The Would-Be Spirit Detective and the Thief Who Defies Fate
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Shinichi felt like he was being pulled apart. Above him, KID was lying flat on the dam, his grip vice-like around Shinichi's wrist with Shinichi clutching his. Below him, the criminal who'd attempted to escape justice by throwing herself from the dam dangled, her narrow wrist locked in Shinichi's grasp. She wasn't holding on.
KID tried once more to pull upward, but with two full grown adults and his lack of leverage, he was just barely keeping them from dragging him over the edge along with them.
"KID…" Shinichi bit out through clenched teeth. He kept trying to brace his feet against the dam – kept trying to help KID's effort to drag them back up – but it wasn't enough with the weight of the uncooperative criminal and the smooth, wet, icy metal under his shoes.
"One more time, Tantei-kun," KID groaned. His shoulders burned with the strain, one arm hooked around the guard rail at a painful angle. If only he could get to the card gun… He cracked his eyes open, glaring bitterly past Shinichi at the sharp drop below. At this height, he might be able get the glider open if they fell, but he wouldn't be able to control it with Shinichi and the woman dangling like that. If they were lucky, they'd crash into the river. If they weren't, the strong wind would take them down on the bank instead.
Luck wasn't on their side today.
A gunshot rang out from somewhere out of Shinichi's line of sight and KID choked on a harsh gasp. Fingers tightened around Shinichi's wrist as KID's eyes squeezed shut again. "H-Hurry, Tantei-kun," he said, and his voice was faint and thick now under the rushing of wind and water. "I… can't…" His whole body was shaking and his blood spread onto the dam, running over the side even as Shinichi tried futilely to find footing.
"KID!" he gasped.
KID heard heavy footsteps coming up behind him, but his body was slowly letting go of the fear those steps carried with them. There wasn't any point to being afraid. Not… anymore. His whole focus had to be saving Shinichi now. If it was the last thing he'd do.
Snake came to a stop beside the guard rail and peered over the edge. "So that's how it is," he muttered. "You should have let them fall, Kaitou KID. Then at least one of you might have survived."
KID couldn't even hear him anymore. He couldn't hear anything anymore. "Tantei-kun!" The cry was weak, cutting through Shinichi, and the fear that still sat heavy with him was a physical force. But there was nothing he could do.
Snake turned and brought a foot down on KID's back.
Eyes on KID, ears filled with his broken scream, Shinichi had no idea what was happening when the woman hanging below him reached up and grabbed onto his arm. She hauled herself up just enough to bite the hand that was locked around her wrist and his grip faltered. She dropped silently and was gone.
For just a moment, Shinichi looked down, eyes wide, but KID was still clinging to him, impossibly holding on as Snake ground his heel down on his back, blood seeping through the fabric and the bullet hole in the white cape.
Shinichi's mind raced. Get Snake away from him, it insisted.His eyes flicked to his watch, but it was trapped under KID's grasp on his wrist. He was in no position to use the belt, either. He switched gears. Get us away from Snake.
"KID! KID, let go! Let go of the rail!"
KID's eyes opened just a little, meeting Shinichi's, and his lips soundlessly formed the words, "Please, Shinichi." With the last of his strength, KID disentangled his arm from the guard rail and let Shinichi's weight drag him forward.
As soon as Snake felt the movement, he removed his foot from KID's back, watching him slip over the edge of the dam. Gun ready in his hand, he peered over the side, taking aim in case the glider still opened, but he was sure KID was unconscious at best already.
Shinichi yanked KID closer as they dropped, soaking his hand in blood as he searched for the glider's release, but it didn't open. Somewhere in his mind, he acknowledged the location of KID's bullet wound and hypothesized that the bullet had damaged something vital in the rigging, but it was all secondary to his new search for KID's grappling hook.
He wasn't fast enough.
Shinichi's back hit the water first, at full force. The impact with the surface was painful, the water icy and the plunge deep, swallowing both him and KID completely. Water rushed in, meeting no resistance, and filled his lungs as the world went cold and dark.
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Shinichi and Kaito both woke in the same instant, both jolting upright and spotting each other where they sat on an unfamiliar, narrow, yellow strip of stone ledge.
