Kinda filler, kinda not.

(I'm not sorry!)

Chapter 52

Maybe they had been too rushed to pay attention 'last' time, or maybe something had changed since they'd used it, but the kids had been right—the cave Pandora rested in felt… Heavy. Like unseen eyes were on them, but less like malevolence than simple watchfulness.

That, however, could also be because they had used it. They were connected to the stone through blood sacrifice, now, however inadvertent it had been. Perhaps that gave them a measure of protection, or perhaps it was only that they were familiar with the feel of magic. Whatever the case, it definitely demanded proper investigation.

Kaito skirted around the alter carefully while Shinichi pressed a hand to the cave wall, frowning. "Got anything?" Kaito asked.

Shinichi hesitated, "I'm not sure what. I may need to link in for a better look, but that's going to make hiking back a little difficult."

Kaito frowned, "… if you think you should," he said after a long moment. "But we can come back another day, you know. More prepared, maybe."

Shinichi raised his eyebrows, twisting to look at Kaito.

Okay, yeah. Aside from migraine medication or other high-grade painkillers—which would also make the hike back more difficult, and possibly even more dangerous than the migraine itself—they didn't really have a way to be more prepared. Not without a helicopter, and that was just… huh. Possible, actually. They had a satellite phone and Shinichi's parents.

"If you pass out, I'm calling your mom," Kaito half-threatened.

Shinichi apparently took that as acquiescence, because he centered his balance and closed his eyes. A moment later, he was perfectly still, and all Kaito could do was wait anxiously, ready to support him when he came back to himself.

One minute. Two.

Kaito moved closer, worry heightening towards fear. Shinichi had never stayed linked so long—

—and Shinichi abruptly sagged towards the cave floor, a weak sound of pain escaping him.

Kaito caught him, lowering his voice both in tone and volume. "Shinichi?"

A pause, then a very soft, "Ow."

He let out a breath. "You all right?"

"Not moving for a minute," Shinichi breathed back, so quiet that he almost couldn't be heard. His head really had to hurt for that.

"Okay," Kaito murmured, fishing out a black cotton scarf from one of his many hiding places with a thought. Cotton was harder to work with than silk in tricks, the cloth rougher and not as easy to move quickly and smoothly, but worked significantly better as blindfold material. Kaito had taken to having at least one black cotton scarf on him at any given point in time, after the first time Shinichi had dropped with a headache too bad to see clearly. Light only made things worse, and silk wasn't actually very comfortable against the eyes, especially in warm weather. (Actually, Shinichi didn't much like the feel of silk in general, so cotton had been the immediate fallback and worked well.)

Three seconds later, and Shinichi's eyes were completely covered. The soft sound of thanks was enough proof that this had been a bad one, and Kaito tried not to frown. Shinichi would know. Shinichi always knew. "Was it worth it?"

Shinichi made a vaguely affirming sound. "Radiated power. Quartz in the granite is catching it, the rest is scattering the frequency until it comes out as a fear-wave. Removing the source will help eventually, but…"

"What about closing the cave?" Kaito asked, still carefully soft.

"Would mute it enough to probably stop reaching town," Shinichi agreed, tired. "Need something—lead-lined silver'd be best. Hardwood on the outside."

Kaito nodded. A silver box wouldn't be too hard to get, and a package or two of lead fishing weights would work just fine to melt down and coat the inside with. Hardwood… there were plenty of those in the general region, if he remembered correctly. Surely someone would sell boxes made of it. Oak or yew if nothing else.

"Can you stand?"

Shinichi made a vaguely affirmative gesture. Kaito helped him up and guided him out of the cave, then over to a fallen tree to ease him back to the ground. "So. Should I call your mom?"

Shinichi huffed at him, fingers flicking a denial. "I can walk."

"Shouldn't just yet, though," Kaito pointed out, dropping down next to him and pulling him sideways. "Take a nap. I'll wake you in two hours; if you're still this out of it, I'm calling in a ride."

Shinichi knew when not to protest, taking the order in the spirit it was given and quickly falling asleep.

Kaito sighed to himself, tipping his head back against mossy bark. Times like this, he wished Shinichi weren't so much better than he was with that stunt. He couldn't split the load, only watch over Shinichi in the aftermath.

Frustrating at best. Painful in quite a few ways, to watch and be unable to help. Shinichi had never held that against him, but sometimes he couldn't help but hold it against himself.

He sighed again, carding his fingers absently through unnaturally tidy strands. It was ridiculous, how much work it took to mess up Shinichi's hair. He maintained that it should not be difficult to mess up hair. Straighten, style, etc.—sure, fine. Mess up? That was supposed to be easy!

And now he was trying to distract himself. Kaito shook his head at his own anxiety. He knew perfectly well that there was nothing truly directly threatening about 'linking in' as Shinichi had started calling it. He himself wasn't very good at it, even by Akako's standards (which, ironically, weren't very high on that as far as he could tell), but he was fully aware that the backlash was inevitable. Even Akako got it, and she was a born witch.

And Shinichi was better at it than Akako, which made the backlash being vicious only to be expected. A mix of fatigue and overtaxing one's mind; headaches were a normal response to either of those things, nevermind both. It wasn't dangerous, not directly. Even those times where Shinichi had been rendered temporarily blind through sheer pain, it had been cured by a good night's sleep. It was less dangerous than a migraine, even if it often reached the same level, and worrying was pointless and unnecessary.

(He worried every time, anyway.)

xxxx

The first thing Shinichi noticed when Kaito woke him up two hours later (aside from the actual 'Kaito waking him up' part) was that the feel of the energy from the cave currently housing Pandora was… pulsing. There was an unfortunately high chance that tonight would be one of what the kids had called 'Red Nights'. The second thing he noticed was that he actually felt a great deal better from just the two hour nap, despite the fact that said nap had been taken outside on a mountain in Canada.

