東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 4:Hopeless Masquerade

—10—

"What is all this... What's going on?"

"This must be what Banki was talking about..."

"Renko, shouldn't we let Reimu know? Or at least Keine? There's definitely an incident going on."

That's the sort of thing the three of us were discussing as we hovered in the air over the northern edge of the village.

In every direction we looked, people were wandering the streets, every last one of them wearing identical, featureless white masks. It could easily have been mistaken for the set of some strange zombie movie. Being Gensokyo though, there were of course no cameras or lights around. As unbelievable as it seemed, this was reality.

Needless to say, seeing one's everyday reality transformed into something so morbid is quite unsettling.

"We need to find out if this is happening everywhere or just here. Sanae, can you take us towards the center of the village?" Renko asked.

"Roger! Heading to the next waypoint!" Sanae barked.

The winds whipped up around us and we glided up and around, turning towards the village center. Gliding over the silent, moonlit streets, it soon became clear that the problem was more widespread than I had feared. As we passed by Suzunaan, the temple school and the Hieda residence, all of them had people wandering, zombie-like and masked, near their premises. The more I watched the shuffling figures, the more purposeful their movements seemed. They all seemed like they were slowly, vaguely searching for something, though for what, I couldn't imagine.

The movements of everyone we saw were devoid of any emotion that we could discern. Certainly their faces were all blank, but their body language also conveyed no sense of alarm or urgency as they searched. The blank masks only added to the zombie-like nature of the people wandering about, though since none of them appeared to be corpses, I suppose calling them zombies would be inaccurate. Would a living person without any will or intention just be the thought experiment of the philosophical zombie brought to life? Or unlife? I'm confusing myself now.

I was continuing to look over the crowds of slowly wandering figures, when suddenly I saw something that made me call out in alarm.

"Miss Keine!" I yelped.

There, just outside of the neighborhood watch office, facing the village square, stood Keine. Her familiar square hat was positioned neatly above a perfectly blank white mask.

Sanae hurried down to land, and Renko and I both released her hands and hit the ground running. I thought to call out to her but as we drew closer and I looked into the unfeeling white void of the mask I found myself stopping short, the words I would have yelled falling mute in my throat. She gave no sign of recognizing us or even noticing our presence at all. She merely stared straight ahead, an empty shell beneath the mask.

"Hey, Miss Keine! Miss Keine! Can you hear me?" My partner didn't hesitate at all, running towards Keine and grabbing her by the shoulders. Keine still gave no signs of noticing staring blankly ahead the whole time. With a frustrated growl Renko stepped right in front of Keine, then reached up and grabbed at the mask she was wearing with both hands. "What.... is... this?" She grunted while prying at it. "I can't get it off!" Bracing herself against Keine's shoulder with one arm, she pulled with all her might with the other, but the mask didn't budge a bit.

Catching up to us, Sanae looked about apprehensively, her shoulders hunched as she took in the sea of blank faces on every side. "Hey Merry, this is definitely an incident, right?" She asked.

"I don't know. If it's got Miss Keine like this though, then we'll have to tell Reimu about it."

"What? Why Reimu? I'm an incident resolver too! Just leave this to the Moriya Shrine!"

"Sanae, I don't mind leaving it to you, but do you have any idea how to resolve this situation?" Renko asked, looking up at her.

"...N-no, not yet..."

"Or who the mastermind might be?"

"No, but that won't stop me! The culprit must be somewhere nearby, right? We just have to go looking for youkai in the area and exterminate everyone we see! Eventually that'll lead to the mastermind, right?"

"Sanae, you've been completely poisoned by Reimu."

"No I haven't! It makes sense! Someone must be controlling all of these people, we just need to find them and beat them up! That's how problems get solved in Gensokyo!"

"...Y'see? Thinkin' like that just causes more problems," a voice nearby called out.

We all turned to see where the voice had come from and saw a figure lounging comfortably on the roof of the neighborhood watch office, seemingly bathing in the moonlight. Between the large, bushy tail and the glint of the moonlight off of the spectacles the figure wore, there was only one person it could have been. Mamizou waved her enormous tail around behind her before sliding down the roof and dropping to the ground directly in front of us.

"I expected that someone would catch on to what's been goin' on here in the village eventually, but I hadn't expected you three to be the first," Mamizou said wryly, exhaling a long stream of pungent smoke from her pipe.