"Kaito!" Shinichi gasped, practically falling forward in his rush to get to his hands and knees, and crawling quickly to Kaito's side. "What happened?"
Kaito was passing his hands over himself even as Shinichi insistently pulled open the white suit jacket. There was no wound. His hat and monocle also seemed to be absent.
"I don't know!" Kaito said, baffled.
"Oh Botan, wait 'til you see. I picked up a couple of cuties!"
Kaito's and Shinichi's eyes shot toward the nearby voice and they spotted a young woman with purple hair standing at an enormous, solid gateway, the top of which vanished into misty clouds high above. She seemed to be calling out to someone on the other side. Shinichi jumped a little when she suddenly turned back to them.
"Oh! Awake already." She walked over and braced her hands on her knees, smiling down at them. "You two must be special cases. Koenma-sama's asked to see you in person."
"Um…" Kaito started.
"Where are we?" Shinichi finished.
"The spirit world, of course!" the woman said, straightening up. "Hurry now. He doesn't like to be kept waiting."
Shinichi was about to stand when a wave of dizziness pushed him back down. For a moment, the strange path and gate vanished from his before his eyes and instead he saw a familiar dam. Kaito's voice echoed faintly in his ears.
"H-Hurry, Tantei-kun."
"Shinichi!"
He blinked and Kaito was there, sitting on the path beside him, gloved hand grasping his arm.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Shinichi said quickly. "Sorry."
The woman had gone to the gate again, standing before it as it split open at the middle, sliding to either side with barely a groan from the metal. Shinichi stared into the enormous, eerie hall beyond, but Kaito glanced back at the bottomless drop over the edge of the stone path.
"I think…" he murmured, reaching blindly to grab on to Shinichi's sleeve – not clinging, but keeping him close. "We better go along with this for now. I just… have this feeling we should."
To his surprise, Shinichi nodded. "I know what you mean," he murmured.
Slowly, they both got to their feet and followed the woman through the gate.
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"You still think we should be going along with this?" Shinichi asked under his breath, eyeing the toddler with the bright blue pacifier sitting at the desk. A woman with blue hair tied in a high ponytail walked through the tiled wall behind it at that moment and Kaito breathed back, "Yes."
"You know," the toddler – Koenma, their guide had said – began, eyebrow twitching in irritation. "I expected you, at least, to have more respect given your own personal experiences."
"Oh!" Shinichi blurted out. "Sorry. So you're… Do you need help? I know a scientist who–"
Koenma raised his hand to stop him. "I do need help, Kudou Shinichi, but not that kind."
"Uh, okay. What can I help you with?" he asked.
That, at least, got him a smile. Kaito quietly acknowledged the discomfort of dealing with someone who clearly both preferred and expected to always get his way.
"So much more cooperative than certain other detectives," Koenma commented, touching the tips of his fingers together in front of him as he settled back against his chair. He was looking smug already. "I need you… to get right back to what you were doing before this walking enigma blundered into things." His head dipped just slightly in Kaito's direction, but it was his eyes that conveyed the real message. Wariness born from intelligence. He knew something that they didn't.
"Excuse me?" Kaito said.
He was thoroughly ignored.
"You were not supposed to die, Kudou Shinichi," Koenma informed him, and both Shinichi and Kaito froze. "And we don't have a place prepared for you. So, instead of throwing you into Limbo, I am very generously offering you your life back in exchange for stopping the organization that is seeking Pandora. And once you do that, you need to find that jewel and destroy it."
"Hey!" Kaito demanded. "I'm already doing that! And – no, you know what, never mind that. Let's go back to the part where you implied that I got Shinichi killed."
Koenma gave him a flat, unimpressed look. "Okay. I'm not implying it. You got him killed."
Kaito felt the color drain from his face, nausea rising in his stomach as he stared at Koenma. Then Shinichi stepped forward, moving between them and staring Koenma down.
"I'd appreciate it if you would stop lying to us," he said, his voice cold. "From what I can remember, I think we did… actually die. But I think you're lying about not having a place for me. You're just trying to make me feel indebted to you. At the same time, you're constructing a story that will allow you to do what you want because this place has to follow certain rules." His eyes moved over the stacks of papers on the desk and Kaito glanced back at the office door, on the other side of which ogres were running about with schedules and phones and files tucked under their arms. "I won't accept what you say unless you show me some proof," Shinichi finished firmly.
