Chapter 2.3

Sunday showdown

The next morning was Sunday—the day the Miracle Sapphire, the Saikawa family treasure, was scheduled to be stolen.

At the request of Yui Saikawa, Natsunagi and I had agreed to guard her house.

Right now, we were in a taxi, headed toward our destination.

"Kimizuka… Is what you told me yesterday really true?" Natsunagi was sitting beside me in the back seat.

The previous day, after the rehearsal was over, she and I had gone to the same café we'd visited before and discussed our game plan for today. While we did that, I'd also shared with Natsunagi the secret Yui Saikawa was hiding.

"Aren't you here because you believed me?"

"Technically, yes. But is the other place going to be all right? We can't just leave it empty…"

"Yeah, I've got that covered, too. It sounds like Ms. Fuubi is going over there."

"I've been meaning to ask you: Who exactly is she?" "She's an army of one."

"That sounds like an explanation, but it's really not."

Sorry, but it's not like I know everything about her, either. Just that she's someone you can count on.

"Is something worrying you?" I asked.

"Nothing really. I'm just kinda…not completely satisfied with this." "With what?"

"Ultimately, Kimizuka, you're trying to resolve this incident. But I'm the detective." As she spoke, Natsunagi gazed out the window at the sun, which was just above the horizon.

"That's just how it happened this time."

"Was it really?"

"Yeah. I'm sure the day when you're the one who saves me will come along pretty soon."

If I had to say, I've always been in that position until now. If I don't work a little every once in a while, that heart of yours is going to get mad at me.

"It's almost time for the show."

I glanced at my watch. Talking Ms. Fuubi and her crew around, and enlisting the help of a certain other individual, had taken up more time than I'd expected.

"If we don't make it there in time, this'll go south real quick…" The first number of Yui Saikawa's concert would be starting soon.

"So you actually do care about it?" Natsunagi seemed to be satisfied regarding the previous subject; the corners of her mouth quirked up a little.

"Only for the job. I don't care about 'Raspberry × Grizzly.' I told you back at the café, remember?"

"You did, but seriously, could you really do all that as an act? You really creeped me out yesterday, Kimizuka."

"Don't say it that way. Nothing hurts more than having a high school girl call you creepy."

"I was just thinking maybe we were actually headed over there because of your hobby again."

"Hey, that's not fair. If it wasn't for a job, I wouldn't go near the dome." As we traded verbal jabs, we were racing toward our destination: Yui

Saikawa's dome concert.

We already had measures in place, but it would be pointless if we didn't get there in time.

"Hey, could you make it fast?" I told the taxi driver. "…Fasten your seatbelts."

The hair under his cap was blond, and I could see his cloudy eyes glance at us in the rearview mirror.

"I hope we make it in time for 'Eighty-One,' " I said. "You sure you're not just into her?"

Sapphire Phantasm 

"…This is nothing like the rehearsal."

When we reached the dome and opened the doors to the hall, overwhelming light and sound swept over us. Rainbow-colored spotlights scattered reflections everywhere, and the vibrations thudded heavily in the pit of my stomach.

This was a different world, a circular hole cut out of the ordinary. The ruler of that world was the idol singer—Yui Saikawa.

She was dressed in a frilly costume, and hundreds of shining glow sticks were being offered up to her. If I remembered right, the number she was singing in her irresistible voice was her latest single.

We were coming up on the second half of the concert, so she was probably about to drop a hit medley on them.

"Hey!"

A tug on my sleeve brought my mind back to reality.

"Where are our seats?!" Natsunagi was standing on tiptoe to yell into my ear. We couldn't hear otherwise.

"You know we don't have any! We don't even have tickets!" "Oh…"

Then how had we managed to infiltrate this hall? We'd had the security staff go to sleep for a little while.

"You think those people are all right?!"

"They're fine! He doesn't want to do stuff like that anymore, and he wouldn't get anything out of it!"

Apparently, he'd struck a bargain with Ms. Fuubi regarding his future, among other things.

Just then, the number ended, and after the applause, silence fell for a moment. This was our chance.

"Natsunagi, let's go." Reverting to a whisper, I thumped Natsunagi on the shoulder.

"Huh? Go where?"

"We'll get as close to the stage as we can."

The previous day, thanks to my excuse of watching the rehearsal, I'd casually done a preliminary inspection of the arena.

We crouched down and started moving as quickly as we could without drawing attention.

"Hey, isn't that bag in the way? You could have left it in the car."

Natsunagi pointed at my clutch bag. "Oh, well, not really."

"So what's in there?"

"Something I don't want to use." Or to be more precise, something I hoped we wouldn't be forced to use.

"Huh. Well, it doesn't really matter what it is… And? That one song's still a ways away, isn't it?"

"Yeah, since it comes after 'Eighty-One.' "

"Come to think of it, you're right… So you actually were working at that rehearsal yesterday."

"You're too suspicious. Well, that's not a bad thing for a detective." "Yes. Maybe so."

The new song began.