"You're that bake-danuki from Sado that we met a while ago!"

"An' yer the Moriya wind priestess, right? Come to think of it, yer shrine isn't takin' part in gatherin' up faith like all the others, is it? Why is that?"

"Lady Kanako said we should wait and see what happens first..."

"Oh, is that so?" Mamizou narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"Never mind about that!" Sanae cried. "What's suspicious here is a youkai who's hanging out right in the middle of the village during a situation like this! I bet you're the mastermind behind all of this! I'll exterminate you right now!"

"Now hold on just a minute," Mamizou said, looking unbothered despite Sanae's posturing. "I ain't the one behind all this."

Sanae glared at her and began stomping forward. "That excuse won't work!"

"Well that's a shame, since it's the truth. I do know who the cause of this whole situation is though."

"You said 'the cause' and not 'the culprit'?" Renko interjected. "Can I take that to mean that you think this is an accident rather than an incident?"

Mamizou nodded and grinned around the stem of her pipe. "That's right. In a broad sense I suppose you could say that she's the one responsible for it, but she's no mastermind, and this isn't somethin' she wanted to happen. It's not what 'cha might call 'premeditated.'"

"So all of this," Renko said, gesturing at the scene all around us "isn't intentional? It's just a mistake?"

"Exactly. So call off yer wind priestess and don't blame the youkai who caused this."

"But even if it was a mistake, exterminating the youkai responsible would resolve the incident, wouldn't it?" Sanae asked with a pout.

"If someone spilled a bucket of water on the floor, would scoldin' 'em clean it up? You'd be better off grabbin' a mop first."

Put that way, it was easy to understand.

"I was actually hopin' to keep this secret a bit longer, but if ye've found me already, I guess it can't be helped now. Guess ye'll all be helping me mop up as it were, seein' as the current situation is no good for any of us. I'm sure this happenin' every night is just as inconvenient for all pf you as it is for us."

"Wait a minute," Renko interjected. "This happens every night? That must be how Merry and I ended up at home last night without realizing it..."

"That's right, every human in the village gets caught up in it when this happens."

My mind flashed back to the sensation of suddenly finding myself standing in front of our home. Had Renko and I been wandering about the village in a blank mask just like everyone else without realizing it? It was a terrifying prospect to contemplate.

Renko didn't seem bothered by the idea, however. "I see..." she muttered, fiddling with the brim of her hat with one hand. "So in that case who's behind all this and how did they cause it to happen?"

"Lemme first just say it's not anyone from the Myouren Temple or one of my tanuki. I jus' happen to be the first person to notice it was happenin' and found the youkai responsible, so don't go pinnin' any a this on me, y'understand?"

"That sounds just like something a mastermind would say," Sanae grumbled, crossing her arms.

"Well then I suppose you'll just have to trust me. I think once ya see who's behind this all you'll understand a bit better though."

"Sanae, let's at least hear her out. We can always exterminate her later if it comes to that, right?" Renko asked with a grin.

Sanae sighed and stomped back to stand beside us. "Alright, if you say so, Boss."

Mamizou smiled and turned to call out over her shoulder. "Hey, come on out."

At Mamizou's invitation another figure emerged from the darkness. Illuminated by the pale light of the moon, this second figure had a striking appearance. She was wearing a large balloon skirt paired with a blue checkered shirt decorated with small ribbons. Her hair was long and flowing, decorated with a finely carved mask that was worn almost like an accessory so that it covered the side of her head and only a sliver of her face. Beneath the mask her actual face was completely expressionless, as still as a block of wood.


—11—


In addition to the mask partially covering her face, the girl was surrounded by several other Noh masks which floated in her general vicinity. Were she to smile, the girl might have been thought of as quite beautiful. It was almost a shame to see a mask covering half of her face. The profusion of traditional Japanese masks following her around was a bit of a mismatch for the western-style clothing she was wearing though, and the lack of expression on her face gave her a mysterious air. Standing before us, she muttered something, quietly at first.

"...the mask of hope..." was all I could make out.

"Where is the mask of hope!" The girl shouted as she stepped towards us., but with her face still expressionless. The mask that had been partially covering her face—a 𝑘𝑜-𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑒 mask with an ambiguous expression—was instantly replaced by a mask drawn from the pack surrounding her. This new mask was a ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑦𝑎—horned and leering.

