Four points of the same star

DISCLAIMER:I do not own Detective Conan .

A:N: Corrections and changes have been made.

FOUR POINTS OF THE SAME STAR

Chapter 5

Despair and a sudden hope.

Prof. Agase and Ai had just finished to have dinner when the phone started to ring madly.

"Now, who can that be?" the old scientist wondered loudly, standing up. He turned around to the girl. "Ai-kun, do you expect a call?"

"No, Agase." she replied.

"Well, let's see who it is, then." He walked to the table and picked up the phone receiver. "Hello, who..? Oh, Shinichi-kun!"

Ai looked up in alarm.

'Why does Kudo call at this time?' she thought.

"Do you need someth.. what? Here? Now? No, it's not a problem but why..?" Agase's face changed from confusion to anxiety. "Calm down now and tell me wha... Later? All right. Yes, I'll tell her something if she calls. See you later. Bye."

He put the phone down and looked at Ai that had come close to him.

"Shinichi-kun's coming. He said he'll stay here for a few days. Don't ask me the reason because he didn't tell me anything." he said. "He was very upset, Ai-kun. I never heard him in this state. By the way, I must call the Mouris and invent something to justify Conan's sudden departure."

While Professor was on the phone, Ai began to feel uneasy: she couldn't figure out what might have upset Kudo so much.

'He was in a very good mood, when we separated. So, what...? A problem with Mouri? No... He could have met one of them on the way home!' she thought, getting nervous. 'No, he would have come here immediately.. Then, what?'

"Oh, all right Professor. Yes, he left a few minutes ago. No, he said it was not necessary. Yes, I understand: if you need his help.. No, it's only been a sudden thing. Ok, bye then."

Ran put down the phone, frowning slightly.

Conan had been in a good mood all the time, then suddenly, something changed. He came out of his room with a pale face and said that Agase had asked him to come down at his house for a few days to help him test some inventions. He quickly packed up and left, refusing to let her take him there.

'He's so strange sometimes. He seems so much like... Shinichi.. ' she thought. She shook her head. 'I'm worrying too much. He'll be fine.'

-:-

Conan was running to Agase's house at full speed. There was no time to waste.

He wanted to know exactly what had happened. He wanted details.

He wanted the truth.

"There goes the door bell" Professor said, getting up to open the door, "It must be him."

Ai followed him, anxiety building inside her.

"Shinichi-kun! Can you, finally explain what's goin..?" he started to say, but the boy's state made him stop. Conan was panting heavily because of the race and his face was completely screwed in an expression of anxiety and concern. Both Agase and Ai were too stunned to speak or ask him anything, so they just waited wondering what could have shattered the usually calm and composed detective's façade.

Conan took a deep breath and finally spoke, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Professor, can I make a phone call?" he asked, "I couldn't do it down at Ran's house."

The scientist just nodded, letting him pass but Ai didn't move and blocked his way.

"What's going on, Kudo?" she asked when their eyes met.

He didn't give her an answer but just put a hand in his pocket and pulled out his parents' letter. He gave it to her and walked on.

She unfolded the letter and started to read and Agase approached her with curiosity.

Dear son,

I have bad news. It's about Rei.

Nearly a week ago, I read this article on the newspaper: it talks about the death of a young girl near New York. I didn't give it a lot of importance until I read that she was Asian, probably Japanese, and that she had a badge.

An FBI badge.

The authorities suspect that she might be a young agent that has disappeared, recently. Your mother started to panic but I didn't want to do to hurried conclusions, so I called my friend that works for FBI to get some details. He didn't know much and just told me things I already knew. Your mother has tried to call her but nobody answered at her house. We decided to go there ourselves, but we didn't find her in her apartment in New York or anywhere else.

She seems to have vanished but all her things are still there.

I don't know when you'll receive this letter but call us as soon as you read it. I'll try to find out as much as I can and I hope that all our suppositions are wrong and that Rei's safe and sound.

I will be waiting your call, Shinichi.

Dad

The two scientists didn't say a word.

Ai noticed the newspaper cut, opened it and read it quickly but it didn't say anything that wasn't already explained in the letter. Agase was shocked. He knew Reila and was fond of her in the same way he was fond of Shinichi and he also knew about the special brother-like relationship that the two had.

"No wonder he's so upset." he said softly, "If something has happened to Rei-kun, he.."

Ai nodded slightly: she remembered how Kudo had talked about her.

"Let's see if he's find out something." she said and they both went to the phone table.

-:-

Conan picked up the phone and quickly dialled his parents' number. His heart was racing.

