Sojiro focused intently on the board in front of him, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. He'd been in the same position for the past five minutes, running as many possibilities as he could through his mind.
The cat seated on the stool across the counter from him yawned impatiently, its tail flicking back and forth.
Finally, Sojiro settled on his decision. He picked up a knight, moving it to capture his opponent's queen. His satisfaction was short lived however as the cat meowed triumphantly, pawing a bishop across the board, stopping it just next to Sojiro's king.
The cat looked Sojiro in the eyes and blinked at him rapidly. 'Checkmate,' it spelled out in Morse code.
Sojiro looked closely at the board, confirming that there was truly no way out for his king, before sighing and holding out his hand. Morgana held out his paw and the two shook, congratulating each other on a well-fought game of chess.
"Glad I was able to find this thing," Sojiro said, resetting the pieces on the chessboard. "I figured the kid had brought it back home or thrown it out when he left. I wouldn't blame him after what happened with that kid detective."
Morgana meowed lazily in agreement, stretching out before curling up slightly on the stool he was perched on.
Things had been quiet at Leblanc that day, which was no surprise, given the storm that raged outside. It was one of Tokyo's rare snow storms, with forecasts predicting as much as a foot of snow over the course of the day. Accordingly, people had opted to stay home and while away the storm rather than going to work.
Akira hadn't been so lucky. Representative Yoshida had called him into work that morning. The Diet was trying to pass some end-of-year legislation and couldn't afford to miss even one day of work. It was all hands on deck, so Akira dutifully made his way to the Diet building, fighting through traffic and public transportation delays.
Though Sojiro would never admit that it was for Akira's benefit, he'd decided to open the café that day. The kid deserved a good breakfast before heading out in the storm, so Sojiro had braved the cold to walk to Leblanc and make Akira some curry. Once he was there, he figured that he might as well keep the café open for any poor soul that found itself out and about in the weather.
So far, Sojiro had only had a single customer, who had requested a blend that Sojiro hadn't brewed in a while. In his search for the proper beans, Sojiro had found the old chess board, which led to his impromptu game against Morgana. It had taken a few games before the not-cat had fully grasped the rules, but he took to it like a natural. Sojiro was beginning to understand why the Phantom Thieves had referred to him as their advisor more than once. Beyond his unique knowledge of the Metaverse, Morgana was clearly rather clever.
That point was also illustrated by how quickly Morgana had picked up Morse code. Sojiro had thought up the idea unexpectedly, hoping to help the cat get over a minor existential crisis. It had worked out better than he ever could have expected. With Akira gone all day, Morgana had little to do other than work on his skills with the code. Within a few days, he had it memorized well enough that Sojiro had trouble decoding it without writing it down first.
Over the next few weeks, the two had both improved their skills and fell into an easy rhythm. Morgana had learned to draw Sojiro's attention of a thump of his paw and to use blinks to signal at a speed that was quick, but not too quick for Sojiro to decode mentally.
They kept it to a minimum when customers were around, but there was no shortage of slow times at Leblanc, leaving the two plenty of time to converse.
"You still haven't told Akira about this, have you?" Sojiro questioned.
Morgana shook his head.
"Do I want to know why?"
'A true Phantom Thief doesn't reveal information without a good reason.'
Sojiro finished setting the pieces back up and leaned on the counter. "Whatever you say cat."
'I am not a cat,' he blinked back, only mostly concealing the humor behind his declaration by narrowing his eyes in feigned anger.
Sojiro chuckled, moving a pawn two spaces forward on the chess board. Morgana matched his move, and the two were back to focusing on the competition.
After each had made a few moves the pace of the game slowed considerably as they considered their options. Morgana was prowling to the side of the board, trying to get a look at the game when his ears pricked up and he stopped moving.
"What's up?" Sojiro asked.
'Someone outside,' Morgana blinked back.
Sure enough, the bell above the door chimed and the two braced themselves against the wind and the cold as someone came into the café, pushing the door shut behind before any snow managed to blow in. The guest smoothed down her coat before looking up at Sojrio.
Sojiro wouldn't exactly call Sae Nijima a regular, but she visited Leblanc often enough for him to know her favorite order. He also knew that there were days when she was simply looking for a warm drink and days where she wanted some small talk to go along with it. Today was one of the latter.
He turned around, measuring out the beans for her preferred blend before she was able to ask.
"What's got you outside on a day like this?" He asked.
Sae sighed, taking offer her coat, sitting at the counter a few seats over from the chessboard. "My client has a hearing tomorrow. Of course, they wouldn't push it back because of the weather today. He was accused of stealing from his employer, so I was investigating his workplace, trying to gather evidence that could exonerate him."
"I take it that you haven't had as much success as you'd like?"
"No, I-," Sae paused, eyeing Morgana and the chessboard next to her with curiosity. "Were you playing chess with a cat?"
