In a dark room, a distorted voice continues to speak to the restrained Selphie. "I heard that you like fireworks. On the table, there's a bomb that will show you the brightest explosion of your life in 24 hours. Your time starts now."
"Okay! I'm on it!" Selphie exclaims excitedly as she blows away the duct tape sealing her mouth.
he yanks her hands free from the handcuffs, dropping them to the floor. In a split second, the rope around her ankles meets the same fate. She approaches the bomb, illuminated clearly in the dark with the bright red countdown at 23:59:30.
"Do I just hit the stop button on the clock?" she reaches for the big round button and asks.
"No!"
"Oops! Sorry!"
The countdown halts immediately. Silence fills the room.
"Is that it?" Selphie reluctantly asks.
After a long pause, the voice angrily replies, "I said no magic!"
"Hey! You didn't say that!" she protests.
"I didn't have time to finish..."
"But you said 'your time starts now!'"
"Okay! Okay! I forgot, alright?" the voice snaps. "I planned this for the whole year, and you ruined it in thirty seconds!"
"I'm sorry. Do you want to do it again?"
"What?" the voice asks, confused.
"This is fun!" Selphie jumps up and down in excitement. "More fun than the train trip you had me on! I promise I won't use magic this time!"
"Okay..."
"Come back here! I won't look." Selphie picks up the bandage and covers her eyes again. "Some iron chains bound to the bed would be more challenging. Just an idea!"
Balamb Garden. 3F.
"So you're saying, Selphie or someone else, may have sold her nunchaku to Balamb's junk shop, and Joker happened to pass by just as the seller left?" Irvine asks Quistis.
"That's right. He couldn't identify the seller, as they were wearing a cloak that covered their face. But it looked like a tall, broad figure, so it's unlikely to be Selphie," Quistis replies.
"I see," Irvine says, putting on a thoughtful expression and scratching his head. "What's the next step?"
What kind of stupid question is that? Seifer frowns internally. Either this Cowboy wants to hide his deduction from him or he's basically clueless as Fujin described.
"We should talk to the junk shop owner," Quistis says.
"FINGERPRINTS!" Fujin chimes in.
"What for?" Irvine asks, confused.
Seriously?
"If the shop still has the nunchaku, we can collect fingerprints from it to find out who the seller was," Quistis explains.
"Ah! Right! Thank you," Irvine nods, adjusting his cowboy hat. "I need more coffee. Watching the security footage was so tedious..."
"What did you guys find?" Quistis asks.
Irvine glances at Fujin, who is flipping through her binder filled with colorful labels. The Cowboy's clueless look reminds Seifer of himself when trying to copy Quistis's answers during Aki's magic history exams—there's no mistake about that pathetic look.
"Take a seat, Fujin. It's a lot to go through, my friend," Seifer says, pushing Fujin gently to sit in a corner.
"Hey! We're in this together!" Quistis sees through his bullshit. "We already shared everything we know with you two."
"Divide and conquer. Have you heard of that?" Seifer spreads his arms to shield Quistis from Fujin's notes. "We'll work on Selphie's last contacts. You two find the junk shop owner."
"At this hour?" Irvine protests.
"You still remember their address, Trepe?"
Balamb town.
"Quistis! We're here!"
She slowly wakes up from her nap, the lamppost light piercing her sleepy eyes and startling her a bit.
"You look tired. How about you head to the Balamb Hotel and rest? I can go to the address on my own," Irvine says, turning off the ignition of the car parked at Ma Smailes's gas station located near Balamb Town's entrance.
"No, I'm fine," Quistis yawns one last time before opening the door.
They pass by the junk shop owned by Mr. Johnson, which is closed as expected. His house is at the end of town. On their way, the only place open is a new pub that didn't exist before in the peaceful town. People travel around the world more after the last war, creating a demand for adding more tourist-friendly businesses.
They knock on Johnson's door three times before the middle-aged man answers.
"Yes?" Johnson looks annoyed.
