Author's Note

Hello fellow readers. Back with another chapter. This time its the long awaited case chapter. I asked for the opinions on this and they all said it was fine but I'm sorry if this was not what you had in mind. Please enjoy the chapter and forgive any OOC moments.

Mori, Kirigiri and I were headed towards a district known as a base for all sorts of gangs. We were headed to investigate the Crazy Diamonds hangout, a biker gang. It was the last known location of Owada Mondo. He's been gone for at least a week according to his roommates. They reported the matter to us because Owada is the gang leader and the police in their district don't care for gang members unless they can put them behind bars, their words not mine. I remember how distraught they were when they rushed in the detective agency.

I was on a delivery run for evidence for an upcoming trial that the detective needed to present. All of a sudden, two people rushed to the reception desk. There was a guy in a white uniform with tiny spiked black hair. The other person was a short girl wearing this green jacket and brown skirt, who had short mid length chestnut colored hair. Taking a closer look she had tears in her eyes. The guy took out a small photo album and leaned close to the receptionist pointing at a photo in that book.

"Hey what's going on here? I turned to see Mori walking towards me joining to see the commotion the guy was making.

"Oh Mori-san, I was passing by when these two came in," I pointed at the pair by reception.

"How interesting," She noted as she looked at the both of them with interest. "Come on, let's find out what's wrong."

She walked up to them in a slow pace placing her hands in the pockets of her jacket. I was also intrigued about what those two people wanted. I followed her to see what she would do.

"Hey may I ask for your names?" She addressed the pair.

"Of course, I am Ishimaru Kiyotaka," he turned to Mori and bowed his head.

"My name is Fujisaki Chihiro." Fujisaki sniffed.

"Well I'm Mori Nozomi and this guy is Naegi Makoto. What's wrong? Why the tears, Fujisaki?" She gently asked.

"Our roommate is missing," Fujisaki teared up some more.

"Calm down," Mori tried to soothe Fujisaki and turned to Ishimaru. "Could you take over explaining?"

Ishimaru nodded. "Our roommate is Owada Mondo. He's been missing for a week. We are concerned that he may have gotten into trouble. He only goes without contacting us three days at the most."

"Was there a problem that you couldn't report this to your local police?" Mori asked.

"We couldn't inform our police because they are not the biggest fans of him," Ishimaru said.

"Is the reason because this Owada is the same Owada Mondo whose the leader of the Crazy Diamonds?" She asked.

"Yes that's right," He confirmed.

"No wonder you came here. The police would just brush you guys off," Mori said.

"Yes please help us find bro," Ishimaru bowed down with his upper half body.

"Please we want to know if he's okay. He's the best guy out there and helped me out countless times. He's a true man who keeps his word," Fujisaki joined in Ishimaru's pleading.

Mori closed her eyes and took their words into consideration as she thought about their plea. "Alright we'll take it. When we find him I'll be sure to tell him that he's lucky to have Ishimaru, a local politician and Fujisaki, a genius male programmer as his roommates who care so much about him."

They both looked in surprise. I guess they didn't think she would accept. Both thanked Mori greatly although Ishimaru's thanks was a bit more vigorous than Fujisaki's. There was this relieved atmosphere coming off of Ishimaru and Fujisaki. Mori accepted their request in order help relieve their burden. I couldn't think upon it too much because I registered the conversation fully in my head and my jaw dropped. Fujisaki was a guy! Man I'm so glad I didn't open my mouth.

The pair left the building leaving Mori and myself near the reception desk. I recall that I have the evidence and headed off to deliver this since Mori would need to prepare for her case. Before I could leave, Mori stopped me.

"Rook after you're done delivering that, get Kirigiri," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"The three of us will be working on this case," She had a wide smile on her face.

Apparently one of the negotiations they made was that Mori picked the case for the exchange of her going on the case with us as volunteer work as Kirigiri demanded. The car ride there had this weird intense tension that it felt palpable between the two. Did Kirigiri think Mori would pick a different kind of case? Did Mori pick this case in retaliation for making her volunteer? The entire ride was in silence until we found a place for Mori to park the car. Following the directions his roommates gave us, we found ourselves in the hangout of the Crazy Diamonds.

