Composed by Yuki Neco
Next morning, Lumina came to Green Hills University to visit the detective agency run by two college students. Madison made the appointment for 10:00 in the morning for her, though Madison herself couldn’t come along as she had another plan. The student-managed detective agency had their office in one of the school building. She thought it was the evidence the detective agency is officially recognized in the school. The door to the office read “L&S Detective Agency.”¯ When she knocked on the door, a boy replied from inside the room and let her in.
Inside the office, she saw a boy wearing a shirt and jeans; the topmost two bottons of his shirt were undone. He was five feet ten inches tall.
“You are Lumina Allison, aren’t you?”¯ the boy with brown hair and amber eyes asked.
“Yes, nice to meet you. Madison Taylor is a friend of mine from high school,” the girl with blond hair replied.
“Nice to meet you, too. I’m Li Showron. Our detective agency is run by me and Sakura Avalon. I think Sakura will be here in a few minutes. Uh, take a seat, please, Ms. Allison.” Li motioned her to sit down on the chair across the desk.
“Thank you. And it’s okay to call me Lumina,” she said as she sat down.
“Before getting down to the business, let me explain our policy. If you didn’t agree our policy you could cancel,” Li started with an official style.
“Yes, go on,” Lumina stared at Li straightly.
“L&S Detective Agency investigates and uncovers the truth based on scientific evidence. The agency is NOT the police; therefore, we cannot arrest someone if ever the inquiry turned out be a criminal case. In that case, you client can inform the police of the criminal case if necessary. The output from the agency is the truth disclosed by our investigation; we do NOT alter or hide the truth even if it were unfavorable to the clients,” Li explained the detective agency’s policy with a slow delivery of words, looking at Lumina’s reaction.
“Good-looking though he is, he sounds like being square,” she thought while she was listening to him explain the policy, feeling something boring.
“Any question?” he asked when he finished explaining.
“Uhh... one thing. I understand you are not the police, but... if I were in danger in the course of investigation, would you protect me from the danger?”
“On that score, don’t worry. We two are both skillful to protect you from anything to harm you,” Li reassured.
At this time, the door swung open, “Sorry I’m late.” It was Sakura Avalon, the other owner of the detecitve agency. Sakura was a pretty girl with honey-brown hair cropped by the collar, and the layer of front top hair was separated right and left running down over the ears.
She—about five feet five inches tall—looked like an active girl, who was dressed in a layered style with a gray one-piece dress over jeans.
“Hey, you’re always late, Sakura. It’s our client, Ms. Lumina Allison,” Li introduced the girl sitting across the desk.
“Uh, nice to meet you...” Sakura said, as she stammered, “Sorry... I’m a little nervous, you’re so pretty... sorry what am I saying.”
“Oh, my!” Lumina smiled, when she secretly felt proud of herself being called pretty.
“We are friends with Madision Taylor from elementary school. You’re her friend from high school, aren’t you?”¯ Sakura asked.
“Yes, she told me to see both of you if I’m in trouble,” the girl with blond-hair explained.
“These days, some bad guys annoy innocent girls like you by following, blackmailing, or threatening,” Sakura talks in agreement with Lumina’s state, “We have sufficient techniques to identify the attacker.”
“What kind of techniques? Is it scientific?” Lumina asked in return, blinking her eyes.
“As far as the records are concerned,” Li expained, “we’re capable of fingerprint identification, voice analysis, and such.”
“Not bad,” she sang the praise in amazement, “but how? Do you have some instruments for that kind of identification?”
“That’s the region of our secret. Allow me not answering your question,” Li took a little bow.
“Tell me, are you Madison’s closest friend?” interested Sakura with starry eyes asked Lumina, “Madison and I went to different school from high school days, so it’s very natural Madison and I have different friends. But we were very close friends from elementary school, so I kind of interested in what kind of girl Madison’s closest friend is.” Sakura is kind of excited.
“Yes, Madison is always nice to me,” the girl with blond hair answered.
“Does she like to videotape you?”
“Yes, she videotapes me at college festival, my birthday, and such,” Lumina replied.
“Well, it’s hard to ask you this, but does she sometimes make you some costumes?” Sakura asked sheepishly.
“Costumes? How’d you know? But yes, she has some times insisted that I try on pink frilly outfit with cat ears,” Lumina giggled, “I say no every time she insisted, because I’m embarrassed.”
“Oh, then I should probably have said no,” Sakura mumbled kind of sadly.
“Madison could be the stalker, or what?” Li jokingly said.
