The days began to feel like a chore. It was draining Hyde to be living so normally after the excitement he felt from days before. All of it was gone, replaced by school work, exercise, studying magic and for tests, working part time at the agency’s cafe. It was all so boring! Mikael’s cowboy routine was starting to get old and Ibuki seemed narrow minded. How did it all come to this? Was it… all over…?

Mikael leaned over to look down at Hyde lying back on the grass. He blocked the sun out of Hyde’s eye thankfully, but the boy still looked dead. “Are you having a stroke?”

“What are...the political implications of being a detective?”

Mikael sighed and turned to Ibuki on base. "Timeout! I think Hyde's lost it."

She lowered her wooden bat. "Aww, I could feel a homerun coming."

The white baseballs were scattered around the baseball field. Their training for today was to have fun. This annoyed Hyde greatly and he sat up with grass in his hair. "Midare hasn't given us any information on the next case."

Mikael shrugged "I guess there's nothing for us to investigate. Not yet at least. It's the calm before the storm."

Ibuki walked over to the boys to join their brief conversation. "It's calm but… too calm."

"Ibuki gets it." Hyde stood up and shook the grass out of his hairs "Midare hasn't talked with us at all. Same with Mary, I barely see her."

Mikael frowned at the idea of going on their own investigation but Hyde assured him that they didn't have to. All they needed was a clue. Anything that will give them more context so as to not be left in the dark.

"Fine." Mikael then snapped his fingers "How about we check that shrine? We're near there anyway."

Hyde nodded and led the way, going back onto the maple road. Leaves fell as they quickly made their way to the shrine’s steps, stopping once they saw Yamiko who seemed to be waiting for them and lost in thought. She snapped out of her mind seeing the group approach.

“Hello..!” she waved with her expression remaining blank as always. “Care to join me at the shrine?”

Hyde was surprised to not hear her speaking in her usual slurred tone. He nodded and they followed behind her going up the steps. Ibuki leaned close to Hyde to whisper “I feel like something’s off.”

Hyde glanced over to Ibuki and quickly moved his eyes away from her creepy yellow eyes. “I-is that so?”

They climbed the final step and they all were shocked to see one of the children Soap wanted to capture next to ...another Yamiko!? She stood up from her kneeling prayer and turned around unamused “Oh…”

Mikael looked at Yamiko then at Yamiko then back to Yamiko. He exclaimed “What in blazes?!”

“We’re dealing with an imposter? Which one is the real one?” Hyde pieced things together in his head. Remembering that the culprit they let escape was good at disguising his or herself. If they were allied with Soap then the culprit would’ve escaped with that boy already. There was no reason to stay at this shrine in Kameoka.

Ibuki kicked herself away from Yamiko along with Mikael “We have to defend Oscar at all costs.”

So Oscar was the boy’s name… Hyde moved away from Yamiko and drew his wakizashi. “Who are you?”

The fake Yamiko chuckled and scratched his hair returning the color black to black and took out his contacts. What stood before them was the elite imposter, well that what he called himself. “Elite will work fine though. Hmph, I knew I couldn’t stay disguised as Clotaire-san for too long. She’s an entirely different breed!”

What did that even mean?

“Ah.. you’re too kind.” Yamiko giggled.

Hyde dropped a sweat at how casually she was acting. There was a criminal in front of them, there was no time to be joking around. Hyde was about to start the attack when all of a sudden his body fell heavy. Same happened with Ibuki and Mikael. Yamiko on the other hand tried to step in front of Oscar to protect the boy but instead tripped and fell on her face.

“W-what..?” Yamiko questioned calmly.

“Y-yamiko!” Oscar was then grabbed by the arm by Elite and dragged away.

“Tsk tsk. I was worried you detectives would have more control over your magic. Tis a shame really.” Elite rubbed his hair returning it back to purple to disguise himself as Yamiko once again. He turned around to taunt the detectives one last time “Losers.” he escaped with Oscar in tow.

Once he was gone, the weight holding everyone down disappeared. Hyde’s eye twitched with anger “Loser? Oohh…"

Ibuki rubbed her head “Ugghh… What did he do to us..?”

Yamiko picked herself up and stretched her arms “He released his magic to overflow ours. It’s… a way to seal a person’s magic.”

“We know his name and appearance. There’s still time to catch him! ” Mikael picked up his hat and was about to run off but stopped once seeing no one was going to join him. It was too late after all. All they could do was plan and take action once the time was right. Besides, he could just disguise himself anyway and escape like the wind.

Hyde started to jot down mental notes about the man. Wind must've been his element and his true appearance was generic and hard to point out in a crowd. But being able to disguise himself as a man or woman he needed feminine facial features. The wind allowed him to sway the perception of eyesight to create an illusion that was at most enough to trick others from a distance. That was the explanation Yamiko could come up with as she too was perplexed by his methods of using magic. Hyde nodded with a vague plan in mind and decided to visit the city hall hoping the library wasn't too damaged by the fire.

