Tōnan Gyakuten

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It was a somewhat dreary afternoon. It wasn't raining, but the weather hadn't been predicted to be particularly pleasant. It didn't take some trained professional to be able to tell that there was going to be rain today. The dark clouds, the heavy air, even that strange smell that permeated the atmosphere, it all spoke of a storm.

Toshiko lit a cigarette, and inhaled. The smoke rushed in, and she took the cigarette from her mouth and blew it out. She raised an eyebrow at the paper before her. She'd received the phone call, and then a fax. The family seemed quite desperate to retrieve what had been taken...

To say nothing of what had been stolen, the circumstances were curious. The room wasn't so much a room as a heavily-protected vault, yet nothing had been destroyed. The walls were intact, so was the door... and it was tightly locked. The spells in place to protect the item were still intact, or at least that's what the family believed. There was no sign of... well, anything, really, as far as the family had been able to tell. The only difference in the entire house was that the stolen item was missing. Toshiko took another drag on her cigarette, and blew the smoke out. This... this was, to begin with, an undeniably supernatural case. And the family was quite willing to pay very well...

To be honest, Toshiko currently found herself utterly without any spending money. A well-paying case, a curious case like this...

Her employees would be downstairs by now, or at least on their way to the agency. It was time to speak to them about this case. Getting to her feet, Toshiko walked through her dimly-lit office, passing stacks of paper and the single old television. She walked to the door and pulled it open, before beginning to head downstairs.

It was time to solve a theft.

One of the 'employees' was doing a good job downstairs of taking up a vast amount of the rather battered couch, though there was no real intent to do so: Akemi's hair simply managed to take up the half that the maid-attired homunculus herself wasn't. In every other respect, however, the nearly emotionless girl seemed to be the picture of perfect elegance as she slowly read a book.

Of course, one look at the book itself ruined the illusion of a mature, elegant maid: the cartoonish image on the front was of a rather large pig sat in a comfy chair. Anyone fluent in English would be able to tell--both from the way the text was spaced inside, and reading the back cover--that the bodyguard was quite happily reading a children's book. On the table in front of her was another by the same author, resting atop the newest piece of clutter: today's newspaper.

Someone had taken the time to underline the weather forecast in red pen. Particularly the bit that mentioned a storm.

Ryo walked in to the dimly lit, slightly run down room and took a deep breath of his new work place. He then immediately regretted that decision as he remembered a bit too late that Toshiko quite enjoyed her cigarettes, so whatever the room may have smelled like was covered up by that tobacco/nicotine smell. Walking further in he saw his favourite homunculus, also the only one he had ever seen, "hello Akemi, nice to see you again." Between her hair and her body, the couch was out of the question as a place to sit. Instead he decided to grab the paper and sit on one of the chairs.

He didn't really want to read the paper but he figured Toshiko would be down in a minute and he wanted something to do in the meantime. Akemi was reading something herself, which Ryo didn't notice at first. Taking a bit more notice, he saw the book was in english, and the picture on the cover was somewhat childish. He wasn't going to say anything about it, if that was what she wanted to read then why mention it at all, it didn't affect him. Ryo was wondering where the other employees were, maybe in the bathroom or something? At any rate, he was sure others would be here soon, it wouldn't just be the three of them working here. At any rate, Ryo just sat quietly looking through the paper, apparently there was going to be a storm today. He smiled a bit when he read that, he loved storms.

It was still afternoon when Zeke arrived at the office, his motorcycle announcing his arrival. Zeke was usually only able to get to the office come sundown due to his condition, but the hints of a storm had allowed him to leave early. Breathing in deeply Zeke could almost feel the rain ready to burst out of the clouds... and smelt his bosses cigarettes. That's nostalgic... maybe I'll have a quick light up before I go in. Closing his eyes Zeke took out a cigarette before remembering he left his lighter at home. Bugger. What now?
Sticking the unlit cigarette behind his ear Zeke stood silently for a moment, hoping that some divine intervention would give him a source of fire, but to his dismay there was none. Maybe if the boss is in a giving mood she'll indulge me. I don't even look hungry today!

Silently praising himself for having a full meal before coming to work Zeke took out his comb and narcissistically brushed his hair before entering the office. Closing the door behind him Zeke looked around, his head tilting when he saw the young-blood Akemi on the couch reading a picture book. Scanning the rest of the room he saw that there was only the young man reading the newspaper with a smile Must be good news I suppose.

