Chapter Text
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Days went by as they normally did in the Armed Detective Agency, full of chaos and laughter, hurt and battered individuals finding comfort in one another — in their work, in their home. Fukuzawa sat away from the loud banter and preferred to be in the quiet of his office (well, as quiet as he could get, that door couldn’t block much noise), alone and to himself and his thoughts. His calloused fingers flipped through the papers on his desk that he had only just been handed moments prior, a few applicants wanting to apply for work at the Agency. They would never turn down the offer of more hands, so Fukuzawa was looking through each resume thoroughly.
What he’d come across so far had only been individuals requesting to be clerks, this was common, not many ordinary people wanted to participate in the hands on case work. It was when he picked up a certain resume did he actually get pleasantly surprised, a young woman requesting to join their hands-on detectives. His eyes scanned the information provided on her; age twenty-one, born and raised in Yokohama, no different from the rest. What had really captured his attention and what explained everything he had been wondering about was the neat words written on the line which each applicant had left blank…Ability: The Cat Chronicles.
The name certainly caught his attention, his obsession positive opinion on cats left him curious on what exactly this young woman's ability entailed. For the first time his eyes glanced towards the small picture of the woman on the paper, what he saw left him so surprised he stilled. This young lady, she…her appearance was strikingly similar to a man he knew, a man who changed his whole life. It could be a coincidence, but if it were not, he would never forgive himself if he let this woman slip through his fingers as easily as the man she resembled.
Fukuzawa wrote a note and stuck it on top of the small stack of application papers, when Haruno came around to collect it she would know just what to do. A young lady somewhere in Yokohama would be getting an interesting call today.
☆
Yamashiro Sakiko was sitting on the sofa in the lounge room of her apartment. Her day had been slow and quiet, meaningless and boring like the rest of her life.
That all seemed to change though in the span of one phone call. The vibrating of her phone catches her attention. She reached over and picked up the device from where it sat on the armrest of the sofa, looking over the caller ID. No number she recognized, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t important so she picked up.
“Hello?” She spoke in a calm soothing tone, some may even describe it as soporific.
The voice on the other line spoke, “Hello. I’m looking to speak to Yamashiro Sakiko?”
“This is she.” Sakiko confirmed.
“Wonderful, okay Yamashiro-san, I’m reaching out to you as a part of the Armed Detective Agency.” The voice paused for a moment, the sound of flipping over a piece of paper could be heard in the silence. “We’d like to have an interview with you to talk more about the potential job opportunities. Is there any chance you’ll be available in two days?”
Sakiko hummed to herself as she thought. Would she have time for such a thing? Of course. She’d been sitting in her house all day bored out of her mind, that wasn’t subject to change. “I’m free that day, yes.”
“Perfect! We’ll expect you then two days from now! Is noon alright?, 12:15?”
Sakiko nodded along though the lady on the other line couldn’t see, “That sounds perfect, thank you.”
“No, thank you! We’ll see you then!”
“Bye-Bye.” She hung up the call as it finished and stared at the screen mindlessly. Hopefully this would be the start to something new, she needed to be useful, she needed to do more.
The two days passed and it was time for the interview. She had dressed in a simple yet professional outfit, a white dress and black blazer. Simple black tights covered her legs and black high heels slipped onto her feet.
Walking down the streets of Yokohama was always therapeutic to her. Her eyes glanced up to the tall black towers in the city and narrowed slightly, even with the knowledge she had on those buildings it did not ruin her experience, as it did not many Yokohama citizens. After minutes of walking through the city did she come across the brick building she knew to be the Armed Detective Agency. She opened the door to the building and stepped inside, being met with a cafe with a wonderful atmosphere. One of the waitresses at the counter must have been told to wait for her arrival as she looked over immediately and smiled. “Welcome, I can help you.”
Sakiko smiled and walked up to the counter, looking at the waitress who spoke to her. She had black hair that was held up behind her head and bangs, wearing long black clothing and a white frilly apron. “Thank you, I’m looking for the Armed Detective Agency.”
The waitress smiled and nodded, pointing towards a door with a simple sign on it. “There’s an elevator right there, you’ll want to go to the fourth floor. That will take you right to the reception area and someone will help you from there.”
Sakiko nodded, “Thank you very much.” The waitress only waved and Sakiko made her way to the door, opening it and going into the small elevator before closing the door behind her. It wasn’t too long of a ride up and soon the elevator stopped moving, signaling she was on the right floor. She opened the door and saw the new room, a few desks with a few people at them. One of the ladies there noticed her arrival and stood up, walking over.
“Yamashiro-san?” The lady asked, her voice similar to the person who called her only days ago. Sakiko nodded to answer her and stepped out of the elevator, shutting the door closed behind her. “Wonderful! You’re just on time. I’ll guide you to the President’s office, my name is Haruno Kirako.”
