At midnight, in a dim alley near the Tohno residence, a tall shadow silently blended into the darkness. Ink-black eyes watched the Japanese-style building beneath the night sky.
As the streetlamp deep in the alley flickered between light and darkness due to an unstable current, the figure leaning against the wall seemed to sense something. She rubbed her hands together in the cold wind and turned around.
"You're late..."
The belated Kuonji Alice carried a black suitcase, wore a Cossack hat and a black long-sleeved coat over a long black dress, and even had on a pair of lace gloves. She had wrapped herself up so tightly that the words "afraid of the cold" could not have been more obvious.
"The Aozaki Family sent someone. They took Aoko back,"
Kuonji Alice answered blandly as she opened her suitcase. From one of its velvet-lined compartments, she took out an exquisite bell that looked as though it had been made of crystal. Humming softly, she gently shook it toward the Tohno residence.
"Hey diddle, diddle,
Hey diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cat played the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
—Diddle diddle!
—Night Feast!
As the cheerful melody from "Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes" came to an end, Kuonji Alice slightly raised her eyes. Her lips moved, and the bell in her hand transformed into a cloud of ink-black mist that blended into the night and silently spread over the entire Tohno residence.
Next, twenty-four Ash-grey Bird familiars made of chocolate and cocoa powder were released from the suitcase one after