Hands raised, each student filtered into the hall by escort of the armed guards. A larger team blocked 2-B from the blissfully unaware late stragglers who sped down the halls to their own classes. Four FCPD officers total, one with a gun trained carefully on Ace. That was some testament to his uninvolvement; he seemed to be in as much of a hostage situation as the rest of the class. The team led the class away from the room. More guards had begun blocking off the hall. One guard inquired details from Vector, though she didn’t have all that much to offer. The rest marched on in silence. They turned a corner, traveling five doors down until the guards suddenly stopped. They half-shoved the students through the door, guns blocking the exit. Some of the guards left. It was an ordinary classroom, its walls indistinguishable under an eclectic collage of science posters and décor. Two guards followed them into the room, and two more remained by the door. One of the following guards, the one who had interrogated Vector, approached what was presumably a teacher. “Stay here,” the other guard ordered firmly. “No one is to leave room 9-S.”

Eight pairs of blank eyes met 2-B as the existing class all stared in resentful confusion. They seemed overall younger than 2-B, perhaps first or second-years. One girl of the class stood up; she was a remarkably short ocuna with colorful blue hair to match cobalt eyes. “Uh, what the hell’s this about?” she asked flatly. She looked nothing like anyone Verse knew, which was why it was puzzling that her voice sounded so oddly familiar. A fluttering in their chest persisted, a nagging sense that Verse was supposed to recognize her. The feeling refused to be shaken off. Verse watched the girl, frustrated.

“There was an undisclosed incident,” the guard explained rather unhelpfully. “They’ll stay here until they’re called back for questioning.”

“Cool,” the girl muttered sarcastically. Her familiar voice carried a subtle accent, buried under years of Auran assimilation. Valoria. The guard left the room, but Verse remained focused on the blue girl. She incited an entirely unwelcome feeling.

Then at once, it hit Verse like a brick. She was so much older. Taller. Nearly unrecognizable, with dyed hair and heavy makeup distorting her face. Verse quickly did the math; was she eighteen now? Their breath caught in their throat as their pulse quickened, heart pounding. That felt palpably wrong. Questions surged half-coherently through their mind. Was she real? Was any of it real? Was it some bizarre dream? No, she was real. She was, without any doubt, her.

Her name was Rust of Valoria.

Rust stared back, her eyes widening in sync with Verse’s. She’d identified them. It took a minute for her as well; Verse had changed just as much since their last encounter. “What are you doing here?” Rust asked quietly, and Verse couldn’t tell if it was directed at the whole of 2-B or at Verse in particular. Verse didn’t respond. It was not a conscious silent treatment. They simply couldn’t find anything to say.

In a grand save, Yuki interrupted the awkward reunion. “What are we doing here?” she snapped, pushing past Verse to face their class. “It’s our teacher, isn’t it? It’s our case!”

Verse attempted to shake off Rust’s cold blue gaze. “Six-thirteen,” they muttered, releasing a shaky breath. “What’s that about?”

“It’s a date, right?” Luca suggested softly.

“There’s no thirteenth month,” Spade shot.

Yuki rolled her eyes. “This ain’t Choran, Blanc,” she said flatly. “Month first. 13E.”

Rust spoke again. “Is that graduation?”

“No, that’s 2E... Who are you?” Yuki asked.

“Rust,” she answered simply, cobalt eyes still trained carefully on Verse.

“It could be the past,” Vector offered. “A significant anniversary.”

“Okay,” Rust snapped, “seriously. What happened with you guys?”

Verse met Rust’s eyes once more. There was a perpetual stoicness to her face, somehow both an expected continuity and a stark deviation from the Rust they’d last spoken to years ago. Yet, even still, Verse could guess her thoughts with a sharp precision. As could she to them. She probably knew Verse better than anyone else.

Verse drew in a shaky breath. With great hesitance, they finally answered, “Our teacher was killed. Murdered.”

The tension was tangible, resting heavily and painfully in Verse’s stomach. They didn’t want to see Rust. Or maybe they did. But not like this. Not in the aftermath of such horror.

Yuki detected their discomfort. She took Verse’s hand and squeezed it gently.

“Maybe you should be investigating,” Rust shrugged. “Probably know way more than some dumb feds.”

“That’s absurd!” Camie exclaimed, huffing. “We’d be disobeying actual police officers!”

“As much as I hate to disobey the Legion in any sense,” Yuki said, “I think Rust is right.”

“That type in the corner is an Institute agent if I’ve ever seen one,” Rust said simply.

Everyone turned to Ace. He snapped up at his name, maintaining his silence.

“But, suppose the culprit truly is among us,” Camie continued her objection. “We’d be letting them back into the scene. And what was with you and the officers, Ace? This is all so... stupid!”

Ace drew in a long breath, shifting. “We could check the camera footage,” he finally uttered, his voice unusually delicate.

Verse glanced at the remaining guard, entirely absorbed by the teacher’s conversation. Neither seemed to be paying the students much mind. But the door was still monitored from outside. There was a beat of mutual consideration. They couldn’t simply walk out, certainly.

