Sorry this took so long—what with a sick ferret and a sister starting chemo, it's been a rather busy time in Real Life lately. But here goes-----
Second Wind
By Ysabet
Chapter 9: Hearts and Other Weapons
"Silence is the door between Love and Fear; and on Fear's side, there is no latch."--- Diane Duane, The Door Into Fire
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"Dammit….." muttered Hei-san the Janitor as he banged a fist on the front door of his place of work for the seventh time in the past five minutes. "Idiot security guy said he'd meet me at the main entrance….." He shoved his hands in his coverall pockets and leaned back against the brick wall beside the locked door, a scowl on his usually rather deadpan face. "…got better things to do on a Saturday than hang around this place….." he mumbled under his breath; brown eyes flashed in annoyance as they noted a half-open window a little ways down from the entrance.
With a sigh, Hei shrugged his shoulders and made his way to the window, slipping a couple of tools from one pocket (said tools would have rather surprised Kajiya-san, Security Officer for Beika Elementary, as they were decidedly not the sort of thing most custodial workers carry around with them). A little pressure here, a quick twist or two there, and the window latched itself neatly back into place. He flexed his fingers and chuckled, a young-mannish sound that sat rather at odds with the lined, thin face he presented; noticing this, the janitor cleared his throat and smiled at himself ruefully. "Not much longer, Hei-san; then you can… retire. No more Saturday hours for you, my friend…" he murmured. This time his chuckle matched his appearance.
A crunching of footsteps on the walk made him turn; nonchalantly he slid the tools back into his pocket, his previous vague irritation slipping back onto his face like a mask. "Konnichiwa, Kajiya-san; up late last night?" he asked, gruff and slightly sarcastic.
The older man shot him an annoyed look. "Don't go there, Hei-san; I spent half my Friday evening dealing with alarms and police reports. Do you have any idea how many individual alarm-codes have to be rekeyed and systems checked in this place when things don't work right?"
*Yeah, actually--- exactly twenty-three, not counting individually-installed gizmos, padlocks, the payroll safe-combo and the petty-cash box. And you really ought to take a look at Finance's lazy lock-up habits while you have the chance, Kajiya-san; I could break in there dead-drunk with one arm tied behind my back and my lockpicks held upside down in my teeth if I wanted to. Not that I want to, but…..* He tried to look impressed and concerned as the security officer irately sorted through his bundle of master keys, unlocking the main door with a jerk.
*…..but it's the principal of the thing, y'know?*
Their steps echoed through the empty hallway as the disgruntled man continued to grouse. His complaints had begun to become repetitious by the time they reached his small office, and Hei had to fight off several yawns of boredom as well as sleepiness (it was scarcely past dawn, after all).
He leaned against the doorjamb, watching his co-worker as he ran through various checks on his computer system. *Hmm; I could teach you a shortcut or two, Kajiya-san….. but I don't think that'd be wise. Maybe I'll tune a few things up today, while I have the chance? Wouldn't want the kids here to be unsafe, after all….. Speaking of kids, I wonder how Conan-kun's doing with that little matter? Sure hope he can handle it--- hell, shouldn't worry; of course he can. Look at how he took my little 'hint' the other day…! I probably shouldn't have done that, but I just couldn't resist--- oh man, the look on his FACE, just for a split second there! Absolutely classic; made my day, really.* He suppressed a snicker, nodding solemnly at one of Kajiya-san's half-heard gripes.
*I have the utmost confidence in you, my small detective friend… to ignore the little matter of me and chase after more important stuff, like drug runners and missing kids. You do have a sense of priority… though when that's all finished, well, I imagine you'll want to spend a little quality time on MY case, won't you? Heh; that'll be fun! C'mon, Kudo, wanna play?* A momentary grin flickered across his face, sharp with anticipation and real enjoyment; then it faded back into Hei-san's usual bland vagueness.
*First things first, though….. Wonder why the damned windows keep popping open? If it's a thief, he's not taking anything Security-Sama here can figure out, and frankly I'm getting tired of hauling MY butt out here at all hours….. I mean, I could do this sort of thing if I felt like it; but what's the point? If it's a joke, it's not making anyone laugh; if it's a heist, it's a hell of a peculiar one. And if it's not a joke and not a heist, what in the world IS it?*
Kajiya finished his grousing and his checkups at about the same time; he booted out of his system with a sigh, tossing his checklist onto a pile of similarly-marked papers and leaning back in his groaning swivel-chair. The springs creaked under his weight (he was a rather large man). "You ready to go, Hei-san?..... Uhh, do you really need me with you? I mean, if you don't---" He yawned significantly.
Hei-san smiled, a small twitch of his lips. *Meaning "If you don't, I'll just kick back and take a nap right here, okay?" Far be it from me to dissuade a security-type from dropping his guard for a bit--- it's probably against Union Rules or something.* "That's fine; I can take care of resetting the windows, no problem. Got a floor-plan right here." He fished a well-creased page of paper from one pocket and waved it vaguely at the other man.
"Floor-plan--? Oh yeah, I keep forgetting, you haven't been here long, have you? What's it been, a month? Well, whatever, that's fine….." Kajiya yawned again, settling back in his chair; he tugged his cap down over his eyes, crossing his ankles and lacing his hands behind his head. "You go right ahead. Wake me when you're finished, okay? Arigato….." The last word trailed off into a third yawn.
*That's Kajiya-san for you--- Diligent, Dedicated and Efficient! Actually, he's pretty good at what he does… for an Elementary School security officer. And that's just fine with Yours Truly.* The janitor closed the door quietly behind him as the first faint snore arose.
*Now….. let's tackle those windows. And maybe we can figure out why the buggers keep popping open like that in the process. Who knows? Might be something we can use later…..*
* * *
Two hours later…..
….. a very puzzled Hei-san sat in the deserted Teacher's lounge nearest to the Cafeteria, frowning over his cup of tea. He was not a particularly happy man. It was a very rare thing indeed for something to stump him for more than a few minutes, but this-----
----- this had him beat.
*I don't get it. I just don't get it. There aren't any devices, no wires, no strings, no drilled-out spots where spring-rods could be inserted, no markings from pinpoint explosives, no sonics, no magnetic plates other than the usual alarm sensors, not one goddamn THING to explain this. Nothing. They just… open. ALL of 'em--- except one, that is. And that one's in one of the only two rooms I'm supposed to leave alone in the whole freaking school, Storage Room 3-B and Ojiwa-Baka-Sensei's office. Hell, it's only a foot tall and a couple of feet wide, just a transom… but every other window in the place popped itself open last night, and the night before, and a couple of nights before that, and---*
Hei sighed; his fingers fairly itched to open the lock on that storage room---
He glanced around the empty lounge; *Nobody here but us chickens… now's as good a time as any, I guess. 'Carpe Diem', y'know-- and isn't THAT a suitable motto for me, hmmm?* The Janitor grinned to himself, a grin that his co-workers would've found quite out-of-place on his vague countenance. Stretching, he rose to his feet, striding determinedly out the door towards his destination.
STORAGE-3B.
Hei-san smirked up at the sign from where he knelt in front of the knob, picks in hand. *Bet good ole' Ojiwa-sensei has a coronary when he hears I jimmied the lock--- or should I tell him? Maybe I should just take an impression and make a key of my own. Wouldn't THAT pop his cork! But why bother? It's not like I'm gonna be here that much longer, can't take much more leave from school without catching trouble--- once Short Stuff figures out this little puzzle, I am outta here, so….. Oh, what the hell. Let's just open the damned door.*
He reached for the knob, ready to insert the first pick---
"Hei-san? Are you down there?" The voice of Beika Elementary's security officer echoed through the empty hall, making the Janitor swear under his breath. Hurriedly he pocketed his picks and stood, dusting off his knees. "Yeah, over by the door; I was just locking up….. Have a nice nap?"
Kajiya grumbled at him good-naturedly, yawning and scratching at his hair with one hand. "Don't be a smartass, Hei-san. Did you finish with the windows?"
The Janitor sighed, casting a longing look over his shoulder towards the door of STORAGE-3B, which sat inviolate and locked, seeming to mock him with its solidness. "Yeah… I guess I've done everything I can do today….. Let's go."
*Ah, hell. Tomorrow maybe, or the next day. It won't kill me to wait.*
And they walked away, leaving the storage room behind.
************************************************
Ayumi yaaaaawned, stretching her arms above her head as she padded into her apartment's kitchen. Okaa-san was already up despite the earliness of the hour, and the smells of breakfast made the little girl peer around her mother inquisitively as she hugged her. "Ohayo, Okaa-san!"
The woman smiled down at her daughter; "Good morning to you too, 'Yumi-chan. Ayumi? Who was that on the phone a few minutes ago--?"
