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kaitoujokerscans · 9 months

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Get Back Hachi’s Memories! CH10 (END)

<10> Though the Cup May Be Broken

"Uuu... unfh..." Hachi slowly opened his eyes to a room filled with soft light. His head felt dull, as if he'd been sleeping for days on end. It felt like there were heavy waves of lead sloshing about in his skull.

"Ungh..." Hachi groaned again before checking his surroundings. He knew this place. He was lying on an aqua-colored sofa. He could hear the glugging of a coffee maker from behind the kitchen counter. This was the living room of the airship Sky Joker.

"Hosshi!" Something flumped onto Hachi's stomach. Hosshi beamed at him. Its expression looked like it was welcoming him back... but that was just Hachi's misinterpretation.

"Hosshi hosshi hosshi!" Hosshi kept mewing, as if begging for something.

"Okay, okay. You want konpeito, Hosshi?" Hachi slowly got up and took a divided jar of konpeito out of the cabinet.

"Hosshi♪" Hosshi joyfully started to munch on the candy.

"Took you long enough. You're finally up?"

Hachi stared blankly at the boy in the red suit who had just come down the hallway. "........."

A moment passed.

"...Hachi?" The boy looked worried for a moment before Hachi spoke.

"Joker-san, good morning. Was I asleep?"

"......" Joker looked like he wanted to say something, but he twirled around and kept talking with his back to Hachi. "Y-Yeah... It's already nighttime! You dozed off for a while!"

"I'm sorry. My head kind of feels heavy..."

"...Well, it's fine. You must've been really tired." Joker turned back around and grinned. It was his usual mischievous smile. "I went ahead and made dinner. You wanna eat?"

"Huh...? Hachi's eyes went wide with surprise. He looked over the back of the sofa and saw that there was dinner already prepped on the table. There was freshly-cooked rice, a platter of fried foods, salad topped with apples, and a steaming hot bowl of miso soup.

"HUH!? You made this, Joker-san!?"

"Yup. I can do it when I try."

Hachi leapt up and dashed over to the table. He hopped into a chair, surveyed the table, and once more exclaimed in amazement. "Wow, this is wonderful!"

"C'mon, let's eat!"

"Okay! Dinner time it is!"

Joker and Hachi faced each other and began to eat together. It was how they usually ate dinner, hardly any different at all.

"That was delicious, Joker-san!"

"Yeah, it was."

"Hosshi!"

Joker smiled softly. The food tasted better than usual, and it probably wasn't just his imagination. The three of them enjoyed a peaceful moment together.

Eventually, Joker spoke. "By the way, Hachi, do you remember?"

"Hm? Remember what?"

"Y'know, uh..." Joker stuttered. Then he spoke freely as if a load had been taken off his mind. "Well, whatever. I'm headed out to a job tonight."

"Ohh, you're going out to steal a new treasure! What is it this time?"

"This time it's... uhh..." As Joker tried to remember, there was an electronic ding from the game console left on the edge of the table.

"Hm?" Joker opened up the lid and instantly went pale. "What!? My Battle Smasher 3 save data's gone! W-What happened!?" Joker frantically started to mess around with the console. Watching him, Hachi gave a little sigh.

"Argh... Joker-san, would you like some tea?"

"Yeah, please," said Joker, eyes fixed on the tablet screen.

Hachi picked up Joker's teacup. "Ah... this is..."

It was a brown, misshapen teacup. There were white letters reading "Joker-san, Happy Birthday!" on it. It was Hachi's handwriting. Hachi had stealthily made it for Joker's birthday. But for some reason, the cup was glued together in places. It looked like it had been broken, then fixed.

Just then, a spark of light zipped through Hachi's brain. "!..."

Joker noticed that Hachi was staring at the teacup and turned to face him. "What's wrong, Hachi?"

"Um... this..."

"Yeah, you gave me that one."

"Huh... ah, that's right. It's a little early, but happy birthday, Joker-san!"

"Yeah, thanks."

Teacup in hand, Hachi walked to the kitchen. Watching him from behind, Joker thought to himself. He'd used the ceramic glue that came out of Hosshi's egg to fix the teacup in a jiffy, but Hachi hadn't reacted to it. So Hachi didn't remember that he'd lost his memory.

Which means Hachi must not remember what I whispered to him before...

Okay, it's better that way.

Joker patted his own chest in relief, just before hearing a voice from the kitchen. "Really, Joker-san!?"

"Huh?" Joker sprinted over to the kitchen and found Hachi with his hands on his hips, staring at him. In his hands were empty frozen food bags and prepackaged food containers from the grocery store.

"Ah, you found out."

"Good grief... ready-made food is fine and all, but you have to toss the containers right away. If you just leave them around, they'll start to smell. It's not sanitary," scolded Hachi as he speedily cleaned up the kitchen.

"Haha, my bad. Sorry," Joker casually apologized, feeling somehow relieved.

"Geez... if you'd just apologized nicely from the start, we wouldn't have had to go through all of that."

"Huh?"

Joker gave Hachi a dumbfounded stare. As he rinsed dishes, Hachi spoke with a mischievous smile. "I just remembered."

"What?"

"What you told me before."

"What the..."

Yes, Hachi had remembered. When Joker was trying to force-feed Hachi the curry, he'd told him "It drives me crazy when you're not around. I'm sorry," and apologized...

"Because you told me that, all my hate for Phantom Thief Joker up and vanished. I'm sorry about that, Joker-san," Hachi said, bowing his head.

"Er... well, it's okay. You're back to normal now." Joker scratched his cheek.

Hachi lifted his head, looked up at Joker, and gave a smile. "But Joker-san, you really do need me around, right?"

"Ngh..." Joker avoided eye contact.

"Right, Joker-san?" Hachi narrowed his eyes and smiled up gleefully at Joker.

"Rrghh... enough! Anyway, the treasure! We're headed out!"

"Eeeeh? But we just had dinner! And besides, what about your save data?"

"Well, it's all gone. But all I have to do is restart from the beginning. Long as I remember, I can redo it however many times it takes!" Joker grinned at Hachi.

"Yes, you're right about that!"

"Come on then, if we drag our feet too long, Spade or Queen are gonna beat us to the punch!" Joker wrapped his cape around him and put on his silk hat. Hosshi bounded up beside him.

"Hosshi♪

Joker turned toward Hachi and exclaimed as usual, "Let's go! Don't dawdle, Hachi!"

"Okay!" Hachi responded enthusiastically and ran after him.

The two of them exited onto the Sky Joker's deck, where the brilliant city lights flickered below. They inflated Balloon Gum and gently lifted off into the dark of night.

"All right, let's go get some treasure! Welcome to the shining night!" Joker's voice rang louder than usual in the clear air. The round moon glowed everlastingly in the night sky...

FIN

Get Back Hachi’s Memories!

Author: Naohiro Fukushima

Original Work: Hideyasu Takahashi

Thanks for reading!

#kaitou joker #light novel

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kaitoujokerscans · 9 months

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Get Back Hachi’s Memories! CH9

<9> The Most Formidable Opponent

"Ngh...!" Joker swerved just in time to dodge the katana. Hachi's blade caught against Joker's cape and ripped a tear in it. At the same time, Hachi threw a shuriken which hit and burst Joker's Balloon Gum. Joker lost his balance and started to freefall. He spun around and landed in the middle of a forest. It was a dense forest thick with trees, located right in between the restaurant and cliff.

Cripes, Hachi, you're good...!

Joker carefully observed his surroundings, watching for anyone else. Moonlight streamed in through the leaves above. The wind was blowing, making the leaves rustle like the sound of waves. It set him strangely on edge, like he was facing off against an enemy.

"Hosshi!" In the direction that Hosshi yelped at, Hachi had just canceled his Ninja Art: Flying Squirrel technique and gently landed.

"Hachi..."

"......" Hachi stared intently at Joker. Not with his usual gaze. It was a gaze which conveyed intense emotion, full of bitterness as if he wanted to say something.

Hachi finally spoke. "Phantom Thief Joker, you deceived me..."

"Well, I..." Joker was at a loss for words. He couldn't say "it was because you forgot about me." Even if he said that, Hachi as he was now wouldn't have any emotional response. To him, Phantom Thief Joker was a despised enemy.

Joker replied with a smile on his face. "Yeah, I did! I'm a phantom thief. Deception comes with the profession."

"Grrr... that's unforgivable." Hachi bitterly glared at Joker.

Joker glanced toward the cliff. Hyakkimaru had the last container with Hachi's curry. Around now, he should've taken the Iga wonder herb off the boss and mixed it into the curry. If he could just get Hachi over there...

With this in mind, he'd decided to intentionally provoke Hachi and draw his attention.

"All right, come at me, Hachi! Not like you're a match for me anyhow!"

"Ghh... I won't know unless I try!" Hachi threw more shuriken. Swooshing through the air, multiple shuriken came flying. Hachi hadn't studied alongside Hyakkimaru for nothing. The shuriken were headed on a direct course for Joker.

"Hosshi!"

"Pseudocat, hide somewhere!" Joker hurled Hosshi into the bushes, then swiftly ran around dodging.

"You won't get away!" Hachi yelled, shooting more shuriken which curved in midair. The scattered shuriken came at Joker from all directions, cornering him from every angle.

"Nrgh, pretty good!" Joker inflated Balloon Gum and attempted to float high into the air. ...But a sharp needle flew toward it. The needle shot through the Balloon Gum, bursting the bubble with a loud pop.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa!" Joker fell and hit the ground back-first.

"I expected that you'd try to escape with Balloon Gum!"

"Gnh..." Of course, that's my Hachi. He knows all my methods of escape. "Then how about this!" Joker pulled cards out of his pocket and held them at the ready. If I can just blind Hachi with these...!

"Straight Flash!"

But when the cards flashed, for some reason, piercing light beamed into Joker's eyes. "Ngh...!" Joker was temporarily blinded and couldn't move. Just then, he felt something constrict around him, and he fell to the ground. Looking down, his arms and torso were tied up with rope.

"W-What just happened?" Joker looked up and saw Hachi towering above, holding a large mirror in front of his eyes.

"Heh hehn, I reflected the light from your Straight Flash. I told you. Whatever moves you make, I can anticipate them all."

"Rrgh..."

In that case, I'm just gonna have to use Image Gum and tough this out somehow...! Joker wiggled a bound hand into his pocket. But there wasn't any gum there.

"Is this what you're looking for?" asked Hachi, pulling out a small box. It was Joker's gum case. In case of emergencies, Joker had multiple hiding spots for gum across his body. Hachi knew most of those spots.

Tch, I'm in trouble... Joker mentally cursed. He definitely didn't want to admit it to Hachi, but he was one of the toughest opponents he'd ever faced. Hachi was always by Joker's side and knew his habits better than anyone. Not Spade, not Queen, not Shadow. As hard as it was to believe, Hachi was the most formidable of all.

