Chapter Text
Tsukasa Tenma stood on the front porch of the mansion. A bout of morning breeze rushed past, and he shivered, briefly looking up at the October sky. Above him the two-story brick building partially blocked his view of the clouds. All the windows were closed, their curtains tightly drawn. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called out to the grey sky. Tsukasa recalled the tall black gate and neatly-maintained garden surrounding the property. Everything seemed so orderly, so in place. Unless you knew otherwise, you would never have been able to guess that the building had been broken into mere hours before.
“You know, when she was packing a couple days ago Hinata had sworn that some of her coats had gone missing, but—” The man standing in front of Tsukasa paused, tilting his head, “Tenma-san? Detective? You stopped writing.”
“Ah, sorry,” Tsukasa returned his attention to the notes he had been jotting down only moments before, though he found himself struggling to decipher them. A random smattering of words like ‘burglary,’ ‘mansion,’ and ‘rich people’ were scattered haphazardly throughout the page, and it didn’t seem like the lines on the paper did anything to stop Tsukasa from writing wherever he had apparently seen fit. Tsukasa’s notes always looked like this, so he supposed there wasn’t really anything he could do about it; this aspect of the investigation process had never been his strong suit.
Though amongst the otherwise unintelligible words, one note in particular stood out to him. On the top of the page ‘#3?’ was written in huge, bold writing. It had been the first thing that came to mind when Tsukasa learned that he would be investigating a break-in at a mansion, and he had written it down before he had even arrived at the residence earlier that morning.
Tsukasa shook his head when he realized he was going down yet another train of thought. He looked up at the man he was supposed to be questioning, “What were you saying?”
The man quickly looked Tsukasa up and down as he fiddled with his very expensive-looking wedding ring, “Well… I was just talking about how a few of us had noticed some things disappearing over the past two days. Clothes, old toys, I just chalked it up to everyone noticing that they had a couple lost things since they were all packing for the cruise. You don’t really realize things are gone until you look for them, y’know? I honestly didn’t think anything of it until this morning when I found the study ransacked and all our jewelry missing!”
Tsukasa’s pen stopped moving. Was his first instinct correct? “Two days? This has been happening for a while?”
“Yes?”
“And there are things missing from your study? Like financial documents? Important folders?” The circumstances surrounding this case were beginning to feel more and more familiar.
“Yes, but—“
Screw it. Tsukasa opened the front door to the mansion and walked inside, “There’s something I need to confirm.”
The study, much like the rest of the house, seemed untouched. Shelves crammed with dusty books lined the walls, an ornate gold light fixture hung from the ceiling, and right below it, in the middle of the room, was a desk facing the entrance. On it sat a single lamp, an empty pen holder, and a telephone. On the opposite wall were two curtained glass doors which opened up to a marble balcony. Tsukasa walked up to the doors, and a sharp gust of wind flew in. The curtains billowed out behind him.
“And this is exactly how you found the room this morning?” Tsukasa didn’t turn to look at the man he had been questioning, who entered the study shortly after he did.
“Yes… I always make sure to close the doors at night, so when I saw they were open I checked the desk and when I saw that things were missing, I called the police.”
Tsukasa inspected the handles on both sides of the balcony doors. No damage. He then turned around and glanced at the ground. The wood flooring and the rug in the center of the room appeared impeccable, no scuff marks or particularly disrupted carpet hairs. He then walked to the desk and examined its surface, taking note of the empty pen holder, “What’s this about? Don’t have anything to put here?”
“Actually, I owned several collectors’ edition fountain pens, though it seems those were stolen, too.” The man actually sounded quite disappointed about it.
Tsukasa opened each cabinet one by one. They all slid open easily, even the ones with locks. Though this observation was quickly overshadowed by the fact that every single cabinet was still full of papers. They were stacked in some places, and organized into bulging folders in others.
Tsukasa’s heart sank. This isn’t what he was expecting. He looked up at the man, raising an eyebrow, but his gaze wasn’t met.
“I thought you said the study was ransacked.”
“It was merely a… slip of the tongue. I was in a panicked state.”
“But there’s barely anything missing. This desk is practically filled to the brim.”
Silence.
Tsukasa waited a few moments. The man stood stiffly by the doorway. “Otori-san–”
It was then that the door burst open, and a young man with two-tone blue hair stuck his head in. His grey eyes briefly scanned the room, before landing on Tsukasa, “Tenma-senpai, can I talk to you?”
