Re: iNto tHe BLaCk
InTo ThE bLaCk
Red Spiral Arc
The Outer Circle
“ ‘Most wonderful time of the year’ my ass.” Tanya sat on her desk, clearing aside the clutter by shifting from side to side as she put her face in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees.
It had only been a few hours since the incident in the prison cell, but the only thing that changed about her was that her jacket with the hood was now on her table and not on her.
She seems pretty strong. Rain sat on the chair near her desk, looking up at her. “Hey, are you going to be okay?”
Tanya rubbed her face with her hands before inhaling and putting her hands on her lap. She looked up and not at Rain to speak, “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve seen a lot of crap like that ever since I first came in here.”
She inhaled again and looked down. Suddenly, all her movements stopped. She turned to Rain.
Silence between the two. Neither of them said a word, the only sounds were the noise of the background. Voices and phones and paper and keys on computers being tappe-
“You’re…sitting in my chair.”
Silence again.
Tanya raised her fist and hammered Rain’s head, “Get off of my chair, you idiot!”
He quickly shot up. She slid off the desk and slid into the chair, moving aside the papers on her desk, with her hands this time.
“You’re…going back to work?”
She nodded. “Yeah…there’ve been four other murders exactly like this one in the past few weeks.”
Wait, what? Four others? How come I didn’t hear anything about this? It’s not even in the newspap-
“The Chief has some high friends in the press, so he got them to keep quiet about the whole situation for now.”
…Oh.
“The thing is, there was something in common with all the murders except for this one. The other victims all came from the same college.” Tanya spun around a few times and waved her hands around, her eyes darting across the table, muttering something under her breath.
“Pen, pen, pen, pen…” Her left hand swooped down, like an eagle going for its prey, upon a blue pen that was stuck under some papers, “Ah! Right…”
She bent over and began scribbling something on some paper forms.
Tanya shook the pen and knocked it on the table before writing again.
“…The guys that are here are pretty busy with other cases.” She continued, “Most of them are too well known to go undercover in the college and I bet you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this, right?”
Rain nodded.
Tanya put her pen on the table and looked up at him.
“You’re going to go undercover for me.” She grinned.
I don’t think what she just saw shook her one bit.
“What?” Rain looked at her, perplexed. He heard her, but he had to hear it again, just to make sure his ears were picking up things right.
“You’re going to go to that college as a teacher and report any weird stuff to me, got it?”
“But...wait. Why me?!”
“Because you still have that trespassing charge hanging over your head.” Tanya said it in a sing-song kind of way, as if she was enjoying the thoughts in her mind. “And, Mr. Seraph, I’ll take the charge away even if you curl up and die because you’re a bad actor.”
She’s…enjoying this. Erm…I better just…go along with this. Besides, something’s extremely wrong about this. I just have to find out how someone got murdered inside of a locked police cell.
They say curiosity killed the cat, but I’m not exactly a cat, am I?
“You can do this for me, or you can take the lock-up. Which will it be, hmm?”
“I’m um…I’ll do it. Are you happy now?”
“No. Now come on, you’ll have to help me set stuff up.”
***
A large red brick building towered over the two, it seemed dark as if it were haunted. The gray skies behind it just made it seem more so.
“This is where you’ll be staying.” She grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the entrance, “You’ll be in room eleven and I’ll be in room nineteen, which is just one floor above yours.”
Tanya pressed the keys into his hand as they stood in front of the door.
“I already spoke to the landlord. The only vacant room is my room. Luckily, I’ve got two friends who live here. They’ll gladly let you stay, since it’s police work and all.”
Now, the first question that should have gotten into his head was ‘Who are ‘they’?’ Instead, Rain turned to Tanya and raised an eyebrow.
You have friends?
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Rain half-smiled, “N-no reason…”
“Right. Well, knock on the door before putting the key in, they’re probably inside. I’ll be upstairs in my room.” Before Rain knew it, Tanya was already at the end of the hall, rushing up the stairs. “Ta-ta~!”