Morgana bristled slightly at her words. Sojiro suppressed a chuckle. "Yeah. The kid can't bring him to work ever since his boss caught him, and Morgana's not half bad at chess. Good way to pass the time when there's no one to make coffee for."
Understanding dawned on Sae's face. "Of course. I'll never forget hearing the story of what the Phantom Thieves had done from Akira, but I must admit that I sometimes forget that you're as intelligent as a human. I am sorry Morgana," she apologized.
Morgana meowed at her. A sound that Sojiro interpreted as a grudging acceptance of her apology.
He finished preparing Sae's coffee, pouring it into a cup and setting it on the counter in front of her. She picked it up, blowing on it slightly to cool it before taking a small sip, clearly savoring the taste and the break it was giving her from her work.
Sae rarely mentioned specific cases when she came to Leblanc, so Sojiro guessed that she wanted someone to talk to if she'd been volunteering information about this one so easily.
"Tell me more about this case."
Sae took another sip of the coffee before setting the cup back on the counter. "My client works at an auto shop near Shibuya. He's a mechanic who works in the garage there. A few weeks ago, one of the co-owners caught him in the back office where they keep customer files, which are usually handled by the shop's administrative staff.
"The shop has lost some clients recently and there was evidence that the files had been tampered with. The co-owner claims that my client was stealing customer files and selling their information to a competitor who was trying to steal some of their business. Being caught in the office without authorization, combined with the evidence of tampering, seems to be enough for the prosecution to think they can convict. The way things are going, I can't say that I disagree." Sae sounded frustrated by the situation.
Sojiro pondered for a moment. "You don't usually take cases unless you think the person's innocent. What makes you think this guy is?"
"There's no motive," Sae said. "He's been an exemplary employee and worked there for the past twenty-five years. The other co-owner doesn't have any heirs to inherit his share of the shop, and when I spoke with him he said that previously that he had considered leaving his share in the shop to my client. What would he have to gain when he was set to inherit half the shop?
"There's also the fact that the co-owner who is pushing for these charges plans to pass his share in the shop on to his son, who has never worked in the shop in his life. I can't help but feel that this is some kind of power play from him. They both admitted that their relationship has deteriorated in the past few years."
She took another sip of her coffee, nearly emptying her cup. "The only people who could have gotten into the office that day were people with a key, so the prosecution is claiming that it must have been an inside job. All the other employees have solid alibis and he was found on the scene. I was investigating the shop to see if I could find a way for someone to get in without a key, but I couldn't find anything."
Sojiro took a moment to refill Sae's cup before asking, "and what's your client's side of the story?"
Sae laughed wryly. "That's part of the trouble. It's the classic 'wrong place, wrong time,' story that criminals tell. He said that he was just stopping by the shop to pick up a tool he needed for something at home when he heard noise in the back office. He went to investigate and found it disheveled. While he was trying to figure out what to do, the co-owner walked in on him and called the police."
Sojiro shook his head. It sounded like Sae was fighting a losing battle on this one.
She looked down at her cup, taking a few small sips before gulping down the rest. She picked up her coat, putting it back on. "I need to head back to the shop. Maybe if I take another look at it, I can find out how the real thief got into the office."
Morgana, who had been silent through the conversation, stood up from where he was perched on a stool next to the counter. He gave a quick meow, looking directly at Sae. She cocked her head at him questioningly.
Morgana looked at Sojiro, blinking rapidly.
"He wants to go with you," Sojiro offered.
Morgana continued blinking and Sojiro translated. "He says that if he got a look at the place, he might be able to come up with an idea as to how the perp broke in."
Sae thought for a moment. "I suppose you do have some relevant experience," she said.
Morgana gave a chittering laugh, blinking rapidly again. Sojiro translated, shaking his head in bemusement. "No ordinary thief could plan a heist that a Phantom Thief couldn't figure out in ten minutes flat."
Sae nodded. "Thank you for offering Morgana. I would appreciate your help."
Morgana meowed triumphantly springing off the stool and running up the stairs.
Sojiro turned around and walked back from the counter towards the kitchen, grabbing his coat and hat. "I suppose I should come to. You'll need some way to understand what the furball is saying."
"Thank you," Sae said. "After this morning, I didn't think he had any hope left. Maybe I have a chance of keeping him out of prison after all."
Morgana came bounding back down the stairs, carrying the bag that Ren usually used to bring him around town. He set it down in front of Sojiro and hopped in. Sojiro picked it up without much effort. He looked in the bag and saw Morgana surrounded by what appeared to be rudimentary lockpicks and a few other tools he didn't recognize. He'd have to have another talk with Akira about making sure that kind of stuff was well-hidden. The last thing that representative Yoshida needed was an assistant to be found with lockpicks in his bag.
