Working Title: Snacksona

[suckmy12inch]

And yes, the title is shamelessly stolen from Franzy. This is my attempt at some sort of P4/Ace Attorney crossover, with...just Ema crossed over, and my dates fudged. This is, er, just the first chapter, and the first time I've written fic in a long time. ANYWAY.

One

At first, Adachi wasn't sure if he liked the new detective or not. She'd transferred a couple days after the first strange murder, walking into the station wearing a white labcoat and munching away at a packet of snacks that she was never without. Chief had introduced her to everyone with a rather forced smile - then again, it was hard for anyone in the place to smile when they were all coming under fire from the press for not making arrests immediately. She was very polite, making her formal bows and then standing in front of everyone else to make her introduction.

"I'm very pleased to meet you all," she said, pausing in the snack-eating and speaking with practised Japanese. "My name's Ema Skye. I look forward to working with everyone here." They all murmured back and soon got back to work, Adachi included. But he couldn't help sneaking glances at her now and then, wondering a little about her. She'd been described as a top-notch investigator, interested in forensics: yet he hadn't been able to see any of that in the indifferent, polite smile she'd had plastered on her face.

No, he wasn't sure if he liked her. He only made a note of her as someone to keep an eye on for now.

Of course, that was until Ms. Skye, or Skye-san as she insisted on being called - to help her integrate or something like that, Adachi wasn't really bothered - was assigned as a senior investigator on the murders along with himself and Dojima.

"I can't believe this," Dojima grumbled. He mostly seemed to be talking to himself but Adachi ventured a reply anyway.

"Um, what can't you believe, sir?"

"How milky this coffee is, for one thing. You've been here  a while now and you still make the stuff too weak!"

Adachi winced. "Sorry, sir. I'll get you another cup -"

"No, forget it," his superior interrupted, flapping a hand at Adachi to stay in his seat. "What I really meant was that I get stuck with another rookie, and this one's not even from this country! What'm I supposed to do with her? Get her to do some of that forensics stuff she loves so much? She's not going to find anything that our lot hasn't already, so what's the point? And on top of that, I got my nephew to deal with too."

Adachi rubbed at the back of his neck. He knew quite well that reasoning or arguing with Dojima at these times was pretty much an exercise in futility, but he did it anyway, automatically injecting his usual humility into his voice. "Well, she seems pretty smart, sir, and she's been highly recommended. Maybe she'll give us another perspective on the case?"

Any reply that Dojima might have made, other than his snort of disagreement, was cut short by a sudden knock on his office door. Even through the frosted glass of the window pane, it was pretty clear who it was. Dojima groaned and then called, "Come on in!"

Skye walked in and Adachi noticed with a little amusement that she had her snacks with her still. "Sorry to interrupt, Dojima-san."

He shrugged. "Don't worry, Skye. Just spit it out."

She nodded and out of seemingly nowhere brought out a thick wad of papers, well-thumbed despite being fairly new. The case files for the murders of Mayumi Yamano and Saki Konishi. The indifferent smile that before had been fixed in place had given way to an utterly serious expression.

"I was wondering if we might be able to look over these files. I've read through them myself but I wanted to bounce some ideas off you two." She suddenly looked a little uncertain, the first time that Adachi had seen, and he vaguely thought it made her look pretty cute. "I mean, if that's all right with you, sir?"

Dojima considered her for a moment and Adachi had the idea that the detective was reviewing his opinion of this foreigner. "All right, Skye, we'll have a look at them. Doesn't hurt to have another perspective, right?" Adachi rolled his eyes inwardly.

And later he found himself stuck with the duty of showing the new recruit around Inaba. He might've protested but the look in Dojima's eyes made it clear that he'd only be digging himself a deep hole here. So, with a heartfelt sigh that only Adachi heard in his head, he begrudgingly agreed. Least it wasn't raining.

Considering the size of the town, it didn't take long at all for Adachi to show Skye the 'sights': the river, the shopping district, a brief look at the shrine and then ending at Junes. Throughout the journey, he made a few stabs at conversation, mostly along the lines of 'So how do you like Inaba?', 'What made you come here?' but he gave up very quickly after a few one-word answers. When she didn't outright ignore him, that was, and continue to munch.

So by the time he'd shown her the foodcourt, Adachi was thoroughly fed up. "And that's everything worth seeing in Inaba. Unless you want a guided tour of all the floors in Junes. Which, um, I'm not offering, by the way." He cleared his throat a little. "Um, any questions or anything? Because otherwise I'll just head on -"

"Does this Junes sell Snackoos?"

"Eh?"

"Snackoos," Skye said with a patient smile that was already growing thin. "Do they sell Snackoos?"

"Er." Barely any words from the station to here and all she wanted to ask about were Snackoos? Was this woman for real? "If you mean your little snack things then... I dunno. I don't think they'd be called Snackoos anyway."

"Oh." She ate another one, chewed for a moment and then said, "Well, that's all right for now. I have about five boxes. See you tomorrow." She set off without another word, threading her way between the crappy chairs and tables.

"Wait!" Adachi cursed his outburst as Skye turned to look at him, that annoying indifferent expression on her face again. "I, uh, you sure you can find your way home? I mean, it's getting late and..."

Was that a real smile now? He had no idea. "No, I'll be fine. I'm staying pretty close by here. Thanks anyway." Pause. "Adachi-san."

