The sound of pages being turned was the only thing that broke the tranquil quiet of the archives section of the library. Kyoko stood in the middle of the room, thumbing through a thick tome that she suspected might relate to the case she was currently working. There had been numerous robbery incidents in the city where criminals would break into a bank and cut into the vault, then proceed to not take anything and leave shortly after. Police suspected that the same gang were behind all incidents as they shared key similarities, yet were baffled as to what the gang's motives were, hence, they called Kyoko.
"Hey, Kyoko! I think I found something!"
Oh, and Makoto was here too. She needed a lucky breakthrough.
"You know how you told me that the robbers used the same type of guns in all the heists they did? I just found a report dated recently that says the police arrested a guy a couple months ago that was smuggling the same type of gun, do you think they could be related?"
Kyoko grinned behind her book, apparently he was a walking lucky charm.
"It's certainly a possibility," she speculated, setting down the reports she was reading and replacing them with the papers Makoto held out to her. The reports were as described. Some guy was smuggling guns and supplying them to gangs, no concrete links between that case and the one she was working on now, but it was worth looking into. "Thanks, Makoto."
The boy smiled warmly from his spot across on the other side of the book-infested chamber before turning around again and going back to the investigation. Makoto had a wonderful smile, the detective thought to herself; it was sunny and genuine. Or at the very least, it made her feel slightly warmer.
The past few weeks had been a unique experience for Kyoko, Makoto had made an effort to get to know the ultimate detective, who was usually a social recluse due to her constant working. Ever since then, Makoto would check up on her every so often to see how she was doing and, since he had accidentally proven how good he was at detective work when he snuck a peak at her notes on a case and partially helped her solve it, she asked him to help her when she wanted company.
Kyoko looked around at the sea of yellowed paper that the duo had scanned through, "Well, I don't think we'll find anything else that is useful to us. How about we clean up and leave? It is lunchtime after all."
"Sounds good," Makoto said as he pushed the folder he was reading from neatly back into place on the bookshelf. The time spent putting folders back on the shelves was passed in a comfortable silence, then the pair walked out of the library and into the corridor. "Any theories so far?" Makoto attempted to break the silence, as it often fell on him to do so.
Kyoko hummed in consideration, falling into stride with Makoto as she did, "well, the gang didn't steal any money in any of the heists they pulled off-"
"So they're looking for something that isn't money?"
"exactly," Kyoko smiled, "and it's got to be something valuable, given the effort they are going through to find it."
The two theorised as they sauntered down the second-floor stairs, side by side. There was a moment where Makoto's hand lightly grazed the back of Kyoko's glove and, though the action was very subtle, Kyoko could feel the electricity surge through her arm and into the rest of her body. The white haired girl flushed rose as she stared straight ahead and tried to focus on the conversation, rather than the fire in her body. Besides her, Makoto quickly moved the offending arm and rubbed the back of his neck as he walked, but bore no other signs of acknowledging that anything had happened.
"So, uhh, what's the plan for after lunch?" Makoto murmured.
Kyoko tried to collect herself. A Kirigiri didn't show excessive emotion. "T-the plan is - well - to find out what the gang are after. If we can do that, then we can predict where they will be next."
"Sounds good, I'll just follow your lead then." Makoto drifted slightly away from Kyoko as they walked up the stairs to the first floor dorm area, almost as if he wanted to avoid the repetition of the incident that had just occurred.
Kyoko didn't like how she felt somewhat disappointed.
One quiet lunch in a crowded dining hall later, Kyoko deemed it best to go into the city and investigate one of the crime scenes personally. After all, the police sometimes overlooked clearly important details and thus couldn't solve the mysteries due to their lack of clues - I mean, look at Genocide Jack, she'd figured out who that was weeks ago. Not that it mattered hugely, as Byakuga casually leaked it to the class a few days after she'd reached her conclusion so she would have known anyway.
The afternoon sun beat down on Kyoko and Makoto as they walked to the chosen bank, which was chosen partly because it was one of the more recent crime scenes, but mostly because it was only a short distance from the school. The stone-slab building blended into the busy city centre easily enough, bar the police car and investigators littered around the site and car park. Large windows on the front of the building allowed the duo to peek inside; a large, poster-covered divider split the building up into two halves. On one side, the floor was littered with desks placed back to back, all of them smothered in coloured paper with uncomfortable looking chairs placed in front of them. On the other side, rope dividers split up a large carpeted area into rows with counters at the end of the rows.
Kyoko and Makoto were quickly given admittance to the site by the detectives, who were happy to have assistance from the famous Hope's Peak Academy.
"The suspects broke into this place last Wednesday then?" Makoto enquired as they walked inside the bank, heading to the back where the vault door was.
"Yes, four people stormed the bank, tied up civilians, killed a guard and then used a thermal drill to cut into the steel door of the vault. I'd like to know how they transported a thermal drill around, they're hard to carry."
