Detective Yvonne: Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Kidnapped Debutante

Bright light shone into her, surprisingly, opened eyes later on. For the life of her Serena believed that she had died the minute darkness claimed her but yet the piercing pain of brightness in her dark induced eyes made her shut them again. For a while she kept them closed until the pain died down and she was only blinded by said light.  The light moved away and she was able to see properly. As blurriness faded to sharpness, she noticed two policemen standing over her.

“Are you okay, little girl?” One of them asked gently, which in turn confused her.

‘Little girl? What the hell? I’m only a few years younger than you!’ She thought before a pain in the back of her head stopped her thoughts from becoming words spoken from her lips. Slowly, she brought her hand to her head, only to wince in pain at the slight touch… which brought her onto her next worry.

Why on earth were her clothes gigantic on her?! She looked up at the men as they were deciding what to with her which, in turn brought her attention to her now oversized clothing. Just what had those men done to her and why did it make her feel this awful? She didn’t want to stick around and find out, having been creeped out enough already by this said situation and wanted to head to the nearest form of help she knew of, home. Quietly, she snuck away into the overgrowth as the men’s attentions were caught on their radios as they called in their findings.  

“Dispatch, this is Unit 654 requesting an ambulance, we’ve found a young girl with a head injury, could have possible concussion and… HEY! WHERE’D SHE GO?!” To the policemen’s surprise, the young girl they were looking at mere seconds ago had vanished, disappeared into the darkness. Immediately they began stumbling around stupidly at the thought of a child with a head injury running around the empty fairground, using their flashlights to try and locate her in the dark.

“YOU IDIOT!” The first one yelled at his fellow officer, who snapped back at him viciously.

“It’s not my fault! I was calling for the ambulance! You should have kept an eye on her!” The second pointed to his radio to prove his point, still highly agitated.

“Why the hell should I? The kid had a head injury!” The first explained as if it solved the answers to every question in the world. In short, it didn’t. 

“We have to find her you… numbskull! She’s hurt!”

The two officers continued their argument for a short while before separating to search for the missing child, one of them blindly stumbling into a nearby lamppost with a loud whack. For hours they scoured the park for any sign of the girl, not realising that she had already left and was roaming the streets of Tokyo in a mad bid to get back to her residence, which was registered under the name of a now missing detective, Serena Kudou.

 

“Dad! I’m home!” Ash yelled as he entered his father’s office underneath their apartment in the middle of the city. Having walked home with a slight hobble thanks to banging his right knee on the concrete – from when he had tripped and fell earlier chasing after Serena – he couldn’t help but want to lie down on his bed and sleep. But sleep was something that wouldn’t come naturally until he knew Serena had made it home alright after splitting away from him earlier. Even before insomnia stopped him from sleeping, checking up on his father first stopped him from going straight up to the top of the flight of stairs leading to their two-bed apartment. Underneath the Mouri Detective Agency was a small little café named Poirot, meaning that the apartment was on the highest floor, not nice for someone who had banged their knee and walked all the way home.

After taking look one look at the scene at the scene in front of him, Ash mentally and externally groaned with abstract horror. When he had left that morning, the place was spotless – not a single piece of rubbish anywhere to be seen – and everything was in its special place that was reserved for it. Right now, it was as if a bomb had hit it, beer cans and fast food wrappers almost had covered the carpet in a new floor layer of grossness. In the middle of the lake of mess was his father – Richard Mouri – visibly drunk with the TV on beside him, playing a re-run of an Aria Okino pop concert on repeat.

Noticing his son’s return, Richard lent back in his chair grinning stupidly with a drunken look on his face. “Hey! Ash! Come join the party!” He said joyfully whilst holding up a can half full of beer. Ash walked towards his father’s desk, side stepping the litter whilst grabbing a bin bag on his way over.

“Dad, what the hell do you think you’re doing?! This isn’t an office, it’s a pigsty!” The sixteen-year-old scolded as he easily swiped a bunch of litter off of his father’s desk into the bin bag with the grace and elegance of a swan, if anyone could really be elegant in collecting litter in a bin bag. “No wonder you haven’t had a case in months!”

