The most powerful student on the island was nothing but a limp doll for Juni to manipulate. Vera was fast asleep and would not wake for hours at the very least. At least it will be uninterupted slumber. The nightgown she wore was high quality but at least it would not get ruined by the mud drying on it while she slept. Underneathe all that, the Head Girl only had some lacy white panties. Her breasts were exposed to the cool air, her nipples roused gently from their soft pink areolae.

Juniper's efforts to bind the Head Girl were thorough to say the least. Every part of Vera's body was bound, leaving her body in a compromising position. It was doubtful the bindings were necessary but, one could not be too careful. Whether Vera could get herself free or not would be irrelevant as Juniper would hopefully be done with her search before the woman regains conciousness.

The search was on as the young woman tried to find anything and everything that could prove useful. The shelves had books on various classes and subjects though there were also a few older looking tombs. Flipping through the pages of those revealed only odd runes that could not be deciphered and did not seem to be of any common languages. It could be some sort of ancient scripture but there was no way of knowing for sure. Nothing was behind the shelves.

The pictures held no secret codes or passwords. If they did, it would be the most inconvient place to get them for the Head Girl. Furniture was then gutted, yielding nothing but destroyed cushions. Her desk did have folders and files. The reports ranged from demerits being issued along with a few student files. The student files showed nothing beyond a student's physical and mental attributes along with some background and history. Essentially, it was the same data Juniper or her family provided upon applying to Shokushu. Besides that, there were some office supplies but nothing worthy of note. The kitchen had only the standard silverware, dishware, and food.

That left the bathroom and bedroom. Vera was still unconcious when Juniper returned. There were no hollow sounds coming from the walls. The drawers, wardrobe, and cloest had little beyond clothes, some jewelry, and some sex toys. The closet out in the main room had more sexual objects along with numerous fetish like outfits that were apparently meant for someone other than Vera.

So far, besides the harddrive that Juni lacked the password for, there did not seem to be anything worth hunting for in the Head Girl's suite. It could mean that all important data is kept in Shokushu's database to ensure things like this did not happen.

Juniper cocked an eyebrow as she pushed her way through the fetish apparel in the woman's closet and found a box. Opening it revealed only another array of toys to her eyes, which she shook slightly to look through before she tapped the bottom to check for a hidden compartment. Nothing. She tossed the box over her shoulder with a low growl. What she'd found had been scandalous, perhaps, but not at all useful. It seemed that , even unconscious, the Headgirl was up to the task of keeping the school's secrets. She sighed and stepped out of the closet again, closing her eyes and reviewing everything she'd done, as if scouring her memory for a lost opportunity. Nothing came to mind.

For a moment, just a moment, she considered the possibility that there was nothing to find. When the school was subtle, it was subtle, and when it was at it's most glaringly obvious it left nothing in it's wake but memories and a humiliating clean-up. She looked at her hand for a moment . . . she'd gone through things that should've killed her, and emerged out the other side unscarred. What if the "cover up" was all in her head? What if, as she was sure the Headgirl would say, she'd suffered some kind of psychotic break, fallen prey to paranoid delusions? What if she had fabricated the entire thing, and victimized some poor woman for nothing? She'd been so sure she'd find something . . . what the hell was her next step?

No. No, she was not crazy. There was no history of that in her family, and while she'd certainly been a hell raiser back home and carried her burden of regrets none of it was bad enough to create this place. She simply hadn't struck high enough, and now it was time to disappear again. Play the role of the docile little student, cheerfully unaware of the invisible eyes watching her actions, waiting for the opportunity to take her for another night of their sick sport. The ones who told her how to do things . . . sometimes the things she should do.

Not. Crazy.

"Well, this has been a stunning series of disappointments." she said dejectedly to the unconscious woman, "Goodnight, Ms. Matsumoto. I'm sure we'll have much to talk about, if we ever do meet again." it wasn't Juniper's first cold lead, it wouldn't be her last. That didn't mean that the investigation stopped. She strode into the living area, bending down to retrieve her shoulder bag, then she turned the lock on the door and stepped out into the hallway, closing it behind her. She started wending her way downstairs, quiet and introspective for the time being.

