KiriK

Fujiko Mine kicked back in her biplane seat. Even in 2020, the old thing had yet to fail her. She received a video call on her phone from Lupin, and answered it with one hand, glancing at his smug monkey grin.

"What's cookin', good lookin'? Your name's already in the news, but I figured I'd check in with the real deal!"

"Oh, nothing much." Fujiko winked. "Just swiped an antique shamisword dating back to the Meiji era."

Lupin stared blankly. "What's a shamisword?"

"Well, you know sword canes, right? That, but it's a Japanese shamisen guitar. The strings still work, too!"

"Wow! Can you play me a ditty?"

Her expression soured. "I'm flying a plane right now, you know! It's hard enough doing this with one hand while holding my phone in the other! Do you expect me to play with my toes? Because I'm not a monkey like you!"

"Heehee, right, my bad."

Fujiko sighed, then looked over the side of the plane to see the ground drawing near. "I'm landing soon. Love you~." She ended the call and pocketed her phone.

. . .

Fujiko had "acquired" the relic from a museum in Nagasaki. It was part of the belongings of a courtesan who took part in the Saga Revolution of 1883 and was executed for killing a government agent. The shamisword had been confiscated by the military, but after Saga's proper reformation, someone convinced them to hand it over to the museum as a reminder. The rest of the courtesan's belongings had been buried with her as a last respect.

Questions raced through Fujiko's mind. The surroundings faded away as she glanced at the shamisword beneath her feet.

Was that courtesan prettier than me? A better fighter than me? Would Lupin be simping for her if she was still alive? Why did she waste her beauty?

Then came two rhetorical questions. Or at least, questions she thought were rhetorical. As she touched down in a wide open field and started burying the shamisword for later, she thought to herself.

More importantly, is anyone gonna check this backwater dung heap of a prefecture for this artifact? I mean, this is where it came from, but "Would anyone expect the legendary globetrotting thief Fujiko Mine to return something to its rightful place?"

She blinked, realizing she had said that last part aloud, and quickly scrambled to finish burying the relic in a secure box, using some of her perfume to invisibly mark the location for later. Then, as she turned to return to her plane, she heard the familiar clinking of police badges and handcuffs.

"I would expect that!" declared Inspector Zenigata.

With a sigh, Fujiko raised her hands. "Caught with my metaphorical pants down. I don't suppose you'd let me go if my literal pants were down?"

"I'd just pull 'em up and cuff them, too! Now turn around!"

Fujiko turned around and her eyes widened when she saw Zenigata pointing what looked like a gun at her. She had had safety measures in the event he tried to cuff her up close, but this had her panicking. "You're not going to just shoot me, r-right?" she asked nervously.

"Maybe I am." Zenigata pulled the trigger, Fujiko tensed up... and with a loud bang, a tiny chip came flying out of the barrel and attached to her wrist. The force of the collision alone knocked her onto her back.

"With our new technology, that is!"

"What new technolog-EEEEE!" Fujiko yelped as the chip expanded and telescoped out into a pair of heavy-duty cuffs fit for maximum security, clamped around her arms.

"You'll be detained in Saga's local jail while we search the area for your stolen goods." Zenigata grabbed the cuffs and pulled Fujiko up onto her feet by them. "Now march!"

. . .

Lupin was strumming on an air guitar in his room in the gang's current hideout, humming a song. "Hmhmmmmm, hm-hmmm! Hmhmmmmm, hm-hmmmm! Dah, nah, nah, nah, bap-bup-bow!"

The robed modern ronin, Goemon, knocked on his door. "Lupin?"

"I'm in the middle of something, can't you hear?"

"I'm sure that isn't as important as Fujiko."

Lupin mimed setting down his air guitar for no particular reason. "Depends on what it is about Fujiko."

"Well, based on what we picked up from her bugged phone, Zenigata arrested her in Saga."

Lupin burst open the door, blowing Goemon across the hall. "He WHAAAAAAAT?!"

It had gotten boring recently, and Goemon wanted adventure. Much as he and Jigen despised Fujiko, she gave Lupin incentive to get off his ass. Plus, this incident happening in Saga gave Goemon a perfect excuse to return to his homeland and get some authentic Japanese sushi.

With a pained groan, he lifted a hand and said, "Mission accomplished, Jigen..."

Rbade

"GooOD MORNING, LADIES!"

The septet of idols sighed as the legendary manager, Tatsumi Kotaro, barged into the room in his usual hammy manner. They were in too good of a mood to be particularly annoyed by it, though: their recent charity concert at the Ekimae Fudosan Stadium had been a runaway success. Not to mention that it more than made up for their less stellar performance at the same location a year prior.

"What is it, Shades?" Nikaido Saki tried to grunt out. Tried to grunt, in the sense that she couldn't quite manage that flippant, disinterested tone the rough-and-tumble biker was known for. In fact, she was barely keeping down a grin.

