Once Sherlock got absorbed in alchemy, the rest of the world might as well stop existing.
That included the other living creature currently inside his house.
His attention was completely locked onto the divine artifact floating above his desk as he threw himself into the repair process.
Doro, meanwhile, spent a while happily entertaining herself.
Eventually, though, the flashes of alchemical light coming from Sherlock’s side of the room caught her attention.
She stopped running around.
Then she looked up at him.
Sherlock was already gone.
Not physically, obviously.
Mentally.
Completely, hopelessly buried in his own little world.
Doro rose onto her hind legs, planted her tiny hands on her hips, and let out a long, weary sigh.
Her face somehow managed to convey profound disappointment.
The effect was slightly undermined by the fact that she looked like a badly doodled anime mascot made of marshmallow.
Anyone watching could clearly tell she was exasperated.
Unfortunately, they would also be far too busy thinking:
Oh my God, she’s adorable.
As Sherlock’s creation, Doro knew him better than almost anyone.
And she knew one thing with absolute certainty.
When Sherlock got this deep into his alchemy, there was no waking him up.
None.
She’d tested that theory many times.
The results had been conclusive.
Fortunately, this wasn’t Doro’s first time dealing with the problem.
She knew exactly what to do.
Which brought up something important about Sherlock’s relationship with her.
Technically, Sherlock was Doro’s creator.
Technically, Doro wasn’t really human.
She wasn’t really a dog either.
Sherlock usually called her his pet, mostly because explaining anything more complicated was annoying.
In practice?
He spoiled her like a daughter.
As a result, Sherlock had never seriously restricted where Doro could go.
He let her wander around as she pleased.
And he wasn’t particularly worried about outsiders seeing her.
The neighborhood Sherlock lived in was the kind of wealthy American community where privacy wasn’t merely expected—it was practically part of the property value.
Unless something actively threatened them, the residents had very little interest in involving government agencies in each other’s business.
As for Doro looking like she’d escaped from an entirely different animation studio?
This was Marvel.
People had seen weirder.
Much, much weirder.
Compared to aliens, monsters, enhanced humans, gods, and whatever fresh nonsense might fall out of the sky next Tuesday, Doro barely qualified as alarming.
If anything, she had the opposite problem.
She was too cute.
The entire neighborhood had more or less accepted her as Sherlock’s bizarre little mascot.
Old people loved her.
Kids loved her.
Adults loved her.
Pretty much everyone had the exact same reaction:
Cute.
Adorable.
Must pet.
And because the people living in this neighborhood ranged from wealthy to absurdly wealthy—with more than a few residents who looked ordinary but almost certainly weren’t—Doro had somehow developed a social circle that would terrify most networking professionals.
Still, unless the Ancient One “borrowed” her for suspiciously cuddle-related research purposes, Doro almost never wandered more than a hundred meters from Sherlock’s house.
Which naturally meant she spent most of her time visiting the neighbors.
And between the house on the left and the house on the right…
Doro strongly preferred the one on the right.
So after giving Sherlock one last disappointed look, she sighed again and waddled toward the door.
Tap tap tap tap tap—
Her tiny legs moved absurdly fast.
Despite looking like a sentient plush toy, Doro was quick.
Within moments, she’d already shot out of Sherlock’s house.
The second she cleared the front door, she turned right without hesitation.
Across the yard.
Up the path.
Straight to the neighbor’s front door.
Doro raised one soft little white hand.
Knock.
Knock.
“Human!
Doro came to see you!”
Her babyish voice carried through the house.
A moment later, the door opened.
A bearded man appeared.
The second he saw Doro, his entire face lit up.
“Doro!”
He immediately scooped her off the ground and started rubbing his beard all over her soft, jelly-like cheeks.
“Oh, little Doro!
Where have you been?
Did you miss Uncle Wick?”
Doro desperately planted both stubby hands against his face and tried to push him away.
The beard was winning.
“Doro went to play!”
She squirmed.
“Another human took Doro through a sparkly circle and brought Doro somewhere else to play!”
The man’s eyebrows rose.
He was clearly about to ask more questions.
Or, judging by the way he was already leaning back toward her, possibly just resume burying his face in Doro after being deprived of her for far too long.
He never got the chance.
“John.”
A woman’s voice came from deeper inside the house.
“If you keep bullying Doro, I’m dealing with you.”
The man froze.
A woman approached, calmly took Doro straight out of his arms, and left him standing there with the wounded expression of someone who’d just had his favorite stuffed animal confiscated.
“Come on, Helen,” he protested.
“I refuse to accept the accusation that I was bullying her.”
Helen gave him a look.
John wisely stopped arguing.
Then she carried Doro inside.
Yes.
That John.
The heavily bearded man who turned into a ridiculous doting uncle the moment Doro appeared was none other than the legendary assassin who, in another timeline, would carve a path through the criminal underworld over a dog.
John Wick.
Except things were different here.
Very different.
Helen was alive.
John had never adopted Daisy.
And Doro had somehow become the precious little darling of both husband and wife.
They treated her less like Sherlock’s strange pet and more like their own daughter.
And the reason John Wick still had this peaceful life?
Sherlock.
When Sherlock had first arrived in this world, John hadn’t retired yet.
He and Helen had been living next door, and Helen had taken a liking to the quiet teenager who’d moved in alone.
She frequently invited Sherlock over for dinner.
John, dragged along by his wife at first, had ended up looking after him too.
Before long, the two households became close.
Later, when John decided to leave the assassin world and was given his infamous “impossible task,” Sherlock returned the favor.
He supplied John with a collection of alchemical tools.
A lot of them.
Enough to turn “impossible” into merely “extremely unpleasant.”
More importantly, Sherlock’s help allowed John to finish the job cleanly without ending up shackled by any lingering blood oath.
John Wick retired.
Properly.
He became a living legend among assassins.
And after that, the friendship between the two households only deepened.
John and Helen were among the very few people who knew Sherlock’s secrets.
More than that, they were the only real friends Sherlock had made after transmigrating.
When Helen later fell seriously ill, Sherlock had even used a tiny fraction of the Philosopher’s Stone’s power to save her life.
With that kind of history between them, John and Helen naturally adored Doro almost as much as Sherlock did.
Possibly more.
Even the Ancient One couldn’t compete.
There was only one problem.
Every time Sherlock saw John Wick around Doro, he got goosebumps.
It was deeply disturbing.
This was a man whose name could make professional killers reconsider their life choices.
A man who could massacre an entire criminal organization because someone touched his dog.
And yet the moment Doro appeared…
His eyes softened.
His voice climbed an entire octave.
His face developed that unbearably greasy expression unique to middle-aged men who had completely surrendered their dignity to a daughter.
Sherlock had witnessed it enough times to reach one deeply concerning conclusion.
John Wick was absolutely trying to steal custody of Doro.
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