A/N- So I lied. It's not going to be a big one. But… for sanity's sake, my sanity that is, I'm just going to go with what popped up into my head instead of trying to write a long piece of drivel. I've done crap like that before and it doesn't make me particularly happy. So please enjoy either way. :P

The Anime Murder Files

Case No. 12- Disgruntled No More

Investigating Detectives- Zoro and Sanji?

The Victims- Captain Kuro and his crew. They were found dead on their busted up ship. The strange thing was that there were no distinguishing marks on their bodies, nothing to point to the cause of death.

The Suspects: More people than I ever care to list. So I won't.

Insert dramatic music here.

It was oddly quiet in the office, a little too quiet. The lack of noise, whining, had Zoro opening an eye. Kaige was nowhere to be seen and the fact that Sanji couldn't be heard hitting on Flame led him to believe that they were out on a case.

The cook entered the room before Zoro had a chance to return to his nap. "What do you want?" Zoro growled, his hand sidling closer to the hilt of a katana.

Sanji's curled brow lifted in challenge. "You wanna fight, marimo-head?" His leg was lifted vertical to his body, ready to strike when the door banged open once more. A harried Kaige entered, followed by Flame. Hearts appeared in his eyes and the leg dropped faster then the eye could follow. "Flame-chwan! Kaige-swan!"

His progress was stopped by two annoyed glares. "I'll go make you two some lunch." His escape was made quickly, leaving Zoro to brave the fallout of whatever had happened that day. He inched towards the door, wishing himself invisible.

"Oh no, Zoro-kun, you're not going anywhere." Flame left the room in pursuit of Sanji, slamming the door as Kaige stepped directly in to his path. "We have a little problem that you and Sanji can help us with." She grinned brightly at the swordsman turned white.

After dragging the two into the office's one meeting room, Flame began the impromptu meeting. "It came to some people higher up on the food chain then us, that we were taking certain liberties with our cases. So they've decided to suspend our licenses until we get some additional training and what-not."

Kaige grumbled in her seat to the left of Flame. "It's not my fault they found out about all those dead suspects. It was only efficient to burn them in a bonfire in front of the office." She quieted at a glare from Flame.

"So, that leaves Jake shorthanded, so he's decided to let you two take over the current case that just came in. Even if you both are potential suspects." Flame eyed them both suspiciously.

Zoro shook his head and stood. "Count me out, I'd much rather go train or take a nap." He stopped moving as he saw the calculating look on Kaige's face. "I guess that means Sanji will win then."

His eyes narrowed with a dangerous look. "What did you say?"

Kaige laughed quietly in her head, she had him exactly where she wanted him. "Whoever solved the case first was going to get a bonus. So I suppose that means Sanji will be getting the bonus."

Tension rose in the room as Sanji and Zoro glared at each other. "We'll see about that! I'm going to be the one to solve the case! What do you mean! It'll be me!" This was said by both of the men in union as they pushed and shoved to get out of the room.

An hour later, after finally getting out of the room and returning to get the case file, Sanji and Zoro were on their way to Kuro's boat…

Sanji and Zoro had gone in separate directions after leaving work. Zoro found himself climbing a mountain. "Damn it, didn't they say go north to get to that damn beach?" At the summit, he looked down upon the land and saw the ocean in the opposite direction. "Shit!"

At the ship…

Sanji stared at the pile of bodies, handily covered with a tarp. From what he'd heard, there were no obvious signs of struggle or what killed them. He knew without a doubt that none of his crew could have killed them. They would have left some sort of distinguishing mark that he would have known.

He looked up as a cab arrived on the scene. Kaige, Flame, and a heavily sweating Zoro exited it. Kaige glared at the cabbie, as he demanded payment. "If you want to live… you'll drive away now before I shove my foot so far up your ass it comes out your eye sockets."

The cab screeched off, leaving the smell of burning rubber to remember it by. Sanji immediately forgot the work at hand to squeeze between Flame and Kaige to lead them onboard the ship. Not to be out done by the cook, Zoro started examining the bodies of his former enemies.

"If there's no evidence on the outside, perhaps there's some on the inside." Zoro spoke his thoughts out loud. Flame nodded her agreement. "The medical examiner will tell you…" Zoro unsheathed his katanas and sliced the bodies open, blood flew in every direction, candy-coating everyone red.

