Chapter Twenty-Seven
Séance
"Sooo… where're we goin'? Somewhere where alla this'll make sense?"
"In a way. It'll make sense compared to everything else, at least."
"Noooo… not Koizumi… I beg of you!" Kudo/Kuroba moaned, making another weak struggle against the vicegrip that Saguru and Hattori had him in. Saguru took the struggles as further affirmation of the insane possibility that Kuroba might be in there, on the basis that as far as he knew Kudo Shinichi had never met Koizumi Akako, let alone become so intimately acquainted with the depths of her weirdness that he would consider a visit to her this terrifying. He said as much aloud.
"Actually, he met her once, but only after he picked up me," Kudo/Kuroba said. Then he looked up, and got that slightly glazed look that Saguru had taken to mean that he wasn't talking to either of them anymore. "Come on, remember? She was the one that told us I'd gone brain-dead. Before the antidote. Yeah, her. Yeah, she is. Don't blame me, it's your fault you don't have any double-joints."
"I'm not gonna ask," Hattori moaned. "I kinda wanna know, but I kinda wanna don't…" then he looked a little confused. He seemed awfully jerky around Kudo/Kuroba. Then again, Kudo/Kuroba had said that Hattori "hears stuff sometimes". Saguru decided to go the whole hog on suspension of disbelief and assume that the jerks meant that Kudo Shinichi was talking.
"He says that's more self-restraint than you showed when you flushed out Conan," Kudo/Kuroba commented chirpily. Hattori rolled his eyes.
"Conan? Edogawa Conan?" Saguru said with a frown. "What does he have to do with this? And… should I ask why you keep talking about an antidote?" Hattori jerked again, and Kudo/Kuroba's eyes grew glazed.
"No, I know," he said, "but is that actually bigger than this? I can promise you that Koizumi will drag out everything anyway. No, I… I know, that's why I'm asking this time." He blinked and looked at Saguru. "He's not happy with me, but you seem to be stuck in this now too so I might as well explain a bit… Edogawa Conan was Kudo Shinichi. Weird poison. Men in black. Life in hiding. Antidote. Me breaking the universe. That's the short version." Saguru just blinked at him, trying to rationalize it all, and coming up with something of a story resembling a sci-fi manga. It did explain a lot about Edogawa Conan, though…
"Hella short," Hattori huffed. "What th' hell, Kudo?! Ya got on my case 'bout bein' a security leak so much…"
"Yeah, and he's really pissed at me too now," Kudo/Kuroba commented. "Oh, crap. We're here."
They had indeed reached the gothic mansion that was home to one Koizumi Akako, with its distinctive flock of crows sitting on the gate. For some reason, Kudo/Kuroba shivered violently to look at them, though they were by no means the creepiest thing there.
Akako was waiting halfway up the path to the door. The expression on her face made Kudo/Kuroba renew his struggles as Hattori and Saguru frogmarched him up the drive. Hattori, Saguru was secretly gratified to see, was already sporting the expression of confusion and apprehension appropriate to those seeing Koizumi for the first time, especially when she was dressed as some mix between a goth, Cleopatra and a type of woman that the gentlemanly Saguru pretended not to know about.
"Oh, Kuroba-kun, you silly thief," she sighed the instant she laid eyes on Kudo/Kuroba. Were the snakes on her shoulder pads looking at him too? No, that was absurd. "You're no better, Reikai-tantei. What on earth did you think you were doing?" There was silence for a moment, with Hattori twitching and both Koizumi and Kudo/Kuroba looking at some spot a couple of feet above them, and Koizumi said, "No, I don't believe so. Your body's been sealed now, you fool. Nobody can get anything in or out, not without a tremendous amount of power."
"Huh?" Hattori said, with an "explain please" expression. Kudo/Kuroba had just slumped defeatedly.
"Koizumi-san," Saguru said patiently, "can you explain what's going on? In a manner intelligible to normal people?"
"Just bring him inside," Koizumi said, turning on her heel and vanishing through the huge double doors.
"What th' hell?" Hattori asked. Saguru just shrugged a little and started tugging Kudo/Kuroba towards the house.
"Just go with the flow and some of it makes sense," he murmured, then couldn't help a yelp of pain as, the second he stepped through the door, he was flung aside from Kudo/Kuroba. He heard Hattori yell and presumed a similar experience, but he also heard three other moans and a trio of thumps.
"What…" he began to ask, getting up, then trailed off as he stared at Kudo/Kuroba. Who had just tripled.