Morgana wrapped himself up in a blanket he'd put in the bag to fight against the storm, leaving only his head exposed. Sojiro shut off the lights and flipped the sign on the door to "Closed" as the three left the café and entered the bitter cold of the outdoors.
The weather was bad enough that even Tokyo's usually punctual train system was running behind schedule, but Sojiro, Sae, and Morgana eventually found themselves standing in front of the auto shop near Shibuya.
A gust of wind blew by and Morgana wrapped himself a little more tightly in the blanket that he'd packed in the bag. His fur was enough to keep him warm in most situations, but the storm was bad enough that he needed the extra protection.
"This is it," Sae said. "There are only two ways into the building. The front office entrance that customers use, and the door that they use to bring cars into the garage."
Morgana took a look at the building. At first glance, it looked like Sae was correct. He didn't see any obvious entries beyond the two that she listed. All the windows on the office portion of the build seemed securely shut from the inside and the windows on the garage were too small for a person to fit through.
Sojiro's head craned a bit to the side of the building. "Nothing down the alley?" He indicated the alleyway that ran between the garage and the business next door.
"No," Sae said. "It leads to a small area behind the garage that they use for disposal of old parts, but no entrance that I could see."
"Let's take a look anyway." Sojiro and Sae walked down the alley, Morgana riding along in the bag slung over Sojiro's shoulder.
True to Sae's word, there were no obvious doors in the alleyway or the small lot behind the garage. All they found was an old car frame and some miscellaneous car parts that looked too old and rusted to have any chance of running ever again.
The trio did a lap of the building, but neither Sae nor Sojiro could come up with any way that someone could get into the building without a key. They stood in front of the building, considering whether there were any possibilities they had missed.
As the two mulled things over, Morgana decided that it was time to take matters into his own paws. He meowed loudly, getting Sojiro's attention, signaling, 'I'll be right back.'
He hopped out of the bag that Sojiro carried before he could receive a response. He landed softly in the snow, getting his feet wet with the slush. The cold quickly settled in his paws, but he ignored the sensation.
Morgana prowled around the building again. Viewing the place from the vantage point of the bag slung over Sojiro's should was one thing, but he had always done his best work when he was standing on his on two, or four as the case were, feet.
Again, he came to the small lot behind the garage. Morgana stopped for a moment, examining everything that was strewn about the lot.
One corner was almost completely taken up by a hollowed-out car frame. It looked like it might have belonged to a very nice car once, but now it was too rusted over to be worth using.
Another corner had a pile of various car parts stacked on it. A few looked like new additions but most seemed to be very worn out and weathered by exposure to the elements.
When Morgana looked at the side of the lot closer to the garage, his eye was caught by some of the trash that was stacked there. A few wooden pallets laid on the ground and a few more were stacked on their sides, leaning up against the wall.
Just a bit above those pallets was a long concrete light fixture that jutted out from the wall. Morgana's eyes traced a path along the light fixture.
Someone agile enough might be able to just jump from there on to the roof. He thought.
"Sojiro, Sae, come look at this," Morgana said, before realizing that his words would be lost to their cognition being unable to hear anything but meows. Hoping that they would come to investigate anyway, Morgana hopped up on to the stacked pallets before leaping to the top of the pallets that leaned against the wall.
Another leap got Morgana onto the light fixture and he carefully walked along it. When he reached the edge, he looked up gauging the height of the jump to the roof. Putting as much force into the jump as he could, Morgana leaped. His front paws just barely reached the edge of the roof and he managed to scrabble his way up, covering himself in snow in the process.
Morgana gave a shake to get as much snow off of him as he could. Shivering slightly, he took stock of his surroundings. It was a relatively plain roof. A few skylights to provide lighting to the garage, all of which were untampered with.
As he walked around, Morgana tripped over an uneven piece of the roof. Using his paws to wipe the snow away, he revealed a latch. Clearing more snow revealed an entire trapdoor set into the roof. With a triumphant smirk, he pushed on the latch as hard as he could, forcing it open enough to be able to slide inside.
His eyesight adjusted to the dark quickly, and Morgana again took stock of his surroundings. He was in a clearly disused attic if the amount of dust and grime covering anything was any evidence to go by. There were some forgotten looking files and file cabinets off to one side of the attic. On the other, there was a half-open door leading to a staircase.
Morgana ran down the staircase, only to find that there was no exit at the bottom. He examined the walls on each side. The bricks on each side matched, but one wall did not appear as worn as the others.
Did they completely close off the attic at some point? Nobody's been up here for a while, that's for sure.
Morgana returned to the dusty attic to continue his investigation. The floor was made of a very cheap material that sagged a bit even under his slight weight. Whoever had built the building clearly did not want to put much money into the storage space, which might have been why the owner had completely blocked off the attic.