The Grim Angel chuckled to himself before raising his hand to knock the door.
Tap-tap.
The door flew open.
Rain found himself looking down at a petite purple-haired, purple-eyed girl. Her hair was long, very long, it almost touched her calves. She raised her fingers and pushed her wire-frame glassed further up on her nose. Rain opened his lips to talk to her, but she spoke out first.
“Ooh! Sheira, we have a cute one!”
Cute…?
In a flash, there was another one at the side of her; same purple eyes, glasses, but shorter, chin length hair.
“Hey, Sheena, you’re right! Hey there, mister!” the other one grinned.
Rain smiled nervously.
Heh...eheh…heh…Twins.
“So what’s your business here, mister?” The long haired one asked.
Rain held up the keys that were just given to him by the detective. ”Um, Miss Thracia-”
The short-haired one spoke up, “Oh! You’re the new Physics teacher that Tanya told us about! Come in!”
The long haired one grabbed him by the arm and tugged him into the apartment.
What the fu--Physics?!
“I’m Sheena-”
“-And I’m Sheira! And together, we are-.”
The two ended up in a back to back pose while they both faced Rain and spoke at the same time.
“-the Kirie sisters! Ta-da!”
***
It’s been a few days…So far, there’s nothing at the University. Well, nothing that I could find anyway. Just talking to people didn’t seem to help; everyone I asked knew nothing, but I’m not sure if I should take that as a good sign. It could just mean that…whatever’s going on is expertly hidden.
Rain found himself walking down one of the University’s halls carrying a load of books. He had realized earlier that he wasn’t going to use these things anyway, since no student in this institution was majoring in Physics. He thought it was a stroke of luck, but the detective had arranged for him to do that subject just so that he would have more time to investigate.
“Heeey!” the voices of the twins rang in his head as they walked in the opposite direction. He smiled and waved in response. They were really fun to stay with…even though he slept on the couch. Both girls were silly and intelligent at the same time. They were well versed in their Sciences, often setting up over-the-top experiments, just to ‘see what would happen’. The results would either blow up in their faces or have the whole apartment reeking from some alien fragrance, but even then, they would celebrate and say ‘Hey! That’s new!’ or something along those lines. They were truly a pair to look up to.
BUMP!
There was a flash of bright white hair as a loud crash rang throughout the hallway, everyone turned to see what had occurred. Rain squatted, picking up the books that had fallen out of the person’s hands.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to-” Rain began to speak, but then the person spoke at the same time.
“Ah! Sorry there, I was just a little lost in thought.” An elegant, male voice spoke as the man--who was also dressed in a blinding white--bent over to pick up his own books. When they both stood up, Rain blinked, thinking his eyes were severely deceiving him.
The man in white had white hair, almost chin-length. His eyes were also silver and his clothes were extremely similar to Rain’s, except, it had no dragon design on the front and his clothes were completely white. If Rain didn’t know that this was real, he’d have guessed that someone had taken a picture of him and inverted the colours.
Students around them stared at the two, most likely noticing the similarities--or differences. They were almost exact opposites of each other in image. Almost.
“Say, you’re a new teacher, aren’t you? You seem kind of fit too. I’d hate to ask this since we just bumped into each other,” he chuckled, “I challenged those hotheads in the Uni’s Basketball team to a game, but I can’t find any other teachers willing to co-operate with me.”
Rain blinked, “Basketball? Erm…what’s the catch?”
The person grinned, “If we win, they have to buy us lunch for a week. If we lose, we have to stop teaching them for a month!”
“A month? Why’d you agree to that?”
“Free lunch, of course!”
Rain smiled back at the person, nodding. “I guess I could do it.”
“Great! The game starts in a few minutes, so come on!”
Wha-wha?! A few minutes?!
The person began to move off in the direction of the basketball court, half-skipping, half-walking with a small smile on his face. Rain followed close behind.
“The name’s Rain Seraph.”
“Ah~!” He turned around, walking backwards, chuckling, “How rude of me, Sir Rain. My name’s Near. Near Cronqvist.”