The Case of the Unlocked Cage

A renown detective turns up dead, despite all his natural talent, and it's up to his cousin to avenge his murder. Hinata has the inner strength, resources, and determination to catch Neji's killer, with talented back-up to boot, but her search quickly becomes dangerous as she suspects the cities most powerful and ruthless mobsters and mages - can she navigate the same tangled webs that caught her cousin, or will unexpected reunions lead to her downfall?

I was inspired the other day to write a noir/detective AU fic for Naruto, so I set to planning it - while it's gone through lots of different ideas, the core basis hasn't changed, and I'm loving what I have so far. It ended up being an urban fantasy story as well (fantastic noir?) because I didn't want them to be ninjas, but there were elements of the plot that needed a supernatural element in there for it to work - it was originally planned as a cyberpunk story, with the ninja abilities being based in advanced technology, but again, there were plot elements that stopped making sense, and I didn't want the technology to overtake the rest of the story. It feels like it fits, as a fantasy - the original Naruto one-shot was about magic too, so it kind of feels like I'm referencing what could have been.This is still a work in progress, so I do apologise if it takes me a while to update, and it's largely unbetaed. I'm sorry if it's too easy to tell who the murderer is - even if you guess early on, I hope the story entertains you anyway.The Major Character Death warning is because the victim is a major character, so apologies for that.