"Ai-kun--- she's back from her trip, and we're going to go play in the park, she said." Ayumi yawned again, trying to see past the woman's tall form to the top of the stove. "Is breakfast ready yet, Okaa-san? I'm hungry!"
"You're always hungry, 'Yumi-chan…but no, not yet. Just a few minutes, though." Okaa-san stirred something that smelled delicious with a wooden spoon. "So where did Ai-kun go, did she say? Did she have a good time? Such a quiet little girl….."
Her daughter nodded, wandering into the living room to flop on her stomach on the couch. "Ummm, she said something about going to the beach… I think maybe she went to see her cousins there or something, but I think she's glad to be back." The little girl kicked off her house-scuffs, allowing the shoes to drop to the floor as she propped up her chin on her hands.
"Oh? Why do you think that, Ayumi-chan?"
"'Cause she said that me and Mitsuhiko and Genta-kun are needed to help somebody… and then she laughed and said that it's nice to be needed." The child sat up after a moment, a slight frown wrinkling her forehead. "She said… Conan-kun needs us." She glanced up at her mother, whose attention was still on the breakfast she was making. "Umm. Be right back, Okaa-san…" Sliding off the couch, Ayumi trotted down the hall back to her room, still frowning a little.
From her bedside table, the child took something small and surprisingly heavy, pinning it carefully on the front of her jumper; the Detective Boys badge glinted in the early morning sunlight. She ran careful, little-girl fingers over the treasured badge and her frown deepened.
"Conan." She whispered her best friend's name aloud. "I had a bad dream about you last night….." For a moment she could almost remember it--- something to do with roller-coasters, scary dark rooms and boxes…..
But she couldn't--- quite--- reach the memory; it hovered tantalizingly beyond her grasp.
*Oh well; I'll just tell Conan about it when I see him; maybe he'll know how to make me remember. He knows everything.* Making certain that the catch was secure, she hurried out of her room and back to breakfast. It was almost time to meet the other kids; bad dreams could wait 'til later.
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Kisaki Eri eyed her husband as he took a long drink of the third cup of coffee he'd had since waking; she admitted a certain need for caffeine herself this early, but she'd have to keep a close watch on Mouri Kogoro. He was beginning to… twitch.
They sat in a small Western-style coffeeshop a little ways down from Nodomo Hiroku's apartment building; it was an excellent place for a stakeout--- a place to be just an anonymous onlooker, one of the many who stopped in for a cup or two and maybe a quick bite.
The woman smiled wryly to herself as she swirled the dregs of her own coffee around the bottom of her cup; this was not how she had hoped to spend her weekend. Things between her formerly-estranged husband and herself had been progressing nicely, and well--- but never mind. This was more important than a date.
*A date….. with my own husband. How long has it been since I indulged in that sort of thing?* Her eyes softened as she watched him; despite late-night crankiness, morning caffeine jitters and a certain disgruntledness about the whole situation, Kogoro's eyes were fixed upon their quarry's home. He might have his faults, but when he said he'd do something he did it, like it or not.
(Of course, she thought with an internal sigh, he had to make certain that absolutely *everyone* knew just how put-upon he felt, how ill-used and overworked and…..)
Eri sighed, a reluctant smile still curving her lips. She swallowed the last of her coffee, savoring the bitter and sweet tastes together with her eyes resting on her husband's profile. As Agasa came back towards the table bearing his own mug of coffee, she stood, stretching, to go for another; she had the feeling that she would need it.
* * *
Agasa-san arranged his rather bulky self on his chair with a sigh; he leaned forward, inhaling the steam from his cup (it was decaf--- Ai-kun had informed him some time previously that regular coffee was, to put it bluntly, off-limits for him if he wished to keep his health; she had then silently handed over a printout containing statistics regarding caffeine-related ailments in men over fifty years of age.)
He stirred the liquid (black, no sugar) with one of the tiny, near-useless sticks provided by the coffee shop, wondering idly for the thousandth time why the blazes they didn't redesign said sticks into something more efficient for stirring. His bushy grey brows drew down in a worried crease as he speculated again on just where Shinichi had gotten to this time and what kind of fix had he gotten himself into…..
The boy was appallingly good at finding trouble—even if it meant that he had to trip right over it. At this rate, he would *never* get the chance to grow up a second time. The scientist frowned down into the depths of his cup, stirring it aimlessly again and peering into his own reflection as if looking for answers.
* * *
Mouri Kogoro took one last swallow from his cup, grimacing at the taste. He had never really cared for coffee that much—he'd prefer a beer anytime. But hey, he was the Famous Detective Mouri Kogoro, right? And detectives drank coffee; you saw it in all the movies.
He squinted through the window towards Nodomo's apartment-house, feeling a little like a cat in front of a mousehole. Stakeouts always made him feel that way: the hunter, waiting for his prey to make a move. And it damn sure beat taking pictures for divorce cases, didn't it? Even if this stakeout was for that little smartass, Kudo…..
He wasn't quite sure how he felt about Kudo yet. He had found (much to his horror) that he had developed a certain affection for the brat over the past year; of course, that had been for Conan, not for the teenager that his father's instincts had warned him about regarding his daughter….. If he had EVER caught Kudo trying to put any moves over on Ran, he'd have---
Well, that was a moot point now, wasn't it? And he had damn well better get used to the idea of Kudo as a son-in-law--- Ole' Kogoro wasn't stupid, he could see the way the wind was blowing.
Mouri growled to himself beneath his moustache. *Goddamn little brat better be all right—If he gets himself killed and breaks Ran's heart, I swear I'll--- I'll---*
Well, he'd sure as hell think of something, that's what. In the meantime, he needed another cup of coffee.
************************************************
Ran sat at the window, waiting. The early breeze sent strands of her dark hair drifting across her heart-shaped face, floating like the finest of veils.
She was, she thought unhappily, good at waiting. Hadn't she just spent a year waiting for Shinichi to come back to her, only to find that he had been there all along? And now he had slipped away again---
*Shinichi… why didn't you take me with you yesterday evening to do whatever you were doing? Were you trying to protect me again? Stupid; you're always trying to protect me… all this past year you've been trying to protect me… and now-----*
*Stupid, stupid, stupid----- Please be okay.*
And all the while a tiny little voice in the back of her mind kept whispering hurry, hurry, hurry…..
Waiting was hard. Waiting while knowing that somebody you cared for might be hurt, might even be (*don't think it Ran, don't think it*)… that was the hardest of all.
Her fingernails dug into the windowsill where she sat, staring down at the street below; though her eyes were turned towards the passing cars, they were focused inwards on a face that kept changing in her mind from a young boy's to a young man's…..
*Shinichi--- please be okay, wherever you are; hang on, I'm coming; we're coming…..*
A screech from the curbside below the Mouri Detective Agency announced the arrival of Suzuki Sonoko as her cab pulled away; for once she was on time. One of the two small faces watching her from the second-story window as she crossed the street turned to the other.
"She certainly looks… determined…" noted Haibara Ai, indicating the new arrival's rather set expression; beside her, Ran nodded. "I suppose she's just glad she can do something; this, um, 'lifestyle change' of mine sort of hit her hard, you know?"
The dark-haired young girl was silent for a moment, watching her friend as she stepped up onto the sidewalk. Her thin shoulders were tense, and the worried expression she wore sat oddly on a face better suited to sunlight than shadow. She spoke quietly, her hands twisting together in her lap. "Sonoko's always been such a good friend to me; I think… that she was afraid that this would take our friendship away or something like that. She has a lot of friends, but not a lot of close friends, and when she found out about Shinichi and I….. I was really sort of glad." She chuckled wanly, dark eyes distant and full of memory. "He wasn't so thrilled about it, but….."
*hurry, hurry, hurry….. Shinichi…..*
Ai smiled to herself as well. "I can imagine." She shifted restlessly as the clatter of footsteps running up the stairs ended in the sound of knocking. "You've told her about me, I believe?"
The other girl nodded. "A little, yes. She was surprised--- but not that surprised, actually." Ran moved across the room towards the door while Ai considered her statement.
*Really? Perhaps the Suzuki girl has more to her than I thought…?*
"Ran!" Suzuki Sonoko tearfully threw her arms around her friend's small form, stooping a little; nonetheless, in her enthusiasm she managed to squash Ran's face against her waist and lift her slightly off the floor, resulting in a muffled "MMPH!! Pft-mmfh-dwnmpf, Snnhwkmph!" from her target.
Ai moved unobtrusively so that a chair was between her and the Suzuki girl. *Then again, perhaps not.* Anomalies happened in nature all the time, after all.
Ran was now straightening her clothing and hair, and Sonoko (looking rather startled at the results of her impromptu embrace) was apologizing. "---didn't know I could pick you up like that, but Ran-chan, you're so small now-----"
The Mouri girl sighed. "Never mind, Sonoko; just please don't do it again, okay? Listen now, I'll fill you in on what's happened while we wait for the kids---"
At about this point Sonoko noticed their audience, still standing quietly by the window. "Um, Ra—Rin-kun, speaking of kids….."
