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Blue Flame – Part 06

The dark-haired woman gave a weary shrug. “By the looks of it, a moneybag or a nobleman took her as his wife. Either that, or she became a dream at dawn, our secret term for a mistress. She was living a great life. Old colleagues try not to talk to them. It’s an unspoken rule among us. I say unspoken because it’s not like someone actually came up with it.”

“We just follow it anyway. Right?”

The two women reached out their arms and held each other’s hands for just a moment. While the river of time flowed into the future, that moment alone seemed to stop.

“So you saw her in 1912,” Kazuya muttered, confused.

The rabbit hopped away and returned to Kazuya’s feet.

The clamor in the green room was growing louder. The women slowly stood up, winked, and headed back into the green room. The complex scent of face powder, perfume, cigarettes, sweat, the passage of time, and various emotions drifted down the corridor.

Once it was quiet, the corridor suddenly felt much colder, and it seemed spacious and lonely.

Kazuya sat down at the table. “We learned from looking into the newspaper ad that Nicole Leroux had applied for a secretary position and was accepted. It had odd requirements: blond hair, blue eyes, shoe size, and so on. According to a witness who worked one floor below, the person interviewing her was Jupiter Roget from the Academy of Science. After that, Nicole went missing.”

“Yeah.” Ms. Cecile nodded.

“According to Sam the baker, Nicole died not long after she disappeared from the theater. Like he said, there was a grave that belonged to her in the cemetery, marked with the year of her death, 1900.” Kazuya paused. He looked up at the dusty ceiling and sighed. “But according to her fellow dancers, they saw a woman who looked like Nicole in 1910 and 1912. In the middle of the night, riding a luxurious carriage, and by the lake having a picnic. What does this mean?” He pulled his gaze away from the ceiling and looked around. “Ms. Cecile. What on earth are you doing?”

The teacher yelped. She was sitting on the sofa where the dark-haired actress was lying earlier, stretching her petite body in imitation, practicing brushing back her hair. She was struggling to get it right, squirming this way and that. When Kazuya saw her, she bolted to her feet.

“It’s not for kids!” She covered Kazuya’s eyes with both hands.

“T-Teach…”

“I’ll have some intensive training sessions with Sophie later.”

“O-Okay. I’m, uh… going to Victorique.”

Ms. Cecile nodded with a grave look. “Okay.”

Kazuya stood up and lifted the rabbit in his arms. “I’m not sure if I’ve gathered all the fragments of chaos that Victorique needs, but I’ll give a report for now. Besides, she’s with Inspector Blois. I can’t help but feel worried.”

Ms. Cecile frowned at the mention of Inspector Blois. “Let’s go, Kujou.”

“Okay. Ah wait, little bunny!”

The rabbit jumped out of Kazuya’s hands and scurried down the hallway. He went after it, his shoes echoing as he dove into the dark den. When he turned the corner, a white dove came flying in his direction, wings rustling. What was a tiny white dot at first grew bigger, until it began circling above the rabbit’s head, its eyes, like glass beads, blinking.

“Hey!” Kazuya dashed to where the rabbit and the dove were.

---

Victorique walked slowly offstage.

She wasn’t sure which corner to turn and where in the theater she was. The dove perched on her shoulder suddenly flapped its wings and flew down the corridor. She trotted after it through the dim corridor, where cobwebs hung in the corners.

When she turned the corner, she spotted Kazuya Kujou standing there, dimly illuminated by the lamps.

The pigeon landed on his head and pulled at his jet-black hair as if planning to build a nest. He was yelping in pain, but instead of shooing the dove away, he slowly bent down and reached for the rabbit at his feet.

Sensing a presence, he looked in her direction. “Oh, Victorique!” His face lit up as he called her name.

“Yes,” the girl answered curtly. She was small and lovely like a porcelain doll, with a cold expression on her face.

Kazuya ran up to her, holding the rabbit. A second later, Ms. Cecile also appeared at the end of the corridor.

“I don’t know if it’ll be of any help,” Kazuya said in a bright voice. “But I went around Saubreme with Ms. Cecile, gathering all sorts of testimonies about the Downtown Blue Rose you were curious about.”

