Episode 4
Taiga and Grandpa's Ball
On Friday morning, the booming shout that usually echoed through the school corridors was nowhere to be heard.
"...Siiiiiiigh..."
Right in the middle of classroom 5-2, a single, heavy sigh dragged across the room.
Slumped face-down over his desk like a deflated balloon was Taiga Inukai in his green soccer jersey. Even the white adhesive bandage on his nose seemed to droop dispiritedly.
"Inukai, sighing like a punctured tire first thing in the morning is quite out of character for you."
Class president Ayame Kujo frowned slightly as she walked into the room, cradling her detective notebook against her chest.
"Taiga, what's wrong? Did you catch a cold?"
Koharu leaned over his desk with concern. Taiga lifted his head with agonizing slowness. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot from crying.
"Koharu... President... It's over for me. I'm completely finished..."
"What do you mean, finished?! Tomorrow is the semifinal of the autumn junior soccer championship!"
"I might not even be able to play..." Taiga choked out, his voice cracking with tears. "My ball... is gone."
"Your ball?"
"The ball Grandpa Gen gave me! My grandpa used to be a soccer coach, and he bought me that leather ball the very first day I took up soccer... It has handwritten messages of encouragement from everyone on our team. It's my most prized treasure in the world!"
Taiga was the biggest grandpa's boy in Tsukimizaka. Grandpa Gen was a loud, boisterous, demanding old coach, but whenever Taiga came home caked in mud from head to toe, Grandpa would laugh until he shook and ruffle his hair.
"'A soccer ball is round so it can rollâif it's not rolling, it's useless!' That's what Grandpa would say, laughing as he buffed my ball every single night with vintage leather cream until it gleamed like new. Whenever I kick that ball, I can feel power surging straight from my toes. We had a promise that I'd set that ball on the bench tomorrow so we could fight together... but after practice yesterday, it rolled away somewhere..."
Taiga buried his face back into his folded arms, his broad shoulders trembling.
It was the first time Koharu had ever seen Taiga look so small and helpless.
She turned to exchange a determined look with Ayame.
"We're going to find it, Taiga! That's what the Lost-and-Found Detectives are for!"
"Miss Hoshikawa is correct."
Ayame adjusted her glasses, her eyes flashing with resolve as she flipped open her violet Unforgettable Notebook.
"To turn a blind eye while a teammate suffers would be a disgrace to our detective code. Inukai, take us to the exact spot where you last saw the ball!"
Taiga jerked his head up, scrubbing tears from his eyes with his jersey sleeve.
"You guys...! Thank you!"
After school.
The three of them made their way down to the athletic fields bordering the river at the foot of Tsukimizaka.
It was a sprawling open ground of green turf and packed dirtâthe very field where Taiga had stayed late yesterday practicing shots all by himself.
"Practice wrapped up just before five," Taiga explained. "I let loose one last monster shot from long range, but it ricocheted off the goalpost, bounced high into the air... and vanished into the tall grass."
"I see... There was a stiff south wind blowing yesterday," Ayame remarked, her fountain pen gliding across the paper. "Factoring in the slope of the terrain and the wind velocity, the ball would have rolled down the embankment and continued along the riverside footpath."
"Sniff, sniff... Hold on!"
Taiga dropped onto all fours, pressing his nose right against the dirt path.
"Inukai, as I have told you repeatedly, please refrain from sniffing the ground..."
"No, I'm telling you! I smell my own sweat... and that antique leather conditioning cream Grandpa always rubs into the ball! It went that way!"
Taiga leaped to his feet and charged toward a dense thicket bordering the river.
"What an astonishing sense of smell... It completely defies logic," Ayame murmured, shaking her head in reluctant admiration.
From inside Koharu's pocket, Pocke poked its little head out.
Koharu! I smell something too-pock! Old leather and... damp, mossy mud-pock!
"Let's hurry!"
Following Taiga's nose and Ayame's trajectory downstream, the dirt path ended abruptly at an old red-brick tunnel tunneling beneath the Tsukimizaka railway tracks.
Even in broad daylight, it was dim and cavernous, its brick walls coated in patches of slick green moss.
From the arched ceiling, icy droplets of water fell with a hollow drip, drop...
Eeeek! It's so damp in there my yarn's gonna shrink-pock!
Pocke shrieked, ducking deep inside Koharu's hood and tugging the drawstring tight until only the tip of its knitted nose showed.
