Fiery Wrath (A SCANDAL fanfic)

Chapter 6 - The Library

Mami led the girls up the stairs that Haruna had previously run up, but this time they went up, up, and even further up. The house was so huge that the stairs seemed to go on forever. Finally the stairs ended and a large door appeared. Mami stepped forward , gripped the door handles, and pulled back as hard as she could. The doors inched open, and Rina and Haruna rushed to help. With combined efforts they managed to open the doors enough for the three to squeeze into the library.

"Follow me." Mami said as she flipped a light switch and the room was instantly illuminated. Rina gasped as she saw shelves and shelves filled with thousands of books that went so high up she couldn't even see the top. "Rina!" Mami scolded. "Don't just sit there, hurry up!" Rina came back to her senses and saw that Mami and Haruna were already far ahead. She ran to catch up.

"I hope you don't expect me to read all of these." Haruna said with a bored tone. "I hate books."

Mami sighed. "You'll have to read something. How do you expect me and Rina to do all the work?"

"I know, I know." Haruna sighed.

"But don't worry, I should be able to narrow our search down somehow..." Mami walked towards the shelves and looked up them. "They were organized in some specific way. If I can just remember..." She held her head as she tried to recall.

Rina walked into an aisle. "Well they could be organized alphabetically by title, or by author. Or they could be organized by subject."

Mami thought harder. "No, no. It was something far more complicated. Oh wait a sec!" She walked up to a shelf and pulled out a couple of books. "Yes! The books are organized by topic, but in a weird way. Lets see. I think they are organized by a mark in the bottom right corner of the last page. Each book has a unique one, and there's a manual that contains all of the books and lists the topics. Now all we have to do is find that manual." She walked out of the huge library room and into another smaller room; possibly the librarians office. Haruna and Rina followed her in.

"It would make sense for it to be in the librarian's office." Rina said.

"Well then. get searching." Haruna concluded. "Look everywhere it could possibly be. Oh and Mami, what happened to the librarian?"

Mami looked down to the floor. "It doesn't matter okay? Just stay away from that topic. Please."

"Well guys, hurry up and start searching. We don't have all day." Rina walked up to the desk and started opening drawers and looking inside them. Mami and Haruna followed her example and also started searching everywhere around the room. After a couple of minutes, Rina encountered a locked drawer. "Mami! Haruna! Come see this!"

Mami rushed towards Rina, while Haruna didn't even notice and remained immersed in a book she had found. "What is it?"

"This drawer is locked. Whoever hid the manual would have locked wherever they hid it right? It makes sense."

"It does, but first we need to find a key..."

"No need for that." Rina looked at the lock and it shattered into a million pieces. Then she opened the drawer and looked inside. It was empty. She sighed. "Nope. Not in here." She was about to shut the drawer, but Mami grabbed her hand.

"Wait Rina." Mami gently put Rina's hand down and looked back into the drawer. She reached into it, and eased open a secret compartment at the bottom of the drawer. Inside was a dusty book with no title. "I'm sure this is it." She opened the book and studied it for a while, before she found a satisfactory topic. "Follow me." Rina started to follow, but Haruna was still stuck in her book. Mami giggled. "Hate books, huh?" Haruna finally looked up.