'Please, Rei, be fine.' he thought while the phone was ringing. 'Please..'

His mental prayer was stopped when he heard his father's calm voice answer on the other side.

"Hello, Dad? Yes, it's me. I've read it just today. So, have you found out anything?" There was a pause and Conan's face became pale.

"I see... but it's not sure, isn't it?" he asked desperately, "I mean... what? She's here? Why? Oh, I understand. No, she didn't contact me. Yes, I'll go and see her. All right." He paused again and then quickly added, "Dad, if you find out something.. anything... call me on my mobile phone or at Agase's house. You've got the number, right? Ok, hear you soon. Bye."

Conan hung up and turned around to find Agase and Haibara behind him.

"Shinichi-kun, have they found out something about Rei-kun?" Professor asked.

The boy shook his head.

"No, nothing...yet" he replied shortly. Then he walked to the door and stopped in front of it. After a few seconds of still silence, he turned around to look at the two scientists.

"Do you want to come next door?" he asked.

"At your house?" Agase asked, confusion clear on his face. "Why?"

"My mother's here. She didn't stand the tension down in the States. You know, waiting without doing anything, so Dad told her to go away for a few days. I think she'll be expecting our visit."

"Well, all right. I can imagine how Yukiko must feel now. And you, Ai-kun?" he turned to the girl who just nodded. "Let's go then, Shinichi-kun."

The three left and headed to the Kudo's house. The lights upstairs were on and the front gate had not been closed well. Conan didn't notice theses details before: he had other things in his mind. He pulled out his keys and opened the door. Once inside, he switched on the lights.

"Mom, come down!" he called, "It's me!"

"Shin-chan, is that you?" replied a voice from upstairs and shortly after, Yukiko Kudo came down.

Her usually giggly smiling face was gone, and you could see worry and fear in her face. She forced a small smile of greeting.

"It's been a long time, Hiroshi-san. How are you?" she asked Agase.

"I'm fine, Yukiko. I would have wished to meet you in a better moment than this but..." he stopped, not knowing what to say, and giving her an apologetic look.

"Don't worry." she said, shaking her head.

Then, she looked at Ai. It was their second meeting but the previous time due to the fact that the three Detective Boys were present, there hadn't been an official introduction.

Yukiko knew everything about her and her past for Shinichi had told her. Hadn't he done so, she couldn't have believed that the little girl in front of her was actually the one that had made the poison that had shrunk her son.

'But she didn't do it intentionally.' she thought, 'She had been forced to do it by the men of that organisation. The same men that killed her parents, her sister and that want to kill her, too. I can't blame her: it's not her fault. She's suffered enough.'

"You are Ai Haibara, right?" she said gently, holding out her hand, "I am Yukiko Kudo, pleased to meet you."

Ai was taken aback. She had expected an opposite reaction, not such kindness.

"Pleased to meet you again, Kudo-san." she said, shaking her hand.

Yukiko now turned to her son. Conan looked up at her.

"Mom? How are you feeling?" he asked with mild concern, "Dad was worried: he said that you didn't even call him to say you've arriv.."

He couldn't manage to continue: his mother flung her arms around him and started to cry softly. Conan was shocked by his mother's sudden outburst: he had never seen her cry and this showed how much she cared for Rei.

"Mom.. calm down.. please, calm down." he started to say, hoping that his tone was encouraging and not doubtful as he heard it, "Everything will go well. She'll be fine: it's probably all a mistake." He looked up at Agase for help.

"He's right, Yukiko. You must not lose your hopes: I am sure Rei-kun is safe and sound." he said patting her shoulder and giving her a warm smile.

The woman got up, wiping her tears away with her hand.

"I'm sorry, but it seems such an absurdity that she might have killed herself." she said softly, "I mean.. we're talking about Rei! The last I heard she was fine.. well quite fine."

Conan looked at her.

"What do you mean with quite fine?" he asked sharply.

"Well, Shin-chan, I called her just a month ago and she was a bit.. worried. She kept on saying that she was just tired whenever I asked her what was wrong. You know, she entered FBI nearly five months ago and she was always busy. She told me that she was working on a difficult case with a few colleagues of hers and.." Yukiko paused, tears filling her eyes again. "She told not to worry and that she was fine."

Yukiko broke down again while Agase tried to console her. Ai, on the other hand was struck by her last statement. They were the same words Akemi had told her at their last meeting.

"Yukiko, please calm down." Agase said soothingly, "Come on, I'll get you a cup of tea. It will make feel a bit better."

He lead her to the kitchen.

Ai stayed silent, slowly swallowing her own grief and thinking of the woman's tears.

