THE CRYPTON CREW

By MargaritaDaemonelix

Chapter 4: On the Case

We now resume where the author left a horrid cliffy last chapter…

"KAITO, ISN'T THAT THE MAYOR'S HOUSE?!"

Or not.

Meiko's terrified scream pierced the air as Kaito realized that the big scene was happening behind them. "Hold on!" He hollered, taking a swift U-turn. Miku and Rin, who weren't aware, had grab on to whatever they could as they screamed for their dear lives.

The truck stopped on the mayor's driveway as Kaito's head popped back up. "Who's alive?" He immediately yelled, hand shooting into the air.

Meiko glared at him from the shotgun seat, eyes blazing."I'm a better driver than you, even when I'm drunk!" She snarled.

Gumi, Gackpo and Luka were sprawled in various positions around the truck. "Is that my foot?!" Yelped Luka, trying to move a boot-clad foot to the right position.

"HEY! That's my foot!" Hollered Gackpo, trying to free Gumi from his hair. Thankfully Len had escaped unscathed.

There was just one problem…

"Rin! Rinny, are you alright?"

Len's entire being kicked into high drive as he heard Miku's panicked shouts. Ignoring Gackpo's cries as he stepped over the taller man, Len rushed out of the truck and dashed around the corner. Sitting on the grass, rubbing her hip, was a slightly tousled Rin.

"Did you fall out of the trunk?" Asked Len gently, helping her up.

"Yeah," winced Rin.

"Does it hurt a lot?" He pressed.

Rin shrugged. "Not as bad as the time I fell from a treehouse-ergh." She stopped to compose herself and said no more about the matter.

Lies, thought Len, all lies made to try and deceive me. He knew perfectly well what the real story behind it was- Rin hadn't just fallen out of a treehouse. She fell out of their treehouse.


Flashback

Rin's scream of pain pierced the quiet afternoon. As fast as he could, Len climbed down from the treehouse to hold his best friend. "Did you just fall off the treehouse?" He asked.

Rin nodded, her face tear-stricken. "Yeah," she whimpered.

"Does it hurt a lot?" Asked Len, placing one soothing hand on the ankle that Rin held, making her wince a little.

"Yeah," continued Rin in a very small voice. "Len, please don't go."

And Len, being the good friend he was, kissed her forehead and smiled. "Don't worry, I won't," he promised.

End Flashback


Rin pulled herself with Len's hand. "Thank you for helping," she told him, a delicate smile on her lips, "but I'll be fine."

She flounced off without another word. It didn't take Len very long to realize that the smile she had on was most definitely false.

Arriving at the scene at last, Len approached a slightly hysteric woman with flowy, pale blonde hair. A pair of nekomimi were tucked into her hair, but Len wondered whether they were just décor, or perhaps something else. "Hello miss, I'm part of the Crypton Crew. We're here to save the cat," he told her calmly.

The woman grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him roughly. "Please, you have to! Fluffy was the first cat our little Iroha saved," she sobbed. "We'll do our best," replied Len, slightly shocked. Now he was certain that this woman was SeeU, the wife of the mayor.

Meanwhile, Luka was comforting a young girl with brilliant pink hair, rivalling Luka's own. The girl had put her hair into two nekomimi as well, imitating her mother's. This was Iroha Nekomura, the daughter of mayor Yohio and SeeU. As young as she was, she was one of the city's greatest animal rights protectors. Over a hundred injured, homeless and begging cats lived in their relatively small house, completely outnumbering the humans residing there.

"Miss Luka, will Fluffy be alright?" Asked Iroha tearfully. Luka gave the girl a big smile. "C'mon, we're the Crypton Crew! Where 911 can't, we can, remember?" She said playfully. "I'm sure someone is climbing on the roof right now to get your Fluffy back, safe and sound."

She followed this up with a deliberate glare at Len, who rolled his eyes and turned to the house. His moment of totally not verbal-verbal irony, however, was shattered when he saw Rin standing on the roof, facing the cat.

Without a second thought, Len ran up to the house, arms wide open. "RIN!" He yelled. "GET DOWN THIS INSTANT!" Rin simply ignored him, like the sweetheart she was. Calmly, she sank to all fours and approached the cat. Miraculously, it didn't run off.

That being said, there wasn't much space for it to run.