 At the rehearsal, "Eighty-One" had been after this; if anything was going to happen, it would be during the number after that, "Sapphire Phantasm." We had about ten minutes left.

We walked on quietly, being careful not to attract suspicion.

"What's the point of getting close to the stage, though?" Natsunagi asked, right by my ear.

"Frankly, we're gonna have to wing it. I don't know what's about to happen. Maybe nothing, and all our worries will be pointless. That means we'll just have to do our best with what we've got."

All we could do was keep our eyes peeled for that moment—that was it. To that end, we'd lurk as near Saikawa as possible right now.

Just a little closer than they were, even if we didn't even know where that was.

"Thank you so much, all of you!"

A cheer went up. The number was over.

Next up was finally "Eighty-One"… Maybe we should pick up the pace.

"Now that everyone's all fired up, I think it's about time we brought out the song you've been waiting for!"

Saikawa gave a brief comment from the stage, and then the song that began to play was—

 "Without further ado—'Sapphire Phantasm'!"

What?!

This wasn't the order we'd heard at the rehearsal… Dammit. We'd used up

too much time earlier. "N-no!"

"Yeah, this is bad. Let's hurry, Natsunagi."

"You were looking forward to 'Eighty-One' so much!" "I wasn't looking forward to it!"

This was no time for joking around. Of course Natsunagi knew that, too, as we headed toward the stage.

"Like a mirror reflecting the blue Eaaarth… ♪"

The voltage in the venue spiked, the enthusiasm fueled by an explosion of noise and light.

 "Sapphire Phantasm" was idol singer Yui Saikawa's biggest hit and her specialty. During this song, she always did something very special onstage.

That was bound to be the trigger. Natsunagi and I had come here to stop it.

"If the group you talked about are hiding, where would they be?"

"No idea. They might be in the audience, or they could be hiding in the wings, like that man was yesterday."

The previous day, I'd had Saikawa and the staff show us the backstage area and various facilities, but it had only given us more options. The two of us weren't enough to cover all those possibilities on our own.

That said, we couldn't afford to take too much time on our end. After all, this was happening right on the heels of the day before, and they had to be incredibly busy on their end as well. We'd just have to make do with our limited personnel and limited time.

"I hid it in my secret treasure chest… ♪"

She'd reached the C section already. It wouldn't be long until the last chorus, the time when her seal was released. If anything was going to happen, it would be soon.

"Okay, we're here."

We'd finally reached the stage-side aisle, beyond the arena seats.

Where? Where were they?

Straining my eyes, I searched for someone who might not even be there. But the rainbow spotlights made it hard to see, and the blaring music from the nearby speakers chipped away at my concentration.

"...!" Natsunagi was saying something, but the place was so loud I couldn't hear her at all.

Dammit, this is even worse than I thought.

They were probably around here, somewhere close. But there wasn't much time left.

I'd underestimated the challenges. I'd thought that if I strained my eyes and ears once I was there, I'd probably find them, but I'd put too much faith in my experience. So your brain shuts down this bad when your sight and hearing aren't working properly?

It was no good: The sound and the light were starting to give me a roaring headache. I was even getting nauseous.

I wanted to enlist Natsunagi's help, but thanks to the music, I wouldn't even be able to communicate accurately.

I needed a plan, some kind of plan…

No, wait.

Of course. Even in a situation like this, there might be one person— "It's me! Can you hear me?!"

Holding my temples, I yelled at him, the one we'd hired as our chauffeur. He couldn't see, but he'd said as long as he could hear, he could drive. Right now, after putting the security guards to sleep, he was probably having a smoke somewhere near the arena.

Of course, he was several hundred meters away from us…but to him, a distance like that was nothing.

Even in the midst of this ear-splitting noise, my voice was bound to reach him. In fact, he'd even be able to hear the heartbeat of our hidden enemy.

"—Bat! Where's the enemy?!" My pocket vibrated.

The notification from my messaging app was just a single "→."

An arrow? Some sort of code?

…Oh! I got it!

Sprinting away from the startled Natsunagi, I ran up onto the stage, where Saikawa was.

During the final chorus, she removed the patch over her left eye.

It was her biggest performance of the day, a special number where she gave her all.

A cheer went up.

This was Yui Saikawa's seal. The secret she'd hidden from us.

"—The Miracle Sapphire with a market value of three billion yen is Yui Saikawa's left eye!"

As I spoke, I pulled Saikawa to me, evading an incoming crossbow bolt.

Thus spoke the super-idol

So. About this incident.

Where should I start; what should I explain first to give you the most accurate picture? Whose perspective should I tell it from, if I'm going to make it easy to understand?

Unfortunately, I'm just an assistant, a student at most. Definitely not a novelist. Even if I was giving a full account of this incident to somebody, I'm sure I'd be a terrible storyteller.

There are just too many lies, secrets, and deceptions—too much information hovering in the ether around this case. I'm sure the plot would make no sense.

"No, that's all my fault." After the concert, Saikawa had called Natsunagi and me to her dressing room. Kneeling formally in front of us, she looked down apologetically. "I should have told you everything from the beginning instead of going off on my own. That's why things turned out this way. I'm afraid I've caused you both a lot of trouble. I'm sorry."

