Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed or D.N Angel.

Summary: Meeting with witches and getting kidnapped by artwork definitely hadn't been part of the plan. D.N Angel crossover

Pairings: Kaito x Shinichi (DC) and Daisuke x Riku (DNA)


An Eternal Art

By V. Shalyr


XII

No Fair Exchange

One week.

One week in Swan Lake City and Kaito was sure he was going crazy. Well, most people who knew him would probably have said he had been insane already, but that was beside the point.

"Please tell me again why I can't have any heists right now," he demanded, shuffling a deck of cards so quickly the cards were a blur between his hands. He was pacing restlessly on the railing around the balcony of their current abode. It might have once been their apartment, it was hard to tell.

Shinichi sighed, determinedly not looking up. He knew the magician thief wouldn't fall off, but it was still slightly disturbing to watch. "Aside from the fact that there doesn't seem to be anything left in the museums to steal, we want everything to be calm and peaceful for the negotiations."

"Negotiations," Kaito muttered darkly then shook his head, banished his cards with a flick of his hand, and hopped down onto the balcony. "I'm still not so sure about this plan. I don't see why she would agree to it, not when she has control over all this."

He waved his arms unnecessarily to indicate the city around them and the lake beyond. Swan could do practically anything here without half trying. Hell, Kaitocould do practically anything here without half trying. And he absolutely hatedit. Thank heavens that you couldn't die of boredom.

"Can't you work on some new magic tricks or something?" That was how Kaito usually entertained himself when things were too peaceful for his tastes.

The magician rolled his eyes. "Shin-chan, all I have to do is thanka little harder for something to happen. How am I supposed to practice anything useful when it'll work in this world just because I want it to?"

Shinichi supposed he had a point. He hadn't thought about that before. Finally taking his eyes from his book, he followed Kaito's gaze out across the city. Despite the fact that it was nightfall, almost every building blazed with light, though none as brightly as the castle where balls had been thrown every night since that first introductory party. After that first night though, neither Kaito nor Shinichi had attended.

"Are a lot of people still attending the balls?"

Kaito answered without taking his eyes off the distant glitter. "According to Saehara-kun, yes. Though it looks to me like most people go because it's become a tradition after that first night. They go but they don't stay long."

"Maybe another week or two then before we try to talk to her then. Do you think that'll be enough? She hasn't pressed you for an answer to her proposal yet, has she?"

"Not yet. I suppose since I haven't been making trouble, she's content to just let me keep on thinking. Whether it'll be enough time… I guess that depends on if you're right, and how human she's become." With a sigh, the magician abruptly marched to Shinichi's side, set his book aside and pulled him to his feet. "Come on, we're going out. I'm bored and you're not going to ignore me in favor of a book."

The detective huffed a little at this banishment of his reading material, but didn't protest as Kaito half carried and half dragged him through the door. "But where can we go?"

"The night's still young. I'll think of something."

.

Swan couldn't understand what was wrong with her. The ball was still going on downstairs but here she was, standing on one of the palace's many balconies looking out across the city—her city—and wishing that dawn would come soon. But wasn't this what she'd always wanted? Where had she gone wrong? But then maybe that was just the price of settling for second best plans.

"Um, Swan-san?"

Startled, she jerked her head around to stare at the girl peering around the entryway leading onto the balcony. She recognized her, but what she didn't understand was what she was doing there. "Miss Risa."

The girl smiled, apparently pleased that she had remembered her name. It seemed like such a silly thing to be happy about.

"So, uh, what are you doing up here?"

The question took her slightly aback, mostly because she didn't know the answer either. "…I'm looking at the city."

Hercity, her dream, her prison, her world—it hardly mattered. The important thing was that it washers.

"The city really is quite beautiful at night, isn't it?" Risa said brightly, taking a tentative step forward. When Swan made no move to halt or hinder her, she squared her shoulders and moved to stand beside her. The longer the silence between them stretched, the more nervous she seemed to become, fidgeting with the lace on her pale pink dress.

