It was quiet and yet his heart never hammered so loudly in his ears.
Hondo pulled out his semi-automatic gun from his hoister and switched the safety off. Slowly nearing the staircase towards the third floor. There, where they were hiding, wrapped around their beige coats and old-fashioned hats.
He tightened his grip on his Eagle, carefully trod down the hallway as his instinct carried him, honed through numerous stakeouts and years of experience. He ignored the rapid beating of his heart and focused on the treacherous silence that droned through his ears.
From a distant a door quietly opened.
Hondo slipped away behind the corner and raised his Eagle, felt his finger curl around the trigger.
One breath was all he allowed before he pulled.
Even with his silencer, the reverberating sound of a thrusting bullet was unmistakable. It was deafening loud.
The figure stopped, almost as if in wonder before his knees weakened and he dropped like sunken sack of potato thrown in the middle of the ocean. But the reddening pigment blood staining his beige tailored coat left a taste of satisfaction snooze in his stomach.
It was his first.
But not his last.
Hondo held his gun close to his chest as he moved away, retreated back into the shadows and searched for a favourable spot of attack and defend. Outnumbered enough as he was, blindingly attacking from an open spot was down-right ludicrous.
He was here as the reaper of souls. Harbinger of death. And not some clown committing a suicide act.
This is my time of vengeance.
Hondo readied the next rounds of magazines. A couple of more idiots were heading his way, laughing as they joked, wiping tears from their eyes as their shoulders shook with each breath—
Their last, he corrected, as one of them dropped down, a hole drilled between his brows. The other looked around alarmed, whilst the last still fixed his eyes at his fallen comrade, uncomprehendingly, as though he expected the other to get up and brush the entire farce off like a bad played joke.
What a fool, as if the dead could rise to their feet.
Hondo aimed straight at him and watched him drop.
The last one had his gun out, pointing in any direction as he backed away like some cornered animal. Hondo shook his head and fired. It didn't hit his forehead like the rest but met straight with his chest.
Hondo watched him wheeze and grapple for breath before his movements stilled and blank eyes stared at him.
He looked away and stepped past the bodies, nowhere near satisfied. He had to increase the body count—condemn as many as possible or he would never be able stare into Hideki's eyes again. For fleeting moment Hondo felt a curtain of shame descend on him before he shook it off with the tightening grip on his Eagle.
He'll finish what his friend started, even if it meant abandoning his police badge and betraying the policies drilled into him during his academy years.
Hondo swore to become the avenger that his friend never managed to be.
Even if it promised death.
On the third floor, Snake smoothed out his moustache as he shoved the detonator inside his pocket and grabbed his gun off the table. His grin, dark and ferocious as he crept out of the room and down the hallway with his numbered henchman close to his heels.
"Get them ready. We're starting now."
Kaito leaned back on his chair and stared at Megure-Keibu with the same tenacity and sternness the other glared at him. The young always gave as good as he got and that also meant answering futile questions with unripe replies. Asking him why Kaito was here? Reasonable. Why he had been attacked? Easy. Why he could perform magic? Sure. But associating him with Kid and suspecting him of being his sidekick was entirely another matter—no matter how true it sounded.
As far as Kaito knew there wasn't even evidence, only their own speculation no matter how wide the smirk of that rat-face went nor how gleefully he played with the handcuffs. Kaito glared at him before he glanced back at the sighing Megure-Keibu, who finally waved his hand to dismiss him.
"We've insufficient evidence. It's futile to detain him any longer, don't you agree?" Megure-Keibu glanced at the other.
"Certainly." Nezumi-Keibu-ho's face hardened but his eyes never left Kaito's even as he said, "You may leave."
Kaito jumped up from his chair, didn't want to waste another second inside this stifling room when his fell on the mini-detective. The boy's face was troubled as he glanced across the room. Kaito neared him. "Is something wrong?"
His voice startled Conan out of his stupor, but the younger boy smiled sheepishly. "I'm just looking for the red-haired lady. She came here with me but—" he looked across the room once more, his brows knitted on his face. "I can't find her. The other one seems to be gone too."
He was right. Aside from those Megure-Keibu and Nezumi-Keibu-ho, who have interrogated him, there were also two other Inspectors, who have recently come from Keiko's questioning. But Hondo and Reika were gone.
Kaito pushed his sleeve up and looked at the time.
Only a minute left.
"Maybe they wanted to see Kid in action," Kaito mumbled as he glanced at the boy in glasses. "Hey. . .don't you want to see him too?"
Conan snorted and stared him in the eye, even as a smirk formed on his little lips. "Aren't I seeing him right now?"
Kaito snorted right back and ruffled his head. "If I were, I'd be on standby by now, don't you think?"
The little boy didn't answer but his sharp blue eyes seemed to stare right through him, and Kaito smiled, counted down the last twenty seconds when—
The lights turned off.
Kaito looked as surprised as the boy and the Inspectors until he remembered who exactly his mother was—someone who didn't stick to plans and had her own way of doing this. It was a tiny difference between them, but one that might be the deciding factor whether he'd be exposed or not. It was also one that Kaito had taken into account when he asked his mother to replace him.
It didn't matter how sharp the gaze of the mini-detective or Hakuba's were, nor did it matter how convinced they were as long as they didn't manage to catch the Phantom Lady. Even as they were all running to the main hall when the lights flickered back on.
