The Casebook of Kurumi Tokisaki Magic Detective

 

Table of Contents

Case File I: Detective Kurumi

Case File II: Doll Kurumi

Case File III: Ristorante Kurumi

Case File IV: Secret Garden Kurumi

Case File V: Auction Kurumi

Afterword

Detective Kurumi

“A letter arrived from the criminal, the spineless cur, stating that a tragedy will befall this estate tonight.” The man stood in the center of the spacious mansion’s great hall, yet his voice carried a long way.

Tall and in his midthirties, he had pleasingly symmetrical features, but the deerstalker on his head, the ulster coat he wore, and the antique pipe he held in one hand made him seem suspicious.

“However, please rest assured! So long as I, famed detective Sadayoshi Itami, am on the case, this reprobate shall not be permitted to terrorize these grounds!” he cried, sweeping his hands before him. His whole look screamed “detective.”

He was met with hearty applause.

“…”

Kurumi Tokisaki took in the scene from one corner of the hall, a trickle of sweat running down her cheek. She felt as though she were watching live theater. Or perhaps that would be an insult to playwrights. This sort of detective’s detective didn’t even exist in fiction these days.

But this was, without a doubt, reality. At the very least, it was true that a suspicious letter had been delivered to the mansion, and the owner had called in this man to investigate. Unless the owner was being lied to, this man was in fact a detective. His hiring seemed to indicate he was trustworthy to some degree.

That didn’t make him look any less dodgy, though.

“…?!” Kurumi gasped suddenly.

She wasn’t the only one. Everyone in the hall abruptly did the same.

This was only natural.

After all…

“…Hngh. Agh!”

…right as everyone was watching, the detective jerked his head back startlingly, and blood poured from his chest.

“Eeeaaah?!”

“H-he was shot?! Where’s the gunman?!”

“Watch out! Everyone, get down! Under a table!”

A heartbeat later, the hall erupted into chaos. A cacophony of terrified screams and angry roars filled the air. Panicked footsteps sounded out, tables were overturned, and glass shattered.

“Wha…?! It couldn’t be—?” Kurumi stood rooted to her spot, stupefied as she stared at the detective’s lifeless body, which had collapsed to the floor. Then a faint whisper slipped from her lips, “The Magic Marksman…?”

Her murmur went unheard, swallowed up in the commotion.

 

It all started one afternoon, three days earlier.

“You are Kurumi Tokisaki, yes?!” an overexcited voice called to Kurumi abruptly as she walked across Saito University’s campus.

Kurumi didn’t recognize the voice. She turned curiously to find a girl standing behind her.

“…”

She froze in place and stared.

This was only natural. After all, the girl had her long hair set in magnificent ringlets, and the dress she wore seemed quite out of place for a university campus—she was the very picture of a little rich girl. Plus, she had taken on an elegant pose, her left hand on her hip with the right extended toward Kurumi. The pose seemed a little too perfect, making the girl seem fishy.

Kurumi thought for a few seconds before she spoke, a smile on her lips. “You must have mistaken me for someone else.” She figured she was better off not getting involved. Kurumi turned and started away.

The girl didn’t give up. “Excuse me! Yoo-hoo! Please hold!” She hurried to cut off Kurumi’s path forward, the hem of her wide skirt swinging from side to side. “Wait just a moment, if you please! It’s pointless to feign ignorance! I have done my research! And you are Saito University first-year Kurumi Tokisaki!”

“And that would make you…?” Kurumi asked with a huff. It appeared this girl could not be shaken so easily. She would just draw attention if she continued to make a fuss, and Kurumi would much prefer that not to happen.

“My name is Matsurika Sukarabe!” the girl cried, looking quite pleased with herself, and snapped a finger out in a sharp pose. “I am also a first-year student here! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance!”

Kurumi gazed at her warily. “What business do you have with me exactly?”

“Why, thank you for asking! I have a favor to ask of you!” Matsurika responded instantly as she pulled an envelope from her pocket.

“What’s that?”

“A mysterious, threatening letter that was delivered to our home the other day!”

“…And?” Kurumi stared at her blankly. What was this girl getting at?

Matsurika seemed unbothered by Kurumi’s lack of reaction. “I would like you to conduct an investigation to learn the identity of whoever wrote this letter!” she continued. “Of course, I can provide compensation! I’ve prepared a sufficient token of my grati—”

“Can we pump the brakes, please?” Kurumi interrupted. “Why exactly do you want me to investigate? Wouldn’t a police officer or a detective be able to help you out?”

“The matter has already been reported to the police, and a detective acquaintance of my father’s has also agreed to investigate!” Matsurika chirped.

“…Isn’t that enough?”

“I, too, wish to contribute to the investigation!”

“…I don’t follow your train of thought at all, but I do see what you’re asking,” Kurumi managed, despite the slight headache she felt coming on. “Why come to me for an investigation, though?”

“Your name was given to me by a certain someone!” Matsurika cried.

“A certain someone?”

“A cool and talented woman is all I shall say!”

“…”

The first person that came to mind was Kurumi’s classmate, Origami Tobiichi. Ever since starting at Saito University, Origami had gained a reputation as a genius. Matsurika had most likely first gone to discuss the issue with her but was turned down and sent Kurumi’s way.

 

 

 

 

 

“Good grief.” She sighed. “She’s really foisted some trouble on me.”

“The moment that fine woman saw the letter,” Matsurika continued, “she declared it to be the jurisdiction of one Kurumi Tokisaki!”

“My jurisdiction?” Kurumi furrowed her brow ever so slightly. While dealing with Matsurika was annoying, she couldn’t imagine Origami saying a thing like that without good reason. “May I see this warning letter?”

“Certainly!” Matsurika nodded theatrically and handed her the envelope.

After scrutinizing the exterior, Kurumi pulled out the paper inside and dropped her eyes to the page. In a rather ordinary typeface, it read:

MAY 18.

TRAGEDY WILL BEFALL THE SUKARABE HOUSE.

THE MAGIC MARKSMAN.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy in the letter. It was written to sound quite meaningful without making any actual, specific threats. The name of the sender, however, was quite curious.

“The Magic Marksman?” she read aloud.

“Yes. That’s Weber, is it not? Oh!” Matsurika raised her eyebrows in sudden realization. “Could the culprit be an opera fan perhaps?!”

The Magic Marksman was indeed an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. This was likely where the snooty perp had gotten their name.

The instant Kurumi saw the name, though, an entirely different thought flitted through her mind.

“You don’t think…?” she murmured, abruptly sinking into thought.

Matsurika tilted her head. “Is something the matter?”

Preposterous. It’s just a coincidence.

But for some reason, the sinking feeling deep in her heart would not allow her to simply let this go.

“…I accept,” she said finally.

“What?”

“I accept your request,” Kurumi repeated. “Please tell me everything.”

“…! Really?!” Matsurika’s face lit up, and she clasped Kurumi’s hand firmly. “Aah! I could cry! To drive off the darkness, intelligence and love and a teensy bit of violence are precisely what one needs!”

Her dramatic response made Kurumi already regret her decision, but… Well, that ship had sailed. There was nothing to be done now.

She shrugged with an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes. “Allow me to ask you this: Why do you speak so formally? No matter how noble or wealthy the family, no one speaks so stiffly.”

“I believe you are the last person with the right to say such a thing!” Matsurika cried, exasperation increasing her volume tenfold.

 

“…”

Shortly after the murder of the detective, Kurumi sat in one of the Sukarabe mansion’s many rooms, deep in thought.

He had been in the very center of the hall—everyone in attendance watched him get shot. That was the long and the short of it. Police officers and the family’s own security guards alike witnessed it. The number of angles available to the shooter had been limited. They would likely find the culprit soon enough.

For some reason, though, there was something off about the situation—like a loose tooth she couldn’t stop poking with her tongue. Kurumi stroked her chin as she sank deeper into thought.

At least, she tried to.

“Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah! Wh-whatever shall we do?! What is to be done?! A major crime has occurred in my home!”

This wasn’t exactly an ideal environment for brainstorming.

Matsurika shouted and flapped her hands as she whipped her head around, perhaps seeking somewhere to rest her gaze. Kurumi sighed briefly as she turned toward her.

“Please calm yourself, Matsurika,” she said evenly.

“You expect me to remain calm after a man was shot before my eyes?!” she shrieked. “How in the world are you so composed, Kurumi?!”

“I’m used to these things.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Kurumi said absently and scanned the room once again.

Everyone of note in the hall during the shooting was here with them now—Matsurika’s mother and father, four servants, and two bodyguards. A total of ten, including Kurumi and Matsurika. The police officers who had also been present were currently investigating the crime scene.

After the shooting, they couldn’t exactly stay in the hall until it was secured, but they also couldn’t simply go their separate ways—they were all key witnesses. Thus, after being given routine pat downs, they had all been shunted into a room in a different wing. The room was plenty large and furnished nicely enough, so they were comfortable at least.

That said, however, no one looked particularly relaxed. No one was as panicked as Matsurika with her shouting, but Kurumi could tell that they were all trembling slightly.

“…The Magic Marksman,” she murmured.

If it had only been the mysterious letter, that would’ve been one thing, but a man had been shot. Common sense dictated she leave this matter to the police. But an unexplained shooting occurring hot on the heels of the arrival of a warning letter from someone called “The Magic Marksman”…? Kurumi was deeply unsettled.

She took a deep breath. “Matsurika,” she said.

“Y-yes? What is it?” She turned toward Kurumi with wide eyes.

“You said you wished for me to identify the person who sent the letter, yes?”

“Y-yes, I did,” Matsurika replied, sweat beading on her forehead.

Kurumi exhaled shortly and stood up from her chair. “I suppose this should have been that detective’s job, but…seeing as he is no longer with us, that no longer appears to be an option. Your humble Kurumi shall solve this case.”

Kurumi left the annex building with Matsurika and walked toward the crime scene.

Yellow tape, the kind often seen in police procedurals, stretched across the entrance to the hall, and she could see several detectives and police officers. She poked her head in. Noticing her, a middle-aged man in an unseasonably warm-looking overcoat walked over to them.

“Hey, whoa. Hold up. You were in here before, yeah?”

“Yes. My name is Kurumi Tokisaki,” she told him. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to take a look around.”

“What?” The man frowned. “Obviously, I can’t let you do that. We’ll come get your statement later, so go sit tight—”

“Oh my!” Matsurika cried as she popped her head out from behind Kurumi. “Couldn’t you spare her just a minute, Uncle Sada?”

“…?!” The moment the man—Sada, apparently—saw Matsurika, his attitude changed abruptly. “M-Miss Matsurika!”

“Kurumi is a detective whom I’ve hired,” Matsurika explained. “I’m certain she’ll be quite helpful.”

“…Aren’t there enough detectives?” Even when Sada replied with the most obvious question, Matsurika showed no sign of balking.

“Here we have one detective for each generation!” she crowed.

“S-sure, right,” Sada said placatingly. “But we have no idea where the shooter might be hiding. I can’t expose you and your friend to that kind of danger.”

“Oh my! I’m certain we’ll be fine in the company of so many excellent officers.”

“B-but, Miss—”

“Am I really not allowed?” Matsurika asked with puppy dog eyes.

A baffled look flashed across Sada’s face, but eventually, he sighed in resignation. “…Just this once. On two conditions: You stay where I can see you, and you don’t touch anything.”

“Absolutely!” Matsurika beamed. “Right, Kurumi?”

“Yes, yes. Understood.” Kurumi nodded and stepped into the hall with Matsurika in tow. Sada trailed after them, shaking his head.

“…Well done, Matsurika,” Kurumi whispered. “You got us access to the crime scene.”

“Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh! A big family can be quite convenient, you see!” Matsurika replied with a high-pitched laugh. Although she had been shaking like an anxious Chihuahua earlier, she appeared to have recovered to a degree.

The exchange between Matsurika and Sada did make Kurumi feel like she’d caught a glimpse into the darkness of a stratified society, but class issues aside, a stroke of luck allowed them to search the scene. She decided to reserve her commentary for another time and stepped forward.

 

A remarkably large bloodstain had bloomed like a red flower in the center of the hall, right where the detective had been shot.

 

 

 

 

“Hmm.” Kurumi recalled the incident as she circled the stain. “Mister…Sada, was it? What is the detective’s condition?”

“Huh? Oh.” Sada shook his head. “We’re still waiting on a call from the hospital with the details, but it looks like he’s hanging on.”

“Wonderful news. It is strange, though, don’t you think?” she continued. “Rather than a member of the household, the victim was the detective who just so happened to be newly hired. Could this mean the perpetrator chose their target at random?”

“We’re currently looking into that.”

“Hmm. Still, this could be a blessing in disguise, no?” she said. “To me, it looked as though he was shot precisely through the heart.”

“Ah, yeah, that.” Sada frowned, like something about this bothered him as well.

“I take it you have some concerns?”

“Concerns?” Matsurika chimed in.

“The gun used in the crime,” Sada reluctantly continued. “It’s a strange one.”

“How so?” Kurumi asked immediately.

“I doubt you ladies would have heard of it.” He spoke slowly. “You don’t see too many of ’em these days. Uses what they call lead shot. It’s basically an antique.”

“In other words, the gun used in the crime was an old-fashioned muzzleloader?” Kurumi asked, and Sada’s eyes widened in surprise.

“You sure know your stuff.”

“All part of a young lady’s education.”

Kurumi shrugged before raising her eyebrows suddenly. “Wait just a moment. If the firearm and the ammunition used in the crime were such antiques, there must have been another element present at the time of the shooting.”

“Another element…?” Matsurika tilted her head curiously.

“Yes.” Kurumi nodded and continued. “The gunshot.”

“Oh…” Matsurika slowly bobbed her head up and down. “Now that you mention it, I didn’t hear any such sound when he was shot.”

“Wait, what?” Sada scowled. “There was no gunshot? You sure you just didn’t hear it because of some other noise?”

“Quite sure,” Kurumi told him. “If you find this difficult to believe, please do ask the other people who were present at the time. I had assumed the shooter used a silencer or something similar. I’ve never heard of a silencer for a muzzleloader, though.”

“All of which means…what exactly?” Matsurika asked slowly.

“It means there was no gun to begin with, or it was fired from such a distance that the sound could not be heard.”

“I see! How brilliant of you, Kurumi!” Matsurika squealed, clapping her hands together. Then, noticing Kurumi and Sada’s troubled expressions, she slowly lowered her hands and tilted her head. “Erm. Is there something odd about that?”

“…Yes,” Sada replied. As he continued, a deep crease formed between his eyebrows. “Naturally, shooting a bullet without a gun is a tricky matter. Say you launch it using a slingshot or something like that. It still won’t have the force of a bullet fired from a gun.”

“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.” Matsurika nodded vigorously.

“And we investigated the trajectory of the bullet—there was no place outside the house where the shooter could’ve gotten the shot off. Not to mention, there are no broken windows or bullet holes. Security on the premises is strict, and there are no signs of anyone breaking in, nor persons of interest inside the house. And no mechanism to remotely fire a gun anywhere, of course.”

“All of which then means…” Matsurika stroked her chin thoughtfully, then scowled. “What does all of that mean?”

“It means the sniper theory is unlikely,” Kurumi told her. “It’s also vanishingly unlikely that anyone in the hall fired a gun, and it appears that no intruder slipped inside to do the deed.”

“I see! Absolutely brilliant, Kurumi!” Matsurika clapped her hands together just as she had a moment earlier. But then she came to a fuller understanding of Kurumi’s words, and sweat immediately began to drip down her face.

“…Does this mean that it was impossible for anyone to have committed this crime?” she finally said.

“Essentially, yes,” Kurumi said, lowering her gaze.

Matsurika crossed her arms and tilted her head so far to one side that the rest of her body had to lean as well, too.

Presuming the laws of physics applied, this incident was utterly inexplicable. It was a so-called impossible crime. But the shooting had in fact occurred, which meant someone had to have pulled the trigger somehow.

“The Magic Marksman,” Kurumi murmured the name inscribed on the letter. “Quite audacious to call yourself that in front of me.”

 

A magic bullet. A projectile imbued with a spell so that once fired, it would avoid every obstacle, hitting its mark without fail, no matter how the target attempted to flee. A homing missile with one-hundred-percent accuracy.

The hunter in Weber’s opera, The Magic Marksman, is taught how to make such a bullet by the demon Samiel. Of course, from the perspective of a normal individual, such a weapon existed strictly in the world of fantasy. But what if it did exist? What if someone did have such a weapon? Weber’s work gave shape to the dreams and fantasies of people who asked themselves these questions.

Of course…

“…”

Kurumi sat down in a room neighboring the one they’d been made to wait in earlier inside the Sukarabe annex building as she mulled over the case. Matsurika sat down beside her while Sada and one of the servants sat across from them.

“Where were you in the hall, and what were you doing when the incident occurred?” Sada asked the servant.

“Y-yes, sir,” the servant replied nervously. “I was around this area…”

Indeed. Having finished their rather simple inspection of the crime scene, Kurumi and Matsurika were now sitting in on the police interrogations of the witnesses in the hall at the time of the shooting.

Normally, a pair of university students would never have been allowed to be present during such questioning, but Matsurika’s pleas had secured them yet another exception. Well, that, and the fact that no one would lodge a complaint since everyone being questioned was part of the Sukarabe household.

“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.” Matsurika nodded meaningfully as she scribbled down notes. “It would be seemingly impossible to carry out the crime from that position. Wouldn’t you agree, Kurumi?”

Called on so abruptly, Kurumi jumped a little.

“Kurumi?” Matsurika frowned. “Is something the matter?”

“Oh, no. Just lost in thought,” she said. Her head had begun to tilt downward at some point, so she brought it back up to sit attentively upright.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t been listening; she just honestly doubted they would gain any meaningful information by questioning the witnesses.

Sada appeared to be thinking similarly, as though he were talking to them because they didn’t have any other leads. Matsurika alone was tightly wound, nodding at every word and taking notes on all of it.

“Did you hear anything that sounded like a gunshot?” Sada asked procedurally.

“A gunshot? No, I don’t think there was anything like that…” The servant raised her eyebrows into an inverted V. This testimony matched that of the other nine witnesses. But then the servant lowered their eyebrows, frowning as if she’d remembered something. “Umm. By gunshot, you mean the kind of bang you’d hear in a movie, yes?”

“Yes.” Sada nodded and leaned forward. “The explosive sound of gunpowder igniting. Did you hear something, after all?”

“Well…,” the servant said slowly. “I guess it would have been the day before yesterday. I was doing the cleaning, and I heard a sound like a snap or something.”

Sada sighed and leaned back. “The day before yesterday? That does seem to be unrelated.”

“Y-you’re right. I’m sorry.” The servant shrank into herself.

“It’s fine,” Sada said and moved on to his next question.

After going through the same questions and answers as he had with the other witnesses, this last interrogation came to an end.

“Er. Umm,” the servant finally said. “I think that’s about it.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Sada said. “Would you please remain in the room next door until you’re told otherwise?”

“Y-yes, sir…” The servant stood up and bowed neatly before leaving the room.

Kurumi and Matsurika had been questioned earlier, and they had now heard the testimonies of everyone in the hall at the time of the shooting.

Sada looked at his notebook filled with scrawled words and scratched his head. “Well, I pretty much expected this, but it looks like no one was up to anything in there.”

“Indeed,” Kurumi agreed. “I would have noticed if anyone present did anything suspicious. I don’t believe my senses are dull enough to overlook signs of a gun.”

“Ha! You just get back from a war or something?” Sada’s shoulders shook with mirth, and he gave Kurumi a wry grin, clearly taking her words as a joke.

She smiled politely. “Something like that.”

Then the door opened abruptly, and a police officer barged inside.

“Detective!” he said excitedly. “We may have found the murder weapon!”

“…!”

Kurumi, Sada, and Matsurika shared a look.

“Where?” Sada demanded, standing up. “Show me.”

“Yes, sir! Right this way!” The officer started to walk away with Sada on brisk feet. Kurumi and Matsurika nodded at each other and went after them.

The officer seemed surprised by the girls’ company, but seeing as Sada showed no signs of protest, he gave no reaction apart from a perplexed look.

They entered the main building, went up to the second floor, and walked down a long hallway until they arrived at a room at the far end.

It appeared to be some kind of storage space. While it was full of expensive furnishings, they were simply lined up from one end of the room to the other rather than being arranged for actual use. Two finely engraved muskets adorned the far wall, barrels crossed.

“This?” Sada asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, sir.” The officer nodded. “We found traces of recent use on the gun on the right. But no fingerprints.”

“Uh-huh…” Sada glanced toward the door they’d just come through as he stroked his chin. “So the shooter took this gun—or hid it somewhere in advance—and shot the detective. And then they took advantage of the confusion afterward to return it to this room. Is that it?”

“That would be remarkably inefficient.” Kurumi crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.

“There’s no guarantee the shooter would act in the most competent manner,” Sada shot back, furrowing his brow. “Or do you mean to say there was some other, better way of doing it?”

“Let’s see…” Kurumi stuck out the index finger and thumb of her right hand to mimic the shape of a gun and aimed down the hallway. “Let’s say, for instance, they shot the detective in the hallway immediately upon exiting this room. Is that not a possibility?”

“What?” Sada scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous. Do you know how far this room is from the hall? And at the risk of stating the obvious, bullets only fly in straight lines. That hallway twists and turns, and there are walls everywhere. There’s not a bullet in the world that could get to someone on the other side of all that.”

“…” Kurumi was silent for a moment before sighing. “Well, that much is true.”

“I mean, come on…” Sada gave her an exasperated shrug while Matsurika placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“It’s all right,” she said. “There is a time in the life of every young maiden when she tends toward dreams!”

“…I appreciate the sentiment,” Kurumi replied. Matsurika beamed at her, prompting a wan smile from Kurumi.

“At any rate, if this is the gun used in the shooting,” Sada continued, “then the shooter would have had to come here after the fact. Miss Matsurika, the house has security cameras, yes?”

“What?” Matsurika turned to him in surprise. “Oh yes. There’s the matter of privacy inside the rooms, but the hallways are equipped with such devices.”

“That’s more than enough. You! Go check the tapes. Everything from the shooting until now!” Sada barked at the police officer.

“Yes, sir!” He gave an exaggerated bow and left the room.

“So there was absolutely nothing in the footage,” Matsurika said, her voice rueful.

“Not a thing.” Kurumi sighed in agreement.

Indeed. They’d gone to check the security camera footage straight away, but they’d found no sign of the shooter. Nor had they seen anyone suspicious lingering in front of the room with the guns or anywhere else at the time of the incident.

They were back to square one. Sada scowled and scratched his head as he instructed the officers to go over the whole place again with a fine-tooth comb.

Kurumi and Matsurika were walking around the main building. They had set out to have a look at the exterior of the room in question. Seeing it anew from the outside, Kurumi realized the house was quite large, and the lot it stood on, even more so. She felt like she was in a park or a bit of forest.

“But…I don’t understand,” Matsurika said, looking puzzled as she walked alongside Kurumi. “We think the gun in that room is the one used in the crime, right? Which means the perpetrator would have had to go there after the shooting, just as Uncle Sada said, yes? And yet there was no such person on the security video. What on earth could that mean?”

“There are several possibilities.” Kurumi didn’t slacken her pace as she glanced around. “One is that there is a route out of sight of the security cameras or perhaps some hidden passage.”

“A hidden passage? I’ve lived here for many years, but I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“It’s merely a possibility. Another possibility is that gun was not used in the shooting.”

“…!” Matsurika gasped. “Do you mean to say the perpetrator deliberately left traces on the gun to throw us off their trail?”

“Yes.” Kurumi nodded. “The shooter leaves some rather ostentatious false evidence, and while the police are busy investigating that, they dispose of the real murder weapon. Considering this was a premeditated crime, it’s not out of the question. Then there’s the third possibility.”

“Th-the third possibility?” Matsurika asked, gulping.

Kurumi shrugged. “They used the gun in some manner which has not occurred to us.”

“I—I see!” Matsurika’s eyes widened as she spoke, but she then quickly realized what Kurumi’s words implied. A bead of sweat rolled down her cheek. “…Doesn’t that mean we know nothing?”

“That very well may be the case,” Kurumi replied nonchalantly and kept walking.

After a while, they reached their objective: the lawn outside the room with the guns.

“Hmm.” She put a hand to her chin thoughtfully. “Position-wise, we are below the room with the guns, yes?”

“Yes,” Matsurika replied as she mimicked Kurumi and looked up at the second floor. “However, there doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary here.”

She was exactly right. Well, it wasn’t as though Kurumi had expected they would find any significant clues here; she’d simply had no other leads.

That was, until she spotted something. She narrowed her eyes. “…Hmm?”

“What is it, Kurumi?” Matsurika asked nervously.

“Take a look there. Do you see something on the windowsill?” Kurumi pointed toward the window.

Matsurika squinted and stared long and hard before slowly saying, “It’s…a leaf. Yes, a leaf.”

A single leaf was wedged between the bottom of the window and the windowsill.

“…”

Kurumi furrowed her brow the tiniest bit. In and of itself, it was a perfectly ordinary leaf. Nothing particularly strange, especially considering the many trees in the area. But the vibrant green of the leaf seemed to indicate that not much time had passed since it had been caught there.

“Matsurika,” she said. “Do people often go in and out of that room or open the window to air it out? Anything of that nature?”

“No.” The other girl shook her head. “It’s mostly a storage room at this point. We don’t often go insi—Ah! Is this perhaps an important clue?”

“…I still can’t say,” Kurumi replied, tilting her head slightly. “We’ll take a photo at least.”

She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the window. Matsurika did the same, but when she did, she crouched down and posed like a professional photographer.

After that, they continued to walk around the house until they were back at the front door. There was Sada again, hard at work.

“Huh?” He looked up when he heard their footsteps. “Oh, Miss Matsurika. Where were you?”

“Kurumi and I went to examine the exterior of the house for clues!” Matsurika replied, practically vibrating with excitement.

“I-is that right?” Sada reeled as if overwhelmed. “Miss, I do appreciate your enthusiasm, but as I told you before, we don’t know whether the shooter is still on the premises. Please don’t go wandering around on your own.”

“Oh, please forgive me!” Matsurika apologized, lacking sincerity.

Sada continued after a sigh. “…A lap around a house this big must have been quite the trip.”

“Is it…big?” Matsurika asked with a blank look. “I would say it’s rather average.”

Her intention wasn’t to boast or challenge Sada. This was simply what she considered an average-sized home.

Sada also seemed to understand this, given how he merely smiled awkwardly in response… Well, given that she’d lived here since she was a child, it probably was average to her.

“It is actually quite a grand house,” Kurumi remarked. “Take a look at the time. While we did stop briefly on our way round, doing a single lap of the building took nearly five minutes—”

Kurumi stopped abruptly as an idea flitted through her mind.

“A single lap?” she murmured to herself and lifted her head.

It was an absurdly preposterous thought. If someone had suggested such a theory to her, she herself might have dismissed it as utterly ridiculous. But the moment it popped into her head, numbers began racing through her mind.

“It can’t be…”

Her mental calculations produced a result, and in an instant, Kurumi took off at a sprint. She slipped between Matsurika and Sada and into the main building.

“Huh?! Kurumi, what is the matter?! Kurumiii?!”

With Matsurika’s confused cries at her back, Kurumi ran as fast as she could.

Monitors lined one wall of the security office on the first floor of the Sukarabe mansion, showing feeds from various locations within the building.

“…”

After barging into the room, Kurumi stared hard at the video on the monitors, then exhaled slowly.

“Goodness me. What have we here…?” she muttered.

The security guard looked at her, mystified. As she had requested, he was playing back a particular recording. “Erm,” he said slowly. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I did.” Kurumi nodded firmly. “I appreciate your assistance.”

“Glad to help,” he replied. “Why look over this footage, though? It’s got nothing to do with the investigation, does it?”

“Indeed,” she agreed. “Under normal circumstances, it would not.”

“…?” The security guard tilted his head curiously, but Kurumi merely thanked him again and left the office.

“Ah, let me think. I believe this is what a detective might say at a time like this…” The words spilled from her lips as she walked alone down the hallway. “I have solved this mystery.”

 

A few minutes later, an out-of-breath Matsurika stumbled into the room.

“Hah! Hah! Finally, I’ve caught up with you, Kurumi! You dashed off so suddenly…”

Matsurika had apparently been running around herself in search of Kurumi. Sweat was beading on her forehead.

Kurumi was waiting in the room at the far end of the second floor of the house. The room where the gun in question hung. Having finished her errand at the security office, she had climbed the stairs to return to this room.

“And…what is the matter, Kurumi?” Matsurika asked, breathing back under control. “You seemed quite ruffled.”

“I have identified the shooter,” Kurumi replied calmly.

“…! H-have you really?!” Matsurika was shocked. “Who is it?! Who shot the—?”

Kurumi held up a hand to halt the stream of questions. “‘There is a time in the life of every young maiden when she tends toward dreams.’ Those were your words, right, Matsurika?”