At last, Swan nodded. Yes, she supposed it was beautiful. She'd done her best to make sure of that, even if she was a bit tired of this sort of scenery. It was just another reminder of how her paintings still bound her despite everything she'd tried, despite how far she'd come. It had made her quite angry once, but that felt strangely like such a long time ago.

Encouraged by her response, the girl brightened. "You know, my house is—oh, I guess I forgot." Risa's face fell. "You used to be able to see my house from here, but it all looks so different now that I can't find it. Not that the way it looks now isn't pretty. It just takes some getting used to. Do you remember my house? You've…been there before, remember?"

"I…remember," Swan said, hesitantly. It seemed strange to be discussing something so trivial, but at the same time, it was maybe just a little bit calming.

"Oh, that's good. I was trying to find our old picture albums the other day, but we seemed to have misplaced them with the change and all. I don't know why, but I think I'm afraid sometimes that I'll forget what my room used to be like."

The girl continued talking, but Swan found herself listening more to the sound of her voice than her words.

Was she…sad? The sudden and strange realization made her insides twinge in a way that had Swan's brow furrowing. But the feeling was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving her confused. The last and only time she'd felt anything like that was during the Cinderella incident and it had confused her then too. She hadn't known how—sharp—emotions could really be until that moment upon the bridge facing this same human girl. She'd known anger before, hatred for the confines of her paintings and envy for the humans who lived their lives outside, passing her by and never realizing what they had. But those feelings had been but ghosts compared to this fleeting something, something that seemed almost painful and yet so clear and so vivid. Was this…what it was like to live?

Swan shook her head. What was she thinking? She'd wanted the joy she'd seen in them, the satisfactions and exhilarations, not this. This feeling, whatever it was, hurt. It wasn't what she'd schemed and planned and fought for. But then why was it so hard to let go of it?

Maybe she just had too much time now, too much time and too many thoughts to confuse herself. Maybe something other than a party should be held, some competitions perhaps or festivals or games. Whatever it took, she would find a way to be pleased with what she had. It was the only way she knew how to live.

.

"So these are all the fairytale paintings?" Dark asked, glancing over the pictures Daisuke's father had laid out across the kitchen table.

Kosuke nodded, pointing to each photograph as he spoke. "It looks like they're all part of the city now. The dragon statue from ATreasuretoKeepis on top of the main city gate and the serpent from Mirror,Mirroris now carved along the walls of what looks like the throne room in the palace. Those were the easy ones. The architecture of this city in general seems similar to the background in OneFatefulWish,and we think that AFragileHopeis in the roses that are now growing around the clock tower."

"I guess that means we can get everything in one go," Dark mused, picking up one of the glossy photographs for a closer inspection. "Hey, Daisuke, so can you do it?"

Peering intently at the photographs, the redhead nodded slowly. "I think so, but I'm not sure how good it'll be." He scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. "Honestly, I just haven't had enough practice and it's a lot more complicated than anything I've ever drawn before."

"As long as we can all tell what it is, it'll be fine," Dark assured him, gathering the pictures and handing them all to his shorter counterpart. "As long as you put your heart into it, we should be able to make it work."

He paused then added, "Any idea how long it'll take you?"

Daisuke gnawed on his lower lip, fanning the pictures out in his hand and glancing over them once more as he took a step towards his room. Why did there have to be so many of them? "I've already done some of it, but I can only really work on it at night"—swans weren't exactly the best with paint—"so maybe another two weeks? Maybe less if I push it."

"Hmm, that will have to be good enough. Do you need any help?"

"Are you offering to help?"

Dark scoffed. "Of course not. Did you forget who you were talking to? I'm a critic, not an artist. I was thinking I could go look for your school art teacher and see if she could give you a few pointers."

.

Nightfall again.

