Despair on Display

~ C h a p t e r I - P a r t I I I~

Mita turned around from her wall she was examining and flashed a sickly sweet smile at Mono-Z. "It does not hurt to try, now, does it? Do leave us alone, and let us explore, alright?" She said, rather harshly, which caused Mono-Z to, from the looks of it, frown.

"Not like I was telling you the truth or anything! You won't find anything in this room! You're wasting your precious tiiime!" And then, as if nothing had happened, they went back to their violent rocking. A low cackle resonated from the statue, taunting the group.. Mita rolled her eyes and focused her attention back to the group.

Mito put down the souvenir he was holding. "Speaking of not finding anything: I strongly advise you do not venture into the library. From what we both had witnessed there, there was a mess of books. They do not seem to be handling the walls at all, and instead are making a giant mess of the library. They are insane. I hope they clean up their mess." Mito muttered.

Rei glanced over to the entrance to the library. Sure enough, from what she could see, she saw a very annoyed Takao surrounded by large piles of books. She could also faintly hear what she believed to be Nari's giggling.

Oh dear.

She definitely did not want to be apart of that.

Rei swiftly turned back to the others and saw Mito glance at her as if to say "I told you so," which caused Rei to frown. Seeing as there was nothing left to do here, Rei started heading for the exit and to the museum lobby.

Just before she left, however, she glanced at Kanon to see if she would be joining her. Kanon seemed to be lost in a conversation with Mito, so Rei happily left the room by herself.

+++++

After about an extra 15 minutes of searching, everyone once again gathered in the cafe to discuss what they had found.

"Mochizuki-san and I found nothing in this room." Kanon reported.

"Unfortunately, Yvette and I did not find anything of interest in the exhibition rooms. Deepest apologies." Vincent added.

"I- I just.. just checked my room. There... there wasn't.. wasn't anything strange... anything strange there..." Kichiro stuttered.

"The souvenir store is clear." Mita spoke.

"My oh my!! You guys are nooo fun! We had a blaaaast in the library!!! You all should have seen the booooooks!" Nari suddenly burst out, smiling widely and gazing over the crowd with only cheerfulness in her eyes.

"And yet we did not find anything of note, Murakami-san, so do us all a favor and shut it." Takao, who still looked very much annoyed, retorted.

"Awww, you're no fun, Takaoooo!! You'd expect a place like this to have a cooool seeecret library entrance that only opens by a pulling a certain book, but nooo! The people who made this were noo fun! I hope they die!!!"

...besides Nari's unnerving comment, no one had anything useful to say or had found anything interesting.

Everyone became disheartened by this fact, disappointed that their hard work was all for nothing, and everyone started breaking up in groups to leave, when-

"...wait."

Everyone stopped in the tracks and turned to see Seto with his hands folded. Hope once again flickered in the eyes of every individual, and they all, with great anticipation, waited for Seto to speak, only to be greeted with silence.

"Well...? Do educate us, kind sir!" Vincent called out, eyebrows furrowing in concern, prompting the Speleologist.

Silence.