Forget tomorrow. Even if they waited another week, or even put out a missing-person notice, there was no chance of finding any relatives. They did, however, catch one suspicious idiot who tried to falsely claim her.
This time, the human who had taken her in through the usual process was a little troublesome. On the first day at her home, Yimi didn't go to the bathroom at all, and Kisaki Eri nearly carried her to the hospital. Yimi had to start going to the bathroom on schedule, play games in there for a while, then flush before coming out.
And today, because she had played for a little too long, it had become an excuse to take her to the hospital anyway.
In truth, Kisaki Eri was mainly like Tomohisa had been back then. Since there was nothing else urgent, she wanted to check whether Yimi's ears and tail affected her health. After bathing her, Eri was more or less certain they hadn't been surgically attached, so she had specifically found a private doctor to keep things confidential.
Kisaki Eri was smarter than Tomohisa and harder to fool.
Fortunately, Yimi was clever. While Kisaki Eri was in the bathroom, she left the doctor a confession (farewell) letter saying, "I'm not feeling well. Please excuse me so I can go home," and secretly slipped out of the hospital.
Public information: being a detective was a very strange profession. The work ranged from investigating unsolved cases all the way down to finding cats and dogs, and detectives would even follow people around.
But when Yimi asked how to become a detective, Kisaki Eri had given her only one answer: study hard.
To become a Hakurei shrine maiden, she had to study hard. To become a hero, she had to study hard. Now becoming a detective also meant studying hard. Why couldn't humans go three sentences without bringing up studying?
Yimi straightened her cap and ran toward Kisaki Eri's home.
"The moon beside the iron tower might be pointing to Tsukimi Road," a familiar voice sounded from the street corner.
That was a voice the kitty could never forget. She immediately changed direction and ran over.
"That has to be it. Let's go!" Another chubby boy with a triangular head pumped his fist excitedly.
They weren't going anywhere!
Yimi blocked the only path they could take, planting her feet apart so they couldn't pass.
"A girl?"
"Do you need something?"
To ordinary children, Yimi, who was still wearing clothes Fubuki had carefully picked out, looked almost excessively fashionable.
"Who just said... Moon Road?" Yimi asked with an unfriendly expression.
"Conan said it!" Noticing her expression, Mitsuhiko immediately handed the honor of stepping forward to his new friend.
Damn these kids!
The corner of Conan's mouth twitched as he stepped out. "What do you want?"
Could the note in his hand have something to do with her?
After they finished visiting an art museum, they had suddenly picked up a note that looked like some kind of code. These three kids thought it led to treasure and had dragged Conan along to search for it, though he himself was interested in solving the cipher too.
Conan was overthinking it. The girl in front of him, who looked suspiciously like a child celebrity, didn't say anything about the code at all. Instead, she shouted furiously, "Child Emperor!"
Then she stomped on the top of his foot.
"Ow!"
It didn't hurt enough to make him roll around. Yimi was wearing soft-soled shoes.
"What are you doing?!" Ayumi angrily spread her arms and stood in front of Conan.
But the other two boys displayed the sort of friendship boys were known for. "Conan got hit by a girl. Lame."
Yimi scrutinized Conan and pointed at him. "Don't think I won't recognize you... just because you changed how you look."
What?!
Conan instantly sobered up, cold sweat running down his back.
Could this girl have recognized that he was Kudo Shinichi? No. The name she'd just shouted clearly wasn't that.
Yimi pointed at his nose. "You still owe me... one Game Console. You never gave it back."
She had completely forgotten about that. She had left that world without asking for it. Diego and Madoka were one thing, but how could even Child Emperor travel between worlds?
"Is that true, Conan? You actually took a girl's Game Console?" Ayumi turned to stare at Conan too.
Genta chimed in, "That's awful. If I help you get it back, can I borrow it to play?"
"I don't know her at all! And the name she called me just now wasn't even mine, right? She's got the wrong person," Conan protested.
"Liar. You clearly... you have the same aura!" Yimi refused to believe him.
Conan looked down at himself. "What kind of aura? Didn't you just say yourself that my face looks different?"
Yimi looked up and thought. "You're both shorties... who act like adults. Small fry."
Conan raised his head again in speechless disbelief.
What kind of way was that to recognize someone? By "shorty," she probably meant "kid," right? She wasn't exactly tall herself.
"Conan is like that, but this guy probably wouldn't have the guts to borrow a Game Console and refuse to return it. If he did, I'd beat him up." Genta rolled up his sleeves.
Then he invited her along. "We're looking for treasure. Want to come? If we find it, you can buy as many Game Consoles as you want."
Why was he suddenly inviting a hostile girl who had come over looking for a fight?
Conan had just been stepped on and had complaints, but mentally he was a high school student, so naturally he wouldn't argue with a little kid.
Kids were like that. A pretty girl was popular wherever she went.
"Treasure?"
"It's this note." Genta even snatched it out of Conan's hand and showed it to Yimi.
