ALL NOVEL Salsa-estigation (1).
After butting their heads for a few minutes, the Ex-Villain took the job at the counter, while the Ex-Hero took the job in the kitchen. In the middle of this, the Agent was chilling on the counter, and talking to Gru.
Lucy and Gru were discussing who amongst the shop owners is most likely to be the culprit. While they were browsing through the profiles of each and every shop owner.
*DING-A-LING-A-LING*
The door of the Cupcake Shop opened up dramatically and the bell ringing signaled the arrival of someone. The silhouette of a man became visible to both. Lucy and Gru quickly hid the profile sheets under the counter and tried to act normal.
The silhouette came inside the shop which revealed his looks to Lucy and Gru. The silhouette turned to be a Mexican man with short stature. He had a very thick long black hair that reaches his shoulders and a thick black mustache.
The man went to the counter towards Gru.
"Buenos Dias, my friends! I am Eduardo Perez, owner of Salsa & Salsa Restaurant, across the mall. Now open for breakfast. And you are?"
"Gru. And this is Lucy and We are closed." Gru tried to shoo off the man from the shop but the man didn't take the clue.
He dancingly went to Lucy, "This is just gonna take un momento. I am throwing a big Cinco de Mayo party, and I am going to need two hundred of your best cupcakes decorated with the Mexican flag. It looks something like this."
He rips open his shirt, revealing a tattoo of the Mexican flag on his chest.
"What do you think?"
He flexes the tattoo and makes it wave by waving his body. Gru hides his eyes to prevent himself from looking at the grotesque scene of a flag tattoo waving on a hairy chest of a middle-aged man.
"You~~ Whoa~~ Hooo~~"
But Lucy was quite interested in the scene as she looked at it while moving her head with the motions of the flag.
"Anyway, I have to go. It's all settled. I will pick 'em up after 4 days. Have a good day. Come by if you get a chance."
Eduardo then leaves the cupcake shop 'Bake My Day.' Gru groans after dealing with such a nuisance. He was about to go to the kitchen when Eduardo pops back in.
"And welcome to the mall family." He says in a low, resounding voice, with his fist clenched.
Gru studies his face for some time and gasps as he notices something.
Eduardo leaves the shop, but Gru was standing there shocked. When he noticed that Eduardo has left, he goes to the display glass of the shop to look at Eduardo.
"El Macho... But it couldn't be..." Gru whispered.
"Wha-What couldn't be...?" Lucy asked.
"That guy looks exactly like a SuperVillain named El Macho. From about twenty years ago. A SuperVillain who had a reputation for pulling off heists using only his bare hands."
"SuperVillain?" Lucy interrupted Gru's monologue about El Macho's description.
"It was a term used to describe the Top Villains of a country in the Villain Society. Early classifications are easy. Grunt, Villain, SuperVillain, It was used before Grade Classification was introduced. If graded by that classification, he could easily be a top tier B-Rank or even a low tier A-Rank Villain."
"Go on."
"He was ruthless. He was dangerous. And as the name implies, Very Macho. So Macho that people thought his quirk was related to being Macho. But his real quirk was a strength-increasing quirk and looking at his strength capabilities, speculations are that it was 'Super-Power', a rare strength-increasing quirk.
But sadly, like all the greats. El Macho was gone too soon.
He died in the most macho way possible.
Riding a shark with 250 pounds of dynamite strapped to his chest into the mouth of an active volcano... It was glorious." Gru ends his monologue with a boom expression, trying to mimic the explosion after El Macho's fall in the volcano.
"Yeah... Sounds like El Macho's pretty dead."
"No-no-no. They never found the body. All that was retrieved was a pile of singed hair...
But that face... It has got to be El Macho," Gru grew restless as he was thinking about the possibility of the legendary Mexican SuperVillain's return from death.
"Then what do you say, You and I break into his restaurant? Tonight."
Gru nods at Lucy's invitation.
"Yes, that's good, because I'm telling you--if anybody in this place has the PX-41 serum... It's him."
"But what about Oguro?" Lucy asked.
"Who?"
"Iwao Oguro. The Ex-hero. Our Partner."
"Him... We are infiltrating a restaurant. Fewer People, Fewer Problems." Gru tried to keep Knuckleduster out of the investigation because of a personal grudge but he gave a logical reason to Lucy to which she agreed.
But whether they told him about the infiltration or not, Knuckleduster was already listening to their conversation.
