"Honestly, who carries around their wallet when they're at home?"
- Mitsune Konno; 'On a Wing and a Storm'
Chapter II:
The Case of the Missing Hinata Money
A Mystery
May 3, 2006
Hinata Apartments, Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
1107 hours, local time
It was another average, idyllic spring midmorning at the Hinata.
Haruka, her morning tea shop duties finished and preparations for the lunch 'rush' already made, busied herself sweeping the outside entrance to the apartments with an unlit cigarette between her lips. She looked up as Motoko crested the top of the stairs, the swordswoman carrying her sword in a cloth case over her shoulder.
"You're quite the hard worker, training even on a holiday," Haruka remarked.
Motoko gave a rare smile, inclining her head in acknowledgment of the older woman's praise. "I always strive to better myself," she answered before passing by and heading inside.
At the top of the annex building's roof, overlooking the main landing, Kaolla sat with her back toward them, amusing herself by playing with a bird that flitted around her, yet never flew away from the hyperactive foreigner. On the deck to Kaolla's left, Shinobu hummed a tune to herself as she began her work of hanging the laundry out to dry.
For some of the tenants, the day was perhaps not so peaceful. Sounds of gunfire and warfare emanated faintly from the open windows of Seno's room on the third floor, the swordsman within thoroughly engrossed in another matchmaking session of Halo 2. The next room over, Naru seemed particularly distressed over a missing item, her normally-neat room tossed with closet and desk drawers haphazardly opened, books and other objects strewn about in a frantic search.
And then there was Keitaro.
In the room below Naru's, the kanrinin was passed out asleep on top of his kotatsu desk, snoring loudly and murmuring occasionally to himself in his dreams. On the table beside him rested a small manila envelope labeled 'RENT MONEY'.
"All right, Narusegawa...we both got into Todai..." he mumbled, unaware of the guest looming over him.
"But where does that leave me, Keitaro?" Kitsune asked, speaking loudly enough to awaken him from his slumber.
Gasping in shock from the surprise, Keitaro flailed about comically for a moment before arranging himself in a seated posture on the kotatsu. Trying to get his breathing and heart rate back under control, he asked, "W-what is it, Kitsune-san?"
The ash-haired woman chuckled and stood upright again, rubbing her chin dramatically as she mused, "Must be nice to be a young man so full of dreams. But you'll catch cold if you sleep like that." She turned her attention to the window nearby, through which Kaolla could still be seen playing with the bird. "You left the window open."
Keitaro had glanced in that direction as well. "Oh, uh..." With his left hand, he fumbled about until he felt the paper envelope, which he picked up and held with both hands. "I was going to do the books with the rent money I collected from everybody."
Peering at the writing on the envelope, Kitsune questioned, "Oh, you weren't studying?"
He shook his head emphatically. "The house finances are a mess!" he bemoaned. "We're flat broke!"
"Jeez, get your act together, kanrinin," Kitsune said teasingly, crossing her arms behind her head.
Keitaro rose up onto his knees in the closest approximation of an angry response he could muster...which wasn't all that angry. "Who was it who swiped my bank book and went joyriding all over Japan!?" he demanded.
To his chagrin, Kitsune didn't even attempt to deny it or defend herself. "I had been wonderin' why a cram-school student had so much in his account... Is that where ya kept the rent money?" She turned a sly grin toward him. "You really oughta keep separate accounts!"
She wasn't wrong, per se, but he was still annoyed at her flippant attitude. "That's not the point..." he began, but couldn't finish his sentence as a huge yawn overtook him at that moment.
Kitsune chuckled. "Look at you, still half asleep!" She reached up to grab the wrist of his hand that he'd lifted to cover the yawn with. "You shouldn't be handlin' people's money when you're still so cotton-headed. C'mon, you're gonna wash your face and clear your head!"
Without giving him a chance to argue, she dragged him out of the room, leaving him only enough time to hastily drop the rent envelope back on his desk before he was forcibly removed. She dragged him around the corner and pushed him onto the covered walkway between the main building and the annex.
"Now go wash your face and clear your head!" she called before turning around and heading back to her own room.
From the floor above, she caught part of a conversation between Motoko and Seno, as his room was directly above hers. "...laundry deck for training?" she could hear Motoko ask.
"Sure, but Shinobu-san's hanging laundry so we can't have a spar," Seno answered.
Meanwhile, Keitaro wearily dragged himself across the walkway. Halfway there, Kaolla noticed him and called out, "Morning, Keitaro!"
Suppressing another yawn, he lifted the other hand in greeting and called back, "Good morning..." before trudging along his way.
Moments later, Kitsune yelled across the distance, "Su, have you seen Shinobu?"
"Yeah, she's on the roof, hanging up the laundry! Want me to call her?"
As they were speaking, Motoko passed through on her way to the laundry deck, her school uniform exchanged for her regular training clothes and her sword resting on her shoulder.
"Ask her what's for lunch!"
"Roger!" The foreigner turned, her voice slightly quieter for facing the other way: "Shinobu, what's for lunch?"
"I made your favorite, Kaolla-san!" Shinobu's cheery voice replied. "Curry!"
A few moments later, Keitaro began back across the bridge, a yellow towel draped around his neck. Coming in the other direction was Seno, wearing a white tank top and blue athletic shorts, his own sword resting across the back of his neck.
"Sup?" the swordsman greeted, lifting his left hand and extending his fist forward.
"Doing some training with Motoko-chan?" Keitaro asked, bumping his own fist against his friend's.
Seno laughed. "Yeah, we won't break anything, promise," he answered, giving Keitaro a friendly pat on the shoulder as they passed one another.
Keitaro turned to watch the other man go, his sword bouncing on his shoulder with every step. The bespectacled man smiled. "Man, those two are so peas in a pod," he said quietly, continuing on his way back to his room.
Up on the deck, Motoko stood facing the south, the breeze billowing her long hair out behind her. Her olive eyes flickered a moment in his direction, followed by a faint nod of acknowledgment.
On her other side, Shinobu glanced up at the movement of Seno's arrival on the roof and gave a wave in his direction. "Good morning, Nakagami-san," she greeted.
He raised his left hand in greeting, thumb and first two fingers raised while the other two were curled in. "Yo, Shinobu-san."
