Ninjago and Beyond (Beyblade Burst x Ninjago)

Ken vs the Pizzaplex (part 7)

Somewhere in Downtown Japan
No One's POV
It had been hours since Ken had sent the SOS signal. The boys had sent messages to their parents to explain to them that they were going to be a little late coming home. Because they didn't want to worry their families or risk police intruding on a personal matter, they'd fabricated a story. The official reason was that they were pulling an all-nighter at the Monastery - the fact that it was a Friday night sold the lie.

But the real reason? Ken was in trouble. And they had no idea where he was.

"Let's start with the facts," PIXAL instructed the boys. She'd joined them on the street where Ken had disappeared in her fleshy Miss Piper form, and had ushered them over to a dark alley where they could talk without worry of passerby. Now her vision lit up to project a ghostly blue image of a street map in the middle of the group. "We know that Ken exited his school at 3:16pm," She continued, pointing to a large rectangle in the upper left corner of the projection that was marked with the school coat of arms. "He was presumably walking home until he got to this street, where we are right now." Her finger moved down a sequence of streets away from the school. "Then he sent the SOS signal at 3:27pm."

She blinked out of the projection and looked out of the alley back onto the main street. "It's a quiet street, out of the way; there's a good chance no one noticed the actual abduction." She focused her attention back on the boys. "Did you find out anything about the surrounding area?"

"There's a line of businesses at both ends of the street," Naoki answered. "We made a point to check them all to see if anyone had seen Ken or a suspicious person walk by."

"Unfortunately, no one seems to have seen anything," Jin added with a note of exasperation in his voice; the fact of Ken's disappearance was really making him stressed, and he was currently fitted comfortably under Naoki's arm. "Everyone either made the excuse that it was their busiest time of day, or no one was manning the front at the time."

"To be fair," Honcho spoke up. "Once you take away the puppets, Ken's not the kind of guy that you would pick out in a crowd."

"But he was wearing the puppets when he disappeared!" Cuza protested. Pressing a palm to his forehead, he added with a sigh, "You'd think someone would notice a tall guy with Shadow the Hedgehog style hair and dog puppets on his hands walk by their store!"

Valt, who had taken possession of Keru and Besu, held the felt dogs close to his chest and whimpered. Shu put a comforting arm around his shoulders and held him close.

During the entire exchange, Daigo had a thoughtful look on his face. "Hey PIXAL, can you pull up the street map again?" He asked the Nindroid. When she complied, he outlined the route Ken had taken with his finger. "This isn't the way to Ken's house," He announced. "If he was walking home, he would have taken a right-" He pointed at an intersection. "Here. Instead he took a left."

"And how do you know where his house is?" Ukyo inquired, sounding skeptical.

"He and my little brother Ryota are pretty close, and they hang out often," Daigo explained. "I have to walk him to Ken's house whenever he wants to go - it's pretty far and there's often a lot of traffic, so we often have to find back ways to his house. I know every possible way to Ken's place -" He gestured to the route Ken had taken. "And that is not one of them."

Ren Wu took a step forward to take a closer look at the map. "So he wasn't heading home, then," He concluded. "His parents run a puppet show, right? Maybe he was heading towards the next performance."

Daigo shook his head. "They only perform at hospitals, and there aren't any along this route," He explained.

"So what is along this route?" Wakiya asked, one hand on his hip in a cautious pose.