Koenma met his eyes for a long moment before letting out a sigh and leaning forward again, folding his hands on top of the desk. "I should have expected as much from you. …You are right," he said and Kaito let out the breath that had stilled in his chest. "But," Koenma added, and both Kaito and Shinichi tensed again. "It doesn't change anything, does it. It was always your intention to go after these criminals anyway, so just be grateful that I have a use for you and accept your life back."
Shinichi glanced back at Kaito. Kaito shrugged.
"No catch?" Shinichi asked.
"I don't believe there's any need for that in this case."
Shinichi slowly nodded.
"It's settled then." Koenma slid one of the papers on his desk more squarely in front of him and picked up his stamp. "The two of you can say your goodbyes and we'll get you put back in your body–"
"Wait, what?" Shinichi said, bolting forward to get his hand over the paper before the stamp could come down. The blue-haired woman standing beside the desk made an affronted noise.
"What part of this are you not getting?" Koenma asked.
"Our goodbyes?" Shinichi repeated. "Kaito–"
"We already have a place prepared for Kuroba Kaito," Koenma said. "Actually, to tell the truth, he's so unpredictable and reckless that we just always keep a spot open for him. Figured it wouldn't be long."
"So… I'm–" Kaito started, his voice a little weak.
"You're not going back," Koenma said. "You're dead for good."
"Sir!" The woman came around to the front of the desk. "You don't have to be so cruel. I'm sure it's a shock for–"
"I'm not going back," Shinichi said. His voice cut through, stopping everyone. He could feel Kaito's eyes on his back, the woman's at his side, and Koenma's, wide as he stared up at him. "I'm not going back without him," Shinichi repeated. "It's both of us, or neither."
Koenma's expression shifted from astonished to somber. "You're gambling with your life," he told him. "What if 'neither' is all right with me? You'll both die. What's the point?"
"Shinichi," Kaito said, but he cut himself off at the look Shinichi gave him over his shoulder. His eyes were bright, his smile fierce, and Kaito's heart had never felt stronger. Shinichi turned back to Koenma.
"I'm not going back without him," he said once more, firm and decisive.
Koenma sighed again, looking almost like he was pouting as he closed his eyes and slumped back in his chair. "What is it with detectives?" he complained. "I just have horrible luck, it seems. …All right, fine. Botan, bring me Kuroba Kaito's file."
"Sir!" the woman replied, grinning, and she rushed off, disappearing straight through the wall again. Shinichi shivered.
"I hope you're happy," Koenma sulked, turning his chair to the side and leaning an elbow on the armrest to support his cheek with that hand. "I could get in a lot of trouble for this but… taking care of the Pandora threat is more important right now."
Shinichi smirked. "I thought it might be."
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"There! I sense something weird in the water!" Kuwabara said, pointing.
Kurama dove headfirst into the deep, cold river without question and Kuwabara jumped in after him. They both surfaced just a few seconds later, each hauling a limp young man along as they swam back toward the bank again. They clambered out of the water and laid their charges in the grass. Neither was breathing.
Kuwabara leaned over one, forcing air into waterlogged lungs and unwittingly contributing the necessary life energy to allow the missing soul back into its body. He pressed on his chest in firm, unrelenting beats until the young man woke abruptly, coughing and gasping. Kuwabara sat him up, a steadying hand resting on his shoulder.
"You okay, man?" he asked.
Kuwabara had his back to Kurama and the other young man and Kurama got the impression that he was actively ignoring them. His eyes moved down to the faded stain across the white suit and he pulled the jacket and shirt open, revealing a bullet wound – too bloodless through skin too pale. He could sense the connection Koenma had opened to the once-dead body even though he couldn't yet see the glow, but there was no spark in it.
This one… may be beyond saving. He looked up at Kuwabara's back again. Though maybe not if–
"K-Kaito!" Shinichi pushed forward, a stumbling mess of movement in the grass that only served to throw him against Kuwabara. Kuwabara caught hold of his shoulders and held him back.