"Th-This is..."
Leading the charge, Taiga ground to an absolute halt.
His knees began knocking together like castanets, wobbling like a newborn deer.
"Taiga? What's wrong?"
"I-It's... It's the Haunted Tunnel under the hill...!"
Every ounce of color drained from Taiga's face.
"The older kids told me stories... They said in this old tunnel, when evening comes, phantom hands sprout out of the brick walls and drag you into the darkness...! N-No way! No way am I setting foot in there!"
"Wherever did your earlier bravado vanish to, Inukai?"
Ayame crossed her arms. Yet, gazing into the murky depths of the tunnel, even her posture stiffened with unease.
"O-Of course, ghosts are an unscientific superstition... but I must concede, it is rather unsettling."
"Don't worry, you two! Let's hold hands!"
Koharu grabbed Taiga's trembling hand in one of hers and Ayame's in the other.
"Taiga's precious ball is waiting for him inside!"
And that was when it happened.
Dong, dong, dong...
The hillside speakers chimed the gentle, nostalgic five o'clock melody.
The evening sky turned from flaming vermilion to rich purple, casting deep twilight shadows across the mouth of the tunnel.
...Taiga... Taiga... Where are you...?
A faint, mournful voice drifted out from deep within the damp darkness.
...It's dark... It's cold... I want to shake the goal net with you again...
"The ball's voice!" Koharu cried.
Taiga gasped, his eyes wide with shock.
"The... The ball is calling my name...?!"
"Yes! It's waiting for you, Taiga!"
"Let's do this!"
Shouting as if to banish his terror, Taiga tore forward and charged headlong into the tunnel.
Inside, the chill was far sharper than out on the riverbank.
Their footsteps echoed hollowly against the wet bricks: slap, slap, slap...
As they reached the center directly below the train tracks, thick black fog was coiling like smoke.
And thenâ
Thump! Thump! Thump!
From the black depths came the eerie, synchronized sound of dozens of bouncing balls.
"Eeeek?!"
Pocke buried itself even deeper into Koharu's hood.
Looming out of the black mist was a colossal monster.
It was an amalgamation of dozens of discarded, mud-caked ballsâbright red dodgeballs, frayed tennis balls, worn rubber kickballsâfused together by black mist into a massive 'Ball Daruma' Stray!
Rolling like a monstrous boulder, it thundered across the ground, shaking the tunnel walls.
And right in the center of the giant ball-daruma's chestâ
Caked in dark mist, crying out for help, was Taiga's black-and-white soccer ball, its handwritten messages barely visible.
Taiga... Help me...!
"BALL!" Taiga roared.
The Stray let out an enraged roar and bounded forward, hurtling straight toward them with crushing momentum!
CRASH!
It slammed into the brick wall, showering them with fragments of mortar.
"Y-Yikes! It's huge! We're gonna get flattened into pancakes!"
Taiga stumbled backward, his legs threatening to give out again.
"Don't run, Taiga!"
Koharu seized Taiga's jersey sleeve, pulling him upright with all her strength.
"Listen to your ball! Listen to what it's saying!"
"Huh...?"
"'On the day Taiga scored his very first goal, Grandpa wept tears of joy! I love Taiga's smile so much, and tomorrow, I want to shake the goal net together with him again!'"
Koharu shouted at the top of her lungs, channeling every ounce of the ball's memories pulsing through the Star Glass.
"That ball is a one-of-a-kind treasure filled with your grandpa's love and all of your soccer dreams!"
Taiga's eyes went wide.
Hot tears welled up and spilled down his cheeks.
âThe day I scored my first goal.
Grandpa Gen, who almost never smiled, had wrapped me in a bear hug, weeping openly with his rugged face crumpled in pure happiness.
'You did it, Taiga! You're my finest striker!'
"...That's right."
The trembling vanished from Taiga's legs.
He clamped his fists tight and dug his cleats into the damp dirt.
"I am... an invincible striker! How could I ever run away and leave my partner behind?!"
Taiga broke into a fierce sprint.
Without a shred of hesitation, he threw himself directly in front of the thundering juggernaut!
"Inukai, it's dangerous!" Ayame screamed.
But Taiga didn't flinch.
As the giant rolling monster closed in, he dropped into a textbook, breathtaking sliding tackle!
SKIIIID!
Taiga's right foot jammed firmly against the rolling beast's base, arresting its momentum in an instant!
