Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.
Oneshot Twenty-One
Katabasis
Conan ran with the fleeing crowd, struggling to keep up even though each breath was a labor for his constricted-feeling heart, even though the likelihood of being trampled in this situation was high for anyone, but especially for one of his stature. He had lost Ran, separated as the mass of people drove apart their grasp on one another, and the shrunken detective could only hope that she didn't do anything foolish like try to fight her way back through the crowd in an attempt to find him.
The door was in sight now, but the sheer amount of bodies trying to make it through had created a bottleneck and the terror that had seized the people still inside had tightened its grip. As panic swept through the crowd like a wildfire, consuming what little calm and rationality had been left, the congested group still trapped in the doomed building made desperate attempt with tooth and nail to overcome one another and escape with their own skin intact.
Any attempts Conan made to beat some sense into the mob, to just think about the situation and remedy it logically, were drowned by the shouts and screams of people who had become no better than animals.
The bomb went off. Conan yelled out, flailing through the air as he was thrown by the force that shook the entire building. He landed in a corner of the foyer with a heavy thud that drove the air from his lungs, gasping and wide-eyed from the impact.
There was no time for action, as the building crumbled immediately like a toppled deck of cards. His whole world shaking around him, Conan could see nothing but grey walls falling all around him before the lights burst and darkness fell. Dust milled in the air and choked him. The not-boy thrashed as all attempts to breathe only suffocated him all the more. He tried to make a noise, call out for any help; naught came out but a gurgle. Quickly enfeebling, his movements ceased as black crept over his vision.
Line Break
He snapped to awareness with a jolt. He stumbled forward as he found himself standing, jarred by the sudden change in perspective. The finely ground stones beneath his feet were dark and saturated with water, crunching underfoot and oozing through his toes like something slimy. The sensation was one that almost made the pervasive chill that numbed his body warm in comparison.
Confused – what was this place? – he looked around and saw a heavy fog eddying about in all directions, a hint of dark shapes moving in its midst. One brushed near him, and he shuddered and swiftly sidestepped away from it out of reflex.
The young detective frowned at the ground, two things running through his mind: one, that he couldn't remember how he got here, and two, that there was something off about it . . . the ground was too distant . . .
An epiphany dawning upon him, his hands flew to his face and he traced the now almost unfamiliar planes, feeling a distinct lack of baby fat over sharper features in addition to his glasses being absent from their usual perch.
He was his true age again! Shinichi couldn't help it, his lips parted into a wide grin as he drew in a breath to exclaim his joy.
Instead, it prompted a burbling sound from the vicinity of his neck, whence gushed a warm liquid down his front. With a slow, uncomprehending movement, Shinichi raised an arm and pressed a hand to his bare chest, feeling the fluid flow over the cold skin and leaving the needling pain akin to frozen flesh thawing in its wake.
His hand came away red.
He watched his blood drip to the ground, the color diluting in the water and roiling in the spaces between the myriads of tiny rocks. Disturbed but fascinated by this image, he forced himself to redirect his attention anywhere else by sharply turning his head aside.
The fog was still ubiquitous, and to Shinichi there was now a more ominous quality to it than before. Perhaps it was the fact that he knew not where he was combined with his state of being that did not make sense, pulling a veil of the unknown over him. The detective narrowed his eyes, lips tugging slightly up at the corners into a thin smile. Well, he had always liked a good mystery.
And nothing would come of just standing there, would it? There was as little security as standing in this one spot that he was vaguely familiarized with, waiting for any answers to perhaps be shed upon him, as there was in whatever else was hidden by the fog.
Thus determined, he took a step forward, grimacing at the feel of the grainy stones and water sloshing on his feet. It took naught but what he judged to be roughly a few minutes of walking the flat land before it occurred to Shinichi that the desolate place in which he had found himself was not as unnervingly silent – save for the sound of his own steps – as he had first observed.
Pausing at this discovery, he strained his ears to better pick out the sound and its origin. It sounded like running water, which probably wasn't a bad guess considering his environment. Maybe he was near a river, and rivers made the likelihood of civilization being nearby much larger than did a vast waste of gravel.
Lured by the prospect, Shinichi changed course to follow the sound to its source, and in doing so found that the fog was becoming progressively fainter; where once it was virtually a solid in its density, now he could see further ahead, and the dark shapes became clearer. They were revealed as tall, nondescript forms that billowed as if huddled in robes woven of threadbare shadows, roving through the gloom. More than once they would skirt the frayed edge of the fog and loom out at Shinichi like evil omens, grasping at him with vaguely defined, withered-seeming appendages before cringing into themselves and hastening away.
And then the fog was little more than a ghost as he came to a riverbank, as though it had been swept aside further inland. The river itself was an unbroken black strip so broad that the lost teen could not see the opposite bank, gliding like a sheet of liquid glass in a straight line from what he could tell.