'That girl is very lucky.' she thought, 'She's so worried about her even though she's not a member of her family. Kudo must feel the same, too.'

She turned around to look at him but didn't see him anywhere.

The boy was not in the living room anymore.

Conan was in his room.

He hadn't been in there for months but nothing had changed except for the dust that had piled up on the furniture. He walked in, headed to his desk and opened a drawer. He pulled out a small leather photo album, hidden under a stack of notebooks and papers and carefully opened it. He started to flip through the pages till he found what he was looking for.

It was a photo of Rei and him, taken before her leaving to the USA. He stared at it and memories drifted into his mind.

-:-

"So, you know everything about my parents'?" she looked at him evenly, dark eyes fixed on his.

"I'm sorry." he immediaetly apologized, "I didn't want to poke my nose in your business but you seemed so sad when you came in class the other day that I wondered why and so.. I asked my parents when they called me."

"Sad? I thought I had managed to hide my emotions but you've noticed them anyway." Reila smiled slightly, "Great work, detective. I knew that you would have found it out after all: your parents were good friends of my family. Just promise me that you won't say anything to anyone and don't worry about it anymore, Kudo."

"Ok, thanks..." He looked at her for a moment. "Can I ask you a favour?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"Call me Shinichi. Kudo sounds so formal. We know each other since we're little, don't we?"

"Oh.. all right." she said, slightly taken aback, "Then, you must call me Rei and not Ikeda, ok?"

"Ok."

-:-

Conan smiled as he remembered what had happened in class a couple of days after this.

-:-

"Shinichi, can you lend me your history book? I want to see how much I have to catch up."

"Sure, no problem Rei."

Neither had noticed that the whole class had listened to their short conversation.

Ran stood in front of him, arms folded and fury in her eyes.

"Shinichi! You just met her a few days ago and you already call each other with your first names?" she exclaimed. He was going to answer her when all the boys of the room, surrounded his desk.

"Kudo! EXPLAIN!" they said in a deadly voice.

He sweat dropped. He was trapped: on one side there was Ran and on the other, fifteen angry boys. He looked desperately around to Rei for help but she already had her trouble dealing with Sonoko.

"IS THERE SOMETHING GOING ON BETWEEN YOU TWO?" she shouted. "That guy's already got a girlfriend, do you understand?" She pointed to Ran as she said this and the girl blushed furiously. "There she is. So, go and find another boy."

Rei got up with a very annoyed face.

"Listen, stop raising hell, ok?" she said calmly, "We two are friends: just good friends. So, what's the problem?"

After this, she walked to his desk and gave him the book.

"Thank you, SHINICHI." she said, smiling.

"No problem, REI." he said smiling back.

-:-

Conan smiled with sadness as the memories filled his mind.

Rei had stayed in Japan only for six months but she had become very important for him. Their friendship was special. She was special. If something had really happened to her...

"'Neechan, you're fine, right?" he asked softly, looking at the photo again.

They used to spend so much time together that people began to think they were a couple. They always said that they were just friends but many didn't believe them. Ran, in first place.

He remembered all the times that he had to give her explanations.

"Ran, what's wrong if I go out with a friend? If a boy and a girl go out together it doesn't mean that they're lovers, do you understand?"

Only Agase and his parents knew how deep their relationship was: it was something beyond friendship. Love, a brotherly love. They were the only ones that didn't look surprised when he called Rei 'Neechan or little sister and when she called him Niichan or little brother.

Conan sighed: he couldn't bare the thought of loosing her... or that he'd already lost her. He recalled his father's words on the phone: the words that he didn't dare to say to his mother, fearing that she could worry more.

Suddenly, he felt someone staring him. He turned around and saw Haibara, standing by the door.

"How long have you been there?" he asked.

"A while." she replied calmly. "I just wondered where you could have gone."

Conan continued to look at her: her expression was emotionless as usual but he noticed a strange glint in her eyes. A mixture of sorrow and understanding. Was she feeling compassion for him?

'I told her how much I care for Rei.' he thought, 'She knows that she's like a sister for me.' Then, it hit him. 'She lost her sister a few months ago. The same person I failed to save. She probably understands how I'm feeling more than anyone else.'

He felt tears filling his eyes but forced them back in.

'I can't start crying! I promised to protect her. I don't want her to see me so weak...' He turned his back to Ai and opened his drawer putting the album back in its place and, in the meantime, gave himself time to calm down.

"You don't have to lie to yourself, Kudo."

Conan looked at her with surprise. She seemed to have read his mind. Ai approached to him and laid her hand on his shoulder.

