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Chapter Text

"Have you noticed those two suspicious guys?" Arther asks his sister while they are waiting by Tropical Land's bathroom for their friend to finish his business.

"Yeah, they seemed pretty sketchy for me too..." Lumine murmurs back under her breath. "Those eyes were exactly like someone's who took a life before..."

"They didn't even flinch when seeing that decapitated body..." Aether crosses his arms.

"What are you two so gloomy about?" The friend they were waiting for appears by their side. "Didn't you two solve the case earlier?" Xiao's head is slightly tilted as he stops by the twins.

"Ah, sorry, it's nothing" Lumine laughs it off first.

"Thinking of another case?" A bit of a mocking smile on their childhood friend's face.

"You say that like that would be the only thing we can think of..." Aether grumbles puffing his cheeks a bit.

"Sometimes you two seem like that." Xiao rolls his eyes, but neither of the detective twins miss his small smile.

Another thing that Lumine doesn't miss is one of the earlier sketchy guys looking around suspiciously, as if checking if they are followed. Instinctively she pulls on the sleeve of Aether's hoodie to get his attention. They watch together as the dark figure disappears between the shadows between two of the park buildings.

"Hey Xiao, it's late, you go on ahead before mister Zhongli becomes worried about you..." Aether asks.

"I dropped something, sorry" Lumine lets out an awkward laughter. "See you tomorrow!" With that they both start running towards the unknown.

"Wait!" They hear their friend calling after them, but right after a thud, and their childhood friend looses sight of them by tripping over someone's bag.

They split into two, Lumine going from one side, Aether going from the other, phone out and ready to record. Lumine's hiding corner is fortunately closer, her getting a clearer view on her stuck out phone.

"We need the money first" First thing either of them hears from the person Lumine spotted coming here. She presses record. On her phone.

"Here it is! No problem!" A click of a suitcase opening up, showing all the money from the panicked man.

"Good, the deal is complete" shuffling and the suitcase changes hands, suitcase clicking close.

"Now give me the tapes" The business man mutters increasingly more nervous.

"The recording of your gun smuggling, here you go" the twins can hear the self satisfied smile on the man dressed in black's face.

Just as Lumine starts thinking about not seeing the other guy the twins seen on the rollercoaster, she hears footsteps coming towards her, but before she could turn and react, she is hit, and falling to the ground.

"Lumine!" Aether rushes out of his hiding spot, not being able to sit silently when his sister is hurt. He tries to attack the man closes to him, but unfortunately the high school detective is no match for him. By a well aimed swing of his arm, he is knocked down too, laying in the grass next to his sister. Both fighting with unconsciousness right there.

"These two were trailing us..." Growls the one that sneaked up on Lumine.

"We need to kill them..." the bigger caliber man murmurs, bit disoriented, surprised by the children sneaking up on the deal, pulling out his gun.

"Don't you dare use a gun" The other guy growls while reaching inside his fur coat. "The police are still around from the earlier case... Take their phones." While he pulls out a small rectangular case his partner does as said, picking the phones up from the ground.

"What is that?" He murmurs while watching him open and take two pills and a flask out of it.

"A new poison the organization developed... You can't find traces of it in the body, the key to a perfect crime" He explains while forcing the first one down on Aether's throat. "It haven't been tested on humans yet, so we have the perfect guinea pigs here..." He lets out a small chuckle forcing the second one down on Lumine's throat.

They leave while with burning body the twins fight against unconsciousness, eventually losing their grip.

Lumine is the first to awaken. Her body still feels like it's burning. Gathering what is going on around her she springs up.

"Aether!" She calls to her brother while shaking him, but... He feels completely limp. "Aether wake up" she starts being more and more aggressive with shaking her brother up. As more seconds pass, with shaky hands she reaches to check if he has pulse.

He doesn't have one. He isn't even breathing.

Lumine backs away with a gasp, covering her mouth with her hands. Her clothes feel so heavy suddenly. She stares for a few seconds, processing what just happened.

They probably fed her the same thing, how is she not dead? And why must it be Aether that died? She scans the area for their phones, but they are nowhere to be found. Right, they took them, so she doesn't even have evidence.

She needs to avenge her brother... But if they find out she is still alive they will come after her, if only her brother's death will be public knowledge. The two of them are fairly famous at this point in time...

Glancing at the bushes in front of her, that's the only place where she could hide his body for a while. She needs to hide it, she doesn't have other options right now.

It's a surprisingly huge struggle, she feels her legs way shorter and herself quite weaker in general, but she somehow manages to fight her brother's body deep under the bushes. When winter comes they will easily find him, but at least some time for her to figure something out if nothing else. Or hopefully they will think her body also disappeared to an unkown location...

By the time she is finished and trying to catch her breath where they were first knocked out, she hears footsteps again, this time accompanied by lights from she guesses a flashlight, those more often have a yellow-ish light color. Before she could process anything she sees a police officer turns by the corner.

"What are you doing out here so late little girl?" He asks crouching down. Lumine couldn't be more offended at that. Sure she is short, but not that short. But crouching? When did the average person become so much taller than her? "Hey I found an elementary school kid back here" she hears him say over a walkie-talkie.

"Excuse you, I'm in high school..." She grumbles. The officer chuckles at that.

"Sure you are" he clearly doesn't believe her. She finally looks down on her clothes. They are torn all over the place, being way bigger than they usually were. The officer takes her arm leading her away, while she looks at her hands.

She knew something was weird but... Did she really shrink? To an elementary school kid's size? Her hands definitely look smaller, but she couldn't possibly...?

As she is taken alongside a building with huge windows she glances at her reflection realizing that yes, she did shrink. For some reason. She can't help but stop, almost tripping over because the officer doesn't do as she does.

How is that possible? It was clearly meant to kill someone, Aether is the clear proof of that, but does it just take time until it kills her too? Aether didn't look a day younger at all...

"Is something wrong little girl?" The old officer asks crouching down to her level again. She just shakes her head no. Like anyone would believe her after even her seeing that. Did she get isekai-d somehow? That's the only thing she can think of, but her reflection is the exact same as it was 10 years ago...

Her head injury gets treated by a nurse and while the officers discuss to what to do with the lost kid, she just decides to run all the way to their house. The officers try to catch her, but she manages to hide from them.

In front of their house she realizes that she can't reach to open the gate. She can't even climb up anywhere on the fence or the gate. She is too small for that like this.

While scratching her head she hears an explosion. From the neighbor, the gate blowing open with pale blond hair flying after it.

"Albedo!" Her eyes light up seeing her neighbor. He have been the family's friend since she knows her name. She runs up to him. "Albedo, I'm sorry for bothering but I need help"

"You are?" He eyes the kid after he finished coughing.

"Lumine." She answers, and Albedo clearly doesn't believe her. He stands up walking to the doorbell. After no one answers he turns back to the kid.

"She doesn't seem to be home, sorry." He murmurs.

"Of course she is not, because I'm right here!" Lumine is starting to get a bit frustrated.

"You certainly look a lot like the twins..." He murmurs scanning the girl again.

"I am one of the twins..." Lumine grumbles. "I was shrunk by a weird drug that some men dressed in big black coats fed me... At least that's my best guess..." She mumbles the last part only under her nose.

"You know it's not nice to bother people you don't know..." Albedo sighs crossing her arms.

"You have been our neighbor since I know my name, you live alone, a genius inventor, you even probably changed my diapers at some point!" She starts to run out of patience herself.

"Let's get you to the police to find your parents, alright?" The man offers a hand, and when she doesn't take it, he grabs her by the wrist. "It's not nice playing pranks on people."

"Wait-wait wait!" Lumine resists, glancing at his outfit. "You were eating by Colombo earlier, and you came back in a hurry because is was raining" Albedo shoots her a questioning glance. "your cuff has some of their special sauce on it and your pants are muddy. Only place you can get muddy around here is your own garden and the road where construction is going on, but you rarely work in the garden"

"So you are Lumine..." He murmurs glancing around.

"Yes, I told you" She grumbles.

"Let's talk inside." How easily Albedo opens the gate makes her quite jealous of the missing height.

Inside she explains most of what happened in the library.

"And then one if them fed us the drug and..." Finally being in the clear now, in her old school clothes, finally the weight if her brother's death setting on her properly. "And when I came to be..." Tears are starting flood out of her. "He..." She tries to hold back the sobs. "Aether is... Dead" flood gates are open, finally letting it out.

Albedo gives her plenty of time to let it all out, patting her in the back until she is done.

"I-I had to hide his body in the bushes..." She murmurs, voice barely audible. "If we aren't discovered together, those people probably..." She murmurs.

"It was a good decision." Albedo nods at that. "That drug is clearly capable of killing a person... If they discover that you are still alive... No one is safe around you."

"I don't know how much time I have... When will they discover his body, will it be the smell or the fact that it's winter and it's exposed?!" She scratches her head fustrated. "I need to acange him... I need to take down that organization..."

"You need to lay low for a while. I know both of you are detective blood, but please try to" Albedo sighs, having enough years of experience with the twins.

"So, do you think you would be able to make something that would restore my body? Taking down an organization in revenge seems a bit impossible in this body..." She murmurs looking at her significantly smaller hands once again. "I barely was able to move Aether's body... Now no wonder it took so much effort..."

"I don't think that's possible at this point..." Albedo shakes his head

"Aether? Lumine?" They hear Xiao's voice from the front door. Lumine panics. Xiao especially can't see her like this! The three of them have been friends since forever and addmittedly both twins had a little bit of crush on him, this is the worst timing. "I see lights on and the door is unlocked?" He takes off his raincoat.

"Hide!" Albedo whispers aggressively.

Only possible hiding place she can think of is behind the desk, so she ducks there.

"Oh? What are you doing here Albedo?" He murmurs spotting the scientist instead of either of his friends.

"Oh Xiao, it's been a while!" Albedo shows an awful greeting.

"Every time I forget how many mystery novels their dad collected over the years..." Xiao murmurs to himself mainly as he looks around. "No wonder both of them are detective geeks..."

"Excuse me for that..." Lumine can't help but grumble out loud.

"Huh? Are any of the twins back?" He murmurs approaching the desk.

"No uh.. she is..." Albedo mumbles tying to think of something while placing himself between Lumine and Xiao. Lumine scrambles to find something that could help her between the drawers, only thing she can find tho is Dainsleif's old pair of glasses. She pops it on, realizing how strong the lenses are.

"Who are you, kid?" Xiao asks now quite close to the turned small Lumine who quickly pops the lenses out of the glasses out before putting them back on.

"I'm Lu-" she murmurs turning around awkwardly. "Uh..." She looks around the room to get any idea. "F-Felicity!" She blurts out something. "Dannay Felicity!" Xiao is staring at the kid.

"You have a nice name" he murmurs after a few seconds. "Where is Aether and Lumine?" He looks between Albedo and the shrunk detective. "I kept calling their phones, but none of them is answering, have they came back?"

"T-they were here earlier... But they had to leave immediately..." Albedo tries to save it. "An urgent case, you know them" He tries to laugh it off, not at all convincing at that.

"I see..." Xiao mutters thinking. He had such a bad feeling while he watched the twins run off. As he tried going after them he tripped over someone's bag, loosing sight of the two.

"Hey Xiao" Albedo perks up a bit. Lumine raising an eyebrow at him. "Could you take care of the kid for a little while?" Lumine shoots a really disapproving look at the scientist.

"Huh?" Xiao tilts his head slightly.

"Her parents got into an accident and asked me to take care of her, but I don't really know how to take care of a child..." Albedo murmurs scratching his chin.

"I need to ask my dad about it first, but if he agrees to it, I don't see a problem." He murmurs looking at Felicity. "I don't think she likes the idea tho..." He crosses his arms.

"Let me talk to her" Albedo pulls her to the other side of the library to whisper between the two of them. Xiao stands in his place, watching the two.

"What are you thinking?!" The now little girl whisper-yells.

"Xiao's dad is also a detective, you might find something out there" Albedo whispers back. Lumine's eyes light up by that. It's not wrong.

"But do you really think it's the best idea to have me stay at my childhood best friend's house?" She murmurs under her breath.

"One thing is sure, you can't stay here. This is the first place where they would look for you... Someone coming in and out would be suspicious knowing your parents are abroad too" The blond scientist explains his reasoning.

"I can't really argue with that... But does it have to be Xiao...?" She sighs. She is a bit bothered by her dumb crush, even if she always was sure Xiao prefered Aether's company just a slight bit more. And now Aether is gone.

"You seemed so determined a few minutes ago about avenging your brother..." Albedo murmurs unimpressed, being totally aware of Lumine's dumb crush.

"Alright-alright, don't need to hit me where it hurts the most..." She sighs defeated. "I'm happy to go with him" She walks up to Xiao. Before that they were more or less the same hight, but now she really needs to look up. After all the time in school she was teased for being short...

"I'm sure my dad wouldn't mind..." Xiao thinks out loud. "Albedo, if you see Aether or Lumine please tell them I was looking for them!"

"Will do" Albedo shows a small smile towards the boy.

"Shall we go, Felicity?" Xiao offers his hand to the kid, who a bit reluctantly takes it, following the guy outside.

The walk is short, Lumine expected nothing else, being childhood friends she knows where Xiao lives is nearby, the detective agency being right above the Poirot called cafe. As they approach the building they see Mr. Zhongli waiting for something.

"Oh Xiao, did you find the twins?" He asks when noticing the two approaching.

"It seems like I just missed them..." The boy sighs.

"And who is the small lady?" Xiao's dad looks down at her. The man was already towering tall compared to her, but now she feels even smaller, and his cor lapis eyes feel like they see right trough her, but that's impossible, right?

"This is Felicity, Albedo asked if we could look after her" Xiao murmurs. "Her parents are hospitalized and his lab never was suited for kids to roam around in... Can she stay with us for a bit?"

"I don't mind" Zhongli nods with a smile.

"What are you doing out here?" Xiao asks looking around.

"Right after you left, I got a call about a job" The man is practically sparkling with excitement, even if he hides it behind a somewhat cold exterior. "A child got kidnapped by some men in black, and their parents called me to help" Lumine perks up at that.

Men in black? Could the people who killed her brother and shrunk her already show their face? She can't be this lucky, can she?

"Well, good luck!" Xiao would try to pull her away just as the taxi arrives, freeing her hand from Xiao's grasp

"No!" She resists. The two stares at her in surprise. "I- I... Want to see a cool detective in action!" She thinks of a childish reason to go along, nothing better coming to her mind. "Please!" She shows her best puppy dog eyes.

"If you promise to stay out of trouble, you can come" Xiao's dad smiles at her.

"Yaay!" She throws her arms in the air in celebration. The three of them get in the car. Xiao wanting to keep the girl out of trouble, detective work could be dangerous after all and he has all the tools to keep her safe.

The car ride is silent, Lumine can't wait to find out if these are the same men in black. Of course she has her doubts, it feels way too lucky to have them turn up, but better make sure than regret it later.

"So the little lady of the house disappeared, and a man dressed in a black coat was witnessed after her scream" Zhongli asks from the business man, making sure he has the facts straight.

"Yes, my butler did, right?" He looks towards the old man.

"Y-yes sir" the butler nods tensing up by his boss' gaze.

"Could you be more specific on what happened?" Lumine asks with a small notebook open, pen in her hand, right next to Zhongli.

"Felicity, you promised you won't be in the way..." Xiao drags her away while his dad chuckles at her attempt to be a little detective.

"Ah.. sorry" The girl mumbles. She kinda forgot about her own situation and went by her habits.

"Are you sure you didn't see these people's face?" Zhongli continues his questioning. The butler just nods. "Could you tell me what happened in more detail?"

"The little miss was playing in the yard, when the man appeared by the corner of the wall. Held a knife to her neck and told me to pass to the master that if he wants to see her daughter again he needs to shut the company down in one month, and to not get the police involved" The old man jabbers it all in one breath, then turning towards a tree. "Then he climbed this tree and disappeared past fhe wall."

"Did his voice have any distinguishing features?" Lumine chimes in once again.

"Well uh..." The butler gets a bit flustered by the question thinking about it. "Not really, nothing notable, not too high pitched, not too low..."

"Felicity!" Xiao warns the girl again. "Let the adults handle this" he crouches down next to her.

"Sorry~" She isn't that sorry unfortunately. While Zhongli is a great gentleman, sometimes he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed... And she can't sit back when a case is happenning right in front of her eyes.

"Did you hear anything?" The detective turns to the maids.

"No, only the little miss' scream and a few seconds later mr. Asou's yelling, other than that it was a quiet day." Zhongli humms in understanding while one of the maids shake their head.

"Probably a rival company's doing..." Zhongli muses thinking.

"First they kidnap my daughter, then they want money..." The business man grumbles with crossed arms.

"Wha- Money..?" The butler murmurs with eyebrows raised. "B-but the kidnapper didn't say anything about money..." He mumbles while starting to sweat.

"They called not long ago, demanded three million yen" The businessman snaps towards his butler, who starts sweating bullets.

"But.. but that should..." While the master of the house turns back to the detective the old man mumbles to himself.

"Could you hear anything odd on the phone?" Zhongli asks ignoring the butler.

"Unfortunately it was pretty distorted, but it seemed intentional to hide their voice" The man shakes his head.

"S-sir, that must be a mistake... I-it's impossible they-" The old man is cut off.

"It is what he said!" The master of the house doesn't have mood for any of that, he is worried about his daughter.

Lumine wanders away from Xiao's side, to investigate the tree th kidnapper supposedly climbed while she keeps an ear out for what the businessman and the detective talk about, discussing possible rival companies that would be capable of doing such things.

When she gets close, she immediately has to run because three nice dogs don't like strangers in their territory, totally understandably, barking at her, scaring the hell out of her. She even manages to trip, fortunately it's far away enough that she is safe from a dog biting her.

"Are you alright?" Xiao is by her side, helping her up.

"Y-yes sorry..." She murmurs staring at the dogs and thinking back what the maids said earlier.

She walks up to Zhongli getting out of Xiao's hands just as quick.

"Hey isn't it weird that-" she gets cut off by the man crouching down to her level surprising her.

"Please, this is not a place to play around." The man shows a sweet smile at her. All that sweet smile does is cushing her soul. "Xiao, could you keep a better eye on her?" She already struggled to be recognized as a high school detective, people often looking past her and only focusing on her brother, but as an elementary school girl's age... It's going to be such a huge struggle once again.

Defeated, with Xiao now more on her heel she sighs, spotting a ball left in the yard, absentmindedly going to it and starting to kick it around. Something that she likes to do if she has the opportunity while thinking. She picked up soccer while Aether did Karate with Xiao. Neither of the twins were too serious about their chosen sports, they mainly picked them up to assist in their detective work, and it worked out pretty well for the two of them. Aether dealt with the hand to hand combat if it came to that, and Lumine was the one going after runaway criminals.

"You play around just like Lumine" Xiao's musing distracts her just enough that she misskicks the ball to hit the tree that the kidnapper supposedly climbed when escaping. That sparks an idea in her head.

She also spots the butler trying to sneak away from the group of people gathered there.

"Oh no! I can't get the ball because it rolled to the angry doggies!" She calls out loudly hoping the detective could catch on. "They are barking at me if I go there!"

"Did you say you didn't hear anything but yelling?" Zhongli turns to the maids again. The two women nods at the same time. "Interesting... Sir Asou, there is something odd about what you said..."

"A-and what would that be?" The butler turns around, now it's way clearer to everyone that the man is sweating.

"Your description of the kidnapper is quite ambiguous, and the dogs didn't alert anyone if said kidnapper left by that tree, and that would only happen if they are familiar with someone..." Zhongli seeing the man's expression change from a slightly nervous to a quite panicked one, the detective is pretty confident. "Am I correct to assume you would be the true culprit of this case?"

"Asou?!" The businessman is mad walking up to his butler, clearly ready to throw hands any moment. "Did someone hire you to do this?! Who was it?!"

"N-no, I did this by myself!" The old butler's hands are raised in front of him.

"So where do we find the little miss?" Zhongli asks, ready to step in if the businessman gets too physical.

"In a nearby hotel" The butler answers without much hesitation.

"Please take us there immediately" Zhongli seems proud of himself for solving the case so quick, but Lumine has a bad feeling about it... The butler's reaction to learning about the money demand doesn't ad up.

"The kidnapper-" the older one of the maids come out of the house holding the family phone.

"What?! We already got him?" The Businessman takes the phone a bit aggressively, but no one can really fault him, his daughter has been kidnapped.

While Xiao was focused on what is happening, Lumine sneaked closer to the business man hoping to catch something from the phone.

"So do you have the money prepared?" Probably Xiao too can hear the voice from the phone it's so loud.

"Who are you?!" The business man demands over the phone.

"Oh? You already forgot? I just called a bit ago about your daughter..." A mocking laughter from the man over the phone.

"Do you have an accomplice?" Zhongli shoots a glare towards the butler.

"N-no! I-I only did it for the little miss..." He mumbles his panic picking up a little bit. "You must believe me!" Lumine believes him, even if a small child's opinion probably doesn't count. He doesn't seem like an actually bad person. She has a good hunch.

"Papaa! Heeeelp!!" They hear the girl's voice call out, and a thud. Probably the kidnapper hitting the kid, following by a barely audible sob.

"I'm running out of patience, if you don't prepare the money soon, I can't guarantee your daughter's safety..." The man grumbles trough the phone.

"I will, I will just please don't hurt her" The business man sounds so defeated.

"Try stretching out the conversation to find the kidnapper's location" Zhongli whispers to the father. The man just nods.

"Hey what was that? Did you contact the police?" Zhongli's voice is apparently too deep for a simple whisper.

"I'm in a school warehouse!" The girl starts yelling. "I can see a chimney out the window-" a slap cuts the girl off.

"I'll call later" the man growls trough the phone and hands up.

"Wait-" Unfortunately the business man achieves nothing with that.

A chimney only could be bath house or a factory... There aren't that many schools like that in the neighborhood, but by these short legs it might take too long for Lumine to check all of those locations... Glancing at one of the dogs pushing the ball around with it's paws.

Now approaching more carefully, hand reached out for the dog to smell it, and now they seem way more cooperative.

"Would you help me find the little miss?" She asks quietly. Xiao's attention is not on her for the time being so she needs to make use of that opportunity. The dog closest to her seems to perk up.

She releases the dog and rides it like a horse to the night to check those schools.

"Felicity!" Xiao turning towards her as she leaves with the dog.

"Leave her be, at least she isn't in the way for now. The dogs seem to be well trained" Zhongli murmurs not an inch of worry in his voice about the small child riding off in the night.

After running the dog to all five schools on her suspicion list, none of them has a warehouse that's window faces a chimney. Could the kidnapper get that far in that short of a time? The kidnapping happened only today...

She starts walking beside the dog while looking around for ideas. Have she forgotten something? Is there an extra factory or bath house that she doesn't remember correct? The number of chimneys ad up so far tho...

Looking around, she spots the tall building, way taller than any others nearby. Noticing how narrow it looks from one side, it sparks an idea. She gets back on the dog and rides where it's perfectly sideways.

Now she knows where the girl is held.

"Unfortunately you seen my face, so I'll have to kill you..." Is the thing Lumine first hears from the kidnapper when arriving to the scene, followed by muffled cries for help from the kidnapped girl.

"Stop right there!" Lumine yells hoping to distract the guy long enough to buy time for herself to jump off the dog.

As the kidnapper goes to the door where she is ready for action with the family's dog. As soon as the new friend spots the culprit, he leaps at him with a vicious growl. While the dog does that, Lumine hurries to the tied up girl to free her. Starting with the tape the guy used to keep her quiet.

"It's okay now" She whispers as she goes to untie the girl too.

"Who are you?" The girl mumbles looking at her with wide eyes.

"Viatrox Lu-" She cuts herself off before she could finish that. "Uh..." Lumine should be dead with her twin brother. "Dannay Felicity" She answers. "I'm a detective" that she can say with way more confidence.

The sound of something getting slammed interrupts the two girls, and before Felicity could turn, the dog's whine tells her the situation.

"Jambo!" The still tied up girl launches herself to the dog's side. It's her family's dog after all.

"Damn brat" the man growls at Lumine, swinging a baseball bat he picked up from the storage room at her.

She successfully manages to doge the swing, and would love to retaliate by a kick of her own, her legs having the most muscles on them, but her leg gets caught by the criminal so easily, and thrown to the other side of the storage room. That makes her realize that no, her legs don't actually have muscles on them anymore. Shrinking back changed that too.

She gets slammed right into a ball storage container, making footballs fly everywhere.

Her best effort at kicking one of the balls at the criminal to stop him spectacularly fails too, him easily catching the ball with only his free hand.

She dodges a few more of the baseball bat's swings coming her way, but her legs are small and she can't put that much distance between her and the criminal for her to be just out of reach each time.

"Felicity!" The girl cries out just as Lumine gets hit on her side and thrown to one of the other walls.

And the man doesn't show any kind of stopping. He swings at her more, continuing to throw her around by each swing.

"Jambo! Help her!" The little girl looks back to her dog, but the dog seemingly disappeared.

Lumine is on her last legs. Her head wound from earlier opened up too. Stupid small body. She tracked down the criminal, but couldn't do anything to help the kidnapped girl.

Just as she is ready to accept her fate and die without avenging her brother, an arm blocks the baseball bat's way. Xiao standing there, ready fight. A well aimed punch to the gut, followed by an equally well measured kick to the face and the guy is knocked out.

"Xiao! Is the girl okay?" Zhongli storms in just as Xiao frees the girl.

"Seems like just in time" Xiao shows the smallest of smiles towards his father quickly and turns to Lumine. "But..."

"I'm mostly fine" She can see that concerned look on him she always seen when Aether and her ran towards a case. He probably had the same expression earlier today when they ran off... "How did you find us?" She asks while watching Xiao pull out some tissues to help clean her wounds up, while Zhongli goes to take care of the criminal.

"The dog came back to the house beaten up with the girl's shoe, so we followed him back here" Xiao explains while taking care of her head wound.

"Akiko!" The business man arrives to the scene, hugging his daughter and their dog too. He is the true hero here really.

"Ah, the little miss is safe" Lumine hears a relieved sigh from the butler by the door too.

"Please give it up, we already have your partner." Zhongli shoots a disapproving look towards the old man.

"Parner? What partner?" The actual criminal asks while being tied up by the detective. "I grabbed the brat from the hotel..." He grumbles.

"You kidnapped her from where she was help captive?" Zhongli asks confused. Lumine can't help but smile at that. Her hunch seems to be correct after all.

"Captive? She seemed to be having fun..." The man grumbles.

"Papa what happened is-" The girl gets cut off by the butler.

"Miss, you shouldn't-" and he gets cut off by the concerned father.

"What are you still doing here?!" His growl now is no different from the dog's earlier.

"Papa! Stop!" The girl stands between the two. "It was my idea not Mr. Asou's!" Well it wasn't completely out of the picture for Lumine, she really did expect for it to be a collaborated idea.

"B-but.." The father gets cut off by the girl.

"Since Mama died you stopped caring about me and only the company..." Tears start to collect in her eyes. "And I thought... I thought closing the company would fix that" She starts crying properly. "And I asked Mr. Asou to do that"

"Asou" The businessman speaks after a few seconds of staring at his daughter.

"Y-yes sir?" The old man jumps in his place.

"While I see you did this for my daughter's sake, but I find these actions unforgivable" The butler just nods next to him. "So your punishment is to arrange a week long vacation for me and my daughter." He is not willing to accept argument there.

"Really?!" Both the girl's and the butler's eyes light up at the same time.

"Well.." the businessman starts thinking. "We might need to plan something around, but it can be done..."

"Well, at least the case is closed." Zhongli murmurs satisfied as he steps next to Xiao and the now patched up Felicity.

"Thank you Mr. Zhongli for solving the case! What a brilliant move, releasing the dogs to find my daughter!" Zhongli practically glows from the compliments. "Jambo loves my daughter the most from the three of them!"

"They are greatly trained dogs" Zhongli nods. Lumine tries not to be too salty about the detective getting the compliments for her ideas. "Just the years of experience"

"Oh.." the girl murmurs turning their way while leaving. "Thank you miss detective!" She smiles at Lumine.

"Miss...?" Xiao murmurs looking at the little girl.

"Ah- I think you misheard her, I'm pretty sure she said mister" Lumine explains with slight panic. Xiao just humms at that.

"What a great day!" Zhongli muses happily while they head to their home. "Maybe her presence is the lucky charm the agency needed"

Lumine spaces out at that. She had to be saved by Xiao of all people. Just as finally Aether and him grew out of being overly protective of her. How can she avenge her brother by taking down that organization if she can't take care of herself? But with such a small body what can she really do?

Chapter Text

After solving her third case for Mr. Zhongli as the seven year old Felicity, Lumine notices Xiao looking gloomy. He usually looks gloomy anyways, but way gloomier than usual. Usually he just has a pretty neutral face, trying not to show too much emotion, but now he frowns a lot.

Of course Lumine being Lumine, can't just ignore her best friend clearly being in a bad mood, but as this seven year old kid, she can't really do that much. Another problem is also there that while she needs and would like to pretend that everything is fine, not having Aether around anymore is absolutely soul crushing for her.

"Xiao?" She murmurs while they are walking home from another solved case. Only the two of them, Zhongli stayed behind after being invited for a celebration.

"Yes?" He just glances at her, but just as quick turns back to look at the road ahead.

"You are looking quite gloomy recently..." She feels his hand tighten around her tiny one.

"Am I really this bad in hiding it...?" He sighs, mainly mumbling towards himself, but he isn't being too quiet about it. "I'm sorry Feli, it's really nothing that you need to worry about" He shows a small smile towards her.

"But you are worried about something" Lumine points it out. Probably other people wouldn't notice, but she has been friends with him for years. Probably most of his classmates haven't noticed. Except for maybe Hu Tao, but the twins were never too sure with that girl.

"I've been trying to reach two of my friends" He hesitantly starts. The kid asked, but he isn't sure how much he should worry a small child. "It's not like them to be not answering, so I'm a bit worried about the two..."

"I see..." Feli murmurs looking down.

"No need to concern yourself with it tho" He murmurs back. "I'm probably just worried over nothing, the twins are pretty capable..."

God, she wishes she could tell how much of a deep shit she is in, and even if she talks to him, how could she tell that Aether is gone. Tears build up in her eyes as she tries her best to hide it. If Xiao notices he doesn't say anything.

Later that night Lumine hears him shuffling about inside Zhongli's office. Probably not being able to sleep, but that just give the perfect opportunity for her to sneak out.

With the bow Albedo made her a few days earlier, she can try calling him from a phone booth and using the voice changer she can change to her old voice and talk to him. Even to pretend that Aether is fine too. That might take some time to manage without crying...

"Hello, Zhongli detective agency" Xiao's unsure voice picks up the phone. No wonder, Zhongli is still out and he probably thinks it's a job for him. He sounds so tired.

"Hey Xiao, happy to hear that you picked up!" Lumine starts, quite nervous.

"Lumine?" He asks back surprised.

"Y-yeah... Sorry we disappeared on you so suddenly, we just got thrown into a pretty big case, none of us is sure when we can get back" She comes up with something really weak.

"So you two are fine?" A relieved sigh from the other end of the phone.

"Why wouldn't we be, silly?" A horrible attempt at a chuckle, but if Xiao notices he doesn't point it out.

"You will laugh at me again" He lets out a weak laughter. "But when you two left I had this weird feeling of never seeing you two again..." Lumine physically can't say anything to that. She tries, but all sounds die right in her throat. Even that wish of hers is on such wobly legs...

"We will try our best to avoid that" She manages to laugh it off at the end. "Anything interesting on your end?" She asks.

"Professor Albedo asked me to take care of this Felicity kid... She resembles you by quite a lot, even playing soccer pretty well"

They talk a while, Lumine's heart breaking more and more as the conversation goes on, eventually realizing that she needs to sneak back inside too, so she has to cut the chat short, even if she would love to spend all night talking to Xiao.

-----------

To think that sweet looking lady Rukkhadevata was one of the people responsible for the one billion yen robbery case, and behind the murder... Xiao and Feli managed to follow her to the port, but lost sight of her.

A gunshot cuts trough the night.

Now they know which direction to go. Lumine perfectly catches a glimpse of silver hair falling to the ground, clutching at their side.

"Xiao, call an ambulance! And get Mr. Zhongli and the others!" Xiao nods at the kid's order and runs off to do just that.

"Don't bother..." The woman mumbles, but Xiao is out of earshot for how quiet she speaks. "It's too late"

"Don't speak, the wound-" She instinctively tries to do something to help. The silver haired woman coughs up blood.

"You are the kid from the detective agency..." She murmurs finally registering the little girl being Feli. "How did you know I was here...?"

"The wound-" She tries, but realizes that the woman probably doesn't mind dying at this point, that's why she isn't stopping. "A transmitter got accidentally stuck to your watch when you first came to the detective agency" Lumine answers. "Following that we came to the hotel and after we discovered your partner's body I realized you were the one we bumped into by the elevator and the luggage probably has the one billion yen..."

"Just who are you?" The woman struggling turns to face her better, still clutching at her bleeding side.

"Dannay-" realizing that the ambulance probably won't make it in time, Lumine changes her mind. "Viatrox Lumine. Detective"

"Detective?" Between heavy breaths the woman mumbles that. "Can't believe the wrist watch..." She lays down, not having that much strength left. "We had a perfect plan but now everyone is dead..." The woman muses to herself. "Even I fell to the hands of the organization..."

"Organization?" Lumine murmurs.

"A big organization wrapped in mysteries..." She can barely speak. "All I know the organization is represented by the color black..." At that Lumine perks up. "They like to wear it..." While it's of course not at all sure if these are the same people, Lumine can't help but hope they are connected. Some clues, but even those are not worth much if the one person she found will soon probably die. Her thought process is interrupted by the woman grabbing her hand. "Will you hear... My last words..?" The little girl's focus is back on the dying woman with a small nod. "Before the organization gets there... The cases with the one billion yen are by the hotel's front desk..." Her strength is fading away. Just as Lumine can hear footsteps approaching. "Good luck, little detective" The woman murmurs, letting go of her hand.

Her long hair gets tinted with red as she bleeds out on the ground, completely covering up the lively green ends she previously had.

Unfortunately, they can't save her.

Chapter Text

Albedo got the paperwork done for Lumine to go to elementary school, which she first opposed greatly, but realizing that, yeah, not having school in her age would make her look suspicious she agreed. It's still painful sitting in class with a bunch of 7 year olds scratching their heads over what is 5+6...

On one of these boring school days is when her classmate in red approaches her.

"Hey Feli! Come with us on a ghost hunt!" Klee excitedly slams down her hands on Lumine's desk, making the girl jump.

"Ghost hunt?" Felicity raises an eyebrow at that.

"Qiqi doesn't think she would be useful..." Qiqi murmurs eyeing the confused girl.

"But Feli doesn't have any friends yet, and it's scarier if it's just the three of us..." Klee murmurs turning towards her friend.

"And the best way for me to get those is to go on a ghost hunt...?" The golden haired girl leans on her hand on the desk, amused by the utterly stupid idea.

"Well... It's an idea..." Klee reaches for the plushie she always has with her. Did she mean the three of them including that thing?

"What ghost would we hunt anyways?" She is not heartless, she will entertain the kids, they are kids after all, let's not crush their dreams just yet, that will happen with time anyways.

"There is old abandoned mansion in the 4th district" she turns back to her excited. "It's said that 5 years ago the owner of the house was murdered" Lumine thinks Klee sounds a bit too excited about the concept. "The man's wife and child moved away apparently, but the house have been taken over by evil spirits!"

"Evil spirits?" Lumine asks back, pretending to be interested.

"Horrific screams in the middle of the night... A dog wandering there and found as a skeleton the next day... And..." She now hesitates a bit. "Klee saw a soul wandering inside the mansion..." She switches back to being a spark of sunlight. "So Klee and Dodoco are curious."

"Those stories are just made up..." A girl grumbles from the other row of desks. "There is no way ghosts are real."

"Why would you say that Diona..." Klee grumbles back.

"Are you saying Klee is a liar?" Qiqi murmurs looking at the pink haired girl with that intimidating monotonousness of hers.

"No!" Diona's offense is so high pitched it hurts Lumine's ear. "All I'm saying is that ghosts aren't real!"

"Hmmm..." Qiqi is looking at Diona. "You should come with us to prove that." She states after a few seconds.

"What?!" Lumine chuckles at watching the kids. While the classes are painful for her, watching the kids interact with each other is often quite entertaining. At least she isn't trying to figure the world out anymore.

"Feli, do you believe Klee?" The girl in red asks determined.

"Sure" Lumine shrugs at that.

"Then the four of us will go tomorrow after school" Qiqi confidently states. "Sorry, five" she looks over to Dodoco. Dodoco is part of the expedition too.

Qiqi and Klee are definitely the most excited about it, even if Qiqi is not really the champion of expressions.

The next day as agreed, the group meets up in front of the supposedly haunted mansion. Lumine feels a bit under prepared, even if she has all the gadgets professor Albedo gave her. Klee brought snacks for everyone, Diona brought flashlights for everyone (except for Dodoco) and Qiqi brought a baseball bat, that Lumine does find a bit questionable. Ghost supposedly can't be touched, right?

"You could die in there!" Klee is clearly upset with her by her unpreparedness.

"It's not our fault if the spirits claim you" Qiqi just stares right into her soul.

"That won't happen!" Lumine laughs it off. It's an empty mansion after all.

"That's great and all, but the gate is locked" Diona jumps off mentioned gate.

"That's okay, Qiqi found a secret entrance when Qiqi came here earlier" The girl with braids turns to lead the way.

"A secret entrance?" Felicity asks back. What on earth would be the reason to have one to a place like this.

It seems way newer than the wall as they climb trough, that seems off to her.

The group advances to the house, flashlights already on, thanks to the rainy day it's even darker than it supposed to be and they don't want to step in anything. It starts raining as they do that.

Thunder roars as they enter the abandoned mansion. Diona and Klee jump a bit by that perfect timing. Both stepping closer to the others.

The floor is covered in dust, and as they find a creepy statue of a monster biting a woman in half, Klee slips while discovering it, Lumine helping her up at that instant.

"Who the hell would leave statues like this in their hall..." Lumine grumbles looking up at it. "I'm sure this didn't get here recently, it has even more dust than the floor!"

"That looks like a bathroom there" Klee murmurs while shining her flashlight on an open door facing a faucet and tiled walls. "Let me wash my hand" She trots there.

"It probably doesn't-" as Lumine would finish her sentence she hears the water flowing out of it. "The house was abandoned for years, right?" She asks looking between the girls.

"Yeah? Is something wrong?" Diona asks while looking up the stairs nearby.

"It's nothing" Who pays for the water? The most logical conclusion would be a poor homeless person moving in the empty house, but those wouldn't be able to pay for it.

As they head upstairs a window slams open from one of the rooms. All the girls jumping behind Lumine.

"S-see? Ghosts!" Klee confidently murmurs towards Diona as they carefully approach, Feli still leading the line.

Peeking in the room she sees the open window, but not hearing or seeing anything, she lets out the breath she was holding in.

"It was just the wind, look!" Diona points out the curtains swinging in the wind as she goes to close the window. Lumine right behind her, checking the area around the window. "I'm going to use the bathroom really quick" The pink haired girl heads towards the door. "You guys stay here."

"Wouldn't it be safer together?" Qiqi turns towards her.

"It's fine, there is nothing in this mansion..." The girl really doesn't sound that sure of herself.

"This place is huge tho... The previous owners must've been rich" Qiqi muses while looking at the ceiling.

"And creepy..." Klee murmurs. "Why would anyone keep those creepy statues around?"

"I think as soon as Diona gets back we should leave" Lumine steps to the kids.

"Are you scared?" Klee looks too excited about that.

"We will protect Felicity to not get her soul claimed by the ghost" Qiqi nods like she is looking trough her.

"I'm not really worried about ghosts..." Feli shakes her head. "I'm afraid we might not be alone in this mansion..."

"Well, the ghost is here, so we really aren't alone" Klee tilts her head.

"That's not what I meant..." Feli sighs while looking around the rest of the room, but there isn't anything extraordinary other than the fact that there is no rain damage present despite the building being abandoned for years. A homeless person moving in would explain the lack of damage, they would want their shelter to be off for the better, but the water running still isn't explained by that.

They wait for a while when Lumine starts to be antsy about the situation. Diona is taking long.

"Shouldn't she be back by now?" She mutters heading for the door to peek out.

"Maybe she ate something bad today?" Klee suggests, but them hearing Diona scream dismisses the idea. "Maybe not" She is ready for action, and so is Qiqi, squezzing her baseball bat.

"You two stay here, I'm going to look for Diona" Lumine looks at the other two, not accepting any argument there.

"But wouldn't it be safer as a group?" Klee murmurs.

"No, please stay here, I will be back with Diona" Lumine promises while closing the door.

She heard the scream coming from below, so she heads downstairs. Starting from the spotted bathroom she starts going room by room.

One of the rooms has a suspiciously clean photo on the table. Inspecting it by Lumine's best guess is the family that owns the house is on it. It's suspiciously clean tho.

Just as she heads out of the room, she hears a yell. Sounds like Qiqi, so she rushes back where she left the two, but the door is left open.

"Stupid kids" She grumbles as she turns to look for them.

She needs to remind herself that no, they aren't dumb, they are just actually 7 year old kids. Of course they won't be reasonable and stay in their place. They think this is a cool ghost hunt.