"What? I don't know what that is, but if you're looking for a fight, you'll find one!" Sanae declared, taking a step towards her as well. The mask on the girl's face again shuffled, this time being replaced with a surprised looking one.

"Calm down, both of you," Mamizou said, shoving an arm between them and pushing both of them back a step.

Once more the mask concealing the side of the girl's shuffled, this time trading for a golden-eyed monkey mask as she retreated behind Mamizou. Beneath the mask, her actual face hadn't twitched a bit.

"Let's jus' start with introductions for now." Mamizou said, coaxingly. "This girl is the cause of the incident. Go on an' tell 'em who you are, dearie."

The mask cycled to a fox's face and the girl stepped forward once again, declaring boldly: "My name is Hata no Kokoro, the youkai who commands all emotions!"

The rapid changes in body language combined with the expressionless face was certainly a bit odd. Renko, Sanae and I all glanced at each other in confusion. Ignoring us, Kokoro's mask shifted again, to the 𝑢𝑏𝑎 this time, withered and mournful. "...But now that I've lost the mask of hope I can't control all of the emotions any more..."

Although the tone of her voice was sad, her face continued to remain expressionless. It seemed like she expressed all of her emotions—whether anger, surprise, fear, confidence or sadness—through her masks, changing her posture and tone to suit the mask she was wearing at any given moment.

As I write these sentences I wonder if I can really convey to you, dear reader, just how strange a situation this was. Her emotions appeared to be changing rapidly as each mask slipped into position on her face, and her stance, voice, posture and every other outward indicator of emotion changed with them. Her face, however, seemed almost more wooden than any of the masks, remaining stoic throughout and completely erasing any air of mystery that the masks would otherwise have imparted. It's not very professional of me, but I must admit that my initial impression of her was that she was a very strange sort of youkai.

"Umm... Kokoro, would you by any chance be a menreiki?" Renko asked.

The mask cycled again, this time to the smiling face of a fortune god. "That's right! I'm a menreiki."

"That's a kind of mask tsukumogami," Mamizou added from the side. "A whole bunch of masks that expressed emotions all joined up into one youkai, who now controls emotions instead. I'll explain the rest. You young'uns know about what's been happening in the village these last few days, don't 'cha?"

"You mean the commotions with all the people dancing, right?" Renko asked.

"Yep. An' all local preachers swoopin' in to profit off of the commotion too." Mamizou confirmed with a wry smile. "How d'ya think the village ended up in the sort of position where everyone was suddenly lookin' to religion like it was the end of the world?"

"I thought people were just letting their emotions out because of all of the recent natural disasters and political instability."

"Yeah!" Sanae agreed. "Lady Kanako said that all of this was just an anxiety bubble."

"Oh, that's not a bad way of putting it," Mamizou said, gesturing at Sanae with the stem of her pipe. "A bubble is exactly what it is right now. It's got nothin' to do with natural disasters or the like though. The cause of all this anxiety is 'cuz people have lost all of their hope. Without something to believe in, they're sure to be fearful about the future. An' the reason they've all lost their hope is just because this one girl's mask has gone missin'."

I had been busy paying attention to the difference between Kokoro's masks and her facial expression, but she had said something about looking for a mask, hadn't she?

"That sounds awfully suspicious," Sanae said, narrowing her eyes. "You're saying this mask youkai can control emotions, except now she can't because she lost one of her masks? And now that she can't control people any more suddenly all the villagers have lost their hope too? I don't buy it. What's really going on here? Even Lady Suwako and Lady Kanako couldn't affect the hearts of every villager all at once!"

Kokoro glared at Sanae, her mask shifting back to the ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑦𝑎 once again. "I didn't mean to do it!" She shouted. "These masks are part of me... I've never lost one before..." she said, the uba mask sliding into place again. "With one of my masks missing, I can't control my own powers..."

"That's how it is. With her mask missin', her powers are all outta control."

"I think I get it," Renko declared, turning toward Mamizou for confirmation. "It's not that Kokoro is making people dance or get into fights, it's that with one of her masks missing, there's a hole in her and she's sucking up other people's emotions to fill the gap. She's draining the hope from everyone in the village, right?"