"Now then, Phantom Thief Joker, prepare yourself." Hachi scowled at Joker from above.

"Ghh... what are you going to do to me?"

"That's obvious. Joker, you're going to..." Hachi started to say, but stopped in the middle of his sentence.

"?" Joker looked up to see Hachi tilting his head, confused about something. "What's wrong, Hachi?"

"Umm... Joker... Uh, what is it that I wanted to do to Joker...?" he thought out loud to himself. Hachi was at a loss.

He hated Joker, but now that he'd caught him, he didn't know what to do... Hachi was surprised by his own state of mind. From his behavior, Joker could guess that Hachi didn't know how to alleviate his own feelings of hate.

"Why have I been..." Hachi kept wondering.

Since Hachi's goal wasn't to hurt Joker, he wouldn't attack him any more. In which case, this was Joker's chance to act.

But...

The way to get rid of Hachi's hatred is...

I don't wanna do this, but it's the only option...!

Joker twisted himself around and cut the rope with a card hidden in his glove. He hopped to his feet, then jumped back to put some distance between himself and Hachi.

"Mrgh, Joker!"

"Hachi, one more match!" Joker held up his cards and glared at Hachi. "Emblem Fire!" Joker's thrown cards were enveloped in fire and zoomed toward Hachi.

"That won't work!" Without a moment's delay, Hachi pulled out a water gun and drenched the cards one after another with impeccable aim. The cards' flames were extinguished and they flopped to the ground.

"Nice going, Hachi!"

"I told you already, I know all your attacks!"

"Yeah! That's why you're such a great assistant!"

"I don't remember ever being your assistant!"

Then Joker inflated a bubble of Image Gum and created clones of himself. He slipped in among the gum clones and ran around the forest, but Hachi only chased after the real Joker.

"It's no use! I can tell which one the real Joker is!"

"Heh heh, you can?"

Just then, something appeared in the sky.

"All right!" Joker, after scurrying about, jumped up high. He shook Hachi off his tail and bounced from tree branch to tree branch, heading up toward the night sky.

"You're late, Hyakkimaru!" Up ahead, Hyakkimaru was coming from the other direction, soaring with his Ninja Art: Flying Squirrel.

"Apologies for the wait, Joker! This is the curry mixed with the herb!" Hyakkimaru tossed over the container of curry.

"Thanks! OK, let's do this!" Joker grabbed the container and descended to the ground. Below, Hachi was glaring up at him. "Emblem Fire!"

"I told you, that won't work!" Hachi pulled out the water gun again and fired at the cards. A stream of water shot out and extinguished the cards' flames.

"Heh heh, you're wide open!" In an instant, Joker dropped to the ground and wrapped around behind Hachi, putting him in a full nelson hold. He popped open the curry container and put it against Hachi's mouth.

"Open wide! It's your own curry!"

"N-No!" Hachi shut his mouth tight and kept it clamped.

"Grrrgh, you stupid blockhead! Just eat it already!"

"M mmhrmm m hrm... (I refuse to eat it!)"

"Egh... guess I gotta!" Joker said, then whispered something into Hachi's ear.

"Huh...?" Hachi's jaw automatically dropped open. And in that instant...

"All right!" Joker poured the curry into Hachi's mouth.

"!? Mmff mff mff...!"

"Go ahead, Hyakkimaru!" Joker shouted towards the sky, then tossed Hachi up with all his might.

"Waaahhh!"

"Understood! Here I come, Hachi! Koga Ninja Art: Memory Retrieval!" Hyakkimaru made hand seals from which light emitted. The light touched Hachi's head and surrounded him. Enveloped in soft light, Hachi gently closed his eyes.

"Mhmhmhmh... HYAH! The moment Hyakkimaru willed it, Hachi's body was hit with a shockwave and sprang up, then started to fall. On the ground, Joker caught Hachi's body.

"Hachi, are you okay?"

"Hosshi!" Hosshi came out of the bushes and bounded up to Hachi.

Looking at him, Hachi was in Joker's arms, snoring quietly. His expression was no different than when he napped in the living room. It was Hachi's usual sleeping face.

#kaitou joker #light novel

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kaitoujokerscans · 9 months

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Get Back Hachi’s Memories! CH8

<8> Sneak into the Iga Restaurant!

Iga's domain lay deep in the mountains far away from Koga. In a tranquil forest away from civilization, a lone ninja youth read a notice.

"Tonight, I'll come to take the 'Legendary Wonder Herb' from the Iga village!

—Kaitou Phantom Thief Joker"

For some reason, he'd made a mistake on the "Phantom Thief" part. He sent a notice and didn't even have the decency to fix it up nicely...!

The ninja youth clenched the note in his hands. His name was Iga Sennosuke. He was a young commander of the Iga ninja.

"Not only that, but... Hyakkimaru appears to be involved in this as well." Sennosuke caught a faint whiff of something from the notice. This was a kind of fragrance the Koga used to send coded messages. It meant "prepare for defeat". The two of them were long-standing rivals.

Sennosuke had long silver hair tied in the back and clean white attire. His conspicuous appearance hardly marked him as a ninja, yet his lack of scars was a testament to his skill.

However, there was one particularly strange thing about him.

He was wearing a large apron with a badge reading "Sennosuke" pinned on the front.

"Hey, get back to workin', newbie!"

"O-Okay! Sorry!" Sennosuke jumped up to answer the sudden bellow. He set the notice down on the counter and shifted his attention to the stack of dirty plates in front of him.

"We gotta prep for the dinner rush! Wash those damn plates already!"

"Okay, boss!"

Sennosuke lathered up a sponge with soap and started to wash the plates clean.

He was in the kitchen of the Ninja Restaurant "Gozaru" established in the Iga mountains. The restaurant served popular Iga dishes, and after it had gotten reviewed by an internet foodie site, they'd had people coming from miles away to eat there.

Sennosuke was doing job training at this particular restaurant. Ninjas needed to infiltrate all kinds of places, so they needed to train at many different professions. One part of this training was working at a restaurant. The person that Sennosuke had earlier referred to as "boss" was not his ninja superior, but rather the kitchen's head chef.

The reason for the Ninja Restaurant's success lay with the "Legendary Herb" which the boss had secretly perfected. The boss was a legendary chef who had many students all over the world. Whenever his "Legendary Herb" was sprinkled into food, it would improve the flavor by leaps and bounds. However, the method of making it was an insider secret, and the recipe was kept in a bottle which the boss always had hanging from his neck.

This secret herb was Joker and Hyakkimaru's target. The boss didn't seem to be concerned and had just told him "Don't waste brainpower on that junk, just focus on cooking!" But Sennosuke had other ideas.

They won't get their hands on the wonder herb on my watch...!

Sennosuke tightly clenched the soapy sponge. The plate he was squeezing with it slipped right out. It hit the floor and shattered dramatically, prompting another holler from the boss.

"What the hell are you doing over there!?"

"S-Sorry, boss!"

That night, Joker, Hyakkimaru, and Hosshi arrived at a cliff overlooking the Iga-run restaurant "Gozaru". It had open-air seating, so there were tables spread across the green, much like a barbeque spot. The establishment was popular enough that patrons were milling about nonstop.

"So the wonder herb's at that restaurant..." Joker said, spying on the restaurant through a pair of binoculars.

"Yes. The head chef, who they call 'boss', always carries it with him," responded Hyakkimaru, arms crossed. "The head chef himself doesn't use ninja arts, but my investigation shows that a ninja corps headed by Sennosuke is doing job training here. In other words, there'll be a lot of young ninjas guarding the herb. I've sparred with Sennosuke many times. He's strong."

"Heh heh, I'll let you take care of him, then. I just wanna get ahold of that wonder herb as fast as possible."

"What about Hachi?"

"...I dunno. I didn't think he'd be that good at hiding himself," said Joker, biting his lip.

"Hosshi." Hosshi seemed to sympathize. It'd eat all the treasure in the Sky Joker if left alone, so Joker was left with little alternative but to bring it along.

After receiving the arrow with Hachi's letter of challenge, Joker went to all the places Hachi was likely to go and contacted the people he knew, but he hadn't found any leads on him at all. He was most likely in hiding, plotting a way to take down Joker.

"But he's only my assistant anyway. He can't put up that much of a fight," cackled Joker before putting away the binoculars and getting to his feet. Hosshi nestled under his hat.

"Wauugh, pseudocat!"

"Hosshi!"

"Sheesh, all right. Let's go!"

Joker hopped off the cliff and inflated a bubble of Balloon Gum. Hyakkimaru watched as he descended.

If only. Hachi may be more formidable than you realize... Keeping these thoughts unspoken, Hyakkimaru unfurled a cloth for his Ninja Art: Flying Squirrel.

As he transported food around the dining area, Sennosuke glanced at his surroundings. The establishment consisted of a large flat-roofed kitchen and terrace seating. Business was booming once again today, and it was busy enough to make your eyes spin. It was entirely possible that Joker and Hyakkimaru had already snuck in disguised as guests.

Meanwhile, the boss had come out onto the terrace to greet the guests. When a certain hour struck, he'd always stop cooking for a little while and come out from the kitchen.

"We hope you all enjoy your meal today! The food's so good, you won't be complaining even if your tongue falls off! Ha ha ha!"

The boss' joke elicited laughter from the guests. He looked completely vulnerable, even though he knew his wonder herb was at risk.

Aha, maybe this is when...! Just as the thought came to Sennosuke, it happened. A rope coiled around the boss and constricted him. The bottle with the wonder herb dangled from his neck and glinted.

"Gah!?"

"Boss!" Sennosuke looked up to see Phantom Thief Joker, holding onto Balloon Gum as he floated in the air.

"Ha ha ha! Phantom Thief Joker is here! I'm taking the Iga wonder herb, and the chef along with it!"

"You won't get away!"

Sennosuke set his tray on the closest table and immediately began to form hand seals. He briskly made a sequence of complex finger movements and began to focus his spirit. Then he flashed a mean look at Joker. "Iga Ninja Art: Falcon Whirlwind Formation!"

Sennosuke pushed his hands out and willed a tornado to blow from his palms. The tornado headed straight for Joker in midair, picking up speed and force as it rose.

"Waugh!" As Joker scrambled to get away, Hyakkimaru shielded him. Hyakkimaru canceled his Ninja Art: Flying Squirrel and brought his hands together in front of his face. He was forming different seals than Sennosuke. His fingers flowed as smoothly as liquid. Then he opened his eyes with a sharp look.

"Kouga Ninja Art: Dragon King Inferno!"

