That Wasn't Supposed To Happen

The Ripple Effect

The only thing Chihiro wanted to do in that moment was scream, but no words came out of his mouth. His duffel bag lay on the ground, dropped after seeing the corpse. Looking to his right, where Byakuya stood, he could see the shock on the Heirs face, even if it only lasted for a couple of seconds.

"This is... unfortunate," Byakuya said, his face now back to the usual look of boredom and annoyance that Chihiro got used to.

When Chihiro said nothing, still too shocked to actually talk, Byakuya spoke up again.

"Well, let's go, it's no use to just stand here," The Heir said, looking at Chihiro.

"Go?" Chihiro asked, finally finding his voice again.

"And here I thought you were one of the smarter students. Going to find somebody to trigger the Body Discovery Announcement."

"Oh." Was all that Chihiro could say, still not being able to talk much.

Byakuya walked swiftly, not even bothering to look behind him if Chihiro was following him, his kindness from earlier forgotten.

The walk to the dorms was quiet, a very uncomfortable one at that. It lasted until they were walking down the stairs.

"Just for confirmation, you still want me to refer to you as a girl, right?" Byakuya asked, his voice calm.

Instead of answering verbally, Chihiro just nodded, afraid that his voice might betray him.

They stayed silent again until they reached the dorms. They planned to go to Kyoko's dorm, since it was the closest, but just before they could ring her doorbell, they saw a pool of blood further in the dorms. When they walked closer to the pool of blood, they saw that it wasn't really a pool, more like multiple splashes of blood that lay close to each other, it was obvious that this was somehow connected to Celeste. There were also some splashes of blood deeper in the halls with it stopping around Celeste's dorm where Chihiro could see a big smear of blood.

However, the puddle? Splashes? Of blood were a few dorms away from Celeste's. It was almost right in front of the door of Byakuya's dorm. Speaking of The Ultimate Affluent Progeny, Chihiro could see him crouching down and... picking up some of the blood between his fingers.

"It's fresh, as suspected. Probably Celestia's, if her corpse was anything to go by," He said, still looking at the blood.

Before Chihiro could answer, Byakuya abruptly stood up and grabbed a tissue out of one of his pockets and cleaned his fingers with it. Then, he began walking towards Kyoko's room again.

"Well, are you coming or are you just going to be standing there?" The annoyance was clear in his voice and while Chihiro couldn't see his face, he was sure that the same emotion was on Byakuya's face.

Deciding that he didn't want to annoy Byakuya further, he quickly walked to Kyoko's room with the heir.

Kyoko woke up by hearing her bell rung. She stepped out of her bed and made sure her gloves were right on; she didn't need anybody to see that after all.

When she opened her door, she saw two people together, which was already surprising. What was even more surprising was who they were: Chihiro and Byakuya...

Chihiro and Byakuya were probably the two got along the worst out of their class if you don't count Mondo and Byakuya of course. This of course was already a red flag in Kyoko's mind, the other red flag was that Chihiro looked to be holding back tears and it somehow didn't seem to be Byakuya's fault.

Before she could ask her question of what the two of them were exactly doing, Byakuya spoke.

"Follow us. Now. I will explain later." It was spoken with an authoritative tone, something that only someone like The Ultimate Affluent Progeny could do, Kyoko thought. There was also something urgent in his tone, something that made Kyoko actually listen to Byakuya.

She swiftly stepped out of her room and locked her door. Byakuya took this as a sign to start walking and Chihiro, who still hadn't said a word, and Kyoko, who still wanted to know what was going on, followed him. Kyoko did of course have an idea of what had happened and while it wasn't a pleasant one, it was the most likely one...

Fortunately for Kyoko, she didn't have to wait long for answers since Byakuya spoke up again, it seemed that he did most, if not all, of the talking right now.

"To make this as short as possible, Celestia is dead. We found her body in the girls locker room on the second floor. We went to get somebody to active the body discovery announcement when we found quite some blood in front of my door. We rang your doorbell right after," Byakuya explained, walking to, what Kyoko now knew to be, the girls locker room.

Kyoko's suspicion was proven right, someone was dead. Murdered. And Kyoko had a feeling that this wasn't going to be the last time, but there was something that she noticed; Byakuya didn't mention why he and Chihiro were up at this time and together and while she really wanted to ask those question, to get answers, she knew that there was a more pressing matter at hand.

"I see. I thought something like that happened when the two of you showed up at my door. After all, the two of you never seem to get along..."

"Yes, I assume it would be rather unusual for the two of us to show up in the middle of the night." Instead of replying, Kyoko just stayed silent. It stayed like that until they almost reached the locker room, but unlike the previous times, it was actually Chihiro who spoke up.

"Kyoko, it can be a bit... shocking, I guess, to see Celeste's body. It's even more gruesome than Sayaka's. It's covered in... blood," the small girl said, tears threatening to spill as she said that.

"Thank you for the warning, but I'm sure I can manage it." While she couldn't remember it, Kyoko felt like she had experience with dead bodies... as weird as it sounds.

"Now, now, Detective, Chihiro only wanted to help, no need to make her almost cry like that." Kyoko didn't know if it was out of kindness of Chihiro or just wanting to mess with her, but since it was Byakuya, she guessed that it was probably was the latter, even if the two of them seemed closer than before.

Still, Kyoko could see that Byakuya's were true, Chihiro was even closer to crying than before.

"I'm, sorry, I didn't mean it like that," Kyoko said, trying to sound as apologetic as possible to the smaller girl as she could get right now.

"It's fine..."

Right after Chihiro said that they reached the girls locker room. When Byakuya stepped it first, she deduced that the machine guns must not be working right now, probably because of the murder that took place.

The moment Kyoko stepped in the locker room; she could already see the corpse. It was covered in splashes of blood, something that would have been impossible to have come from the victim, but before she could continue her thoughts, the body discovery announcement played.

"A body has been discovered! After a certain amount of time, which you may use however you like, the class trial will begin!"