Ai crossed her arms, one corner of her mouth turning up rather sardonically. She did not bother with a childlike expression (not that she did such a thing often, anyway), but instead focused her calm regard on the blonde young woman's face. Dawning understanding and remembrance slowly crossed Sonoko's countenance; she swallowed. "I remember… you're that woman that made the capsule, right? The one that used to belong to the, umm, Black Organization?" As she mentioned the crime syndicate her voice unconsciously dropped and she sat down on the couch; Ran climbed up beside her.
"I am--- though I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention that group of people again, at least not in public." The diminutive scientist frowned a little as she looked up at Sonoko; her tone took on a slight coldness as she addressed the young woman. "You do realize that you've put yourself in danger by merely associating with us, don't you?"
Sonoko shrugged, crossing her arms in defiant mimicry of the small figure confronting her. "I'm not going to stop being Ran's friend just because she's been--- well--- downsized." (Ran blinked at this.) "Besides, what would you expect me to do? Just say 'Oh, well, have a nice life, have fun at grade-school and watch out for guys in black trenchcoats', hmm?" She frowned a little down at the girl. "She's my friend, that little twerp Shinichi is my friend--- and I don't run out on friends." Her chin jutted out stubbornly.
Ai's calm grey eyes surveyed her coolly. "Fine. Just keep in mind that one slip in the right company could spell disaster for us all—yourself included." She turned back to her vigil at the window.
Behind her back Sonoko turned to Ran. "Is she always this pleasant, or do I rate special treatment? Sheesh, what a little pain!" She snorted quietly; then her face became graver as she took in her friend's distressed expression. "It's bad, isn't it? Tell me what's going on, please?"
The little girl beside her closed her eyes for a moment, fighting for control; her small fists tightened in her lap, white-knuckled. "Shinichi….. he didn't come home last night; he didn't show up at the Professor's, he didn't call….. nothing."
Ran drew a deep breath; when she spoke again tears muted her soft, childish tones and lowered the pitch until it sounded startlingly like her old voice. "We're afraid—we're afraid that he's been hurt, or, or----- Sonoko-kun, we've been investigating this missing kid at school, and now he's missing, and----- We've got to find him, Sonoko!"
*hurry, hurry, hurry…..*
Her friend caught her by both thin shoulders, her adult's hands resting gently on Ran's slender frame. "We will—we will! Calm down now, tell me everything….." She shook her gently. "It's not like you to get so rattled; that's more my line, ne?" Sonoko's rather lame attempt at humor did little more than halt the onset of tears, but Ran wiped at her eyes and made an attempt to steady her breathing. "W-when he didn't show up last night, I waited at the Professor's and after a while I called home to see if he had shown up there, but he---"
A clatter of footfalls on the steps below interrupted the explanation, heralding the arrival of several rather small reinforcements. Across the room Ai slid down from her seat by the window, moving to the door to greet Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko. Ran and Sonoko paused to watch the scene as the three children chattered brightly at their friend, asking her how her trip to the beach had been, had she had fun, did she go swimming, did she---
Ai cut the flow of talk off with a quick shake of her head. "We can talk about that later; right now, we have something more important to do." Her voice was matter-of-fact and rather stern; the three children quieted down in the face of her seriousness.
Watching with an odd sense of detachment, Ran found herself wondering at Ai's behavior and attitude. They spoke to her as if she were a child like them—after all, what reason did they have to believe her otherwise? But Ai spoke to them as directly as she would have an adult, with no change in tone whatsoever.
*I wonder… is it easier for her to deal with the kids than with adults? Considering the type of environment she grew up in, just about everyone is alien to her—but maybe children are less stressful for her because they don't demand that she act a certain way; they just accept her as she is.*
Ai was explaining the situation; three small, serious faces listened intently. Beside Ran, Sonoko shivered. "Do you—do you think this Toshiro is still alive?" she asked in a low voice. Ran said nothing, but shook her head very, very slightly; her friend bit her lip, her usually flippant expression replaced by grimness.
"--- and we need to find him quickly, before Ojiwa-sensei is frightened into leaving or doing something desperate." Ai finished her summary, folding her arms and settling back onto the couch with the children to either side. There was a brief silence as three young minds considered her words; Ayumi was the first to speak.
"Rin-kun….." The gradeschooler slid down off the couch, moving over to stand before her new friend; Ran stared into her wide, earnest little-girl eyes--- and was astonished when the child impulsively hugged her tightly. "We'll find Conan-kun, really we will! He's smart, too—most of the time, anyway. Sometimes he can be awfully stupid, and that's when he gets himself into trouble… but if he is in trouble he'll be trying to get away, right?" Behind her Genta and Mitsuhiko chimed in with their enthusiastic agreement. "Please don't worry, Rin-kun; we'll find him." She hugged her again, and Ran hugged her back, startled into tears that she quickly wiped away.
*hurry, hurry, hurry….. We will, Shinichi, I promise…..*
Past Ayumi's shoulder she could see Ai, who smiled faintly. "Didn't I say the same thing? Conan is quite… resourceful. Trust him to do his best, while we do ours."
Sonoko eyed the small blonde girl with misgivings. "That's just fine, but what'll we do? The day's not getting any longer….."
Haibara Ai spared her a cool glance. "I've an idea or two, I think….. To begin with, we need to know our enemy's position."
Emerging from Ayumi's hug, Ran viewed her with the beginnings of hope. "Position?"
The young scientist nodded, already reaching for her jacket. "Exactly. I believe the first step should be surveillance." She looked up at Sonoko, calm grey eyes assessing. "Tell me, Sonoko-neesan….. have you any practice in what's usually called a 'stakeout'?"
The teenager looked slightly taken aback; then she smirked down at the transformed young woman. "Well….. I can tell you the habits, class schedules, favorite foods and routes home of at least the ten best-looking guys in my school; does that qualify?"
************************************************
They could hear the sounds that had called them as well as the sound of their footsteps before they could see anything; sound bowed its way onto the stage while sight was still waiting in the wings. Two sets of sneakers slapped almost inaudibly against asphalt, kicked the occasional pebble aside as vision slowly, slowly cleared and the world came back.
A world, anyway.
"You know, this is getting old…..." Conan scowled down at the pavement below, shoving his hands hard into his pockets. He glanced up at the tall figure beside him. "I mean, fine, it's better than lying in a cold metal box with a head that feels like somebody used it as a soccer ball, but--- "
Shinichi snorted, running one hand through his rumpled hair. In the parking lot's half-light he looked tired and pale. "You don't have to tell me that, pipsqueak. I am WAY ready to get out of here… and I wanted to stay awake, but--- well, shit; the box won't open, we're too damn small….. and….."
His other self grimaced. "I know, I know; I heard him too. Poor Toshiro-kun; the kid's just about at the end of his rope, isn't he?"
The older youth shook his head somberly. "Not at the *end* of it, no… he sort of went past that stage a few days ago, I guess….." They walked on in silence for a few minutes, passing the empty gate-turnstiles. Conan shot the darkened ticket-booths an ironic glance; "Sorry, guys, we've got a lifetime pass….." he murmured.
As they wound through the paths leading them deeper into the maze of the amusement park, the sounds that had drawn them there began to become a little louder, a little clearer: soft whimpering just short of sobbing, a small voice that cried out forlornly through the dark:
"…..Conan-kun?..... Shinichi-niisan?..... Where are you?..... PLEASE don't leave me here alone….."
The two figures looked at each other, pain identical in their eyes; how could you *not* hurt to hear something so pathetic, so sad and lonely and lost? Shinichi peered through the shadows, spinning around in an effort to locate the source, while beside him Conan hopped up onto a bench to look as well. After a moment the boy pointed silently towards a small copse of bushes beside the ornamental pond: "There."
Toshiro was huddled deep within the leaves as if seeking warmth from the greenery; his knees were drawn up, and his small, woebegone face glimmered with tears and was smeared with dirt. At the sight of his two friends, his pale face lit up like a lantern and he scrambled out in a flurry of leaf-litter. "You came BACK! I thought—" sniff "—you were gonna leave me here all alone for GOOD!"
Shinichi laughed (it sounded a little forced to his own ears), reaching out to fish a dry leaf from the boy's tangled hair as he knelt before the gradeschooler. "Nahhh, we wouldn't do that; we just sort of had to… ummm, well, we….."
He looked at his other self, who stared back in equal confusion and exasperation. How were they supposed to explain their own situation—the dreamscape and their 'twinning' and everything—when they didn't really understand it themselves? "We, well, we sort of… had to leave. Y'see, Toshiro-kun, this place—" and Shinichi gestured around with one hand, "—it's not exactly a place, not really….. We're not sure, but it's more like where you go when you dream. And we woke up, so we had to go." He sighed.