“Actually, you’re wrong… I just polished off a case,” Richard argued dropping a now empty can onto the floor, the remains of a six looplet can holder already resting inside of the bin bag in Ash’s hands. The drunken detective found it to be the right time to change the subject to his most favourite person in the world to mock. “So where’s that detective friend of yours, huh? Run out on you, did she?” He scoffed at the thought of it happening again, even though it was the beer helping him along the way. Richard didn’t like to see his only child upset, no one did, and vowed to kick a certain Serena Kudou’s ass when he next saw her. “Like usual?”

“No dad, Serena was with me for the whole afternoon…” Ash mumbled, a sad look glistened over his eyes suddenly. “But… now… I don’t know where she is…” Richard snorted once more and turned back to his TV on his desk, muttering things under his breath. His son raised an angry eyebrow at him before the boy got to work cleaning up the place. However, as he did so, a thought constantly nagged at the back of his mind. What if something bad had happened to Serena?

 

Dark clouds covered the sky as droplets of rain began pounding those below it, which was unfortunate for Serena as she ran through the now empty streets. The coldness of the water hitting her skin wasn’t exactly doing her any good in this state, especially now that her head injury was making itself more prominently know thanks to the pounding ache it was making. Unfortunately, her baggy jeans decided now would be the time to send her flying, getting caught in her oversized trainers. As she hit the ground, tiredness hit her like a bullet train. She just knelt there, panting, wondering where on earth her stamina had gone. Serena picked herself, using the window of the store beside her to help before her reflection caught her out of the corner of her vision. That was when she freaked out.

In the place of her normal reflection was a seven-year-old girl, her honey blonde hair was shoulder length and styled perfectly for that height, which was the same way she had it as a little girl. Other than that, everything was exactly the same. Her eyes were the same colour, her mind was still working as it should be for a high school student and her clothes were the same size as before she was knocked out.   

“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ME?!” She cried out before remembering something that had blurred itself into her mind. The men in black, as she was unconscious, gave her something. It must have been a poison, they had tried to kill her! However, whatever they gave her mustn’t have worked since, all they had managed to achieve was shrink her down to her seven year old self, a decade younger than normal. “That poison must have done this! I… I’ve got to get home now!”

 

In an empty mansion-like house, with the lights off and the rooms vacant, a singular phone started ringing. It continued to ring until the answer machine kicked in.

“Hello, you’ve reached the phone of Serena Kudou, I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, probably on some case. If you want to…”

The caller, a certain black haired boy, looked at his own mobile in worry. “She’s not answering. Serena should be home by now.” At that moment in time, the Mouri Detective Agency’s office was a lot cleaner than it was half an hour before hand. The detective that owned it was holding yet another beer can, taking a swig from it before turning to his son.

“She’ll probably be rubbing noses with the rich and famous with her old man or somethin’…” He muttered with a slight slur from the drunkenness. Whilst he was heavily tipsy, Richard Mouri wasn’t entirely drunk yet, he could still think clearly… or so he thought he could. The raised left eyebrow look his son was giving him told the detective otherwise.

“Shows how much of a detective you are dad,” Ash groaned, wanting to slap his forehead to show his internal objection towards his father’s drunken stupidity. “Serena lives alone! Her parents are currently in France and have been for two years!”

“Get outta here.” He slurred, surprised by what he was hearing. Who the hell would leave their seventeen-year-old child to live alone, especially since they have left them alone since said kid was fifteen? Whilst it did make him sound like a hypocrite – Ash took care of him more than he did to his son – Richard couldn’t help but add both of the Kudou parents to his list of people he didn’t respect… and he didn’t respect a lot of people.   

“Serena should be home right now. Something’s up and I would happily bet my black belt on it!” Ash mumbled to himself before making a spilt decision. He grabbed his jacket and ran out of the office. “I’m going to Serena’s house dad, be back later!”

“WAIT…!” Richard yelled getting up out of his seat for the first time in ages. “I didn’t mean it!!!”

“You did, dad, and you fully well know it!” Was the last thing he heard before the office door slammed shut.

“Why the hell did he have to get his mother’s attitude changes?” The detective complained to himself as he downed another can of beer.