It was covered in strange doodles. Yimi didn't recognize most of them, but she remembered the very last one. "This is... a fish bridge."
"A fish bridge?"
A fish was a fish and a bridge was a bridge. Where did the fish come from... wait.
A spark flashed through Conan's mind.
Of course bridges were built over water. If a bridge was reflected on the water, couldn't the shape of the bridge and its reflection together be seen as a fish?
Yimi pointed at him and told the others, "When he does that... he's exactly like Child Emperor."
"I keep telling you, I don't know any Child Emperor. Where is the bridge you mentioned before?" Conan stared at the note with a conflicted expression. He enjoyed the process of solving codes, but she'd just spoiled the answer to the final clue.
If he could prove right now that her answer was wrong, he would probably feel a little better.
"That bridge over there. But I saw it... at night, from the Ghost Building."
"At night?"
"The Ghost Building!" The other kids turned pale and immediately shook Conan. "We don't want the treasure anymore. Let's go back."
"Useless. I was planning... to sleep there." Yimi looked down on all of them.
"I-I've slept in a haunted building before too! That's totally no problem!" Mitsuhiko immediately said something no one would believe, afraid of being looked down on by a girl.
"Conan, let's sleep in the Ghost Building too."
"Heh."
This was exactly why he couldn't get along with little kids. Don't make someone else bail you out just so you can save face. Who would go sleep in a place like that?
Sleep?
Conan realized what he'd overlooked.
If someone was sleeping, it was usually at night. That girl had just said "at night" too.
Right, lights! Bridges lit up with neon at night. Not just bridges—neon signs came on all over the city!
So the moon shape had been pointing to that. The symbols under the moon and the tall tower were all referring to neon signs.
Conan understood.
...
The trip didn't take long. After all, Yimi had simply told them the answer. Night had not fallen yet, but some neon signs were already lighting up at dusk.
"That character is read as 'sakura'!" Conan corrected the little brat.
"Really?"
The Japanese character for "sakura" looked similar enough to the one for "building" that Yimi had read it as "building."
"Where's the treasure?" Yimi only cared about that.
"From this angle, it looks like you can see the bridge directly." Conan thought of something and started climbing the stairs.
"What's wrong, Conan? Aren't we going straight into the water to fish out the treasure?" Ayumi was the first to follow.
"No. Putting it somewhere like that would be way too stupid. Since this place can see it, I think this must be the place where you can see the 'fish.'"
Conan ran upstairs and began trying different viewing angles.
Yimi realized something, and her mouth formed a perfect triangle. "You mean... the treasure is coins?"
"Coins?"
"I already... took those."
"Ah..." The children let out the sort of deflated groan students made when lunch was about to start and the teacher casually announced class would run five minutes late.
Come to think of it, this girl had said she had been here before. This was too unfair.
"What did you say, you little brat?" an irritable voice rang out, accompanied by the sound of a pistol being cocked.
Conan immediately looked that way and saw one Japanese man and two Italians approaching. He had noticed the three of them while working on the code.
"A gun!"
The Maple Leaf Gold Coins were loot their robber gang had gone to great trouble to steal in Italy, only for their boss to abandon them and flee to this country with it.
"A brat like you couldn't possibly move that much gold by yourself. Tell us where you hid the coins, or I swear I'll kill you!"
"I moved them... myself," Yimi argued.
The Japanese man in sunglasses at the front ground his teeth.
As a proper robber, he obviously didn't dare fire a gun in the middle of a city and attract the police. But there were plenty of ways to deal with a little kid.
Since their whereabouts were already exposed, they couldn't let any of these brats live anyway. Though this little girl was pretty enough that she could probably fetch a good price overseas.
The Japanese robber at the front kicked straight at Yimi's face.
"Look out!"
Amid everyone else's screams, he suddenly froze, clutched his chest, and collapsed in agony. Two final "ah" sounds escaped his mouth before he went limp.
"!"
The two Italians behind him stared in shock, shouting things nobody there except Yimi could understand.
Yimi used psychokinesis to squeeze the man's heart once. She knew the heart was a vital point.
Aunt Fubuki had said before that if she bullied ordinary people, she couldn't let anyone else notice. This way, nobody would notice.
"Hey! What are you doing cornering children in here?!"
Because Kisaki Eri had previously carried Yimi away from this place, and rope and a mechanism had been found at the scene, patrol officers had been keeping watch nearby for the past few days. It was the fastest they'd ever responded to a call.
"Officer, there are bad guys here!" Fear sent Genta and the others into tears as they waved frantically for help.
That girl...
Conan glanced at Yimi in puzzlement.
She had just been staring down a gun barrel and still argued that she had moved the treasure herself. Wasn't she afraid at all?
The question lingered in his mind, but he didn't think much more about it. He lowered his eyes to the robber.
His pupils were unfocused. Sudden death? It was sad that a life had ended, but for children like them, it could only be called lucky.