"So… what am I looking for?" Zoro asked as the others sputtered and tried to spit out the blood that'd fallen on them.

Flame, who'd been talking and got the worst of it, took a threatening step forward. "Oh, I'll show you, just let me borrow that katana." Unsuspecting he nearly gave one to her, but was interrupted by Sanji's foot connecting with his face.

An explosion marked Zoro's landing, and the beginning of another fight. While the two traded blows, Flame and Kaige examined what was left of the bodies. The only thing that became apparent was that the throats of each victim had swollen shut.

"Well, they obviously asphyxiated but there's still little to know evidence here." Kaige fell back on her heels from her former hunched position.

"But it does narrow the playing field quite a bit. It's either someone with some sort of elemental like devil fruit power… or it's Jango." After Flame's deduction, they left the two pirates to fight out their differences.

A half hour later, back at the office…

It had been surprising easy to find the men capable of taking out Kuro and his men. The suspects were two Marines and two pirates. Flame let them sit in uncomfortable silence, while trying to get Kaige to come out of her office.

"If I can't kill anyone, where's the fun in finding the murderer!" Kaige's voice carried over to where the suspects were waiting. Smoker stood and glared at Flame. "If you don't mind, I have pirates to catch, so could we got on with this?"

"You better watch out, or I'll let Kaige loose on the lot of you." Smoker quieted and let out a puff of cigar smoke in disgust.

Kaige came running into the room. "Did you say I could kill? Did ya? Did ya!" Like an excited puppy, she ran around the room briefly before running out of the office and down the street, killing random people who crossed her path.

Flame cursed under her breath, but had no time to pursue her wayward partner as Zoro entered carrying an unconscious Kaige, Sanji following on his heels. "How'd you subdue her so quickly?"

Zoro dropped to the floor, setting Kaige beside him. "We realized that we still had a job to do, so we called the fight off. She barreled into us on the street, bounced off and got hit by a car. But surprising enough, she seems to be okay."

"Why's Ace and Crocodile here? It seems unlikely that they could have anything to do with these murders. Ace has no motive and Crocodile has neither motive nor opportunity." Sanji's theory seemed to make Jango nervous.

"And while it's highly likely that Smoker could have killed them, he also has no real motive. Isn't that right, Jango?" Zoro bristled in the background, pissed that Sanji had beaten him to the punch.

"The question is why didn't you just arrest them? Why did you kill them? If it was so easy to hypnotize them to death, wouldn't it have been just as easy to hypnotize them into giving themselves up?" Kaige spoke up from the ground, wiping a trickle of blood from her forehead as she pushed herself to her feet.

Jango stood abruptly, knocking his chair over in the process. "When in truth, this was only the beginning of your little killing spree. You only used Kuro and his crew as test subjects. You wanted to be sure that you could kill in this way and get away with it. Just who were you going to kill next?"

She'd backed the hypnotist into a corner. Jango began to tremble and Kaige barely had enough time to dodge the pendulum as it swung at her throat. "I was going to get to the top of the Marines the easy way. Someone has to run the show after the top brass is killed, no?"

Kaige grinned evilly as the he took another swing at her. "I guess this means I must defend myself." She rushed Jango, catching him off guard and crashed him through the window. He would have fallen to his death had Smoker been a little slower in catching him.

Later that day…

Jake returned to the office from a meeting with his bosses. It had been a long afternoon, talking them out of firing Kaige and Flame entirely. While their methods were unorthodox, they were still some of the best detectives he'd ever worked with.

The glass had been cleaned up before his return, so he didn't know anything was amiss until he went to give Kaige and Flame the good news. He took in the boarded up window and Kaige holding a towel to her still-bleeding head.

"I'm not even going to ask. I just wanted to tell you that, the higher ups decided to let you two return to work." With that he went to call it a day with two giant aspirin to keep him company.

A/N (Disclaimer too!)- Well, there ya go. Another one down. I don't own One Piece and what not. Also, just a note about the name of this chapter. Kuro looks like a businessman to me. So I'd taken to calling him the Disgruntled Businessman.

And final note… I will not post this story on anymore. I don't want it stolen or copied (I'd understand if someone asked me, but I wasn't and it pissed me off.) like it already has been. But I made a page in which I'll be posting my work If I find that stuff gets stolen, I may just not post my stories for anyone but my friends to read.