Hyakkimaru's hands glowed. He held his palms out in the path of Sennosuke's tornado, and massive flames spurted from them. The flames took the form of a dragon's head and plunged toward the tornado. The tornado and flames violently collided in midair. Deafening thunder and blinding sparks broke out, lighting up the area like an explosion. The guests looked up in astonishment, and immediately after, both the tornado and flames vanished without a trace. They had canceled each other out.

"Sennosuke, I see you've kept in practice!"

However, the shockwaves shredded Joker's rope. The boss fell to the ground, and Sennosuke helped him up.

"You bloody fool! Go kick their butts already!"

"Y-Yes, boss!"

Joker and Hyakkimaru, buffeted by the wind, landed in an open space not too far from the seating area. It was basically a storage area where the extra tables and chairs were kept.

Sennosuke quickly jumped over and came face-to-face with Hyakkimaru.

"I never thought my rival Hyakkimaru would stoop so low as to help out a phantom thief. Whatever happened to your pride as a ninja?"

"I have good reason for this. It's to save an old friend."

"Whatever your reason is, you're not getting the Iga wonder herb. You're going to kneel before me. And the phantom thief will, too! Ninja Art: Magical Chairs!" shouted Sennosuke. The extra tables and chairs around the pair clattered up and began to move. The chairs hurtled toward them.

Hyakkimaru and Joker frantically defended themselves and quickly tried to escape. But the chairs chased after them, moving as if they were alive. They rattled around and neatly stacked together, forming a tall tower which slowly arched down.

Joker tackled Hyakkimaru, pushing them both out of harm's way.

"Ghh, I'm in your debt."

"Drat, we're surrounded...!"

In no time at all, the pair had been entrapped by a bunch of chairs. The chairs had formed a gap-free wall encircling them and were now closing in.

One of the chairs flashed. With a fwish, the disguise was removed, and in its place was Sennosuke in his white uniform. In response to his signal, the other chairs each removed their disguises. Extraordinarily enough, the chairs were all Iga ninjas in disguise.

Joker and Hyakkimaru were instantly surrounded by a human wall of Iga ninjas.

Sennosuke grinned and swept his hair up. "Hyakkimaru, you're not getting away. We Iga ninjas know the importance of teamwork. Your pathetic excuse of a friendship can't possibly beat us."

Hyakkimaru took a stance and glared at Sennosuke. "We aren't friends. We're just aiding each other in pursuit of a common goal."

"What he said. And your pathetic excuse for ninja arts is no match for me!" taunted Joker.

"Phantom Thief Joker, you'll rue those words. Now prepare yourself for this! Iga Ninja Art: Vision Spin!"

The moment Sennosuke shouted, the ninjas caging them in slowly began to shift horizontally. They moved clockwise and gradually picked up speed.

"W-What are they doing!?"

"Don't look, Joker! It's an Iga ninja art that makes your field of vision spin and shows you illusions!"

"It does what!?"

The ninjas quickly covered the space above Joker and Hyakkimaru's heads. The two of them were entrapped in a half-sphere like a planetarium, and the walls were moving around and around.

"Ghh, we've gotta get out of this circle, and fast!"

"Ha ha ha, it's futile! You're already trapped. There's no escape!"

Just as Sennosuke said, the two of them were surrounded on all sides and had nowhere to escape to. Hyakkimaru and Joker mulled it over, keeping their gazes averted so they wouldn't look directly at the ninjas.

"Iga ninja arts are performed as a team under orders of a commander. If we defeat Sennosuke, who's the one in charge of this move, we should be able to break through it!"

But Sennosuke yelled to them as he went around. "Ha ha ha, it won't work! If you want to aim at me, that means you'll have to watch us revolve. That moment will be your doom! Team, it's time to finish this! Take aim!"

At his command, the ninjas held up shuriken all in unison. If they shot them at Joker and Hyakkimaru in the center of the circle, the pair wouldn't be able to dodge.

"Now surrender, Hyakkimaru! Joker!"

"Ngh, what can we do...!?"

Behind Hyakkimaru, Joker seemed to have hit upon an idea. "Hehn, it's simple. If they're spinning, we should just spin too."

"What!?"

In no time at all, Joker inflated some gum and formed it into a flat, round, manhole cover-shaped disc. Joker and Hyakkimaru hopped on top of it.

"Lemme show you my phantom thief ninja arts!"

"Your what!?"

"Here I come! Phantom Thief Ninja Art: Wheel Turner!"

The disc immediately began to rotate. Joker and Hyakkimaru on top of it started to rotate as well. It gradually sped up, soon enough matching the speed of the ninjas.

"Now look, Hyakkimaru!"

"Mm, I understand!"

Taking a look, the ninjas in front of him had stopped — at least, they appeared to be stopped. Since the two of them were spinning at the same speed as the ninjas, they looked perfectly still.

"What!?"

"I've got you now, Sennosuke! Koga Ninja Art: Dragon King Inferno!" Hyakkimaru swiftly formed hand seals and invoked the art. Just like before, bright fire swirled into his hands and flames shaped like a dragon's head zoomed menacingly toward Sennosuke.

"Ghh!" Sennosuke tried to evade, but he couldn't move his body right. The centrifugal force from spinning had made him unable to move like he wanted to! "Grr, there's no other way! Disperse!"

At his order, the ninjas slowed their spinning and broke apart.

"Now!" Joker took the opportunity to start running. Once he was out of the circle of ninjas, there was the boss straight ahead. He stretched out a hand to the bottle that glinted over his chest.

"Hold it, Joker!" Sennosuke whirled around in midair and recentered himself. "Everyone, shoot!"

Sennosuke and the ninjas simultaneously shot out their shuriken. The sharp-edged throwing stars whirled dynamically, on course to strike Joker in the back.

"Hosshi!" Underneath his hat, Hosshi noticed this and yelped. Joker hurriedly turned around.

"Wha-!?" Joker immediately blew up a bubble of gum. A film of pink spread out in front of him.

But it wouldn't make it in time...!

BANG! There was a loud popping sound and the area was enveloped in smoke. Joker had probably intended to create a smokescreen with the gum.

"Joker!" Hyakkimaru rushed forward. Avoiding the spots where shuriken were stuck into the ground as he approached, he found Joker lying down within the smoke. The shuriken must have grazed his arms and legs, because he looked like he was bleeding.

"Joker! Are you all right!?" Hyakkimaru helped him up.

Joker groaned in pain "Urgh..."

The boss slowly came forward from the smoke and looked down upon Hyakkimaru. "Heh, Hyakkimaru of the Koga, you have some nerve trying to steal my wonder herb. Try again later when you've improved!"

"Mrrgh..." Hyakkimaru glared at the boss.

—But then he realized something. What the boss said just now... how does he know my name?

Now I understand...!

Hyakkimaru realized something. He picked up the injured Joker and shouted to Sennosuke. "Sennosuke, our match is on pause for now!"

"You're running? That's cowardly, Hyakkimaru!" Just as Sennosuke was about to go after him...

"Wait! Don't pursue him!" The boss shouted at him from behind. Sennosuke froze in his tracks and turned around.

"Please don't stop me, boss!"

"Don't talk back to me!"

While they were arguing, Hyakkimaru silently slipped away into the smoke.

"Why, boss!?" Sennosuke wouldn't back down.

The boss answered him. "That's enough. I got what I came for!"

"Huh? What you came for?" Sennosuke eyed the boss puzzledly, unable to catch his drift.

"Yeah. I mean the Iga wonder herb!" As soon as he said this, the boss' body started to inflate. He popped open with a bang, and from within appeared Joker! Hosshi peeked out from under his hat.

Joker inflated a bubble of Balloon Gum and started to float up into the air.

"What!?"

"Ha ha ha. Too bad, Iga Sennosuke!"

"Grrr... so then that Joker who Hyakkimaru carried off was..."

"Yeah, that was your boss. Hyakkimaru should've grabbed the herb off him by now."

"Hosshi♪

Joker hadn't made that smokescreen with gum in order to dodge the attack. He had used Image Gum to disguise himself as the boss and had covered the boss with a layer of gum to make him look like an injured Joker. Of course, he'd made sure to tie the boss up first so he didn't say anything inconvenient.

"Grr, how dare you... Joker!"

"Well then, I've stolen the Iga Herb! Au revoir!"

Looking down upon the ninjas and Sennosuke clenching his fists in frustration, Joker flew up into the night sky. His Balloon Gum picked up speed and headed toward the top of the cliff, where Hyakkimaru was supposed to be waiting.

"Heh heh now I just have to mix the herb into the curry and..." Totally carefree, Joker stroked his chin. That was when it happened.

"I found you," came a voice from above Joker.

"!"

In the night sky, a small silhouette approached him. The figure gripped a short katana in his hands which matched his stature. The blade gleamed, illuminating his form.

It was unmistakably Hachi.

#kaitou joker #light novel

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kaitoujokerscans · 9 months

Note

I noticed that in chapter 26, "The Holy Night Soldier", there's a couple of missing pages

Hi there, I can't find anything missing in the ddl or imgur release. I can check again if you've got any more specifics.

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kaitoujokerscans · 10 months

Text

The mangadex links for chapters 64 and 70 have been updated to fix two missing spreads. The download link for chapter 64 has also been updated.

Please send us an ask with details if you notice those strange hiccups!

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kaitoujokerscans · 10 months

Text

Get Back Hachi’s Memories! CH7

<7> Traveling Joker Once Again

Back in the guise of Kaitou Joe, Joker returned gleefully with the Sigma Drive in one hand. When he entered the living room, Hosshi hopped over to him.

"Hosshiii! Hosshiii!"

"Waugh! What is it, pseudocat!?"

"Hosshihosshi hosshiii!" It was trying to tell him something, but Joker didn't have time for that right now. He had to use the Sigma Drive and travel to the past ASAP.

From what he could see, Hachi wasn't around. That made this the perfect chance.

"Hoshihoshihoshi!"

"Shush, will ya? I'll hear you out when I get back, so be patient for the moment, pseudocat!"

Joker pushed aside Hosshi, who was bouncing around him, and started to tinker with the Sigma Drive. "Okay... two days ago... it must've been around 9PM. All right, Sigma Drive, start up!" He entered the date and time, pushed the button, and then everything distorted around him. Soon his vision clouded over with a fuzzy haze, and he heard a loud VWOOM sound like a strong wind inside his head.

Right after, a harsh light flashed in front of him, and Joker reflexively shut his eyes...

Joker slowly opened his eyes. His mind was fuzzy. It felt like being woken up by a morning alarm without warning.

The scenery was exactly the same as he had just seen.

"...Did it work?"

Just then, he heard the pattering of footsteps from the other side of the door. Joker quickly hid himself behind the shelving.

Hachi came into the living room.

"I can't believe Joker-san! This time I'm not going to forgive him!" he grumbled as he started to clear the snacks off the table.