Half an hour later, Lumina and Li are waiting for Sakura to identify the fingerprint on the paper stuck on Lumina the day before. Sakura was working in the next room. She didn’t let anyone see her scene of scientific investigation for some reason. Sakura returned to the client, reporting, “There’re two person’s fingerprints. The one is Madison’s and the other is supposed to be yours, Lumina.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lumina opened her eyes with astonishment.
“There are some possible cases,” Li began explaining with a grin, “One possibilitity is that Madison is the one who did it, or else this case is just your made-up...”
“What are you trying to say?!” Lumina shouted angrily, “Are you saying I just made up this stupid threatening letter myself?! Don’t be so stupid!”
“Hey, hear me out. I know there’re other possibilities,” Li held up his palms in front of the angry girl. “I mean, the culprit prepared this piece of paper so carefully that they didn’t even let their fingerprint marked on it. The culprit knows it’s no good if their fingerprint is taken.”
“Yes, Lumina,” Sakura nodded her head to Li, “the culprit isn’t just making fun, but they are for real. This case may be a dangerous case.”
“Oh, no...”
“This piece of paper made me decide,” Li said in a determined look, “to investigate your case. We’re going to protect you.”¯
“Your explanation made me have faith in you over the investigation,” Lumina smiled at Sakura and Li.
After Lumina left their office, Sakura and Li were talking sitting on chairs.
“Is she all right by herself?” Sakura said.
“Today she is escorted by Madison’s bodyguards. There’s no problem.”
“Lumina Allison is pretty. Are you feeling happy to investigate her case, Li?” Sakura smirked teasingly.
“What are you saying...?” Li blushed.
“Say, what were you talking with her while I was identifying the fingerprints on the paper? Did you have an enjoyable conversation?” Sakura was still teasing him with a smile.
“That’s not it. Lumina’s father is that famous Dr. Allison.”
Li coughed a couple of times to clear his throat, and continued, “I mean Lumina’s father is a famous physicist. He wrote physics textbooks for high school students and college students, and even beginners’ guide books to Einstein’s theory.”
“Cool. University professor is the same profession as my father’s,” Sakura whose father is an archeology professor, said in response to the information, “but her father is more famous than mine.”
“Yeah, her father is Michael Allison, you often see him on TV that denies the existence of space alien coming to Earth.”
“Wheeew, that interesting professor is Lumina’s father in fact, isn’t he,” Sakura clapped her hands with excitement.
Sakura Avalon and Li Showron were both junior students at Green Hills University. She studied archeology like her father, and he studies physics. Additionally, they were actually skillful wizards. Sakura was a user of Star Cards she converted from Clow Cards inherited from Clow Reed, the powerful wizard in olden times. Sakura Cards was a deck of cards including 53 magic cards, each of which possessed its own powers. On the other hand, Li was from a wizardry lineage in Hong Kong. He had strong magical powers to handle the magic handed down over generations. At first, he had come to town to capture all the Clow Cards before Sakura could. But in the course of capturing, Sakura and Li became friends, and now Sakura who was named as the master of the cards had converted the Clow Cards into Star Cards. That was when they were 11 years old. There life as Cardcaptors had been exciting, saving the town from trouble caused by playful Clow Cards. After all the cards were in hand, Sakura and Li thought that they should use their magical powers for people, and then they started up the detective agency. They used their magic for investigation. One example was the fingerprint identification Sakura just carried out in Lumina’s case. She used the Thunder Card to electrically charge the fatty secretions left on the paper, which was then sprinkled with toner; the fingerprint image was to be left on the paper. The image was identified by the image processing software programmed by Li’s best friend named Zachary.
“You know, Li. We gotta go to Freedstone University to investigate Lumina’s circumstances,”¯ Sakura suggested.
“You’re right. We have to collect information. I don’t know if this matter is related to Lumina’s father. It’s also possible that Lumina herself attracts trouble before she knows it. For example, some people might bear a grudge on her over a past love affair or something.”¯
At the gate of Freedstone University, Lumina got out of the Mercedes driven by Madison’s bodyguard. The blond-haired college student told the bodyguard to dismiss; however, the female bodyguard said she couldn’t leave her as Lumina might be in a dangerous state. The twenty-year-old girl reassured the campus was such a safe place that nobody could attack her; then reluctantly, the bodyguard told Lumina that she’ll wait for her at the school gate, and to call her whenever something strange happened.