Motoko turned to face him, lifting a hand to hold her hair out of her face. "I thought that we could simply practice some katas today, given the late start and concern for collateral."
"Sounds good to me," Seno nodded.
Shinobu blushed upon realizing that she was part of the reason they wouldn't be able to train by sparring as they normally did. "I'm sorry!" she squeaked out, turning and bowing toward them at the waist. "I-I just needed to get the laundry up before lunch..."
A soft smile on her face meant to comfort the younger girl, Motoko shook her head. "There is no need to apologize. After all, we are the ones intruding on you." She tipped her head toward the far end of the deck. "And there is plenty of room for us well out of your way."
Having turned to evaluate the amount of space on the deck, Seno turned back and nodded. "Yeah, we ain't gonna cause a ruckus." He soon realized that Motoko was giving him a flat, unimpressed stare. "What? What'd I say?"
She blinked twice. "The way you speak sometimes," she said simply. "It is...distracting."
"Eh?" He glanced off to the side, going back over what he'd said. "Oh, yeah, the accent and funny pronunciation." He shrugged. "Look, I lived in the American South for four years. They have a very, very distinct way of talking there that gets into your speech patterns real quick."
Shinobu couldn't help but giggle. "He sounds like Kitsune-san sometimes when his accent slips," she pointed out, accurately.
"Hopefully he does not develop her habits," Motoko stated simply, moving to take a space on the far side of the deck that left her plenty of room. Without another word, she drew her sword from its sheath and began the precise, codified movements of her kendo kata.
"Yeah, I'm not a drinker, so no fears there," Seno said, placing himself in the center of the space that was left for him. Unlike her kendo, he fell into the swift, yet no less precise, motions of an iaido kata.
Unable to help herself, Shinobu peered over occasionally to watch them in action as she continued to hang the laundry. The two were a study in contrasts, Motoko's adherence to tradition and appearance versus Seno's way of doing things his own way and not concerning himself with standing on ceremony. Yet despite this, the similarity in their skills was undeniable, both possessing a precision and poise that the younger girl envied. Even as she watched, their movements slowly synchronized despite performing different katas, giving it the appearance that the two were engaged in a choreographed dance that only they were privy to. Shinobu almost felt like she was intruding on a private moment, but the fact that they had not asked her to leave also made it feel like she had been invited to share that moment with them.
Just as she was beginning to consider any questions she might want to ask of them, Keitaro's unmistakable voice shrieked out across the grounds, "It's gone!"
Room 204, Keitaro's Room
1118 hours
At the best of times, Keitaro's room could hardly be described as a tidy place. Presently, it looked as though an enormous toddler had lifted the third-year ronin's room and vigorously shaken it, scattering his belongs all over the space within.
Kitsune stood just inside the doorway, watching with equal parts amusement and concern as Keitaro tore apart his room, his proclamations of "It's not here! Or here! Or anywhere!" becoming ever more desperate.
"Are you really looking, or just throwin' things around in the hopes it might turn up?" Kitsune asked, one hand resting on her hip.
"I was positive I left it on the kotatsu when I left the room with you," he said, digging through the pile of books surrounding the table.
Then, demonstrating his possible affliction with attention deficit disorder, his eyes fell on his cherished photo booth sticker book, which he promptly picked up and flipped through the pages of. A dopey smile appeared on his face, along with a faint blush, as he happily murmured, "The picture I took with Narusegawa..."
"Ooh, you two make a cute couple!" Kitsune praised, genuine for once, as she leaned over him and yoinked the book right out of his hands to get a better look at the photo sticker of the two Todai hopefuls. "And here I thought y'all just took a trip to console yourselves for failin' the exams!"
His blush only growing, Keitaro was quick to jump up and snatch the book back, hiding his precious treasure behind his back. "D-don't you think we have more important things to worry about?" he demanded.
Kitsune gave him one of her well-known sly grins. "I'm not the one gettin' distracted by a pretty picture," she pointed out, then waved her hands in a dismissive gesture. "Anyway, couldn't the envelope have just flown out the window?"
She had turned to look out the window that overlooked the annex as she asked that, and Keitaro faced that way as well. "There were a lot of bills in there, so I don't think just any normal breeze or gust of wind could've carried it off."
Without warning, Kaolla extended herself down from the roof. Her arms being behind her head made it difficult to imagine how she was keeping herself from falling, but honestly neither of them doubted she had the core strength to pull the feat off.
"Do ya think a thief got into the house then?" the blonde-haired girl asked.
"There's no way!" Keitaro shook his head, dismissing the idea out of hand.
"Now hold on a second..." Kitsune began.
Keitaro looked back toward her, taken aback by the uncharacteristically-serious expression on her face.
"Think about it," the trickster continued. "For someone to get to your room, they have to go past mine. I was lookin' out my front window, but it's not like I wouldn't have noticed somebody goin' by."
"So you think the thief came in through the window, just like Su-chan just now?" Keitaro asked, having clearly already accepted the theory of a thief as incontrovertible fact.
"Hmm, nope, couldn't have happened!" Kaolla disagreed. "I was up on the roof all morning and didn't see anyone go near your room."
"In other words!" Kitsune proclaimed, quite gleefully. "At the time of the theft, this room was for all intents and purposes completely sealed off."
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Keitaro said, turning around slowly. "This isn't a mystery novel—"
The words died in his throat as he realized that, somehow and inexplicably, she had completely changed her attire into that of a certain famous detective from English literature. Complete down to the pipe clenched between her teeth. "Kitsune-san, what are you wearing!?"
"My mystery-loving blood is boiling..." she began quietly, her grin growing in equal proportion to her volume. "It's the Case of the Cash Stolen from a Sealed Room at the Hinata-Sou! And I, Sherlock Holmes, will solve the mystery!"
It was only then that she noticed that Kaolla was now standing behind her and slightly to her left, and decided to add her to the fun and games. "Come along, Watson!"
"Let's book 'em, Danno!" Kaolla cheered.
"I think you're playing the wrong part, Su-chan..." Keitaro deadpanned. The two promptly ignored him, however, and darted out onto the balcony hallway outside his room. "Hey, wait, where are you two going?"
"Think about it," Kitsune answered as she paused at the threshold. "There's one more way into this room, so we can't say that it's totally sealed, can we?"