As we entered the hangout, the male gang members stared at us. They began whispering to each other as we walked through. I felt unsettled by all the stares because it's as if they held ill will against me.

I turned to Mori to get her opinion on this and whispered. "Hey Mori-san, is it just me or are the bikers staring at us?"

"Most likely the reason they are glaring at us is because of you," she replied.

"Why?" I asked.

"I heard from Fujisaki that the male members love fighting other guys to test their strength. They probably want to fight you because of that. It's mostly your problem since Owada instilled some moral code into his gang about treating women with respect. Wasn't it nice for Fujisaki to give us that tip?" She said

"What! Why didn't you tell me this?" I whispered, feeling quite nervous.

"I didn't think it was necessary to tell you. I wanted to keep you calm because they can sense your fear," She explained. "Besides as long as you mask your fear and stay with one of us, the chances of them approaching you and beating you up should be small."

"Is this your best attempt at reassurance?" I asked.

"Not really," She admitted. "I just want to get through this."

Before I could respond to that, she grabbed the collar of my shirt saving me from walking into the wall. I coughed a bit at the sudden pressure against my throat. Rubbing my throat to soothe it, I notice that we were away from the sight of the bikers. Kirigiri led us to a small corner of the site big enough to keep all of us hidden.

"Now that the two of you are done conversing, let's go over with what we know about this case," Kirigiri spoke out.

"Alright rook it's up to you to go over the details," Mori gave me a thumbs up as she handed the task off to me.

"You want me to do it?" I was a bit surprised because I thought they would explain each step about this part of this job as we went further through the day into the case. I turned to Kirigiri for confirmation.

"That is no problem, please proceed." she said

"Uh sure. The clients are Ishimaru-kun and Fujisaki-kun. They are worried about Owada Mondo-kun, their roommate and our target. He's been gone for a week which raises the concern of his roommates because the most he's ever been gone without any contact is three days according to them. Other info about the target is that he's the leader of the Crazy Diamonds, he has his hair in some sort of a pompadour style, and wears a long black coat that has the name of the biker gang," I briefed. "Was that all alright?"

"I thought it was fine besides when you asked for confirmation since we need all the time we can get," Mori said.

"Mori-san is right. The overview was fine but every second is important for a detective to solve a case," Kirigiri said. "Moving on, we will take separate notes and accounts then come back to pool our findings."

"Sounds good," Mori agreed.

Without waiting for my opinion on the matter, Kirigiri left. I turned to Mori for advice. "What do I do now?"

"Well this is how she conducts her investigations. So you are basically responsible for finding evidence of your own and tie it together to form this sort of idea of what happened and discuss it when we all come back together," Mori explained.

"But what can I do?" I asked.

"I can give you some sort of an idea but you kind of have to stop relying on me to get the answer because I can't really be on every investigation with the two of you," she said.

"Of course." I agreed. "I'll have to do this sooner or later on my own if I want to be useful."

"Alright so just go around question the bikers around here and see if anything stands out," And with that she left.

While Mori stayed close, she didn't give me much to go off on. I walked around the hangout while keeping in mind that these guys could sense fear and trying to make sure that it didn't noticeable. The bikers still kept staring and I felt quite unnerved by it and I was having trouble with making sure that my fear didn't appear on face.

To avoid speaking with the bikers, I simply looked around the hangout. It might not help with finding anything that could lead to Owada's location but I couldn't go up to the bikers. As I continued walking around, I slipped out of nowhere.

Man, just my luck that the first case I have, I fell down on my face. I lifted up my head from the floor and under the nearby table, there was this little bottle. The bottle wasn't empty, it had this white powder in it but it didn't completely fill the bottle. I reached for the bottle and stood up to use the dim lights the hangout had to have a better look of it.

Out of nowhere, I felt a hand grip on my shoulder. The hand turned me around and I see an angry biker guy. He grabbed my shoulder again. This time he applied more pressure squeezing my shoulder hard.

"What do you think you're doing pipsqueak?" He angrily demanded.

"U-um n-nothing. I was just l-looking around," I stuttered.

"Don't go sticking your nose around where it doesn't belong," he ranted.

"I'm only doing my job," I defended.

