-o-

It was an accumulation of things that led to Masako Katsuki leaving Jouji Shibue. The young man, with his pampered looks and self-absorbed personality probably hadn't been aware of half of them when he died. As far as he was concerned, his Masako had been swept off her feet by a girly looking chap with too much money. At least she had the decency to be civil about it, even after he had sabotaged her wardrobe.

He never had an inkling that she had found his diary of misdeeds.

Appalled by the illegal nature of his entries, and the absurd detail he'd gone to in some of them, Masako had simply seen the true face of the one she had thought of as, until then, a mere thrill-seeker addicted to extreme sports.

She kept quiet on the principle that what goes around comes around. Thankfully, he hadn't targeted her as far as she could tell, or she would have reconsidered.

Little did she know of the comeuppance awaiting him.

-o-

- Chapter 12: Retaliation.-

-xii-

No, he thought, this was a terrible idea. Blushing furiously, trying in vain to stay rooted to the spot, Eisuke knew that this was not going to end well.

"Ran," he said sharply, as the young girl pulled at his wrist. "I just told you that a very bad man is after me. Do you realise how dangerous it is for you to bring me here?!"

"I don't see what's wrong with it... It's a busy part of town, we've got good curtains and sturdy locks on the door. Besides, my dad has had police officers in quite frequently these past few days."

Rolling his eyes, Eisuke let his glasses slide slightly down his nose the better to peer over the rim at her.

"What makes you think that's not going to cause you more danger? I will not have you get hurt because of me."

"And unless you can think of a better place to stay, I am not going to let you slum it on the streets." The iron in the karate-champion's voice and the determination in her eyes left no room for argument.

Still, Eisuke could not allow himself to surrender that easily. This was the woman he loved. Even if the sentiment was not returned, he would not let her get harmed because of him.

"Ran..."

"I'm not asking you to trust or tell the police anything... Nor my dad. I... I just want to know that I can help you stay safe, if only for a little while. I don't want you to be alone." At this, Ran let go of his wrist. Hair fluttering slightly in the cold breeze as she took the first step up to the agency, she half turned away from him as she continued on, a sad smile on her face. "Besides, you look like you could use some cheering up."

Defeated, Eisuke stood for a moment, hesitantly looking up to her. The young man could think of nothing to retort, nor any argument against. It struck a chord within him, and he could not help thinking of his sister and his father. Both lost to a fight they barely gave him a chance to learn about, let alone distract them from. If he were in Ran's place...

"Fine..." He chuckled as he fought against the dampness in his eyes. "You win."

He trotted up after her, only half tripping on a step or two. He could never ever doubt the kindness of Ran's heart.

-xii-

Ms Chiyoko Kawashima stared blankly at the accusing finger pointing to her. The other two suspects stepped away from her, eyeing her warily. Masako Katsuki, the deceased's ex-girlfriend seemed somewhat unconvinced. Souichi Tomoe, the elderly ex-school lecturer, looked as though he understood the accusation to be a fact, and was ready to say that he'd known all along, he'd have you know...

"What makes you say that?" The reporter, Atsushi Mori asked of Shinichi Kudo. His pen was hovering above his notepad, ready to jot everything down. "Have you figured out the method used to kill our unfortunate cashier, Jouji Shibue?" He smiled, eyes eager.

"Indeed I have." Shinichi stood with his back against the victim's till, a triumphant smile on his face. He appeared relaxed, but not complacent. "Our culprit merely took advantage of one of mister Shibue's nervous habits."

Miss Katsuki, seemingly understanding what the young sleuth was implying, covered her mouth to prevent a small gasp from escaping. Ai, however, was more interested in observing the accused elderly woman. Ms Kawashima did not bat an eyelid, nor did she flinch. She merely watched through her spectacles, unmoved, resigned. A shiver made itself felt along the top of Ai's spine.

"Which habit?" asked Inspector Sato, curiosity etched upon her features. Her arms were crossed as she supervised the proceedings.

