Momoe Mizuno
Momoe brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face as she calmly paced down the oval road, the one eye of hers locked onto the five cabins and one huge building a short distance away. She kept one hand firmly pocketed in her coat and the other wrapped around the little treat in her mouth, though it was starting to burn out completely. She wasn't going to have much more time left on it, and the girl didn't want to light another as she'd be burning through her supply much too quick. It didn't last long before she tossed it out.
Arriving at the cabins, one things stood out immediately. They were built a lot more recently than anything else in this camp. The form was more refined and the paintjob still fresh, and nothing had the air of renovation about it like the rest of the camp. It also helped they were slightly bigger and that each door had a vastly different colour scheme. Momoe walked up to the closest one to her, its door being the most classic out of all of them. It was simple oak wood, polished and homey.
"Research lab for Matsuo Hibiki, the Super High-School Level Tutor..." Momoe muttered as she read the label out loud. She reached for the door handle and found the cabin was unlocked, as the entrance opened without any resistance.
"A library?"
Momoe was caught off-guard by a quiet voice that echoed from behind her, turning on her heel to see a small, black-haired, glasses-wearing girl peer into the building from behind her. Said girl noticed Momoe's staring and stared back, leaving the two in an awkward silence that lasted several seconds. Momoe frowned and decided to break that silence.
"Were you following me?"
"Sort of."
After the other girl's short and blunt reply, her attention was cast back to the inside of the room. Momoe had to take a step back to allow her to pass, as the girl stepped forward with little regard to the smuggler's location within time and space. Before scanning the insides of the room, Momoe took out her Student PDA.
(Ayu Usui, the Super High-School Level... unknown.)
Well, at least Momoe knew the girl's name. She was suspicious as to why her talent wasn't listed when flattering sights like 'Thief' and 'Smuggler' were in full view, so Momoe decided it might've been better to not walk away from this girl and let her be weird on her own. Following Ayu into the cabin, it was clear why the tiny gremlin called it a 'library'. The entire room was lined with bookshelves. Teensy labels with even smaller lettering stuck to the front of each shelf, possibly to denote their use. In the middle of the room were several chairs for reading, while the walls to the left and right of Momoe each had a large desk. Ayu already seemed to have picked up a random book and flicked through the pages, her dull eyes moving surprisingly swiftly as she scanned each page. Momoe caught a few stray words escaping the girl's lips.
"...grouped by subject, human cognition and neuroscience..." she was muttering to herself.
"Having fun?" Momoe snidely remarked. The other girl blinked and looked up, seemingly surprised that the smuggler bothered her.
"Loads, yeah. It's interesting to learn about new things. This room's filled with all kinds of study books, and each of them are lumped into categories."
Momoe took a mental note that sarcasm and irony were going to be lost on this individual. Though, what the other girl said would line up with the general vibe this room gave off.
"No shit. Seems to be for this 'Matsuo' guy," Momoe commented as she walked further in. Curiosity got the better of her as she was also intent on sorting through the shelves, but more because she wanted to confirm something. She walked over to the science section and picked out a book on chemistry. Flipping through it, the book detailed the various kinds of common chemicals found in everyday products and even pointed out toxins that could be deadly if extracted in large enough quantities.
"Figures. Not all of these are innocent."
"Isn't that kind of the point?"
Momoe looked back at Ayu, who had her head tilted in confusion.
"The hell are you talking about?"
"Well... mmm... this room kind of looks like it's to help his talent grow, right? So... since he's a tutor, he'd need knowledge on every subject. Which... would give the bear an easy excuse to sneak in some books to help everyone come up with a murder plan easier, I think. The other cabins are probably the same."
(She seemed terrifyingly calm while talking about murder plans...)
Momoe closed her book and shelved it again, more suspicious of the girl now than when she started. She turned, leaned on the bookshelf and had her arms crossed while staring Ayu down.
"Why did you follow me?" she asked, the one eye narrowing as if this was an interrogation.
"Mmm... I was bored, I guess."
The small one did it again. She was so casual about everything. It's as if nothing phased the other girl. Momoe turned her head to follow Ayu as the unknown talent went to sit down in one of the chairs, eye locked onto the book in her hands. From a far-off glance it was relatively inconspicuous, just a book about psychology. Momoe furrowed her brow and took a seat in the chair opposite to Ayu, the soft cushion being a lot more comfortable than anything else she'd sat in for the past few years.
"Why a smuggler?" the other girl asked without glancing up from her book, giving Momoe no time to ask a question of her own. She was stunned from how sudden it was, but recovered in no time at all.
"That's none of your concern."
"I guess not."
Silence fell inside the cabin again, and the cyclops grew more and more frustrated with it. She leaned forward and stared at Ayu again, who looked disinterested from the current situation.
"Alright, fair trade. I'll tell you why I'm good at smuggling if you tell me why you don't seem even remotely fucking concerned about the shitty situation we're in."
"Sure."
Well, at least they were getting somewhere now. Momoe leaned back again, throwing her hands behind her head and bending one leg over the other.
"My mom didn't like me very much and my dad was too much of a deadbeat to care. Sat in the couch and drank all day. I stole their booze and sneaked it into school and other places, seemed like I just had a knack for that. Your turn."
"Mm... you don't have to lie about your father," Ayu commented as she glanced up from her text. Momoe narrowed her eyes, which Ayu seemed to pick up on.
"Your tone changed slightly when talking about him... that's how I could tell," she added.
"Fantastic. Now answer my question."
"Mm... right. Well, let me think..."
As Ayu took a moment to pause, Momoe crossed her arms in anticipation for the answer. She wasn't any less suspicious than before; despite this girl's unassuming looks, she'd snuck up on the smuggler and left her briefly speechless multiple times now. The girl was clearly more dangerous than she appeared.
"I guess... it's that I don't think anyone has a reason to kill me. Nobody ever really pays attention to me, anyway. I don't stand out much."
(...That's your reasoning?)
"I could choke you right now and there'd be no witnesses."
"Mmm... I guess, but you haven't yet, right? So you're not really a dangerous person."
Never mind, the girl wasn't dangerous at all; just incredibly gutsy. And naïve. The two of them continued to talk inside Hibiki's lab like this, in part due to not having much else to do.
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