The boy wrinkled his brow and stared back, perplexed; he rubbed at the bridge of his nose, leaving a dusty streak across the pale skin. "A… where you go when you *dream*?? But---" He looked around the park, staring at the Merry-Go-Round, the pond, the shooting gallery; he blinked at the lights and turned his head to watch as a train of empty cars on the Mystery Coaster's tracks clattered by in the distance.
Conan also sighed, shaking his head. "Never mind, Toshiro-kun; it's not really important. What IS important is that--- back in the, uhh, the 'real' world--- we're in trouble… my niisan and me. We're stuck in the same room you keep finding yourself stuck in, and if we don't get out soon….. Well, we just need to get out, that's all; we don't want to be stuck there any more than you do!" He offered the child a rather wan smile, hoping that he'd drop the subject of the 'dream' world.
*However the hell did I ever end up in this fix, anyway? Explaining dreams to a ghost--- Welcome to the Twilight Zone, Kudo; that creepy guy that always does the voiceovers (what's his name? Stiringu-san or something like that?) should be arriving any time now….. C'mon, Toshiro, let it go, okay? Please? Before you realize that we don't have the foggiest clue about this whole deal.*
But Toshiro wasn't stupid. Doggedly he returned to the interesting idea of just *where* they were. "I still don't understand… how can this place be not real? Look, it's---" He knelt down, gathering a handful of pond-damp mud from the bank. "This is real dirt—it's making my fingers dirty, and it's cold and wet! How can it be not real?" He picked up a pebble and tossed it into the pond; the faint splash echoed loudly in the quiet park. "That's real water, and that was a real rock, and we ate real ice-cream before you left, and---" Toshiro's expression was stubborn.
His two companions traded slightly bewildered glances; then the smaller shook his head, half-laughing. "I dunno, Toshiro-kun; maybe there's more than one kind of 'real'? It doesn't matter, anyway; what DOES matter is getting out of here and back to where we can find help."
Conan wandered a little further down the path, heading towards the arcade; he found the brightly-blinking lights oddly soothing, their patterns a good background for thought. The other two followed, Shinichi still looking rather bemused and Toshiro still just the smallest bit stubborn and sulky. His lower lip stuck out a little as he kicked at a fallen cluster of leaves. "THESE look awfully real….."
Conan rolled his eyes.
They walked on in silence for a little longer, then stopped while Toshiro got himself a drink from a handy water-fountain. The child wiped his mouth and grinned triumphantly up at Shinichi. "THIS tastes pretty real, too….."
The young man laughed wryly; he bent his head to take a drink himself while Conan hopped up to sit on the top rail of the fence outside the arcade. Shinichi leaned back against the rail beside him, tilting his head back to look up at the sky; it hung above them in a featureless bowl of black, unclouded and starless. "Yeah, it does. Sure wish we had a real car so we could drive out of this place….. not that that'd work, but….."
Impressed, the child stared up at him. "You can *drive*? Where'd you learn to drive? And why wouldn't it work?" He clambered up to sit on the railing beside Conan, who scooted over a little to give him room.
Shinichi scowled. "Well--- just trust me, okay? It wouldn't; we're kinda off the map here." He quirked one eyebrow at the boy. "No buses, no cars, no nothing….. the only way we've ever been able to come and go here is by--- well, you saw."
There was a long moment of quiet as the three sat there, thinking. After a bit Toshiro looked over at his companions; the freckles on his face stood out sharply against his pallor. "Shinichi-niisan?"
"Hmm?"
The boy drew in a deep breath. "I think… maybe I could get out of here….." Conan's head jerked up from where he had been staring at his shoes. Shinichi blinked. "Uh… how?"
Toshiro looked uncertain. "Well--- I got here because—because I wanted to find Conan; remember, I said that sometimes I just do things like that now? I s'pose it's because I got killed and all that---"
"--- right, right---" Shinichi said hurriedly; it made his head hurt to think about THAT little subject too hard. Beside him he heard a very quiet, rather unhappy snort.
"—and… if I got here because I wanted to, why can't I *leave* because I want to?" He brightened a little more. "And maybe I could even take you with me!"
Both Conan and Shinichi's jaws dropped; their eyes met in identical astonished thought: *Go WITH him?!? Can we even DO that?*
The older of the two detectives spoke up hurriedly. "Um, Toshiro-kun….. I don't know if that'd be such a good idea. Hey—can't you go for help alone? You could go find Ra—uh, I mean Rin-kun; she saw you, remember?" He tried to put as much enthusiasm and encouragement into his tone as he could; this might be their only chance to summon help…..
But Toshiro shook his head vemenently. "UH-uh; I've been alone so much—I don't WANNA go alone!" He sniffed hard and wiped at his nose with the back of one hand. "You come with me!" And with that he jumped down from the railing and grabbed Shinichi's hand, tugging hard. For a moment the young detective felt a strange, pulling sensation, as if the world were going thin and stretched-----
"Hey, hang on, hang on a minute, kid! Give me and Conan-kun a minute to talk about this, okay?" Hurriedly Shinichi jerked his hand from the boy's grip, sweating just a little (it had felt so damned *weird*---).
Toshiro's lip trembled; the boy looked scared. "You… won't go away and leave me again, will you?"
Conan shook his head. "Promise—we'll be right over here, talking. You just wait there for a sec, okay?" Before the child could protest he grabbed his other self's hand and pulled him to one side of the arcade, towards the back lot.
"Listen," he said hurriedly, speaking in low tones; frowning, the taller boy leaned down a little. "This may be our only chance! Yeah, yeah, I know… I'm talking about going places with a *ghost*, and I've--"
"—you've got rocks in your head, that's what you've got. Are you out of your mind?" demanded Kudo Shinichi, staring him in the eye with an appalled look. "We're the SAME PERSON, or have you forgotten that little fact?" He shook his head in exasperation. "Think about it, Genius; if one of us left, it might kill us in the real world! Hell, we wouldn't have a body to wake up in—we'd end up *really* leaving with Toshiro! Or haunting that goddamn storage room for the rest of eternity--- no Ran, no Rin, no second chances, just a small room with bunch of dusty boxes and our body in one of them--- if that's not the stupidest thing I've ever heard-----"
"Stop." The boy drew himself up to his diminutive bespectacled height and glared at Shinichi. "Tell me something: What's my name?"
"Huh? Don't be an idiot--- Edogawa Conan, of course. Now what---"
Conan cut him off. "And just who am I, actually? I mean, really?"
Shinichi frowned. "You're… me. Kudo Shinichi."
A slight smirk crossed the boy's face; he fought to keep it straight. "So, TELL me, oh Great Detective… just who are you calling stupid here?" He gave the older version of himself a moment to think about that; from the dumbfounded look on Shinichi's face, the thoughts weren't pleasant. "Can't you trust yourself to think things through? I mean, if you're me and I'm you, but we're *separate*, then one of us can stay behind while the other goes; it's not exactly like we're a split personality—there's two of us, not one." He grinned, putting on a show of confidence (somewhat more, actually, than he felt in his heart of hearts). "Got it?"
"Uh. Got it, I guess….. but I don't have to like it, do I?" Two identical sets of dark blue eyes turned towards the small figure waiting impatiently over by the arcade fence; he was playing idly with his gold half-coin now, tossing it in the air and catching it. Toshiro looked solid, looked *alive*-- but they knew better.
All they had to do was remember a pathetic wooden crate in Storage 3B; that was enough.
The boy and the young man turned back towards each other, swallowing hard. "So…" said Conan tentatively; "… which one of us goes?"
Shinichi opened his mouth, then shut it with a click; a curiously contemplative look crossed his face for a moment. Then he grinned and pulled something shiny from his pocket. "Coin-flip'll do the trick. Heads!" The boy made a sour face at him but responded with "Tails….." as he sent the coin spinning skywards with an agile snap of his fingers. From his place by the fence Toshiro watched with interest.
The coin landed on the sidewalk, spinning like a top; "Heads it is….." announced the older detective with a rather nervous laugh; "Guess I'm the guinea pig today." He glanced down at Conan, who (now that departure was actually imminent) looked slightly worried. "You gonna be okay here alone?"
His younger self scowled up at him. "As okay as you would be." *Which,* he added to himself, *isn't much of a consolation, now that I think about it…..*
Pocketing his coin quickly, Shinichi walked back towards the gradeschooler, who had decided to amuse himself by now by attempting to hang by his knees from the railing. Toshiro's upside-down face blinked up at him. "Niisan?"
The young man knelt before the boy, his eyes a little apprehensive. "Toshiro-kun, are you sure you know how to do this?"