He watched her go, perplexed, before simply shaking his head and returning to the station. He'd been dumped with night duty, not a duty he particularly enjoyed but one he'd had to get used to, working with Dojima, who had to get back home to his daughter. Adachi hadn't met the little girl yet but he knew quite a bit about her already. Dojima loved talking about her when he was in a good mood. Somewhere underneath all his gushing, it was plain that the girl reminded him of his wife, but the detective never said it out loud.

It was one of the things Adachi did now and then, when he was left at the station by himself. He'd flick through old files and much of the time, it was the one on Chisato Dojima's hit and run. Sometimes he'd wonder if he should maybe mention it to his partner. Suggest letting it go. But he had no idea how he might approach such a topic and had an idea that it'd get him kicked out of here right on the spot.

A day or so later, left behind at the station while everyone else was busily investigating the latest death, he'd pulled out Yamano's file again, after taking a seat in Dojima's chair and (after making sure there really was no one around) putting his feet up on the desk. He flicked through the pages lazily, his eyes lingering on the picture of Yamano clipped to the front. She'd been a pretty woman, though it was easy to tell at a glance that she was a newsreader. Always with that fake smile they wore. Really, that was the problem with people like her. Women like her. You just couldn't tell what they were thinking, saying one thing, thinking another. Someone like that deserved -

A sudden shrill ringing made Adachi jump and he fell right out of his chair. He clambered back up with irritable mutters, quickly gathering up the sheets scattered across the floor as the phone continued to ring.

"Yeah, all right, all right," he grumbled. A look at his watch revealed it was just gone midnight. Typical! He gave up trying to order the files properly and answered the phone with a smooth, "Inaba Police Department, can I help?"

"Y-Yes!" The voice was loud, panicked and made Adachi hold the phone away from his ear with a grimace. "I just saw - on the TV, a girl, just like Mayumi -!"

"Please calm down, sir," Adachi said quickly, his mind kicked into overdrive. The man on the other end sounded familiar and he had a sickening feeling that he knew who it was. “Give me your name, please.”

There was a pause in which the man composed himself, or tried to at least. “My name’s Taro Namatame.”

He knew it! That stupid politician, the one who'd been having an affair with Yamano, even though Adachi hasn't believed it at first. A scowl crept across his face as he recalled the pictures of Namatame shown on TV. He was a pathetic looking idiot, that was for sure. But no indication of his thoughts seeped into Adachi's voice as he replied. Pure professionalism, yep.

"All right, sir, if you could just explain to me carefully what it is that you saw..." Adachi listened closely to the story. Namatame had happened to be sat in front of the TV the night before Yamano's body was found. Rain had been falling. At about midnight, the TV had suddenly turned on and he was faced with the sight of his lover writhing about in pain. And the next day, she'd turned up dead. It'd happened again, with that young high schooler, she'd been on TV and then she'd died. Now he'd seen someone else, another girl this time. So, what did he think?

Adachi didn't answer for a moment. Think, think! "Huh..." he began, feeling as uncertain as he sounded. "That's the pattern to the two deaths so far? And now you're seeing a girl in a kimono on that weird program and you think she'll die too. Is that right? Namatame-san... do you seriously expect us to believe something like that?"

"B-But it's true!" Namatame's voice was desperate. "If there's any way the police can protect her..."

"Listen... there's no way the police are going to make a move based on a fantasy story like that." Adachi was struck by a sudden idea and he had to suppress laughter that threatened to rise out of him. "It does sound interesting though..."

"B-But!"

"Oh, I have an idea!" Adachi interrupted brightly. "If you really wanna save her that much... Why not do it yourself? Like... You could shelter her somewhere. Some place where no one could find her. " You genius, he applauded himself.

"Where no one could find her...?" Namatame sounded doubtful but Adachi sensed that underneath the doubt, the man was already warming to the idea.

"Save her yourself," Adachi said. "You can do it. I'm busy so I'm hanging up now. Bye."

He put the phone back and settled back in Dojima's chair again, feeling very pleased with himself. Yeah, he'd handled that very well, considering he hadn't expected anything of the sort, especially from Namatame of all people. But now it looked like he had something else to help entertain him -

"Who was that?"

Adachi fell out of the chair - again, for crying out loud! - and whacked his head soundly on the floor. As he looked up, he met the eyes of Ema Skye, who as far as he knew had no reason to be here. She was supposed to be with Dojima, at the latest crime scene. So what in hell was she doing here, making him fall out of chairs?

She didn't look particularly sorry either. "Sorry," she said. No, definitely not sorry. "Dojima-san sent me to fetch you and some of the files." Her gaze flickered to the phone again. "Anyone interesting?"

"Um, no." Adachi scrambled up. "Nah, just some stupid prank caller. We've been getting loads of those, you know how it is..."

"Uh huh." Munchmunchmunch again. "I think we better get a move on. He's not in a great mood and you know better than me what happens when he's not happy."

He grimaced. Oh yeah, he knew exactly what Dojima-san was like. He grabbed his jacket, gathered up the relevant files and started leading the way out.

"By the way," Skye said. "I didn't actually mean to make you fall out of your chair like that. I didn't realise how, er, jumpy you are."

He spared her a glance. Skye gave him a little grin, tweaked the sunglasses perched atop her head - funny, he'd only just noticed those - and held out her packet of Snackoos. "Friends?"

Well, turning that down would just be plain rude, he decided. Adachi took one with a sheepish smile. "Yeah, friends."



...NOTES: lol this fails. Also I got distracted by playing through Adachi's confession bit in P4 lmfao. Er. Um. YEAH.