Sowing Confusion and Other Explosions

“What is happening?!” The old man shouted as he rushed outside the building from earlier with the expedition’s group on his back. There were no clear signs of what had caused the noise from earlier, but most of the villagers outside were too focused on moving around with buckets to answer. Only after some moments that a man in working attire stopped by.

“Elder! Something happened with the clothier… I don't know why, but something in it blew up. Parts of the room are in flames, but no one was inside at the time.”

“It happened for no reason? Was someone using the machine earlier?”

“Jimmy was there as usual earlier, but he finished his turn a good while ago…”

“Something is wrong here. For the machine to malfunction suddenly like this…” The elder continued with a pensive expression that was now turned to the expedition watching him from a little afar. “Do any of you have anything to do with it? You six are the only abnormalities I can think of.”

Amy could feel some eyes on her almost right away, and one of these pairs of eyes even had a good idea of what this was about. A certain lawyer that was close by on the other occasion that something blew up before… Not that she would acknowledge any of them.

“Is ‘maybe’ a valid answer?” She answered right as her partner sighed. “I mean, I did play around with the power plant, you know? How would I know it would cause trouble without taking super long to look around everything?”

“Sometimes I’m sure you’re half the reason why we can’t have a calm assignment…” Lily sighed again at her partner’s excuse. “But since you’re the only reason we can even finish the assignments the other half, then I guess it’s fair.”

“Can you younglings explain what you’re talking about?” The elder that initiated the conversation asked out with an understanding look.

“So, we had to start this machine, you see? It was out of power and everything, but there was this big power plant around. So, I strapped some cables on it and got some power out of the distribution center... I would like to have a look on this ‘machine’ of yours before being sure if one thing had anything with the other, though. It is hard to be sure like this, you know?”

“An accident… Go take a look then. And here...” He gave the beaten book he brought with the tea set to Lily while giving permission for her partner to investigate their important machine. “Take this manual as a token. It’s useless for me, but it’s probably the only thing you people would find value here.”

“Thanks, I guess.” The ex-cop took the book with an unsure expression, but soon turned back to her partner and the more pressing matters. “Move on, Amy. We don’t have forever still…”

“Ay, ay, ma’am! It shall not take more than…” Amy tried to accept her new orders, but her words were cut short by another explosion, although this one seemed to be very far away. “Maybe messing with that reactor was a bad choice…”

“If you managed to predict something like this, then I would need to interrogate you for real, Amy... At least as long as you took enough care to not risk the reactor itself blowing up. Something you did, right?”

“Why would I pay attention like… I mean! I did it for sure! Imagine messing with a dangerous thing like an old power plant without taking all precautions, right?” Amy played around even though both she and her partner knew very well that she would never risk something like this. “Anyway, I think I will hurry to the power plant and unplug the things I left there.”

“We’ll try to help around here and look around while at it. This place seems to be more interesting to our goals than expected...” The other idol gave her side of the plan and turned to the others, noticing while at it that only the twins were around. “Anyone against it? Or actually… Where’s Benjamin and Henrique?”

“Lawyer guy stayed in the room from earlier. I guess he was tired of running around.” Kuro answered before turning to the collection of faucets where many villagers were filling buckets to solve the initial problem. “Teach is there, though. I think he decided to help with the firefighting or something…”

“He seems more worried than the villagers even…”

“He has his reasons, so that’s fine, I think. I’m more worried that I don’t have much to do here…” The black-haired twin turned from her sister to the elder waiting by their side with a pleading expression. “Do you people have any weird machine for me to play around with, old man? Something you wouldn’t bother breaking would be better too…”

“Really, Kuro? I mean, really?!” Her sister called out even before the surprised old man could react, but his reaction wasn’t too far from Shiro’s either way. How flabbergasted they two were was only furthered by how Lily was holding her temples in tiredness.

The only person that didn’t seem to notice the problem in there was Amy, but she was more on the line of not caring too much at all.

