Summary: They have only ninety minutes to track and defeat the Boss before the bomb goes off (a tale in seven snowballing stories about quirky mediators, unreliable weapons, poisonous flowers, angry pets, clumsy allies, death, and resurrection...)
Disclaimer:
This Detective Conan Christmas fic is not by Gosho Aoyama.
Ninety Minutes of Snow
by FS
for Grandpa, who wished for "snow" ;)
7.
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Although she knows she had better focus on her surroundings, Shiho can't help but wonder why the serial killer has been targeting the former black-wig-wearers of the Divine Marie. Does he deem them imperfect and thus inadequate—a mistake he must erase? Is the deliberate (or even inadvertent) impersonation of the "divine" Marie Duplessis a sin in his eyes? Who is the last mediator?
Time is running out, says the snowflake-shaped locket around her wrist. There are only twenty minutes left until the explosion. Afterwards, their only chance at uncovering the earliest history of the Organization will be forever buried. This is a gamble—she tells Shinichi over the microphone. They might make it in time if the serial killer knows the third mediator's (or G.H.'s) whereabout, but all will be lost if "Jack" doesn't have anything to do with G.H. at all.
He has already contacted Coward and made an appointment with Hyoga-san, Shinichi assures her. "Hyoga-san is the last mediator; and Coward was supposed to bring you to him—but Coward wasn't sure whether you were the right person or not because you didn't show him Munro's paper scrap."
"They've used me to bait 'Jack'!" she exclaims, hit by an epiphany. Usually she isn't this slow, but her worries about Shinichi and the cyanide poisoning must have clouded her mind.
"Well, of course." He laughs—a rare sound, which prompts her to smile with him. "As decoy, they needed a black-wig-wearer who could defend herself; otherwise they would have had to wait for too long for 'Jack' to strike again now that the hostesses have stopped wearing black wigs. You've passed all the challenges on the way, but you were too suspicious. Since you decided not to show Coward the paper scrap, Coward held back as well and chose to watch you in secret instead of letting you in to their scheme."
"And why are you dressed like 'Jack'? I almost shot you!"
"It's the bodyguards' outfit during this year's musical soirées. A former Victorian hostess is going to perform five Chopin's waltzes on Sunday night. The event is called 'Minor Keys'. I've received a note that all personal bodyguards are encouraged to try on their clothes beforehand so that the costumes can be fitted in time."
He should have informed her about the note, but he preferred to remain silent before arriving at a reasonable deduction. His lack of communication almost cost him his life. But since she is sure he is aware of this, she makes an effort to let it go.
"Just tell me about these changes the next time so that I won't shoot you by accident! Anyhow, our serial killer isn't one of the guards, claims Coward. He can't explain how 'Jack' got past all the security checks without anyone noticing."
"If 'Jack' is the 'colleague' Munro referred to, 'Jack' must be one of the crows. Either we're dealing with a rogue crow and G.H. will thank us for catching him, or Munro and Brummel are the rogue crows and G.H. will welcome us with an equivalent of the biblical great hail."
Thank us for catching him... One thing about Shinichi never changes: even when he suffers from the mirror splinters in his eyes, he stays so sure of himself that Shiho has to take on the task of worrying.
"Where are you now?"
"Almost at the top of the Ungrateful Dwarf. There is only one path, and it's impossible even for our ninja to climb down this cliff without passing me."
"Wait for me! And when you approach him, take care to stay within my line of sight." Now that she has time to think straight, she is glad that Coward, who stopped her at the gate of the Divine Marie when she dashed after Shinichi, insisted that she take a few weapons with her.
"Why?" Shinichi chuckles. "You can't hit anything, anyway."
Bear with him, he is affected by the mirror splinters, she keeps telling herself. She will save the bullets for the killer even though Shinichi is within her line of sight now. Soon he will arrive at the top, where "Jack" will be waiting. And it will be hard for her to shoot the killer when she isn't on high ground.
"I didn't have the best field of fire! I didn't have a spotter! Windage should have been factored into the shot as well, but I didn't have enough time to—"
"Or it's your sniper rifle! Let's just hope the weapons Coward gave you will work."