“Huh? Oh…yes,” Matsurika replied curiously. “What of it?”

Kurumi spread out her hands in a somewhat theatrical manner and continued. “Would you be so kind as to entertain my preposterous fantasy for a brief moment?”

“Your…fantasy?” Matsurika frowned.

“Yes, yes. A little daydream hardly worth mentioning: What if there really was such a thing as a magic bullet?”

“…! The Magic Marksman!” Matsurika’s expression changed abruptly. “The signature on the threatening letter?”

“Precisely. A magic bullet. A projectile imbued with a spell so that it would avoid every obstacle once fired, hitting its mark without fail, no matter how the target attempted to flee. A homing missile with one-hundred-percent accuracy.”

Thinking rationally, such a thing couldn’t possibly exist.

Kurumi knew, however, that there were mysteries in this world that defied human logic. After all, until a year or so ago, she herself had not been a human being but rather a Spirit—a supernatural being heralded as a world-ending catastrophe.

She had been one of those unknowable mysteries. And in her possession had been two Angels that could have destroyed the world itself: Zafkiel, which allowed the user to tamper with immutable time; and Raziel, the book which gave the user knowledge of every event that occurred in the world.

During the time she’d spent with Raziel before she lost it, she had investigated as many of those events as she could and studied the magic that led to the generation of the Spirits and the secrets underpinning this world since before the development of Realizers.

While it was secondary to her objective, through this process, Kurumi had gained knowledge of a variety of mysteries and the numerous Artifacts magicians once produced. If her memory was not mistaken, there was even one known as a “magic bullet.”

“Say, Matsurika?” she said. “Hypothetically speaking, if something like that did in fact exist, how would you make use of it?”

“I-I’ve never considered such a thing before…” Matsurika creased her brow, bewildered.

Kurumi nodded as if that were the natural response and continued. “My apologies. Perhaps that was too sudden a question. Allow me to pose a different question. Detective Sada’s key concerns in this case can be roughly summarized into three points: who fired the gun, from where, and how.”

“Y-yes,” Matsurika replied slowly. “I suppose that’s correct.”

“However, if there actually were such a thing as a magic bullet, then there is one other issue with which we must concern ourselves. Do you know what that might be?”

“Hmm.” Matsurika crossed her arms and pondered heavily before eventually sighing in defeat. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. What would this new issue be?”

“Time,” Kurumi told her. “When was the gun fired?”

“When…?” Matsurika looked baffled. “Was it not at the time when the detective was shot?”

“That would be the case under normal circumstances, of course,” Kurumi agreed smoothly. “After all, when the trigger is pulled, the bullet is fired. That bullet then reaches its target in the blink of an eye. It’s all quite logical. That is precisely why neither Detective Sada nor we paused to consider the issue of timing.”

“I don’t understand,” Matsurika said impatiently. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

Kurumi held up the index finger and thumb of her right hand like a gun and turned the tip of her finger toward Matsurika. “Let’s suppose I have a gun loaded with a magic bullet. If I set my sights on you like this, Matsurika, and pulled the trigger, the magic bullet would chase after you wherever you tried to flee.”

“Th-that’s correct, yes.” Matsurika squirmed, somewhat uncomfortable. Her reaction was perfectly sensible. While it wasn’t an actual firearm trained on her, it still couldn’t have been pleasant to be staring down the barrel of an imaginary one.

“In that case…” Kurumi kept her face turned toward Matsurika as she twisted her torso slightly and aimed her gun-hand in the opposite direction, toward the window. “If I pulled the trigger now, what do you suppose would happen?”

“What?!” Matsurika’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why, the barrel of the weapon is pointed in the exact opposite direction! It couldn’t—”

“Yes. Were it a normal gun, the bullet could not possibly hit you. However, allow me to remind you—I am firing a magic bullet with one-hundred-percent accuracy. This masterwork is fated to continue flying until it finds its target, no matter the distance separating them.”

“In other words…” Matsurika stared, confused. “All of that is to say?”

Kurumi broke out into a grin as she gave voice to her utterly preposterous theory.

“The magic bullet did a lap around the globe to hit the detective.”

“Wuh…?!” Shock covered Matsurika’s face.

“The murder weapon appears to be a normal musket,” Kurumi continued. “The bullet’s initial speed would be three hundred thirty meters per second. The time required to circle the earth—a trip of approximately forty thousand kilometers—and hit the target while maintaining that speed would be around thirty-three hours and forty minutes.

“Furthermore, the bullet can evade any obstacle on its path. That explains why it passed through the vents to reach the hall. And that reminds me. Do you recall the testimony of the last servant we spoke with? They said they heard a snap the day before yesterday. If we consider the time between then and the shooting, that was most likely the actual moment the crime was committed, wouldn’t you say?”

“…” Matsurika gaped, stunned.

Her expression was so entertaining it caused Kurumi to chuckle to herself. “That face! Did I not tell you from the start this was a fantasy?”

As she spoke, she slowly lowered her gun-hand and turned back toward Matsurika.

“Now, then. Onto the heart of the matter.” Kurumi tapped at her phone with one hand. “Say, Matsurika, beloved daughter of the wealthy Sukarabe family, what was your purpose in visiting this room the day before yesterday?” As Kurumi spoke, a video began to play on her phone screen.

The security camera footage showed none other than Matsurika herself stepping into the room. The time stamp read the day before yesterday, a little before the servant heard the mysterious noise.

Indeed. When Kurumi scrubbed through the security camera footage, she found that outside of their earlier visit to investigate, the only person who had been in here over the last two days was Matsurika.

“Wha—?! I—I was—” Sweat beaded on Matsurika’s forehead as she watched the video.

“Please refrain from panicking,” Kurumi said calmly. “As I explained to you before, this is a dream, a fantasy. An impossible crime that could never be substantiated with modern science. Even supposing you were found to have pulled the trigger, not a soul in this world would believe the bullet hit the victim more than thirty-three hours later. The only crime you could be charged with would be illegal possession of a weapon. Howeeever…”

Kurumi grinned as she took a step forward and leaned in, her forehead nearly touching Matsurika’s, eyes peering into hers.

“It just so happens that I don’t dislike outsmarting people who are convinced they are safely above reproach.”

“…!” Matsurika gasped.

“If there exist Artifacts surpassing human knowledge, should there not, too, be people who know of their existence? I shall ask an acquaintance to examine you for any remaining magical signature. I do hope you are prepared to accept your just reward if the signature found on the bullet matches your own, hmm? Ah, of course, however, this is all mere conjecture, a daydream of mine,” Kurumi murmured with a sigh, within arm’s reach of Matsurika.

“…”

For a moment, Matsurika was frozen, trembling all over, but eventually, she parted her lips just a touch. “Wuh…?”

Kurumi stared at her. “‘Wuh’?”

“Wooonderful!” she cried, eyes glistening.

“…Huh?” Kurumi opened her eyes wide, and her jaw dropped. She certainly wasn’t expecting that reaction.

But Matsurika paid no mind to Kurumi’s shock as she continued excitedly, “Knowledge of Artifacts! The mental gymnastics performed based on the premise that they exist at all! The grandeur of your thinking! And above all else, the sheer lasciviousness with which you confront the suspect! All of it absolutely perrrfect! Although I should expect nothing less from someone so highly recommended by Lady Mathers!”

“…What did you say?” Kurumi frowned at the name. She had heard it before. “What is the meaning of this? Would you explain yourself?”

“Why, yes, of course!” Matsurika nodded theatrically, then plucked up the hem of her skirt and curtsied. “First, I would like to offer my apologies. I was in fact testing you. I had no other choice, you see. You were spot-on, Kurumi. It was I who fired that gun. But—!” Her eyebrows jumped up as though she had just remembered something. “Oh wait! Forget everything I just said. Let me take it from the top.”

“…?” Kurumi stared blankly. “Er, knock yourself out.”

Matsurika cleared her throat before striking a pose abruptly. “Heh! It seems you’ve seen through my little act. Yes. ’Twas I! The Magic Marksman now stands before you!”

“Did you really need a second take for that?” Kurumi asked slowly.

“Atmosphere is very important for this sort of thing!” Matsurika said, satisfied.

…Well, Kurumi could understand where she was coming from. She decided to move on.

“You are quite forthright in your confession,” she said. “What is this test of yours, then?”

Matsurika pulled out her phone and tapped at it before turning the screen toward Kurumi.

She was on a video call. And the person on the other end…?

“Ah, hello, Kurumi Tokisaki!” a man in a hospital bed said brightly. “I do apologize for kicking up such a fuss! I am in tip-top condition as you can see, so no need to worry! I was wearing a bulletproof vest, and the spray of blood was a transfusion pack! Please do look after our young mistress!” He gave her a thumbs-up.

No doubt about it. It was the detective who had been shot in the great hall: Sadayoshi Itami himself.

Kurumi looked up at Matsurika. “…You mean to say that he was a coconspirator right from the start?”

“’Tis correct!” Matsurika said even more excitedly.

“…” Kurumi was peeved. She grabbed Matsurika’s face between her fists and squeezed hard.

“That hurts!” the other girl squealed. “That really does hurt!”

“…I’d ask that you continue to explain,” Kurumi spat as she released the theatrical girl, and Matsurika scowled as rubbed the sides of her head.

“Er,” she began. “I should first say that we Sukarabes are descended from magicians.”

“Magicians?” Kurumi squinted.

Most likely, the magicians that Matsurika was referring to were not Wizards—Realizer-equipped soldiers with machinery embedded in their brains—but pure magicians. Magi. Kurumi never dreamed their descendants would be so close by.

“Oh, please do not misunderstand.” Matsurika waved her hands back and forth hurriedly. “My ancestors were magicians. We lost those powers over time. All that remains are bombastic records—which may or may not be fantasy or pure fabrications—and the Artifacts our ancestors collected.”

“…!” The look on Kurumi’s face changed. “Are you telling me there are other extant Artifacts besides the magic bullet?”

“While I would like to answer in the affirmative, unfortunately…” Matsurika lowered her gaze. “The truth is, the storehouse where our family kept and preserved the Artifacts burned to the ground.”

“You mean to say the Artifacts are all ash?” Kurumi asked.

Matsurika slowly shook her head from side to side. “We found no remains at the scene of the fire. Not even ashes.”

“…It’s possible that someone made off with the Artifacts, then? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes.” Matsurika nodded. “And if a person with evil intent were to use those Artifacts, they would easily be able to commit perfect crimes. Just as I shot the detective with the magic bullet.”

“…”

She was exactly right. Kurumi knew the magic bullet existed, which led her to her conclusion, but a case like this would normally go unsolved.

“Which is why,” Matsurika continued, “I brought the matter to Lady Karen Mathers of Asgard Electronics. We’ve been on friendly terms for some time since she, too, is a descendant of magicians.”

“…And she gave you my name,” Kurumi said with a pained expression.

Karen Mathers. She was the assistant of Ratatoskr chairperson Elliot Woodman and the younger sister of the world’s most powerful Wizard, Ellen Mathers. Not to mention, she was perhaps the world’s top Realizer engineer.

Ratatoskr’s information network was not to be underestimated. Kurumi wouldn’t have been at all surprised to learn that they were fully aware she had taken advantage of Raziel and completely devoted herself to her “side job” until she’d lost her Spirit powers.

“That is precisely it, yes. However, I did not know you personally. Thus, while it was extremely rude of me, I decided to use the sole remaining magic bullet to test you. To see whether you would be able to solve an Artifact crime,” Matsurika said and snapped a finger out at her. “Kurumi, I have yet another favor to ask of you. Impossible crimes will most likely be carried out with the assistance of Artifacts before long. Completely unaware of the existence of magic, the police will be utterly powerless. Please, I beg of you, use your powers to solve these cases!”

“…Oh dear, oh my.” Kurumi crossed her arms and sighed with displeasure. “First, you put me through this little test of yours, and now, you come to me with this utterly selfish request. To be quite honest with you, I would like to refuse, but—”

“But if the Artifacts are indeed out there, you cannot leave them be, yes?” Matsurika said with a grin, as if reading Kurumi’s mind.

She was right, and the look on her face irked Kurumi quite a bit. She arched an annoyed eyebrow. “Well, you’re just getting under my skin now, so I believe I’ll be turning your request down,” she said and marched past Matsurika.

“What? No! You were just about to accept, weren’t you?!” Matsurika pleaded. “Kurumi?! Kurumiii!”

Kurumi sighed heavily and muttered, “It all depends on the circumstances and conditions. Please contact me when there’s a real case.”

 

“…And? What exactly is this?”

A few days after the shooting at the Sukarabe house, Kurumi stood on the second floor of a mixed-use building at the end of Tengu’s main street, her face contorted in doubt.

Her skepticism was to be expected. After all, Kurumi was scrutinizing a door with TOKISAKI DETECTIVE AGENCY inscribed on it.

“Exactly what it looks like. Behold, your detective agency!” And of course, it was Matsurika who made this declaration while striking a dramatic pose. She was, as usual, dressed to the nines, her hair perfectly coiffed. Kurumi rolled her eyes.

“I meant why is this here?”

“Whatever do you mean, Kurumi?” Matsurika grew even more enthused. “Did you not make a promise to me that day? That you would risk your life to solve Artifact crimes that are beyond the ken of human law?!”

“I would never make such an impassioned vow,” Kurumi muttered.

“And what would be required to solve such crimes?!” Matsurika continued heedlessly. “Yes! A detective agency! Ding-ding! Bingo!”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“We shall investigate Artifact crimes from our base, here! I was quite insistent that it be on the second floor, you know!”

“…”

Realizing any protest would be futile, Kurumi sighed. And then she remembered a certain something.

“That reminds me, Matsurika,” she said. “Given that the detective was your coconspirator, does this mean your parents and everyone else also knew the truth?”

“Why yes, of course.” Matsurika bobbed her head. “It was a grand event. We mobilized the whole of the Sukarabe household!”

“…And Detective Sada and the other officers?”

“Uncle Sada and the others knew nothing! Realism was key, after all! Oh! Don’t worry! We explained the whole thing away as just a show put on by the detective to surprise everyone!”

“…”

Kurumi felt uneasy about working with this girl and heaved a heavy sigh.

Matsurika was not the least bit bothered.

“This is the grand opening of the Tokisaki Detective Agency! Now, say it with me!” she chirped. “Intelligence, love, and just a teensy bit of violence to drive off the darkness!”

Kurumi opted to stay silent.

 

 

 

 

 

Doll Kurumi

“I’m so pleased you all could make it.”

The tall woman bowed respectfully in the dimly lit lounge. Clad in an ebony-black suit, she carried an engraved candlestick in one hand, although this appeared to be more for dramatic flair than to illuminate the surrounding area.

“I’m the house steward. My name is Yoriko Ishigaki. I have been ordered by the mistress of the house to see to all your needs. If you have any issues during your stay, please come to me.”

Yoriko gazed around the large room.

“Now then, shall we begin with introductions? You already know of each other, but I believe this is the first time you are meeting face-to-face.” She looked to the person sitting directly in front of her.

A woman in the bloom of youth cleared her throat before speaking in a voice that carried. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Grimm. This is my daughter, Snow White.” She was dressed in Lolita fashion and gently stroked the head of the adorable doll on her lap.

While she wore all black, the doll was outfitted in a perfect copy of her clothes in white, making it stand out. It was almost as if the doll was the star, and she was meant to be nothing more than its accessory.

Or perhaps that was too much of a leap in logic.

The people gathered there were members of the doll aficionado group, Doll House. Naturally, Grimm was not the girl’s real name but rather an Internet persona—her handle.

It was unconventional, and her posts on the group forum were notable for their excess, but the girl herself was surprisingly mild-mannered. At first glance, no one would believe she was the author of posts such as “bliss wrapped up in eyeballs,” “are these bloomers too slutty?” or “I wanna lick those ball joints…”

There was a smattering of applause, and the person seated next to her opened her mouth.

“…Sasaki. And the fallen angel who danced down from the heavens, the † Patricide Anima †.”

She was slightly hunchbacked and had a goth-punk look. Dark circles were prominent under her eyes, either natural or makeup, and her wrists were wrapped in bandages. The doll beside her had what appeared to be handmade black wings on its back.

Sasaki was the name of the most prolific poster on the forum, the one who set the mood on the site. Always cheerful and enthusiastic, she was polite and kind to newcomers, and she was so skilled at heaping praise on others’ dolls that members would upload photos of theirs in the hopes of catching her eye. But in person, she was surprisingly taciturn.

The next to speak was a woman in a maid’s costume sitting on a chair further back.

“It’s nice to meet you. My name is Meimei. I’m a little pig. This is the lady whom I serve, Angelica. It’s a pleasure to be here.” She bowed as she introduced the gorgeous doll.

…Kurumi found it strange how casually Meimei made her introduction, but when she took a more careful look, she saw the girl was wearing a collar with a chain that led to Angelica’s hand. That appeared to be the story behind that doll.

Meimei was so opinionated and knowledgeable on the forum, Kurumi hadn’t expected her to have this sort of fetish. But when she thought back, Meimei did prefer photos from a very low angle when members uploaded pictures of their dolls. This was enough clarification.

“Now then, our final guest…”

And all eyes moved to Kurumi.

She fidgeted uncomfortably. This was to be expected. After all, she was currently wearing an outfit so hardcore and extra gothic Lolita that the clothing of the dolls nearly paled in comparison.

An excess of ruffles. A tight corset. Boots with soles so thick they invited the rise of a skeptical eyebrow. Lengthy extensions attached to hair tied up to both sides in drill-bit curls. All topped off with clusters of silver accessories everywhere and a sequined eye patch over her left eye.

 

 

 

 

 

…Naturally, it wasn’t that she wished to be dressed in this fashion. In fact, she would have loved to run screaming from the place that very second. But duty called.

She bowed her head, an awkward smile rising to her face. “…I am Kuruelle. This is my friend, Jasmine.” She motioned toward a doll with her hair in sumptuous ringlets.

The faces of those assembled in the lounge immediately lit up.

“Goodness! Are you the Kuruelle, the doll designer from overseas?!”

“What? The Kuruelle who has one hundred and three thousand dolls in her home?!”

“…The Kuruelle visited by the police after she kept going to the station and demanding they issue resident IDs for the dolls?”

The other girls raised their voices in excitement, and Kurumi forced a smile onto her face.

“Y-yes. It’s a pleasure to meet all of you…”

She recalled the events of the past week leading up to this moment, and her cheeks twitched.

 

“It haaappeeened!”

The office door flung open one afternoon, and a girl charged in with magnificent ringlets and a gorgeous dress. Her outfit practically screamed “little rich girl.”

Her name was Matsurika Sukarabe. She was Kurumi’s classmate and the daughter of a prestigious family. She was also Kurumi’s so-called patron and founder of the Tokisaki Detective Agency, whether Kurumi—the Tokisaki in question—liked it or not.

“Please keep your voice down. You’ll disturb the neighbors,” Kurumi said, rolling her eyes, as she slipped a bookmark into her book.

“Whoopsy! I do beg your pardon! How dreadful of me!”

Matsurika cried as she snapped into a staged pose. Her volume was unchanged.

Kurumi sighed in exasperation. “…So? Something happened?”

“We have a case,” Matsurika shrieked. “A case! There’s been an Artifact crime!”

“…!” Kurumi’s shoulders shot up.

Artifacts: the tools with mysterious powers once produced by magicians. Matsurika, the descendant of those magicians, had been the keeper of a number of them until a few months earlier, when they were stolen. Matsurika had then set Kurumi up as a detective to get the Artifacts back and to prevent those tools from being used in impossible crimes beyond the scope of conventional wisdom.

“What sort of case exactly?”

“Are you aware of the recent succession of people falling into mysterious comas?” Matsurika answered a question with a question.

“Comas…?” Kurumi frowned.

“Indeed.” Matsurika nodded. “It seems they’re being handled as unrelated incidents because they’ve all occurred in different regions. But through my own means, I’ve discovered a commonality among the victims.”

“What kind of ‘means’?” Kurumi asked suspiciously.

“A lady never tells!” Matsurika replied with an exaggerated wink.

Kurumi felt sweat beading on her forehead as she urged the girl to continue. “And what is this commonality, then?”

“They were all members of an online salon,” Matsurika said immediately.

“Online salon?”

“Yes. Doll House, a forum for doll aficionados.”

“Hmm. Dolls, you say?” A strange look rose upon Kurumi’s face.

Matsurika’s eyes widened with deep interest. “Do you perhaps also enjoy dolls, Kurumi?”

“…Not at all,” Kurumi replied, averting her gaze. Had she spoken honestly, she would have admitted that she had a phase, but Matsurika would no doubt be annoying about it, so Kurumi opted to keep it to herself.

“All right, then.” Matsurika let it slide. “At any rate, I thought this salon was suspicious, so I quickly registered as a member and began to gather information.”

“You leap into action almost reflexively, huh?” Kurumi noted wryly.

“Flattery will get you nowhere!” Matsurika puffed her chest out as her cheeks colored.

While Kurumi hadn’t intended that as a compliment, Matsurika seemed pleased, so she didn’t bother to correct her. “So what did you learn?”

“I’m glad you asked! It appears they occasionally hold small-scale meetings in real life where the salon host, Venus, shows off ‘living dolls’ to the participants.”

“Living…dolls?” Kurumi frowned and stroked her chin.

“Yes.” Matsurika nodded. “I haven’t seen them myself, but they apparently move all on their own. Almost as though they were actually alive.”

“…” Kurumi fell silent, her thoughts racing.

It was preposterous. Common sense would dictate this was an exaggeration on the part of the host or that the dolls were some kind of automatons. But…

“You have an idea as to what it might be, then?” she asked, finally.

“I do,” Matsurika said firmly. “The Artifact Galatea. It transfers a human soul into a doll.”

“Galatea…,” Kurumi repeated the name, as if rolling it around in her mouth.

In Greek mythology, Galatea was the name of the wife of Pygmalion, the king of Cyprus. An excellent sculptor, Pygmalion fell in love with the statue of a maiden he sculpted. Upon hearing this, an amused goddess gave it life. So the Artifact name made some sense. The magician who dubbed it this must have been quite the romantic.

“In other words, the coma victims had their souls transferred to dolls,” she said slowly. “Is that your thinking?”

“Yes,” Matsurika assented. “And that this is the true nature of these living dolls.”

“I see…” After thinking on it for a moment, Kurumi nodded subtly. “There might indeed be value in investigating these comas.”

“Don’t you think?” Matsurika’s face lit up with joy. “I expected you would say that, Kurumi! Let us dive straight into the investigation!”

“Mm-hmm. First, however, we must pinpoint the location of the administrator—”

“The next offline meeting is next week!” Matsurika declared quickly. “I secured an invitation, so you can investigate undercover!”

“…What?” Kurumi’s eyes widened. “Please wait just a moment. I am going undercover?”

“Well, of course! This is your chance to show off your skills as a detective! Oh! Your handle is ‘Kuruelle’! It exquisitely fuses you and the nuance of an angel while also sounding a bit like the word ‘cruel.’ I quite like it!” Her voice was free of malice as she explained. She even seemed proud.

“…” Kurumi let out a heavy sigh. Given that the handle Matsurika made was a play on Kurumi’s name, she had no doubt intended to make Kurumi go undercover right from the start.

That said, however, this wasn’t the first time Matsurika had taken the stranger of paths forward, and an undercover investigation would in fact be effective. She sighed again in resignation.

“…All right, then. What specific form does this Artifact Galatea take? What are the procedures and conditions for the transfer of a soul to a doll?”

“I haven’t the faintest clue!” Matsurika cried.

Kurumi’s eyes widened. “…What?”

“Just because they were stored in my home does not mean I have encyclopedic knowledge of each Artifact! The inventory register only listed the names and powers!”

“…In other words, Matsurika,” Kurumi said, clenching her jaw. “You’re telling me to go undercover—alone—to attend this meeting and find an Artifact, the appearance and activation method of which are unknown, all without being noticed by the host?”

“That appears to be the long and short of it, yes!” Matsurika responded excitedly.

Kurumi held her head in her hands for a moment before beckoning the other girl toward her. “Matsurika, come here for a second.”

“What is it?”

“Please take this pencil. Hold it so that it passes above and below alternating fingers.”

“You mean, like this?”

“Hmph!” Kurumi slammed her hand down on Matsurika’s.

“Auuuaaagh! Ow! That huuurt!”

 

“…I do find myself somewhat unsettled.” Kurumi sighed to herself in a private room of the building that clearly took inspiration from European architecture. This was the venue for the gathering of doll aficionados.

After the brief introductions and some chitchat, they had a break before supper, so Kurumi returned to the room she’d been assigned.

Yes. The in-person meeting of the Doll House online forum was much more involved than what Kurumi had envisioned. The venue stood alone in a forest quite some distance from town, and the event was slated to last three days and two nights. It was more akin to a short trip or a training camp than a casual offline meetup.

The isolated venue and the lengthy stay should have been ideal for Kurumi—it gave her plenty of time to find the Artifact—but she still felt off, a feeling perhaps enhanced by the generally creepy atmosphere of the building. She lifted her head and scanned the room.

“…”

A mirror hanging on the wall caught her eye. Without a word, she stood before it and stared at her reflection. Her outfit was an over-the-top thing that Matsurika had put together. Matsurika had said she’d gone all out on quirks and a gripping backstory to secure an invitation to the meeting, but even so, Kurumi couldn’t help but feel that this was simply too much.

“That outfit suits you so well, Kurumi!” came a familiar voice from behind, and she whirled around.

But there was no one there. Just an adorable doll sitting neatly on the chair.

“I was indeed not mistaken about your affinity for this. The other guests seem to have accepted you as one of their own,” the doll continued. The way it spoke so fluently, it was almost like one of the living dolls Kurumi was there to investigate.

But her doll, Jasmine, was no such supernatural creature. A camera and communicator had been installed inside of it, allowing Kurumi to speak with Matsurika, who was supporting her from the outside. Although with the clothes it was wearing and the way its hair was styled, Jasmine strongly resembled Matsurika, making it seem like the girl really had been turned into a doll to an unsettling degree.

“Quiet,” Kurumi snapped. “It will be quite the bother if the other guests overhear you.”

“My apologies! I’ll be careful from now on!” She was still speaking too loudly. Kurumi sighed.

“But it is strange, hmm?” she said.

“What is?”

“The host, Venus, wasn’t there to greet us.” Kurumi put a hand to her chin as she recalled the conversation earlier in the lounge.

Indeed. It had only been the four participants in the offline meetup, plus the steward who had been charged with their care; the key player, the event’s host, had been nowhere to be seen.

“Now that you mention it… Perhaps her arrival was delayed?”

“I hope that’s the case…” Kurumi picked Jasmine up. “At any rate, we do have this precious free time. Shall we have a look around? There might be some clues about the Artifact—”

Kurumi stopped abruptly and spun with a gasp.

“…? Is something the matter? You have no need for concern. I will refrain from speaking outside of the room.”

“No, it’s not that. I felt eyes on me just now,” she said, craning her neck. She was facing a blank wall without so much as a window or a door, much less any sign of a person.

“There’s nothing there. Could you have imagined it?”

“…Maybe so.” Perhaps she was a little on edge. She shook her head slightly to shift gears, then left the room with Jasmine.

The venue for the Doll House meetup was two stories tall. A large staircase directly ahead of the front door led up to the second floor, with a hallway stretching out to either side. On the right, as seen from the entrance, were the dining hall and lounge, and the guest bedrooms were on the left.

“Mm-hmm.” Kurumi did a lap around the hallways on the first floor, turning Jasmine’s head this way and that as she went. The doll’s eyes were equipped with miniature cameras. Matsurika might notice something Kurumi overlooked, and even if she didn’t, there was no harm in taking video of everything.

From an outsider’s perspective, she no doubt looked like an overly enthusiastic doll lover showing her doll the world around her. Equipping the doll with cameras and a radio had no doubt been a whim on Matsurika’s part, but it had turned out to be a surprisingly sensible decision.

“That appears to be the whole of the first floor. So then—” She was about to set foot on the stairs when a voice called out from behind her.

“Miss Kuruelle.”

“…!” A heartbeat later, she remembered that was her pseudonym and hurriedly turned toward the voice. “Oh, yes, I am Kuruelle. What is it?”

Standing there was the house steward, Yoriko.

“The second floor houses the mistress’s private rooms.” Her voice was smooth. “I would kindly ask you to refrain from going upstairs.”

“Goodness! Please do excuse me,” Kurumi replied with a bright smile. “It is a magnificent house. To think that I would have the opportunity to speak with like-minded ladies in such a place! I simply can’t thank Venus enough.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” Yoriko replied, smiling herself. “I have no doubt my mistress will also be delighted by your words.”

“And when will Venus be joining us?” Kurumi asked casually.

“I am told she will be arriving tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh dear. Oh my.” Kurumi furrowed her brow. “So she isn’t able to come today, then?”

