Flight of Cendrillon

Chapter 5: Unstable Heartbeats

The carnage in front of Luka in Duke Ueki's dining room struck her as out of proportion to the events she'd been informed of. When she'd gotten to the closest telephone to call her central contact, Iroha had reported that the Prince and the Cendrillon she sought were within Duke Ueki's home and would be dealt with by the Cendrillon posted within the home. She'd expected to simply confirm the bodies were the people she sought.

Now, mere hours later, both targets had vanished into thin air with the Duke's butler, and the Duke lied violently stabbed to death in the dining room as the police wandered through his home looking for more clues.

She stayed out of the investigation with ease – the police had been informed of her presence through her contacts, letting her glide in after she answered a few basic questions. Nobody paid any attention to her as she sought out the true answers to the dreadful events.

And eventually she found the maid, Akiko, fussing around the kitchen as she tried to keep herself together. The girl wore her hair up in a great, reddish pink bun, and she kept fiddling with the white apron on her blue and white striped dress. As Luka approached her, the girl turned her head up, looking weary. "Are you the next investigator?"

Luka ensured she was out of earshot before she whispered a few words into Akiko's ear.

"At the stroke of midnight, the carriage becomes a pumpkin."

Akiko's tears broke. She stood up quietly and led Luka away from the busy investigation. Soon they were outside again, as she and Luka entered a garden shed together.

Finally out of sight of the police, Akiko's guise dropped, her animated tears and nervous habits fading. "You must be the one Iroha sent over. As you can see... the Duke utterly failed in handling them."

Luka leaned against a wall just near the garden tools, the sharp hedge clippers just near her shoulder. "And Cendrillon killed him on the way out?"

The maid looked terribly unconcerned with the fate of her "boss". "The butler must have gotten wind of the plan and locked me in the closet. By the time I'd gotten out, all three of them were gone and the Duke was stammering with excuses. I didn't kill them right away at his insistence – and Iroha wanted me to follow his orders while he was still on our side. But then I learned he was trying to sell them to the highest bidder... so I took care of him. Iroha told me to eliminate him if he got in the way."

As expected, the "maid" shared no emotions over the killing. "It will be easier to catch them if we can set the police on them as the murderers of Duke Ueki. It will greatly limit their avenues of escape."

She crossed her arms as she looked to Luka for further instructions.

"For the time being, you should stay here and monitor the investigation. Cendrillon is my task. Iroha will contact you when she has your next assignment."

"Acknowledged," the girl stated. "If Len Kagamine ran away... he likely took them to the Rust District. He has friends out there, in the underworld. What you need to look out for are the Loyalists. Len would have that intelligence... so the Prince may attempt to seek them out soon."

Luka looked incredulous. "I can't simply search the entire Rust District... but I suppose we can't let the police just stumble onto the person he escaped with... they still believe him dead..."

She was already plotting how to tighten her net... the escape had taken place so shortly before, so someone would have seen them enter the district. Someone would know, even innocently, about three missing people. The police would distribute photos to the press, at least of the butler... Akiko would know to leave out an accurate description of the Prince lest questions about the legitimacy of his assassination arose...