"Good afternoon everyone... What are you reading young-blood?" Zeke made his way behind the couch to read over Akemi's shoulder. Zeke had little experience with children's books so he was almost as enthralled as the homunculus.

The homunculus didn't look up as the others entered; their immediately speaking was more than enough to identify them... and it meant that she didn't have to look away from the story that held her attention so much. That was, until the vampire asked what she was reading. Hypocritical as it was for someone who chose to wear a maid outfit criticising another person's appearance, she found the walking 50's stereotype a bizarre fashion choice.

"Ace," the girl stated, quiet and almost unreadable, "A story about a very intelligent pig."

"It was a bleak day, the kind of day where storm clouds hang over your head and mix together with an air of unease and boredom so thick that the downpour comes as a relief. As usual the office reeked like old cigarette smoke, the only thing distracting me from the fact that I'm once again flat broke and worse yet, running criminally low on candy..."

Nine year old Iwajima Jun lay sprawled on the floor with his child-sized 'detective' trenchcoat spread out under him, staring at the slowly spinning ceiling fan as he launched into another one of his patented 'hardboiled monologues'. He was incredibly easy to overlook from that position, especially given the fact that sheer boredom had reduced him to an uncharacteristically near-catatonic state and he had previously been partially buried under some old papers and bills.

"The few of my employees gathered here are probably as strapped for cash as I am, and even my own boss, cruel woman that she is, cut me off from the only precious, sugary thing that keeps me sane in this cockamamie town with some excuse about funds. So here I am, a washed-up P.I. three days into a sugar-crash with no money, no cases and no respect."

Jun was half-aware of the conversation going on above the level of the floor, but he was too caught up in entertaining himself with his narration to really notice. Besides, he had trouble maintaining interest in books considering the only ones he'd read before coming to live at Fu Sonzai were either instructional texts on onmyoudo or stories profiling various youkai. Now TV, that was great entertainment. Unfortunately, Toshiko's old TV barely worked when magic wasn't being used to make it function, and she set strict rationing on the amount of time he was allowed to watch regardless. He also occasionally wondered why Akemi bothered to dress like a maid, but chalked it down to the same reasons he dressed like a detective.

"Will someone please tell me we have a new case already?"

As Toshiko proceeded down the stairs, her eyes(and ears) fell upon the small form of the boy, one of two children in her care. She raised an eyebrow, inclining her head to the side as she listened to his very external monologue. She couldn't help but find it rather amusing. Cruel woman? She supposed that was true, to some people. And she couldn't argue the cigarette point. It wasn't as if her smoking habit had particularly dropped off. Still, they were useful for more then satisfying cravings. The candy, though... well, it wasn't healthy to eat candy in such volume, to say the least. And funds weren't exactly plentiful, purchasing mass amounts of candy wasn't the best idea at the moment. Holding her cigarette to the side, angled away from Jun, she replied to him.

"Fortunately, we do indeed have a new case. Unfortunately, you're going to have to wait until everyone's here to learn about the case," she replied, to the boy's idle questioning as she stepped off of the stairs and into the room. She brought the cigarette to her lips and inhaled as she paused, taking it from her mouth and blowing the smoke out. Her office was rather... sedate, at the moment. And there was no real surprise in that fact. With the lack of cases recently, no-one was really getting any work. Or any pay, for that matter. "... Or if we're sure everyone who bothered showing up is here, at least."

There was the possibility that some employees would elect not to appear. Their loss if they missed out on a case, frankly. Toshiko would be conducting her investigation as soon as possible, there was no time to delay much further. Out of everyone here, technically only two of them were employees. Jun was too young to actually be one, so he just assisted when Toshiko felt it was appropriate and received an allowance. Akemi, well... Akemi existed to assist Toshiko. A homunculus was a person, but it was a person who was created with a very specific purpose in mind. In Akemi's case, she was made to assist and aid Toshiko whenever capable.

"I'll wait a little longer before introducing our case," the redheaded mage added, "Just in case anyone else feels like showing up."

