It turns out that Kyouko had come to apologize to Yuna for all the bullying she had done. Somehow, for reasons unknown to me, she had realized the error of her ways and wanted to make up for them. She also confessed to us all that she was the one who locked Yuna in that storage building in the first place.
Omoyo was, of course, angry. But because of her power, she received a full blast of Kyouko's true feelings of guilt and repentance. Against such sincerity, Omoyo's anger was quelled before it could even surface and she grudgingly accepted Kyouko's apology.
But that wasn't to say that we all became buddy-buddy right then and there. Things were pretty shaky between us whenever Kyouko was around during our club activities or when we're just hanging out and chilling at the clubroom. There was always this awkward air that would make me withdraw from the others more than usual.
However, little by little, we got used to her being around until eventually, she became part of our normal every day. By then, days have passed. But although we were all living our normal lives, the same couldn't be said about the town.
The arsonist was still out there causing fires, and the tension between the townsfolk kept growing as a result. All the fires could be called small and minor, but they're happening so frequently that people were afraid it was just a matter of time before someone got hurt. It was a miracle that no one already had been.
People have become more short-tempered because of the fear, with guys snapping at each other left and right almost every day. I've even seen a few fights break out on school grounds.
Understandably, Soushu became impatient with Mirai and us. She came by every other day to check if Mirai found out anything about the fires, only to leave disappointed when he said no. But eventually, she reached critical.
On her latest visit, which both Kyouko and Akira were present for, she slammed her hands down on the table hard and shouted at Mirai, "It's been weeks already! And you still haven't found even a shred of a clue? Are you even taking this seriously, Toshiro?"
Mirai calmly glanced up at Soushu with his right cheek resting on his balled-up hand. With his power, he must have known today would be the day the student council president would snap.
"I am taking this seriously, Naoko," he said.
"Then tell me who's the arsonist!" Soushu snapped. "Tell me what he looks like, if he's a he or a she, whether he's a local or a foreigner. Tell me everything you've seen!"
Mirai took one look of Soushu and took a deep breath.
"Alright," he said. "I'll tell you everything I've seen through my Magic Eyes. And that is . . ."
We all leaned closer to Mirai in anticipation. Soushu spoke for us, "That is?"
Mirai threw up his hands and shouted, "Absolutely nothing!"
"Wha-!?" Soushu cried out.
"Well, what did you expect?" Mirai said. "I can't keep my power up twenty-four/seven. And I can only see ahead by fifteen minutes. All the attacks being random by place and time also doesn't help. There's just no way for me to find the arsonist before he does something or catch him in the act."
"Gah!" Soushu shouted. "You're even more useless than the psychics spinning nothing but excuses to my dad!"
"Not true," said Mirai. "My psychic powers may have been no help, but I am not just a psychic. I am a psychic detective!"
We all looked at him.
"Uh . . ." went Akira. "Using psychic power to figure something out is the whole point of a psychic detective. If your psychic power is no good, how does that make you, a psychic detective, any less useless?"
"Because I do actual detective work!" Mirai said.
He got out of his seat and went over to the white board that was usually left standing at the side of the room. Written on the board were reminders of volunteer work scheduled in the following two weeks. But when he flipped the board over, we were all treated to the sight of an honest-to-goodness, real-life conspiracy board full of pictures and newspaper clippings tacked on by colored magnets and connected to one another by red string.
Mirai straightened his imaginary necktie, pulled out a small notebook from his pocket, and cleared his throat. And then, like a detective from a cop show, he gave us a review of his findings.
"Since the early weeks of summer vacation, this town has been plagued by multiple fire incidents," he said. "Because of the frequency of the incidents and a lack of evidence, police, fire fighters and mass media have concluded them to be the work of a serial arsonist. Yes, Detective Oota?"
I had raised my hand to ask, "How can a lack of evidence point to arson?"
"Good question, Detective Oota," said Mirai. "Simply put, apart from a fraction of the incidents, the police eggheads have been unable to identify a possible source for most of the fires. If these fires had been accidents, there should have been at least something to show how the fires were started. But there was nothing that could explain how most of the fires started, which points to the fires being made on purpose. That's what everyone else thinks, anyway.
"However, that still leaves the question of how the fires were started. If a person was the one making the fire, how'd they do it? With no clues, it's as if the fires just started out of nothing. And that's exactly what happened.
"As we all know, psychic powers are real. Among all the psychic powers known to exist, there're powers related to heat and fire manipulation. Only someone with those kinds of powers could have made a fire out of nothing."
"Yeah, we all know that," Soushu grumbled, showing us an annoyed scowl. "Can you please get to the point already?"
"Patience, Detective Soushu," Mirai said. "I'm getting to it.
"Now, where was I? Oh, yeah! Apart from the Shirogami Shrine and few other places, the fires are mostly concentrated in a region of town dominantly populated by Soushu supporters. This has led to the belief that the arsonist may be from the Yamimura Family, or a supporter of theirs who is picking a fight with the Soushu Family. The Yamimura Family is a known rival of the Soushu Family, and the conflict between the two groups has escalated into a feud. Basically, they hate each other's guts.
"With that in mind, it'd be reasonable to think the Yamimura Family is behind the fires. However, Detective Soushu, the next leader of the Soushu Family, does not believe the Yamimura Family is behind the fires, only because of the fact that even just being accused of a serious crime like arson would be bad for the Yamimura Family's political efforts. And I agree with Detective Soushu's line of thinking and have found other things to make me doubt the Yamimura Family's involvement.