Tsukasa straightened up, clearing his throat. Shosuke Otori was still looking away as Tsukasa slipped out of the study and closed the door behind him.
It was silent as Tsukasa followed his colleague through the halls of the mansion, the only sounds being the clacking of their shoes on the wooden floor and the occasional muffled voice of an investigating police officer from somewhere else within the building. Tsukasa took this period of time to more closely investigate his surroundings (he had pretty much just barged into the house, after all); one side of the hallway was decorated with large windows that reached almost all the way from the floor to the ceiling, the other with arched wooden doors. Many of the rooms were closed off, but through some of them Tsukasa would glimpse a library, a guest room, a bathroom. A few times Tsukasa would make eye contact with a maid peeking out from one of these spaces, but they’d always scramble away as quickly as they had been spotted.
The two made their way down the main staircase into the foyer, and Tsukasa caught a quick look at a large painting of the owners of the estate; the Otori family. Shosuke, who he had been interviewing had mentioned the other family members were on vacation, so Tsukasa wasn’t able to meet them, but looking at the painting they definitely all looked related. Most of them had very defining pink eyes, a couple had pink hair, but only one of them had both traits. A young girl with bangs and short braids beamed at him, her unnaturally bright expression standing out amongst her parents and older siblings. She was still smiling at Tsukasa as he slipped out the front door.
They were over 50 meters away from the mansion when Tsukasa decided to break the silence, “Aoyagi-kun, are we going to walk all the way downtown or are you gonna talk to me?” He shivered, already missing the shelter of the mansion.
Toya Aoyagi glanced around the empty garden a bit before turning to look at the detective, “My apologies, Tenma-senpai. I just have a theory about this case I wanted to run by you.”
“Why couldn’t you have told me about this inside?” Though Tsukasa hesitated. Did Toya perhaps have the same suspicions that he did?
“Well, if someone had overheard us it could have been potentially… dangerous.”
Tsukasa narrowed his eyes. So it was that, “Those other two thefts, right?”
Toya nodded, “The open windows, the way things went missing over the course of several days, the documents and valuables being stolen last, the fact that no tracks were left behind… They’re all the same, except–”
“This time around none of these supposed ‘important documents’ seem to be missing at all,” Tsukasa covered his hand with his mouth, eyebrows furrowing. This was exactly what had been sitting at the back of his mind the entire time. He recalled how Shosuke Otori was acting as Tsukasa searched through his desk. He seemed… nervous. And aside from that his wording didn’t exactly line up with what Tsukasa had found. As he was being interviewed the man had seemed to be on edge about the fact that things were missing from his study, but once Tsukasa had gone to investigate nothing other than a few pens seemed to be missing, and the interviewee was suddenly adamant about only a few things being gone.
Toya seemed to be in his own train of thought as well, “So you agree with me? You think this is connected to the thefts?”
“You were right to bring me outside like this. If your theory is correct… that means the Otoris have something to hide,” Tsukasa thought back to the other two cases. There were some discrepancies this time but... “I know this case isn’t an exact match, but if your theory is correct, its connection will be confirmed soon enough.”
“For the crimes of fraud and embezzlement, the defendants Shosuke Otori and Keisuke Otori have been sentenced to 50 years in prison with no chance of bail.”
The gavel hit the sounding block with a bang that reverberated throughout the courtroom, and the defendants were escorted away as people started filing out the door. Some reporters began approaching Tsukasa, throwing questions at him from across the room.
Tsukasa ignored them and sighed, standing up. A couple days after the burglary had occurred, an envelope was delivered to the police station full of financial and legal documents as well as photos that seemed to incriminate several members of the Otori family of various crimes. Many of these documents were able to be confirmed as authentic, and so the Otoris were brought to court and sentenced to time in prison. It was an easy trial, to say the least.
In short, it was exactly as Toya had theorized on the day of the burglary investigation. In the past couple months, there have been a string of burglary cases with strangely similar circumstances. All the places stolen from were the estates of well-known businessmen or public figures, and the perpetrator didn’t leave any traces of their presence besides a singular open door or window in an important location of the house. The most interesting thing, however, was the fact that these crimes seemed to take place over the course of several days. All the victims reported noticing small things like clothes or fruit disappearing from their home, before suddenly finding that their wallets, valuables, and legal documents had been stolen all at once. A few days after that, an envelope full of evidence incriminating the victims of some serious crime would be found in the police station’s mail. The first time this happened it was dismissed as some weird coincidence. The second time caused some questions to be raised. But now, Tsukasa was sure that this was some sort of organized effort, and that whoever was behind this would definitely strike again.