"Qi... Qiqi...?" Turning a corner Lumine hears Klee's muttering and shortly spots the girl too. Hearing heavier footsteps than any of the kids down the corridor, she grabs and pulls the girl in red into a room. When Klee would like to scream, she shuts her by placing her hand over her mouth.

"It's me, Feli" she whispers. Klee's only reaction is now to hug her closely. As excited as she was, she looks terrified now. As Lumine peeks trough the door to see the woman passing trough with a candle in hand, pushing a cart. She absentmindedly pats Klee on her arm to reassure the girl.

She hears the woman get further away, then a bunch of clatter. Stairs? She slowly starts following the sound, Klee still holding onto her as they go. The sound disappears after a corridor, nowhere near the stairs. The cart the woman pushed standing by the wall.

"T-they disappeared like a ghost!" Klee murmurs finally letting go. She still stays really close to the detective.

"I don't think so, look" Lumine murmurs while walking to the handle in the floor. "And there is a line in the dust too"

Lumine tries to lift the trapdoor up by herself, but she is too tiny and weak for it. Klee quickly joins to try help, but even the two of them aren't nearly enough. Felicity stands back to look around, maybe there is something she can use. She remembers the elastic suspenders Albedo gave her a day or two ago as she looks at a lamp on the wall.

"Good thing I didn't go with a dress today" She muses while unclipping it from her skirt. She lassos one end of it on the lamp and ties the other one to the handle. With the click of the button the device lifts the thing up without issues. It proves to be quite tricky to get it back, but the girl manage.

Stairs leading downstairs. She doesn't hear anything from the depths yet, but if anywhere, that's probably where she would look for Diona and Qiqi, they sounded like they are in trouble.

Klee once again sticks closely to her side as they decend. They start hearing weak groans as they get deep. It's pretty low pitched, so both missing girls are out of the question, but it does spark Lumine's curiosity.

They notice a slightly open door with light pouring out from it. They can't see the woman anywhere, so they enter the room.

A cell greets them, the groans clearly coming from there. A man suddenly sits up crying out in pain. So these are the creepy sounds that people reported. Unfortunately that musing of Lumine's gets interrupted by hearing running footsteps. Both girls look around panicked on where to hide, a single locker being outside the cell that they tey to fit beside, because for their luck, it's not completely in the corner.

Klee is a bit more panicked than Lumine is, so once again she covers the girl's mouth with her hand.

"Another nightmare?" The woman's concerned voice can be heard as the door gets closed. "You poor thing" She sighs, something clattering on the ground. Probably what originally was on the cart. "But what happened was already five years ago... You have to forget." Something getting pushed on the floor, a steel door opening. "The dead can't come back"

The last sentence hits Lumine a bit harder than she hoped it would. She knows her brother is dead, she checked it herself, she hid his dead body, but... Every day she hopes it's just a bad dream, she messed something up when checking, he is alive and well, but he is not. He is gone forever.

But next to her own bleak situation, she pieces it together more or less. The man in the cell is the son of the family, the woman is the mother... Was he locked in there for 5 years?

"Go on, you need to eat" The woman begs, but the man just throws his food to the wall. "I don't want you to suffer... I'm doing this for your future!"

As Klee starts to calm down a bit, Lumine lets go of her mouth. A careless step makes the girl in red bumps into the broom that they hid beside. And it starts falling. Time feels to slow down as both girls go trough eight kinds of panic, while Lumine ends up catching the thing with her foot successfully.

Unfortunately, with her leaning a bit too on the locker, the bucket on top of it comes crashing down with a loud clang. Lumine retreats completely back to the shadow of the locker.

Oh shit.

"Seems like we have more rats that wandered in..." Crunching of bones as the woman stands up, footsteps getting closer. Lumine glances at Klee who seems to be shaking, holding her hand. "There is no point in hiding" Mock sweetness in her voice.

"No point in hiding?" Lumine collects all her courage. She needs to make a way out for Klee, nothing else matters right now. "I would say that to you two..." She feels Klee's gaze on her. "I saw a family portrait in this mansion" She starts. "And the son on the photo looks pretty similar to the person in the cell, although in much worse shape..." She murmurs the last part. "There was something weird weird the moment we stepped into this mansion... The water running, electricity working, but the owners supposedly moved five years ago..." She pauses, just to quickly make sure that she doesn't hear footsteps approaching anymore, the woman stopped in her place. A bit hesitantly the girl steps out to see the utter horror on the woman's face. "Or they want people to think that."

"Who... Who are you?" The woman glaring at her. She can't help but glance at Klee, also watching utter horror.

"Dannay Felicity" She surprises herself with how confident she can sound in this situation. "Detective"

"D-Detective?" The woman is dumbfounded.

"Now, I have two theories, one is that you killed your husband and you keep your son here because he witnessed it..." Seeing not much more of a reaction than before, she continues. "Other one is that he killed his father, and you covered for him, however the guilt was too heavy for him, and to keep him from turning himself in, you locked him in here" She sees lot more reaction to that. The son flinching, gaze empty, and the woman backing away half a step. "By the reaction and the conversation earlier, ut seems like the second one is true..." Lumine turns to murmuring.

"Shut up" The woman warns the child.

"The son-" Before she could finish anything, she is slammed to the wall. She hears Klee's shriek as the woman raises the knife to stab Felicity.

"Stop!" The man's yell interrupts the woman. "Please stop doing this, mom..." The woman lowers the knife to her side surprised. "Everything that child said it true, I'm the one who killed my father." The man starts crying.

"A-akio..." The woman murmurs looking at her son with a broken look.

"Five years ago, after I failed all the university entrance exams the third time, he told me I'm a scum... I was already at my limit, but after hearing him say that, something snapped in me..." He hesitates for a split second. "The next thing I knew was me holding a bloodied candlestick and him dead on the floor..." He turns angry. "Everything else is just like you said..." Taking a quick breath. "But I'm tired of living here like this!! Living in fear and reliving the nightmares of killing my father!!" He starts yelling. "I WANT TO MAKE UP FOR MY CRIME AND BE AT PEACE!" He instantly turns into a sobbing mess.

"Keep it together Akio! We are so close to the case expiring! If we stay quiet..." The woman begs turning to her son, completely forgetting about Lumine. She steps a bit further away.

"It's true that you can run from the police like this, but you can't run from the guilt of the crime committed." Hearing that the man in the cell starts crying harder, the woman with an empty look in her eyes stares at the floor. "Are you going to make him carry this burden for the rest of his life?"

The woman breaks down crying too.

With that the ghost hunt is over, sunlight start shining on the old mansion. Qiqi and Diona can be found together, sleeping on the grass outside. The woman just put the two to sleep, nothing more fortunately. Lumine is the only one getting really close to death.

The son and the wife turn themselves in that morning, and the case can be solved after 5 years.

All four of us get an earful from our guardians after hearing about how dangerous that whole thing was. And while Feli thinks the group of four is finished like that, Klee approaches her in school once again.

"There is this other haunted mansion that we could investigate!" She slams her hands on her desk again.

"What? How are there so many abandoned mansions?" Lumine raises an eyebrow.

"The neighbors say a pair of weird twins lived there, but disappeared one day, demons claiming their soul. The house is supposedly filled with mysterious books that will put a curse on you!" Klee looks way too excited for a kid who was really close to being murdered by an old woman.

"And where is this mysterious mansion?" Lumine asks way less enthusiastic about it than before, because she doesn't want another case like that.

"The 21st house in the 2nd district!" Klee answers with a smile.

"Wait..." That suspiciously sounds like their house. "Do you know the family name?"

"Viat..." Klee murmurs while glancing at the ceiling, thinking. "Viat... Something. Klee doesn't remember the full name" she shakes her head at the end. Yep, that's their house.

"W-wait we can't go there!" She panics.

She only barely manages to convince the kids to not go there.

Chapter Text

A murder spree on a yacht because of a heartbroken guy, murder attempts on Xiao because he saw one guy half naked because the guy wasn't careful enough, and he didn't even realize the weight difference, a famous musician killed...

Lumine somehow turned Hu Tao into an ace detective too like how she helps out Mr. Zhongli, and she is surprised the girl just went with it without questioning anything about it... Then again, she was always weird.

While she thinks about the past few cases, Xiao talks about something that she tunes out while reading.

"Hey, Feli, are you listening?" He places his hand over the book. He suddenly feels really close. The awkward feeling of holding hands was nothing compared to him leaning above her.

"Huh?" Is the only thing that can come out.

"I'm talking about your parents" He grumbles straightening back up.

"Oh" Still not capable of talking much more.

" 'Oh'? First they got into an accident and then they go overseas, not even saying anything, aren't you worried or lonely?" He murmurs eyeing the kid.

"Well, my parents are cool, so I'm not really worried about them" She murmurs looking towards the ceiling. Her parents are actually overseas, there is no lie there at least. "And on the lonely side... Not really..." She shrugs.

"It's weird that her parents never even contacted us..." Zhongli muses across the room.

She hoped it would take some time for them to catch up on to her, with how dense Mr. Zhongli can be while solving cases... If they find out about her shrinking they will question what happened to Aether and she is not ready to talk about it to anyone yet, no matter how much of a friend Xiao is.

"Professor Agasa asked you to take care of her, right?" Zhongli glances at Xiao. The boy nods at that. "Then we could ask him for her parents' contact information"

"Th-there is no need!" Lumine panicks while the doorbell rings. Xiao goes to get it.

"Do you have a problem if we call them?" The detective raises an eyebrow at her.

Yes, she has, a lot of them actually. She can't let them catch onto her.

"Feli, she is here" Xiao turns back to the two, leaving space for the woman to step inside. A woman with poofy dark hair in a black coat stands there. Lumine just stares at the stranger.

"I'm sorry Feli we had to leave you alone for so long..." She crouches down to her level. "But it's alright now, mommy is here" She hugs her.

Who the fuck is this?

"Wh-Who are you?!" She breaks free from the hug, backing away, not being able to keep the question inside.

"Aren't you..?" Xiao would get suspicious of the woman, but she interrupts him.

"Oh, she is grumpy I left her alone..." She laughs it off. "I'm Dannay Alex" She smiles handing over a business card. "This little rascal's mother"

"Don't know if I could describe her as a rascal, she was fairly well behaved..." Xiao murmurs while Lumine tries to figure out what is happening. "Except when there was a crime scene..."

Dannay Felicity can't possibly have a mother, she made that name up on the spot. Who is this woman and what does she want?!

She is forced into a car, and Xiao finds her protests just a bit suspicious. It doesn't seem like Felicity would be like that, but her mother reassures them that she is like that usually. Defeated, she sits down glaring at the woman as the car starts.

"Who are you really?" She murmurs a bit afraid of the answer.

"I told you didn't I?" The woman spares a quick satisfied glance at her. "Your mother" Lumine grits her teeth, trying to think something. There is a really real possibility of the woman being with the people who shrunk her. "Is something wrong, my darling daughter?" Oh she would love to answer that, but she will bite her tongue.

"Nothing" She forces the word out.

She needs to think of something. That self satisfied smile can't mean any good. But right now she doesn't have any proof and the car is moving, so just jumping out would be incredibly stupid.

As they slow down by a red light, Lumine slowly reaches towards the stun needle watch on her wrist, but the click of a gun stops her.

"I wouldn't try anything funny. Felicity" Her new name sounds like poison from the suspicious woman's mouth as she points a gun right at her head as the car stops. She withdraws her hand with a small growl. "How cute."

Only other idea she has is incredibly reckless, but this confirms her suspicion of the woman being with those guys, so she needs to get away. Fortunately people aro going fairly slow.

She launches herself to stomp on the gas pedal, making the car move to the middle of the crossing, the woman panicking too much to pay attention to her. She opens the door and runs for it in the middle of the chaos she caused.

Using her own name in a case a few days ago was a mistake after all. She even asked Inspector Ningguang to not disclose her appearance in that case, but it's her own fault in the first place.

She stops by a wall in a quiet street, if anyone comes this way she will hear them. Snow starts falling around her.

"Now where next..." She mumbles out loud thinking.

She would love to go back to Xiao to confess everything, and ask for help, but that would put him and Mr. Zhongli in danger and even if she doesn't like the old man that much, she would not want that.

Her only real option right now is Albedo. He is the only one who knows everything. Unfortunately he isn't answering the door. She needs to wait a bit, hoping he didn't go too far. She goes to hide by one of the corners to wait. When she hears footsteps from the street in front of her, and spots Albedo peeking out, someone grabs her from behind, holding a cloth in her face. Despite all her efforts fighting back, her vision fades away.

She wakes up in a kitchen in a really rough shape. She feels dizzy, that hag is probably behind it. But she is not dead. Which needs to count for something. As much as her ferst reaction would be to panic, she needs to keep a level head. She needs to bring these people down to avenge her brother.

Her hands are tied behind her back, and her upper arms tied closely to her side too. Not ideal. Quite inconvenient in fact.

Spotting a window she springs up and clumsily, without hand support she climbs up to the counter by the window. She is on the second floor. It's night time. None of that is ideal. While the ground under the window is covered by thick snow, she doubts it would be able to catch her fall enough for her to be able to escape after jumping out.

"What?! You still haven't killed her?!" A man's voice from the other room. As quiet as possible she jumps off from the counter and walks towards the door.

"The order came from the higher ups" That old hag answers. "They said they need her to examine the drug's side effects"

There is a really convenient hole on the door right on her eye level that she uses to peek on them. She now understands why she isn't dead.

"And I came all the way for this.." the man grumbles.

The man has a huge top hat, wearing a big long cape and a really creepy mast that somehow feels somewhat familiar, but Lumine can't place that feeling anywhere.

The masked man approaches the door. In panic she tiptoes back to her original position, laying back down.

"Did the girl wake up?" The woman's concerned voice can be heard as Lumine lay there, in the middle of the kitchen.

"No... It doesn't seem like the drug has worn off..." The man pauses while Lumine still feels his gaze on her. "Is this really Viatrox Lumine? She just seems like a child to me..."

"I can't believe it myself, but Dannay Felicity's appearance lines up to the exact date when the detective twins disappeared from the media..." The woman answers. Lumine hears a woosh of clothing, probably the man standing back up by the door, but she doesn't want to risk making a move. "And that useless detective have been solving cases left and right since she appeared." The woman continues. "And her skills in the car were not like a normal seven year old's.

"Where is her other half then?" The man growls. That phrasing absolutely breaks the girl's heart. Her other half is gone.

"We haven't been able to locate him yet." The woman sounds nervous.

"That drug should've ended the both of them... If one us alive so must be the other one..." The man sounds really dissatisfied. "It should've killed them without a trace..."

"But there is no other explanation" The woman murmurs.

"I have another batch here with me. How about we put it to the test?" There is a small click, probably the masked man opening a similar case to what the other guy had.

"Who... Who are you testing it on?" The woman sounds afraid.

"Of course the guy we have a deal with tomorrow." The small case closes with another click.

"And what if it turns out it does shrink people down?" The old hag sounds way calmer now.

"We kill the guy and come back for the kid." The man states simply.

"But the higher ups said they want the kid as a test subject-" the woman is cut off by the click of a gun this time.

"Would you let someone live if they know about the organization?!" He yells at the old hag. "If this is how you want to deal with this, I don't mind having one more corpse on my hand..."

"U-understood" The woman's voice is shaky. The gun is put away.

"When is the meeting again?" The masked man asks. "Make sure to give him the correct location.

"At 1 pm tomorrow" The woman squeaks. "The usual method will be used."

Everything falls silent for a while and only then Lumine dares to move. Peeking out the masked man still wearing his mask along with the old hag are sleeping in the room next to the kitchen.

Looking around she finds an almost empty bottle that she wraps in the rug on the floor and breaks that way with her legs. The clatter and the thud might be heard, so she stops for a second to make sure she doesn't hear sounds of movements. When she doesn't, she continues to grab a glass shard and cut her ropes freeing her hands first, then her arm.

The rope is pretty lengthy, she probably could tie it to something and climb down that way, but she might also miss out on information... If she can't find anything usable she will just have to run.

A dripping sound distracts her for a second. Not long after, she finds a hidden storage where the rug originally was. She will be able to fit there to hide.

She ties the rope to the window, opening it and letting the rest of the rope drop, then she takes cover inside the little hidden compartment in the kitchen.

"The kid is gone?!" The man yells in the morning from above her.

"I woke up for the cold and the window is open, she must've climbed down!" The woman's voice comes from towards the window. The man clearly walks there and spends a few seconds there.

"She is still here" He states, more footsteps, but not in her direction. The out of order fridge. Clicking of a gun and a door swinging open "Die!" He yells into the empty fridge.

"Your intuition is failing you" The woman teases as the man goes to check the counters.

"Hmm... She can't go anywhere anyways..." The man grumbles, heading towards the door. "We will find her later"

After the sound of a car driving away Lumine finally comes out.

The rest of the apartment is just as run down as the kitchen. Checking trough the trash she finds some newspaper with characters cut out from them, and from those she can deduce as far as Beika Hotel, but that hotel is huge, not much of a help so far...

Looking around a bit more, a clear evidence of cutting something on top of the calendar. It might've been the news paper, but it's only one, and so perfectly on top of a previous day, so that she thinks it's the prevous month's days.

From that, she has Beika Hotel 30. What that means, she has no idea, but she heads there. Hopefully she will be able to find out about it there.

Her first guess knowing that there is no room 30, is the cloak numbers, but it turns out that they only have 26 numbers registered there... What could the 30 mean?

Overhearing a couple talking about their car parked by number 42, so she heads to the parking lot, not having any better ideas.

On the 30 spot, someone is parking, and walking around the car, she can't really see anything suspicious. Even climbing to look inside, when the family it belongs to arrive with disapproval. She apologizes and retreats to watch the spot from the shadows of one of the nearby cars.

A big man in a large coat comes by and stops by the empty parking spot. He spends a few seconds looking at something there and leaves. Lumine a bit confused goes to reinspect the parking spot, still keeping half an eye on the man. Noticing the tiny 1 scribbled after the 30. She decides to follow the man, probably being the one.

He knocks on door 301 and the masked man opens it for him.

"You have what we asked for, right?" The masked man asks with a slight growl.

The elevator's ding distracts the little girl so she doesn't hear answer for that, because past the bush she is hiding beside the woman who claimed to be her mother appears in the elevator. One side is the masked man, on the other is the old hag. How the hell can she escape?

By a stroke of luck the door swings open between the plant and the woman who kidnapped her. A mother and her son stand there. While both of their back is turned to the entrance, Lumine just books it to get inside. She is a kid in their eyes, she can just pretend to be completely stupid and hopefully be alright.

"Take care of the room!" The mom says leaving the kid behind. He closes the door

The kid turns away from the door spotting Lumine taking deep breaths.

"Th-thief!!" The kid yells surprised.

"N-no, no I'm sorry for barging in!" Lumine murmurs with an apologetic look. "Some bad people tried to hurt me, and I needed to run"

"What?!" The kid jumps up surprised.

"I'm sorry I will leave as soon as possible" She smiles at him.

"Do you need help?" The kid offers. Lumine thinks about it for a second.

"Could I use the phone?" She points at the phone on the table. "And do you happen to have chewing gum?"

"Go ahead, and..." While the kid goes to shuffle in his bag, Lumine goes to use the phone.

With the voice changer she orders food and wine to be brought to room 301.

"There you go" the boy hands her over a piece of gum.

"Thank you" She smiles at the boy while popping it in.

"How did you change your voice?" The kid asks a bit suspicious of her now.

"With this bow" She unclips it from her side. She usually has it there.

"Whi would you have that?" The kid asks.

"I'm a detective and it's one of my important tools" Felicity nods with confidence. "Thank you again for your help, I will stop disturbing you"

With that she leaves the now confused kid behind.

Knowing these doors open towards the hallway, Lumine sets up camp where the door would open towards, so she stays out of sight. Shortly the bellboy arrives with the food cart.

"What is it?" The old hag opens the door.

"I've brought the food and the wine" The bellboy answers with a smile.

"But we didn't ask for those?" While the door is open Lumine sticks the gum from the side in the keyhole.

"But we got a call asking for them..." The bellboy murmurs confused.

"Odd..." The woman mutters back.

"Why not, I'm quite hungry" the masked man grumbles.

As the bellboy moves in, the people don't look at the door, giving Lumine the perfect opportunity to slip into the closet by the door. The boy and his mother's room was like that too.

As soon as the cart is stopped, the bellboy is kicked out. Lumine hears someone staying by the door before closing it. After the click of the door she hears laughter from the masked man.

"How about we make a toast?" The woman suggests.

"I'll need to introduce you to our surprise guest before that." Lumine covers her mouth in her hiding in the closet, trying to make the minimalest sounds, her heart's pounding never felt so loud before. She hears the click of the gun.

"Surprise guest?" The woman asks flabbergasted. "Is she under there?!" Clatter of silverware and a woosh of a big piece of cloth. They checked the cart. "She isn't here!"

"She is right here" footsteps hurry to the closet, her only idea is to prepare herself to shoot with her stun needle wrist watch. The door swings open, a gun is pointed at her, and the watch doesn't fire.

Shit.

"Did you think I'd fall for so easy tricks?" A mocking chuckle from the masked man. "You'll regret underestimating me in the afterlife"

The trigger is pulled, and Lumine closes her eyes to prepare for the impact, but nothing of the caliber comes. Just a toy bullet bouncing off of her golden hair.

"H-huh?" She murmurs scanning the scene for the thing that bounced off.

A chorus of laughter begins in the room. She just looks around shocked.

"You haven't realized?" The masked man laughs taking off his hat and mask. Revealing floofy pale blond hair.

"D-Dainsleif?" Lumine mutters just staring, but then looks over to the woman who also reveals her identity. "Mom?!" Longer pale blond hair breaks free from the short black ones. Lumine climbs out of the closet, but doesn't get further than that, her legs aren't taking her that far.

"Sorry Lumi!" Her mom laughs. "I still have what it takes to be a great actress to fool my own child!" She giggles getting rid of all the extra clothing she had on for the disguise. Her adoptive mother is the renowned actress Alice is the only person who can call her Lumineithout getting a glare.

"Then the big man...?" While she says that Albedo also reveals himself to be behind that disguise. Dainslief and Albedo not being as expressive in their happiness of scaring the shit out of her as Alice is.

"B-but..." Lumine mutters. Her heart still pounding.

"You know, we were worried about you two, and when we come back home, neither of you are anywhere." Alice crosses her arms. Lumine realizing that if they set up all this, Albedo probably already told them everything.

Lumine stares in front of herself in silence. Tears quickly starting to collect in her eyes.

"I-I'm... I'm sorry I couldn't...." She looks at Dainslief trying to hold back sobs. "Couldn't protect..." Alice sits down next to her, patting her on the back.

On paper only Dainsleif and Aether are a separate family from her and Alice. Even if both guardians always looked at the other kid as their child too. Lumine never could bring herself to call Dainsleif dad tho, while Aether did call Alice his mom.

"I can't fault you, don't worry" Dainsleif joins on the other side. Unfortunately it just makes Lumine cry even more. The man also starting to tear up. "It's not your fault"

"I was a second too slow" Lumine mumbles between her tears. If she realizes that the other one is missing a second sooner, she would've been able to avoid getting knocked down.

"Let's not dwell on it for now. What we are actually here for is to ask you to come with us overseas so you won't be in danger." Dainsleif collects himself quick.

"The plan was to make you realize how dangerous your situation really is" Alice explains after seeing Lumine's confused look.

"That's why I agreed to help" Albedo nods still standing around awkwardly.

"You did everything how I expected you to do, and you would be dead if we were that organization, you would be dead." Her father figure explains. "You didn't even notice me dressing as a character from my novels" He chuckles.

"So that's why that mask seemed familiar..." Lumine mutters blankly in front if her.

"So please, come with us and stop pretending to be a detective" Dainsleif sighs patting her on the shoulder. "I've got a friend in the interpol, they can take care of it"

Lumine thinks about it still teary eyed. While it would be great to live calmly away from all this, she doubts she would be able to stay calm. She needs to avenge her brother.

"I can't" She murmurs.

"Lumi-" Alice starts, but her daughter cuts her off.

"I know it's stupid!" She snaps at her. "I'm sorry, but I need to avenge Aether!" And she has that one dumb crush in the form of Xiao, but that's a way more minor reason. "I don't think I would be able to live with myself if I don't..."

"Lumine, sweetie it's-" Alice this time gets cut off by her co-parent.

"Let her do this for a while" The man says with a sigh.

"But Dain, it's a bit too dangerous..." Alice crosses her arms looking at the man in disapproval.

"If it gets too dangerous, we will drag you with us. No questions then. Deal?" Dainsleif crosses his arms looking at the girl.

"Yes sir!" She murmurs straightening up and wiping away her remaining tears.

"Well, I'm your mother and I want you to come with us..." Alice really rarely play the I'm your mother card.

"Please mom" Lumine shows her best puppy eyes. "I know you would do the same in my place!"

"That's no excuse for you to do something so dangerous" Alice sighs, knowing that Lumine is probably right in what she would do in a similar situation. "I'm worried about you Lumi..."

"Well..." She murmurs thinking of something. "Now I got cornered by you three..." She starts. "But you guys knew me for years. Albedo literally since forever... Those people don't know me well"

"I still would feel better if you left with your current parents..." The inventor chuckles.

"And as scary as shit was, this was technically a puzzle set up by you and not a genuine crime" She continues. "So they wouldn't be able to predict me this well" Alice sighs at that.

"Just promise you will be careful" The woman is defeated.

"I will" she nods.

"You know where I live and the door is always open for you" Albedo reassures Lumine quickly.

"Well it was everything but that today" Lumine chuckles at that. He was her one hope and she couldn't do anything with that. The scientist returns that chuckle.

"Wish we could stay a bit longer, but we did come rushing home..." Alice murmurs.

She is transported back to Zhongli's detective agency after talking it a bit more over. Mr. Zhongli is still the best option for to be around. Detective agency and all, the previous actual lead she had did come knocking on those exact doors. It's unfortunate that she died as she told the minimalest of information.

"I hope this will cover all the expenses this little rascal can cause" Once again disguised as Felicity's mom, Alice hands over a check to Zhongli.

"We will take good care of her" The detective beams from confidence or maybe the money, Lumine can't tell.

"Oh! Xiao!" The woman perks up excited. It's never a good sign for Lumine if her mom does that.

"Yes?" He jumps a bit in his place.

"Please take care of her. She seems to really like you!" Oh that sneaky woman. Of course she was aware of both of their crush on Xiao and of course she will tease her about it.

Just as a revenge for scaring the life out of her, Lumine did give a tip to a few newspapers about her parents. After that comment she doesn't feel the slightest bit of remorse for her actions. She is sure their flight won't be boring now.

Chapter Text

"Qiqi is willing to bet Felicity will be stuck to the TV screen tonight" The girl with the long braided hair murmurs while their little detective group is on their way home.

"Unless something comes up, probably..." The golden haired girl murmurs looking towards the sky. "Can't wait for the sunday cup finals." Only sport she personally ever been interested is soccer. Aether had down all the other sports.

"Who do you think will win?" Klee excitedly asks.

"Qiqi thinks it's going to be the Tokyo Spirits" The girl murmurs in front of her.

"There is no way they can win against Big Osaka" Diona often pretends that she really doesn't care about soccer, but Lumine guesses that since becoming friends with Qiqi and Klee she has been trying to be on top of the soccer news.

She will have to pick soccer up once again if she is stuck like this forever... She needs to build the muscle back up, and she did have fun while she did it.

All thanks to her foolishness of not noticing a missing guy soon enough because she was so preoccupied with a shady deal going on...

Arriving back to the detective agency she spots a girl in front of the door, hesitating about something. Reaching for the bell, but then withdrawing before pressing it.

"Hey we got a client" She says while stepping in, the hesitating girl looking at her shocked. She shoots a smile at her at the end tho.

"Are you a client?" Mr. Zhongli turns to the girl with a welcoming smile.

"Y-yes" The girl nods.

"Then please, take a seat" The detective invites her in. "Please let me have your name, adress and phone number" Zhingli gives her a piece of paper to write those down.

She quickly scribbles down her information.

"So miss Akagi, what do you need?" Zhongli asks from the tense girl, but she keeps staring at the table. "Miss Akagi?" For that the girl perks up.

"Oh, yes!" She hesitates for a second. "I want you to find someone for me... She disappeared and is not coming to school... I don't know what to do" She mut.urs handing over a photo from her bag. Zhongli takes it, and as he looks at it Xiao and Lumine also step close to peek.

It's a photo of Lumine.

"Lumine?" Xiao murmurs shocked.

"You know her? Do you know where she is?" The girl perks up. "Please!"

"She got involved in a complicated case with her brother, unfortunately I don't know where she is" He shakes his head. Lumine would love to say that she is roght there, but of course can't. "She does occasionally call"

"I see..." The girl murmurs.

"What do you want with her?" Feli asks stepping closer.

"Probably just a case she had for her" Xiao murmurs crossing his arm.

"If it'd a case I can take care of it too" Zhongli offers.

"No!" Akagi yells. "S-sorry" She mumbles. "I-I really need to see Lumine" She is a bit flustered.

"Why her specifically?" Xiao tilts his head.

"Well... Uh..." The girl thinks for a few seconds. "We were going out" She blurts out at the end, turning tomato red.

Lumine stares at her not even having idea who she is.

"W-what?" Xiao is just as flabbergasted. "Really?"

"Y-yes" The girl Lumine never seen before today mumbles. Well, she can't deny that the girl is pretty cute, but she never even seen her!

"I didn't know Lumine was..." Xiao sounds... Disappointed? Is Lumine just imagining things?

"There has to be some kind of mistake" Feli tries to laugh it off. "Someone who looks like her..."

"It's definitely not a mistake! W-we were in a close relationship!" The girl yells turning even deeper red.

Who is this girl and why is this her story? It's clearly fake, but she can't prove that without confessing about her identity. What is her goal?

"Maybe her case is another affair?" Zhonli theorizes while the phone rings. Both Xiao and Zhongli kinda ignores it, so Felicity goes to get it.

"Hello Zhongli detective agency" She murmurs into the phone.

"Oh, Lumine. Perfect..." Albedo murmurs into the phone.

"Hello professor" She mumbles talking way quieter now.

"About the fax machine I gave you, if you don't recharge it in 10 hours it will run out of power" While the professor tells her that she gets an idea.

"Okay I will tell her that!" She says way louder. "Bye Lumine!" That gets everyone else's attention in the room.

"Was that really Lumine?" The boy asks.

"She said she will call miss Akagi later, so you don't have to worry" Felicity shows an innocent smile. The stranger's eyes light up.

"I'll get to see Lumine!" The girl beams

"Does she have her phone number?" Xiao looks at Feli.

"I-I just gave it to her because she wrote it down" Feli mumbles. He seems a bit worked up? She really can't place it anywhere. Xiao just glares at her.

"Well, I'll leave you alone now, I should head home" Akagi awkwardly stands up.

"Uhm, may I come along?" Xiao perks up. "Alongside Feli so people don't think something weird?" He glances at the gid, who won't argue.

"Why?" Feli raises an eyebrow.

"Because Lumine might appear?" Is he blushing? Is Lumine just going crazy? The faintest of pink on his cheeks... "If it's fine with you of course."

"S-sure" The girl is definitely intimidated by Xiao. He often has that effect on people even if he is one of the sweetest people Lumine ever got to know.

They go to the girl's apartment. It's in a really fancy building which Lumine pretends to be child-like amazed about.

"So this is where you probably..." Xiao muses to himself.

"Could it be that you-" Akagi starts with an apologetic smile.

"N-no nothing like that, I apologize" Xiao cuts her off. Is he blushing again? Does Lumine's eyes just play a trick on her. "Just she and Aether have been my best friends since years"

As the girl opens the door to the apartment, Feli notices that the lock is pretty damaged like someone forced an entry.

"Could I get something to drink?" Xiao asks. The girl is still intimidated by him, so she nods in a bit of a panic.

"Let me make you some tea." The girl offers and heads to the cabinets. She opens one after another. "I could've sworn the tea was..." She mutters while looking for it. If that's where she lives how can she not know where the tea is? Might be her parents making it most of the time, but she needs to open a lot of cabinets and drawers until finding it...

After sitting down by the table together, Akagi seems to space out.

"I'm asking this as a long time friend of the twins, how long have you been going out with Lumine?" Xiao asks, but he is ignored. "Hey, Akagi?" He murmurs confused.

"Y-yes?" The girl jumps realizing that Xiao was talking to her. "What is it?"

Phone ringing interrupts the two and Akagi rushes to get it.

"Y-yes?" She talks to the phone. "No, not yet" she answers a few seconds later.

"Who was that?" Xiao asks.

"M-my brother! He said he would be late from work!" That sounds like a panicked lie too to Lumine. "We live here together."

"What does your brother do?" Genuine interest from his side, but that's probably not how it comes off to Akagi.

"A gym coach at a university" she really doesn't sound sure of herself. As she bumps into a cabinet a soccerball falls down from it. "It's his too... He manages the soccer team.

That smells, the ball is a child's ball and it seems way too fresh.

"Where is the bathroom?" Feli asks.

"Next to the entrance..." Akagi answers once again unsure. "I think..." She is so quiet Xiao might've not even heard it. But think? Does she not live here?"

She goes to check the shoe closet. It only has men and children's shoes... It's unlikely a girl lives here... But then who is she? She clearly has keys to the place... Lumine needs to investigate more.

She stumbles upon a completely trashed room. Barely free space to stand on.

She never seen this girl and she claims that we are together, which is a really bold claim especially to strangers. She wanted a strong kind of connection that badly between the two of them? And the lock on the front door being messed up... Someone had to break in.

But why would she need specifically a high school detective? The police or even Zhongli would've been a better choice...

Investigating the trashed room further, she finds a photo of a kid and a young man. The kid has a badge with Mamoru written on it, just like the door. The young man on the picture seems familiar to her. After a few seconds she realizes that it's the soccer player Hide. She starts walking back.

So the girl clearly doesn't live here, but what's her connection to Hide? Lumine remembers a magazine article of Hide saying that he lives with his little brother alone. Why bother using an alias?

The TV is turned on when she gets back. Akagi's eyes fixated on it.

"You guys watching soccer?" Feli murmurs.

"Yeah, miss Akagi wanted to" Xiao murmurs back, and the girl doesn't react. On the TV they can clearly see that Hide is having troubles on the field.

Lumine decides to shoot her guesses and actually heads for the restroom with her backpack. She pulls out the portable fax machine disguised as a bento box. She can only thank Albedo for it too.

She sets her voice changing bow to her old voice and calls the number Akagi gave them. The phone is picked up really quick.

"Y-yes, is this Lumine?" The girl asks in the phone.

"Yes, is it a kidnapping?" Lumine asks without hesitation. "Mamoru, the little brother of Hideo bein the victim probably." She pauses for another second. "My best guess is that he needs to throw the game judging by his performance. You asked for me specifically because I'm a high school girl about your age so asking help from me wouldn't be suspicious, pretending to be my girlfriend to try pressure people i to helping finding me" She hears crying from the other end.

"Y-yes, how did you know all this? You haven't been here yet..." The girl murmurs on the phone between tears.

"I have my methods" A chuckle from Lumine. "Now, please give me all the details of the kidnapping trough fax. And could you let me talk to Xiao?"

"Yes, of course" Akagi answers sniffing. "Lumine asked to talk to you too" She hears their talking, the phone changing hand.

"Lumine?" He murmurs trough the phone while the girl sends her the needed information.

"Hey Xiao, I'm sorry for all this-" She gets cut off by the guy.

"Lumine... Do you like... Girls?" He asks hesitantly.

"That's an embarrassing question, I will..." The need to sneeze comes over her. "Achoo!" She can't hold it back. And it's not a small sneeze. Xiao hears it even in the room.

"Are you in the apartment?" He asks.

"N-no" She mumbles. "I will explain everything later" she hangs up with that panicked. He definitely will think something of this...

But she needs to first help the girl. Her stupid drama can wait. The faxes start to come in.

I first found out about Mamoru's kidnapping when I came to make him breakfast this morning. We had dinner together last night, so he must've been kidnapped some time in the night. I sent the letter the kidnapped left on the table and the letter hel let Mamoru write.

While she gets to read the last part, the machine finishes popping out the next paper.

I have your brother. If you want to see him again, lose tonight's match. Don't stay out of the game. Your brother's life ends if you talk to a cop or a detective.

"Yeah that's expected now..." Lumine murmurs to herself while the last weird piece of paper is done.

'Bring Mamoru back to life' and by the weird printing around the sentence, the paper was torn. It sounds weird to ask for help this way tho...

As she comes out of the toilet with the papers in hand, she immediately bumps into Xiao.

"Feli, have you bumped into Lumine?" He asks. Lumine feels like he seems too hang up about it, but she guesses that it has been a while since they could actually see each other... And she still couldn't bring herself to call in place of her brother either. She practiced, but she still can't without crying.

"No? Is she here?" She shows her best confused act.

"I heard her sneeze so she has to be around" The boy murmurs while walking away to look around more.

Felicity heads back to the girl watching soccer.

"Is this another missing kick?!" Can be heard from the TV. "No! Luckily Takeda is there to bring it down!!" Both Lumine and Akagi looks at the screen in complete terror. "GOAL!!!"

The fax machine kicks into working.

You have broken the rules. Don't think you'll ever see your brother again.

"The Tokyo Spirits are the first to score in the first half!!" As the announcer does their job, Akagi clutches at the paper crying. "That's the Hideo we know!! A heads-up play that cracked the opponent's defense!"

Lumine needs to hurry it up. She heads back to Mamoru's room hoping to find something there. While she is at it, her plan is to have the kid safe back home, so while inspecting the place she tries to piece the room back together. Inspecting everything that she touches in hopes of providing something.

Xiao at some point comes in and helps out in the middle of his search for Lumine. Only thing Lumine can't find to put it in it's place is a videogame. She never was big on video games, bit she has a vague memory of Qiqi and Diona talking about a game that might've been the one she is holding in her head.

Something about being a hard game or something. She pops in a randomly selected game. Seeing the save files the name Naoki pokes her in the eye. She needs a few seconds to connect Uemura Naoki who is a friend of Hideo. To her knowledge the guy was injured in a collision with Hide during a practice.

She pulls out Mamoru's weird letter to look at it again. On the edge of the tearing there are two small marks. It could connect by 'ki' from Naoki... Tearing the letter like that would make sense if the kid wrote his name down... If they played a lot together the kid could've asked help with the game... But is she trying to make these fit too hard and ignoring the truth?

"It's tied!!" She hears as she steps out of the kid's room. "Bis Osaka has tied the game in a peculiar fashion!" Lumine notices Xiao stepping out of a room too. "Hideo scored his own goal!!"

Lumine slips back to the toilet, calling the girl again.

"Yes, Hello?" Lumine feels really bad for taking such a long time with this.

"I think I figured out where Mamoru is being kept" She cuts to the case.

"Really?!" She beams even trough the phone.

"I have a few questions first. Do you know Uemura Naoki?" Lumine murmurs.

"Yes, he is a friend of Hideo, he lives nearby" Comes the answer.

"Did Naoki come over to play with Mamoru often?" She gets a humm of confirmation trough the phone. "Did Mamoru often write letters?"

"He did always write letters before he left..." Lumine humms hearing that.

"Mamoru wasn't kidnapped forcefully." Lumine states. "He just thought he is going to a friend's house to play"

"But his room and the door..." She doesn't finish, Lumine cuts her short.

"That was just an act to make us think that. Mamoru's letter is just telling that he is going over to get help with a video game. He is probably in his house right now-" Her reasoning hets cut short by a small knock on the door.

"Lumine? Are you in there?" Xiao talks. "I heard you talking in there..."

"I uh... I've got work to do I'm sorry" She lets out an awkward laughter fly pretty loud. How can she escape this situation.

"That's fine, I can wait here" She hears him lean on the wall next to the door.

"Hey Akagi" she turns to whisper on the phone. "Can you ask Xiao to get the phone?"

"Xiao, Lumine wants to tell you something" The girl plays along. She hears Xiao move, but not a lot.

"I'm right by the door." He states.

"I-it's something I can only say trough the phone" It really would be the perfect set up for a love confession, only he could hear that no one else. But it's an escape attempt.

"Alright" he murmurs walking away from the door.

She runs for it. Swings the front door open and she throws herself at the ground.

"Ow!" She murmurs sitting up when Xiao catches up to her.

"Feli? Are you alright?" Xiao instantly goes to help the little girl up. "That's really not like Lumine to do something like this..." He murmurs to himself.

"Y-yeah thank you..." She feels awful. She wishes she could just tell everything to him. It's her and Aether's best friend since forever, he would understand, but she can't. "Lumine said she is going to save Mamoru" She turns towards the door.

"Then he went to Naokis' place..." Akagi mutters.

"Let's go there then" Xiao offers.

The three of them take off running. Lumine while hiding in the toilet sent a message to Albedo in case the guy tries to run they have some back up. Only thing she is now worried about is Xiao.

Akagi rings the doorbell in a hurry.

"Hello? Who is it?" Comes a man's voice from the speaker.

"Akagi" The girl answers.

"W-what are you doing here?" The man sounds flustered.

"Please open the door." Her request is met, but the chainlock stops keeps it from opening up too far.

"What's wrong?" The man's face appears in the opening.

"I'm sorry, could I come in?" The girl steps closer to the door.

"N-no, my grilfriend is here, I don't want her to get the wrong idea..." He shows an apologetic smile towards Akagi.