He was sitting in the middle of some pentagram on the floor, surrounded by sigils and unpleasant shapes, all of which were glowing an odd reddish-gold. A recognizable shape was slumped against an apparent twin, wearing a combination of a green jacket, a yellow hoodie and blue jeans. The third form was hidden from Saguru by the first two, but was wearing what may have been Kid's uniform, minus hat and cape.
"… Did Kuroba just split into three?" he croaked, suddenly very afraid for the future. One Kuroba caused chaos enough, thank you.
"Holy…" Hattori was gaping in shock. Akako reappeared, pacing around the outside of the glow.
"Quite the opposite," she said, examining something. "In this space, those ghosts that were following him have become somewhat corporeal, for now. But none of the three can leave this space, and once I remove the spell they will be spirits once more. You are the true Kudo Shinichi, I presume?" she said, addressing the young man in the green jacket who was sitting up and staring down at himself in shock.
"Is this so they can see and hear me too?" he said, nodding at Saguru before turning to Hattori. "Hey. Um… this is kinda hard to explain."
"Yer tellin' me," Hattori croaked in surprise, before glancing at the third figure, who was stretching and standing up, as helped by Kuroba, who seemed unable to contain a soft grin. "Who're you?"
"Kami above, I haven't felt like this for ten years," an adult voice mused. "I'd forgotten how heavy bodies were…"
"Kuroba Toichi-san, Hajimemashite," Akako said politely. The man gave a flourishing little bow in response. He wasn't wearing Kid's costume, but it was similar, merely lacking the hat, monocle and cape, and with the red tie replaced by a white bow-tie. He looked like a mature version of Kuroba, with a slightly better-tamed fringe and a small moustache. The first Kid.
"So… just what's going on?" Kuroba asked, rubbing his head a little. It caused Kudo Shinichi's pristine hair to spike up into something more approximate to Kuroba's normal style. "Any ideas?"
"Some," Akako mused. "As you may or may not be aware, only Reikai-tantei or others with significant spiritual power can allow ghosts to possess them. Their souls are more loosely connected to their bodies, to allow you influence over the spirit world. However, you, Kudo-kun, allowed Kuroba-kun to possess you when your body was extraordinarily weak. It could have destroyed you, but as a self-protective measure it instead fully sealed the inhabitant soul inside. Spirits can no longer move freely in and out of your body. It's Kuroba-kun's body now."
Kudo paled rapidly while Koizumi was speaking. Once she was done, he groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Kuroba looked upset and guilty, and to some surprise put a consoling hand on Kudo's shoulder. Toichi just shook his head sorrowfully, crossing his arms.
"So wait- Kudo's dead now?!" Hattori cried, jerking to his feet. "No way!"
"He is a spirit without a body," Koizumi said, shaking her head. "That is as good as dead…" then she raised a hand to her mouth, looking thoughtful. "Then again, you have the power of the Reikai in you. Perhaps… no. No…"
"What?" Toichi said sharply, striding to the edge of the circle closest to her. "Ojousan, what were you thinking? Don't say "it won't work". You would not have considered it otherwise." Akako paused, locking gazes with the late thief. Unusually for those faced by her burning red irises, he did not look away or flinch, but simply countered with a pair of brilliant off-blues that Kuroba had visibly inherited. After some silent confrontation, it was Koizumi who looked down, though she smiled a little.
"Well…" she tapped her chin thoughtfully with sharp black nails. "Do you know what Necromancy is?"
"Raising the dead," Saguru said, narrowing his eyes on Koizumi. "Why?"
"Don' tell me that's real too," Hattori moaned, closing his eyes and leaning back to bang his head repeatedly against the foyer wall behind him.
"Just a thought," Koizumi said softly, stalking around the circle again. "Under normal circumstances-"
"Do you even know what normal means?" Kuroba asked wryly, causing his father to chuckle. Kuroba Toichi seemed to be the only person in the room not scared to death of Koizumi (leaving aside that he was already dead). Saguru was briefly glad that he'd only ever faced Kuroba Kaito, never his father. The original Kid had clearly been a force to be reckoned with- which was, perhaps, why he had died.
"-The one raised by necromancy is merely a mindless zombie, under another's control. A soul cannot be placed in the body. But with the power of the Reikai…"
"Ya wanna raise a dead body an' put Kudo in it?" Hattori said in shock. "Hell no!" Kudo, who had kept his head in his hands the entire time, looked up sharply and stared at Koizumi.
"Worry not, I was not considering a rotten corpse," Koizumi said, waving a hand frivolously, making Kudo look slightly calmer but not really alleviating anybody's worry. "I was considering… Kuroba-kun's."
"Wait-what?!" Was the response from at least four of them. Koizumi was staring at Kudo contemplatively.