“Cool,” Rust shrugged. “Clay, keep them preoccupied,” she said, and the girl beside Rust’s empty desk jumped.

“Why are you getting involved in this?” Clay protested. “Why am I getting involved in this?”

Rust shrugged again. “Out back,” she said simply. Then she turned around. Behind her, Verse realized, was a door, very faintly noticeable from under the layer of posters. She opened the door. Verse’s eyes flickered back to the guard; neither supervisor noticed, by some miracle. Could they simply walk out?

“Go and get yourselves in trouble,” Camie huffed, crossing her arms. “I’ll play no part in this nonsense.”

For a brief moment, Vector looked ready to argue. Then she dropped it and followed Rust through the back door. Clay similarly opened her mouth, but shut it without further refutation. Verse paused. There was no way they could sneak out, effectively investigate, and return unnoticed and unpunished. Maybe that didn’t matter. They were slated for interrogation, anyway. Mali, Luca, and Spade each left. Then Yuki, and Verse followed in file. Then Ace behind Verse. Camie took the honor of shutting the door.

A simple storage room awaited, something like an oversized closet with shelves of various bottles, each labeled by a different polysyllabic chemical name, and equipment that Verse couldn’t begin to guess the function of; they had not spent too much time in chemistry labs for their astronomy course. Altogether, nothing useful. But at the back of the storage room was a second door. That was more useful. Cautiously, Rust cracked the door open. There was the main hallway, vacant. The blocked area was past them, where everyone seemed too distracted with the commotion by 2-B to pay them any mind.

“Now where?” Yuki hissed to Rust.

“I dunno where it is. I did my part,” Rust said.

“Why is she here?” Mali snapped, shooting his peculiar eyes on the remarkably short girl.

She met his gaze and shrugged nonchalantly. “You can’t tell me your teacher was ghosted and expect me to not be interested.”

“Well,” Vector mused quietly, “She’s the only one of us unambiguously innocent. An experimental control.”

“Someone gets it,” Rust said. “Institute type, you—oh. He’s just going for it. Cool.”

Ace had left the established group and was quietly hurrying down the hall towards what may or may not have been the security room. Rust shrugged and chased him. The established group followed. It was, in fact, a security room he led them to. It was small and, being not intended for a party of eight, crowded a smidge past comfort. The point of interest was a large computer fitted with a wall of brilliant monitors, each displaying a different camera view of a hall or classroom. The glowing screens provided the only source of light, as no one had bothered to turn the actual lights on. Hesitantly, Yuki sat down and clicked through the computer. She flipped through camera feeds, finally falling on room 2-B. Then she froze. Then Verse and everyone else looked at the screen and similarly froze.

“What are we looking at?” Rust asked flatly.

There was nothing. No blood or graffiti or professor hanging from cords. Perfectly empty. A perfectly unremarkable classroom.

“It—it wasn’t like this,” Yuki stammered in bewilderment. “They wouldn’t—like, clean it, right? This can’t be right.”

Vector narrowed her eyes at the display. “It can’t,” she agreed. “The window.”

Verse followed her comment to the window shown on screen. An exterior window, dark. But it was certainly not dark outside.

 “Someone must’ve messed with the surveillance,” Yuki said. “I can’t seem to do anything else besides flip through cameras. It’s... locked. Like, locked-locked. A custom academy system, I think. I don’t know. I guess it makes sense for security.”

“It’s hacked, then,” Verse contributed. “Someone familiar with the system.”

“Then, it really was a student?” Luca said softly.

“Not necessarily,” Vector said. “Could be a teacher. Or even a security guard who was bribed, or threatened, or just motivated.”

“Or, just a student,” Mali suddenly said, and it was clearly directed at Ace.

“Ah?” Ace blinked. “I—I’m not...”

“Could we return to Vector’s very logical point,” Spade interjected, “instead of digging around for meaningless flickers of suspicion?”

“That sounds like you’re deflecting,” Luca retorted, wiping at her eyes.

“But... Spade really wouldn’t make sense as a culprit,” Verse defended. “For the numbers, at least. He writes his dates backwards. Said it himself.”

“Unless he did that intentionally to throw us off!” Yuki exclaimed.

“Are you always this dysfunctional?” Rust muttered, hanging by the door.

Spade scoffed. “Do you really think I have it in me to sacrifice my own pride like that? To set myself up as an idiot?”

“Your desk is looking awfully white right now!” Yuki accused.

He paused. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“Thinking aloud here—” Mali said. “Could be both. Spade and Ace.”

Then suddenly, unexpectedly, Ace shouted.

“I’m not a murderer!”

An immediate silence fell. Ace stood frozen, shaking, breathing heavily through an open mouth like he hadn’t quite intended to say that. The blank eyes of his mask were unrevealing, as always, although his voice betrayed an uncharacteristically intense emotion. Never before had Ace sounded so afraid. “I...” he stumbled shrinkingly, as though shocked by his own outburst.

Vector placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s step outside,” she said calmly, quietly, guiding Ace past Rust to the door. He went out compliantly. The remainder of the group watched them disappear in a wordless shared curiosity.