Evidently the time jump had worked. Joker had returned to the moment right after he and Hachi had fought and he left for his caper.

"Geez, Joker-san doesn't clean up after himself at all..." Even as he complained, Hachi diligently put away the game console. Joker was filled with an indescribable feeling as he watched him. He sorely missed hearing Hachi call him "Joker-san".

Once Hachi finished tidying up, he returned to the kitchen. Joker peered at him from the shadows and saw him slowly stirring the curry pot.

"...Then again, I might've gone too far..." Hachi murmured as he stirred. Hearing this, Joker felt a sting in his heart.

"I know! I'll finish up this delicious curry and apologize when Joker-san gets back! And I've got a special ingredient just for the occasion!" Forcing himself to cheer up, Hachi removed one of the wall tiles with a plunk. Apparently he'd created a secret compartment in the kitchen. He pulled out a small black bottle from within and sprinkled its powdery contents into the curry.

"Now it's perfect!" Hachi said with satisfaction after putting some of the curry into a saucer and taste-testing it.

As he watched from afar, another feeling welled up in Joker. Hachi had wanted to apologize to him. And yet I...

He wanted to jump out right now and tell Hachi he was sorry.

That's what I can do...! Joker had a sudden realization. If he jumped out and said "Hachi, I'm sorry! It was my fault!" right now, he might be able to restore Hachi's memories. He still didn't know how Hachi had gotten amnesia, but he figured he could at least clear away Hachi's hate for him. Yes, apologizing right away might be the best solution.

Joker's anger toward Hachi had long since cooled. Usually Joker wouldn't even consider apologizing immediately, but this was a special case. Hachi, I was wrong. Sorry for not apologizing to you right away... He practiced the words in his head and was about to step out from behind the shelving when...

"Okay, it's all ready! Now I can enjoy the Shuffle Sisters concert by myself without anything hanging over me!"

Eh...? Joker stopped in his tracks.

Hachi bustled over to the cabinet. He took out a DVD case from inside, swiftly popped the disc into the player, turned on the big TV, and cranked up the volume.

Magical♪ Magical♪ Let's dig in!♪"

The screen displayed the Shuffle Sisters dancing all around the stage of a huge venue in high definition. The Shuffle Sisters was an idol group composed of actual sisters: Ai, Rei, and Kira. They were a popular and widely-recognized group, and Hachi was a big fan of them. Ai, who was Dark Eye's true identity and the eldest sister of the bunch, was Hachi's favorite.

"YAHOOOOOOOOOOOO! AI-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

Hachi pulled a homemade fan out of nowhere and started to swing his arm around so wildly it seemed like it'd fly right off. His other hand held a large penlight with the Shuffle Sisters' name on it. It was of course lit up green to match Ai's costume.

In time with the Shuffle Sisters' song, Hachi perspired as he danced the choreography perfectly and bounced around on the large sofa. His expression was so blissful that it was hard to believe he'd been angry before this.

Is he seriously...!? Joker glared intently at Hachi from behind the shelving. His earlier feelings of remorse had vanished to the far end of the universe. Instead, Joker's heart was now stewing with anger toward Hachi, who was enthusiastically enjoying himself before his eyes. I was totally agonizing over this, but it turns out he was whooping it up while I was out! There's no way I'm apologizing! Joker swore to himself. He scowled back at Hosshi nearby, who was looking blankly at him. Unbothered, Hosshi was just going to munch on some konpeito. But as it turned out, Hosshi's konpeito bottle was empty.

"Hosshi," said Hosshi. It then scooped the empty bottle onto its head and approached Hachi, who was obsessively waving his penlight at the screen. Hachi noticed and turned around.

"What's up, Hosshi? Oh, you're out of konpeito."

Hachi went towards the cabinet, pulled the key out of his pocket, and opened up the sliding doors. Hosshi's konpeito was stored there, and it was normally kept locked so that it wouldn't sneak any extra. Hachi looked into the cabinet and pulled out the stockpile of konpeito.

But all of a sudden, he didn't see Hosshi.

"Huh? Where did Hosshi go?" He looked around and spotted Hosshi eyeing a pretty plate displayed atop the shelves. It was a valuable art piece which Joker had recently taken great pains to obtain. Hosshi ate konpeito, but its favorite food was treasure.

"Not that, Hosshi! Joker-san will be angry..." As he spoke, something crossed Hachi's mind. His expression turned mischievous and he scratched his head. He must've just remembered his fight with Joker. "...Well, you can have a little treat every so often."

What!? Listening from the safety of his hiding place, Joker's eyes bulged.

"Hosshi, I didn't see a thing. I'm sure Joker-san would say it's fine for you to eat it"

"It's not fine!" Joker screeched.

Hachi turned around with a start. There was Joker in front of the shelves, an enraged look on his face. He couldn't stand it anymore and had revealed himself.

"Joker-san! ...What's up with your clothes?"

Yes, Joker was still in his Kaitou Joe disguise. Hachi had no way of knowing that this Joker was from the future, so he asked out of puzzlement.

"Oh shut up, who cares! More importantly, don't just let that pseudocat gobble up my precious treasure!"

"W-Well, I...

"That doesn't matter! I came cause I was worried and turns out you were having fun! Waving around that penlight and having the time of your life!"

"Wh- you saw that!?" Hachi's face promptly turned red from embarrassment. "It's awful of you to spy on me! That's an invasion of my privacy!"

"This is my house! You don't get privacy here!"

"What!? So you're saying I can only act how I want to when I'm in my room!?"

"Yeah, you bet!"

"I live here too, you know! I'm your helper, Joker-san!"

"Heh! If you're my helper, then try doing something to help me out for once!"

"You're the one who left me behind, Joker-san!"

"Cause you're useless! I can handle a couple little capers easy without you there!"

"Mrrrghh... Well, you can't do anything by yourself, Joker-san! Just recently I saw you going to the bathroom in the middle of the night all spooked!"

"T-That was because I was playing a scary game before bed! That was an exception, not the norm!"

"I'm not so sure about that! I'm really angry now! Hosshi, go ahead and eat this!" Hachi grabbed a necklace on display next to him and tossed it toward Hosshi.

"Hosshi♪" Hosshi gladly leapt for the necklace and instantaneously gobbled it down.

"AAAAAAAAGH! You jerk!"

"There's plenty more to chow down on!" Hachi pushed a nearby switch, unlocking the display cases in the room with a slow clatter. The priceless collection pieces inside were exposed one after another.

"Hosshi!" Hosshi joyfully dashed around the room, eating treasures left and right.

"Stop it!" Panicked, Joker chased after Hosshi. Chairs fell down, the sofa was jolted, cups crashed down from the shelves; the whole room was thrown into disarray.

"Hold it right there, pseudocat!" Joker finally grabbed hold of Hosshi and squeezed it tight.

"Hoshi hoshi hoshi!" Hosshi slipped out of Joker's grasp and then gasped, the whites of its eyes showing.

"Agh, too late!"

"Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho... HOSSHIIIII!" Hosshi jumped up, leaving an egg with a star shell lying where it had been. When Hosshi ate treasure, it laid eggs. Strangely enough, whatever came out of the egg ended up being a useful item for people in the near future.

The egg cracked open and Joker looked to see what it was.

"The heck is this? Glue?" He picked up a small bottle of adhesive. It really didn't seem like this could come in handy at the moment.

I spent so much effort getting that treasure, and now it's reduced to this...

"Hey!" Joker turned angrily toward Hachi. "This is your fault, Hachi!"

"No, it's your fault, Joker-san! You're never nice to me or Hosshi, so this is karma!"

"Oh yeah!?" Still holding the glue, Joker rushed toward Hachi. Hachi ran away into the kitchen. "Get back here, you jerk!"

Just then, it happened. The konpeito bottle was rolling around at Hachi's feet, and Hachi accidentally put all his weight on it. "W-Whoa! Waaaahhh!"

Hachi lost his balance and instinctively tried to grab onto something, which happened to be a cloth hanging in front of him. The cloth was actually a large tapestry which Joker had stolen recently. There was a large skull sculpture resting above it. When Hachi pulled down on the tapestry, it came away from the wall, and with it came the skull sculpture as well.

"Hachi!?" yelled Joker. A moment later, Hachi was lying on the ground with the tapestry fluttering over him. The skull sculpture followed, dropping down right over his head...

Donk. A loud thud came from under the tapestry.

"Hachi!" Joker frantically rushed over and shoved the tapestry aside. Under it, Hachi was knocked out cold. A bump was starting to swell just above his brow — a familiar spot.

"Ohhhh, I messed up so bad..."

Just then, a buzzer sound came from Joker's pocket where the Sigma Drive was resting. He quickly checked it and saw on the display "10 seconds left". It was already counting down.

"Shoot, it's already time to go back! Wait, right! The secret ingredient for the curry!" Joker finally remembered the reason why he'd gone back in the first place and ran into the kitchen. The curry was stewing on low heat on the stove.

Joker removed the tile hiding the secret compartment and took the black bottle from within. "This is it!" The moment after Joker grabbed the bottle, everything around him warped, his vision clouded over, and then a harsh light flashed...

"Hm, so this is it..." Hyakkimaru picked up the small black bottle and examined it closely. Joker was seated in front of him. He'd come straight over to Hyakkimaru's hideout as soon as he'd gotten the bottle.

"Yeah, apparently that's the secret ingredient Hachi put in his curry."

Joker had promptly checked the contents of the bottle upon returning to his original time period. However, it was empty inside. Hachi must have used up the last of it in his latest batch. Joker had intended to have amnesiac-Hachi tell him what would've been inside, but he was gone for some reason. This was why Hosshi had been so frantic when Joker got back.

Having lost all leads, Joker visited Hyakkimaru again. At any rate... Joker felt even more responsible than before. If he'd simply apologized to Hachi when he returned to the past, Hachi might not have forgotten. But instead Hachi hit his head again and lost his memory. And by chasing him this time, Joker had contributed to the problem.

There's gotta be some way for me to get Hachi's memory back...

"Hm... I've seen this crest design before," said Hyakkimaru, spotting the small emblem printed on the bottom of the bottle. Joker took a look for himself. True enough, there was a crest with three rectangles. "This is the Iga Ninja crest."

"The Iga?"

"Indeed. I've heard tell of a wonder herb handed down through the Iga clan. Ninjas used it to season bland rations when they were on missions in enemy territory."

"That's it... that's gotta be it!"

"But the herb is the Iga's most closely-guarded secret. They won't easily permit you to learn about it."

"Who ever said I was gonna get their permission?" Joker stood up and exclaimed. "I'm a phantom thief. I don't bother with asking, I just steal things!"

"Yes... this is for Hachi's sake. I'll lend you my aid."