Even with Zeke's enhanced senses he had lean in slightly and listen hard to hear Akemi's answer. Ace... the very intelligent pig? The sheer absurdity of the sentence made Zeke wonder if he misheard. Then a pile of papers seemed to speak emitting something that reminded Zeke of a monologue that Humphrey Bogart might conjure up. Smiling to himself he started to answer the boy when the boss, Toshiko, entered.

As she explained that they had a case she blew out some smoke. Her cigarette reminded Zeke of his own stuck behind his ear, half reaching for it before deciding that having some fun with the detective on the floor wouldn't be too terrible.

"Hey, Mr Half-boiled on the floor. You are lucky that our lovely boss came in with a job, otherwise you and me would have to go out and dig up that Nazi Gold bullion I smuggled into the country back in the 40's." The best part of Zeke's claims, in his mind anyway, was that there was little way to tell if he was making it up.

Turning his attention to Toshiko, Zeke took the the cigarette from behind his ear and gracefully leaped over the couch he was behind from reading over Akemi's shoulder. Landing without a sound and no disturbance of any of the papers that scattered the room Zeke asked
"My lovely boss Miss Toshiko, may I trouble you for a light?" holding out his cigarette in hopes of a yes.

The homunculus paid no heed to Jun's monologuing, reasonably certain that the boy would just ask a normal question if it was something important--and due to not having any interest in the whole film noir thing. She'd tried to watch a movie when it was on (and the TV was working) the other week, then given up and returned to her books. The only time she ever normally paid the strange box any attention was Sunday morning, otherwise.

Then Toshiko arrived, bringing with her news of a new case. Though the details wouldn't be forthcoming yet, there was one question the homunculus wanted to ask in advance: "Danger level?"

Much as she liked the maid outfit, as it fit her normal role in the detective agency, Akemi wasn't stupid enough to wear it if she knew something serious was likely to happen. The shoes alone were impractical, and the whole thing was nearly as bad as her hair. Not that she ever really considered gettinng a haircut, since amongst her combat skills was an odd talent for keeping said hair out of the way.

"Well," Ryo said as he closed the paper, "as much as I'd love for more people to show up I'm thinking this may be all of us." Looking at who was there he thought the group in the room was more than capable of whatever they were about to do. He didn't know his coworkers very well, just their names really, along with a very vague idea of what they could do. But he had faith in his fellow supernaturals, and knew that together they could solve any mystery brought to them.

"Also I figure we may want to get this done soon if at all possible," he continued, "there's a storm coming, and while I love them most people don't and I figure you're no exception. Plus I think Jun is going a little stir crazy and it would really do him some wonders to get out in to the field." Jun's noir detective bit was both funny and a bit too realistic in Ryo's opinion, he figured the kid would perk up once they were actually working.

When her vampiric employee asked for a light, Toshiko held out two fingers. A simple spell that didn't require much strength, she simply muttered the spell for ignition. A flame lit at her fingertips, and she offered it to him, before turning her focus to her other employees. Her homunculus questioned the danger level, and she couldn't help but shrug.

"Hard to say," she replied, simply, "I'll be able to judge it better when we get there."

And now, well... it seemed as if most of her employees were there. Any late arrivals could be quickly filled in on the situation.

"To start with, if anyone shows up late, I would like it if you filled them in on what I'm about to tell you," she began, addressing the room at large, "Now..."

Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and taking the cigarette out of her mouth, Toshiko started her explanation of the case. "About a day ago, the Daidouji mage family was alerted to a presence in their home. When Daidouji Kenji, and his wife, Daidouji Tomoko went to investigate, they found nothing amiss. Nothing was different, there was no sign of an intruder, nothing was changed. Not the slightest thing had been altered. That was, until they checked the room their most precious item, a family heirloom, was held. It was gone entirely. But there was no sign anyone had been to the room. Even the spells cast on the room to keep it secure hadn't been disturbed."

Another drag on her cigarette. Toshiko held the beginnings of the case report out, for her employees to take a look.

"They want us to track down the perpetrators and get their precious family heirloom back. Now, I'm sure some of you are aware of the... history of the Daidouji family, but I'll give a quick rundown for those who aren't. The Daidouji Mage family has splintered into many, many branches. Every single last one of these branches hates the other. And when I say hates, I mean backstabbing and murder aren't out of the realm of possibility when it comes to one branch to another. Our suspect may be the member of another branch."