Moonlit Meetings (Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler) (Sebastian x Ciel)

Fifth Sighting

Moonlit Meeting:

Chapter 5:

Once he was in his study at home, Sebastian considered the investigation carefully. He put all of his notes on the previous heists aside and took down the photos he had of the phantom thief on his pin board. He needed to focus on the current facts.

Alois Trancy was the perfect suspect that had just popped up out of nowhere. If he really was the criminal they were looking for, the circumstances had to be one out of two scenarios.

One, Alois Trancy was the thief and Inspector Ciel Durless was his accomplice that cleared the way for him at heists and removed any incriminating evidence.

Two, Alois Trancy was the thief and Inspector Ciel Durless was unknowingly passing on information about heists to his best friend, unaware of what the information was being used for.

The first theory explained why Ciel was as useful as a paper cutout at heists and why no evidence was ever found. The scene of crime officers had yet to send their forensic report of the latest heist location so he was using past heists as precedence.

Heists would be much simpler if you had someone on the inside to make sure your routes were clear and to tell you where all the officers were positioned. A member of the investigation team would also be able to tell the criminal all the potential points of entry.

So far the most likely option was the Alois Trancy was the thief and Ciel was his inside man and was fully aware of his best friend's alter ego. He didn't have any actual evidence to support his theory. He couldn't arrest either of them on circumstantial evidence.

Another question came to him. Why was Ciel helping out a criminal to that extent? He was in a dangerous position because if he was caught, he would get a long prison sentence. His experience in criminal cases provided him with three options: Ciel was blindly in love with Trancy and would do anything for him; he was being blackmailed into it meaning he was an unwilling participant or he was being bribed with a large sum of money.

The avenues of investigation open to him were to seduce Alois Trancy or work on Ciel Durless. He rather preferred the latter option as he was sure that he detested Trancy for some reason. Possibly it was the idea that he had been the one to kiss and trick him at the heist.

Ciel was the more attractive option due to the fact that he actually knew him and would be able to talk him without him getting suspicious. He would have to avoid Tanaka though. The older man seemed to be very protective of Ciel and regularly broke up their arguments.

If he got the impression that Ciel was in love with Trancy, he could simply mention that he had been kissed by the phantom thief at heist and wait for Ciel to get annoyed with Trancy and incriminate him.

He spent the remainder of the evening going through the footage from all of his cameras used at the heist. He used the timestamps to work out the thief's route through the house. The thief had chosen the perfect route free from Police officers who were running around a different part of the house. The thief had efficiently turned off the camera in the study once he had entered which suggested two things: the thief was observant and had realised the significance of a red light glowing in the darkness or had already known it was there. Sebastian was prepared to bet it was the latter.

That would mean that there was a leak in the investigation team and he was sure that it was Ciel. He was the member with the most inconsistencies in his behaviour. He had been a hardworking officer with a good track record until he entered the investigation team where he spent all day playing games instead of investigating. Tanaka and Mey-Rin had medium successes with previous cases, hence the fact they were under the leadership of a smarter and more successful officer. He doubted that they were involved with the phantom thief themselves. It would be impossible for someone to have control over all three members of the investigation team.