The gradeschooler frowned as he placed his hands on the grass, tumbling forward to sprawl in small-kid fashion at Shinichi's feet. "I THINK so….. it was easy, getting here; I just sort of wanted to go, so I went." He dusted off the seat of his pants as he rose to his feet; Conan grinned a slightly lopsided grin at the boy—he had leaves in his hair and a smear of dust across his face. It was so hard to think of him as a spirit, even if you believed in that sort of stuff. Spirits just didn't get dirty, or eat ice-cream, or skip stones.
At least, he hadn't *thought* they did. Go figure…..
The child gave his palms a final wipe against the sides of his pants and reached up to hold Shinichi's larger hand in a tight grasp; he took a deep breath, screwed up his face in concentration, and said "Here goes….."
Shinichi's stomach seemed to flip; he had time to give his alter-ego a single wide-eyed glance as the small hand in his suddenly grew freezing cold---
--- and they were gone. Just gone, like a candle going out in the wind. A few leaves that Toshiro had missed removing from his hair drifted to the ground.
Conan stared.
Then, very quietly, he turned away to walk back through the bushes and slightly overgrown grass to a certain place, back away from everything else—a place beside a wall behind the arcade, a place where once (a year past) a young man had become a boy all over again. Resting on the ground with his arms clasped around his knees Edogawa Conan sighed once, then made himself as comfortable as possible; wondering if a person could doze off from boredom during a dream, he leaned back and tried to be patient—
-- until, that is, a certain thought struck him. The young detective's eyes grew wide with realization, then with utter outrage; his jaw dropped…..
"Aaaaaaaaargh!!!"
"GodDAMMIT--- I can't believe he'd stoop to--- Oh man, that bastard used his DOUBLE-SIDED COIN!! He CHEATED!! That *utter,* absolute--- When you can't even trust yourself---"
Swearing horribly under his breath, he settled against the wall to wait. He had a *few choice words* to say to himself when he saw him next…..
************************************************
The Young Detectives were actually behaving like….. well, like detectives. Apparently the seriousness of the situation had sunk in. Of course, that didn't mean that they were handling it like adults. Why should they, after all?
They had played 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' among themselves to pick who would be the first to approach Nodomo-san (Ai flatly refused to allow them to have anything to do with Ojiwa-sensei, Bad Guy or no Bad Guy. Mitsuhiko had begun to protest with his usual vehemence but had subsided surprisingly quickly at a stern look from Ai's grey eyes. Watching, Ran/Rin had thought fleetingly of a bit of heart-shaped graffiti she had seen on the back of his notebook and smiled internally despite her worries.)
Predictably Genta had won; the rather oversized gradeschooler had grinned in triumph but had not added his usual boasts of imminent victory—there was a certain grimness about the set of his young, round face this time. This time the matter concerned a friend, and even a child could understand the importance of that.
Especially these children. More and more she was realizing how much she had underestimated them.
Sonoko had protested being parted from her charges, but had agreed reluctantly that she had the least chance of being noticed near Ojiwa-sensei's home and should therefore take up a post there. As she had climbed back into her taxi to head in his direction, she had bent low to hug Rin gently; "Don't worry, Ran-kun—we'll get the bastard… and we'll find Shinichi for you, too--" she had whispered. For a moment the two friends had clung together; then, with a wink, Suzuki Sonoko had settled back onto the taxi's seat and ridden off into the sunset, a most unlikely form of Cavalry.
As they approached Nodomo's apartment house Rin suddenly halted in her tracks; from behind her Mitsuhiko and Genta bumped into her with twin "Ooof!"s, causing her to stagger slightly. Ayumi and Ai stopped as well, drawing unconsciously closer; "What, Rin-kun? What's wrong?" She looked fearfully around, while Ai drew quietly away towards the nearest sheltering doorway. Rin followed, beckoning the others, and five young faces peered around the recess's edge at a small Western-style coffeeshop a quarter-block or so away…..
….. or, more specifically, the new car parked in front of it. "My mo—I mean, my Oba-san's car….. That means that she and Oji-san are watching the place too." Rin scowled, her dark eyes fixed on the car.
Ayumi and the other two children exchanged slightly puzzled glances; "But… isn't that good? I mean, that way there are even more people watching Nodomo-san…" Mitsuhiko sounded perplexed for a moment; then his expression cleared and he also scowled ferociously. "Oh, I get it! They'll stop us and make us go home if they see us, ne?" He snorted, sounding ridiculously like Conan in that second—it was easy to see who he had borrowed the expression from. "Grownups…" he announced with all the considerable disdain of someone who had yet to pass the four-foot mark in height.
Rin couldn't quite manage a laugh, but she smiled crookedly at her friend. "Grownups…" she agreed.
"Perhaps we might find a way past the shop without being seen?" Ai indicated an alleyway off to one side; a quick trot through and a few turns brought them out on the other side of the apartment building. From the vantage point of another parked car they could clearly see the familiar forms of Mouri Kogoro, Professor Agasa and Kisaki Eri at a table, sipping their cups of coffee; Rin grimaced, recalling her father's dislike of the liquid. All things considered, it was very much in everybody's best interests if they didn't get caught by the grownups.
Grownups…..
Was that how she was viewing them now? Wasn't she a 'grownup' inside, no matter what shape she wore? Wasn't Shinichi? When had she started viewing her father and the rest as… as part of a group in which she no longer had a place? Wasn't she still Mouri Ran, 17-nearly-18-years-old and counting and a woman grown—no matter what she looked like?
Wasn't she?
How many times, Ran wondered, had Shinichi had to go through this—this redefinition? How many times had he been forced to choose which side to take? She could almost hear his voice in her mind: *There's only one truth…..*
Her fingers tightened on the bumper of the parked car she knelt behind, leaving sweat-damp marks on the chrome.
*But the truth changes, Shinichi-kun; it's true that I was Ran, and it's true that I'm Rin now, just like you're Conan. Maybe it began as a mask, but sometimes the masks come to life, don't they?* He had always chosen her side, no matter what; he had stayed with her, always, even when he could have gone to America with his parents. He had told her about that. Both Shinichi and Conan had created places in her life that only they could fill.
*Shinichi….. Conan….. I need you. Please don't go away….. I changed so I could stay with you. Don't leave me!*
Himitsu Rin crouched on the other side of a car, a child among children, staring silently at the grownups across the street; Mouri Ran looked out from behind her eyes, remembering the night before and how her father had held her back. She knew that it was out of love—but—it was hard to think of that, when all she could think of was Shinichi, lost and needing her help.
Deep in her heart she made a decision; it didn't matter whether or not she was still a 'grownup', whether or not she ever gained admission to that part of the world again—right now, all that mattered was Kudo Shinichi and whatever she could do to help him. If that meant choosing to be a child among children… fine. The grownups were over there; but she was over here, with the people that were willing to help her do what needed to be done.
Good enough.
Suddenly, being less than four feet tall felt oddly… comfortable. She no longer felt weak, or useless, or inadequate.
*Just let me get within arm's reach, Ojiwa-sensei, and I'll show you just how weak I'm not…..*
Ai was looking at her oddly; Rin wondered what her own expression was showing in that moment. A glow of fierceness was spreading through her as she thought of Shinichi—of Conan-kun, stolen and locked away by that little bastard of a science teacher. She turned to the others, not really surprised when their eyes widened and they stepped back a little. "Rin-kun? Are you… okay? You look sort of angry….." Ayumi's voice held a certain note of trepidation.
Rin actually smiled a little. "Not angry, Ayumi-chan; just—determined. Genta-kun, are you ready?"
The large boy grinned down at her a little nervously. "'Course I am. Here goes!" Visibly gathering his courage, Genta pushed open the side entrance they had found and entered the building. A moment later his round head popped back through the door, and he hissed out "There's a list on the wall of who's in what apartment! This is gonna be *easy!* He's in 1217---"
Ai sighed. "Get on with it, Genta-kun…" The head disappeared back inside and they heard the clumping of feet as he climbed the rather rickety stairs.
A moment later the muffled ringing of a doorbell could be heard; silence then, followed by distant, muffled conversation and the abrupt closing of a door. The slow thump of feet came back down the staircase, and seconds later a disgruntled Genta pushed through the entrance.
"Did it work? Did you see anything?" asked Mitsuhiko eagerly, craning his head around the doorway as if expecting missing kids to pop out of the woodwork. "Uh-uh; he held the door real close to him—I couldn't see a THING," groused the larger boy. He stared down at his toes, scuffing one in the gravel outside the door. "Maybe if I go up again in a few minutes?" asked Genta hopefully.
Mitsuhiko gave him a scornful look. "No way—it's MY turn, I get to go next-----"
Rin tapped him on the shoulder. "Actually… it's Ayumi-chan's turn next, I think. Didn't she beat you? Scissors cuts paper, right?" Past her shoulder Ayumi stuck her tongue out at Mitsuhiko, who looked sulky. Ai crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall, her face calm, almost bored….. if one discounted the very slight smile of amusement that curved her lips as she watched the proceedings.