"Can it," He raised his other arm and formed a fist. He pulled it back indicating that he was going to punch and by the looks of it he aimed for my face.

My eyes closed, trying to brace myself for the punch and its impact. I felt that he did go through with it but it didn't make contact. I hesitantly opened my eyes to see what happened. My eyes widened at what I saw. Mori intercepted the punch. She held the fist of the guy in her right hand.

"Rook, do try to avoid fights while we investigate," Mori said it like nothing was happening now.

"Hey, you bitch. Mind your own damn business," He faced her.

"Oh my and here I thought the Crazy Diamonds were respectful towards women," she tighten the grasp she had on his hand, applying more pressure and he let go of my shoulder, freeing me from his grasp.

He groaned at the discomfort of the pain his hand was feeling. Using his other hand, he threw another punch directly at Mori. She ducked under and took the opportunity to aim and sweep him at his legs. He landed on the floor and the sound of the impact caught the attention of two other members. Luckily they didn't misunderstand and took away the angry member and put him in some sort of confinement.

"That was really cool," I complimented. "Thanks for saving me, Mori-san."

"It was nothing, I'm used to putting down any violent guys who pose a threat," she brushed it off. "What did you do to make that gut angry?"

"I didn't do anything. All I did was get up with this bottle I found," I showed her the bottle.

She took the bottle with an interest look sparked in her eyes. "So that's why he was angry."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Nice job rook, the bottle you found has some kind of drug in it," She looked up from the bottle.

"What?!" That's what the white powder inside the bottle is?

"Yep he took some of it which explains the dust near the top of the bottle while the bottle only has some powder. He got high to the point where only anger was on his mind," She noted.

"So this has drugs in it?" I looked at the bottle with some caution.

"We could send it to the nearby lab to confirm what kind of drug it is but considering the amount of illegal activity that happens here, its safe to assume that the white powder is actually a drug," she said. "They might have a bigger stash around here. So let's continue looking around and get accounts from the rest of the bikers if they know about this."

We both stayed together this time. We tried to find some more stashes of this drug. We subtly brought up the drug thing when we questioned the rest of the bikers here. Most members were confused about what we were asking. Others were insulted by the fact we were insinuating it about them being involved with drugs. Some were really nervous when we brought it up to them but they refused to speak more about it and we couldn't force it out of them.

As we continued the investigation, I recalled Mori worked on previous cases with Kirigiri. "Hey Mori-san, are these the kind of cases you worked on with Kirigiri-san?"

"Not really, the kind of cases we solve alternate. If she asked for help, then the case we would do would usually be about murder. Mine would be undercover stuff and being on lookout for suspicious people," she said.

"How long have you worked together?" I asked.

"It's been about two years since I started at the agency," she answered.

"Are you guys friends?" I asked.

She stopped abruptly in her movement and turned away from me. "No we're not friends."

"Why not?" I asked. "I mean if the two of you worked together for so long..."

"That's all there is. We're simply coworkers and nothing more. The only reason she puts up with me because while she knows self defense her power to back it up is lacking compared to mine. It's not like she thinks of me as her friend," she said.

"Well do you feel like that?" I asked.

"It's not my place to say. Now come on let's continue investigating," She walked off again quickening her pace from before.

I followed her of course but there wasn't any way I could start another conversation. Does Mori want to be friends with Kirigiri? If so, then why not ask her? I considered saying something but I couldn't find the right thing to say because in fairness instead of asking Kirigiri these questions, I just ask Mori. I guess with Mori, she can approach Kirigiri, if its only about work. She can't really go up and ask on the matter of friendship like I'm hesitant to ask anything personal when approaching Kirigiri.

My thoughts were interrupted when Mori stopped me again. She pointed to where the small hidden corner was. I turned to see Kirigiri was there and signaled for us to come over there.

"Time to piece what we found," Kirigiri said.

"What did you find out?" Mori asked.

"Apparently Owada-kun has been here for the first three days of the week. On the fourth day, he left with three members of his gang. All four of them were seen carrying boxes. None of the members don't seem to known was in the boxes. Some had speculations and some had quite the reaction to it when I asked about it. All of the gang members claim they don't know where these four guys went," Kirigiri relayed information from a pocket book she had. "What did you guys find?"