"Hard to carry?" Makoto joked, "you make it sound like you've carried one before!"
Kyoko nodded, not picking up on the attempt at humour, "yes, I have carried one before."
"...Why?"
Kyoko didn't answer as she stepped into the vault through a huge hole crudely cut through the metal entrance, minding not to touch the small fragments of metal that stuck out from the rough edges like hideous teeth. The vault consisted of a poorly lit room with hundreds of safe-boxes built into its black, sturdy-looking metal walls. A few of the safe boxes were cut open, with their contents of money and expensive jewellery spilling out over the jagged edges. The ultimate detective stepped forward confidently towards one of the broken boxes.
"The boxes are made out of a thick metal," she pondered aloud, "and judging by the rough edges around the holes that have been cut, the criminals must have used some kind of saw or drill to break into them."
"Tons of boxes have been broken into. Do you think the contents were all the same? Maybe they were looking for something specific and so only broke into the boxes that contained a specific type of item?"
"Interesting theory." Kyoko walked around the room and peaked into the content of each box; some contained paper documents and large envelopes, some contained diamonds and impressive gems, some contained stacks of money tied together in neat bundles.
"Hmm-" she hummed, "there isn't a consistent pattern to the contents of the boxes." She smiled nonetheless, "It was a good idea though."
"Thanks!" Makoto's smile glowed from the other side of the room, causing Kyoko to lose her train of thought as a result. Perhaps a sidekick who inhibited your ability to think straight wasn't a good idea for her line of work?
But then again, he was kinda funny. And cute. Not that she found him any of those things though! Kirigiris don't feel emotion, they're rational and calculating!
"Perhaps there is something else that links all of the boxes together?" Kyoko's eyes drifted over to the box immediately to the right of the broken box she was currently standing in front of, engraved into the metal was a number: 24. She looked to the engraving of the box to the left of the broken box: 22.
"Makoto, can you look at the engravings on the boxes that are on either side of a broken box?"
Makoto did so, "um… I've got 142 and 144. Why?"
Rather than answering, Kyoko scanned the engravings on the side of each of the broken boxes; 42 and 44, 52 and 54, 62 and 64.
"The boxes either side of the boxes that were broken into all seem to end in the numbers 2 or 4. That means that the boxes that were broken into-"
Realisation flashed across Makoto's face like a bolt, "-all ended in the number 3!"
"Precisely!" Kyoko grinned slightly at Makoto's enthusiasm, "whoever these people are, they're after something specific that's been stored in a bank. Given the amount of banks that have been broken into, it's likely that they don't know which bank specifically, the only thing they do know is that it has been stored in a safe-box ending in the number 3."
"Wow! You got all that just from looking at some broken safe-boxes?" Makoto's eyes brimmed with whimsical admiration as he approached Kyoko from the other side of the vault, "that's incredible Kyoko!"
She turned slightly red at the praise, making an attempt to not let her inward satisfaction show outwardly. "It's nothing extraordinary. You just have to pay attention to details, that's all."
"So, that is everything we've discovered so far. The criminals will probably rob more banks in the near future and if they don't, then they must already have found the item they wanted." Kyoko gave the detective she was talking to a small sheet of note-paper containing a name and a case number written neatly in cursive handwriting. "My partner discovered a potential lead - a man who was recently arrested for smuggling the same type of guns the gang used in their heists, I believe he may be able to shed light on the identities of the gang members."
"Wow!" The inspector paled in awe at the extent of work that had been done in such a short amount of time, "That's amazing."
"Thank you, but I can't take all the credit," Kyoko glanced briefly to where Makoto was standing, cheerfully talking to two more investigators while he waited for Kyoko to finish her conversation. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we really should be getting back to the academy."
"Of course, thank you so much Miss Kirigiri!"
"Don't hesitate to contact me if you get stuck again. Goodbye," Kyoko stated indifferently as she turned on her feet and walked away from the older investigator. It wouldn't surprise her if they called her again soon, they usually did. Makoto noticed her striding up to him and waved goodbye to the investigators.
"Hey," he greeted, "how did it go?"
"I simply told him everything he needed to know," Kyoko replied, disinterested at the topic at hand, "they should be fine without us for now."
"It was really nice of you to help them out, Kyoko."
The butterflies returned to Kyoko's stomach, "It's not like I did it alone, thanks for keeping me company, Makoto."
"Hey, I did more than just keep you company!" Makoto smiled teasingly, "there was that discovery I made back in the archives, remember? About the gun smuggling."
Kyoko giggled quietly, Makoto beamed. "Yes," she said, "that proved to be a valuable discovery indeed." Looking down at her watch, Kyoko observed that it was late afternoon. "I guess time really does fly when you're having fun."
"Huh?"
"Want to go get dinner with me? My treat, as a reward for your help today".
Grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat, Makoto faced the white haired girl, "thank you Kyoko, I'd love that!"