* * *
And so it went for the next several hours; every twenty minutes or so a child would go up the stairs, knock on the door of apartment 1217 and ask if Toshiro-kun could come out and play. It would have worn thin the patience of a saint, much less the failing nerve of the frightened, guilt-wracked wreck that Nodomo Hiroku had become. Each child had their own method of 'Nodomo-torture'; Ayumi tried for wide-eyed winsomeness and persuasion, Mitsuhiko for cleverness and peering past Nodomo-san's legs at every opportunity, and Genta simply blared his request in an increasingly loud, irritating voice. None of this worked, but after three hours or so of attempts a deterioration of their quarry's behavior was noticeable. He took longer and longer to answer the bell, his replies were shorter and shakier, his excuses less believable… or so Rin and Ai were told.
Rin stayed down below; control was hard enough this morning, with the feeling in the air of minutes slipping past like the sands in an hourglass—if she had gone up the stairs to Nodomo-san's apartment, she felt she would have lost it completely and started shrieking at him like a madwoman. From moment to moment she varied from a semblance of calm to wondering just how effective her karate would be against an adult.
*Shinichi, just hold on—we'll find out where you are if we have to tie him up and-----* She stopped that thought right where it was; it was too tempting.
(…..Even more tempting was the near-silent little voice that kept urging her to slip away and do what she would have done if she had been in her adult form: confront Ojiwa-sensei, despite any violence the man might offer…..)
She wished Sonoko-kun were with her. She wondered how she was doing.
Ai stayed below as well, saying very little besides the occasional suggestion on technique or observation regarding Nodomo's mental state. Every now and then she would slip away from the others to peer quietly around the corner at the group in the coffeeshop, who maintained their vigil while imbibing near-endless amounts of coffee. Her gaze would occasionally fix on Agasa's profile; when it did so, her expression tended to slip from bland blankness into mild disapproval. Rin heard her mutter something concerning "decaf" and "statistics", but decided not to ask.
************************************************
Suzuki Sonoko checked her watch for what had to be the twentieth time in the past hour; the sun hung high above her, nearly at its zenith, and she was very, very bored.
*Oh COME on, Ojiwa-san; DO something already, please?* Her quarry had stayed put like a rat in a hole, frequently walking past the window or stopping to peer through the blinds; she could see nothing more than his silhouette, but she knew which window to watch via a bit of flirty questioning of another apartment's resident (and he'd been cute, too—a bit too old for her taste, mid-20's at least, but cute).
She shifted her position, crossing her legs and stretching a little; much longer on this park bench and she'd have the pattern from the struts permanently branded on her behind. But it was a good vantage point, really—she wasn't even facing the building! Sonoko preened mentally at her own cleverness; how brilliant of her to notice the huge mirror-tinted windows of the office building across the street—she could sit facing completely away from Ojiwa's place and yet still see everything!
Damn, but she was a genius. Kudo Shinichi, eat your heart out!
And there he went past the window again; what the heck was the moron doing, trying to wear a hole in the carpet? Pace, pace, pace, stop and fidget with the blinds, pace, pace, pace….. Stupid man. Clearly a case of extreme paranoia.
Sonoko sighed, turning the page of her magazine; she had read the article in front of her so many times already that she was beginning to think she could recite it verbatim. Yawning, she flexed her fingers (trying not to crack her knuckles, of course; her mother had told her that that lead to prematurely-aged skin on one's hands), then jumped slightly as she felt a weight settle on the bench beside her.
*Hello…..* The weight belonged to—oh, this guy was good-looking; her practiced eyes assessed him quickly, setting up a profile with unconscious skill. About her age, nice jeans and shirt, trim waist and wide shoulders (oooh), stylishly-cut dark hair, brown eyes a bit shy but obviously noticing her gaze…..
And, as the conversation that tentatively developed over the next few minutes told, interested in lunch. With her. In one of the nice little places down the street.
*……….…...*
*Ran-chan, you owe me one…* she thought mournfully, watching as he walked away after her reluctant turn-down. *And Shinichi-kun, you owe me double.*
But at least she had gotten his number….. With a sigh, Suzuki Sonoko shouldered her duty and returned to her post.
************************************************
The slow hours slid past; the young detectives grew bored and Rin grew increasingly panicky. Every time she wondered about Shinichi/Conan's location her heart seemed to wince with pain inside her chest, anticipating more pain to come. The kids were becoming disinterested and bored—despite the best of intentions, a child is still a child. Even Ai was beginning to look a little dubious.
Finally…..
….. Rin could take no more.
No more waiting, no more worry, no more wondering whether or not the person she cared the most about in the world was alive or dead. Enough was enough.
Genta-kun had just come down the stairs for the umpteenth time; he took his seat with the others, slumped against the apartment building's outer wall in the shade of a convenient bush. "Rin-kun, this is borrrrrring….. He won't even let us talk to him now; he just opens the door when we knock and yells 'He's not here, now GO AWAY!' and slams it in our faces." The boy yawned. "I'm getting hungry, too….."
Silently Ai fished around in her backpack, pulling out an apple; she handed it over to Genta, who grinned widely in thanks. The boy continued: "…and we're not (chomp) getting anywhere (chomp, crunch) with this. Why don't we go after the other bad guy? I mean, how scary can he be?"
Rin said nothing for a moment, just sat quietly against the wall, hands clasped around her knees. At last she looked up, and Genta's eyes widened. "Um, Rin-kun? You're looking scary again….."
She drew a deep breath, standing up and brushing off her clothes. "I have had enough of this." Her young voice was very soft—but a discerning listener might catch the barest trace of an edge, thin and bright as the razored fineness of a katana. Ai frowned up at her from her seat beside Ayumi but Mitsuhiko scrambled eagerly to his feet. "Rin-kun? Are we gonna go after the other bad guy? Cool!"
"No. We're all going up to talk to Nodomo-san. Right now." Her voice brooked no objections.
Even Ai came along this time, saying "Rin-kun? Are you certain this is wise?" very quietly as they ascended the stairs. She received no reply; Rin simply knocked on apartment 1217 with a hard staccato knock very unlike the small-fisted banging that the children had made. A knock, actually, that sounded remarkably like a policeman's insistent knock. Sometimes it helped to be a former cop's daughter.
A momentary hesitation inside the apartment; then there were the sounds of the door being unlatched. Nodomo Hikaru's apprehensive, haggard face peered around the doorframe, lighting up in tired rage as he dropped his gaze to the group of children. "Now what?!? I told you, he's not h---"
Rin cut him off with a single curt word: "Ojiwa."
He blinked, pausing in the act of slamming the door; his bloodshot eyes glared blearily down at her in confusion. "Uh—w-what? O-Ojiwa---??" Guilt and terror rippled over his lined, stubbled face like water over stones. "W-why did you say that name? He's not…. He's not here. Did he—send you?" Momentary hope warred with the fear on his face, making his thin features writhe unpleasantly. "W-what do you want?"
She stared back, her dark eyes sharp as needles, hard and cold; "Conan. Where is he? Your son is missing--- we know Ojiwa has him. He has our friend Conan-kun too."
The man choked as if he had a fishbone stuck in his throat; eyes bugging out, he staggered back slightly from the door. "No--- I, I, I d-don't know what you're talking about….. No, I---"
"Yes." Rin stepped forward into the disheveled living room of the tiny apartment; a small part of her noted distantly the general disarray of her surroundings, but all her attention was fixed on the white-faced man who was even now backing away from her small form. "He disappeared a day ago, and we know why. We know all about you, Nodomo-san--- about the drugs in the coffee, about how you've been dropping them off at the park—and we know about Ojiwa-sensei too. We know he took Toshiro-kun and hasn't given him back yet. Why didn't you go to the police?" The last words came out in a fierce hiss quite unlike anything a child should've been capable of making.
Nodomo flinched back from her words as if they had been a spray of boiling water; his façade was crumbling before their eyes, every defense stripping away under the assault of words. "He—he said he'd k-kill Toshiro if I told….. I had to do what he said, I had to! But—but—you said….. he took another kid?" Something like a sob broke through his words, and he grabbed at the table behind him to keep from falling.
Ayumi spoke up, her voice almost as severe as Rin's (though not nearly as cold): "Conan-kun went out to do something yesterday—we think maybe he tried to rescue Toshiro-kun….. but he never came back. Ojiwa-sensei's a bad man, and if he has Conan-kun we need to find him!" Behind her Genta and Mitsuhiko nodded grimly, their eyes fixed on Nodomo's face.
From the back of the small knot of children Ai's soft, clear words carried: "Do you really believe that your son is still alive, Nodomo-san? Do you?"
The air in the apartment seemed to hold its breath in shock at her words. There was a small, cold moment of silence.