My partner is always quick to understand. Sanae tilted her head in confusion and turned toward Renko. "What does that mean?"

"It's as if the doors on an airplane suddenly opened mid-flight. You know what would happen then, right?"

"The air pressure is low in the sky and high on board the plane, so it would cause a sudden decompression and blow all the air out of the plane, right? I saw that on 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝐺𝑒𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑐'𝑠 𝑀𝑎𝑦𝑑𝑎𝑦."

"Well that's sort of what's happening here. The emotions that Kokoro holds within her masks and emotions of the villagers would normally be in balance, but when she lost the mask of hope it's like she sprung a leak, and now all of the emotion from the villagers' hope is rushing out through her."

"So because the emotion of hope is gone from her, it naturally flows from the high-pressure villagers and into her?"

"I guess that's about right," Mamizou said with a nod.

"So then all we have to do is equalize the pressure?" Sanae asked, tilting her head. "Once she's absorbed enough hope, things will go back to normal, right?"

"No," Kokoro interjected. "Without my mask of hope I can't hold on to anything I absorb. Every bit of hope that flows into me just disappears… " she said from behind the sad 𝑢𝑏𝑎 mask.

"And it gets worse than that," Mamizou added, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

The ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑦𝑎 mask slipped into place again. "If this keeps going, then the balance of emotions in this village will be lost forever!"

"What does that mean?" I asked timidly.

"If hope is lost forever... then everyone will lose all of their emotions..."

"That's what's happening right now, isn't it?" Renko asked, looking around at the masked figures wandering aimlessly in the streets. "Everyone in the village has lost their emotions, right?"

"Right now it only gets this bad in the middle of the night, when we youkai are strongest. But if this keeps happenin' then sooner or later... well you can imagine what happens to folks who have lost their ability to feel joy or sadness. Losin' even one emotion is enough to twist a person's mind into knots." Mamizou explained

Even if the specifics were a bit hard to grasp, just looking around at the state of the people around us made it clear that this was a serious matter.

"You mean everyone's going to become like this?" Sanae cried in distress. "That sounds really dangerous!"

"It's even more dangerous than you might think, Sanae. It's human faith and fear that keep the gods and youkai of Gensokyo alive. If the humans here lose all of their emotions then Gensokyo itself might cease to exist. It's not an exaggeration to say that this might be the biggest incident Gensokyo has ever seen!"

"That's awful! I have to exterminate that masked youkai right now!" Sanae turned back toward Kokoro with a steely expression.

"Hold on, hold on!" Mamizou hurriedly stepped between the two of them. "Exterminatin' her isn't gonna solve anythin'. In fact, it might make things worse." Certainly, if Kokoro was all that was preventing the villagers from losing their emotions, then getting rid of her would only ensure that everyone's emotions would drain away faster.

Sanae's shoulders slumped. "Well what do we do then?"

"The only thing we can do," Renko declared. "We need to restore Kokoro's lost mask of hope."


—12—


It was a straightforward situation. If defeating Kokoro wouldn't solve the problem then the only option was to close the hole created by the loss of her mask of hope. Without that, hope, and eventually other emotions would continue to leak out of the villagers. It was simple if you thought about it like that.

"We've been talkin' about how to do just that," Mamizou said, holding up two fingers. "There are two options. First, we could try t' find the original mask that she lost. The other option would be for someone to gather up a whole bunch a' hope and make it into a new mask."

"So if all of the villagers' hopes are directed toward someone else, then they won't flow into Kokoro and be lost?" Renko asked.

"That's right. The villagers' sense of hope is unfocused right now, and with nowhere to go, it's all gettin' sucked up by the hole where the mask of hope should be. But if someone were to gather all a' that hope up, well, that'd be like bringin' the airplane down to a safer height. The pressure wouldn't be so bad then, an' people would at least be able to go on a bit longer without runnin' outta air to breathe, so to speak."

It was odd to hear a youkai using a metaphor involving an airplane. As Outsiders, the four of us might be the only people in Gensokyo who could understand such a comparison. I wonder what Kokoro must have thought of it all.

"So how would someone go about collecting up hope?"

"The religious folks seem to have already figured that one out," Mamizou said with a wry smile.