"Weh-HELL, if you MUST KNOW," Kotaro announced as he entered the room, stalked over to the center chalkboard and flipping it over.

"... Nothing!"

That particular surprise managed to knock a bit of wind out of the girls' sails, leaving most of them mildly shocked. After a moment Ai, arguably the most experienced of the girls as an idol, rose out of her seat.

"Kotaro. What? Shouldn't we be… capitalizing on our momentum, and getting ready for the next show? … Or something?"

A wry, seemingly over-exaggerated grin crawled its way over Kotaro's face. "Whaaat? Nooo! Of course not! We should all just take today off to do absolutely nothing and DECOMPOSE like stupid, rotting, lazybones!"

"I."

"STUPID ZOMBIEEEEE!" Kotaro yelled, like someone flicked a bipolar switch. "When I said NOTHING, I didn't mean NOTHING! Of course your careers aren't just ON PAUSE! I just meant." He caught himself, taking a deep breath. "I meant. That there is nothing BIG. TODAY."

With such declared, the tireless manager began to stomp away, before realizing a few steps into his leave that he hadn't actually gotten to the meat of his announcement and promptly reversed course back to the chalkboard.

"As I was SAYING. Ladies. I'm going to be out dealing with the nice men who rebuilt our house. Practice or… something. Yugiri's in charge. Toodles~!"

And with that, Kotaro quickly and flamboyantly exited the room, leaving the flabbergasted members of premier idol group Franchouchou to their own devices.

Ai groaned and rubbed her eyes after a moment.

"All right, I guess we should get to work on-"

"Dibs on the computer!" Saki quickly interrupted, before dashing out of the room. Much to Ai's exasperation.

. . .

Only a few minutes later, the girls were gathered in Kotaro's personal office, the assurance that he would be out for most of the day making it a tempting opportunity.

Saki, having called dibs, was looking over the homepage of the news site Kotaro tended to keep up as his homepage.

"Whoah, guys, check this out."

She pointed to a certain headline on the screen.

"BREAKING NEWS: NOTORIOUS OUTLAW FUJIKO MINE HAS BEEN DETAINED IN SAGA"

KiriK

International treasure thief Fujiko Mine has been captured by International Police and detained in Saga. "[Fujiko is] a freak of nature," stated Interpol inspector Koichi Zenigata. "She's just as diabolical as Lupin III, and mark my word, he'll be coming for her!"

Fujiko's repertoire includes inheriting the cursed Jamaican Hummingbird Ruby, obtaining $500 million of embezzled funds, and aiding Lupin III in the theft of the Bresson Diary. Her latest theft was a Meiji-era shamisen guitar containing a hidden sword... Read More

Yugiri's eyes widened silently as she read the last sentence. She leaned closer to the screen, reaching towards a picture of the shamisword that was cut off by the "Read More".

Saki raised an eyebrow. "You good, Yugiri?" she asked. "You're acting kinda weird."

Yugiri quickly withdrew her hand. "Something seemed familiar about it. It's only a hunch..."

"Something you owned in life, maybe?" pondered Junko.

"Doubtful it is the same one."

Tae pointed at another headline.

"NEW HUMAN VIRUS DISCOVERED IN CHINESE LABORATORY"

"What? You think it's a zombie virus or something?" asked Lily.

Tae grinned wide and made an excited-sounding groan.

"I doubt it," muttered Sakura. "We died and came back. We weren't infected by anything."

"That you know about," Saki retorted. "But back to Fujiko. Any of you know her?"

Junko said, "She's a member of a group called the Lupin Organization, named after their leader, Arsène Lupin III. They made headlines a few times in my era."

Saki clicked "Read More" and scrolled down, finding a picture of Fujiko.
"You're kidding with that, right? She looks like she's still in her twenties!"

"Oh, my," said Yugiri. "Perhaps she found some secret to immortality?"

"Nah, the article describes how they caught her. Why would she be afraid of a gun if she was actually immortal?"

"I guess eternal youth is still on the table?" asked Lily.

"Maybe... but whatever, man!" Saki blurted. "She's a legendary thief Interpol's been hunting for years, and she's in Saga now! Think she's gonna die and become one of us?"

"I certainly hope not," Yugiri admitted. "It doesn't sound like she'd be the most pleasant peer to work with."

"All we can do is speculate," remarked Ai. "At least until something else happens."

"Well, then let's find something else good in the meantime!"
Saki navigated her way to YouTube and typed "フランシュシュ" ("Furanshushu", just means "Franchouchou") into the search engine.

Lily snarked, "Oh, so you can spell with kana just fine?"

"Hey, I passed elementary school! Unlike Shades, apparently."

. . .

Fujiko sat in an unguarded cell. Saga really was a dung heap; if those special cuffs weren't on her, she would break out easily. As it stood, though, she already had a plan of action.

A brunette policeman walked up in front of her cell. He smelled of incompetence.
"Heyyyyy, hope you're not too lonely cooped up in there, hot stuff."