"I was watching him a bit while we were queuing." Shinichi explained. "He was chewing his fingernails quite frequently."

"He was?" Sato turned to the cashier currently in charge of the convenience store, the young woman with the scarred forehead who seemed to be wishing she had never gone for the deputy manager position.

"Shibue has been known to do that a lot yes. Goodness knows our manager tried to make him lose that habit."

"Even foul-tasting clear nail polish never made him quit." His ex-girlfriend added quietly. She was looking at the body lying on the floor, head low.

Atsushi Mori chuckled. The newspaper reporter asked the obvious question.

"So you're saying that Ms Kawashima here managed to coat his fingers with poison, in front of a busy queue of customers during rush hour. Excuse me if I demand how?"

"The reporter's right," Sato said, eyebrow arched. "We've checked everything he would be likely to touch while interacting with all three, from till money, to his keys, even the suspects' purchases. We only found traces at best, not enough to be guaranteed to coat his fingers."

Chiyoko Kawashima no longer looked demure. She was now looking at Shinichi with eyes as sharp as daggers, assessing, anticipating...

"Mister Tomoe wasn't wrong when he accused Shibue of being a thief." Shinichi went on. The lecturer looked somewhat pleased at being vindicated, though confused by why this was being brought up. Miss Katsuki snapped her head up, eyes wide. Obviously she knew what the detective was implying.

"For us to not have found the murder device is quite simple really..."

Kneeling down while pulling a glove onto his hand, Shinichi Kudo deftly snapped up the crumpled note among the victim's change that had been in his pocket.

"The victim put it somewhere he shouldn't have."

"I knew it!" the younger cashier exclaimed, as he pointed at the deceased. "I told you I wasn't counting up my till wrong!"

"Oh Jouji..." The disappointment in Masako Katsuki's face said it all. She cast one last, cold and pitiful gaze at the deceased, before turning away.

As Sato asked the technician to confirm whether the note was indeed coated in poison, Ai's eyes grew wide as she watched Chiyoko Kawashima. Though her guilt had not yet been proven, she now seemed to sport an almost serene expression on her face.

To Ai Haibara, this bade ill. She wasn't quite certain why, but as she looked on, she could feel some thought, some vague recollection telling her that such a reaction was wrong.

-xii-

It wasn't hard for Gin, once his wounds had been hidden beneath a woolly hat and proper clothing, to slip into the crowd unnoticed. It was a little tiresome not being able to impose on fellow pedestrians at a glance, but he felt that this was a worthy compromise for feeling under the weather as he was and still having the ability to remain unremarkable. His injury was smarting again. His head felt a little woozy too. It was, he decided, time to invest in some more bandages and cigarettes. He could kill for a whiff of tobacco. This time he did not bother with the sleight of hand. He walked into a pharmacy, bought what he needed for the next couple of days to keep himself right, and then went to make himself comfortable in a small eatery where he could sit comfortably at the back, smoke and plan.

There were, he decided, too many of his adversaries who had shown a recent tendency to come back from the dead. The elusive Shuichi Akai, whose death at the hands of the mole Kir he had so deliciously orchestrated and observed was clearly an opponent worthy of the nickname silver bullet. When Rena Mizunashi's failings had been uncovered the month prior thanks to the young fool Bourbon, Gin hadn't so much minded being unpleasantly surprised. It had just proven that Akai was worthy of playing against him on a level footing. Kir's execution had been nothing more than a petty retaliation, as far as Gin was concerned. Sherry's reappearance, on the other hand, he had been both delighted and astounded by. He had always secretly hoped that Vermouth had failed in killing the girl, if only because she had denied him the pleasure of seeing the fireworks in person. He had suspected that Bourbon, the soft touch that he was, would have had some hand in her surviving if it had occurred at all. He had never suspected that she might have survived by hiding in the body of a child.

Proof, if ever there was, that Sherry was her parents rightful successor in the domain of drug making.

Shinichi Kudo, on the other hand...