 

Meanwhile, Serena was having a hard time getting the gate to her house open, now being too small to reach the latch, even after climbing as far as she could. She grunted and groaned as she stretched her arm as far as it could reach, times like these making her curse how she had been a short child. Just as she was about to try once more, an explosion blowing the wall down caught her attention. Professor Elm tumbled out, coughing and groaning as smoke bellowed from the wall of her house. It seemed as if another one of the professor’s great inventions had gone wrong, which had gifted Serena with an amazing opportunity. She jumped down and rushed over to the professor as he was sitting himself up.

“Professor Elm! Thank goodness you’re home,” she began gushing her words out, not noticing the suspicious expression that was forming on the elder man’s face. “Look, something happened to me and I need you to…”

“Hold on…” Elm pushed himself up, brushing the dust from his lab coat. “Who are you?”

“It’s me, Serena!” The seventeen turned seven year old pouted, wondering why on earth he couldn’t see it. She had grown up next to him and he had even babysat her when her parents were busy, taking Ash as well when Richard was actually involved in a deep case.  

“A relative of Serena’s?” Apparently, he had misheard her, only picking up the name out of the rest of her sentence. “That’s her house right over there.”

“I AM Serena!” She groaned, taking note of his ever growing disbelief. “Look, I’ll prove it to you!  You’re an eccentric inventor that believes you’re a genius when none of your inventions ever work. You also have a mole on your backside with a hair sticking out of it!”

“Only Serena would know that…” Professor Elm struck a thoughtful pose. “Been spilling my secrets, has she? That’s the last favour I’m ever doing for her.”

“No, it’s because I’m Serena!” The now seven-year-old yelled angrily. “Some men in black poisoned me somehow with some kind of pill which caused me to shrink and…”

“I highly doubt it, no such thing has or will exist for a long time,” By now the professor had taken enough of this child’s craziness. He grabbed her arm and began dragging her away from the house of her goal. “I’m taking you to the police so your parents can get a telling off for letting punks like you out and about late at night.”

“Professor!” Serena pulled against his hold, only just managing to get him to hear her over the rain. “You tripped on your way back from the Colombo restaurant in a hurry, didn’t you?”

Elm stopped walking, a shocked look taking over his face. “How did you know that?”

“Your clothes,” she pointed to his front easily, her deductional skills coming into play to save her hind.  “Your front is soaking wet yet your back is completely dry meaning it proves you were running in the rain. Also, there is mud on your trouser legs, the same kind of mud only found on the street where Colombo’s is located as the street is under construction in multiple places. You also have some of Colombo’s special meat sauce is still in your moustache.”

“That was amazing…” Professor Elm wiped some of the sauce away from his cheek, tasting it to make sure. “W-who are you?”

“Only one truth prevails, Professor!” Serena smirked and waggled her finger and – under a certain scientific inventor’s perception – the seventeen year old version copied her actions beside her.

“S-s-s-Serena?”

Luckily, now that the professor had begun believing her again, Serena had managed to get into her house and was now in her father’s library with the professor leaning against her old man’s desk. “I see, so whatever was in the poison they gave you caused you to shrink…” He crossed his arms as the shrunken detective entered with a new, drier set of clothing on. Everything was fit to size, being her old uniform from her old school days over in France. A dark blue blazer covered the white shirt she was wearing, partially over the light blue skirt which went to the knee. Considering the red bowtie also on the outfit, she looked rather adorable in it.

“Yeah, that’s the gist of it…” She pulled at the blazer and sighed loudly. “Look at me, the clothing from when I was a kid still fits. Urgh… professor, can’t any of your inventions turn me back?!”

“Even if I was to make something, I’d need the poison that changed you to begin with,” Elm sighed at her, before clasping his hands on her shoulders firmly. “And Serena, if those men know you’re still alive, they’ll come back and put an end to you for good! This must remain our secret, and by us, I mean to two of us! No one else can know of this or…”

“Serena? Are you home?” Both Serena and the professor jumped with surprise as a familiar sounding voice echoed down the hall. The now seven-year-old was only just able to hide behind the desk – under the professor’s instructions – as Ash turned his head around the entranceway, shocked to find Elm acting suspiciously in Serena’s house. “Oh, hey Professor Elm. Have you seen Serena at all?”