Kaito paused on the top of one of the palace towers, peering through the darkness towards the glittering windows. Nothing really happened except at night these days. Not that that made a huge difference for Kaito himself. He'd always been more than halfway nocturnal. Though in the past, nightfall had always meant something exciting, mysteries and tricks and daring adventures.

He couldn't wait to get back to that past—that future.

"Now where would you be…"

Considering it for only a moment, Kaito tugged down the brim of his hat and dropped from the tower railing. He landed in a crouch upon a windowsill some floors down and, in a swirl of white cloth, vanished inside.

He found his target in the great hall where a single, long table had been placed, draped with a rich, white tablecloth that felt almost blinding despite the dim lighting. Every place at the long table had been set and yet all the seats were empty. The lady of the palace herself stood at the far end of the room, her back to the empty room and her face tilted upwards, perhaps looking at the moon and perhaps not.

"What, dinner for one tonight? I thought you wanted company. That wasthe whole point, wasn't it? Unless I misunderstood."

"Leave. Whatever you came to say, it can wait for another time."

Kaito clucked his tongue in mock disappointment at the coldness of her voice. "How rude. And after I came all this way to make you a proposal. But then I suppose manners were never really your thing."

"I said leave!" Snarling, Swan spun around, her pale eyes flashing in the shadows cast across her face by the movement. But it wasn't her eyes that caught Kaito's attention. Tut tut, she really was in a foul temper tonight, not that he couldn't see why.

"Think about it for a moment, Swan-san." Kaito lowered the knife, having snagged it from mid flight with barely a glance, meeting her icy glare with his usual, impassive smile. "We can fight it out right here, of course, that's always an option. But what good will that do either of us in the long run? I'm a fast learner. This world is almost as much mine as it is yours all considered I helped you make it real—however unknowingly. Even if I'm not the complete master of this place like you are, there's also Dark to consider. Two against one. Contrary to how it may seem, I've never been much of a betting man. But if I were, I don't think I'd look all that favorably upon your odds come a flat out confrontation. You gave us too much time to learn the rules."

Swan scowled, but Kaito noticed that her gaze seemed unfocused today, like she had far too much on her mind and no experience dealing with it all. He had to give her credit for not being an idiot at least. The results, or perhaps the lack thereof, were plain in the echoing silence of the palace around them. Somehow, even all trapped together in this world of her own creation, she remained as she had always been, alone. She had granted their wishes, filled the city with beautiful things, and watched their smiles fade away until it almost made her angry to look at them. All these faces had become too familiar, too much like hers.

"We have a proposal if you're interested," Kaito continued, tilting his head slightly so the lights gleamed off the lens of his monocle. "But we want you to give up this mad city of yours and return everything to the way it was before. If you do that, we just might be able to grant you a wish. But it will only be…a beginning. Whether or not you can take that beginning and make it into what it is you truly desire will depend entirely on you."

Swan looked away, her hand clenching into a fist in the fabric of her too-white dress. Her tone when she spoke seemed almost desperate. "Would it really be so terrible to live the rest of eternity this way?"

Kaito spread his arms, indicating the empty room. "Isn't this answer enough for that question?"

"But you can all do whatever you want here. Anything you can think of—dream of—I can make happen. So then why?"

Why did so few people ever come to her palace anymore? Why had they all left her? Why was she still so angry, so unhappy?

Looking at what she had become, Kaito mused that he could almost, almost pity her.

"Living doesn't mean only the good moments, Swan-san. It isn't about always getting what you want. It's about having to work for it. It's about the possibility of notsucceeding."

"I don't understand."

"Of course not." The thief smiled crookedly. "How much do you really know about me, Swan-san?"

"What do you mean? You are a phantom thief and your presence somehow amplifies my powers. What else do I need to know?"

"Everything, apparently."

Granted, that was an impossible demand for any subject. That was why a smart storyteller learned to pick and choose the stories that they chose to tell. And Kaito was nothing if not a master storyteller.