“I do apologize.” Yoriko bowed neatly. “She had urgent business to attend to.”

“Is that right? Well, I’m looking forward to meeting her. Tell me, what is she like?”

“Well…” A troubled look rose on Yoriko’s face.

“Goodness!” Kurumi raised a concerned eyebrow. “Is something the matter?”

“The truth is,” the steward said slowly, “I haven’t actually met my mistress in person. When I interviewed for this position, it was with the chief steward, and all my subsequent instructions have been through someone else or e-mail.”

“…What?” Kurumi narrowed her eyes with deep interest. “Well, well… She is quite the shy one, hmm?”

“That very well may be,” Yoriko said with a pained smile. “Ah, yes, dinner is scheduled for six o’clock. After getting dressed, please make your way to the dining hall. Together with the little lady there, of course.” She flashed a smile at Jasmine.

Kurumi smiled in return as she bowed. “I do appreciate your consideration. Well then, we will see you at dinner.”

“Until then,” Yoriko said and left.

Kurumi waited until she was out of sight and sighed.

“A mistress whose face not even the steward has seen. This is growing more and more…questionable.”

“…It is? The host will be there tomorrow afternoon, though, yes?” came a curious voice from Jasmine.

Kurumi narrowed her eyes. “I just hope nothing happens before then.”

Six o’clock. When Kurumi arrived at the dining hall with Jasmine, three of the others were already there—Grimm, Meimei, and the steward, Yoriko. The dolls sat upon smaller chairs, likely for children, set next to Grimm and Meimei. Even doll seating had been taken into careful consideration. This was, after all, a meeting of doll super-enthusiasts.

Kurumi got Jasmine settled on a vacant chair before sitting down herself in the seat beside it. “I do apologize for the wait. My darling girl wanted to explore the mansion.” She gestured toward Jasmine, and Grimm and Meimei smiled gently.

“Hee-hee! So little Jasmine’s a curious one, then?”

“Shall we all take a walk around together after dinner?”

Under normal circumstances, Kurumi’s explanation would’ve raised eyebrows, but perhaps because these girls shared the same passion, no one suspected a thing. While the assembled guests were quite eccentric, Kurumi found them strangely comforting to be around.

“Now we’re only waiting for Sasaki,” Grimm remarked as though she’d suddenly noticed that herself. “She is quite late, though. Maybe something’s wrong?”

Now that she mentioned it, the seat across from Kurumi was in fact still empty.

“Indeed,” Yoriko said. “Shall I go call her?”

In the next instant, they heard a muffled cry from far off.

“Ungh. Aaah…!”

Kurumi and the other women looked at each other with sudden concern.

“…?! What was that?!”

“It couldn’t have been Sasaki?!”

“Something must have happened to her!”

They stood up as one, marched out of the dining hall with their dolls, and headed straight for Sasaki’s room.

“Sasaki? Are you all right?” Kurumi called as she twisted the doorknob. It wouldn’t open. Perhaps it was locked? She began to bang on the door. “Sasaki!”

“Miss Kuruelle! Here!” Arriving a fraction of a second later, Yoriko held out a key. Apparently, this was the house’s master key.

Kurumi took it from her, quickly put it into the lock, and turned it. She opened the door, and her eyes flew open. “Wha—?!”

Her shock was to be expected. After all, there lay Sasaki on the floor in the center of the room, lifeless.

“Sasaki!” Kurumi hurried over to her and cradled her in her arms.

She was breathing but unconscious. Her hair was a mess, tears stained her cheeks, and her body was covered in marks that looked as though she’d been forcibly pinned down. It was almost as if she’d been in a physical altercation with someone mere seconds earlier.

“Why, she’s…” Kurumi gasped.

“What on earth happened…?” Grimm said anxiously as she peered at Sasaki with Meimei.

“Is she unconscious?” Meimei asked, her face tight with worry.

“My apologies,” Kurumi said before slapping Sasaki’s cheek. “Sasaki, please wake up. Sasaki.”

But Sasaki didn’t so much as stir, much less regain consciousness. It would be no exaggeration to say she looked as though her soul had left her body.

“It can’t be—!” Kurumi felt a jolt at the sight, and the Artifact Galatea came to mind. “…I don’t know what’s happened, but this is definitely abnormal. Yoriko, please hurry and call an ambulance and the police.”

“R-right!” Yoriko raced off in a hurry.

Kurumi watched her go before she gently set Sasaki down and looked around the room. There were several issues of note.

One was that the door had been locked. And what she assumed was the key was sitting on the table. There was also a window, but it slid up and down, and given that it only opened about fifteen centimeters, it seemed unlikely a person would be able to enter the room through it.

In other words, until Kurumi unlocked the door, the room had been entirely closed off.

That wasn’t all. There was no sign of the one thing that absolutely should have been with Sasaki.

“Huh?” Grimm also seemed to notice the missing item. She furrowed her brow dubiously. “Where is little Anima…?”

Indeed. The † Patricide Anima †, the doll that most certainly never left Sasaki’s side, was nowhere to be found.

“…Oh my.” Kurumi arched an eyebrow. Sasaki’s face looked different. “Is this the same makeup she had on earlier?”

Perhaps Kurumi simply hadn’t noticed because Sasaki had kept her face downcast, but she felt like her lipstick was brighter than it had been before.

Soon enough, Yoriko returned, her face pale.

“Yoriko.” Kurumi looked up at her. “What’s the matter? You look terribly flustered. Did you call—?”

“Th-the phone is,” Yoriko interrupted, “disconnected.”

“What?” Kurumi said, frowning. Grimm and Meimei gasped.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“We were already out of cell range to start with. Do you mean the landline is also…?”

They looked at each other uneasily.

This was not good. Kurumi cleared her throat loudly to get their attention. “In that case, we’ll simply take her to the hospital ourselves,” she said, taking charge of the situation. “You have a car, no? Would you please drive, Yoriko?”

“W-we can’t,” the steward stammered.

“Why not?” The creases on Kurumi’s forehead grew deeper. “What do you mean?”

“The doors out of the house… None of them will open.” Yoriko announced this devastating news in a vanishingly small voice.

 

“…”

An unnatural silence held sway over the lounge. There were four of them in the large room—Kurumi, Grimm, Meimei, and Yoriko—and yet not one moved to speak. This was only natural. They still hadn’t fully processed the situation they found themselves in.

“Wh-what…on earth is going on?” Grimm finally said, breaking the silence with a hesitant voice. “Even if, for the sake of argument, we assume the landline simply happened to go out, it’s not possible for all the doors to be stuck shut, is it? …Oh! Is it some kind of prank? And Sasaki’s in on it? So she’s only pretending to be asleep?”

“I checked her eye movement. This is no prank,” Kurumi told her. “She is completely unconscious.”

“Ugh.” Grimm furrowed her brow. “What is going on, then?!”

“I don’t know any more than you do,” Kurumi replied. “But I think we can safely assume we’ve been locked inside this mansion by someone who means us harm.”

“Someone?” Grimm cried. “But who?!”

“I can’t be certain,” Kurumi said. “But I would place my bets on the host, Venus.”

“…!” Grimm glared at Yoriko harshly. “What exactly is the meaning of this?! This goes well beyond any sort of prank!”

“D-don’t look to me for answers. I know nothing of this!” Yoriko looked distraught. She didn’t appear to be lying.

“Please calm yourself, Grimm. Panicking won’t help,” Kurumi said in a quiet voice and narrowed her eyes as she thought through the situation. “Still… Where could Sasaki’s attacker have gone?”

“What?” Meimei widened her eyes curiously.

Kurumi put a hand to her chin as she continued. “Looking at the facts, we can say with near certainty that Sasaki was attacked. But the door to her room was locked when we arrived.”

“…If the attacker was Venus, then it wouldn’t be strange for her to have a master key as the owner of the house,” Meimei noted. “Couldn’t she have simply locked the door after she left?”

“But we left the dining hall the moment we heard Sasaki cry out,” Kurumi retorted. “Wouldn’t we have seen her attacker if she had left from that door?”

“Mmph.” Grimm scowled and crossed her arms.

Meimei’s eyebrows jumped up in sudden realization. “Wh-what if…?”

“Did you come upon something?” Kurumi asked.

“Oh, no. I know that it’s simply not possible, thinking about it normally, but…”

“That’s fine,” Kurumi reassured her. “Please go ahead and tell us.”

Meimei continued hesitantly. “The windows open up around fifteen centimeters, right? A person couldn’t get through that gap, but…maybe a doll would be able to… It’s silly, I know.”

“Huh?” Grimm said, annoyed. “You’re not actually trying to say that a doll is behind this, are you? That a doll snuck in through the window, attacked Sasaki, put her in a coma, and then escaped back out the window?”

“It’s just…” Meimei shrugged. “We did come here to see a living doll, didn’t we?”

“…”

A hush fell over the room once again.

Meimei dipped her head slightly, perhaps unable to stand the silence. “I’m sorry. It’s stupid. There’s no way a doll could do this.”

“No, it’s an interesting observation,” Kurumi said as she crossed her arms. Knowing of the Artifact Galatea as she did, that was the first thing she had thought of as well. “At any rate, let’s be on guard.”

“…Are you serious?” Grimm stared at her in disbelief.

“It’s a theory at best,” Kurumi told her. “This so-called ‘living doll’ could be a high-performance robot or something similar. There’s no harm in being cautious, is there?”

“Well…I suppose not,” Grimm agreed, still not entirely convinced.

But there was nothing to be done about that. Kurumi couldn’t exactly reveal to them the existence of Galatea. And even if she did tell them the truth, she had no reason to think they would believe her. Some compromises had to be made.

“What do we do now, then?” Yoriko asked, sweat beading on her forehead.

“We have to find a way out of this house, obviously,” Grimm replied, her expression stern.

“No arguments there.” Kurumi nodded in agreement.

Grimm was quite right, and Kurumi also welcomed the chance to search the house to locate Galatea.

“That said, however, it’s dangerous for us to move alone. Let’s ensure that we are moving in groups of two at a minimum.” As Kurumi spoke, Meimei raised a hand apologetically.

“Umm. I know this isn’t a good time, but I have to go to the washroom. Could someone accompany me? Oh! If you’d prefer, I could do my business right here…” Meimei’s cheeks flushed, and her breathing grew heavier. It seemed she would prefer her latter suggestion.

“…I’ll accompany you,” Kurumi said with a wry smile. “I know I just said we shouldn’t be alone, but the washroom window is only to allow light in, so I’m sure you’ll be all right in there. Please leave the door unlocked just in case of an emergency.”

“Oh! Yes.” Meimei’s cheeks grew even redder. “This is almost exciting…”

“Well then, off we go.” Kurumi turned to the other two women. “Grimm, Yoriko. Would you please collect any items that could be used as weapons?”

“Y-yes.”

“Understood.”

Grimm and Yoriko nodded. With Jasmine in one arm, Kurumi trailed after Meimei at the far end of the hallway.

“Okay,” Meimei said, turning to Kurumi. “Please wait here. I’ll be quick.”

“All right,” Kurumi said. “Shall I hold on to Angelica for you?”

“No, that’s okay.” Meimei shook her head. “I’m actually a little anxious. And…”

“And?”

“I haven’t been able to do my business lately unless I’m being watched by the scornful eyes of the young lady.”

“…Is that so?” Kurumi heaved a tired sigh. The world was made up of all kinds of people.

Meimei went in and closed the door, but there was no click of the lock, just as Kurumi had instructed.

Nevertheless, a minute or so later…

“Huh? Wh-what is this! Hngh!”

…she heard a muffled cry and a crash.

“…! Meimei?!” She didn’t know what had happened in the washroom, but she could tell the situation was urgent if nothing else. She grabbed the doorknob. “Wha—?!”

No matter how much she pulled, however, the door refused to open.

She was sure Meimei hadn’t locked it. And she very much doubted an old door like this would be equipped with a remote-controlled lock or anything of the sort.

“What’s the matter, Kurumi?!” came Matsurika’s panicked voice from Jasmine.

Scowling, Kurumi kept the knob turned as she threw herself at the door.

It gave no resistance, as though it had never been stuck in the first place.

“Guh!” Kurumi nearly fell over from her own momentum.

She had no time to waste, though. She stood up straight and peered into the washroom.

“Meimei…?”

Like Sasaki before her, Meimei seemed to have had her soul extracted from her body and was now leaning lifelessly against the wall.

“How…on earth…?” Kurumi furrowed her brow before lifting her face with a gasp.

The vent in the ceiling was wide-open.

“She couldn’t possibly have—” Kurumi stared in disbelief. “Through there?”

As if in response, Matsurika’s voice came from Jasmine once more. “Kurumi, there’s no sign of Angelica. And there’s red lipstick on Meimei’s lips…”

“…Honestly. What is going—?” Kurumi started and then drew a sharp breath at the sharp scream she heard from behind.

“Eeek!”

“…!” She whirled around. “Grimm.”

Apparently, Grimm had heard the commotion and came running.

“I do apologize. I let my guard down. Because of me, Meimei—,” Kurumi said regretfully before stopping mid-sentence. The terror in Grimm’s eyes was directed toward Kurumi herself.

“Y-you didn’t actually…? Kuruelle, are you…?”

“…! This wasn’t me. The door wasn’t budging.”

“It’s open now, isn’t it?!” Grimm cried shrilly, pointing at the washroom door. She took a step back. “Now that I think about it, Kuruelle, you were the one to open Sasaki’s door, too! Ah… And it was you who said the door wouldn’t open in the first place! We didn’t even touch it! Was it even locked to start with?!”

“Grimm!” Kurumi shouted to try and calm her. “Please relax!”

“Shut up! You’re not fooling me anymore! You’re the host, aren’t you?! You’re Venus!” Grimm snapped an accusing finger out at Kurumi. She would not be placated.

“…Please do remain sensible. That is beyond absurd. What proof exactly do you—?”

“Just now! Your doll talked!” Grimm cried, interrupting Kurumi. Her conversation with Matsurika had been overheard.

“…Er, that is—Well…” A trickle of sweat ran down her cheek. The host of the meetup, their main suspect for these attacks, Venus, had said she would show them a living doll. Then Grimm came across a speaking doll that happened to belong to Kurumi. It was no wonder she jumped to the conclusion that Kurumi was the culprit.

“…It’s not what you think,” she said finally.

“Suddenly not the smooth talker anymore, huh?!” Grimm glared at Kurumi. She was resolute in her conclusion.

Perhaps panicked by the turn things were taking, Jasmine spoke up from where she was nestled in Kurumi’s arms. “Please listen to me! This girl is not the culprit!”

“Aaah! The doll really does talk?!” Grimm shrieked and ran off down the hallway.

“…Matsurika.”

“…I’m sorry. I wanted to help clear your name, but…”

“…I appreciate the consideration.” Kurumi sighed at length.

This was not the time for dejection, however. She had to clear up this misunderstanding as soon as possible, and beyond that, it was far too dangerous to leave Grimm on her own right now.

Grimm had fled to the room assigned to her, so Kurumi quickly ran over and knocked on the door.

“Grimm, please listen to me,” she cried, pleading her case. “I am not responsible for this.”

But no matter how long she waited with bated breath, she heard no reply.

“She can’t actually be…” Kurumi had a sudden, terrible premonition and reached out to grab the doorknob tightly.

The door was apparently unlocked. It opened readily. And just as she’d dreaded, there, in the center of the room…

“Grimm…,” she murmured.

Like Meimei and Sasaki before her, Grimm was on the floor, unconscious.

“This is just…,” Matsurika said through Jasmine, her voice pained. “Now Grimm, too…”

Kurumi turned on her heel and ran down the hallway without bothering to examine Grimm. The reason was simple. There was something else she needed to check on first.

“Kurumi, where are you going?!” Matsurika cried.

“I don’t see Yoriko anywhere!”

Indeed. She’d left Yoriko with Grimm in the counseling office, and now she was nowhere to be found. Could Yoriko be the mastermind behind all of this? Or…

“…!”

Returning to the lounge, Kurumi looked around and gasped.

Yoriko’s unconscious body was slumped over in the small storage room at the back of the lounge. Her body was limp, her lips painted the same red as the other girls.

Kurumi could only infer what had happened, but most likely, Grimm and Yoriko had done as she asked and gone to look for anything that could be used as a weapon. When they heard the cry from the washroom, Grimm ran off to investigate by herself, and once Yoriko was alone, she was attacked.

Kurumi grimaced at the gruesome scene. “What on earth is going on here…?”

“I can’t believe everyone besides you is in a coma,” Matsurika said solemnly. Then she gasped. “Wait! Kurumi, it wasn’t actually you, right?”

“You’ve been with me this entire time,” Kurumi said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh! That is true, huh?”

“…”

Kurumi sank into thought. It was all but confirmed that the host, Venus, was in possession of the Artifact. But Kurumi had absolutely no idea where this Venus was or how she had attacked Sasaki and the others.

“Er, Kurumi?” Matsurika said hesitantly.

Kurumi let out a short sigh before responding, “…What is it?”

“Perhaps you should put them into their beds? They might catch a cold lying on the floor, and Meimei and Yoriko seem to be uncomfortable positioned as they are…”

“…I apologize, but I don’t have the time to—,” Kurumi started, and then her eyebrows jumped up. Looking back, she noticed a single commonality in all four attacks. “They all happened in a small area…?”

Yes. The locations were different—Sasaki and Grimm in their own rooms, Meimei in the washroom, and Yoriko in the closet—but they had all been targeted the moment they were alone in an isolated space. In other words, not one girl had been attacked when alone in the larger rooms or the hallway.

“There must be a reason—!” Kurumi stopped abruptly.

She heard tiny footsteps from the hallway.

“…! Who’s there?!” She whirled around, sharpening her gaze.

The other participants and the house steward were all comatose. Unless one of them had woken up, these footsteps were definitely not a welcome sound to Kurumi’s ears.

“Wha—?!” But even after bracing herself for the worst, she still couldn’t stop the cry of surprise from slipping out.

That was to be expected. She was, after all, looking at several dolls walking on their own two legs.

“Living…dolls…?” Kurumi murmured, a shiver of fear running up her spine.

“—, —”

“…, …, —”

“—, …”

The beautiful dolls were fitted in gorgeous outfits and were struggling to speak, but no sound came out of their mouths as they slowly closed in on Kurumi. There was no other way to describe the sight—these were living dolls.

She couldn’t get an accurate head count, but there were at least ten. Looking closer, she saw the missing Snow White, † Patricide Anima †, and Angelica among them.

“What on earth…?” She frowned slightly. She then realized the dolls weren’t attempting to attack her directly; they were instead threatening her to herd her to a different location.

“So it is the Artifact! Did they also come after Grimm and the others?!” Matsurika cried, bewildered. Even through a camera lens, the sight of numerous dolls closing in no doubt made for a fairly frightening sight.

“Well, I don’t know about that!” Rather than run from the dolls, Kurumi picked up a vase of flowers near the wall and threw it at them.

It shattered at their feet with a loud crash, sending flower petals and drops of water everywhere.

“…!”

“—,—!”

Perhaps the dolls hadn’t expected Kurumi to fight back. They ran away in a stunned panic until the lounge was at last silent once more.

“Oh my?” Kurumi raised her eyebrows in surprise as she noticed a candlestick by the door. It was probably the one Yoriko had been carrying.

Naturally, if it had been just the candlestick on the floor, she wouldn’t have paid it any mind. This candlestick, however, was moving its handle like an arm as it tried desperately to get out of the lounge. It looked like it had been left behind by the dolls.

“Wh-what is that…?” Matsurika said through the doll.

“…”

Kurumi walked over to it, wary and on guard, and picked up the candlestick.

“…!”

The candlestick squirmed and flailed in her hand… It was incredibly disturbing. But Kurumi nevertheless examined the object carefully and narrowed her eyes at a certain discovery.

“Well, hello…”

“A…lipstick mark?”

Yes. There were traces of red lipstick on the bottom of the candlestick.

“…Hmm.” Kurumi wiped it with a finger.

In the next instant, the squirming candlestick shuddered and fell still. It had returned to normal.

“—”

Kurumi gasped.

The Artifact Galatea. A tool to transfer a human soul into a doll. The comatose girls. The missing dolls. The traces left behind. Every bit of evidence led Kurumi to a single solution.

“It can’t be.” The words slipped out of her as she whirled her head around.

“Is something the matter, Kurumi?” Matsurika asked.

“…Yes. It is time to solve this case,” Kurumi replied. “I understand everything now. Perhaps even the method of the crime and where the culprit is currently hiding.”

“Really?” Matsurika gasped. “Where are they, then?!”

“Matsurika.” Kurumi exhaled at length and set the candlestick down on the desk. “Galatea is an Artifact that has the power to transfer the soul of a human being into a doll. Is that correct?”

“Y-yes, so?”

“Then I have another question. What exactly is a doll?”

“What…?” Matsurika replied. Her voice was coming out of the doll Jasmine, so it did look a little as though the doll was stunned when faced with the definition of its own existence. “Why… It’s an item modeled after the shape of a person… Is it not?”

“Precisely.” Kurumi nodded. “But perhaps first, the item resembles something else and is then defined as being modeled after the human form. Does it need a face? Limbs? The human brain will see a face in three simple dots.”

“In other words,” Matsurika said slowly, “a soul could potentially be transferred to any item, depending on the user’s perception of it… Is that it?”

“That is exactly it. The host of this meetup, Venus, has been here right from the start, having transferred her own soul into a certain item.”

“A certain item… What exactly?!”

Kurumi slowly turned her gaze up toward the ceiling.

“This house itself.”

The moment Kurumi said this, the house creaked and squealed and rattled.

“Eeek…!” Matsurika shrieked in terror.

But Kurumi continued speaking, calm as could be. “…I did think it rather strange. I felt eyes on me, and yet there was no one there. The doors opened and closed rather conveniently… But if the culprit is the environment itself, that would explain everything.”

“S-so then, the dolls earlier were…”

“Most likely, victims with their souls removed,” Kurumi agreed. “Snow White and Angelica were also among them. However, I don’t know if they were seeking assistance from me or being threatened by the culprit.”

As she spoke, she looked at the candlestick that had so recently been in motion.

“I would guess this candlestick is Yoriko or the previous house steward. Since there was no doll at hand, her spirit was perhaps moved to a random vessel. Thanks to this, however, we can surmise that a soul may be shifted to something other than a proper doll.”

“B-but how does knowing that help anything?” Matsurika shrieked. “The culprit is the mansion itself… We’re in the literal belly of the beast!”

“You’re exactly right, Matsurika. Anything we can see is our enemy. We’re in quite the pinch.”

“K-Kurumi…”

“That is, if my only desire is to escape.”

“What?”

Kurumi kicked off from the floor and ran from the lounge into the hallway.

“Kurumi, what are you—?!”

“If Venus has possessed this mansion, then I simply have to perform an exorcism.”

“Exorcism…? You mean—?!”

“Precisely. If my instincts are correct, there will be a Galatea mark somewhere in the house. If I can find it—” She cut herself off and leaped into the air as the walls of the hallway rippled, trying to knock her feet out from under her.

“Eeek?! Wh-what is happening?!”

“Heh-heh! It seems Venus no longer cares about appearances.” Kurumi twisted her lips into a grin and raced down the hallway, the hem of her frilly skirt swinging.

The floor shook, the walls swelled out, and furniture and tchotchkes went flying. It was almost like she was witnessing some kind of poltergeist phenomenon.

She understood now. Subduing her victims would be a simple matter, seeing how much control she exercised over the mansion’s interior.

She remembered that the scenes of the crimes had all been in the smaller rooms. Those spaces brought her victims closer to the walls and left nowhere to run, as opposed to larger rooms or hallways.

“Ahyaaa?! Hooo?!” Matsurika’s shrieks rang out from the doll tucked under Kurumi’s arm.

Kurumi sighed in exasperation. “Why are you screaming, Matsurika?”

“How can you be so calm, Kurumi?!”

“Well, I’ve been through a great deal. This is a far cry from overwriting the laws of physics or having a lethal beam fired at me.”

“What are you talking abooout?!”

Kurumi raced up the stairs, Matsurika’s scream trailing behind her.

The wooden staircase came crumbling around her a fraction of a second too late. Kurumi threw herself forward, landing in the hallway of the second floor, and used that momentum to kick down the bedroom door.

Yes. If the mark of Galatea was anywhere in this house, she felt it would likely be in the mistress’s off-limits bedroom.

“Let’s see…” Kurumi narrowed her eyes. “Bingo.”

On the wall on the far side of the room, she could see a red kiss mark.

“That’s… Is that the same mark that was on the candlestick?” Matsurika asked.

“Yes. Most likely, Galatea is an Artifact that takes the form of lipstick. I would assume you transfer the target’s soul by applying it and kissing the doll.”

Without exception, the victims all had on red lipstick. This was likely how their souls were removed.

“I see… In that case, we simply must wipe it away!”

“And then the connection between Venus and this house will be severed.” Kurumi continued. “This is the real do-or-die moment.”

The mark was on the far side of the bedroom, but Kurumi now stood in a scene remarkably similar to the previous victims. The walls in this smaller room were closer together, making it easier for Kurumi to be captured.

She couldn’t allow herself to be daunted by this and simply stand here in a daze, however. She took a deep breath and threw herself into the bedroom.

It seemed that her attacker had been waiting for this moment—in an instant, the bedroom walls, floor, ceiling, and furnishings all went on the attack.

“Ngh!” She nimbly danced up into the air to dodge, but eventually, she ran out of escape routes, and her legs got tangled up in the curtains.

“Kurumi!” Matsurika cried, her voice echoing through the suddenly cramped room.

Right after this, Kurumi heard a scraping voice from somewhere.

“I won’t. Let anyone. Have my friends.” The house creaked, and it sounded like human speech.

Kurumi flashed a bold smile, even as she struggled and twisted against her restraints.

“We finally get the chance to speak, Venus,” she said. “Although to be honest, I would have preferred to meet you in person.”

The voice grew louder. “I will. Make you. A friend, too.”

“Oh dear, oh my.” Kurumi narrowed her eyes and grinned defiantly. “You intend to make me a doll as well? Hee-hee-hee! Then I shall give you exactly what you desire.”

“What?” The voice had an edge of surprise.

Kurumi ran the thumb of her right hand over her own lips—the thumb she’d used to wipe away the mark on the candlestick.

“Artifact Galatea,” she said. “Please show me your power.”

And then with her lips painted red, Kurumi kissed Jasmine, the doll in her arms.

“—”

As though falling into a sudden slumber, her consciousness was instantly swallowed up by darkness.

But this was only for a moment.

“Oh dear, oh my.”

She took a risk, assuming the lipstick that had already been used would still be functional. That risk paid off.

Now inside Jasmine’s body, Kurumi spoke boldly. “So this is what it’s like inside a doll’s body. Hee-hee-hee! Eternal youth and eternal health, hmm? This is rather appealing.”

She flexed her ball joints and turned her gaze to the lipstick mark on the wall.

“But this is nothing more than a fleeting dream. It’s time to wake up now.”

“Eee,” a frightened voice cried, and the walls of the room shuddered.

Doll Kurumi nimbly danced across the room to the far wall. “I bid you adieu, Venus. The next time we meet, let it please be in person.”

Kurumi rubbed her clothes against the kiss mark and erased it.

 

“To drive off the darkness, (OMITTED) violence!”

A few days after the incident in the woods, Matsurika yanked open the door of the Tokisaki Detective Agency. As always, she was clad in a beautiful dress, and her ringlets were in top drill-bit form. In one hand, she held a silver attaché case.

“Please do not omit the critical part,” Kurumi replied, rolling her eyes as she slowly turned toward Matsurika.

Naturally, she was back in her own body now. She had transferred herself to Jasmine to solve the case in the mansion, but when she wiped away the lipstick mark, her soul was returned to her body.

She then did a thorough search of the rest of the house and discovered a number of living dolls in the empty rooms. Just as she’d suspected, they were all Doll House members whose souls Venus had forcibly transferred. After the lipstick marks on the dolls were wiped away, the souls had returned to their original bodies, too.

“Did you need something?” Kurumi asked dryly.

“Right. Here.” Matsurika set the attaché case down on the table and opened it.

Inside were a small, finely wrought bottle and a lipstick brush.

“And this is…?”

“The Artifact Galatea.”

“…!” Kurumi’s eyes grew wide in surprise. “You found the culprit, then?”

“Yes. We traced the paper trail back to the owner of the house,” Matsurika explained. “Her confession came surprisingly quickly after we confronted her with the evidence and interrogated her.”

“Is that so? What sort of person is she exactly?”

“Errr. I believe her name is Aimi Katashiro. She’s a junior high schooler.”

“…Junior high?” Kurumi frowned dubiously. “She was in possession of an Artifact that disappeared from your home, no? Wouldn’t that make her a conspirator in the robbery?”

“We will be doing an investigation into the particulars,” Matsurika told her. “But it apparently came into her possession thanks to a package that arrived addressed to her late grandfather.”

