A Friend's Commission (Revised)
With that, Thoma opened the car door and swept it wide in a courteous after-you gesture. Kaveh and Zhongli exchanged nods and climbed in one after the other.
The children scrambled in after them, bubbling with excitement, with Subaru Okiya and Xia Yu following close behind. The kids had been fascinated by the car from the moment they laid eyes on it, so naturally every last one of them chose to ride in it. Conan couldn't exactly peel himself away from the group — and truth be told, he was rather curious about Thoma himself — so he blithely ignored the wounded, reproachful glance Hattori Heiji shot his way.
Subaru Okiya had been entrusted by the Professor with looking after the children, so of course he had to stay where they were; and since Xia Yu was a friend of Thoma's, it would have been poor form for her to ditch him and ride with the others. In the end, it was only Mouri Ran, Suzuki Sonoko, and Hattori Heiji who took the second car. Sonoko felt a twinge of regret at parting with the gorgeous hunk in the other vehicle, but Heiji was their friend, after all — and he had come all this way expressly to pick them up, so leaving him to ride alone would have been downright rude.
Then the two cars pulled smoothly away from the curb and set off toward their destination.
Inside the car, the children drank in their surroundings, heads swiveling left and right. Haibara, for her part, deliberately chose a seat a little ways off from Subaru Okiya, her gaze pinned to the window as though she had no intention of exchanging more words with him than absolutely necessary.
"Mr. Zhongli, I must say, I hadn't expected you to be acquainted with someone from the Kamisato family so soon after arriving in Japan." Subaru Okiya smiled at Zhongli as he opened the conversation. "By the way — would you mind telling me what brings you and Kaveh to Osaka?"
Conan sat off to one side, quietly observing the exchange. He knew perfectly well that Mr. Okiya was attempting to coax information out of Zhongli, so rather than jump in himself, he decided to hold his tongue and see just how much the man could get him to reveal.
"To be candid, I am not personally acquainted with the Kamisato family," Zhongli replied, his voice low and faintly magnetic, as though it carried within it an ocean of wisdom and experience. "I have merely heard of them through a friend. She once told me that the Kamisato siblings are both remarkably capable, and that she holds them in considerable esteem."
"Her?" Subaru Okiya seized on that single syllable with a hunter's precision, his gaze sharpening by a degree. "So this friend of yours is a woman — and from the way you speak of her, Mr. Zhongli, I take it she is an elder of the Kamisato household?"
"You might put it that way." Zhongli nodded, a flicker of amusement passing through his eyes, too faint for most to catch. "She even has a child of her own now — though it is a pity she seems to have little talent for raising him." At that, he released a sigh so slight it was all but imperceptible.
"In truth, it was she who asked me to come and lend a hand this time. From what she tells me, the young ones of the Kamisato family have run into some trouble of late. Resolving it would be no great burden for Mr. Kamisato himself, I imagine — but there are certain matters that Kaveh and I happen to be better placed to handle."
As he spoke, Zhongli turned his gaze toward Kaveh, a subtle smile curving the corner of his mouth. "At the very least, the work we have been doing these past months is precisely of this sort. One might say practice has made us proficient."
Kaveh blinked, caught off guard for half a beat, before nodding along with a smile. "That's right — designing and building houses is my bread and butter, so a commission from the Kamisato family is hardly any trouble at all."
"So the favor the Kamisato family asked Kaveh-oniichan for was to build a house?" Conan couldn't help cutting in. "Then what's this trouble the Kamisato family ran into? Is it connected to the commission?"
Conan had not imagined, not in a hundred years, that the real purpose behind Kaveh and Zhongli's sudden trip to Osaka — to call on the head of a great family that was very likely a member of the Teyvat Syndicate itself — was to build a house?! No. Every instinct told him it couldn't be that simple.
The children, having by now had their fill of the big car's interior, reacted the instant they sensed a case in the air. Their detective radar went off like an alarm; attention was yanked back from everywhere at once, and every head swiveled toward Kaveh in perfect unison. Even Xia Yu turned to look at him — after all, even she wasn't clear on the specifics. All she knew was that someone had grown green-eyed over the enormous profits Ayato and the others stood to reap from the event they were hosting, and had moved to send people to derail the competition. Trusting in Ayato and Ayaka's ability to manage things, she hadn't pressed for details — which meant she, too, had no idea what those saboteurs had actually done.
"I couldn't tell you the specifics myself — Mr. Zhongli would know more," Kaveh said with a helpless shrug, washing his hands of the details.
Every gaze in the car swung to Zhongli.
"Apparently, the venue erected especially for the finals of the idol event was burned to the ground — deliberately, by someone's hand — and so we were asked to come and design and rebuild the competition grounds in its place." Zhongli did not let them down, laying out what he knew.
"Huh?! Was anyone hurt?!" Ayumi's eyes went round as saucers, her voice tight with worry.
"Rest assured. Those troublemakers had no appetite for taking lives. As of now, fewer than ten staff members have come away with nothing worse than light injuries," Zhongli soothed her gently.
Conan exhaled quietly, silently thanking his stars that nothing worse had come of it. If a life had been lost, the incident would have escalated into a vicious criminal case, and the consequences didn't bear imagining. Even so — casualties or no — having the competition venue burned down was no trifling matter. He couldn't help wondering why not a whisper of it had reached his ears until now; Heiji hadn't breathed a word of it when he came to meet them, either. At that thought, Conan couldn't hold the question back any longer.
"My guess would be that the Kamisato family chose to keep the matter under wraps," Subaru Okiya offered, one hand stroking his chin. "After all, with the competition on the very horizon, if the audience and the contestants learned that the Kamisato family had failed to properly safeguard even a stage as crucial as the finals venue, it would likely touch off a massive crisis of confidence — and losses beyond all reckoning."
His reasoning was so sound, so eminently sensible, that the others could hardly disagree.
"That is indeed part of it," Zhongli affirmed with a nod.
"So has the fire investigation turned anything up yet?" Conan's interest was still fixed on the case itself; now that he understood why the Kamisato family had sealed the news, he pivoted his attention to the burning of the venue.
"On that front, I'm afraid we know very little. The purpose for which I promised my friend I would come to Osaka was, after all, simply to help raise the competition venue. As for the investigation — the case has been handed over to the Osaka police, and I have every confidence Mr. Kamisato will see it resolved." He shook his head lightly, his eyes deep and unfathomable, making it plain that solving cases fell entirely outside his line of work.
"Aww, no fair—!" the children wailed in collective disappointment. They'd been thinking that with a little information from Zhongli, maybe the Detective Boys could sniff out a clue or two of their own.
Conan felt a twinge of disappointment as well, but Zhongli genuinely seemed to know little about the incident, and it was clear there was nothing more to be wrung from this line of questioning. He let the thought of digging further go.