Disclaimer: The author does not own any of the trademarks used in this story. This story was written as a creative exercise, and does not endorse the actions described in it.
Author's Note: I really want to feel happy about finally managing two releases within days apart of each other, but I just feel lighter….I also feel apologetic to the readers who read and reviewed the first part for making them wait this long.
In truth, this thing sat in my docket for years, undergoing several revisions whenever I found the mood. During the time I wrote the first chapter, I got spoiled with Japanese crime media like Bloody Monday, Ouroboros, etc. Seeing how broad criminal organizations were in those, I was inspired to do a Black Organization story that reflected that. However, compared to those, I've since found the Organization lacking to a certain degree - a big part of why I stopped following Conan as much as I used to. Ambitious as it was for me, I wanted it to come out as perfect as I can make it out to be, hence the revisions. To sum it up, it was an easy way to turn oneself off of writing for a long time.
At some point however, I figured there was no way it was ever going to come out perfect. Yes, this is unlike anything seen in the canon, maybe even kind of kitschy, but I needed to get this out if I ever want to get better at this type of story. As I've mentioned in the previous chapter, I was having some trouble establishing when this story takes place in the original story, so keep me honest on any anachronistic or inconsistent details.
Water Down the Abyss - Chapter "HYDE"
"Killing is bad. Hurting others is bad."
As a child, that's usually among the first lessons we learn about from our elders. Along those lines, we were also taught to respect the balance of nature.
Pests, however, have always been fair game. We don't exterminate pests because we hold a personal grudge toward them. It is our own self-preservation instincts that threaten us to take action before they come for us and our crops. We've even come up with thousands of ways to repel them throughout history. Stabbing the resident bully with your pencil or throwing rocks at your neighbor's dog for barking at you will get you a scolding at the minimum, but stocking up on rat poison or hacking away with a fly swatter? We make commercials endorsing that.
No species ever came into being with the intent of destroying another for the thrill. It is always another species that decide whether something should be considered a pest. For Ethan Hondou, the nameless husk behind me, and Michiaki Hibiki, the Organization deemed all of them pests for different reasons. Hondou was a spy, while the woman came back empty-handed. Hibiki, on top of slipping up during operations, had the gall to make contact with the FBI once he caught a whiff of what was going to happen to him. Unfortunately, the team he decided to pitch for has about as much authority in Japan as an undercover cop well outside of their jurisdiction. My team, on the other hand, has all bases loaded, be it the police, the entire traffic system, and even people within six degrees of Hibiki. We know exactly how he's going to throw the ball, and there's nothing the feds could do to bail him out without risking an international dispute. All that's left is for me to hit the grand slam….
"Something on your mind?"
I didn't realize we were already a few meters away from the bustling Touto Dome area until Vodka broke the ice. I wanted to blame his smooth driving for compelling me to drift into a lull, but then, his driving is exactly why he's in this mission to begin with. "Just wondering what inning it is now… The Giants-Tigers game, I mean," I lied.
"You into baseball?" he followed up, sounding even more intrigued.
"More like mildly curious, is all. My camera crew wouldn't shut up about how blessed we were to have suffered that 'glitch' so they could catch the rest of the game live."
I anticipated a snide, but instead Vodka surprised me by falling into a rabbit hole. Without being asked, I was enthralled to vestiges of the life he had before he fell into the abyss. He told me about his days as a catcher for his varsity team, their practice routines, a couple of games that stayed with him, all the way to the time he got booted off the team for betting, game fixing, and off-field violence. As often as he drove Gin and Vermouth around, I figured he probably wanted to loosen up a bit. I had no delusions of becoming batterymates with him after all this, but there was no harm in putting up with this ridiculous chatter. If anything, it only made our cover more convincing… Just a couple of deliverymen trying to get one more shipment out at the eleventh hour while the rest of the city was busy watching a heated rivalry game.
When the stadium and the landmark Ferris Wheel beside it finally disappeared from my side mirror, Vodka decided to go on a tangent. "Say… Ever heard about this Shinichi Kudo kid?"
I wasn't sure what set it off, but I immediately recognized the name as one of them high school detectives running around the country recently. It meant no more to me than the name of some other young celebrity who made the news cycle every once in a while. "What about him?"