“Hmm.”

“Nicole Leroux is both dead and alive. It’s all very strange.”

Victorique cast her gaze down, frowning. Her golden hair undulated like waves, creating curious patterns.

After hearing from Kazuya and Ms. Cecile, Victorique said, “Towards zero.”

“What’s that?” Kazuya asked.

Victorique lifted the pipe with her chubby fingers and took a puff. “Allow me to dumb it down so that a lamebrain like you, whose head is packed with pumpkin pudding, can understand.”

“How can you even afford to be arrogant at a time like this? It’s impressive, in a way.”

“Hmm?”

“S-Sorry! Stop looking at me like that!”

“In short, sometimes the key to a case happens at a completely different time from when the crime was committed or thought to have been committed. We call that time when the real crime happened as zero hour.”

“Hmm.”

“For example. Suppose you have a stomach ache, Kujou. You writhe in agony, and the pain is so unbearable that you shed tears and reflect on the past and the future.”

Kazuya frowned. “That’s a disturbing example.”

Ms. Cecile was listening grimly.

“You suspect it was the stewed chicken you had for lunch. So you blame the one who cooked it, the dorm mother. You lambast her so harshly that you draw the ire of the people around you.”

“I wouldn’t do that! Whatever. Continue.”

“But. That wasn’t actually what happened. The reason behind your stomachache was the spoiled bread you had in your room in the morning!”

“I see. Then I falsely accused the dorm mother. I gotta apologize to her quick,” Kazuya said restlessly.

“Did the cause for the bread getting spoiled occur in the morning?” Victorique went on. “No. The bread went bad because it was from dinner the night before, and you took it back to your room and left it on your desk. By morning, the bread had gone bad. And you munched on it like an idiot.”

“Ahuh, ahuh.”

“In this case, zero hour was not when you had the chicken for lunch, nor when you put the bread in your mouth in the morning. It was at dinner the night before. You were so full that you couldn’t finish the bread, but then you came up with a really stupid idea to take it back to your room.” Her eyes opened wide. “That was the zero hour!”

“Maybe it was the example, but it didn’t really click. Whatever, I guess.” Kazuya nodded. “But what does that have to do with the current case?”

“We don’t know yet.” Victorique shook her head. “But…” Her green eyes dimmed. She looked up at the flickering lantern and exhaled. “To find out this case’s zero hour, our only option might be to dig up a grave.”

Kazuya shuddered. Ms. Cecile’s mouth dropped open, and she made the sign of the cross.

“That’s it for you two,” Victorique said, walking away.

“What?” Kazuya moved in front of her.

Victorique shook her head. “You can’t get involved any more than this. Take Cecile with you and return to the academy.”

Behind her tiny figure, the dark, beautiful part of Europe’s long history that Kazuya, an international student from a faraway country, could not even imagine, stirred like black smoke.

Fearing the presence, yet quietly taking it in, Victorique closed her eyes and exhaled slowly.

Then she opened her eyes. “I’ll follow you soon,” she said unsurely.

“Are you sure?” Kazuya’s face was stern.

“Yes. I’m hoping I can. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. All I can say is that you must not get involved in this case.” She hung her head. “An unsolved murder that happened a long time ago. The victim is a big shot, so the people involved must be too. If I don’t solve it, I won’t be able to return to the academy. This case is extremely dangerous.”

“I said I would get involved,” Kazuya said softly. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying with you. I might be useless, but there might be something I could help with. Besides…” Footsteps echoed down the corridor. “You can’t go alone.”

Victorique’s cherry lips quivered.

“Fate is something you share with someone. Sadness, happiness, the past, the future. Everything is not yours to bear alone anymore.”

The cobwebs hanging in the corridor glistened eerily under the lamplight.

The dove on Kazuya’s head stirred.

Victorique remained silent.

Kazuya did not wait for a reply either. Drifting in the silence, he simply walked beside the mysterious girl, the most powerful mind in all of Europe and the ultimate weapon of the Old World.