The Casebook of S. Leonhart

Description: For the StrifeHart Kink Meme. The adventures of Mr. S. Leonhart as told by his companion Mr. C. Strife. Sherlock Holmes AU.

Disclaimer: Square-Enix owns the characters. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle owns the plots and the character guidelines. Someone on the meme owns the original idea. And me? I simply own the words, nothing else.


Introduction

After much thought and arguing with myself, I have decided to write down an account of my experiences in the past year with a certain gentleman by the name of Leonhart. I use the term "gentleman" loosely since, as my readers will certainly discover, Leonhart hardly possesses the refined demeanor usually associated with the term. Regardless, he is a fine man, unlike any I have ever encountered, and thus I feel his talents and achievements should be revealed to the world. I fully realize he will be furious with me for doing this, but I am more than willing to take my chances with his anger.

I suppose the first thing I should do is explain a bit about myself. I grew up in the military town of Hollow Bastion and, like many of its sons, I joined the army at a young age. I, like many others, had high hopes of joining the elite squadron known as SOLDIER and even took the initial exam, but when it became apparent that I would rise no higher than foot soldier, I quit and looked for a different way to live my life. While in the army, I had the opportunity to study subjects that my previous rudimentary education had lacked, and I discovered I had an interest in, and a talent for, biology and medical science. I continued my studies in private while I worked off and on as a mercenary, and by the time I was hired by a certain semi-famous renegade group, I had learned enough to start my own practice should I wish. I had planned to start a side-career as a battlefield medic or a civilian doctor specializing in monster wounds when the group I worked for had to be quickly disbanded due to a security breach. In short, we fled, and that's how I found myself arriving in Traverse Town with only a couple of suitcases of possessions, my sword, and a head full of unused knowledge.

Thanks to a friend at my aforementioned job, I had a destination once I disembarked the Gummi Ship and stepped into this overcrowded city. Had I not, I'm sure I would have wandered the winding streets for weeks, completely lost, longing for the sharp, geometric setup of my hometown. As it was, it took me a good thirty minutes longer than it should have to find the correct house, and by the time I got there, I was less than pleased. The woman who opened the door, however, didn't seem to mind my scowl and smiled at me prettily.

"Mr. Strife?" she asked after bright green eyes had taken in my suitcases and my travel-worn appearance. "I'm Aerith Gainsborough. Please come in." She held the door open for me, politely ignoring the fact that I had done nothing but grunt at her in response.

Once I had maneuvered myself into the house, Miss Gainsborough took the lead and guided me up the stairs towards, I assumed, the rooms I would be renting from her. She kept up a smooth flow of words, pointing out the dining room and kitchen on the first floor and describing other aspects of the house, but I found her voice to be calming and pleasant. By the time we had ascended to the third floor, the second being where she herself resided, I had lost a good deal of my irritation and was actually considering speaking myself, if only to thank her for her hospitality on such short notice.

Before I could say a word, however, a gunshot rang out from behind a closed door, causing me to drop my luggage and instinctively reach for the sword on my back. My mind raced with dozens of possibilities ranging from burglary to murder, and I was torn between charging in to investigate and staying back to protect the woman beside me. She had jumped at the sound as well, but, to my great surprise, she recovered almost instantly, placed her hands on her hips for a moment and sighed, and then walked straight up to the offending door and knocked loudly.

"Mr. Leonhart!" she called, sounding more put-out than frightened.

The door swung open almost immediately, releasing a small cloud of gunpowder smoke and revealing a tall, disheveled-looking man in a white shirt and dark trousers. His emotionless eyes stared down at the woman for half a second, then slid to me, and I suddenly found myself staring at the unfriendly end of a sword nearly as long as my own which, I noted, was still smoking faintly. My own sword came off my back in an instant, and I immediately had my blade at his throat even as his threatened to slice open mine.

"Now none of that!" Miss Gainsborough scolded, shocking me yet again at how calm she was at this moment. "I will not have fighting in this house. I have warned you before, Mr. Leonhart, that if you cannot behave yourself, I will put you out immediately. The same goes for you, Mr. Strife," she added, turning to me with a chastising expression. "I don't care what you do outside of these walls, but while you are in them, you will act like gentlemen."

