Chapter 2
The Mysterious Man
"Dai and Satoshi should be home soon, right Miss Emiko?" To-To fluttered around the house, birdlike even in her human form. "I can't wait to see them, they've been gone so long!"
"No longer than usual, To-To," Kosuke replied, looking up from the pipe he was fixing under the kitchen sink. He sat up, cracking his head on the cabinet. Rubbing a hand on it through his spiky black hair, he continued. "Is everything alright, To-To? You've been acting really strange lately. Is there something we need to know about?"
Her eyes went wide for a moment, then settled into an expression of feigned innocence as she fiddled with her skirt. "No, no! Everything's all right. All is fine and dandy! Why wouldn't it be, Mr. Kosuke?" She cracked a reassuring smile that instead made the Niwas more suspicious.
"Alright, spill it. What's going on? You know something, don't you?" Emiko demanded.
"Nooo nooo! Nothing at all. Really, Ms. Emiko!" To-To nearly shrieked. She shrank back against the wall, fidgeting more furiously under their combined stares. She cast about for a moment, then slipped out into the living room, finding useless little things to do to avoid their eyes. Kosuke and Emiko exchanged a glance.
"Alright then, Ms. Towa, we'll leave you to your secrets."
"It's To-To!"
"Of course it is, Ms. Towa," Kosuke said with a not-so-comforting smile and a pat on her shoulder. "You know us Niwas will do anything to please such an old piece of artwork."
"I'm not old!" she protested as he steered her toward a couch.
"Of course you're not, dear," Emiko chimed in from her other side, "You're only a hundred or so years old, Kosuke and I aren't even middle aged, and even Dad is only-"
"You'll leave my age out of it. Won't they, Ms. Towa?" Daiki appeared behind from a chair, boxing her in.
"What do you say, Towa, will you tell us what's up?" Emiko asked innocently.
"No fair, you ganged up on me! But I told you, it's nothing! I've just been sensing something strange the past few days." She hung her head in defeat and exhaustion from protesting.
"Hmmm, that is indeed odd," Daiki said, stroking his beard. "Now that Dark and Krad are gone, the only artworks that have given us trouble were never enough to bother you, Towa."
"It's To-To," she said feebly.
"Well, anyway, it means we should all be more careful the next few days," Kosuke said. "Do you think it has anything to do with the coming date?
"I…I don't know, Mr. Kosuke. The feeling's not very specific at the moment."
The sound of the front door opening stopped the conversation. Another click came as the door was closed, followed by soft footfalls in the front hall. Bright blue eyes behind big glasses took in their worried tableau.
"It's alright. It's only me," Satoshi said in a somewhat tired voice.
"Ooo, Satoshi! What's that you're holding?" To-To asked, flitting about him, back to her normal, happily hyper self.
"It's Daisuke's painting. They returned it today."
"The one that won first prize?"
"Yes. Has Daisuke come home yet?"
"No. To-To was just asking the same thing about the both of you." Kosuke's eyes narrowed. "And now I have to ask you what I asked her. Why?"
Satoshi's expression didn't change as he shifted the painting in his arm. "Let me set this down in Daisuke's room first. It may be nothing, and that will give him a minute to walk in the door and prove me wrong." When they didn't protest, he began the climb up the stairs. The Niwas and To-To took seats in the living room and waited.
Soon, a blue haired head bobbed down the steps as Satoshi came to join them. He entered the living room area and stooped to sit in the chair they had left him. Ding-Dong! the doorbell called, halting his downward progress. He quirked an eyebrow at the assembled family, then rose. "I'll answer it."
"Well, go on, then. It might be Daisuke," Daiki said, shooing him off toward the door.
Satoshi headed off up the hall, wondering why, if it was Daisuke, he didn't just come on in to his own home. The 'training traps,' as he had described them to him, had been disabled for some time, so there shouldn't be any problem. He reached the door and paused for a moment, the doorknob cold against his hand from the snow outside. Then he opened the door.
The cold air rushed in around him, a few stray flakes finding their way into the house, in his wind-waving hair, on his glasses. On the doorstep stood a man with a captivating, humorless smile. He was instantly suspicious, and more so with the studying, knowing eyes that looked him over.
"Can I help you?" Satoshi asked in a voice as cold as the breeze on his face, the underlying tone implying he hoped he couldn't.
"Yes, in fact I believe you can. You see, there is something I'm trying to do, and if you help me, I'll most likely succeed." The stranger leaned forward, a hint of something else now in his happy smile.
"I don't have time for this. I'm afraid you'll have to leave now." Satoshi began to shut the door, retreating into the warmth of the heated house.
"You two are so alike, and different." The laughing statement spun Satoshi around.
"What did you say!" he demanded, stepping across the threshold to confront the man. Could he possibly mean Daisuke?
"Such different reactions, but each distrusting. Would you like to know where he is?" Satoshi's eyes narrowed dangerously at this statement, only to open wide as the man reached a hand into his business suit pocket and pulled out a familiar object.
