*** So, I'm planning the next few chapters, and I realized I haven't told the reason why Len was called the Riddler, and about the person he murdered. When they're back to London I'll make sure Rin knows why. ***


Chapter LIV : A Wish in a Bottle

7th April 1890

09: 00 AM

Meiko didn't want to be on the spotlight. She just gave them directions on where and how to get to the nearby town, Akane. The murder case Tei caused before had become the talk around Enbizaka.

'Three foreigners are staying at Enbizaka, and apparently those three are detectives.'

Since Meiko was involved in the case, many of the villagers asked her questions, and the publicity made her insane. If she's involved in yetanothermystery, she won't be able to live in Enbizaka peacefully ever again. Though, the four of them did make a promise to her, they'll be back for the hanami festival. Solved or not, they would be back to celebrate the festival. The hanami festival would start next week at 14thof April, the sakuras would be fully grown at that time.

"From here, it'll take about 2 hours to get there." Meiko said her good bye. She already told them the day before; they'd use a ship to get there. For Len and Kaito, it wasn't hard to afford a private ship when the passengers were only three of them. Carrying large bags were a drag, so they brought only a bag with them. It was hard to put their kimonos inside their bags. That was why they only had two kimonos inside, and bath equipments. Unfortunately for Rin, her bag was full and so she couldn't bring any books.

"Wait… Didn't you say it'll take us half a day to get there?" Kaito remembered Meiko said that a few days ago.

"Well if you walk it'll take half a day. But if you use a boat, it'll take 2 hours. And…" Meiko took out something from her small bag and gave it to Rin. A crystal bottle was now on her hand, a bottle with a paper inside.

"A bottle?" None of them knew what it meant. Why did Meiko gave Rin a bottle?

"There's a 'secret legend', a myth… You write a wish on a paper, and send it out to sea in a bottle made of crystal. If it doesn't break, then your wish will come true. The problem is, there are so many boats in the harbor, and it's hard for my bottle to float away without breaking. Since you're going in a boat, do you think you could do it for me?" Rin gazed at bottle for 3 seconds before she could answer.

"What if it breaks?" Rin wanted Meiko's wish to come true, if she broke the bottle… Her wish wouldn't come true, would it?
"Then I guess I just have to try hard, not relying on that secret legend. You should write a wish there, Rin." She was interested, writing a wish and putting it in a bottle sounded fun. Rin really wanted to try it.

"If it's a 'secret legend' how come you know about it?" Kaito asked.

"Only people in Enbizaka know about it. Some say there's a girl who once did that, and her wish came true. The ship you ordered, I think they have a bottle and a paper. People love to throw their wish out to the sea." The ship already signaled them, it was about time for them to set sail. "Good luck, okay? Don't forget about the hanami festival, I don't want to spend the entire day of the festival alone!" Meiko said and waved her good bye as the three of them went inside the ship.


There weren't any other boats or ships; it was a good place to throw the bottle there. Rin was hesitant, she was afraid that the bottle would break because of her.

"You don't have to feel so worried, it's just a bottle." Len said next to her. He kept on looking at her, wondering when Rin would throw that bottle away. The breeze felt so relaxing, and both of them enjoyed standing there and staring at the ocean. Though Rin's mind was occupied, she didn't want to break the bottle.

"I know it's just a bottle, but… If it breaks…" Rin looked down, wondering if she'd throw it or not. Len understood why she was worried. From where the two of them were standing, it was quite high. If Rin threw it away just like that, it might break because of the height.

"You know Meiko's a strong person. Even without the wish, you know she could grant her own wish by trying." What Len said was true, but she really wanted Meiko's bottle to land safely to the ocean, and float away safely.

"Hey, guys!" Kaito called the two of them. Rin was so surprised shenearlylet go of the bottle. Kaito had 3 bottles in his hands, and the two of them could already guess what he had in mind.

"I asked the captain of the ship, and he gave me these. Let's write our wishes!" Kaito exclaimed happily. He handed them each a pen, paper, and a bottle. "I know you don't believe in fantasies and myths, but it's fun, right? After all, we're stuck here for another half an hour, might as well do something, right?" Len admitted, he was abitbored.

Rin and Kaito thought their hardest on what they wanted to write, while Len just wrote a single sentence in his paper and put it in the bottle.

"You're done?" Kaito couldn't think of anything that Len wanted. Len just nodded, he was ready to throw his bottle to the sea. "What did you wish for? World peace?"

"Kaito, you know me more than that. Why would I want to wish that?" Len asked.

"I'm just… not sure what you want… What did you write in there?" He was about to answer, when Kaito changed his mind. "No, wait. I'm going to guess. Uhm… Do you want your arm to grow back?" Len stared at Kaito with a disgusted face. For his arm to grow back… That'd be disgusting.

While the two 'argued' Rin kept on wondering about what she wanted. She didn't want her memories to come back that badly, she liked the ways things were already. Rin wanted a piano, but then she thought… She didn't really need one, Rin couldn't even play it.

'Everything is already… fine.' A thought struck her; she knew what she wanted and wrote it as neatly as possible in her paper.

"Do you want to find true love?" Kaito gave his 6thguess.

"No." Len answered plainly.

"Do you want to live a peaceful life where nothing bothers you?" Kaito gave his 7th guess.

"You know I like solving cases and riddles, if nothing bothers me my life will be pointless." Kaito gave up. He looked at Rin, she already put her wish inside the bottle. "Let's just throw our bottle down."