"Then let's get going!"

Then, just as the two were about to step out-

"!" Hyakkimaru's eyes glinted. A split second later, something hurtled their way at high speed. He caught it.

"This is..." A messenger arrow lay in his hands. There was a scrap of paper attached around the middle of the handmade arrow. "What does it mean?"

He unfolded the paper, revealing a message written in neat and mannerly letters.

"Letter of challenge!

To Kaitou Joe-san, better known as Phantom Thief Joker.

You're a terrible person for deceiving me!

I swear I'll get revenge for this, so you better watch out!

—Fuuma Hachi"

#kaitou joker #light novel

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kaitoujokerscans · 10 months

Text

Get Back Hachi’s Memories! CH6

<6> Tricks Across Time

A warm breeze blew above the museum. The Escargot Museum was shaped like a snail shell, spiraling in from the outside. This meant that the innermost room was right in the center of the museum.

As Joker's party descended from above with Balloon Gum, the ceiling of this innermost room flipped open. Whoever had gotten there first — the Time Thief — had opened the route.

"Heh heh, so he expects us."

Joker, Queen, and Roko gently drifted down into the room, where a fully-cloaked man stood in the gloom.

"The Time Thief, I presume."

"Chu chu, I've been waiting for you... Phantom Thief Joker." The Time Thief quietly stepped to the center of the room. "Now please, hurry and procure the Gallery Box located somewhere in this room. Then I'll wind time back and take the Gallery Box for myself. Chu chu." Under the hood, the odiously laughing man gave a toothy grin.

The dimly lit room was encircled by curved walls and its floor was tiled with squares. There was nothing on the walls. Taking a glance around, there was nothing to suggest that it concealed any treasure.

"Heh heh. Time Thief! I'm not gonna let a two-bit phantom thief like you get your hands on my treasure!" Joker pointed his finger decisively. But the Time Thief just laughed his same "chu chu chu" laugh.

"It seems you haven't realized who I am..."

"Huh?"

"Joker, do you know him?"

"Nnnoooo?" Joker tilted his head.

"Chu chu. Once you see me, it'll all come back to you. Then you'll cower in terror, Phantom Thief Joker!" shouted the Time Thief, casting aside his cloak with a flourish.

From within appeared a long-haired man wearing a peculiarly-shaped cap, a haori jacket, and hakama trousers — all distinctly Japanese clothes. The blackened areas around his eyes and his long Fu Manchu moustache made the man's appearance all the more strange and conspicuous. The key which the man had stolen from Spade in the Room of Numbers was dangling from his waist.

Joker stared at him in shock — but a moment later, he was wracking his brain. "You're Nezumi Dayuu! That no-good clockwork swindler from Edo!"

"I'm no swindler! Chu chu, I still owe you for back then!"

Yes, it was Nezumi Dayuu, the very opponent who Joker and Shadow had faced when they slipped back in time. A tool called the "Sigma Drive", invented by Professor Sigma, had brought them back to the Edo period. As it happened, this was right when Nezumi Dayuu was plotting nefarious things in the city of Edo.

Nezumi Dayuu set his sights on Joker and Shadow's Sigma Drive, stole it from them, and harnessed the energy from it to create his massive clockwork monster called the "Demon Iron Dragon". When Edo was in danger of being devastated by this dragon, Joker and Shadow worked with a ninja named Ichi to protect the city. Ichi was the head of Edo's ninja and happened to be the spitting image of Hachi.

"You're here in this era!?"

"Chu chu, I was flung here at the same time as you. All because of you two fools and that ninja! Where did the ninja go!?"

"He's... not here right now!" Joker retorted without thinking. He wasn't actually referring to Ichi, but to Hachi instead. What Nezumi Dayuu said had reminded him of Hachi, and now Joker was hurting on the inside.

"Chu chu... well, that's fine. I studied the clockwork of this era. Then I succeeded in recreating the 'Sigma Drive' which sent us to this time period!" Nezumi Dayuu announced, then raised his right arm. There was a large device fastened to it. A pale green light glowed around the device. It looked like some kind of cutting-edge medical cast.

"That explains it..." Though he was from the long-past Edo period, he was still a scientist well-versed in clockwork. He must have studied modern science and engineered his own Sigma Drive. "Pretty impressive. Why didn't you use it to go back to your own time period though?"

"Chu chu, going back to Edo now would be a profound waste. With this Sigma Drive, I can go to any moment or era that I wish! I can abscond with any thief's stolen goods after the fact and gain all the treasure in the world! Chu chu chu!" Nezumi Dayuu spread his hands wide and gave an obnoxious laugh.

Joker and Queen glared at the laughing man, biting their lips.

"So you don't wanna put in the effort of getting treasure yourself."

"You're a disgrace to all phantom thieves."

Roko, who had his own pride as a phantom thief dog, also stepped forward contentiously.

The three phantom thieves brainstormed internally.

"What do we do, Joker? As soon as we figure out where the Gallery Box is, he's just going to swipe it."

"Yeah, I can't do stuff with time. But I can do stuff with miracles!"

"Miracles...?" asked Queen, puzzled. She took a glance at Joker, only to see him hold up a card and shout.

"Nezumi Dayuu, you've already lost. I already got the Gallery Box!"

"What!?" Nezumi Dayuu recoiled.

Joker grinned, then pulled a box out of his pocket. It was a beautiful rectangular box bordered with gems. Just looking at it, one could tell it was extremely valuable.

"Joker, when did you get that?"

"Heh heh, just earlier. I found it in the Room of Numbers before we came here."

"You did!?" Nezumi Dayuu exclaimed in surprise.

Queen and Roko were just as surprised. When had Joker gotten the chance to enter the Room of Numbers?

"Then you found it in one of the numbered drawers?" Roko asked curiously.

"Yeah, sure did."

"How did you find where it was, Joker?"

"Something's been on my mind for a while. This box is called 'The Golden Gallery Box'. I got to thinking, what if 'golden' didn't refer to metal?"

"It doesn't mean that it's gold?"

"Yeah. I figured it out after seeing the aerial view of this museum. You ever heard of the 'golden ratio'? It's a proportion used for trading cards, business cards, and even buildings too."

"The golden ratio?"

"That's what I said. It's about a 5:8 horizontal to vertical ratio. It's the most appealing ratio to the human eye. And the Golden Gallery Box's horizontal and vertical dimensions fit the golden ratio perfectly."

True enough, four out of the six sides of the box that Joker was holding were a perfect 5:8 ratio. It was a pleasantly-shaped design.

"So you used the golden ratio to figure out where the box was?"

"Yup. I realized that the Escargot Museum itself is structured according to the golden ratio."

"It is?"

"You can tell by looking at it from above. Putting together squares of proportionate sizes makes it so that the perimeter around the museum is a golden rectangle."

"Now I get it..." Queen and Roko thought of the floor plan they'd seen of the Escargot Museum. Sure enough, the sides of big and small squares formed the radii of the Escargot Museum's spiral.

Joker continued his explanation. "There's a rule for the size of the spiral. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... it's called the Fibonacci sequence. The numbers keep going into the thousands. 1597, 2584, 4181, and 6765 are the four-digit ones."

Floor plan of the Escargot Museum

"Four digits? That's like..." Nezumi Dayuu spoke for the first time in a while. He seemed to have hit upon something.

"You bet. It's like the room that Spade was in with the key. There are a bunch of 4-digit numbers in there. And among the Fibonacci numbers, the two that don't repeat digits are 1597 and 2584. I checked them both, and it turns out the Golden Gallery Box was inside the 1597 drawer!" Joker said, holding up the box.

"I see..." Roko pondered this. Joker's reasoning made sense, more or less. The 'golden' treasure, the spiral building which hid it, and the room filled with 4-digit numbers... That line of thinking could very likely lead one to where the treasure was located.

Yet there was something about there being two possible answers which left him not fully convinced. Would someone go through such pains to make a hiding spot only to leave two possible choices at the end? Besides, he was certain that Joker didn't have the time to go and retrieve the box...

Roko considered these things, but Nezumi Dayuu didn't. Instead he smirked.

"Chu chu, thank you for telling me. I'll just go and retrieve it now," said Nezumi Dayuu, switching on his Sigma Drive. As he started to input the time and fiddle with the dials, Joker whispered something into Queen's ear.

"Let's go, Queen!"

"Got it!"

Shouting, the pair flung themselves at Nezumi Dayuu. Joker took out his cards and Queen swung her sword.

"Chu chu chu!" Nezumi Dayuu narrowly dodged the sword slash. Joker threw his cards, and several of them hit their target — but they flopped weakly down.

"What was that!?"

"Chu chu, you were a moment too late. The Sigma Drive is now operational. My body already exists outside this time!" he shouted, and a moment later, there was a vwoom sound as Nezumi Dayuu vanished into a green glow. He had time-jumped into the past.

"......"

Unable to do a thing, Joker, Queen, and Roko stared at the empty space. By now he was in the past and had obtained the Golden Gallery Box.

Then, before they could even say anything to each other, the green light burst forth again and there stood Nezumi Dayuu. However, there was nothing in his hands.

Nezumi Dayuu glared angrily at Joker. "Chu chu, Phantom Thief Joker! You tricked me! The box wasn't in the drawer!"

"Heh heh, now you know." Once he spoke, the Gallery Box in Joker's hand inflated. A moment later, there was a loud pop as it split apart. The Gallery Box was a fake that Joker had created with Image Gum.

"I figured this wasn't gonna be easy. But now we know how the Sigma Drive works. The next time you start it up, I'm gonna steal it!"

"Hmhm, that's not good enough to thwart my Sigma Drive!" The corners of Nezumi Dayuu's mouth twitched up, and he continued. "Chu chu! Once you find the real Gallery Box, I'll jump back to the past again and steal it for certain this time!"

"Heh hehn the real thing's right here." Without missing a beat, Joker clumped over to a section of the room and bent down. It was in the exact center of the room. Taking a close look at the square floor tiles, they got gradually smaller toward the center. The one in the exact center was a tiny square about 10 centimeters wide.

Joker fingered the square tile and slowly, carefully pulled it up. Under it there was something rectangular with two square sides. It was a size smaller than the fake Joker had made. It was a beautiful box with its rectangular sides fashioned to a perfect golden ratio.

The box was simple and unpatterned, yet its sides gleamed like the surface of a lake on a breezeless day. The design seemed increasingly profound the longer one examined it.

"This is the real Golden Gallery Box. Whaddaya think, Queen? Pretty, right?" Joker held it close to his face to admire it.

"Yes... But Joker, if you reveal the hiding place just like that..."

"Chu chu, she's right!" Nezumi Dayuu swiftly flourished his Sigma Drive. "I'll go to the past immediately and steal the box!" Just as Nezumi Dayuu was about to fiddle with the Sigma Drive...

