A Destructive Prank (An Oumeno story)

Chapter 3 - The Plan's Beginning

Kokichi remained in the dorms until evening, then he headed to the school to see how he would execute his plan. Expectedly, the main gate was closed, but a less used passage that connected the school with the dorms was not fortified or reinforced by anything besides a simple set of double doors. Kokichi lockpicked them easily and entered the first hall with great caution, as he was checking the school's layout, that he made, for camera locations. There weren't many, but their distribution across each floor made it difficult to pass completely unnoticed. 

Kokichi made his way to Kazuichi's lab from where he took a large can of petrol, a lighter and some flammable materials. Carrying these items made it much more difficult to avoid the cameras, but once he did he found himself in Miu's lab - the door of that lab having been almost impossible to lockpick. There Kokichi found an interesting device that, supposedly, when aimed at another working device, would make the latter implode through some kind of pressure that it exerted on the electricity flowing into the said device by emitting waves. At least that was what he understood from Miu's notes. He left all his stuff and went outside the lab to test it on some cameras. To his disappointment, the device was not long-ranged and so he was forced to sneak underneath each camera for it to bring the desirable effect. Afterwards he returned to the lab, took his stuff and headed to the next floor, however, he found the petrol can to be quite slippery and thought that it must have leaked when he left it lying on the floor.

On the next floor he hurried to Tsumugi's lab. There he scoured the place for durable materials out of which he would make sets of thin ropes, each time igniting a piece of fabric, checking whether a flame was able to burn the strand completely. Once he found a suitable material, he started to tie them up together. This he found painfully boring so he looked around the lab. It was decorated by gaudy cosplays, some pieces were displayed along their different variations, those variations being only distinguished by different colours or colour intensity. He spotted a cosplay reminiscent of Himiko's mage outfit and grew sullen. His previous feeling of excitement weakened and was darkened by guilt. No one made him feel equally conflicted about his actions as Himiko did, and she was able to do it without saying a word; her confusion and gaze at that moment did it all. But he felt that an apology would not be appropriate as it was too late. Avoiding Himiko would be his best option. 

Kokichi finished tying up the strands and, since Tsumugi's lab was located on one of the highest floors, he thought that he could start from there. He tied, or taped, a single strand doused in petrol beneath each window sill and hung the rest of the strand out of the window where it reached the window of a class below; in each instance he tried to cover the strand and to leave the window slightly open. He did this on almost every floor besides the ground floor, returning to Tsumugi's lab whenever he needed more strands. The smell of petrol was more noticeable in some cases, but he hoped that this would not bring too much attention once the windows were open. Finally, he descended to the ground floor where he headed to the school's kitchen and stuffed Kazuichi's petrol can behind the fridge to incriminate whoever was working there. The can felt significantly lighter, despite the strands not having absorbed much petrol. However, Kokichi had no time to think about this. He hurried to the dorms, seeing that it was already early morning, and decided to finish off his plan on the first long break. 

''Where are you going?'' Someone suddenly asked. 

Kokichi turned his head and saw Maki. She was glaring at him with a deadly intensity that he never witnessed before and wandered whether she saw what he did.

''Maki!'' He shouted with an attempted air of carelessness, ''Nishishi, I'm heading to Miu's room to ask her whether she could fix an electrical fault in my room''

''What fault?''

''You're surprisingly snoopy. Is that how you treat everyone.''

''It's quite early for you to be waking Miu up about a minor fault.'' 

''Is that how you also treat spaceboy Kaito? Nishishi, I'm afraid that he won't fancy you if you continue behaving in this-'' Before he could finish Maki tried to grab him, relentless hatred brightening her emotionless expression, but he repelled her and they scuffled for a moment until Maki stopped.

''I do not fancy him,'' she said, looking away from Kokichi, then looked back at him glaring and added: ''Whatever stupid prank you are intending to do now, remember that if it will affect anyone close to me - I will deal with you personally and make you pay for their pain.''

Kokichi returned to his room.