She trusted the storm to cover her route back towards the dorms, hard enough to spot her roaming through the wild reaches at night in her dark colors, the rain would break up her outline even as the flowing water obscured her boot prints. She'd take a few days off from the hunt . . . yes. Take the computer in her little base of operations off the network, plug in the hard drive, and leave the codebreaker to work at it for a few days. Leave the slicker, the blade, the belt of pouches and tools, the satchel with her self-made tools and the notebook where she organized her thoughts behind. Just for a few days, to get her mind out of the pressure cooker of conspiracy theories for a bit.

No one followed Juniper out of the tower. Did she get away with this? Vera was unconcious for several more hours before finally coming to. Thankfully, she was not gagged and was allowed to chant the necessary words of magic to sever a few of her bonds and free herself. Rubbing feeling back into her limbs, she could already see the destruction in her bedroom. Her entire suite looked as if a tornado had tore a path through it. For a normal person in a normal home, this would have been devastating. But for Vera, this was unfortunately slightly more common occurance.

She could almost feel what the intruder must have felt as she frantically searched the room for answers. The only thing of note that was taken was her hard drive but that was now nothing but a walking beacon and trap. All 'Megan' had did was close the net around herself faster. Vera continued to survey all the damages and ended the search at the bathroom where she found her gown soaking in the tub. The Head Girl could only sigh at the irrelevant gesture. "Baka..."

Vera had pictures taken of all the damage done before having the staff clean up the suite before any students could see it. Like a monster attack, this matter would be best left hidden. A new hard drive got her back to working. Most of the information and data she worked with was on the network and not the hard drive. Vera was allowed an excused absence from her classes for the day to take care of these matters. She visited the nurse to ensure nothing was wrong with her. By the time she returned to her room, everything was as it was before. The only change were the messages and files waiting for her that gave her all the answers she needed.

The staff had found the closest match between Megan's photo and another student file. It also matched the facial checks done with the camera footage of this Megan character. Eventually they were able to track when and where Megan started appearing, tracing it back to a Juniper Modnar. With that, they knew where Juniper's room was and could easily go and take her in. But, that would not be necessary. Vera had no interest in correcting this person. These criminal acts revealed that Juniper had no interest in being a student here and so it was useless to try and talk reason into such a stubborn woman. It would be easy to just remove the pest from island for good, showing Juniper what ending one's life truly meant. But, the staff suggested to just reveal how futile this all was and let the student fumble about a bit longer. On an isolated island, ignoring the most troublesome members of society is sometimes the best course of action.

When Juni returned to her hideout to check on the hard drive, she would find every electronic device in the room completely fried. All data storage devices were wiped including the hard drive she stole. None of the electronic parts in the area were usable anymore and any unknown pieces found in the hard drive would have no means of revealing their purpose to the investigating student. Not only did the attack on the Head Girl's office fail to reveal anything, it had apparently sent Juni's work back a few steps at least.

Waiting for Juniper back in her dorm was a envelope addressed to Juniper from Vera. Inside was the CD that was sent before, all the data there with the exception of the computer virus. A typed report revealed only minor concerns about the content of the articles and stating that any further guidance would be left to the staff. It was a nice way of saying Vera had no interest in helping Juniper any further for obvious reasons. It was also a simple way of revealing that she knew who Megan really was. Now any and all actions done by Juniper was going to be under the watchful eye of Shokushu.

Something was wrong. Juniper might not have had any supernatural senses, but her instincts had rarely lead her astray in the past. She wasn't being followed, at least, not by anyone on the administration, she knew how to spot a tail easily enough. No, it was little, incidental things. A girl she'd never seen before came up to her, just to talk. Mrs. Betters had turned her away from the Chemistry class she'd been sitting in on, saying that the seat had been filled by a proper student. The archives were closed to the student body as they reorganized their indexing system . . . and when she'd offered to help she'd gotten the second coldest look she'd ever received from a teacher. None of it was particularly strange or out of place, but when she found the Drama club starting a new production, leaving all of their materials beyond her reach, Juniper could not help but feel that someone was making an effort to subtly take every one of her resources off the board.

