Author's Note: Before you read, I just want to say that I am terribly, terribly, TERRIBLY sorry for taking so long to release this chapter. Really, I am. It didn't even take that long to write… Just, this past weekend I've been extremely busy, and I've been having a pretty bad week so far, for several reasons. I'm so sorry it took so long. Please forgive me.

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Neuro, Yako, and Godai had to walk to the festival, as oh-so-unreliable Servant Number Two hadn't produced a new car for them to use. The poor man was severely punished because of this on the way there, and the demon saw to it that it just wouldn't be fair if he abused only one of his servants, and so Yako was able to appreciate the full effects of Neuro's torture as well. By the time they arrived, it was already dusk, and Yako's feet were already tired from walking, but she wasn't about to let it bother her.

Upon their arrival, they could see that the place was already rather crowded, bustling with activity and shouts of laughter. The beat of drums could be heard, and multicolored lights shone down on the scene. There were countless games and displays, both Traditional and Western.

Eager to get away, Godai tramped off immediately, grinning provocatively once he was out of reach from Neuro.

"Smell you later, shitty monster!" He called, disappearing into the crowd.

The first thing Yako noticed, of course, was the smell of various foods. The fact that there were so many to try brought a droplet of drool to the edge of her lips. She wiped it away and quickly brought her attentions back, however, when she noticed Neuro was already walking away through the scores of cheerful people.

"Hey, wait up!" called the girl, running to catch up with the demon. She eventually reached his side again and slowed to a walk. "Neuro…don't tell me, you're already looking for that mystery of yours?"

Neuro grinned down at Yako, and the girl could tell that smile was full of malice.

"No," answered the demon simply. "It seems we have time to play. Would you like to catch goldfish, Yako? You can be the goldfish, if you want. I can use a barbed ladle to impale you. Though I'm not sure the fish in the basin will appreciate being shoved along with the likes of a creature so below them…"

"I refuse," said Yako flatly, taking a step away from Neuro. In reality, she was quite glad that the demon had—essentially—granted her permission to do what she wanted for the time being. "But, it was a good idea to begin with, without the twists, I mean… But first! I'm hungry…"

The girl turned quickly to a food-stand and purchased several snacks. Her arms laden with them, she made her way back to Neuro, who seemed to be observing the crowd.

Yako handed something to him.

"Here, I bought a lot so they give me one for free. You can have it," She offered.

The demon looked oddly at the food and then at Yako.

"Hmm," He clamped a hand over the girl's head painfully. "I don't eat human food, louse, only mysteries. You should know that by now."

"I get it, I get it," Yako quickly responded, squirming away from Neuro. "More for me, then."

As she began to eat, Yako looked out over the crowds. She idly noticed that there were quite a few couples, it seemed—holding hands and smiling. She found herself thinking that it would've been nice if she could have come here with a guy; it was all because of Neuro that she couldn't. She stopped her train of thought for a moment—Neuro himself was a guy. But no, she convinced herself, glancing sideways once at her companion, he just didn't count. Besides, she told herself, he didn't think of her as a girl, either. And he wasn't even human.

It didn't occur to Yako, however, that the demon was observing the crowds as well, and wondering to himself what that little twinge was; he likened it to that agitated annoyance he had felt that Wednesday, for only one difference: The sprinkle of anger was not there this time. And this time, he had no excuse to give to himself, no explanation for what it was. The word 'hungry' came to mind, and it was quite peculiar, because he was not thinking of mysteries. A different kind of hunger? He shrugged it off.

When Yako had finished eating, (This involved stopping by several other food stands, as the snacks from her first stop lasted less than a minute,) the two went on to play some games, and perhaps win some prizes. Neuro merely followed his servant around for the most part; these games, that Yako seemed to be enjoying immensely, did not involve the roughing up or torturing of his servants, and thus they had little to no interest to him. The demon did, however, try his hand on a game that involved the shooting down of moving images depicting cute, fluffy creatures of some sort.