Gin scowled darkly at the glass of fortified wine before him. Gritting his teeth, he pulled towards him the daily paper he had just bought. He barely recalled having ever dealt with the boy before, but he knew it to be true. He had recognised the insolence with which the boy had put forth his deductions that fateful night. Vodka had gasped loudly upon hearing the twerp's name. All Gin could manage to conjure up from the depths of his mind was an impression of the teenage sleuth, in the dark, black blood spilling down his forehead as he force-fed him one of Sherry's damned pills.

The paper had a small article on the death of one of Tokyo's greatest men. The police had only now released information that his body had been one of the several found at the site of an explosion in the mountains. No explanation had yet been given, investigations were still underway. Unwritten was the fact that the head of the black organisation was officially no more...

Curse that woman, he thought. I am going to find her and make her wish she had never been born.

-xii-

"What is it that makes you say that Ms Kawashima is the culprit?" Miwako Sato's voice rang out clear and true. "From what you have shown us, any one of the three suspects could have given him that bank note."

Shinichi nodded solemnly. He had been expecting that query. The small crowd gathered around him peered at him attentively, Atsushi Mori, the reporter, most of all.

"As I said, the execution of this trick required good knowledge of the victim's habits. This would make Miss Katsuki the most obvious suspect, however the act of returning his keys to the victim was always bound to lead the police to her in any following inquiries." Shinichi smiled at Miss Katsuki's glower. "As for mister Tomoe, the act of calling mister Shibue out on his more dishonest habit of robbing people, at the risk of making a scene, would only point more clearly to the nature of the item used to poison the victim." Mister Tomoe nodded happily at the teenager's conclusion. "This by no means makes either of them determinedly innocent of the crime, however..."

Stepping forward towards the accused Chiyoko Kawashima, the high-school student extended out a gloved hand towards the elderly woman. Eyeing his palm with quiet distaste, she waited for him to continue, arms tightly held across her breast, knuckles whitening on the strap of her handbag.

"Ms Kawashima, let us save you the embarrassment of a search. Would you please hand over your wallet as evidence?"

A quiet sigh escaped her lips as, defeated, she hang her head in shame and proffered the object requested. The other two suspects gasped as Shinichi deftly pulled out two wafer-thin sheets from which drifted the remains of a poisonous powder.

"But this doesn't tell us why Ms Kawashima would have committed this crime. What motive could she possibly have had?" The reporter queried as he pushed up his cap to a jaunty angle.

"Hah!" Mister Tomoe interjected derisively. "I bet young Shibue did a number on her career as well. I've seen her working in the temping agency across the road. I'd heard that the young fool had been seeking out assignments there... Never would I have thought..."

"No," the elderly woman replied, her voice as soft and quiet as an autumn's breeze. "It was not about my job."

Raising her head once more to lock eyes with the detective that had uncovered her deed, Chiyoko Kawashima made abstraction of all the others in the room to speak to him and him alone.

"I had a beautiful grand-daughter. A little addled in the head, mind you, and frail of health, but with a heart of gold the likes you never would have seen." She held her hand to her chest, as if trying to recapture a feeling now gone. "Her parents both work hard at their jobs, to pay the medical bills. Little Emi wasn't allowed to school, for fear of a fit, so she needed carers to look after her. I would provide myself, when I had the time. When I was at the office, I always made a point to choose which carers my agency would send to her side personally."

Shinichi listened quietly as inspector Sato ordered the technicians to get the wallet and papers checked. He kept an eagle eye on Ms Kawashima's hands.

"Jouji Shibue came along, telling stories of great honesty and putting others before himself. His references were hard to get a hold of, but seemed to corroborate with his presentation. I took him on, if only because I thought his tendency to bite his nails was a symptom of a sensitive mind, one likely to accommodate my little Emi's worries."

A pause came, as the elderly office lady seemed to revisit these memories with great regret. Her tone shifted, no longer that of a simple and factual confession, but to that of a heart-broken parent. Her breaths were short, her cheeks became flushed.