"Yes, it could work," she decided aloud, ignoring the various degrees of questioning gibbering coming from around the room. "Of course, we'd need to take it off of life support first so it can die. It's trying to, it's sealed off from souls… but if it dies and then I bring it back… yes, it could work."
"You have to kill him…" Toichi said, looking uncomfortably at his son, who to Hakuba's surprise was not joining the gibbering but instead was staring thoughtfully at Koizumi.
"You do realize that you're getting taken off of life support tonight, in any case?" Saguru pointed out. Three near-identical heads whipped around to stare at him.
"I'm getting-?!" Kuroba choked. Kudo grabbed his shoulder this time as he jerked towards Saguru, before he stepped out of the circle. The sigils flared slightly. Toichi kept a better Poker Face than his son, but even he had paled far enough to be almost a ghost again.
"The media have been trailing off of your case for a few days now," Saguru said heavily. "Nothing happening. Now that your mother's been able to go back to the hospital to visit you, there's a lot of pressure from the doctors. They say that you're brain-dead, you'll never wake, it's better to let go of you now so they can rechannel the resources to patients they can save…"
"Kaa-san…" Kuroba said softly, staring at his feet. Toichi closed his eyes, sighing deeply.
"Well, we haven't a moment to lose then, have we?" Koizumi said briskly. "Say goodbye to gravity, boys."
"Hey-" Kudo yelped before his voice vanished as he faded out. Toichi had given his son an affectionate rub on the head before his fingers faded through the bangs. Kuroba blinked as Koizumi, somewhere in the flash of fading sigils, had switched to a marginally more normal-looking black corset and long skirt. She strode towards the door, grabbing Kuroba's arm and dragging him with her. To Saguru's surprise, and Hattori's too judging by his expression, Kuroba followed quite willingly.
"Are you two coming?" Akako called back. "You don't have to. And just so you know, if you try to explain this to anyone, particularly the police, on top of being considered lunatics your teeth will fall out."
Hattori looked over at Saguru, clearly at a loss. "What jus' happened, an' what th' hell are we gonna do?"
"What makes you think I know?" Saguru said, shaking his head. "I did warn you that when Koizumi gets involved things move beyond mortal comprehension."
There was a moment's silence. "… she's gonna kill that Kuroba guy."
"He's dead already. She might also be saving Kudo-kun's life. Or at least giving him one."
"True…" More silence.
"The ones inhabiting bodies here, and thus in charge of the situation, are Kuroba, who is certifiably insane, and Koizumi, whose unique weirdness you have just been witness to."
"Somebody oughta keep a bit a' sanity around, then, right?"
"My thoughts precisely."
"…Aww, crap. Oi, Koizumi-han! Wait up!"
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It's official; I have levelled up from "High School Student" to "Unemployed". Are there no cheapshit temp jobs for pre-Uni students anymore? XDXD
Theoretically, Cat, Kaito's name is out in the news by now, so surely the students of Ekoda High are now aware that the Kaitou Kid was in their midst, and no doubt the rumours are flying… but I'm sure Saguru'll be a gentleman and keep them from bugging Aoko ;) They've gone for Akako instead of Aoko or Ran… which is probably even worse… XDXD
I'm sure they'd think it very politically correct of you, Marie Ravenclaw XDXD It's Akako… *insert dramatic music and crashes of thunder here, and whinnying horses if you're a Mel Brooks fan* XDXD Aww, you still have class… I don't! *Happy Dance*
Could it be the revelations, Ebil Stasia? Or the hints at KaiShin? XDXD
Gotta love it when the boys come together, eh, Ivan's Kitsune? :3
Of course they're not letting him go, Teldra XDXD
The witch… did that, bloddy raptor XDXD
Double-chapter posting FTW, Phantom-Akiko! XDXD and you bet correctly… how could I not get Akako in on this? XDXD
Akako of course, llamaglamasama XDXD Don't worry, even Shinichi forgets his own birthday XD
Hope your computer gets better, kaitoushinichi ;) And I'm glad the emotions seemed real. It's something I've felt like as well.
You're welcome, simply anonymous ;) Poor Kaito, facing Akako…
Poor Ai-chan, eh, AmaryMei? I had fun writing that bit of banter between Kaito and Shinichi, glad you enjoyed it ;)
I love Akako, Madame of all Manga, I just don't think she appears enough :( Double the KaiShin is never bad ;)
Next… to the AKAKO INQUISITION! *shot* I have fun writing Akako, Dragon's Hitokiri :)
I do not own or claim to own Meitantei Conan/Case Closed. If I did, I would be luxuriating in my royalties, not writing fanfic in the back of old maths jotters instead of doing homework. -_-