"According to our intel, he used to be a varsity soccer player for his school. His team made it to a major tournament, but he screwed up the penalty kick when it mattered."
"Huh…. I guess even celebrities crack under pressure. But why are we talking about him?"
After a short pause, he finally confessed. "That kid somehow got the drop on me the other day."
"Really, an amateur managed to sneak up on you?" I chided him, although he didn't look like he took it personally.
As far as codenames go, I knew Vodka on his own was almost impotent, but for a civilian to come so close as to apprehending him…. But alas, the boy was just another fellow who pushed his luck too far and ended up becoming a pest that needed exterminating. A shame, considering he was only about as old as Ethan's son Eisuke… But that's the kind of fate that await everyone who dared interfere with the Organization, even if they were merely playing Sherlock well past their bed time. "So what happened? How much did he find out?"
"Couldn't tell… Aniki took care of him before he could do shit. Fed him that 'thing' for good measure…" There was a tinge of disgust in Vodka's tone when he stressed the word "thing." I realized it must've been one of the experimental poisons the Organization was dealing with, but I haven't gotten high enough in the pecking order to be given a batch. I wanted to know more, but it was obvious that the voluble mood he had moments ago had been chased away by the memory of what happened that day.
Save for the slope-ridden roads, the rest of the drive was uneventful. I let Vodka beat himself up for nearly getting caught, or whatever it was that he wanted to dwell on, while I rehearsed the mission one last time. It won't be my first break-in, but until this afternoon, I've never been asked to act as another person while doing so. I've never been asked to stab someone excessively either, and the thought of finally having that box ticked made my fingers tingle. I felt tense, but not out of hesitation. Sure, a part of me might still feel that, but no… I just couldn't wait to get it over with.
At around eight-thirty, we finally arrived at a parking space roughly four blocks away from Hibiki's residence. The lot had about ten spots for cars and a small space for bikes. Three of those spots were occupied at the time – a slate-colored family van, a green sedan that had seen better days and a scooter. Vodka decided to pull up a couple of spaces away from the larger vehicle.
"Wish I could watch you run wild, but I gotta keep the lady at the back warm for a while," Vodka said with a touch of playful despondence.
"At least she's alone and willing. I doubt mine would be just as cooperative. He's already flirting with some foreigner as we speak." I made sure the knife was accessible before drawing the hood over my head and undoing the seat belt. Putting ethics aside, I have to hand it to the killer for choosing the right knife, and for sewing the holster inside a hidden seam on the jacket to make drawing the weapon more convenient. "How long do I have?"
"Thirty minutes tops. I'll come by with the cleanup crew when you're done," Vodka answered promptly. "We ought to be gone sooner though if the feds smarten up like they did in New York." The slight agitation in his tone belied the confidence his shades effected. I couldn't blame him: if Vermouth came within inches of getting caught by the FBI, then none of us codenames could afford to be complacent.
"Even if they do, we'll be gone before they can do anything about it," I assured him before finally getting off the van.
Hardly a minute after I left the parking lot, a flash of light shot towards the direction I was headed coupled by the growl of an SUV slowing down for a curve. It was immediately followed by the sound of car doors swinging open, and then Vodka's voice directing whoever came out of those doors to where the corpse was. By morning, it will be reduced to a few pieces of teeth strewn across Touto Bay. As much as my conscience wanted to feel sorry for an assassin I'd never met, it was her incompetence that put me up to this mess.
I suppressed my hands into the jacket's pockets while I scanned the vicinity. There was a dearth of streetlights in this side of the neighborhood, but a lot of the homes and shops were lit with people clamoring inside watching the Giants-Tigers game. I could even hear the announcer's voice blaring from a diner just ahead. Avoiding the mirthful spot, I turned left into an alley lined with a couple of vending machines on one side. A man stood in front of the one selling cigarettes, but was too busy counting his loose change to notice me pass through. From there, I wound up trekking a slope flanked by a couple of shuttered establishments and several houses. A trickle still loitered about on either side of the street, so I paced myself a bit more casually. Considering the kind of coverage the serial robber has had in the news, you'd think they'd feel more alarmed by the sight of a stranger wearing a hoodie. Maybe someone will remember catching a glimpse of my disguise by the time the cops start asking around tomorrow, but that's exactly the line of thinking we want them biting. In the event noone remembers seeing this jacket, an anonymous tip will lure them in.
