turned and went back into the room.
‘Uh-oh. He seems cross,’ Kenny whispered, kicking off his trainers and reaching for house slippers.
‘You have no idea,’ Kiyomi muttered.
She stepped into the room and yelped in surprise. ‘Ojisan! Bikkuri shita!’
Kenny followed and was greeted by a familiar face. ‘Sato-san!’ He remembered to bow to Kiyomi’s uncle. ‘Konban-wa.’
‘Konban-wa, Kuromori-san.’ Sato returned the gesture. ‘Your Japanese is improving.’
Kenny blushed. ‘That’s not hard when you’re starting from zero.’
Oyama appeared with two bathrobes. He handed them out and took his leave, sliding the door closed.
Sato sighed and turned to Kiyomi. ‘Unfortunately, this is not a social visit. Your father called me.’
Harashima had both hands clasped behind his back. ‘Kiyomi-chan, I am very, very disappointed. You were under strict instructions not to engage the oni under any circumstances.’
‘Sir,’ Kenny said, ‘it was my idea. Lives were in danger.’
‘Including yours,’ Harashima snapped. ‘You are too valuable to take stupid risks like this.’
‘We’re fine,’ Kiyomi protested. ‘We saved people – and we stopped oni stealing the telescope.’
‘Did it never occur to you that we might have wanted them to steal it, so we could follow them and find out why they wanted it?’
‘That doesn’t make any . . .’ Kiyomi’s words trailed off.
‘Instead, what do we have?’ Sato said. ‘Burnt-out buildings, downtown explosions, a plane crash near the American Navy base, a fallen lamp post, dented car roofs, and witnesses speaking of a fair-haired boy in football clothes waving a sword. Do you have any idea how difficult it will be to suppress this? As far as the world media is concerned, we’ve just had a major terrorist incident.’
‘Sir,’ Kenny said, measuring his words, ‘isn’t that the point?’
Sato raised an eyebrow.
‘I mean, surely that’s what the oni, or whoever it was that sent them, want everyone to think. They blew up two buildings as a diversion, tried to steal a giant telescope, torched everything to cover their tracks and then planned to fly it away. That would all have happened, even if we hadn’t been there. The question is, why?’
Harashima pursed his lips.
A pot scraped in the kitchen. Frogs chirped outside.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I want you two to tell us everything that happened this evening. Leave nothing out. Any detail, even the most insignificant to you, might be critical.’
Sato nodded. ‘There’s definitely something big happening, since they’re not afraid to show themselves so publicly. We need to work out what it is, before it’s too late.’
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