"This is too much no matter how you look at it. I had even just rewarded her with a little red-flower sticker during class, and then at recess she put a mouse on Kobayashi-sensei's desk. When I sternly called her over to ask about it, she actually turned around and ran."
The most terrifying part was that the mouse escaped. It ran into the classroom and sent a whole group of elementary students scattering in panic, until one flustered classmate accidentally stepped on it and flattened it.
"Ah... I'm really sorry about this. I'll give her a proper scolding when we get home." Kogoro could only keep apologizing.
Kobayashi-sensei herself wasn't actually that angry. "It was inside a box. She probably mistook it for a hamster and wanted to give it to me as a present."
"And there's her textbook too. Her weekly quiz scores are very good, but her attitude toward her studies needs some work too." The teacher handed Yimi's textbook to Kogoro.
Blackening out the edges of the pages was a minor issue. Textbooks for the first few years of elementary school naturally included comic-style illustrations to help children understand, so Yimi had taken a pen to the characters' expressions and added comic speech bubbles beside them.
"My name is Conan. My true identity is Child Emperor. I'm going to conquer this world, and I owe every person and cat one Game Console."
The character talking to him had been given an angry expression. "Don't get cocky. Yimi the Great is coming to beat you to death."
School really did make people feel young again. Mouri Kogoro, who both smoked and drank, had been summoned here only to get chewed out like a naughty schoolboy.
Kisaki Eri had an important case whose materials she needed to organize, so the comparatively idle Kogoro had been the one called to the school.
After walking out of the office, Mouri Kogoro looked at Yimi and raised a clenched fist. "You damn brat!"
In the end, he still couldn't bring the fist down on Yimi's head. He simply walked outside with a sour expression.
Only after they were all in the car did he ask again, "What food do you hate?"
"Chicken drumsticks," Yimi answered with practiced ease.
"Dream on. Tonight I'll have Ran make green bell peppers for both of you. No, that won't make the lesson stick. You'll eat green bell peppers for two days." Kogoro wasn't stupid either.
"Ah! (⊙o⊙)" Yimi hated bell peppers. Especially with Diego Brando's main body currently locked away, she had even less reason to have anything to do with bell peppers.
"Uncle, I behaved very well at school," Conan reminded him not to punish the innocent.
"You're eating them too. Kids need proper nutrition."
"..."
After they returned to the agency, the gloomy Kogoro instinctively reached for a can of beer. Then he remembered what had happened last time and, for the moment, decided not to drink in front of Yimi.
"Dad, you got a letter today." Ran handed him an envelope.
"Is it a request?" Kogoro opened it absentmindedly and immediately saw that something was wrong. The message had been assembled from characters cut out of newspapers.
"On the night of the next full moon, another shadow will disappear on Tsukikage Island. Please investigate the reason." It was signed Aso Keiji.
At the same time, the phone rang.
"Hello?" Yimi answered.
"Move aside, brat." Kogoro lifted her out of the way and took the receiver. "Mouri Detective Agency."
A calm man's voice came through. "There are two days until the full moon. The five-hundred-thousand-yen fee has already been transferred. You must come."
* * *
Tsukikage Island was an island, but it wasn't exactly the best choice for a tourist destination.
Especially right now, it definitely wasn't a wise time for outsiders to come sightseeing. The village was in the middle of an election for its next mayor, and unpleasant things like protest marches happened practically every day.
The request made little sense, but since he'd already been paid, Kogoro certainly wasn't going to ignore it. Still, the other party's attitude—giving him no chance to respond at all—was seriously irritating.
"That letter, you don't even know what it means, but you still came here. Is there even any detective work involved?" Yimi clutched the hem of Kogoro's clothes and asked curiously.
Ran had brought both children along because she thought it would be fun to turn the trip into a little sightseeing vacation.
"Maybe there's some sort of code in it?" Ran bent down with a smile and answered for her father.
"For example, maybe they doubt Dad's ability and think only someone who can solve the code is qualified to accept the request?"
Conan added, "But if that's the case, there was no need to transfer the money first. Maybe they were afraid someone else might see the letter, so they wanted to discuss the real details face-to-face. They might want Uncle to investigate an affair or something."
It was perfectly normal to hire a detective from farther away to investigate something embarrassing like that. But if so, there still wasn't much reason to write the letter in such a strange way.
As Conan thought more deeply, Yimi stared at his face in confusion.
"What does, having an affair mean?"
"..."
"You damn brat, where did you learn all this nonsense?!" Kogoro unceremoniously knocked Conan on the head with his fist.
"Ow!" Conan crouched down, clutching his head with both hands, but this time Ran didn't pick him up and comfort him.
"What does it mean?" Yimi looked at him again.
"You don't need to ask about everything. Ran, take them outside and wait. I'll go ask exactly who this Aso Keiji is." Worried that this really might be a request about an affair, Kogoro simply told them to wait outside.
"Mmph." Yimi had come precisely because she wanted to watch him work, only to be left outside.
Could that letter she couldn't understand at all really be talking about something like an affair?
Ran bent down to comfort her. "We don't get to travel far very often, so don't look so gloomy. Once Dad finishes his work, we can have all the fun we want on this island."
Then her gaze shifted to Yimi's padded cap. "But Yimi, aren't you hot wearing that here?"
Tonight was the full moon. A place like Tsukikage Island was still fairly warm; at least Ran wasn't cold at all even in shorts that left her legs bare.
That was why she'd dressed Yimi in lighter clothes too, which only made the padded cap on her head look even more out of place.
Her hair color itself was already unusual enough in this world. Whenever she went outside, it drew plenty of attention.
"What an adorable little girl. Is your hair dyed?" A pretty young woman in a white coat bent down and waved at Yimi.
Ran shook her head and held Yimi's hand so she wouldn't be afraid. "No. Her hair color is natural."
"Natural... It's very pretty." The young doctor looked a little puzzled, because she didn't see any other features on Yimi that would normally accompany a related medical condition.
Was she mixed-race? No wonder she was so pretty.
When the young doctor bent down close, from Yimi's perspective the nearest thing was the chest right in front of her face. And according to the law of kittens kneading, in a situation like this she couldn't help reaching out and giving it a press.
"Mm!"
The moment she did, Yimi hurriedly pulled her hand back, grabbed Ran's clothes, and stared at the young doctor with an utterly confused expression, as if an entire universe had appeared behind her head.
The young doctor's mouth fell slightly open too as she stared at Yimi in shock.
"Sorry. This child is a girl, even though her clothes are a little androgynous," Ran hurriedly explained on her behalf.