Kazuma awoke with a start when he heard the shout of his name from outside his door. He closed his hands into fists and shouted back, "No! Why would I steal your panties you pervert! Now let a guy get some sleep! I was having a nice dream and you ruined it!"

He'd finished the entire sentence before he noticed the feel of fabric in his hands. The handle was jiggling when he opened his fingers and saw the pair of white panties in his palm.

"Freeze!" He cast the spell and a sheet of ice began to cover the door, holding it closed. "Don't come in! I'm… ah… I'm naked in here, you pervert! Leave a guy to get dressed!"

The noise at the door stopped. Then resumed, "I do not care! You cannot take the panties of a crusader without consequences! Return them at once! I've already spoken to Megumin, Aqua, and Komekko, that leaves you!"

Kuzuma used his spell till his mana drained away and he looked around with frantic urgency for something to do with the pair in his hand. 'How'd these get here?! Am I going crazy?! Was I sleepwalking?!'

The ice was starting to fracture, though several feet thick, the raw strength of Darkness was unbeatable by something that crude. The sound of cracking and crumbling behind him, told Kazuma he had very little time, his eyes darted around, his breath quickened and at the last minute he simply threw them beneath the bed and flung open the wardrobe. He pulled on a pair of pants just as the door crashed open.

"That's not the same as knocking you crazy crusader! Don't think that just because you're a little bit hot you can come barging into a guy's room!" Kazuma thrust his finger out at her, and for a moment a flash of regret crossed her face.

"I am sorry, but… it's just…" Darkness said, and hugged herself, "So humiliating… my room, all of my undergarments are gone… and now when I was in the bath, the last one went missing too, and you… you're a panty thief so…"

"This is not the time to get your freak on! And I'm not a panty thief! I used my steal skill and that's supposed to be random! I have no idea why it grabs womens' panties!" Kazuma shouted with exasperation, then stopped as her words sank in.

"Wait, all your underwear is gone, including what you had in… the… bath…" He slowed his speech and thought about the pair he woke up with in his hand.

Living and working together for as long as they had, even Darkness could tell when Kazuma thought of something.

"Kazuma?" Darkness said to the shirtless young man.

"Wait so you're not wearing any underwear right now?" Kazuma asked and rubbed his chin, his eyes drifting down to her waist.

Darkness turned beet red, "K-K-K-K-Kazuma this isn't… ah… no but… this isn't the time to…"

He cut her off before her behavior could get worse, "So… promise me you won't freak out."

The abrupt change in tone caught her off guard, "I… how can I make a promise like that."

"Just do it." Kazuma demanded.

Darkness bit her lower lip and she began to shift uncomfortably on her feet, "If you plan something lewd I… I must advise against it, we live together and…"

"Not that! Oh never mind just, here!" Kazuma snapped and dropped beside his bed, he darted his hand beneath and found the pair he'd thrown there. He stalked over to the crusader, grabbed her wrist and slammed the white pair into her waiting palm.

She looked down when his hand came away from hers and said with a furious blush, "You did take them!"

"No!" Kazuma stepped back waving his hands in front of him and shaking his head in denial. "I woke up and these were just… in my hand! I've been asleep the whole time! I was up late reading, so I was tired! I never left this room, I swear! Besides, if I were going to sneak over to the baths, I'd have peeped on you until you got out! I wouldn't have had time to steal your panties!"

Darkness went very quiet while she let that sink in.

'That has to be the worst defense for anything I've ever given…' Kazuma reflected, but it seemed to work.

Darkness spoke in a slow, quiet, measured voice when she replied saying, "I have never heard of perversion being used as a defense against perversion before… but… even if I believe you, that doesn't explain how they came to be in your possession, or why the rest went missing."

"Maybe not, but unless we've got a ghost problem… again…" Kazuma and Darkness turned their eyes toward the hallway. "Aqua?" He asked.

"Aqua." Darkness agreed with a resolute nod.

Kazuma threw on his shirt and boots, and though it wasn't necessary, a cape for good measure. 'Why capes lost popularity in my world I don't know, they're just… so badass!' It was an idle cheerful thought to have when he stalked out of the room in search of the blue haired bimbo.

He heard Aqua before he saw her.

"It'll be fine, she'll have us around most of the time, and the rest of the time we can just hire someone to watch her. No way Darkness will talk Kazuma into sending her elsewhere." Aqua sounded drunk.

'It's not even ten a.m. yet! Damn her…' He cursed, gritted his teeth and stormed into the kitchen, "Are you drunk already?!"

"No! I've only had…" Aqua began to count them out on her fingers, "One, two… three… and a half… four… five mugs! I'm not drunk until I've had six!" She hiccupped and gave him a crooked smile.

"Drunk." Kazuma and Darkness said with tight lips and long stares, agreeing with one another at the same moment.

"OK, useless goddess, what did you do?!" Kazuma demanded and put a thumb on her forehead before she could deny being drunk again.

She looked only confused for a moment before shouting, "Why do you always assume I've done something!"

"Because you always do! The kites? The undead! The dullahan! The goddamn ghosts in this manor! Every single thing is your fault! Remember when I broke my neck because you didn't stick to the plan?! Huh! Because I sure remember, now what did you do this time!?"