"Ice Shot!" A yell came from behind him. A moment later, the Sigma Drive on Nezumi Dayuu's arm was hit with a blue-white beam and instantly frozen.

"Chu chu chu!?" Nezumi Dayuu turned around in shock. Spade was standing behind him.

"Time Thief, otherwise known as Nezumi Dayuu. You really shouldn't underestimate us."

"Nice going, Spade," Joker grinned.

"Chu chu, Phantom Thief Spade!? How did you get out of that glass cage...!?"

"Kyo kyo, I used this to open it up." Dark Eye, standing beside him, held up a key.

"What!? T-That key...!" Nezumi Dayuu placed a hand on his waist, but there was no key hanging there. "Grr, you got it when you attacked me! But even if you stole the key, you shouldn't have had enough time to go help Spade! Just how did you...!?" Nezumi Dayuu shouted, agitated and confused.

★★★Phantom Thief Silver Heart's Explanation Corner!★★★

"Ta-daaa! How are you doing, kids? This is Phantom Thief Silver Heart's Explanation Corner, and I'll be telling you how Joker's trick worked!"

Out of nowhere popped a tall gentleman with long, glossy silver hair and upright posture. He wore a white double-breasted suit, and the silk hat atop his head was emblazoned with a pink "H".

"My name is Phantom Thief Silver Heart! I'm the trio's master, but I'm also a legendary phantom thief known as 'The Silver Magician'! If you've never heard of me, go look me up. It might be on your next test!" Silver Heart's monocle gleamed. As he chatted to nobody in particular, he turned around to face behind him. "Well, kids, have you figured out how Joker pulled it off this time? How about you, Roko?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Roko suddenly popped up next to Silver Heart. "Hello, Master. I don't quite know yet. I'm sure that Joker had to have set up some kind of trick..." Roko folded his long ears as if they were arms, then cocked his head.

"Hmm, then let me tell you. How did he get around Nezumi Dayuu using the Sigma Drive? Your hint is that he had Nezumi Dayuu jump to the past once before."

"Uh-huh. Nezumi Dayuu did time-jump to get the fake Gallery Box. Did Joker set up his trick in the meantime?"

"Yes, he did! Before Nezumi Dayuu started up the Sigma Drive, Joker and Queen tried to attack him. Remember how Joker whispered something to Queen right before that?"

"He did, didn't he...?" Roko thought back. Joker had definitely told Queen something.

"Joker told her to go for the key. Queen cut off the key from where it hung on Nezumi Dayuu's waist, then Joker used Image Gum to place it back on his person."

"He replaced the key? Why would he do that?"

"To get it to Dark Eye."

"Huh? Then... he carried the key back himself and brought it to Dark Eye in the past!?" Roko exclaimed, the truth finally dawning on him.

"Yes, that's right. Joker stuck the key to Nezumi Dayuu with gum. Oblivious to this, Nezumi Dayuu traveled back to the past, went to the Room of Numbers, and opened the drawer. Joker rigged it so that in that amount of time, the key would fall off of him. The key dropped onto the floor of the Room of Numbers, and Nezumi Dayuu returned to the time he was previously in..." Silver Heart explained, and Roko picked up where he left off.

"So the key that was left behind appeared in the Room of Numbers where Spade was trapped. Dark Eye used that key to free him."

"Exactly!"

"That makes sense. So Joker purposely made Nezumi Dayuu use the Sigma Drive so he could get Spade out!"

"That's the long and short of it. Mm, well done! Now that's what I expect from my disciples!" shouted Silver Heart, and with a flourish of his cape, he disappeared to who-knows-where.

"Chu chu, so that's how you did it... That's why you intentionally had me go to the past..." Nezumi Dayuu muttered bitterly.

"Yup. If Spade got free, he could use his Ice Shot. And then you wouldn't be able to activate your Sigma Drive!" Joker exclaimed, then threw cards at Nezumi Dayuu. The cards hit the frozen Sigma Drive, releasing the clasp which fastened it. The Sigma Drive fell onto the tiled floor.

Spade picked up the Sigma Drive and tossed it over to Joker. "You owe me one, Joker."

"Heh heh. I'll pay you back when you've forgotten about it. 'Kay then, the Sigma Drive is mine now!" Joker held up the Sigma Drive and grinned.

"Chu chu chu... I won't forgive you for this, Joker! I swear I'll travel through time again and make you kowtow at my feet!" Nezumi Dayuu spat out his last words. He spread open a clockwork flight device which had been hidden under his cloak and flew up into the sky. Soon enough he vanished into the dark of the night.

"Heh heh, I'll be waiting! Anyway..." Joker examined the Sigma Drive closely and gave a mischievous smile. "Y'know, I could do a lot with this thing."

"Hold it. I didn't help just so you could pull pranks," Queen warned him. Joker nodded with a serious look.

"Yeah, I know. All right, let's head back so I can try this thing out!" said Joker, twirling his cape. Then in his place stood Kaitou Joe in a navy blue jacket.

"Wha..." Hachi let out a small exclamation as he watched the tablet screen. He was in the Sky Joker's living room and had been watching the entire time as Phantom Thief Joker trounced Nezumi Dayuu.

But just now, Joker had disguised himself as Hachi's acquaintance, "Kaitou Joe"...

"Joe-san was... Phantom Thief Joker...? He deceived me..." Hachi's shoulders trembled as he glared fixedly at the screen. His eyes weren't passive like usual. Instead, they were filled with bridled rage. "Unforgivable..."

Hachi set down the tablet and slowly got to his feet.

#kaitou joker #light novel

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kaitoujokerscans · 10 months

Text

Get Back Hachi’s Memories! CH5

<5> Enter the Time Thief!

"Kyo kyo!" came a peculiar shriek from the darkness.

"It's okay, Dark Eye. The lights just went out," Spade said in a reassuring voice next to them.

Dark Eye — tall, suited up, and head wrapped in bandages — clung to Spade. They were Spade's assistant and regularly accompanied him, faithfully carrying out his orders, but they could be timid sometimes. Under the disguise was a girl named Ai, who was the eldest member of a sibling idol trio called the Shuffle Sisters.

Spade turned on a flashlight to illuminate their footing. Apparently the power had gone out and the building had switched to emergency backup. Spade and Dark Eye were wearing glasses which could detect infrared beams. The two of them had entered the Escargot Museum after closing time, just as promised.

The Escargot Museum was, just as its outer appearance suggested, a somewhat unusual building. All of the hallways were curved. The passages twisted and turned without following a set route. The museum building itself was created as a piece of art. It had been constructed on a whim by a wealthy eccentric who later sold it off in its entirety, so it had odd gimmicks set up across its rooms.

In order to view the treasure displayed at the innermost area, the Golden Gallery Box, one would have to make it through the mazelike passages and reach the room at the very end. For this reason, very few guests had been able to see the treasure at all. A phantom thief trying to steal the treasure would find it even more challenging.

But the challenge was part of what made thieving so fun. Like Joker, the greater the obstacle Spade faced, the more motivated he was to overcome it. Nevertheless, there was one thing which concerned him: the Time Thief who had been sowing chaos all over lately.

A few days ago, Spade had gone to Mister Kaneari's mansion to scope it out for a job. Mister Kaneari was unveiling the treasure at a party, so he was going to get a preliminary look there, but as soon as Kaneari took the treasure out to flaunt it, it vanished like smoke. Kaneari was furious and was demanding to know where the treasure had gone, but it simply couldn't be found. This was evidently the work of this rumored Time Thief, but even though Spade had been present in person, he still couldn't figure out the trick that was used.

If he shows up here, I'll have to be on high alert...

Paying attention to his surroundings, Spade made his way to a small gallery room. This spot was called "The Room of Numbers", and the key hidden in this room was necessary to advance to the area where the Gallery Box was displayed.

There weren't any infrared beams here. The pair took off their glasses and turned on the lights.

"All right then..." Spade spun around and took a better look. As the room's name suggested, there was a large array of random four-digit numbers written all along the entire wall. Each one of them was a panel-like drawer. The key was probably inside one of these drawers.

Spade's gaze shifted to the sign standing in the center of the room.

"Open the drawer which cannot become 10 as an integer."

"......" Spade carefully regarded the words.

"Kyo kyo, what does it mean?" Dark Eye turned to Spade with a confused look.

"Hmm..." Spade set his chin on his hand and was about to say something. Then a soft breeze blew in and he sensed a presence behind him.

Spade turned around, his yellow crest swooshing around. There stood a man shrouded in a black cloak. The cloak covered his face entirely, making it too dark to make out the face behind.

"Kyo kyo!"

"Chu chu!" In response to Dark Eye's exclamation, a strange cry came from the cloak.

"You're..."

"Chu chu. We meet for the first time, Phantom Thief Spade." He sounded like he was puffing up his cheeks and wheezing out air as he spoke. A man's shrill voice rang from under the cloak.

Spade kept his distance from the man and asked him, "Are you... the Time Thief?"

"Chu chu, am I? If that is what I am being called, then I must be. I'm quite unfamiliar with the ways of this world." The Time Thief spoke in vague terms, trying to mystify Spade.

Nevertheless, Spade remained unruffled. "The other day, I had the pleasure of seeing you successfully steal a treasure. But the Gallery Box is all mine. You won't get your hands on it that easily!"

"Chu chu... will all go as well as you hope, though?" the Time Thief responded shrewdly. "There is but one thing I can say. You will find yourself outwitted by me."

"Oh, so that's how you want to play it. You're challenging me."

"Chu chu, whoever solves the riddle written on the sign first is the winner. How does that suit you?"

"That's perfect. But you're a step behind. The match is over already. Because I've already solved this room's riddle!"

"What!?" The Time Thief drew back in surprise.

"Kyo kyo! Really, Spade-sama?"

"Heh heh, of course." Spade brushed his crest of hair up triumphantly, regarding the four-digit numbers surrounding them as he spoke. "Dark Eye, are you familiar with the 10 game?"

"Kyo kyo? The 10 game, you said?"

"Yes. It's a puzzle where you have a sequence of 4 numbers, such as "1234" or "5678", and have to equate them to 10 using only basic + - × ÷ operators and parentheses. There are versions that include 0s or repeat digits, but all the numbers here are composed of different values from 1 to 9."

"Kyo kyo, now that you say it..." Dark Eye looked around and saw that the numbers on the wall were things like "5937" and "9627" which didn't repeat digits.

"Almost all of these numbers can form 10. For example, 5937 would be 5 + 9 + 3 - 7 = 10, and 9627 would be 9 ÷ (6 ÷ 2) + 7 = 10. But among all these combinations, there's one that's special," Spade said and walked briskly over to a specific number. Right in front of him was the number "3478".

