Once upon a time, there was a wealthy socialite named Haruhi Mikami. Though admired by many and wanted by just as many, she was a rather aloof individual. One of her few friends was Police Commissioner Chiaki Tokugawa.
They would often get together for meetings, and Chiaki would discuss her cases with Haruhi. One day, Chiaki and Haruhi were chatting away when Chiaki got called in for a freshly-reported murder. Haruhi chose to accompany her to the crime scene.
The victim was Jiro Takayama, co-owner of the Ashikaga Zaibatsu. His son was the one who found the body, and according to his testimony, he'd discovered his father stabbed in the chest and removed the knife as a result. Hence, his fingerprints were on the weapon.
Chiaki chose not to charge Jiro's son, Makoto with the murder. This was because according to his testimony, the family safe had been pilfered, and the thief (and likely killer) had clearly left the window open as part of an escape attempt. Soon afterwards, Chiaki received terrified phone calls from Hajime Kuwata, Akemi Fujisaki and Jin Nakajima. All of them claimed to be the surviving co-owners of the Ashikaga Zaibatsu, and they said they'd received death threats. While Chiaki immediately dispatched police details to their locations, Haruhi took her leave, claiming the case did not interest her anymore.
However, before the police could reach Hajime's residence, he had already been burglarized and murdered. The Scarlet Assassins, Kyoko and Akane Yashuhiro had made quick work of murdering him and stealing the documentation he had. However, upon their escape from the residence, they were confronted by a masked figure they thought only existed in legend: the vigilante, Komori Shoujo.
Immediately drawing their blade, the assassins prepared to attack, only to be blindsided by Komori's preemptive strike. Using a whip concealed in her tool belt, Komori was able to use the momentum from her first punch to steer the assassins straight off the ledge towards their deaths. Two of the most valued and efficient contract killers in the region had been taken out in seconds.
Komori was even able to take their stolen belongings off their corpses before the police arrived.
Meanwhile, Akemi Fujisaki arranged a meeting with Jin to formulate a plan to protect the Ashikaga Zaibatsu from its enemies. Once he was ushered in by Jin's butler, however, Akemi was promptly knocked out. He awoke in a mysterious laboratory, reminiscent of the work of a mad scientist. Akemi was then confronted by the gloating butler, who claimed to be the mastermind of everything. The butler told Akemi that he was going to be locked into a gas chamber, which would be flooded with poison gas once it was sealed. With a smile, he left Akemi to his fate as the chamber descended upon him.
Fortunately for Akemi, Komori Shoujo had been watching the scene from an open skylight. She promptly descended into the lab, grabbed a tissue paper and a wrench from a nearby bench. Using the tissue, she blocked the release valve of the gas chamber, and using the wrench, she smashed the glass walls and dragged Akemi out to safety.
When he came to, Akemi found himself face-to-face with Jin Nakajima. "What happened?" said Jin. "What are you doing here?" all the while slowly moving towards him.
Akemi responded "We're in danger, Jin-san! Your butler...he's trying to kill us all! He nearly gassed me to death in that chamber!" Jin kept inching closer, his face a reassuring smile...
...until it was twisted in agony as Komori Shoujo grabbed his knife-holding arm from behind and twisted it backwards. He was forced to drop the knife he had intended to stab Akemi with. "You, Jin Nakajima, are the true mastermind." Komori said. "You are the true usurper of the Ashikaga Zaibatsu!" "Pah!" Jin yelled. "Where is you evidence!" Komori produced a scrap of paper from her utlity belt, all the while managing the impressive feat of maintaining her hold on Jin. "Take a look at this, Akemi." When Akemi read the paper Haruhi had given him, his eyes widened in horror. "Is this why you arranged the contracts? So you could kill us all?!" The contracts he was referring to had been drafted on Jin's behest, as he was planning to take majority ownership of the Ashikaga Zaibatsu. To do this, he had proposed purchasing the shares of the other co-owners in monthly installments. However, the Scarlet Assassins had begun their murder spree just a week before Jin's first payment was due, and due to the emergency provisions in the contract, the deaths of the remaining owners would make Jin the sole owner of the company without having to pay anything. "Not to mention the Scarlet Assassins have been known to take contracts just for the fun of it. You're quite a looker, Nakajima-san, I'm actually fairly certain they accepted your job for that reason alone."
As Komori said these words, Jin broke into a maniacal laugh. "That's right, I'm the usurper. And what will you do, kill me here? Well, I suppose it doesn't matter, I've done enough to be sentenced to death anyway...unless I CAN KILL YOU FIRST!" with a powerful shove and punch, Jin broke free from Komori Shoujo's hold. Drawing his pistol, he screamed "YOU'RE ALL GOING TO COLLAPSE IN A HAIL OF BULLETS, AND YOUR BODIES WILL DISSOLVE TO NOTHINGNESS IN MY ACID VATS! SAYONARA, YOU BASTARDS!"
Before he could fire his first shot, however, he felt his gun whisked away from his hands. He then felt a hard punch to the face. And then another. And then a push. He didn't realize that Komori Shoujo had herded him into falling into one of his own acid vats until it was too late. As he screamed and his body dissolved, Komori said "A fitting end, for people of his kind." and vanished.
As the sole surviving co-owner of the Ashikaga Zaibatsu, Akemi Fujisaki had become the sole owner of the conglomerate completely by accident. Jin's butler and assistant was arrested as an accessory and co-conspirator in the murder plot, thanks largely to an incriminating recording of his gloating that had mysteriously been left at the scene. Later that day, Chiaki discussed her insane case with Haruhi, who chuckled and wondered why Chiaki's career seemed like something straight out of a pulp comic book. But Chiaki couldn't blame Haruhi for struggling to accept the plausibility of the cases she had to deal with. Because, after all, stories like these are hard to believe in unless you played a part in them. And it's not like Haruhi had any involvement in the events that transpired...riiiiiiight?!