Were they just some petty thief? Then why would they steal evidence like that and send it to the police? Did they only target people they knew were criminals? Was this one individual’s doing or a whole group? Tsukasa made his way out of the courthouse, grinding his teeth together. Most importantly, who did this thief think they were, doing the police’s job? Tsukasa inwardly thanked the police chuef for being so vigilant when it came to keeping things away from the media. If they were to catch wind about these envelopes, what would happen to the reputation of the police? To his own reputation? He couldn’t afford to be considered incompetent like that.
“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!” someone behind Tsukasa squealed, and suddenly he was knocked forward. Tsukasa’s grunt of surprise turned to one of mild pain as he fell onto his stomach.
“Detective Tenma! I finally found you!” the young woman who had tackled Tsukasa jumped up from the ground, planting her feet triumphantly.
Tsukasa didn’t say anything. He just continued to lie there frozen.
The woman hesitated for a second before grabbing Tsukasa’s arm and pulling him onto his feet, “Sorry about that,” she chirped, patting his shoulder, “I was just so happy to see you. Before I knew it, I was just kinda running up and Wonderhoy!”
“Wonder- wha?” Tsukasa furrowed his eyebrows at the way she threw up her arms. “Who even are you?” He eyed his assailant up and down. She was a short girl, only standing at around five feet tall. Though what she seemed to be lacking in height it appeared she made up for in personality. She wore a very puffy pink fur coat over a heavily-bedazzled sunflower-yellow dress. Her bobbed bubblegum-colored hair framed her face, and her equally pink eyes beamed up at him. Something about her seemed very familiar to Tsukasa.
“Oh yeah, I’m Emu Otori, but that doesn’t matter right now. I need to talk to you about something super super super important,” she exclaimed.
Tsukasa’s eyes widened, “Otori…?” He paused and looked around, noticing how almost everyone in the area was staring at them. He grabbed Emu’s wrist and dragged her into the nearest alleyway.
“Now, what is it you wanted to talk about?” Tsukasa crossed his arms.
“Wow, that was really smart of you, detective! If we stayed out there we would’ve totally caused a scene,” Emu ignored him, choosing to peer at her surroundings instead.
Tsukasa blinked. More of a scene than she already had? Who was this girl to go to such lengths as to get his attention in public before seeming so absent-minded only moments later? He cleared his throat.
“Ah,” She seemed to snap out of her trance, clasping her hands together, “Well basically, I want to make a deal with you.”
“...A deal?” Tsukasa narrowed his eyes; any offer coming from the family member of someone who was just sent to jail couldn’t be good news, especially if it was a case Tsukasa was involved with.
“Yeah!” She leaned in a little bit, smile still evident on her face, “I want you to help me prove my brothers’ innocence.”
Tsukasa was flabbergasted, “Prove your brothers’ innocence? The brothers who were just sent to prison after incriminating evidence of them committing tax fraud and embezzlement was mail– found in their own home?”
“Come on, it’d be easy. I know a bunch of people who could help me, you’d just have to tell me what you need.
And relax, I know about the mailed envelope. That’s exactly why I’m asking you to do this! Those documents had to be fake; there’s no way Keisuke and Shosuke would do stuff like that.” Emu puffed her chest out confidently.
Tsukasa physically took a step back. There were way too many things happening at once. How did she know about the envelope? He understood that this girl was somewhat involved with the case (being sister to the people who were both the victims and the convicted) but that envelope was supposed to be confidential information. Not even everyone at the station was told about it, but Tsukasa supposed that didn’t really mean anything. He was well-aware of how quickly rumors could spread. Maybe some clumsy officer mentioned it to Emu? “Look, I know they’re family, but the evidence is just stacked against them. Even if they were innocent–”
“But they just wouldn’t do something like that! I know my own family. I trust them, and I know they’re not bad people,” the conviction stayed on Emu’s face.
Tsukasa wasn’t sure what to say. Strong emotions and personal ties like this hardly did anything against the law once justice had already come to its firm decision. Given how Tsukasa was a detective and not a lawyer working with regular people on the daily, he had not come across someone who rejected this fact of the law in such a passionate way in a very long time.
Emu took Tsukasa’s silence as a sign to keep talking, “Would you not try to defend your family no matter what? If you would, then you’ll know why I need your help. This has to be the doing of whoever sent that envelope.”