Aqua's eyes filled with tears she was trying to hold back. Finally she couldn't and started waving her arms with wild abandon, "It's only ten a.m. I've been here this whole time since I got up and I didn't do anything! I swear it!"

"So how did my panties end up in Kazuma's room?" Darkness asked with a calmer air about her.

"Because he's a panty stealing perverted NEET!" Aqua shouted.

"I'm not a pervert or a NEET and I've never stolen panties on purpose!" Kazuma shouted for the skies to hear.

"Not this time." Darkness said with certainty, "Kazuma has done a lot of… perverted things… but he's not a liar, if he says he didn't do this, I believe him."

"So why are you asking me! I'm not a panty thief!" Aqua started sulking and staring down into her mug.

"I thought, we thought, maybe you'd done something that would have summoned ghosts here again, perverted ghosts eager to have their way with my most intimate…" Darkness was going down her usual path, her hands came to her cheeks, and Kazuma wanted none of it.

He gently pulled her back so that she didn't even notice what he was doing, her quiet ramblings of ghostly hands doing dirty things to her became background noise.

"Alright listen," Kazuma said with quiet calm, and explained what Darkness told him, leaving Aqua only more confused.

"Sorry but no, I don't know anything about that. I haven't turned any undead, and if they were drawn to the house, well, remember they seem to keep coming after me for some reason."

"Right… right. Fine, so you didn't do it, and all Megumin can use is explosion magic." Kazuma frowned as he thought it over.

'It's got to be somewhere… but where?' Kazuma felt his mind going into overdrive, 'More importantly… who?'

"Aqua… go get our hats, you know the ones. The one with the brim at the front and the back!" Kazuma said with enthusiasm, 'I've always wanted to say this…'

"The game… is afoot!" He exclaimed and Aqua popped up to her feet and gave him a mock salute.

"Yessir!" She shouted and skipped away with her hands at her sides.

When Aqua returned, hats in hand, the pair sat at the kitchen table while Darkness went on and on to herself about how degrading and invasive it was for someone to take so much from her.

They did their best to ignore her while Kazuma laid the matter out for his idiotic companion. "So, we know Darkness and Megumin have had a disagreement about Komekko staying here, and we know that 'all' of Darkness' panties were at one point missing. As it was neither you nor I, and Darkness wouldn't make this up, that leaves only two suspects!"

Aqua began to feel a rising excitement that made her fine hairs stand on end, 'This is when Kazuma is at his coolest… not that I'd ever admit it!'

"Who! Who are our suspects?!" Aqua asked, leaning forward over the table.

"Wait… what… seriously?" Kazuma asked, furrowing his brow.

"Yes!" Aqua answered in a rush.

"But… we live with only two other people…" he stopped, slapped the palm of his hand over his face, and sighed, "Never mind, never mind. Our two suspects are Megumin and Komekko."

"I see!" Aqua adjusted her cap, "Do we interrogate them?!"

"I volunteer to be interrogated!" Darkness shouted and slapped her hands down on the table, "We must be sure your methods are effective, and it is a female knight's duty to…"

"No." Kazuma shook his head.

Darkness immediately began to deflate, and again he ignored her. 'Pervert.' He thought.

"For starters, who has a motive. If Komekko found out that Darkness was pushing to have her sent to the Dustiness estate, she might turn to pranks, that's exceptionally childish. But at the same time, Megumin is… a child too." Kazuma acknowledged and felt a twinge of embarrassment at his past behavior with her when Megumin's mother tried to set them up.

"Either one is believable, but we need proof." Kazuma declared, then looked at Darkness more closely, she was squirming.

"Darkness… why are you squirming?" He narrowed his eyes at her.

"N-No reason, it's just that the tacks you stuck into my bra hit just right and…" Darkness shivered and couldn't answer.

"I- Darkness…" He smacked his face hard enough with his palm and took a deep breath as the pervert girl squirmed even more, "I did not do that either."

'Just think about the case, think about the case and not about the pervert about to get herself off three feet away!' He told himself and then violently cleared his throat. "Ahem… It's clear that one of the two is targeting Darkness, but we need to catch them in the act. Darkness, do you have any panties left?"

"Such a question… Kazuma… no" She shuddered, 'I feel his eyes on me… hungry… wanting… what will he do when he can bear it no more!'

"Go buy some. A red pair, and a black pair." Kazuma said with the sort of force he knew would get her to follow instructions.

"If… you wish me to model them for you, I do not think that is appropriate…" Darkness looked down demurely at the floor, but did a poor job of hiding her squirming hips.

"No… down girl!" Kazuma quipped, "Just buy them and bring them back here, be prepared to do exactly as I say. And Aqua…"

"Yessir!" She popped up again, excited in the pursuit of solving their little mystery.

"You have an important job! Super important!" Kazuma said, clapping his hands together.

Aqua gave her hat an enthusiastic tug at the same time Kazuma did his own, "I can handle it!"

Kazuma's face became serious, his stare long and deep into her water blue eyes, he took her hands in his and said with the utmost seriousness, "OK, your job is… please don't screw anything up this time…"

"Damn it, Kazumaaaaaa! That was mean!" Aqua shouted and flopped back down in the chair to start bawling while Darkness left to go to town.