"Well then, in that case, let me tell you a story."

"A story?" she repeated skeptically.

Kaito just grinned his crooked, sharp-edged grin. "Yes, a story about a legendary thief and a jewel called Pandora… Pandora and a chance at immortality…"

.

Shinichi started out of his thoughts as a shadow fell out of the sky to land beside him on the roof. There was only one person it could possibly be. "So how did it go?"

"Mm, okay I suppose. She threw a bit of a tantrum but other than that… Let's just say that Swan-san has a lot to think about right now."

"Good." Shinichi stood and stretched. "Guess that means we can head back now."

"Not quite yet." Taking the detective's hand, Kaito began walking towards the rooftop door. "I talked with her like you wanted me to. Now we're going to do something more enjoyable. I haven't organized a party in—well, ages."

"You're throwing a party? But what happened to keeping a low profile?"

"Relax. Only the people who were invited know about it so there's no need to worry. While you were off surveying the city this morning, I designed the entire premises. I bet an architect would kill to have the power to shape buildings this way. Anyhow, we'll have music and you're going to dance with me. Good thing I have such a good memory. All the CDs disappeared too when all this happened. Guess "modern" technology isn't that popular in fairytale paintings."

It was rather unlike Kaito not to use the social event as an excuse for a magic show, but then what he'd done to the party decorations might as well have been a show in themselves.

"You can't actually expect me to be able to eat this," Shinichi said dryly, prodding at the gingerbread man on his plate which promptly leapt up and ran away to hide behind his coffee mug. Icing eyes peered fearfully around it back at him.

Kaito set his own plate down, watching the cowering cookie with pity. "I wasn't expecting them to be so pathetic." Picking up his fork, he used it to herd his cookie off his plate to join Shinichi's behind the detective's drink. "Go on, get off. I need the plate for other things."

"Why did you even think of making them move in the first place?"

"Well, you know taste really has no effect here so I thought it would be more interesting. If you can't do anything about taste, you might as well exercise some creativity with the appearance, right? I just wasn't expecting them to act so… Alive."

"Right… So what else is there?"

"How about trying a muffin?"

"They don't have faces or anything do they?"

"Nope. But they dance."

"…" Well, it wasn't as though Shinichi was actually hungry. Eating in this city had become more of a habit and a pastime than a necessity. "Let's find Niwa-kun. He said he had something to show everyone, didn't he?"

"Ah, good plan. I helped him set it up in the back."

Everyone Kaito had invited had come from the Niwa family to the Harada sisters and even Saehara, who had promised notto write an article about it. And all of them gathered around the small dais at the far end of the room where an easel stood draped over with a black cloth.

"It's not completely done yet," Daisuke hurried to explain, carefully removing the covering. "But I wanted to get everyone's opinion and make sure that the idea is good."

The revealed painting depicted a city that seemed like a peculiar combination of their original homes and the street currently outside. Here and there, Shinichi could pick out the elements left over from the other fairytale paintings—the snake and the dragon and the flowers all similar to the things they had encountered and yet softened somehow by the sunlight. He recognized the bridge from the Cinderella painting OneFatefulWishin the foreground, linking the real and the fantastic parts of the city. And upon it stood the image of a woman dressed in white.

Squinting, he frowned. "Is she transparent?"

Daisuke hadn't drawn the whole figure yet and he could still make out traces of the original pencil outlining beneath the paler layers of paint, but the parts he had filled in definitely seemed to be see-through. He could make out the side of a building through the trailing folds of her gown.

"That's the plan," Daisuke agreed, waving at the space on the original city side of the bridge. "I want to put a couple of us in the painting on this side, only we're not going to be ghosts. Um, I was thinking I could put someone on the bridge with her, holding her hand maybe—you know, like if she can actually learn to care about someone, she'll be able to live in our world someday."

"Swan-san's very own fairytale," Kaito mused, studying the display with interest.

