THREE STARS BURNING

Unit 18

Whilst the pair made their way to and from the restroom, Konnor did not neglect the mission at hand.

Although in some areas of the mansion video streaming or the collection of any photo imaging was completely blocked, Konnor held the ability to capture images he'd seen and copy them with a complete likeness at a later time. Granted, he had to take some time to commit what he'd seen to his memory and he was restricted to around five or six images at the time, it was fundamental for the completion of the mission. 

Previously, due to certain constrictions  Konnor wasn't able to look around as much as he'd wanted to.
(Jihoh: (〃＞＿＜;〃) sorry~). 

However, Konnor was prone to dramatizing situations slightly when he got angsty, so in reality the rest of his teammates had done enough looking around to uncover multiple countries secretes with no avail. As far as the mission was concerned only Rye and Micha were advancing in their investigations. The rest of them were looking at a big fat zero on their mission evaluations if they weren't able to find anything. 

It appeared that the Emperors staff had been meticulous in their complete scrubbing of the the mansion and not an inch was left unclean. Of course for the sake of cleanliness and good hospitality this was a good effort, but when it came to their objective it restricted them greatly. Everywhere they swabbed came up with a strong reading of cleaning supplies and nothing else, leaving the hunt for and physical evidence at a stagnant roadblock.

Just as Konnor was resigning himself to letting Rye and Micha obtain all the spoils of war while the rest of them trudged home with nothing to show for it Jihoh spoke up from beside him.

"This painting seems a bit off don't you think?" He tilted his head at the painting while waiting for a response.

Konnor followed he gaze upwards and took in the scene that hung above him. It was called Le Cygne and depicted a scene of a woman in a white dress that was sitting at a river bank in the arms of a man who's face was turned just enough for it not to be seen, however it was clear he held a smile. The woman's dress dipped into the water and the bottom was slightly grey as a result. She also smiled but if you looked closely a tear was falling and trickling down into the river below. This made the feeling of the painting hard to grasp, it was unable to decipher whether the mood was happy or melancholy but that ambiguity added to its beauty.

It was a relatively famous painting so Konnor had of course seen it before, however it had only been in passing so he had never taken the time to gaze at it like he was now. Like most people, he held an average appreciation of the arts. By virtue of his upbringing he had been surrounded by and had seen numerous pieces of artwork and could understand their meanings but unlike someone like Penelope who had great interest in all types of visual media his own interest paled in comparison.

Due to this he truly didn't have an insightful response to Jihoh's question and could only reply with a non-committal hum.

Jihoh's eyebrows quirked slightly at the reply. "Ah~ I get it. You don't have a fine enough disposition to appreciate art as I do."

Cheeky bastard. Konnor couldn't help from snorting in his mind before matching the others previously haughty tone. "Well. I suppose the finer arts can only be enjoyed by those who are willing to spend time dulling their minds gazing at paintings."

His eyes turned down into what seemed like a genuine contemplative and sorrowful expression.

Jihoh looked at his expression for a second before covering his mouth as he laughed silently. "Your acting skills are really enviable but I'm serious. A few years ago I really got into artwork and this was one of my favourites, that's why I can tell that some of the strokes in the river are slightly off colour."

Konnor stared at him and wondered how sharp his eyes must have been to pick that up. Then again he did seem like the kind of person to hyper fixate to that extent so Konnor completely understood.

Jihoh once again spoke up. "Actually I think I saw another painting with the same problem when I first entered the mansion. The overall composition was perfect but various colours differed."

Konnor was on high alert after that and he quickly turned to the other boy. "Can you show me which one? And point out any others. That actually sounds quite interesting."

This time Jihoh actually audibly laughed. "Have the 'finer arts' actually captured your interest now?"

Konnor was definitely interested, but not for the reason Jihoh thought he was. It was true that the paintings in the mansion could just be fakes that were copied with some fault, however Konnor was reluctant to neglect this oddity. The Emperor seemed like the type of person to valued genuity and wouldn't harbour fake artwork. The mission was coming to an end soon and  as he had yet to utilise his photographic memory he figured there would be no harm in him taking down the appearances of all the paintings that displayed fault.

After agreeing to Jihoh he carefully tapped out a message into his communicator alerting the others, namely Penelope who was more likely to notice the faults as well, to look for these paintings and alert him of their whereabouts.

At the moment he wasn't sure if this investigation would show any results but it was unusual enough for them to look into it further.

If something was found they would be saved from low scores on their first actual mission. That thought alone spurred him on to investigate thoroughly and commit the images to his memory perfectly.

Not edited

Ahhh I wrote this all in one sitting yayy.

I'm quite happy with this chapter actually but as always leave a comment if you see a mistake .

The painting is actually based off of a song of the same name which is down there:

Next chapter Rye's backk, so look forward to that.

Thank you for reading,

.+*Sunchoke*+.