Her gaze had turned toward the ceiling, prompting Keitaro and Kaolla to likewise look skyward. The open hole that led up to Naru's room above loomed like a dark abyss.
Room 304, Naru's Room
1121 hours
It seemed as though Naru was undergoing a similar set of circumstances in her room, searching for some unknown thing that had her also throwing her belongings about in a frantic burst of activity. So focused was she on her task that she didn't notice the wooden panel covering the hole in her floor be lifted and pushed aside, allowing Kaolla and Kitsune to climb up with an assist from Keitaro below. She didn't even notice when they both leaned back and helped lift Keitaro up into her room.
"Good morning—" Keitaro began.
"I thought I told you not to open up that hole!" Naru interrupted, standing and turning toward the interruption. Her rising uppercut lifted the unfortunate Keitaro completely out of the floor and sent him flying back to crash into the outside railing, legs dangling comically over it.
"But it was Kitsune-san..." he groaned.
The accused woman casually looked over the state of Naru's room, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. "What's goin' on? You lookin' for somethin', too?"
Naru blinked in surprise for a moment, then declared, "No, it's nothing!" She regarded Kitsune's outfit with a raised eyebrow, but chose not to comment on it. "Anyway, what are you guys doing?"
Kitsune looked back toward Keitaro, who had not recovered yet, and was currently being poked in the face by Kaolla. "Well, an envelope with the rent money disappeared from Keitaro's room," Kitsune explained. "It might've been a thief. Have you noticed anything unusual?"
Naru raised her hands in a defensive manner, only just barely resisting the urge to take a step back. "A thief? I-I don't know anything about it! I've been in my room all morning looking for something."
Her eyes widened in surprise as a new thought occurred to her. Could the thief have taken that, too?
Kaolla suddenly jumped into her personal space, clearly having tired of prodding Keitaro. "Whatcha lookin' for?" she cheerily and innocently asked.
Naru blushed, but almost immediately snapped, "T-that's none of your business!"
"You look scary," Kaolla deadpanned.
Kitsune ignored that silliness, turning back toward the hole and peering down into it. "Either way there, there's no other way in or out besides this hole," she said.
Keitaro, having finally recovered, leaned over the hole, as did Kaolla. "She's right..." he murmured thoughtfully.
"What?" Naru demanded, stepping forward and raising a fist menacingly. "You think I'm a suspect?"
With great haste, Keitaro stood and stepped back, flailing his arms in an effort to maintain his balance. "No, of course not!"
Feeling a bit of pity for the man, Kitsune drew the attention back to herself by stating, "All we can do, then, is go room by room and confirm everyone's innocence." She started toward Naru's open closet. "Might as well start here."
Panic-fueled adrenaline shot through Naru's whole body and she sprinted across her room to slam the closet doors shut and interpose herself directly in front of them. "No, don't!"
"Why're ya so worked up?" Kitsune asked, holding the pipe in her right hand. "We're not gonna let Keitaro touch anything. He doesn't even have to go in there. Me and Su can do it ourselves."
"That's not the point!" Naru argued, cheeks steadily beginning to turn red again. "A-anyway!" She shook her head emphatically. "I absolutely forbid you from searching my room!"
In the back of the group, Keitaro blinked in confusion. Why is she so adamant about this? he wondered to himself. Then he felt his heart skip a beat in shock as a thought occurred to him. Wait, what if it really was Narusegawa who... He reached up with both hands, as though trying to scrub the disquieting thoughts directly out of his mind. No, why would Narusegawa need to steal any money? A new thought sent him standing bolt upright, gripping the sides of his head while rocking back and forth in horror of the realization. Maybe she spent too much on the trip and can't pay her prep school tuition!
Unbeknownst to him, Kaolla was mimicking his actions, clearly thinking it to be some game. For their parts, Kitsune and Naru ignored the both of them.
"If you don't want us to search your room, at least give us an alibi," Kitsune said.
Given an option of an out rather than a privacy-invading search, Naru immediately began to calm down, her rational mind giving her a prompt and immediate response to that query. She took a deep, calming breath. "Think back and remember how you climbed up here," she said, prompting the other two girls to recall that they had had to stand on Keitaro's back to get the height needed to reach the ceiling, and he had needed to jump to reach them so they could pull him up.
"It's easy to get down from here," Naru continued, "but it's impossible to climb up by yourself."
"Hmm, she's right about that," Kaolla said, peering into the hole and taking note of the sharp, broken edges of wood around it.
Kitsune gave one of her sly grins. "Congratulations, Naru, you've been cleared."
"What a relief!" Keitaro said.
"Of course I'm innocent!" Naru yelled.
"On to the next suspect!" Kitsune cheerfully proclaimed.
Laundry deck
1130 hours
"W-what?" Shinobu asked, stunned, with tears in her eyes. "You think I'm a thief...?"
Kitsune lifted both hands to try and soothe the younger girl; even she couldn't resist Shinobu's teary expression. Naru and Keitaro beside her were equally troubled by the tears, as was Seno as he walked over to join them with his sword resting on his shoulder. Only Kaolla, swaying back and forth on the railing nearby, was immune.
"N-no, we're just coverin' all our bases!" Kitsune stammered.
"Keitaro, this is all your fault!" Naru growled, turning to send another haymaker at the hapless kanrinin.
Luckily for him, however, Seno standing right beside him meant it was trivially easy for the swordsman to yank his friend's shoulder to pull him out of the strike range. "Can we not with the abuse?" he said, physically interposing his body between the two of them. "Look, I'll give you that he actually is sort of at fault this time for not keeping a better eye on the money, but give something back, would ya? Does he really deserve to get his clock cleaned over it?"
The moment of knee-jerk violence having passed, Naru looked away, her cheeks reddening at the unprovoked response. "N-no, he really doesn't..." she said quietly. "Keitaro, I'm sorry..."
Stunned into silence by the admission and apology, all Keitaro could do for several long moments was blush heavily and blink, until a nudge from Seno tripped his mental circuit breakers back into place. "Oh it's...that's okay, Narusegawa..."
Leaning his sword against his leg, Seno clapped both of them on the back. "Isn't it great that we're all friends again?" he sassed with a smirk, then picked his sword back up and stepped out from between them. "So let's figure out this mess, huh?"