"First is the size of each fire, which sporadically varies with each other. You get a small flicker in one incident, and then a huge blaze in the next, and after that another small one.
"Second is where each fire was started. Those are also random. Garbage dumps, trash cans, potted plants, and laundry being hung out to dry are obvious things to start fires on, but the arsonist has also started fires on roads, atop walls, and even around street lights. And it changes between all of that. You could get a garbage fire one day, and then the next a road fire, only for the fire after that to be back on garbage.
"Third is the scale of danger to others, which ties in to the sizes of the fires and the places the fires started. That is also random. Take the shrine forest fire for example. Detective Yuna was nearly killed in that one, and the fire was huge, the biggest of all the fires."
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kyouko shifting around uncomfortably in her seat. Even though we let bygones be bygones, the shrine fire was still a sore subject. Mirai didn't seem to notice and continued his presentation.
"But after that, there was a fire on a trash can that was really small and placed where it's impossible anyone could get hurt. And then the fire after that was no bigger than a candle light found on top of a recycle bin in front of the convenience store. And after that was a huge bush fire at the park which nearly burned a caretaker. A jogger was nearly hit by an explosive fire a few days later. Following that was another harmless small flicker."
"So basically all the fires are random in every conceivable way," said Omoyo. "Just what did you get out of that, Detective Mirai?" Her eyes lit up. "I mean Toshiro! I meant to say Toshiro!"
Mirai grinned slyly at her. She tried to deny it, but for a moment, Omoyo had been swept into the world of Mirai's childish play-pretend.
Omoyo coughed.
"Ahem! Anyway, can you finally get to your conclusion already, Toshiro?"
"Fine," said Mirai. "It's just like Detective Omoyo said: these fires are all random in every way possible, from the size, to the location, to how close someone got hurt. There are only two reasons I can think of for the randomness. Reason Number One, the guy's just so careless about the fires that he'll start one without much thought and see what fate dishes out. Reason Number Two, the arsonist isn't in control of his power. Personally, I'm leaning towards Reason Number Two as the most likely."
"So, you're saying these fires really are accidents," Soushu said. "Only they're PSYCHIC accidents. Not regular ones."
"Right you are, Detective Soushu!" Mirai shouted. "I see someone's on her way to being the next superintendent!"
"Please just stop the cop play-pretend already," Soushu said.
"Never!" shouted Mirai. "Anyway, like Officer Soushu said -"
Ah, Soushu got demoted. So much for becoming superintendent.
"- the fires plaguing our town really are accidents, and they're caused by a psychic with little to no control of his power. Historically, these kinds of accidents have happened before, and they were bound to happen again. That should be obvious for a town full of psychics. But thanks to those bogus rumors of arson targeting the Soushu Family, nobody thought to consider the possibility and the Yamimuras and Soushus are now at each other's throats more than ever.
"So, we're dealing with an amateur power user," said Soushu. "We may not know who that is, but at least now we have a better idea what to look out for. I guess you weren't so useless after all, Toshiro."
Mirai grinned proudly and replied, "Thanks. But I'm not done yet. I have more to add."
"What's that?" Soushu asked.
"I don't think our power user even knows he has fire powers," said Mirai. "Chances are he's starting the fires without knowing, which is a good thing."
Akira raised his hand and asked, "How is our arsonist not knowing what he's doing a good thing?"
"Elementary, Akira," said Isaneko. "Hey, Oota. What would you do if you found out you had powers that caused others trouble?"
I took a moment to think before answering, "I'd probably panic."
"Exactly," said Isaneko. "Our powers are connected to our mental condition. If our minds become a mess, so will our powers. That is especially true for psychics with no real control over their powers. If Mirai is right and our arsonist realizes what he's doing and panics because of that, his powers will go further out of control and cause greater damage than he's done before. He might even explode."
That kind of scared me. I never realized that powers could go out of control, and it worried me that it could happen to me.
"Anyway," said Mirai, "considering that our arsonist is not aware of his crimes, we can deduce that at the time all the incidents, he must have been going about his life like normal. From there, we can narrow down what kind of person the arsonist is. Here's what I came up with:
"Going by when the fires started, I believe the arsonist to be either high school or college age. No one else would be free around those times. Given that most of the fires are concentrated in a specific neighborhood where a lot Soushu supporters happen to live, his home's probably in or close by that area. And since the fires were scattered all over and outside the streets, I'd bet the arsonist likes to wander around the neighborhood when he's got some free time."
As he talked, my eyes started wandering and I spotted Akira shifting around in his chair.
I wonder what's up with him, I thought. Could he be itchy or something?
And then, finally, Mirai's briefing concluded.
"That's all I got," he said. "I've got all my findings typed up in a word doc. It'll have a timeline of all the fires and where they happened, when they happened. I'll send them all to you later. And by later, I mean now."
I don't know when, but he had his phone in his hand. He pushed a button on the screen, and the next second, all of our phones started chiming, beeping, and whistling.
I swiped the notice away from my phone and went back to my game with plans to give the doc a quick lookover later. The others, however, seemed to take the time to read it thoroughly.
For a few minutes, the room was quiet. And then -
"I gotta get going," said Akira. He abruptly got up, causing the chair to scrape its legs against the floor, grabbed his bag and rushed out before I could so much as say good-bye. It looked like he was in a great big rush.
Soushu left a few minutes after that. An hour later, while we walked home, I heard sirens from a fire truck blaring from far away.
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