"Well the rook here found something of interest," Mori pointed at me.

Kirigiri nodded and turned to me. "Please share what you found."

I took out the bottle from my pocket and gave it to her, "I found it underneath a table."

"Why were you looking there?" She asked as she looked over the bottle.

"Oh, um I sorta fell down and saw it," I sheepishly replied.

"Is that so?" Kirigiri held an intense stare at the bottle. "Do you know what's inside?"

"Mori-san thinks its some sort of drug but she isn't sure what kind it is?" I said.

Kirigiri made her move to open the bottle. Her gloved hand reached the cap. She started to twist it until Mori grabbed her hand to prevent her from opening it.

"Is there a reason why you're preventing me from doing this?" Kirigiri narrowed her eyes.

"You shouldn't open this when you don't know how potent this is," she said.

"We need to find out what it is though," Kirigiri argued.

"We can use the lab to have it analyze it for us but if you can't wait, the rook found someone who knows what it could be and he showed signs of use," Mori argued backed.

"Where is he then?" She asked.

Mori had this smirk on her face as she emerged victorious. I guess from working together for so long, Mori knows what would interest Kirigiri more or rather what would get the quickest results from the looks of it. I wonder how Mori knew that this was a drug though. The guy could have had an off day or that this white powder could be medicine. I guess I like to believe in the best of people rather than assume the worst in them. Maybe on Mori's separate past cases, some of them could have been about narcotics and that's why she can be sure.

Mori took the bottle from Kirigiri and gave it back to me. I put the bottle back into my pocket and we headed back where the guy tried to attack us. From there, we saw the door to a room where the other bikers took the guy. Kirigiri requested one biker to go inside and ask for one of the members helping to detain the aggressive gang member.

The biker came back with one of the other bikers. He warned that the guy was still in a bad mood. They had to knock him out for a little while because he kept trying to punch everyone that tried to help to calm him down. They tied him up with rope after sitting him down on a chair. He woke up and still was in a rage and everyone in that room continued the task of calming him down. Kirigiri requested to talk with the guy inside but wanted our opinions to prep the questioning.

"Looks like you were right, this time," Kirigiri noted.

"It's all thanks to the rook here for finding this witness," Mori said.

"It wasn't anything really," I denied. "Besides how are we going to talk to him?"

"It's simple. We ask him," Kirigiri stated.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? From what the biker told us, it seems the guy is still pretty angry," I voiced my concern.

"He's right. He tried to attack rook and when I stopped him, he turned his attention to me and tried to attack me too," Mori agreed.

"We won't move forward if we don't take any risks," Kirigiri folded her arms.

"Getting knocked out by that guy won't help either," Mori shot back.

"How about only one of us question him and the others listen in through a radio. So when we feel that person is in danger, we can jump in and help them before they get hurt," I offered some sort of compromise.

Kirigiri thought about what I said, "That is one way to go about it but he could find a way to break it when he discovers even if he is tied up."

"Then I'll be the one in the room with him," Mori cut in.

"Didn't you argue that it was dangerous?" Kirigiri asked.

"For you two. I can handle myself against him," Mori replied. "Besides he already got a taste of what I can do."

"If you're able to take him on then why don't the all of us go in?" I asked.

"He might be unresponsive with all of us in the room. Its better if only one of us are in the room with him. So write up any questions you want answered and I'll ask him. If he gets angry, I can put him down. You guys can hear the conversation and observe what the guy says and pick up anything I missed," Mori said.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Kirigiri asked. "Especially with what happened last time."

What happened last time? Did Mori do something the last time she questioned someone?

"I'll be fine. I learned from past mistakes not to do that again," Mori said.

With that we prepared Mori to walk in with a wire and an ear piece to communicate. One of the male bikers opened the door and she dismisses the rest of the members inside. She took the handle of the door leaving it slightly opened when she closed the door.. Kirigiri and I got close to the door and sat near it. We made sure to leave some distance to make sure the guy wouldn't hear double of what's being said.

