Going back to Ran isn't bad, but simply more of the same. Osaka and Heiji were fresh and new, but there is relief in returning to old routines, and thus Shinichi settled into his old-new normal once more.
xXx
In Tokyo, Shinichi allowed himself more freedom; mostly, he knew the way around the city far better than Osaka, trusting himself to know where and where-not to go better than any map could say. In Osaka, he didn't have that, and thus stuck close to Heiji a lot more. In turn, this pushed Shinichi to talk a little more to his companion because of the closeness; with Ran, there were far more periods of friendly quiet.
As a result, he went back to wandering. Shinichi tended to have a less stringent schedule on his day; he had embraced the catlike air of doing whatever he felt like. Oh yes, he often tagged along with Ran to school by folding himself in her bag, peering into windows, or even just showing up during a transitional period and getting Ran's attention to tag along the rest of the day. Still, he tended to do a lot more other outside of this than in Osaka.
Shinichi had taken to prowling the streets with the kittens, mostly. It had started with regular visits to Agasa's to relieve the old man of their rambunctiousness, with frequent walking of the city being entirely separate and not done with the kittens. Soon enough though, Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko had won him over by begging, and he took them out on some walks. Not far, and not all of them; Shinichi still needed alone time every now and then, after all.
Shinichi eventually found himself taking kittens around town to get them to stop bugging the Professor but redirect their attention away from wrestling and jarring his bandaged wounds from the bombing a few days ago.
And oh, even Shinichi, hardened detective he was, could admit the trio's naivety and curiosity were downright adorable. It was easy to poke around with them, exploring in every way and jump to further and further heights, stalking along walls and railings, or launching off of various beams.
Genta would usually instigate some kind of dare: today, it was who could jump the highest in this old building. Shinichi half heartedly protested, but the thing looked structurally sound enough, so he really had no ground to stand on.
As with everything, the kids did their best, scrambling and crawling to what they deemed "victory." They then looked at Shinichi with the most pleading looks from their perches, and the detective knew he wasn't getting out of the challenge. The kittens would keep begging and begging until he joined their fun.
Might as well give it my all, he thought with a hard smirk. The kids gave little ooh's and aah's as Shinichi put his lean body to work and used a bit of what he learned of gymnastics to bounce off walls and land on a high beam with a flourish of his tail.
They gave high praise, with Shinichi lifting his chin and then— "who wants to learn how to do all that?"
Three resounding "me"s sounded off. Shinichi laughed.
xXx
"Who are you?!" a surprised meow rang out, starting Ayumi off of her proud stance on top of a beam that she managed to crawl onto with Shinichi's careful help. The mangy stray eyed her, yellow eyes gleaming, then shifted its gaze to the clear leader of the group: "what are your kits doing in our warehouse?"
"Your… warehouse," Shinichi repeated blankly, eyeing the starved-looking cat.
"Ours," she repeated, and more thin, unhealthy looking cats emerged from the rafters, sun slanting over their bony backs and darkening as they came in. She stared down at the kittens, and her gaze softened. "I apologize for startling you," she added.
In all his prowling, Shinichi had only ever come across very small groups of alley cats; clowders* of only two or three, five at most. This colony* had twelve members, all staring down at him.
Shinichi decided to go the diplomacy route; the cats didn't seem particularly aggressive, only a bit stunned.
"We apologize. We'll be out immediately."
"He's a looker," a black cat mewled appreciatively over him with a flick of its torn up ear. "We should keep him around," she continued in a gravelly voice.
"I… what?" Shinichi said slowly, unable to come up with anything else.
"Mm," another agreed, green eyes roving appreciatively over him.
"This turned creepy," Ayumi stated, gathering close to Shinichi. The detective had to agree.
The cats advanced towards him, all mangy fur and death-breath. Thankfully, the calmer tortoiseshell lead them, and she butted against the kittens in a more playful manner rather than the couple of lecherous cats that were prowling around Shinichi making comments on his claws and glossy fur.
"Kittens are hard to care for," she began. "Perhaps we can—"
"We can't take him on," a snow colored male cat interrupted. "Three kittens- we don't have the kind of food for them."
"Are you inviting me to the colony? Is that what's happening?" Shinichi tilted his head, extracating himself from the females.
The cats began arguing over him about food and how they couldn't leave some male to care for poor kittens, and a comment Shinichi chose to ignore about breeding potential.
"You know, I'm going to have to say no," Shinichi said. The cats grew quiet, owlishly turning their heads toward him.
"But… we're offering you a place to care for your kittens."
"And that's generous, but uh, I'm good."
The white cat tipped its head at him in agreement- "he's clearly healthy, as are the kittens. It's us who need to worry about food, clearly not him."
"That's unfortunately true," the tortoiseshell agreed. "Where do you get your food?"
Shinichi and the kittens looked out at the rail thin cat army.
"We can't just let them starve," Mitsuhiko trailed off. "They offered to help, they're clearly nice…"
"Especially you!" Ayumi said cheerfully, rubbing cheeks with the tortoiseshell. The older cat laughed and have her a playful headbutt back.
Already attached. Geez.
"I wasn't planning on it," Shinichi groused with a hint of offense. However, he knew that inviting them in once would turn into many times— he was downright soft when it came to those sorts of things.
But how to turn this in my favor…?
"I'll get you all the food you could ever need," he said slyly. The cats cheered, as his supply was clearly more than expected. "For a price," he said, and for a hanging moment Shinichi felt like a dealing demon. The cats stiffened around him.
"How do we know you have all that food?" the main female asked, twitching her soft tail.