__________________________________
[Musutafu, Japan. 0800 Hours]
Shido was sitting at the dining table with Himiko on his lap.
"Himiko, Say 'AAA'," Shido brought a spoon with rice near Himiko's lips.
"AAA~~~" Himiko did just like her Papa told.
Shido slid the spoon full of rice in Himiko's small mouth, which made her mouth swell like a squirrel when she chewed her food. Shido was enjoying the happy father-daughter moment, but somebody was not in a happy mood.
Eri was sitting next to them having her breakfast. She was looking at Himiko enviously. A few weeks earlier, She was the one receiving the same treatment.
"Eri. Say 'AAA'," Shido brought a spoon full of rice to Eri.
Eri just parted her mouth enough to let the spoon in. After eating the rice, the spoon went away. Even if Shido showed his affection to both of his daughters by doing the same action, Eri was still envious of the newcomer.
It was not like Eri was completely forgotten after the entry of Himiko as the new member of the Kanzaki family, but the balance of attention was more on the newcomer's side. And that was the reason behind Eri's dissatisfaction.
After Himiko's entry into the house, the time Shido spent on Eri (which was already less) decreased as Himiko had some 'weakness' making her unable to do simple tasks like walking and it will take a week or two to completely heal. This was the result of Himiko's body and mind not being in complete synchronization after the Rewind of her body. This was also the reason for her memory loss.
Due to this, Himiko was always clinging to either Shido or Fuyumi all day even when sleeping, which decreased Eri's share of attention and care from her parents.
The Kanzaki family was enjoying their breakfast but,
*RING* *RING*
A phone call broke their peace. Shido took out the old-looking Night Raid phone and answered the call.
"Hello?"
:: How much time will you take to come here? :: A grumpy voice came from the other side of the call.
"After a week. What? Did something happen there?"
:: No nothing special has happened here but the investigation is going at a very fast pace. The other guy who was assigned to investigate the case with me has already found a suspect on the first day of investigation and tonight he is going to infiltrate the to check whether their speculation was correct or not. ::
"So... Does this have anything to do with us?" Shido asked, he was a bit confused as to why Knuckleduster told this information to him instead of the information about the organization behind the Trigger Trade.
:: Did you forget what I told you last night? Cooperate in this mission and you won't be hunted down like a Rabid dog by the AVL and the Interpol. You are already on their list, Night Slash. Let me make this very clear to you. HPSC is one thing and AVL is another. Don't take yourself as a bigshot. You. Just like me, are just a vigilante in Japan - A small country when compared to America and the entire world.
So pack your bags. And bring the entire team to America quickly. If the case concludes before we could make any contribution to it, then we will lose a big chance to make the AVL leave our tail::
"Is it guaranteed?"
:: What other way do we have? Fight them like HPSC? Please don't even try that shit to me. Just come here already::
Shido hung up the call and was about to resume his interrupted breakfast.
"Papa... are you going to America?"
Himiko asked with her head looking up while sitting on Shido's lap.
"Not now. Let's just focus on our breakfast first. We have a long day ahead." Shido tried to shut off further discussion on the topic.
He didn't want to talk more about the topic as it includes him being a national threat. Which daughter will like to hear that her father is a national threat and is on the verge of an International Manhunt, in addition to the already going on National Manhunt.
"That means you are going. And you said after a week." Eri pointed out.
"Yeah... I will be leaving for America in 2-3 days."
"Can I come with you?" Eri asked.
"No. You two will be living with Fuyumi at her home during my trip to America. I am not going there for a holiday trip. It's for work. I will take you two on some other day, but not now."
"Why? and what is the work that prohibits you from taking me with you?"
"It's a mission to save the world. There is a serum which can turn the world into ruins, and it is now in wrong hands, So I am assigned the task to retrieve the serum by an International Organization, to save the world." Shido presented a twisted story to his daughters just to make them shut up about it.
"Like James Bond?" Eri asked.
"Maybe like him... I will try. That guy is a legend. The bar is too high to reach you know."
"At least say 'Better than that' or 'Heh, I surpass him by miles,' That would have looked cool." Eri pouted.
Shido just sighed after listening to what Eri said,
"Well. I am not a spy or an agent. I am a common man, I know my limits. I just do my work and care for my family. There is some fun outside the work and family. Nothing more, Nothing less.
Just like a common family man."