"Mamoru!" She starts yelling while blocking thr door from closing.

"What are you-" the man tries to close it on her, but of course her arm is in the way.

"MAMORU IF YOU ARE HERE SAY SOMETHING!" She yells as loud as she can. Xiao sees the struggle and decides to act. He has no idea what is going on, but Akagi seems invested.

"Please stand back" He looks between Felicity and Akagi. They both do so, Akagi more confused, Lumine sensing his intention, so a bit scared.

He takes a deep breath and kicks the door open. So hard that not only the chain breaks off, but the hinges of the door too. The door landing on the poor guy.

Lumine would feel worse if he didn't kidnap a kid.

"Oh, apologies, I might've gone overboard..." Xiao murmurs picking the door up.

"He is still alive" Feli mumbles after checking for a pulse, because the guy is not moving.

Meanwhile Akagi goes to find Mamoru and give him a big hug as soon as the kid is in sight.

The two calls Hideo and tell him that his beloved little brother is completely safe so it's time to up his game or his brother will be angry at him for holding back.

Xiao goes to look for Lumine, in theory she should be here and he more or less put the door back in it's place. Lumine stays near the knocked out Naoki by the door, in case he wakes up. She watches the match alongside Mamoru and Akagi. The two looking excited.

"GOAL!!" The announcer yells. "His sharp quick-witted plays are making the first half look like fiction! What a prodigy!!"

"Hah, prodigy?" A scoff from Naoki who woke up somehow without Lumine noticing. Seeing him jump and look attack ready, he quickly turns to her. "I'm not planning anything, you don't have to worry" Lumine stands down, but she is still ready to act if needed, keeping a close eye on him. "It was always like that... Hideo the prodigy and me the hard worker..." He murmurs sitting on the floor. "He always had more fans and more contracts... Even though we had about the same amount of goals in high school..." Lumine and Akagi are the two paying attention to him. "Even after I joined the Spirits, I practiced day in and day out... Way more than Hideo, twice as much at least" Lumine really doesn't like the expression the man has. "So I caught up with him... No, I passed him at that point..." He is given his villain monologue. "Until Hideo destroyed my leg after we joined the team!!!" He takes a few seconds to continue. Lumine sees that he is not done yet. "He aimed for my leg on purpose... He took out my right leg because he was afraid of me passing him... It takes three months to heal, it's too late for me to ever catch up now..."

"GOAAAL!! Hideo’s second goal of the day!!" The announcer interrupts his monologue.

"I wasn't going to hurt Mamoru at all... When the match finished, I was going to take him back home then disappear somewhere... I just wanted to let him know, the world doesn't do everything he wants it to, just for him..."

"And that's the end of the match! The Tokyo Spirits win a spectacular sunday cup, 3 to 1!" Comes from the TV.

"Go on and call the police, tell them you have a kidnapper here" The man looks at Akagi.

"Hideo, who is the first person you'd like to dedicate this victory to?" Comes from the reporter on the TV. The guy awkwardly scratcher his chin.

"Well, to my little brother Mamoru..." He hesitates for a second.

"He will be shocked to learn I was behind the kidnapping" Naoki scoffs again.

"Is what I normally would say" Hideo continues on the screen. "But I gotta dedicate it to Naoki, my greatest rival" He lets out a little awkward laughter. "If he was here, we would've scored more... Sorry for being so unreliable!!"

At that, Naoki breaks down crying next to Lumine. Akagi following closely in that, someone can't take it well if they cr, around them it seems. Xiao arrives back too. Clearly down. Does her and Aether's presence affect him so much?

Now that she thinks about it, living with him, he looks way gloomier than she ever seen him. Even when around Hu Tao, who he is really good friends with, as much as the girl sometimes get on his nerves.

"You seem down... Is Lumine not around?" Akagi asks.

"I couldn't find her" Xiao murmurs with a sigh.

"Maybe we could call her?" Akagi perks up.

"Call?" Lumine needs to leave now. If her backpack rings she is busted.

"Yeah, she gave me her number today" Akagi hands over the piece of paper she wrote number on.

Unfortunately, Lumine can't leave completely before her backpack would start making sounds, and she instantly hears Xiao giving chase.

She manages to run on her tiny legs fast enough to hide for a second in an alley, trying to turn off the bento box fax machine but she hears footstep stopping by the corner.

"There you are... I see that you don't want to see me..." He murmurs, breaking Lumine's heart a bit. "But can we at least talk?" She hears him clearly hesitating. "Are you really with that girl?" He goes straight to the point.

"No, not at all" Fortunately her voice changing bow is still on her voice. "She just couldn't figure out a better way to seek me out so she lied about our relationship"

"I see" She hears him letting out a sigh. "Where is Aether?"

"I-I..." She fights back tears. "I don't know, we had to separate." She settles with that.

"Have you ever been separated?" He ask leaning his back to the corner Lumine is hiding behind. She really hopes he won't suddenly peek. She can't really run at this distance anymore.

"No..." She really needs to concentrate to not cry. "I'm sure everything will be alright tho" Nothing is alright. It never be. She had to hide her own brother's corpse. And she knows people ho trough worse than a family member dying and they can keep going, yet she is here, still tearing up by the mere mention of him. How pathetic.

"...Do you hate me?" As he asks that Albedo's car rolls up nearby. A better distance to run.

"Why would you think that?" She can't believe that question. Her grip tightens on the bow as she slowly walks towards the car. Trying to make as little noise as possible.

"Just how much you have been avoiding me... Only ever calling me..." Xiao mutters, she barely can hear him from where she stands.

"I'm sorry. I-it's really not because I hate you. I'm going to fix it... Somehow... Goodbye" With that she slips into Albedo's car, and the car rolls away.

Lumine can't help but start sobbing again on the back seat. How pathetic. She know it's better this way. She musn't involve him in the mess she is in more than she already does just by being near him. And how will she ever face him with the news of her brother being dead, Xiao always spent more time with him, he was a better friend of his.

"Why am I the one left with this..." She mumbles out loud between tears. "I can't keep this up."

And she will have to go back to being Felicity and pretend to be a normal kid. Right next to her best friend and his parent. Why couldn't they just end her like they cut Aether's life short? Why did she have to survive? It would save so much more head and heartache.

Chapter Text

"Achoo!" Lumine sneezes trough the phone.

"You should be resting and not calling me if you are sick..." Xiao murmurs concern clear in his voice.

"Yeah-yeah, sorry, but the case is tough and you know me..." She laughs it off.

"You should take better care of yourself you know..." The boy sighs.

"Right back at you mister, I know what you are like" Both laugh that off for a second, but the ringing off the doorbell interrupts Xiao.

"We have a client, hopefully I will talk to you later?" Xiao asks a bit hesitantly.

"Certainly" Lumine humms back.

The call ends and she breaks free from the phone booth, blowing her nose on the way back to the detective agency.

She still couldn't train herself into pretending to be her brother, but she is getting better... Maybe in a month or two she will be able to reassure the guy about their alrightness trough the phone. If she has to be stuck as a child for a month or two. Hopefully she can turn back sooner than that. But also she will have to tell him that Aether is dead which also won't be easy.

"I told you, I don't know." Xiao's stern voice comes trough the door as she reaches the top of the stairs. Xiao talking in that tone is really unusual.

"I'm still not going to move until at least one of them shows themselves. I know they are hiding here" Opening the door a guy with middle length hair stands there with crossed arms. Feet firmly planted on the ground. "If you want me to leave just drag one of the Viatrox twins out." Lumine sneezes behind him as she tries to figure out who the hell this guy is.

"Oh Feli, welcome home" Xiao shoots a quick smile, but he is clearly done with the guy now. "You have a cold too?"

"Yeah..." Lumine grumbles a bit.

"Is there a cold running around? You and Lumine both..." Xiao hands her some paper towels.

"The Viatrox girl has a cold?" The stranger perks up at that. "If you don't know where either of them are, how do you know that?"

"She called a minute ago... She did sound sick. She calls ever so often." Xiao growls towards the guy. He doesn't like if either of the twins are referred to as just as Viatrox A and B. Lumine heard him snap towards someone multiple times for something like that. "She has a proper name too, imagine" He is clearly at the end of his patience, and Lumine is always amazed by that.

"Hmm... So it must be true that you two are together..." He muses to himself. Which Mr. Zhongli, Xiao and Lumine just stare at him surprised. The doorbell rings again.

"W-who told you something like that?!" Xiao is mad and Zhongli is still processing what he just heard. To his knowledge, they were just good friends. So Felicity goes to check on it and send away the person there.

"That Hu Tao girl said I would probably find at least Lumine here." The guy answers as the door opens.

"Hello, are you a client?" Feli asks, but she is ignored by the white haired girl probably about her not shrunk age. "Might not be the best time if you have a case now" She continues despite that.

"Why do I keep bumping into this guy everywhere?" The girl sighs burying her forehead in her palm. The guy already in the agency perks up by the voice and turns to face the newcomer.

"You make it sound like you don't like me..." The guy shows a bit mocking grin towards her. "What are you doing here?" He just as quick turns to grumpy as he showed that mocking smile.

"I came to see if I could meet Viatrox Lumine and Aether around here... This brown haired girl told me Lumine might be hiding somewhere here" The girl answers, and the red haired guy sighs. "Don't tell me you are here for the same reason..." She murmurs.

"At least someone knows their names..." Xiao grumbles in the background. "But you are out of luck, she is not here."

"You said you talked to her, what did you talk about?" The red haired guy turns back to Xiao.

"Not much... A new mystery novel she was excited about... Soccer... How are people in school..." Xiao lists it off.

"That's all?" The guy raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, she never said anything about two people possibly coming around.." Xiao turns to murmuring.

"Anything about you?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Xiao tilts his head slightly.

"Does she ask nothing about you?" The newcomer catches on the train of thought quick.

"Not really? She rarely does" He murmurs.

Both of the strangers rush to the window and look outside. Scanning the street.

"Do you see anything?" The guy talks first while the residents just look at the two baffled.

"No one suspicious..." She murmurs back.

"What are you doing?" Xiao asks, once again showing how low his patience is.

"Don't you think it's weird that she doesn't ask how you are doing?" The white haired girl turns to her.

"Especially if it's true that she often calls... Why wouldn't she ask how you are doing if she cares enough to call, especially if she is far away.." Lumine just stares at the two strangers.

"She might be stalking you" The girl nods. "What a creep..."

"W-who are you two?!" Felicity asks completely baffled.

"Oh right, I forgot to introduce myself. Shikanoin Heizou, detective." He seems to be beaming.

"I'm Kamisato Ayaka. I apologize for my rudeness, I'm also a detective" The girl doesn't seem as confident. Lumine calms down a bit, just two detectives, that's fine.

"Achoo!" Comes from Feli. "Sorry" she murmurs after blowing her nose.

"I got something for you kid!" Heizou takes off his backpack and starts looking for something.

"I think I heard about you two... A promising duo from Kansai..." Zhongli muses.

"We are called the duo of the west and the Viatrox twins are the duo of the east" Ayaka lets a chuckle go as Heizou pulls out a cup and a bottle from his bag. "Although the duo in our case isn't exactly intentional..." She glares at Heizou. "We just somehow end up bumping into the exact same cases."

"There you go" Heizou gives Lumine the cup filled with the liquid from the bottle.

"Thank you" she murmurs. The doorbell rings, but no one notices it.

"I noticed that the twins stopped appearing in the news and heard that they disappeared." Heizou leaves Lumine to go back to the conversation at hand.

"Well, you now have me on the east. Zhongli tells them with a smile.

"What do you want with the twins anyways?" Xiao sighs.

"Nothing, I just want to meet them and see if they are even worth comparing to us. While I don't like the Kamisato girl, she is pretty impressive herself." Heizou shrugs.

"How nice..." Ayaka murmurs unimpressed by Heizou. "I myself got curious about the Viatrox twins so I came to see what they are like and why they disappeared."

Lumine finishes the cup and she feels herself heat up and feel disoriented

"What did you give to her?!" Xiao instantly notices it and questions the guy.

"This chinese liquor called paikaru" He shows the bottle.

The group is interrupted by an irritated woman slamming the door open and knocking on it.

"How many times do I need to ring the bell? This agency clearly doesn't care about it's clients..." The woman arrogantly murmurs. "I'm in a hurry, can we get this over with?"

The woman wants Mr. Zhongli to investigate her son's girlfriend. Katsuragi Yukiko, graduated top of her class in high school, and now enrolled at Tokyo medical university, well on her way to become a doctor. Zhongli is a bit confused on where the problem is with that.

"She is too perfect, isn't she?" Heizou asks that bit of a mocking tone back.

"Who is this...?" The woman clearly disgusted by Heizou's presence.

"A friend of my son" Zhongli sighs not having any other idea what to say. He doesn't want the woman to be more bitchy about their presence, they are just kids after all.

"Anyways, we'll go into more detail at my house. My husband also wants to talk with you" the woman starts to pack her things up.

"Go? Why didn't the both of you come here?" Zhongli asks while preparing to go himself.

"Like I said, my husband is a diplomat. If he was seen coming here..." The woman starts, but gets cut off.

"There would be a scandal..." Ayaka mutters. "Could I go too?" She asks.

"Huh?" Zhongli is taken aback. Not like he wouldn't have Feli around every single case.

"It would be less suspicious if he goes with kids around." Ayaka reasons hoping it would work.

"You are right... Thank you" The woman murmurs, now ready to go.

"Are you coming too?" Heizou asks from Xiao, with the full intention that he is going along with them too.

"Why?" He raises an eyebrow at the guy.

"The Viatrox girl might show up" Xiao seemingly perks up at that.

"Let's go Xiao!" Lumine, finally able to collect herself enough that she can pretend to be alright.

"What about your cold?" He looks at the girl concerned. Lumine is sure the other two can't tell that it's concern from his part.

"It's gone!" She pretends to be really happy "His medicine helped a lot!" She points at Heizou with a wide smile, but it's a big fat lie. She feels worse, but she can't let the two high school detectives roam free.

Xiao agrees after that and as a pretty large group go visit the woman's house.

It's really clear to Lumine that unlike Zhongli, as nice the man is, the two young detectives are way more competent. Meeting with the family members in the hallway they stop Mr. Zhongli saying something discriminating about being a detective that either Ayaka or Heizou stops.

They meet the son and his girlfriend, and she seems quite sweet, but then again, people are sometimes rotten and pretend to be sweet so they get further. Only one being in negative light exactly the woman who came seeking out the detective.

After meeting the grandfather they head for the diplomat's room.

"Dear! He is here!" The woman knocks on the door, but no answer comes. "Odd..." The woman mutters pulling out her own keys and opening the door. Instantly filling the air with loud opera music, the man sleeping leaning on his desk.

While the woman goes to wake up her husband, Zhongli goes to turn off the really loud music. Feli and Heizou following him to look at what music is playing. Xiao and Ayaka stay near the door, looking at a nearby bookshelf.

"Dear! Wake up!" The woman shakes her husband. "Dear!!" She gets louder and more aggressive with the shaking.

The man falls off his chair.

"Dear?!" Three young detectives run to her side. Heizou instantly checking for pulse. "De..." The sound dies in the woman's throat.

"Too late. He is gone" He murmurs.

"N-no.." the woman mutters.

"Is something the matter, ma'am?" The family's butler appears by the door.

"D-dad?" The son appears in the door a second later.

"Until the police comes, please stay out of the room" Ayaka stands in their way. Lumine sees on Zhongli that he wanted to tell that to the family, but the girl was way faster. The girl turns to come to the body too.

Lumine concentrates on the body. The body is still warm... Lips are starting to turn purple. Lumine spots a little red dot at the base of the diplomat's hairline. She instantly starts to look for something that could cause it. It might be pointless, because it still might be on the killer, but it's worth a try. And under the table she spots it.

Three heads butt into each other there. Ayaka and Heizou getting hit on the top of their head by each other, and on their chin by Lumine, and Lumine receives two chins on the top of her head.

"Oww" The chorus of high school detectives cry out.

"Oh no, no, no" Ayaka realizes that there wasn't only one head she bumped into this time and that the third one belongs to Felicity. She helps her up and drags her away. "Kids shouldn't play around dead bodies" She aims that towards Xiao. The guy just glances at the kid, knowing full well that she has been around quite a few of them.

Lumine will stay put at least until the police comes. She didn't notice anything else on the body at least. Unfortunately, her cold is starting to feel a lit worse. Heizou was so unhelpful with that liquor. She can pretend it's not too bad so far, but she wants to hurry home to take a proper rest.

"The victim is Tsujimura Isao, 54 years old diplomat" Inspector Ningguang murmurs. "His wife, Kimie found the body...." She turns to the woman. "You said you unlocked the door and entered the room, he was already dead in his chair?" The woman nods at that.

"Yes" She reaffirms with mumbling.

"And the detective who was hired by you just happened to be here when he was found..." She turns to Zhongli.

"Yes, it was me, inspector" Zhongli nods with the calmest smile.

"Is it murder again today, Mr. Great detective...?" Ningguang at this point is done with seeing the incompetent Zhongli around every case until something hits him and collects his thoughts properly.

"Well, there weren't any obvious wounds, so maybe it was natural..." Zhongli muses scratching his chin.

"That's not true" Lumine chimes in. Zhongli looks at her. "That's probably-" the kid gets cut off by Ayaka.

"He was poisoned." Everyone glances at her.

"I'm pretty confident in that too, there is a little red dot at the base of the hairline, and there is a needle under the table" Heizou steals Ayaka's moment without skipping a beat.

"While it could be a suicide, the way he was leaning is a pretty inconvenient pose to have him be pricked like that, it's safer to assume that someone propped him up like that" Ayaka seems done with Heizou's antics by that. They are clearly just two mostly competing high school detectives trying to be recognized individually. Something Lumine never even considered around her brother.

"But that doesn't mean it was poison" Zhongli murmurs, bit unimpressed by the kids.

"His lips and fingertips are turning purple and he is getting blood spots on his eyes..." Heizou takes it over again, but his moment if taking a breath is used by Ayaka.

"That proves he was suffocated, but he has no signs of being strangled or drowned. That only leaves his nerves being paralyzed and that caused the suffocation." Now she needs to take a quick breath so Heizou butts back in.

"And since his body is still warm and haven't started stiffening yet, that means he was found within 30 minutes of death. He was killed withing the 30 minutes before we got here" He looks at the family waiting on the other side of the room.

"How accurate are they?" The inspector turns to the forensic officers.

"The red dot and the needle are accurate ma'am" The man answers.

"Who are they?" Ningguang glances at Zhongli, but her eyes are quickly back on the scene of the crime.

"Just some detective kids, Kamisato Ayaka and Shikanoin Heizou" The detective answers.

"Oh, could you be the little sister of Kamisato Ayato?" Inspector Ningguang turns to the white haired girl.

"Yes ma'am, it's a pleasure to meet you, my brother speaks highly of you" Ayaka shows her sweetest smile towards the inspector.

"These youngsters will quickly surpass you if you are not careful" The inspector teases Zhongli.

"I still have some years before that, inspector" The man laughs it off.

"While it's unlikely, maybe you should check if someone could come in from the outside" Heizou turns to the inspector. She nods at that.

"ACHOO!" Lumine can't hold it back. It's rapidly getting worse.

"Are you okay?" Xiao hands her a paper handkerchief.

"Y-yeah, thank you" Lumine lying trough her teeth like usually nowadays. If you ask her a month ago she would've said she is a honest person...

"No one could get inside..." Ningguang murmurs. "The door the only entry and exit..." She walks there. "How many spare keys are there?" The looks at the wife of the victim.

"Only me and my husband have one" She answers. "He always kept it in his pants' pockets."

Ningguang goes to check the dead body's pocket. The key falls out from the inner pocket. Heizou, Ayaka, Lumine and the inspector herself stare at it with horror.

"Huh? What's wrong?" Zhongli not missing their horror, but missing the implication the key brings.

"When we came in the door was locked, meaning the criminal locked the door on the way out..." Ayaka murmurs next to him.

"And the lady said she has the only other key. And she was with us at the time" Heizou murmurs. "Making this an impossible, locked room case"

Lumine is starting to feel awful. She needs to hurry this up.

Apparently the butler was talking with the neighbors from 3 to 4, so his alibi is pretty solid.

The son and his girlfriend arrived sometime before the group did, tried to talk to the diplomat, but the door being closed, they turned back and ran into them right there.

The victim's father came at 2, but not being able to see anyone, he watched TV in the living room alone,while the wife left at 1.

"That's an impressive collection of classical CDs" Ningguang murmurs inspecting one of the shelves. Classical? Lumine remembers opera playing when they arrived... God, she is feeling dizzy now, she really can't waste time.

She tries to look at the same picture the inspector is looking at with the wife after that, but now her vision is getting blurry too.

Hazily she can process a forensic officer asking what to do about the books on the desk. Reminding her of the fact that the diplomat was half covered by the stack. They seeming were just grabbed off of the shelf.

"Inspector, the victim's keychain has something odd about it" A man calls out to Ningguang. Feli goes to try see, but Xiao drags her back a bit.

"Don't get in their way please." He asks patting her on the head. He turns to watch Ayaka and Heizou at work. Is he reminded of Lumine and Aether by them? They do it with a lot less bickering about it tho.

Heizou and Ayaka suddenly look like they have an idea so they run out of the room.

Lumine now gets pain in her chest. Every single cell of her body feels like it's burning. Thinking about the case, the collapses on the ground.

"Feli!" Xiao is quickly by her side. "She is burning up... Can someone call a doctor?" Lumine is fighting with unconsciousness while hearing that.

"Please call one!" She hears the inspector's voice. "Where did the two high schoolers go?"

"They asked where the japanese room is and went there" The butler answers that question.

"Is there somewhere where she could lie down?" Xiao turns to the house's residents.

"She can use the bed in my room" the son's voice reaches Lumine's fuzzy brain. "It's at the end of the hallways"

"Thank you" Xiao nods, picking her up and running there. With her.

Fuzzily Lumine can hear them bumping into Ayaka and Heizou saying that they solved the case, but Lumine spots a thread in one of their hands and she has a hunch that they came to the wrong conclusion.

She gets placed on a bed and she can fuzzily hear Xiao's concerned voice, hazily see his usual barely showed concerned expression. Such an awful time to be knocked down by a stupid cold.

Her body flares up again. Like her bones are starting to melt. Her heart feels like bursting open. She feels hands on her, and them suddenly leave as the feeling gets worse.

This is how she will die, isn't it? She can at least finally join Aether.

But that doesn't happen at the end. Her clothes suddenly feel too small on her. Did she regain her old body? Her hands look like the normal size finally. She pers up as much as the lingering pain lets her. She limps towards the wardrobe to borrow some clothes because she can barely move in hers.

She fights the tiny pieces of clothing off of her to switch. She mentally apologizes, but she can take care of it. While changing, she takes a glance of the room's trash can and sees fishing line in it. She takes it with her.

She limps to the room across the hallway to check the trash can there too.

"Feli?!" She hears Xiao's voice from the room looking for her. She has her body back, so she will use that. Even if she still feels like dying thanks to the stupid cold. Shehears Xiao run back to the crime scene and she follows.

"Yes, the one who killed Isao was me..." Comes the old man's voice from the study. Sounding defeated, but Lumine has a more possible theory, now that she found the fishing lines in other rooms too.

"No, that's wrong" Lumine speaks up leaning on the doorframe. She barely has strength to stand, but at least her own body can support her better.

Shocked looks come her way. Xiao seems like he is about to tear up, something Lumine never even seen.

"Lumine, what are you doing here?" He asks completely stunned. "Where were you?" Questions come out, he seems so relieved to see her. "Where is Aether?" Another pause. "I was so worried.."

"Just wait a sec Xiao" She shows the best apologetic smile she can master in her current state.

"So how come our reasoning is wrong here?" Ayaka asks eying the girl drenched in sweat.

"It's completely impossible" Lumine answers with a huff and a confident smile.

"We did test it out with one of the similar sized officers here, and their trick did work out" Ningguang crosses her arms looking at Lumine.

"It might've gotten the key inside the pocket, but I heard that the key originally was in the inner pocket." She huffs. She feels awful, but at least it's her own body. Heizou, huffing, he walks to the officer to check, and the keys fall out from the larger pocket area.

"But I saw her do it right..." Heizou glances at Ayaka who did the demonstration.

"I did pull it trough the inner pocket, Ayaka murmurs. "Why isn't it there?"

"Because the victim was sitting." Lumine murmurs. "And the inner pocket is so much smaller."

"It could work with a lot of luck..." Heizou argues.

"No, it's still impossible. Please recall the orientation when the key fell out..." Realization dawns upon the two high school detectives. "It's impossible for it to fold into a V-shape." Lumine takes a deeper breath, she feels awful. "The tape inside the keychain was just a trick to make it look like a trick was used"

"But what about the fishing line we found? The old man went to the japanese room by chance" Ayaka crosses her arms.

"You mean the same fishing line I found in other rooms too?" She pulls out the pocketed threads with a confident smile. "The japaneese room wasn't the only one with that."

"But he confessed" the Kamisato girl eyes the old man.

"He was just getting caught in the trap on purpose, no idea why though" Lumine murmurs showing a weak shrug.

"How did the criminal get out of the study?" Heizou shoots a disapproving look towards the hunched over girl. "the loom was completely closed off... Unless you are suggesting suicide."

"Of course not. The real trick still remains" both young detectives raise an eyebrow towards her. "There were books stacked in front of the victim when you entered and loud opera music was playing. Both were there to cover up any reaction he might have.

"Hah, and who supposed to be deceived by that?" Heizou scoffs at the idea.

"Exactly you." She gets a gasp from everyone in the room. "And Mr. Zhongli, and Ms Kamisato, and Xiao. They committed the crime right in front of your eyes" All eyes stick to the wife. "Yes, you are the culprit" she points all dramatically at the wife, but she has to withdraw her arm just as quick. Not feeling well and all.

"Then when we entered, the victim was still alive?" Zhongli asks, hand around his chin, thinking.

"Precisely. He'd just been put to sleep beforehand with a drug or something else. And when pretending to wake him up, she pricked him" Lumine limps towards the desk to keep her balance. She feels like she could collapse again. "But it's no wonder no one noticed it, if the sleeping pill was strong enough and the poison deadly, it would look like he died in his sleep. The books and the opera were a safety measure.

"A psychological locked room..." Heizou scoffs at that. "No one would think someone would try kill a man in front of a detective..."

"This is great and all, but where is your proof?" Ayaka shoots her a look. "We haven't seen her take out anything suspicious"

"When you got in the room she got it out with the key without anyone noticing. Their keychains have the same design.

"May I see your keychain?" Ningguang turns to the wife. She hands it over in silence. "There is a groove in it"

"And that is our definite proof that she is the murderer." Lumine murmurs.

"But why?" Ningguang looks at the woman.

"If my hunch is right, the motive is probably this photo" She reaches for the photo that she only hazily seen while her cold was rapidly getting worse. She is amazed by her own ability of connecting anything in that situation.

"This is from when she was young" Zhongli murmurs.

"Doesn't she look like someone?" Lumine murmurs back.

"Oh!" All eyes on the son's girlfriend she wanted to investigate. "She looks just like miss Yukiko" Zhongli says.

"Of course we look similar" The wife lets out a defeated sigh. "I am her mother you see..." The woman murmurs under her nose.

She tells them that Yukiko is from her previous husband who have been framed by the victim for diplomatic corruption. Just to get his woman. She wanted to blame the father so she hits two burds with one stone. The father, feeling guilty about it, understood what happened and was willing to accept it and go along with it.

The woman is taken away by police, and Lumine while trying to catch her breath, she starts coughing pretty bad. Leaning on the bookshelf now, trying to prop herself up.

"Lumine, are you alright?" Xiao steps to her side.

"Yeah..." After she manages to stop the coughing she huffs. "I just got a cold. It's fine"

"How did you know so much about the case? Were you really spying on us the whole time?" Heizou asks,hand around his chin thinking.

"The little girl with glasses told me over the phone" god, it hurts to talk so much. She tried to stretch out, but she needs to lean back down again. "She said... There were two weird detectives from Osaka... So I came to help"

"Is that really true?" Xiao, on a bit accusatory tone.

"What do you mean?" She tries to let out a chuckle, but it ends up as a cough.

"Well..." He averts her gaze. "What they said that you never ask how I am doing is weird... Are you really spying on me?" He murmurs. Lumine can manage a small laughter by some miracle.

"How long do I know you at this point, silly?" She shows her best smile. "I can just tell by the way you talk..." She hesitates a bit. "I really would be a good for nothing detective if I can't tell what my friend is feeling like" another round of coughs take her, more intense this time. So intense she feels like she will throw up.

"I'll go get the doctor." Xiao murmurs running off.

"Our deduction was wrong all along..." Ayaka sighs crossing her arms again.

"Yeah it was a huge loss. Didn't expect only the half of the Viatrox twins to be so good." Heizou hits her where it hurts incredibly hard, even without intending to.

"Don't be stupid, this is no competition... No higher or lower place in this..." She feels dizzy. She starts slipping towards the floor. Her chest hurts. "There is only one truth after all" she smiles trough the pain. They both just look at her surprised.

"You are right... I was foolish to think other way" Heizou sighs. Lumine clutches at her chest. Can't help it, it's a reflex.

"Are you sure it's just a cold?" Ayaka steps close concerned.

That bone melting feeling while feeling like she is burning from the inside out. Is she turning back? She was so happy she got her body back. She can't go back into being Felicity. She needs to get away from there.

The two young detectives watch her limp away too stunned to say or do anything.

"Lumine! You shouldn't move around like that, you are sick!" Xiao appears by the stairs.

She especially can't turn back into being Feli in front of him. Anything but that.

Vision blurry, she steps backwards to get away from the hazy form of one of her best friends since forever.

And she starts falling. Backwards. She was by the stairs. She lands with a loud puff, she has no idea how nothing is broken from that fall, but to be fair, nothing can feel worse than whatever is happening to her body.

With a muffled cry of pain, she seems to be back being a 7 year old. She is sitting on the toilet with the now too big clothes on her.

She stumbles out of the small room, bumping into Xiao in that instant.

"Feli, where have you been? The doctor is here" His focus completely ignoring the disappeared Lumine now.

"Uh... Big sister Lumine said that no one must know she was here." She needs to say something about that. She can't let them put her in the newspaper. "She told me on the way out..." She mutters. World going dark and passing out.

After that she stays in bed for three days. During that the two Osakan detectives leave. Like she asked before fainting, her name not making the news.

Thinking about why she reverted to her original body, she can only think of the alcohol that Heizou gave her. But because it didn't last that long, Lumine doesn't have huge hopes about it. She will need to tell about it to the professor tho, even if he probably can't do much with it.

Chapter Text

Lumine signed up for a Sherlock Holmes fan tour and was lucky enough to be chosen for it. Both her and Aether were huge fans, but she was a bit more reserved of her fangirlyness. Aether on the other hand bored everyone to death sometimes.

Xiao and Mr. Zhongli doesn't find her luck that fortunate, because as guardians, they need to come along for that.

"So your favorite work is A Study in red?" One of the participants ask back from another.

"Yes" the woman nods.

"Well, it's a memorable work because it's where Holmes makes his debut!" A man nods in understanding.

"I love The Red-headed league!" Another man tells excited.

"Oh, you too?!" The previous man asks back.

"So why are we here?" Zhongli murmurs towards Xiao.

"Feli signed up for this tour and won" Xiao murmurs back in a low voice.

"Ah! Mine is The sign of four!" Lumine barely can sit on her seat. Fans like these are amazing, she is so excited about this.

"Which story is your favorite?" One of them turns to Zhongli.

"Hmm..." He starts thinking about the question. "I quite liked And then none were there" Everyone glares at the detective. Even Feli, but not that hard as every other participant.

"I'm guessing you mean And there were none..." One of the cheery man shoots a disapproving look at him.

"And also the author is Agatha Christie. Not Sir Conan Doyle." If looks could kill, the detective would be dead by the woman's look.

With Zhongli unintentionally ruining the mood, the rest of the car ride goes quietly.

Arriving at the house, and old lady stops her by grabbing her hand as she would join back up with Xiao. The lady stares at her for an uncomfortable period of time, when she finally would snap at the woman to let go of her, she speaks.

"You little girl" The old lady pauses until getting her attention properly. "You are hiding something."

"Huh?" Is all she can say to that.

"Are you hiding some bad scores you got on tests?" The woman snickers.

"Uh, y-yeah" The little girl mumbles recovering from her surprise.

"Be careful, because someone might find out about your secret soon!" She whispers and leaves her behind.

Lumine joins Xiao back up who have been waiting for her by the door. Surely it's not an ominous sign for him to find out...? She can't let that happen.

"Oh? Surprised to run into you here" A familiar female voice comes from behind. Spinning around they meet face to face with Kamisato Ayaka.

"Ayaka, right?" Xiao asks. The girl just nods. "Feli signed up for this tour, so we are here with her." He explains it quick.

"Oh, are you a fan?" She smiles at the girl.

"Yep!" She nods, barely able to contain her excitement.

"I'm surprised you let her read something like that..." Ayaka mutters looking back up at Xiao.

"If you are here, does that mean that the weird detective guy will appear too?" Lumine asks, showing her clear dislike towards Heizou.

"I'm pretty sure he is not a fan, so we might be safe here" Ayaka winks at her whispering. "And we usually only run into each other when there is a case"

One odd detective she will be able to handle. Hopefully.

They head in for the gathering to get the information about the tour. People are not happy about Zhongli's presence, but the host reassures them that it's completely fine, he is the sleeping Zhongli after all.

They wait for the rest of the group to arrive and the Sherlockians start talking between themselves. Lumine also half can make out Xiao and Ayaka talking.

"Glad to see Feli finally having fun with something..." Xiao mutters, mainly to himself.

"How come?" Ayaka asks back, not really knowing the kid, and being a bit nervous to talk to people she never met before.

"She is so gloomy most times... Something is always on her mind, but she never talks about it... It's a relief to see her finally act like a real child." Ayaka just humms at that. "And she does remind me of someone..."

"Could it possibly be the Viatrox girl?" A different familiar voice distracts even Lumine in the middle of the conversation.

"Stop calling her that. She has a name" Xiao glares at Heizou without even greeting him.

"What are you doing here, Shikanoin?" Ayaka sends a glare his way.

"I heard the Viatrox twins are Holmes fans, so I came to check if either of them would appear in such place." Lumine is annoyed that she got predicted by that guy. Even if he personally has no idea how right he is with that...

"Why are you everywhere..." The white haired girl sighs, holding her head.

"Right back at you... Aren't you here for the same reason?" Heizou crosses his arms.

"I'm a fan of Holmes myself" Ayaka crosses her arms. "Not like you would understand..."

"Now that everyone is here, let me introduce you to the tour" The host interrupts the argument.

He runs down how to get the chance to win the first edition of The study in scarlet, everyone, except Mr. Zhongli, needs to fill out a test containing 1000 questions and they need to get 990 of them. Just to make sure she counts she asked if she can participate too, and the owner saying yes makes her ecstatic. No one can use their phones of course, but that's not a problem for the now small detective.

The questions the long test asks aren't hard at all for her, and she is having an absolute blast filling them out. She can unleash all her fangirlyness she holds onto usually on the stack of paper. It's the best.

The deadline for the quiz is supposedly next day's dinner, but the owner doesn't show his face all day. Some people are leaving to return to their rooms, only Heizou, Ayaka, Zhongli, Xiao, Lumine and the couple that came at the same time yesterday as Heizou did. The Osakan guy is clearly running out of patience himself.

"Is that the car we came with?" The couple's guy side looks out the window, seeing the car go. Everyone rushes to the windows to look. "Just like I thought, he is about to judge our quizzes" He says all smug, but something feels wrong.

The owner's detective hat is completely covering his eyes, and he seems stiff? None of the young detectives have a good feeling about it.

It's heading towards the cliff.

Heizou swings the window open to jump trough and follow the car. Lumine and Ayaka closely following behind.

The car speeds up after a certain point, but they manage to catch up the moving car. They knock on the window.

"STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Heizou yells while bonking on the window.

"You will fall!!" Ayaka yells from the other side.

Lumine catches into the mirror to look inside. There is a weird sound coming from somewhere. It doesn't sound like the engine. There is also a blanket covering the car's dashboard. It's really weird.

The owner does not react after all. Before the car would reach the cliff, Lumine jumps off from the mirror as the watch in horror as the car rolls down, to land in the sea.

Hearing the explosion, everyone comes outside to check, and shocked to hear that the owner is dead.

"It's probably just a suicide... He probably didn't want to part with the first edition book..." Zhongli murmurs.

"Actually it could be a murder..." The named Kento chimes in. "I also saw how he rolled down the cliff, but it was going very slowly. He could've been put to sleep in the driver's seat so the car will advance automatically... The culprit probably did that inside the garage" He glances at mentioned garage.

"Oh yeah, the culprit could've watched from there and pretend that they heard the explosion and came out concerned..." The oldest detective muses.

"It would be nice if it would be that simple, but the car sped up while it was driving" Ayaka murmurs.

"Only a little bit, but it did speed up" Heizou confirms.

"So it's a suicide" Zhongli states looking at the kids a bit unimpressed.

"There are other things bothering me" Heizou grumbles. "Sound of wind blowing came from inside... It definitely wasn't the engine's sound."

"That must've been the air conditioner. Probably when the car restarted it kicked in..." One of the men murmurs at that.

"Good point, it's been hot lately, when we were on the way here, the air conditioner was on..." The fortune teller lady looks towards the sky thinking about it.

Air conditioner..? While Lumine doesn't know a whole lot about cars, she has a vague memory of remembering that those work with liquid and that liquid would drip by the front tires. It's hard to see because it's the middle of the night, but she goes to investigate the tire marks.

Three heads bump into each other. Every high school detective gets bonked on the head twice.

"Why must I keep bumping into you?" Heizou grumbles glaring at Ayaka, who has her eyes on Felicity.

Lumine quickly ignores the two and goes back to inspecting the ground. She hears them whisper about something, but not paying attention and them being quiet, she can't make out what they are talking about.

"It's too dark to see..." The little girl grumbles to herself. A click and a source of light catches her attention.

"Would this help, young detectives?" Kento's partner offers her lighter to them.

"Thank you!" All three thanks her in chorus and they continue to look around as a group.

"Hurry or we'll leave you behind" Xiao warns the three after everyone starts going back inside. Glancing at him, Lumine sees that his feet are firmly planted in the ground so he would wait for them, but not finding anything, they do.

Going back inside, they split apart. One group consisting of the high school detectives, other one the maid, two of the male tour participants, the fortune teller, with Zhongli and Xiao. The others Lumine couldn't keep track of that well.

The three detectives go to the garage to check on the situation there, and discover that the other car's gasoline tank got punctured, and the battery is dead. If the phones are destroyed too, they fear the murders won't stop.

"Shit! I can't take this anymore! Let's get away on the other car and..." They hear one of the men growl from the room.

"Unfortunately that won't work..." Heizou slips in the room. "Car is busted, there is no way it will move"

"So it must be a murder after all..." Kento murmurs arriving to the room too.

"Don't know what trick was used to speed the car up, but seeing how the car and the phones are broken, they probably will continue this murder drama" Ayaka murmurs looking between the participants.

"A-and who is the culprit? One of us?" One of the guys looks around nervously.

"Now that I think about it, you badmouthed the owner a lot..." The mustached man turns to the fortune teller lady.

"The same goes for you!" The woman retorts.

"Anyway" Zhongli's commanding voice cuts between them. "the culprit is among us. They have nowhere to flee. We can figure this case out by throughout investigation" The two turns away from each other. "I have questions now. Have anyone see the owner after he welcomed us last night?" Just a bunch of head shaking. "Miss, you must've seen him if he had taken his meals.." he turns to the maid.

"Unfortunately not, he's been on a diet recently so he ate healthy food in his room.." she shakes her head too.

"If no one seen him we can't know after what point he was killed..." Zhongli mutters irritated.

"There are security cameras!" One of the guys' face lights up.

"Unfortunately those are fake" The maid murmurs. "It's set up every year for this tour so guests don't cheat..."

"We at least know that the car rolled away around 3:30 am, and the people who have been with us in the living room for quite a few hours before.

"So the culprit is one of us five who wasn't there?!" The mustached man panics about the accusation.

"Hey, did you find what you were looking for?" Kento's partner whispers towards Heizou.

"Huh? No, it was nowhere to be seen" He answers.

The woman bursts out laughing at that. Everyone staring at her confused.

"Ayako?" Her partner steps to her.

"I figured out the culprit. And the trick used" She tells full of confidence, while lighting a cigarette. "I will give you 10 minutes of grace"

"Hey, Ayako, don't be stupid, if you go on your own the culprit..." The man gets cut off by her.

"Oh, my! Aren't you gonna protect me?" With that the two of them are out the door.

"Hah, what a loss of face, Mr. Great detective..." The mustached man mocks glancing at Zhongli. "An amateur girl beat you to it."

"It might be a bluff to drive out the culprit" the detective shrugs calmly.

"No, she probably has a clue that we have no idea about..." Lumine murmurs staring at the door.

"That's probably it..." Ayaka nods at that and realizing who said the previous sentence, she stares at the kid, who stares back.

"She did behave a bit strange earlier today..." Xiao murmurs thinking.

"What did she do?" Lumine asks back, attention fully on him now.

"I saw her after lunch while going back to my room, she had a paper-like thing with her, but hid it behind her back after seeing me... Might've been the Holmes test..."