As the professor tried to stutter his way through an excuse, Serena got her hands on her father’s old glasses, placing them on her face but soon realised her dad was blind and bashed her head against the unit, gaining the attention from the one person she didn’t want to see at the moment, for once.

“Wait, you don’t want to go around there…” Elm’s words were left unheard as Serena popped out the lenses and jammed the frames on her face before she was turned around, face to face with the boy she had fallen in love with.

“You’re…” Ash trailed off, making Serena believe her disguise had failed until she was pulled into a hug and he continued. “adorable! Is she a relative of yours professor?”

“She’s a distant relative of mine.” Serena didn’t know who looked more relieved, herself or the professor himself.

“So, what’s your name?” The sudden question backed Serena into a bookshelf, trying to turn her gaze away from Ash’s smiling face. Her eyes glanced over two book covers; ‘United History of French Law’ by Yvonne Jacques and ‘Japanese Crime and Trials: Ancient Oversight’ by Rompa Edogawa. Her brain merged the two names together and she had her answer.

“Yvonne… Yvonne Edogawa… that’s my name!” Although she stuttered her way through it, a new alias had been born.

“Yvonne?” It was an unusual name but Serena knew Elm would come up with a very good reason as to why her name was so different.

“Oh, Ash, I have a favour to ask of you,” Professor Elm butt in before the teenaged boy could try and figure out anything about the origin of Serena’s new name. “Can you have Yvonne stay with you for a while? Her parents were involved with an accident and my home is no place for a child to live at…” Whilst he was speaking, Serena darted out from her hiding place and began attacking the professor, only for him to pick her up easily and hold her whilst she kicked the air helplessly.

“Sure,” Ash nodded, making the poor girl’s heart stop for a brief second. “I’d have to ask my dad first but I’m sure Yvonne could stay with us.” The professor then pulled Serena to the side for a moment, allowing her to talk against him finally.

“What the hell are you thinking?!” Serena didn’t care that she swore in front of Professor Elm, she was too angry. “What if he finds out my identity whilst I’m there.”

“Don’t! Ash’s father is a private detective, if there is anyone better to stay with to find those men in black then he’s the man!” Elm looked sneakily back at Ash, who was blinking innocently in confusion. “First thing first is getting you back to normal by find out more about that drug you were given.”   

“Oh, right!”

 

So, there she was, Yvonne – Serena had to remember that was her name now – Edogawa, a seven-year-old girl holding hands with the crush of her life as they headed back to his home. At first, their journey to her new place of residence was silent until Ash spoke up out of the blue.

“So, Yvonne…”

“Yeah?” Yvonne had to force herself to say it, internally vowing to never get used to the name she chose for herself.

“Can you tell me a bit more about yourself?” That question nearly brought the girl to a panic attack, realising she had to make an entire backstory surrounding her new alias. “What’s your favourite food, what are your hobbies…” Yvonne swore she heard him mutter something about killing a Gary when he asked the next question. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but, do you have a crush on anyone?”

“No, boys are gross…” Yvonne sweat dropped, closing her eyes with a nervous smile on her face. She remembered that conversation between Ash and one of his other friends, who had made him promise to ask every girl he wanted to get to know, no matter what age, if they had a crush thanks to losing a bet.

“Hmm… well I have to admit some are but, times change and so will your thoughts,” he trailed off, a warming smile took over his features. “I used to think that way too about girls, but now I don’t really… well, there’s one person that I think I really like.”

A smirk formed on Yvonne’s face. “Was it that Serena girl you were looking for?” She was expecting a blushing mess and stuttering of a ‘NO!’ coming out of his mouth but the smile remained.

“Actually… yeah, you’re right,” Ash admitted, still smiling as he talked, not noticing the expression of pure surprise on the little girl’s face. “She may be a huge mystery geek, and she may get on my nerves sometimes when she picks on my dad but, Serena’s awesome. She’s smart and cute… and she’s always been there for me since I was little and…” He lifted his head up proudly. “Yeah, I like Serena a lot!” Yvonne was covered in a full out blush as her former self’s crush turned to face her with closed eyes and a nervous tone. “But that’s our secret, okay?”

