They entered the room, cautious of every creak in the floor. Moving in, their invisibility faded, revealing all of them in their adventuring attire with gloves and earmuffs—Hotaru’s ears covered by a blue beret.
Asobi shut the door behind her and gave the room a wide-eyed stare. Three doors were on the opposite side of the room, two closed and one wide open.
None of the lights were on, but the subtle light from the streetlights outside glittered through the drapes. Hotaru flicked the light switch, only for nothing to happen. The redhead flicked it up and down a few more tis.
"You better give it up," Fuko glanced to the three lightbulbs on the ceiling, all of them shattered and fragnts of glass on the floor.
"Sobi? Don’t blind us," the wolf-woman requested.
"Mhm," with her lips sealed she shot three white lights to where the bulbs would light up, granting enough brightness to observe the scene.
The long sofa in the corner was shabby and the carpets dulled. Rats scurried from under the sofa and scattered towards the door at the back of the apartnt.
Kitchen cabinets and requirents were right on the left of the door. While the right side of it were shelves, paintings, a radiator and other objects.
Walking right up to the body was a blonde with creases across her face. Sparks of yellow electricity left her lips and teeth; the lightning created an improvised mask from her nose and along her jawline.
Her face glowed a bit as she breathed a tad easier. ’Doesn’t help too much, but at least helps.’ She carefully examined the hanging head. Hotaru walked into the kitchen and took a closer look around.
Dried blood stained the carpets till the floorboards, but only from the location of the injuries. The corpse wore a white shirt and long black trousers—nothing else. Brownish-black hair till the shoulders and a relatively thin figure.
Jotou glanced around; the woman’s cheeks had dull red blotches and her jaw hung open. Her skin was mildly discoloured and there was slight bloating to parts of her body.
Fuko overlooked the entire scene around the entrance of the apartnt with a hand to her chin. "I’ll keep an eye or an ear out," Asobi held her wand in both hands whilst standing by the door.
The sound of drawers and cabinets being rolled out, opened and shut caught the brunette’s attention. "Wish we could open up the window, there’s possibly all sorts of bacteria in here," the redhead muttered.
Fuko walked into the kitchen and checked around, "Found anything?"
"Three spoons, a pot, a kettle, a ladle and a couple of forks," Hotaru groaned. "Nothing else."
"Weird."
"I know. It’s almost, too empty... In fact," she opened up a cabinet and saw so plates and various can foods. "Everything seems sowhat orderly," her brilliant blue eyes gazed to the shelves on the other side of the room.
Fuko blinked to it and checked. So books, so art, so knickknacks—not much out of the ordinary. She checked the spines of the books and magazines, only for nothing to catch her eye.
Hotaru checked the fridge and her ears flickered to find random containers and food, but not a single chill. Fuko blinked back and checked.
The brunette pressed her hands on the counter and poked her head at the back of the fridge, "It’s off."
"Why would soone turn their fridge off with things in it?" the redhead stood upright.
"Co to think of it," Fuko pondered. "It’s kinda cold in here, isn’t it?" she glanced to the radiator.
"Is the electricity out?"
"Maybe," Fuko reached her hand in and flicked the switch the fridge’s plug was connected to. A dim yellow light flickered and the machine rumbled to life, creating a low buzzing hum. "Guess not," she turned the fridge off again.
"Does that an the two n turned off the fridge?"
"I an, if it was making that much sound, maybe? But," Fuko looked around the room, "One thing’s for certain. There wasn’t a struggle."
"How can you be sure?"
"Why kill soone random? If the victim was taken by surprise, sothing should’ve happened."
"Unless they were asleep or knocked out imdiately?" Hotaru doubted.
"Unlikely. You can see the front door just fine no matter where you are in here. Well, except the rooms."
"So, they could’ve been asleep and dragged out to make, this..." Hotaru frowned to the corpse.
"Still, it makes sense to look for stuff, doesn’t it? Hidden money, docunts, things belonging to the victim? They didn’t search the house for anything? That doesn’t seem possible.
A random murder doesn’t make sense unless the victim was targeted beforehand. Those n specifically ca here and sothing like a ghost flew out."