Cautiously, he approached the edge, feet sinking further into the ground until each step was an effort not to become mired. Upon reaching the discernible divide between land and water he crouched with care so as to avoid falling in, observing the water with a hand placed at his chin and his brows furrowed into an intensely scrutinizing fashion. It was apparently water, and gave no reason to suspect it as anything else, but Shinichi had his doubts as to its nature that made him reluctant to give the liquid a venturing test.
He was reaching out, just about to dip in his bloodied hand to wash away the stain, when the creaking of hollow wood and a metallic chinking made Shinichi tense, withdrawing his outstretched arm and looking up from the water to further ahead.
A weathered vessel cut with eerie silence across the river at a steady, unhurried pace. As it carried its languid progress, its shallow sides rocked lazily until they nearly fell below the water, rising as the other side dropped before doing so. A lantern, a pale flame clutched in a skeletal framework of iron bars, bobbed at its hull, casting a wan light before the boat's path over the dark water and illuminating its true color as green with long white shapes twisting nauseatingly beneath the surface.
Standing in the craft, guiding it with a single long pole, was a wizened old man whose long, hoary beard could not hide his gaunt cheeks. Chains of coins draped across his emaciated form from his bony shoulders, quietly clattering against one another and dully reflecting what little light they could. As he drew nearer to the shore, Shinichi could see that they ranged from modern and uniform to positively ancient and misshapen.
Shinichi warily stepped back from the river as the man's course veered towards him, stopping just shy of the shallow water that lapped at the banks. The waterline receded almost imperceptibly with each ebbing.
"Kudo Shinichi," stated simply the elder, who planted his pole into the unseen riverbed and leaned his weight upon it. His voice was loud and croaking, like the cawing of a crow.
A cold wave washed over Shinichi, having nothing to do with the ethereal fog that brushed his skin almost beckoningly. He took another step back, shifting to the balls of his feet and crouching down slightly.
"How do you know my name?" he demanded past bubbling blood which distorted his voice, somehow speaking despite the air refusing to fill his lungs. The newcomer ignored his inquiry continuing on as if never interrupted.
"You find yourself here before me, in a position that few ever do. Your very person is a fulcrum upon which history sits with bated breath," the man's voice grew excited now, shaking as a prophetic tone intruded into it, and he stooped down and swept an arm out to point at the becoming increasingly frustrated detective with a single gnarled finger tipped with a cracked and yellowed claw of a nail.
"Listen, I don't have time for this, I–"
"Silence!" spat the navigator, blue-grey eyes flashing as if lit up with lightning flickering in their stormy depths. Shinichi unconsciously flinched, almost believing them capable of smiting him.
"In this realm, time flows not adjacent to your own. Fate's wheel still turns, and though you may spend all eternity lingering in this place, time will both forever freeze and turn without pause. Think naught of anything outside of here, lest you succumb to fallibility," he decreed, cutting gaze fixated unblinkingly on the teen before him, who was quick to recover from his cowed state.
"What do you mean?" Shinichi asked once positive the ancient man had ceased his nonsensical rant.
"Kudo Shinichi, as it stands, you have three options before you." The boatman raised his free hand and curled his thumb and pinky inward until only three fingers remained standing to emphasize his point.
"You can remain forever and wander in this place of fog; you can voyage with me, to a place that now willingly takes you; or you can return."
"I have no clue what you're talking about. Look, I shouldn't be here! I don't even know where here is!"
"Kudo Shinichi, this is the only place you are meant to be at this time. You died, back in that bombed building. Miraculously, you managed to escape being crushed beneath the rubble, only for your throat to be torn open by a piece of debris coincidentally flung your way by the blast."
"No– I'm not– I'm still–" Shinichi gurgled, as if speaking from underwater, his denials with effort past the blood that choked his throat. The mere act of speaking caused another deluge of blood to run down, forming a rapidly growing pool at his feet. He looked to his bloodied hand, which was still warm and glistening as if fresh, and this time moved it to his throat. Shinichi's probing fingers found the fatal wound and quaveringly prodded at the gaping injury with horrified curiosity. The edges were rough and slick to the touch, with a huge flap of flesh tenaciously hanging from the wound by little to keep it connected. Stomach churning, he wrenched his hand away, staring at it once more for several moments. His head then snapped up to face the old man who coolly watched the much younger man's developing understanding, visage formed into one of unadulterated anger that caused shadows to cross over the pallid skin.
"So that's just it, I'm dead!" Shinichi started out hissing, but restraint failed and it quickly escalated into an enraged shout ripped across his damaged throat. His blue eyes, dark beneath glaring brows, were however gripped with despair. No! This couldn't just be it! He was Kudo Shinichi, Edogawa Conan, the Heisei Holmes – he always came out on top! There were still so many things unsaid, things he had yet to do, promises to meet.
"Yes, in this instance you are dead. But it does not have to be that way, Kudo Shinichi."