Yako, for the most part, was having quite a lot of fun, despite the fact that Neuro insisted on "joining in" on the games by harassing her. The girl perhaps would have caught and won a few goldfish if it had not been for the demon sticking his fingers in her eyes every time she tried to scoop one of the fish into her bowl, but she did her best to appreciate the game anyway. And despite Neuro's attempted interference, Yako ended up winning an adorable beanbag frog plush in another game that involved rolling colored marbles into holes of a matching color. Neuro had pushed the girl into a koi pond as she leaned over to look beneath the glossy surface of the water at the fish, but fortunately for her, the night was warm and her clothes dried relatively quickly; the fact that Yako's discomfort lasted so short seemed to displease the demon, and thus he did it again as they passed back by the pond.

"But…it's getting late, Neuro…" said Yako. "And no mystery has shown up, has it?"

The demon knocked on the girl's head as if it were empty.

"My senses don't lie, worm." Neuro informed her. "Who do you think I am?"

"And it looks like it's going to rain again." Yako added sadly, glancing upward towards the dark, once again clouded, sky.

"Hmm? Why are you so anguished about that, servant?"

"I've already been soaked twice tonight." The girl shot a glare at her companion.

"Oh? It shouldn't matter. If it really bothers you, then we could always hang you up to dry…" Neuro grabbed Yako by the shoulders and threw her, landing her up in a tree about thirty-five feet off the ground. This would have been impossible for a human, but Neuro, after all, is not human. "Like this."

Yako muffled her scream as she propelled through the air, and perhaps she would have yelled at Neuro if the wind hadn't been knocked out of her when she smacked into a large limb on the tree. She scrambled to get a hold of it to prevent herself from falling, and then caught her breath.

"Hey! I could've died, you know!" She called downward, causing several passersby to look up in puzzlement.

"Tch. It is a shame you didn't," scoffed the demon, kicking the base of the tree. The vibrating shudder that went up the trunk shook Yako off balance, sending her falling quickly towards the earth again. She screamed again. Neuro, of course, caught the girl before she hit the ground, and although she was shaking with fear, he still cackled. "Not yet, little worm, I still need your services."

Yako, finding herself so close to Neuro that she could hear and even feel his warm heartbeat, felt her cheeks grow hot. She quickly attributed this to embarrassment because of the people watching, and made an attempt to distance herself from the demon. Her attempt was unneeded, however, for Neuro pushed the girl off him and violently into the ground. Yako stood up, slightly disgruntled, and brushed the dirt off of herself. A part of her was, however, happy that Neuro had said that, in some way, he needed her. She smiled to herself at this as she caught up with Neuro again, (for he was already walking away,) even though she knew she should be angry. After all, if he hadn't caught her, she could've been killed or at least severely hurt. Well, she reminded herself, he had caught her.

After that Yako insisted on seeing a performance of dancers, and lucky for her, Neuro's mystery had not turned up yet, and so the demon did not object. As she watched, Yako noticed Godai up in the front row drooling over one of the female dancers. She giggled to herself. She noticed that Neuro was grinning, as he had evidently noticed his second servant's presence as well, although she thought to herself that the demon's humor most likely resided in using Godai's lecherous tendency to somehow blackmail him later. When the performance was finished, Yako figured that after falling nearly forty feet, she needed a snack. They visited two more food stands, and Yako was in the process of going towards a third when Neuro stopped her by grabbing the collar of her yukata and pulling her back.

The demon was smiling.

"Sensei, I want to eat over there." said Neuro innocently, pointing to a ramen stand not far away from the stand the girl had originally chosen; the owner of said first food stand glared at Neuro in annoyance that he had potentially just lost him a customer.

Yako looked at Neuro in puzzlement.

"Eh? I thought you said you didn't eat human food," She protested, raising an eyebrow.

"Then we can't?" Neuro pouted slightly, giving Yako a puppy dog-eyes look.

"Ah, no, no, I mean of course we'll go to that one." The girl assured him; she knew that look well.

The demon bent down slightly to whisper darkly in his servant's ear.