Not that he hadn't slept in significantly less comfortable places, over the years-that-weren't, and Kaito made a fairly comfortable pillow. He informed Kaito of this.

Kaito blinked at him for several seconds. "How's your head?" he decided on, rather than addressing the unusual waking greeting.

"Much better, actually," Shinichi sat up, rolling his neck and shoulders. "But… well, you feel that too, right?"

Kaito grimaced, "Probably going to be a Red Night, huh?"

"We could try to get back before dark to seal the cave. Moonlight probably amplifies it, which would be why it's a nighttime problem that comes more often on a full moon."

Kaito nodded slightly, fingers twitching through an agreeing comment. 'Pandora really did glow red in the moonlight.'

Even now, it was impossible to reference that legend aloud without inducing paranoia. They'd run too long, no matter that they didn't need to run now. Or yet, anyway.

"Let's head back into town and hit a couple antique shops. If they don't have what we're looking for, a higher-end souvenir shop might, but…"

"Antique shop will have better quality," Kaito agreed. "Maybe a general store, for some fishing weights."

Shinichi nodded, "We can check for an actual woodworking shop as we go, too, but the wood one isn't immediately vital."

Kaito stood up, offering Shinichi a hand before removing the dirt and bits of bark from both of them with a snap and a brief puff of wind. "Well, then. Shall we?"

xxxx

Four hours later, they were down the mountain and adding the finishing touches to the sterling silver box they'd acquired. A velvet lining to cover the lead and they were ready to head back up the mountain.

Better to get that thing shielded as soon as possible, no matter how nerve-wracking it would be to have it in their possession. They could probably destroy it… but only 'probably', and not necessarily safely. It was better to do a little research in Akako's library before trying anything.

(There was the option of simply giving it to Akako if they couldn't, or getting Shinichi's parents or Agasa to help them do something ridiculous with it, like send it sunward. The sun would be as safe a place to put it as any—he'd like to see anyone get it out of a yellow star. Even if the resources to do something like that would be a bit crazy. That would probably work, if nothing else did. Even if it survived, by the time the sun went nova, no one would remember the thing.)

Then they actually went up the mountain, and of course there was no one else up there—the eerie red glow from the cave was already becoming noticeable against the dusk, and those kids had been right: it felt chilling.

It hadn't been a Red Night when they'd been there in the future-that-wasn't. In truth, Kaito didn't know if there had even been Red Nights. Perhaps using it made a difference—it was already clear that it wasn't exactly fixed in time. As unintentional as their use had been, the fact remained that they had used it.

Kaito didn't know if the cave just hadn't felt the same at all, or if the fact that he and Shinichi had realized their following even as they'd gotten inside it had the fear they felt at being found indistinguishable from that induced by the cave, or if the lack of red glow had meant the cave hadn't felt the same at all, instead of merely less intensely.

Shinichi barely batted an eye as he crossed the cave's threshold and was fully bathed in the eerie glow. Of course, Shinichi was used to fear. He'd had more reason to fear that Kaito had, for a long time, and had been so small that the helplessness that Kaito had only rarely felt had to be something Shinichi—Conan—had learned to live with.

Kaito followed a few paces behind, taking rear-guard and keeping a careful eye out for possible threats. (They hadn't been followed. Not this time. He'd been watching for it, he would have noticed by now… but it felt like they were being watched.)

Nothing happened.

Shinichi took the leaded silver box out of the light daypack he'd worn (Kaito's mini-backpack had food and a few standard essentials for day-hikes, on the off chance they actually ran into normal people out here and needed an excuse) and opened it, plucking up Pandora (not glowing, out of moonlight itself no matter that the cave walls were emitting a bloody light) and nestling it carefully into the velvet.

(Pandora wouldn't be so fragile as that, but partial sentience wasn't ruled out. Offending an artifact of power wasn't a good idea—but they had to move it. The Black may not have found it until shortly after they had, but they hadn't followed Shinichi and Kaito to it. They had come looking themselves. It was how they'd been caught so unaware.)

The lid tupped closed and Shinichi latched it before returning the box to his pack and re-shouldering it, a quick hand-sign prompting Kaito to take lead on exiting.

Something rumbled.

"Kaito, move!"

The ground jolted, and Kaito wavered only slightly before flinging himself forward, matching Shinichi stride for stride as the detective bolted for the cave's entrance.

Almost out, and a sharp crack split the air and ground alike, Shinichi yelping as he stumbled, dodging out one side of the exit as Kaito was forced to swerve out the other, several large chunks of stone crashing down between them.

"Shinichi!"

A millisecond later, and what looked like half the mountain started sliding towards him as the entire cave collapsed on itself and Kaito had to fall back. He'd be no good to Shinichi dead, and it was hardly the first time Shinichi had needed to vie with landslides…

It was not a comforting thought.

Kaito bit his lip, dodging stone and the occasional tree, cursing silently and saving his breath for moving.

When everything finally stilled, he was alone.

No.

No. He couldn't be—he had to find Shinichi, had to—but the swathe of destruction in front of him was well over a kilometer wide, and Shinichi had been that way

No. He couldn't think like that. Shinichi was out in that mess somewhere; all he had to do was find him.

Down. Up would have been impossible against that tumble of rock and wood. So. Down. Down and side, and Shinichi had to be okay. Had to.

But. He'd been tired from earlier already. Reflexes not quite as fast as usual. And—Shinichi was the one with the satellite phone, and Kaito wasn't going to take the time to go back to town for help. If Shinichi was hurt, that would take far, far too long.

(Couldn't be dead. Not Shinichi.)

Kaito didn't hesitate before bounding down through still-settling debris.

xxxx