Scar(red)let Crow

Title: Scar(red)let Crow
Rating: M
Fandom: Detective Conan
Summary: The only thing promised in life was death. Michael Leo Field had died, yet was reborn as Akai Senichi, the younger twin brother of Akai Shuichi. Rather than having a normal childhood, his new life takes a dark turn: he is kidnapped at ten years old and at twelve, he is forced to join the organization? Will he be freed from the crows' shackles or will he completely fade to darkness?

Arc II: Mad Dog Arena
Chapter III: Burned Into Our Hearts

The house was much emptier, despite the fact that the Haneda's flew over as soon as they heard that Ahren, Senichi, Brendan, and Harimanna had been kidnapped. Shuichi and Shukichi were both sobbing loudly in the living room while Mary, Ichiyo, Yasuharu, and Kohji tried to comfort them. Tsutomu was biting his thumbnail and tapping his foot impatiently. "Damn it!" He let out a frustrated cry and stormed out the door.

Kohji followed after him with concern. "Tsutomu-ojisan!"

"I can't take it!" Tsutomu ranted to his nephew. "It's been days and there have been no leads. It's been days since they've been kidnapped! I can't just stand around and do nothing!"

"Come on," Kohji grabbed his arm. "Let's walk to the nearby park. It should help calm you down a bit,"

Tsutomu agreed and once they arrived at the park, he collapsed onto the nearest bench. "I'm a terrible father. I can't even comfort my own children during a time where they need me the most!"

"You're hurting," Kohji reminded. "We're all hurting. But we'll find them. We'll find all four of them. It just takes time and patience. We'll eventually find them,"

"Those bastards shot Sable in the head," Tsutomu pointed out. "What if Ahren, Senichi, Brendan, and Harimanna are already snuffed out?"

"If they wanted to kill them immediately, they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of kidnapping them," Kohji tried to reason. "Don't talk like as if they're dead. Senichi's the reincarnate of a seventeen year old, right? He'll outsmart his captors. He loves his family. He'll do whatever it takes to protect them and make sure they make it out alive. The same can be said about Ahren. I may not know Ahren as well as Senichi, but I can tell that Ahren is an amazing older brother. Somewhere, out there, those four are waiting for us to save them. We will find them and we will rescue them,"

"How can you be so hopeful?" Tsutomu asked.

"Because Senichi put faith in us to change the timeline," Kohji answered. "We're going to change the future that he saw in that canon timeline. And I'll make sure he, as well as Ahren, Brendan, and Harimanna, lives to see the changes and live in a better world,"

"False hope is a dangerous thing," Tsutomu stood up and wiped away his tears. "It's only been a few days. There's still a chance that they're alive. No, they are alive,"

"Hey Ojisan," Kohji hesitated but continued. "Do you think that the people who kidnapped them were the people who wanted to kill me? Do you think they somehow overheard that Senichi knew about future events and kidnapped him?"

"It's a possibility, but unlikely," Tsutomu replied. "Those people, the crows as Senichi had referred to them, wouldn't leave such a mess behind and would have been more discreet. We were also careful that nobody outside of you and me knew about him being from another dimension,"

"But then who would kidnap them?" Kohji angrily clenched his fists. "Who would kidnap my cousins!?"

"There have been many child kidnappings lately," Tsutomu recalled the news a few days ago. "Law enforcements are currently investigating but the victims and the culprits haven't been found yet. There's a chance that they were kidnapped by the same people responsible for those kidnappings,"

XXX

Something was wrong. Something was happening. Something was happening that day but none of the child prisoners knew what was going on. Everyone had been forced out of their cells and forced to march through the corridors. Some foolish children took the chance to attempt escape but were immediately killed with a few shots from the guards' guns. Their corpses were left in the hallways for all to see the example of what fate would befall them if they dared to disobey orders.

Brendan and Harimanna both clung to Senichi and Ahren. Ahren forced them, including Senichi, to face forward and keep walking. He did his best to block their view of the dead bodies but there were still corpses that they came across as they walked through the hallways. Senichi stared at each corpse with wide eyes, even if it was only for a few seconds, and took in every detail from their hollowed cheeks to their pale skin to their skinny limbs. He took in their bloody wounds, some fresh while others old. He took in the newly made bullet holes in their skulls, though there tended to be other bullet wounds in their arms, back, and legs since the guards were not perfect shots.

Senichi wanted to vomit, but he resisted the urge. 'In the Real World, death was a regular occurrence in the series. I never took it seriously or cared much since everything was fictional. But now…now I'm alive. Now I'm part of this world's reality. These corpses are real. These are children that are being ruthlessly murdered! How does Conan and Ran and Kogoro all handle all those murders they come across so well!? How do the Detective Boys continue on with life so normally!? How are they not traumatized!? How do they not need therapy!?'