"3478 is the only combination that can't equate to 10 by the conventional rules."

"Oho..." The Time Thief let out a low whisper.

"Kyo kyo! Really, Spade-sama?" Dark Eye promptly tried it out for themself. They thought of different ways to solve it, but no matter if the digits were added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided, they never became 10.

"Of course, if you do something like 7 ÷ 4 and use decimals, it's possible to get 10. But the riddle says 'as an integer', so this is the only combination that can't equate to 10."

"Kyo kyo! Which means that number is..."

"Yes, exactly." Spade pushed in the 3478 plate, which then sprung back and opened up a drawer. He put his hand inside, then gave a small laugh. When he drew his hand back out, there was an old key in his grip. "This is the answer. How's that for you, Time Thief?" Spade turned back to face the Time Thief.

But under his hood, the Time Thief just cackled with a little smile. "I see now. Well done, Phantom Thief Spade. I doubt I would have been able to solve this 10 game. I must applaud you for coming up with the answer, and so quickly at that."

"Looks like I've won this match."

"Heh heh, that remains to be seen. Thank you for telling me the answer...!" Then the Time Thief fiddled with something under his cloak.

"What are you doing?" Spade glared at the Time Thief suspiciously. Just at that moment, there came a vwoom sound like something bursting, and the Time Thief was enveloped in a green light. An instant later, something strange happened.

In the blink of an eye, the Time Thief had vanished from sight!

"Kyo kyo!"

"He's not here!?"

Astonished, the pair looked all around. But the cloaked man who had just been there was now gone without a trace.

"How can that be!?" Just as Spade let out a cry of alarm, there came another bursting sound from the same spot, and green light spilled forth. The next moment, there was the Time Thief again.

"Chu chu!"

"Wha-!?"

They stared at him in a daze, and then something even more unbelievable happened. The Time Thief stretched his right hand out from under his cloak, and in it was the key which Spade had just found!

"What!?"

"Kyo kyo!?"

Spade swiftly checked his hand. The key that had just been in his grasp was no longer there.

"...H-How did you do that!?"

"Hmm, I wonder how indeed?" The Time Thief smiled from under his cloak. "Chu chu, I'll give you one hint. I didn't solve the riddle on my own. You're the one who solved it. I was able to get the key... because you told me the answer."

"Say what...!?"

What's going on here...? Spade was at a total loss.

"Chu chu, it's simple. After I heard your explanation, I wound time back to before you entered the room and then stole the key for myself. Consequently, you weren't the one who found the key — I did. I changed the past and the present changed along with it."

"What the..."

"Kyo kyo, you really reversed time...?"

Somehow, the Time Thief had traveled through time. Once he gained intel in the present, he returned to the past and changed events with his foreknowledge of what would happen. He had used this method to steal a good number of treasures.

"I get it... that's why you had me explain the answer to the riddle."

"Chu chu, exactly."

"Ghh... Even so, I'm not backing down without a fight!" Spade pulled his gun out of its holster and pointed it at the Time Thief. "Ice Shot!"

Ice Shot was Spade's trademark move. He could freeze anything with the beams fired from his gun and stop them from moving — but not this time. Spade's fired beam collided with something in front of him and was deflected.

"What!?"

The Time Thief spoke calmly. "Chu chu, I neglected to mention this. When I reversed time, I also activated the anti-intruder traps. You're currently surrounded by reinforced glass."

"I am!?"

"Kyo kyo, Spade-sama!" Dark Eye tried to approach Spade, but there was a thick pane of glass all around him. No matter how hard they pounded on it, all it did was make a muffled noise.

"Chu chu, just wait there patiently. You can't undo the trap without this key! Fare thee well!" said the Time Thief. Then he inserted the key into the door leading further in, and turned it with a clink. The door creaked open, and with his cloak twirling around him, the Time Thief walked down the hallway and faded from sight.

As all of this happened, a set of eyes had been watching Spade.

From the ceiling peeked out a large, 20-centimeter-tall doll which looked just like Joker. It was called "Mini Joker", and it was Joker's recon drone. The real Joker was in the Sky Joker's living room with Queen and Roko, watching the video feed on a tablet.

"Geez, Spade was sloppy with that one. Anyway, the Time Thief really did manipulate time, didn't he..."

"Yes. Even if you solve the riddle or steal the treasure, he can just go back to the past and rewrite it. There's no way of getting around him."

"Spade's Ice Shot might've been able to freeze him, but..."

Roko and Queen pondered and puzzled.

"But if you had that ability, you might be able to go back to the past and figure out what the secret ingredient for Hachi-kun's curry is."

"Well really, it's the only option. There's no other way to know what's in the past."

Roko and Queen turned back to face Joker. When he'd explained to them about Hachi's memory loss, they'd told him, "Oh, all right. We'll help you out this time."

"Then let's go steal that ability! I already sent out advance notice."

As if he had something in mind, Joker whistled jauntily and stood up. He swiftly reverted from "Kaitou Joe" back into "Phantom Thief Joker"'s outfit. With Queen and Roko alongside him, he leapt out of the Sky Joker.

—But Joker had made one mistake. He hadn't switched off the tablet.

"Joe-san, let's have some tea♪"

Hachi had finished cleaning and arrived in the living room just after Joker and company left.

"Oh? Is he not here? ...Hm?" Hachi's eyes caught sight of the tablet sitting on the living room table, still switched on. On the screen was a live feed of the Escargot Museum, where Joker was about to enter.

#kaitou joker #light novel

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kaitoujokerscans · 10 months

Text

Get Back Hachi’s Memories! CH4

<4> The Secret Curry Seasoning

Hachi, full name Fuuma Hachi, was a ninja born in Japan.

Nobody knows for sure when the first ninjas came about. The word ninja literally means "one who hides", which makes them difficult to trace through history. One theory is that ninja were first employed during Prince Shotoku's reign in the sixth century. Back then they were called shinobi, "heralds of good news", and the name for them changed over time.

Ninja started to gain notoriety in the Sengoku period. They were valuable assets for generals in need of fleet-footed men. In the Edo period, the primary role of ninja switched to espionage. The bakufu engaged them as mercenaries and sent them all across the country. They spied on the secrets of daimyo and gathered local intelligence. Some even say that the famous poet Matsuo Basho, who composed haiku during his travels through the interior of the country, was himself a ninja.

There are multiple schools of ninjutsu, the most famous of them being the Iga, the Koga, and the Fuuma. Hachi belonged to this last group. In the present day, the different schools intermingle. When Hachi was a child, he went to Ninjutsu School to learn the basics of ninja arts. During his time there, he met Koga Hyakkimaru of the Koga clan. Hyakkimaru was in a higher grade than Hachi. Hachi was a poor student and a crybaby, but Hyakkimaru always came to his aid.

A few hours later, the Sky Joker reached the airspace over Koga Village. A great tree which served as an icon of the ninja village grew at the center of a vast forest, and beside it stood a gigantic castle. However, there were no classic shachihoko ornaments decorating the roof. Joker had stolen the golden shachihoko in a previous caper.

Joker, presently Kaitou Joe, parked the Sky Joker next to the castle. He could've just descended from above with Balloon Gum, but then Hachi might've figured out his identity.

The two of them headed for Hyakkimaru's hideout in the forest.

There were ropes and cords strung all across and between the forest trees, like some kind of obstacle course. This area was probably used as a ninja training ground. After a while, they spotted a large oak tree. There was a small, inconspicuous shack halfway up its trunk. This was Hyakkimaru's hideout.

When the pair arrived, Hyakkimaru had just finished his regimen and was catching his breath.

"It's been so long, Hyakkimaru-san!"

"Well, if it isn't Hachi! Good of you to visit," greeted Hyakkimaru with a natural smile which showed off his fangs. A Koga mask rested upon his blazing red hair, and he wore a light yellow haori above his grassy green ninja gear. Two ninja blades, his weapons of choice, sat crossed over his back.

"Here's a little something for you!" Hachi promptly handed over a wrapped-up bento box. Hyakkimaru lifted the lid and found chikuwa fish cakes like the kind used in oden packed inside.

"Oh, you remembered my favorite! Let me try one now." Hyakkimaru picked up a chikuwa and put it in his mouth. He chewed it, savoring the flavor, and a look of happiness broke out on his face. "Indeed, it's flavorful to the core. You've gotten even better at this, Hachi."

"Thank you!" Hachi also broke out into a smile. The whole room was filled with a warm and genial atmosphere like they were back in their school days. Meanwhile, next to Hachi, Joker as Kaitou Joe was just sitting idly cross-legged.

"I didn't expect you to visit all of a sudden. So what brings you here, Joker?"

"Ah...!" Joker tried to cover up what he was saying, but it was too late.

"Joker, you say!?" Hachi instantly stood up, gripped the hilt of his sword and scanned the room with eagle eyes. "Where are you, Joker!?"

"Huh? What are you talking about, Hachi? Joker's right in front-" Hyakkimaru started to say, confused. In a heartbeat, Joker pointed to outside the window.

"AH, there he is! Up on that tree, there's someone that looks like Joker!"

"Really!?" Hachi ran up to the window and put a hand to his brow, scrutinizing the outside. "Looks like he's not there anymore..."

"Agh, he must've gotten away..." Joker acted disappointed.

Hachi lamented. "Good grief, that fiend makes a fast getaway. The next time I spot him, I'll chase after!"

"Y-Yeah, you do that..."

Seeing Joker and Hachi's unnatural behavior, Hyakkimaru's ninja instinct picked up that something was wrong. He turned to Joker and probed for details. "It seems there's more going on here than meets the eye. Could you tell me about it?"

A few minutes later, Hyakkimaru and Joker were left by themselves in the shack. Hyakkimaru had asked Hachi to go relay a message to the other Koga ninjas. Hachi was more than willing to oblige, saying that he was excited to see them all after so long.

Joker took a sip of the tea that Hyakkimaru had brewed and exhaled.

"So what's going on? Why does Hachi think you're not Joker?" Hyakkimaru asked.

Joker told him everything, how yesterday he left for a job in the middle of an argument and came back to find Hachi concussed and unconscious. How he seemed to forget all about Joker, except for how mad he was at him.

"I see, so that's what happened..."

"This whole thing's turned into a massive pain to deal with. Hachi said that he hit his head and lost his memory before, and you were the one who fixed him up that time."

"Right, that makes sense. I remember that happening..." Hyakkimaru folded his arms and traced his memory. "That was back when we were in Ninjutsu School, during a test where we had to deliver a coded message. Hachi fell from a high place and hit his head. He forgot the message he was tasked with. He'd fail the test if he didn't remember, so I jogged his memory."

"That's it! I want you to tell me how you did it."

"Hm..." Hyakkimaru closed his eyes and thought deep.