"We soon found out that Emi's parents had been robbed. Someone had hacked into their bank accounts, stealing all their savings which were swiftly withdrawn. The bank was at a loss as to how they had done it, and as a result, Emi's health seemed to quickly deteriorate." A cruel edge came into her voice now. No compassion or sadness, just anger. "It took me days to get to the bottom of Emi's anxieties, to realise just why she had taken the whole thing so much to heart. When Jouji Shibue had come on shift, he had not only delved into my son's private papers himself, despite Emi's protestations, he had also locked her up in a cupboard so that he might raid the house in peace. She was so traumatized by the ordeal that no one could get a straight story out of her. Her parents would not believe her when she said it was the carer, putting it down as an attempt to seek their attentions."

Shinichi noticed that the young woman, the victim's ex-girlfriend Masako Katsuki, had eyes as wide as saucers upon hearing this part of the tale. She was gripping her own handbag strap awfully close to her throat as she processed what it was she was hearing.

"Need I say that by this point, Emi was so ill with worry and self-doubt, she died of her condition? Because of the callousness of this man?" The bereaved grand-mother pointed sharply at the corpse before them. "Afterwards, full of grief, I decided to check up on his references. They proved to be fake, sent by proxies that he had set up himself. Naturally I'd already fired him from the agency at this point, but my manager was dissatisfied. He said he was being threatened by this young fool with lawsuits for unfair termination of contract and defamation of character. He was pinning the fault on me, calling me doddering in my old age. Ha!"

At this, Chiyoko Kawashima pulled a handkerchief out of her coat pocket, ready to wipe a tear from her eye.

"He didn't believe what I'd learnt from my Emi either, nor did my fickle son. It's probably for the best though... They won't miss an addled old cow."

"Don't!"

Chiyoko Kawashima froze as the little voice came from her hip. In shock, she turned to the little girl standing there, eyes focussed on her handkerchief.

"What would little Emi say?" Shinichi stared, astounded, as he watched Ai do with mere words what he'd been prepared to do by manhandling the poor woman.

The culprit dropped her handkerchief and the sachet of poison it contained. She dropped to her knees and cried all the tears she had been holding in. Rocking back and forth as inspector Sato clasped the iron bracelets upon her wrists, all she could see was a little girl, eyes big in wonder at the world, just wanting to be let in.

"Come," Shinichi whispered to Ai as he picked up his sack. "We'll have to do without the shopping I'm afraid." Nodding silently, she allowed him to pick her up. He put up her hood as she held onto his neck. The reporter and his photographer were busy taking photos of the culprit that Sato was trying to console. Now was Shinichi's chance to leave without the eye of the press following him. With the mystery now solved, Gin's shadow was bigger than ever in his mind.

It wasn't to be though... As he slipped through the doors that the younger cashier inched open for him, a dozen flashes dazed him from the street. Cursing the technology that had allowed such a gathering of reporters and journalists to camp out in front of the convenience store, Shinichi couldn't help but imagine how sordid they looked. His hood was up as well, as Ai's bandaged leg hang limply at his hip. She squinted from the shadow of her arm at the crowd, but Shinichi did not want to let them get any good photos in.

"Sorry! No comment!" he shouted at the few that seemed to recognise and call him by name. "Gotta run..."

Taking a detour through the back alleys, he ran hard until his legs ached and his lungs hurt. Dropping a concerned Ai to the floor, he breathed a word at her.

"Thanks..."

"What for?" she asked, puzzled and somewhat wary from the encounter with the photographers.

"For saving that woman's life." He grinned down at her, sweat and damp from the air dripping from his fringe. "Come, I'd better take you where we're headed."

Still somewhat confused and sad by what had occurred in the store, but feeling somewhat refreshed and more trusting than ever of the stranger called Shinichi Kudo, Ai nodded and followed in his steps.