“Okay…” She muttered meekly. Oh god, he liked her back and she was stuck as a seven-year-old. Could her life get any worse?

Soon the offices of Detective Richard Mouri came into view which caused a knot to twist in Yvonne’s stomach. As Serena, she had never been allowed inside due to the fact Richard Mouri would never allow it due to his hatred of her as a more successful detective. Now, as Yvonne, she was going to be living here until she found a way to unshrink herself. It was nerving to think she’d be under the same roof as the person she loved the most and the person who hated her the most.

“Here we are, this is home…” Ash took in a deep breath, wondering how his father would react to him bringing Yvonne back to live with them. “It feels like I’m bringing back a cute little sister, it’s like I can tell you anything Yvonne.”

“Ash…” Yvonne stared up at him, guilt rising through her veins as she did so. She didn’t want to lie to him, she knew Ash would keep her identity a secret.

“Of course, you’ll have to meet my dad but I swear he’s not that bad.” The sixteen-year-old continued, leaning forwards slightly so he could make eye contact to the new freeloader that his family was acquiring. “Come on, don’t be shy.”

“Umm… Ash?” The shrunken detective lowered her head, her question made the now older boy turn back around. “The truth is… I…” She looked up worriedly, ignoring the comforting smile she was being given. “The truth is I’m…!”

“Coming through! Coming through! Coming through!” Richard Mouri suddenly appeared running down the stairs, tripping on them which sent him flying over the heads of Ash and Yvonne – both of whom yelled and jumped out of the way to safety – landing on the ground with a huge grin on his face. “I finally have a new case! Some rich guy’s daughter was kidnapped by a man in black!”

“A… a man in black?!” Yvonne’s thoughts instantly turned to the men that had drugged her only a few hours ago. She had only just agreed to live with Ash and there was already a lead towards finding them.

“Taxi!” Richard called out, arm up as one came rolling to a stop in front of him, allowing him to get in. Yvonne realised this was her chance and she rushed for the other side, Ash running after her calling out her name. The taxi drove off, with the private detective grinning to himself. “This case is calling for the greatest detective to solve it, and that detective is Richard Mouri…” His laughter ended as he noticed the unamused looks of some blonde-haired brat and his son next to him. “What the hell are you doing in the car?!”

“I was trying to get her out!” Ash argued back whilst pointing to Yvonne, who realised she had to become a bit believable for her new age.

“Yippee, a car ride! Yay!” As Richard leaned in more angrily, she clutched onto Ash’s jacket in a hug as one of the teens arms wrapped around her for comfort.

“Who is she?!”

“She’s a relative of Professor Elm.”

“Well get out her out of the car now, she’ll get in the way of my work!” The detective shouted in fury at his son, who was almost just as mad at his father.
“Oh, yeah, and throw her out onto the highway, why don’t you?!” Ash snapped back, which silenced Richard. Yvonne was so glad the one batting on her side won the argument.

 

The fact that the three had to enter a speaker maned gate instantly told Yvonne that this family had quite a bit of money to go around, it also seemed that the owner of the household was the director or CEO of some company somewhere. Upon entering, two ladies in kimonos had met them and led them into the garden, where a butler and his master were awaiting them.

“My daughter, Amanda Akiko, was kidnapped from the gardens, she’s only ten…” The master, who was wearing a brown suit, explained to Richard with tears forming in the corners of his eyes. He handed over a photo of a girl cuddling a dog with pigtails and a pink dress on. “My butler, Anderson, also saw everything that happened.” As the man was speaking, Yvonne was jumping up whilst trying to grab the photo from the detective’s hand. She groaned, mentally cursing her small size, only to grin when his hand fell to rest beside his leg meaning she could snatch it up and look at it. Her detective mind took over from that moment after staring at the image.

“Could you tell us about the kidnapping?” She asked, gaining stares from the three men that were around her.

“Who is this child?” The father asked, only for Richard to nervously scratch the back of his head.