Genta and Mitsuhiko stepped aside to let her slight form through; Haibara Ai stepped forward, her icy, clinical gaze fixed on the trembling man before her. "Do you think that someone like Ojiwa-sensei would keep a witness alive any longer than he had to? I don't. As soon as they were—inconvenient—he'd make sure they were no longer any trouble, wouldn't he?"
Ai's words struck the frightened man like blows; beside her, Mitsuhiko gave a perceptible jerk as well, and belatedly she seemed to recall that Toshiro had been his friend. Her grey gaze softened slightly as she turned towards him, something like regret in its depths; the boy stared back, wide-eyed and appalled.
"No….." whispered Nodomo, his face ashen. Rin stared up into his face. Somewhere deep inside she was conscious of feeling sorry for the man, but any sympathy would have to wait for later. Right now…..
….. she wanted to find Conan. Almost inaudibly she spoke, and this time the words were full of pain, not anger. "Nodomo-san….. we want to find our friend. Please—help us! Please?"
But he wasn't listening. "Toshiro…" he moaned, bringing his hands up to cover his eyes; there was a whole world's worth of black despair in the word. Again Rin spoke, a little louder this time. "Nodomo-san…? Will you help us? Or does someone else have to die?" And with that, she reached out very gently to touch his wrist.
He jerked back from her as if her touch had been fire. "My fault…" he whispered, staring straight ahead; "…all my fault…"
And with that he broke, shoving past them all and bolting out the door.
Rin staggered, nearly falling as she was shoved roughly aside; she regained her balance, astonished all over again at the sheer lightness of her new form. "Nodomo-san!! Please---" she cried out, reaching after him; but he was out the door and pounding down the stairs, his sobbing breath keeping time with his steps. She heard the door slam back against the wall with the force of his exit as Ayumi helped her up. "Rin-kun, are you alright?"
"Y-yes—we can't let him get away—"
But Mitsuhiko and Genta were already thudding down the stairs after him, their shouts echoing in the stairwell. As their voices died away into the sounds of traffic outside the building, Rin, Ayumi and Ai looked from one to another. Oddly enough it was Ayumi who spoke first. "Rin-kun—what will your Oji-san and Oba-san do when they see Nodomo-san leave the building?" Rin opened her mouth, but Ayumi continued triumphantly. "They'll follow him! Let's go down and meet them, okay?" The child grabbed both her and Ai's hands, towing them behind her through the apartment door.
Ai raised one eyebrow but allowed herself to be dragged along; as she fell in behind Rin, her face showed an unaccustomed flicker of curiosity. Clattering down the stairs, the young scientist made an odd 'hmph' sort of sound, saying speculatively "I doubt he's going very far; in fact, I'd expect him to confront Ojiwa-san now, considering what we've given him to think about. Do you know, I wonder….."
Rin wiped away a bead of sweat as she clanged down the stairway behind
Ayumi. "What?"
"I wonder….. What was it that made Ojiwa-san take Toshiro-kun hostage in the first place?" Ai shaded her eyes as she passed out into the alley behind the two other girls. Rin shrugged. "He saw something he shouldn't have, I guess—wouldn't that be enough?"
Behind her Ai murmured softly "I suppose….. but there should be something more, something that made Ojiwa-san regard Nodomo as a danger, ne? And I can't help but wonder what it is."
The three rushed towards the corner, nearly running head-on into Genta and Mitsuhiko as they came panting around the side of the building. "He's (puff), he's (huff) heading for his car—it's parked down the street—" gasped out the thinner boy; Genta was too winded still to speak, but leaned forward with his hands on his knees and fought for breath.
"Right;" said Rin, her voice tight with tension. "Come on." She started down the sidewalk, short legs moving quickly. Genta groaned in protest but followed along behind the rest as she started across the street towards the coffeeshop---
--- from which her parents and Professor Agasa were emerging in a hurry. Mouri stopped short, an expression of extreme irritation crossing his face and making his moustache bristle. "Ran?!? What the HELL are you doing here?!?"
(Ayumi stopped short at that, looking from Mouri-san to Rin-kun curiously. "'Ran'?" she wondered to herself in confusion. The others paid no attention.)
Eri and the Professor simultaneously opened their mouths to speak, but Rin cut them off with a sharp gesture. "Stop-- let's just pretend we've already had this conversation, okay? You've yelled at me, I've yelled back, and you've agreed to take us all in the car with you so you can chase down Nodomo-san, okay? Great idea, you're totally right, let's get going!!" The other children stared, astounded by her words and the remarkably adult tone of her voice. Ai simply smiled rather wryly to herself.
Mouri and his wife looked at each other, open-mouthed, as Rin watched them both, frowning fiercely. "He's getting away--" She slipped past her father to open the back seat's car-door, sliding across the cushions. "Ayumi, Genta, Mitsuhiko, Ai? Let's go."
As Ai took her place in the vehicle, she looked up at the three adults standing mutely on the sidewalk. "Coming?" she asked sweetly.
Agasa eyed her suspiciously; Eri shook her head in bemusement and sighed. "You're right—we're wasting time. Agasa-san, you ride in the front; Kogoro, get in the back with the kids." The detective sputtered incoherently, but Genta could be heard to mutter softly to Mitsuhiko: "Good; he's skinnier than the Professor. I don't wanna be squished." The freckled boy rolled his eyes and gave his oversized friend a withering glance, but said nothing.
Shoehorned in beside Ai, Mouri-san looked uncomfortably down at the small blonde head beside him, but the small girl said nothing; her attention was focused entirely on the rapidly-disappearing vehicle that was even now pulling away from the curb several hundred feet ahead. "The blue Daihatsu…" she said in a low voice; Eri-san nodded firmly, eyes flashing with eagerness to finally do something as she slipped into the stream of traffic.
Two figures, one tall and one short, stood on the curb, watching the car pull away; the taller waved his arms in desperation. "Dammit!! RAN!!" He turned to his companion, who sighed and looked disappointed. The boy tugged at the older youth's hand; "C'mon, Niisan; let's try again….. Hey—why'd you call her 'Ran', anyway?"
"Ummmmm….. tell you later, okay?" The young man scratched at his head. "It's kind of complicated---"
* * *
It took very little time to figure out Nodomo's destination; they were so close to Beika Elementary School that it was more of a problem staying back from their quarry's view, rather than losing sight of him. The tightly-crammed carfull of hunters drove slowly past as the thin man hurried in through the school's open gates without looking around once.
"Open gates…" murmured Mouri-san thoughtfully, the words coming out slightly breathless from his squashed state; "I wonder why they're open on a weekend?" The car rolled to a halt, bumping the curb.
The answer came ambling around a corner with a broom in one hand; a man in a custodial worker's coverall, his cap pulled low over his dusty brown hair. He glanced disinterestedly at their slowly-moving car—then did a double take, tugging the cap even lower. "That's Hei-san the new janitor—he sweeps the halls and he's really nice! He knows magic tricks; he pulled a five-yen piece out from behind Genta's ear one time…" piped up Ayumi. The detective grunted, fingering his moustache. "Hrmph; let's see if he'll let us in."
The lanky janitor eyed the oddly-assorted party with a sort of dubious amusement as they headed up the sidewalk; "School's closed; better come back later…" he suggested laconically, leaning on his broom. "Konnichiwa, Rin-kun…" All heads swiveled towards the small girl as she smiled weakly up at the man. "Hi, Hei-san; look, we really need to get into the school. It's—it's, um… we—" She stopped, her small face furrowing as she groped for an excuse.
"—it's to do with a case, actually—" said her father smoothly, stepping forward and preparing to lie through his teeth. "We're on official detective business, and—"
A screech of brakes from the street behind them made everyone except for Hei-san jump as a taxi pulled up with Suzuki Sonoko hanging half out the window. "Raaaaan-chan! He took off!!! I watched him—he drove away in a hurry and he looked absolutely WIRED—he acted like a maniac!! and I got a taxi as quick as I could but I lost the jerk, and then I saw your mom's car and—" She halted, her mouth open; it took a moment for the Suzuki Mental Playback to engage, but when it did her eyes widened and she paled. "I—I mean RIN-kun, of course… and that's your oba-san, not your mom….. h-heh; silly me! Guess it's just habit, what with you looking so much like Ran and all….." The young blonde woman's words trailed off and she laughed nervously, cheeks pink.
("Ran-chan??" Ayumi wondered to herself again, her brown eyes troubled. Young mental gears began to turn, slowly, slowly. Genta and Mitsuhiko looked at each other, confused.)
"Never mind that now….. " Rin led her small troop towards the doors to the school, eyes determined; Hei-san followed behind, scratching at his head. "'Official detective business', huh? Can't stand in the way of that, I guess." He held the unlocked door open for the hunting party to pass through, a trace of an ironic grin quirking one corner of his mouth. "Just saw Nodomo-san running through one of the halls like his ass was on fire a minute ago—uhh, sorry 'bout the language, kids, ladies—you looking for him?"