"Where did you get that! No!" But the man had already thrust the silver object against his chest.
The tinkle of broken china accented a muffled exclamation from Kosuke. On the floor lay the broken cup To-To had been handing him, hot brown liquid dripping down his pants and the sofa, the remnants of his tea.
"To-To! What's wrong?"
"Just now, someone activated a Hikari artwork! Not a strong one, but really close. It just surprised me, that's all. It seemed so close, it might as well have been right at our doorstep!"
Kosuke, Emiko, and Daiki froze.
"The doorstep?" Emiko asked, and edge of panic in her voice. A cold wind blew in from the hallway carrying the sound of the open door banging against the wall.
"Satoshi!"
The four of them ran together down the narrow hall, staring at the growing snowy dark visible through the open portal of the doorway. Gentle flakes of snow added to the deepening gloom of dusk as they reached the outside.
"Mr. Satoshi!" To-To shouted, pointing across the cobbled street. A grey, nondescript car was parked just down the street. By the open rear door, the snow-obscured shape of a man could be vaguely seen lowering a limp blue-haired figure onto the seat. On the boy's chest was a brooch of lacy silver filigree surrounding a large, perfectly striped tiger's-eye stone. The man smiled genially at them and waved unconcernedly. The door slammed shut, hiding Satoshi's heels from sight as they stood stunned for a moment. He began to slide his legs into the driver's seat when they finally began to move.
"Hey you! Stop!" Emiko shouted, rushing forward. The man's near-shoulder-length black hair swayed as he continued to sit down behind the wheel. His only response was the raising of a gracefully curving object not quite seen before it flashed brightly. When the light faded, Emiko was picking herself up, having been blown over by the magical blast. She started to race forward again, but stopped as she encountered the flying snow and gravel cast up by the rear tires as the car drove off, its purpose accomplished.
The Niwas sat stiffly in the living room once more, contemplating what had just happened. On the coffee table lay a single scrap of paper, a solitary string of numbers and letters scrawled upon it.
"We have the license plate number. We could call the cops," To-To suggested worriedly, toying with the sheet nervously.
"And tell them what, Towa?" Daiki asked in response, "That a strange man the very picture of the model working citizen mysteriously made their ex-commander unconscious then threw my daughter across the street with a magical object?"
"Yes! Then they'd have to help us."
"To-To," Emiko interceded, "Just because our family knows about the magic nature of artworks doesn't mean the average public will accept it. It was enough of a stretch for them to accept a winged Phantom thief without knowing why or how he did it. Besides, we didn't really get a good look at him beyond what he wore."
"Yes, the police are out. We need to focus now on figuring out what happened for ourselves, then on finding out how to fix it." Kosuke shifted in his seat, ignoring the tea stain he now sat on, and rested his elbows on his knees, hands gesturing his thoughts. "It's safe to assume this man got Daisuke as well. That's most likely what Satoshi was going to tell us before…well, before he got him as well. Why else would he have Dai's picture instead of Daisuke himself?" He reached forward to pull a leather-bound tome from the table, the book already opened to a page he had found earlier in the discussion.
"That brooch on Satoshi, it was a Hikari artwork, the Bengal's Breath Brooch. According to this, it found its way to a European lady with a certain fondness for felines. She was very secretive about her treasures, and it was lost when she died of a heart attack. It seems to have the power to induce a deep sleep on anyone for as long as they wear it. That's must have been how he got Satoshi unconscious. But I haven't been able to find the other artwork. I didn't get enough of a look at it, and you'd be surprised how many objects can magically blast a person, Hikari or otherwise."
"Well, I don't think we're going to need much more than that. This man may have known where to find Daisuke and Satoshi, for whatever reason he wants them, but he doesn't know everything. We're a phantom thief family, and we can find him wherever he tries to hide." Emiko set her face in determined, grim smile.
"How are we going to do that, Ms. Emiko?" To-To asked, confused.
"You're going to find that brooch."
AN: Uh, if you liked this story, please review and tell me so. If no one likes it, I'm not going to bother putting too much effort into this story, and maybe only write it in my head. And if you can, include your thoughts on the plot, though I haven't told you much of it yet, and any ideas you might have, and especially ideas for new Hikari artworks (what they are and their powers), to help me along if I get stuck. I promise I'll give you credit if I use it.
Now, I have quite a few more chapters written on this, up to chapter 8 actually, except I'm kinda stuck on getting it to go where I want, and busy with end of the year school projects. So I'm spacing out what I've got to make them last longer until I get more written. That means from now on, you'll probably only be getting one at a time. Still, if you can't wait, I'll give you a hint to the next chapter: some familiar and long lost faces reappear, though you have to figure out who they are for yourself. (Shouldn't be too hard cause I'm really counting on you being able to.) So, see you soon with Chapter 3-Heartbeats! Please, review, as we authors live solely for it!