Sakiko smiled and when Haruno started to walk she followed her. “It’s nice to meet you Haruno-san.”
Haruno turned to look at her as they walked and smiled back at her. Their short walk through the hallway didn’t take long and was filled with a comfortable silence. Haruno stopped in front of a door and so Sakiko did as well. The woman knocked on the door and it was quiet for a moment before a sound of approval came from beyond the door. Haruno turned to look at Sakiko and smiled gently, “The President will see you now.”
Haruno opened the door and held it open, letting Sakiko walk through before closing it behind her. Sakiko observed the interior of the room for a brief second before she focused on the man sitting on a chair behind a desk. She walked over and stood in front of the desk, looking down at the older-man slightly due to their positions. He seemed to be observing her, his eyebrows knitted together slightly in thought, she did not interrupt him.
A quiet moment passed before he made a quiet exhale noise and closed his eyes calmly. “Yamashiro Sakiko.” She stood up straighter and waited for whatever he was going to say. “My name is Fukuzawa Yukichi. I’ve read through your resume, there isn’t much I need to ask about.”
Sakiko nodded slowly, wondering where he was going with this. “Your ability. Can you explain it?” His metallic blue eyes opened and looked up to Sakiko. That didn’t seem to be all he wanted to ask, she could tell from how intense and curiously he was studying her.
Nonetheless, she smiled and her posture relaxed slightly. “Of course. It’s called The Cat Chronicles, it in simple terms grants me the ability to transform into a cat at will.” The man seemed intrigued. He nodded and stayed quiet for a moment, his eyes looking down at his desk as he thought something over in his mind. He seemed to come to a conclusion because his eyes looked up to her again.
“Yamashiro, you remind me of someone.” Sakiko tilted her head a little confused yet intrigued. Fukuzawa’s eyes took in each part of the woman’s appearance carefully; black hair that faded to a light brown towards the end, white streaks natural and randomly placed, light olive green eyes and black eyelashes that matched her hair. She didn’t look exactly like him but it was enough to make him consider possibilities.
Fukuzawa sighed quietly and shook his head and the thoughts away, reaching over to a file on his desk. He picks up the file and holds it out to Sakiko wordlessly. She takes it into her hands and looks at him, not opening it just yet. “This is a case we’ve been asked to look over. You will be solving this before the time the Agency closes today.”
Sakiko blinks a few times in a little surprise and opens the file, scanning all the text inside with her eyes. “Yes sir.” She nods and then closes the file again, looking up towards him.
He looks at her quietly for a moment before he nods and speaks a little quieter, “you have 5 minutes to prepare, you are dismissed.” She nods and bows respectfully before walking out of the office, shutting the door behind her. She could tell this was a test of sorts to see her abilities, it stumped her though on how he’d see her progress, he never said anyone was coming along with her. He couldn’t possibly just want to see her complete it. She pushed her thoughts away and made her way back to the elevator in silence, closing the door behind her and opening the file when she was alone in the space.
A new murder case that was missing evidence. The police don’t seem to know where to find the evidence and left the case for the Agency to solve. She read over each detail about the murder carefully, making sure not to miss a single word. The victim is a young woman in her 20’s, she was making her way home from work but told her girlfriend she was going to be stopping by the park to feed the ducks. According to her girlfriend this was a thing she did often and wasn’t out of the ordinary. During her time at the park something had happened and the police were called a few days later due to the sighting of a body. There they found her, drowned in a lake with no witnesses and little evidence. Sakiko huffed, the elevator stopped and she opened the door, walking out into the cafe area and then out the front door of the building, closing the file as she did. The young woman’s body was only discovered this morning, hopefully that meant any potential evidence wasn’t too tampered with.
When Sakiko arrived at the scene she saw a few police officers standing around a body with a cloth over it talking. She walked quietly near the area they were standing and looked around, observing. One of the officers glanced over at her but didn’t do anything, she was only a cat, can you expect an animal to understand what was happening? Of course not, so he paid the four-legged animal no mind.
The sound of a stressed voice made her ears twitch, looking for the source of the noise. It was then that she realized a woman was standing with the police, she looked like she’d been crying for days, barely getting any sleep. If Sakiko had to guess, she’d say this was the victim's girlfriend. She quietly padded over to the woman and sat down beside her feet, curling her tail around her front paws.
The woman seemed to notice the cat almost immediately. Her eyes scanned over the fluffy black and white cat beside her before she bent down slightly, reaching her hand out slowly. Sakiko wasn’t a normal cat at all, so she didn’t move away and let the distressed woman gently touch her. The hand grazed her head cautiously before she realized the cat wasn't going to leave and she pet her a little more, it seemed to soothe her slightly.
