"You want me to investigate the location?" Chifuyu was in Taylor's office with the investigator himself, who was sitting behind his desk while Eve was standing not far next to Chifuyu.
"Exactly, Jacob Doyle is a drug dealer that we suspect to have the illegal drugs stored in that location." Taylor nodded, "You're an expert in this kind of investigation, right?" he smiled.
"Fine, you win, old man." Chifuyu groaned, his blue eyes rolling in reluctance.
"It's a very specific house in the southern part of Paris, Eve knows where it is, so take her with you." Taylor told him and Chifuyu paused.
"Eh?" Eve was mildly surprised.
"What...?" Chifuyu was somehow unhappy about it, "I prefer to work alone," he lightly growled.
"I-I don't really want to be in Tsuguha-kun's way," Eve wouldn't want to trouble with the investigation.
"Come on now, it'll be fine." Taylor chuckled.
"T-The thing is..." Eve was in her own thoughts as she glanced to Chifuyu, who had a peeved look on his face. "He's mad at me right now..." she was helpless.
Chifuyu eventually gave in and allowed Eve to follow him, dressed in his Alabaster attire for easier mobility but kept his mask off. He was rushing his steps and focused on the road in front of him, ignoring Eve who was struggling to keep up with him.
"Tsuguha-kun. Hey, Tsuguha-kun!" Eve was pouting, rushing her steps to keep up. "Stop sulking already, I'm sorry, okay? I apologize again for telling my dad who you are, just stop ignoring me." She was getting mildly irritated.
"Whatever," Chifuyu's sulk didn't go away, keeping his rushed steps as he looked around.
"Tsuguha-kun, Tsuguha-kun!" Eve was trying to make him turn to her, "Chifuyu-kun!!" she called louder, Chifuyu froze and turned his head with his cheeks burning.
"W-What?!" he was flustered, looking over his shoulders with slight goosebumps.
"You finally turned to me," Eve pouted, "You want me to call you by your first name, is that it??" she asked him, still pouting.
"Do as you wish, missy." Chifuyu jumped high to land on the roof of the building close to them.
"What are you doing?" Eve asked him from the ground, "Don't tell me you're sulking again," she folded her arms.
"I'm trying to get better view, idiot." Chifuyu was salty, his brows furrowed and his lips pressed firmly together before turning back to the area he was observing, before jumping back down to her shortly after. "I'm going in, stay here and don't do anything stupid, okay?" he told her calmly.
"I'm not a child, you know." Eve was somewhat offended, and her irritation increased when Chifuyu's mischievous smirk rose on his face.
"Seriously though, don't do anything reckless while I'm away." Chifuyu's smirk suddenly turned upside down.
"Okay, okay, Chifuyu-kun." Eve deliberately called him by his first name, successfully making him embarrassed. Chifuyu quickly walked to a window as he calmed himself down, then began messing with the lock to open it from the outside. Eve watched him do his craftiness from a distance, Chifuyu opened the window in a matter of seconds and gave Eve a smug before silently jumping in to the building. "Hhh... That man is always so full of himself," Eve sighed.
Chifuyu jumped out about half-an-hour later, stepping on the big window's stool and closing it back. He had finished his investigation, and there were indeed the stocks of illegal drugs in the facility.
"Investigation over, got to report back to the old man now." Chifuyu landed on the ground, fixing his black leather gloves as he walked back to the alley where he left Eve, to notice she was nowhere to be seen. "Eve?" Chifuyu was bewildered in the silence.
Eve was rebelling the three men tying her limbs, she was thrown on a roofless wooden carriage pulled by a horse, while a man was touching the ends of her light blonde hair.
"She would sell for a fine price, don't you think?" the man was smiling, his yellow teeth showing.
"Let me go, let me go!" Eve was upset.
"Quiet!" the man shouted to her.
"Why not tape her mouth shut, sir?" another suggested.
"No, I don't want to ruin this beautiful face." The man denied, "Get moving!" he called out to the last man.
"Yes, sir." The last was governing the horse, and the carriage began to move.
"Hey, there's a person you wouldn't want to mess with here! He just left me temporarily and would come find me, you'll be sorry!" Eve was irritated, "Actually, I doubt he would rescue me since he's mad at me." She was mentally doubtful and panicking.
"How long to our client's place?" the leading man asked the driver.
"In about 10 minutes," the driver responded.
"Good, I guess I have time to have fun with you." The man turned to Eve, and Eve's expression turned horrified.
"Think again, monsieur." A familiar voice made the three men and Eve pause, and Chifuyu appeared from above to land on the carriage with a confident smile on his face and his mask concealing his identity.
"T-The Alabaster?!" the leading man was shocked and jumped into a stand, where Chifuyu rapidly knocked him unconscious with a kick to the man's abdomen and the other on the carriage with a punch striking the same spot.