“Mm-hmm.” Kurumi cocked her head and crossed her arms. How was this girl’s grandfather connected to the Artifact thief? And they couldn’t discount the possibility that the girl was lying to shirk responsibility. “So, this Aimi, why on earth did she do this?”

“Apparently, she’s been quite sickly from a young age and hospitalized all this time,” Matsurika said. “She wanted friends, so she collected living dolls.”

“…Is that right?” Kurumi sighed, a faraway look in her eyes. “I do sympathize with her situation, but that is no reason for this kind of violent crime.”

She laughed self-deprecatingly. She spoke so virtuously in front of Matsurika, but she really had no right to act so high-and-mighty.

“Matsurika, please tell me in which hospital this Aimi is located.”

A bead of sweat rolled down Matsurika’s cheek. “I can tell you, but…since it’s possible she will be a key witness, I’d appreciate it if you would spare her life…”

Kurumi arched an eyebrow. “What do you assume I am exactly?”

“Hmm? What are you planning to do, then?” Matsurika asked curiously.

Kurumi lowered her eyes. “I thought I might make a new friend.”

 

 

 

 

 

Ristorante Kurumi

The flames of the candles on the table cast a bewitching light on the face of the woman sitting before them.

Actually, “face” was perhaps misleading since half of the woman’s actual face was covered by an elaborate mask. She wore a brilliant gown, and her hair was curled into magnificent ringlets. She looked like the queen of a cabaret or perhaps a guest at a masquerade. Her whole look was so obviously suspect that anyone who laid eyes on her would be hard-pressed to find anything that didn’t raise their eyebrows.

“Oh my!” The masked woman started under Kurumi’s gaze. “Is there something on my face?” she asked, cocking her head slightly. In contrast with her curious appearance, her tone was relaxed and friendly.

That was no surprise. The mysterious woman sitting across from Kurumi was none other than Kurumi’s classmate and patron, Matsurika Sukarabe.

“Yes, well,” Kurumi replied with a shrug. “You do have something rather ostentatious on your face.”

“What?!” Matsurika patted her face in surprise before realizing Kurumi was talking about the mask. She pursed her lips, pouting. “My word! I might well say the same about you, Kurumi!”

“…” Kurumi grimaced beneath her own mask.

Indeed. Just as Matsurika noted, she also had a curious mask on and was adorned with a black gown. Of course, she didn’t wish to be dressed like this, but she couldn’t exactly say that now. Without a word, she let her gaze roam about the room.

They were in a dimly lit restaurant. Tables were arranged at regular intervals with customers seated at each of them, totaling around thirty people. And like Kurumi and Matsurika, they all wore masks, almost as if to cloak their presence.

Most likely, none of them wanted it known that they frequented such an establishment. Even if they didn’t understand the reasons behind or the truth of the place, they knew what they would be served was beyond the pale.

As Kurumi ruminated, several waitstaff entered the hall pushing carts. They were all young women whose faces were covered by masks. In stark contrast, they wore skimpy underwear from the neck down. This unusual spectacle further amplified the restaurant’s odd atmosphere.

The customers began to chatter. It wasn’t, however, that they were excited by the maidens’ youthful skin. Their eyes were laser-focused on the carts—on the meals covered with silver cloches.

“Kurumi,” Matsurika said.

“Yes, it’s finally time,” she whispered back.

A server pushed her cart over to their table. “Good evening, ladies,” she said, in a clear voice as she made a grand pronouncement and set covered plates down in front of the pair. “I have your appetizers here. Please enjoy this dazzling world of mystery.”

And she lifted the cloches.

 

“Today, we’re pleased to welcome into the studio the star of the show Spring in Full Bloom, Tae Tabata. Well-known for her miraculously youthful looks well into her fifties, the actor will share with us today some of her secrets…”

Kurumi Tokisaki listened absently to the voice coming from the TV as she sipped her tea. She had no class today, and she was spending this late afternoon in the reception area of the Tokisaki Detective Agency. It wasn’t that she had any particular detective work to do, but since the agency was conveniently located near the station, she’d come to use this space often for reading, research, and other tasks.

The TV was only on as background noise; she wasn’t interested in the program itself. In fact, she had a book open in her hands, and she was fixed on its pages. She could concentrate better with some level of noise rather than total silence.

Just as she was about to flip the page…

“We have a caaase!”

…someone came tumbling into the office, shrieking at a volume far too loud to be dismissed as background noise.

“…” She sighed heavily. She didn’t need to see her visitor’s face to know who it was. The voice itself was annoyingly familiar, and she only knew one person this eccentric.

“If I were to compare you to a piece of heavy machinery, Matsurika,” she said, rolling her eyes, “it would be a bulldozer.”

“Please do not compare a young maiden with heavy machinery!” the visitor, Matsurika Sukarabe, protested.

She was the very picture of the sheltered rich girl in a cumbersome dress that severely limited her mobility. The ringlets she was so proud of were perfectly in place, even though she had raced in at top speed.

Kurumi had any number of things she would have liked to say about her visitor’s antics, but she was used to Matsurika at this point. Not to mention, something else took her focus.

“A case?” she murmured.

“Yes!” Matsurika replied, balling her hands into fists. “There’s been another Artifact crime!”

Much like the name implied, an Artifact was a tool, but one produced by magicians that surpassed human understanding. An item such as a bullet that, once fired, hit its target without fail, no matter the distance that separated them. Or, for example, lipstick that transferred a person’s soul into a doll’s body.

If such tools were to be used in crimes, then the damage would obviously be extraordinary. Thus, the Tokisaki Detective Agency, the office in which Kurumi currently sat, had been established (rather arbitrarily) by Matsurika to respond to these impossible Artifact crimes.

“Another? Well, when a power that surpasses human knowledge falls right into your lap, I suppose you can’t help but test it out.” Kurumi stroked her chin as she continued. “So? What’s happened?”

“Well—Ah!” Matsurika pointed to the TV. “That! It’s that!”

“…That?” A puzzled look on her face, Kurumi turned her gaze toward the screen.

An afternoon talk show was airing. The guest was an actor who had once been very famous, and the interviewer was asking her about the secret to her youthful appearance.

“What does this program have to do with anything?” Kurumi asked.

“That’s Tae Tabata,” Matsurika told her. “She’s fifty-four this year. Don’t you think she looks a little too young?”

“…?” Kurumi narrowed her eyes at the TV.

The woman did indeed look quite youthful for her age. Her skin was firm, and there seemed to be no real wrinkles on her face. Obviously, at least part of this was due to makeup and lighting, but even taking that into account, she seemed abnormally spry.

“Now that you mention it, I suppose so,” Kurumi agreed. “She hardly looks any different from when she did The Color Blue.”

“The Color Blue?” Matsurika asked.

“A drama she starred in a long time ago. It was very popular, and everyone would be talking about it the day after the broadcast.”

“You talk as though you were able to watch it in real time,” Matsurika said with a frown. “How old are you, Kurumi?”

“…I am the same age as you, of course.” Kurumi averted her eyes and cleared her throat as if to regain her composure. “At any rate, what does this woman’s appearance matter? She’s an actor. No doubt she simply takes excellent care of herself.”

“I did a little investigating,” Matsurika said. “And I found she has recently been a regular customer at a certain restaurant.”

“A restaurant…?”

“Yes. And this restaurant supposedly has a ‘rejuvenation menu.’”

“Hmm.” Kurumi furrowed her brow slightly.

Naturally, this sort of advertising was not uncommon. The most that could be expected, from a commonsense view, was a menu made up of so-called superfoods or ingredients high in antioxidants. But she and Matsurika knew there were ways in this world to make good on seemingly preposterous claims.

“A rejuvenation menu… If such a thing existed…” Kurumi groaned quietly and picked up the book she had been reading.

It was the inventory register of the Artifacts that had been stored at the Sukarabe storehouse. Well, to be more precise, since the original register had been lost with the Artifacts, what she held was an incomplete list written relying on Matsurika’s memory.

That said, however, it was nevertheless a valuable compass for Kurumi in her quest to solve supernatural cases. She flipped through it and let her eyes crawl across the handwritten text.

In addition to the magic bullet and Galatea, which they’d recovered, the ledger listed countless Artifacts that would bring about terrible damage if they were to fall into the hands of malicious actors. There was the Ring of Gyges, which turned its target invisible; Vampyre, which drained its target’s life force; and the Cane of Hypnos, which put its target to sleep, among others.

Kurumi stopped abruptly. “The Artifact Nectar,” she read out loud.

Matsurika nodded her head firmly up and down. “Yes. A single sip of this magical drug is said to cause strength to well up from within and return even an elderly body to the prime of youth. If this restaurant were using a drug like that as an ingredient, then the claim of a ‘rejuvenation menu’ would be no exaggeration at all, don’t you think?”

“…If I recall, nectar was also the divine drink of immortality from Greek mythology, yes?” Kurumi asked. “It doesn’t actually exist, does it?”

“No, no. The name simply borrows from the myth,” Matsurika replied. “Its effects surely aren’t that potent. But as a strengthening agent, it is top-notch. It would be no exaggeration to say it would be a miracle drug for a population with no tolerance to it.”

“I see…” Kurumi crossed her arms as she considered this and tilted her head slightly. “You said there was an Artifact crime. Where is the crime in this?”

“What?” Matsurika opened her eyes wide in surprise.

“Even supposing this rejuvenation menu does use this Artifact, the customers are pleased by it, yes? To call it a crime—”

“The very fact that they stole the Artifact from our storage and are now using it to make money puts them in the criminal column!” Matsurika said in a shrill voice.

“Ah.” Kurumi waved a dismissive hand. “That is true.”

It wasn’t that Kurumi had forgotten that crucial fact. She was simply teasing Matsurika.

Whether Matsurika realized this or not, she still puffed out her cheeks unhappily.

“Well, given the rumors, it might be worth investigating,” Kurumi said. “First, we shall see if this rejuvenation menu is indeed just that. Matsurika, could you make us a reservation?”

“I would very much like to, but…”

“…? Is there a problem?”

Matsurika nodded, a troubled look on her face. “The restaurant is for members only, and the full course menu is five million yen.”

“Pffft?!” Kurumi choked.

“The real issue is the members part.” Matsurika crossed her arms. “Even if we apply this very second, there’s a year-long waiting list. I’ve got people looking for a work-around, but…”

“…Ah, that’s the part that concerns you.” Matsurika spoke as if money was no object, and Kurumi broke out into a cold sweat. With one sitting costing five million yen, the total would be ten million if they both went, but Matsurika didn’t seem to mind. Once more, Kurumi felt a slight shiver of fear at the financial power of the Sukarabe family.

But this price and the exclusivity of the restaurant did make the rejuvenation menu seem even more suspicious. To be honest, Kurumi had thought it was quite possible that Matsurika’s instincts were simply off this time. But no one would frequent such an expensive restaurant unless it produced real results.

“We have to get in there to investigate somehow. The question is, how exactly?” Kurumi fretted.

“No need to worry.” Matsurika chuckled confidently. “I thought we might run into an issue like this, so I came well prepared!” She whipped out what appeared to be a piece of paper.

“…?” Kurumi stared blankly. “What is that?”

“A résumé!”

“…My photo is glued to it.”

“I went ahead and attached it myself. Oh, you can rest easy! The address and history are all fake, just to be safe! Please use this phone. I’ve arranged for it as your contact number for this purpose.”

“…” Kurumi could see where Matsurika was going with this, and she furrowed her sweat-beaded brow.

 

“All right, then. Tokisaki, if you would say hello?”

“My name is Kurumi Tokisaki. Today is my first day on the job. I’ve no doubt I will make some mistakes, so I would greatly appreciate your kind guidance.”

Two weeks later, at Nid de Pigeon, the members-only restaurant standing alone on the outskirts of town, Kurumi bowed neatly to her new waitstaff colleagues, a perfect service-industry smile on her face.

In the end, Kurumi had used the résumé Matsurika gave her to go undercover at the restaurant as an employee. To be honest, this was not her preferred course of action, but there hadn’t been many other options. Matsurika’s other proposals had included sneaking into the restaurant after business hours or perhaps staking out the back door to wait for them to take the garbage out.

She had no intention of attempting to shirk the fact that she had dipped her toes in the pool of criminal behavior before. But the risks that came with trespassing were quite high, and for the sake of her own mental health, she wanted to avoid digging through raw kitchen garbage.

While getting close to the target as an employee did involve some hassle, it was actually a standard practice to gather information. And if they were lucky, she might even get the chance to sample a bite of the fabled rejuvenation menu.

However, even though it was a job like any other, it had still taken a fair bit of effort to get. The restaurant offered an extremely competitive wage, so they had a flood of applicants, and the background check for potential employees was very thorough, perhaps to ensure they could maintain confidentiality given the many celebrities who covertly patronized the restaurant. Most applicants were rejected almost on the spot, and Kurumi had only been able to secure a place on the staff due to the fruits of her own refined energy and sophistication.

“…This uniform is somewhat of a surprise, however,” she murmured, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

Indeed. Kurumi was currently wearing the uniform provided by the restaurant, and for such a high-class restaurant, it was a little avant-garde. Rather, there wasn’t much coverage. In a word, it looked more like a swimsuit or lingerie.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps reading Kurumi’s mind from her expression, the floor manager, Kinue Usui, shrugged and gave her a pained smile. She was a tall woman in her midtwenties or so, and she wore the same outfit as Kurumi as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Yeah, this uniform, huh? I know it’s kind of a shock,” she said. “Don’t worry, though. This isn’t that kind of place. To start with, our clientele is women only. It’s, like, a total design thing. We’re selling the extraordinary. You gotta do more than serve delicious food if you wanna call yourself a top-tier restaurant.”

“Hmm,” Kurumi replied noncommittally. “Is that right?”

“Also, when you’re serving customers, you’ll wear this, too.” Kinue handed her something.

“And what is this?”

“A mask.”

Kurumi grimaced when she saw the showy face covering. “You’re sure this restaurant is aboveboard?”

Kinue and the rest of the staff laughed. While the uniforms were quite suspect, the workplace itself seemed to be all right.

Then, in an instant, the laughter was cut off, and the other servers stood up straighter, their faces growing tense.

“…!”

“Huh…?” Kurumi was shocked, then quickly realized the reason for the sudden change in mood.

The door to the back room opened, and a small girl in a chef jacket came in.

An actual girl. From the look of her, she was at most high school age. At the very least, Kurumi had to assume she was younger than the serving staff. The exaggerated chef jacket did not fit her at all. She almost looked as though she was cosplaying or was a student there for an internship.

“All right, everyone,” she said absently as she waved a hand. “Let’s see some good hustle out there again tonight, okay?”

“Of course.” Kinue nodded firmly. “Oh, Boss! This is Tokisaki. She was here for an interview the other day, remember? She’s the newest member of our floor staff.”

“…! Boss…?” Kurumi furrowed her brow ever so slightly.

And of course she did. The girl before her was a little too young for the title of “boss.”

“…”

But a second later, she was nodding in understanding. It made sense when she thought about it. If a chef had managed to perfect a rejuvenation menu using the power of an Artifact, then the first person to eat it would definitely not be a customer but the chef herself.

“Good evening. My name is Kurumi Tokisaki. I’m thrilled to be a part of the team.”

“You betcha. I’m the owner and chef, Hatoko Mikuriya. Glad to have you on board. I’m basically locked up in the kitchen, so check in with Kinue if you have trouble,” she said and flashed a sideways peace sign like an old-school idol. She might have looked young, but her mannerisms gave away her age. “Mmkay, customers should be showing up now-ish. You know what to do.”

“Yes. Leave everything to us,” Kinue replied, still standing up tall as Hatoko ambled away.

As she disappeared, Kurumi let out the breath she’d been holding. “So that’s the owner? She seems a bit eccentric.”

“Ha-ha-ha!” Kinue laughed. “I guess so. She is kind of a weirdo. She stays in the kitchen as a general rule. We see her maybe two or three times a day. She’s like this genius who pours everything she’s got into her cooking, y’know?”

“Her youth shocked me,” Kurumi noted.

“Right? I was stunned the first time I saw her, too. She really is the owner, though, so I don’t think she could actually be underage,” Kinue said. “But you know what the big deal here is, right?”

“The rejuvenation menu,” Kurumi said, and Kinue nodded.

“I don’t know if it actually works, but the owner looking so young is pretty persuasive, y’know? And the place is popular. We get serious celebrities sneaking in here.”

“…I see.” Kurumi stroked her chin to indicate her understanding, then narrowed her eyes. “Have you ever had some of the owner’s cooking?”

“I have not.” Kinue gave an over-the-top shrug. “The pay’s good here, but it’s not that good. And unfortunately, staff meals aren’t part of the package. Well, I guess you can’t really expect a freebie when the food costs that much. Oh! Tokisaki, were you maybe hoping?”

“…Yes, to be honest. I did think I might be able to get a taste of the famed menu,” Kurumi replied frankly after a moment’s hesitation. It was possible that Kinue knew about the Artifact and was sniffing around for Kurumi’s ulterior motives, but she got the feeling that feigning ignorance would seem suspicious.

“Ha-ha-ha! Of course. Too bad, huh? You’ll just have to work hard and earn a ton of money here so you can come as a customer someday.” Kinue laughed brightly and patted Kurumi on the back before turning toward the rest of the staff. “Okay, gang. Let’s get started on opening prep.”

“Yes, ma’am!” the servers responded.

“Tokisaki.” Kinue turned her eyes on Kurumi once more. “You go ahead like I showed you before. Feel free to come to me if you have any questions.”

“Thank you,” Kurumi said, focusing on her surroundings. “I actually do have one question?”

“Hmm?” Kinue arched an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Where is the restroom?” Kurumi asked jokingly.

Kinue shook with mirth as she chuckled. “End of the hall there, to the right. We’re opening soon, so no dawdling.”

“Yes. I’ll hurry back.”

Kinue waved a dismissive hand, and Kurumi bowed before leaving the room.

Her destination was, of course, not the bathroom. She checked that there was no one else around as she kept walking down the hallway until she arrived at the far end of the restaurant, where Hatoko had disappeared—the kitchen.

“This is it…” As quietly as she possibly could, she peered inside.

“…”

Hatoko was racing around the large, well-maintained space doing prep work. Her movements were fluid, the way she handled her knife effortless. She worked like an experienced veteran, her familiarity with her tools completely at odds with her youthful appearance.

A restaurant of this size would normally have had several cooks, but Hatoko was alone in the kitchen. Apparently, she did all the cooking herself. Was she just a control freak? Or did her methods involve something she didn’t want anyone else to see?

Kurumi narrowed her eyes and scanned the kitchen carefully. She didn’t spot anything that seemed suspicious at a glance. But it wasn’t as though she knew what the magic drug Nectar looked like. It would have been one thing if it were contained inside a flashy vessel or were a luminescent liquid. But if its appearance were perfectly ordinary, it would be nearly impossible to pick it out from the many other ordinary objects in the space.

She would have to create an opportunity to taste Hatoko’s cooking in order to confirm the presence of the Artifact—

“What are youuu doing here?” The sudden voice caused Kurumi to gasp.

“…!”

She looked up to find Hatoko standing before her, knife in hand. Apparently, she had noticed Kurumi taking stock of the kitchen. The knife was certainly being used to cook, but Kurumi felt a hidden hostility, perhaps because she had something to feel guilty about.

She couldn’t allow Hatoko to see how unsettled she was, though. She managed to get her pounding heart under control slightly and fixed her posture as she plastered on a smile.

“Oh, please excuse me,” she said brightly. “I was trying to get to the restroom, but I got lost.”

“…” Hatoko narrowed her eyes slightly. The blade of the knife in her hand glinted alluringly. Eventually, she sighed. “It’s over there at the other end. No more getting lost now, mmkay?”

“…Yes. Thank you very much.” Kurumi bowed neatly and walked down the hallway, Hatoko’s eyes boring holes into her back.

She may have put the chef on guard, so while she did want to keep looking for more clues, it would be best to lie low and do her job for now. She did, however, stop in the bathroom to bolster her excuse before returning to the main hall of the restaurant and the other waitstaff.

“I’m sorry to have taken so long,” she said with a quick bow.

“Ah, there you are! C’mon, Tokisaki,” Kinue said, urging her into place. “The customers are already arriving. Come welcome them.”

Kurumi obliged and put on her mask, stood up straight, and joined the waitstaff line.

Before too long, the doors opened, and that evening’s customers entered. They were all clad in magnificent gowns with the upper half of their faces hidden behind splendid masks, as though they were arriving at a masquerade.

Kurumi was surprised by their strange appearances for a moment before realizing this was another aspect of the extraordinary performed at this restaurant—and another means of hiding the customers’ true identities.

“Welcome!” the hall staff chorused and bowed dramatically to welcome the customers into the hall. Kurumi followed their lead and greeted the customers.

“Ah, what a beautiful space! I cannot wait to dine here!”

“…” When Kurumi heard this customer’s voice, her cheeks spasmed, and she raised her head.

It wasn’t only the customer’s voice. Kurumi had seen the design of her gorgeous dress before, too, and the customer’s physique was also familiar. Although her face was hidden by a mask, her magnificent ringlets were visible for all to see.

“…Matsurika?” Kurumi asked, her voice low.

“Goodness!” the masked customer, Matsurika, cried out brightly, as though she had just noticed Kurumi. An entirely genuine and malice-free smile spread across her face. “Kurumi! That uniform suits you quite well!”

“…What on earth are you doing here?” Kurumi hissed. “Isn’t this restaurant members-only?”

“Yes,” Matsurika agreed readily. “So I sought out a member and had them cede their membership to me. Oh! I did indeed make reservations for two, though.”

“…This is the first I’ve heard of any of this?”

“Well.”

“Well?”

“I wanted to surprise you. ”

“…” Before Kurumi was fully aware of what she was doing, her hand was tightening around Matsurika’s head.

“Aaah!” Matsurika cried. “That hurts! That is quite painful!”

“Hey…!” Kinue raced over to the pair, baffled. “T-Tokisaki! What are you doing?!”

“Oh, excuse me.” Kurumi smiled brightly with an extraordinarily composed air. “There was a fly on this customer’s head.”

“Even if there was, you can’t kill it with an iron claw!” Kinue, her face drained of color, hurriedly pried Kurumi’s hand from Matsurika’s head and bowed to Matsurika. “I—I am terribly sorry, Miss. Are you hurt?”

“Y-yes. I have pain on the sides of my head.” Matsurika gave a strained smile as she pressed a hand to her head.

“R-right…” Kinue looked perplexed when the customer showed neither anger nor fear in response to this unprovoked attack. “T-Tokisaki. Head to the back. I’ll tell you what to do later.”

“Usui?” Kurumi said, addressing her by her last name as Kinue did.

“Wh-what is it?” she turned to look at her.

“Thank you so much for everything. I am now tendering my resignation, effective immediately.”

“…What?” Kinue’s eyes grew wide with surprise.

Heedless, Kurumi grabbed Matsurika’s neck and dragged Matsurika out of the restaurant, leaving the astounded Kinue and the other waitstaff in their wake.

 

“…Honestly. You should have told me sooner.”

Twenty minutes later, Kurumi returned to the restaurant, not as an employee, but as a customer wearing a gown and a mask.

She had worked hard to win that position on staff, but the reason she had gone undercover at the restaurant in the first place was to learn the secret of the rejuvenation menu. Given the decision between her job and the chance to try the food herself, the choice was obvious.

“Hmph, please. I was just being a little bit playful is all.” Matsurika pouted, but when Kurumi smiled at her while opening and closing her hand into a fist, she hurriedly sat up straighter.

Kurumi’s dress and mask had been waiting for her in the Sukarabe vehicle parked outside the restaurant. She couldn’t decide if Matsurika was messing around or was simply thoroughly prepared.

“I really can’t seem to grow accustomed to this outfit,” she said. “Not the dress or the mask.”

“You can’t? I think they rather suit you, though,” Matsurika told her.

“I shall take that as a compliment.”

“You have the air of someone watching in an ivory tower as the poor fight amongst themselves—as though you are drinking in, like a fine wine, the spectacle of human beings breaking down under extreme circumstances.”

“Actually, I will not be taking that as a compliment.” Kurumi scowled, sweat trickling down her cheek. She had just described an excessively detailed portrait of an evil billionaire.

At any rate, they were ready for what lay ahead now.

As Kurumi waited for her meal to arrive, she let her gaze roam from beneath her mask and peered at their surroundings. “Mm-hmm…”

The restaurant was relatively large with a number of tables and customers seated at all of them. If every one of them ordered the course meal at a price of five million each, the restaurant would make a small fortune in a single evening.

Their faces were all hidden by masks, but Kurumi could tell their ages roughly from their exposed mouths, necks, and hands. Women in their forties or fifties seemed to be the majority, but there were some who were younger, and she could even spot a customer or two in her twenties.

But young people would have a hard time patronizing such a restaurant, and once Kurumi hit upon this thought, she saw these younger patrons in a new light. If the rejuvenation menu was real, then the women who looked to be the youngest were no doubt the restaurant’s regulars.

“…!” Kurumi’s eyebrows sprang up when the customers around her started to chatter excitedly.

Several servers pushing carts had appeared from the kitchen area. It seemed that it was at last time for them to come face-to-face with the fabled dishes. She waited for the arrival of her plate somewhat nervously.

“Good eveni—Huh?” When the server arrived at Kurumi and Matsurika’s table, she tilted her head curiously. Kurumi realized it was the floor manager she had so recently parted ways with, Kinue Usui. “Please excuse me, Miss. But have we met before?”

“Why, I’m certain I don’t know.” Kurumi feigned ignorance, and Kinue cleared her throat as if to regain her composure, although she still regarded Kurumi with suspicion.

Perhaps she realized it was Kurumi. Given the restaurant’s extreme commitment to anonymity—considering the mandatory masks for the clientele—she couldn’t exactly pry into a customer’s identity in front of everyone.

“Good evening, ladies,” she said, ignoring the last ten seconds. “I have your appetizers here. Please enjoy this dazzling world of mystery.”

Kinue lifted the silver cloche to cries of admiration from the tables around them.

“And here we have poached lobster and asparagus. Please top with the paprika sauce and enjoy.”

“Goodness…!” Matsurika listened to the explanation of the course, her eyes glistening.

It was a beautiful dish. The red of the lobster and the green of the asparagus contrasted wonderfully in the shallow white bowl. It was obvious at a glance that no expense had been spared for the ingredients and that the chef’s work was beyond reproach.

“Hmm.” Kurumi frowned at the plate. “From the look of it, it’s an ordinary dish.”

“Ordinary?” Matsurika stared at her in disbelief. “It looks exceptionally delicious!”

“…No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Kurumi said, rolling her eyes, and Matsurika tilted her head. Kurumi picked up her fork and knife. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing we can do about how it looks. Shall we give it a taste?”

“Let’s!” Matsurika picked up her own cutlery. With a practiced hand, she cut off a bite of lobster and slowly brought it to her mouth.

“…!”

Her eyes went wide. The meat melted into her mouth, flavor exploding across her tongue. The perfectly prepared lobster made her taste buds sing and sent her into ecstasy.

But that wasn’t all.

“Ah… Aaah…!”

The moment she swallowed the bite, she felt a powerful sensation welling up from the depths of her being. It looked like a fire had roared to life inside her. Her heart pounded, and she was embraced by an intense heat. She had eaten gourmet food before, but this was on an entirely different level. In a different dimension, even. It inspired a voracious craving. Her hand reached automatically for the second bite, like her thirsty body instinctively reaching for water.

“Mmph! Th-this is no ordinary meal! It’s almost too delicious! Our personal chef is no match!” A blissful look on her face, Matsurika brought another bite from her plate up to her mouth. She dabbed the paprika sauce onto the asparagus, which was just as delicious. A pleasant tingling shot through her.

Wanting to share everything she was feeling, she turned to Kurumi as she chewed. “Say, Kurumi, this is quite amazing, isn’t it?!”

However…

In contrast to Matsurika, Kurumi scowled fiercely. “…This tastes abhorrent.”

“What?” Matsurika’s eyes grew round in surprise.

Ignoring her, Kurumi lifted her plate slowly, then she slammed it against the floor.

Crash! Shards of glass flew off in all directions.

“Eeek?!” Matsurika shrieked.

She wasn’t alone, of course. Every customer and server in the restaurant stared at Kurumi, mouths agape in shock.

With everyone’s attention firmly focused on her, Kurumi broke the silence with a cry that carried to every corner of the hall.

“How dare this restaurant serve such slop to its customers!”

The stunned customers began to murmur and whisper, glancing back and forth between Kurumi and their own plates.

“K-Kurumi…? What are you…?” Matsurika said, confused.

Kurumi didn’t deign to give her a response as she continued to shout. “This is quite simply not fit for consumption! To think that this is the poor treatment we receive when you demand such a high price… What is it if not an insult and a humiliation?!”

