In the depths of the night, two grown-ups were still at Café LycoReco—Mika and Mizuki. They sat on opposite sides of the counter, drinking.
“This job was a pain in the neck,” said Mizuki. “Take time with this, take time with that, mind this, mind that… I think we should’ve just helped the girl right away.”
Mika looked into his glass and smiled.
“We could have done that, but I don’t think we would’ve really saved her that way.”
“And why not?”
“You just don’t get it,” said Kurumi, entering the room with her laptop. She sat down next to Mizuki. “What would we do? Retrieve the gun Kana found, report her case to Child Protective Services and the police, then wash our hands clean? Do you really think that would have solved Kana’s problems? The school would probably put up stupid posters saying ‘Bullying is wrong!’ and not do anything beyond that. Would that change Kana’s situation for the better? Would that satisfy Chisato?”
“Kurumi, how’s progress?”
“It’s already started. I got the original photo data from Ruri Mizokakushi’s phone, fed it to AI, and released a virus into the net. By tomorrow, there won’t be any copies or derivatives of that photo anywhere online.”
“You have an easy job. You type a little on your laptop, and you’re done. Me, on the other hand? I’ve spent who knows how many hours on surveillance! I had to deal with Takina, too, who almost shot that teacher to save Kana! ‘He should be put down,’ she says. ‘Maybe, but calm down, don’t shoot him right this second, just wait and see what happens,’ I tell her. But when Kana pulled the gun out, Takina quietly stood there, not doing anything. Can you believe it?! And then she goes, ‘If she shoots him, report that I did it so that it won’t be a problem.’ How freaking dumb is she not to see it would be a massive problem?! I didn’t know what else to do at that point, so I pressed the emergency alarm button… I had to run to that classroom, still in the lab coat and heels, for goodness’ sake! It was killing me, I tell you!”
“Wait, you said you stopped Takina from taking action, so how did the teacher end up in such bad shape?”
“I only told her not to kill him… He got what he deserved. She got him pretty good… I had a hard time convincing him to come with me to the nurse’s office after telling him there was a fire. It didn’t make any sense. It took everything I had to not burst out laughing when I said it, but what else was I gonna say…?”
Kurumi laughed, imagining it.
“I honestly think we stepped in too late, and not just because it saved us some effort,” Mizuki added. “Kana wouldn’t have had to suffer so long.”
“Chisato didn’t come up with that plan for no reason. The way it worked out was that Kana officially asked us for help. The gun belonged to Asian, and DA was in charge of that case, giving us the funding, so she knew this would be treated as an extension of that job.”
Mizuki thought Mika looked like a proud father when he explained why he approved of how Chisato had handled the case.
“Besides,” he continued, “while Chisato’s always eager to help people as a Lycoris, she still needs to abide by certain rules, or she’ll get out of control.”
“Rules, huh? Only act when requested… As if she couldn’t make any exceptions,” grumbled Mizuki.
Kurumi gave her a look as if she were an idiot.
“The rules make sense because we can’t help everybody. They’re realistic.”
“I’m not saying they don’t make sense, but sometimes Chisato could be a little more flexible, right? It’s weird how she has to follow them to the letter all the time.”
Kurumi had to agree with that.
“Yeah, but thanks to waiting until the very last moment, Chisato could also get DA involved with all of their above-the-law powers. They crushed the gang dealing drugs to children and saved Kana’s life as a bonus. DA sure is happy with this result.”
“The gang’s been wiped out?”
Kurumi told Mizuki that a few hours earlier, a DA Lycoris had gone to the “tea party” posing as a member and shut that business down for good.
“Hmm… DA isn’t going to recruit Kana as a Lycoris, are they?”
“Obviously not,” said Mika. “She’s too old to be trained. Even if she expressed an interest, she’d be denied.”
“I was only joking,” Mizuki said, laughing.
She topped up Mika’s glass and then hers. She turned toward Kurumi but remembered what she was doing in time and quickly put the bottle back down. Mika gave Kurumi a cup of hot milk instead.
“One thing I wanted to ask… Mika, Mizuki… DA’s covering our expenses, but what about my reward?”
“Hmm, what should your reward be…? Having a happy regular customer? No, Chisato’s friend being happy?”
“I don’t know if I’d call that good value!” Mizuki said with a laugh. “I think you’re running a loss, Kurumi. For us grown-ups, it’d be a loss, at least.”
“Works for me,” Kurumi said curtly.