────── 〔✿〕──────

"Something to help you find the culprit in disguise?" Lemon rubbed his chin then shrugged, "I don't think we have any spells for that."

Hyde returned a book to the shelf. "What about a book on how to catch a criminal?" He questioned.

The city hall's library was thankfully still intact, however the rest of the building was closed off to guests and in a state of repair. Hyde figured Lemon or the blue corps might have a clue on Elite and his whereabouts. If not then he could find a technique that could give him an advantage to solve the case.

Think… think…

'What would Midare do..?' Hyde thought as he continued looking for a book that would catch his eye. None would help him figure out how to defeat Elite.

Julius approached Lemon with a broom in hand. He looked at Hyde, a stressed expression was clearly written on his face. "What is he looking for now?"

"A book that'll help him detect their culprit." Lemon answered.

Julius dropped a sweat "The case about Elite? Isn't Midare on that one? He'll just get in her way trying to do the investigation on his own."

Lemon moved his eyes over to Mikael returning to Hyde with a book in hand. "Midare is struggling too I believe."

"But the more involved in the investigation, the more muddled the answers get because they'll all have a different answer." Julius frowned. Something like this should be left to her. Midare had an eye for catching people who try to use magic to cover their trails. Suddenly a loud crash was heard from behind. Julius and Lemon turned around and saw that Cherri had fallen off the top of the bookshelf onto Ibuki.

Julius groaned "It's dangerous for you to be doing that."

Cherri rubbed her head. "Sorry. I kinda lost my balance."

"What were you standing up there for anyway?" Julius asked.

"It's a nice view."

"C-Cherri…"

Julius pointed to Ibuki crushed beneath Cherri. "I think you should get up."

Cherri immediately got off Ibuki and bowed profusely. "My apologies..!" She picked up Ibuki and brushed her off. "That was very irresponsible of me. Are you well?"

Ibuki moved away "Y-yeah. I'm fine." She quickly left for another bookshelf to get away. Cherri frowned "I hope I didn't make her angry."

Julius quickly changed the subject, "Cherri do you have any ideas on how to catch Elite? I know you're quite a skilled tactician."

Just then Hyde interjected, "He's disguised as Yamiko right now and still has Oscar with him. What I noticed was that he's not able to copy the person's eyes or specific facial features. And the weird way Yamiko speaks."

"Sounds like you have it all settled." Cherri replied. "If it's just finding the differences between Elite and Yamiko then you should have no problem."

"There's still the possibility of him having a different disguise or…" Hyde's brain was starting to fill with the many possibilities of Elite's power. If they confronted him now, they would suffer the same defeat as previously.

"So that's why you want to learn magic." Julius rubbed his chin. His white rabbit ear twitched as he wasn't keen on teaching the detectives magic.

"Don't overthink it Hyde. You need to take this one step at a time." Cherri added.

She was right. For now his sights were solely set on scouting out Osaka. It would be against Levin's orders but they couldn't waste time while Elite had Oscar. With magic or without, Hyde needed to defeat Elite and save Oscar from his clutches. Mikael was inspired by his determination to see things through but even he could tell that diving into danger was a stupid idea.

"We have to go about this in a smart manner." Mikael placed his finger to the edge of his hat "Y'know? We're dealing with a skilled foe here."

Julius shrugged and reluctantly gave in. "I'll teach you a thing or two about magic." He walked closer to Hyde and asked him to show his hand. Hyde needed to focus his energy gently in his hand. He needed to find his own wavelength and to do that, he needed to be calm as forest leaves falling as the seasons change.

"..!" A spark flashed around Hyde's hand briefly. It was easy to miss but Hyde saw it. "Is thunder my element?"

Julius nodded, "Seems like it."

"Not bad. Lemme see if I can do the same." Mikael said.

Hyde looked at his hand lost in thoughts. He wanted to learn non magic but unfortunately everyone is born with a predetermined element that couldn't be changed. The books he studied explained this fact. It wasn't the end of the world though, he could still learn non magic but it would be difficult.

"Seems like my element is also thunder." Mikael smirked. He tilted his hat downwards "But I'm not planning to use magic. I wanna use guns!"

Julius lifted his finger "Listen up carefully because this will go over your heads if you don't. The first thunder spell you learn is called cel. It's the weakest level however if you cast it multiple times in a short amount of time you're able to do mutli-cel which can shoot about 4 cels. It's like a quick firing pistol, if I had to compare it to something."

Hyde nodded "I think I get it." He then held up a fist. "I may have a plan to defeat Elite too."

"Oh? Ibuki returned to the group holding a book. She closed it and looked up "I have a strategy as well. Give me a few days to plan."

Lemon smiled. "Glad to see you all getting along. Alrighty! Let's combine our strengths and solve this case."