Fujiko put on a distressed damsel act, looking away shyly. "I... can't eat with these on."

She pointed her cuffed hands at the provided meal, which sat uneaten on a comically small dish.

"Oh, nuts. If only there was someone with the keys."

Fujiko's eyes narrowed, but then the cop pulled out a ring of keys and flipped to a small, flimsy-looking pin-sized one. He reached through the bars, then stuck it in and unlatched the cuffs with a twist. "Now don't tell anyone I did this, okay?"

Fujiko's hand shot through the cell bars and clamped around the cop's neck. "Neither will you, sweetie."

With crush force she achieved through training from martial artists, she choked him until he dropped the key ring, then plucked it from the ground and unlocked her cell.

Once free, she walked around the cell door to put the policeman in a submission hold with both arms until he passed out. She then dropped him and ran straight to the front exit, swiftly roundhouse kicking another cop in the neck for an instant knockout.

Freedom. It was that easy. As she surveyed her surroundings, she wondered where to go next.
Gotta grab my belongings, so... Phone? Confiscated, won't be needing that one anymore anyway. Makeup and weapons kit? Probably also confiscated. Plane and shamisword...? She needed to check.

She had memorized the path from here to the field and back during the march. Getting back there was easy enough, save for dodging traffic. Quite literally, as she was nearly run over by a truck, but juked out of the way at the last second.

She made it back to the field. The perfume-marked spot hadn't been touched. The loot was still there.

As she dug it up, she overheard Zenigata's voice in the distance.

"FUJIKOOOOOOOOO!"

Oh dear.

Zenigata came swinging a pair of cuffs around his head like a lasso as Fujiko quickly knelt down to cover the partially-unburied box. She hoped he would fail to notice it in dealing with her, but that was soon to be the least of her worries.

"I've seen better attempts from you before, but it doesn't matter how bad this one was, because now I have you right where I want you! There's no-"

VWOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAA!

"-... escape...?"

Fujiko looked up and saw a flying saucer just a short distance away, blocking out the clouds. Light built up in a gem-like surface underneath it, and a ray of energy shot down before sweeping up towards her.

Between surprise, panic, lingering thoughts of keeping the box safe, and the simple shock factor of a UFO singling her out, Fujiko had no time to flee or react before the beam split her clean in half at the waist.

. . .

Legendary sharpshooter Jigen Daisuke knocked on the cabin door. "Lupin?"

Lupin, currently flying the (stolen) luxury plane they were on, glanced back. "What is it?"

"You might wanna tune in to the news..."

Lupin turned on a mini TV, and blanched as he processed the headlines.

NOTORIOUS WORLD-TRAVELING THIEF FUJIKO MINE KILLED BY ALIEN ATTACK

A grizzled-looking reporter stood against a backdrop of scarred grass, police cars, and paramedics. He announced, "We're live on the scene now with Inspector Zenigata of Interpol," then turned and handed the microphone to Zenigata.

"It was the darndest thing, y'see. I catch her returning to her plane after we left it untouched to lure her out, but before I can do anything, this big ol' flying saucer just shows up and blasts her like that! The laser even swerved around me like all it wanted was to kill her! I dunno if she made enemies of aliens or somethin', but... Well, as scummy as she was, I'll miss 'er."

Zenigata took off his hat and put it over his chest respectfully.

The reporter took the mic back and turned to the cameras. "This UFO strike is no hallucination. Local news stations and numerous civilians saw it. Even now, we're getting countless reports about it. Furthermore, Fujiko's body was indeed split clean in half, with the wound having cauterized in what seemed like seconds. Only a laser more powerful than any known to man could've done this."

All throughout the report, Lupin stayed silent, eyes wide and mouth firm. At the end of the section about the laser, he turned the TV off and grabbed the intercom receiver. Rational thinking had clearly left the building.

"Jigen. Goemon. We're gonna find Fujiko, and we're gonna give her a proper burial. Then we're gonna go spaceman hunting... and then Saga burns."

Rbade

Jigen raised an eyebrow at Lupin's declaration. "Saga burns, huh? But it was space aliens that did it," he said between puffs of cigarette smoke. "You don't think the place was really that important to it?"

"Whatever Lupin is thinking, I'm certain we will encounter adventure," Goemon responded. "My only concern is whether or not it is one in which I can use Zantetsuken to its fullest."

Author's Notes

I wanted to try my hand at something different - a proper crossover - after having previously written an AU. The idea came to me and Rbade during a discussion about a mass-crossover roleplay, and I decided we could take turns writing it, the same way I and some others helped him write his surreal "Out of Kool-Aid Salami" fanfic. Unlike that, we're not sticking to different characters, just periodically handing off the writer's ball entirely.

I'm not putting that much effort into this fanfic, it's just me and Rbade having fun with the premise, so don't expect terrific story writing or typo-free chapters. Often.