I tilted my head uncertainly. Renko asked "Does that mean that drumming up faith is the same as gathering up hope?" I suppose it would make sense if that were the case. Faith has long been seen as an antidote to despair.

"In that case, I need to gather as much faith as I can for the Moriya Shrine!" Sanae declared, clenching her wand tightly in her fist.

"Whether it's the Moriya or the Hakurei, a shrine or a temple, it's all the same." Mamizou said, blowing out a haze of smoke again. "Now that ya know what's going on, I need yer help to clean up this mess. I also need ya to keep this a secret. Especially from the Hakurei shrine maiden. She can't know about any of this until the very last minute."

Renko looked over at Kokoro. "Ah, I see. If Reimu found out about this, she'd probably start shooting without ever listening to what Kokoro had to say. She'd definitely say something like 'I don't understand what's happening, but if I exterminate the youkai responsible, this incident will be resolved!'"

It might as well have been a direct quote from Reimu. Once Reimu had decided to resolve an incident, I'm pretty sure my partner here was the only person that would be able to stop her, and even that seemed unreliable at best.

"I'm plannin' to stay here and see if any of those holy rollers are able to gather up enough hope to make a mask on their own. If they do, I'll introduce 'em to the menreiki an see if I can't convince 'em to help us," Mamizou said, tapping ash from her pipe onto the ground then using its stem to point at Renko, "That means that I'm lookin' to hire the you two to find the mask of hope. If we can locate that, we won't have to bother with anythin' else. You think your little detective agency can do that?"

"Hah!" Renko grinned broadly and shot me a look. I couldn't help but sigh in response. If my partner had suggested this course of action on her own, I would have told her it was a ridiculous idea. But if a client was requesting our services directly, we couldn't exactly say no. Paying clients were rare enough at our agency that we couldn't afford to turn even one down.

"The Hifuu Detective Agency would be happy to take your case, Miss Hata no Kokoro. We'll help you find your missing mask," Renko said, grinning smugly and poking the brim of her hat up off of her brow.

Upon hearing that, the smiling god of fortune mask slipped back into place on the side of Kokoro's head. With a completely flat expression she raised her hands in the air. "Yay," she declared, running over to take one of Renko's hands in both of hers, shaking it vigorously. It was odd to see her moving so enthusiastically with a completely slack face, but she seemed to be in a good mood, at least.

"Alright then, just leave it to us. I think the first thing to do is ask you some questions if you don't mind. Could I ask you to come back to our office for a proper interview, Kokoro?"

"I'd be happy to tell you anything you like!" she said cheerily. At least while wearing the god of fortune mask, Kokoro seemed very friendly.

"Sanae, we're going to proceed to look for the missing mask of hope. Do you want to join us?"

"Oh um, I wonder if I should..." Sanae crossed her arms and pondered, looking up. Now that she had even more reasons to focus on gathering faith for the Moriya Shrine, I imagined that was probably going to be her top priority. But then again, she seemed interested in sticking with our part in this incident. "Umm, Miss Tanuki, is it okay if I consult the gods about this? My gods, that is, Lady Kanako and Lady Suwako. I won't let a word of this leak to Reimu. The Hakurei Shrine is our competitor."

"Those're the mountain gods, right? I don't see how that could be a problem." Mamizou said after a moment's consideration.

"Right then." Sanae nodded. "I'm going to go ask Lady Kanako to..."

Before Sanae could say anything else we all noticed the villagers around us begin to move with a sudden, perceptible sense of purpose. They seemed to all be returning to their homes.

Mamizou stepped out of the way of a wandering villager and took a long pull from her pipe, glancing down at a pocket watch before exhaling. "It's 2:35, well past the hour of the ox now. I think that lasted even longer today."

If everyone was returning home now, then it was definitely a bit later than it had been when Renko and I arrived home the other night. At least the time of everyone wandering senselessly about seemed to have ended. We watched as Keine staggered back into the headquarters of the neighborhood watch. It was scary to think that Renko and I must have been marching around in that same slow, zombified fashion just last night.

"Actually, now that I think about it, why are these people wandering at all? How does being drained of emotion make people get up and sleepwalk around?"

"I'm guessin' it has to do with the hope that those religious folks have been stirrin' up during the day. When people lose all their hope at night, they must go lookin' for it in the last place they felt any."

I suppose in the end everything came back to needing to restore the villagers' hope.

