guests to worry, but we want to draw out the threats, so someone must replace Shizuka at the dance competition…"

"…and that someone will be you guys."

—-