“M-Miss…!” A member of the waitstaff raced over, looking utterly baffled. “Is there something wrong? Was the meal not—?”

 

 

 

 

“The meal?” Kurumi glared at the server witheringly. “Did you just say meal? Is this what passes for a meal here?! Simply unbelievable! I demand to speak with the chef!”

“Pl-please calm down,” the server begged. “You’re disturbing the other—”

“You got a problem with my cooking?” a voice echoed out from the back of the restaurant.

Kurumi turned and saw a girl wearing a chef jacket standing in front of the kitchen door. It was the owner and chef of Nid de Pigeon, Hatoko Mikuriya.

She sounded calm, but her face was severe. The disparagement of her prized cooking had clearly struck a nerve.

And of course it was. Kurumi could tell easily from just this one dish that Hatoko was extraordinarily particular about her cooking. And it was now being spat on before the whole world. Her anger was to be expected.

Hatoko’s appearance only made the customers’ chatter grow louder. It seemed that more than a few of them were seeing the chef for the first time. Admiring sighs mixed with the clamor.

“…”

Hatoko frowned as though she disliked the increasing volume and jerked her chin at the server. “Kinue. Take this guest upstairs. I’ll speak with her myself.”

“Wh-what?” Kinue stammered. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. Easy enough to throw her out, but I don’t need the bad publicity. Let me handle this.” She flashed the antiquated sideways peace sign and disappeared behind the door.

The server was momentarily bewildered, but eventually, she turned to Kurumi. “Th-this way, please…”

“Hmph. I suppose I could hear what the chef has to say for herself. Come along, Matsurika,” Kurumi said, the look of anger still on her face, and cut across the hall after the server.

A heartbeat later, Matsurika trailed after her. “R-right!”

“…Umm, Kurumi? Where did that come from?” Matsurika asked, her voice low as they climbed the stairs to the second floor.

“…”

Kurumi maintained her silence and moved forward toward the door at the end of the hall.

“Ma’am, I brought the customers as you asked,” Kinue said as she knocked hesitantly on the door.

“’Kay. Bring ’em in. Kinue, you go back to work,” Hatoko spoke through the door. It seemed she had arrived before them.

“W-well, please go ahead…” Kinue stepped aside and opened the door for Kurumi and Matsurika.

“Thank you.” Kurumi held her head high and stepped inside with Matsurika behind her, seemingly hiding in her shadow.

The space looked to be Hatoko’s personal office and meeting space. The desk toward the back was covered in papers, and the display case against the wall held a number of trophies and awards. And in front of this, Hatoko stood with her arms crossed, not bothering to hide her displeasure.

“So? What’s your deal?” she demanded, annoyed, as she took off her chef’s hat and tossed it on the desk.

“My ‘deal’?” Kurumi parroted.

“Yeah. Can we just get on with it? This isn’t my first rodeo. We screen our clientele pretty carefully, but the likes of you do make it through sometimes,” Hatoko said, her gaze sharpening. “You want money? Or did another restaurant hire you to come make a fuss?”

“Neither,” Kurumi responded.

“Hmm? Then what? You can’t actually be saying you think my cooking’s bad.”

“Goodness. I never said anything about it being ‘bad.’”

“…Uh?” Hatoko frowned like she didn’t understand what Kurumi meant, and Matsurika opened her eyes wide in surprise.

“It was marvelous in its preparation,” Kurumi told her. “I could see the fruits of your diligent study and attention to detail. I cannot criticize your work.”

“…I don’t get it.” Hatoko glared at her suspiciously. “You get all bent out of shape for what, then? I gotta ask. You looking to train under me? Or did you want my autograph—?”

“Poisoned honey, were I to make an analogy,” Kurumi interrupted. “Or perhaps the cheese in a trap.”

“…!” Hatoko’s eyebrows jumped up, and Kurumi was sure.

She yanked off the mask and snapped a finger out at the chef. “It has come time to solve this case. Hatoko Mikuriya, I’ll ask you to hand over the Artifact.”

“Wha—?!” Hatoko stared in wide-eyed surprise. Her shock could have come from the revelation that the customer was actually until recently her employee Kurumi, but it also looked like bewilderment at Kurumi’s knowledge of the Artifact.

That moment’s hesitation proved fatal.

“Hah!” Kurumi kicked at the floor, her dress swinging around her, and instantly closed in on Hatoko. She twisted the woman’s arm behind her back and pinned her to the floor.

“Aaah?!” Hatoko cried. “Wh-what are you—?!”

“Matsurika!” Kurumi called. “Please look for the Artifact! Given that she uses it in her cooking, it must be hidden somewhere nearby!”

“Uh…?! Ah!” Matsurika gasped, her shoulders jumping up. “K-Kurumi! Did you actually learn something from the food?!”

“…Is that not obvious?” Kurumi scowled, sweat beading on her forehead. “Did you think I was actually angry about the meal and here to lodge a complaint?”

“Oh? Well, ha-ha…” Matsurika plastered a weak smile on her face as her eyes looked anywhere but at Kurumi.

Kurumi sighed heavily. “…It doesn’t matter. Please find the Artifact. She might have hidden it in her clothing.”

“R-right!” Matsurika raced over, got down on her knees, and began to search the pockets of Hatoko’s chef jacket.

“Ugh…!” Hatoko wriggled.

“Your get-rich-quick scheme ends here!” Matsurika cried shrilly. “It’s pointless to resist. Please return the Nectar immediately!”

“No.” Kurumi shook her head slowly. “You’ve got it wrong, Matsurika.”

“I’ve got it wrong?” Matsurika looked at her curiously.

Still holding Hatoko’s arm down, Kurumi continued. “The Artifact she possesses is most likely not the Nectar.”

“Not Nectar? W-wait just a moment. You felt it, too, didn’t you, Kurumi? That sensation as though power were rising up from inside your body? If it wasn’t the Nectar, then—”

“Vampyre,” Kurumi interrupted, narrowing her eyes.

“What…?” Matsurika squeaked.

“I’m quite sure an Artifact with that name was listed in the register,” Kurumi told her. “A very dangerous article which absorbs the vitality of others. And even if it is not that particular item, I would assume she is using an Artifact with a similar power.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” Matsurika furrowed her brow, puzzled. “Absorbs vitality…?”

“Yes.” Kurumi continued. “That was no rejuvenation menu. It was magical, poisoned bait to suck the vitality out of those who eat it. Continuing to consume that meal would eventually lead to death.”

“W-wait just a moment!” Matsurika cried. “I don’t understand! I actually feel livelier! And that actor regained her youth, too!”

“Likely a side effect of vitality being sucked from the depths of your body,” Kurumi explained. “I would assume that, as a result of your life force being drawn out, you regain a sheen of youthfulness. But this is simply the abnormal consumption of your own life force. To put it another way, imagine batteries connected in parallel being reconnected in series—nothing more than an advance paid against the remainder of your life. The only one who becomes youthful again in a real sense is you, isn’t it, Hatoko?”

“…” Hatoko showed neither assent nor denial.

“…You feed your customers meals prepared with this Artifact, and you absorb their life force bit by bit—quite the service fee,” Kurumi continued quietly. “Customers temporarily regain their youth and, not realizing it’s their own life being consumed, they pay that enormous sum of money and come to sit on your plate once again.

“I don’t know if you deliberately set it up like that or if it simply happened to settle into this pattern, but either way, it’s an evil, unscrupulous system. Ah… The real ‘rejuvenation menu’ was the very customers in the hall.”

“Haaah.” Hatoko exhaled at length, still pinned to the floor. “…You really know your stuff, huh? Who even are you?” She decided to drop the act.

“I am no one particularly important,” Kurumi told her. “At the moment, I’m a mere university student and—”

“This person before you is the great Artifact crime detective Kurumi Tokisaki!” Matsurika cried suddenly.

“Matsurika. Would you be quiet for a moment?” Kurumi said, exasperated.

“I see. So that’s it.” A lifeless smile rose up on Hatoko’s face. “Artifact crime detective, huh? Well, the Artifacts exist. Guess it’s maybe no surprise they’d have a detective, too.

“But even if, like, you hit the nail on the head, what crime exactly are you gonna arrest me for? You can go on and on about how terrible I am, but I bet I’d still have swarms of people coming to the restaurant even if I did tell them the truth, y’know? As long as they get to spend the rest of their lives in a young body, they don’t care how short it is. That’s just how appealing youth is. Or are you gonna get all hero complex on me and be like, ‘Not on my watch,’ even if it’s what the customers want?”

“…You mustn’t get the wrong idea,” Kurumi told her.

“Oh-hoh?” Hatoko stared up at her curiously.

“I have no intention of making myself out to be the hero. I’m the villain whose interests simply do not align with yours.”

“Heh-heh-heh!” Hatoko chuckled. “I get it. Well, my mistake. But still, I mean…”

“Hngh?!” Kurumi felt a prickly pain in her hand and scowled. She was drained of her strength and loosened her grip on Hatoko.

“Ha-ha! You knew I had an Artifact, and yet you thought you could restrain me like this?” Hatoko sneered. “There’s carelessness, and then there’s just plain idiocy!”

She had stabbed Kurumi’s hand with the knife hidden in her chef’s jacket. The injury itself was nothing major. And yet Kurumi found herself majorly damaged. Her limbs refused to move as she commanded, and she nearly collapsed on the spot.

Free of her restraint, Hatoko pulled the knife out of her jacket and brandished it at Kurumi.

“—!” Kurumi gasped as her kinetic vision caught sight of the bladed object. The kitchen knife. The one she’d been holding when Kurumi peeked into the kitchen. The Artifact.

“Vampyre!” Hatoko shouted. “No holding back today! Suck her dry!”

The blade of the knife shined with a strange light.

“Ngh!” Kurumi scowled. She could perceive it, but her body couldn’t keep up. What would have been a leisurely pace for the old Kurumi was impossibly fast for the current Kurumi. While she struggled to react, the life-sucking fang stabbed down toward her side.

“Kurumi!” Matsurika cried.

In the next instant, a powerful impact sent her rolling off to one side, and a second later, she understood what had happened. Matsurika had stepped in between her and Hatoko.

“Matsurika?!”

She had no time for gratitude, however. Hatoko was still going full throttle, and Matsurika was in the path of the knife now, the very spot where Kurumi had been only a moment earlier. It was already too late for her to escape. Bright red blood…

“Hiyah!”

…was not dripping from Matsurika’s side.

“What?!” Kurumi opened her eyes wide as saucers, unable to process what was happening.

That was an understandable reaction. Matsurika had twisted her body around to generate explosive power and deliver a palm strike to Hatoko’s arm with masterful ease. After the knife dropped to the floor, she hit Hatoko with a series of strikes and punches like she was landing a combo in a fighting game.

“Ha! Yah! Ha! Hiyah!”

“Hmph?!” Pummeled into submission, Hatoko plunged to the floor with a dull cry of anguish and stopped moving.

Matsurika dropped into a ready pose, still on alert. Kurumi could have sworn she saw “KO!” text appear in midair.

“Are you all right, Kurumi?!” Matsurika whirled around, her voice full of worry.

“…Y-yes, thanks to you,” Kurumi responded, sweat rolling down her cheek. “Goodness… You’re no pushover, Matsurika. Was that some martial art?”

“All part of a maiden’s education!” Matsurika flashed a brilliant smile. “Karate, capoeira, and a little of the Sukarabe Nightmare School assassination technique!”

“I-is that right…?” Kurumi replied with an uncertain smile.

 

Thus, they found themselves at the end of another case.

Just as Hatoko had said, she could not be charged with any crime for the use of the Artifact since modern science had no way of proving that her cooking absorbed the vitality of others.

That said, however, Kurumi and Matsurika’s objective was not to socially sanction the perpetrator but to recover the Artifacts. And now that Hatoko had lost Vampyre, she wouldn’t be able to make her rejuvenation menu anymore.

“Still…” Kurumi sighed as she flipped through the Artifact register at the Tokisaki Detective Agency a few days later. “It does seem that, once again, this was not the person who stole the Artifacts from your family home, Matsurika.”

“Yes.” Matsurika nodded, slowly. “It does appear that way, doesn’t it?”

After everything at the restaurant, they had looked into how exactly Hatoko got a hold of the Artifact, only to find the route was the same as the perpetrator in their previous case: a mysterious item in a package addressed to a relative who was already dead.

Was the person who raided the Sukarabe home distributing the Artifacts? And if they were, what on earth for?

Kurumi groaned, stroking her chin. They simply had too little to go on at the moment. She sighed once more and turned her gaze on Matsurika as if to change the subject.

“So what happened to the restaurant in the end?”

Matsurika nodded theatrically. “It would appear they are closed for the time being. There don’t appear to be any complaints about this from anyone on the staff or the clientele, however.”

“Is that right?” Kurumi opened her eyes wide.

The closing of the restaurant that provided the meal of miraculous youth had to have been a serious blow for the customers, who had no idea that their life force was being sucked away. And for the staff, it was much simpler—they had lost their jobs. She would have understood completely if they turned their anger on her for causing the situation they now found themselves in.

“Yes,” Matsurika said. “They may not have known about the Artifact, but even so, they seem to have had the idea from the start that perhaps they were doing something illegal.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Kurumi nodded, convinced.

For a restaurant offering a course meal for five million yen, it had been incredibly busy. It wouldn’t have been a stretch for those customers to wonder if there wasn’t some shady business going on.

“Perhaps the customers there that day believe you were some kind of investigator, Kurumi,” Matsurika said.

“Please stop with that,” she replied dismissively. “That’s simply not who I am.”

“Aren’t you? I think you could very well be,” Matsurika continued dreamily. “Making that complaint about the meal, abruptly wrestling Hatoko to the ground… I know it was to solve the case, but I felt you acted in a manner that was quite unlike you. I wondered if there wasn’t a more stylish way to handle it for someone as smart as you. But then I finally understood.”

“…? Understood what?” Kurumi asked.

Matsurika grinned. “You wanted to settle things quickly to stop the customers from eating anymore, didn’t you?”

“…” Kurumi was silent.

Heedless of Kurumi’s reaction, Matsurika continued. “You mustn’t refer to yourself as a villain. You are a magnificent ally of justice.”

“…You give me too much credit.” Kurumi turned her face away quickly, and Matsurika laughed merrily.

“Oh!” she said. “But there is still one thing I don’t understand.”

“…What is that?”

“Vampyre. How did you know after a single bite that the Artifact used in the meal wasn’t Nectar?”

“Oh.” Kurumi nodded, slowly. “I’ll tell you, but you probably still won’t understand. It was very much an issue of the senses. I felt it clearly.”

“…I don’t understand. What exactly did you notice?” Matsurika craned her head, a puzzled look on her face.

“The distinct scent of someone feeding on the lives of others,” Kurumi replied with a self-deprecating air.

 

 

 

 

 

Secret Garden Kurumi

It was evening. The red light of the setting sun filled the room.

“Ah, ah, ah…” Kurumi Tokisaki shook all over as she gripped the knife with trembling hands, a sound that could have been either an angry cry or a lamentation slipping from her throat.

But she wasn’t shivering in fear because she had discovered the murder weapon or because she was facing a powerful enemy with a pitiful weapon. No, Kurumi pointed the knife outward and raised her hands as if she were about to plunge its tip into her own stomach.

“—”

“…!”

The girls around her cried out to stop her. But their shouts didn’t reach her ears. More precisely, she understood they were shouting at her, but she couldn’t comprehend the meaning of their words.

She was focused on one single thing now.

“Aaah!” She let out an anguished scream, then she tightened her grip on the knife and thrust it into her stomach.

 

“…Ungh… Ngh…” The girl awakened with a groan. Her mind still cottony with sleep, she sat up slowly.

“…”

Her memory was hazy, no doubt thanks to her drowsiness. She couldn’t remember what happened before she went to bed. Not only that, but she wasn’t even entirely clear on where she was, why she was here, or even who she was. She frowned and placed a hand on her forehead.

In doing so, the girl noticed an old ring on her pinkie finger. It was designed to look like a pair of fairy wings. She thought she recognized it…or maybe not. It was quite a bizarre sensation.

Feeling like she had forgotten something important, the girl got out of bed and scanned the room, looking for some kind of clue. The interior design was simple. She saw only a bed, a desk, and a small bookshelf. A school uniform hung on the wall, and a schoolbag hung on the chair.

The instant she saw this, her mind started to clear. Right. This was her dorm room, and she wore that uniform and carried that bag to school every morning.

If she went to school, maybe she’d remember more. Not letting the thread of memory she’d pulled free at last slip from her grasp, the girl quickly changed and picked up her bag. She left the room, walked down the hallway, and went outside.

“Hmm…” Squinting at the brilliant morning sun, she glanced around. At the end of a paved road leading away from the dorm entrance, she could see several extravagant structures, including a large school building and a chapel.

Saint Adelina Academy for Girls. A missionary boarding school in the city of Tengu in the Greater Tokyo Area. She was a student here. In grade eleven, if she wasn’t mistaken. Class C.

She walked down the path at a leisurely pace. Her memory was still hazy, but her body seemed to remember this route.

“Huh? Tokisaki?” The girl stopped when a voice called out to her.

Looking in the direction of the voice, she saw a girl in the same uniform as herself waving in a friendly manner.

“Morning,” the student said as she walked over. “Weird, I don’t usually see you here.”

“Tokisaki…” The girl repeated the name she’d heard, dazed.

“…? What’s wrong? You look super out of it. What, still half asleep?” The student gave her a dubious look and continued. “You can’t pull these all-nighters so often. I mean, I get that the investigation’s important, but, like.”

“Investigation…?” the girl asked with a frown.

“Yeah,” the student replied, a curious look on her face. “Weren’t you looking into that suicide attempt from last month?”

“…!” Suddenly, a flood of emotion gave way, and the girl gasped. “O-oh… Right. I…” She opened her eyes wide, her breathing ragged. “Kurumi Tokisaki… That’s my name…”

“…? Uh…huh,” the student agreed, perplexed. Understandably so. Her classmate had introduced herself out of the blue for no reason.

The girl—Kurumi—shook her head slightly and turned back toward the student. “…Excuse me. It seems I am still half asleep. I remember now, thanks, Koharu.”

Kurumi uttered the name dragged from the depths of her mind, and the student—Koharu—sighed in relief.

“Ah, okay. Well, that’s good then,” Koharu said with a slightly awkward smile and waved a hand. “Mmkay, I gotta go meet my friends.”

“All right. See you later.” Kurumi bowed, and Koharu walked off toward the dorm.

“…”

After watching her go, Kurumi stood up straighter and proceeded toward the school as she sorted the information she’d remembered in her head.

Right. I remember. I’m Kurumi Tokisaki. I just started at Saint Adelina Academy for Girls as a transfer student. I’m here to investigate a suspicious suicide attempt.

Indeed. Two weeks earlier, a student at this academy had attempted suicide. And while Kurumi wouldn’t go so far as to say this sort of thing happened often, it also wasn’t especially rare. This particular case, however, seemed suspect, and so Kurumi was here undercover to gather information.

“It is…questionable,” she muttered to herself. “I was convinced it was no ordinary suicide attempt… No, actually, I even suspected another, separate person was involved… But why exactly?”

The crux of the matter remained hazy: She couldn’t remember.

She pushed back her hair, frustrated, and quickened her pace. She was sure to happen upon a clue to a new memory in her classroom.

She arrived at the west building of the school before long. The school was roughly split into two, with the classrooms for grades ten and eleven in the west building and grade twelve classrooms in the east building, which also housed the art room, the music room, and others.

Swept in by the wave of students, Kurumi walked on instinct down the hallway until she eventually reached Grade Eleven, Class C.

“Oh! Morning, Tokisaki.”

“Good morning,” she replied and sat down at her desk. “…Oh my?”

She was hanging her bag on the hook on the side of her desk when she noticed a long, thin box inside of it, wrapped in pink paper and topped with a cute ribbon.

“What is this?” She furrowed her brow, and the classmate who had said good morning to her tilted her head.

“Tokisaki?” she asked.

“Yes, what is it?” Kurumi turned to look at her.

“Umm… Isn’t that Hashiguchi’s desk?”

“…” Kurumi returned the box to the desk and stood up, her cheeks flushing ever so slightly. Muscle memory had led her to the chair, but apparently, this wasn’t her desk. It seemed her memory was still not working correctly. “Just a little prank.”

“O-oh yeah?” Her classmate seemed startled. “So you’re a bit of a jokester, Tokisaki? Kind of surprising.”

“Yes.” Kurumi nodded. “I was known as the class clown at my old school, incidentally.”

“What?”

“Where exactly is my desk?”

“…”

Although her classmate looked momentarily disturbed, she quickly pointed to a desk by the window. Kurumi bowed in thanks and walked over to it.

She sat down in the chair there and hung her bag on the side of the desk again. As she did, she noticed a notebook in this desk.

“A…notebook,” she murmured before taking it out and opening it.

It appeared to be the case investigation file she’d made prior to this bout of amnesia. A mass of information was spelled out in its pages in neat handwriting.

Saint Adelina Academy for Girls: Attempted Suicide

Victim’s name is Anna Matsutani. She was found in her dorm room with blood pouring from cuts on her wrists. Fortunately, she survived but is currently hospitalized. They are taking no chances.

When Anna regained consciousness, she claimed to have no memory of harming herself. She insists she suddenly started bleeding, and she did not attempt suicide.

She said she saw someone who looked exactly like her right before the incident occurred.

All of this information was tied together with this conclusion: Suspected Artifact involvement.

“…!” Kurumi felt a sharp pain in her head. Along with the pain, another memory returned to her.

Artifacts. Tools possessing inexplicable powers created in ages past by magicians.

It was preposterous. Anyone who saw these notes would figure they were the basis of a fantasy novel or some sort of delusion.

And yet the instant Kurumi saw the word Artifact, she was certain of their existence. To be more precise, she remembered that before she lost her memory, she had actually seen Artifacts with her own eyes.

Yes. They existed, along with people who used the power they contained, power beyond human knowledge, and hurt people in pursuit of their desires.

Kurumi had come to this school to solve an Artifact crime.

“…”

The moment she remembered this, she scowled. She was missing memories. While she had at last remembered who she was and what she was doing here, much of her memory was still hazy. She couldn’t help but see herself in this note stating that Anna had no memory of cutting herself.

“…Have I been attacked with the Artifact…?” She groaned as she placed a hand on her forehead.

When she seriously thought about it, this conclusion was supported by a mass of evidence already. No matter how groggy she was, she would never forget her own name. It was only natural to assume some external factor at work.

According to Koharu, everyone was talking about the suicide attempt before Kurumi transferred to the school. If the mastermind who caused the incident using the Artifact was also a student, they would certainly be peeved by Kurumi poking her nose around.

She lifted her face and looked around the classroom.

Class was about to start, and there were a number of students in the room. They were chatting with their friends, getting their books out, and generally spending the time as they pleased.

It was an utterly ordinary scene, but it sent a cold shiver up her spine. One of these girls might well have been the culprit who pushed Anna Matsutani to the brink of death and stole Kurumi’s memories.

But her distrustful appraisal of the situation was momentarily interrupted by the ringing of the bell, signaling the start of the class period.

“Ah! It’s already time!”

“See ya later.”

The students returned to their desks, and Kurumi closed her notebook as she watched order extinguish the classroom chaos.

Even if the culprit was in the room, she figured it would not be to her advantage to give any sign that she was onto them. Somehow, she had to determine the identity of the culprit without giving it away. But it was an impossibly high hurdle. Not only did she not have any plausible leads, but even her own memory was working against her. It might have been a different story if she had some collaborator who understood her situation—

“Gooood morning, everyone!” a thoroughly carefree voice rang out, interrupting Kurumi’s train of thought.

A woman carrying the attendance sheet entered the classroom. She was young for a teacher, so maybe she was a student teacher doing her practicum. She wore a tight-fitting suit from the neck down, but her hair was curled in dramatic ringlets, a far cry from the subdued nature of her clothing. It was like her neck acted as a border between two countries of fashion. Kurumi expected that there would be a lot of refugees from the strictly ruled Land of Suit to the free Republic of Ringlets. Probably.

“…” She felt a bead of sweat trickle down her cheek. She couldn’t help but feel that she knew this woman from somewhere.

“Okay!” the woman said cheerfully. “Mrs. Hamai is absent today, so I will be taking attendance as your student teacher! Please do be lively in your responses! Aida!”

“H-here.”

“Oh? Did you not have breakfast this morning? Let us try that one more time. Aida!”

“…Here!”

“Greaaat! That was magnificent!”

The high-pressure roll call continued, and the students smiled helplessly. But they seemed to like this teacher.

A few minutes later, after finishing taking attendance (Kurumi had also been forced to respond loudly), the student teacher snapped the binder shut. “Now, then! That is all for homeroom! Everyone, please prepare for your lessons!”

As she was leaving the classroom, she turned toward Kurumi like she had remembered something.

“Oh! Tokisaki?” she called. “I want to speak with you for a moment. Please come with me.”

“What? O-oh. Understood,” Kurumi replied, overwhelmed by the woman’s intensity, then up from her desk to trail after the student teacher.

They walked together down the hallway for a brief while until they reached a spot with no one around. The student teacher whirled around to face Kurumi.

“How are things proceeding then, Kurumi?” she whispered, a total one-eighty from in the classroom.

Kurumi furrowed her brow in confusion. “Pro…ceeding?”

“Yes. Have you identified the owner of the Artifact?”

“…How do you—?” Kurumi gasped, and the student teacher got a puzzled look on her face.

“What are you talking about?” she asked curiously. “Did you and I not go undercover at this school precisely because there was the possibility of an Artifact crime?”

“…!” Kurumi’s eyes flew open wide.

“Kurumi…?” The student teacher frowned at this strange reaction. “You seem off. Has something happened?”

“…Actually…”

After a brief hesitation, Kurumi explained her current situation.

“What?!” The student teacher’s eyes grew wide in surprise. “Your memory? Really?!”

“Yes.” Kurumi nodded. “I’m embarrassed to say I only remembered my own name a short while ago.”

“…It can’t be…” The student teacher looked troubled, sweat beading on her forehead. “An attack with the Artifact?”

Kurumi shrugged. “I don’t know the details, but most likely. I can’t come up with any other explanation.”

“I see… This is quite the conundrum…” The student teacher scowled as she crossed her arms, then opened her eyes even wider as though she’d had a sudden thought. “Just to be sure… You do still, however, remember my name, yes?”

“What?”

“What?”

They stared at each other blankly. Kurumi averted her eyes awkwardly.

“O-oh… I-I’m sure it’s…”

“…!”

“Stephanie…?”

“Matsurika! Sukarabe!” the student teacher—Matsurika—cried shrilly as she waved a hand vigorously in front of her face. “How awful! How dreadful! To think you could forget your own partner’s name!”

“I-I’m sorry…” Kurumi quietly bowed her head. “It seems my memory is still hazy.”

At first, Matsurika was surprised, but then she crossed her arms with a sniff. “…Well, it is what it is. You’re not to blame. That said, we can’t exactly cease our investigation. The fact that you’ve been attacked is proof the perpetrator is here at the school. We must learn their identity as quickly as possible. Who knows what could happen next otherwise?”

“That’s true.” Kurumi nodded, slowly. “But as for the investigation… What precisely should we do?”

“I believe you said you had scheduled appointments to talk with students who know the victim,” Matsurika said. “Did you not write that down in your notebook?”

“What?” Kurumi’s eyes widened. She flipped through the notebook in her hand. She discovered the names and classes of students, brief introductions, and appointment times next to today’s date. “You’re right. I hadn’t looked at the schedule page yet.”

“I’ll leave that in your hands, Kurumi. I will continue to work the teachers for information. Let’s meet after school in the usual place and share what we learn.”

“All right. Got it. May I ask one question, though?”

“What is it?”

Kurumi continued with a wry smile. “Where exactly is the ‘usual place’?”

 

“Ah, so you’re the famed Tokisaki? I heard about you from Koharu. She said you wanted to talk about Anna?”

It was lunchtime. A tall girl with short, cropped hair greeted Kurumi when she arrived at grade twelve’s Class E. According to the notebook, this was Jun Ogikawa, the star of the volleyball team.

“Yes,” Kurumi said. “Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me. I apologize for the sudden request.”

“It’s fine, totally cool,” Jun said breezily, waving a hand back and forth. “You don’t need to be so formal. I’m worried about Anna, too. If there’s anything I can do, just say so.”

Kurumi nodded firmly and spoke as she recalled the information written in her notebook. “So you’re close with Matsutani, then?”

“Well, you know.” Jun shrugged. “We’re in the same class and on the same committee, so there’s that.”

“What kind of person is she?”

“Hmm. She’s a good kid. Pretty. Best grades in the class. Plus, she’s really nice, so she’s popular with the lower grades. She got a ton of chocolates on Valentine’s Day.” Jun pointed at herself with her thumb and winked, jokingly. “Second to me, though!” She did seem like she would have a lot of younger fans.

