Mountain of The Moons • Book 1

Chapter 12

"Jun!" I heard from the Dojo entrance.

I looked up nearly dropping the hot tea in my hand. It was nearly midnight by this point and I was struggling to stay awake. Jun was as high energy as I had ever seen him. He had set up a buddy system with the Elite students keeping guard and each buddy group would check in with another every 10 minutes that way if someone goes missing or is acting out of order we'd know.

He was turning into a total drill Sargent and it made a lot of sense given his place here. The others, even the older ones, followed him willingly. I wanted to go back to the dorms and hide with the rest, but Jun insisted I stay at his side until the Masters returned.

I looked to where Jun's name had been called and I saw the three Masters frantically storming in. Jun jumped to his feet and ran forward. I stood out of respect, but I stayed back not wanting to interject myself into this anymore. Even if I had wanted to go after whoever did this, I had no place doing so. I wasn't trained enough to even stand a chance against whoever this was.

"What has happened?" Minoru asked grabbing Jun's arm.

"A student was found killed in their room this evening. It was Lily Irigashi, the small one who showed up about a year ago in the middle of the night. She was killed before breakfast, but there's no sign of who exactly did this. We can assume it's another student, but we can't even be sure of that." He said frustratedly.

"There's no way someone made it in these walls without going unnoticed. There are many wards preventing people from entering here without permission. No one can break those wards, not even another Master, you know that." Minoru said angrily.

"Whoever it was is still here then. No one's been reported to have left or came since you three left last night." Jun said firmly.

"Has Daigo awoken?" Uba asked urgently as she looked around frantically.

"No, not yet, but I had him taken to the lower chambers below the Spiritual Chambers. I have him and his nurse locked in there guarded by 6 of Uba's best." Jun said and I saw a look of relief across all of their faces.

"Jun, you've done good work." Uba said smiling at him over her worried look.

"Do we have any leads? Surely they left evidence." Chunami asked looking upset.

"I'm afraid not, Makio and I looked over the whole room and she only found this." Jun said looking back at me before handing the paper to the masters. I stood further back not wanting to speak, but I saw all of their reactions as they read the slip of paper.

"Have you checked to see who wrote this?" Minoru asked.

"I thought maybe Chunami would have access to the each students hand writing since we recently had that exam." Jun said.

"Don't be foolish give it to me." Uba said grabbing the paper.

I saw her grab the paper and her hand glowed green like a light. I furrowed my eyebrows never having seen that before. Sure we all had powers but nothing like that. Her eyes flickered green for just a moment and after they returned to normal she sighed handing the paper to Chunami with a defeated look on her face.

"It's Lily's hand writing." She said shaking her head. "Whoever did this to her made her write this before killing her."

"That's horrible." Chunami said looking away almost looking green.

"She was crucified on her own bedroom wall." Jun said coldly. "That's docile."

"Good god." Chunami said looking disgusted.

"We should go see the situation." Minoru mumbled. "Jun, I'm sure you need rest after holding down the fort. Take yourself and Makio back to her room."

"I should stay here and make sure the guards are keeping watch." Jun said adamantly.