“She’s nobody, just a child of my friend’s,” he picked Yvonne up and threw her into Ash’s arms. “Ash! Look after this kid will ya?!” From her upside-down position, Yvonne growled as she was turned the right way up and set back down on the ground gently. “Now, Anderson… was it? Can you describe what happened?”

“It was after the young mistress had come home from school,” The aging butler explained. “She was playing in the gardens when a man in black jumped from out of the corner of the garden and grabbed her. He said ‘Tell your master, if he wants his daughter back in one piece then he needs to shut down his company for one month. If he tries to contact the police, his daughter is as good as dead!’ After he said that, the criminal climbed up the pine tree and jumped over the wall to his escape.”

“Could you describe the man’s face?” Yvonne was back beside the butler, not noticing Richard’s angry shake of the wrist and glare towards the child. Anderson answered back anyway with the politeness one would expect from a well-trained butler.

“My eyesight isn’t very good,” he pointed to the glasses on his face. “So, I didn’t get a good glimpse of the criminal’s appearance.”

“That isn’t good… AHHH!” Yvonne cried out as a fist hit her on the top of the head, said fist came from a certain Richard Mouri. After sending his father an angry glare, Ash leant forwards with his hands on his knees to address the seven-year-old girl.

“Yvonne, you shouldn’t get in the way of dad’s work anymore, okay?” He said with concern.

“Right, so did anyone else hear the criminal’s voice or any strange sounds?” Richard asked all four of the members of the household.

“I heard Anderson shout out about the young mistress’ kidnapping,” The elder of the two women answered. “But other than that, I heard nothing.”

“So, only Anderson saw the criminal, huh?” The detective rubbed his hand against his chin in thought. “From what I can tell, he may have been working for a rival company.”

“Damm it!” Mr Akiko yelled, growling in fury at the situation. “Not only does he want my company down but he wants my money too!”

Anderson gasped in shock. “MONEY?!”
“The kidnapper just called! He wants three hundred million yen in old notes!” The master continued to yell with his butler sweating furiously.

“Master, maybe you heard the request wrong.”

“Stop saying that! Shut up! SHUT UP!”

The men continued to argue as Yvonne broke away from them, focusing on her thoughts as her foot rested upon the pink ball that Amanda had been playing with a few hours before. ‘Nothing about this crime makes any sense. Why did the criminal risk coming to her home? Why hadn’t they abducted her from her school… it would have been so much safer and easier. Plus there was a witness, yet he had asked for the money in old notes, showing a lot of confidence in his request…’ By now, Yvonne had started kicking the ball into the air, playing keepy uppy with it.

“Wow, you’re really good at that, aren’t you Yvonne?” Ash was impressed by her skill, something he hadn’t seen much in other girls her age.

“I guess…” Was her brief reply.

“When Serena was in deep thought, she’d kick a ball around to help her clear her head to think.” He didn’t notice the saddened look Yvonne was giving him as her thought position changed to her true identity.

‘But I’m Serena…’ Her header count was reduced to zero when it bounced off of her head near to the bushes beside the tree. As she went over to get it, a large dog appeared out of nowhere, snarling and scratching at her as she rolled away with the ball screaming. All attention was drawn towards her, making the men gasp and for Ash to start running over in worry… even though it wasn’t needed.

Everyone else watched as she spun the ball on her finger, smiling before she threw it up and caught it, causing the dog to lick her at the side of the face.

“How strange,” Mr Akiko muttered as the other men made their way over. “Pluto doesn’t normally like anyone outside of the household.”

A flash sparked off in Serena’s mind. If the dog didn’t like anyone outside the household, then wouldn’t it bark or try to attack the kidnapper who used the pine tree to escape? Instantly, she had solved part of the case and turned on the cute little girl act. “Would Pluto bark if he saw a stranger?” She asked, stroking Pluto’s head as she did so.

“Right.” Mr Akiko nodded when he answered. “Pluto is the best guard dog around.” Yvonne watched as the same look of acknowledgement appeared on Richard’s face as he pieced the puzzle together. Anderson tried to sneak away and was called out for it by the private detective.

