Although the interior of the bar itself looked quite common, there were too many things in this space that seemed far too uncommon. However, such eccentricity was hardly lacking in Tokyo this past year. Depending on where one went, it wasn’t hard to find a gathering of even weirder individuals. The customers at Ama-no-Iwato were indeed strange, but not to a degree that would merit any special attention.
The two detectives seemed extremely astonished and bewildered, but they eventually settled their eyes on me, the person who looked the most ordinary and normal out of the lot. Then the bear one opened his mouth as representative. “Excuse me, we are—”
In mid-sentence, right as he was reaching into his chest pocket, the bear-like man suddenly froze. Similarly, so did the mouse-like one, who already had his hand inside his chest pocket, as did Shouta-kun and Touka-chan. Even the slowly turning ventilation fan had stopped dead.
“Search their chest pockets.”
“On it.” I wasn’t sure what to think, but I believed that she was working something out. She had clearly stopped time while excluding me as well. So I simply followed her instructions and used telekinesis to pull out what the two men had in their chest pockets.
What came out were plum-flavored cough drops, insect repellant, normal stationery memo pads, and their police IDs.
While reading aloud from their IDs, I sent the memo pads Kaburagi-san’s way. “The large one is Police Inspector Sakyou Kumano. The small one is Assistant Inspector Yasuo Yasui. I’ve seen Yasui several times out on the streets. He’s part of the Adachi City force.”
“Seems like they’re part of the Organized Crime Control Bureau,” added Kaburagi-san with a frown on her face while quickly flipping through the memo pads.
Why have the police come to search our place?
“Weren’t the police supposed to be properly taken care of?”
“They are. PSIA’s Super Water Sphere Incident investigative unit is a mere shell of what it once was. But this...... let me put it this way: Sago-san, back when you were a student, did you ever listen to your principal’s advice to finish your summer homework as soon as possible?”
“Nah, I always just put it off as long as I cou—I see what you’re getting at. Even though the core is suppressed, it’s difficult to thoroughly control the extreme ends of an organization.”
“And the Organized Crime Control Bureau is an entirely different organization too, I might add.”
In other words, PSIA and these Organized Crime Control guys were two different groups that had been conducting isolated investigations of their own. The saying “too many cooks spoil the broth” came to my mind, but this was one of the rare instances when it ironically paid off. Even though we had stopped PSIA, apparently there was still an investigation going on.
“Why do the police have to be so annoyingly persistent? I wish they’d just leave us alone.”
“Well, it would be a problem too if the police were too quick to give up, wouldn’t it?”
She had a point. This dogged persistence in biting at our heels in spite of Kaburagi-san’s interference and in spite of all my decoys was a great testimony to the excellence of Japan’s police force.
“So then, what’s with these guys? Are they here as part of a patrol, or have we been busted already?”
“According to their memos, it seems that they’re simply going around every suspicious-looking place one by one. Let’s convince them to turn back in a peaceful way. I’ll be restarting time, so please return everything to its previous position.”
“Roger.” I used telekinesis to return the plum-flavored cough drops and insect repellent and memo pads and police IDs to their original positions, just in time before our 44 seconds were up. Judging by how she had maintained the full 44 seconds while enabling me to move also, it was clear that Kaburagi-san had also been continuing with her own training.
As soon as time resumed, the two detectives continued their motion from before, taking out their police IDs to show us, without being none the wiser.
“—from the Organized Crime Control Bureau at the Metropolitan Police Department. I’m Kumano.”
“Same as him. And I’m Yasui.”
Uh-huh, we know. I stopped polishing my wine glass, then looked at Detective Kumano’s sour face with my own sour face. This person’s a freaking giant. Is he above 190 cm?
As I wordlessly made eye control to prompt them to proceed, Detective Kumano said in a business-like tone, “Apologies for interrupting your work. What we want to ask is whether any suspicious people have—” Here, he shot a quick glimpse at the Amaterasu members. “—come to this store or not. Excuse me, are those two students?”
Having made a quick trip home before coming here, the two students had changed out of their uniforms into casual wear. However, their builds and faces were blatantly young. It was obvious that they were of an age that shouldn’t be in a bar during the day.
Touka-chan was putting up a composed front reading a sutra that she had taken out from her chest pocket, but Shouta-kun totally had a “uh-oh, I’m in trouble!” look on his face. That face is what’s going to get you in trouble, Shouta-kun. But don’t worry. We have countermeasures in place.
I flicked several of the bottles lined up behind the counter. The clear clink made it obvious that they were all empty. Next, in order to help me maintain my reticent character, Kaburagi-san took over to elaborate. “All that is just part of the decor. During the day, this place is a café. Only at night does it turn into a bar. Master, two original blends please.”