Kaito knew it would be difficult to foil his plans.
My resolution is firm, and even if the road ahead is far—
I'll continue to the future I painted.
The lights exploded.
Fragments of blaring yellow and glowing red burst across the floors, stained the burgundy carpets and alarmed the guests as the shadows reached across the room and engulfed it in darkness. Their shrieks of displeasure and surprise rung right into the sensitive spot of his ear, but Nakamori Ginzō was prepared for this—prepared since the moment he stepped the first foot out of his bed and slipped his uniform on. This was the moment he waited for.
This was his battle.
Nakamori whirled around and raised his arm to ready his men for definite charge when a distressed call rumbled from his radio.
"The emergency lights won't turn on! Someone has tampered with the system!"
"What?" Nakamori clenched his teeth, with all the luck he had recently he should have anticipated blunders such as this. Tampered, he said, as though his men were careless enough to let an enemy enter the threshold of all technical devices of this over-designed gallery that reclaimed more its previous shape of an antiquated museum than its current title. Rather than underestimating the stealth and strength of the task force, it was more their general carelessness that allowed them to misperceive mistakes. It was nothing more than a botched job.
At least that was what he thought until the lights flickered back on, and that scoundrel of a greenhorn detective had the gall to smirk at him with his notebook carefully placed in his hand.
"One should at least keep the basic in mind, don't you think?" Hakuba said, holstering his mini-sized laptop under his arm, as he glanced around with light frown on his face, looking for a thief Nakamori too had yet to spot. "If not your chance of catching might as well plummet to zero—"
"Right, of course."
Nakamori blinked, stared at Hakuba's self-satisfied face as he listened to the grumbling tone of a voice that was without a shadow of a doubt identical to his own. Problem was, Nakamori hadn't even opened his mouth—his eyes grew wide in recognition regarding the steps of this particular event. . .er. . .impersonation.
Nakamori gritted his teeth as he balled his hand into a fist. That thief had the nerve to muck around when his heist has already begun. His narrowed eyes roamed through the main hall, in search of a white cape and top hat that wouldn't appear in front of his eyes—
Nakamori's eyes almost popped from his eyes, as rapid questions formed in his mind that begun with a when and ended in a how—inside the laminated glass case, perched on top was a velvet cushion, bearing not the Mother of Pearls but a single piece of paper.
A cheeky Kid note.
"How anti-climactic," Hakuba shook his head with a simple smile on his face. "Really disappointing considering how much care I have taken to create the perfect anti-Kid trap."
A second passed and the smugness returned on his face as fast as a high-strung voltage. "Question is only whether he run away in fear of my brilliance. . .or temporarily retreated for a counter-attack."
"We are not in a battle zone. He obviously ran away with his tail between his legs." Nakamori retorted light-heartedly even as doubts crossed his mind whilst he issued out commands with his radio, marking out the beginning of his final plan of search, capture and apprehend, retreating to his traditional (and predictable) handling of a Kid heist, as he ignored Hakuba's sighs and the series of buttons the teenager pressed on the notebook.
"You can cool down for a second. The doors are locked, and the windows blocked." He closed it, brushed the hair out of his eyes as he gave the inspector a tired look. "As long as Kid can't destroy alloyed steel bars, he cannot escape."
"You mean as long as I'm here, Kid cannot escape."
Hakuba only rolled his eyes and directed his eyes on the glass case. Not a single dent was in sight on the carpet, nor was the case itself skewed. From the way it looked, he could only presume that it was left untouched. But then—
He shook his head and neared it, looked at the contours and searched for traces of movements. Kid had only at most a minute to remove the gem, it increased the likelihood of mishaps and mistakes.
He trailed his gloved finger along the glass and smirked. The laminated layer had a split, only millimetre deep and hardly visible in his eyes yet indisputably noticeable under the sensitive touch of his sensitive fingertips. It formed a small circle, wide enough to fit a hand inside.
Hakuba stood up and looked around the room, saw Nakamori shouting obscenities into his radio and noticed the excited gushes tossed around the room by invitees pointing their fingers at the emptied glass, and the overbearing sound of snapshots.
If his theory was correct then Kid was still near, disguised perhaps, but still in near enough to expose him.
If only I knew where exactly. . .
Hakuba glanced around once more when he noticed foams of smoke crawling towards him, spanning across the room like powdered dust and misted the sight before his eyes. But he could still make out the faint outlines of a tailored coat and a readied smile shadowed by the rim of his hat, and like an uncoordinated crescendo the crowd broke out into unbearable squeals and screeches that could only shame the excited gushes moments prior.
20:04:34:56
Hakuba clenched the golden watch in his hand. Not only had Kid the nerve to treat his thieving as some kind of public performance but also has the shameless audacity to arrive late to his own heist.
The fluttering white cape morphed out of the smoke and descended onto the railing of the first floor.
Hakuba opened his mouth to call on him hadn't it been for Kid's widening eyes and pale pallor that continued to blanch. And if he had looked behind, he would have seen the clouds of darkened smoke and sparks of fire that only evoked panicked and hysteric screams as shattered glass rode the current and sliced through the air. Instead the detective chose to think and didn't even notice the approaching shock wave until it blasted him off his feet and robbed his vision.