Sushi Pack - Donut Whodunnit

Late at night, as Ben locks up for the night, a mysterious silhouette that can only belong to Titanium Chef approaches the Green Donut.  Against his better judgement, Ben unlocks the door, and the figure rushes in, to better stay in the shadows.  He offers Ben an invitation to a Donut Convention.  While Ben reads and rejects the offer, Titanium Chef messes up the shop, boxes up a dozen donuts, and hightails it out of there.  Unable to let this rest, Ben follows after him.

The next morning, the Pack wakes up to find Ben missing and the shop trashed.  Ikura decides to take the case as a true detective, but his detecting skills leave a lot to be desired, as Maguro and Kani point out.  Miffed, Ikura bets the others that he can solve the case on his own, so Tako bets him a week's worth of chores that *he* can solve it first.  Kani and Wasabi get in on the action, too, although Maguro knows that they have to work together to find Ben.

Kani gets down to searching the scene of the crime and stumbles on a leaf (looks more like a feather to me).  She tries to identify it using a big book o' leaves, but halfway through she admits that she's getting nowhere.  Maguro knows all about plants, but Kani is determined to solve the case on her own and win the bet.

It took all night, but Ben tracked down Titanium Chef (although it should be noted that he doesn't realize who's behind the shadow) to an old warehouse.  But Titanium Chef discovers him all to easily.  Soon he has Ben tied to a chair and locked in a room, where he taunts him by telling him, "It will soon be mine."  And he is seriously rocking a deadpan voice, let me tell you.

Meanwhile, Ikura surveys the crime scene and takes photos of shoeprints left in the mess.  He recognizes Ben's shoes, but the other prints are a mystery.  He knows that Tako "is so into shoes" that he'd know them in a heartbeat, but he has to win the bet!  Maguro also takes up the case on her own, mostly to spite the others, and dusts for prints.  But with Ben keeping the place so clean, she can't find anything.  Instead, she notices that his cookbooks are all strewn about behind the counter, and deduces that whoever did it was looking for the recipe to Ben's new Green Donut Deluxe.  She opens a book with Oleander's face on the cover and judges from the recipes inside that Oleander must have needed something more appetizing than her usual fare.  But a quick look at the TV reveals that Oleander's been doing a live marathon for ten hours so far, giving her an airtight alibi.  Maguro is stumped on who else could have wanted the recipe.

Wasabi follows the trail out of the shop and into town, as he imagines the others doing his bidding for a week once he cracks the case.  But he goes too far and loses the trail in the bad part of town, suddenly remorseful that he went off on his own.  Back with Ben, Titanium Chef interrogates him to try and get the recipe, but Ben's not talking.  Unagi calls him via walky-talky, but Titanium Chef tells him not to touch the donuts, he'll handle them himself.  He continues to interrogate Ben, and does a dance of rage when Ben refuses to tell him anything yet again.  At one point Ben does agree to talk, but pulls a "just kidding" as soon as Titanium Chef pulls out a pad and paper.  Fugu opens the door a crack to ask Titanium Chef about something, but the Chef does not appreciate being interrupted and sends him away.

At the Green Donut, Tako finds the invitation to the Donut Convention and calls the number on the card.  He recognizes the voicemail on the other end of the line, but mentally doublechecks it against Oleander, Paradoxter, and Titanium Chef just to be sure.  Although he knows it's Titanium Chef, he can't figure out what he would want with Ben, and figures Kani might know, but since part of her bet includes rubbing her feet, he can't give in and ask her.  So every member of the Pack has reached an impasse with their investigation.

Titanium Chef finally reveals his face to Ben, who doesn't get why he wants the recipe either, seeing as he runs a sushi restaurant.  But apparently the Green Donut Deluxe is so popular that no one wants sushi anymore, so his business is taking a dive.  Somehow, I don't think that's the problem, Chef.  Tired of getting nothing from Ben, Titanium Chef goes to take matters into his own hands.

Ikura faces the facts: he needs help solving the case, and calls off the bet.  Everyone gathers around to share the evidence they found, and Maguro quickly deduces from Tako and Ikura's evidence that the Green Donut Deluxe's popularity is putting Titanium Chef out of business (again, why would the two even affect each other?).  With Kani's leaf (red cypress) and Wasabi's tire tracks direction (east), Maguro figures out where Titanium Chef must be holding Ben, and the Pack takes off to rescue him!

Back at the warehouse, Titanium Chef prepares to analyze the chemical makeup of the Green Donut Deluxes that he took earlier, leaving nothing for the Legion of Low Tide to do, so he sends them away, and even goes so far as to fire them (he's probably just cranky because they've been bugging him this entire mission).  But that's right about when the Sushi Pack arrives.  There isn't time to crack the code on the locked door, but fortunately for them, there's a shaft they can go through that leads them right to the kitchen.  But how to get the Chef away from the donuts?  Tako has a plan...

Ikura sets off the alarm on the front door, and while the Chef rushes off to see what's what, Wasabi shimmies down and chomps up the donuts lickety-split.  At the same time, Tako and Maguro rescue Ben, and he crawls up the duct with them, and they all get outside just as Titanium Chef reaches the door.  He chases the Pack half-heartedly, but the size difference works against him and they get away.  As they go, the Chef laments the imminent bankrupcy of his sushi bar.

Back at the Green Donut, they all share a donut toast while Maguro divies out the chores for all the bettors (not including herself, of course).  But there's one thing she forgot: who'll rub Kani's feet?  No one wants to, though I don't really understand why.  They don't look any different than anyone else's feet, and if anyone would have stinky feet, I'd think it would be Ikura or Wasabi.

Now, I'm just wondering, how exactly did Titanium Chef know that it was the Green Donut Deluxe that was stealing people away from his sushi and not something else, or even just the economic times?  I'm thinking it went something like this:

Titanium Chef: Can I help you?

Customer: *looks over menu* Do you have anything like that Green Donut Deluxe?

Titanium Chef: Madam, this is a sushi bar, not a donut shop.  Why would we have donuts here?

Customer: Oh, that's too bad.  I guess I'll just go to the Green Donut, then.

But honestly, a world where sushi restuarants can go out of business thanks to donuts?  That is seriously messed up.  No wonder he resorted to crime.