Disclaimer: NO!
Warning(s): AU, all the warnings that come with that. There may or may not be a couple OCs here and there, haven't decided yet.
Pairing(s): KaiShin centric, side HeiKazu, HakuAo?, EiRan?
Summary: It was in times like these that he wished things could be simple again. But then again, they never were. But why did he have to start remembering at a time like this? KaiShin, side HeiKazu
A/N: Think around 18 or so for Kaito's gang, and 16-ish for Shinichi's.
.:::.
Secrets in the Dark
Chapter 01: Of Blackmail and Meetings
"W-Who are you?"
The man felt trapped as he backed up against the wall of the old shed. Eyes darting around frantically for an escape route, but there was none to be found. He had only received an anonymous note that afternoon just as he was preparing to leave his office, telling him to come here.
Okay, so maybe there was something fishy about the note – who wouldn't think so? He had just gone to the bathroom, and it was on his chair when he got back, when no one should've come in –. Now that he thought about that, he was really regretting coming here. Why had he been so impulsive?
Again, okay, so he had always been considered sort of impulsive and curious among his friends, but he had always been – kind of – careful when it came to these kinds of suspicious matters. He should've asked someone to tail him...
A slightly sinister laugh followed his stuttered question, though he couldn't help but notice the sadness it contained, though he kept quiet. Better not talk now...
"Who am I?"
A slim figure leapt gracefully down from its previous perch above him. The other boy was obviously young – not older than the age of eighteen. A dark, knight-like helmet covered his head from nose and up – the rest of his attire was a dark blue, a similarly-designed cape pooling from his shoulders. He wasn't able to muffle his gasp of surprise, futilely trying to back away even more. He could almost hear the smirk in the other's voice as he spoke. The man slammed his eyes shut as the boy leaned close, but not close enough that he could feel his breath on his face. He shuddered. What had he done to deserve this?
A lot of things.
"If you comply with my wishes, I shall leave as I come, you unharmed. If not, I'll be your worst nightmare," The last part turned out in a snarl, and the man shook, but decided to go defiant on the other.
Oh, he didn't know what he had gotten himself into.
Because it was always wrong to mess with him.
"What makes you think that I'll comply with whatever your wishes are?" he demanded, but did not expect the slightly evil, monotone and emotionless laugh in answer. A wide smirk had spread across the other figure's features. "Why – blackmail, of course. I'm sure you wouldn't want the media to catch wind of that certain incident..."
The business owner racked his brain for a time that he could have ever been blackmailed, automatically stifling a gasp when the thought struck him. Surely it couldn't been that one... "What do you want?"
A row of pearly, white teeth were flashed. "I knew you would see it my way. Mention this meeting to no one, because I will know if you do, and we can settle this score with a quota of ten million."
Fumbling messily for his card, he held it out with a shaky hand. It was snatched away and examined crucially, the code inscribed on the card especially. Once the younger boy had deemed it satisfactory, he slipped it in a hidden pocket. Smirk prominent on his features once more, he snarled darkly, "Remember, not a soul other than you and me should know about this, or else."
With that parting, he sauntered away, leaving the business owner pale and shaking at his retreating back. But what if he told? But this particular business owner did not stick well to his end of promises and deals, even with death threats, which would turn out to be very, very real indeed...
.:::.
"The city looks even better than I thought it would," Toyama Kazuha mouthed in appreciation, awing at the grand city. Besides the other, overlooking the deck of the same ship, Hattori Heiji snorted.
"When are you not going to say that to every city? Or are you just too pessimistic?" He teased, grinning when she turned to stick her tongue out at him.
"Of course, as anyone has to be when they travel with you," she shot back, annoyed by her boyfriend's antics. "I'm surprised I don't see a murder already." Another voice piped up beside her, and she started.
"Jinxed it, Kazuha-chan," Kuroba Kaito snickered, pointing over the ships at the dock. "See those police cars? Another case, probably. But by the looks of it, they've wrapped the whole thing up already. Or at least given up."
"I'd be surprised if they did, or there's just a genius in that bunch," the Osakan detective snorted. "Actually wrapped the thing up, I mean, out of all the police and detective forces we've seen, the best was probably that Hakuba bastard. And that's saying something."
"Be nice, Heiji," Kazuha reprimanded her boyfriend. "Besides, Hakuba-kun was nice, if not a bit by the book. Right, Aoko-chan?"