Shinichi nodded. "After all, living basically means having your own story, right? And being able to choose to interact with other people, to change how things happen and make choices."

Riku's brow furrowed a little and she swirled the juice around in her glass, watching it change color yet again from translucent silver to amber gold. "It seems almost unfair after all she's done to give her this chance, but I suppose that's not the right way to think about it, huh?"

"Put it this way," Dark murmured, his hand ghosting over the painting but not quite touching its surface. "If she doesn't learn and change her ways, she'll still be trapped in this new artwork. All this is for her is a chance. Whether or not she can make it a reality will still depend on her. Fairness has nothing to do with it."

Kaito nodded in agreement, his own eyes half lidded. "There is no such thing as a fair exchange for life. It's just one reason why murder is so unforgivable no, Tantei-kun?"

And this way, who knew? Maybe she could make something better of herself and make up for the things she'd done. It wasn't a matter of forgiveness so much as a matter of living on and finding a way for them all to continue moving forward. Fairness, like justice, in the end was never so easy.

By the time the sun rose, one of the only events no one in this city seemed to have any control over, the room was a mess of discarded plates and jumbled furniture where they had been shoved about for different games and dancing. Somehow, Shinichi wasn't at all surprised that no one had eaten a single gingerbread man. Instead, the entire clan was gathered in a gingerbread mansion that Kaito had created for them out of pity. Leaving the cookie construction in one corner, Kaito shooed all the swans outside before turning and making a sweeping gesture with his arm. Instantly, all evidence of the gathering melted away to be replaced by their original living room.

Poking his head back through the open window, Shinichi craned his neck to examine the results. "Wow, that was fast."

"Yes, well, there have to be someadvantages to being in this place." Making his way out onto their balcony, Kaito stretched and stifled a yawn. Dropping his arms, he leaned back against the railing, watching his partner absently preening his wings with his beak. "Hey, do you think I could keep a feather or two? I mean, do you think they'll disappear if we leave this place?"

Shinichi lifted his head to regard him warily, shifting away from him. He didn't particularly like the idea of Kaito pulling out any feathers. "Why would you want to do that?"

"It just seems like a nice sort of keepsake, don't you think? I wonder if it would have any magical properties."

"Well, we're not finding out."

"Aww, come on, Shin-chan! Just one?"

.

"Kudou-san and Kuroba-sensei can be so weird sometimes," Risa observed, watching the magician chase the swan about their balcony from the roof of a building across the street.

Riku shrugged her wings. "I guess some people are just like that."

It was what made them interesting. Risa had seen the pair out and about the city a lot lately and found that she quite liked watching them. There was a certain easiness in the way they interacted that couldn't help but draw her attention.

"I'm going to go home for awhile," Riku announced, spreading her wings. "Are you coming?"

"In a moment. You go on ahead."

Risa listened to the flurry of wings as her sister flew away. She wanted everything to go back to how it had been, but she was going to miss having wings. With a soft sigh, she unfolded her own wings and took off from the roof, sweeping low towards the street so she could trail the tip of her wing through the water. It had taken her forever to learn how to fly this well, but they had had nothing but time.

A sudden shadow made her falter and she squeaked as she dropped into the water. Someone else landed beside her. Startled by the giant wing that curled around to help her right herself, Risa looked up to find herself against the side of a massive swan with feathers that shone faintly silver in the sunlight.

"Oh, Swan-san! You scared me."

"I'm…sorry," her new companion replied haltingly, not at all accustomed to the words. Folding her wings neatly against her sides once more, Swan settled atop the water and just watched her.

Risa ruffled her feathers nervously. "Um, is something wrong?"

Swan remained quiet for so long that she thought she wasn't going to answer. She had only just opened her mouth to try and fill the awkward silence with chatter when suddenly, "You know about the thief's proposal?"

It took Risa a moment to figure out what she was referring to. "Oh, you mean the picture Niwa-kun has been working on?"

Swan nodded, finally turning her gaze away from her. "Do you…think I should accept it?"