He paced the length of the attic, trying to find anything that could give him further clue as to how the culprit had gotten into the back office. He hoped that Sojiro and Sae weren't starting to worry about him, but Morgana pressed on.
On his third lap around the length of the attic, Morgana noticed one section of floor that didn't seem to have all the accumulated dust and dirt that the rest of the attic did. He walked to the center of the section and pressed down with one of his front paws.
The floor sagged significantly. Far more than any other piece of the floor had so far. After a second of close examination, he found the edge of that piece of flooring. He traced along the edge of the piece of flooring, finding a spot where it did not sit flush against the adjacent floor panel.
There was just enough space between the two panels for Morgana to works his paw into. With some effort, he lifted the panel up. Poking his head into the gap he'd created, he saw an office below him.
Jackpot!
Morgana hopped down into the office. There were blinds over the door's window, so he couldn't see outside, but he was quickly able to unlock the door and exit the office. He found himself in the front office. He could see Sojiro and Sae standing on the sidewalk through the window.
He sprinted from the office door to the window and rapped on it firmly with his paw. Sojiro and Sae both started, and then immediately began shouting questions at him.
Morgana ran over to the front door and unlocked it. Allowing the two into the building.
Sae's demeanor was immediately that of the investigator trying to uncover all of the details that she needed.
"How did you get in here?"
Morgana, with Sojiro's help, relayed what he had found. He pointed out the part of the back office's ceiling that he had been able to move from the disused attic and showed the two how he had been able to get into the attic from outside.
Sae took pictures of everything, including the roof, which she reached by showing a surprising amount of athleticism, jumping from the stacked pallets to the light fixture to the roof without too much trouble.
Their mission for the day accomplished, the three quickly agreed to escape the cold by getting back to Leblanc as quickly as possible.
Sojiro unlocked the door to the café and turned the lights on, not bothering to flip the sign back to open. He placed the bag that Morgana was riding in on the counter and set about brewing a fresh batch of coffee. Sae sat down in the stool next to Morgana.
Sojiro broke set a cup of steaming liquid in front of himself and Sae before breaking the silence. "You think that'll be enough to help your client?"
Sae nodded. "There's clear evidence that someone entered, or at least could have entered the back office from the roof. It might not tell us anything about the actual perpetrator, but it will be enough to at least delay the trial until the police can expand on their initial investigation."
She turned to Morgana. "Thank you for the help. Without you, an innocent man would have been put behind bars tomorrow."
Morgana preened at her praise. Sae extended her hand towards Morgana's head as if to pat it but stopped short. "I know you say that you're not a cat. Does that mean-" she was cut off by Morgana leaning his head into her hand. Sae chuckled and began petting him. Morgana purred like a please housecat.
Sojiro laughed. "Did I mention that I caught him chasing down a mouse a couple weeks back?" He gave Sae a conspiratorial look. "I think he was just getting bored cooped up in Akira's room."
Morgana tried to glare at Sojiro but was enjoying Sae's petting too much to really put his heart into it.
"Well, I certainly know who I'll come to first if I need a thief's eye on an investigation," Sae said looking down at Morgana.
Morgana gave a friendly mewl and hopped off the counter, disappearing up to the stairs to Akira's room. He came back a moment later, a piece of paper clutched in his mouth. He hopped back up on the counter and presented it to Sae.
Sae took it and Morgana looked at Sojiro, blinking rapidly.
"He says that you're going to have to learn the code if you're going to be working together. I'm too old to be running all around anyway. Someone has to keep this old place running after all." He patted the counter in front of him.
Sae considered the sheet of paper in front of her. "I'll start studying it tonight," she said. "Thinking about it, I have another client who your expertise may be able to help. I'll come by next week with the case file and we can discuss further."
She finished the last sip of her drink and stood. "Thank you, both of you, for your help. I need to show this new evidence to the judge. I will see you next week."
Sae gathered her things, donned her coat and left, leaving Sojiro and Morgana alone in the café once again.
Sojiro looked at the chessboard, which still sat at the far end of the counter. He inclined his head toward it. "Looks like we won't need this old thing to keep you busy at least."
Morgana grinned as well as a being trapped in a cat-shaped body could. 'I'll never get tired of showing you who this café's chess master is, old man.'
"It's like that, is it?" Sojiro started setting up the board. "This 'old man' still has a few tricks up his sleeve." He made the first moved.
Morgana considered the board for a moment before looking back up at Sojiro. He paused for a moment, a sincere look on his face. 'Thank you.'
"Sure thing kid. Now make your move. Let me show you why they call me Boss around here. It ain't just 'cause I own the place."
Morgana gave a chittering laugh, pushing a pawn toward the center of the board. Even though he might not be any closer to getting a human body, in moments like these, he wondered whether his feline form wasn't so bad after all.