“But, well…,” she added. “She can be difficult, like maybe she’s embarrassed to show affection? She’s kind of proud like that.”

“I see.” Kurumi made a mental note. “I do want to confirm—prior to the incident, Matsutani wasn’t unstable mentally, was she?”

“Anna? Nah, no way. And she says she didn’t try to kill herself.”

“Have you spoken with her?”

“Oh yeah.” Jun nodded. “Went to visit her last week. She said she looked down, her wrists were slashed, and there was blood everywhere. No sign of anyone else going into her room, though, so people just chalked it up as a suicide attempt.”

“Mm-hmm.” Kurumi stroked her chin. This testimony aligned with the information in her notebook. “It’s almost like stigmata.”

“Stigmata?” Jun frowned.

“Yes. It’s a phenomenon where wounds appear on the body despite no visible injury occurring. They’re found on the wrists, forehead, and other places on the body where Jesus Christ was injured when he was crucified. Stigmata often appear on the bodies of particularly devout believers.”

“Whoa. Scary…” Jun furrowed her brow as her face paled.

This was a religious school. That didn’t mean everyone who attended it was deeply pious, though.

“Incidentally, I heard Matsutani said she saw someone who looked just like her on the day of the incident,” Kurumi said, as though she’d just remembered, and Jun nodded.

“Yeah, uh-huh. I think she said it was when she was heading to the dorm from the west building? Her doppelgänger or something was just glaring at her. Real hateful. Freaked her out. So she ran to her room. But, y’know, maybe she was just seeing things. I don’t know if it’s got anything to do with all this.”

“That would be quite frightening.” Sweat beaded on Kurumi’s forehead. She, too, would have been surprised if a person who looked just like her suddenly appeared before her. A thought struck her, and she cocked her head slightly. “From the west building to the dorm? Aren’t the grade twelve classrooms in the east building?”

“I guess she had a thing there that day,” Jun said with a shrug. “She stopped by the grade eleven classrooms before heading home to the dorm.”

“A thing?”

“Yeah. She didn’t tell me what it was, though.”

Kurumi exchanged a few more words with Jun before thanking her and leaving the classroom.

“…About Matsutani? I’m fine with talking, but can you not tell anyone else about this?” The bespectacled girl frowned, slightly annoyed.

After leaving Jun, Kurumi headed to the next classroom.

This girl’s name was Kaori Shibaki, Grade Eleven, Class A. Kurumi would have preferred to come here first, given it was closer to her own classroom, but Kaori preferred to talk after lunch, so Kurumi had gone to speak with Jun first.

“Yes, of course,” Kurumi said. “I would never reveal my sources.”

“Okay, good…” Kaori’s eyes darted back and forth, scanning the area. Almost like she was checking for eavesdroppers.

“You appear to be on high alert. Did you not care much for Matsutani?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just, I need more rumors like I need a hole in the head.”

“Rumors?” Kurumi tilted her head, and Kaori nodded with dawning understanding.

“Oh, riiight. You just transferred, didn’t you?”

“Yes. It’s only my second week… If you don’t mind my asking, what rumors are you talking about?”

Kaori hesitated for a moment before starting to speak. “…I was talking with Matsutani pretty regularly before all this happened. Not anything in particular, really. Just chatting, giving her some advice. But, like, Matsutani’s basically a celebrity here. And gossip queens will talk whether or not there’s anything to talk about.”

“Mm-hmm. What sort of gossip?”

“Like, Matsutani’s talking to a junior other than her little sister, so maybe her sisterhood’s canceled.”

“Sisterhood is…canceled?” Kurumi titled her head again at the unfamiliar expression. She figured you couldn’t really “cancel” a sibling relationship so easily.

“Oh,” Kaori continued, picking up on her confusion. “When I say ‘sister,’ I don’t mean real sisters. Our school has this big-sister program where an older girl pairs with a younger girl and teaches her about life at school and stuff.”

“Oh, I see.” Kurumi nodded in understanding. “That is what you’re referring to, then.”

“Yeah, well, it’s basically the sœur system.”

The sœur system. Was this a famous system? Kurumi had no idea.

“Basically, it’s students helping students,” Kaori told her. “But, you know, we’re teenagers. We’re emotional. So a lot of times, the sister relationship’s seen as kind of special.”

“I see. So people see the popular Matsutani spending all this time with a junior who is not her sister and assume something about her usual sisterhood.”

“Yes, exactly.” Kaori nodded. “And, like, it exploded pretty quick. Everyone was saying all this stuff. All lies, of course. But the thing is, I’m pretty good friends with Matsutani’s little sister, so that kinda complicates everything.”

“Meaning?”

“When she heard the rumors, she came to ask me about them. Like, ‘what is going on here?’ And that made people talk even more. Like, ‘whoa, catfight?!’”

“Oh my, oh dear. Goodness.” Kurumi shrugged and sighed. It might have been a momentous decision from the little sister’s perspective, but for the gossip-loving peanut gallery, going to confront the interloper would have no doubt been a juicy story. “But was that not a good opportunity? You could have explained the misunderstanding, no?”

“It didn’t really turn out like that.” Kaori scratched her cheek awkwardly.

“What do you mean?”

“Hmm, of course I told her it was all a misunderstanding. But Matsutani made me promise not to tell, so I couldn’t tell her why Matsutani was coming to talk to me, y’know? And I guess that just made her more suspicious.”

“Mm-hmm…” Kurumi stroked her chin and fell into thought while Kaori threw her limbs out to stretch.

“I mean, it’s not Matsutani’s fault. It was just bad timing. Like, who knew she’d get hospitalized for a suicide attempt right before the thing? I don’t know if it was spite, maybe she was copying her big sister or whatnot, but the little sister came along after that with these very obvious bandages around her wrists, totally acting like she’s some tragic heroine. And I get treated like the wicked witch who ripped the sisters apart. I’m sick of it all.”

“I’m sorry you’re dealing with this,” Kurumi said and lowered her voice as she continued. “You said, ‘right before the thing’… What thing? Is there some connection with what Matsutani was discussing with you?”

“Oh…” Kaori crossed her arms, wrestling with something, before she shook her head. “Sorry. I know it’s maybe too late after all of this has happened, but a promise is a promise. I really can’t say.”

“You can’t?” Kurumi narrowed her eyes. While she did want as much information as she could get in order to solve the case, she couldn’t force the issue when Kaori put it like that. “Thank you so much for talking with me. This is all very helpful. May I ask one last thing?”

“What is it?” Kaori looked at her curiously.

“The name and class of Matsutani’s little sister?”

“Oh. I didn’t say? You’re in Grade Eleven, Class C, right? She’s in your class,” Kaori said with a nod. “Her name’s Ikuno Hashiguchi.”

 

Kurumi was alone after school in the campus chapel. It was a large space with a number of pews. The windows had been carefully positioned, taking natural light into consideration, and the late afternoon sun streamed in, highlighting in red the cross that hung at the front of the chapel.

During services, the place was packed with students, teachers, and nuns, but after school, it was deserted. The silence seemed to make the space feel even more sacred.

“So sorry to keep you waaaitiiing!” The door to the chapel flew open, and the student teacher marched through it, yelling enthusiastically, her magnificent ringlets swaying back and forth.

Indeed. This chapel was in fact the “usual place” where Kurumi and Matsurika had promised to rendezvous.

“People will hear you,” Kurumi said, as if to press upon the teacher the nature of their meeting. “Please do be quieter, Miss Sukarabe.”

“I do beg your pardon!” Matsurika responded, just as loudly, and her voice rang out through the chapel again. She had a surprising inability to tone it down.

“Anyhoo…” Kurumi let out an exasperated sigh and cleared her throat. “Shall we discuss what we’ve learned? I managed to gain some very fascinating testimony.” She explained briefly what she’d learned at lunch.

Matsurika crossed her arms with a studious air as she hummed thoughtfully. “She saw her own self, did she? Like a doppelgänger.”

“Yes,” Kurumi assented. “There’s an urban legend that you will die if you see your own doppelgänger. Although in this case, it was only the attempt, and Anna did not in fact die,” she said jokingly.

Matsurika stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Anna Matsutani’s little sister is Ikuno Hashiguchi, then? You two are in the same class, right, Kurumi? What is she like?”

“…I have absolutely no recollection.”

“Goodness!” Matsurika looked at her in surprise. “You did tell me that your memories from before yesterday were hazy, but did you not see her again today?”

“It appears she’s feeling unwell and thus was absent today,” Kurumi replied with a shrug.

Indeed. After she got Ikuno’s name at lunch, Kurumi tried to look into her, but her desk remained empty. And her desk happened to be the one that Kurumi had mistakenly occupied that morning. There had been no bag hanging from it, so Kurumi had mistaken it for her own.

“…Were you not the one who took attendance today?” Kurumi asked pointedly.

“Now that you mention it, you’re right! I did!” Matsurika puffed her chest out proudly before lowering her voice just a little. “At any rate, that is fishy, isn’t it? The fact that her wrists were also bandaged is extremely suspect.”

“It is?” Kurumi frowned. “Wasn’t she simply mimicking Matsutani?”

“I wonder,” Matsurika said meaningfully. “The causal connection might be the exact opposite, in fact.”

Kurumi arched an eyebrow. “Do you mean to say you have some idea about the Artifact used in the crime?”

“Yes.” Matsurika nodded firmly. “I would have to assume that it’s the Artifact Changeling.”

“Changeling…,” Kurumi repeated softly.

In European myth, a changeling was a child whose place had been taken by a fairy. A fairy kidnapped a human child and left in its place a fairy child transformed to look just like the kidnapped. So the fairy child would have the exact appearance of the human child, but its temperament would be wild and rough, or it would be extremely sickly and die soon after the switch.

“The Artifact takes the form of an accessory,” Matsurika explained. “The user soaks it in the target’s blood or winds the hair of the target around it, then wears it to take on their exact appearance for a fixed period.”

“…!” Kurumi gasped. “Is that the true nature of the doppelgänger Matsutani saw, then?”

“Likely so. If the culprit was using this Artifact, that would align with the testimony you gathered.”

“Indeed. But what does it have to do with the attempted suicide?”

“Changeling’s power isn’t mere mimicry,” Matsurika told her. “After the user transforms, they share the target’s senses as long as they’re transformed.”

Kurumi stared at her, stunned. “They share their senses?”

“Yes. Put simply, if the user is injured, then that damage is also felt by the target. So if the user, say, cut their own wrists, then the target would find those same cuts on their wrists, too.”

“In other words, Ikuno cut her own wrists while transformed with Changeling, and those wounds were shared with Matsutani,” Kurumi said slowly. “The cuts on Ikuno’s wrists weren’t her copying Matsutani but rather the injuries inflicted first. Is that what you’re saying?”

Matsurika nodded deeply. “That does explain everything, no?”

“…True,” Kurumi agreed, a troubled look on her face.

Matsurika’s theory was no more than that—a theory. But the moment Kurumi heard it, she felt something click into place.

When she thought about it, the idea still seemed half-baked. She couldn’t sense any obvious malice on the part of the culprit, and their objective was equally unclear. Put simply, she couldn’t paint a picture in her mind of the perpetrator. But when she considered the idea that the whole thing might have been the product of a girl’s jealous, twisted love, it made a bizarre sort of sense.

“Okay!” Matsurika clapped her hands together. “Let’s go see this Ikuno right this minute. The academy is a full boarding school. Even if she took a sick day, she should be in her dorm room, yes? I shall go look up her room number.”

“Right now?” Kurumi raised surprised eyebrows.

“Yes. Strike while the iron is hot!” Matsurika replied. “If the criminal in fact does have the Artifact Changeling, her being suspicious of us and going into hiding is far more frightening than confronting her directly. It might be difficult to collect blood or fluids, but can you say with certainty you have not had a single hair taken from you?”

“…You have a point,” Kurumi agreed slowly.

Matsurika was right. Changeling was a fearsome Artifact, but certain conditions had to be met before its power could be activated. Even if the confrontation did get a little rough, it would all be over when they wrested Changeling from her. But if Ikuno became hostile toward them and stepped into the shadows, the Artifact could become a lethal weapon. Their best bet was to act as soon as possible.

“Understood. Let’s go,” Kurumi said and left the chapel with Matsurika.

After looking up Ikuno Hashiguchi’s room number in the office, Kurumi and Matsurika walked together down a path drenched in the light of the evening sun.

It was a paved road stretching from the school building toward the dorm, the same one Kurumi had walked on her way to school that morning. There was no sign of any other students, perhaps because it had been a little while since classes ended. Most students had already returned to their rooms, or they were busy elsewhere with practice and after-school clubs.

Walking down the quiet path, Kurumi furrowed her brow slightly. She’d had a curious sensation swirling around inside of her since they left the school building. Actually, to be more precise, since they had decided to go to Ikuno’s room.

Matsurika was perfectly correct about acting immediately, and even if Ikuno wasn’t the culprit, there would be no harm in talking to her. Kurumi didn’t have any objection to this course of action.

Still, something felt off to her, like there was something they were overlooking. This feeling grew steadily stronger with each step she took.

“Kurumi? Is something the matter?” Matsurika cocked her head, noticing the detective’s slowing pace.

“…No,” Kurumi replied curtly and lengthened her stride.

She was indeed feeling mysteriously uncomfortable. But this was, at best, a sensory issue; there was no obvious reason for it. It certainly wasn’t enough to stop her from moving forward, given that Ikuno might very well be the culprit they were there to find. Anything she could learn about her appearance, personality, and behavior would help her decide. When her thoughts reached that point, her eyebrows jumped up.

Indeed. She still hadn’t recovered all of her memories. She was still in a state of half-amnesia, neither fully present nor fully gone.

Changeling was an Artifact that caused the user to take on the appearance of the target and share their senses. If the culprit was using this Artifact, could they make Kurumi lose her memory somehow? What if they transformed into Kurumi and kept hitting themself in the head until she lost her memories?

Was Matsurika’s hypothesis wrong? Or did the culprit have more than one Artifact? Was Kurumi’s memory loss simply a coincidence with no connection to this case? Were they really making the right choice? Should they really be going to Ikuno’s room? The pounding of her heart grew louder with every step she took.

The world around her twisted, like a spell of overwhelming dizziness.

“All right, Kurumi,” Matsurika said, bringing her back to herself. “This is the room.”

“…!” Kurumi gasped and stared at the door Matsurika was pointing at, momentarily baffled.

Understandably so. After all, this room was the very one she had woken up in that morning. She was speechless.

The option of knocking did not come to mind for some reason. Her hand gripped the doorknob as if spurred on by an irresistible impulse and pulled the door open.

On the other side was the simple interior she’d seen that morning. The single bed along the wall, the study desk, the small chair.

And on that chair in front of the desk sat a girl leisurely awaiting Kurumi.

“Ah!” A cry slipped from her mouth.

This was only natural. She had seen this girl before.

Silky black hair. Porcelain skin. A gaze infused with a certain intelligence, and lips curled up audaciously. While she was clad in a school uniform, she had an experienced air to her that made the outfit seem a bit childish. The girl spoke to welcome Kurumi, as if she had been expecting their visit.

“It has come time to solve this case.”

Her clear voice was one Kurumi knew well.

“So you are indeed the culprit, Ikuno,” the girl—Kurumi Tokisaki—said to Kurumi, narrowing her eyes.

 

“Ah… Agh… Ngh… Hng…” Kurumi dropped to her knees, clutching her head in intense pain. As if the other Kurumi’s words had been the key, the haziness hanging over her memories abruptly cleared, and her real name was pushed into her mind.

 

 

 

 

 

“I…am…”

Ah. Yes. She finally remembered.

Ikuno Hashiguchi. That was her name. And that was also the name of the person who had used the Artifact Changeling to set this case in motion.

Indeed. A few months earlier, Ikuno had taken advantage of a long holiday to return home, where she discovered a curious package had been delivered to the house. It was addressed to her late great-grandfather. But there was no return address, so she’d had no choice but to open the package. Inside was a ring with a very strange power.

At first, she was astounded. How could something like this exist? She grew afraid and unable to discuss it with anyone, so she put it in a box and tucked it away in her desk. She thought she would never open that box again.

But about a month earlier, her “big sister” Anna Matsutani had suddenly started hanging out with one of her classmates. In the beginning, she hadn’t been particularly bothered by it, but then she started to hear ominous rumors everywhere until she could hardly stand it. She asked Anna, then Kaori, but they dodged her questions or changed the subject, which only served to increase her anxiety.

The decisive blow came in the form of a phone call from Anna.

“Hello? Ikuno?”

“…Yes? What is it?”

“What do you mean, what? You didn’t notice?”

“…?! ‘Notice’? Notice what?”

“…Well, whatever. Make time tomorrow. We’ll talk in person.”

Then Anna hung up.

For a while after the call, Ikuno could only stand there, frozen, phone in hand.

What if Anna wanted to cancel their sisterhood? What if Anna said she was taking Kaori as her new little sister?

The moment these possibilities flitted through her mind, she suddenly found in her hand the Artifact ring she had decided she would never, ever use.

She herself didn’t really understand her motivation. Did she want to punish her beloved Anna for leaving her? Did she want to die with Anna if she was going to lose her anyway? Most likely, it was both, and it was neither.

She was so fragile mentally that by the time she felt the pain and pulled her hands out of the basin, the water inside was already dyed bright red.

First thing the next morning, she heard the siren of the ambulance that took Anna to the hospital. She had only been able to watch her go in a daze, from a distance.

Ikuno sleepwalked through the days that followed. She went to class but simply sat and stared into space the whole day. She was barely present for classes or church.

Normally, someone would have reprimanded her, but the situation being what it was, almost none of the other students would approach her. They probably didn’t know what to say. Not when she had those bandages wrapped around her wrists like she was trying to go after Anna.

A few days after that, something unexpected happened. The new transfer student in her class started to dig into the suicide attempt.

Ikuno hadn’t been especially worried about this at first. She’d used an Artifact in the crime. The transfer student could look into it all she wanted, but she would never be able to trace it back to Ikuno.

But when she chanced upon the transfer student’s notebook, she couldn’t help but shiver in fear when she saw what was written: Suspected Artifact involvement.

Terror suddenly overtook Ikuno. This girl, this Kurumi Tokisaki, knew about the Artifacts. If she kept investigating, she might figure out Ikuno was behind this. She would discover Ikuno was the one who had hurt Anna.

That couldn’t happen. That was the one thing that couldn’t happen. If people found out… If Anna found out…

Just the thought was enough to drain the life out of Ikuno. Even after all of this, she couldn’t stop herself from adoring Anna, from loving her so much she could hardly stand it.

She knew it was selfish, but she couldn’t handle this terror. So she made up her mind. She would get a piece of Kurumi Tokisaki’s hair and carve wounds into her body just like she had with Anna.

She probably wouldn’t die. It would be a warning. A message telling Kurumi to quit sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.

She had nothing against Kurumi. But she could not allow the truth to get out.

One evening, having transformed to look like Kurumi, Ikuno steeled herself and picked up the knife.

“…Ah…”

She remembered everything up to that point. But then she fell unconscious as Kurumi, and her memory grew hazy.

“So you remember now,” the Kurumi sitting on the chair—the real Kurumi Tokisaki—said quietly. There was no sign of any injury on her wrists.

To Ikuno, this girl, who now looked identical to her, was more frightening than any monster.

“Ah. Ah. Ah…” She spotted something with a dull shine under the bed and reached out a hand.

It was a small knife. Most likely, it had tumbled under the bed when she’d passed out in Kurumi’s form.

“Ikuno!”

The other girls no doubt realized what it was that Ikuno now held. Kurumi’s eyebrows jumped up, and Matsurika cried out to stop her.

“Aaah!” But Ikuno could no longer control herself. Spurred on by this wild impulse, Ikuno turned the tip of the knife toward herself and plunged it into her own stomach.

She suddenly felt a sharp pain in her abdomen and watched as a flower of blood bloomed.

Or so she expected.

“Huh…?” She opened her eyes wide and stared at her stomach. There wasn’t so much as a scratch. “How…?”

She looked at the knife closely and found that the blade had retracted into the handle on a spring mechanism. It was a toy, albeit a cleverly realistic-looking one.

“It was a good call to switch the knives out, hmm?” Kurumi remarked. “Still, I never imagined she would suddenly try to stab herself in the stomach.”

“…Well, I can understand where she’s coming from. She was ambushed in her own room by her doppelgänger, and meanwhile, she hardly had any memory of what was going on,” Matsurika said with a wry smile.

“Yes.” Kurumi nodded. “When you put it like that, I suppose it is understandable. I’m more than accustomed to many people having my face, so I didn’t pay it any mind myself.”

“…?” Matsurika eyed her curiously. “Do you have a great number of sisters?”

“Something like that,” Kurumi replied with a shrug.

The lighthearted conversation bewildered Ikuno. She dropped the toy knife to the floor and slowly lifted her face.

“Why…? How exactly…did you…?” The halting query spilled forth.

Kurumi understood what she was trying to ask.

“It didn’t take me long to hypothesize that the Artifact in question here was Changeling,” she said, standing up slowly. “Along with the possibility that I would be attacked with it.

“Thus, I went ahead and took certain measures in preparation for such an eventuality. It’s true that any wounds you incurred while transformed with Changeling would indeed appear on my own body as well. However, you mustn’t forget that the power of Changeling is a sharing of the senses. It is most certainly not a one-way street. Damage my body incurs is also shared with you.”

“Wha…?!” Ikuno’s eyes grew wide.

Kurumi stroked her own neck with a slender fingertip. “The moment I felt the knife touch my wrist, I had Matsurika press down on my carotid arteries to sever my consciousness temporarily. This does place a serious burden on the body, so please don’t try this at home, hmm?” Kurumi said. Who exactly was she warning, though?

“So…” Ikuno groaned. “My hazy memories are your doing…?”

“Of course not!” Kurumi cried. “Please. I can’t be held responsible for every little thing. The mind affects the body. It’s only natural that a body unaccustomed to the use of the Artifact would have its sense of self shaken when taking on the form of several different people within a short time frame… Although I cannot deny the possibility that the forced interruption of your consciousness was the trigger,” she added quickly and quietly.

“…So you knew everything, too, Miss Sukarabe?” Ikuno said, glaring at Matsurika standing behind Kurumi.

“I did indeed!” Matsurika puffed her chest out in smug satisfaction.

“Incidentally, the theories she presented to you earlier were more or less my concoctions,” Kurumi noted.

“Y-you didn’t need to go out of your way to tell her that!” Sweat beaded on Matsurika’s forehead, and Kurumi chuckled.

Ikuno did not have the presence of mind to laugh at this. Still glaring at Kurumi, she opened her mouth again. “…Who are you?”

“Oh, yes, right.” Kurumi shrugged. “I am an Artifact crime detective.”

“…You mean you’re here to arrest me?” Ikuno said.

“No. My objective is the recovery of the Artifact. While what you have done might indeed be unforgivable, I have no authority to pass judgment on you.”

“…Then why not recover this right away instead of letting me flounder?” Ikuno raised her left hand as she spoke. She wore an old ring on her pinkie finger. She hadn’t understood the meaning of it at first, but now that she had her memory back, she knew. This was the Artifact Changeling.

Kurumi narrowed her eyes sharply. “I thought I would have you discover the truth of the incident yourself.”

“The truth of the incident…?” Ikuno scowled. “Now that I remember everything, there’s nothing to discover, is there? Or were you trying to make me feel the weight of my crime?”

“Who can say? You may be the perpetrator, but that doesn’t mean you know everything about the circumstances, now does it?”

“…Meaning?” Ikuno asked, suspiciously.

“You thought Anna was about to cancel your sisterhood,” Kurumi continued calmly. “But was that really the case? What was Anna speaking to Kaori about? Why did Anna return to the dorm from the west building, not the east building, on that day?”

“Huh…?” Ikuno frowned, and Kurumi handed her a long, thin box. She looked down at it, then back up to Kurumi. “What’s this?”

“Forgive my rudeness, but I took it from your desk.”

Indeed. Ikuno had seen this box before.

It had been in her desk when she’d sat down that morning. It was wrapped in pink paper and decorated with a ribbon.

Because she’d been convinced she was Kurumi, she hadn’t given it any real thought. Yet, seeing it now when she had regained her memory, she still had no idea what it was.

“No way.” Ikuno gasped, removed the wrapping paper, and opened the box.

Inside was a pretty accessory and a little note card that said “Happy Anniversary” in Anna’s handwriting.

Ikuno opened her eyes wide in surprise.

Right. The day of the incident. It had been exactly one year since she and Anna had become sisters.

“Hah. Ah…” Her voice shook, and then with a wail, Ikuno crumpled to the floor.

Anna hadn’t wanted to cancel their sisterhood. Kaori hadn’t betrayed her. All of it had been Ikuno tilting at windmills, jerked around by baseless rumors.

For that selfish reason, Ikuno had hurt her beloved Anna.

Regret and despair filled her heart. She pounded on the floor and sobbed.

“If you hadn’t possessed the Artifact, this incident would never have happened. You might have spent another night in anxious pain, but the misunderstanding would have been cleared up the very next day.”

Kurumi sighed at length.

“The legend that serves as the basis for the Artifact Changeling was an allegory from a time of high infant mortality—that’s one theory. It allowed the parent to believe it wasn’t their own child who had died but rather the fairy child, and their real child was alive and well in the land of the fairies. To think Changeling would be involved in an incident like this based on a mistaken, sad assumption… It’s ironic really.”

Kurumi stepped over to the stunned Ikuno and slipped the ring off her pinkie finger.

In the next instant, Ikuno transformed from Kurumi’s identical twin into a totally different person. Chestnut brown hair, cheeks with a smattering of freckles. The real Ikuno Hashiguchi.

“Ah.” She gasped.

“You are free to do as you please,” Kurumi told her. “If you cannot forgive yourself, then I will not stop you from attempting to harm yourself again. But before you do, please think for just a moment about how sad it would make Anna.”

“Ah. Hah. Agh…” Tears spilled from her eyes, leaving dark spots on the floor.

Kurumi stood up and left with the parting words, “Well then, take care.”

 

“Another case closed, and still no leads on the Artifact thief.”

A few days later, at the Tokisaki Detective Agency located on the second floor of a mixed-use building in front of the station, Kurumi took a sip of her tea and let out a warmed sigh.

Indeed. Recovering Changeling was all fine and dandy, but it had come to Ikuno Hashiguchi via yet another mysterious package.

“It’s quite curious,” she said with a slight shrug. “If they were only going to randomly send out the Artifacts they worked so hard to obtain, then what exactly was the goal in raiding the Sukarabe storehouse in the first place?”

Sitting on the sofa across from her, Matsurika placed a thoughtful hand on her chin. “Perhaps they are attempting to create a chaotic world filled with Artifact crimes!”

“That is the thinking of a cheap villain.” There was an annoyed tone to Kurumi’s voice, and Matsurika leaned back into the sofa, stunned slightly. “Whatever the culprit’s intent, the fact that they scattered the Artifacts like this is quite the bother. We only stumbled upon this case because of the victim’s testimony that she saw an identical copy of herself. If that hadn’t happened, the case might have slipped right past us without us even harboring the slightest misgiving.”

“Oh!” Matsurika raised her eyebrows as though she had just remembered something. “That reminds me, Kurumi. About that case.”

“Were there more details?”

“Yes. Anna Matsutani was later released from the hospital and safely reunited with Ikuno. The misunderstanding with Kaori was also resolved.”

“Hmm. Is that right?”

“My goodness! You’re downright icy. I know it was only for a brief time, but you were a student there.”

“If I get emotionally attached each and every time I go undercover, there’ll be no end,” Kurumi said coolly, and Matsurika flashed a mocking grin.

“Oh-hoh. Is that riiight?”

Matsurika’s expression said, “You say all that, yet you seemed quite involved.” Kurumi glared hard at Matsurika. “What?”

“Oh no!” Matsurika waved a hand prettily. “It’s nothing—really.” She had no doubt determined she didn’t want to deal with the blowback of pushing any further. She changed the subject. “Still, I was surprised.”

“By?” Kurumi said.

“Oh, at your daring to go undercover as a student when I suggested the strategy.”

“Pffft!” Kurumi scoffed at Matsurika’s words.

“And, well, we are in university,” Matsurika continued. “We were wearing uniforms ourselves not too long ago, so there wasn’t that much of a disconnect.”

“Please wait just a moment,” Kurumi demanded. “Kindly wipe that look off your face. You think I chose to be a student because I wanted to wear a uniform, huh? Anyone would assume they would be going undercover as a student when they heard they were infiltrating a school.”

“Whaaat? I’m not so sure,” Matsurika replied, quite obviously enjoying this from the bottom of her heart. “I had intended to propose we go undercover as student teachers.”

“…”

A vein on Kurumi’s forehead began to visibly throb, but she made an effort to plaster on a gentle smile. “Matsurika. Changeling is in the usual storage space, yes?”

“Hmm?” Matsurika raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yes, it is. And?”

