Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ The Saint Was Kidnapped ❯ Kidnapped: 1 ( Chapter 1 )

The Saint Was Kidnapped

[Saints Magic Power Was Omnipotent][Love Chuunibyo and Other Delusions][Wagnaria][When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace]

“Hey Cousin. Gramma is asking about Sei. You heard from her lately?” asked Souta. Souta was my cousin up in Sapporo.

“Not recently. Something up?” I asked. I was still in my dress whites. I’d been training my backup chef, a guy from Tokyo with a wife and a mistress in the same house. They had some kind of complicated relationship, one the girl next door and the other a Mafia Princess with strong tsundere tendencies.

I am a professional chef. I wanted to go to cooking school down south once I could offload my lunatic sister, Rikka. I managed to find her a husband in the chuuni downstairs neighbor boy I’d known for several years. He was recovered, but at least understood her, and there was a sort of romance which developed between them over a couple of years before he finally learned why she’d gone mad with our father’s death from cancer. Our family chose to not tell her because she was little, so Dad’s death was a huge shock and predictably it broke her mind. He found out, comforted her and promised to care for her. This let me get on with my own life, finally. Unfortunately, real life isn’t very nice.

My cooking school experience had been to a highly recommended con artist school ripoff. They took my money then expelled me after a rigged contest. Rather than return home in infamy, I’d travelled the world and found how to make great food on my own. Little sister Rikka had stayed true to the husband I’d vetted for her and while she was still mad as a sack full of spoons, she wasn’t acting out as much.

Our home town was one of those dying communities where all the kids leave once they’re old enough to realize there’s no industry but farming, which just doesn’t pay more than a poverty wage. After 3 years overseas and my English (and Spanish) drastically improved along with my cooking skills, returning to our little community found it had reversed its collapse and expanded into a thriving home for some odd but talented people. And they liked my cooking. The Mayor encouraged me to skip retaking all those challenges at the con-artist cooking school and start my own restaurant here. After three months I’d gone from a startup empty storefront to a 56 occupancy restaurant with additional take-out and delivery service. I named my restaurant “Bite Me” in English. Enough of the locals read it to laugh and come in. The business was stable enough to get my backup chef taking over half the time so I can take a vacation.

And then the phone rang and I’ve got a family emergency. I could feel it.

“She’s gone missing. And the detectives said her purse and shoes were right inside the door, so the situation was weird. It wasn’t robbery, there was no blood, and it was like she stepped inside the door, set down her purse and coat, took off her shoes, and then just disappeared. Even the hall security cameras show her entering the apartment and never leave. The detectives called auntie, and auntie called Gramma, and gramma called everybody. My family wants me to solve this, but my wife is pregnant and she’s even more physical than usual.”

That was code for beating him. It’s a good thing he can take it. His wife was probably half ogre. She was trained to fear men by her evil father, and her childhood book-bag had 25 kg of iron plate inside so her arms are ridiculously strong. Souta once showed me a picture of one of those cast concrete light poles they use up there, because wood shatters in the winter there, cracked by his wife hugging it when she was scared. And the twisted part? She actually loves my cousin. Really does. His sisters are twisted bitches, except for his youngest one, but Souta is someone I’m not ashamed of. So his asking me means I’ll listen.

“I’m guessing you want me to visit her place down in Tokyo and see what’s up?” I asked.

“I’m hoping you can ask some of your more talented neighbors for tools that will help more than the police detectives.” Ah. Them. Well, they’re nice enough for a bunch of war veterans and far stranger beings. None of them owe me any favors. But then I remember my brother in law’s houseguests. One of them did something with portals. They owed me.

“I’ll talk to some people. Send me the details.” Souta texted me some names and phone numbers and the address and the building supervisor’s number.