"How can I get Hachi's memory back to normal!?"

"It's probably not a matter of Hachi losing his memory, but rather that it's repressed. For some reason or another, he's lost track of it. Think of it like a cabinet drawer that's gotten jammed and can't be opened. In order to use the ninja art that will unearth his repressed memory, he'll need to be reminded of what he was doing immediately before the triggering event."

"Immediately before?"

"Yes, but from what you've told me, that may be difficult."

"How so?" Joker asked Hyakkimaru intently.

"Hachi was by himself when he lost his memory. Which means that Hachi himself would be the only one who knows what he was doing at that time..."

"Oof, I get what you mean..." Then Joker had a sudden thought. "Ah! But Hachi was in the middle of making and taste-testing the curry for dinner!"

"Hm, is that so... Something unexpected must have happened while he was cooking, which made him hit his head. It may be that the only necessary step to jog his memory is to have him taste curry."

"Yeah! Curry!"

"But it'll have to be a curry that tastes exactly the same as before..."

"Ha ha, that's easy. I just have to ask Hachi to make the curry again!" Joker stood up, full of optimism.

When Hachi returned to the Sky Joker, he was in an exceptionally good mood. "Well, I'm really glad I got to visit everyone again!" His round face was full of cheer, and per Joker's request, he started making curry for dinner.

But when Hachi tasted the finished curry, he tilted his neck. "Hmm..."

"What is it?"

"Something's off... I feel like there was a secret ingredient..."

Joker took a taste for himself. True enough, it wasn't Hachi's usual curry. It felt like it was missing something. "Yeah..."

"That's strange."

"You don't remember what you put in?"

"Hmm, I don't know..."

Apparently hitting his head had made him forget the secret ingredient, too. He wouldn't be able to recreate the same curry like this.

That evening, exhausted after chatting with his old friends, Hachi turned in early. Later at night, Joker stood alone in the kitchen.

"All righty..."

Joker lifted up the lid of the curry pot. There was still plenty of curry left. If he asked Hachi too many questions, he'd get suspicious as to what he was up to. Thus Joker decided to figure out the secret ingredient on his own.

That said, he always left the cooking to Hachi, so he had no clue what the ingredient could possibly be, nor did he really know what things were kept where in the kitchen.

"Well, whatever. I can just try putting everything in, yeah?"

—A few hours later, Joker was stretched out on the couch, exhausted. After that, Joker had divided Hachi's curry into little saucers and added everything in the kitchen into different ones to test which one was the secret ingredient. Condiments, vegetables, meat, fish, even candy — he'd tried them all, but each time he tasted the result, his tongue met with a disagreeable flavor. Very few of them had actually been edible. He hadn't gotten any closer to Hachi's usual curry flavor. In fact, he was getting further away from curry that tasted any good at all. For the first time ever, Joker was intensely rueful that he'd never lifted a finger to help with cooking.

In time, he was down to one saucer of Hachi's curry that hadn't been altered. He couldn't risk any more failures.

"Agh, what should I dooo"

Joker was completely fed up at this point. He rolled onto the couch and started crunching down on potato chips that had been left over after he tried adding some to the recipe. On the outside, this just looked like typical bored Joker behavior, but inside, he was distressed.

If he couldn't recreate Hachi's curry, then he couldn't jog Hachi's memory with the method Hyakkimaru had described. In turn, that meant Hachi would keep hating Joker.

No, it was okay if Hachi still held a grudge. What disturbed Joker more than anything else was that Hachi had forgotten him entirely.

Hachi probably resented Joker because of the fight they'd had right before he left, and that emotion still remained. Joker could accept his anger over that. They could argue all they wanted, and they could get emotionally charged at each other.

But now, they couldn't even do that.

If all the time they'd spent together, all the fun and frustration and sadness, all the many fights they'd had — if Hachi didn't remember any of that, then they'd remain only in Joker's memories. As if they were something that had only happened in a dream, fading from existence. It would forever feel like something was missing from his life.

The thought alone pricked at his heart, filling him with pain.

As a consequence of his profession, Joker was hated by a lot of people. He thought he was used to the feeling. But he hadn't realized how much it hurt to be forgotten...

Under normal circumstances he wouldn't think this at all, but he didn't care if Hachi hated him, as long as he just remembered. Internally bargaining, Joker rolled over. The bag of potato chips was empty before he even realized.

Hm...?

I wasn't eating that fast, right? he thought, picking up his head. From the far side of the table, he heard the sound of someone crunching on chips.

"Mmm, these potato chips are tasty. I just can't restrain myself."

"Queen, you shouldn't have too many midnight snacks."

"!?" Joker jumped to his feed. Sitting at the table in front of him was Queen, munching on chips.

"Q-Queen! And Roko too!"

"Good evening."

"Pardon the intrusion, Joker," replied the white dog named Roko who was next to Queen. Roko was a super dog who had been genetically engineered to be able to speak, and was Queen's partner phantom thief dog. He was always calm and collected and kept Queen in check. He also lived at Silver Heart's house.

"W-What are you guys here for!?"

"Come on, you heard me announce myself. I told you I was coming in."

"Huh? You did?"

"We came in through the normal entrance and landed our plane in the hangar like always."

"Seriously? I didn't notice at all..."

"No duh, Joker. You're not in your usual outfit and you've just been zoned out on the couch looking at the ceiling. The kitchen reeks of something weird, so I was worried you'd performed an arcane ritual and something'd gone wrong."

"Hard to believe you were worried when you're snacking on my potato chips!"

"But I was hungry! You didn't respond at all anyway, so I figured you wouldn't mind sharing. So what's with the getup?"

"This...? Nothing special."

"Whatever floats your boat, I guess."

Joker was being close-lipped, but Queen didn't even seem to mind. She cleaned the chip grease off her fingers with a wet wipe.

"Again, what are you here for?" Joker scowled at Queen, irritated.

"The thing I was calling you about. You said you were busy and just hung up. I didn't want you pulling that again, so I just came in person."

"Right... that happened." He'd been so focused on Hachi that he'd forgotten all about the calls from Queen and Spade. Queen had been telling him about...

"Didn't you say something about a weird phantom thief?"

As soon as Joker brought it up, Queen leaned way forward and pouted in annoyance. "Yeah! I swear, it was SOOO frustrating!" She picked up and skillfully swung the humongous sword beside her, slamming it on top of the table. This greatsword made of diamond was Queen's weapon of choice. "I was at an art museum in the Caribbean not too long ago to steal a treasure. The 'Striped Brooch', you know the one!"

"Yeah, you told me about it before."

Queen had lately been coveting a treasure called the "Striped Brooch". It was a unique gemstone brooch with striations. It had been found in ancient Incan ruins, but its monetary value wasn't as much as its ostentatious appearance suggested, so Joker had passed it up.

"And then! I came across him in the storage room!"

"Him being?"

"The Time Thief!"

"The time thief?" Joker echoed with wide eyes. He'd never heard the name.

"That's not his actual name, though. He's been showing up all over the place lately, and he's called that because of his strange abilities." Just thinking back on the incident made Queen clench her fists.

"He's got strange abilities?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. I had so much trouble getting to that brooch and stealing it, but all of a sudden it wasn't in my possession anymore!"

"Huh? That doesn't make sense."

"I'm telling you, he stole the brooch from me before I even knew it!"

"You must've let your guard down, Queen. He could've just nicked it off you while you were distracted."

"That's not what happened," interjected Roko, who had kept quiet so far. "I was looking. Queen definitely had the brooch. But all of a sudden, it was gone."

"Gone?"

"As soon as we noticed it wasn't there, the Time Thief right in front of us was holding Queen's treasure instead."

"W-Wait a second here. You guys were there with this Time Thief guy?" Joker asked.

Queen folded her arms indignantly. "Yeah. But what's really bizarre is that when we went into the storage room, nobody else was there. But it was like he was just waiting around for us to take the treasure. The moment I got the brooch in my hands, he showed up out of thin air."

"For real...?" Joker was beginning to take some interest in this strange phantom thief. "The treasure just vanished right in front of your eyes? Both of you?"

"Yes. I was definitely holding the treasure. But he did something and then the next instant, it went poof. Then he said, 'The item you just obtained has now come into my possession by rewinding time.'"

"The heck..."

"After that, he said 'I can manipulate time.' Word for word."

"Time...?"

"Exactly. He has some strange ability that lets him manipulate time. That's why he's being called the Time Thief," Roko said in the same solemn tone. The way he spoke, it sounded like he was only half-convinced and was trying to persuade himself.

"It really is weird. It wasn't any sleight of hand. I don't understand what he did..."

"A phantom thief who can rewind time, huh..."

Then something lit up in Joker's head. Like a single shaft of light filtering through a pitch dark forest, a ray of hope beamed into his mind. In an instant, a fantastic idea gave him a jolt of energy.

"That's it!" Joker jumped to his feet and exclaimed.

"Huh?" Queen and Roko looked at Joker in surprise.

"If he can rewind time, he can go to the past, right!? Which means I can figure out what happened!"

"Uh... you could, yeah."

"If his ability is the real thing, yes."

"It's real! I mean, it has to be real, or I'm screwed! If I can take advantage of his ability and go to the past, I can figure out the curry's secret ingredient!"

"The curry's?"

"Secret ingredient?"

Queen and Roko vocalized in sequence, more confused than ever.

Yes, Joker had come up with an idea. He would investigate the secret ingredient for Hachi's curry by using the Time Thief's ability to go to the past. If he could just go to the moment when Hachi was making the curry, he could know for sure what he'd added to the recipe!

Joker marveled at his own brilliance. He turned to Queen and asked, "So where's this Time Thief guy!? Phantom Thief Joker is gonna head straight to him and steal his ability!"

"Um..."

"I'm not certain he'll show up today, but..." Roko began to say, then used his ears to push buttons on the TV remote. The television turned on to the UNN channel. DJ Peacock was there on screen, screeching in his usual garish manner.

"Good evening, everyone! This is DJ Peacock! And today, we've caught wind of an advance notice from Phantom Thief Spade!"

"Tonight, I'll come to take the Golden Gallery Box from the Escargot Museum.

--Phantom Thief Spade"

The screen showed an image of the Escargot Museum. As the name suggested, it was a curious piece of architecture modeled after the shell of a snail lying on its side.

"Wow, looks like Phantom Thief Spade's on the job tonight. The so-called Time Thief has been up to no good lately, and if Phantom Thief Joker or somebody else shows up, it'll be all the more chaotic. We can expect some heart-pounding and stimulating developments from this!"

Joker switched off the television and stood boldly. "Ask for stimulation and you'll receive! Just you wait, Time Thief!"

The gloom clouding his eyes dissipated, making room once more for an optimistic gleam.

#kaitou joker #light novel

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