Shinichi almost continued yelling, but ceased with his mouth still open to do so as the navigator's words comprehended. Taken aback, his expression slackened to become one of blatant confusion.
"But, I'm dead?"
"Yours is a life that is not wholly your own. Many things but yourself rides upon it, and it is for this that you have three options."
"The three you mentioned before?"
"Yes. Which shall it be? Once chosen, you may not go back on it. This is your only chance to take fate into your own hands."
"And I guess that by 'return' you mean going back to life? And that the second option mentioned is . . . the afterlife?"
"Yes. However, I cannot elaborate any further upon the latter," the man's tone was serious and brooked no argument.
Usually, if asked if he would want to continue living, Shinichi would say 'yes' in a heartbeat. However, now he hesitated. It was a simple question on paper, but when put into a situation where he was literally on the line between life and death, there was much more to consider. The detective had found through his experiences that sacrifices were expected when it came to anything significant.
"What does returning to life entail?" he questioned.
"Kudo Shinichi, you have a destiny before you. Should you fail, you will join these persons in their eternal fate," the boatman prodded one of the white shapes swimming in the river with his pole. It writhed at the touch and violently jerked up at the water's surface, briefly revealing a face ridden with agony, its eyes naught but dark cavities and its toothless mouth gaping in a silent scream whence issued only a stream of bubbles. It did not breach the divide between water and sky, some unseen force driving it deeper into the murky liquid before it could do so.
Briefly, as needles of fear pricked across Shinichi's body, he wondered what that individual – indeed, all the countless ones squirming within the deceptively calm water – had done or perhaps hadn't to suffer so.
"And if I succeed?" he asked hoarsely after finally finding his tongue, gulping past a knot that had formed in his ravaged throat.
The man paused, looking from his pole to Shinichi, a cold light glinting in his eyes, like the sheen running along a knife's blade, with an alien expression that the detective was at a loss to name.
"That, I cannot say. But you only have this opportunity, so choose well, Kudo Shinichi. Eternity itself stretches before us, here and now."
Shinichi fell silent, the warning weighing down on him like the knell of a bell for a funeral. He dropped his chin into his stained hand, ignoring the small detail that doing so smudged the former with blood.
He was reluctant to choose. It was tempting to just avoid the issue, to just twiddle his thumbs . . . and . . . and what? His mind rebelled at that. He had always met the most daunting of circumstances head-on, and now he was going to sit back and wait for someone else to come along and make the decision for him, ignoring the fact that nobody would?
No, he wasn't like that, nothing would come of doing so. Besides, the idea of staying in this place forever didn't appeal to him; he would rather risk his soul, or whatever it was, than be stuck in this limbo due to his own indecisiveness.
Shaking his head, Shinichi thought on his other choices. There was literally nothing left but the question of life or death, both with two unknowns and the former with the possibility of being punished should he fail whatever this 'destiny' of his was. Shinichi would scoff at the idea of 'fate' and 'destiny,' if not for the fact that he was currently dead and making a choice about whether or not to come back to life. That could make a believer of skeptic.
Well, Shinichi had never been one to take an easy way out.
"I'll return to life," he said to the elder, feeling resolve settle into his words even though he had not been entirely confident about his decision.
"I have met heroes that did not decide the same. I shall eventually see you here again, but until that time has come, farewell, Kudo Shinichi."
As the world tilted around Shinichi and the fog rushed in on him and swirled dizzyingly, one thought crossed his mind: dammit, he should have asked exactly what his 'destiny' was.
Line Break
Conan awoke with a shuddering gasp, only to curl in upon himself and hack as dust rushed into his lungs.
The marvel of the action hit him: he could breathe again! The only thing that would make it better was if he was still in his true form.
Still amazed, he brought a hand to his throat, finding that it was unmarred to the touch. Eyes watering from the particulates getting into them, he activated the flashlight function of his wristwatch and swept the beam of light around, finding he was in a small pocket of space beneath slabs of concrete – had he been any larger, he probably would have died.
Oh, wait.
Something caught his attention from the corner of his eye and he illuminated it. It was an object, long and made of metal. Blood and snagged bits of flesh made it difficult to discern its identity.
Conan didn't want to, either. Instead, he scooted away from it on hands and knees in the limited area that he had, and discovered a crack just large enough to squirm through without upsetting the precariously arranged rubble making up his shelter. He poked his head through to gaze around, and found that he could probably make it outside of the ruins from some potential, safe-looking paths that he had quickly picked out.
Working the rest of his body out, he patted himself down, as if that would make a difference when he was absolutely coated in dust, and started making his exit. He had to find Ran, let everybody know that he was alright, that he wasn't dead.
Thoughts completely fixated on this point, he did not notice the specters of those who had died in the building's collapse, lingering behind in the remains and staring after him.
End
A/N: Wow, you guys would not believe how quickly I wrote this. I don't even know where the idea came from, but I had fun writing it (I just hope you guys liked it at least somewhat; probably went overboard in some parts because I suck).