Sighing with aggravation, Juniper made her way back towards the dorms ahead of the rest of her peers, a towel draped over her shoulders. Lacking anything else to do, she'd spent the day simply working her body to exhaustion out on the field, running the track, jumping hurdles, that sort of thing. Of course, even that was taken from her when the school's actual track team had shown up. After what had happened the last time she'd worked on cross-country training on the nature trails, she decided it was better to call it a day and check in on her pilfered hard drive. She openned the door and stopped at the threshold.

"What the hell!?" she said, closing the door behind her before anyone could see what had her attention. The room reeked, a pungent smell like an electrical fire combining with a metallic wiff of ozone. She saw that the computer was off and tossed her pack to the ground, dropping to her knees and sliding into position by the keyboard. She tried to switch it back on to no avail, then opened the case, winching and waving her hand in front of her face as she was greeted with an even more potent dose of the scent that filled the room.

"Fuck me . . ." she growled, looking through the system. It was slagged, the whole box was little more than an aluminum and plastic paperweight. In the center of it all, however, was the hard drive. That wasn't possible, she'd checked the device for booby traps. Transmission signals, viruses, anything that came to mind, but she could see the dark black char where, once accessed, the drive had triggered something that she'd missed. Funny though . . . it didn't look like the system had simply overridden the temperature override and been overclocked until it gave up the ghost, the destruction was too total. It was more like . . . an electrical surge.

"Shit!" Juniper couldn't think of anything more poignant to say as she gave voice to her frustration, going back to the work station. She grit her teeth and twitched an eyebrow as she looked at the components she'd laid out before. Slagged, every one, beyond useless. The keycard override, the exposed components she'd left out for her next project, all of it was useless now. Weeks and weeks of scavenging rendered useless in a moment's carelessness. Aside from her hand-written notes and the photos she'd printed out, she'd lost it all. And, if circumstances kept on as they had been all day, she was certain she'd find that the avenues she'd used to procure them in the first place would have dried up.

She opened the window to the room to air it out, grimacing to herself. Great, now not only was her memory swiss cheese, but the hard copies of what she'd done were gone. She'd basically have to start over from nothing. She shook her head and left her base of operations behind. She needed a cup of tea and something that tasted of strawberries . . . the only redeeming quality of this catastrophe was that she hadn't taken her camera up to see Vera, or it would be just as useless as the rest of her kit, and that was something she wouldn't have been able to build for herself. The knob turned freely in her hand and she stepped into the room.

She blinked as she entered, seeing an envelope resting on her desk. A request from a student, maybe? A case to get her mind off of her failing? No, she saw the address, written in a precise but looping hand she saw the sender was Vera. Apprehensively, she opened the envelope and turned it upside down. Sure enough, a silvery disc branded in a familiar blocky hand fell out into her hand, as well as a note. Then came out the next item, a typed letter on a piece of plain stationary. Quirking her eyebrow, Juniper looked it over, noting the stilted and dismissive language of the letter . . . but, of course, Juniper Modnar should have had no connection to the piece.

Which meant that Vera knew. Juniper held the CD in both hands, bending the slender plastic so that it bowed in the center, a grimace on her face. If she knew, then why the subterfuge? She'd have expected to get Disappeared with a cursory explanation to concerned parties of a sudden onset of illness or the like . . . or at least a lengthy stay down in the Basement until they were sure there wasn't anything left in her that would resist. But this . . . trite dismissal? It was clear that as far as the school was concerned, her efforts amounted to less than nothing. They felt they had nothing to fear from her blind exploration, that the very nature of the island would grind her up and spit her out long before they had cause for concern . . . and should they ever decide otherwise, they knew exactly where to find her.

The disc snapped in Juniper's hands as she squared her jaw. It seemed she was going to have to use a different approach in the future.