"Oh trust me," Shinichi huffed, thinking of all the cheap hard food he could buy with the Kudo fortune. "I have enough. And I'm not going to, I don't know, threaten you— what am I going to do against your colony? I just want to help you guys the way you offered to help me, and trust me, you won't even have to do that much."
"What will we have to do?" the white cat asked. Every cat was tipped forward with interest at Shinichi's offerings. Food with little price was almost too good to be true.
"Well," Shinichi grinned, formulating a plan. "All you have to do are wear collars like ours—" the cats gave a collective groan. Several "why"s rang out. "Well, the collars have little communicators in them." The cats blinked blankly, and Shinichi rolled his eyes. "The collars let us talk to each other without being close." The colony looked stunned. "Using these collars, you guys will be my eyes and ears— I'll tell you who and what to look for when we get back to your new shelter."
"New… shelter…?"
"If you don't like it, you can leave anytime, but this one's much better and comfier than this dusty warehouse," Shinichi chirped, then lead his new army of spies away.
xXx
Getting fifteen cats (including himself) onto a train and to the Kudo manor all at once was something even Shinichi couldn't do. Quietly, he instructed groups of two or three cats on how to get off and on, where to hide, and where to get off and wait for the remaining cats. Shinichi road with each group and back again to ensure everyone got off at the same stop.
After too many train rides for his liking, the group had been ferryed properly, and Shinichi once again took the lead. The kittens glued to his side again and he listened to the snatches of cat conversation about the newness of the train ride, and whispers of how odd-but-smart the new cat was; even if they looked a bit doubtful of the claims of his food supply before, the colony seemed to accept that Shinichi knew what he was on about.
"We have an army now!" Genta barked.
"It was really easy to convince them," Mitsuhiko frowned.
"Their lives won't change. They just get more food and inform me of more stuff, that's all," Shinichi defended. "Besides, cats are… adaptable. And they know they could always just leave us and go back to doing what they were doing I am lying— which I'm not."
"All that's true," the tortoiseshell purred, sidling up besides Shinichi. "Your requests and generosity are bizarre, but we go with the flow in anything we do; change like this is nothing. If it doesn't work out, we move along. No consequence."
xXx
The army of cats easily slid through the mansion's fence, and Shinichi quickly pawed open the door, thanking Agasa for installing an electronic lock that recognized the signature of his collar.
The cats filed in with amazement.
"There's no humans here?" one asked.
"Nope! We have this place to ourselves," Genta yelled, looking at Shinichi with a shit-eating grin. Of course, Shinichi had explained to them once that he was able to get in the house the kittens visited so frequently because he was the human who lived inside it.
"But I do have some rules that need to be followed to maintain this shelter," Shinichi ground out. "First off, don't scratch anything in here— go outside and do that on the trees. Second, don't use this place as your bathroom. Third… uh, that's it, really. Don't destroy the place."
"We wouldn't use our shelter for defecation," one cat huffed angrily, though he did immediately quit scratching the wood floor.
"So, the things to look for…?" the tortoiseshell prompted calmly.
"Oh! Right. Using collars that will be supplied later, you will patrol the city on your daily routine— you don't have to go out of your way, but merely keep an eye out as you go."
"Reasonable," the tortoiseshell hummed. The others nodded.
"Right, good," Shinichi said, completely unused to leading others in this fashion, ordinarily working alone and just parceling out explanations. He hopped up on his desk, shuffling through papers, until— aha! "You have to look for these people," he said, pushing the group a drawing of Gin and Vodka that he had taken a short dose of catnip a week ago to create as a human. "They smell vaguely of smoke, and always wear black." The cats stared intently at the photo, half looking like they wanted to question why and half not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Really, you should keep an eye out for anyone wearing black, attempting to be sneaky by sticking to shadows and corners, and smelling of smoke. You will especially warn me if you see a pair with one briefcase—" at the cats questioning ear motions, he pointed a paw at his father's old briefcase stored on a shelf— "and talking in a threatening way."
The cats nodded, quietly memorizing.
"Also, just tell me if you see a dead or dying person," Shinichi added as a bit of an afterthought.
"That's weird… but not too hard," the white male allowed, giving Shinichi an appreciative look with a dash of hesitance. "And you'll give us regular food for this?"
"Yes. I only have some right now," he paused, thinking of the supply in his pantry— "but more will come."
Thank goodness for delivery.
"Thank you," the white cat said sincerely.
"I suppose we should introduce ourselves if we'll be partners," the tortoiseshell cat joked, sliding neatly up on the desk, orangey yellow patches glinting amber. "I'm Rust," she greeted.
"Snow," the white cat purred obligingly.
"Shinichi," he purred back. The cats mouthed his more difficult and alien name. "I'm glad we can help each other."
xXx
*the most common word for a group of cats is a clowder.
*Feral cat colonies usually have a "base of operations" where they take shelter. Dominance hierarchies in cat colonies tend to vary colony-to-colony and are very loose. It is also important to note that not every stray cat is in a colony, and colonies can vary greatly in size as well. A group of 5 cats is just as much a colony as 15.
really you cant convince me that shinichi didnt take some kind of additional gymnastics/parkour class. he really seems like the type for some reason.
you fools will just have to deal with an overdose of heiji and cat army and a bunch of other bs because i have the wheel of this fic and the power has gone to my head. we are going mach speed directly towards the great abyss in a rust bucket VW van painted with shitty flames to hide the fact that its falling apart. you are but passengers while i cackle madly, doing donuts as my car loses parts due to momentum. they fall into the darkness, and soon so shall we.
its 1 am right now. i hope this means the same thing it does for me as it does for you.