Nakamori Aoko agreed with her friend rather enthusiastically, sticking her tongue out at the messy-haired Kuroba when he pouted at her. "That's right! He even offered to show us around, but it really was too bad that our ship left that very afternoon. And treating all of us to lunch was very nice."
"I'm going to have to side with Hattori-kun here today," Kaito interjected, cutting off the other's half-rant. "I have to say that he really needs to shake loose that stick that's lodged in his British ass." At the comment, Hattori choked on his own breath, doubling over in laughter, but not before Kazuha whacked his head.
Smirking at the Osakan's reaction, the magician almost wasn't able to dodge the swing that came his way.
"BAKAITO!"
"Woah, jeez, Aoko!" ...The Osakans watched, sweatdropping as the top-tempered girl chased her childhood friend around.
.:::.
The scene they came to wasn't pretty. Although the body had already been moved away, it wasn't hard to imagine what the body would have looked like. Blood still remained on the walls of the outside of the visible walls of the building, leaving a shape to signify where the body should have been.
It turned out that the whole affair wasn't done up and over with yet ("Told ya," Heiji grinned, before getting whacked by Kazuha). In fact, the amount of police cars –in this case lack of- was because the event had only happened that morning, or at most late the previous night.
Due to the quite infamous reputation that Heiji himself had gained throughout as a detective, they were let in the scene, though most were quite skeptical and surprised that the Osakan was actually there.
Apparently, they had heard he was somewhere in the northern part of Japan or something. Which was a hundred percent untrue. The group had left the place nearly half a year ago.
While the others wandered around aimlessly, the Osakan detective seemed fixated on a patch of red which was assumed to be blood on the ground. After a good while of staring at it, he looked up, opened his mouth, and –
Some time ago, a long-haired brunette that looked surprisingly like Aoko had been talking to one of the policemen, and was soon after let in the scene. She wasn't anyone famous, or at least someone he didn't recognize, Kaito noted shrewdly. And she seemed familiar with the officers.
That was suspicious. There was really no need to be familiar with the police unless you were a detective or worked a similar profession. And as far as he knew, either that girl was a new –or poor– detective, or she was a –criminal–.
The latter seemed far more appealing. He decided that he would wait before determining how he should interact with this girl.
His childhood friend and her friend, however, held no such feelings. They bounced over to make friends with Aoko's look-alike. He wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but he could read lips well enough.
"I'm Mouri Ran," the new brunette introduced herself cheerfully. "I'm a detective."
"Oh, another detective?" Kazuha grinned cheerfully, "at least you're not like that ahou" she shot a point look at Heiji, who glared at her "detective who thinks he so great."
Ran laughed. "It's nothing. I'm not that great. I only started this business last year with a friend of mine. He's much better than me at the detective work, but he's like, so oblivious, and his closest lover is probably his Sherlock Holmes collection."
"He?" Aoko grinned slyly. Ran rolled her eyes. "Everyone seems to assume that, but no. He's almost like my little brother, in a way. He sprained his ankle just this morning, I think. He really needs to be more careful. I was on my way to see him when I saw the scene. It seems to be pretty much cleared up, though."
The mention of the friend in her talk caught Heiji's interest. It fitted too perfectly. What he was going to say forgotten, Heiji lifted an eyebrow in interest.
This was certainly going his way.
"Oh, really? May I meet this...friend of yours?"
.:::.
He was limping, quite heavily in his opinion, barely from an outsider's. Every step sent a jolt of pain up his leg. Damn that stupid businessman, who knew that he practiced karate –it reminded him of a certain friend of his–...He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to walk normally, wincing when one misplaced step nearly caused him to trip.
"You shouldn't strain yourself so much." He would know that dry voice anywhere. He scoffed, turning around, trying his hardest to ignore the pain in his ankle. "Like I try to, Haibara."
The scientist emerged from out of the shadows of the building she had been leaning against, dressed in white lab coat and all, like she had just come out of her lab, which in itself was not true, as she had been waiting for him for at least an hour now. She made sure he was following her, before they made their way back down to the medical room.
"I told you, Haibara, it's nothing serious," he complained, sitting down on the bed covered in white hospital like sheets. Saying nothing, she settled herself across from him into a chair, taking his foot with her hands, and then 'accidently' pressing in a bit too hard, almost enjoying the younger boy's gasp of pain, tears springing to his eyes. She smirked. "Right. 'Nothing serious' sounds a bit different. I barely touched that, Edogawa-kun."