Walking by the bulletin bord, Lumina found a message to call her to Dr. Matthews’ office. “Strange. I visited his office just yesterday, but what does he want from me?”¯ She leaned her head to the right in a puzzled look. Not a clue why she was called, Lumina began walking to Dr. Matthews’ office. “Perhaps, Dr. Matthews might have found out information about where my Dad is,”¯ she thought to herself. The moment she was about to step in the building of physics department, someone pulled her behind the shrub. Lumina screeched. There were two attackers; one held her from behind, and the other was watching around across the shrub.
“You got something from Dr. Allison, don’t you?”¯ The voice from behind her was upset but was of flattened intonation.
“What are you doing?!”¯
“Don’t scream, I’m warning.”¯
Lumina put her right hand into her pocket, as the attacker holding her from behind noticed her movement, “Hey, are you hiding something?”¯
“Leave me alone. Who do you think you’re attacking?”¯
At this time, the guy looking around said to the other, “We haven’t got much time. Take her into the car!”¯
“Alright,”¯ the one holding her tried to drag her.
“Hey, who’s in there?! What on earth are you doing?!”¯
Another voice came across from 100 feet away, as the footsteps were approaching. It must be the rescue. The two attackers made a run without snatching anything of her. Lumina heaved a heavy sigh and collapsed down on her knees behind the shrub.
Although she had acted bravery to the attackers, once she got free, she shivered as tears flowed from her eyes. Not to mention, she was terried.
The rescuer stuck his head to check behind the shrub; it was a boy with dark side-part hair.
“Are you all right?”¯ The boy asked in a worried look, holding out his hand to help.
“I’m okay, thanks,”¯ Lumina took his hand to stand up, wiping her tears off her face with the other hand, before walking across the shrub.
“Oh, it’s you, Lumina Allison,” the boy with side-part hair said her name.
“How do you know my name?”¯she asked with a tearful voice.
“I’m in the same class of physics department,”¯ he laughed.
“Uhh, sorry ’bout that,”¯ Lumina felt embarrassed.
“That’s okay. There are 80 students in the class, but every body knows your name because there’re a few girls, and besides...”¯
“Besides what?”¯
“You are a daughter of Dr. Allison who wrote the guide books to Eintein’s theory and quantum theory,”¯ the boy replied. “Uh, sorry I didn’t say my name, Ted FitzGerald.”¯
“Oh, I was on the way to Dr. Matthews’ office,”¯ Lumina screeched, showing Ted the message that was stuck on the bulletin board.
“It was a trap, Lumina.”¯
“What do you mean?”¯
“Dr. Matthews’ message was always hand written. But this one is printed with a computer,”¯ Ted pointed out. “This must’ve been prepared by the attacker. By this message, they drove you here to attack.”¯
“Are you sure?”¯
“Yes, seminar info and notification of re-submission of reports are all hand-written.”¯
“Is that so... If it weren’t for you I would’ve been abducted. Thank you, Ted.”¯
When she picked up her cell phone for calling the bodyguard, Ted talked to her, “If you have time, please come with me. I have something to show you.”¯
“What’s something to show me?”¯ she asked half suspiciously.
“My paranormal studies club I just started up recently,”¯ he replied, “I’ve been deeply interested in paranormal phenomena, such as UFOs and psychics, but I think those mysterious things must be connected with theories of physics.”¯
Ted and Lumina started walking, while he was explaining his activity. About three minute later, a woman’s voice came across.
“Ted, who are you walking with?!”¯
The woman ran toward them with an angry look. She had a curly amber hair like a flame, and had almond-eyes; she just looked like a meanie character in shojo-mangas.
“What are you planning to do walking with another girl than me?”¯
As the provocative girl looked in Lumina’s face to check, the two girls were surprised simultaneously.
“Lumina Allison!”¯
“Margaret O’Reilly!”¯
Next minute, Margaret’s attacking vector shifted from Ted to Lumina.
“Hi, Lumina, I see you’re still a bad vampire as ever. Ted is my boyfriend. You’re going to steel my boyfriend again, huh?”¯
“What do you mean again?”¯ Lumina barked up.
“Forgot already? It was three years ago,”¯ Margaret sniffed.
“That was your misunderstanding, Margaret O’Reilly,”¯ Lumina replied immediately.
However, at that moment, Madison Taylor came run to the scene, saying, “Lumina, what are you doing here. My bodyguards told me on the phone that you walked into the University all alone, and didn’t come out in more than an hour. She was very worried about you. Come with me, Lumina, you might be in a dangerous state.”¯
Madison dragged Lumina away, even though Lumina and Margaret were busy with exchanging provoking glare fiercely.