Ahren gently nudged him forward and it was at that moment that Senichi realized he had momentarily froze in the middle of the walkway. A guard had taken aim but Senichi swiftly started walking again. "Don't get distracted," Ahren warned.

Ahren himself was being haunted by the sight of the corpses. The dead bodies reminded him of his mother, his Mutti. After help arrived and Hans Klein had been arrested, Ahren had seen his mother's unmoving form laying in a large pool of crimson blood. The police hadn't wanted him to look, but he needed to see his Mutti. He wouldn't believe that she was dead unless he saw it with his own eyes. And he saw her…and regretted it. That was his last memory of her and the image of Mutti's corpse would not leave his mind.

'Those corpses…they're what would have happened to Brendan and Harimanna if we hadn't left campus and gone to that house,' Ahren shook the thought away. 'No, Brendan and Harimanna are alive! Don't think about that day! Don't think about that what-if!'

As for Brendan and Harimanna? Harimanna refused to let her eyes rest on the corpses longer than the time needed to walk past them. Everyone else was focused on avoiding looking at the corpses that his siblings didn't notice Brendan's eyes. The four year old boy watched the corpses with a straight face, though there was a glimmer of interest and amusement in his eyes.

The quadrio was split up into four lines. The lines weren't all even lengths since not all twenty six cells still had four members. At the front of each line was a number. Ahren was in Line 1, Brendan in Line 2, Harimanna in Line 3, and finally, Senichi in Line 4. Senichi could hear the sobs, the whimpers, the screams, and the pleas of the children all around him. It did not do anything but make him even more nervous, especially since Senichi had been separated from his siblings. The reincarnate dug his nails deep into his palms but not enough to draw blood.

Then, he caught the whiff of a horrendous stench. It smelled of something that was severely burnt. It was the scent of smoke, The scent was foreign yet so familiar to Senichi. He couldn't exactly place his finger on it. As he neared the front of the line, his eyes widened when he recognized where he had smelled that scent before. That scent…it was the scent of burning human flesh.

Senichi gagged and took a step back only to end up accidentally bumping into the prisoner behind him. He couldn't bring himself to mumble an apology to his fellow sufferer. He wanted to run, but couldn't. Some kind of universal force kept his feet planted into the ground. The scent of burning human flesh was only familiar to him because it was the last thing he smelled before his death. It wasn't only the sight of his parents' corpses that stuck in his mind throughout the years, but the scent.

Soon it was his turn and he couldn't help but let out a shriek as a heavily muscled guard held him still, lifting the left sleeve of his shirt and preventing him from escaping. He could see the hot rod in the pit of flames and the blaze reflecting off of the eyes of the guard who was waiting for it to heat up. The guard that held the end of the metal rod was grinning and the children's screams were music to his ears. He lifted the rod to inspect if it was hot enough. There were still pieces of other children's flesh stuck in some parts, but it didn't bother the cruel man.

Senichi absolutely hated fire. He not only loathed it, but he feared it. Fire was what had killed him. Fire was what had taken away the lives of his parents. Fire was what had destroyed his home. When Tsutomu and Mary had taken him, Shuichi, and Shukichi camping for the first time, Senichi had panicked upon seeing the large campfire. He had fled into the forest and would have fallen off a cliff if Tsutomu hadn't caught up to him in time. During the rest of that camping trip, Tsutomu and Senichi sat as far away from the campfire as possible, though made sure that they were still near their family. Tsutomu and Mary didn't ask why he feared fire. They had connected him dying in his past life in a fire to his fear.

Senichi felt the branding stick make contact with his left shoulder and he immediately screamed. He couldn't even hear Ahren's, Brendan's, or Harimanna's screams. He was sure that it was his own scream that overpowered everyone else's. That traumatic scent of burning flesh grew stronger and Senichi tried to thrash around in order to escape. However, due to the fact that he had not eaten or drank properly in days, he was malnourished and weak.

Once the branding process was done, he was dragged away like a trash bag and thrown into Cell J like an old, worn out, ragdoll. Ahern, Brendan, and Harimanna were already there, having been tossed in just a few minutes ago. All of them, including Ahren, were crying loudly. The teen quickly pulled his brother to them and held all three of his younger siblings tightly.

You're probably wondering where's Arc II Chapter II. I lost it. I have no idea where it is. These chapters that I'm uploading were completed in 2020 so I don't even remember what goes in between Arc II Chapter I and Arc II Chapter III.