Kitsune nodded in agreement. "So where were you at the time, Shinobu?"
The young girl gestured to the hanging laundry behind her. "I was here, putting out the laundry to dry."
"And who did you see, and who saw you, while you were up here?" Kitsune pressed.
"I did," Seno answered straight away. "Aoyama-san and I were up here doing practice. Shinobu-san watched us."
Naru looked around, noting the absence of the resident Shinmei-ryū heiress. "Where's Motoko-chan?" she asked.
"Went back to her room for something or other."
"And I saw Kaolla-san as well!" Shinobu added, clearly pleased at speaking up for herself. "She was on the roof over there, and asked me what was for lunch."
Disregarding the safety railing around the deck, Kitsune hopped onto the annex roof and moved to stand at its peak, where Kaolla had been sitting earlier in the morning. From here, she could clearly see the laundry deck, as well as into most of the rooms on this side of the building.
"So you could pretty clearly see Shinobu, Motoko, and Seno from here, Su," Kitsune remarked, mostly to herself.
"Yep!" the blonde girl replied anyway, arms crossed behind her head again.
"Did you see anyone else?" Naru asked.
Kaolla nodded. "I saw Kitsune in her room askin' about lunch, and Keitaro coming across the walkway there."
Carefully making their way back to the deck, the group moved back into the main building, going to Kitsune's room while Kaolla animatedly recounted her conversations, and even proceeded to mimic the katas she'd seen Motoko and Seno doing. The scary part was that she was only slightly off in her movements.
By the time she'd finished, they were in Kitsune's room, and the ersatz inspector had seated herself on her bed by the window. Kaolla invited herself to plop down on it as well. "So you were looking out this window, right?" the blonde asked.
"Right," Kitsune answered, pointing to the peak of the roof where Kaolla had been. "And Seno had been playing Halo up there above me for a while this morning, too."
"Yeah, but that was before the money went missing," the swordsman pointed out. "From the time you said it happened, I was already on the deck with Shinobu-san and Aoyama-san."
Kitsune snapped her fingers and nodded. "Yeah, that's right, because I heard Motoko askin' you to go train right about the time I'd dragged Keitaro out of his room."
"Which means that Seno-san saw her during that time," Naru inferred. "So Su-chan's testimony corroborates Shinobu-chan's, Seno-san's, and Kitsune's alibis. And Shinobu-chan, Seno-san, and Kitsune independently verify Su-chan's. And Motoko-chan is covered by Shinobu-chan, Seno-san, and Su-chan."
Seno lifted his free hand to his chin and rubbed it idly as his eyes swung back and forth, unfocused, in thought. He grimaced, but didn't say anything right away.
This action did not go unnoticed by the ever-observant Kitsune. "Look like you bit into somethin' sour there, Seno," she jokingly said. "What're you thinkin'?"
His grimace deepened for a moment, then he sighed. "Okay, let me start with I'm not trying to accuse Aoyama-san of anything, I'm just trying to make sure we don't miss anything. So, I had to change my clothes before I went to the deck, so there was a little bit of time there where she was out of my sight."
Keitaro, barely able to keep up with all the alibis and corroboration and other legalese, was hopelessly lost by this point. "So...what's that mean?"
Naru's eyebrow twitched, but remembering just minutes ago on the deck, she reigned in her temper and spun to face her fellow Todai aspirant. "You're so dense! It means that unless two or more people are lying, everyone is innocent!"
"It's more complicated than that," Kitsune remarked. "Everyone heard everyone else, even Keitaro. And speaking of hearing, I think we should probably hear Motoko's story anyway."
"And then that would just leave Haruka!" Kaolla exclaimed.
Room 302, Motoko's Room
1143 hours
Naru opened the door of Motoko's room, stepping inside and looking around without so much as a 'by your leave.' "I've never been in Motoko-chan's room before, but it's definitely her style!" she said.
By most decorative standards, Motoko's room would seem to be quite austere. A banner hanging above her door had 'SOKUTEN KYOSHI' written on it. Other things that stood out to them were a kamidana shrine, a stand for her sword, and even a set of samurai armor in its own special alcove.
"If you can call this a room," Kitsune muttered under her breath.
"Rude," Seno quipped.
"The man who hasn't even unpacked yet has no say," the sandy-haired woman shot back.
"This is like a warrior's room," Keitaro remarked.
"A samurai's room?" Shinobu asked.
"Naru-senpai, what is the meaning of this?" Motoko asked, seated on the floor near the armor set. Though her expression was carefully neutral, the look in her eyes as they moved between each interloper into her private space spoke volumes of her thoughts on the intrusion.
Kaolla, ever the one with precisely zero tact, dropped into a squat next to Motoko and asked, "Motoko, did you swipe Keitaro's money?"
"What!?" she hissed, her burning gaze falling squarely on the kanrinin. "Urashima, you dare to accuse me!?"
Before she had even finished speaking, and as Naru, Shinobu, and Kitsune quietly removed themselves from Keitaro's proximity, Seno stepped directly in between the enraged girl and his old friend. The usual mirthful expression was gone from his face, and his sword had been moved from its relaxed place resting on his shoulder to a ready position by his left hip.
"No one is accusing you of anything," he said tersely, his stillness ratcheting up the tension in the room. "Because you were with me and Shinobu-san on the deck, you've already been ruled out. We just want to hear what you saw right about that time."
Motoko had risen to her feet in readiness to strike Keitaro with a Shinmei-ryū technique, and now she stood in equal stillness opposite Seno, her hand resting ready on her sword. For several long, tense moments, the others feared that a fight was about to break out.
Finally, Motoko's shoulders relaxed and she stood up straight, out of her ready stance. She took a calming breath and settled back down into a seated posture. To most of the others, nothing seemed amiss, but having a smidgen of martial training, Seno could read the tension in her movements and posture, a struggle to control herself and empty her mind.
"Very well," she said finally, closing her eyes. "And my apologies for overreacting. What time did the money go missing?"
Seno automatically glanced at his left wrist, even though he wasn't presently wearing his watch.
"About half an hour ago," Kitsune answered.
"Then shortly before Nakagami-san and I went to the deck for brief training," Motoko said with a nod. "I assume it has been stated that I asked him to train, then went to the deck to await him, where Shinobu was setting the laundry out to dry."