Kurumi grinned. “I’m just going to borrow a strand of your hair.”

“Ah! What are you planning to do?!” Matsurika leaped up from the sofa and started running.

 

 

 

 

 

Auction Kurumi

“How baffling…,” Kurumi Tokisaki murmured to herself on the patio of a café on the Saito University campus.

She had long black hair held back with barrettes and wore a well-tailored blouse with a long skirt. Her perfect posture and general poise only enhanced the elegant silhouette this outfit provided her. Set out in front of her was a leather notebook, writing instruments, a smartphone, and a single book. Next to these, a teapot and cup sat somehow uncomfortably as her excuse for occupying this seat.

She dropped her gaze to the page of the book open before her and let out a short sigh.

This was the inventory register of the Artifacts once kept in the Sukarabe family storehouse—to be more precise, it was an incomplete copy of that register. She looked at each of the Artifacts’ names listed and set her mind to work.

It wasn’t that she was trying to memorize the names and powers of the Artifacts. Nor was she thinking about methods of use for the Artifacts they’d already recovered. She’d more or less done those things the day she borrowed this register.

Kurumi was now toiling with the question of the thief’s objective—the one who had raided the Sukarabe manor and stolen the Artifacts in the first place.

At Matsurika’s request, she had solved several cases up to that point and succeeded in recovering several Artifacts. But while the culprits in each of these cases did in fact have an Artifact in their possession, she could find absolutely no connection between them and the robbery.

The culprits all said the Artifact arrived at their home one day in a mysterious package. Naturally, she’d investigated them all since there was also the possibility that their testimony was false, but so far, she hadn’t found anything to disprove their statements.

This meant, essentially, that the person who raided the Sukarabe storehouse had sent the Artifacts they’d worked so hard to obtain to totally unrelated third parties. And that did not make sense.

Kurumi frowned. What on earth were they thinking? They couldn’t have actually been trying to create a world filled with chaos, as Matsurika had proposed. There had to be something—some kind of reason for sending the Artifacts to ignorant, unrelated individuals.

“Oh! Kurumi!” a bright voice abruptly called out from behind.

She looked in that direction to find two girls.

One wore a brilliant smile. Her long hair was the color of the night, and her eyes as wondrous as crystals. The other was expressionlessly doll-like and had pale hair reaching her shoulders.

Tohka Yatogami and Origami Tobiichi. Like Kurumi, they were first-year students at Saito University.

They were likely here for lunch, given the trays in their hands. There was a coffee, a sandwich, and an energy bar on Origami’s and a mountain of hamburgers piled up on Tohka’s. If Kurumi looked up contrast in the dictionary, she’d find a picture of these two.

“Goodness! Tohka, Origami. How have you been?” Kurumi greeted them with a wry smile. “You seem as full of life as ever, Tohka.”

“Hmm? Mm-hmm, I’m good.” Tohka gave her an exaggerated nod. “Wasn’t expecting you here, Kurumi. What are you up to?”

“So ‘what are you up to?’ is your way of greeting me, then,” Kurumi noted. “I am a student at this university, you know. I do occasionally make use of the facilities.”

“Well, yeah, but you hardly ever come to school. Are you gonna have enough credits to graduate?” Tohka asked worriedly, and Kurumi laughed.

It wasn’t a nice comment, but Kurumi never imagined the day would come when Tohka would worry about her graduating.

“Huh?” Tohka frowned. “Something funny?”

“No, nothing.” Kurumi shook her head. “I’ve done my calculations, and I won’t need to repeat a year, so I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah? That’s good.” Tohka nodded slightly and continued. “Anyway, it’s been a hundred years! Mind if we sit with you?”

“That would be lovely,” Kurumi said and cleared some space on the table.

 

 

 

 

 

Tohka and Origami set their trays down and sat in the chairs across from her.

“What are you up to lately, Kurumi?” Tohka asked. “Do you have one of those job things?”

“Yes, well.” Kurumi nodded. “Something like that.”

Origami turned a sharp gaze on her. “Is it in the investigation industry?”

“Oh my, oh dear. You do have your ear to the ground, don’t you?” Kurumi was not particularly surprised that Origami had accurately guessed her extracurricular activities. While she didn’t advertise the fact that she specialized in Artifacts, it wasn’t as though the detective agency itself was tucked away in some secret location. Origami was known as the smartest person on campus; it was no surprise she had figured out what Kurumi was doing.

Origami narrowed her eyes. “Up to your old tricks again?”

“Hee-hee-hee!” Kurumi grinned. “Who can say really?”

“…”

Origami narrowed her eyes but pressed no further. Maybe she trusted Kurumi in her own way, or maybe she understood Kurumi would never show her cards in the first place. Even if it was the latter, did that not show some trust in Kurumi as well?

At any rate, Kurumi had no intention of revealing that she was in search of the Artifacts. But she still needed a sounding board.

“Say, Tohka, Origami?” she said as casually as she was able. “Could I ask you to join me in a little idle chatter while you enjoy your lunch?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“…”

Tohka tilted her head while Origami remained silent.

“This is all hypothetical,” she continued. “Say a thief broke into a manor and stole a number of items. But then this thief sent those items to an unspecified large number of third parties. Why exactly would they do that?”

“Hmm.” Tohka frowned. “Where’s this coming from all of a sudden?”

“Hee-hee-hee!” Kurumi giggled. “Please think of it as a thought experiment.”

Origami pondered for a moment, then said, “…I can think of several possibilities.”

“Would you mind sharing?”

“One—it’s a Robin Hood situation,” Origami began. “Two—continuing to possess these items would, for some reason, be disadvantageous.”

“Mm-hmm.” Kurumi put a hand to her chin. These were indeed possible. “Disadvantageous, you say. How so?”

Origami shrugged. “Depends on what the items are. If they’re too big, there’s the issue of storage and the increased possibility of someone discovering them. If the items are poisonous or explosive, it’s possible that storing them at all becomes a risk. And in the case of expensive food items and other items that are difficult to store long-term, the thief may not be able to consume or use them up alone.”

“I see.” Kurumi nodded.

“Hmm.” Tohka raised her eyebrows into an inverted V. “Did someone’s food get stolen? That’s rough…”

Tohka was a serious glutton—one look at her tray was enough to understand that much. She stared sadly at the wrapped hamburger she held, and Kurumi couldn’t help but smile.

“No, this is just a hypothetical. No need for concern.”

“If you say so…” Tohka unwrapped the burger and polished it off in the blink of an eye. “If it were me, I’d eat them all before the thief could get them.”

Kurumi stared at her. “…You are about the only person who would be able to do that, Tohka.”

“Hmm. Then I’d share what I couldn’t eat with you and Origami. If it’s a choice between that or some stranger thief coming and taking them, I’d way rather give them to my friends.” Tohka handed one of the hamburgers piled on her tray to both Origami and Kurumi.

Origami returned her offering. “No thanks. I’m ingesting the necessary nutrients.”

“I, too, shall refrain. I’m not hungry at the moment, so—” Kurumi went to give the food back, before stopping. A single eyebrow twitched up on her forehead. “Better to give it to a friend than keep the stolen goods yourself…?”

“Huh?” Tohka looked at her curiously. “What’s wrong, Kurumi? Did you actually want it?”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “I do apologize, but I must be going. Something came up that I need to check on.”

Kurumi packed up her things and walked off, leaving behind a stunned Tohka and Origami.

 

“…”

In the office of the Tokisaki Detective Agency on the second floor of a mixed-use building quite close to the station, Kurumi was staring down a line of objects set out on her desk.

A dark gray bullet engraved with a curious design.

A lipstick brush in a glass bottle with elaborate workmanship.

A kitchen knife shining with a bewitching glow.

A ring with a pattern like a pair of fairy wings on it.

These were the Artifacts she had recovered thus far. Normally, they were kept in a specially made Artifact vault, but she’d taken them out to examine them anew.

The Artifacts were not the only things on her desk. They were joined by paper wrappers and boxes. Yes. The packaging used to send the Artifacts to the culprits in each case.

Naturally, these had already been examined for fingerprints and other identifying marks, but nothing had been found that might lead to the perpetrator of the raid.

But this wasn’t Kurumi’s focus now. Narrowing her eyes, she picked up the wrappers and scrutinized them from every angle. In each case, the paper seemed quite old, though it was not of poor quality. It was almost brittle under her fingers, like it would easily tear if she applied the slightest force. The addresses inscribed on the front had also seen the passing of several seasons. And the addressees were not the perpetrators of her cases.

That much lined up. The perps had testified that the packages were not sent to them personally but to a parent, grandparent, or some other relative who had already passed away.

This was a curious commonality. And it wasn’t that she hadn’t wondered about it before now, but to be honest, she couldn’t make much sense of it. When she considered it from a certain point of view, however, she did feel like there was some meaning in the fact.

“…If such a thing were to happen,” she murmured, slowly standing up. “This might very well require a reassessment of everything from the first case on.”

 

“Tohka. Tohka!”

“Hmm?” Tohka lifted her face when Kurumi called out to her on the Saito University campus. “Oh, Kurumi! So you came again today, huh? You need something?”

“Yes.” Kurumi nodded firmly. “I have a favor to ask of you, Tohka.”

“Huh?” Tohka opened her eyes wide in surprise.

 

“Dreaaadful news!”

A girl screamed as she nearly tumbled into the room, flinging open the door engraved with the words TOKISAKI DETECTIVE AGENCY on the second floor of a mixed-use building not too far from Tengu Station.

Her perfectly curled ringlets, the dress that was far too showy to be everyday wear—each element of her look screamed “little rich girl.” Coupled with her erratic entrance, a single glance was enough to make an indelible impression on any observer.

But seated on the far side of the room, Kurumi merely rolled her eyes, not showing the least hint of surprise. “If you were a bird, Matsurika, you would be a rooster crowing at dawn.”

“At least compare me to a female bird!” the girl—Matsurika Sukarabe—shrieked as if that was far too insulting.

“What’s the matter, then?” Kurumi asked smoothly.

“Please have a look at this! It was delivered to the mailbox downstairs!” Matsurika placed the item in her hand on the desk.

It was an envelope of thick white paper, and written on the front was TOKISAKI DETECTIVE AGENCY, KURUMI TOKISAKI. The top of the envelope had already been neatly cut open, and the paper inside was peeking out.

Kurumi looked up at Matsurika with a frown. “Is it right for you to open my mail, Matsurika?”

“I do sincerely apologize!” Matsurika snapped her fingers out and struck a pose. “However, given that we cannot reject the possibility of postal items containing dangerous substances, I took the liberty of opening the envelope after examining the contents with X-ray and fiberscope!”

“…Is that so?” Kurumi narrowed her eyes, and rather than further voice her displeasure, she picked up the envelope. While Kurumi was resigned to the pointlessness of pushing further, Matsurika had also made some sense.

At the very least, the sender of this letter was someone who knew that Kurumi had opened a detective agency here. Considering the work she and Matsurika were doing, there was no harm in being cautious.

“The sender’s name is not written on the envelope, huh?” she noted, turning it over in her hands. “And I suppose you looked at the contents?”

“Yes. Please take a look yourself.” Matsurika nodded, urging her on.

Kurumi pulled a letter folded in three out of the envelope and dropped her gaze to the page.

Mechanical writing spelled out the following message:

INVITATION

TOKISAKI DETECTIVE AGENCY

MISS KURUMI TOKISAKI,

YOUR PRESENCE IS REQUESTED AT THE ARTIFACT AUCTION TO BE HELD AT THE LOCATION BELOW AT FIVE PM ON OCTOBER 20.

“An invitation, is it?” Kurumi said. “And for tomorrow evening. This is quite sudden.”

“Yes,” Matsurika agreed. “Not to mention it’s an Artifact auction. What do you think?”

“It does push the boundaries of credulity, doesn’t it?” Kurumi stroked her chin, setting her mind to work, and continued. “If nothing else, the sender knows we’re collecting Artifacts. Whatever their true intent, they contacted us knowing that at least.”

“I…suppose so.” Matsurika nodded slowly.

“Assuming this auction will actually happen, we are looking at perhaps four possible outcomes.” As she spoke, Kurumi held up a finger. “One—the sender is the descendant of a magician in possession of Artifacts, like yourself, Matsurika. They learned that we seek Artifacts, and so they sent this invitation, thinking they could sell theirs for a high price.”

“That is a possibility.” Matsurika nodded her head. “It’s true our family doesn’t have a monopoly on Artifacts.”

Kurumi held up another finger. “Two—the sender received a package from the culprit behind the raid on the Sukarabe estate, like the offenders we’ve seen thus far.”

“That could also very well be the case. But to sell off a precious Artifact you obtained like this…”

“It may be difficult for you to believe, Matsurika, but more than a few people in this world would prefer money even over an Artifact that surpasses human knowledge.”

Matsurika looked shocked by the mere thought.

Given that she was the heir to family wealth, the idea may not have felt real to her, but Kurumi wasn’t interested in explaining it to her. She held up a third finger.

“Three—it’s someone collecting the Artifacts lost from the Sukarabe estate, just as we are.”

“As we are…?”

“Yes.” Kurumi nodded firmly. “We still have absolutely no idea why the culprit raided the Sukarabe storehouse, but it is a fact that the stolen Artifacts have been sent to a variety of people. In which case, it wouldn’t be strange for someone else to pick up on this just as we did and try to collect the scattered Artifacts.”

“I-in other words,” Matsurika said, her face flushing with excitement, “you have a rival—a Great Detective of the West?!”

“I don’t know about the west part,” Kurumi said, a bead of sweat on her forehead.

“And what’s possibility number four?” Matsurika asked excitedly.

“Right. The final possibility…” Kurumi held up a fourth finger and narrowed her eyes sharply. “…is that the person holding the auction is the very person who raided the Sukarabe storehouse.”

“Wha…?!” Matsurika gasped. “Th-the culprit who stole the Artifacts from us?!”

“Exactly. They would have enough Artifacts to hold an auction, and they would know who we are and that we’ve been collecting the Artifacts—to be more precise, they would know who you are, the Sukarabe heir. Is there any doubt that they meet these conditions?”

“…No,” Matsurika said slowly. “But why on earth would they hold an auction?”

“I can’t speak to their objective,” Kurumi responded. “But while we’re on that topic, isn’t sending the Artifacts you worked to steal to a large number of people itself quite irrational?”

“W-well, yes, but still…” Matsurika crossed her arms awkwardly.

“In that case,” Kurumi said, “it’s also quite possible this is a trap to take the Artifacts we’ve collected.”

“…!” Opening her eyes wide, Matsurika furrowed her brow. “T-true. Now that you mention it, you’re exactly right. But even if the auctioneer is not the perpetrator of the raid, isn’t the possibility of a trap still quite high?”

“Goodness! How clever of you to come to that conclusion. I expected nothing less.” Kurumi smiled and clapped.

“Oh, well.” Matsurika scratched her head bashfully. “I have witnessed a number of cases from your side, Kurumi—Wait, no!” She shook her head vigorously back and forth. “Why, it’s too dangerous! We’d be moths to a flame!”

“Precisely. It’s extremely risky,” Kurumi agreed. “But I believe I shall go toward the flame nonetheless.”

“…?!” Matsurika stared at her, baffled. “But why?!”

“Please think a moment. If this letter is authentic, the chance to obtain Artifacts would slip away from right under our noses. Not to mention the fact that this is not a one-on-one transaction but rather an auction.”

“Wh-what do you mean…?” Matsurika asked, puzzled.

Kurumi smirked. “As you know, an auction is a competitive purchasing environment. Items are put up on the auction block, and the customers who desire them assign those items a price they’d pay. The one who indicates the highest price is the winner. All of which means it is more than likely that customers besides us will have also been invited to participate.”

“Oh…!” Matsurika’s eyebrows jumped up.

“Exactly.” Kurumi nodded theatrically as she continued. “Whoever the auction organizer is, it’s a certainty that others who know about the Artifacts will be there. Some may even be in possession of Artifacts themselves. It’s quite possible the engineer of the raid on the Sukarabe storehouse, or someone of that ilk, will be taking part. Even if it doesn’t lead to us obtaining any new Artifacts, don’t you think this information alone is worth a few gold pieces?”

“I-indeed,” Matsurika said uneasily. “But that’s only in the event that the auction is real, yes? If all of it, including that, is a trap…”

“Then we simply burn it all down, including the trap itself.” Kurumi grinned. “At least we will have learned something about whoever is targeting us.”

“…!” Matsurika got a look on her face like the scales had fallen from her eyes. She dropped her head and began to laugh.

“Heh. Hee-hee-hee… Aaah! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” She lifted her face, now free of any trace of worry or hesitation. “It’s exactly as you say, Kurumi! To catch a lion, you must be a lion!”

She was brimming with her usual enthusiasm as she shouted.

“We must get to preparing ourselves immediately! From what I can see, the auction is to be held on an isolated island. I will go ahead and charter a boat. I’ll contact you once the departure location and time are settled!”

Before Kurumi could say anything in response, Matsurika charged out of the office.

“Matsurika. Matsurika!”

“Mmmngh?!” Having left the Tokisaki Detective Agency on the second floor of the mixed-use building, Matsurika was just about to get into the car she had waiting near the building when she heard a voice calling to her and turned toward it.

She found Kurumi poking her face out of a small window on the second floor.

“Ah, Kurumi!” she called cheerily. “Did you still need something else?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘need.’ But—”

A car horn blared from somewhere at the perfect time to drown out the rest of her sentence.

Matsurika frowned and put a hand to her ear. “I’m sorry! I can’t hear you! Please say that one more time!”

“It’s nothing terribly important,” Kurumi said. “You said you were going to arrange for a boat, yes? I get terribly seasick, so I would appreciate it if it were a boat that doesn’t rock too much.”

“Understood!” Matsurika grinned. “I will keep that in mind and arrange for a luxurious passenger ship!”

“…No, that would be too conspicuous,” Kurumi said, sighing. “And we probably won’t be able to dock such a boat, so please keep it to a reasonable size.”

“That is also a good point! I understand and will take care of it!” Matsurika replied brightly before whirling around and jumping into the car.

 

On the day of the auction, Kurumi and Matsurika made their way to the venue noted in the letter, a Western-style building located in the center of a small, isolated island about two hours by ferry from the mainland, which no doubt normally saw few visitors. The building’s sooty roof and vine-covered facade gave it a disturbing air, like that of a haunted house.

Well, given that the owner had built the structure in such a hard-to-reach location, they were almost certainly a bit off the beaten path already. Perhaps they were a passionate mystery fan, or an old castle aficionado, or…they regularly held meetings they would rather keep on the down low.

“We’ve found ourselves in quite the situation yet again, hmm?” Kurumi sighed as she looked up at the magnificent, eerie building.

“Indubitably!” Matsurika threw her head back, a daring smile spreading across her face abruptly. “This is the perfect stage for us!”

“Hee-hee-hee,” Kurumi giggled. “How brave. To think, you were so bewildered when the invitation first arrived.”

“Heh. Once I resolved myself to the task, I became the lion!”

“Wouldn’t that make you a coward in some respects?”

“It makes me prideful!” Matsurika proclaimed, laughing loudly and at length. “Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh-hoh!”

A tired smile crossed Kurumi’s face, and she walked toward the venue down a paved path with weeds sprouting up here and there.

As they drew near the entrance to the Western-style building, a man in a tuxedo bowed respectfully.

“Welcome,” he said. “Thank you for coming. Would you be so kind as to show your invitation?”

“Of course.” Kurumi replied and pulled the envelope she’d received out of her handbag.

The man checked its contents and bowed deeply once more. “Miss Kurumi Tokisaki from the Tokisaki Detective Agency and her companion, Miss Matsurika Sukarabe, yes? We’ve been expecting you. Right this way, please.” He opened the door and urged them inside.

Kurumi and Matsurika exchanged a look and then nodded at each other before stepping into the building.

The interior was quite different from the exterior. While the decor and furnishings were similarly showy, they had been cleaned and maintained very carefully. Perhaps no one had bothered to maintain the exterior. Which might have been the owner’s preference, a tactic to intimidate visitors, or because they wanted to make it look from the outside like the building was hardly ever in use.

“Please make yourselves comfortable,” the man said, opening the large door at the end of a long hallway. “The auction will begin shortly.”

Kurumi nodded and slipped through the door.

On the other side was a large ballroom with a stage of sorts at the far end that had curtains drawn across it. A number of chairs were arranged facing this stage.

“…”

Four individuals were already waiting there. The instant Kurumi and Matsurika stepped into the hall, all four turned their eyes on them.

One was an older, mild-mannered-looking gentleman with a beard. Another, a man in his thirties wearing an expensive-looking suit. Third, a high school girl in pigtails. And the last, a girl about the same age as Kurumi and Matsurika with long hair the color of the night and wondrous eyes like crystals. For some reason, she wore black gloves.

The four, an assortment of ages and genders, looked away from Kurumi and Matsurika at the same time, as if they’d prearranged it, and focused on the stage once more.

The encounter made Matsurika swallow hard. She spoke to Kurumi in a quiet voice, “…Are these the people competing with us today in the auction? The fellows on the right are certainly something, but the ladies on the left are unexpected. A bit on the young side, no?”

“Do you think so?” Kurumi replied. “I would’ve thought the Vampyre case taught you a thing or two about appearances being a tad unreliable in ascertaining age.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Matsurika opened her eyes wide with a gasp. “Now that you mention it, I do feel like I can see a mature cunning incongruous with their appearance. Are they perhaps using some kind of Artifact?”

The girl with her hair in pigtails glared at them. She may have actually overheard her.

Matsurika gasped and hid behind Kurumi.

“Please do be careful,” Kurumi remarked coolly. “Your speaking voice is quite loud.”

“…I will make a note of that,” Matsurika said apologetically. Her volume seemed a tad more restrained now.

Kurumi sat down in a nearby chair together with a contrite Matsurika.

“Oh dear.” Matsurika’s eyebrows jumped up on her forehead. “I’m sure I…”

“Is there something the matter?”

“Oh, no. It’s simply the other young lady, haven’t we seen her somewhere before?”

“Hmm?” Kurumi turned her eyes on the girl with the night-colored hair and slowly shook her head. “No. I have never seen her before. Is she perhaps an acquaintance of yours?”

“No, that’s not it.” Matsurika cocked her head as she furrowed her brow.

Kurumi sighed and changed the subject. “There is one thing I’d like to check on before this begins.”

“Hmm?” Matsurika turned to her. “Oh, yes. What might that be?”

“A simple matter really. What exactly does our budget look like?” Kurumi quietly, narrowing her eyes. “If real Artifacts are indeed being auctioned off, I would like to acquire as many as possible, whether they are items stolen from the Sukarabe storehouse or not. This is not a one-on-one transaction but an auction, so I would like to know just how deep our pockets are here.”

“Oh, yes. That makes sense.” Matsurika nodded dramatically and beckoned Kurumi toward her with a hand.

Kurumi brought her ear in close, and Matsurika whispered the amount.

“…Hrrrk!” Kurumi choked.

“Oh my!” Matsurika cried. “Are you all right, Kurumi?”

“…Y-yes. I was just a little surprised is all.”

Matsurika furrowed her brow nervously. “Will that not be enough?”

“…No, I’m sure that’s plenty,” Kurumi replied, sweat beading on her forehead. Just then, the lights above them dimmed.

A spotlight popped on, creating a pool of light on the stage ahead of them, and the curtains were drawn to either side.

A woman in lingerie stepped forward, a mask covering the top half of her face.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am terribly sorry we have kept you waiting. We will now begin the secret auction. We have carefully arranged a number of fine and rare items from around the world. Should any of them meet your high standards, please do place a bid.”

The masked woman bowed to a smattering of applause from the audience.

“Now then, for our first item…” She raised a hand, and two girls in sexy bunny costumes walked out of the wings pushing a large cart.

They moved in perfect sync—most likely twins. The only differences between them were their hairstyles and the size of their chests.

The twin bunnies walked to the center of the stage and removed the white cloth on top of the cart between them to reveal a small bottle with a bizarre design containing strangely colored liquid.

“Artifacts—items of profound mystery said to have been created by magicians. This is one such item. A single sip will fill you with strength, two will heal any ailment, and three will return the strength of a young tree to an old tree of a body. Behold the wonder drug Nectar, hailed as the Drink of Immortality.”

The masked woman’s words generated a furor of excited whispers among the buyers. Did they doubt this description and assume it was a joke? Or were they shocked that such an item was actually being put up for auction?

“…! Kurumi!” Matsurika whispered theatrically.

“…Yes.” Kurumi nodded. “Nectar. That’s one of the Artifacts on the Sukarabe inventory register.”

The miracle drug, Nectar. This was the Artifact she had previously suspected was in use during the Vampyre case.

“Doesn’t that mean that the organizer of this auction is the person who raided our house or someone who received a package from that person?” Matsurika asked.

“We don’t know that yet,” Kurumi told her. “If multiple Nectars were produced, we can’t say for certain whether this is the same item once safeguarded by your family, Matsurika.”

“…True. I haven’t checked all the Artifacts with my own eyes, so I don’t know what it would look like either.”

“That said…” Kurumi turned a questioning gaze on her, and Matsurika nodded as if to say they would do whatever it took.

The masked woman raised her voice. “We shall start the bidding at ten million.”

This was an exorbitant amount for a single bottle of a drug. But the moment the masked woman spoke, the guests seated before the stage raised their hands one after the other.

“Fifteen million.”

“Twenty million.”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Forty.”

The price shot up. The fact that the buyers didn’t so much as bat an eyelid before calling out higher bids was proof that they believed in the authenticity of the bewitching drug set out on the dais.

Kurumi slowly raised her hand and quietly declared, “Three hundred million.”

“…!” The other bidders gasped.

Anyone would. She had suddenly placed a bid significantly higher than any of the others thus far.

And this was exactly what Kurumi wanted. Rather than haggling with incremental increases in price, Kurumi could nip in the bud any opposition, which would no doubt be to her advantage. This was her plan not only with Nectar but with the others to come as well.

Of course, she could only make such a power play thanks to the absurd wealth of the Sukarabe family currently at her disposal.

“…Three hundred one million.”

“Three hundred three.”

“Three hundred five.”

“Five hundred million,” she called out to pull away from the pack.

The other bidders pinched their mouths shut as if overwhelmed by Kurumi’s intensity.

“Five hundred million. Do I hear five-oh-one? No? Going once, going twice, going three times! Very well. Sold for five hundred million!” the woman in the mask declared. The two bunny girls clapped in celebration for the winning bid.

“Now then, onto our next item. This, too, is a rare treasure with profoundly mysterious powers.” As the woman in the mask spoke, the twin bunny girls wheeled out the next cart.

And thus the curious auction continued.

“Here we have our next item.”

Once an auctioned article was taken off to the wings of the stage, a new cart arrived in its center. Ten items had now been bid on since the start of the auction. Kurumi had won them all.

Some had not been listed in the Sukarabe register, and others were of dubious authenticity, but when Kurumi questioned Matsurika with her eyes, the other girl would nod as if to say, “Go for it!” So Kurumi had opened their fat wallet as far as it would go to win the items.

Perhaps it was indeed a bit much to have bought all the items; the other bidders had been shooting glances at them for a while now. But Matsurika didn’t seem the least bit bothered. In fact, she wore a toothy smile on her face, no doubt because they’d managed to lay claim to a large number of Artifacts. She looked as though she had even forgotten that the perpetrator of the raid on her house might be in the room with them.

“Hee-hee-hee!” she giggled. “What do you suppose the next item is? I can’t wait to see!”

As if in response, the cloth covering the cart was removed to reveal a gold pocket watch with elaborate handiwork.

“‘If only I could be in that moment one more time.’ ‘If only I could shine a light on a truth shrouded in darkness.’ Haven’t we all had such thoughts at least once in our lives?” the masked woman began. “This is Urd’s Watch, an Artifact named after one pillar of the three goddesses of destiny in Norse mythology. It is said to make these dreams of returning to the past a reality. Simply set it to a particular time, sit back, and watch. Or see a person of interest in the past.”

Excited chatter filled the room.

Naturally so. Should its ability be legitimate, no secret in the world would be safe. It would be an easy feat to find the weaknesses of anyone in power. Every person alive has one or two things that they’d prefer to keep hidden. The Artifact could even allow its user to amass an enormous fortune, depending on how skilled their use of it was.

Put another way, this Artifact was too dangerous to allow in the hands of someone with nefarious intent. Kurumi had to get this item and keep it safe, no matter how much it cost. Although she would be lying if she said her intentions were completely pure.

“Bidding shall start at one hundred million yen,” the masked woman declared, urging them on, and the bidders began to raise their hands one after the other.

“Two hundred.”

“Four hundred.”

“Five.”

“Seven.”

The price went up at a brisk clip.

Kurumi raised her hand to pull past the others the way she had thus far. “Twenty—” But she cut herself off.

The reason was simple. Matsurika was pushing her hand down.