They stood at near the edge of the ship, and released their bottle to the sea simultaneously. Rin and Kaito looked anxiously at their bottles, but their face changed when their bottle were nowhere to be found. That could only mean that their bottle cracked and sank to the bottom of the sea.

"Len… your bottle is floating." Rin pointed. It was still floating; the three of them stared at it until it was so small that no one could see it.

"Now, let's discuss wishes. Rin, what did you wish for?" Kaito asked. Rin was still disappointed that her bottle broke, but she didn't want that thought ruin her day.

"I put… 'I wish everything stay just as they are.' Well, I already like things the way they are." Rin said, it was too bad it wouldn't come true. At some point, something in her life would change, someday.

"What about you Len? I give up already, I couldn't guess." Rin was as curious as Kaito about Len's wish.

"I wish… I could find my Mother's unfinished case, and that I could solve it in her place. It's been in my mind for a while, so I wrote that." There was a long silence after Len said that. No one knew what to say at that time, nothing came to mind. "It doesn't matter. A bottle can't grant my wish." That reminded Rin, she hadn't thrown away Meiko's bottle yet. She picked it up from the floor and stared at it for a moment.

"How come your bottle survived and ours didn't?" Rin wondered.

"You two threw your bottles with the bottom facing downwards didn't you? Of course the pressure would destroy it since crystal is fragile. However if you positioned the bottle's lid so it'd face the bottom, then it won't break, it'd float back up." Rin and Kaito realized their mistakes and regret themselves for not doing what Len did.

"You could've told us before we threw our bottles." Kaito rolled his eyes.

"I thought you'd do the same thing as I did." While the two of them started a debate, Rin positioned the bottle just like how Len instructed. She threw it down to the sea, and with a small splash, the crystal bottle sank down to down the sea. Then float back up again. Rin gave out a sigh of relief, for a moment she wondered what Meiko's wish was. 'I don't know what her wish is, but I know it'd come true.' Rin thought to herself.


From the harbor, all they had to do was, follow the path.

"Honestly… They really should get rid of these rocks, grass, and trees. Why can't the streets in Japan be the same with the busy streets in London?" Kaito wondered.

"You can't compare a country like Japan to England, the most modern and wealthy country in the world." Len replied.

"I guess you're right, but still... They don't even have trains here." There were many things to be complained about Japan, but they knew they'd miss Japan one day.

After a few minutes of walk, they could see few houses. Those houses weren't so different from the houses in Enbizaka, but the ones in Akane were slightly bigger and more crowded. Children played happily in the streets, Rin wondered how those children could run around with those kimonos and wooden sandals.

"Alright, you two look for an inn, I'll look for the administrative building, or a city hall here." Kaito said and gave his bag to Len.

"The administrative building?" He repeated.

"You want me to look for data right? I just need to take a peek inside the building before I break in and steal the documents." Kaito said plainly, he said it as if breaking in to a building and stealing documents wasn't a bad thing. And so he left Rin and Len to look for the inn.

"I think the inn should be around here…" Len said and both of them looked around.

A few minutes later, they noticed something strange. The further they walked inside the village, lesser people and houses were there.

"Odd… This is still part of Akane, isn't it?" Both of them looked around, wondering why there were more trees than buildings. "I think we're heading the wrong way. Maybe we should go back?" Len wondered.

Rin looked around and her eyes were locked at one area. As soon as she saw it, she knew why no one wanted to live anywhere near it.

"Over there…" Rin pointed, from where they were standing, the building looked enormous, probably as big as an inn. A crooked wooden board was nailed down to the front wall of the building. It reads : Yamaguchi-Gumi. At the side, their symbol, was some sort of black and white diamond.

"That explains why there aren't many houses around here. That's probably one of the yakuza's bases. Let's just ask for directions to the inn…" Len didn't want to be involved with those yakuzas. They both turned around and walked back to the cheerful place they saw earlier.

'It's so ancient here…' Kaito thought to himself. It wasn't hard to look for the administrative building, they had a sign saying so. Not many people were there, which was a bad thing. If it's quieter then it'd be hard to sneak in without anyone noticing. Seven people were there, including him and the staffs.

'If it's like this… Then I need to make a distraction so they'd leave… Or maybe I should just break in at night? This is harder than I thought…' Kaito looked around. The layout of the administrative building wasn't so different from the ones he'd broken in before. His target was probably somewhere hidden in a room easy to reach for the staffs, but hard to reach for normal citizens.

Before Kaito could wonder even more, he could hear cries and the sound of people's rushing feet. None of the staffs inside react to it, they preceded their work as usual. Kaito looked out from the window, many people were blocking his views, though he could see large dark smoke that danced to the sky.


Notes :

In regret message, it's supposed to be a glass bottle, but glass isn't really fragile. Crystal is more fragile than glass, so I used that. I needed something fragile and look like glass, crystal was my only option. It's quite rare to find crystal bottle in Japan, but I had no choice. The float / break thing is important to the story.

Yamaguchi-Gumi is a REAL yakuza organization. It's one of the largest criminal organizations in the world. Their headquarters is in Kobe, Japan. Yamaguchi-Gumi was founded at the 1900s, I couldn't find a yakuza group in the Meiji Period, so I just took the largest and most successful one from Wikipedia. Yamaguchi-GUMI has nothing to do with the Gumi in the story.

There will be a case & a mystery. The case is really easy, maybe some of you can solve it before the 'announcement'. In order to solve this case, you have to pay attention to every word and the time in the next few chapters. Good luck xD