"Now that you bring it up, she didn't come to lunch, right?" The fortune teller asks.

"Could she have gotten into one of our rooms as were eating..." The man with the mustache murmurs.

"And cheated?!" The other guy reacts like it would be a death worthy offense.

Kento comes back, and is instantly bombarded with questions.

"Who is the culprit?

"You secretly asked her, didn't you?!"

"Tell us!!"

"I did ask her, but she said she can't tell even me and she shut herself in the bathroom" The man replies, hands raised in front of him.

"Hey, did anyone else skip lunch?" Heizou turns to the maid.

"Mr. Kento and miss Nanako did" she answers.

"Are Kento and Ayako a couple?" The maid nods at that.

"Yes, but we split them up so they can't cheat on the quiz." The maid answers.

"Did miss Ayako come to your room during the day?" Lumine hearing the maid's answer turns to the couple's other half.

"No, I finished the remaining questions during the day, but she didn't come." As the guy answers, Lumine can feel eyes on her. Glancing around she notices Ayaka.

"Hey, isn't she taking long?" Xiao asks after glancing at the clock.

"It's been a while..." Heizou confirms murmuring.

So as the huge group they head to the bathroom worried. As soon as Zhongli would reach to knock on the door, it swings open with the woman appearing infinitely unimpressed.

"What's this fuss about?" She steps out. "Rude of you to camp by the bathroom..." She grumbles.

"Apologies, we were worried about your safety" Zhongli explains.

"Well... How about you tell us who the culprit is?" The man with the mustache asks.

"Oh that..." She murmurs while starting to walk away, but stop, glancing back at the others. "I reflected on it while I was there, but it seems like it was the wrong impression of mine" She continues her way after that. Everyone stares at her in shocked silence. "Sorry about that" The three high school detectives glare at her with suspicion. What causes her attitude change?

They head back to the living room, but someone seems to be missing.

"Where did miss Ayako go?" Felicity asks looking around.

"She went for a walk outside." The oldest detective answers. After a confused look from the kid and Heizou Xiao chimes in.

"We did try to stop her, but she said there will be no more murders" Xiao murmurs.

"All suspects are here, so..." Kento shrugs.

An explosion shakes the building from the direction of the garage.

Everyone rushes outside to see what happened. The four detectives leading the charge, with Zhongli on the front. The car is burning.

"Don't tell me miss Ayako.." Xiao murmurs staring at the flames from further away. Kento pushes him away, trying to get trough the people, close to the flames with a horrified expression.

"Ayako!" He yells, trying to run into the fire, but Zhongli catches him and drags him back.

"You will burn alive if you go in there!" At that the guy seems to stop, so he dares let go. "Xiao, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid" The boy nods at that, and he turns to the maid. "Where is the fire extinguisher?"

"Right this way" The two of them rush back inside to fetch the thing.

"Please put it out now..." The man with the mustache murmurs blankly staring at the fire. "The book!" Book..?

As soon as Zhongli manages to put the fire out with the fire extinguisher, they start looking for Ayako.

She is found on the back seat of the car, burned to a crisp. The mustached guy finds her and lets out a scream discovering the body.

"She did say she knew who the culprit is..." The fortune teller thinks out loud.

"So whoever killed her wanted to silence her..." The maid barely able to look at the scene murmurs.

"All of us were in the living room when the fire started..." The woman named Nanako argues.

"It can't catch fire on it's own...?" The fortune teller murmurs.

"No... There is someone else who wasn't there... The owner could've faked his death. He could be actually alive and planning to murder us" One of the guys theorizes.

"True if it was a doll and it went like that.." The fortune teller lady considers the option.

"That's absolutely impossible" Heizou cuts the idea off. "Ayaka and I are positive that it was the owner in the car"

"I saw it too, there is no room for mistake there." The seven year old looking girl says completely sure of what they saw.

"THEN WHO DID THIS?!"Kento snaps at the high school detective group. "Stop blurting nonsense!!" He yells, now with a bit less energy.

"The witnesses are kids so they might be wrong" The guy suggesting the owner being still alive stands between the detectives and the guy before it gets physical. He earns a glare from all of them, even a glare from Zhongli and Xiao.

"Now we know that the culprit isn't one of us at least, so let's head back inside and wait for morning" Zhongli suggests, and everyone agrees and heads back inside. Only the three young detectives linger behind.

"Like we would mistake a real human for a doll..." Heizou murmurs.

"But all suspects were with us... Maybe there was a detonator with a timer inside?" Lumine thinks out loud too.

"Not possible" Ayaka shuts that idea off. "I was the last one leaving and there was nothing like that. Only the car with empty tank and empty battery..."

"So how did the culprit start the fire...?" Lumine looks towards the ground.

"I don't know, that's why-" Ayaka cuts herself off looking at Felicity.

"And why did miss Ayako go there..." The kid just continues thinking out loud.

After regrouping with everyone, they just sit around in the living room. Waiting for morning to come. The three young detectives alongside with Xiao stand around by the windows. Watching the storm that started to come down as they were heading inside.

People are getting incredibly sleepy, understandably so, it's been a long night.

The maid offers to make coffee and cold drinks and to that Kento and the one guy Lumine can't describe anything else but guy without knowing his name offers help, alongside Xiao.

"It's so weird that the owner is the culprit... Why did he pretend to be dead and kill miss Ayako?" The fortune teller thinks out loud.

"There are a lot of possible motives for that... It's even possible that it's part of the mystery quiz..." Zhongli joins in thinking about the case. After a confused look from the woman he continues. "He surprises all the guests with the fake murder and then set a fire to the garage to scare us and make us think who could've done it. And that's the quiz" He murmurs. "It's a shame miss Ayako was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place and now he can't even come out."

"A mystery quiz?!" The mustached man slams his hands on the table. "That can't be" The guy is seething with rage. "That bastard is enjoying these murders!" He shows a note to the others, it says to come to the garage at 5 am if you want the book, it's under the back seat "I was also a target for it!"

"The fire happened at 4:30, right?" Zhongli murmurs checking the time.

"The back seat is exactly where the body was..." Heizou murmurs.

"Where did you find it?" Feli asks.

"It was slipped under my door" The guy answers the kid confused on why the seven year old child is asking questions.

"What if the owner wanted to kill who is the greediest for the book and slid a note under your doors?" Zhongli suggests.

"I didn't get a note like that tho" the fortune teller shakes her head.

"Our room should've been a target too then, we are participants too..." Lumine's argument starts there. Then it ends with the owner being dead. Probably the lady went to get the book also, but how did the culprit light the fire..

"You can't keep insisting that the owner isn't dead. Heizou and I both saw it." Ayaka glares at the old detective.

"Apologies, but we need to take kids' testimonies with a grain of salt." Zhongli murmurs.

"What?! Because of detectives like you cases often run cold..." Ayaka seems way more annoyed.

"How rude" Xiao arrives with a tray of coffee. "He always solves his cases..." He grumbles. He definitely has a better opinion on Ayaka, her at least bothering to call the twins by their names, but both are just annoying detectives from Osaka so far. "He looks like he is sleeping while doing so, but he solves them.

"Hey come with me for a bit" Ayaka grabs Xiao by the arm and drags him to the side, who just goes along confused.

"What's wrong?" He asks.

"Where is Feli when that happens?" She asks, Feli standing nearby listening. "She is always all around during the cases..."

"She always disappears and pops up somewhere when dad asks her..." Xiao murmurs.

"Helping out from behind, are you?" Ayaka glances at the kid, not missing her presence. She just lets out an awkward laugh.

The lights go out, enveloping everything in darkness.

"Blackout?" Heizou murmurs looking around.

"Just a fuse got blown" the maid says and they hear shuffling and her footsteps.

"Now of all times..." The mustached guy grumbles, with a click getting light from his lighter's fire. "Miss maid? Use this light..." He offers in the darkness.

Lumine catches a glimpse of something long and shiny thanks to the small flame. Ayaka and Heizou notices it too. An icepick.

"UWAAAHHH!" A painful yell, the lighter's flame disappearing, and the sound of glass shattering.

"What was that?"

"Turn on the lights!!"

The lights flicker up. In an attempt to protect the mustached guy, Lumine, Heizou and Ayaka all tackled the guy by the same instinct in the darkness. Thanks to that, he only got stabbed on the shoulder.

"The window!" The fortune teller murmurs shocked.

"They broke the window and fled, huh..." Zhongli murmurs stepping to it.

Feli and Xiao take care of the injured guy while the maid comes back.

"Who could've...?" The maid joins in on the first-aid effort, not leaving Feli much space to move in, so she leaves to think and listen. At least now she know how the fire could've been caused in the garage.

"It's the owner" The three young detectives hold back a groan at the same time at Zhongli's idea. "He made it look like he died in the first case, but he is hiding somewhere. He burnt miss Ayako in the garage and caused the blackout to attack Mr. Fujisawa." He turns to look at the window. "Then he broke that window and fled outside"

"Shit... Why would he want to kill me?!" The guy grumbles as Xiao wraps bandages around the wound. "It's true we argued a lot, but because our beliefs over Holmes were very strong! That's more... I also helped him with the book that he published..."

"Book?" Zhongli chimes back.

"A book that he self-published last year... I think the title was Irene Adler's scorn... He said he'd give me a ticket for this tour so I'd write a few lines about it but... He attacked me instead of thanking me! And I never even met that Ayako woman to begin with!" The guy thinks out loud.

"Xiao, let's go look around for the owner. He had to flee trough the window" Zhongli turns to Xiao, who nods ready for action. He already finished taking care of the guy's shoulder.

"Don't waste you energy, it's pointless" Heizou stops the two. "Take a look at that chair is weirdly pushed to the other ones like the culprit rushed to fit it there after shattering the window." He points at it.

"There are glass shards stuck on it too" Lumine conveniently being by the chair chimes in.

"But that just proves the chair was used to break the glass?" Zhongli murmurs back quite confused.

"And who would bother putting a chair properly in?" Ayaka questions that line of logic. "When the lights come back on the easily can wipe the chair from fingerprints."

"But when the lights came back on no one was in the room but us..." The fortune teller lady murmurs back confused.

"Exactly. The culprit is still among us." Ayaka nods.

They go to check on the cause of the blackout. A wire got tied around the kettle's plug.

Mr. Zhongli has the genius idea that the boring guy is the culprit, because he is the only one who doesn't have an alibi when the first case happened. They agree that it's quite possibly, but no one has any proof of that other than the guy being in the kitchen.

"The method is quite possible, but there is something bothering me..." Ayaka mutters. "Right, Feli?"

"Yeah... The culprit left behind too much obvious evidence in the third incident... Maybe it wasn't planned originally?" Lumine murmurs to herself. After everyone going silent around her she realizes that she is too much in her detective mode now and she got baited by the girl. "Ah... Hahahaha" she starts awkwardly laughing. "But I'm just a kid to know stuff like that, I don't have a clue!"

"Don't mind her please, she just likes to play detective" Xiao interrupts and pulls her away to lecture her about not being in the way, but her ears are focusing on Ayaka and Heizou.

"That kid seems smart..." Heizou murmurs to his detective rival.

"Don't you find it weird how when Lumine appeared, the kid disappeared in the diplomat's murder case?" Ayaka murmurs back.

"You can't be suggesting that the kid is the Viatrox girl?" The guy raises an eyebrow at her.

"I know it sounds impossible but... We butted head with her too during the previous case too... It seems odd" Ayaka murmurs under their breath. Lumine is a bit calmer that no one seems to pay attention to the two.

"It does seem suspicious but..." Heizou murmurs.

"I know we want to solve the case as soon as possible, but can I just see, what the kid does?" After that Lumine can't hear the rest because she is properly dragged away, back to the living room. Annoying.

"If he is the culprit how did he set fire to the garage during the second incident?" The fortune teller turns to Zhongli. "During the second incident he was right with us..." She thinks out loud. "And the kids say the car did speed up too"

"The second incident is figured out, but I still don't have a clue about the first one..." Heizou murmurs catching up.

"Have you figured out how they set fire to the garage?" The woman asks with a lit up face.

"More or less" Heizou nods at that.

"You did have a wrong deduction the last case" Zhongli shoots an unimpressed look at him.

"You didn't even make a usable deduction..." The boy grumbles back. "There are a few things I don't understand about the first case... Why was the owner missing for a whole day... The car suddenly sped up... The odd sound coming from inside the car and the blanket covering the dashboard..." He thinks out loud.

"Last one is the owner grabbing the wheel tightly I presume?" Ayaka interrupts, shooting a look at him to warn him to not solve the case. Even if herself doesn't have any idea about the first case either.

"Yes... Originally I was almost convinced it was a suicide, but after everything else that happened I'm sure it wasn't... He was placed in the car and rigor mortis already taken place" half the people there look confused at the young detective.

"The body stiffens and softens between certain times passed since death." Ayaka looks towards the lost people.

"If we assume he was totally rigid, he had been killed between 9 and 12 hours before he fell off the cliff, it was before yesterday's dinner... Why did they have to place him in the car so many hours before?" Heizou runs his thinking down.

"Wasn't it to make it look like a suicide?" Kento chimes in. "You also made a mistake, didn't you? Because the owner was gripping the steering wheel, he was killed, placed in the car, stiffened in that state, the culprit waited for him to get rigid, went back to the garage after dinner and made the car drive away..." He pauses for a second. "So the culprit must be between the people who left after dinner"

"How did the car speed up then?" The fortune teller argues.

"Not like a dead man would move automatically..." The boring guy murmurs.

That sparks the realization in the high school detectives. Lumine doesn't miss the exchanged looks between Heizou and Ayaka. They figured it out too, so she just has to wait for them to reveal it.

"I figured it out" Zhongli states full of confidence. "The culprit is you" He turns to the fortune teller. "You could hypnotize the owner and make him drive off the cliff." With that Lumine ignores the detective. She appreciates him dearly, but sometimes he is just painful to be around.

Waiting until that idea is thrown out the window, so the high school detectives can take the scene, but neither of them make their moves. Did she misinterpret their silent exchange?

"Hey, if the temperature outside changes, does it affect rigor mortis?" She tries to ask an innocent question, hoping that would lead them to the correct conclusion. "Maybe heat speeds it up? If that's the case..."

They both just look at her Heizou a bit more surprised than Ayaka's suspicious glare.

"We don't know, sorry!" Ayaka quickly changes to an apologetic smile. "No idea whatsoever" she forces the reinforcement a bit too much for Lumine to not be suspicious of it.

Oh they know, now Lumine is sure. They are waiting for her to make a move. That's really inconvenient. She can't put Zhongli to sleep in this situation...

Walking a few steps away while glancing at the two so she can hopefully think of something. Heizou mainly focuses on Ayaka. Ayaka focuses on her. She might be able to use that.

"I'm going to the bathroom" Feli announces so Xiao wouldn't worry, and to hopefully bait Ayaka into following her.

She bites the bait so as she steps out the door, Lumine using her wrist watch to put the girl to sleep, she knocks her out. Ayaka sits by the door as she falls asleep. Adjusting the voice changer, Lumine begins her deduction.

"Apologies, but I need to cut this show short Mr. Zhongli" She says as she hears that the debate about the fortuneteller's involvement is still going on. "I figured out the culprit." She hears everyone stop. Followed by footsteps coming their way.

"Didn't you say you want to watch the kid?" Lumine hears him whispering while crouching down. Lumine is sweating bullets on the other side of the door.

"I think I was wrong" She whispers back.

"Alright. So we are closing this case" He sounds relieved as he stands back up, accidentally bumping the girl with his knee. "Sorry" Lumine somehow from behind supports Ayaka from falling over. Somehow managing to steady her sitting.

"Mr Kento, you are the culprit" Heizou looks at the guy directly, even if he is hiding behind Zhongli. All eyes on him now.

"Hold on, I was in the living room for hours before that!" The guy does not take kindly to the accusation.

"He was with us the whole time too. How would he make the car move?" Zhongli crosses his arms.

"At first glance, it is impossible, but it's actually pretty simple. He killed the owner about a day ago, placed him in the car seat and held the body in place while pressing down on the break" Lumine pausing in the deduction give the opportunity for Heizou to butt in.

"After half a day, the body would become rigid because of rigor mortis, and even if the engine was on, and the gear in drive mode, it wouldn't move if the breaks are pulled" Now his breath gives an opening for Lumine to speak.

"Before yesterday's dinner if they opened the garage and wait for rigor mortis to fade away in the living room, the car would move on it's own." Lumine has to admit, fighting for spotlight in a deduction is quite new, because before all this shrinking business happened to her, she only discussed the case with Aether, and would leave the presentation to him, while she provides assistance in whatever that needs to be demonstrated.

"But rigor mortis only starts fading away after 40 hours of the person's death" the old detective argues.

"Not if you raise the temperature. In 36°C, the softening speed increases and rigor mortis will fade away between 24 and 30 hours" Lumine is the faster in answering the question.

"The wind-like sound we heard was not the conditioner, but from the heater, and a reason why we didn't find the droplets next to the tire marks." Heizou takes over again.

"So that's why you two checked the tire marks..." Xiao murmurs on the side.

"But that trick is easily discovered if examined by an autopsy" Zhongli murmurs.

"That's exactly why he needed to throw the car off of a cliff. If there is no body to check rigor mortis on, it's not an issue anymore" Lumine lets out a small huff. "The blanket on the dashboard also handily prevented for us to realize what's going on."

"Why did the car speed up all of a sudden?" The fortune teller lady chimes in. "Probably because the car went on rough terrain and the foot was moved from the break."

"So the reason he convinced miss Ayako was to make sure to have a witness when the car rolled away...?" Xiao murmurs looking between the two detectives.

"Precisely" Heizou nods at that.

"This is an interesting story, right out of a novel, but it's a pity you don't have proof" Kento lets out a small mocking laughter. "And I was with everyone else when the garage caught fire."

"That's also a really simple trick" Heizou chuckles. "You just had to tell her that the first edition book is under the back seat in the car in the garage. Because the car's battery was drained, and had the fuel was leaking, you need to use a light source of sort to see"

"She turned on her own lighter and she ignited the evaporated fuel." Ayaka's voice finishes that off thanks to Lumine.

"But she was his lover and you said a witness" Xiao murmurs.

"She wasn't needed anymore because she wasn't the only witness, and she saw right trough him..." Lumine murmurs trough the voice changer bow.

"Her behavior did only change after she talked to the guy..." The fortune teller shoots a worried look towards the culprit. "I'm surprised how improvised that rick was tho..."

"That was not an improvised trick" Heizou shakes his head. "He originally planned that for that guy" He gestures towards the mustached man that got attacked.

"The improvised trick was the third incident. After he needed to use the garage for killing miss Ayako, he still was out for Mr. Fujisawa, so he improvised the blackout to attack him with an icepick" Lumine's reasoning is followed by the man's mocking laughter.

"I still would like to see your proof" The man seems confident.

"Fist question, what's Holmes' dominant arm?" Lumine grabs the opportunity to test the guy. He just looks at Ayaka confused. "Second question, what's the name of Dr. Watson's wife?"

"What are you getting at?" The culprit asks annoyed.

"Oh? Did you forget?" She lets a chuckle fly. "It's the Holmes freak test"

"Huh?"

"Now, 241st question, the letter with the dancing man cipher that Holmes sent to the culprit, what did it say?" Lumine asks the question.

"Oh, I remember that, it was come here at once" He lets out a laugh. "Why are you trying to test how much of a Holmes freak I am?"

"There wasn't a question like that though..." The black haired lady murmurs.

"Yeah, the question about the dancing men was: write down all the dancing men that appeared in the story" The fortune teller murmurs.

"That's the difficult kind of question that you wouldn't be able to forget easily... Yet you forgot about it, isn't it strange?" Lumine chuckles trough the bow.

"Miss Ayako went to your room to ask for help in her test, but she only discovered the blank stack of papers..." Heizou murmurs.

"And who else would not answer the questions than someone who knows the owner won't be able to grade them..." Lumine finishes that off.

"If you say that this is nonsense, we would gladly take a look at your filled out test." Heizou sounds confident. Lumine hears the guy collapse on his knees.

"Shit..." He mutters.

"Why did you want to kill us you bastard?!" The mustached man grabs him by the shirt.

"The motive was probably the book the two of you wrote." Heizou murmurs. "Irene Adler's scorn"

"Irene is the actress that outwitted Holmes, right?" Xiao glances at the maid, being the closest one to him.

"Yes, but the book was about Holmes' deduction mistakes" the maid mutters back.

"I see... He thought the book was mocking Holmes..." The fortune teller mutters while Lumine notices Ayaka waking up. She puts away her bow.

"Did Feli not come back from the bathroom yet...?" Between the people closing down the case the little girl can hear Xiao's murmuring.

"Ah, I'm back" Felicity walks in the door finally. Xiao just looks at her nodding. Just noting down the kid's location and turning back to the aftermath of the case being solved.

Ayaka on the other hand stands in her way.

"You are Lumine, aren't you?" She asks, Heizou also perfectly hearing that, because he still haven't left Ayaka's side either.

"W-what are you talking about?" Lumine lets out an awkward laughter, hoping it would work, but it clearly doesn't. Just when she thought she is saved, she is crushed.

"You just somehow mimicked my voice and ran down your deduction. You do not fool me" Ayaka crosses her arms. At what point did she wake up?

"That was her?" Heizou murmurs surprised. Ayaka just nods at that.

"I-" Lumine tries to grasp at something. "..." There really isn't anything she can do about it. She really is busted this time. "I... Can tell you about it, but please, not here" She talks close to whisper.

"We will borrow the kid for a bit" Heizou announces towards Xiao, who shoots him a glare, but seeing that Ayaka is with them, he nods towards the three.

They change location to a distant, empty room.

"So how is this possible?" Heizou asks after Ayaka closes the door.

"I have no idea. With Aether..." She needs a second to get herself together to speak clearly about her brother. "We witnessed this exchange about weapon smuggling, and we failed to realize that one guy is missing that we seen earlier, and I was hit first. My head was pretty hazy but they made us take some kind of drug and..." She needs another few seconds to get herself to not cry. "H-he died from it, while this happened to me..." The little girl mumbles.

"Do you know who did this to you?" To Ayaka's question is followed by Lumine shaking her head.

"I don't know their names and it seems to be a much bigger organization, I had an encounter with one of their member on accident, but she was killed shortly." She continues to mumble. "Can I ask you two to keep this a secret?" Of course the two nods at that.

"So your brother is..." Ayaka doesn't finish the sentence, Lumine just nods at that.

"I-I couldn't protect him..." She needs to hold back her tears with all her might. "N-now... I-I need to... avenge him..." She can't really. She isn't sobbing yet, but the tears are coming out.

Ayaka without a word goes to hug her, and she can't help but actually start sobbing. She will feel incredibly embarrassed about it afterwards, it's still incredibly hard to talk about Aether, although she is getting better at it.

With morning they travel to call the police, and head back home.

While Lumine is worried about the two young detectives knowing about her true identity, at the end of the day, they do seem to be cooperating

Chapter Text

Before the unfortunate incident occurred in Tropical Land, where one of the twins lost their life and the other got doomed by shrinking down to a small child's size, Lumine agreed to meet up with Xiao in the aquarium. Aether unfortunately got busy with a case where he told his sister he can wrap up the thing alone, and she had no reason to go with him and refuse Xiao.

She is waiting in the tunnel with the sharks for the guy, being a big fan of those too. Most animals usually don't concern her, unless they produce some kind of exciting poisons, but who wouldn't like sharks?

"Sorry for making you wait!" Xiao apologizes as he arrives. He is wearing a simple white button up shirt with a jacket. Feels fancier than the stuff he usually wears, out of school he often just wears simple t-shirts. Lumine wonders if he will meet up with someone later.

"Don't worry about it" Lumine smiles while fanning with her hand to signal it extra.

"Why didn't you wait by the entrance?" Without any kind of accusatory tone Xiao points that out.

"I like sharks" Lumine shrugs. "And this tunnel has a nice mood... Better than the entrance at least." She pauses for a second "at least it's an easier spot to find than any random poisonous fish." They get interrupted by the chime of Xiao's phone. He folds it open, still having a really old model.

"Our chaotic friend is feeling better" He states then goes to check something else. He closes the phone back with a small smile.

"That's nice to hear" Lumine murmurs. "So, what do you need looking around for in this plan of yours?"

"Don't know if I could call it that much of a plan... A slight hope I guess" Xiao shrugs. "It just seems like a romantic place to choose for them to meet up" He talks about it being a romantic place like Lumine next to him wouldn't have a crush on him and is silently just dying from the inside by that.

"It is a romantic place but..." Lumine mutters a vague memory coming to her mind, turning towards the swimming fish. "doesn't Mr. Zhongli hate fish?" The guy stops at that for a moment.

"How could I forget" He slaps his forehead, disappointed in himself. "Don't know what else to do tho..." He lowers his hand and looks at the shark swimming about.

"Maybe you could ask Guizhong about where past dates gone and somehow steer them there... You are meeting with her today anyways, aren't you?" Lumine says while a manta ray swoops by and distracts her. "Sea pancake" She giggles to herself.

"How did you know?" Xiao murmurs.

"Hm?" Lumine faces him tilting her head.

"That I'm meeting with mom"

"Oh, I'd call it an easy guess honestly..." She murmurs. "Well, you are a bit more dressed up than usual... You wouldn't dress to meet me, and you don't often go out with people, Hu Tao is sick, I know you don't currently have plans with Aether, he would've told me. You do have an appointment of sorts with someone you like, after Hu Tao's message, from your finger movements I could tell that you went back and checked something that left you smiling, and that leaves Guizhong with a high probability." She pauses. "Tho that still doesn't completely explain why you are more dressed up, my best guess is that she is taking you to a bit fancier restaurant because she is a lawyer..."

"Now that you run it down like this, I guess it was really obvious..." He murmurs.

"Also the fact that I've known you for quite a while... I think most people would've missed that really faint smile that you have" She gets distracted again by the shark swimming over them. Completely missing the blush that appears on the young man's face.

Xiao's main plan for that day really was to scout out the place to make plans on pushing Zhongli and Guizhong towards reconnecting their relationship, but secondly it was to spend time with only Lumine.

He has plenty of opportunities being alone with Aether, they go to karate practice together, and he is in the same class as Hu Tao. Lumine while he also tends to avoid a bit, doesn't get that many opportunities even as a friend and not at all a crush. Learning that Hu Tao is sick and Aether being busy with a case, just made it the perfect opportunity for the two of them to spend some time together.

"Well, we are here now, we might as well enjoy the aquarium?" Lumine murmurs while watching the fish.

"Might as well" Xiao nods at that and starts going.

The rusty smell of blood hits Lumine's nose as she takes a step to follow Xiao. She immediately stops as she looks around. A crowd starts to gather.

"Xiao, please go to the entrance and get someone in charge" She says turning towards the crowd. Before the boy could react she is already making her way trough the crowd.

Two people are hunched over unsurely hovering around a third one, Lumine makes way first stating that she knows first aid, but then checking for pulse she sees that the guy is already dead, so she asks everyone to stay away.

She doesn't do a too detailed examination of the body, the police needs to get there first, she just takes note of the stab wound under the jacket and the weapon discarded next to the body.

Xiao arrives back soon with a staff member.

"I apologize to trouble you, but you need to close the building as soon as possible and call the police" She looks at the confused man. "At least you need to close the building off if you want to make the police's work easier." She knows people are not likely to listen to a high school girl. "I'll make sure no one touches the corpse."

"Corpse?" Xiao murmurs looking between his friend and the stranger laying on the floor.

"Unfortunately, corpse." Lumine confirms.

"But we didn't hear a scream or anything and we were here the entire time" He mutters thinking. "How did you notice?"

"I smelled the blood." Lumine murmurs. "You know, like a shark, it's only appropriate for a detective to be able to smell the blood from miles" She shows a confident smile towards Xiao as the mentioned shark swims past behind her. Creating a memorable image in the boy's head. "At least I think that's how they work..." She turns into muttering. Aether has more of the animal facts down. She knows plants, he knows animals is their not really official agreement that ended up working trough their life.

The police arrives shortly and the person in charge did close down the building by Lumine's advice. And while waiting, she did start examining the body and taking pictures.

"So the young lady taking charge of the crime scene was you, Lumine.." Ningguang mutters amused by the situation.

"Yes ma'am" Lumine nods with a smile. "Xiao and I happened to be here, at the scene of the crime. I asked around if anyone seen the culprit, but unfortunately no one did."

"Were you two on a date together?" The woman asks while she steps to examine the body. If it turns out that the Viatrox girl and Zhongli's kid are dating, it will be the talk between the people who are acquainted with them.

"Is that what it looks like?" Lumine chuckles, trying to hide her pain that thought could cause. "Unfortunately it's not" she shrugs.

"We are just friends" Xiao next to her reinforces the idea, destroying both of their souls a little bit.

"I see... The weapon was discarded next to the body" the inspector mutters examining the knife that is wrapped in a plastic bag.

"The murderer though it out carefully" Lumine muses. "They even tilted the blade sideways just to make sure they don't touch a rib. And positioning the stab under the coat to minimize blood splatter..."

"Why didn't he call for help?" Ningguang asks the question more towards herself, but Lumine is happy to help the investigation.

"You can see some burn marks on the back of his head. And the stun gun is in his jacket's inner pocket" She says enthusiastically. "The blood was still flowing when we found him, so it must've been mere minutes."

"I think you are being a bit too handy with dead bodies" Lumine lets an awkward laughter fly by the inspector's remark.

"I took picture of everything before I really moved them?" She murmurs.

"I was watching her and I can testify that she didn't do anything suspicious with the body" Being friends with the twins for such a long time, Xiao knows that he needs to be on standby so people believe them. Nowadays it's less of a problem, the police recognizing them for their talents already, but habits die hard.

"Not what I meant" Ningguang sighs. "A young girl such as yourself shouldn't bother with corpses" She examines if the person has any belongings. "That's troublesome..." She goes back to muttering to herself.

"Oh, if the identification is needed, the victim is Shumoto Kunhiro, he worked part-time at a petrol station. Today he had some appointment and asked to be left off his shift." She pauses for a second. "My best guess is that he came here with his girlfriend... About as tall as I am... Probably a dolphin fan..."

"How did you find that out so quick?" Ningguang murmurs back.

"I looked trough the victim's phone and called his contacts saying that I found this phone and would like to return it to it's owner" Lumine retells the tale. "They told me that and even gave their home number."

"I did try to stop her at least on that..." Xiao mutters looking away. He thought that would be a bit too much, but ultimately, Lumine is the detective.

"Did you hear about a girlfriend from them too?" Ninnguang asks, clearly impressed by how fast of a work Lumine is making of this case. She didn't think about identifying the victim by the phone. Generational difference and all.

"No, the victim's wallet has a receipt that is from the aquarium's cafe, the time is 15 minutes the body was found, and it has a cup of coffee and a cup of tea with a dolphin key-holder, but the later thing isn't on his person, so it probably was a gift for someone, and the two orders also imply that" Lumine runs down her reasoning.

"What about the same size as you part?" Xiao asks. She stares at him for a few seconds.

"To be fair, it's no wonder you didn't really notice..." She mutters after thinking about it. "You can smell perfume on the guy, way more feminine scent than anything else, and while that is up to taste, he really doesn't seem like the kind of person with that kind of bravery, so I'd assume it got stuck on him from another source." She takes a quick breath. "Most common places to spray perfume is the back of the earlobe, underside of the hair, wrists, armpits, and based on those, we get someone the same height as me, who either rarely wears perfume and goes overboard, or got used to the smell so that's why they go overboard..."

"Why won't his girlfriend come forward then? If they were on the date together..." Xiao asks glancing towards the crowd just outside the tunnel.

"Either she did it, or they haven't been dating for too long and doesn't want to be involved" Lumine murmurs looking up just as a group of fish swims by. "Maybe we could check each person's phone to see if anyone caught anything on camera" Comes an idea.

The idea was nice until they are faced with the sheer amount of mobiles spread out in the staff room that they offered to help the investigation. While they start going trough the phones, Lumine walks to the plastic bagged victim's phone and calls the three people who ignored the call earlier for some reason.

The three phones ring in the room, getting the inspector's attention.

"These are the people who ignored the calls earlier" Lumine explains. "Why don't we ask them why?" She suggests with a confident smile.

The first person they interrogate is the girlfriend. Like Lumine suggested, she stinks from perfume, about the same height as she is and is actually a fan of dolphins. That was just a really lucky guess, but she is proud she was correct.

She and the victim got together only about a week ago, after hearing her talk about dolphins he asked her on a date to the aquarium, but he seemed sketchy to her. They were watching the dolphin show when half way trough the victim left for the toilet, but never came back. Seeing him dead and then seeing the incoming call from his number made her think that she would be the next target, so she was scared to say that she knew him.

After being a bit annoyed by the questioning, She shows the video she took of the dolphin show in their faces. It's clearly a really amateur, just for fun video one would take. They can clearly hear the woman's voice on the video, but she herself doesn't appear. Her voice could be played trough another device with the help of an accomplice, but it seems pretty unlikely.

The next person is the victim's ex girlfriend. They broke up over a year ago, and she ignored his calls because he has been bothering her about getting back together. Because she was on a date herself, she just turned off her phone after the call to stay unbothered by the man. She had a nice picture of the two during the earlier hours in front of the aquarium.

She also made a video around when the crime took place, filming in the same tunnel Xiao and Lumine were in. Weirdly no one cares about the fact that she is filming the fish, and the camera's orientation also feels weird to Lumine. You would usually turn your phone sideways to capture the whole shark. Even Xiao appears on the video, running trough the crowd as Lumine already noticed that something happened. At the end of the footage, she does appear on camera too.

The last person not picking up the phone is the previous lady's current boyfriend to everyone's shock. He ignored the call because it came from a number that have been sending him weird texts since he got together with his girlfriend.

Lumine notes that when he turned towards her after a question with his full body, not just with his head. And when showing the video he took, he lifted the phone right in front of his face and look for the video like that.

His video is way better made than the other two combined. The shark is clear, phone tilted sideways and no one interrupts the shot for too long. It turns out that he and his girlfriend are bloggers so they have some knowledge on how to make a good footage.

The police officers comparing the footage with some other visitors' confirm that there is really little chance of tampering with the girlfriend's footage of the dolphin show, it lines up perfectly with other guests.

Lumine is way more bothered by the location of the crime... The aquarium is mostly poorly lit, wouldn't it be easier to commit the crime in one of the dimly lit corridors? Why in the bright shark tunnel?

"Hey Xiao, can I borrow your hood to try something?" She asks.

"Sure" He murmurs without hesitation. "What for?"

"I'm trying to think of a reason why the murderer committed the crime in the shark tunnel." She mutters back.

"Dramatic irony?" Xiao puts out the idea, admittedly that's Lumine's best idea too. She slips her own phone in his hood, trying to see if she can adjust it in a way where it could be usable like that. "Maybe because it's magical how you can feel underwater wherever you look?" That sparks the idea in Lumine and she runs back to the shark tunnel to take another proper look around. Completely leaving Xiao behind confused.

"Inspector Ningguang, the guests are getting impatient..." Lumine can hear a worried police officer's voice from the staff room.

"We still haven't figured out the culprit yet..." The inspector mutters from the room. "And the three people Lumine suspected all have alibis on the video..."

"Could the culprit have fled after all?" The police officer asks. "It took a few minutes to close off the building."

"The security footage didn't show anyone leaving in a hurry..." Ningguang argues.

"Why don't we let the guests leave?" Lumine appears by the door. "Except my three suspects" Her confident smile is on her face that both Ningguang and Xiao know so well.

They go get the three suspects.

"What is this about?!" The current girlfriend asks offended after the three are gathered in the shark tunnel. "You seen my video, didn't you?!"

"Ours too" The ex girlfriend murmurs.

"Yes, we did see all three of them. One of them stood out to me, for it was crying out confessing the crime basically" Lumine says, confident smile still on her face.

"Y-you are not talking about my dolphin show video, right?" The woman asks worried.

"Your video is of horrible quality, it keeps moving around, your voice isn't recorded completely clearly either..." The young detective starts it off.

"B-but that can't possibly mean-" The woman's worries are cut short by Lumine.

"Something completely expected of an amateur for fun. Nothing suspicious there" After the woman's relieved sigh she turns to the couple. The boyfriend first. "Your footage on the other hand is great. People don't interrupt the footage, clearly seeing that you are recording something and the view of the shark is clear and nicely in frame, steady hands, clearly it was intended to post the footage on your blog." She turns to the ex-girlfriend. "Now, let's compare it to your footage." She takes the two phones from a police officer who was on standby with them, at her request.

"The only difference is that is mine is horizontal while hers is vertical..." The boyfriend murmurs, puzzled by the high schooler's point.

"If you want to film a shark why would you hold your phone vertically?" She asks the question.

"I didn't want to film the shark" The woman argues. "It just happened to swim across at that time too."

"It's still weird how no one seems to mind that you are filming. People usually try to avoid disturbing other people's photos or videos, yet everyone walks across the frame so casually. Even I and Xiao are on it.

"Because-" The woman would start, but Lumine cuts her off just as quick.

"No wonder they didn't notice, after all, you put your phone on your boyfriend's hat." She demonstrates it on the man, his wool hat perfectly holding the phone in place.

"Wouldn't someone notice if you put a cellphone there?" Ninnguang asks, completely baffled by the theory.

"The two knows each other well, she could've said that there was something on the hat, took it off and put it back on him that time with the phone." A simple solution that even Xiao didn't question when she hid her phone in his hood.

"But there is no guarantee he wouldn't just whip his head around and make the phone fall?" Xiao murmurs.

"His neck is probably injured" the turtle neck covers it perfectly, so the man just stares at her completely baffled.

"Y-yeah how did you.." the man shows the glimpse of the cast to the others.

"When interrogating you, you turned towards me with your full body after a question and lifted your phone right up to your face when looking for the video" She explains how she had that hunch. "So with you sudden turning of head wasn't a danger"

"So while he was taking the video, she went and did the murder and retrieved the phone..." Ningguang murmurs looking at the woman.

"Yes, knocking the victim out with the stun gun by pointing out there is something weird or interesting on the aquarium floor, then stabbed the victim and returned to her boyfriend to retrieve the phone." Lumine explains the case, full of confidence.

"She got lucky and no one saw her..." Xiao mutters, mostly to himself, and Lumine doesn't miss that.

"She is wearing quite a few layers, it also would be easy to rearrange some clothes" the young detective is losing no confidence over that. "There is one thing that I also want to confirm." She turns to the woman. "If you would be so kind to remove your gloves. In the picture you showed us that you took when you came here, your glove had a different color and used your other hand." She starts, seeing the nervousness rise in the woman. "My best guess is that you might have the victim's blood on your hand unless you are ambidextrous and use your hands interchangeably."

"If you could" the inspector glances at the woman, who starts pulling off the gloves slowly, revealing blood on her right hand's fingers. "If we analyze it and it matches to the victim's blood"

"Hurry up and do it if you need to analyze it!" The woman cries out. "I want to get rid of that man's blood as soon as possible!"

She reveals that the odd messages that her boyfriend received were about erotic pictures of her. Her boyfriend deleted them without reading them so it never got revealed to her, but the ex-boyfriend threatened that he will call next time and she couldn't take that thought.

She thinks that she would've gotten away with it if she was smart enough to reverse her gloves before committing the murder, but she was using her phone with gloves on by the boyfriend's footage, and she clearly wouldn't do that normally.

She of course gets taken away by the police.

"After what happened here the Aquarium seems like an even worse idea..." Lumine mutters while they start going home after the case is closed.

"You are probably right... No one would want to be somewhere where a murder is occurred..." Xiao murmurs.

Rain suddenly starts pouring down. Lumine clumsily covers her head with her light jacket that she choose for that day, unfortunately it doesn't have a proper hood.

Xiao's jacket on the other hand, has a proper hood and as he swings it over his head, Lumine's phone, that she completely forgot about, flies out, right into a water drainage grid, falling right trough, and landing in the water.

"I'm so sorry!" Xiao, mortified by the realization. He will have to make it up for Lumine for that.

"No, don't worry about it..." The girl is just disappointed in herself for forgetting all about it. "It is completely my fault."

"Why was it there?" Xiao is standing by the grid, thinking if there is a way to open it up and fish it out.

"Remember when I asked to borrow your hood? I was just thinking where the murderer could've placed the phone..." She sighs, disappointment really clear even to Xiao.

"I'll replace it for you!" He says determined, even if he doesn't exactly have the allowance to do such a thing.

"I'm not mad at you or anything, don't worry about it. I'm disappointed in myself for forgetting about it." Another sigh. "I was too excited to figure the case out..."

"You do seem to keep getting into all of them... Alongside with Aether..." Xiao murmurs, now the two starting going again. "Even when we went to America you got into case after case..."

"And Aether is also away on a case currently..." Lumine chuckles at that. She do seem to attract them somehow.

They at the end agree to go to Tropical Land together just as an apology from Xiao, even if Lumine is pretty against it like that. Ending up agreeing on going as the three of them together because there is no way they would get into a case in an amusement park.

Oh, how wrong they were...

Chapter Text

Since those two detectives from Osaka found out about Felicity's true identity, she had a few cases before being able to finally visit Albedo. And with visiting Albedo, of course borrowing the phone to talk to her mom. She already knows about the situation, no need to keep it hidden from her, but...

"Can you believe him, Lumi?!" Alice's voice comes trough the phone.

