As they arrived to the building Kazuha strutted up the the front door and tugged on it. It was locked. She sighed heavily and went around towards the back where she had easily opened the side window and climbed in.
“Hurry, Hakuba-kun! Don’t wanna get caugh’ do ya?” Kazuha laughed lightly and ran down the hall and too the back of the building – pausing every so often to let Hakuba catch up. As they arrived to her locker Kazuha couldn’t believe her eyes – all of her belongings thrown to the floor and scattered about. The door to her locker wide opened and inside… A note.. One she had not been familiar with.
“Oi…Hakuba-kun…” Kazuha whispered lightly biting her lip as the fear within her gut grew larger and larger. She hadn’t even wanted to look at what the note said – she’d decided this was no prank!
“I have a bad feelin’ le’s jus’….” Kazuha said taking baby steps toward her locker before being cut off by a strange click sound. As she turned to see what the sound was – something had speed past her face and a loud bang was heard.
Kazuha was knocked against her locker, her cheek was intensely throbbing – there was blood gushing from it as Kazuha lifted her hand to the wound and touched it lightly. It was almost numbed. When she pulled her hand away to look at it Kazuha’s eyes had been wider than ever before as she stared in awe at the thick deep red blood on her finger tips.
So much for this having not been a dangerous investigation. Breaking in through the window had been bad enough – but not the worst idea, really, as it would have to be assumed that the darkened hallways and off hours meant that they could investigate without being interrupted. But proceeding onward had yielded nothing more than a deeply unsettling feeling and then the dark locker room? While Kazuha went ahead, the detective began to take in the surroundings, pulling up his cellphone to open up the flashlight application when the sound and clatter pulled his attention.
Dammit!
“Toyama-chan!” Hakuba cleared the distance between them in a sprint and took a position of defense in front of her, crouched, holding his breath for a moment to listen for their attacker.
But after a moment, nothing happened… and the detective frowned, shifting his position to search the floor with the assisted light. Ah- there.
A cross bow’s arrow, just feet from them. He looked around the room and saw a glint up ahead, which matched the trajectory. No person, just a mechanism. Hakuba took a deep breath, then turned and knelt next to Kazuha, looking her face over quickly before pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, which he offered to her.
“Apply this to the wound, keep it tight. It’s a graze- ricocheted from the locker, it looks like. I’ll dress it later."
He had a lot to do. Phonecalls to make. A perimeter to secure. The arrow could have easily killed the girl had it been set up just a little bit differently. But he hesitated. It would do him no good if the girl freaked out on him. Calm, sound minds were far more easy to manage.
"I’m going to call for security, and then I’ll try Hattori-san, all right? It looks worse than it is, just stay calm. Can you promise me that you will stay calm, Toyama-chan?”