"Maybe they made sure to make it look like nothing was tampered with, like what we’re doing right now."
Fuko shook her head, "We know they entered at eleven and the ghost flew out a quarter past that; then they left at half past eleven.
There’s no way they could search for things, kill and set up a body and put everything in orderly fashion in about fifteen minutes. Besides, why go through all that trouble anyway?
You’re leaving a body nailed to a circle and letting the blood drip all over the carpets—clearly cleaning up wasn’t their worry."
"It could be they weren’t interested in anything beyond killing and setting the corpse up?" Hotaru suggested.
"Then that’s even weirder. If you’re gonna set it up like a break-in, why not make it look like one?" Break-in... That word lingered on her lips for a mont.
"I’ll keep looking for sothing; there has to be docunts of so sort. I bet it’s in the bedroom," Hotaru went over to the shelves to check more thoroughly.
Fuko let her do her business whilst she glanced to the door behind Asobi. Her brown eyes stayed on the keyhole... "The door... This place wasn’t broken into?"
"Huh?" the elf bumped her head to the side of Fuko’s.
The brunette side-eyed Asobi pressing against her ear. "The lock doesn’t seem busted—flimsy, but not busted. More importantly, it was locked when we tried to get in."
"So what does that an?"
"There’s no other exit here and the photos caught the n going out the door of the building. aning, this door was locked from the outside."
"That must an they reverse-lockpicked the door and locked it from the outside, right?"
"..."
"Or they stole the key," Asobi poked a wand to her own chin.
"As dumb as it sounds, reverse-lockpicking might be possible."
"Really!?"
"I’ve never done it, but it should be the sa principle as opening the lock, just reversed."
"Hmm... But why’d they lock it once they got out?"
Fuko moved her head away from Asobi’s, "Exactly—I don’t know. It would take more ti and surely, they’d want the body to be discovered?"
"Ooo, maybe they stole the key?"
"Could be..." theories took over her head and so red strings began to connect before her eyes as she glanced around the room. However, there was one glaring bit of evidence yet to be examined.
Fuko blinked next to Jotou and stood behind the body. "Got anything?"
"Yeah. There’s no clear cause of death," the blonde uttered.
"What? How’s that possible?" Fuko started examining the body alongside her, neither of them touching it.
"There’s blood blotches over the body and it stinks. The shirt’s white, but there’s no obvious bloodstain on it. The blood coming out of the palms and feet are dried, but looking at the carpet, it’s too little to say that soone bled to death.
The toes are missing, but those are just rats. And I doubt the rats were the reason she died. It’s definitely not a fresh body. Help a bit, will ya?" Jotou poked the top of the corpse’s head.
Fuko gently placed her finger under the woman’s chin and both of them very cautiously lifted the head up. Almost in sync they both checked the neck and saw no signs of strangulation...
Fuko checked the eyes that had clouded over and had sunken a bit into the socket. They both slowly let go of the head.
"Which could an, it was suffocation or poisoning. But I’m not an expert on forensics," Jotou raised her head.
"Well, looking at it like this, we at least know the cause of death wasn’t sothing like slashing or bludgeoning," Fuko checked around the head to find no signs of injury.
"I don’t think there was a struggle either; at least when the body was nailed to the wood. So it was either a corpse when it was hamred on or."
"The victim complied before death?"
"It’s a possibility; which would an the victim was an accomplice for so reason," Jotou had heard Fuko talking around the apartnt.
"I need a little more for that conclusion in the first place," her eyes darted to the redhead searching the shelves. "Just a hunch for now."
"I trust you on that," Jotou peered up. "I’m more concerned with the wooden circle this woman was pinned on." Her gaze fell on the magician, "Hey Sobi, can you draw a line from the top of this wooden ring to the doorfra?"
"Sure, sure," Asobi shied away from looking at the body and focused on the task given. She made a white line of light from the top centre of the wooden circle till the doorfra, creating a slanted line.
"Can you make the line level without moving the point on the wood circle?"