"Good evening, Mr. Johnson," Quistis begins.
"Morning...," the grumpy man corrects her.
"Right. We're terribly sorry to bother you at this hour, but it's an emergency."
Quistis pauses, waiting for any acknowledgment from Mr. Johnson, but receives none.
"Our friend Selphie is missing," she continues. "Her weapon is at your shop. It's a nunchaku—red and yellow..."
"There's no nunchaku here," Mr. Johnson says, starting to close the door, but Irvine quickly stops it.
"I'd like to buy a gun and heard you're an expert," he says cheerfully. "My Good Hyne! Is that the gun from the First Sorceress War? That must cost a fortune, it still has the old Estharian communism symbol on it." He gestures toward a gun hanging in Mr. Johnson's living room far away from the door.
As Johnson stops resisting the door, his face relaxes a bit. "You have very keen eyes to spot that from this distance."
"'Keen eyes' is my nickname, a word play from my real last name Kinneas."
"A keen shooter, I suppose?" Mr. Johnson quirks his chin, eyes fixed on Irvine's hidden gun.
"I don't want to boast, but likes women, it requires certain skills to handle dedicate gund," Irvine smiles, showing the gun hidden in his trench coat.
"Women and guns, it sounds like we share the same interests," Mr. Johnson smirks back. "X-45 model from Galbadia?"
"My second favorite," Irvine replies.
"What's your favorite?" Mr. Johnson asks.
Irvine glances at the wall again. "Like women, I'm willing to wait for the one."
A smile appears on Johnson's face, and he invites them inside.
"Quistis, you look tired. I can handle this on my own. Go to the Balamb Hotel and take a rest. I'll find you there."
"But..."
"Please," Irvine pleads. "I need your functional brain. I can work with my mouth for now."
Quistis hesitates, but Irvine has a point. He deals with people much better than she does. Although she doesn't like the idea of resting while her friend is in danger, she understands she's no use without a clear head.
Finally, in the stillness of the night, she checks into the Balamb Hotel for 200 Gils per night. Inflation!
"So Broccoli had the nunchaku the whole time? You've got to be kidding me!" Seifer yells as he receives updates from Irvine.
"It will take us a while to come back. Can you find him now?"
"Of course! I'm on it. Fujin, let's go."
Seifer and Fujin split up to search for Zyma in his inventory and training area. As expected, the suspect has long gone. Luckily, Xu can locate him at any time with her tracker, as the Garden's secret shop owner is notoriously lazy when it comes to pick up new missions. Being his closest to consider a friend for years, in less than half an hour, Xu hands over Zyma who is then restrained in the headmaster's office to be interrogated by Seifer and Fujin.
"What's going on? What did I do?" Broccoli throws out a random line from some NCIS movie.
"Stop playing!" Seifer says. "You have the nunchaku. Where's Selphie?"
"How the hell would I know?" he insists. "Half of the world know I collect weapons and armor. Big deal! I can't just pass off an item like that."
"Where is it?"
"You've got to buy it to see it," Zyma smiles.
Seifer narrows his eyes. "Let me guess, shop's rules?"
"Never piss off a shopkeeper," Zyma nods.
"Didn't you say customers are Hyne?"
"Right, when they actually buy something, not binding me to the chair like this."
"BULLSHIT!" Fujin has had enough. She presses her chakram against Zyma's neck.
"Hey! Easy, old friends. This isn't how you treat your classmates. You've killed enough of us already," Zyma freaks out.
Seifer's expression deepens. Fujin notices and presses harder against Zyma.
"TONGUE!"
"Okay, okay! I'll shut up…"
Seifer continues to remain silent.
"REST!" she tells Seifer to leave who knows it is pointless to argue with her.
As Seifer exits the room, seemingly defeated by Zyma's remark, Fujin stares at the secret shop owner in silence for what feels like an eternity. Not until does she notice a few beads of sweat on his now frightened face that she begins, hopefully, the short interrogation.
"LIE? DIE."