Mori starts off with some basic questions that I thought of and mixed it with the Kirigiri's questions who suggested that Mori should use to calm the guy down. Kirigiri told her that she should ask about Owada. The guy went on about how Owada was such a great guy and a hell of a man he is. His gang members must really respect the guy with how much praise he's received from this guy. Mori moved on with a question of her own. She asked if Owada has always been the leader of Crazy Diamonds.

His face turns into a sad expression when she asked this. The guy answers that while Owada co-founded the Crazy Diamonds, he hasn't always been the leader. The first leader was Owada Daiya, the elder brother of Owada Mondo. Daiya died on the night of his retirement and Owada went ahead with the plan they made of him taking over the gang.

She asks about the last visit Owada made to the hangout. His account matched up with the other accounts that Kirigiri had. Owada was there for the first three days and on the fourth he left with three other members. He let's it slip out that he was supposed to go with them.

Mori took the opportunity at his slip up and asked about it. Apparently, they made a plan to go somewhere and take the boxes seen with the people who left to the place they were going to. She questions about where they were supposed to go. He replies that they were going to this abandoned building in this district. Mori mentions the bottle and how he reacted. I could tell something was building up in the guy but it seemed like a mix between anger and guilt. I tried to go in but Kirigiri stopped. She gave me a look that signaled it wasn't the time yet to go in.

We listened as Mori pushed on her questioning of what are the content's inside the bottle. He couldn't take it anymore and cracked. He admitted that the white powder was drugs. He used the supply they had here because he felt stressed in his life. It came from the secret stash they kept at the hangout that only a few knew about. Owada and the others took the rest to the building. They were waiting for more of a shipment of this drug.

"Alright thank you for answering my questions but can you help me find him by giving me the directions to this building?" She asked.

"I don't want the boss to get in trouble," he said.

"I understand but other people are concerned about him too, especially his roommates," she reasoned.

He hesistated in answering showing he was in a state of turmoil. "Alright, but you gotta understand that the boss had no clue about this at first. He didn't even want to help but he's a good guy. Please don't arrest him."

"I'll try to see what I can do," she replied.

He gave her the directions and Kirigiri quickly wrote it down in that pocket notebook of hers. Mori walked out of the room and gave us a nod. All three us entered the car we took to get here. It was the only lead we had to find Owada and hopefully he was there when we arrive at the building. We arrived at the building and headed for it's back entrance. Kirigiri gave a simple nod to Mori and with that Mori left the both of us.

Kirigiri and I went to check the front entrance. She put her hand on the knob and twisted it. The door was unlocked and before we entered, she put a finger up to her lips signaling the importance of being quiet. When we entered, no one was in the room we entered but we heard the noise of fighting. Is that where Mori left?

"Is Mori-san fighting the guys here, Kirigiri-san?" I asked.

"Now's not the time to discuss this. We need to find the drug stash they have here," She walked off.

This might be one of the ways they worked together. Mori distracts the targets involved and Kirigiri uses the time given to investigate on anything else that the suspects may have hidden. Following her, we investigate every room only to find nothing in each room. It wasn't until that Kirigiri closely inspected the last room's floor that she stumbled upon some kind of switch.

A hidden staircase appeared leading downstairs. We both went down and was met with the sight of boxes. We opened the boxes and sure enough we found the stash they brought here. Before opening, the third box, Kirigiri grabbed me and hid us. A guy came down looking quite nervous. I felt my mouth trying to voice something until Kirigiri used her gloved hand to cover my mouth. She tells me to be quiet and uses the objects around the room to carefully hide and go around the guy. She manages to get around and I watch with interest and I don't notice that I accidentally knock down some boxes. I hid further down but unfortunately I caught the attention of the guy here. I hear his footsteps until something or rather someone stopped him.

I heard the guy make a muffled sound and a thump follows. I got up from the floor to see what happened. I see the guy on the floor was wearing a jacket with the Crazy Diamonds logo but it wasn't Owada. Kirigiri stood over the guy. She instructed that I find something to tie him up with otherwise we'll have an angry biker on the loose. We left the room to search for Mori and find her in near the door to the back entrance.

In this room there were a three members on the floor unconscious. Mori was still standing though she did look tired. She was still in a fighting stance and she was facing Owada. She threw punch at him and he dodged. He didn't try to fight back against Mori. He was mostly dodging and judging from the way Mori was punching, she wasn't aiming for him and even gave him time to dodge.