"At any rate, I should get going too. You've got your job, detective, and I've got mine."

Just as Mamizou turned to leave, Renko called out. "Oh wait! One moment, Miss Mamizou!"

"Hmm? More questions?" she asked, looking back over her shoulder at us.

"No, I just wanted to let you know that since this is an official request, our standard rates apply. Typically, there's also a retainer to be paid up front."

"That's sneaky, but I suppose I can't fault your hustle." She said turning back towards us and reaching into her shirt.

"I'm afraid I must also stipulate that as a reputable business operator, we don't accept fake money. If whatever you pay us turns into leaves, I'm afraid I'll have to let the neighborhood watch know to be on the lookout for a counterfeiter."

"I hear ya, I hear ya."

Renko shot me a wide grin and a thumbs up. I did my best to suppress a sigh.

—

After that we all parted ways. Sanae flew back to the mountain, Mamizou disappeared into the night and Renko and I were left standing in the village square with Kokoro.

"Alright Kokoro, would you mind following us back to our office? I'd like to gather some information before I begin my search for your mask of hope."

"Oh, I'd be happy to!" She crowed from behind the god of fortune mask.

"Renko, are you sure going to the office is a good idea? It's the middle of the night."

It can't have been much before 3 in the morning at this point. We had the key to the office of course, but that wasn't my concern.

"Don't worry, Merry, it's just an interview. We'll start the real search once the sun comes up. Before that though we need to hear what Kokoro can tell us. The office is the best place for that."

"I suppose..."

"Come on, let's go before Keine comes to her senses and finds us talking here."

With that Renko set off with Kokoro and I hurriedly following behind her.

Soon the three of us were sneaking onto the school grounds in the middle of the night. I'm sure we would have looked like unusually scholarly burglars if anyone had seen us. Renko opened the door to our office and made her way inside by feel before striking a match and lighting the oil lantern on the table. I shut the door behind us as we entered then Kokoro and I took our places at the table alongside Renko. With the dim, flickering light of the lantern on the table and Kokoro's pale, expressionless face opposite mine it seemed more like a gathering for telling ghost stories than an interview.

"Alright Kokoro. It occurs to me that I didn't take the time to properly introduce myself to you. My name is Usami Renko and I'm the director and chief investigator of the Hifuu Detective Agency. Merry here is my assistant. The shrine maiden with us earlier was our part-timer, Kochiya Sanae."

The comical-looking ℎ𝑦𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑘𝑜 mask slid into place on Kokoro's head. "I'm Hata no Kokoro and I'm a menreiki," she said in a singsong voice. I wondered if that was supposed to be a joke.

"Hata. That's the name of a very old clan. Let's put that aside for now to focus on the issue at hand though. Kokoro, do you have any idea where you may have lost your missing mask?"

The sorrowful 𝑢𝑏𝑎 mask replaced the ℎ𝑦𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑘𝑜. "...No," she said, sounding as if she were withering away.

"Well that's expected. Do you know when you lost it?"

"I don't know that either. One day I simply noticed that all of my hope had disappeared..."

"Hmm. Well how long ago was it that you began feeling hopeless?"

"...about a week ago..."

It was a more recent answer than I might have expected. Though I suppose if it had been longer than that then the situation would be much more serious. Importantly though, if Kokoro had only lost her mask a week ago, she couldn't have had any connection to the stagnant sense of foreboding that had been hanging over the village since last year. This entire incident had just happened to occur at the worst possible moment, when the emotions of the villagers were already at their lowest point.

"And where were you at the time that you realized your mask was missing?"

"In the forest at the foot of the mountain, I think... but I panicked when I realized my mask was gone and ran about in a frenzy looking for it, so I don't remember exactly where anymore..."

Renko let out a frustrated breath. "Well that's not much to go on. What does this mask of hope look like?"

The fortune god mask slid back into place. "Oh, it's a smiling child's face!" she replied with a voice that was suddenly lively.

"A mask with a child's face, huh. Well that sort of thing might have been interesting enough that someone could have picked it up if it was lying about. Hmm." Renko pondered for a moment, tilting her head down to her chest then looked up with a ready smile. "I think we're going to need to call in an expert for this one."

"An expert?"

"That's right. When it comes to finding missing things, there's no one better."