Now back in his irreverent slouching stance, with sword resting once more on his shoulder, Seno nodded. "Yeah, told 'em that bit, and about us being out there. We just want to clarify on the time between when you walked away from my room and before I got to the deck."
"Of course. Along the way, I saw Kaolla sitting on the roof, speaking with Kitsune-san."
Kaolla snapped her fingers. "That's right! I saw Motoko right after I saw Keitaro! So she had to go straight to the deck."
Motoko's brow furrowed in thought. "Ah, and I am unsure if it is relevant or not, but I met Haruka-san on the front steps shortly before then, though I am unsure if she was still there during the time of the theft."
This seemed to jog Keitaro's memory as well. "Oh, she definitely was," he stated. "I saw obaa-san out front right before I walked in and saw the money was gone, so she couldn't have gotten that far so quickly."
Out of almost nowhere, Haruka appeared to pop Keitaro across the mouth with a harisen, sternly correcting him, "It's oba-san."
The hit was so sudden and unexpected that everyone else flinched, and even Seno let out an unintended "Shit!" in English.
Dining room
1208 hours
"Itadakimasu!"
The curry that Shinobu had prepared for lunch was nothing if not picturesque, and given the fact that all of the tenants promptly began to stuff their faces, it was no less delicious than it looked. While most of them ate with some measure of decorum, Kaolla ate every meal as though she were a vacuum cleaner, and surprisingly, Seno was also packing away the curry as though he feared someone might take it from him.
Four heaping spoonfuls in, the swordsman paused only long enough to let out a content groan and utter, "Man, I'm gonna die..."
On his left, Shinobu naturally took his statement to mean the worst. "Oh no, is there something wrong?" she asked.
Seno swiftly waved away the thought before she could get worked up over it, laughing as he clarified, "No, no no, it's so good I'm gonna die."
The young girl laughed nervously as well, relieved that she hadn't accidentally messed up the food. As impossible as that was.
To her left, seated at the head of the table, Keitaro nodded in agreement with his friend's statement. "Shinobu-chan, your cooking is the best!"
Shinobu blushed at the praise, dipping her head to try and hide it.
Kaolla leaned forward around Seno. "I dunno, I think it could be spicier!" she said, discreetly trying to steal some food from the swordsman while she was at it.
He swatted the back of her hand with his spoon. "No, knock it off," he groused, pushing her hand away from his plate. "Shinobu-san, don't listen to her. This is just the peak level of spice."
"Seno, you've always been a lightweight on spice," Haruka quipped from the opposite end of the table.
Kitsune set her water glass down on the table and let out an irritated sigh. "Is this any time to sit back and relax with a leisurely lunch?" she asked.
This prompted the others to pause. Only Haruka and Seno continued eating.
Keitaro groaned and leaped to his feet, only barely managing to not bump the whole table in his motion. "Argh, you're right!" he proclaimed, gripping his head in consternation.
Predictably, Kaolla had gone right back to eating her curry, picking up the plate and shoveling the delicious food into her mouth. "Everyone's got a good alibi!" she argued, somehow, in between the food vacuuming.
"Of course!" Motoko proclaimed, looking around the table. "There are no disreputable characters here at the Hinata-Sou."
Hunched over his plate, Seno muttered under his breath, "If I'd said that line, it'd have been a meta gag."
"That's the longest I think I've ever seen you take to make a meta reference," Haruka said with a straight face. "You sick or something?"
Such silliness was ignored at the other end of the table, with Shinobu worriedly wondering, "Then maybe it really was a thief that did it..."
At the other end of the table, Haruka seemed to recall something, setting down her spoon and leaning to the side to reach into her pockets. "Keitaro, I came across something outside while I was cleaning the steps between buildings." She produced a familiar manila envelope. "I found this."
Already on his feet, Keitaro comically skidded across the floor, once again miraculously managing not to trip on anything or anyone, and pointed dramatically at the envelope. "That's it!"
She tossed the envelope at him, which he caught and swiftly opened to make sure the money was all there...and then the color drained not only from his face, but his entire being. What he pulled out of the envelope, rather than the expected money, was a stack of papers to mimic the shape and weight of the money, each one with 'ten thousand yen' hastily scribbled on the face.
"The...the money's not..."
"What's with that construction paper?" Naru asked.
"That was already inside when I found it," Haruka said, calmly eating her curry.
Keitaro side-eyed her, the light gleaming menacingly off his glasses. "I hope you're telling the truth," he said in what he thought was an intimidating manner.
Unfortunately for him, no force on Earth could intimidate his aunt-slash-cousin. In a move that was almost too fast to follow, she swept his feet out from beneath him and propelled him back away from the table, then rose and began delivering several swift—but ultimately harmless; she wasn't out to hurt him, after all—kicks to his backside. "Just who do you think you're talking to?"
"Seno, aren't you supposed to be helping me?" Keitaro questioned, reaching out imploringly toward the other man.
"First off, I ain't crossin' Haruka. Secondly, you brought that on yourself."
Shinobu looked on in concern, but seeing that Haruka wasn't actually harming Keitaro, turned her attention back to the problem at hand. "Do you suppose the thief took only the money and threw away the envelope?"
"It's looking like it, but why bother stuffing it with fakes?" Seno mused, putting down his now-empty plate. "Why bother at all? If I'd done it, I'd have just thrown it in a trash can."
Kaolla began to chuckle menacingly, her entire body seeming to vibrate in place. After a moment, long enough to cause concern, she looked up and proclaimed, "I've figured it out!"
Room 204, Keitaro's Room
1226 hours
"H-hey, don't you think it's a little cramped in here with so many people?" Naru asked Kitsune, squeezed in against her high school friend at the kotatsu.
"Just tough it out," the sandy-haired woman answered. "The fundamental rule in mysteries is that you've gotta get all the suspects in one room at the scene of the crime to hear how it was done."
Indeed, as she had stated, the rest of the suspects were all crammed around the table, with Shinobu and Keitaro on another side, Haruka and Motoko on the next, and Seno left by his lonesome on the last side of the table.
Naru rolled her eyes. "Get serious..."
Just then, Kaolla stepped into the room, having changed her clothes into a costume inspired by the fictional Japanese detective, Kogoro Akechi. "Everyone!" she proclaimed. "I have solved the mystery of today's cash theft from this sealed room!"