"Well…" To say Risa was surprised that she was asking her would have been an understatement. But it wasn't like she hadn't been giving it a lot of thought herself so answering wasn't really that hard. Mustering what she hoped was a cheerful expression—who could tell on a swan?—she announced brightly, "I think it's a great opportunity."

"But what if it doesn't work?"

"You're not supposed to think that way," Risa chided, though her own head dipped in consideration. "But I guess if it doesn't work, well, I'll still be able to talk with you, right? Niwa-kun said you'd be like a ghost. I suppose it's a bit strange to like being haunted, but there does seem to be something romantic about it too."

Swan stared at her for a long moment then turned her head away, rustling her wings. It took Risa a moment to realize that she was laughing.

"Hey! What's so funny?"

.

It seemed that everything that had happened in the last few weeks had started at the Modera Museum, recently remodeled into the palace at the center of Swan Lake. Unsurprisingly, therefore, it was the perfect place for everything to end.

Daisuke had set up his painting upon the palace's front steps, propped against one of the marble pillars. Shinichi wouldn't exactly have called it a masterpiece, but there was certainly something special about it, something in the careful little details and the play of light across it all. Even surrounded by the fantastical landscape of this fairytale city, it stood out with a character of its own.

"You know, Niwa-kun," Kaito said, clapping the boy on the shoulder and winking at him, "you could be quite a good artist someday if you keep this up."

Daisuke laughed a little sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Thank you, Kuroba-sensei."

He fell silent abruptly as the tall, silver-haired woman standing at the back of the group moved past him to stand in front of the painting. She lifted a hand towards it but stopped with her fingers just a fraction from her own likeness. That likeness's hand was grasped in the hand of someone else who stood upon the bridge with her though you couldn't see the person's face, and where they touched, her semi-transparent figure became solid, gaining substance. Very symbolic, she mused.

It was strange but this painting felt…different from the ones before. Her original painter had always been so cold, but this painting didn't have any of that. It didn't make her feel angry or afraid or desperate. It hadn't been painted out of an artist's desperate desire for another world, but out of an artist's love for their own.

Maybe… Maybe this could work after all.

Clearing his throat, Dark took out a black feather. "Right then, is everyone ready?"

"As ready as we'll ever be."

Daisuke, his father, grandmother, and mother all moved to situate themselves around the painting with him, marking the boundaries of a circle as it began to glow upon the marble floor. Riku pulled Risa back with her to shelter behind a pillar as a wind picked up around them, whipping through their hair and clothes. Kaito raised an arm to shield his eyes, using the other to pull Shinichi closer to him as the light grew steadily brighter. But something wasn't going right.

"Damn it," Dark swore, gritting his teeth as he poured more power into the spell. "Why isn't it working?"

In the center of their circle, Swan looked around at them, taking in the varying expressions of concentration, frustration, and hope. Then as though making up her mind about something, she squared her shoulders and stepped out of the circle.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Kosuke shouted over the roar of the maelstrom, squinting through the brightness though he didn't dare move from his spot lest he break the circle.

Shinichi felt Kaito tighten his grip on him as Swan approached them, his white cloak billowing wildly about them from the gale. Through the storm of light and wind and power, he was probably the only one who heard what the two said.

"You knew this would have to happen for it to work."

It wasn't a question.

Kaito tilted his top hat lower over his eyes, his smirk reminding the detective of the first time he'd seen him on that hotel roof, like he had so many secrets and knew so much. "I guessed."

Swan snorted and shook her head. "No matter what happens next, perhaps I will simply be glad to be rid of you."

That said, she reached out and made a gesture with her hands. For a moment, Shinichi felt an oddly familiar weight around his neck. And then suddenly, his own vision began clouding over with white. He shut his eyes tight and grasped onto the arms Kaito had wrapped around his waist, the magician his only stability as the floor vanished from beneath their feet.


TBC…


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