"You are saying that like you two would be married..." Lumine mutters trough the phone, increasingly frustrated over her mom just complaining about Dainsleif.

"It's really not about our relationship, he just kills the mood with coming home drunk covered in lipstick..." The woman huffs trough the phone.

"Of course he will have different way of socializing than you do... Alcohol is kinda a natural thing to have involved..." Lumine grumbles back. "You could go with him too, you know..."

"I like experiencing my adventures while being sober..." Alice dismisses the idea. The door opens with Albedo arriving back to his lab where she borrowed the phone.

"I will call you another time, I'm a bit busy" Before the actress could react, she already ended the call with a sigh.

"You seem annoyed..." Albedo mutters while Lumine turns towards him. "Weren't you talking to Alice?"

"She is upset with Dainsleif again" She sighs. "He comes home drunk while apparently having an affair" by Albedo's raised eyebrow, she chuckles. "We all know Dainsleif is too dense for anything like that... They argue over everything anyways, nothing to worry about..." A sour expression sets in on the little girl. "Not like right now it could seriously change anything in the family..."

"So, how are things going other than that?" Albedo sits down on his office chair by his computer, still facing Lumine.

"Remember that two detectives that came from Osaka?" After his nod she sighs and continues. "They found out about my true identity the second time we met..." She is half really impressed, half really annoyed with herself. "But they seem to be cooperating, so hopefully it will be fine"

"Hopefully it will stay that way" Albedo nods at that. "And how are you getting along with Xiao?"

"He is pretty upset with me for constantly avoiding talking about Aether..." She sighs crossing her arms. "But what can I really do about that? I can't just tell him that hey, your best friend and I'm pretty sure crush is dead, I'm sorry" She is amazed at herself that she could say that out loud without crying.

"Crush?" Albedo murmurs surprised.

"At least I'm pretty sure... They were always together..." Lumine mutters. "You would be that close with someone all the times if you have a crush on them, wouldn't you?" Albedo just shrugs at that.

"Wouldn't be able to tell you" He lets out a chuckle. "Never experienced it myself" Lumine just humms at that. "But they never really seemed to me that they are like that"

"I guess you weren't with them all day..." Lumine murmurs. "But even if by some miracle you would be right about that, I still can't tell him that his best friend is dead."

"Eventually you will have to" Albedo know that it's really harsh, but it's still the truth.

"I know... But I at least want to tell him that face to face with my proper body..." She looks towards the ground.

"You should try stay away from cases for a while. Maybe it would help lighten your mood." Albedo suggests.

"I doubt it would help" Not any time soon with her brother dead at least.

"You are young you should try enjoy things while you can" He of course realizes how stupid he must sound to the girl, but if she only can be negative, that will lead her to nowhere.

"I tried it and two annoying detectives found out about my true identity..." She is not at all amused. She is tired. It haven't even been that long, she is sure, but too many things happened. Too many cases that she solved while being a small child.

After that because Albedo had nothing extra to say about Ayaka and Heizou, heads back to the Zhongli detective agency, where she witnesses Zhongli arguing over the phone with Guizhong.

She ran into the lawyer a few weeks back after Xiao said he is going on a date, and that got Lumine curious. There ended up a case happening where at first she didn't realize who the woman is. She does have better skills as a detective than Zhongli. Thanks to her involvement, she didn't have to knock out someone to run down her reasonings.

Zhongli and her are long divorced and Xiao keeps trying to push them a bit more together sometimes. They still clearly care about each other, but also get on each other's nerves like no one else.

While absentmindedly being there during the argument, she just lays down on the sofa and falls asleep. Not a deep sleep whatsoever, but sleep.

She is half aware when Xiao arrives.

"I'm home" He murmurs closing the door. There is a bit of silence after that which Zhongli's deep voice interrupts.

"If you are looking for Felicity, she is sleeping on the sofa" Clothes ruffling, then footsteps.

Her stomach grumbles unhappy about the lack of food so far today, followed by a small huff of amusement from Xiao. She feels something move around her face.

As she opens her eyes finally with a yawn, noticing that Xiao is pretty close and staring right at her face, her fake glasses in his hands. He took it off while she was sleeping.

Flustered, cheeks also turning a bit red, she rips it out of his hands in a panic.

"Why do you wear your glasses everywhere?" He asks as he stands back up. "Even in the bathroom or sleeping?"

"I-I can't see without them..." That alone doesn't sound that convincing to herself. "And well... I feel uncomfortable without them" Xiao just humms at that.

"Uhm, excuse me" A woman's voice interrupts them, Lumine can't help but feel a bit relieved. Hopefully Xiao is not close to finding out about her true identity. "Is this the Zhongli detective agency?"

The woman was sent by Guizhong to get help, only thanks to Xiao's influence, which Zhongli was quite frustrated about, but did not show. Both him and his son are pretty reserved with their emotions.

"My husband died a week ago" she starts her story.

"Was it a murder?" Is Zhongli's first question.

"No. I think at least." She murmurs. "A week ago when I came back home, I couldn't find my husband anywhere in the house, so I went to check his own private room, and then I found him cold on the floor" Zhongli, Xiao and Lumine are paying close attention. "The police said he swallowed poison, aconitine or what was it called?"

"Aconitine?" Xiao murmurs back.

"What was that..." Zhongli murmurs trying to remember what kind of poison is that.

"A kind of poison that paralyzes human nerves..." Lumine mutters. "It's taken from the leafs or root of the aconitum... The lethal dose is 2 milligrams, it can kill you in two minutes..." She always had interest in poisons. Not like she ever plans to poison anyone, that would go against everything that she stands for, but she always found it an interesting topic.

"Where did you...?" Xiao murmurs looking at the kid amazed.

"They grow in mountains, it's easy to recognize them, they are quite pretty when in bloom too" Lumine answers where you can find them.

"I mean where did you learn about them?" Xiao clarifies and that makes her freeze a bit. Shit. She never refrained from nerding out about poisons as Lumine like she did about being a Holmes fan.

"Uh... One of the big monsters on TV said he will use that to get rid of the good guys!" Probably the worst thing she could think of at that moment, but she will have to run with that.

"TV for kids seems weird these days..." He murmurs. Lumine is amazed Xiao bough that.

"So were you the one to discover the body?" Zhongli gets back to the case, for Lumine's relief.

She was with her husband's magician disciples. As it turns out, her husband is Tsukumo Motoyasu, a worldwide renowned magician. Xiao seems to remember the name so he goes to check a photo album. He stares at her for long enough that Lumine notices his dumbfounded expression on her, but he denies the silent question that is her head tilt.

"How about asking about the disciples?" The little girl suggests when Zhongli seems to be stuck thinking. He perks up at that.

"May I inquire about those disciples?" The woman nods at that.

The group's ace, Sanada Kazumi, a woman with a strong personality, Miyoshi Mako, said that she is the best female magician out there, and the third one is a fairly newcomer, Momochi Juuji, while he hasn't been an apprentice for long, he is quite promising.

They live with the family, practicing magic each day. On the day of the incident they were preforming in Beika Hotel, and the time of death was placed in the middle of the show.

"But that doesn't rule out the possibility that they poisoned something of his, does it?" Lumine chimes in, but the woman just shakes her head.

"He has a phone down there, he could've called for help as soon as he noticed something was wrong." The wife murmurs.

"How about sleeping pills?" Zhongli asks.

"Nothing of the sort was found in the body. No signs of being tied either. The door was locked, no sign of someone coming in from outside either..." The woman stares in front of her.

"Then it must be suicide" The detective comes to the conclusion.

"Y-yes... But I still can't believe he would've committed suicide." She looks at the old man with slightly more determination. "Our daughter's birthday is tomorrow, and he prepared the surprise a month ahead, do you think someone like that would plan to kill themselves?"

"You can never predict fate" Zhongli mutters.

"And that's not the only odd thing about the case." She starts looking for something in her purse. "This was on his desk" she hands over two cards stuck together back to back, pushed to the side a bit so they don't perfectly overlap. One side is A of spades and the other is J of spades.

"Are you sure it's not just for a magic trick?" Zhongli asks handing back the card.

"I never seen it" the woman shakes her head.

"Why don't we go to their house to investigate there?" Felicity innocently suggests.

"We?" Zhongli parrots back. "This is a job for a detective" He tries to play it off a bit more playfully. And that is exactly why she wants to go.

"Why not bring Feli along?" Xiao chimes in, surprising the two detectives. "She often has random ideas that end up being helpful, right Feli?"

"Y-yeah" She is quite taken aback by Xiao. He usually tries to keep her away from the cases. Zhongli just sighs.

"But you will promise to not be in the way" With that they start going with the wife.

The mansion is huge, of course it would be, a world famous magician probably needs the space to come up with magic tricks and to live comfortably.

While meeting the three apprentices, Lumine doesn't miss the meaningful looks that Xiao gives her. Like he is expecting her to do something.

First one they meet is Momochi Yuuji, he makes a dive appear by Lumine's ear, amazing all three of them. He also mistakes Mr. Zhongli for a magician at first and initiates a magic trick show off.

The wife quickly tells him that he is wrong about that and they meet the next apprentice that they meet is Miyoshi Mako. She says that the first guy needs to use more of the doves, and in a flurry of white they fly out of Xiao's jacket after she pats him on the shoulders. When and how did she set that up, Lumine has no idea.

After a small conversation between the apprentices, the strange card comes up and the ace of the three appears, demonstrating his magic tricks by ripping the card apart and making it appear in Zhongli's breast pocket. Making both of the detectives lose their minds for a split second and Lumine is already done with the magic tricks and wishes to wrap up the case really quick.

He seems way too cocky, something Zhongli comments on, but the other apprentices point out his mistake in the last trick of throwing around a pack of cards. They all belong to different brands, something he normally wouldn't mess up.

They also meet with the daughter, who goes to the same school as Lumine currently, also a first grader. She seems excited about Lumine visiting. She tells her that she is here for business, but Zhongli shoots her down that he is the one here for business, Felicity is just tagging along.

But when she tries to drag her away to hang out together...

"Why don't you come and buy things with me?" The little girl suggests excited. "I'm running errands with my mom! To buy the outfit for my birthday party tomorrow!" after seeing Lumine slightest bit of surprise, she continues. "You got an invitation too, didn't you?"

"Oh... Now that you mention it..." Feli mutters, finally remembering the little envelope that was placed on her school desk one day. She is now pretty sure that she forgot to open it at the end.

"Come on!" The girl would start dragging her away despite her small protest.

"Sorry, but Feli is busy today" Xiao stops her, pulling Lumine back, and the little girl's resistance is surprisingly little by that. "Could it be another day?"

"Why not let the kids play?" Zhongli murmurs, also surprised by Xiao's refusal.

"I'm sorry Ayano, but I can't go shopping with you today..." The wife breaks the news down to the kid.

"Eeeh?! You promised me, didn't you?! You're a liar,mom!" The little girl instantly starts crying. "Just like dad!! Tomorrow is my birthday and he hasn't come back from overseas yet!!" Lumine feels bad now by instinct.

"I can accompany her if that is alright. I looked after kids like this before" she offers, forgetting for a split second that she is also a kid, and that her brother is not really here anymore to handle the case side of things. Before if there was a situation similar to that one of them, usually Lumine, offered to take care of the trouble while the other one solves the case, providing some stuff over text so they still both can think of the case.

Unfortunately, that isn't an option anymore, and her habits come back because she is a bit scatter brained from Xiao's reactions to her the past hour or so.

"How about you come with me?" The one female magician saves her without realizing it, before Lumine even would realize the mistake that she made.

As the doves are gathered, Lumine realizes her mistake and feels eyes on her. Xiao didn't miss her slip up. Her focus on cases does make it really tough to try avoid suspicion right now... Maybe it would be better if she would leave with the kid just to protect her true identity...

But before she could make her sure decision on that, they go down to the basement room and she once again is focused on the case in front of her.

"Who is that magician on that photo?" Lumine points at a framed photo in the row of others. A second ago after Zhongli's question they know that they are past disciples.

"That's Kinoshita." The wife murmurs. "He was a genius among geniuses... Unfortunately he died during an accident 14 years ago."

"What's up with that guy?" Xiao asks eying the picture too.

"H-he just looks interesting!" Lumine tries her best to look clueless, grabbing at the first thing coming to her mind.

"That frame does have a lot less dust on it than the others." Lumine does a silent victory lap in her head that Zhongli noticed it too. "Someone cleaned it more..."

"I know my husband was quite affectionate towards him... Maybe it's that" the wife muses. "Anyways, I kept the room in the same state it was when we found my husband" The woman walks to the desk which has a huge pile of cards on it. "The odd card was on the desk too along with the glue used to stick them together."

"The wall seems unusually thick" Zhongli knocks on the wall.

"My husband really loved classical music so he made the room soundproofed so he can listen to music in a high volume.

"Even he yelled while in this room no one would've heard him..." Zhongli murmurs walking to the door. "But the lock can be opened easily from the inside even if it's locked from the outside..." He murmurs looking back at the woman. "I only can think of suicide unfortunately..." He says.

"I wonder..." Lumine murmurs, now by markings left by the police investigation around the body!s position. "His arms are weirdly stretched downwards... When someone swallows poison they grab their throat or clutch their chest..."

"The police pointed that out too..." The wife mutters looking at the old detective.

"Are you sure when your husband was found he wasn't tied?" Zhongli wants to confirm that once again.

"The disciples called an ambulance immediately. They would've reported it..." The woman shakes her head.

"Couldn't he have been tied with one of those strings that magicians use?" Xiao suggests.

"It still would leave marks that are hard to ignore" Zhongli murmurs looking at the wife again.

"I'm sure there were no marks like that" The wife confirms. Lumine meanwhile wanders to the husband's portrait. He has quite a few rings on with strings attached to them.

"Hey, was he wearing those ring the day he died?" Feli points at the photo.

"Yes, his favorite tricks were making things float using invisible strings, but that day no strings were on the rings" The woman answers her little question.

"I see... She he didn't need to be worried about that!" She shows her best child-like smile.

"Worried?" Zhongli looks at the girl.

"Well you see if strings are tangled behind him" She starts putting her hands together behind her back, thumbs touching. "If your hands are behind you like this, opening doors and even standing up is difficult!" She throws herself on the ground to demonstrate the difficulty of standing up.

"I see... Your husband had his hands tied together by the rings, so after it's cut it wouldn't leave a mark other than the rings that he often wore..." Zhongli gets the inspiration, making Lumine quite happy. "Ma'am, your husband have been murdered. By one of the disciples that discovered the body" That earns a gasp from the wife.

"Then what's the meaning of the card?" Xiao thinks out loud.

"That is a good question, I've been thinking about that..." Zhongli murmurs, raising a hand to his chin.

"Even if your hand is tied behind your back, you can still press buttons on the phone..." Xiao mutters.

"Come to think of it" Lumine perks up at the wive starting that. "The phone was also buried under the cards..." With that Lumine rushes to the desk to fish out said phone from the cards.

"The culprit hid it so the victim can't call for help?" Xiao puts out the idea unsurely.

"Cards are not hard to get out of the way" The old detective shakes his head dismissing the idea instantly.

"Mr. Zhongli, could I see the odd card again?" She speaks up staring at the phone's buttons.

"Huh?" The man steps closer, bit hesitantly handing mentioned card over.

"It looks like the redial button, look" She points it out.

"Your husband must've received a call from the culprit and left it as a dying message" Zhongli proudly puts out the idea while pressing the button.

The number ends up being way too long and not at all in use, just a long string of numbers.

"The police said that it was probably a prank left by our daughter" The wife chimes in.

Lumine writes out the numbers into her little notebook to think about it in full. The phone can't fit all the numbers on it.

Between the two of them, Aether definitely was better at solving secret codes. Lumine did have an interest in them too, but she never was as good as Aether was. After seeing a cipher she could easily memorize them and solve them, but figuring them out is a completely different story.

After a while, after glancing between her notebook and the phone, she has an idea. Unfortunately as she would start writing it down, her pen runs out of ink. It have been signaling the inevitable, but she hoped it has a few more strokes in it.

"Could I borrow a pen?" Lumine turns to the wife. "Or anything to write with."

"If a fountain pen will do, then there is one in the drawer." The woman steps closer to the desk and looking inside the drawer. Just to look puzzled at the thing. "That's odd, my husband usually keeps it here..." She mutters looking into the next drawer. "And even the color pens used for tricks aren't here..." She mutters after looking around there too.

"Are you going to keep staring at the numbers? The police was probably right about the prank by the daughter..." Zhongli murmurs looking over Lumine's head at the numbers himself.

"I wonder..." She mutters a bit grumpily. "Say... We agree that the culprit poisoned the victim before leaving, right?" She perks up looking at the detective.

"Yeah, they probably used a capsule that would begin to melt during the show..." Zhongli answers, a bit unimpressed.

"I guess they did..." Lumine murmurs pulling out her best child-like act. "If it were me, I would try leaving a clue about the culprit's identity..." She mutters as innocent as that can sound. She is an actress' daughter after all, even if not by blood. "Ah, but I wouldn't be able to because there are no pens here... Only thing I could use is this phone..." She changes to a disappointed tone.

"If the victim could've used the phone, he would've called for help..." Zhongli murmurs crossing his arms.

"Of course, it's not like the phone cord was unplugged..." Lumine laughs it off. She sees the spark of realization in Zhongli's eyes.

"They probably unplugged the phone cord to then lock your husband in this room, and plugged it in again in the panic that the body's discovery was" He murmurs inspecting the phone. "And because all three suspects are magicians they have easier time doing things that are hard to notice... Probably the culprit also hid the phone so it would be harder to discover the phone being unplugged..." He starts looking at the numbers on the phone. "He probably did leave these numbers behind, we just have to solve the code..." He turns a bit more grumbly, not like his voice wouldn't be like that by default.

"I, uh... You see-" she starts trying to find the correct words when a pen appears in front of her eyes.

"Here" looking to the source of the pen, Xiao is reaching it out. "You were looking for something to write with, right?"

"Uh.. y-yeah" she hesitantly mutters while taking the pen. "Thank you..." She feels like his yellow eyes can pierce right trough her, seeing all her secrets, but there is no way, right?

"You have an idea again, don't you?" Xiao asks not at all threatening. Either way, this is the first time since their childhood that she feels any kind of intimidated by the guy. She did a bit the first time they met, but nothing like that ever since she got to know him.

"I-I wouldn't really call it interesting... But if you cut the things up by the asterixes, the first number, 126871, if we link them in the order they appear we get a shape..." She murmurs while starting to write it down.

"A D..." Zhongli murmurs and starts solving the code by himself. "DC Mako..." He murmurs after solving the code.

"So the killer is Mako?" The woman murmurs horrified.

"Wow Mr. Zhongli, you managed to solve that difficult code!" Once again with her best child-like act, hoping to get Xiao off her tail a bit. "As expected of a great detective!"

"Yes... As expected..." She feels his eyes on her. She is failing. Last time he got any kind of close to guessing she could at least call Albedo and make a call as Lumine with her in the same room using the voice changer.

After a little bit more thinking, Xiao comes out with the idea of the DC means da capo, because the victim enjoyed classical music. It means going back to the beginning and repeat it again.

That clues the detectives in that she probably plans another murder, and she is right now alone with the little girl.

The magicians left in the house are immediately alerted and they begin searching for them desperately. Hoping to prevent another murder. Unfortunately they can't find them and they regroup in front of the magician's mansion.

As they stop to catch their breath the valid question of why she would want to kill her teacher comes up from Zhongli. Lumine's best guess is that she is related to the guy that died 14 years ago, and the Sanada Kazumi guy steps up saying that he already suspected her for the same reason because he once witnessed her hugging the photo.

The woman with the kid laying on her back makes her entrance just as he finishes talking about that. Everyone suspects the worse by that scene, but she is just sleeping. She planned to, but realized that she isn't guilty of anything to deserve that, unlike her father.

She reveals that 14 years ago the famous magician tampered with her brother's equipment, causing him to drown during rehearsal. She witnessed it as a kid, connected the dots and sworn to avenge him. That's why she became an apprentice under him.

The ace of the three also reveals that their teacher already knew she will kill him, and was ready for it. Also asked him to not say anything unless the case is solved.

She turns herself in at the end.

Her stomach starts making sounds while Zhongli, Xiao and her are on their way back to the detective agency.

"Oh, I just remembered I forgot to buy ingredients for dinner" Xiao murmurs, breaking both Lumine's and Zhongli's heart a bit. He did get hungry in the desperate search for the little girl. "But it's okay Feli and I will go and buy some groceries." Lumine has a really bad feeling about this, but goes along with it for now.

Her worries are becoming more and more valid as they go further and further from where a store supposed to be, right towards her neighborhood.

"Um... Xiao?" She murmurs while he just continues to drag her along. She barely can keep up with her short legs. "The convenience store is the other way we should hurry up ang go back..." She mutters carefully.

"We are going back to your home." He states making her flinch, but Xiao is not looking at her as they stop right in front of their house.

"What are you talking about? This is the Viatrox twins' home!" She tries to laugh it off.

"And that's how you've been fooling me..." Xiao grumbles in front of him. "Didn't you, Lumine?" He finally looks at her, letting go of her hand.

"What are you talking about? I can't possibly be Lumine!" She keeps laughing in hopes it would work. It doesn't seem to have an effect.

"You have the same detective skills as her, same ability to take action, lack of music knowledge, and scratching your head quite a while over secret codes." He has good reasonings, Lumine has to admit, but god, she is angry at herself for not being a better actor while her mom is famous for that. Or just smarter at solving the mysteries while giving clues to the others. "You took a weird drug developed by Albedo, didn't you?" He crosses his arms. It's scary how almost right he is "I admit that it still doesn't explain where Aether is..." He turns to muttering for a second.

"I can't be Lumine" Lumine just repeats herself desperately, not having more ideas.

"Please stop playing dumb. Lumine, where is Aether, why won't you just talk to me" His expression suddenly changes to more desperate. She would love to burry herself, but she needs to try not let him win in this. She must protect him from getting involved in her mess.

"Do you have proof?" She asks a bit more blankly than she intended it to come out, but that's what the depths of her head came up with. "Please don't say weird things without proof" She murmurs.

"Evidence, huh?" He murmurs crouching down to her level. "I think that's right here" he snatches her glasses away with that. She tries to reach after it, but he quickly stands back up and holds them hostage there. "How can you look exactly like her when she was younger unless you are her, younger?!"

"Y-you see-" She tries to think of something, anything, but nothing comes to mind and Xiao cuts her short too.

"Just give it up, please" He murmurs lowering the glasses a tiny bit.

"Oh my, Xiao, what brings you here this late?" A very familiar voice interrupts them. Lumine turning around, Xiao just looking ahead, they spot Alice standing by the corner with a suitcase.

"Alice?" He mutters stunned. Lumine tries to slip away, because if her mom slips up, she will have to tell everything to Xiao. "Perfect timing" He drags her right back. "She is your daughter, isn't she?"

"Oh my, if it isn't the littlest Feli!" Lumine thanks the force that protects her and gave her an actor for a mom. "It's been a while, you grown so much!"

"You know her?" Xiao is once again stunned.

"Yeah, she is the granddaughter of the uncle whose the the cousin of the daughter of my grandfather's older brother!" She says that with one single breath and Lumine lost it at granddaughter.

"But Albedo said she is his relative..." Xiao visibly loses confidence, which is great for her, even if Lumine does feel awful about it.

"Albedo and I are distant relatives" Alice nods with confidence.

"But doesn't she look just like Lumine when she was smaller?" Xiao mutters a bit stunned. Feli finally being free from his grasp.

"Really?" Alice tilts her head looking at Lumine. "I don't know, she seems less rowdy than Lumine was..." She gets a glare for that from her daughter.

"It's still incredibly weird how she has the same abilities as a detective as Lumine and Aether... More Lumine, but still" He crosses his arms looking between the two.

"Oh, the twins took care of her quite a bit and she picked up on so much from them" Alice laughs while Lumine positions herself behind her mom, hiding from Xiao.

"Miss Alice, Xiao is being so scary!" Lumine murmurs, looking up teary eyed. She hears Xiao sigh.

"I'm sorry Feli for scaring you" He murmurs. He finally looks defeated. "Here are your glasses, was I too rough when I took them off? I deeply apologize if I were." He reaches the thing towards her. Keeping up the scared child act, she hesitantly takes them back.

"I-it's fine" she mutters putting them back on.

"Please forget all the dumb things I told you." He murmurs. "To be fair it was an outrageous idea to have..." He sighs again. "Do you know where the twins are?" He asks worried turning to Alice.

"They are wrapped up in a case, but you know them, no need to worry about them" Alice reassures the boy.

"Alright, thank you" He shows his best smile towards Alice. "Let's go back Feli, I will show you my best cooking skills as an apology" He comes up with the idea on the spot.

"Oh, could I borrow her for a few days?" Alice interrupts. "Tomorrow starts a long break and we didn't have that much opportunity to meet up recently"

"I don't mind" Xiao mutters confused for a second. "Well goodbye then"

They wave after him with a smile until he is for sure out of earshot, when Lumine collapses on the ground.

"I don't think I can do this" She tries to hold back the crying. She is amazed she kept it together so well until now. She just hears shuffling above her and then strokes on her back as she is staring at the ground in front of her, leaning on her hands. "I hurt him with this shit so much..."

Alice just as always leaves enough time for her to calm down and let it out.

"I'm sorry, I know I should be able to keep it together..." Lumine mutters after finally calming down and standing up.

"On the contrary, you are only in high school, as much as you would like to think of yourself as an adult, you are still a child and I understand that this is a lot" She chuckles. "Do you need more time?"

"No, thank you..." She mutters. "How come you are back from Los Angeles?" Lumine tilts her head.

"I had enough of Dainsleif's stupidity and came home. And lucky I did because I saved your butt" Alice chuckles at that again.

"Yes, thanks mom...." She processes what Alice just said for a second. "Did you tell that to Dains or just left him there...?"

"I just came home without saying anything" she seems so happy with herself.

"He will be worried sick for you" Her daughter lectures her on that.

"Ah, I feel so young with you so tiny like this" She gives Lumine a big hug, completely ignoring her remark on that.

They head inside to eat and lay down for the night.

Chapter Text

"So Hu Tao would like you to catch this long number thief." Xiao closes his small presentation that he came home with.

"Long number thief?" Zhongli raises an eyebrow. Meanwhile Lumine starts looking on her phone that her mom gave her after the last time they met. They did end up being involved in a case, but once again having access to technology and search stuff on the spot, that will make things easier.

"Thirteen, forty-one, twenty-one, thirty-four, seven oh five...?" Lumine murmurs reading out the number that she found.

"Sure, I don't really remember... I'm not like the twins to remember something after hearing it once" He grumbles a bit. Lumine internally chuckles at that because the two of them remember so much just because they have two people to work with instead of one. Now she will have to make up for both by herself.

"Long number thief does make a lot more sense" Lumine chuckles.

"What's up with that long number?" Zhongli asks.

"Nobody seems to know the origin of it, but according to Hu Tao, he is a huge thief, working worldwide, steaks jewels and artworks. Seems like either the CIA, FBI or the Interpol gave him that secret number, but it somehow leaked and became popular." Xiao says while Lumine loses all focus she has, being tired as hell. "He seems to have another name in Japan, but I can't remember what"

"Probably a pun or something.." Zhongli shrugs.

"Don't remember it being like that, but I already forgot about it..." Xiao shakes his head. "Oh, I have a copy of the strange announcement that was sent to Hu Tao's parents" His murmuring stops Lumine in her tracks towards the agency's door, she was prepared to go to sleep.

"Strange announcement?" Zhongli takes the paper.

"You can't really tell what it means, it's like a riddle..." That really got Lumine's attention and she walks to check the paper too.

April Fool... When the Moon splits the duo, I will come riding on waves in the name of the black star.

"Barb...?" Zhongli looking at the signature. "It's torn off so I can't read it..."

"It seems like Hu Tao's father tore the pieces when it reaches him so they had to glue it together..." Xiao mutters.

And that is a personal challenge for herself. Without Aether, she is at a huge disadvantage in some knowledge that only Aether had. Breaking codes and riddles is one of many of them. She has been reading a bunch of stuff she knew Aether read in the past to hopefully fill some gaps, but she haven't found puzzles that would challenge her like the ones during investigation appear. While she still doesn't care about that long number guy, she will gladly take that riddle.

She makes no progress whatsoever on the the stupid riddle and she got absolutely no sleep thanks to that. She is sure if Aether would be around, he would've cracked the code ten times over and they would be having a great time discussing it.

Unfortunately Aether is not here anymore.

"Mr. Zhongli, thank you very much for coming" Hu Tao's dad greets them. "And thank you for listening to my daughter's desire, a great detective like you is basically a one-man army" The man laughs it off.

"I can assure you it's just a pesky thief, I can catch them without a problem" Zhongli seems confident while Lumine just tries to not fall asleep next to him. "So this is the world's largest black pearl, the black star?" He walks to the display case.

"Ever since my grandfather bought it, the family has been trekking a path of prosperity. It's our family's protector." The man explains proudly.

"Isn't the security a bit of an overkill?" Zhongli asks looking at a group of police officers changing positions. "Today is the day before the announced day..."

"Yes, the only thing we could decipher was the date, so it seems there will be guards staying here in the evening. We don't even know where he'll come from" a police officer in the room interrupts the conversation.

"The river! It's the river!" He is yelling towards his men to instruct them. "Our target, no. 13412134705 intends to intrude from the river!" His yelling seems full of confidence.

"From the river?" The owner of the black pearl walks up to the man.

"The 'ride the waves' must man that he is coming from the river." He confirms again full of confidence. That earns a little laughter from Zhongli. "Huh? Aren't you Zhongli from the first division?" He turns to the man.

"No, not anymore" Zhongli answers still holding back his laugh after the man's idea.

"What was that laugh about there?" The police officer crosses his arms.

"The riddle is clearly referring to the waves of people who will be gathered to watch miss Yun Jin's concert in the nearby Beika Public Hall. A black haired star" While Zhongli would love to argue with his reasonings because it feels absolutely stupid, but she doesn't have any ideas either, so the detective might as well be right in something for the first time since forever. "So that thief will be coming from the direction of the public hall at some point during her concert!"

"You do have a point..." The police officer murmurs.

"As expected of a great detective!" Hu Tao's dad is amazed by the development.

"Gather teams C trough E in the vicinity of the public hall!" The police officer gives out the command. She needs to figure out the riddle before the police makes an absolute fool of themselves...

"It's already 2 pm, how about we go have a meal nearby, sir?" In her concentration she hears the officers talk. A meal?

Getting a spark of inspiration she looks around for where the sun is, running to the windows.

"Is something wrong, Feli?" Xiao is behind her

"No, I'm just using my watch to check the bearings" she mutters while positioning her watch in front of her.

"Bearings?" He murmurs back, leaning down closer to her level.

"You point the hour hand of the watch at the sun, and because Japan is in the northern hemisphere, the direction between the hour hand and the 12 in the dial is due south." Lumine explains while Xiao watches. "I-it's something the twins showed me so I wanted to try it out!" She adds with the best childish smile. In reality she remembered something that she learned while camping when they were little.

With that she has a good idea on where that mysterious thief will be coming from. And she is now curious about the guy. Who would leave an advanced notice for their crime in form of a riddle?

"Hey, when are we going back, this is soo boring..." Lumine murmurs looking at Xiao. "Can I go home ahead?" She asks.

"Huh? Alright..." Xiao murmurs a bit surprised.

"That's odd from her" she hears Hu Tao murmur while watching her leave. "She usually likes to be in the middle of the action..."

"She is not interested in thieves it seems like..." Xiao shrugs at that.

On her way home she gets a firework to use later in the night. She goes when everyone is asleep.

"Good evening, sorry for bothering you this late, but I doubt you are sleeping yet" She calls Albedo on her way to the building she thinks the guy will appear on.

"You would be right. Is something wrong?" Comes Albedo's neutral voice trough the phone.

"Could you look trough Dainsleif's crime files for a thief with the 13412134705 number?" She huffs while running.

"Right now?"

"If it's not too much trouble" She hears shuffling and a keychain being moved on the other end of the line.

"Why do you need it now?" A door closing and a lock's sound.

"I'm about to meet them and the internet haven't been too useful for looking stuff up about him, and it would be more polite" A gate opening and closing as she gets close to her destination.

"Wait, you know where he is?"

"I have a hunch" Lumine chuckles.

"Did you tell the police?" He knows her a bit too well, she can already hear the disappointment in his voice.

"Maybe I forgot... I'm personally interested in them now?" The sigh of disappointment comes trough. "Do you remember the number?"

"Yeah-yeah, it sounds familiar, but Lumine, please be careful, if Alice murders me tomorrow it would be quite inconvenient..." He sighs as she hears a door open.

"Please call back if you find something!" She hangs up, getting a bit out of breath.

She finishes her run to the building and gets out on the roof. She has time to set up her little firework before the call from the professor comes in.

"Seems like your guy is a thief shrouded in mystery." He gets to the point. "His first appearance was in Paris 18 years ago, but then years later he suddenly vanished. There were speculations of him being dead and now, 8 years later, he reappeared, though seemingly only active in Japan."

"18 years... They must be pretty old by now... Is there anything on what kind of person they are?"

"There are a few phrases that are used to refer to him, the modern day Lupin, the magician under the moonlight, but the alias that is the most popular was made known by a young novelist you are familiar with..." Lumine will bet her left leg that it's Dainsleif. "Saying that he is a demon that plays with the hears of people named him BARBATOS after reading the numbers together"

Just as Albedo says that Lumine sense that someone is nearby. Looking around, a guy dressed in bard garb lands on the roof silently, as if not wanting to disturb the night's howling winds, with a fearless smile on his face. He lands on top of the staircase she came out from.

Lumine locks her phone and slides the phone to her short's pocket under her dress. She hears some sounds out of it, but she will apologize later.

As the stranger jumps down with the same same silence to the part of the roof that she also stands on. He seems young. Lumine can't really see him be older than 20, but that should be impossible. Her other question is that if he is called the magician under the moonlight, why is he rocking that bard set up with a monocle at that...

"Good evening!" He also sounds young. Lumine turns to her little firework and lights it up. "What brings such a young lady like yourself out here at this hour of the night?" He asks innocently. She would buy it if she wouldn't know better.

"Fireworks!" She says excited as the thing briefly colors the sky with the most innocent tone. She watches the skyline hoping that a helicopter would be sent this way. She is right about that. "Oh wow! A helicopter is coming this way! Cool!"

"Hmm... Seems like I got a troublesome little lady here..." Not a drop of worry in his voice which catches her a bit off guard. He is watching the skyline.

"Aren't you worried Mr. Bard?" She asks as innocent as she possibly can. Her stun gun wrist watch is ready for action behind her back and she can shoot him as soon as he tries to run. "If you don't run away the helicopter will come over.."

"Let me see..." He murmurs while starting to look for something in his pocket. That also catches her off guard. What is this guy about? He pulls out a small radio. Presses some buttons on it and Lumine is too stunned to move.

"Hello? It's me Chiyaki! Barbatos has been found on the rooftop of Haido City Hotel!" After a small cough he speaks into the device. With the same voice the police officer guy earlier spoke with. "All patrol cars in Beika and Haido area, all chopper units hurry to the scene and catch him!" If it's not baffling enough that he can change his voice without a voice changer, he calls all of those people to where they are right now. "Hey! It's me! Beidou! Calling all officers who are standing by within Haido City Hotel, Barbatos is on the rooftop!" It's not enough that he could perfectly copy a male voice flawlessly, he is instantly switching to a flawless female voice.

"Is the young lady satisfied?" He shows her a smile after a little pause. "Or should I call you young detective?" As he says that a helicopter's reflector floods the roof with light, making it hard to see for Lumine, but the thief doesn't even flinch. Stands like an unmovable mountain.

"Freeze, Barbatos!" A police officer kicks down the door, gun in her hand, pointing it at the thief without hesitation. She has the same voice that the guy used a second ago.

"Swift as the wind, Inspector Beidou" Barbatos comments impressed.

"Don't play dumb, you already know I deciphered your announcement and kept watch here..." A mocking chuckle from the woman. "I guessed that you would fly from here using your hang glider... Didn't expect you to make a detour to Touto tower and land here... But you are going to give up on that pearl and your escape."

"I only came here tonight to scout how you would react... I didn't plan to steal it..." The bard looking guy shrugs. Seeing all the officers' confusion he chuckles. "Didn't I write it in my letter?" As he says that, his glider opens behind his back. "April fool"

"Don't let him get away!" Beidou yells and the thief drops a stun grenade on the floor. Lumine makes an attempt to look at the thief past the blinding right in the cover of her arm, but it's futile at best. He disappears with a puff of smoke.

"Can you see him on the radar?" Beidou talks into a radio of her own.

"Apart from the four choppers, there is nothing in the air..." Comes back out.

"Shit, he got away again..." Grumbles the inspector.

A small piece of paper drifts on the wind into view. A new notice.

April 19th
I will come to the Q. Selizabeth departing from Yokohama to claim the real black star

Barbatos

And it has a flower stuck to it with some tape.

By that Lumine raises an eyebrow. Doesn't him specifying that he will steal the real black star imply that the current one was a fake...? She definitely doesn't know jewels well to be able to tell. Another thing Aether had the edge on her. She really needs to read more.

Other than her boring elementary school life Lumine spends her time reading Aether's books outside of school to play catch up until the 19th comes.

"Our Group turned 60 this year, this is wholly thanks to the contributions from all of you" On the ship Hu Tao's dad is making his speech. "Please forget about that sneaky thief and enjoy your time here"

"Before that" His wife interrupts him. "We are going to deploy a special plan tonight" she grabs a small box. "This small box that I gave all of you when you came on board. Please open it up." The crowd does as the woman says seeing the Black Star inside to everyone's amazement. Murmurs go across the crowd. "Yes, the symbol of our family and the prey Barbatos is after, the Black Star!" She announces holding the box in her hand high up. "Of course there is only one real one and I'm the only one who knows who has it. The rest are elaborately made imitations. Please attach it to your outfit and show it him"

While she half ignores what Xiao and Hu Tao are saying next to her, Lumine just smells bullshit in the plan. There is no way they would let random people have their hands on the precious family treasure. It's either with Hu Tao, her mom or dad. She puts it on anyways, but she finds it dumb.

"What?! You are with dad?!" Hits her ears from Hu Tao. Oh that bastard.

She runs towards where she last seen the president walk towards. A staff member also helps her out, but ultimately, she only finds the pieces of the discarded disguise.

Out of personal interest, she really wants to wash that smirk off of that thieve's face. He caught her off guard multiple times, she wants a bit of revenge.

"I found a disguise discarded in one of the rooms. Police is already investigating it" From her previous encounter with him, she highly doubts they would find anything incriminating. "He was disguised as the president."

"Oh dear..." Hu Tao's mom mutters under her nose.

"By the way, where did Xiao go?" Lumine looks around unable to spot him.

"He went to look for you because you weren't coming back" Zhongli answers her question. "I hope the long number thief didn't get him.."

"Long number thief..." A chuckle from behind the detective. Coming from the inspector Lumine first seen during Barbatos' previous notice. "I like it, but let's keep it Barbatos to avoid confusion." She laughs and walks off.

"Who was that?" Zhongli turns to Hu Tao's mother.

"Inspector Beidou from the MPD. And officer dedicated chasing Barbatos. A reliable knight like you who will protect the family treasure" She answers full of confidence.

"That's great ma'am, but there are over 500 guests here, and it's quite hard to protect something you don't even know where it is." Zhongli murmurs.

"They might be elaborately made, but they are still imitations. If you look closely, you should be able to narrow it down a bit" The woman laughs at the detective's request. "Among them there are pearls like mine with a dull brightness, and they don't look clear." The young detective is calling bullshit once again, why would she make an example out of her own pearl first if she wouldn't want to throw a certain thief off of her case. She also really doesn't seem like a trusting woman.

"It's going to be hard checking all 500 guests..." Zhongli grumbles again.

"I shall give you a small hint then, the pearl that captivated grandfather 60 years ago is with the most fitting person" The woman gives out her best hint. Now 100% convincing Lumine that it's her.

"It it's fitting it must be with a lady..." Zhongli thinks out loud.

Lumine observes as one of the guests are requested to put on the pearl properly and they touch it only with their handkerchief.

Finally Xiao also appears, and someone else takes the stage at the party.

"I am Chiyaki from the MPD, I imagine some of you have already heard, but it seems like a demon has managed to sneak onto the ship" The officer that was convinced Barbatos would come from the river announces. "As you know, he is the master of disguise. He investigates the person he is going to disguise as beforehand, and apart from the face he can also imitate voice and personality. He is an evil genius beyond any normal human measures. He might already be mixed in among us" Lumine wonders how this Barbatos guy feels about these comments. Because while yeah, he is a criminal and now she would be more than delighted to catch him and put him behind bars, all of this just sounds so harsh, and he didn't really seem that bad at the end of the day. He left a flower with his announcement. "Normally, we would check you one by one, but we will avoid being so blunt by using a password. Please pair up with someone and decide a password between the both of you. Please exchange passwords with the person next to you"

"Feli, do you want to share a password?" Xiao leans down to her level.

"Alright, I'll say Poirot" She whispers.

"Then I will answer with Lupin" Xiao whispers back. Lumine wonders where that idea came from.

Suddenly the ship is covered in darkness. The rumbling voices instantly become loud and some panicked. Lumine can hear the inspector talk into a radio not far from them.