"Let Kurama take care of him," he said, but Kurama was already doing his best to restart Kaito's heart and lungs with limited success. He'd provided the life energy necessary to create the bridge the soul would have needed to make it back but… Shinichi stared in horror over Kuwabara's shoulder as Kurama put a hand to Kaito's neck and closed his eyes with a grim expression.
"Kuwabara-kun," he said. "He won't make it to a hospital at this rate."
Shinichi could feel himself shaking. His muscles refused to coordinate with his brain. He couldn't move. "Kaito," he gasped out.
"Master Genkai taught you the spirit wave, didn't she?" Kurama insisted when Kuwabara didn't move.
"Tch. …Yeah," he eventually answered.
Kurama got up and went to pull Shinichi carefully away from Kuwabara, supporting him as much as he was holding him back to let Kuwabara shift around and kneel at Kaito's side. "It'll be okay," Kurama murmured, but he wasn't sure if Shinichi was even listening.
Kuwabara edged just a little closer to Kaito and held his hands out over him, trying to focus around the weird energy the thief was giving off. The yellow-orange field of light only flickered at first but eventually rippled out from his palms, spreading over Kaito's body.
"Breathe," Kurama reminded Shinichi gently, and Shinichi started a little because he'd been desperately thinking the same thing, clutching at Kurama's sleeve as he stared at Kaito's too-still body.
Then, suddenly, Kaito jerked, a wet, choking cough pushing his chest up. Kuwabara flinched a little, but he didn't let up until Kaito shot upright without warning, coughing water and blood onto the ground as he hunched forward, his arms wrapped around his stomach. Kuwabara fell back with a shout, raising an arm over his face like he expected some kind of monster to jump out at him.
"Kaito!"
Kaito carefully raised his head, panting harshly, and his eyes fell first on Kuwabara who was watching with blatant fear from behind his raised arm. Then he saw Shinichi pulling out of Kurama's grasp to stumble toward him. Shinichi collapsed onto his knees and pushed Kaito's arms away from his stomach, brushing the open shirt and jacket aside. The bullet wound was closed, a small circle of raw skin the only sign that it was ever there to begin with.
"You… Are you okay?" Shinichi asked, his breath still a little short.
"Kinda sore," Kaito laughed. "But I'll live."
"Well if you'd've let me finish…" Kuwabara muttered, finally relaxing a bit.
Kurama let out a soft laugh and stood, offering his hand to Kuwabara and pulling him to his feet. Shinichi and Kaito looked up at them.
"…Thank you. I think," Shinichi said.
"Don't mention it," Kurama answered with a smile.
Kuwabara planted his hands on his hips and looked away. "You two gonna be okay here?" he asked gruffly.
Shinichi looked around. "…Where are we?"
"A good distance downriver from the dam," Kurama supplied. "Those people who were after you have cleared out already. They believe that you died." He sounded a little amused at that and Kaito's head came up, regarding him suspiciously.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice rough and weak despite the keen stare.
"Friends," Kurama replied easily. "Or allies as least," he amended when Kuwabara crossed his arms with a quiet huff. "We were asked to make sure the two of you had bodies to return to. No use sending your souls back only to have you drown again."
A shiver ran through Shinichi at the memory of their impact with the water but it quieted immediately when Kaito's hand closed firm and steady over his.
"We'll take our leave now," Kurama said. "Your help is appreciated, Kudou-tantei."
Shinichi and Kaito watched as Kurama and Kuwabara disappeared into the trees.
"…I'm gonna chalk all of that up to oxygen deprivation," Shinichi said when they were gone.
Kaito managed a quiet laugh. "That might be for the best," he said. As for me… He knew magic was real. And he never wanted to forget those words. "I'm not going back without him."
"Shinichi…"
Shinichi looked over at him and Kaito's fingers closed a little tighter around Shinichi's hand. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against Shinichi's shoulder, but he couldn't get the words out. Thank you and I love you seemed pale in comparison to what Shinichi had done, so instead he murmured into Shinichi's soaked shirt, "Please don't jump off any more ledges, like, ever again, okay?"
Shinichi breathed a warm laugh into Kaito's hair. "What are you talking about?" he said gently. "I know you'll catch me."
