Koutarou Nakamura

Kakeru, a former elite runner at high school, is chased for stealing food. He is saved by Kansei University student Haiji, who is also a runner. Haiji persuades Kakeru to live in the old apartment "Chikuseisou" where he plans to team up with fellow residents to enter Hakone Ekiden Marathon, one of the most prominent university races in Japan. Kakeru soon finds out that all of the residents except for Haiji and himself are complete novices.

Eleven-year-old Chizuko Mikamo is a victim; she is aware that her cruel relatives have been slowly poisoning her, but she can't do anything to escape her fate except starve herself. Luckily for her, the infamous thief, Twenty Faces, has arrived to steal her household's most valuable treasure: Chizuko herself. Alongside Twenty Faces, Ken, Skipper and the rest of the gang, Chizuko travels to exotic lands and strange places in search of valuable treasure. But, as she soon discovers, there's much more to the mysterious Twenty Faces than she could ever have bargained for.