Chapter Text
"Excuse me, Light-sensei?"
Aguero knocks on the door of 'Michelle Light's office' with the most polite, innocent smile he can muster. "It's Khun." 'Michelle Light' fumbles around inside, swears, drops something, and swears again. "I can come back later if you're busy, sensei."
The door swings open, and a rather frazzled-looking Michelle Light appears. "Oh, it's perfectly alright, Agnis-kun. Did you have something you wanted to ask?"
Aguero raises his notebook. "I just wanted to know what I missed in the lesson."
On the outside, he's a dutiful student. The picture of calm and elegance. On the inside? He's imagining growing claws and ripping Rachel to shreds. Oh, bitch, you are going down. If he learned how to turn into a fox (if that was possible) and consequences didn't matter, he'd actually do it.
They stare at each other for a moment, competing to see who has the fakest smile until Michelle Light laughs awkwardly and says "Of course, Agnis-kun, come right in, take a seat. Close the door behind you, alright?"
Aguero nods, smiling like the saint he most definitely is. He keeps the door open behind him for just a second longer, allowing Viole to silently slip in behind him. He definitely does not awkwardly manoeuvre over to the couch to make sure Viole stays out of Rachel's sight.
For a few moments, they just sit in silence, Aguero watching Rachel sweat over her glamour. Must be scary, huh? Having a great detective see right through you and all the crimes you've committed. Rachel in turn watches him twirl his pen around, flicking through his English textbook.
"So, about the lesson-"
Aguero smiles, deceptively serene. "Now, 'Light-sensei'. I'm sure you know that's not really why I'm here."
Michelle Light swallows. "Why else would you be here?"
"I know what you've done. I know who you are. You can't hide from me... Rachel Light."
As predicted, she plays dumb first. "Who's Rachel?"
"A girl who went to Kimyouna Gakuen twenty-five years ago. She had a friend called Jue Viole Grace. But she was jealous of him, because he was more popular than her, and everyone would shun her while wanting to be his friend. One day, she couldn't take it anymore, so she drowned him in the boys' onsen and passed it off as an accident. Sound familiar to you?"
"Don't talk about things you don't know about, Meitantei."
"So you do know who I am." Aguero grins. "And you should know that I don't do things by halves." He makes sure to look right into her tawny eyes. "I can see right through you. You can't hide."
"You can't prove anything." Rachel's disguise is slowly melting away. She reaches into her pocket, and Aguero is instantly on his guard. He can handle normal weapons, but if it was anything magical... "It's been so long, how could you find any proof anyway? Everything you're going to tell me, it's all just baseless deduction."
Someone knocks on the door, and Rachel straight up flinches. Good, good. The cautious she is of everything, the faster she'll be distracted and lose focus on her magical disguise. And once that disguise is gone...
The door swings open to reveal... Karen? What is she doing here? "Khun-san," she drawls, "you left your water bottle behind." She hands him a water bottle and leaves. Aguero is sure he doesn't have a thermos, but the bottle is warm to the touch, and when he unscrews it to pretend to take a sip, he realizes it smells a little like sulfur. He subtly glances at Rachel's bare legs. Good, good. All according to keikaku.
"Ah, thanks, Akai-san." He places the thermos on the table. The lid isn't screwed on properly.
Karen leaves with a nod at Aguero, not acknowledging Rachel in the slightest.
Rachel turns back to Aguero. "If you have nothing more to say, I'm going to ask you to leave."
"Hey, sensei, I haven't even started my deduction!"
Rachel is picking at her nails now, her disguise rapidly flickering on and off. "Get on with it, then, it's not like you can prove anything-"
"Ah, whoops."
Aguero leans over and purposefully tips over the entire flask of near-boiling hot spring water onto Rachel's legs. The blonde woman shrieks in pain, her disguise disappearing completely. She doesn't seem to realize, too busy grabbing at the tissue on her desk to wipe off the water.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Mercilessly, Aguero barrels on. "That's what Jue Viole Grace felt like when you drowned him in the onsen. You asked him to meet you in the onsen, and when he went there to find you, you held him under the water and drowned him. And then you took off his clothes so it looked like he was bathing, and you were never there."
Rachel hisses. Are those fangs in her mouth, or is it another shade of glamor? "Where's your proof? There's nothing there! There's nothing left!"
"You're wrong, actually. I found Viole's clothes in the tunnel under the onsen. You know, the secret one you used to get into there in the first place. You know what else I found there? Some pretty damning evidence, if I must say so myself. You shaved your arms before drowning Jue Viole Grace so you wouldn't leave any hairs behind, but you didn't anticipate having to re-tie your hair when your ponytail came off, didn't you?"
He reaches over, grabbing a falling hair from Rachel's head. "I found a hair down there, just like this one. I've given it to the police, and when the DNA test is done, they'll find it's yours."