“There are a lot of questions to the testimony you gave us,” Richard leaned in closer, nerving the old butler even more. “I suggest this. Instead of a criminal coming in, taking the girl, jumping over the wall and leaving, I propose there was no man in black but instead… YOU were the kidnapper!”

“Anderson, is he correct?!” The master cried out, only to find his butler grovelling at his feet.

“Master, I’m so sorry, please forgive me! I was the only one involved in this, she’s safe in a nearby restaurant.” Anderson continued to grovel pitifully.  

“Only when the great detective, Richard Mouri is on the scene are the hardest cases solved!” Richard celebrated his victory by cheering, not that anyone gave him an ounce of their time. Yvonne shook her head, this wasn’t right. Something still didn’t add up. If Anderson was the kidnapper then who called in the ransom money? She was brought out of her thoughts by the older lady who was holding the phone, telling him to answer it even though he told her he was busy. As soon as he answered it, the look of shock on the man’s face told all. The caller was the ransom maker.

“Who are you?!” Mr Akiko yelled, whilst the volume on the phone was turned up so everyone can hear the voice on the other line.
“Didn’t I tell you a call ago?” A deep male voice answered. “I’m the man who’s kidnapped your daughter.”

“So, you DID have partners!” Richard began shaking Anderson, who denied it honestly. That meant the girl had been kidnapped from her holding place after the first ‘kidnapping’ had occurred.

“Papa, please help me!” A young female’s voice exited the phone, terrified and with the slight sniffle in the words.

“If you don’t get the three hundred million soon,” The kidnapper had returned. “Who knows what will happen to your precious little girl.”

“Please, I’ll get you the money!” Mr Akiko cried, falling to his knees. “Can you just let Amanda home safely!” Richard lent over his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

“Keep him on the phone, maybe you can try and get a location out of him.”

“His location?” Of course, Mr Akiko hadn’t thought of pulling the phone away from his mouth, meaning that the kidnapper had heard everything.

“Who is there with you?” They asked emotionlessly. “Are they the police?”

“No! He’s nobody!” Whilst it was true Richard Mouri wasn’t the police, but he was as close as anyone was going to get to one as a private detective.

“Papa! I’m in the school’s storage room!” Amanda returned, taking advantage of the kidnapper’s worry. There’s a big chimney outside the window and… umph!” Her voice stopped and a muffled scream replaced it.

“Amanda?!”
“I’ll phone you in an hour! By then you’d better have the money!” With that, the line was cut, leaving a distraught father to call out his daughter’s name.

“A school with a chimney in view, that could be anywhere.” Richard groaned, he turned back to Mr Akiko with a serious expression. “Prepare the money anyway.”

“Right.” Ash turned his head, noticing Yvonne was staring intently at the map in front of her.

“Hey Yvonne, what’s up?”

“Well, the kidnapping was fairly recent, right?” She asked, only continuing once the teenager had nodded. “That means he couldn’t have gone very far.”

“That’s right, especially since he has a little girl with him,” Richard frowned deeper, trying to wrap his head around the location. “If the school is nearby…” However, his son’s cry and the brat girl riding the dog like a horse brought him out of his revere. “Ash! Follow that dog!”

“Right!”    

      

Yvonne leant against the wall panting with Pluto doing the same. Out of the five schools in the area which had a visible view of a chimney, none of them held the poor girl and her kidnapper. She looked up as she thought about whether or not the kidnapper had left the area when her eyes latched onto a thin but tall building. The gears in her brain began wiring as she realised the sides weren’t lit like the front and back of the building was.

Getting back on Pluto, she mushed the dog to a position where the side of the building could be seen dead on straight, making it look as if it was a giant chimney. From there, only one school had access to this view at night. And that school was Futatsubashi School.

The shrunken detective had only just managed to get there in time, peeking through the door to find the kidnapper drawing out his knife with plans to kill the girl. Like hell she was going to let that happen. “WAIT!”

The kidnapper had froze before coming towards her direction, allowing her to step back with Pluto at the ready. He placed his back against the door and peered out, not seeing anyone in the darkness.

“Who… who’s out there?!”

“Down here!” He looked and cried as a little girl let the rabid dog free to attack him. As the man crashed into a holder of footballs, Yvonne entered and ripped the tape off of the poor girl’s mouth allowing her to talk.