The sudden halt broke the monster's balance, and Taiga's soccer ball popped free, soaring high into the air!
"Koharu! NOW'S YOUR CHANCE!"
Taiga's roar reverberated through the tunnel.
"Leave that lost thing to me â I'll bring it home!"
Koharu thrust out her left hand.
"Pocke, let's go!"
"Leave it to me-pock!"
Pocke snapped onto her left hand as the Star Glass was raised high.
"Star Glass, open!"
Chimeâ!
Radiant golden light blazed from the Star Glass, illuminating the dark tunnel as brightly as high noon.
Her sunset-orange detective cape flared wide.
Koharu gazed up at the soccer ball suspended in midair, and then at the bewildered ball-daruma below.
Through the star-shaped lens, the forgotten memories of dozens of lost balls flooded into her heart.
Schoolyards after the bell. Games of catch down by the riverbanks. Mud-streaked, grinning faces.
And then, the sorrow of being kicked into deep weeds or lost down storm drains, waiting endlessly for owners who never came back.
"You all played so hard, didn't you?"
Her throat tightening with emotion, Koharu spoke with boundless warmth.
"The sweat and laughter of the children who chased after you will never disappear. You will always live on inside their hearts!"
The Stray's huge, round eyes softened peacefully.
"Found you. â Welcome home, lost thing!"
Flashâ!
A glorious ring of golden light expanded to fill every corner of the tunnel.
The dark mist dissolved like mist in the sun, and the countless battered balls dissolved into a glittering cascade of golden motes.
...Thank you...
The mingled voices of dozens of happy children echoed through the air as the light streamed out of the tunnel, winging its way back to homes across Tsukimizaka.
And thenâ
Floating softly down through the air, the black-and-white soccer ball was caught securely in Taiga's outstretched hands.
"Ball...!"
Taiga pulled the ball tight against his chest, burying his face in the leather as he sobbed with relief.
"Thank goodness... Oh man, thank goodness...!"
"Inukai, you are completely covered in mud. However... that was a magnificent tackle."
Ayame closed her notebook and offered a soft, proud smile.
"Heh-heh! Told ya I'm invincible!"
Watching Taiga sniffle while flashing his grin, Koharu and Ayame broke into warm giggles.
The following day, under a clear, brilliant autumn sky.
At the Tsukimizaka Sports Park soccer stadium, the junior championship semifinal was in full swing.
TWEETâ!
The moment the referee blew the final whistle, the bleachers erupted in deafening cheers.
"HE DID IT! TAIGA SCORED!"
Koharu and Ayame leapt to their feet, waving their cheer megaphones wildly.
In the final seconds of stoppage time, Taiga's thunderous volley had ripped into the back of the net.
Having secured their spot in the finals, Taiga grabbed his signed keepsake ball from the bench and held it high above his head, sprinting triumphantly across the pitch.
In the front row of the stands, arms crossed over his chest, Grandpa Gen was bawling his eyes out with his face bright red, shouting at the top of his lungs:
"TAIGAAA! That's my boy! Tonight's dinner is jumbo tonkatsu for everyone!"
Taiga flashed his teeth and waved back vigorously to his grandfather.
Watching that radiant smile filled Koharu's heart to bursting.
And yetâ
In the deep shadow of the trees at the far edge of the bustling stands, Koharu didn't miss the solitary figure standing in silence.
A long navy coat. A deep blue muffler around his neck.
Silky silver hair drifting in the autumn breeze. It was Yomi.
Inside Koharu's pocket, Pocke trembled faintly.
Koharu... Whenever that guy is around, my yarn prickles like crazy-pock...!
"Yomi... Did you come to watch...?"
The moment Koharu took a step toward him to call out, Yomi turned on his heel and melted into the departing crowd.
Late that night.
The sky over Tsukimizaka was blanketed by heavy, ominous storm clouds.
In the shadows behind the old brick hall on the hill, YomiâPhantom Thief Midnightâstood facing the bitter wind.
Before him, churning black fog twisted into the towering silhouette of a young girl.
Gleaming eerily through her misty hair were radiant blue forget-me-not blossoms.
Hehehe... Kanata. Is your memory collection progressing well?
A chorus of layered, sweet, freezing voices drifted through the night.
Clutching his stopped pocket watch, the boy replied in a voice drained of all emotion:
"...No harvest tonight. ...Eighty-one left to go."
A freezing wind tore across the hill, and the blue blossoms swayed silently in the dark.