Asobi nodded to Jotou and did as such. She moved the glowing line up the doorfra till it was slightly above it—which made the line completely flat from point A to B.
The blonde knitted her brows, "Negligible then. Even ignoring the stilts the wooden circle’s on, it would’ve been a hassle to roll it in without any notice. It barely fits in through the door."
"They must’ve brought it in piece by piece like a puzzle," Asobi gave the idea.
"That’s what I was looking at... But I don’t see any signs of assembly. It looks like a wooden circle without any joints or nails connecting it. I an, it’s thick enough that maybe there’s sothing inside that connects the pieces, but I can’t check that," Jotou replied.
"Now that you ntion it, how’d this thing get here? The two n in the photo couldn’t’ve had sothing like this on them," Fuko squinted.
"I don’t recall any hamrs or nails on them either, but could they’ve been hiding them?" Hotaru shrugged and gave up on her unfruitful search.
"Any of it could’ve been here before," Jotou threw out the hypothesis. ’Builds a better case that the victim was in fact, an accomplice—but why?’
"Can we lower the body...? This is, really cruel..." Asobi stared at the corpse with a gulp.
Hotaru placed a hand on the magician’s shoulder to ease her, "We can’t tamper with the cri scene too much and we should leave everything how it was."
"The nails."
Everyone turned to Jotou in curiosity. "What about them?" Fuko glanced up.
"The number of nails; doesn’t it seem weird? The right foot only has two, the others more."
"The killer ran out of nails?" Hotaru furrowed her brows.
"Seems too convenient."
Fuko sided with the blonde, "If sothing odd has an easy answer, it’s probably not the right one."
Jotou continued, "If you wanted to kill soone, you wouldn’t have to do all this presentation. It’s ticulous. Which ans the number of nails you’d use to make this twisted project would’ve been thought out."
The brunette cocked her head, "There’s so aning here... or they were just doing it at random and really did run out of nails. Still, I’d rather have a wrong clue than none at all."
"Does anyone have a pen and paper?" Jotou swivelled her head.
Fuko fished out of her pinafore pocket a notepad and a tal-tip pencil, "Dad had a bunch in the storage room," she handed over.
Jotou tilted her head; the paper was smaller than she’d hoped, but whatever. She took a step back and with the tal-tip pencil began sketching the body, "Might be a shot in the dark, but maybe there’s sothing."
"ko?" Hotaru tried to open up one of the room doors, only to find out it was locked. The brunette blinked over and picked the lock. Hotaru entered, "Thanks."
Curious herself, Fuko checked the open bathroom door. It was a simple setup; she found a hole in the wall where the rats might have scurried into.
The mirror showed only her reflection and the apartnt behind her; no blood or traces in the sink, only a few hairs around the bathroom which matched the victim’s.
Seeing this, she slowly scanned the floors out of the bathroom. Across the wood, she found dust and particles—nothing unusual. A few strands of hair here and there in corners she could glean before she crouched down and picked it up.
Those were still the sa length and colour that matched the victim’s. She ruled out the possibility that the victim was not the apartnt’s tenant.
Her eyes fluttered for a mont... There was a good chance any of their hair just contaminated the cri scene, proving they were here...
The brunette pursed her lips and took a deep breath, hoping even if it were the case, that no one would notice. She regretted that breath as she took in the scent of a rotting corpse even more, making her face twist in disgust.
She held her breath and went back to the corpse next to Jotou, "Any chance you have a lightning mask for too?"
"Don’t worry, it barely helps..." the blonde uttered whilst sketching. "My support spells only work on anyway."
The brunette moaned into a sigh and crossed her arms. Her thoughts began to wander, "Isn’t rejuvenate a support spell?"
"..." The blonde eyed the ceiling for a mont... "Welp..." her lips tightened and she exhaled audibly out her nose before continuing to sketch in discontent.
"Bet that would’ve been useful before," Fuko ridiculed with a smirk as her eyes drifted along the corpse- "Huh?" she quickly darted towards the body and stared to the torso.
"What is it?" Jotou glanced up.
She made no attempt to explain as she quickly began unbuttoning the shirt of the corpse.
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