Kaito's laugh broke slightly but he ignored it, wrapping his arms around Shinichi and drawing him closer. He pressed his face to Shinichi's neck, clinging to him with his eyes squeezed shut. "Yeah," he whispered. "I will."
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"Is this a new strategy?" Kurama asked, feeling no need to provide context as he walked into Koenma's office. "No more official spirit detectives since the last two didn't end well, but a human recruit guided almost subconsciously to do the work you need done?"
"What's wrong with that?" Koenma asked, looking up at him. The smile beneath the pacifier had a scheming edge.
"Will Kudou-kun be able to handle something this big without learning to use his spirit energy?"
Koenma closed his eyes and waved the words away. "I knew what I was doing when I picked him. He doesn't need help. He just needed another chance."
Kurama did not let his suspicion show on his face or in his tone, but he still addressed it. "He was right, wasn't he. You had a place for him, but you brought him back to life. I thought that was against the rules."
"What gave you that idea?"
"Well," Kurama started. "Aren't those rules the reason you got stuck with Yusuke?"
Koenma grinned. "The only difference with Yusuke is that he wasn't smart enough to realize that was a lie. I didn't get stuck with him. I chose him." He snapped his fingers, for dramatic emphasis only, Kurama was sure, and a large grey tome appeared on his desk. Kurama's eyes widened subtly. He recognized it as the master grade book from which all reapers' grade books were populated as necessary – a prize he'd once considered stealing ages and ages ago, just for the sport of it.
Koenma pulled the book closer and laid his palm on it. A bright light passed into the pages, moving down until it hit the back cover, and when he lifted his hand the book opened of its own accord. Koenma flipped a few pages, humming.
"Ah. Urameshi Yusuke," he read. "Dies at age fourteen saving Taketomi Masaru from an oncoming car."
Kurama moved carefully closer and saw the words written down the length of the page with two clean, parallel lines drawn through them. Koenma flipped a few more pages and continued, "Kudou Shinichi. Dies at age sixteen. Poison." This entry had also been struck through and, beside it, bearing more of those same parallel lines, it said, "Dies at age seventeen (seven). Gunshot wound." Kurama's eyes widened, taking in the numerous entries as Koenma flipped through them, spotting a few unusual lines like "trapped in burning castle", "bomb on a roller coaster", and "thrown from an airship", along with several instances of "shot", "stabbed" and "drowned". Every one was struck through.
"This… shouldn't be possible," Kurama said faintly.
"I thought it was about time I had a word with him," Koenma said, unconcerned as he let the heavy book fall shut again. "Maybe he'll start taking his life a little more seriously if he knows how close he came this time."
"…Does your father know you've been doing this?" Kurama asked in a careful undertone.
Again, Koenma waved him off. "Most of these weren't even me," he said, tapping a thoughtful finger against the book's cover. "It's that Kuroba Kaito."
Kurama frowned. "Kuwabara-kun was… concerned," he said carefully. "I haven't seen him so unsettled in years. Not since the Dark Tournament."
Koenma made a small sound of agreement. "I wasn't lying about him. We can't predict him. He keeps… changing fate."
"You tried to keep him here," Kurama acknowledged. "Is this something we need to be concerned about? Upsetting the balance, or–?"
"No," Koenma said. He reached for his remote and pressed a button, bringing the large TV screen down out of the ceiling. Another click and it snapped on, displaying an image of Shinichi and Kaito helping each other to their feet by the side of the river. "Sometimes a wild card is exactly what you need."
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Author Note:
Beta'd by solomonara over on AO3!
I actually really like how this turned out! (So surprised lol) I wasn't sure while I was writing it, but I think it came out okay :) Kind of a relief too, since I think DCMK and Yu Yu are my two all-time favorite series :3
I hope you all enjoyed and thanks for reading~!
P.S. Please, please let me know if Shinichi's name ever gets replaced with the letter "I" in my works. I try to catch it when it happens (my computer is very unfortunately possessed and sometimes does this strange swap-out when I insert the periods into my white space breaks) but it's terribly unpredictable and I don't really have time to read through the whole story again when it happens. For all I know, typing this author note in was enough to push it over the edge again. *sigh* Thank you all so much for your patience with me.