-xii-

The Detective Mouri agency never seemed to change, Ran reflected as she entered. The desk stood before the great big window panes, littered with mail, files and the rather recent addition of a computer with internet capacities. She had hoped to find her father there, backlit by the afternoon sun and autumn leaves drifting through the city's streets. He had left his little television on, obviously to record the latest Yoko Okino show. Switching it off, Ran was amused that a man so smart seemed to think that switching off the screen would prevent the program from being taped to VCR. Shyly following her in, Eisuke looked around the rest of the agency. The mellow nostalgia upon his features warmed Ran's heart. With how short a time the bespectacled teenager seemed to have spent in the area and how quick he could be in disappearing elsewhere, Ran had sometimes wondered if Eisuke Hondou treated his sojourn in Beika as a mere blip in his existence. She was glad that it was not so.

"Looks like Dad's not in yet..." she said quietly, upon finding a note near the phone. There were a couple of messages left on the answering machine, but none that needed urgent action. She left them lit up for her father to hear for himself. Pocketing the piece of paper with her father's untidy scrawl, Ran led Eisuke back out to the stairwell and led him up to the flat proper. He seemed a little nervous at the prospect, but smiled happily enough when she grinned at him.

Once in, she quickly showed him around the flat before making him a cup of coffee. More relaxed then she had seen him all day, now that he was in private and given a chance to relax, Eisuke smiled warmly up to her and said with heartfelt emphasis.

"Thanks."

"No worries..." A moment passed in content silence.

"So, what now?" Eisuke queried, once the fog from his drink had cleared from his glasses and the bottom of his cup was dry. Seeing him sat in the spot that until very recently had been allocated to a boy half his size made Ran's heart quiver.

She missed Conan terribly. It was strange, she thought, how much. The pang in her breast, the nights she had spent, lay awake, wondering, awaking from nightmares with a tear in her eye... When Shinichi had left town without a word, she had thought herself lovesick. Now, it made her reconsider...

"I..." Seeing Eisuke awaiting patiently her reply, Ran spoke tentatively. "I guess we just need to wait for my Dad to be back."

Family... She thought to herself. Conan had felt like family.

"I guess so..." Eisuke leaned back as he passed his mug from one hand to the other. "Say..."

Whatever he was going to ask next was lost in the sound of the doorbell to the flat. Springing to his haunches, ready to flee or hide should the person at the door prove to be a much unwelcomed stranger, Eisuke watched as Ran sighed and went to open the door, bemusement at Eisuke's reaction plain to see. He hadn't even noticed the mug he'd been holding fall to the mat below and crack, she chuckled to herself. It was only her dad after all...

"Welcome home!" she said, putting on her sweetest voice in preparation for a possibly difficult conversation whereby she would convince her father, the great Kogoro Mouri, to let her friend crash on his bedroom floor, with no explanations required.

However, it was not her father that stood there. Kicking herself for even thinking that he'd bother to use the bell when he had a key, she looked with mixed feelings at the one standing before her.

"Hi..."

Shifting awkwardly from one leg to the other, Shinichi Kudo scratched at his head in embarrassment. Holding onto his trouser leg was little Ai, one eyebrow arched as she observed the strange tension between the two childhood friends. Ran could not help but notice the travel bags upon their shoulders. Alarmed at the thought that Shinichi might now be leaving town, with a small amnesic child no less, Ran tried to ask with as little ice as possible in her voice their business.

"Ah, no," Shinichi was quick to rectify her misconception. With the most humble expression she'd ever seen on his face, he bowed his head down to her and explained. "I, we... Could the two of us possibly stay over at your place for a couple of nights? The professor's house and mine have been scheduled for some unavoidable maintenance work. Professor Agasa thought it might be better for Ai to stay with you than share hotel accommodation, seeing the nature of her condition."

The blank, emotionless stare Ran gave him in the long drawn out minute where she left him with his insides churning, would surely be retaliation enough for whatever fault he committed that morning... At least, that was what Shinichi hoped.

-xii-

To be continued...


Author note: Season's greetings to all!