She crankily reminds him that she checked her rifle before leaving and that she never lost sight of it until they encountered their Jack the Ripper copycat. The only two occasions in which she did lose sight of it was when she was poisoned by the cyanide emission of the laurel leaves and when she stayed at the farm to recover. But Shinichi had been carrying the sniper rifle during both occasions... Unless Shinichi was careless, no one could have meddled with it.
"It's a mystery I have yet to figure out," Shinichi admits. "But I don't have time for it now."
Shinichi doesn't need to explain why he doesn't have time, as she can hear the stranger's resounding voice through her headphones even though what he is saying gets muffled by the falls. She is as fast as she can make it on foot but Shinichi, who has reached the top of the cliff, is hidden from her view.
"So you've murdered so many innocent women just to get me?" Shinichi asks, conveying to her the gist of what the stranger is saying without drawing the stranger's attention to her presence. "Fine, I'll be this world's Sherlock Holmes if you're this world's Moriarty."
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Shots are fired, but they don't seem to accomplish anything. Set on destroying their respective nemesis, Shinichi and the stranger proceed to hit each other with sticks. When Shiho finally arrives at the top of the Ungrateful Dwarf, she can see them fighting in the distance. Shinichi is using a walking cane which looks suspiciously like George Brummel's. He must have either found it on the ground or wrestled it from the serial killer.
Shinichi's opponent uses another walking cane, which reveals itself to be a swordstick. She can't tell where the killer has found it since she is sure he didn't carry one while fighting against Coward in the Divine Marie.
Hiding behind a large boulder, Shiho begins to set up a shot with the new sniper rifle she received from Coward—but the two men resemble each other so much that she is no longer sure whether the one with Brummel's stick is Shinichi or the serial killer. Even their movements are perfectly alike, resembling the identical movements of two agile feline predators more than those of two human beings with easily distinguishable quirks and human imperfections. She hesitates for a brief moment before she gets the idea to scrutinize the scarves the men are wearing through a spotter's scope. Even in the bright moonlight, it's difficult to spot the rose petals on his red silk scarf, but once she has seen them on the person carrying Brummel's stick, she feels better about her choice when she lines up the shot.
"Did you change your scarf when you changed clothes?" she asks nonetheless. She doesn't want to distract him, but she can't undo her actions once she has pulled the trigger.
"No." It has taken Shinichi a moment to reply, and he couldn't go into details like "I didn't see any use in changing it", but the answer suffices. On second thought, she could have asked Shinichi whether he was the one wielding the sword cane or not, which would have saved them plenty of time, but she has no time for regrets. After warning Shinichi, she shoots at the ground behind "Jack", and Shinichi propels him off the cliff with a well-aimed hit of his cane.
The serial killer's story doesn't end here, however, and he is now hanging at the edge of the precipice with the help of a small grappling hook he has kept hidden in his sleeve. Shinichi is towering over him with an outstretched hand. Both men's deerstalkers have fallen off during the fight; and in the moonlight reflected in the snowy landscape, Shinichi's hair is as dark as ebony while his skin appears as white as snow...
"Don't!" Shiho warns Shinichi as she darts out of hiding to run to his aid, arms opened wide to the sides to keep her cape out of the way while she is running. "Remember what Coward said about Snow-White and Rose-Red and the ungrateful dwarf! Don't rescue him!"
"Sometimes there is no choice," Shinichi calmly responds as he kneels down to help his opponent. "Sometimes you just have to follow your instincts and hope for the best to happen."
Everyone has a fatal flaw—she realizes—and Shinichi's flaw is that he is too kind for any world he is living in. Despite the mirror splinters in his eyes, even if they reached his heart and he turned to ice, he will always succumb to this weakness. She can't make him act against his life principles. Hence she can only watch as their enemy pulls himself up with Shinichi's help and then—using the advantageous momentum—flings Shinichi over the precipice while he straightens himself and mischievously cocks his head to throw a glance at the falls below.
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