Kitsune grinned at the girl's attire. "Oooh, going for the Kindaichi look?" she asked.
"No, Akechi back when he first got started," the foreigner answered. Turning her attention back to the others, she cleared her throat. "Anyway, let's think this through. The fact is, there's still one suspect left here at the Hinata-Sou!"
Almost before the words had left her mouth, Motoko had drawn her sword and pointed it threateningly at Keitaro. "So it was you, Urashima!"
"No!" he argued, tearfully leaning away from her.
Wordlessly, Seno drew his own sword and laid the flat of his blade atop Motoko's, slowly beginning to apply pressure to push it down.
"No, not him," Kaolla said, drawing all eyes back to her. "Over there."
She pointed to a corner of the room, where Keitaro's pet turtle was entertaining itself by balancing on top of a rubber ball. Upon noticing that the room's attention was aimed toward it, the turtle lifted one flipper and uttered a cute "Myuh."
For some reason, the poor turtle was promptly dived upon by Keitaro, Shinobu, Kitsune, and Motoko. Kaolla looked pleased with herself, while Seno was incredulous at the odd display, Haruka seemed unconcerned, and Naru could only question, "T-Tama-chan?"
"Listen," Kaolla began her explanation, "at the time of the crime, Keitaro's window facing the balcony was open." She began to walk forward with a slow, theatrical sense of purpose. "It would be impossible for a human to slip in and out unnoticed. But a little hot spring turtle...?"
In the group clustered around Tama, who seemed to be taking it all as a fun game, Kitsune rubbed her chin in thought. "So it's the old 'the animal did it' routine, huh?"
"Now hold on a minute," Naru said, looking and sounding dubious. "It may just be a stack of money, but wouldn't it still be too heavy for Tama-chan?"
At this logical questioning of her theory, all Kaolla did was offer a shrug. "She probably thought it was turtle food and ate it," she said. "Animals are pretty simple-minded that way..."
Naru's face was a study in shock.
"But when you think about it," Motoko began, "Su's theory does make sense."
"But how did the fakes get in the envelope, then?" Seno asked. "Unless that turtle is amazingly talented, I'm pretty sure it can't write or even spell. Or know what money is for that matter."
The others turned their attention back to the turtle, which was somehow leaning up on its back flippers and waving its front flippers in their direction. Whether this was meant as a threat display or simply the turtle's way to play with them was unknown.
This posture caused Kaolla to notice something out of place. "Hey, there's something stuck to her shell!"
"It kind of looks like paper," Shinobu said. "You don't suppose..."
"...That she actually did do it?" Keitaro finished.
Seno leaned back on his hands. "Still not askin' the real questions."
Kaolla stood up suddenly, brandishing a knife and fork. "Since you ate the money..." she threatened. "We're gonna eat you in return, Tama-chan!"
Debates of human-level intelligence aside, the turtle was clearly capable of recognizing a threat to life, and faced with the approach of Kaolla, reared back up all the way onto its hind legs in a clear threat posture. This action happened to reveal a small square stuck to the underside of her shell.
Without warning, Naru let out an ear-piercing scream, stampeding over Kaolla and Keitaro both as she dashed forward to snatch the hapless—and certainly confused—turtle up from the ground. Holding the amphibious reptile to her chest, she spun to flee..only to crash over the kotatsu, collide with Seno—who let out an exaggerated sound of pain akin to the death sounds in Halo—and fell back against the wall.
Kitsune, struggling to extricate herself from the pile of bodies, squinted at her friend. "What the... What was that all about?"
"T-this has nothing to do with the theft!" Naru proclaimed, face turning red in embarrassment. "Tama-chan didn't do it!"
"Well how do you know that?" Kitsune asked.
Keitaro watched his quasi-secret love interest with great concern at her confusing actions, wondering to himself, What's going on, Narusegawa? Why is she going to such lengths to cover for Tama? Once more, he immediately made a breathtaking jump to conclusions. Oh, no! Does that mean Narusegawa really is the thief?
Even more surprising to everyone, himself included, was the way he quickly moved to her side, took hold of her wrist, and began to pull her to her feet. "Narusegawa, let's run for it!"
She only had time to let out a sound of confusion before she was on her feet and he was pulling her behind him, darting out the door of his room.
"They're makin' a break for it!" Kitsune exclaimed.
"After 'em!" Kaolla replied.
The two 'detectives' were the first out the door, followed swiftly by Shinobu and Motoko.
Haruka, standing and watching the kids take off again, looked down at Seno laying on the floor. "She didn't hit you that hard."
If anything, he didn't look like he had any intent to go chasing after them, shifting his posture to cross his arms behind his head. "No, but that's still a mean tackle," he said with a shrug. "She could go pro with that."
As the ronin pair ran through the halls, Naru clutched the poor turtle to her chest with one hand while Keitaro was dragging her along with the other. "W-wait, Keitaro!"
He did no such thing, merely calling back over his shoulder, "I'm on your side, Narusegawa!"
"Damn it, will you wait!?" she groused, but clearly had no intentions of stopping either, not with the other four girls hot on their heels.
The chase took them through the lobby, into the kitchen, out into the courtyard, back inside through the gaming room, and upstairs, back toward Keitaro's room. Seno, who had been setting Keitaro's desk back to rights with his back to the door, was flattened again by Naru as she jumped up on top of the table.
Keitaro, in his haste to help Naru escape up into her room, stepped directly onto his old friend with only a "Sorry!" as he let Naru climb onto his back to get up through the hole in the ceiling.
Their lead was not a great one, as Naru had barely gotten up through the hole before Kitsune flung the door open, calling out, "They're over here!" to the others. Spotting the swordsman groaning on the floor, she added, "They took out Seno! We'll get 'em for assault, too!"
For a moment, Keitaro was caught like a deer in the headlights, only for Naru to offer salvation by reaching down and calling out for him. Without wasting a beat, he jumped up to grab her hand, and she—somehow—managed to haul his entire weight up through her floor.
The pair quickly sprinted out of her room, taking advantage of the extra lead time they had gained knowing that the others would have to either take the stairs or get up through the same hole. Tactical thinking, however, was not necessarily their strength; they quickly made to hide in Motoko's room, and take a moment to catch their breath.