Lights point towards the ceiling, and with a puff of smoke and a flutter of doves a figure appears, with the same garb as Barbatos is famous for. He appears by the corner of the wall just under the ceiling.

"Hehehe, passwords are useless" The voice is really different from last time that he used for talking to her, but his ability to change his voice perfectly doesn't rule out that it's the real one, but she does feel that there is something odd about him. "I already got the Black Star"

"Impossible" Beidou is right next to the tiny detective now.

"Oh, talk about a troublesome thief..." She hears Hu Tao's mom mutter and a click.

Gunshots are fired from the woman's gun and tainted red, the figure falls down to the crowd. Screams cut trough the darkness, the crowd scattering from the spot horrified.

"What are you-?!" Beidou yells, being nearby she saw it fairly alright in the dark. She didn't expect that she will need to call Ningguang today.

"No need to worry, inspector" The woman chuckles. "He is perfectly fine, our guards caught his fall with a table cloth and this is just a model gun" She walks forward while putting away the model gun. "Ladies and gentlemen, Sanada Kazumi" She introduces while he changes into a more magician-like clothing. "Please give him a round of applause for the enactment of Barbatos' pitiful end!"

"God, that's harsh" Lumine mutters under her nose, unable to keep her slight disgust in.

"I see, because he is a magician only a real magician could rival him in that" A guest mutters towards the front.

"Right, we both are artists who fool people, but I won't lose to the likes of him, I'm just an artist trying to entertain people, not a filthy thief. Now come to the stage, I shall show you my magic." The crowd calms down and settle down to enjoy the show.

People settle down, but the small detective has a feeling creeping up her back. Feeling that Barbatos is already among their group.

"Let's start with a simple card trick" The hired magician starts playing around with the cards.

"Hold up, I've been wary of you guys... Can I shuffle the deck?" A darker skinned man steps up.

"Yes, go ahead" He gives it to him. "Anyone else?" A few more people join in. All of them look suspicious to the small detective. Someone drops the cards and Hu Tao with Xiao rushes to help out.

"I apologize" the guy who originally dropped the cards mutters in the front of the crowd.

"Oh it's nothing, dropping them won't make me lose my luck" That sparks an idea in Lumine.

"Mr. Zhongli, you had a list of the guests, right?" She pulls on his sleeve to get his attention.

"Yes I did, why?" He leans a bit closer to the kid.

"Could I borrow it for a second?" He gives it to her without much hesitation, but with some questioning looks.

"Then it's the ace of hearts!" When her attention is back to her surroundings, Hu Tao and Xiao are offered the pack of cards and the prediction.

"Come on Xiao, you are the one needing a bit more fun in life" The girl pokes him on the side and he pulls one out. Both stop quite shocked.

"B-barbatos?" They mutter at the same time. The magician is caught off guard in front of them. The crowd starts to be loud once again.

"Please confirm each other using your passwords!" One of the police officers calls out to try calm the crowd. The rubble continues thanks to it.

"Hey Beidou, he hasn't stolen it yet... Has he?" Someone talks to the inspector nearby.

"He hasn't stolen it nor escaped" Lumine mutters in front her with a confident smile.

"Huh?" From the corner of her eyes Lumine can see the inspector turn towards her.

"We can catch him... He is not a wizard, he has tricks and setups, but he is just a human.

Finally Lumine can also get a look at the card that Xiao pulled.

Like how Caesar was fascinated by Cleopatra's beauty, I am already next to you

Barbatos

"It was glued to the card that Xiao pulled out" Hu Tao tells with an excited chuckle. She likes the slight chaos.

"When and how did he stick this in there..." The hired magician mutters under his nose, staring blankly at his cards.

"All we know from this is that he already blended into us" The earlier man who asked to shuffle the deck looks around as police officers try to calm the people.

"Did he already get the black pearl?" Zhongli asks the fairly valid question.

"Even if that is the case, this is a prison over the ocean. The ship is full of policemen, can he manage to steal the Black Star and run away from here?" The woman is really confident in herself.

"Inspector, we'll enter Tokyo port in less than 10 minutes" And officer reports to Beidou.

"Good. Take positions by the doors, don't let anyone go outside" she gives out the instruction.

The people are panicking and that is the best time for Barbatos to act. Lumine's gaze wanders around to room looking for anything suspicious.

"Xiao, where did your black pearl go?" Hu Tao points out the missing gem.

"Huh?" He looks down on his chest where it supposed to be, but it is in fact missing. Looking around he spots it on the ground. "Excuse me!" He calls out to a guy leaning down to pick it up.

As he reaches for it, smoke comes out of the small orb. Making a lot of people think that they are explosives, so they discard their pearls as soon as possible, creating more and more smoke bombs, creating larger and larger panic between them as they try to run for the door as a mass.

Hu Tao's mother gets tripped over in the chaos and Xiao goes to make sure she is alright.

"Are you alright ma'am?" He asks from behind, making sure to support the woman.

"Yes, thank you Xiao" The woman smiles at him.

"Huh? Mom, your pearl disappeared too" Hu Tao notes.

As her mother screams numerous people push trough the doors despite the police's resistence. They want to escape, but Lumine knows better.

"BARBATOS STOLE THE BLACK STAR FROM ME!!" The woman screams.

"Barbatos must've went with the people getting out. One of them has to be him" Beidou runs out towards the door.

"Xiao, let's go catch him too! I know who Barbatos is disguised as!" She starts dragging the boy along ans they leave.

"Huh?" Is all he says but going along with her.

As they go around the ship, Lumine fetches the football she brought on the ship. She leads Xiao way away from anyone.

"Feli, this is the engine room... Are you sure Kaito kid is here?" He asks looking around, now Lumine isn't dragging him along anymore, coming by himself.

"Even without Hu Tao's mom's hint it was really easy to figure out who has the real pearl. Who would leave a delicate gem to some strangers?" Lumine murmurs while starting to play with her football.

"Huh? I guess that makes sense" The boy murmurs slightly confused. "But you said you know who Barbatos is, and I don't see how that tells you that..."

"It doesn't in this instance... " She shrugs while she starts bouncing the ball on her head. "But if we put it together with the other clues that we have, for example the cards... You had a message glued to the card that you drew, right?"

"Yeah?"

"That is an easy trick. Use the dove on the hand to distract the audience and change to the cards that you want to use, a very basic trick. That's why he will only have the card he wants despite who shuffles them." She runs it down while passing the ball back down to do football tricks with her feet.

"So Barbatos must be that magician guy... It was glued to his cards after all..." Xiao mutters starting to think about it.

"Nope, there is one other person that could've been. I kept an eye on him and he didn't do anything and he didn't get close to Hu Tao's mother" the ball drops on the floor and she stops it from rolling away with her feet.

"Then who is it?" Lumine really has to admit, he is really good at looking like Xiao.

"The person helped gather the scattered cards and took one out of the pile to attach the message to it, and hid it by simply keeping it under their palm, it does look like they drew the card from the deck..." She faces the thief dressed as Xiao completely. "Isn't that right, Barbatos?"

"Feli, what are you talking about?" He looks completely lost, perfectly accurate to Xiao.

"You swapped places with Xiao when he went to search for me" She sighs. "I gotta admit, it is impressive, even I didn't notice the change. "Give how you prepared those smoke bombs in advance, you knew what she is planning, and in the chaos while pretending to help her you took the pearl."

"Come on Feli, enough fooling around, I had no idea which one was the real one and didn't hear the hint wither..." He crosses his arms.

"Come on Mr. Bard, enough playing dumb" She shoots back.

"If you are so suspicious of me, let's use the phone and call the police." He says as he reaches for the phone.

Lumine's shoes are charged with that instant and she shoots her football to break the device. The expression on the guy is priceless for a second. Definitely an expression Xiao would never show by something like that.

"Like I would let you use the same trick twice" Lumine lets out a chuckle as the ball lands back by her feet. "You didn't summon the police out of spite, but to blend in with them"

"I guess I need to admit defeat when I can" His voice turns back to what Lumine thinks is normal. He used the same voice talking to her before realizing that she is a detective after his ass. Her best guess on that is that he might've seen the newspaper when they covered the detective girls' action against the italian mafia guys, because she was there too. "I'll return the pearl" He pulls it out wrapped in a cloth and throws it to Lumine to catch. "Please tell them I feel bad for ruining their party" He laughs awkwardly. "not usually my style to crash them"

"Oh? Bold of you to think I would just let you go off with that" She smirks. Reaching down to recharge her shoes on the power.

"That reminds me... The boy who I took the clothes from and pit him into sleep in a life boat... If you don't hurry to where he is he might catch a cold..." That dang thief manages to catch her off guard again. "I'm a bit of a perfectionist you see" He winks while pulling the boxer's top past the pant's line.

She can feel herself go tomato red even just by the thought.

The thief deploys another stun grenade, but she does take her shot despite that. Unfortunately it seems to be a complete miss, but the clothes are in a pile in front of her. The door that were closed behind him now wide open. She would like to chase after him, but Xiao could get into serious trouble for indecent exposure, so she picks up the clothes and heads for the life boats.

Just as someone would discover the unconscious young man, she arrives to the scene, just to discover that Xiao isn't actually butt naked, the bastard just tricked her. What did she expect honestly? She could've just chased after him!

She is still glad she didn't risk the possibility. It could've turned out way worse.

Afterwards they found the hang glider that they thought was there for an escape route, but Barbatos just suddenly disappeared into the night.

"Wow Feli, you've become a hero" Hu Tao laughs while reading the newspaper a few days later.

"It was just a coincidence" The kid laughs it off.

"But you are lucky you managed to meet him!" If Lumine wouldn't know better, she would think that the girl has a crush on the thief. But she does, and knows that Hu Tao just lives for the caused chaos. "And have you seen his face?" She looks at Xiao with the question.

"No, I got knocked out, sorry" He shakes his head.

"I did took a glance at him... He seemed surprisingly young... Couldn't be more than 20..." Lumine mutters.

"Isn't that impossible tho?" The girl raises an eyebrow.

"I thought so too, but that's what it looked like" The kid shrugs

Chapter Text

"Klee heard that we will have a new transfer student" The little girl in red excitedly sits down between the other detective girls. Lumine a bit off to the side, reading but half paying attention to her little friends' conversation.

"Really?" Qiqi on her monotone voice tilts her head.

"Yes, I heard miss Ganyu talk about it in the staff room!" Klee nods.

"We haven't got any since Feli came here" Diona mutters in front of her.

"Qiqi hopes it's finally going to be a boy... We mostly have girls." The weird little girl stares into nothingness.

"It would be nice, but personality comes first." Diona nods seriously.

"Feli, what do you think the new student will be like?" Klee suddenly turns to her. She looks up from the book thinking.

"I don't know... A quiet kid would be nice, you guys are all loud..." She chuckles.

"We aren't that loud" of course Diona is the most offended at that.

"Sorry, but sometimes you guys make it hard to read..." She laughs at it.

"What are you reading?" Klee climbs to her other side to look into the book. It's just a wall of text, so she doesn't seem too happy about what she sees.

"Just a history book that I found" Lumine shrugs. She remembers Aether reading it, so it's on her to read list.

"Can you even understand it?" Qiqi who was blocking her side from Klee also is looking over.

"Hmm... More or less" Lumine puts her bookmark in as the bell rings.

The kids scatter to their desks waiting for the teacher to come.

The teacher comes and by her side a little boy with a bowl cut. From first glance Lumine guesses that he is far from talkative, so that would be a positive.

"He is Scaramouche, he will be studying with us from now on" She looks around thinking. "Let's see where can you sit..." She murmurs out loud.

The boy, without a word beelines to the free spot next to Lumine and slams his backpack down on it first. He takes out his notebooks and sits down next to her. She is stunned by his maneuver.

"Nice to meet you" He grumbles towards her, only sparing a glance.

"Nice to meet you too" She mutters turning back to her own desk. What's up with that guy.

The school day goes by as usual and the kids practically fly from school when it's over.

"Scaramouche!" Klee calls out to the new kid with the rest of the detective girls following her behind. The boy just glances back confused. "Let's go home together!" Lumine is not surprised Klee would be the first one to reach out to the new kid. She did the same to her. But the new kid just walks away.

"Maybe we should leave him alone" Qiqi mutters while the rest of the group catches up.

"But... No one else talked to him yet really" Klee murmurs back.

"Where do you live?" Diona catches up to Scaramouche.

"We'll walk you home!" Klee with a lit up face on Diona's gesture goes too.

"Beika city 2nd district number 22 where I currently live" reluctantly the boy answers. That's Lumine's neighborhood, but she doesn't recall there being a kid at her current age in the neighborhood. Maybe she just missed it.

She catches a glance from the new boy right at her, but she can't really place the intention behind it. Like he is challenging her or something, but why would he do that towards specifically towards her?

The kids excitedly tell him all about what is going on in school and about their own little detective group.

"Detective girls?" He asks back while they are at the shoe lockers.

"Yep! We work hard aaall day to solve hard cases that people ask us to check out!" Diona, all proud while that is not the case.

"Oh! You could join us!" Klee puts out the idea.

"Then we would need to change the name..." Diona murmurs a bit unimpressed.

"It still would be majorly girls, so it should work out" Lumine chimes in with a chuckle. "We probably can come up with something more gender neutral tho" She won't be the one to turn a small child away. Let them have fun while they can.

"Are you part of this group too?" The boy turns right towards her.

"Yep!" She nods with a smile. She does try to keep the kids out of most troubles, but it's often quite fun to hang out with them.

"Felicity is more like Qiqi's apprentice tho" Qiqi pats her on the head slowly.

"Come on, I solved most of the cases!" She laughs it off.

"We receive requests in Qiqi's shoe box!" Klee excitedly points at mentioned girl's locker.

"We don't tell the teachers so please keep it a secret" Qiqi mutters while reaching for the locker. Lumine holds back a chuckle because the teachers clearly know about it. "We get so many letters asking for-" Qiqi cuts herself off when opening the box, it's completely empty.

"We usually get a lot more!" Diona proudly announces. They really don't, but Lumine can't help but be entertained by the kids trying to make a new friend.

"Let's hurry up and see Scaramouche home" Lumine suggests while everyone gets their shoes. "We can play soccer after that" She pauses for a second. "Wait, would you like to join us?" She turns towards the boy who wit an unreadable expression takes out his own shoes.

"Wait a second" Qiqi murmurs pulling out a piece of paper from her shoes. "We got a job request!" If not before now the new guy can be sure that this doesn't often happen by how excited everyone gets. Qiqi folds it open. "It says they are waiting for us in the 1-A classroom after classes end" She tells the rest of the group.

"Good thing we didn't get too far in changing shoes" Lumine comments while everyone just throws theirs back in the lockers, except the new boy.

"Come on Scaramouche!" Klee invites him. He a bit hesitantly follows suit and follows the group to the mentioned classroom.

"Detective girls!" A little boy's face lights up seeing the little group. "I need help, my big brother vanished!"

"Qiqi has a really important first question" The monotone girl speaks up first. "Is 'big brother' your way of calling your cat?" Lumine holds back a giggle, because on their first requests was to find someone's cat and it led them right to a murder scene and they had a pretty hard time finding the body.

"No, he is my big brother, 10 years older than me" The distressed boy shakes his head. "He went missing a week ago in the evening. He said he is going to over to a friend, but never came back. The police couldn't find him so far, I hoped you girls would be able to do something about it" he presents his story.

"Have you received any coercion phone calls?" Diona's first question.

"No, nothing like that" He shakes his head.

"Couldn't he just run away from home?" Qiqi suggests.

"He would never do that!"

"Not many use staying just here, could we come over to your place to investigate?" Lumine asks. "We can continue discussion there.

Getting to the kid's house, now she can be certain that he didn't make the story up to get some attention, they see his mother talk to a police officer in front of the house. Maybe the exact same line of thinking made him seek help from fellow first graders instead of adults... They start searching the guy's room as soon as they get there.

It really doesn't seem like he just ran away from home. He left his wallet in one of his drawers and one would probably run away with at least that.

"There are some odd drawings under the bed" Klee pulls out some canvases. "Who painted this one? It's silly" she giggles at one of the paintings.

"Picasso" without missing a beat Scaramouche talks from a bit behind her.

"Yep, that is the crying woman from him" Lumine steps closer to examine the painting too. "Well, a replica of it."

"My brother drew all these" the boy explains while they take a look at the other paintings. They are from various painters. "He is part of the high school's art club and he is great at making imitations"

"Maybe they kidnapped him to have him draw copies?" Qiqi suggests.

"I doubt that would be the case. While it is impressive how he could copy these, anyone with an eye for these artworks would be able to tell that it's an amateur's handywork." Lumine dismisses the idea.

"Uuu that's a really nice portrait!" Klee points out one. "He looks familiar..." She mutters.

"That's Natsume Souseki" Lumine says positioning herself next to Klee.

"My brother is a big fan of him!" The boy chimes in. "He was so happy with the painting being exhibited in the city's gallery." He hesitates for a second. "Unfortunately because it is an imitation people weren't too impressed with it" He lets out an awkward little laugh. "Well, except for a strange lady"

"Strange lady?" Lumine asks back.

"Yeah, she wore a black hat with wide edges, dressed in a huge dark coat" Lumine's heart skips a beat. Could she be so lucky that another clue about the people who killed Aether just walks right up to her? She dares to hope.

"When did you meet her?!" She maybe asks that a bit too excited. "Were there other people dressed in huge dark coats?" She calms down a bit.

"Uh, yeah two of them, I think" The little boy answers it while looking towards the ceiling. She really doesn't want to involve the kids too deep in this, but she doesn't yet know how to get rid of them, and she does still need the boy whose brother got kidnapped.

"Do you know places in the area he might've gone to?" She tries not to show how agitated she is by that, but the kids, with the exception of the new boy, are clearly uneasy because of her behavior. "His wallet and train pass were in the drawers too, so he might've been asked to come to a nearby place and have been taken elsewhere."

The little detective group goes and check every cafe nearby, the game center, the department store, the back alleys, but no one saw him or the woman in black that day... Why would they, the police probably already done all this and they couldn't turn up with anything so far...

They stop in front of a convenience store to catch their breath as a man walks in the store. They have been running around, everyone is a little out of breath. Lumine is so agitated, Klee barely dares to speak up.

"H-hey" the girl in red starts carefully. "Can we stop by here? I'm thirsty from all this running around" She mutters.

'Calm down you idiot, you are making the kids uneasy.' Lumine in her head talks to herself. 'That's the last thing you want.' every one of them is looking at her for final confirmation. She nods.

They head inside as the earlier man who went in finally gets to the cash register. There is quite the line. He asks for a pack of cigarettes, and gets quite a bit of change back, and by the fact that he ignored the machine right outside the store, it seems suspicious.

She cuts the line as the guy leaves.

"Excuse me, could you check if the money the last guy used has a watermark?" She jumps up to hold herself up by the counter. The people behind her glare at her, understandably so, but if it's as she suspects, she can't wait the line out.

"Huh, why wouldn't it...?" The cashier hesitantly still goes along with the kids request. "It doesn't have one..." She mutters shocked. It is how she suspected.

"You should call the police!" She says as she runs out. Fortunately she still sees the guy on the street. She starts tailing him.

The kids of course are completely flabbergasted by what she is doing. Klee and Diona stay behind to pay for Klee's drink, but the rest of the kids go after her.

"Hey Feli! What's wrong?!" Klee asks after they are caught up. "What was that about in the store?" She asks as the man goes trough a narrow alley.

"Shhh!" She grumbles towards the kids. "I will explain it tomorrow in school."

Now that she has a possibly good lead, she really needs to get rid of the kids. She needs to at least keep them safe, but she needs to think quick.

She ends up sticking a transmitter on one of her own 1000 yen bills, because that's what the cashier pulled out of the register to check. It's a money she is willing to sacrifice if it leads to the dark coated guys. She acts like the dude dropped the money and returns it to him.

She then tells the kids that they should go home because it's getting late and she will catch up but she has a small errand to run for Xiao that she only now remembered. They reluctantly start going, and she has free range to investigate.

Using her tracking glasses she follows the bill to a newspaper stand by the metro station. Of course he would use it right away. She grumbles a bit to herself as she walks up to the stand and ask what the woman behind the counter seen.

After getting some help from the janitor too, doing some math and a bit of a guess work, she gets to a conclusion and takes the train.

She asks around the station if anyone seen the man with black hat, but unfortunately no one does. There are too many people coming trough unfortunately. She does find a real estate agency so she goes there to ask around.

"Excuse me, could I ask if you rented a warehouse in the outskirts or out of way places?" She asks from one of the workers there.

"Warehouses? I don't think we rented any of those recently..." The man answers, already looking done with the small child's shit.

"It could be from years ago too" she still pushes the limits in hopes of getting somewhere.

"You know, you are in the way of our work here..." The man grumbles. That was the limit. Shit. "Take your friends to play elsewhere..."

"Friends?" Lumine mutters back. The man points at the window behind her, and Klee, Qiqi and Diona disapprovingly are staring right at her, with the two boys standing a step behind, looking a lot less judgy.

"Feli keeps trying to get ahead of us in the investigations" Qiqi and Diona are first ones to come inside the building.

"We won't fall for it every time!" Diona seems the angriest with her.

"Look at the bright side, if I get into trouble" Trouble is an understatement in this case, but she will run with it. "I won't drag you down with me" She tries to laugh it off. Her stress levels with the kids being in a possibly dangerous situation does rise steadily. "And how did you know where I went?" She asks awkwardly.

"Scaramouche told us to follow you" Klee in the other two's heel. "He said that you would try to shake us off, so we followed you. And he told us that the guy was paying with a fake bill"

"I see" Lumine mutters looking at the boy. He seems more and more weird as time goes on.

"Excuse me, does a novelist live in the area?" The other boy walks up to the worker.

"Novelist?" Diona asks.

"My brother did call home after he vanished... Our grandma answered the phone, but she is hard of hearing and couldn't understand his rushed words. The only things she got was 'I'm with people who are like Souseki'" He explains.

"Did you tell that to the police too?" Diona murmurs worried.

"Of course, but they said it might be a prank call, but we doubt it was, according to our grandma his voice was shaky and the phone cut off in the middle of the conversation." He murmurs unsure.

"If that helps there is a man who looks like Souseki that lives in the area" the man who was eager to kick her out chimes in. Anything to get the kids out Lumine guesses. "He is the owner of the bookstore in the corner and his nickname is 1000 yen bill"

They are thrown out of the bookshop just as quick as they get there. He does not take kindly of being accused of printing money. The man that told them about the lookalike guy did come with them at the end, maybe out of concern for the kids.

"That old man is definitely suspicious" Diona murmurs to Qiqi.

"No, I checked the book warehouse and there were no presses to print fake bills" Lumine shuts the two down just as quick.

"Speaking of presses, the newspaper company in front if the station bought new ones recently" The man accompanying them mutters.

"Newspaper company?" Lumine looks at him.

"It's managed by this woman who wears a black wide brimmed hat at all times" The man murmurs. "But, they print newspaper not fake money, who would do that next to a police box" The man shrugs and starts walking away. "Take care kids!"

"Could that newspaper company be..?" Klee murmurs looking between the group.

"But it doesn't have anything to do with Souseki" Diona dismisses the idea.

"No, I think we got the location finally" Lumine speaks up.

"What do you mean?" Qiqi tilts her head looking at the detective.

"Normally you would have illegal activities out of the way to avoid detection, but with them being right next to a police box, no one would ever suspect it, because who would be so crazy to do that?" Lumine starts going towards the police box to report it.

Unfortunately, the officers there won't listen to them. This is a group of kids accusing the neighboring building of having an outlandish illegal activity there, Lumine can't say she is surprised, but it still sucks. While standing around and listening to the kids repeat themselves, she pulls out to check her little detective notebook for a phone number.

"Guys, stay here, I'll be right back!" She starts running towards a nearby alley.

She pulls out her phone and unclips the voice changing bow from her waist, calling the inspector on the number that she gave her while she was still Lumine.

"Good evening inspector, I apologize for bothering this late, but my investigation led me to believe that inside the newspaper company by Daitoma station they are printing fake bills" She says that all in one go.

"Is that so?" Ningguang's voice comes trough.

"I haven't been able to confirm it yet, but the possibility seems quite high. They also might have a recently disappeared young man held hostage there too" She hears shuffling on the other end of the line.

"Thank you for your work, we will send people there"

"Thank you, goodbye" Lumine ends the call thinking about the woman that got shot quite long ago at that point. She did say she was part of a mysterious organization.

Heading back to the police box where she left the kids, she notices that they are nowhere on the street.

Please don't tell her that they went inside themselves...

Unfortunately for her stress level, the officers inform her that they, in fact, went in there. Saying that if adults won't do anything about it, they will. Like a bunch of morons! Well, not like Lumine can completely blame them, she was annoyed too, but damn it she doesn't want to think about the kids getting injured.

Of course she won't just sit and wait for the police to arrive, she has to try get them out before anything happens. If she is not too late.

"If you want to go back, just go back alone" Qiqi's voice comes from one of the rooms. They sound fine so far, but as she reaches for the door handle with a relieved sigh, something clicks behind her.

"Let's end your detective game" A man laughs mockingly behind her as she feels metal at the back of her head.

Somehow she manages to knock the guy out with her stun gun wrist watch. He didn't pull the trigger as soon as she jumped away to position herself.

"Felii! Heeelp!" By the time she is recovered from the shock, she hears Klee scream for help.

"If you mean the girl with the glasses, she won't be able to help you, he is already dead" The woman mockingly chuckles at the little girl. Lumine grabs the man's gun and charges her shoes up. "I can send you to meet her, don't worry" as she says that, Lumine send the gun flying, knocking it out of her hand with the other one. The two guns land on the floor while the woman stares at her shocked.

"Feli!" The kids beam at her presence in the door.

"Inuyama should've..." She trails off looking shocked.

"So that was his name..." Lumine mutters innocently while walking in a bit. She spots two buckets. "I had to put him to sleep with a tranquilizer" She places them in front of herself and charges her shoe up once again.

"A tranquilizer?" The woman parrots back, still flabbergasted, two of her man also too shocked by this small child to do anything.

"Yeah! It's similarly useful like my shoes!" She kicks the two buckets and they fly knocking out her two accomplices.

The woman would jump to get her own gun back, but Scaramouche picks it up. Lumine, kinda horrified sees that he holds a gun with quite a bit of confidence as he shoots the window behind the woman, missing her head by mere centimeters.

That at least gets the attention of the police box next door, and one of the officers come running to check on the situation.

"You will have to confess everything about the huge organization behind you" Lumine victoriously turns to the woman.

"Organization?" The woman asks back. "What are you talking about this is all I had..." That makes her lose all of her confidence. Her hopes are crushed. Her body won't be back any time soon.

"The people in dark coats..." Now she is the flabbergasted one.

"She gotten plastic surgery but she is the leader of the 'silver foxes'" Ningguang turns to Lumine. "I would never forget her face" the inspector seems really happy with herself as she glances at the other woman. "But this time you violated firearm control laws..."

"I wasn't the one who shot. That little boy was it" She nods towards the new kid.

Nigguang would scold him, but he starts crying and she leaves it at that. After all, it was a scary situation for all of them involved.

The missing brother saved, they head back to their house to get their backpacks. Scaramouche crying the whole way, the detective at that point just impressed that so many tears fit into that small body of his. She is also the one ending up escorting the crying boy home.

He cries the whole way and she is kinda losing her patience.

"It's completely fine now, how can you cry so much..." She murmurs towards the boy. He gives no answer. Knowing that they are close to the area, she just decides to leave the boy there, he can probably can get home, it's pretty safe. "Well, see you tomorrow in school, you should be able to get home from here safely"

"Apotoxin 4869" he says after she turns to leave.

"Huh?" She glances back. He doesn't have any sign of crying on him. Was he pretending the whole time? It would explain how he lasted so long...

"Do you know what that is?" After her hesitance to even attempt to answer he continues. "It's the name of the drug that you were forced to swallow"

"What are you talking about?" She starts laughing. What else can she do? There is no way this kid... "That's a weird thing to make up!"

"Make it up?" A mocking chuckle. "I did develop the drug by the organization's orders so I guess you are not wrong..."

"N-no... You are just a kid..." She mutters out loud.

"If I developed it, wouldn't I be able to take the drug myself?" A smirk on his face as he sees her terrified. "Due to an accidental action in the cell's self-destruct program, it reverted me to a child-like state similarly to you"

"Scaramouche-" She gets started.

"Balladeer is my code name" She is too stunned to say something by that. "Are you surprised, miss Viatrox Lumine?"

"So you are an accomplice of those people..." Like an idiot she mutters. Like that wouldn't be obvious.

"You got no time to be surprised, little detective" another mocking chuckle.

"What do you-" Before she could finish her sentence warily looking around he answers.

"Didn't I tell you where I live?" If she wouldn't be scared as hell, she would love the beat those mocking chuckles out of the guy. "Beika second district number 22... Next door to your house."

She instinctively pulls her phone out, trying to call Albedo.

The call is not going trough.

"There is no use calling him" He laughs at her. "He is not in this world to pick up."

She just runs to the house to see with her own eyes. There is no way, that can't be. It has to be a lie. Why wouldn't she just finish her off after that.

"Professor!" She just barges in the unlocked door.

"Lumine! Are you alright?" His head pokes out from behind his computer on the ground floor.

"You are alright..." She states flabbergasted. What was all of that about?

"Why wouldn't I be? Have something happened?" He asks now standing up.

"Why didn't you pick up your phone?"

"I forgot to charge it I think..." He mutters pulling it out his pocket. "Yes, I definitely did, apologies..."

"I'm home" Scaramouche calmly walks in and puts his school bag down.

"Welcome back, how was school?" Albedo turns towards him.

"It was alright" he shrugs while starting to read something.

"What-" She is just confused.

"You look pale, have you eaten well today?" Albedo, full of concern, bless his soul, even if he doesn't show it that well.

"Who is he?!" She starts whispering towards the professor.

"Didn't he tell you?" Albedo doesn't bother whispering. "He is with that organization you are after. He took the same drug you did and shrunk as well"

"But that same drug also killed Aether..." She mutters thinking and glancing at the stranger.

"Odd, he said he would tell you himself and asked me to keep quiet." Albedo mutters.

"I guess he did..." she grumbles a bit "But more importantly, what is an organization member doing in your house?!" She tries to be quiet, but she is a bit worked up thanks to the guy, and doesn't manage.

"He found me collapsed in front of your house on a rainy day" Scaramouche doesn't look up from the book he grabbed. Lumine just stares at him, considering what to say. "Did you know? The organization sent investigators to check your house twice" her heart skips a beat. "Among those who were fed that drug, you and your brother were the only ones whose death haven't been confirmed." He closes the book he picked up and keeping a finger in there to keep track of the page he was on. "Being the drug's inventor, I was of course part of the team, but the house was full of dust and no traces of anyone living there so the first visit was concluded"

"What about the second one?" She asks hesitantly. The boy glances at her, another mocking smile on his face. Unfortunately she can't smash his face in until she is sure of the situation.

"It was still full of dust and nothing was out of place, I was actually starting that you two were really dead" He stops for a split second. "But I noticed an odd change in the depths of the clothes wardrobe... The female kids clothes that were there a month ago disappeared..." He lets out a little laugh. "The was a single lab rat that reverted to a child-like form, so it was an easy hypothesis to make that the same happened to you"

"So do they know that..." She gets cut short by the boy.

"Don't worry, I marked you off as dead too" He reopens the book. "Because my best guess is that your brother isn't just that much smarter than you to completely avoid his own stuff and he is actually dead, seeing how you are operating with a bunch if kids..." Another mocking chuckle.

"Why?" She can only glare at him with suspicion.

"You are an interesting test subject, if I report that you are actually dead, the organization would've gotten you way before I had a chance to get to you." Being a lab rat practically doesn't really sound nice, but at least it sounds like she is safe. "Well, they might re-investigate it once they discover that the traitor of the organization was the one who wrote the data.." he shrugs.

"Traitor?" She tilts her head.

"That drug was in prototype stage and they administered it without my consent, one of the reasons I began to dislike the organization" He shrugs. "The biggest reason tho was my almost sister"

"Almost sister?" She tilts her head.

"We aren't exactly blood related, but she was like a sister to me. She was murdered by the members of the organization..." He sighs still fixated on the book. "I asked them over and over, but they didn't tell me why. As a protest I stopped developing the drug until I got an official reply" a mocking laugh, now eyes wandering to look into the furniture in front of him. "Eventually they locked me in the lab and chained up for defying the organization. While waiting for my punishment I took the aptx 4869 that I secretly had on me, thinking that it would kill me." He pauses for a second. "I guess the gods had other plans for me so while shrunk I was able to escape. You were my only idea to find, since you are in the same shoes as me, I thought you would understand..." He shrugs.

"I don't think I would ever be able to understand your situation" She says with a slight growl. "I don't understand why would anyone specifically make a poison to kill people" Might be hypocritical of her, because she does think poisons are cool, but still. He once again closes his book to look at her. "How many people died because of that poison?!" She now raises her voice a bit.

"Lumine, deep breath." Albedo warns her from the side.

"I don't know how can you stay so calm about this..." If she wouldn't be a small child, maybe her death glare would be somewhat threatening. Albedo at least knows that she could kick pretty well before this whole mess happened. "As someone who is a fan of poisons, knowingly developing something to kill people..."

"It wasn't my original intention either" Scaramouche grumbles.

"He quit the organization and is not currently developing that drug... And he could be your ticket to getting an antidote" Albedo reasons.

"I don't remember all that data... It was all in the lab" Scaramouche closes his book properly and stands up.

".... Where is that lab?" It would be incredibly risky, but not impossible...

"Don't get reckless now" Albedo knows what she is thinking about.

"No need to worry, it's physically impossible for either of us" he grabs a newspaper, on the front page, about an explosion that occurred a few days ago. "They probably did so with every lab I was involved with so I can't sell them out."

"Then they are aware that you are alive and are looking for you?" She mutters after taking her eye off of the newspaper. Just another mocking chuckle at first.

"Yes, completely unaware that I shrunk back to this body." he pauses for a second. "Well as long as they keep using that poison they will eventually realize that there is the chance of shrinking, they know my childhood appearance so they will find me. Will you drive me away then?" Poison seething trough his words.

"We'll see" she mutters glaring at the guy.

"My, my, didn't expect the Viatrox girl to be so heartless" he mocks her.

"If you keep pushing me you'll see how heartless I can be" She bites back. Of course she will never result ro murder, but she can make people regret ever crossing her…

Chapter Text

There have been an incident a day or two ago where a terrorist group known as Akai Shamu Neko stole a dangerous bacteria from a laboratory and blew the place up for good measure. It has an 80% mortality rate and spreads with water droplets.

The group itself was apprehended 10 or so years ago, so it's odd that only now they show their faces.

As Lumine watches the news covering the situation for the fifth time at least, her phone rings. One of the detectives that lives in Osaka.

"Hey, what do you need?" She speaks into the phone, her dislike towards Heizou is still there, even if he has proven to be a reliable ally in the past, he still has a great ability to piss her off quite often. "You don't call me unless it's about a case..."

"Can't I just call a friend out of nowhere?" He chuckles on the other end of the line.

"Yeah-yeah, please get to the point before I hang up..." She grumbles back.

"I just wanted to discuss the Akai Shamu Neko case" She can hear the news on his side too.

"Unless you have anything more than the news, I don't think we can discuss a whole lot about it..." She murmurs glancing at the newspaper on the desk in front of her. She bought it in hopes of getting something new out of it, but it covers the same stuff.

"They were arrested when we were young..." He trails off for a second. "I guess you are still young..." A chuckle, but he continues. "And it's odd that they blew up that lab"

"Children are especially at risk from this bacteria" Comes through the TV and the phone from Heizou's side.

"Hear that? Be careful little girl" He jokes.

"I'm hanging up. Goodbye." She does. He doesn't seem to have any more than she does, so it's not even worth discussing at that point.

Before she even could put her phone down, another call comes. This time from Ayaka. She picks it up with a lot more enthusiasm.

"Hello, guess who I just hang up on literally a second ago" Lumine is quite entertained by the unexplainable pattern that is Ayaka and Heizou working in almost the same rhythm.

"Please tell me it was not Heizou" She mutters, clearly tired.

"It was the dear detective Shikanoin" She chuckles. "So what's up?"

"I read in the news that old lady is planning to display a big jewel to catch Barbatos on an airship, I was wondering if you know something about it" She can hear her face turning into a playful smirk. "Miss Barbatos killer"

"Please stop that" Lumine lets a chuckle fly. "I'm supposed to be a detective to prevent killing, not doing it" She turns the page to look at Mrs. Fischl's notice in the newspaper. "To answer your question, we did get invited with Mr. Zhongli, Albedo, the kids and Xiao."

"So that means you are coming to Osaka, right?" Lumine can hear her joy trough the phone. She just humms in confirmation. "Then why don't you stay at our house when you get here?"

"Sounds good" She murmurs while closing back the newspaper to the front page with the laboratory bombing incident.

"I could also finally show you to the best restaurants I know" She chuckles.

"That would be great"

"On another note, about the Akai Shamu Neko... Do you have anything on them?" Ayaka changes the subject.

"Nothing more than what is in the news" She mutters as the TV station changes to the weather report.

"I guessed as much" Ayaka sighs.

"From the sound of it, you don't either"

"Yeah... I'm guessing Heizou was calling you about it too" Lumine hears her friend walk around.

"Yep, he didn't sound like he had anything extra either... I did hang up after he joked about me being in a child's body too much..." She sighs.

"That sounds like Heizou alright" Ayaka laughs it off on the other end. "So, see you once you get here?"

"See you once we get there" They hang up, Lumine absolutely beaming with that development. Ayaka became her only really good friend in this situation and she appreciates her so much for it. And she done so much to help her and she really hopes one day she will be able to return it.

When the day of the flight comes, all the kids are filled with energy, even Qiqi who isn't usually like that. Zooming to get on the ship as soon as they can. Klee even trips over, but a worker there catches her just in time.

They marvel on the world below as the ship gets into motion. Swarming around the many windows facing the ground.

"Look at Tropical Land! It's so tiny from here!" Klee states bouncing in her place.

"Like a doll house!" Even Diona drops the tough girl act.

"Are there any more guests around?" Albedo turns towards Hu Tao, who being part of the family, and a huge Barbatos fan, of course is on the flight with them.

"There are only 4 other people" The girl answers. "Of course excluding the police and the staff."

"Oh, Mr. Zhongli! A pleasure to meet you!" The TV director greets the old detective who is sitting by one of the tables.

"The pleasure is all mine" comes the answer.

"Do you really think Barbatos will show up?" While Zhongli starts talking to the TV staff, Qiqi murmurs looking down a window.

"Of course he will! Aunt Fischl already got an answer from him!" Hu Tao excitedly shows the photo off to the kids.

"He even appears at fake Barbatos notices..." Lumine chuckles even thinking about it.

"You are never safe" Scaramouche adds.

"That thief will not get his way this time!" The old lady announces as she arrives. Lumine would like to chime in that she says that every single time, and yet Barbatos have been able to check out if they are the jewels he is looking for or not. She has been stopping a lot of his heists, but she could do a better job at it.

"Adviser Fischl! Thank you for letting us film this luxurious airship!" The TV director pop his head between the crowd.

"And you have only three people for such an event..." The old woman disapprovingly mutters.

"Apologies, we are a bit short staffed thanks to the Akai Shamu Neko incident. It is the designated time for them to act, so everyone is at stand by" The man explains their situation.

"Damn those terrorists... Thanks to them I couldn't book a helicopter for my autobiography movie..." She grumbles.

"I heard that once the bacteria finds you you are done for..." The woman of the TV crew mutters horrified.

"I also heard that kids are especially sensitive to it, so you three be careful." Scaramouche with a slight smirk to scare the kids a bit, but full of care mutters.

"There is nothing to worry about!" The journalist Fischl hired walks up to the rest of the group too. "I made tons of interviews in bacteria infested places, and look how healthy I am! Humans are stronger than bacteria." He laughs for a bit, calming the kids. "Well, with you being kids, you might just instantly die from it..."

"Please don't scare the kids..." Xiao murmurs with crossed arms. The journalist just walks off with an extended laugh.

The kids with professor Albedo's supervision continue to walk around the airship and take in the sights, leaving the adults talking behind.

"They sure are excited" Lumine chuckles as the professor, Scaramouche and herself stop quite a bit away from the kids.

"It must be a magical experience for them so young" Albedo murmurs with a small smile. The magical experience phrase makes an old memory resurface that makes Lumine giggle. "Hm?"

"I'm not laughing at what you said, sorry" She shows an apologetic smile. "The first time any of us seen an airship in real life, Xiao came to us panicked that it's an UFO and the aliens are invading... Aether, bless his heart, tried to tell him that it's nothing like that, but the only thing coming to his mind at the time was airwhale, and that made Xiao even more worried about the poor whales... And I said nothing because I thought it was funny, we were really small tho"

"Always ready to brag about her boyfriend" A mocking chuckle from Scaramouche.

"How is this bragging?" Lumine grumbles back at him. "And he is not my boyfriend either..."

"Oh there you are everyone!" Hu Tao springs into the room they are in with Xiao following closely behind. "Who wants to see the jewel?" The kids instantly run to her.

"Mee!" Klee jumps up raising her hand.

"Qiqi wants to see too" The difference between Qiqi's normal voice and her excited one is not much, but it's there and makes Lumine chuckle.

They leave the room behind with a certain phantom thief that no one was aware of that listened to their whole conversation.