At the top of the slope, I turned left into a road lined by middle-to-high class houses. Hibiki's house, a modern two-story stone structure, wasn't hard to spot from a distance: it was the only dim space on the left side of the street. Maintaining my pace and minding where the street camera was, I approached the property. Again, I could hear the baseball game roaring from the houses. It seemed as though the home team's resident slugger had just hit a homerun to tie the game. Now everyone is bound to the edge of their seats in anticipation of the next play, making it the best time to break in.
The house seemed deader up close, as if portending what will take place inside of it an hour from now. After making sure the area was clear of cats or peeping neighbors, I finally scaled the steel fence. I did it in one fluid motion, putting as little weight on my foot as possible as I leveraged myself off the wrought iron, elevating my body just high enough to clear the jagged top, and breaking my fall softly. It used to hurt a lot practicing it when I was younger. Sore legs, broken nails, a snagged limb or a twisted ankle on occasion…I'd forgotten how many times I've suffered one or two of those after a wipeout. But that's how it always is, right? Do something the first time, and you acquire a taste for it. Do it a few more times, and you begin to understand how its supposed to work. Do it over and over under a consistent regimen, and it eventually becomes a reflex.
I used the shade of lanky tree stood on the lefthand side of the yard to obscure myself a bit more as I approached the door. I then pulled my toolkit out and, some ten odd seconds later, I was inside Hibiki's house at last.
Repulsion reeks in the vacuum whenever a person steps into someone else's territory uninvited. For stalkers and trespassers like the person I'm disguised as, they get a thrill out of resisting that force. Of imposing their will on the very thing that drives them away. As far as turning stones however, I had soubts about finding anything useful in here, but I went ahead and looked around. Most of his appliances were already gone, and all that's left were furniture, a few books, picture frames, and stuff that'll probably end up in a secondhand store once they leave. Taking out a pen light, I leafed through the books and found nothing tucked between them. Next I looked underneath the worn sofa cushions and double-checked for holes, still nothing. Then I cracked the frames open. There were a few numbers scribbled at the back of the photos, likely the dates they were taken. I made a mental note of all of them and moved upstairs.
The second floor has three rooms. First, I checked Hibiki's, which happened to be closest to the stairwell. The bed looked neat with its plain sheets, like it hadn't been slept in for some time. A couple of steps beside it was his desktop. I turned it on, cracked the password using a thumb drive, and then let the Night Baron work its magic. He probably wiped the drives clean already, but the Night Baron will make sure nothing can ever be recovered from them. In the meantime, I rummaged through his dresser. This caught me by surprise. Not only were his clothes still in there, but I also happened to find a receipt for a public locker inside one of his pants pockets. The locker was in Haido, dated ten days ago. It could be a dummy for all I know, but it was worth holding onto just in case. When the process was finished, I ejected the thumb drive and headed back to the hallway.
The next room was a spare, currently being used to store some older furniture as well as his deceased wife's belongings. With so much stuff stacked in it, I took a peek for a bit and decided to let the crew go through it later, leaving me with one more place to check in the interim. Back at the warehouse, I dreaded the prospect of having to go inside, but there's no turning back now. Pushing whatever hesitation I had as far down as I could, I entered the room.
Faintly closing the door behind me, I laid my eyes on Minako Hibiki for the first time, tethered into a machine. Her face, cute despite showing no emotion under the faint light, frozen in time like Aurora except it wasn't a witch's curse that compelled her into this sorry state. The Organization provided me with the specifics of her condition, and all I got out of it was the slight chance that she'll pull through. Regardless, it's a shame she had to let a fraction of her life drift away into a void, right when she's at the peak of her innocence. Fate is indiscriminate just as it is cruel. If not her, it could've been a friend of hers who lived in the same area, or another girl her age. Minako just happened to draw the short straw that day. Then again, she might have drawn the short straw when she was born into this family.
Just then, I heard the harsh grating of metal against the pavement, followed shortly by the main door creaking open.
About time I got this show going….
Chapter End.