“Who are you?” Amanda asked her saviour.

“Serena Kudou… no!” Yvonne rectified herself, smiling confidently down at the older child. “Yvonne Edogawa, Tantei-san.”

“Tantei?” Amanda blinked, but gasped as Pluto was kicked and he ran out of the room, leaving the two children to their own devices. The kidnapper walked up to them with a bat in his hands.

“You f***ing brat!” He swore, swinging the bat down which Yvonne managed to dodge. She jumped up to kick up as if he was a football, but he grabbed her ankle and threw her into the wall. The girl managed to push herself up, cursing her lack of strength when a football rolled her way.

“Take this!” She yelled, kicking it with all of her might. It didn’t work, as the kidnapper caught it and threw it to the side, slamming his bat against her small body again which sent her flying once again.

Yvonne hit the wall, crying out as her shoulder burst into burning pain. Both children could only watch as the kidnapper closed the gap between himself and the mini detective, raising his baseball bat as he did so to seriously hurt or even kill her. Her eyes widened before closing as she prepared for the worst but it never came. A loud gasp from the other little girl made Yvonne open her eyes and look up, only to gasp herself. Someone was holding the kidnapper’s right arm – the one with the bat in – tightly.

That person was Ash.

“What the hell…?!” The man never got to finish as the high school boy interrupted him.

“This is what happens when guys like you do what you have,” Ash let go, only to quickly fall into position to fire multiple, quick fire, punches into the man’s gut. Yvonne watched with both awe and horror as the kidnapper was frozen in pain, clutching his gut which allowed Ash to jump backwards, preparing himself for the finisher. With a loud yell, he jumped up into the air, aligning his left leg to connect with the man’s head, the right curled in to allow for some momentum. Luckily, the foot did connect to the head and the kidnapper was sent skidding across the floor, coming to rest against the wall unconscious. “Next time you threaten Yvonne, I’ll mess you up a lot more than I have now, okay?”

‘No wonder I never wanted to mess with him…’ Yvonne thought to herself, sweat dropping at the sheer violence that had just transpired. She pushed herself up, coming over to the male who was now finishing the job of untying Amanda. “How did you know to find us?”

“Pluto told me… well I found him running to find help and he directed me here,” Ash explained and, as soon as he was done freeing the younger girl, pulled Yvonne into a hug, making her blush. “Don’t scare me like that again, if I hadn’t arrived when I had something awful could have happened to you. I’m looking after you since Professor Elm can’t and I need to know you’re safe, okay?”

“Okay, thanks for worrying.” The sirens of police cars rose in the distance, telling them all that everything was going to be fine.

 

It turned out that the first kidnapping was just a plan made by Amanda himself to spend more time with her overworking father, only it went astray as she was properly abducted whilst enjoying a chocolate sundae brought for her by Anderson himself. At first, Mr Akiko had sounded angry with his butler, until he asked him to book a month holiday for himself and his daughter, bringing smiles to his face. Before heading back inside, Amanda had hugged Yvonne goodbye and thanked her, calling her “Miss Detective.”

“Detective?” Ash looked down at Yvonne expectantly, wondering what the other little girl could have meant before the seven-year-old chuckled nervously.

“She couldn’t have meant me,” she pointed up at the now richer than normal Richard, who was grinning his head off with an inflating ego. “He’s the detective here that solved the case!”

Later on, the three piled into the back of another taxi with a pressing matter at hand for the conversation.

“Hey dad,” Ash was preparing for the worst as he began to speak. “The thing is Yvonne’s parents got involved in a major accident and Professor Elm’s home is no place for a child so he asked if we could possibly… look after Yvonne whilst she’s here? Pretty please?” Richard stared the child down for a while, scaring her before patting her on the back heavily.
“Of course she can!” He laughed heartily. “The minute she shows up I get a new case and a hefty reward for solving it. She’s like a good luck charm! Welcome to the family kiddo!”

And with that, started Yvonne Edogawa’s life living with the Mouri’s. And of course, that meant she’d have to go back to elementary school again. Oh great.