They head to Mrs. Fischl's pride and joy on this airship, the observation deck. The elevator up is glass from all sides so they can see the whole structure of the airship. Of course the kids are the most excited about it, their faces stuck to the window as the ascend. The chief steward talks about how it's the largest airship in the world.

The observation deck is lit thanks to the huge glass in the ceiling that is retractable according to Mrs. Fischl, who tells them that as they get out of the elevator.

On the observation deck, inspector Beidou greets them with a clearly unhappy expression, even blocking the kids from getting close to the jewel.

"Let us see the jewel!" Klee bounces on her tiptoes.

"What is this lacking security about?" Beidou approaches the old woman.

"There are quite a few traps in place here, I don't know what you are talking about, inspector." The old lady shrugs.

"Traps, huh?" Beidou raises an eyebrow.

"Let everyone see the jewel first and I can show you the security system in place, inspector" Fischl confidently leads the group of people past Beidou. The kids instantly go right to it. Lumine stays a bit on the side, not really interested in the jewel itself. "The jewel I'm luring Barbatos in this time is Lady Sky" she proudly announces.

"Pretty!" Comes in chorus from the kids.

"Golden dots just like the stars!" Klee excitedly comments.

"And that big one looks just like a woman's face!" Diona states with just as much enthusiasm.

"That is where the name comes from" Fischl nods at the kids. "An ancient philosopher once called it the fragment of the starry sky"

"Woow!" The kids in chorus once again.

"And how can you keep such a precious jewel in a simple glass case?" The inspector is behind the group, unimpressed with Fischl's behavior.

"Simple? But inspector, this case could reflect bullets even from a machine gun!" She huffs with a small chuckle. "And it only can be opened with my fingerprint pressing the correct password"

Hearing that, Qiqi curiously places her hand on the display panel for the password. A boxing glove comes out to punch up in a general direction of where an adult's face would be. In that direction is Mr. Zhongli's face. The poor detective flies quite a few meters back, and watching it happen Lumine feels like time slowing down just for that moment.

Qiqi and Xiao are instantly by his side to help him get back up.

"Qiqi is sorry" she mutters with the week attempt to help the old detective stand up.

"You shouldn't press anything without knowing what it is" Xiao being the actual useful one in helping up the detective.

"Well, this is sort of a demonstration..." Fischl ponders.

"Let's demonstrate a situation" Beidou mutters. "Someone is holding a gun at your head to make you open the case" Beidou forms a gun with her fingers and holds it to the old woman's head.

"It's not something that guy would do, but in that case..." Fischl walks to the case, Beidou following keeping her fingers pressed to the old woman's head. She presses three buttons.

The floor opens under the inspector and with a noise of surprise she disappears under the tile.

"Did she fall into the ocean?!" Klee gasps horrified.

"No need to worry about that" Fischl chuckles at the concern, with another button press and the tile opens back up.

"I guess it's something" The inspector grumbles while climbing out, clearly still not satisfied.

"Barbatos' notice was for later, so please enjoy the flight yourselves." Fischl is confident in her security system.

The crowd starts to head back towards the elevator to go on their ways. As Hu Tao is stretching her arms to leave, a sensor kicks in and shocks her. Concerned, Xiao is by her side too in that instant.

"That was rude" She mutters. Lumine looks where the sensor connects. It seems way too sensitive.

Zhongli goes to the dining area to get some great wine, Xiao and Hu Tao heads to the toilets, Hu Tao not feeling too well after that shock. Lumine, along with Albedo and the kids, head to the dining area too, only to play cards.

After everyone leaves the observation deck, even the police, a waiter heads up to check the jewel and it's security out for himself.

Unfortunately his visit is cut short by the elevator arriving to that floor. Not wanting to risk it turns around to leave. It's just Xiao so he is a bit calmer about it.

"Hello" The thief murmurs as he attempts to slip him by, something seems to catch the boy's attention tho. Not a good sign.

"Ah, excuse me, what happened to your elbow?" That makes him stop, it would be more suspicious to keep going.

"Ah, this?" He murmurs looking at the band-aid that he earlier got exactly from Xiao, because he scratched it while catching Klee before she could fall face first when boarding the airship. "I just burnt it earlier" He seems to glare at the little thing on his arm.

"That's a lie." He states while grabbing his arm. "That's a band-aid I gave someone else earlier today" He states glaring at the guy. "you are Barbatos, aren't you?" He twists his arm out. Dang he is quick. If he puts up too much of a resistance, he will have to survive the guy's karate skills, which Barbatos highly doubts he could. He needs a way out.

He disguised himself as Lumine quite a few times in the past... They have a pretty similar facial structure, Barbatos having a more feminine frame too... Only real difference between him and the young detective's original form is really just the chest area in that regard. He could try, but he doesn't have a blond wig under his current mask, or the foresight to dye his hair for this occasion, but it's better than accepting defeat.

"Oh, and what are you planning to do now that you got me? Turn me in to inspector Beidou?" Perfectly mimicking Lumine's voice without any issues. He feels Xiao's grip soften for a second, but he is back to a steel strong one in a split second.

"What else would I do with you?" The thief guesses that he feels insulted he dared speak in Lumine's voice.

"I think you would regret that" He states with a shrug.

"Now why would I...?" Xiao raises an eyebrow.

"I can't believe you can't recognize my voice..." 'Lumine' murmurs unimpressed while reaching to pull the mask off with his free arm. He does his best to style his hair similar to Lumine's on the fly, the braids coming undone and he prays his locks could just have the slight illusion of being somewhat straight like the detective's are. At least it's lucky the contacts he chose for that disguise are also golden like her eyes.

Xiao's grip once again loosens, this time long enough for Barbatos to slip out of his grip.

"What, you don't recognize me just because I dyed my hair?" He laughs it off.

"Like I would believe that" He grumbles, reaching to pull on his face, but no mask is coming off. "Why doesn't it come off?" He mutters, absolutely flabbergasted.

"Because it's my face?" Barbatos grumbles back, rubbing his face. Xiao did not hold back on that pinch.

"When I landed that plane, inspector Beidou pinched that 'Lumine's' face too and there wasn't a mask either... It could be that you have a similar face" Xiao reasons and the thief curses that he is so sharp internally.

"I need to go this Barbatos thing to solve cases sometimes, as proof I always return the jewels to the owners..." He needs to try. They hear the police arrive by the elevator too. Xiao raises his hand to get the inspector's attention.

"Inspector over here!" He calls out, Beidou instantly heading their way. Now the bard needs to think of something quick. "Now give up" he grabs his arm again. The conversation he overheard between the little detective and the professor comes to mind.

"We are not on an airship. We are on an UFO... Or an airwhale if you will" he adds with a small chuckle. Xiao instantly lets go, eyes wide, remembering that old memory with the twins. Beidou's footsteps are scarily close. "I guess I do need to accept my defeat..." He turns to a solemn expression as he looks away from the guy.

"Is something wrong? Have you noticed something?" Beidou looks between the two. Xiao clearly hesitates, great sign for the thief.

"No, it was... my mistake, sorry" He mutters at the end. Relief flies trough Barbatos. Xiao grabs his arm and drags him away towards the elevator. He seems to be deep in thought, so he doesn't disturb him in the act, only when getting into the elevator, to put the waiter mask back on.

The elevator ride down is quite awkward, but Barbatos at least can reflect on what just happened. He really could've just say that he got the band-aid from one of his coworkers and he wouldn't have had to drag that poor detective down, but what's done is done, it probably will be disproven really soon anyways.

"I still don't completely believe you" Xiao murmurs when they get in front of the elevator on the lower floor.

"If you excuse me" The waiter disguised thief walks off. He doesn't go too far, just turns a corner to listen, just to make sure that Xiao doesn't suddenly get an idea to report his findings.

The thing he witnesses from his hiding spot tho, is the guy who scared the kids earlier just grabbing Xiao's arms from behind. Of course his instinct to karate the unwanted stranger behind him down kicks in, but realizes who is that and stops before smashing his nose in. The journalist laughs it off with wanting to feel the muscles of a karate champion but it's incredibly awkward and uncomfortable to witness and probably for Xiao to experience too. After seeing that the box really doesn't plan anything, Barbatos leaves to be a waiter a bit more.

Xiao rejoins the group to eat together. The kids are clearly planning something over their food, and Lumine is afraid to see what in advance. All her hope is that they won't cause trouble.

The waiter serving them is the exactly the disguised Barbatos, so Xiao keeps staring at him as he walks around. That doesn't go unnoticed by either Lumine or Hu Tao.

"You are staring an awful lot at that guy... Is he your type?" Hu Tao, ever ready to tease Xiao. Only thanks to her teasing that Lumine even learned that Xiao also had a crush on her, of all people, for an awfully long time.

"No, not at all!" He looks a bit red from that.

"I'm telling Lumi~" next to Alice, Hu Tao is the only one who ever calls her Lumi, not because she accepts it, but because the girl just ignores all the death glares she sends her way. Instinctively, she still continues sending them, but with her being Felicity and not Lumine right now, the effect is pretty much lost.

Glancing at Scaramouche he is giving her the most annoying smile possible. After noticing him and promptly looking away while feeling the heat in her cheek, the boy turns back to enjoy his food after a chuckle.

The kids leave earlier than anyone else saying that they are going to play cards in their room. Lumine would bet her leg that they are going nowhere near their rooms.

As they finish their meal, Fischl's phone rings. Her raven sitting on the back rest of her seat shifts uncomfortably. She claims that it was just a prank call, but by her reactions it feels off and she calls inspector Beidou to the side.

Of course Lumine can't just sit around when something might be happening, she has to follow the inspector to see what is going on. Signaling Scaramouche first to keep an eye out if any development happens there.

Beidou and one of the other officers Lumine doesn't know the name of, gas mask and glove up and enter the smoking room. Of course she stays outside, out of sight from Fischl, who of course tagged along for most of the way and wants to be the first to know if there is something that needs to be taken care of.

The inspector comes out of the room with her phone in her hand, texting someone. An incoming call follows it soon.

"So?" She doesn't even bother greeting who is on the other side. "I see... Damn it..." The inspector grumbles. "Have it been revealed to the media yet?" A second wait. "Then yeah... Alright, thanks Ningguang" She hangs up with a sigh and turns to the old lady. "Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be a prank. It is a container from Akai Shamu Neko." Beidou grumbles. How could they only notice that now... "Let's close the smoking room and the bar just to be sure"

The old lady makes the arrangements instantly and announces it to the guests.

"So it wasn't just a prank call after all..." Hu Tao murmurs to herself.

After that the guy who spooked the kids earlier reveals that he has rashes everywhere and the news reported that those are the first signs of the dangerous bacteria. He goes towards the group, slowly, dragging himself, everyone is just frozen in place, thinking on what to do about the situation.

Xiao is the first who is able to decide to act, and with a well aimed gut punch, the journalist is knocked out. Albedo hurries him to go disinfect his hands. He goes after one of the waitresses call over that they have disinfectant in the kitchen.

Next to the waitress who called him over, another waitress faints, with rashes on her arm.

Apparently both of them have been in the smoking room previously, so no wonder they got infected.

Beidou with a few police officers transport the two unconscious infected people into a separate room.

"We need to warn the kids too" Scaramouche looks at Lumine.

"Where did they ran off anyways?" Albedo mutters behind them.

Lumine gets the look the boy gave her, she goes off to look for the kids using their detective girls badge. It will be easier than to just blindly go around looking for them, and if she has the means, she should live with it. Of course they are clearly in an area where guests shouldn't be.

With a sigh, Lumine enters the airwhale's belly trough one of the many staff only doors. She will have to give a stern talk to the girls.

They are found really quickly after that, even without her tracking glasses.

"You guys know that you are not allowed here, right?" She grumbles as the three excitedly walks looking at the inside structure. They freeze in place after hearing Felicity's voice.

"We know..." Diona murmurs as the three turns around.

"You just don't care, I get it" Lumine grumbles. "I hope you didn't touch anything at least." She crosses her arms.

"Nope! Just looking!" Klee reassures her. Lumine nods with the mental 'good'. "Hey, join us! We are going to the tail of the whale!" She invites her excited. Like she would be upset that they didn't invite her on that adventure.

"No can do. Not just because we aren't supposed to be here, but because something happened and we need to get back to everyone" she turns around, expecting the kids the follow. She hears them do so, but an unknown figure makes her stop in her tracks. "Get down" the kids all crouch by her request. "Stay here" she whispers this time.

She goes closer and uses her high tech glasses to keep track of the stranger. They really don't seem like staff members, most of their face is covered. She doubts Barbatos and his one assistant would do something like that, they wear complete disguises so covering the face seems pointless.

"Do you think that's Barbatos?" Qiqi's voice suddenly next to her startles her.

"Didn't I tell you to-" Lumine starts whispering angrily, but she cuts herself off with a sigh. "No, I doubt it's him or his assistant..." She mutters, focusing back on the stranger ascending the row of ladders. She hears a click on the top and then the guy heads back down.

Realizing that what they witnessed is probably one of the Akai Shamu Neko members opening up the way in for infiltration for the other members, Lumine starts climbing to close it back in.

Unfortunately, that climb is cut short when she hears a helicopter approach the airship. She hurriedly signals the kids to retreat, her in their heel.

As they get just the bit of a safe distance away, people fully armed jump down from the top of the airship. She counts 7 people. They stop by the bottom of the ladders, the same level they are on.

Lumine keeping an eye on them using her glasses' zoom function still, watches them pull out some small boxes. Bombs? She really only can guess bombs even after attempts of closer inspection. Some of them starts heading their way.

"Climb up!" She whispers. She had the foresight to position the group near some ladders. Unfortunately from their new position she can't exactly tell where they put the bombs.

Scaramouche knowing full well that Lumine can round up the kids back to the group, stays with Albedo to keep an eye on the situation. The adults are thinking what to do about the situation.

The door gets kicked down, and two armed people walk in. One with a small hand gun, the other one with a way bigger caliber weapon, in a mask.

"Freeze!" The guy with the bigger weapon yells.

"Have you found the ampule?" The guy without face coverings asks with a cocky smile. Not getting answer he continues. "We already planted bombs on this ship. Behave yourself or we will blow this place up" everyone is frozen still, including the police. "And if that isn't enough convincing, I won't hesitate to release this bacteria" he shows off an ampule filled with liquid.

While Scaramouche had no vision on that, a certain phantom thief noticed the camera guy who was with the TV director earlier reaching for his camera to press record.

Unfortunately for him, that doesn't go unnoticed by the maskless guy either, and with a single shot he destroys the camera.

"Didn't I tell you to behave yourself?" He asks. "How are things on your end?" He turns to his walkie-talkie. One by one his accomplices confirm that everything is under control trough the thing. "Perfect" a chuckle from the man. He points is gun at the advisor. "You will announce trough the PA system to gather in the dining room." The old woman is really reluctant, but she has no other choice.

"Feli, what should we do?" Klee mutters worried as they sit on the steel walkway.

"I'm thinking..." She mutters to make sure the kids don't feel ignored and they don't go off on their own.

"May I have all your attention please?" Fischl's voice can be heard through the entire airship. "Please gather in the dining room immediately." A pause for a second. "I repeat, please, all of you gather in the dining room immediately."

"Did they...?" Lumine thinks out loud, not even wanting to finish it. They probably already took the ship over by the sound of it.

In the cabin, by the order of the main guy, they collect everyone's phones. And Mr. Zhongli is sleeping trough all of what is happening which is absolutely baffling to Scaramouche.

The proudly announce that Akai Shamu Neko successfully hijacked the airship.

"Dannay, the ship have been hijacked" Scaramouche hides behind Albedo to contact Lumine with his own detective girls badge.

"Just as I guessed..." Lumine grumbles. "Shit... Scaramouche, be careful, they might have an accomplice between the hostages." She quickly remembers. Having flashbacks to that bus hijacking a while back. "What are their demands?"

Scaramouche leaves the little badge running for a bit, they are saying that they have beef with old lady Fischl, being a huge contributor to the arrest of the Akai Shamu Neko 10 years ago. She tries to bargain that they need her then and the rest of the airship should go free, but that of course is worth nothing.

They give Beidou a phone to call the police and tell them to stand down or the whole airship will blow up with all the hostages. Of course the inspector obeys, not really having a choice in the matter. They continue to head towards Osaka.

"Be careful now" the two now shrunken adults whisper to each other the exact same time trough their little gadget.

"Alright, I need to defuse those bombs" Lumine murmurs standing up. "You guys stay..." She trails off. If they wander off without her directions it might end up badly. But she is also hesitant to ask for their help to find those bombs. "No, could you guys help me locate them?" The three spring up excited with a nod. "They are active bombs. Do not touch them, as you find them, get away from them and notify me. Got it?"

"Yes ma'am!" They say in chorus.

Her first guess of one being behind the smoking room is correct. It makes sense, if they blow that up, the bacteria will spread. The bomb is pretty simple, she deduces it really easily, but as she finishes it off, something feels off. Why do they need both the bombs and the bacteria to hijack the ship?

At one point the elevator goes up with Fischl and a terrorist inside, but they doesn't seem to notice them from there. Looking at the other way.

She gets a notice from Diona and Qiqi that they found a bomb. When reuniting with them she makes sure if any of them been to the smoking room. A bit late, but stuff were happening. Apparently Qiqi was, for a split second, she just peeked inside and the smell of cigarettes turned her away.

Lumine is concerned about the kid.

She defuses the two bombs the kids found and goes to look for the last one. She saw them pull out four, so they are close.

While the kids play find the bomb, in the dining area, the TV director is revealed to have rashes too. As he starts coughing all over the place in his panic over getting noticed, one of the Akai Shamu Neko members knock him out and transport him away. Xiao and Beidou almost get a chance to fight back then, but a warning shot from the leader stops them in their tracks.

"Hey... Where did those kids go?" The woman from the TV crew looks around concerned.

"Kids?" One of the terrorists glance at her.

"Y-yes, they were with that little boy. I haven't seen them in a while." She mutters while pointing at the kid.

"Go look for them" the leader gives out the command to two of his men who without question go.

"Dannay, they found out you were gone" Scaramouche mutters trough his badge. "Dannay? Hey, Dannay!" He gets worried about her, but he gets interrupted in that. A woman ripping the device out of his hand and giving him a slap that sends him flying.

"Crafty kid" One of the waiters grumbles towards him. Scaramouche, if he wouldn't be a small child right now, would send the deadliest of glares, but he can't. He is a small child right now.

As Lumine finishes defusing the last bomb and climb back to the main passage, where two armed men are waiting for her with the kids being held at gun point.

They are taken straight to the leader of the group along with the now useless 4 bombs.

"How did you four-" The leader starts growling after he examined the bombs.

"The other three has nothing to do with it" Lumine cuts him off. At least she will try to get the kids out of the deep end. "I disabled the bombs"

"You huh?" He steps closer to her, glaring. She keeps the eye contact, she have been trough scarier situations and people are often hesitant with kids, because they are kids after all.

Not this guy.

No hesitation whatsoever, he grabs her by the back of her dress. He lifts her up, walking to one of the windows facing down towards the sea.

He opens it.

She just hears horrified noises of surprise and she is free falling towards the sea.

Is there even a chance for her to survive? From this height it's like she will be hitting concrete.

Can she do anything?

As she stares at the big blue ocean steadily approaching, she feels arms wrapping around her waist. Suddenly she is slowing up in her free fall. Looking up is the green bard-magician.

"I can't believe he threw you out of the ship!" Barbatos yells past the wind. She is too stunned to speak for a second. "What are you planning now, great detective?!"

"I need to get back to the ship is all I know right now!" She yells back.

"Unfortunately my glider doesn't have an engine attached." A chuckle from the thief.

Barbatos lands with her on the closest shore.

"Are you hurt?" He asks leaning down a bit to make sure.

"I'm fine thanks to you" She murmurs stepping back awkwardly. "Thank you for saving me."

"Can't have the great detective bite the dust before catching me" He winks at her. "Now what is the plan?" He crouches down to her level.

"I need to warn at least Ayaka first" She murmurs pulling out her phone and calling the detective girl.

Meanwhile in Osaka, Ayaka, not being able to do much, decided to head to where the airship will arrive to. If she has to wait, she might as well do it in a place with great view, and the tower does have that. She is just looking forward to seeing Lumine.

"What a great view" a soft and familiar voice comes from nearby. She recognizes it, for one being good friends and for two, it rarely comes without Heizou being nearby. Looking over surprised towards Kazuha, of course she spots Heizou.

The two detectives' eyes meet and instantly they start looking for someone who might have murderous intentions around them. They meet too many times around crime scenes to not notice a pattern. When they find no one suspicious around, they just both sigh.

Kazuha just watches Heizou do all that in silence, watching his expressions change.

"I'm guessing miss Kamisato is nearby then?" He is also quite amused by the fact wherever the two of them goes, the girl is often there. He finally looks around to find her. He waves her a hello.

"I can't believe I can't meet up with my friends without bumping into you" She returns the wave and walks up to the two with a sigh. "What are you two doing here?"

"Back to you" Heizou sighs too. "We are here to get a front row seat at Barbatos' arrest" He thinks for a second. "If you are here, does that mean that girl is on that airship?"

"Yep, invited her over once they arrive" Ayaka nods with a smile. They get distracted by Ayaka's phone ringing. By her face lighting up so much about it, Heizou can guess that it's Lumine even without taking a peek at her screen. "Hello, where are you?" She asks.

"Sakushima, near Mikawa Bay" Lumine answers her question.

"That's so far back, it will take forever until you get here." The high schooler mutters not happy about it.

"Well, the ship is way past it at this point, not sure how far anymore tho" Lumine murmurs while looking at the sky. "All I'm sure is that it's still heading roughly towards Osaka"

"What do you mean?" She walks away from Heizou and Kazuha. That signals the detective that something might be amiss.

"I got thrown out of the ship, Barbatos saved me" She kinda hates the fact that she had to be rescued by a thief, but she is still thankful.

"You... What?!" Ayaka cries out, everyone looks at her. "Are you alright?" She walks inside.

"Yeah... Like I said, the ship is still heading towards Osaka, it got hijacked by Akai Shamu Neko with the dangerous bacteria on board."

"Are you serious?" Ayaka mutters horrified.

"Wouldn't dare to joke about this. They also have bombs on board, if that makes it funnier tho" Ayaka lets out a slightly pained chuckle at that comment.

"And are you infected?"

"Doesn't seem like it so far..." Lumine murmurs examining her free hand. "Two people on board are tho."

"Three" The thief corrects her. "The TV director got rashes on his hands too" he informs her.

"You heard him" Lumine mutters as she gets distracted by a helicopter flying by. Zooming in with her glasses she can read that it's from the police department. She has an idea. "Ayaka, I will call you back later, take care" She hangs up on her. She unclips her bow and changes the voice changer to her original voice. She calls Inspector Ningguang.

"Hallo?" The inspector's voice comes trough the phone.

"Good afternoon inspector" She starts.

"Ah, Lumine" She can hear a slight relief in her voice.

"I'm in Aichi Sakushima right now, I just saw a helicopter following the airship."

"Thoma and Ayato are in that helicopter" Ningguang nods in confirmation. "Actually-" the woman gets cut short by the young detective.

"I know about the situation on the airship, so could I ask the huge favor of letting me board the helicopter?" The other end of the line goes silent for a bit.

"Arrangements will be made" with that, the inspector hangs up.

"Good..." Lumine mutters to herself in front of her.

"So you called her as Lumine to let you board the ship... What's the big idea here?" Barbatos stands up next to her.

"I hope you have stuff with you to disguise yourself as me" Lumine looks at the guy.

"I have the school uniform, but don't have a blond wig" Barbatos mutters. Lumine just raises an eyebrow at that.

"You had the foresight to prepare our school uniform, but not the wig? Why?" She mutters unimpressed. It seems off.

"Reasons" Like he would admit that he pretended to be her but with black hair after being caught by Xiao. He grabbed the clothes after that just in case. Lumine just humms at that looking at the sky thinking.

"Well it's not beside me to dye my hair so probably we can pull it off" she mutters. By the time she looks back to him he already changed disguise. "You are fast... You even thought about the chest difference..." She mutters as he messes with his hair on the side.

"I am a magician after all" He chuckles as he struggles with getting them straighter.

"I don't think that will get any better..." She tilts her head looking at the struggle.

"Probably" he sighs defeated. He does some last efforts, but leaves it be.

"I also ask you to not make me look like an absolute weirdo like you did last time?" She murmurs.

"Then I ask you to not interfere with my job either" he puts his hands on his hips.

"Fair..." She grumbles. "But I can't completely promise that... I will try, but it's my natural instinct and all to catch thieves like yourself." She proudly mutters.

"How cruel" He over dramatically sighs.

"Even you said earlier that I can't bite the dust unless I catch you first" She grumbles. "Also why does literally everyone call me cruel or mean..." She mutters the last part to herself. Scaramouche calls her that quite a lot, some criminals call her that, like she would be murdering them and not they doing the murder a day or less prior... Even some of the FBI agents called her scary! She is just a high schooler stuck in a child's body.

While the bicker on the beach, Scaramouche with the rest of the group watches as the leader of the operation gives out the order to put the ship to autopilot and then pull out a laptop.

They announced they would act in seven days on the internet... Are they doing something like that now? It's really the only thing Scaramouche can think of even without having a view of the screen. What would they hack there if they already have the full ship secured.

Barbatos and Lumine board the helicopter.

"Lumine, long time no see" Thoma greets the thief.

"Hello" He just awkwardly answers with Lumine's voice. To this day she is amazed how well can he change his voice without any special device.

"I didn't expect to see Felicity with you" Ayato muses, sitting directly next to Barbatos.

"Yeah, I thought she would be with Zhongli on that airship" Thoma nods thinking about it. Oh if they could tell them that she got thrown out. She just laughs it off. "Anyways, what were you doing in Sakushima? And why the hair dye?"

"I felt like trying something new" 'Lumine' shrugs. "But please, let's focus on the airship right now, I will tell you about that when the case is done" He shows a sweet smile towards the two.

"Right" Thoma nods.

"Please fly at full speed" Ayato turns to the pilot.

Barbatos sends a questioning look to Lumine, who just gives him an awkward thumbs up. He is doing a lot better than he did last time at least.

While the two sits in the helicopter and carefully navigates them so they can glide down using Barbatos' glider, on Ayaka's side, she is not free from Heizou's watchful eyes.

"So what's up with Lu-" he cuts himself short before realizing that Kazuha is standing behind him. "The little kid?"

"The airship got hijacked by Akai Shamu Neko." She mutters voice down. Both the boys' eyes go wide. "There are also bombs apparently..." She would want to tell Heizou that Lumine also got thrown out of the airship, but she doesn't want to explain stuff to Kazuha. He is convinced that she is just a smart kid, and they would need to explain a lot.

"Is something wrong?" Kazuha doesn't miss the fact that Ayaka is staring at him thinking.

"Can I steal your boyfriend for some detective work?" She asks with an apologetic smile at the end.

"What are you-" Heizou turns tomato red in that instant.

"If I wouldn't know better I would think you two have an affair" Kazuha calmly teases the two.

"Oh, I would love to just leave him here, but it's about our mutual friend, so I wouldn't want to keep him in the dark." Ayaka laughs it off.

"I'm sure you are interested in the case" Kazuha turns to Heizou.

"Yes, I would like to know what's going on" He composes himself the best he can while being red like a tomato still.

"Then I don't mind you stealing him" Kazuha smiles at Ayaka.

"Thanks, will return him as soon as possible" With that she drags Heizou towards the elevator, grabbing him by the wrist. Once they are beginning to go down she lets him go. "Lumine got thrown out of the airship." Because it's only the two of them she begins to talk. "Barbatos saved her, so she seems fine, but the airship is still heading here with bombs and the bacteria."

"Now I see your outburst earlier..." Heizou mutters thinking. "Do we know what do they want?"

"This is all Lumine told me. I'm sorry for getting you away from your boyfriend for this, I couldn't think of another way to tell you this without us needing to explain a lot to Kazuha" Ayaka scratches the back of her head.

"Stop calling him that" Heizou, once again, or rather still tomato red. It did start to fade when he got into the elevator.

"What?" She tilts her head. "He didn't deny that either..." She didn't think Heizou could get even redder than that.

As they get down to the bottom level, a lot of people are packing. Running too. And it's more and more by every second.

Heizou walks up to a worker there who doesn't know what to do and ask her what is going on. Close to crying she tells him that Akai Shamu Neko announced on the internet that they are going to spread the deadly bacteria in the city. And that information is spreading like wildfire.

They get out of the building to watch the crowd, they can't really do anything else.

Also snatch Kazuha once they see him out of the building trying to find his way out. Of course he questions what are they still doing here if they are doing detective work, but Heizou just tells hem that Ayaka was just overestimating what they can do in that situation. They both are sure that they can't really do anything with not much info.

"Lum-" Now Ayaka slips up. "Look, Feli said she would call later... Wonder when she will be able to..."

After jumping out of the helicopter and making Ayato and Thoma think that Lumine is Barbatos, Lumine wishes she could say that thy land without an issue, but they don't.

Because he needs to hold into her tiny body, he has trouble reaching the button to close his glider, and the wind would take them away using that.

Lumine tries to find the button instead of him, but having no idea where to look, she just makes him uncomfortable. She does find his weird gun and manages to catch themselves in a wire with it before they would be blown away by the wind.

After that, they can get themselves together. Barbatos manages to close his glider, and they can climb back to where the entrance is.

"So far so good..." Lumine grumbles towards herself. Barbatos can't hear her from the wind up there.

"Well, good luck, little detective" Barbatos says while he sits down by a sticking out bit on the airship to be a bit more wind protected.

"Are you not going back in?" She yells past the wind.

"The treasure is taken, can't really return to my original disguise so I'm just going to keep an eye out for now" He answers. He reaches to rebraid his hair, but stops, remembering something. He reaches into his pocket, pulling something small out. He pretends to throw it towards her, she panics almost tripping over to get there. He just laughs at her effort. She takes the small paper.

"What's this?"

"That old lady's fingerprint sticker." He answers and starts rebraiding his hair actually. "I guessed she would use a system like that" As she starts going, he stops her again. "Oh, another thing! That boy you like, he got touched by that journalist. He pushed him away quick, and didn't cough or sneeze, but just so you know" With a nod she heads back inside.

First thing she needs to take care of is if they reinstalled the bombs. Weirdly enough she can't find one behind the smoking room this time. That would be her prime place to spread the bacteria if she was doing the crime.

At the end she just finds two in the same place where Qiqi and Diona found earlier. She looked up and down and she didn't find more.

While working away to disable them, her phone rings. Ayaka.

"Hello, you said you would call, what is taking so long?" Ayaka asks, they relocated to a larger street to watch the evacuation process. Heizou pressing his head next to Ayaka's to listen.

"Sorry, I forgot" Lumine mutters under her breath as she messes with the bombs. She can hear some weird noise on the other side, but won't comment on it.

"Where are you now?" Ayaka asks.

"Got back to the airship"

"Wow you are fast" she hears Heizou's muttering on the other side.

"I'll tell you everything later, why did you call me?" Lumine mutters. "I'm a bit busy, sorry."

"The criminals spread the airship news on the internet... Everyone here is in panic." Ayaka murmurs just as Lumine is done with the bombs.

"What?" That explains the background noise at least.

"Even the bank clerks and security guards are fleeing" Ayaka murmurs.

"What a day to rob a bank" A pained chuckle from Kazuha and Ayaka at Heizou's comment.

"Fortunately security systems nowadays are pretty good even without them" she can hear Kazuha from a few steps away.

A careful hand touches Lumine's shoulder. Her heart skips a beat as she holds back a yelp of surprise. Looking up it's just Barbatos.

"Please don't scare me like that" She mutters with a relieved sigh.

"I have something interesting to show you" He quietly humms towards her.

"Sorry, I will call you later if I can" She whispers into her phone.

Following the magician under the moonlight, he leads her right back up. The thing she notices first is of course smoke. She grabs a handkerchief from her shorts' pocket to hold in her face to get close to investigate.

Closing in, she sees that one of the terrorist guys are setting up smoke flares in the observation deck with the large window open.

To check where they are right now she stuffs the handkerchief back to her pocket and detaches her super suspenders from her hip. She clips one side to the ship and lowers herself by the side.

"Nara prefecture is past that mountain." Barbatos calls out to her. "They will be surprised when they see the smoking airship heading their way."

"Not just surprised... Panicked" Lumine answers with a slight growl. "they spread the word of hijacking the ship and Osaka is already in chaos thanks to it..."

"What a day to be a thief" He chuckles stretching. With how strong the wind is, she is wondering how his little hat stays on without him needing to hold it in place.

"Don't be dumb, security systems are stronger than they used to..." She trails off. "Be..." Then they are aiming for lower security places, of course. She catches Barbatos' satisfied smile towards her. Did he know about all of this from the start? Or is he just cheating by being a criminal mastermind by himself and just figured everything out from minute 0?

She fishes her phone back out to tell Ayaka. Unfortunately, she isn't that well traversed in the area, and she has an airship to take back, so she needs to rely on her on that.

They easily make arrangements by the largest temple with the police, and they head there on Ayaka's bike. They can't keep to apologize to Kazuha tho, who is completely understanding of the situation. He isn't a detective and it's illegal for Ayaka to have two passengers.

Meanwhile Lumine infiltrates the airship again, this time hoping to free the hostages. She needs the skateboard the professor made her a while back. It will make things easier for herself.

While all that is going on, with the hostage group, Xiao is developing rashes. Not wanting to infect anyone else, he slowly stands up.

"I have rashes" He states. If looks could murder, all the terrorists would be dead by bim. Unfortunately, they can't and they are completely capable transporting him away to the smoking room. He doesn't resist of course, he knows when he has an opening, and it's unfortunately not happening.

Lumine hears and spots them while snatching her skateboard. Not having any clue what is happening, she starts tailing them. Unfortunately she can't get much out of the situation, Xiao is just taken to the smoking room. The director tries to break out when the terrorist opens the door to the room, but ultimately fails. Fortunately he is not killed, but quite rudely kicked back inthe room. Lumine watches Xiao being pushed in quite rudely too, but with that Lumine needs to retreat, because the guy is coming back.

She holds her breath in a room off to the side, listening for the footsteps to leave. She only dares to breath properly when she is sure the guy left.

As she calms herself with deep breaths, she thinks about how could Xiao got infected. She doubts Barbatos would lie about him only being touched and nothing more...

It's really weird to doubt this, but is that bacteria even real? They really easily could be bluffing all about that. She got away with a lot of things by bluffing, it's not completely out of the way. She has no idea how to even attempt to prove or disprove her idea so she will need to wait for an opportunity on that, if she even will get one.

Another deep breath to prepare herself for what she is planning, and heads back to the belly of the airwhale.

She starts with placing her suspenders up above the area she will start with. A lot of this plan relies on the fact that people are dumb sometimes and hopes it will work. She double checks if it will reach the correct area. After the check she heads below.

Scaramouche hears something hitting a roof from the room they are held in. Everyone jumps by the sudden sound. Everyone supposed to be held in the same place.

"Go check it out" The leader looks at one of his man. He nods and heads out.

Lumine threw herself on the floor as loudly as she possibly could. It ended up a bit painful, but she had worse. She lays there, pretending to sleep, her watch ready by her side.

She hears footsteps. "Huh?" Comes from the man approaching. Something put into a pocket "Isn't this-" he would start while turning the kid over, but Lumine shoots him with her tranquilizer wrist watch. He falls asleep on the spot.

She quickly takes his walkie talkie, checks for anything else interesting, but not finding anything, she heads up to her next position.

"Cat-A!" The leader talks into his own walkie talkie. "Cat-A! Answer now!" But no answer comes. "Go check what happened to him" he growls towards another guy. He also leaves with a nod.

Lumine sees from above that another terrorist arrives to the scene of her crime. He walks to his partner to see that he is just sleeping. While he does that, Lumine lowers the suspenders in front of his face. She prays that he instinctively will just grab it.

Fortunately, he does, Lumine presses the button to rapidly retrieve the other half of the thing, lifting up the man. He lets go half way trough, falling back down and getting knocked out. He wasn't too high, so he should be okay. Might need to see a doctor after this.

Another, way bigger thing falling is heard across the airship.

"Cat-B! What happened?" The leader's voice comes trough the device she took. "Cat-B!" She smirks and decides to be a bit cocky. She raises it to her to speak into it.

"Cat-B is out cold on the roof... Which is weird, I thought a cat would land on their feet..." She mutters the second part innocently.

"Feli!" She hears the kids in the background. Even Qiqi is loud enough to be heard. Her next location change begins meanwhile. She goes to relocate the suspenders next to a ladder and lowers herself using it. Leaving it extended for further use.

"Cat-C,D,E, find her!" She hears it trough the little device she snatched. "As soon as you see her finish her" Wow, so vengeful towards a small child. "Cat-F" she doesn't hear anything else on it.

"Got it" comes probably Cat-F's answer anyways, so they might have another plan that they do while they hunt her down, but she needs to count with the possibility of 4 people going after her... She kinda hoped for way less this soon. She is just a seven year old kid in their eyes after all, it feels like an overkill.

The first one arrives with a simple hand gun, shooting at her as she backs away on her skateboard. Her goal is to tire him out as much as possible and she will make him run for his money. Fortunately, he can't aim properly, especially not while running after her. He gets like one shot close and it's easily avoided by Lumine going in a zig-zag. Reaching the end she runs to the suspender prepared, forcing the guy to just climb after her on the ladders, because he can't get a clear shot at her. She retrieves the suspenders, putting it back around her waist. While getting away, glancing back she sees the guy collapsing on his knees for air after climbing the ladders. A satisfied smile on her face as she gets close to the stairs that lead to the observation deck.

Unfortunately her smile is quickly wiped off by hearing the elevator's glass shatter and a rain of arrows coming down towards her. She manages to launch herself behind one of the supporting pillars before she could get seriously hurt. She gets a scratch on her leg, but she is lucky it didn't actually hit her. Fortunately the elevator is quickly gone, leaving the way up to the observation deck completely free.

On the observation deck she hides by the jewel's case, placing Fischl's fingerprint sticker on her index finger. She waits for where the first movement will come from. It's coming from the stairs so she places herself opposite of that. The elevator doesn't sound like it's working for now, so she isn't too worried. Hearing from where the guy is coming from she moves according to that.

When Fischl did the demonstration on the case's workings, she figured out how the old lady made the floor open up, it has quite the simple logic to it. As the guy steps on one of those tiles, she presses the buttons and with a surprised yelp, he disappears under the tile. With a satisfied sigh she straightens back up.

The thing Barbatos gave her came quite handy... But how did he know she would need it? As she ponders while looking at her index finger, steel touches her back. Her heart skips a beat.

"Drop that" comes the command, she of course follows it, peeling the sticker off and throwing it to the side. As she does that, the man climbs to the platform keeping the gun pointed at her. "Put your hands on that case" He says as he stops right in front of it. The same spot where Zhongli got hit in the face with that comical boxing glove.

"Are you sure about that?" She asks while still reaching to do it.

"I don't think you can threaten me with-" he gets cut off by Lumine placing her hand on the display and the boxing glove making him fly. He faints from that impact and Lumine is quite amazed that Zhongli just got right back up after his hit in the face.

"I did warn you..." She mutters to herself.

Two down, and the third one barges in trough the door, Lumine charges her shoe while making a run for it. The guy is desperately shooting, really missing his target, he is clearly exhausted. He is about to pass the line of the same thing Hu Tao felt victim earlier.

"Aaah!" She tries pointing up. The guy raising his gun towards where she points, triggering the sensors and knocking him out too. Now she wonders if the people she is surrounded with are just extraordinary in some way, because Hu Tao was right back up too. Three out of three down.

"Efficient as always..." Barbatos' amused voice makes her jump for a second. "I'm assuming these are traps prepared originally for me?"

"Like you would need an explanation..." Lumine huffs, he clearly know what are the plans here, he wouldn't have given her the fingerprint sticker.

"That old lady never fails to impress me" He chuckles. Both get distracted by the elevator opening and the terrorists' leader steps out unleashing a rain of bullets on the two of them.

The thief's escape is towards behind the display case, and his cape helps in not getting a clear view of his position, it gets a few holes in it, but he doesn't get injured.

Lumine reaches under her skirt to use the football making belt. Her shoe is still charged and she can instantly shoot a ball right at the attacker's face. She hits, surviving the encounter with a single scratch on her cheek. The guy tries to move, but falls back on it.

Herself also falls on her butt, her legs giving in for a bit, but they probably are in the clear for now. A relieved sigh leaving her.

"You're good " Barbatos murmurs impressed as he walks towards her. But he doesn't stop a few steps away like he usually does, he doesn't stop until he is right in front of her. He crouches down, pulling something out of his pocket. Lumine just looks at him dumbfounded, because she isn't ready to make a move yet now that she is more in the clear. "And this..." He grabbed a band-aid from his pocket. "Is a medal for a warrior." He sticks it on her face over the little scar she got from one of those bullets. She vinces at the gesture because it does sting.

"Thank you" she mutters flustered as she gets away from him, pulling out the walkie talkie she took earlier.

On Scaramouche's side, he keeps put as now only one man watches over the group.

"I hope you all can hear this" Felicity's voice comes trough the man's device suddenly. "Your leader has been taken down" She says so matter of factly, it annoys the boy. "So did the other three..."

"What?!" The man reaches for his own walkie talkie. Scaramouche notices the inspector readying herself to move. "Cut the crap!" In the man's moment of distraction, Beidou tackles him.