He huffed, any remains of previous tears in his eyes either long gone, or wiped away in a swift, unseen motion. "You touch harder than the average person," was all that got out of his mouth before he let out a yelp, almost kicking the scientist as the pain jolted up his leg. "Stop that!"
"Either he kicked you very hard," She started in a monotone, not caring about his yelps of pain, but was interrupted.
"He didn't."
"...Or you bruise very easily," she finished, smirking.
"Forget what I just said, he kicked really hard."
"I'm sure he did," she rolled her eyes disbelievingly as she slipped off the smaller boy's shoe. The purplish bruise had been wrapped carelessly, obviously untreated, left out for infection. She looked at it in distaste. "I told you to take better care of yourself. Did you apply medicine on this?"
"No."
"It was a rhetorical question."
All further conversation was stopped as a white kitten slipped its way silently into the room, not unnoticed by the room's other occupants.
.:::.
"What the hell are you getting on, Hattori?"
Kaito narrowed his eyes as he analyzed the Osakan, only coming up with the fact that he was onto something, and Mouri-chan's friend may have something to do with it. Now all he hoped was that whatever he accused was true, else it would be very awkward.
The detective was smirking. "Don't you get it? It fits so perfectly!" he whispered to the magician in a hushed tone. "Mouri-san said that her friend hurt her ankle this morning. The crime happened this morning. The patch of red I was examining, it wasn't blood, it was paint. And what's easier to hide blood with than red paint?"
"I don't think you should make those accusations without more solid proof, though," Kaito thought it over carefully.
Heiji sighed. "I won't outright accuse him, goddammit. I'm just going to see if he seems like a good person."
"By 'seems like a good person', so you mean good-looking, handsome, and adorable?" Kaito enjoyed the blush that spread across the Osakan's cheeks. "No! Why would you say that –"
"We're here!" Ran interrupted them. In front of them was a place that looked something like a small hospital, except much simpler, almost like a church.
"I have been expecting you."
All of them jumped, with the exceptions of Ran and Kaito, at the sound of the voice. "I see you brought friends." A tall figure stepped out of the shadows. She had short blonde hair, cut around her shoulders, and was wearing a white lab coat.
"Ai-chan," the brunette detective greeted. "I'm here to see Conan-kun."
The scientist gave a small nod, a tiny smile gracing her lips. "Follow me. He should still be awake."
The halls they were led into was like a series of maze – twists and turns, rights and lefts, until even Kaito couldn't remember how far and which way they had taken to come in. The group stopped at the door of what the original party swore to be a random door. It was oddly silent inside, from what they could hear.
The scientist, who they had learned went by the name of Haibara Ai, poked her head in the room for a moment. When she backed out, she murmured, "Be quiet. He's asleep." Ran insisted on going in anyway.
Kaito couldn't suppress his grin upon seeing the boy curled up on the white, hospital-like bed. He was –still- so cute! Swathed in sheets, with one hand under the pillow, a book strewn carelessly across the floor, hair resembling a certain magician's. A tiny, white kitten was curled up by his head, long fur brushing his neck.
The sound of footsteps broke the silence, but neither the sleeping boy nor the white kitten stirred. The door was pushed open roughly. "Mouri-chan!"
Ran turned around, look of surprise gracing her features. "Yes, Sensui?"
"T-There's a fire a-at the nearby mall!" the police officer who had just ran in the room panted profusely, words almost said in an unintelligible mess of sounds. "Someone set bombs on the first and third floors!"
That seemed to catch the other people's attention. "A bomb?!" Heiji exclaimed, "Who would set a bomb in the mall?"
"I don't know, but we're going to find out."
Ran's words were short, marking the end of the conversation for the moment as they followed Sensui out the door. But the Osakan couldn't help but notice that she, the policeman, and two more of their number weren't nearly as surprised as he would have deemed a reasonable amount. They had known something like this would happen.
At this point, there were only two possibilities: either they somehow found out that this sort of event would happen beforehand, or they themselves...
...had helped set the bombs.
.:::.
A/N: I know that people usually give Shinichi a dog or something, but cats seemed to better fit the situation at hand, with its personality and all, so...hehe...Don't expect fast updates. It's what you voted for. This, Teitan, or something new next –*cough* OfThievesAndAssassins,MendingthePast,ReminiscenceOfTerror,Whisper,TheRoomThatKills,StealingTheDetective'sHeart,etc,etc *cough* –? –purely on title, please, too lazy to put all the summaries –/shot