Chapter 18: Meeting Alter Ego

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Hina led us to the bathhouse and we entered the dressing room.

"I-It was right here... I saw it right here in the dressing room!" Hina said.

"Urg... I'm getting goosebumps..." Hiro said, still clinging to my arm.

"Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!" Hifumi chanted.

"Shut up! What if he actually shows up!?" Hiro shouted.

"Hina...where was it you saw Chihiro's ghost?" Sakura asked Hina.

"Well, I heard a sound...and when I opened the locker...I saw a kind of...pale outlines of Chihiro..." Hina explained, pointing to a locker.

Makoto walked up to the locker and opened the locker door. Inside of it was...

"...a laptop? What's something like that doing here?" Makoto asked out loud. The rest of us gathered around him to have a look.

"I remember seeing this..." Kyoko muttered.

"Oh yes, I remember. It's the laptop that was in the library," I said.

"But how did the laptop get from the library...to here?" Makoto asked.

"And...I guess it's in sleep mode, but...the power is definitely on," Kyoko observed.

"Huh? But I thought it was broken..." Makoto said.

"I would bet that Chihiro fixed it. After all, he was known as the Ultimate Programmer," Sakura said.

"More importantly... Hina, you said you saw a green light, yes? Surely you did not mistake the light of the monitor for a ghost?" Celeste asked Hina.

"..." Hina stayed silent.

"I am surprised you are able to dress yourself in the morning," Celeste said.

"Oh man. If I had the "loves clueless girls" attribute, I would've fallen in love big-time just now! I'm so glad I don't have it..." Hifumi commented.

"Well I didn't really expect to find a freaking laptop inside a freaking locker, okay!?" Hina yelled.

"Look, it was in the middle of the night. Anyone can make a mistake like that," I said, defending her.

"Yeah! As a matter of fact, one time I thought I'd spotted a Grey alien, but it turned out to be a tadpole!" Hiro said.

"Don't compare what happened to me to one of your stupid delusions!" Hina shouted.

"Don't be mean! I was just trying to make you feel better! What if I get all depressed forever now!?" Hiro countered back.

"But listen, isn't this really strange? What's this laptop doing in here?" Makoto asked.

"Maybe someone hid it here," Kyoko suggested.

"If that's the case, we found it pretty easy..." Hiro commented.

"Whoever put it here, I don't think they were trying to hide it from 'us'," Kyoko said.

"Huh...? What do you mean?" Makoto asked.

"Haven't you noticed? There's one big difference between this room and all the others," Kyoko said.

I looked around the room and my eyes widened. "There's...no surveillance camera in here."

"Precisely. There's no camera in here. Which means, this is the one spot where the mastermind is blind," Kyoko explained.

"So you're saying someone put the laptop here so the mastermind wouldn't know about it?" Hifumi questioned.

"And what Hina saw wasn't the ordinary glow of a computer screen. It was...the figure of Chihiro, shining pale green. I think it would be best if we investigated this laptop in a little more detail," Kyoko suggested. Makoto walked up to the laptop.

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