"The smell of the mystery has thickened, Yako," He told Yako, pushing her into a seat outside the ramen stand.

Yako opened her mouth to inquire more, but Neuro clamped a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.

"Simply eat as you would and wait, you pig." The demon ordered.

Yako nodded, not reacting to Neuro's insult. She ordered herself several bowls of food and sat back with a sigh to wait for it to be served to her. She idly wondered whether she'd actually get to eat it or not, seeing as whatever mystery awaited them might interrupt. She felt a tug on her sleeve and looked to her right.

"Um, could it be, that you're the piggish detective?!" A little girl, around nine years old or so, was looking up at Yako with shining eyes of interest.

Piggish? "Yeah, that's me." Yako answered.

"I'm a big—no—huge fan of yours!" The girl said, taking a spoonful of noodles into her mouth. "You're amazing! How many bowls of food are you going to eat here? 50? 87? 1000?!"

A woman that seemed to be the girl's mother clamped a hand over the girl's mouth gently.

"You'll have to excuse our daughter's behavior," She said politely, glancing at a man beside her.

"Little Meri-chan sometimes says a bit too much," agreed the man sheepishly. He then turned to the girl's mother. "But I'm not her father, Hana, not yet. We get married next month."

"You're as good as one, Papa." Meri spoke up, released finally from her mother's hold on her. She looked back at Yako. "Can I have an autograph?"

"Meri!" The little girl's mother scolded.

"No, no, it's all right." Yako assured the fretting parent. "I'm used to it. If you've got a paper and pen, I'll gladly…"

Meri quickly held out a pen and a notepad, already flipped to a fresh page.

"Thank you, Miss Katsuragi!" squealed the little girl as Yako signed the paper and handed it back. "Thanks so much!"

"It was nothing," Yako said politely, smiling at the little girl.

Meri pocketed the notepad and pen and returned to her food for a moment before turning to Yako again.

"Is being a detective hard? Is it fun? Did you know that I want to be a detective too? It's because you're so cool!"

"Hard…well," Yako glanced sideways at Neuro tentatively. "You could say that. As for fun…it really depends."

"Is it scary when you have to see dead bodies?"

Yako laughed slightly.

"I'm almost used to it by now." For reasons I'd rather not go into, she thought, remembering her visit to Hell.

"That's so cool!"

"I don't know about that…" Yako shrugged. As she looked at the little girl and her parents, her eyes softened and she smiled nostalgically. "But…it must be really nice having complete family, huh…"

Perhaps Meri would have responded, but at that moment she was silent, her eyes glazed over. Yako looked strangely at the little girl, who seemed nonresponsive. Hana asked her daughter if she was all right, but by that time, the little girl had already slid to the floor, her eyes blank and staring into nowhere.

"Meri!"

"Hey, Meri, are you ok?!"

"Meri? Meri?! Meri! Someone call an ambulance!" Hana was shaking her daughter's shoulders, but the little girl's head simply flopped limply.

By the time the ambulance had arrived, Hana was sobbing and her soon-to-be husband was attempting vainly to comfort her. Luckily, the emergency personnel were able to revive Meri quickly on-sight, and when one of the doctor's stepped out of the ambulance, he showed a thumbs-up to assure Hana that everything was fine.

"She's going to be ok, Miss." The doctor said calmly. "She's alive, just unconscious."

Hana looked up, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Are you sure? My baby…she's all right?"

"I'm positive. She'll probably be up and thriving in about an hour. It seems she'd been poisoned, but she hasn't ingested enough for it to be anywhere near lethal."

"Thank goodness!"

"Poison, huh?" Neuro asked curiously, his face shining with fake innocence. He had dragged Yako over to the commotion and now had his hands on her shoulders. "But…who would want to poison a little girl?"

"Well, actually…" Hana said, trying to get control of her emotions. "Little Meri-chan's life has been targeted many times."

Neuro's eyes lit up with interest.

Just as Yako had suspected, she hadn't been able to eat her food.