Kidnapping Klee
Though he was genuinely a little worried about the little girl he'd met once before, Bourbon let none of it show on his face.
Only after Kaeya hung up the phone did he ask, in the offhand tone of a partner showing concern, "Has something happened to Klee? Well then—do you need a hand? Whatever else may be true, Mr. Kaeya, you're a partner of our organization. Laying hands on your people is an offense against us as well. I'd say we ought to teach a lesson to anyone bold enough to offend the organization."
With that, Bourbon glanced at Cyno, waiting on his decision.
Framed as a matter of offense against the organization, Cyno shouldn't question the motive behind what Bourbon had just said.
Whether he'd actually be persuaded by that reasoning and agree to help, though, Bourbon couldn't be so sure.
Beside him, Ireland nodded along at Bourbon's words; he too suspected that whoever had made a move on Klee was doing it to strike at the organization.
To Bourbon's relief, Cyno didn't refuse to help Kaeya. He ordered Ireland to leave and deliver the case back to the organization, while he and Bourbon stayed behind to assist.
"Of course I need help." Kaeya had no intention of turning down Bourbon's offer—after all, he'd already entertained the idea of having the Black Organization come clean up Klee's messes for him.
Now that Klee had vanished without warning, the sooner they found her, the better. And if it turned out they were too late—he would need these people to destroy the evidence, too.
The two of them got into the car Kaeya had driven over and set off for the spot where Klee had been last seen. On the way, Kaeya gave a quick rundown of the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
Klee had been left temporarily in the care of a friend of his, an astrologer who made her living telling fortunes at a street stall, so Klee usually played somewhere near her booth.
Klee was a good girl. If she were going to wander off, she'd always tell someone first. She wasn't the type to just disappear without a word.
According to Kaeya's friend, a customer had come up for a reading just before it happened, and right before the reading began she'd seen Klee nearby. But her view was blocked during the fortune-telling, and by the time the customer left, the spot where Klee had been was empty. At first she assumed Klee had simply gone off to play somewhere else—but after searching the whole area and finding no trace of her, she realized something was wrong (especially when Klee didn't reply to the messages she sent through the system). That was when she'd hurriedly called Kaeya, begging him to find some way to locate Klee quickly, because otherwise...
Of course, she would do her part on her end and try to locate the girl through astrology.
Astrology...
When Bourbon heard that Kaeya's friend actually intended to use divination to help find the missing girl, his expression turned complicated.
Never mind that these days astrology was mostly the province of schoolgirls who believed it was real—this friend of Kaeya's, an astrologer herself, actually bought into that fraudulent nonsense? And Kaeya didn't think to say anything to her about it?
Amuro Tooru had assumed that someone with Kaeya's bearing would have friends who, if not exceptionally capable, would at least seem somewhat dependable. Instead, the man turned out to keep company with an astrologer lost in her own fantasies—truly an eye-opening discovery. He honestly couldn't fathom how two people separated by such a gulf in status had ever become friends.
Still, it looked like Kaeya's friend was a lost cause for now. Everything rested on their side of things. He just hoped they could find Klee before she came to any harm.
Elsewhere, at that very moment, Mona was in a quiet panic upon realizing Klee was gone. The worry sharpened into dread when she remembered that Klee had been carrying her backpack at the time—and that the bag had been stuffed full of her Jumpy Dumpties.
Please let Klee not have been carelessly tossing her Jumpy Dumpties around. No—wait—Klee knew better; after Kaeya and the Traveler had drummed it into her time and again, she usually did pay attention. Then let it be the ones who took Klee who don't go rummaging through her bag. After all, if anything went wrong, with Klee's luck she was bound to be fine—but the same most certainly could not be said for them.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the kidnappers never heard Mona's prayer.
In a residential house some distance away from Mona's stall, a woman held Klee in one arm while her other hand pressed the back of the girl's head against her chest, hiding her face from view. A man walked pressed close to the woman's side, doing his best to shield her figure.
Once the two of them were back inside their own home, they let out a collective sigh of relief. The woman casually set Klee down on the floor, then took a seat beside the man, poured two glasses of water, handed him one, and drained the other in a single gulp.
Once her nerves had settled, Mizuno Haru turned to her boyfriend beside her. "Koji, are you sure this little brat comes from a rich family? Because she sure doesn't look like it to me. What kind of rich kid hangs around an astrologer's stall?"
Miyake Koji bristled at his girlfriend's distrust. "Of course I'm sure. Back when I was doing part-time work at that hotel, I saw this little brat and her big brother come out of the presidential suite together with my own eyes. I even got curious and asked around—her brother had been living in that suite for months. If that's not rich, what is?"
At that, Miyake Koji couldn't help but marvel at his own luck today. He'd never imagined that on the way home he'd run into that same little brat he'd seen before—with practically no one around to protect her.
He'd told his girlfriend about it and had her procure some ether, while he kept watch on the surroundings. He confirmed that the little brat was with that astrologer, but there genuinely was nobody else nearby, and so Miyake Koji had felt confident enough to make his move.
He sent his girlfriend over to strike up a conversation with the girl and put her at ease, and while the astrologer's attention was elsewhere, he spritzed the ether toward the little brat.
After that, he'd loaded the unconscious girl into the car and driven home.
The route was practically in their own backyard, a stretch they knew like the back of their hands, with barely a camera along it. In other words, the kidnapping had gone off without a hitch, and the odds of anyone finding a single clue were slim to none.
It had all been spur of the moment to begin with, and against all odds the heavens, the earth, and the timing had aligned—everything had gone impossibly smoothly.
All that remained was to figure out how to get a ransom letter to the little brat's brother and make him prepare the money.
"Koji, if her brother can afford a presidential suite for that long, he's loaded. We should ask for at least ten million." Mizuno Haru was already mulling over what a suitable ransom would be.
"Hah, this time we could ask for thirty million and he'd pay it without blinking. Once we've got the money, we'll never have to work another day—whatever we want, whenever we want it..."
Ten million was far too little. The way her brother had fussed over that little brat back then, he'd surely pay whatever they asked.
While the two kidnappers haggled over how much to demand, Kaeya arrived at the place where Klee had vanished—with Bourbon and Cyno in tow.