With that, Saikawa bowed her head deeply.

"…Um. I still don't completely understand this… Could you explain it?"

Natsunagi raised a hand hesitantly. She must have been embarrassed by the fact that she didn't know the truth of the matter, even though she was a detective.

But I was in the same boat.

My ideas about the truth of this incident, about how we'd ended up here, were still only theory. I'd been waiting this whole time for her to tell us herself.

"Yes, you're right. I should. This may end up being rather long, but please bear with me anyway."

Once again, Saikawa removed her eye patch.

That blue left eye, which reflected everything in the world, was as beautiful

as a sapphire.

"Now then, where should I begin my story? Er, yes, I suppose I should start at the beginning, shouldn't I? All right, I'll start with my left eye… Actually, that may end up being the beginning. I received this artificial blue eye as a birthday present from my parents, the year I turned eight…

"…Yes, that's right, Miss Detective. Although I believe you may have noticed it yourself, Mr. Assistant. This is a false eye, not heterochromia. I was born blind in my left eye. As a young child, I had a complex about it that made me very quiet and shy. I was my parents' only daughter, and they got worried about me. They wanted me to have more hope in life, so they gave me an artificial eye the color of sapphire. Bluer than the sea.

"Back then, I was entranced by how beautiful it was. Of course, I didn't let anyone see it in public. Still, simply having this eye gave me confidence in myself, somehow. That was when I began my career as an idol. Mama and Papa were delighted to see that I'd cheered up, and that made me happy, so I put more and more effort into my lessons. Ah, I finally know what it means to be alive…, I thought. You may laugh and say I'm exaggerating, but it's true.

"I'm sorry; I've gotten a little off track.

"Long story short, my life as an idol was going smoothly, but that life didn't last long. Three years ago, when I was eleven, my parents died in an accident. They left me a large house, a vast fortune I had no use for, and…my left eye.

"After that, my blue eye was more precious than anything to me. I wanted to keep it carefully hidden inside. That's why I always wear an eye patch… But in my big shows, I decided I would reveal my left eye, just for a moment. If I didn't, and my parents came from heaven to see one of my concerts, I felt like they might not realize it was me.

"This beautiful blue jewel in my eye was the bond that connected me to my parents; I couldn't just go around showing it to other people. That's why I didn't tell you about it.

"I never dreamed that the criminal considered my eye a 'miracle sapphire.' It just so happens that there is a sapphire worth three billion yen in the Saikawa family vault, so I assumed that was what they meant.

"When I think of all the trouble I would have saved you if I'd told you the

whole story… I'm truly sorry. And thank you. Thank you so much.

"I was sure the two of you had gone to my house today, so I was a little surprised. I should have known better. You figured out my secret, picked up on the criminal's true objective, and came running. You even pretended it was part of the stage show and kept from scaring the audience.

"I'm so glad I brought my request to you. "Really and truly—

"—thank you so much."

Once she had come to the end of her story, Saikawa bowed so low that her forehead practically touched the floor.

And there you have it. As she'd said, the "sapphire worth three billion yen" in the advance notice had been not the family treasure, the jewel at the Saikawa residence, but Saikawa's own artificial eye.

The criminal had waited until Saikawa uncovered her shining-blue secret onstage, then attempted to snipe it from a distance.

But as it turned out, the case—the story—had reached its end without any casualties, and the sapphire hadn't been stolen, either. It was an undeniably happy ending.

"It's all right, so…get up, okay?" Natsunagi said.

Saikawa slowly raised her head. Her expression held a mixture of gratitude and apology…and relief, as if she'd finally shaken off a heavy, tenacious burden.

Now we'd settle the matter peacefully, and after exchanging a few words, we'd get a little reward—and then Natsunagi would buy her new swimsuit, and we'd make that trip to the beach. Yes, this case had been safely closed.

There had been some trouble and a few unexpected developments that had caught us off guard and worn us out a bit, but that was hardly anything. During those three years I'd spent with Siesta, my life had been far more risky and violent.

All right—it was time to head back to our peaceful routine. First, Natsunagi and I should probably discuss which beach to go to. That meant we'd be meeting at our usual café.

Just like that…

Now, I could probably have put that whole incident behind me as if

nothing had happened. As if I hadn't noticed.

A week ago, before I met Natsunagi and that heart, I'm sure I would have left the dressing room, pretending I knew nothing. That would have been easier, after all. If I did that, my peaceful routine would have been waiting for me.

Unfortunately, though, I was through with ignoring the truth.

Yes, Saikawa had revealed the secret she'd been hiding. But she hadn't yet confessed her lie.

"Listen, Saikawa."

When I said her name, her face turned toward me. "Yes?"

She tilted her head slightly, gazing at me blankly, innocently.

She was an idol; she could put on any expression with perfect ease. She could smile or cry on demand.

"Is the penalty going to give you any trouble? After all, Natsunagi and I are still alive."

In that instant, all color vanished from Yui Saikawa's face.