Chapter Text
Azul opened his eyes slowly and looked around. Where was he? It was difficult to see anything as his vision was fuzzy and the awful headache he had certainly didn’t make anything better. He blinked a few times in an attempt to clear up his vision, which seemed to do the trick. It was dark, but he was still able to make out the fact that he was in his office in the Mostro Lounge. That much made sense, but when had he fallen asleep? And why in the world would he fall asleep at work? He used the desk to help himself get up and noticed something almost instantly. His safe was wide open. And there was blood on it. A lot. Who got into a fight here and why hadn’t he stopped it? The lights suddenly turned on, momentarily blinding him. Who in their right mind would barge into his office so suddenly?
“Azul, you in here?” It was Floyd’s voice, who became visible after a few seconds.
The housewarden rolled his eyes since the room didn’t exactly have any hiding spots. “Yes, I’m right h-”
“Not here, either.” Floyd said as he turned to leave.
Azul groaned. Was Floyd really going to act like he was invisible to try getting out of work again?
“Well where else could he possibly be?” It was Jade’s voice that time, who peered in. He chuckled slightly. “My my. That’s certainly a lot of blood. Do you think someone made him angry?”
“Not you too, Jade.” Azul said, visibly annoyed at this point. “And I haven’t a clue why that blood is there, did either of y-”
“I suppose we’ll have to use the protocol for the lounge when Azul is sick.” Jade said, walking off with his brother following him.
“I’m right here, you overgrown worms.” Azul followed them out to find quite a surprise. It looked like the entire staff and all his fellow housewardens were there, but why?
“Did you find him?” Crowley asked the twins.
“Nah, he’s hiding good.” Floyd said lazily, stretching as he did so.
“We’ve already checked everywhere else though.” Kalim sounded both upset and worried. “Is there at least some sort of clue as to where he could be in there?”
“No clue as to where he may be, but there is a lot of blood.” Jade said rather calmly.
“Blood?! Leona, can you sniff it and see whose it is?” Kalim turned to the lion beastman with a look of pure worry in his eyes.
“What do you think I am, some sort of DNA scanner?” Leona scoffed. “Besides, why would I want to go sniffing someone’s blood?”
“Oh, don’t be like that.” Azul insisted, arms folded. “If it belongs to someone you know, you’ll be able to tell who it belongs to easily.”
Crowley clapped his hands together. “A DNA scanner! A most excellent idea indeed! Shroud, do you happen to have anything of the sort on your person?”
Idia jumped slightly. “Well, no, but Ortho has DNA scanners, so if you had let me bring him…” his voice trailed off as he looked away, obviously uncomfortable being around so many people.
Azul started to say something, but Crowley interrupted. “None of the other students know that Ashengrotto is missing yet, so it would be unwise to bring him along.”
“Ortho isn’t a student, though.” Idia said quietly, messing with the strings on his hoodie. “And if you had let me bring him, this search would have been over hours ago and I’d be able to get back to my game.” That second sentence was so quiet that if Azul wasn’t used to straining his ears to listen to the other during club meetings, he wouldn’t have been able to have heard him at all.
“Yeah, why didn’t you let him bring his tin can?” Leona asked.
“Because we don’t need the students knowing that something is wrong.” Crowley answered.
“Idia being out of his room would tip more than a few students off.” Vil’s tone was cold and he was obviously beyond annoyed. “If you wanted to be discreet about this, it would just be you and the Leech twins on this search.”
“I’m not missing, though.” Azul finally found an opening to speak up. “I’m right h-” Crowley walked right past him, no, right through him to get into his office.
Azul touched his own chest. What just happened? He tried to make eye contact with the one person he knew wouldn’t pull a prank like pretending he couldn’t see him; Kalim. But his fellow housewarden was just looking past him and into the office.
“This finally got interesting.” A voice that Azul didn’t recognize spoke, causing the mer to look in its direction.
What he saw was a student he didn’t recognize, but wore the standard Night Raven College uniform with Octavinelle colors. That was odd. Azul could have sworn he had memorized the names and faces of all the students in his dorm by this point.
“Congrats, ‘Zul, you’re dead.” The red-headed stranger said with a crooked smile.