“Matsurika…?” Kurumi blinked repeatedly, confused.

“…Stand down, Kurumi.” Matsurika shook her head, sweat beading on her forehead. “We must not bid on that.”

“Mm-hmm. May I ask why?”

Matsurika lowered her voice to a whisper so that the other participants couldn’t hear. “…That is most likely a fake.”

“Oh my, oh dear…” Kurumi narrowed her eyes sharply.

The intricate golden watch shined alluringly on the cart under the spotlight. Kurumi could spot no definitive differences between it and the items that had come before it.

“Do you have any evidence to base this claim on?” she asked.

“…Of course I do,” Matsurika replied.

“What exactly?”

“Oh. There was no record of any such Artifact in our ledger.”

“I find that a bit strange.” Kurumi stroked her chin thoughtfully. “There have been other items not in the register. And items of obviously dubious authenticity. Why are you concerned about this now? We still have plenty left in our war chest, yes?”

“Well…” Matsurika faltered.

Kurumi peered at Matsurika’s face as she continued. “It’s almost as if you’re afraid of Urd’s Watch, an Artifact allowing one to look into the past, falling into my hands.”

“…?!” Sweat dripped down Matsurika’s face.

“Goodness! Did I hit the nail on the head? Hee-hee-hee!” Kurumi giggled. “There’s no need to be so concerned. Every person alive has one or two things they’d rather keep to themselves. I wouldn’t dream of taking a malicious peek into anyone’s past.”

“Y-you wouldn’t?” Matsurika’s tension eased the slightest bit.

“No.” Kurumi grinned. “I simply wish to use the watch in the burned remains of the Sukarabe storehouse.”

Matsurika tensed once more.

“Oh my, oh dear, you look quite pale, Matsurika!” Kurumi continued in a theatrical manner. “Are you all right?”

“F-fine. Anyway, why would you want to…?”

“Now that’s a strange question, hmm? The site of the storehouse fire is the scene of the Artifact theft. If we could see what happened there on the day of the crime, the true identity of the perpetrator of the raid, which has been thus far shrouded in darkness, would perhaps become clear. Even you, my dear Matsurika, must understand that.”

Kurumi’s gaze abruptly grew sharper.

“Or would it be inconvenient for you to have the storehouse remains investigated? There can’t possibly be something you’re still hiding from me?”

“Wh-what…?! Why, there’s nothing of the sort, of course!” Matsurika cried out and leaped to her feet.

The other bidders, the auctioneer, and the bunny girls sent startled gazes her way.

“Oh my, oh dear,” Kurumi cooed. “What are you in such a panic for? Please calm yourself.”

“I am not in a panic,” Matsurika insisted. “I am simply saying it is a waste to bid on an obvious fake!”

“…Miss. Please lower your voice. We are in the middle of an auction,” the masked woman cautioned her from the stage.

Not only had Matsurika suddenly started shouting, but she was also now declaring the item currently up for auction to be a fake. A word of warning was to be expected.

Matsurika was breathing heavily, her shoulders heaving, as she was losing her temper as she looked up at the masked woman.

“Excuse me,” she said flatly. “We shall not be bidding on this particular item. Please, the rest of you, do have fun.”

“Oh my, oh dear.” Kurumi widened her eyes rather deliberately. “Whatever is the matter, Matsurika? You are being quite forceful.”

“…Say what you might!” Matsurika snapped in response, her gaze sharpening abruptly. “But these are my funds!”

Kurumi shrugged in exasperated resignation. “That is true. I won’t go against my sponsor’s wishes, of course.” She turned her eyes toward the stage and raised a hand as if to say, “Please continue.”

The masked woman appeared baffled by all this, but she nevertheless cleared her throat and continued with the proceedings.

“…Well then, our current top bid is two billion five hundred fifty million. Going once… Twice…”

Just then, the dark-haired girl yelled out, “Two billion six hundred!”

The other participants appeared to hesitate for a moment, but eventually, they sighed in defeat.

“Two billion six. Going once, going twice, going three times! We have a winner!” the masked woman announced, and the bunny girls clapped.

The girl clenched a gloved hand into a fist.

Matsurika let out a sigh of relief and sat back down in her chair. She didn’t so much as glance at Kurumi. Almost as if she thought that if she did meet Kurumi’s gaze, she would see right through her to the depths of her soul.

And yet…

“And now we come to our final item,” the masked woman said, as the next item was wheeled out.

“Wha—?!” The moment Matsurika saw it, she began to sweat once more.

It was a single outfit. A Gothic Lolita-style dress that appeared dyed with darkness and blood. It came with a headdress, long gloves, and even boots. The whole ensemble emitted a strange pressure.

“Divine Dress Number Three—Elohim,” the masked woman explained. “Spirits—uniquely catastrophic creatures said to have once appeared in our world. This is the magical costume that clothed one Spirit specimen known as ‘Nightmare.’ It is said that the wearer of this costume may dive into any shadow.”

Matsurika opened her eyes so wide, her eyeballs threatened to pop out of her head, and her hands began to shake. “Th-that… What is that doing here…?”

“Oh my, oh dear.” Kurumi peered at Matsurika’s profile, her own face twisted up into a smile like she was deeply enjoying the spectacle. “Is there something the matter, Matsurika? Surely you haven’t seen this item before?”

“…! N-no, how could I have…?” Matsurika’s voice trembled, and her eyes darted around the room, looking anywhere but at Kurumi. She was very obviously not her usual self.

“No, I suppose not.” Kurumi crossed her arms and nodded theatrically. “And look at it. What a horrendous design. You would be far too embarrassed to wear such a garment, yes?”

“Uh?!” Matsurika whirled around with a gasp.

“Oh my, Matsurika!” Kurumi sounded thoroughly entertained. “What is the matter? You look almost as if someone were speaking ill of a precious, beloved treasure you’ve kept tucked safely away?”

“K-Kurumi, you…” Matsurika gritted her teeth with a shiver of fear.

Then the bidding began.

“Now then, we shall start the bidding at three hundred million yen.”

“Five hundred.”

“Seven hundred.”

“Eight hundred.”

“One point two billion.”

One after the other, the participants named their price. The pace was quicker than for any other item thus far.

“Wha—?! H-hey!” Matsurika cried out in a panic.

But the participants took no notice of her. The dispassionate bidding war continued.

“K-Kurumi?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to raise your hand?”

“No.” Kurumi shook her head firmly.

 

 

 

 

 

“Why not? Someone else is going to buy it out from under you, you know!” Matsurika said, sweat beading all over her face.

Kurumi rolled her eyes. “That is a fake.”

“What…?” Matsurika said shrilly.

“That is quite obviously not an Artifact. It’s mere clothing—a cosplay costume, to be more precise. You might be forgiven for wearing such a thing if you were a child. No older than a teen, however. Matsurika, are you saying that’s what you really want?”

“W-well, I…” Even while Matsurika stammered and hesitated, the bidding kept steadily pushing the price higher and higher.

“One point five.”

“Two.”

“Two point eight.”

“Hngh…” Matsurika groaned in frustration.

“Two point eight billion. Do we have any higher bids?” The woman in the mask scanned the room, looking for any sign of movement from the guests assembled before her.

“Ngh… Nnngh! Hnnngh…” Matsurika looked back and forth between Kurumi and the item on the stage.

“It seems there are no more bids,” the masked woman said. “The win—”

“Th-three billion!” Matsurika threw her hand up into the air.

“We have three billion!” The masked woman looked out at the audience once more. “And it seems that no one is willing to go higher. We have our winning bid.”

The bunny girls clapped, and Matsurika lowered her hand as she took deep breaths to calm herself.

“…Do you have something you perhaps wish to say to me, Kurumi?” she finally said.

“No, nothing in particular. It’s your money, Matsurika,” Kurumi said skeptically. “If you want it that badly, I have no power to stop you.”

The masked woman’s voice rang out from the stage again. “That concludes the Artifact auction. I’ll ask the winning bidders to please remain where you are, as there is some paperwork to take care of. You will be escorted to another room. As for our other guests, I’m afraid this is where we must bid you farewell. Please do take care—”

“Please wait just a moment.” Kurumi raised her voice and cut off the masked woman.

“Ah.” The masked woman looked at her, startled. “Is there something the matter? I do sincerely apologize, but bids may not be retracted.”

“That isn’t my intention,” Kurumi replied, standing up. “I would like to ask for a moment of time with everyone gathered here now.”

She walked toward the stage—a position that would allow her to look out over everyone in the room. Puzzled chatter broke out among the guests.

“Wh-what…?” A shiver of fear colored Matsurika’s face. That was understandable, however. She had not been given advance notice of whatever performance Kurumi was about to put on.

Kurumi now held the attention of all eyes in the venue, and she let her gaze wander over the faces.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” she began. “My name is Kurumi Tokisaki. I specialize in Artifact crimes—well, let’s simply say that I am a detective of sorts.”

The chatter in the venue grew louder.

“Please do rest assured.” Kurumi giggled. “Even should you possess some Artifact, as long as you are not using them to commit crimes, I won’t be coming after you. Assuming those Artifacts are not stolen items themselves.”

“Wh-what are you talking about…?” the masked woman asked, her confusion plain.

Kurumi gave her an exaggerated nod before continuing. “A few months ago, the home of Matsurika Sukarabe, a descendant of magicians, was raided, and a great number of Artifacts were lost. I now know that the thief is here in this room.”

“…!” The people in the venue gasped while Kurumi strolled deliberately across the stage.

“The person who raided the Sukarabe storehouse and scattered the Artifacts was you…”

She raised her hand with a theatrical gesture and pointed to the culprit.

“Matsurika.”

A hush fell over the venue. You could hear a pin drop.

A few seconds later, Matsurika let out a dazed cry. “…Wh…what are you saying, Kurumi? Why on earth would I take my own Artifacts…?”

“If you’ll recall, this has been the question right from the start, yes?” Kurumi responded smoothly. “Why would the perpetrator of the raid on the Sukarabe storehouse distribute those hard-won Artifacts to all those different people? During a conversation with a friend the other day, I was struck by a particular idea and thus took the liberty of examining the Sukarabe compound and the remains of the burned storehouse.”

“Wha…?!” Matsurika gaped at her. “When did you…?”

“Hee-hee-hee. You’ll have to excuse me. You happened to be out.” Kurumi gave a wide grin. “As a result, I arrived at a single possibility. What if the thief did not in fact obtain all those Artifacts in that raid?”

“Wh-what do you mean…?”

“The logic is simple. It was not the thief who disseminated the Artifacts but their true owner. To be more precise, the magical security put in place by that owner.”

She paced the stage slowly and continued.

“The Artifacts possess powers surpassing human knowledge. It would be quite serious if they were to fall into the hands of someone with rotten intentions. Thus, the true owner of the Artifacts set up a system to automatically send the tools to trusted acquaintances, should anyone force their way into the storehouse to try and steal them. No doubt they were packed for shipping when they were originally stored. The packaging and addressees we recovered from the homes of the culprits in the cases we solved thus far were all quite old. Ah, and perhaps it was not the thief, but the true owner of the Artifacts who set the warehouse on fire.”

She put a finger on her chin thoughtfully.

“It would appear, however, that everything did not go according to plan. Trusted individuals, likely descendants of magicians themselves, had been selected as the place of refuge for the Artifacts, but over time, many of them had passed away. Then, without any knowledge of the situation or circumstances, their children or grandchildren happened upon the Artifact sent to their home and became entranced by the object’s magical powers, which led to their criminal acts. Is this not the case for every Artifact crime we’ve encountered thus far?”

Kurumi tilted her head slowly and looked at Matsurika.

“So if you were the thief, what would you do? The majority of the Artifacts you intended to acquire have been sent away, and there are scant clues as to where they have gone.”

“…” Matsurika stared at her silently.

“You would attempt to recover them, of course. You locked up the real Sukarabe heir and used an Artifact with the power of suggestion or something similar to take her place. In so doing, you were able to position yourself as the victim. And then you arranged for a collaborator—me, in this instance—and waited at the ready for the Artifact crimes which would eventually occur.”

“…!”

Matsurika had been listening to Kurumi’s explanation with a pale face, but now she shook her head vigorously.

“E-even assuming the security system scattered the Artifacts, how does that make me the thief?!” she protested. “The Artifacts in the storehouse were handed down over generations. I would have had no way of knowing that my ancestors secretly set up such a system!”

“Ah, yes.” Kurumi nodded slowly. “That’s true. Some of the addressees had in fact already died, so there is the possibility that your ancestors died as well without ever passing down knowledge of the distribution system.”

“Y-you see? All of this is mere speculation!” Matsurika cried shrilly. “If you wish to make such wild claims, please do show me your evidence! Firm evidence that proves I’m the culprit!”

Kurumi sighed. “You truly don’t know when to give up. You must have realized, have you not?”

“R-realized what?”

“The last item in the auction, the Spirit costume. I was that item’s original owner.”

“…!” Matsurika gasped.

“I did tell you I took the liberty of examining the Sukarabe compound while you were out,” Kurumi reminded her. “The costume was in a hidden room I found. Or did you perhaps think a garment of the exact same design just happened to be up for auction? Well, I couldn’t say with absolute certainty whether that’s possible. But this one is a replica patterned after the Astral Dress of a Spirit who once existed in this world.”

Kurumi narrowed her eyes.

“I was surprised, honestly. Did you know my true identity, Matsurika?”

Matsurika was silent. But the sweat streaming down her face gave away her feelings far more eloquently than any words could have.

“Well, that’s all right,” Kurumi said. “Regardless, onto that evidence you asked for.” She reached a hand toward the audience, beckoning someone.

The girl with the night-colored hair immediately stood up from her chair on the left side of the room. The winning bidder for Urd’s Watch earlier.

“What say you?” Kurumi asked.

“Yes. There’s no mistake.” The girl nodded firmly and pointed at Matsurika. “That is the culprit.”

“Wha…?” Matsurika blinked rapidly in total incomprehension. “What is this little act? Who is this person?”

“You don’t know?” Kurumi asked, before giving the girl a signal with her eyes.

The girl took off the glove on her left hand. Pale fingers appeared from inside, and on one of these was a ring with a design like fairy wings engraved on it.

“…! Changeling. You can’t have—!” Seeing this, Matsurika at last understood. Her eyes grew wide, and she held her breath.

With a slow movement, the girl removed the ring from her finger. As soon as it was off, her body shimmered briefly, and a few seconds later, her appearance changed completely. She was much smaller now, maybe elementary school age. She had glossy, silken hair and wore glasses that hid her eyes.

“You’re…!” Matsurika’s voice shook.

“Yes,” Kurumi said. “The real Sukarabe heir, the girl whose place you took. I rescued her from the hidden room together with the Spirit costume. Although the name Sukarabe itself was a fabrication on your part perhaps.

“I had her use Changeling to temporarily take on a different appearance so she could see your face close up and confirm your identity, Matsurika. Considering the possibility that there might be violence, I borrowed the hair of my strongest friend.”

Kurumi stared hard at Matsurika.

“Now then, I believe that’s checkmate, Matsurika. Although if you have anything to say for yourself, I’d be willing to hear you out.”

“Hngh…! Unnngh…!” Matsurika ran her hands through her hair and groaned in frustration. Eventually, that groan changed into loud laughter. “Heh… Hee-hee-hee! Ha-ha-ha! Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh!”

She exhaled at length and pushed her hair back with a despairing hand.

“Aaah, ah,” she said, a slight smirk on her lips. “I would expect nothing less of you, Kurumi. I was right to cast you in the role of detective.”

“What are you after, Matsurika?” Kurumi demanded.

“…I wasn’t lying when I said I descended from a line of magicians,” she said. “Although mine is not a famed house entrusted with a variety of Artifacts, like that of the young lady there.”

“In other words, you stole the Artifacts to increase the power of your house?” Kurumi asked. “Is that it?”

Matsurika laughed self-deprecatingly as her gaze grew distant. “That might have been the end result. That would have just been a bonus, though. What I wanted, Kurumi… I wanted to become you.”

“…Meaning?” Kurumi said, furrowing her brow.

Matsurika shrugged, amused.

It was a distant memory.

Still a small child, Matsurika was alone, trembling in a gloomy, abandoned factory.

Actually, it would have been wrong to say she was alone. Surrounding her were the men who had brought her there.

Indeed. Although Matsurika had lost essentially all the power of her magician ancestors, she had nevertheless been abducted. A company called DEM had been behind it. She didn’t know all the details, but she knew her father had refused to submit to DEM’s demands, so they had come after her.

She would no doubt be killed if the negotiations broke down. The young Matsurika could only shiver in fear.

Then a shadow covered the floor of the abandoned factory, and a girl crawled out from within it to drag the men down into the darkness.

Huh?

As the men screamed, Matsurika opened her eyes wide in surprise.

The girl, wearing a red and black dress, turned a leisurely gaze on Matsurika.

“Oh my, oh dear. And here I was wondering why DEM personnel would be here, of all places. Quite the adorable lost little girl we have, hmm?”

A daring smile rose up on the girl’s face, as if she intended to threaten Matsurika.

“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee! Well, now you’ve seen my face. Whatever shall I do with you?”

That was where Matsurika’s memory cut clean off. The next time she opened her eyes, she was in a hospital bed.

“I’m sure you don’t remember any of it,” she said. “It was over ten years ago, after all. But for me, personally, that day changed my life. I could never forget it.”

“…I don’t understand,” Kurumi said slowly. “What do you mean to say?”

“Kurumi—no. The Spirit, Nightmare. I met you when you were a Spirit.”

Kurumi’s eyes widened.

Matsurika continued with a feverish air. “I was bewitched by that power. It was beyond the human domain. And your almost frightening beauty! I wanted to be just like you. From that day on, I poured my heart and soul into learning about Spirits and magic. I sought its secrets and wished to turn myself into a Spirit.”

“… I see.” Kurumi sighed sadly and shook her head in exasperation. “I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but being a Spirit is not all sunshine and rainbows.”

“Even so,” Matsurika replied. “The heart wants what it wants. If you wish to know more, please do feel free to investigate me yourself. It would be a simple task if you used Urd’s Watch, yes?”

“Urd’s Watch? Ah…” Kurumi shrugged and rolled her eyes. “That’s a fake.”

“…What?” Matsurika’s jaw dropped, and Kurumi burst out laughing.

“If you could see the look on your face!” she cried. “It’s just as you anticipated. The one up for grabs here is a fake. Who knows if it even exists at all?”

This seemed to be the final piece of the puzzle for Matsurika. She took a deep breath and shook her head slowly from side to side.

“…I see. I have been completely and entirely deceived, then. This auction was your doing as well, then, Kurumi?”

“Excellent work!” Kurumi praised her. “I requested the assistance of the real heir and some acquaintances of mine. All of the items for auction were cleverly fabricated fakes—window dressing to invite you to contradict yourself.”

“Heh. Heh-heh-heh! My back is up against a wall indeed. Quite the show you put on,” Matsurika said, laughing. “But you can’t possibly think that this is the end, can you?”

“What?” Kurumi frowned, and Matsurika smiled brightly.

“This won’t do, Kurumi. You must render your opponent completely helpless before you call her out and reveal your reasoning. They might still have a trick up their sleeve, after all.”

Matsurika pulled a ring from her pocket. There was no doubt this was some sort of Artifact.

Kurumi’s expression grew wary. “Matsurika, you—”

“Heh-heh-heh! Heh-heh-heh!” Matsurika grinned and slid the ring onto her finger.

In the next instant, she shimmered and disappeared.

Kurumi had seen this power and these features before. Scowling, she spat the words out. “The Ring of Gyges!”

Indeed. It was one of the Artifacts listed in the Sukarabe inventory register, and it made the wearer invisible. Kurumi assumed it had been distributed with the rest of the Artifacts, but apparently, Matsurika had secretly been holding onto it, most likely as a precaution for this very possibility.

“Take care, Kurumi. I have no doubt we will meet again. Next time, however, I shall be a Spirit.” Matsurika’s voice echoed from somewhere, but Kurumi could not pick up so much as a faint flicker of her being.

She was going to get away. Even if Kurumi could have seen her, in her own current state, she would have had a hard time wrestling the other girl to the ground, given that Matsurika was the better fighter. And while Kurumi stood and fretted, Matsurika would slip out of the venue without a trace. But she did not panic.

Her reasoning was twofold. One, she could not allow the others to see her panicking after she had stood before them all and declared herself a detective.

Two, it was getting to be about that time.

“This case has already been solved.” Kurumi raised her hand and held up her index finger and thumb, almost mimicking the shape of a gun. “I’m sorry, Matsurika. I was prepared to help you out if you confessed and turned yourself in quietly.”

Kurumi made a gesture like she was firing a gun into the air.

“Hngh…?! Gah. Ah…!” A cry of anguish came from somewhere in the venue, and blood began to drip from empty air. A dull thud echoed in the hall, like someone falling to the ground.

“Wh…what…on…earth…is…?!” came Matsurika’s pained voice from the floor.

Kurumi leisurely blew on the tip of her index finger, pointed up like the barrel of a gun. “You should have considered more seriously the fact that I had the time to set such a large stage as this. Doesn’t this performance seem familiar to you? You once acted out the very same, after all.”

“You…couldn’t…have…” Matsurika gasped in sudden realization.

Kurumi nodded theatrically. “This ending was decided thirty-three hours and forty minutes ago. The magic bullet. Once fired, it will not stop until it hits its target. Even if that target is on the other side of the world. Even if…that target is invisible.”

“Wha…?!” Matsurika said, her voice hoarse. “The magic bullet…?! But when—?!” She gasped. She had likely remembered what she and Kurumi had been doing thirty-three hours and forty minutes ago.

Indeed. The moment Matsurika was about to get into a car after leaving the Tokisaki Detective Agency, Kurumi had peered out of the second-floor window and called out to stop her. She had been holding a gun loaded with a magic bullet in her right hand, which was hidden by the wall.

“You don’t mean the honking of the car horn was—?!” Matsurika cried.

“Precisely.” Kurumi nodded theatrically once more. “I had the driver honk at the right moment to mask the sound of the gunshot.”

“How did you know I had the Ring of Gyges?!” Matsurika whined as if none of this made any sense.

“I overestimated you. As I am now, I cannot see the future. I simply played every card in my hand. And one of them led us here.”

Kurumi walked toward the source of the voice.

“You know, Matsurika…I would recommend you remove the Ring of Gyges before you lose consciousness. It was your right leg that I aimed for yesterday. While such an injury will likely not lead to your immediate loss of life, we also cannot treat it if we cannot see you.”

“Hngh…” Matsurika grunted in frustration before appearing on the floor and promptly passing out.

 

At last, the curtain had fallen on the case of the Sukarabe burglary.

Given that Kurumi could not exactly reveal the existence of the Artifacts to the world, she couldn’t turn Matsurika over to the authorities, so she left her in the hands of people she could trust. Now that she had no patron, her long yet short days playing detective had also come to an end. She returned to her life as a regular university student and her “side job.”

“…It has come time to part, at last. And yet I do find myself reluctant.” Kurumi sighed with deep emotion as she sat down in her chair in the office of the Tokisaki Detective Agency on the second floor of a mixed-use building in front of the station.

There was no point in keeping the office now that the burglary had been solved and she had lost her sponsor. She had only come to remove her personal belongings and do a final sweep of the place.

While she had been somewhat forced into starting the agency, she nevertheless felt a sort of attachment to this office welling up in her. She let her fingers walk across the desk and stared at the now-empty bookcase.

“Haaah.” She sighed again. Her gaze wandered the room and then stopped abruptly when it landed on something toward the rear of the office.

The final auction item, the Spirit garment, sat there silently imposing.

Kurumi had returned the Artifacts to their real owner, but because the Spirit dress really was just clothing, she had kept it here.

“…Honestly. What am I supposed to do with this?” She looked away, then glanced at the outfit again a moment later.

“…”

The dress had a brilliant majesty in the deserted office. It looked as though it had been dyed with shadow and blood. Kurumi felt an almost bittersweet tinge ripple across the surface of her heart.

“…There’s no one around,” she murmured as an excuse. She kept an eye out, however, as she disrobed and put on the replica.

“…Hmm.” She looked over, appraising herself. “They did use fairly decent fabric. The pleats are neatly done, and the design is more or less correct. Well, we were the most witnessed of all the Spirits. I imagine the descendant of a magician might well have managed to get at least one photo—”

The office door opened abruptly.

“Excuse me. I heard that I might find Miss Kurumi Tokisaki here.”

Standing there was a girl of perhaps elementary school age wearing thick glasses. Kurumi recognized her—the descendant of magicians and the real owner of the Artifacts. She met Kurumi’s eyes, and they both cried out at the same time.

“Ah!”

“Ah!”

After a moment of silence, the girl bowed her head apologetically. “…Please do excuse me. I will come another time.”

“Please wait just a moment! This is not what it looks like!” Kurumi cried out shrilly, desperate to stop the girl on her way out.

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve interrupted your leisure time. My issue can truly wait—”

“No, that’s not it! This is… I just decided to try it on!”

“But—”

“It’s fine! Please come in!” Kurumi shouted in desperation and beckoned the girl into the office.

She would have preferred to have changed clothes before sitting down with her, but there wasn’t much to be done about it now. Her face reddening, she turned toward the girl.

“…What is it that you needed?” she asked.

“Well.” The girl nodded firmly. “I actually came because I have a favor to ask, Kurumi.”

“A favor? What is it?”

“I want you to continue operating the Tokisaki Detective Agency.”

“What?” Kurumi frowned dubiously. “Why? The thief Matsurika has been apprehended. My role here is finished, is it not?”

“And I can never thank you enough for your help in that matter,” the girl told her. “But a large number of the Artifacts distributed from our storehouse are still out there. Naturally, we intend to search for and recover them, but given their number, there are certain to be some of unknown whereabouts. I also cannot deny the possibility that some of their receivers may refuse to return them. Nor the possibility that an Artifact crime might occur before I find them. In consideration of such scenarios, I would ask that you please continue on as a detective. Naturally, we will pay you an appropriate remuneration, and our family will shoulder any necessary expenses. Would you please consider it?”

The girl bowed with a comportment older than her years.

After listening to her plea with crossed arms, Kurumi said, “I see. That all makes a good deal of sense. It’s rational to maintain a base to handle the issue of unrecovered Artifacts so long as it exists. But whether I shall shoulder that responsibility is a separate matter, no?”

“…That is correct,” the girl agreed, her shoulders slumping. She casually pulled her phone out of her pocket, turned the lens toward Kurumi, and tapped the screen. Snap! The sound of the camera shutter filled the office. “If you say you do not wish to continue, I cannot force you.”

“Hold on just a second, please,” Kurumi demanded. “What did you just photograph?”

“All I can do is ask you with my whole heart…,” the girl continued, a curious expression on her face as she turned the screen toward Kurumi. It showed an image of her, clad in the red and black dress.

“You certainly have nerves of steel for someone still so young, hmm?” Kurumi sighed in exasperation, sweat trickling down her cheek. “…Please delete the photograph. I was simply being a bit contrary. Even without the use of such tactics, I would have accepted.”

“…! Do you really mean it?” The girl’s face lit up.

“I do.” Kurumi quietly gave her assent. “I intended to search for and recover the scattered Artifacts anyway.”

“What?”

“I was merely talking to myself,” Kurumi said and quietly extended her right hand, as if to change the subject. “Well then, I look forward to starting our relationship anew.”

“Me too!” The girl grinned and took Kurumi’s hand.

Kurumi’s cheeks softened abruptly.

“Now then, shall we begin our investigation?”

 

 

Afterword

It’s nice to see those of you who are new. For those of you who aren’t new, it’s great to see you again. This is Koushi Tachibana. I have delivered to you The Casebook of Kurumi Tokisaki, Magic Detective. What did you think? I would be quite happy if you took a liking to it.

I feel the majority of you are already aware, but this collection of short stories takes as its protagonist the character Kurumi Tokisaki from the Date A Live series. I hadn’t actually intended right from the beginning to give her a standalone book, but before I knew it, here we were. How strange…

Considering Kurumi’s roots in fantasy, the stories from her titular casebook are a little more outrageous than your run-of-the-mill mysteries. Light novels are a great medium for something like this, I think.

Incidentally, the clock of her left eye is Kurumi’s trademark, but because these stories come after the end of the main series, her eye has returned to normal. I nonetheless threw a temper tantrum over how I wanted a clock on the cover, and the illustrator, Tsunako, drew the most magnificent creation for me. Kurumi really does pair well with clocks, don’t you think?

Now then, once again, this book is the result of the efforts of so many people. Illustrator Tsunako, designer Kusano, my editor—I am truly indebted to you always. Thank you so much for all your incredible work yet again. My sincerest gratitude to everyone involved with the book in editorial, printing, distribution, sales, and more—and to you for picking up this volume.

This book originates from a very particular place, but if you are kind enough to lend it your support, we might very well meet here again. I look forward to that day.

Koushi Tachibana, Sept. 2023