Mystery of Class 1-3 (クラス1-3の謎)

Chapter 13: 統合 (Integrate)

Glancing up into the blanket of glistening stars, I didn't quite catch the ominous grasp of that evening.

Quickly, I had felt the rush of stabbing pain reach beyond the limit of the left corner of my head. I had twitched here and there as I decided to rest my hand against the vulnerable spot upon my skull.

The color of fresh crimson began to spew itself out the corner of my brain. It was then that I realized...

The crash site.

The corpses of 499 students...

I recognized only a few. Mostly, the faces were too disfigured at the moment to decipher or give an exact description of what had caused such a collision.

"Are you alright?" cried a woman from the distance. "What is your name, Boy?"

Her jet black hair spun freely as a light spring breeze brushed her curly locks abruptly to her porcelain skin. She wore the typical detective uniform; notepad and pencil in hand.

My vision, blurry though it was, I was enthralled by the similarity between her and...

I hovered over the headless body of the once breathing Clarissa.

What exactly had happened?

"Excuse me!" the woman continued; rolling her eyes. I believe she had been annoyed, for she had waited approximately ten minutes for my response. "Do you mind explaining your crime?"

"What crime?" was all I could ask during the encounter. I tilted my head. It would have at least been better to offer medical assistance at first.

The lady shook her head in utmost disappointment. She shivered quickly at the howling of the thirty degree wind. "I-It looks like y-you have messed around with the g-government's newest Hourglass Project," she finally urged to say; stuttering in between shivers.

"The Hourglass Project," I murmured, my face downcast. "I only know about the name. I do not know anything about the details behind such a cr-!"

Suddenly, I saw an oblong shadow within the distance. Shaggy black hair and a scratched leather jacket was all I could make out because it had nearly been 11:30 in the evening.

The shadow appeared to be that of a young man, perhaps a passenger on the train, of whom had survived the collision miraculously along with me. Either that, or he was one of the members of the Forensic Team of Criminal Investigation and Sudden Collision (the F.T.C.I.S.A; or 'Fort Cisa').

"I have found absolutely nothing!" the man reported. "However, it appears as if the Passage Window was one of the sources behind the crime." He scratched the right side of his head, seemingly lost in all the leftover debris.

The man was not a mere man at all! He only appeared to be at least of fourteen years of age. He wore khaki cargo shorts and a checkered muffler scarf to highlight his bitter-black, Death Note logo shirt. Typical for male fashion within...

Wherever we were...

"Who are you people?" I rudely stated. Although not too rude personality-wise, I was obviously annoyed by how little the crew had called in for medical support. My head is gruesomely pouring a liter of blood out people!

"Don't you think it to be better if we had called for medical support before the questioning portion, Ms. Aizawa?" the young middle schooler continued, enthralled by the crime itself. He let out a tiny guffaw.

"Kenji!" the lady, supposedly Ms. Aizawa; had rebuked. "What the heck do you think you are doing here?!"

"Investigating the crime scene, just like Kindaichi from Jikenbo!" the young male named Kenji complained, rolling his eyes at the older woman. "Women these days..." He flickered his dark-brown eyes to the right side as he waited for a complaint from Ms. Aizawa.

"Segawa Shingo, is it?" Ms. Aizawa continued, ignoring the sudden statement of the younger. She held up a file paper against my face, humane as the word could possibly be defined. "Fifteen years old, linguistic, from Kobe Prefecture. Hmm... Only child, quiet, reserved, has not gotten the Hades Tag as of 1997..." her blabbing stopped abruptly as she had come to a halt to one of my most hidden facts.

"Chotto matte," she began after a long pause. "An admirer of Ms. Clarissa Takada; the victim. Also, it says that you might be the prime accomplice of Mr. Sakakibara Ruka of the Toothpick Man Case. You seem suspicious enough, to me at least!"

I am, and will always be...

...Segawa Shingo.

One word to describe me: Confidential.