"Go Oz!" Fischl gives out the order to her raven, who with ruffled feathers flies at the terrorist, managing to knock out the gun from his hand. Fischl goes to get the weapon that got near the door, but gunshots from the other side turn her around. The woman who earlier blended in as a waiter comes in to shoot anyone resisting.

Unfortunately, she is met with a now fully awake ex-police officer Zhongli, who is quite well learned in neutralizing criminals.

"Please don't run with weapons" Zhongli mutters while the kids celebrate. Scaramouche noticing the detective girls badge that fell out of the waitress' pocket, he snatches it to report to Lumine.

"Dannay, two criminals here have been disarmed" he reports.

"Roger that" She pulls out her badge as she finishes her examination of the leader's body. He is fully conscious but doesn't have it in him to fight her. Of note, she finds an ampule filled with liquid, probably the bacteria, and a phone along with the Lady Sky named jewel.

For her luck, it doesn't have a password on it, so she checks the content. A lot of calls in the past few hours.

"Hey, who were you talking to?" Back to a normal child's innocent curiosity.

"Like I would tell you" The leader grumbles at her. What's a better opportunity to test the actual existence of bacteria than now. She holds the ampule in front of her, ready to open it. "What are you planning with that?" He just looks tired, not really concerned.

"If you don't tell me, I'm going to spread the bacteria all over you" She glares at the guy.

"Do as you please..." He murmurs, closing his eyes. That's enough to prove it to her. With a satisfied smile, she steps away from the guy.

"The flip between your two modes is truly terrifying" Barbatos mutters near her, watching the whole interaction while tying the two other unconscious guys up.

"Can you guys stop calling me scary or something along those lines?" She mutters while shooting him an unimpressed look across the room as she turns to tie up the leader herself. "I should be the one telling that to you for example... Being an internationally wanted criminal and all..."

"At least I'm not looking like a seven year old while doing so, miss great detective" The thief chuckles at that.

"Point taken I guess" She sighs. She wants her old body back. Being a kid is annoying.

"Sorry if that opened up a wound" Barbator mutters as he finishes his guy.

"Can't be more opened than as it currently is..." She shrugs with a chuckle as she also finishes tying up the guy.

The elevator arrives with the now freed police officers. Of course Barbatos is gone right before that. Lumine's best guess is that he went back to the roof. She won't rat him out, they did have an agreement for this time, and he did save her life. She tells the officers that there is one more guy locked inside the floor of the display and heads to join the others.

Meanwhile Ayaka and Heizou arrive to their destination, halting their moving progress.

"What a smart plan you guys had here!" The two stops by the truck's side, Ayaka a bit over acting. "Getting the monks away and stealing the Buddha statues..." she looks at the guys dressed as police officers.

"What are you talking about? We are going by our orders to protect these statues!" One of them fixes their uniform with mock confidence.

"Oh really?" Heizou mutters amused. "Then could you please tell us the name of an inspector from Nara prefecture?" They clearly don't have an answer for that.

"Huh, that's weird, you would think police officers would know that..." Ayaka mutters looking towards the sky thinking.

"It's just two kids..." One of the guys mutter towards his accomplices, but he is loud enough for the young detectives to hear. "We can take care of them..."

"Did you hear that?" Heizou crosses his arms.

"Yeah they just called us kids..." Ayaka shakes his head. "And think that we would come here without a plan"

The two young detectives were the distraction while the police surrounded the area. Of course only thanks to Ayaka's connection to the police trough her brother they could make this happen. And she will see him very soon because they talked about one of the two joining him and Thoma on the helicopter after the airship. Heizou lets her have it of course, for one because her brother is on there, and for two, she is better friends with Lumine than he is.

"Thanks Ayaka!" After the girl's report Lumine yells out loud so the whole room can hear it. "Pass that to Heizou too!"

"Will do" Ayaka nods with a smile and they hang up on each other at the same time. "Lumine sends her thanks to you too" she says towards the other detective while putting her phone away.

"Before I forget, I got Lady Sky back" Lumine turns to the old lady, giving her the stolen treasure. Sure, she won't stop Barbatos, but she won't let him succeed either if she can help it. A draw is their usual outcome anyways when they clash.

"Great work!" Fischl pats her on the head with enthusiasm.

"We need to get Xiao to a hospital as soon as possible." Mr. Zhongli speaks up.

"Right away" The old lady nods and would move to make the arrangements.

"Wait, I don't think he needs hospital!" Lumine speaks up. "I tried to use the bacteria to make their leader talk and he was pretty calm about it, so I don't think it's real"

"I see... That would really imply that they were bluffing the whole time..." Zhongli nods musing at the kid's reasoning. "Then let's go get him and the director"

"How did you get back up so fast?" Scaramouche mutters next to her as they head to the smoking room as a group.

"With the help of that thief mainly" she whispers back as the two of them gets a bit behind the group to make sure people don't hear them. "He pretended to be the adult me and for Lumine, asking the inspector of letting me ride the helicopter following the airship was no issue"

"What a show off" A mocking chuckle from the guy.

"I'm sorry I'm not an established criminal but a detective that helped the police quite a few times at this point..." The boy just shoots a murderous look at her. She is used to them, so it doesn't matter, but there is something bothering her, that she can't place why.

As she hears Xiao panic about people going to the smoking room she remembers that there were two more infected. The waitress and the journalist are not kept in the smoking room.

She runs off leaving Scaramouche dumbfounded, the kids in front of him also notice the sudden sounds but just shrug at her behavior. Scaramouche can't be that calm, because if Lumine seems uneasy, she has a good reason. He seen it multiple times, her trying to play it off or just wordlessly leaving because that's easier than explaining.

Barging in the sick ward, Lumine instantly spots that the poor waitress shave been tied up. She is sure the police wouldn't have done that, so she starts to release the lady. The journalist on the other hand is completely gone.

The pieces fall together now. He had rashes everywhere. It's clearly something that irritates the skin on contact, and he had it in places you wouldn't normally touch often. And he was the one grabbing Xiao too. The leader was on the phone with someone most of the time too, maybe it was the true leader.

Maybe this isn't completely over yet.

She heads for the top of the airship. She either will find Barbatos there, or the master mind watching his plan crumble apart from a safe distance. That's the only place there is no chance anyone will go to.

She does not find the bard dressed thief there. She finds the man probably behind all of this.

"Leaving your subordinates behind while you flee? Pretty spineless..." she yells past the wind. "Mr. Leader of the organization?"

"Can't believe a little girl figured out my identity" he turns to face her with a scoff.

"I was absolutely fooled for the longest time, so I gotta give you credit for that at least." She really is a bit impressed, even if her main goal in life is to get people like him behind bars. If nothing else, it is a great learning experience.

She runs down her reasonings to him. How he instructed the waitress disguised terrorist lady to set up the smoking room for that. How he touched Xiao to limit his movements and probably put sleeping pills in Zhongli's wine because she knows from experience that the man can hold his liquor. How it was suspicious that he had the rashes all over his body. How the assumed leader was on the phone a lot the past few hours.

"Brilliant deduction" He seems amused by her little detective show, which is never a good sign with actually dangerous criminals. "However you missed a very important part" His expression changes to self-satisfaction. "I'm not planning to escape alone"

"All your subordinates have been apprehended..." Lumine tries to seem confident, but by his reaction she can't really be.

"I'm not talking about them" a mocking chuckle. "Not the ones that I hired but the ones that I already had."

While Lumine does that, Scaramouche sticks with the group to keep an eye out. Lumine seemed upset so that means they aren't exactly in the clear yet. Everyone on the other hand head back to the dining area with complete relief that they are out of the deep end, going back to the planned schedule.

A surprised little scream from behind makes everyone stop. The cameraman holding Hu Tao hostage with a gun at her head.

"Don't move!" He yells to the group. Xiao would try to make his move to save his friend, but a gun gets pressed to his head and that makes him stop.

"Didn't you hear him?" The woman who was with him the whole flight growls towards him.

"Dannay, they have two more accomplices" Scaramouche's voice comes trough her detective girls badge. "The cameraman and the reporter are working with them" She just says a few quick curses in her head.

"Second, I didn't come here to escape." He looks her right in the eyes. "I wanted to draw you out." Her eyes go wide. "Now that you ruined my plan, allow me to return the favor!" He pulls out a handgun that she did not notice at all. His first shot almost hits her right on her head. It only leaves a big wound across her skull. She feels her warm blood flow down and over her right eye. "There is a lot of time left, let me enjoy this"

While that's happening finally the helicopter arrives to pick Ayaka up.

"Now take good care of your girlfriend before she gets into more trouble!" Heizou calls after her as a good bye. He had to have his revenge for earlier.

"You know all well that she already has someone!" Ayaka shoots a disapproving look towards him, but he doesn't miss the young detective's pink tainted cheeks. He will call it a successfull revenge.

"Good work out there" Her brother greets Ayaka, helping her in. "I still wish you wouldn't play detective so much" He sighs knowing that this could be pretty dangerous to his sister.

"It'll be fine! I survived more dangerous situations too, and you are here right now too" Ayaka laughs it off awkwardly. She loves her brother dearly, but she wishes he would stop calling her work playing around.

"Unfortunately that doesn't calm my nerves" He laughs with a sigh too.

The whole ship is tied to a half wall's banister, right next to each other in a neat little row. The staff is on the other side of the ship, Scaramouche assumes in a similar position. The two don't even reliese their accomplices, saying that they should die with the rest because the only thing they got out of this operation is the Lady Sky, the other half completely failed.

Meanwhile Lumine is absolutely toyed with on the top of the airship. He is clearly a way better marksman than all of his subordinates were put together. She can see that he really deliberately barely misses her, making her jump around as much as she can, but she is getting out of breath, the wind is strong for her tiny body, she needs to fight it a lot.

He shoots her right in her left arm, combining the impact of that, her attempt to avoid it and the wind just makes her fly quite a bit. The ship is rapidly approaching on a bridge that her brain is way too fuzzy to even attempt to recognize.

He really enjoys torturing this small child in front of him, he even taunts him by telling her that he had to set up bombs in the cabin with the hostages because she disabled the other ones.

Another deliberately missed shot, but it makes her jump and the wind carries her quite back. Now with her arm injured it's even worse, but she can't worry about that for now. She needs to figure something out.

She lands right on top of the door leading down back to the ship. The rapidly approaching bridge gives her an idea. She needs to hope that he won't get bored before that and just finish her off for good.

"Woow what a pretty view!" She points at the shoreline with her best little kid seeming behavior to hopefully catch him a bit off. If he hits his head by the bridge it's fine by her too.

"You think that would work on me? And bump my head on the bridge?" A mocking laugh from the man as he turns to wait for the bridge to arrive. He crouches down as they pass it.

That's her chance. She slips her football dispensing belt off and strengthens it around the handle of the door. She starts making a ball but she just lets it go bigger and bigger. If her fuzzy brain is correct in her physics and knowledge on airships, the ship should tilt upwards thanks to getting stuck on the bridge and when she releases, soon the ship should go back to horizontal thanks to the technology nowadays.

She just needs to pray she is right.

And she is. Releasing the ball and holding into the side ropes so she doesn't fall off. The ship does scratch the bridge quite a bit. Hopefully nothing too fatal damage to it and she didn't just kill countless people with this stunt. Meanwhile in the inside people are hanging thanks to being tied up by their hands.

She watches as the leader falls down to the water. She now needs to pray that she was right about technology.

She was. The airship goes back to horizontal from it's completely vertical leap. She decides to lay on the top of the ship for a little while to get herself together. Unfortunately she doesn't get a long break whatsoever, because she feels her phone buzz and then ring. She doesn't even look at the screen just picks it up.

"Lumine, are you alright?!" Comes the instant question from Ayaka.

"Oh, Ayaka, great that it's you" she mutters weakly. "Call the maritime police, the leader of the organization fell into the water"

"The leader of the organization fell into the water?" She parrots back while signaling to her brother and Thoma to make a call. Thoma moves to do so.

"Yeah" Lumine just mutters back, still collecting herself.

"How are you? You don't sound fine." Ayaka can clearly hear that she is weak.

"I'm going to be fine, no need to worry" Lumine mumbles looking at the helicopter in the distance. "But my god, I really didn't plan my day going like this..." A pained laugh escapes her.

"At least you are in high enough spirit to laugh" Ayaka lets a relieved sigh fly.

"See you later" Lumine murmurs with a smile now and finally collects herself enough to stand up after hanging up on Ayaka.

"Hey Ayaka... Might be a weird question, but is this dear friend of yours, Barbatos?" Ayato turns to his sister with concern, thanks to the earlier stunt that Lumine and Barbatos pulled. She just tilts her head at the idea confused.

"Is everyone alright?" Zhongli is the first to collect himself on the other side of the wall that Scaramouche is sitting by with the kids. Humms of confirmations come across the room.

"Where are those fiends?" Fischl asks looking around.

"They hit their head while the ship turned vertical" Beidou nods towards the two laying by the wall.

"Ironically we were saved by being tied up, huh..." The old lady muses to herself. Suddenly Oz starts to puff up his feathers looking towards the door.

"Well, that was a surprise!" Barbatos walks in with vigor, imitating Lumine's voice slightly, he is a bit off on purpose. "I wanted to check the situation here, but everything suddenly tilted!" He muses out loud while walking towards Xiao.

"And now you are going to make most of the situation and steal the jewel, eh?" Beidou, not at all impressed by their circumstances. "What a spineless move..."

"You wound me, inspector" He over reacts while releasing the clearly still hesitant boy. "Please release everyone else." He asks with a wink as he goes to the knocked out guys.

"Is Feli alright?" Xiao hesitantly asks. She is clearly not with them so he was worried the whole time, even if he didn't voice it.

"She should be here soon, no need to worry about her" He humms a little tune while going trough their bag looking for Lady Sky. He finds it really quick. "And as I announced, this jewel now belongs to me" He takes off his hat for a bow to the audience and leaves, once again humming.

Lumine drags herself down by the time everyone is freed. Zhongli and Xiao are horrified to see her with bleeding wounds, and just as quick Scaramouche pulls her away to adress them. He also proved to be good at it quite a few times in the past, so the adults trust him with it.

Turns out none of her injuries were that bad, she just felt them ten times worse at the moment. She just trusts Scaramouche with the process, wishing to just fall asleep.

"Unfortunately you can't completely celebrate" Scaramouche chuckles as he sees her attempts to stay awake. He will try to help out on it tho.

"Please don't pull my leg with organization bullshittery now" She sighs. Him telling her that there is a sniper out to get them is the last thing she needs right now.

"It's not organization bullshittery, no need to worry" He laughs at that as he finishes her arm. "How are these feeling?"

"Good. Thanks" Lumine nods with a smile. "So why can't I celebrate?"

"Barbatos did get his way at the end. He managed to steal Lady Sky." She seems visibly more awake at that, but goes silent. He half succeeded.

"Tell the others I'll join them in a second!" She calls back to him running off.

"Don't get killed! You aren't that fine!" The boy yells after her.

"I'll be alright!" She shouts.

"What a girl..." Scaramouche now just grumbles to himself as he puts away everything he used to adress her wounds. "What an absolute headache..."

Lumine of course heads for the observation deck. Other than the top of the airship, it's the most moonlit area around this time, so she guesses the moonlit magician would be there.

And she is right. He is standing right by the display case, holding the jewel to the moonlight.

"Is that the one you were looking for?" She walks closer.

"Nope" He sighs. "Here to arrest me, great detective? I thought we had a deal there..." He is obviously joking, but Lumine plays along to a lot of things, this is really not out of question.

"Now, do you see police officers behind me?" She murmurs unimpressed. "I told no one I'm coming here if that calms your nerves on that."

"Isn't that a bit dangerous thing to do with such a dangerous criminal as myself?" He murmurs while he opens the case with another fingerprint sticker. Of course he had backups. He even knew the code for it which makes Lumine inwardly grumble.

"Oh my, Mr. Bard, are you not implying that you would hurt a harmless little girl while she is already down" she purposefully over acts with the most comical expression she can master.

"Harmless, eh?" He shoots her a look after closing the display case. "Like you didn't just took down a whole terrorist group by yourself earlier today..." He shakes his head. "Well, curtains need to be closed for today, hope you have a great rest of your evening" He bows to her too, taking his hat off just as he did earlier to the rest of the group. With a puff of smoke he disappears. Lumine guesses that he used his hook to get out of the observation deck and fly away on those green wings of his.

She heads back to finally have something in her stomach with the others. Especially with her wounds she needs those nutrients.

The terrorist group is taken care of by the police as they arrive to the destination, soon getting the news of the leader being found in the water too.

Lumine spends quite a bit just sleeping. That day was a lot, even if she personally hates to sleep for long.

Chapter Text

Going trough the before school routine, Lumine often turns on the radio to see if there is anything to look out for the day ahead while she just absentmindedly prepares.

That particular morning her stomach drops.

"A dead body has been found in the bushes of Tropical Land. It's believed to be the famous high school detective, Viatrox Aether's body" comes trough her phone. Xiao, also going trough the morning rounds, just drops his whole bag that he was about to move. Lumine is lucky she wasn't holding anything at that second, she just froze in place.

"That can't be" Xiao mutters in front of him.

Unfortunately they don't have time for talking about it, they need to get to school. Xiao is instantly so out of it. Visibly as he heads out before her. She notices that half of the contents of his backpack managed to stay home a bit too late to run after him.

Her time is up.

She is even amazed that it took so long to notice, but she definitely didn't expect to get that cold shower in an early morning.

Unfortunately as much as she wishes to control herself trough her day, but the teacher and even the kids clearly take notice.

"Feli, are you sick?" Klee comes head on, but she didn't notice because she was spacing out too much. She places a hand on her forehead. "You look pale"

"I-I'm fine, I'm sorry for making you worried" She is painfully aware how unconvincing she sounds right now as she retreats from Klee's touch.

"Did a ghost actually get your soul?" Qiqi tilts her head also getting worried about her friend.

"You are spacing out an awful lot..." Diona grumbles too. Lumine managed to worry all her friends and she feels awful about it.

"You never even answered miss Ganyu once!" Klee hops in her place.

"I-I'm sorry, I... Couldn't sleep well last night, I'm a bit tired." She tries to pull off a smile, unsure how successful she is in that.

"You probably aren't going to help her by not letting her breath either." Scaramouche chimes in. She felt the boy's eyes wander on her from time to time, but so far he haven't said anything. She still really doesn't trust him.

Klee and the girls try to cheer her up during to day and try drag her away after school too, but she manages to turn them down somehow.

She could try go over to the professor's place to talk to him, but she has no mood to see Scaramouche around. Not the accomplice of those dark coated guys, even if he doesn't seem to be planning anything for now.

"You were trembling during classes" The guy she was just thinking about not wanting to see. How perfect. He is standing behind her on the empty street.

"Please, I really don't have mood to talk to those people's accomplice" She grumbles. "even if you aren't planning anything."

"I'm just making sure you won't follow him right away" He grumbles back.

"Do you think I've gone trough all this to follow him right away as his death finally gets out to the media...? I've known for a while you know..." Her voice is full of venom as she turns to face him. "You know, I was the one trying to hide his body to the best of my ability" He seems to be taken aback by that. "Your accomplices just left us out in the open behind one of the buildings."

"I understand-" He would start, but Lumine cuts her off.

"I really don't want to hear anything out of you right now." She grumbles turning away once more. "And aren't you supposed to be worried about yourself? Them knowing only my brother's death, they will surely reinvestigate me... And you will we dragged down with that"

"You might be safe for a bit. It took a while for them to discover Aether..." He murmurs, but Lumine just starts going. She really doesn't want to hear anything he says right now.

Her phone rings, Heizou's name on her screen. She will have to talk to Xiao after this too...

"Hello?" She mutters into the phone.

"Are you alright?" Comes the high school detective's question instantly. "I'm not calling you while you are still in school, am I?"

"No you are not." Lumine sighs. "Some of you are acting like I wouldn't know that he is dead..." She grumbles.

"I know that you already knew, but are you being followed, suspicious people around?"

"Nothing yet. I'm on the lookout tho..." She continues to mutter. "I guess if you can count that kid I already told you about..."

"Is he still not making moves?" Comes trough the phone.

"I mean... He is on my heel right now, but he expressed concern towards me a minute ago..." She grumbles glancing back. He sure is a few meters behind her. Not bothering to even conceal himself.

"At least that's something..." Heizou sighs on the other end of the line.

"And how are you doing?" She tries to put on a cheery voice.

"Worried about a weird small child right now" He chuckles. "If anything comes up don't hesitate to call"

"With how much you keep calling me a small child that chance is low, you know" She mainly jokes, but he definitely isn't her first choice to call if something comes up. It will always be Albedo. Well, guess not today, but Scaramouche already started to talk to her so she might as well head over. "So that's all you were curious about?"

"Basically" A huff from him.

"Well, talk to you later if there is any developments" She murmurs.

"See you" they kinda say it at the same time. And hang up.

She doesn't even have time to put away her phone when Ayaka's name appears on her phone.

"Hello, are you still in school?" Comes Ayaka's concerned voice instantly.

"Nope, I'm out, no need to worry about that" Lumine murmurs back.

"I saw the news, have anything suspicious come up so far?" Lumine can hear shuffling on her end.

"Nothing so far. Haven't noticed being followed yet" She murmurs.

"And how are you mentally?" Ayaka hesitantly asks.

"I've known that Aether is dead for a while... It's not that huge of a shock that it's now public knowledge..." She grumbles, still disappointed in herself that she wasn't fast enough with the realization.

"But that also means that those people know about him but not you..." Ayaka mutters.

"I'm just wondering how much time I have left, that's all. I guess I won't be able to avenge him after all... I'm guessing Dainslief is also in deep shit now... I'm sure the police already contacted him about it..." She thinks out loud. She will have to confirm with her mom and him what they said so their facts align in the future. "Probably mom too..."

"Dainsleif?" Ayaka murmurs.

"Aether's dad. He is like a father to me too, but I just never could bring myself to call him dad for some reason..." She shrugs. She really doesn't have a tangible reason for it, but she asked if it bothers him in the past, and it doesn't. "On paper we aren't exactly a complete family"

"Sounds messy" Ayaka humms on the other end of the line.

"Eh, it wasn't really a huge deal over the years" Lumine shrugs again while walking. "Dains and mom decided pretty quick that it's better for us twins to stay together so they also decided to stick together for a while annd that just became the norm"

"I see... So any other worries other than impending doom?" Ayaka lets out a chuckle, feeling incredibly dumb.

"I need to call Xiao... He heard the news this morning too and it clearly hit him like a truck" She sighs while slowing down near Albedo's house. Scaramouche does the same behind her. "I really don't know what to tell him... Especially over a phone..." Her grumble returns. "I really wanted to tell him using my own body..."

"I'm sure you can get trough it" Unfortunately she can't really do much with that encouragement. "I'm gonna stop bothering you, unfortunately I also have things going on, call me if there is any development."

"Thanks Ayaka, see you" She hangs up. She sends a disapproving glance towards Scaramouche. With a deep breath she heads for the professor's house. She will call Zhongli and Xiao a bit later that she is staying over Albedo for a bit.

Albedo of course welcomes her, and he also seen the news. He just lets her sulk a bit. Scaramouche is nice enough to go to the basement where the professor let him set up camp. She isn't alone anymore so she dares to leave her alone. He keeps an ear out in case she will leave alone, but he won't bother.

"I guess I'll need to wait for mom and Dains to see what they told the police before calling Xiao..." She is done sulking in silence, laying on the table.

"Would be for the better." Albedo nods.

"Do you think if I call mom now she will be able to tell... What time is it there..." She murmurs looking at the time first. She thinks about it and to be fair, with Alice, you just never really know until you try.

So she calls her mother.

"Oh Lumi, great timing, I was about to call you!" Alice audibly tries to greet her in her usual cheery voice, but is definitely struggling to do so.

"I guess that means you know what to tell me so our stories will align in the future?" She mutters.

"Yes, Dains asked the police to say that the body isn't perfectly sure is Aether's, but you both went missing recently. That's what officially going to be out, what we told them about the situation is that you two were attacked by a criminal, the attack on Aether was more successful, but you had to go hiding because you could not see the attacker, but you survived." Alice tells her the situation while she intently listens.

"Okay, thanks..." Lumine hesitates for a second, and Alice can tell by her slight humm, so she waits for her daughter. "Are you able to offer some motherly advice on how could I possibly call Xiao about the situation?" She mutters.

"Can't say I've been in your shoes sweetie..." Alice mutters. "But Xiao is a good kid, I don't think you would have issues talking to him about it"

"Over a stupid phone?" Lumine lets a sigh fly.

"I'm sure he understands. You can always just say half truths so you don't involve him too deep" She can hear her mom walking around.

"I wish I could do it in my own body... I feel like a coward even if I really don't have a choice" Lumine sighs.

"You can do it Lumi, I believe in you" Alice would like to hug her daughter right about now, but she can't do anything, she is still in Los Angeles.

"Thanks mom... Talk to you later!" She now tries to sound more cheery.

"Be careful out there!" Alice says her goodbye.

Lumine goes right back to sulking for a few minutes. She keeps her head on the table. She knows the impending doom that the organization will find her and end her for good, along with Scaramouche, but she really needs to face the love of her life first, apologizing for not telling him that his best friend slash love of his life have been killed and she didn't tell him first thing.

But it's better to get it over sooner rather than later. She says her goodbye to Albedo and heads for a phone booth. Scaramouche, despite keeping an ear out, realizes a bit late that she left.

"Hello?" Xiao's shaky voice comes trough the phone. She never heard him like that.

"Hi Xiao, it's me" She mumbles trough her bow, really unsure how to begin.

"Oh..." That makes her stomach drop again. That's probably the worst reaction she could hear. She also just never heard him like that. Sure he got upset at her and Aether in the past for so casually handling dead bodies, but never like that.

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you earlier... I-I wanted to do it in person, but I couldn't make it happen" She just gets to it. "I really did plan to tell you sooner than when the media would find out, I'm really sorry"

"Can you at least tell me what happened?" He asks with a sigh. She goes silent for a bit.

"...I can't." A frustrated sigh from Xiao at that.

"Why?" Pretty accusatory, but Lumine can understand.

"I will tell you everything when I can. That's all I can promise you, I'm sorry" She mumbles blankly in front of her.

"I wish I could believe you as well as I used to on that..." A sigh. "All my worries have been proven right that something happened to you two..." A slight grumble.

"I'm sorry. I'm working on fixing this." If she can survive long enough. Hopefully what Dains and mom say will help a bit, but she can't be sure. She still probably has a few days at max...

"Please just be careful" Xiao mutters trough the phone.

"I will, I can at least promise that" She lets out a weak chuckle.

They say their goodbyes and she just stays in the phone booth. Slowly sitting down on the ground. Absolutely gutted. And she can't do anything for Xiao. Not like she would have any ideas if she had her own body back, but as the stupid little Felicity...

She really should go back to face the situation as much as she is able to but... While even if she is Felicity right now, showing him her face feels awful. Unfortunately she can't just not go back to her current guardians. He also recognized a few times that Feli and her look alike, so it might even make it even worse for him.

She just hits her head on the booth's side a few times. Destroying some precious brain cells she will need for cases, but she just doesn't know what to do. She really could just call as Feli and say that she will stay over at the professor's for a few days... Albedo is already deep enough as he is by sheltering an organization member, completely willingly...

Running away is also an option...

No it's not. She needs to shake that off as soon as possible. It would be safer for the people around her, but so far, clues about that organization just walked right trough the door of Zhongli's agency... She can't just throw that away. Also his close connection to the police is quite valuable.

She really should be able to deal with this, but she just feels lost. What can she do about the situation?

When she finally collects herself and steps out only then she notices that Scaramouche came after her.

"I'm just making sure you get home safe, no need for that murderous glance" He doesn't even look at her. "I will think that you are actually planning to murder me..."

"Like I would throw my pride as a detective for that" she grumbles. "I'm heading back to the detective agency, no need to follow me" She turns around to head there.

The boy follows her until she reaches the stairs. She will thank him for it one day, but that day is certainly not today. She still doesn't trust him and the scientist behind the exact poison that killed him is really not the nicest thing to have in one's face.

"I'm home" She mutters entering the detective agency. Only Zhongli is there. "Is Xiao back yet?"

"Welcome back Feli" the old detective greets her first with a small smile, but he turns to a bit more sad expression pretty quick. "He is back, but probably better not disturb him for now."

"I see..." She mumbles looking at the ground.

"There is nothing you need to worry about, Feli" He shows another reassuring smile towards her. Oh, if he knew...

"Okay" She mutters, unable to act convinced. She really doesn't have a choice but to leave the situation as Feli. Maybe she should call more often as Lumine for a while... Probably the only thing she can do.

She gets a text from Ayaka to invite her, Xiao and Zhongli for a tour around Osaka, in hopes of maybe distracting everyone from the news a little bit. And it could be good for Lumine to get away from her normal place of stay to at the least make it harder for those people to find her.

Chapter Text

Lumine have been after the famous thief, Barbatos, for a while now. Her original, 'criminal, must be punished' attitude turned into simple curiosity about the guy. He doesn't really hurt people, he just puts on a show, takes a jewel to check out and then return it to the rightful owner, which sometimes isn't the person who he stole it from from what she heard.

She mainly took on being a detective because of her brother originally. She isn't bad at it, and she is used to it at this point, she really can't think of what else to do withher life after destroying the organization that killed Aether, but her desire to arrest the thief long disappeared. Aether probably would be really disappointed in her by that...

She still states that she will be the one to help his arrest, but she just speaks from instinct. Scaramouche also warned her that it's really not a good idea for her to start sympathizing with a criminal, but that guy never really stopped her in the past.

The guy also somehow found out about her true identity after a few encounters... While it's not impossible for him to be at a crime scene and noticing the tiny little Felicity going about investigating, often even better than the old detective, he could put two and two together, but Lumine highly doubts that... Taking fingerprints from suspects would incriminate him, and if he wouldn't be in disguise, she would recognize his voice. While she can't be 100% sure that his most heard voice is his actual voice, she doubts it wouldn't be. At max making himself sound more playful of the sort.

After one of these failed capture heists she is wandering about on her small feet. Xiao thinks she is staying over at professor Albedo's, so no one is looking for her, so she has the time to think by herself.

While deep in her thoughts, she fails to notice a car coming right her way. She reacts entirely too late to even see what happened to the driver, she just braces herself for impact, like it would help her small child body.

With her closed eyes, the impact never comes. She feels hands around her, getting dragged a bit away.

"Are you alright?!" A concerned stranger, panting a bit, supporting her until she gets her bearings. A stranger with a really familiar voice.

"Huh?" She tries to collect herself. "Uh, yeah" she manages to get that out, still processing.

Police sirens are closing in on the location, the stranger's expression changes for a split second from concern to annoyance.

"Well it's a relief to see you alright" He mutters and turns to run, just as Lumine hears a car stop near the alley way she got dragged to.

"A child!! Call an ambulance!" A voice yells, probably the driver. She should go and tell them that she is alright, but she is also more interested in the stranger with the familiar voice, he sounded like Barbatos, so she runs after him.

She loses him fairly quick after a corner. Not even in a crowd, the street is completely empty. She also just did not have the opportunity to say thank you, so for that reason mainly (and her curiosity) she really wants to find the guy. If it is Barbatos, he is just a human, playing tricks, he probably just hid somewhere out of sight, waiting for her to leave.

Inspecting the area, she can't see any surface to climb the buildings, so the escape there really seems out the question. The only thing on the street is a post box, so he could hide behind it, as stupid as that feels. She slowly walks there, and the guy is crouching there. They just stare at each other for a few seconds. The hair and the eye color and the voice checks out to be Barbatos.

"I uh... Wanted to say a proper thank you?" She mumbles.

"Ah, you are very welcome" he awkwardly stands up with a smile, hoping that he is in the clear.

"Are you Barbatos?" It is really stupid to just straight up ask, but this is basically the only option she has. At worst this random guy will think that this random 7 year old child is crazy. He just studies her a bit. "I didn't contact anyone if you happen to be.." she murmurs.

"You know little detective, that's not a great thing to admit to a stranger..." The guy crosses his arms unimpressed, with that revealing himself.

"Oh, believe me, I did way more dangerous things before" She chuckles. "Isn't it also stupid of you to linger around the crime scene?" She murmurs.

"What do you want?" He just bluntly asks. The detective trapped in a little girl's body got too close to outwitting him a few too many times.

"Saying thank you for saving my butt...?" She tilts her head.

"And you did, I'm happy to help in that, but you didn't just left after it..." He murmurs completely unimpressed.

"Ah... I guess you are right..." She murmurs. "I honestly was just curious if I was right with that...." She scratches the back of her head.

"And what are you going to do with that information? Report me to the police?" The thief disapprovingly raises an eyebrow.

"If I would wanted to do that, I would've yelled after seeing the red lights past the alley..." She puffs her cheeks a bit, avoiding looking at the guy.

"Oh? The great detective would let a thief such as myself fly?" He leans down towards her, his crossed arms moving to his hips.

"I did that quite a few times if you haven't noticed..." She grumbles. Yeah, she will try fo corner the guy every single time, but she leaves plenty of opportunities for him to escape. If he is too stupid to use them, that's not her fault, she still will cooperate with the police.

"I thought you are famous for being ruthless towards criminals..." Barbatos grumbles.

"To be fair, most criminals I personally deal with are murderers... The only thing those guys deserve is prison..." Barbatos nods at that. He can understand that. "And honestly even then, Aether was way harder on bringing justice..." She starts muttering. "But he isn't here anymore..."

"Would he be after me too if he survived whatever happened to you two?" That is just out of genuine interest.

"He probably would've handed you over to the police at least three times by now..." She doesn't think about it a lot on the spot. After reflecting on each encounter she always concluded that if Aether still would be around, he would've completely won, unlike her.

"Wow, not even a second of hesitation." The thief chuckles.

"That reminds me... Was the thing today the one you were looking for?" In the logic of; thinking about how he always returns the jewels to the rightful owners.

"Not telling you" He lets out a little laugh.

Footsteps reach the two's ears, coming trough the alley way. Thoma walks out to the streetlights, looking around. He stares surprised at Felicity and half a glance at the stranger next to her. He approaches them, and she feels Barbatos's eyes on her. He has plenty of space to escape even if she would reveal him right there.

"Feli! Good evening, we were chasing a suspect and he got into a car crash, just the other side of this alley" he glances towards where he came from. "He claims that he hit a kid there, but we can't find anything, have you heard or seen anything?" The detective asks from her.

"That kid was me, but this guy saved me" she points at Barbatos next to her. "So I'm fine"

"That's great" The detective smiles and checks his watch, turning a bit more concerned. "It's pretty late... I would offer to take you home, but..." He mutters under his nose.

"I can take her home" the thief offers, Lumine just raises an eyebrow towards him.

"Do you know each other?" Thoma looks between the two.

"Something like that" they both shrug at the same time.

"I can escort her safely" The thief reassures.

"Thank you then" Thoma turns to leave with a wave. "I need to report back"

"Goodbye!" Felicity waves after him with a smile. The thief next to her just waving, both waiting for the detective to leave.

"So shall we?" He looks at her.

"Oh? I thought you just wanted to leave me here..." She murmurs amused.

"Your words wound me, you take me for that kind of guy?" Over acting fully on purpose. "It is late, and as capable of you are, you still look like a kid, wouldn't want some creepy guys after you" he shows her a smile. "so to that professor friend of yours or the detective agency?"

"You say that you don't want any creepy people around, but you knowing the two houses I'm most likely to be at is kinda creepy" She lets out a little laugh and starts going. "I told Xiao and Mr. Zhongli that I'm staying at the professor's house today" the thief follows closely. "Is there a name you would like to be called instead of Barbatos? Would be bad if a random person would overhear on the way of me calling you that..."

"Hmm...." He murmurs thinking about it a few seconds. "Let's go with Venti..." He mutters.

"Venti? What an odd name to choose for this..." She thinks out loud. It's really not an every day name, so he is either really extra or an individual named that came to his mind recently and it was already planted there... Probably just really extra. He is a magician after all.

"Sorry" He laughs a little behind her. "Wasn't that officer earlier one of those people who actually have experience with you?" He turns a bit more serious while following Lumine.

"Yeah, he is a police detective, we run into each other at least every third crime scene... If not more often..." She muses.

"So he would've believed you if you told him..." 'Venti' humms thinking.

"Probably" she shrugs hearing the guy think behind her. "It probably would've been easy for you to outwit him tho... Sometimes he isn't the sharpest and you had plenty of room to escape too... Thoma also would've made sure that I'm safe first anyways" she runs down her reasonings on why she didn't just out him to Thoma.

"You are not trying to lead me towards my doom, are you?" He raises an eyebrow, leaning above her.

"You are free to leave you know, I can get home by myself" the kid shrugs at that. The thief murmurs something she doesn't quite catch, but doesn't stop following her, but straightens back up.

They go for a while in mostly silence, Lumine feeling increasingly awkward. Initiating this whole situation was really stupid of her. She just got curious and that's all.

"Hey, Ba- Venti" she realizes in time what is is saying. "I was wondering... What are you looking for?" Curiosity resurfacing as she thinks about being curious. She can't really do much else but ask directly, worst that can happen is him not answering.

"Miss detective, you already know too much, if I'd were to tell you, I would have to kill you" An empty threat with a shrug. "And that would be a shame for such a thrilling audience member" he once again leans over her.

"Oh really?" She raises an eyebrow glancing back at him. "You really don't look like you could kill a man..." She mutters.

"Oh? Is that a challenge?" An amused little laugh escapes the guy. "Also I don't see a man here, but a little girl..."

"Sure-sure" she rolls her eyes as they turn on the corner to reach Albedo's house. "Well thank you for escorting me here, have a good night!" She shows the thief a smile.

"Good night!" The guy twirls around while Lumine heads for the professor's gate.

Only thing is that she really doesn't want to wake everyone up, there is also a good chance that both Albedo and Scaramouche are sleeping right now.

Only idea she has is to text the mushroom head, because she minds waking him up a bit less and hope for the best.

As she pulls out her phone, she feels that it's slightly warm, like she used it, but she haven't used it since Barbatos' heist began... Thinking back to the walk, he did lean above her two times... He did have an opportunity to take her phone, but what did he do to it?

Looking for hidden apps, she can't find anything. But she definitely didn't use it. With a sigh she just texts Scaramouche if he could let her in.

"Aren't you supposed to be catching a phantom thief or something?" The guy grumpily opens the gate for her.

"Hello to you too" Lumine sighs. "Something came up, so I had to escape from Xiao and Mr. Zhongli, sorry" she laughs it off as they head inside.

"You are troublesome... And how was the charade?" He grumbles.

"It was fun, got to corner him again" she happily humms.

"But still didn't catch him?" Lumine holds the door open for him.

"Hm... To be fair, today it was better that I didn't..." She muses. If Barbatos would be in jail, she would've gotten hit by that car earlier...

"Whatever does a beacon of justice like yourself mean by that?" He raises an eyebrow while going back to the computer. Lumine curiously following to see what he is working on.

"That I probably would be dead from an accident if it weren't for him..." She mutters while she would watch him work, if he wouldn't stop, turning to her shocked.

"What?!"

"Barbatos saved my ass on that" Scaramouche just glares at her. Inviting her to continue. "Probably a thank you for clearing his name on that case with the painter" she will not tell him that she had a perfect opportunity to turn him to the police and he escorted her to the street.

"At least you are fine..." He sighs. "As fine as you can be with that thinking of yours..." Of course he feels the need to be kind of an ass.

"Hey, that thinking of mine saved your ass once, didn't it?" She crosses her arms. Scaramouche turns back to work, rather not saying anything to that.

Lumine's phone buzzes. Pulling it out from her pocket, it's a message from an unknown number. Raising an eyebrow she opens it.

'Hello Ms. detective! Hope you can get some rest, that must've been a long night!'

Is that Barbatos...? If it's him... Did he just take her phone to check her phone number?

'Venti?'

Is her only answer back. If it is the guy, she doesn't want to incriminate him with the messages. A confirming message comes almost instantly. She haven't found anything else wrong with her phone... He really just took her phone to check her phone number.

'Aren't you worried I will report your number to the police? Phone companies can give a lot of information about you...'

She just leaves Scaramouche to his work. She doesn't understand anything on it anyways and heads for the sofa.

"You should rest soon too, we have school tomorrow" She calls out to the mushroom head.

"Yes, mom, will do" he grumbles while making no effort to make a move.

'Oh? Will you?'

She of course won't. The situation is quite amusing if she'd have to call it anything. A phantom thief reaching out to a detective... She saves the number with the Venti name. It would be weird for her to have a contact named after the famous thief.

'You'll see, what do you want?'

She lays down, listening to Scaramouche's key pressing's steady rhythm, mind a bit foggy, because it is late and it has been a long day. She still needs to set an alarm early so she can run back to the detective agency for her school stuff.

'Nothing really, but you usually look lonely, so I was wondering if you have friends, and if you need one'

Before she could even process that message, she falls asleep. Her phone dropping by her side facing the backrest.

She wakes up with a blanket on her. She wonders if Albedo or Scaramouche was the culprit, but her question is quickly answered when she notices no blanket on Scaramouche, sleeping in front of the computer.

She passes the blanket on to him, grabbing a piece of paper nearby to leave a little thank you note and a note to tell him to take better care of himself, because she is not going trough all this crap to save his ass for him to be unwell.