"Shit!" the driver pulled out a gun, but Chifuyu easily dodged the bullets by shifting to the side and he knocked the driver unconscious with a roundhouse kick.
"Chifuyu-kun?" Eve finally gathered herself to speak up as Chifuyu untied her, then he placed his hands behind her back and under her knees to carry her in his arms after he untied her, and jumped off the moving carriage to let it continue running to the direction with the three men unconscious on board.
"Geez, you got me scared a moment ago." Chifuyu said, his smile comforting Eve, who didn't expect his rescue.
"T-Thank you," Eve thanked him as he placed her down on her feet, "I didn't know you can fight like that; you have more superior agility and reflexes than normal martial artists!" her eyes were filled with amazement.
"It's just something I learned from my dad, Eve." Chifuyu doesn't understand why it's so amazing to Eve, "My dad was a skilled samurai, he taught me everything he knew since I was young. 'For your own safety,' he said," he added as he removed his mask, starting to walk out of the alley.
"I wish my father would let me go take martial arts classes, at least I would be able to defend myself, but he said it's too dangerous for me." Eve followed behind him, "What was your father like?" she was curious, hoping he would open up to her.
"He's the reason I survived that attack, without him, I would've died." Chifuyu gave a short response with his eyes averted, it was his way of telling others he won't explain further and Eve decided to drop the topic.
"Please don't tell Dad I nearly got kidnapped, he's going to make a fuss about it." She told him.
"Yes, Miss Nearly-Got-Kidnapped." Chifuyu suddenly leered, and Eve grunted. "Before we head back, I'll need to check out the rice sack warehouse we passed by earlier." He added, his smile turning into a calmly serious look.
"Ng? For what?" Eve was confused.
"What did you find in there?" Taylor asked when the they returned to his office.
"I have pictures of the location and stocks of the illegals taken; you can present those as evidence of his crime." Chifuyu placed a few developed polaroid pictures in front of Taylor, "I didn't take pictures just at the that storehouse, just so you know." He added, making Taylor raise a brow.
"The reason?" he was curious.
"First off, the picture of Jacob Doyle you gave to me showed that he was wearing hiking shoes. You told me he hikes often and he loves wearing that specific pair of hiking shoes, he wore them everywhere, right?" Chifuyu had a confident smile on his face.
"Ah, I remember you asking that weird question, of whether he wears those shoes often." Eve said, remembering him asking Taylor that question the previous day.
"You can say all you want, Eve, but the even tiniest and 'meaningless' details are important for my investigation process." Chifuyu lightly shrugged, "Since there was nobody at the location, I took my time to explore every inch of the building. Eventually I managed to find this," he pulled out a small plastic bag and another polaroid, that was taken on the floor of the building before Chifuyu taken the items into the small plastic bag. And inside the plastic bag were small grains of rice, stained dust and dirt.
"Are those rice?" Taylor was confused and surprised at the same time.
"Precisely, but these grains of rice are evidence that Jacob Doyle also stored illegal drugs at another location." Chifuyu placed the evidence in his hand together with the previous polaroid sheets, "Hiking shoes naturally have dirt and mud stuck on their soles, and the stains on these grains of rice showed that the stains were mud. Other than the mud, there were dusts of the illegal drug powder on them, that are the exact illegal drugs in the storehouse. Because of the mixture of the other two materials on these rice bits, I decided to check the nearby rice warehouse in the area. And my predictions were correct, there are another big batch of the same drugs stored in that building." Chifuyu explained, Eve and Taylor were silent when he finished.
"So, other than the storehouse, Jacob Doyle also stored the drugs in the rice warehouse?" Taylor wanted to confirm his understanding.
"Oui," Chifuyu nodded with a smile, "I took pictures of the piles here, so there are two locations of the drug piles in total." He separated the pictures on the table.
"Wow," was all Eve could say.
"You exceeded my expectations, Tsuguha-kun." Taylor was impressed, "Your precision is amazing, that's an investigator to you." He smiled.
"Great job, Chifuyu-kun." Eve clapped her hands as she smiled, but her father froze as Chifuyu turned around to leave the room.
"I'm heading home now, bonne soirée." Chifuyu raised his two fingers as he puts on his mask, giving the other two his mischievous grin before he closed the door and left the building, then jumped up to the roof of the house next door and began sprinting away.
"Why do I feel like I'm going to hear news 'the Alabaster was at it again' tomorrow...?" Eve mumbled, before she froze because her father rapidly stood up from his chair. "D-Dad?" Eve was confused as Taylor approached her and grabbed her shoulders.
"Eve, what happened?" he had an anxious look in his eyes.
"W-What are you talking about?" Eve was bewildered, slightly scared.
"Why are you suddenly calling him by his first name?! Did something happen?! What happened between you two when you're out there?!" Taylor began questioning his daughter again, gripping his daughter's shoulders.
"D-Dad calm down...!" Eve was overwhelmed, she was always nervous whenever her father questions her like that.
***