Naru, panting, demanded, "What do you think you're doing?"
Rather than answer, however, Keitaro took her by the wrist again, whispering, "Over here!" and pulling her toward Motoko's closet.
They shut the door not a moment too soon, as Kitsune's voice could be heard asking from the hall, "Do you see 'em yet?"
"No," Motoko responded.
Momentarily safe, Keitaro took the chance to actually look around their hiding place. To his equal parts concern and surprise, there were a large amount of weapons and armor stashed in Motoko's closet. Varying in national and historical origin, he estimated she could probably equip a decent sized army with what she had tucked away, and wondered just why she needed to have such an array of weapons. "There's some really strange stuff in here..." he murmured.
Naru sighed, letting her head roll back and just barely managing not to knock her head against a maga yari cross spear. "Of all the..." she groaned, dropping to a seated position and leaning back against a Roman scutum shield. "Look at the mess you've made of things."
"I'll forgive you," he righteously proclaimed, "no matter what you've done. If you're in a jam, I'll do anything I can to help!"
Absentmindedly, Naru petted the turtle in her lap as she glared at him. "Look, we've already been over this! I'm not the thief!"
Demonstrating that perhaps he had been listening the entire time, Keitaro emphatically shook his head. "I'm not talking about that! If you're going through tough times, I just want to be by your side so I can help you and be there for you, that's all!"
The earnestness with which he delivered those words caught Naru unexpectedly by surprise. Feeling her carefully-hidden soft spot for him growing once more, she averted her eyes and hoped that the darkness of the closet hid her blush. "Keitaro..."
However, the moment was swiftly killed by Kitsune's voice calling out from beyond the room, "Naru, where are you?"
"Please come out!" Shinobu added.
Panicked, Keitaro motioned away from the door they'd come through. "Let's hide deeper toward the back," he suggested.
Curiously, they traveled far deeper back than they expected was possible within a closet, and beyond that, they found another door. Keitaro, inexplicably having acquire a tribal-looking headgear that looked like a mix of a giraffe and a hippopotamus, stood and pushed aside the door.
Beyond, it looked like someone had taken a cross-section of the Amazon rain forest and inserted it into a room. The floor beneath their feet was covered with grass, ferns, and undergrowth, while numerous trees grew from floor to ceiling, all hung with vines and moss that suggested they'd been there for some dozens of years. The humidity within the room likewise lent the impression of a rain forest. Even the calls of birds and small animals could be heard.
"What is this place?" Keitaro asked flatly, barely able to comprehend what he was looking at.
His answer came in the form of a Tarzan-esque yell from Kaolla, that sound being the only warning he got before her foot collided with his face, knocking him to the ground and sending the strange headgear clattering away.
The hyperactive girl laughed menacingly. "Ya picked the wrong room to hide in!" She spun about, planting her hands on her hips, and declared, "This is what they mean by 'bad Su's travel fast'!"
Behind her, Motoko and Kitsune arrived in a far more normal manner, having entered the room from outside. "Just give yourselves up," Kitsune suggested.
If there was one thing that Keitaro wasn't, it was a quitter. Quickly recovering from the kick, he grabbed Naru's wrist again and bolted across the room, perpendicular to the girls. "This way, Narusegawa!"
Rather than chase after them, Kaolla called out, "Be careful, the pond's over there!"
As befit the laws of slapstick comedy, the fleeing pair promptly fell straight into said pond before she had even finished her warning. Keitaro surfaced only long enough to question, "Why do you have a pond in your room!?"
Unfortunately, there seemed to be a current in the pond, and a rather strong one as well, that swiftly sucked them down into the dark and unknown waters.
Fortunately for the runners, the rapid current spat them out only scant moments later in the hot spring for which the Hinata was so famous, drawing confused looks out of both Todai hopefuls.
"The outdoor bath?" Keitaro asked to no one in particular.
"Su's room is connected to the onsen?" Naru wondered aloud.
This, clearly, was something that was well known to Kaolla, as well as something she had passed on to the others. For not moments later, the door inside slid open, with Kitsune leading the crowd. "Naru! There's nowhere left to run!"
Fed up with running, Naru stood up and defiantly faced her tormentors. "Look, I'm trying to tell you that I didn't do it, and neither did Tama-chan!"
"Then why do you keep running away?" Kitsune demanded.
This seemed to take the fire out of her spirit, and Naru clutched the poor turtle closely against her chest. Not understanding what was going on, said turtle bent its head down and gave a little playful nibble to the girl's finger. "W-well, the truth is..." Naru began.
"Don't you think you've had enough fun for one day?" Haruka's voice called out, saving Naru from further embarrassment.
The tea shop proprietor stood just on their side of the door, an unlit cigarette between her lips and a look of amusement, with an undertone of warning, pointed at the other four girls. Behind her, Seno leaned against the doorjamb, making a show of looking at his still-unadorned wrist.
"Run time's getting a little close, so it's probably about time to wrap it up," he said.
Keitaro squinted at his friend. "Reusing meta jokes?"
"Look man, the material was hard to work with this time."
Ignoring that background commentary, Haruka walked directly up to the group, ignoring Motoko and Shinobu entirely as she said, "I bet you got a kick out of this, right Kitsune?"
That sly grin made its way across the trickster's face, and she reached up to cross her arms behind her head. "Figured it out, did you?" she asked.
"Of course," Haruka answered immediately.
Kitsune turned and bowed her head slightly toward Naru and Keitaro. "Sorry guys. The truth is, I'm the culprit."
Looks of shock and confusion bloomed on the faces of Naru, Keitaro, Shinobu, and Kaolla. Motoko, however, just looked irritated at having been dragged through all this trouble for what was evidently a prank.
"B-but you had an alibi!" Keitaro argued.
"All Su saw was me sitting in my room," Kitsune said with a shrug.
"Yeah, but..."
"And you of all people should've figured out that Tama-chan couldn't have done it," she added.
"Wait, what?"
"All the money had been taken out and replaced with paper," Kitsune reminded him. "There's no way Tama-chan could have done that."
"Thank you!" Seno exclaimed, exasperated, throwing his hands up in the air. "That, detective, is the right question!"
"Oh yeah, that's a good point!" Keitaro said, cupping his fist in his palm.