"You don't have to act: it's a difficult moment for you." she said softly, "I understand it."

'How can she know what I'm thinking?' he thought. He glanced at her.

"I'm sorry, Haibara." he muttered.

She looked surprised now.

"What for?" she asked.

"For not having saved your sister. I've never really apologized, did I? And now, I think I understand how you felt.. loosing someone you loved."

Ai's expression softened.

"You don't have to blame yourself: you did what you could, Kudo." she said. Feeling uncomfortable, she decided to change subject. "What did your father say?"

Conan looked at her straight in the eyes.

"Don't tell anyone." he said and she nodded.

"The police says that the body's unrecognisable. R... The.. victim.." He paused for a moment and swallowed uneasily. He was saying Rei. "The victim set her car on fire and locked herself inside. There was not much left: everything had been burned up, but the police found some paper fragments. They were the rests of a passport, a foreign passport. And they also found a chain inside the victim's jacket pocket: a chain with a golden crucifix."

Ai noticed the look on his face as he said this last detail.

"What's so special about the chain?" she asked, "There could be thousands like that."

"There was an engraving on the back of the cross, written in Japanese. Two words: Hope and Trust." He looked at her with despair. "Rei had a chain like that and she always put it on. It was one of her mother's gift."

Conan fell silent and Ai just looked at him.

"He didn't tell anybody. He kept it hidden inside him all this time.' she thought, 'He didn't want to worry his mother or Agase.. We're both alike in this: we prefer to suffer alone.'

Then she did something that surprised herself as much as Conan.

She gave him a comforting hug, without saying a word. He was slightly shocked at the beginning but then relaxed, appreciating her silent solidarity. They stayed like this for a couple of moments before breaking the embrace.

Conan smiled slightly as he looked at her.

"Thanks, Haibara." he said.

She gave him a small smile and walked to the door. He followed her downstairs shortly after.

A week had passed but nothing had improved in the meantime.

There were no new details on the sucide case besides the growing certainty that the victim was really Reila Ikeda.

Shinichi's mother was leaving: she had decided to stay close to her husband and help him to find out the truth. Conan had managed to stay down at Agase's place for the entire week but now he had to go back to the Mouris or Ran would have become suspicious. He had also been forced to go to school. The others probably thought that he would have pobably gone mad if he had just stayed in the house, torturing his mind.

Yukiko was in front of her house, holding a handbag and pushing a small trolley. She had called a taxi to take her to the airport and was waiting with Agase, the only one that was there to tell her goodbye her: Conan and Ai were still at school.

"I hope to meet you soon, Yukiko and during a better occasion." he said, "And don't worry: I'm sure everything will end well."

"I hope you're right, Hiroshi-san. I don't even want to think tha.." she froze half way her statement and just looked past the man.

"Yukiko? Are you all right?" the man asked anxiously but she didn't answer. She just pointed, her hand trembling, to her house's entrance. Agase turned and looked in that direction.

Someone was walking towards them. Slowly, very slowly as though he or she was walking absentmindedly without realising where he or she was walking.

He couldn't understand if it was a boy or a girl because a cap hid the face but Yukiko seemed to know who it was. She walked towards the stranger, alowly at first and then faster. She suddenly hugged the figure. The cap fell to the ground and Agase saw that it was a girl. The man's jaw dropped to the ground.

She had recognized both of them and her eyes were full of shock. She slowly hugged Yukiko back.

"I'm sorry." she whispered.

"Haibara-san, what's wrong with Conan-kun?"

"Yes, Ai-chan, what happened to him?"

The Detective Boys were going home. Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko were worried because Conan had been strange the whole week: he was absentminded in class, he didn't pay attention to their discussions and, most important of all, he didn't even want to play soccer!

Ai glanced at the boy that was walking next to her.

"I don't know." she lied, "He's probably tired."

Suddenly, a phone ring tone broke the silence but nobody seemed to answer.

"Ehm.. Conan-kun, I think it's yours." Ayumi said timidly after the nth ring.

"Huh?" he mumbled, waking up from his daze. He pulled out his earring phone and answered dully. "Hello? Agase? We're coming, don't worr.. WHAT?" he shouted.

The kids jumped a mile and Ai looked at him wondering what else had happened now.

"When? Ok.. I'll be there right away." he put his phone back in his pocket and started to run.

The others didn't realize what had happened immediately. Then, they started to run after him.

"Hey, wait Conan-kun!" the three kids yelled. Ai ran after him, too: she was curious to know what was going on.

Conan was running as fast as he could, heart pounding in his chest with only one thought in his mind.

'She's there!'

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