Scooping Fluffy up, Rin began to inch her way down the drain pipe of the house, pressing her toes into any chink in the wall she could find. Len didn't move from his position, however, and was ready to catch her at any moment.

Suddenly, Rin's foot slipped out of a chink. The gathered people gasped(quite a few cats did too). SeeU buried her face in Yohio's chest and cried, while Luka had to physically hold Iroha back from the scene. Fluffy screeched and jumped out of Rin's arms, landing on the unsuspecting Kaito's head.

Rin herself struggled to hold on to the pipe, and for a moment, as she locked eyes with Len, she looked genuinely afraid.

"Rin! Just hold on tight!" Yelled Len. "Slide down the pipe! Let go of your feet! I'll catch you when I can!" Rin, still slightly frozen in shock, nodded numbly and grabbed on to the pipe with both hands before letting her legs dangle out. Slowly, she lowered herself into Len's waiting arms, where he plucked her off the pipe and held her to him tightly.

"Don't you dare do that again!" He sighed. Rin put her hands on his chest and pushed him aside a little. "It's alright. I told you, I've fallen off a treehouse before," she reminded him before giving him a smile that melted his heart.

And, as Len watched, she walked away, leaving him desperate for her touch. Again.


As soon as they arrived at Luka's house, Rin excused herself and made a beeline for the bathroom. How could she have afforded herself such a moment? The sensation of having Len's arms wrapped around her made her feel helpless and all warm and fuzzy inside. Gosh, she thought, why don't I just tell him downright-

"Bad Rin!" She suddenly hissed, pinching her own arm as hard as she could. A small stream of blood flowed out where she'd dug her nails in. Hurriedly grabbing a bandage, she patched herself up while scolding her heart for trying to betray her.

A knock on the door suddenly brought her back to the cold reality. "Rin?" Came Luka's gentle voice. "We're having a girls' meeting in our room in ten minutes."

"Sure," replied Rin, wiping up her tears and washing her face to try to remove the redness of her nose. As soon as she stepped out, however, Kaito zipped in and shut the door.

No going back now.

Shivering, she made her way up the stairs to the girls' room, where Luka, Miku and Meiko were already waiting. "Gumi's gone to get snacks," explained Miku, patting on the bed beside her. Rin sat down, not wanting to speak. Sure enough, Gumi came in, holding a small basket of foods. The basket, however, dropped out of Gumi's hand as the green-haired girl glared at the blonde, sending a cold shock up Rin's spine.

"Rin. Spill."

And that was all it took for Rin to keel over, sobbing like it was the end of the world.


"Now, now," said Meiko soothingly as she handed Rin some water. "Are you comfortable telling us what's wrong?"

The girls had spent the past ten minutes convincing Rin to stop crying(and yelling "I'm sorry" uncontrollably). Luka, usually the aloe vera of the group, couldn't do anything. Miku had tried to give her friend some oranges, but Rin hadn't budged. Even Gumi's attempts to apologize were wasted.

Finally, Meiko just held Rin to her tightly, and waited for the blonde girl to stop crying. By some magical miracle, it had worked. Hence the blonde sitting on the bed, sipping water, her eyes bloodshot and teary.

Rin nodded, taking a deep breath and another sip of water. "I… I've done a lot of bad things," she whispered. "Perhaps had they told me and not tried to surprise me, I wouldn't have done what I did. It was what I didn't know that nearly killed me, and I didn't know what was going on until it was too late."

Flashback

A faint tune rang through the cold air of Rin's new apartment in Sapporo. The part of her mind that still regretted leaving Tokyo sang along with it, but the new part-the new Rin-swallowed the butterflies and tossed them in the gutter.

Len was calling her, for the twenty-second time that day, and Rin wasn't about to pick up. She continued filling out a job application, ignoring the beautiful song that played on. Migikata no chou was sealed away with the past.

Eventually the song stopped, only to be replaced by another that Rin instantly sang along with. "Kiseki no robuotto wa negau, "shiritai ano hito ga, inochi no, owari made, watashi ni, tsukerateta, KOKORO," she murmured before stopping herself and remembering what that ringtone was for.

It was the emergency, "Len-is-desperate-to-speak-to-me-and-he-is-actually-leaving-a-voicemail" ringtone. Rin sighed. If he'd gone through all the trouble of leaving a voicemail, she might as well pick up.

