The roar of water exploded from the ceiling pipes like a broken dam.
For a brief moment, the pressure was so violent that Firefly was forced to duck, raising one armored arm to shield his face as the torrent slammed into his body. Cold water drenched him from head to toe, pounding against his flame-resistant suit with enough force to shove him backward.
This wasn't normal.
"No standard fire suppression system has this kind of pressure," Firefly growled, his voice echoing inside his helmet.
The realization hit him instantly.
Kaito Kid had touched the system beforehand.
"Damn it," Firefly cursed under his breath. "What were those idiots even doing?"
He clenched his teeth in irritation.
"They swore they'd shut down the fire pipelines. Cut the water completely. And yet here we are." His grip tightened around the flamethrower. "And Penguin had the nerve to tell me everything was perfectly prepared?"
The memory burned fresh in his mind.
---
Two Hours Earlier
Dean had slipped into the museum long before the chaos began.
Using the ventilation shafts like a ghost slipping through veins of steel, he reached a narrow maintenance chamber filled with thick red pipelines crisscrossing the walls. The space hummed quietly, heavy with industrial stillness.
This was the heart of the building's fire control system.
Every sprinkler, every emergency valve, every pressure line in the Cultural Relics Pavilion traced back to this hub—and beyond it, directly to the rooftop water tower.
And something was wrong.
Dean froze.
Every single valve had been manually shut.
Not locked. Not tagged for maintenance.
Just… turned off.
There were no renovations scheduled. No emergency repairs logged. Nothing that justified disabling the fire system of a public museum filled with priceless artifacts.
If a fire broke out now, the building would burn like a furnace.
That wasn't negligence.
That was intent.
At the time, Dean didn't know Firefly had been deployed.
He only knew one thing—
The Dragon Egg Ruby Necklace was bait.
Which meant whoever set the trap was willing to burn the entire pavilion to the ground just to kill him.
Dean acted immediately.
He restored the valves, carefully resetting the system—but not fully.
Instead, he recalibrated the sensors.
Only direct flame contact would trigger water release.
And when it did—
The pressure would surge beyond standard limits.
Enough to rupture pipes.
Enough to flood corridors.
Enough to turn fire into chaos.
Then, satisfied, Dean slipped away before anyone noticed.
---
Now
Firefly staggered two steps under the sudden pressure before planting his boots firmly against the marble floor.
Water poured off his armor in sheets.
Annoying—but not enough.
With a low growl, he straightened and walked forward, forcing his way through the cascading stream. His muscles tensed as he pushed out of the water curtain, droplets hissing faintly as they evaporated against the residual heat of his gear.
The delay, however brief, had cost him.
Kaito Kid was gone.
"Hmph." Firefly tilted his head, listening.
"Do you really think that little trick bought you freedom?"
The corridor ahead was pitch black. The fire he'd lit earlier had been extinguished, plunging the hallway into suffocating darkness.
Firefly sneered.
"I'm not the only one hunting you tonight."
He shook the water from his flamethrower and adjusted the fuel mix. With a short test pull of the trigger—
A thin flame shot out, sharp and controlled.
Perfect.
The weapon had been waterproofed long ago. Firefly didn't survive this long by overlooking basic preparation.
He moved forward slowly, eyes scanning.
Twenty meters ahead, the corridor split into a four-way fork.
That was when he saw it.
A faint green silhouette, moving deeper into the shadows.
Firefly's hood concealed more than just his face.
Behind the visor, infrared night-vision lenses flared to life, painting the darkness in thermal contrast.
Smoke didn't matter. Darkness didn't matter.
Heat did.
And in his vision—
Kaito Kid's path was painfully obvious.
"Found you."
Firefly squeezed the trigger.
BOOM—
A violent stream of flame tore through the corridor, illuminating the junction in blazing orange light.
Kaito Kid was barely ten meters ahead.
Four doors lined the fork—two on each side. One sat directly in front of him.
Without hesitation, Kaito Kid lunged forward, yanked the door open, and dove inside.
The flames passed exactly where he'd been a heartbeat earlier.
"He's fast," Firefly muttered, amused rather than angry.
---
Inside the Exhibition Hall
Kaito Kid burst into the room and immediately scanned his surroundings.
Paintings.
Dozens of them.
An entire hall dedicated to Renaissance masterpieces—Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo—arranged openly on wooden easels instead of mounted behind glass.
No security casings. No frames. No alarms.
Even the Mona Lisa stood there, propped casually like a classroom prop.
Which told him everything.
They were all replicas.
Kaito Kid didn't slow.
The moment he entered, he dropped a lifelike dummy into the most visible position in the room—deliberately careless, deliberately obvious.
Then he vanished to the side.
He slid behind a row of easels near the window, crouching low and still.
It wasn't perfect cover.
But it was all he had.
Bang!
The door exploded inward.
Firefly kicked it open and stepped inside, weapon raised.
His gaze snapped instantly to the figure standing ahead.
A smile crept across his hidden lips.
But then—
He frowned.
Because something was wrong.
In infrared, heat told the truth.
And the figure ahead was cold.
Too cold.
Not human.
Firefly didn't waste a second more on it.
His head turned smoothly, scanning the hall—and he found Kaito Kid immediately.
Whoosh—!
Flames surged forward.
Paintings ignited in an instant.
Canvas curled. Frames cracked. Fire leapt greedily from easel to easel, devouring art without mercy.
Kaito Kid rolled away just before the fire reached him, moving continuously, staying outside Firefly's direct thermal line of sight.
But Firefly wasn't worried.
He stood calmly at the doorway, flames erupting again and again.
"This hall has only one exit," he called out casually. "You walked into a furnace."
The temperature climbed rapidly.
Heat pressed down like a living weight.
Within seconds, the entire exhibition hall was ablaze.
Firefly paused.
Then his infrared lenses flickered.
He saw it.
A human-shaped heat signature—behind a burning painting.
Firefly's grip tightened.
"There you are."
---
And in that moment—
It was obvious at first glance.
The thing advancing through the fire was not human.
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