“C’mon! You at least have that huge book to work with, but now that I’m done with the translator thingy, I don’t have much to do! Heck, by now I’m even close to asking for Amy to take me with her…”

“Then why not come with me?” The pink girl that was somewhat quiet until now finally spoke up even if her tone was more of boredom than anything else. “Messing with the reactor is not a good idea, but I am sure there is something around there that would call your attention. Things were blowing up at some point, so there must be something there…”

She stopped a moment to glance at her partner in a way that, although not capable of sending her a message, made the ex-cop notice that something was up. It was also weird that Amy was acting this bored considering that they were still live, so Lily’s head started to spin on the reason for such.

Neither of them was showing anything of the king in their expressions or actions, though. All were instead focused only on hearing the more energetic twin’s answer.

“That’s… That’s fair actually. Not exactly what I was expecting to do, but we can find something more interesting around. Any problem with it, you both?”

“I don’t see a problem with it,” Lily answered without thinking much about it due to how little importance the idea seemed to have. “Just stay safe and don’t mess around too much… You’ll be the more responsible part of the duo overall.”

“I’ll make a good funeral for you, Kuro.”

“Wait, wait, wait! Now that I think about it...”

“Too late. I am taking you with me now.” Amy interrupted the second-guessing of the twin interested in machines and then started to pull her away from the group. “I recommend you look well at that book, Lily. I may be able to add a theory or two now that I could look around a little, but I am sure that will explain a lot more. And I would love it if you could answer any questions my partner has, Mr. Elder… Now then, bye-bye!”

She also made sure to nod her head towards the professor that had just entered the room in which the fire should be and then left a little message to her partner before turning away. Kuro was still complaining and the others couldn’t react much as she moved away as fast as she came back from her next escapade.

But as she did so, her partner finally remembered where she went before in the first place.

“Stop right there, Amy!” The purple idol called her pink counterpart and then watched as she slowly turned around with an expression of fake confusion. “The kid’s mother. What happened to her?”

“Oh, that was this thing, right?” The twin being pushed from behind connected the little dots, even if she was yet to understand why bring it now. “You killed her or anything? Or was it something you only needed to throw some antibiotics and call it a day?”

“You’re still thinking that this place is way beyond it really is, Kuro…” Shiro sighed while hiding her face over what her sister was saying. Even the elder staying quiet by everyone’s side had a weird explanation in his face as he could get what the black-haired woman was saying.

“We do have proper medicine, young ladies. Nothing that could deal with Alissa’s sickness, though.” The elder added in a somewhat sad tone. “It’s not common, but she’s only another one being afflicted by what we call ruin sickness. We have someone hit by it every few months, and there’s little we can do… It is not something our ancestors knew about or had any records, so we can only accept it.”

“It is not something so big, everyone. I mean, the problem here is that you people are playing with something too old to be solved easily.” Amy explained even though she only had a very surface-level understanding of the situation. “I can solve it with idol magic, but I do not really know how it works, you see? I can do a lot of things I cannot really explain, so why we do not leave at that?”

“So that’s how it is… I guess bringing expensive medicine was reasonable at the end of the day.” Lily dodged the subject even if her eyes were saying that she would be asking a lot more from her partner later. “We can talk more about it later, though. Go solve the current problem before we end up with a nuclear leak or something worse.”

“And that I shall! By the way, the lady in the faraway house should be waking up soon, by the way. Please do try and see if she is doing fine when she does…”

Then, as if fleeing again, Amy went back to pushing the black-haired student away under the tired sigh of her partner and the confusion of the twins. Only the elder was a little different from the others as he seemed to be thinking very deeply about something.

Before anyone could speak again, though, and while watching the back of the pink idol hurrying to the narrow exits of the village, another explosion rang on the ears of everyone. Another explosion that made Lily sigh in a mix of tiredness and worry, as she instead turned around and headed to the huge room from earlier.

“Let us start on that documents and hope Amy can deal with it fast...” The ex-detective decided as she tried to ignore the growing problems and focus on what Amy told and asked her. Worrying wouldn’t do much anyway, and she was more interested in getting to know more about this whole expedition, and more importantly, about her weird partner. Even with her slightly illegal new job, Lilianna was still very much a detective at heart, and solving cases was where she excelled at.

It was also the best way she had of ignoring her own problems back at home.