(changed from steampunk detectives)

"Please you have to help me! My cat is missing!"

Takei Tanaka overheard a plea for help as he was walking to school, but he would be late to school if he stopped, so he continued walking without stopping to help the woman in need.

He didn't know her, so there was no weight added to his consciousness.

"Don't fret madam! I'm a detective that will take this case along with my assistant!"

Takei glanced over his shoulder to see a bubbly blonde-haired beauty take up the missing cat case.

He felt an ill omen of a coming storm, so he tried to escape from the area as fast as possible.

"Where are you going, assistant?! We need to solve the case!" The girl grabbed his shoulders and stopped him in place.

"What do you mean WE?! I'm not involved at all!" Takei tried to free himself from the girl's grasp, but she had an unnaturally strong grip that was not befitting of a high school girl.

"Akari Akazawa aka the world's finest detective is reporting in for duty! Assistant, shall we head on our way?"

"I have no choice, do I?"

"Nope."

Since I can't quite escape from this oddly strong girl, I guess I'll have to skip school today. Meh, schools overrated anyways.

The first location that they visited was the neighborhood around the cat owner's house. Mittens, the cat's name, was reported missing around this area after he had escaped from the owner's house and never came back.

"The best way to solve a case is to raise awareness. By placing these flyers up around the neighborhood while also searching for the cat, we kill two birds with one stone."

Akari was insistent on placing flyers everywhere as a first resort to solving the case, which was not something Takei quite liked due to how tedious and boring it was.

"Hey, Akari..."

"Please refer to me as detective while we're on the job," Akari reprimanded him.

"Aka-" Takei tried to speak.

"D-E-T-E-C-T-I-V-E."

"Detective..." Takei replied, exhausted from Akari's antics.

Akari was all smiles when Takei referred to her by her title. "Yes? What is it, assistant?"

"Isn't there a better way of going about this?" He asked. "I mean, wouldn't going to the local animal shelters and asking around be more efficient?"

A lightbulb appeared above Akari's head when Takei proposed such a plan.

"Bahahaha! That's why you're my assistant!" Akari madly cackled.

I found quite a weirdo on the street, but she's not a bad person. She's a bit animated, which is quite enjoyable to watch, Takei thought.

Their next stop after setting up the flyers was the local animal shelter that was near the residence of the owner.

If the cat had been brought anywhere, then it definitely had to be this shelter.

"Um, excuse me." Takei waved to get the attention of the half-awake employee at the animal shelter.

"What can I help you with?"

Takei explained the whole situation to the employee and described the cat according to the owner's description of it.

"As expected of my assistant."

Akari said something weird while he was talking to the employee, so he ignored it without retorting since the employee was right next to them.

"We haven't had any cats with a white spot around its eye recently. Sorry for not being able to help."

"It's okay, you helped quite enough. Thank you for lending us your time," Takei bowed.

The employee told them that there was no such cat in their possession at the current moment, which meant that this lead was another fluke.

Takei and Akari left the animal shelter with no idea where the cat could be. The sun was beginning to set in the sky, which meant that it was almost time to stop their search for the day.

"Aw man, we couldn't find any solid leads on Mittens," Akari sadly said.

"You can't solve most mysteries in a single day," Takei explained. "That's just not how these things work."

"How do you know more than me even though I'm the world's finest detective?"

"I read a lot of light novels."

The two of them began to walk home after a long unsuccessful day, until they were ambushed out of nowhere by a certain cat.

The cat was running around chasing a butterfly and accidentally bumped into Takei and Akari while they were trying to head home.

"White spot around the eyes..."

"A name tag that says Mittens..."

It was without a doubt that they had found the missing cat.

Takei quickly ran forward and scooped the cat up before it could escape to anywhere else.

"Mwhahaha, I really am the world's greatest detective! We solved the case within less than a day with no clues or leads at all! Come assistant, let's go return this cat to its owner!"

"Can I go home yet?"

"No! We need to scour the world and solve all of its mysteries together!"

Takei felt that it was quite troublesome having to accommodate to this idiotic detective's whims, but he enjoyed the time that he spent with her odd enough.

Maybe there would be room for romance between the detective and her assistant in the future?