Sakiko looked around with only her eyes to see if anything stood out. Whoever committed this act did well with erasing evidence, but it had to be possible to solve or else Fukuzawa wouldn’t have given it to her. Something shiny caught her eye when she looked up to the sky, the direction was towards a tree nearby where they all were standing. She stood up and that caused the woman to pull her hand away. Sakiko started to walk over to the tree and looked up at it, she could feel the woman’s eyes on her. The tree felt a lot bigger than normal due to having the height of a cat, but she was used to that after changing form so many times. Using her cat-like ability she jumped onto a lower tree branch and tried to find the same shiny object she spotted before. She couldn’t spot it from the angle she was in, so she jumped to higher branches and looked around.
After jumping to another branch she saw something shiny in the corner of her eye. She turned her head to look at it and there was a gold charm bracelet hanging from a higher branch, the chain snapped like it’d been broken off by the branch it was dangling from.
To alert the other people around she started meowing continuously. After having to hear the meowing and realizing it wasn’t stopping anytime soon an officer walked over, thinking she had gotten stuck in the tree. When he got close though, he saw the cat looking at a shiny object and he realized it could be important. He grabbed onto a sturdy branch and hoisted himself up slightly to pick the bracelet off the branch and then lowered himself down to the ground. Sakiko jumped down the branches and then onto the ground as well, following him over to the crowd.
The officer presented the bracelet in his hand as they made their way over and the victim's girlfriend gasped. It drew the attention to her quickly. She seemed shaken up, almost terrified, it had Sakiko walking over and rubbing up against her legs.
“This was found in that tree. Are you familiar with it?” The officer addressed the woman, his tone neutral.
She nodded slowly, still shaken. “M-Me and my best friend have matching charm bracelets..” She raised her arm as she spoke, there on her wrist was a bracelet identical to the broken one in the officer's hand. The group was silent for a moment, wondering what this could mean. Sakiko meowed and it pulled them out of their thoughts.
“Let’s look into this friend then. They could have evidence.” One of the officers spoke up.
Minutes passed by of the lady trying to call her friend, with no luck. Each call rang until it hung up itself. With no answer they couldn’t get more evidence or clues, so they were back at square one again.
Sakiko sat nearby and watched the situation unfold. After one last attempt to call, the friend actually answered. The lady handed the officer her phone and in simple terms, he asked them to come to the park right away. Naively the friend agreed, they probably believed no evidence could be found against them, but Sakiko was sure that it had been them.
The minutes waiting for this friend to arrive were tense but when they saw the woman walking towards them it only got worse. The victim's girlfriend immediately noticed the lack of a bracelet on their friend's wrist. They talked and filled each other in on the situation, simple questions on where she was that day, what she was doing, which she clearly (to Sakiko) lied her way through. Thankfully some of the officers seemed to pick up on her strange behavior. It was when they presented the broken bracelet they’d found in the tree that she visibly stalled.
“We found this nearby, is this not yours?”
The lady looked at the item in his hand and then laughed softly. “I’ve been looking for this!”
The officer hummed and nodded. “Do you have any idea how it could have possibly ended up high in a tree?”
The woman looked up at the office with a blank look before she smiled. “In a tree? Oh my. That is quite a surprise.”
Sakiko would have smiled if she wasn’t a fluffy cat. Got her. Murderers were never smart it seemed.
☆
Sakiko didn’t know when the shouting and crying started exactly, but all she could hear now was the muddled words ringing in her ears. It seemed they’d found the truth out finally. It wasn’t a surprise to Sakiko that this lady’s friend had committed the horrible deed, she had pieced that together the second the woman spoke of the matching bracelet. Still, a tragedy had occurred here and she was witnessing the aftermath, the resolution.
That kind lady would never get her girlfriend back. She would never get to peacefully be with her friend again. Her whole life had flipped upside down in just a matter of a few days. Sakiko prayed to anyone who was listening, she did not care who, she prayed that this woman would find happiness once again. That it should not be taken away from her so cruelly ever again.
The case had been solved, but all she felt was emptiness. This was not closure, this would not bring this woman happiness. Sakiko had learned the truth behind this case, that was all she was needed for. She stood up and stretched. The two ladies had gone now, one to mourn and one with an officer. Sakiko was about to leave when she heard a small ‘pspspsp’ noise. Her head turned to look and she saw an officer, he was squatting down right next to her. His hand reached out and touched her head, gently scratching behind her ears.
“Thank you, kitty. Without your help we wouldn’t have been able to solve that today.” And he was right, it would have taken them a lot longer to find the true culprit. “Thank you little detective.”
Sakiko felt happy, these people did not know she knew what they were saying, they did not know she purposefully led them to that bracelet, but she was still thanked.
She left the scene to go back to the Armed Detective Agency, her tail raised high in the air. Helping others was the most wonderful feeling, that is why she did this. That is why she followed her uncle.