Something like amusement flickered in the empty gray eyes that stared into mine, and the blade the other held retreated. "My apologies, Gainsborough," the man, Leonhart, said in a low, even tone. "It won't happen again."

The woman sighed at him. "If I had a single munny for every time I've heard that …" she remarked lightly. Then, as I slowly lowered my own sword, she asked with a renewed frown, "You've put a new hole in the wall, haven't you?"

Finally, those cold eyes, which were split by an ugly-looking scar across the bridge of his nose, released me and turned to regard the female before him. "I said I'd pay you for the repairs," he replied to her obvious complaint.

"I would prefer that you discharge your firearms outside like everyone else," she retorted, but when he did nothing but stare at her, she sighed again and appeared to let it go. "This is Mr. Strife," she said with a gesture towards me. "He will be occupying the rooms across from yours from today on. Mr. Strife, this is Mr. Leonhart, my other lodger."

Still extremely wary of this man, who I had begun to believe was quite possibly insane, I nodded once in greeting. He simply fixed that unnerving stare on me once again and stated, "Your SOLDIER friend would disapprove of your recent actions, mercenary renegade."

To say that I panicked would be an understatement of the worst kind. I damn near dropped my sword I was so shocked, and when I had recovered enough, I placed the blade back against that smooth throat as quick as lightning. To be honest, I was less worried about the fact that he seemed to know about the incident in Hollow Bastion than I was about the other secret of mine of which he also seemed to be aware.

"How the hell do you know about Zack?" I growled.

Leonhart had the gall to smirk at me, and I nearly decapitated him right there. Instead, I let him speak, and my anger slowly turned to wonder as the words passed his lips. "Your sword has a special design on the blade near the hilt, proclaiming both the maker and the one for whom it was made. That weaponsmith is highly sought after in Hollow Bastion and subsequently only sells to high-ranking SOLDIERs. Each of his weapons is engraved with his own personal seal, but few who buy the weapons realize that he also weaves the initials of the buyer into the design. The initials on that sword are 'Z.F.'. Since your name is Strife, that sword was not made for you. You received it from Z.F., so therefore I concluded that he was a friend.

"You yourself are not in SOLDIER although you did take the exam and even passed far enough to undergo the Mako testing. The latter is easily deduced from your eyes while the former is deduced from the fact that you have that sword at all. If you were in SOLDIER, or in fact in the army at all, your superior officers would recognize that blade by its maker if not by its owner and take it from you.

"As for your recent actions, your shoes still carry traces of the unique dirt found in the Crystal Fissure where several of Hollow Bastion's Mako reactors reside. This morning, there was a report on a failed bombing attempt on one of the reactors by the renegade group AVALANCHE. Based on your shoes, the fact that Gainsborough has a friend in that group, and the fact that you have arrived here with few possessions, I concluded that you were involved in the attempted bombing and have fled here for temporary safety."

By the time he finished speaking, the tip of my sword was resting against the ground, and my mouth was hanging open. All of his mental steps made complete sense, but the fact that he had made them, that he had noticed those small details in the first place, left me completely dumbfounded. A child could have pushed me down the stairs at that moment.

"You've have to excuse Mr. Leonhart," Miss Gainsborough eventually said. "It's his little hobby, rather like playing the piano at all hours of the night and shooting holes in walls." She frowned at him again, to which he responded by shrugging and turning away. Returning her attention to me, she motioned to my bags and said. "Well, Mr. Strife, if you follow me, we can get you settled into your --"

"Wait!" I interrupted, holding out my free hand to the man who had begun to shut his door again. Leonhart paused, and when he turned to me, I asked, "How did you know that Zack is dead?"

That smirk appeared again, although this time it was softer, almost sympathetic. "I didn't," he answered. "I merely said he wouldn't approve of your actions. You filled the rest in yourself." He stepped fully into his room and closed the door behind him.

And that, dear readers, is how I was first introduced to Mr. Leonhart, the eccentric, aggravating, fascinating man who would soon lead me into many fantastic adventures and who would change my life forever afterwards.