Len's troubled voice rippled through the speaker. "Rin, where are you? We've all been worried sick trying to find you! Please come home! I told you I'd marry you someday, and I am! Haven't you read the marriage papers? They kept it a secret from us all along, Rin. The arranged marriage they had was for the two of us. Please… I love you Rin… Please come home…"

The voicemail ended with Len's broken hearted sobbing, begging for Rin to come home. She couldn't move at that moment, however. Shocked, she picked up the marriage papers that her parents had waved in her face. There, plain as day, written KAGAMINE LEN as her spouse.

And at that moment, Rin didn't know whether to cry or to laugh.

She didn't know who she was, where she was, why she was, nothing at all. The two sides of her erupted, yelling nasty things all at once. Past-Rin was begging to go home, home to Tokyo and the treehouse and Len, but Now-Rin couldn't let her. They'd all betrayed her…

Picking up her phone again, Rin began to record a voice message to send to Len. "Thank you, Len, for being concerned," she began stiffly, "but I assure you, I am alright as I am. Don't come after me. I've gone through a lot of betrayal and plotting behind my back. Just stay where you are, and let me live my own life. I'll always remember you, Len. Thank you."

She knew that Len would likely find her somehow, and so she thought of one more way to throw him off her track. "Perhaps Crypton will do me some good," she concluded. "Please stay where you are, Len. This is goodbye."

She let the record button go, and in those few seconds as her phone processed the file and sent it to Len, time began to slow down for Rin. The record button was now replaced by a cancel button. She still had a chance to return to the past.

I can't let Len see me again.

The bar inched forwards.

He'll hate me for this. For leaving him.

Halfway now.

My perfect angel… He fell in love with the devil's advocate, didn't he?

Almost two-thirds.

But if I don't go home…

Three-quarters now, for sure.

How would Len feel?

Almost…

"That's it," declared Rin, jamming her finger down on the cancel button. When she removed it, however, the file had already sent, and there was no way she could delete it. Now-Rin had won, and Past-Rin was gone.

"What have I done?" She whispered, sinking to her knees and burying her face in her hands, wishing Len could comfort her like he did back at home in Tokyo.

She'd just lost the love of her life… Forever…

End Flashback

The girls were awestruck, trying to stay standing in the light of Rin's world-shattering revelation. "Rin-chan..." Luka murmured, wrapping her arms around the petite blonde. Soon enough, all four of the girls were hugging Rin tightly, trying to comfort her in any way possible.

"Rin, is that why you told us your last name was Kagamine? Because you're married to Len?" Asked Miku.

Rin nodded. "I didn't see him when I first met you guys, so I thought… I thought it would be safe to tell you my last name was Kagamine. My maiden name is Rin Kagene," she said weakly, a small smile on her lips.

Gumi grabbed a nearby tissue box and offered it to Rin. "I'm sorry I had to make you tell us all that," she blurted sheepishly.

"No, it's alright," assured Rin. "I figured you'd ask me or find out sooner or later."

Miku twisted a lock of Rin's hair around her finger. "Rinny, why'd you come here if you knew Lenners was here?" She asked.

"That's the thing. I didn't," said Rin, confusing the other girls. "I thought he'd left and gone back to Tokyo. I kept track of his Twitter after I went to Sapporo, and in one of his posts, he said he was going home to Tokyo."

Meiko shrugged. "The shota's Twitter," she said eerily, "the land of horrors and disorganization to the max."

Rin caught on. "Oh, the horror," she said, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead.

Gumi snorted (her attempt to laugh with a chunk of carrot in each of her cheeks), causing Meiko to laugh, and ultimately setting off a chain reaction. Even Rin joined in, and for the first time in months, she genuinely smiled.

Things were going to settle down and get better, for once.


A/N: Sorry if the pickup truck scene confused y'all. Here's the layout.

Driver's seat: Kaito

Shotgun: Meiko

Backseat: Gackpo, Gumi, Luka and Len

In the trunk(woah, laws broken much): Miku and Rin

I'll upload the next chapter for Rin and Len's birthday. It'll be an interlude, so it'll just be a sort of interactions chapter and have no impact on the story plotline whatsoever. That being said, watching Gackpo lose a game of Super Smash Bros miserably is fun, right?

Merry Christmas, tout le monde!

~MargaritaDaemonelix