If Tsukasa was a man with any less dignity, he would’ve laughed in Emu’s face. If only she knew why he went down this path of law in the first place. The problem was that he did understand where the girl was coming from, but he also knew from experience that it wasn’t that easy. No one can simply wish for a person to be magically innocent or guilty. If he had the time, Tsukasa would try to explain this to Emu.
But he didn’t have the time. Tsukasa wasn’t standing in this alley to tell his entire life’s story. He had a job to get back to, and a lot of paperwork to finish, “Believe me, I know where you’re coming from, but that’s not how it works. I can’t just help you like this.”
“But this goes against everything our family’s stood for! It’s just,” Emu looked down, her voice losing a bit of its prior enthusiasm, “ever since we were little, our grandpa taught us that everyone deserved to feel happiness, no matter who they were or what kind of things they might have done. And our family runs an amusement park! Making people happy is what we do! I just can’t believe that my brothers, who’ve spent their entire lives doing this, would just… cheat people out of their money.”
Tsukasa shook his head. Why was he still standing here listening to her? “Look, I’m sorry but I just can’t help you. I don’t know what you want from me. I guess I could give you an autograph? I’ll even make it–” he paused when he saw the disappointed frown on Emu’s face. It reminded him a bit too much of another girl he knew. Tsukasa almost slapped his cheeks when the thought crossed his mind.
He decided the conversation had gone on long enough. Tsukasa started making his way out of the alley when Emu hastily grabbed his arm.
“And I know about the other people who were arrested too! They were family friends, and I know the same thing that happened to Keisuke and Shosuke happened to them, too.
“My brothers, our friends… They were all good people. And that’s why I can’t just believe they’re horrible criminals. This has to be some sort of setup created by whoever broke into our home!”
She knew about that? Tsukasa’s eyes widened at this new information. He pushed Emu back into the alley, glancing behind him as he did so. The amount of knowledge this girl had had crossed way over the line of danger long ago, “Who told you about all this? The envelopes, the other thefts? All of it.”
“I-I just overheard one of Shosuke’s telephone conversations. The night before we left for vacation. Something about being careful. He mentioned other thefts and talked about our friends who had just been sent to jail and after what happened I just sorta… connected the dots.”
Tsukasa froze. Yep. This girl definitely knew way too much. And the fact that she wanted something from him meant that she was dangerous, too. She had money, power, and above all classified information she could easily use to threaten the police with. This combination of factors never meant anything good. But due to his position, there was unfortunately nothing he could really do about any of this.
Tsukasa brought his hand to his temple, “I’m sorry, but you came to the wrong person. I really can’t help you with this. If you really think you can prove your brothers’ innocence, go to a lawyer. I’m just a detective who was involved with the case. I don’t know why you even approached me in the first place. Just…” He paused. How exactly was he going to get this girl to keep her mouth shut? Tsukasa was familiar with dealing with stubborn people (especially since he considered himself one) but she seemed to be on a completely different level.
“But it has to be you who helps me! You promised!” Emu exclaimed, looking like a child who had just been denied their favorite treat.
Tsukasa was dumbfounded, “Eh? When have I ever promised you anything?” He’d never even met this girl before!
Emu blinked, “Well, not me, but on the paper! I read one of your interviews, a couple years ago!” She cleared her throat and began to speak in a deepened voice, “‘Believe me, I have personally seen how the corrupt justice system has affected normal people, and I aim to get rid of those situations completely. I vow to fight any injustice in the world and so I can ensure that the innocent aren’t locked away and that the guilty don’t get away with their crimes and potentially claim more victims. My ultimate goal is to carry out justice for those who can’t do it for themselves.’ You remember that, right?”
“I-I do remember that,” Tsukasa’s face reddened. He hadn’t expected Emu to start quoting his younger self. “Look, I was a lot more… theatrical back then.”
“But you still believe in what you said, right?”
“Yes, but-”
“So you’ll help me? Great!” Emu excitedly rushed forward, pulling a piece of paper from out of her pocket and shoving it into Tsukasa’s hand. He staggered backwards, overwhelmed by the short girl’s sudden movement. “Whenever you wanna contact me, just–”
“I am not going to help you!” Tsukasa blurted, much more loudly than he had intended. He took a deep breath, noticing a couple casting worried glances at him through the alleyway as he did so. “Just… please don’t tell anyone about this,” he muttered as he left the alley. Thankfully, Emu didn’t try to stop him.