Behind the Scope

Chapter 3: The Empress's Challenge

Kaito sighed. It had been three days since his overture show, but he still knew nothing about Wolf. Even though his mother and Jii had helped him a lot to find this man, Kaito still did not know anything. It was not because Wolf was a smart person that he was able to cover his tracks pretty well; Kaito could not really judge him as a smart person when he and his friends were easily fooled by Kid's dummy. It was simply because too many people used Wolf as their alias and too many people had multiple gemstones. If Kaito knew what kind of gemstones that Wolf had, he was sure he would be able to figure him out in a matter of hours, even minutes, but the problem was Kaito did not know. He only knew that the man had two gemstones. No details. Kaito even tried to investigate the man by trying to find out the origin of the arrow which was used to deliver Wolf's letter, but his effort was to no avail. The arrow turned out to be a basic arrow that had been used in schools and dojos all over Japan. Everyone in Japan could have it.

Chikage knew some people who used Wolf as their alias or nickname. Some of them were good people. They were normal civilians who used an alias for their harmless cyberspace activity, for their pen name or stage name since they were writers or entertainers, or simply because somehow their skill was so impressive that people nicknamed them Wolf. There were also criminals who used Wolf as their alias, but when Kaito tried to focus on the criminals, he ended up with nothing but their history and how they finally ended up in jail. The problem was that the Wolf Kaito had encountered was not in jail. He was free and perhaps he had never been in jail before.

Tired, Kaito turned off his laptop which had been turned on for hours since before the dawn, and then he lay down on his bed, closing his eyes. It was not that long until his cellphone on the desk vibrated and Kaito had to get up to check it. It was Jii calling him.

"Hello? Jii-chan?" Kaito greeted lazily. "What's up? It's still early in the morning."

"Young Master, have you seen the news?"

"What news?" Kaito frowned. Something was not right about Jii. The old man's voice sounded urgent.

"The challenge news."

"Challenge news?" Kaito paused for a moment until something clicked in his head. "Wait, do you mean...?"

"Yes. It seems the advisor of Suzuki Financial Group challenges you again."

Kaito groaned. As much as he loved challenges, this time he did not feel so excited about it. How could he? He had a man under the alias Wolf to be taken care of and now the old man Suzuki wanted to add his problem?! Besides, the thief just had a heist a few days ago! Did he really have to perform another heist this quickly?

"Young Master, what are you going to do about it?" Jii asked from the other end of the line.

Kaito sighed. "I'll read the news first and after that I'll think about it."

"You mean you will consider to decline it?"

"No! Of course not. Kaitou Kid never runs away from challenges."

"Oh, alright then. It's just that you sound different from usual, Young Master."

"Of course I do. You know that I have another problem to solve," Kaito retorted. "Jii-chan, I'll call you after I read the news. Later." Kaito hung up, then he immediately searched for the news using his tablet. It did not take long for him to find the news. The latest challenge from Jirokichi Suzuki was one of the latest news in the media.

The news told Kaito that Jirokichi Suzuki planned to hold an exhibition in two days. It would exhibit a pendant decorated with an imperial topaz called Red Empress. As its name, the color of topaz was red and the priceless pendant originally belonged to a Brazilian princess who was supposed to become an Empress but she did not because the Empire of Brazil was overthrown by a coup. The pendant was in the hands of the princess until she died and after that, it was sold to another noble family. Since then, the pendant was constantly passed from one owner to another through trade or inheritance until it became Suzuki family's collection. Now that it was Jirokichi's treasure, the old man decided to use it as a bait to capture Kaitou Kid. He challenged the thief to steal it inside the brand new Grand Suzuki Museum building, which means that the security system would be better than before. Added with tight security from the police, it sure seemed that Kid would be in trouble this time.