From Amuro Tooru's perspective, Mrs. Hattori was, after all, a married woman. Perhaps she was just too embarrassed to directly ask someone to help her find her first love, so she came up with this roundabout excuse about "looking for photos."
After all, judging by the way she described things, if Jiangxia Tongzhi truly planned to help her find those pictures, he'd inevitably have to run into Mr. Shibata along the way. If that was her plan, well… the Hattori family situation was looking a bit shaky.
Still, Amuro Tooru quickly reminded himself: in his experience, once someone actually found their so-called "first love," it rarely went anywhere. As the saying goes, time is a butcher's knife. People tend to romanticize the past, polishing up old memories until they're shinier than an Emperor's forehead. But reality? Reality is a grumpy uncle with nose hair and a tax bill.
…
Meanwhile, Jiangxia Tongzhi had no idea Amuro was playing out an entire emotional soap opera in his head.
He was sitting across from Hattori Shizuka, having already accepted the commission on a whim—he suspected there might be ghosts involved. That made it a high-value pot.
She'd finished recounting her half-true, half-dramatic backstory, and Jiangxia decided it was time to get down to business.
He studied the old photo for a few seconds, then said:
"You've been out of touch for years. Not many usable clues left. Aside from his old address, the only thing that stands out is kendo… Why don't we start there? If we're lucky, Mr. Shibata might still be active in kendo circles. If he's won any awards, we can probably track his more recent activity."
Hattori Shizuka nodded gracefully, clearly in favor of this idea.
Jiangxia immediately started looking up regional tournament rosters, downloading and printing them out.
A few minutes later, he found himself staring at a list over a meter long.
After a moment of silent suffering, he turned and looked at Amuro Tooru, sitting a little distance away.
Since the boss hadn't left yet, it clearly meant he had some interest in this nonsense. Thinking that, Jiangxia folded the list in half, tore it cleanly down the middle, and walked over to hand one half to Amuro.
Amuro Tooru held the absurdly long sheet of paper like it was some cursed death scroll, his eyelid twitching. He briefly considered storming police HQ and having his subordinates brute-force the household records.
But in the end, reason won over laziness.
He gave Jiangxia a long look—who was already dialing phone numbers—and sighed. Then he took out his own phone and started cold-calling every "Shibata Shiro" he could find.
…
By evening, Jiangxia finally got a hit.
It wasn't quite what he expected—Shibata Shiro was actually living in Tokyo, just a few districts away.
"He still competes in tournaments every year," the staffer on the other end of the phone said cheerily. "He teaches P.E. at a high school now, stays active—really enjoys it. Let me see, champion… champion again… runner-up… third place… Haha, guess he's getting old and slipping a bit. But his form's still top-notch—he's a real star at these events!"
"His contact info? Sure, hang on…"
A few minutes—and a lot of paper-shuffling noises—later, Jiangxia not only had Shibata's phone number, but also his full address.
Detective work is so much easier when confidentiality is optional.
Jiangxia noted everything down with care, let out a small sigh of satisfaction, and promptly fed the rest of the list into the shredder. He stood there, watching the useless names be sliced to bits like a Buddhist watching a mandala dissolve.
Seeing this, Amuro Tooru walked over silently and joined him, feeding in his half of the list with an eerily similar expression.
Hattori Shizuka, who had been waiting patiently for hours in the detective agency like an innocent cadre, was visibly moved. When she first suggested this search, she hadn't realized the list would be longer than the Book of life. Now that they finally had results, the relief hit her just as hard as it did the two "tool people" she'd recruited.
Jiangxia dialed Shibata's number, but no one picked up.
He turned to Hattori Shizuka and asked, "Should we just go over and check?"
Shizuka stood, subtly stretched her back (which had been locked in noble lady posture for hours), and nodded. "Thank you for your trouble."
…
Even though she'd driven up from Osaka, Hattori Shizuka hadn't brought her car to the detective agency—her license plate would've instantly exposed her hometown status.
Jiangxia's motorcycle obviously wasn't suitable for chauffeuring refined women. So, in the end, the three of them piled into Amuro Tooru's car.
Jiangxia plopped into the front passenger seat, and sighed internally.
Shibata's place was in Tokyo, so there wouldn't be any dead zones along the way. No missing signal, no getting stranded, no weird ghost events…
Even if Amuro's car did get another flat tire, they could just call a tow truck or grab a taxi.
In short, there was very little chance of anything ridiculous happening.
Tragic.
While Jiangxia mourned the lack of misfortune, Amuro Tooru, now in the driver's seat, glanced over at him and had a thought.
It's fine. Last time Jiangxia rode with me, nothing actually exploded. Sure, the trunk got dented by an overly energetic elementary schooler, but it was still technically roadworthy.
Besides, he reasoned, most of the weird stuff always seemed to happen around Conan, not Jiangxia.
Every time that four-eyed demon sat in his car, a tire would blow, or the trunk would get mysteriously caved in by "random falling debris."
That one time near Sannaii Temple with Jiangxia might've just been residual Conan-aura contamination. After all, Jiangxia did occasionally help his friends babysit.
After convincing himself of that, Amuro felt better about having Jiangxia next to him.
…
The trip went smoothly. No flats. No shikigami. Not even a mild case of ghost possession.
They arrived at Shibata's apartment building—ten floors, no unit doors, elevator included.
Following the address, they found the nameplate marked "Shibata" on the sixth floor.
The moment they stepped out of the elevator, Jiangxia felt the ambient spirits react.
There was a shikigami nearby.
Excellent. This pot might actually yield something useful.
While he was mentally rubbing his hands together, Jiangxia coolly reached out and rang the doorbell.
It buzzed for a long time. No answer.
Hattori Shizuka frowned. Something wasn't right.
She hadn't actually lost touch with Shibata Shiro—in fact, she'd called ahead before coming to Tokyo, letting him know she'd be stopping by today to pick up the photos.
So why wasn't anyone home?
Just as she began to wonder if she'd been ghosted in both the literal and romantic sense, a deep voice rang out behind them:
"Are you looking for Shibata?"
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 29/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:2/10*