"Run this by me again, Paige?"
"President, I have explained my theory that this man-eating tiger is a poorly trained ability user. I saw it by the Tsurumi River. Is there a flaw to my theory?"
A young woman stood in front of a desk. Seated behind the desk was a middle aged man. These two were Fukuzawa Yukichi and Cecelia Renèe Paige. The Agency's boss and the Agency's only American.
Fukuzawa sighed as he looked at the female in front of him. "There are no flaws to your theory. In fact, you've theorized things a bit too perfectly like this before. An example being the Azure Apostle incident."
It was remembered clearly by Cecelia. The theory she had was spot on when it was confirmed by Kunikida.
"Miss Sasaki is entirely suspicious in my eyes. I have reason to believe she's behind this."
No one had believed her except Dazai. Most just brushed this off as them being friends who were just likely to trust the other's words. But those two were intelligent. Put them on the field together and no criminal could escape their claws. On their own, they were extraordinary. But together, they were tied with Ranpo in the intelligence department.
After that, a lot of people realized Cecelia's high intelligence. She merely just brushed it off as gut instinct, but people didn't buy it. If Cecelia said something was someway now, people would believe her without a second thought. This didn't exclude Fukuzawa.
Fukuzawa eyed her as she stood there. "So, what do you wish to do with this information?"
Cecelia looked at him straight in the eyes, face serious. "I wish to aid Kunikida and Dazai on this hunt. I wish to prove my theories correct once more."
"I see. I will speak with the two about this. Let's hope that your theories are once again proved right."
Cecelia nodded to him before she was dismissed. Her mind kept flickering back to what happened at the Tsurumi River.
Let's see how long it takes the Agency to find you, tiger cub.
...
Atsushi was pinned to the ground by a man named Kunikida. He had tried to escape after figuring out they were hunting the tiger that wrecked his orphanage. Kunikida didn't let him escape and gripped his arm tightly. "You may pay for your meal with your arm-or by telling us all you know."
"Now, now, Kunikida. There's no need to be so harsh."
Atsushi heard many noises of admiration and gasps spring up. Something inside him suddenly felt joyful. He looked up to see who had come. What he saw made his breath hitch.
The speaker was a young woman who probably stood an inch or two below him. Her clothing consisted of a white button up, black pants held up by a brown and gold belt, heeled boots, arm accessories, a rose barrette, and an owl totem necklace. She had a knife at her side and she proceeded to pop a hard candy into her mouth.
Dazai apparently knew her since he greeted her warmly while helping Atsushi up. "Ah! I was wondering when you were going to arrive, Cecelia."
Kunikida turned to him. "You called her?"
"Well, of course I did! So, Atsushi, Cecelia. Cecelia, Atsushi. Now, let's talk about that tiger business, shall we?"
Cecelia pulled up a chair for herself before her eyes landed on Atsushi. Atsushi couldn't understand why he felt a small twinge of joy seeing her face. Nonetheless, he sat down to explain to the agents. "That tiger wrecked my orphanage. It destroyed our fields, tore our storehouse to shreds... No one died, thankfully, but the orphanage was too cash strapped to recover. So they tossed me out to save money."
Atsushi still remembered the words they said. While thinking back, he suddenly jumped, feeling a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head and saw the sympathy in Cecelia's eyes. "That sounds horrid. Nobody deserves that."
Atsushi smiled at her. This woman seemed kind enough. In fact, she almost seemed... motherly. A familiar sort of motherly too... Odd.
Atsushi continued explaining things to the detectives. Every once in a while, Cecelia would add a little tidbit but other than that stayed silent.
When he explained about the Tsurumi River incident, Kunikida nodded when he stated when he saw it. "Yes, the attacks began roughly two weeks ago and we have eyewitness accounts of the beast by the Tsurumi River four days ago too. Cecelia, you are one of them, correct?"
Atsushi stared at Cecelia in surprise. Cecelia nodded with a smile. "Indeed. I may have gotten a little too close though. I'm still alive though!"
"Your survival instinct is phenomenal. No beast stands a chance against you."
Cecelia chuckled. Atsushi just blinked at her in surprise.
After a while, Atsushi was soon roped into hunting the tiger with them.
...
"Dazai has taken the tiger to the abandoned warehouse. I'll be heading over soon but I wished to inform you."
"Thank you, Cecelia. I expect your theory to prove right."
"Of course, Fukuzawa-san. Good night to you."
"Goodnight, Cecelia."
Cecelia proceeded to hang up and race on over to the abandoned warehouse. When she arrived, she bore witness to Atsushi shifting into the tiger they were hunting.
There you are, tiger cub.
The beast lunged at Dazai, ready to take his head off. However, Cecelia and Dazai were both former mafiosi, so Dazai was an expert at dodging. Cecelia was rather thick skinned and poison resistant.
Cecelia wanted to race over and help, but Dazai shook his head. "It's too dangerous!"
Cecelia got mad. "Too dangerous my ass! I'm a former mafiosa. I can take the tiger!"
This caused the tiger to turn in the direction of her. Cecelia gulped. Instead of going for her, however, the tiger ignored her and turned back to Dazai. Dazai had to go back to dodging.
He was suddenly pressed against a wall. Cecelia suddenly realized what he was about to do. The tiger lunged, but Dazai used his ability and returned Atsushi to normal.
Cecelia did have to catch Atsushi before he hit the floor though. A minute later, Kunikida rushed in to find Atsushi in Cecelia's lap and both of the detectives uninjured.
Apparently, Dazai had alarmed Kunikida with a note and scared some of the off duty staff into coming. Cecelia knew Dazai would be owing them some sake.
Cecelia hummed as she looked down at Atsushi. "Looks like the tiger cub is out cold. He won't be waking up for a while."
Armed Detective Agency Spy: Cecelia R. Paige
Ability: Glutton
Engineered Second Ability: The Goddess Selene
After a while of pondering what to do, Dazai surprised them by suggesting Atsushi work with them. Dazai turned to Cecelia. "Let's put Atsushi-kun with Cecelia. The tiger seems to like her to the point of ignoring her in favor of me. I mean that in terms of killing."
Kunikida nodded. "That does seem to be our safest option. Will you agree to this?"
Cecelia nodded. "Of course."
We're going to have a lot of fun, tiger cub.
That's the first chapter finished! Hope you enjoyed! I enjoyed this a lot. Also, tiger cub and cub is definitely what Cecelia is going to be calling Atsushi.
On an unrelated note, we all remember BSD manga volume 4, chapter 18, right?
On page 42, a rundown of his injuries is being given. Dislocated and broken jawbone, avulsion fractures in the frontal bone and thoracic vertebrae, neck ligament damage, upper arm and thigh muscle ruptures, first degree burns all over, and he was comatose.
But what is the true severity of these injuries, I wondered. So, I asked my mother, who is a nurse, and she said that Akutugawa went through multi-system organ trauma. It's extremely dangerous, especially the muscle ruptures and the ligament damage.
Apparently, if left alone, you could lose a liter of blood JUST from a thigh muscle rupture in a matter of minutes. That's far too much. And for him, it wasn't just his thigh.
So yeah, praise everything that Akutugawa survived all that. He's a fighter.
Au revoir.