He's not sure if it'll work, not really, but sometimes a scare like this is enough for weaker criminals to give in. Rachel scowls viciously. She's moved on from patting her legs dry to scratching at the red flush spreading across them rapidly. "And won't you look at that," Aguero says softly. "Rashes on your legs, like the ones you went to the nurse to see all those years ago."
"How did you-"
"Pseudomonas folliculitis. It's a skin infection that occurs around hair follicles, caused by this type of bacteria that thrives in warm, wet places. Like hot springs. It happens mostly to anyone who shaved or waxed recently before it. I know because my father had that a couple years ago. He's rather vain, and he doesn't like having hairy legs, so he likes to shave them."
"What does that have to do with anything?!"
"Well, he spent a couple days sitting in an onsen for a work trip, and when he came back..." Aguero gestures at Rachel's rash-covered legs. "Let's just say it wasn't pretty."
Rachel downright hisses at him. And those are really fangs, what on earth? Aguero squints a bit more, but this time, something must be a bit different, because Aguero sees a woman with long, knotted, greasy black hair, frowning eyes and two bony horns hovering behind Rachel, her arms wrapped around the blonde woman's neck.
Her lips stretch into a smile, baring gleaming white fangs at Aguero. Aguero hears Viole inhale sharply from behind him. Does Rachel know about this? Is this why Rachel has access to glamor and magic? Dammit, Aguero doesn't know enough about Japanese mythology to even come up with some clever-sounding bullshit!
Worse yet, she seems to sense Viole, and Aguero wrinkles his nose at her mocking smile. Don't you fucking try anything, hag!
Just as Aguero thinks that, the hag whispers something into Rachel's eyes, and Rachel's eyes go cloudy and unfocused. She reaches into her pocket and withdraws... a doll?
"Voodoo doesn't work here," Aguero declares. "It doesn't."
Rachel cocks her head, a manic grin on her face. "Who says it doesn't?"
"I said so," Aguero announces. If suspension of disbelief is a thing, there's probably an opposite, right? There must be! If Aguero simply believes that it doesn't work, it's powers will probably fail, right?
"Say goodbye, you pesky little detective," Rachel tells him. She's not entirely conscious, Aguero can tell, that hag - demon? - has some influence on her. She pulls a knife out of seemingly thin air. "This doll is connected to your lifeline, and I say it's time for you to meet your end."
"No! I'm not letting you hurt anyone else!"
Viole lunges across, trying to knock the doll out of Rachel's hands, or push the knife away.
Rachel laughs hysterically as Viole misses, plunging the knife into the doll's chest.
Nothing happens.
Aguero laughs shakily. Has he just dodged another bullet? "You see? Nothing happened. I'm still alive, and you're going to atone for your sins-"
All three of them go silent at the sound of a quiet wheeze from outside, and something thumps loudly against the door.
"Hey!" Karen shouts. "Hoh- san ! Hoh- san , are you okay?"
Aguero's blood runs cold. He's not sure how magic works, but if his deduction is correct-
Rachel laughs again, this time sounding uncertain. "Meitantei-"
Footsteps race towards the door, and they barely get a second to prepare before Sanada Yuri is kicking the door open. "Rachel Light!" She hollers upon catching sight of the stabbed doll in Rachel's hands and the hysterical look in her eyes. "You're under arrest for the murders of Jyu Viole Grace and Hoh, um, I didn't catch his first name! Anything you say or do will be used against you, so do not fight back!"
Her tengu wings are flapping behind her, casting a shadow over them all. Aguero can't tell if she looks like a savior, an angel of justice, or if she looks like the Grim Reaper incarnate.
Aguero pales. He peeks under Yuri's wings, seeing Hoh's unmoving body lying across the floor, Karen desperately trying to stop the blood from pooling across the hallway.
"Yoru- senpai ," he whispers, "I think- I think I'm gonna-"
Aguero's knees give out from under him, and Viole materializes by his side just in time for the tears to leak out. He'd solved the mystery, he was right the whole time, but why does Aguero feel like he'd failed the entire operation?
OMAKE: CASE CLOSED
"Aguero!"
Aguero gawks at the sight of his father, the one and only Khun Eduan. His eyes are still swollen from crying. He's in shock, Sanada had told his classmates so they'd stay away from him and the room they were all gathered in, let him breathe. Even Karen gave him some space.
Viole huddles closer to him. "Is that-"
"Aguero, I never expected this to- Wait, huh?"
Eduan does a double take at the sight of Viole, who only cocks his head. "Do I know you, sir?" The yurei asks politely in the face of Eduan's pointing finger.
"Aren't you V and Arlene's son? Jyu Viole Grace?"
Aguero surreptitiously wipes his eyes, eavesdropping on the conversation. Guilt may have wounded the fox, but curiosity always heals it.
He's a detective through and through, after all.