"Stop trying to hit me," He barked at her,

"I'm just trying to talk to you but you keep running," Mori replied.

"Because you're trying to hit me!" He exclaimed.

Kirigiri walked a bit closer and made ourselves known. "Mori-san stop trying hit Owada-kun."

Mori stopped which Owada was glad about. "Thanks for stopping her. She's a bit crazy."

"Owada-kun, you know why we are here don't you?" Kirigiri asked.

"Yeah you found about how we were supplying drugs," He said.

"While we happened to find out about that, we were contacted by your roommates to locate you," she said.

"Really? How long has it been?" he asked.

"About a week," This time Mori answered.

"Damn, I didn't notice I was gone for that long but as you can guess I'm waiting for the next shipment," He said.

"You do realize we can't turn a blind eye to this right?" Kirigiri said.

"Yeah I understand," He said. "But only take me in. It was all me."

"If that's what you want," Kirgiri said.

"Call the police then," he said.

Mori took out her cellphone and started to dial the number but before she could mark it, I stopped her.

"Wait, I want to ask him about something," I said.

All three of them were surprised by my outburst but I wanted to get more information for when we would have to break the news to Ishimaru and Fujisaki.

"Owada-kun from what we learned from one of your fellow bikers, you didn't approve of it but then started helping them. Why did you have the sudden change the heart?" I asked.

"My brother Daiya came up with how the gang worked. He didn't want them to get involved in the world of drugs. On the night of his retirement, we had a race and I wanted to beat him at least once to prove I could be a better leader but I was blinded by that desire that he saved me from getting hit by a truck. Rushing up to him, I sat him up with my arms, his blood kept leaving his body. He told me to keep the gang together and that it would be a man's promise. I wanted to keep that promise so when I found about the drug dealing, I didn't have the heart to kick them out. I helped them and kept a close eye to make sure they didn't use and didn't meet up with anyone shady. These are good guys and just wanted to help out their families and this was the easiest way for them to get money to do that," He said. "But in the end I couldn't keep the promise and find myself being locked up possibly for awhile."

"I don't think that's true. I heard how much your members respect you. They hold you in such high regards that they wouldn't send you to jail by yourself. They'd follow you and share the time to make sure you can get out sooner. I'm sure Ishimaru-kun and Fujisaki-kun will help too," I said.

"Yeah you're right all of them would try to help but I know once I'm out, Kyoudai will lecture me about the drug thing," He said. "All right now call the cops."

We ended up locating Owada but he ended up being involved dealing with narcotics. They took him away but those involved within his gang also stepped forward. Ishimaru and Fujisaki thanked us for locating him even though they wouldn't see Owada until he served his time. Mori did her best to lessen the sentence per request from the biker who used the drug. We took some of the drug and sent it to the nearby lab because these guys didn't know what it was. All they needed to do was to distribute it and they'd get paid. With that we headed back to the agency. Kirigiri told me I was dismissed and could leave. She still had to write a report on what happened on this case. She headed back to the office leaving me and Mori.

"Hey Mori-san, were you fighting against the gang members in the building?" I asked.

"Yeah that's right," she said. "What about it?"

"Well I couldn't do much when that guy almost punch me and almost got into a fight if the other guy found me had it not been for Kirigiri. So I was wondering if you could train me to fight?" I asked.

"I would be glad to help but this will be a lengthy process and I won't be going soft on you," she said. "Knowing this do you still want me to train you?"

"Yes please," I replied.

"Alright then see you," She headed inside the agency.

With that I headed off back to my house. I didn't contribute much intentionally but hopefully I can soon be useful by learning how to fight. I also need to work on being less clumsy otherwise I'll be blowing our cover a lot. I hope by the next case I'll go on, I be able to help more than I did on this case.

End Note

Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. I know there was barely any interactions between Naegi and Kirigiri but next chapter will have that. I hope I can get reviews that has feedback from you guys to make it seem more like a case if it wasn't like that all because the next case I have won't be updated until a month from now so I'll have the time to write and revise. Now this doesn't mean I won't update from a month from now because I do have a next chapter in mind to be uploaded in two weeks. Now have a good time doing reading other stories.