"You couldn't have figured that out sooner!?" Naru growled, turning and punching him in the chest. By her standards, it was almost more like a love tap, but it still had enough force to send him stumbling back into the hot spring waters.
Seno looked at the rippling waters, exchanged glances with Haruka, and shrugged.
"So here's the story," Kitsune began, not even batting an eye at the events. "You all thought the money was stolen while Keitaro was washin' his face, right? The real truth is that I snuck in and took it out while he was snoozing on his desk."
"What was the construction paper for?" Naru asked.
"So the weight of the envelope wouldn't change and he'd think that it was all still in there. The next part of the plan was good old fishing line and Scotch tape. Taped the line to the back of the envelope, then when Su wasn't lookin', I threw the line down to my room."
Having extricated himself from the water, Keitaro looked quite stunned by the simplicity, yet effectiveness, of this prank. "Eh? I didn't see any fishing line..."
Seno shook his head at the other man. "It's fishing line, dude. Stuff's hard to see in perfect lighting conditions." The swordsman snapped his fingers suddenly. "Speaking of, let me borrow that if you would, Kitsune-san. I got some stuff I want to hang from the ceiling."
The trickster gave him a thumbs up. "Sure thing!" Then, to answer Keitaro's complaint, she added, "It was super thin line. And besides, you were still half asleep when I shooed you out of there."
"That's hardly fair," Kaolla deadpanned.
With a grin, Kitsune gave an innocent shrug and kept explaining her story. "The rest was simple. Wake up Keitaro, hurry him out of his room, rush back to mine, get Su looking the other way with a timely distraction, and..." She trailed off to mime giving a long yank with her right arm. "Course, I didn't plan for it to be so heavy it came off the tape and fell in the alley, but hey, I bluffed around that just fine."
Naru glanced down at the turtle she was still holding for a moment, then back up at Kitsune. "But why?"
"Well, when I walked by this idiot's room, he was fast asleep with the money lying in plain view, so I could hardly resist. Next thing I knew, the whole place was in an uproar."
Halfway through Kitsune's answer, Naru had turned slightly to raise a threatening hand and a silent, eyes-closed menacing look at Keitaro. Predictably, he immediately went into a panic, and just as quickly looked to Seno for some support. However, Seno took note of the fact that Naru had raised her off hand and so didn't consider it a wind-up for a hit. This became evident as more than two seconds passed without the girl actually taking a swing.
Kitsune concluded by placing her palms together in front of her face. "I'm really sorry for all the trouble, Naru," she said genuinely.
The Todai aspirant let out a sigh. "You really take things too far sometimes, Kitsune."
Kaolla looked thoughtfully up from where she was sitting on the ground. "Wow, so the detective was the culprit," she mused. "You never see that coming."
"So uh...where's the real money?" Keitaro asked.
"In your wallet."
"What."
Kitsune grinned and dropped down to the ground next to Kaolla, crossing her legs and getting comfortable. "Your wallet. I slipped it out of your back pocket, put the money in, and put it back." She lifted both hands and wiggled her fingers.
"Damn pickpocket," Seno groused, though his expression was amused rather than annoyed.
Tossing a wink over at the swordsman, Kitsune told Keitaro, "You were so dead asleep you didn't notice."
"Well, thank goodness for that," Keitaro said with a light laugh. "For a minute there, I didn't know what I was gonna do."
He reached back instinctively to pat his back pocket, then paused, patted again, then began to become frantic in his patting.
Seno, recognizing quite quickly what was happening, sighed mightily and uttered under his breath in English, "Fuck's sake..."
As Keitaro hung his head in shame, Shinobu innocently asked, "What's wrong, senpai?"
The ronin lamented, "My wallet's gone!"
Legend tells that the cries of shocked surprise from the other tenants could be heard all the way down at Sagami Bay. To his credit, however, Keitaro was already sprinting out of the onsen before the echoes had fully vanished, frantically beginning a search back along where he'd been that day.
"I must've dropped it when we were running from you guys!" he called back behind him.
Kitsune, Kaolla, and Motoko were hot on his heels. Kaolla, strangely enough, was riding on some sort of large, oversized orange vacuum cleaner-looking device as she chased after him.
"You moron!" Kitsune called out.
"This is all your fault, Kitsune-san!" he shot back.
"Stop blaming others!" Motoko shouted.
"I'll use my metal detector here to find it!" Kaolla gleefully exclaimed. No explanation seemed forthcoming for her device's strange appearance.
"That won't work on paper money!" Keitaro argued as the sound of their voices trailed away from the distance.
Behind them, Haruka, Shinobu, and Seno watched from the doorway, feeling no inclination to get involved in yet another chase. "These people are a real handful..." Haruka murmured.
"You said it," Seno agreed with a long-suffering sigh, shoving his free hand in his pocket and slowly meandering down the hall.
The last one standing there, Shinobu looked back behind her; Naru hadn't come with them to leave the onsen. She wondered to herself, What was it that Naru-senpai was looking for...?
Back inside the bathing area, Naru sat on one of the flat rocks that served as seats outside of the water. "It's all soggy..." she said to herself. "You're a real troublemaker, you know that, Tama-chan?"
Held upside down in her hand, the innocent pet turtle craned its head down to peer at her as she removed a waterlogged sticker from its shell. Carefully looking over the small square, she absentmindedly set Tama down upright on her knee. The turtle seemed content with this perch for now, looking about its surroundings for a moment before giving another cute "Myuh" sound and watching the human girl.
"If I dry it out, I might be able to salvage it..." Naru murmured. Then, as though feeling the need to explain herself, she looked down at Tama and hastily added, "I mean, not like this is important or anything! I don't care if I lose it at all! I was just looking for it because I didn't want anyone else to see it."
As though it could understand her words, Tama turned its head between the sticker and Naru, almost appearing to give her a dubious look. Then the turtle promptly turned and tried to nip the sticker, apparently thinking it to be a food item.
Hastily, Naru moved the sticker away from Tama's reach, feeling a bit silly for having a conversation and justifying herself to a turtle. Shaking her head at her foolishness, she reached over to place the sticker on an adjacent rock where she could let it dry in the sun for a few minutes. But only a few minutes.
After all, she considered as she brushed her hand gently over it, she didn't want the precious memory of her photo with Keitaro to fade.