Mouri-san gritted his teeth. "Did you see where he was going?"
The man shrugged. "Looked like his office, I guess. Down that way—" He pointed. The small group headed in the indicated direction, only to be stopped by Eri-san's outstretched arm. "Shoes; manners, everyone." Grumbling, both adults and children took a second to slip their shoes off in the accepted Japanese manner beside the entrance; Ayumi gave Rin a last thoughtful look and volunteered to go and get the students' school-scuffs, trotting down the hall to the left while the rest continued on to Nodomo's office.
Hei-san the Janitor slipped his own workshoes off, hanging them from a loop on his belt; his face was carefully blank, but an eyebrow kept creeping up as he watched one small girl in particular pad down the hall. *Whoa; THOUGHT I had it right, but it's way bizarre to hear it confirmed. Leave it to the Suzuki girl to blurt things out all over the landscape, though….. What the hell have you been doing, Kudo, to get your girlfriend in such a fix?* As he followed the rest down the hall, his faded brown eyes rested on Rin's dark head with a curious mixture of fascination and sympathy. *I'd give a lot to know the story behind this. Who knows? Someday, somehow, maybe….. Everything changes, after all. Even detectives and criminals; even kids and teenagers. If there's anything I've learned, it's that.*
Ayumi returned with her own and her schoolmates' scuffs; continuing on, the party slowed as they approached the one open door in the hall. Mouri held out a cautioning hand; carefully the detective slid along the wall to peer around the doorjamb. Sonoko craned her head around Hei-san's shoulder to see (the Janitor was somewhat alarmed to find himself being used as a shield…)
As it was, it wouldn't have mattered if they had shown up with a full marching band, not with what Nodomo was doing. Crouching over his keyboard, the man was typing: not well, not adeptly—he seemed to favor the three-fingers-and-a-thumb method of someone who came late in life to computers. But his screen cleared, filled with text, showed file and directory and index---
--- and then the drive whirred as data wrote itself onto a disk. He drooped, every ounce of energy seeming to run out like water from his limbs. "Done… all of it, all of it, right here….. finally done." The disk popped out into his sweating hands, and he turned in his swivel chair to regard his watchers without the least indication of surprise. At the sight of his face, the adults—even Haibara Ai—flinched.
Something in the man had broken. Some crucial part of his mind had snapped, and all his attention was now devoted to performing one task, meeting one goal.
"Here." His glazed, bloodshot eyes did not appear to notice anyone in the room save for the children; all of Nodomo-san's attention was fixed on the small group that slowly pushed forward with Rin in the forefront. "Here. You—take this, now."
Her small fingers closed over the disk and her dark eyes looked down at it wonderingly, then back up to his face. The supply clerk had slumped back into his chair the moment the disk had left his hand; his limbs were loose and purposeless, like those of a puppet whose strings have been cut. Eyes closed, he whispered: "It was all for this, you know….. I told him I wanted out and I said—I said I'd tell the police things….. names, dates, how much came in….. That's when Toshiro heard us fighting, and he—he--" The weary voice shattered like brittle glass, the shards rattling down into a rain of jagged fragments. "…..wanted it to just *end*—wanted it to be over, all those kids out there like mine—it was just easy money before, and I didn't, didn't care, but then I—but he wouldn't LISTEN and he wouldn't STOP even when Hedoro-san got caught---" The words trailed off into broken sobs.
Oddly enough it was the name that he mentioned that made Kisaki Eri's eyes widen, made her hiss softly under her breath. Mouri shot her a side glance but she shook her head. "Later…" she murmured. Mouri nodded, dark eyes frowning; his daughter glanced up at him and passed the disk into his keeping without a word.
"Nodomo-san….. Nodomo-san, *listen*--" The little girl knelt before him, one hand gently touching his bowed head; his sobs checked somewhat and he seemed to listen. "Nodomo-san….. our friend Conan—we have to find him before it's too late. Do you have any idea where he might have hidden him--?" The broken man raised his face to meet Rin's desperate eyes with his own; there was very little left besides despair in his gaze, but she did not flinch. "Where, Nodomo-san?"
"Please…..?"
He shook his head back and forth, the broken mechanism of a clockwork toy. "…don't know, don't know….. couldn't even look for my own kid, he'd see me….."
An unexpected voice spoke up then from the hallway, a low, unhurried voice: "Nodomo-san—did your boy hate closed windows?" Sonoko let out a faint squeak.
The very oddity of the question made heads turn to look at the source. Hei-san leaned against his broom, hands clasped across the top of the pole; his brown eyes were shadowed by the brim of his cap, revealing nothing. But Nodomo-san blinked hard at the question, nodding. "He hated being closed in… claustrophobic, and I had to open the windows of his room every night---" For some reason this memory seemed to be the last straw, and the broken man began to weep in earnest.
Rin still knelt before him, eyes dark; slowly she raised one hand to her throat, fumbling with something that hung there. "Nodomo-san….. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry….. This is all I can give you right now for your own problems; I wish—I wish I could do more." A tear splashed down onto her small hand as she steadied the tiny device; her fingers tightened and there was a near-soundless *thwipp!*
Nodomo jerked, one hand going reflexively to his shoulder; the miniscule needle of an anesthetic dart glittered briefly in the overhead lights as he slowly slumped back in his chair. Behind Rin, Haibara Ai gave an approving nod.
"Daddy?" Toshiro started forward towards his father, face crumpling in distress as the crowd in the doorway moved out into the hall. Kudo Shinichi shook his head and held the child back with a hand on his thin shoulder. "Let him sleep, Toshiro-kun; you can't do anything else for him right now."
He looked longingly at Rin's small form as she slowly walked towards the entrance, head bowed in despair. "God, Ran—Rin-kun—you've got to hear me, you've got to see me---" He broke away from his companion, racing up the hallway with silent footfalls to stand to one side of the exit, glaring desperately at the group. One hand reached out to brush ever-so-gently against the rounded cheek of one small, dark-haired girl as she passed him by, walking out towards the sunlight and away… perhaps forever. Shinichi's voice broke as he called out in desperation:
"Rin—RAN—PLEASE— Don't leave me!!"
And she heard him. Rin's head jerked up, turned to the side; her widened dark eyes stared directly up and into his. The girl's mouth opened in shock---
--- and beside her Ayumi gave a startled little-girl scream and leaped back, knocking the two boys half over. "!!!"
"What?? What??" Mouri, Agasa, Eri, Sonoko, Genta and Mitsuhiko froze in their tracks, glaring around wildly in all directions for Ojiwa, anything; Ai shrank against the wall, her hand sliding into her pocket to finger her gun, while Hei-san seemed to fade back into the shadows, eyes suddenly sharp and wary.
Rin stood stock-still; her eyes were enormous. "He—he was here….." Slowly she turned towards Ayumi-chan, who had half-hidden herself between a very puzzled Genta and Mitsuhiko. "You saw him, didn't you? Didn't you?"
Ayumi trembled. "T-there was somebody there….. he, he said don't leave me! I heard him….." Her round young faze grew perplexed and a little afraid; she stared at Rin. "He sounded like— he sounded familiar….." Then her eyes dropped to her feet. "Oh! The scuffs….." Carefully she removed hers, then took the pairs that the others gave her; Rin removed her own very slowly, half-stunned and deep in thought; she did not notice as her friend padded down the hall to return the shoes to their places among the children's shelves.
"Shinichi….." she whispered, eyes beginning to fill with tears of bewilderment; "…why were you—how could you be like—like that? How could you be—"
"—how could you even be here?"
*Oh God, Shinichi, you can't be dea—no, no, NO. I won't think that, I won't I won't I won't I-----*
"Rin-kun??" She turned; Ayumi stood a little ways down the hall, looking wide-eyed and a little pale. The scuffs were still gathered in the crook of one arm, but she was holding up something else in her other hand. And it was Ran who recognized Conan's shoes, not Rin; hadn't she put them up in his closet for him a hundred times or more during the past year?
His shoes.
"He's here, Rin-kun," said Ayumi. "In the school. He's here."
"Shinichi-niisan? Shinichi-niisan? Are you okay?" A worried Toshiro knelt on the ground beside the young detective, who sprawled dizzily against the wall not ten feet from Rin's shocked form. "Y-yeah—just sort of… stunned." He actually felt a whole hell of a lot worse than *stunned*-- he felt like somebody had just dragged him through a hedge backwards.
For the first time that he knew of, somebody was finding out what a headache felt like when you weren't wearing a physical body; basically, it felt like shit. Could you throw up if you were out of your body?
And *now* he felt—what—oh hell no, not NOW-----
From what seemed to be a vast distance away he could hear Toshiro's voice, getting fainter and fainter--- "Shinichi-niisan? You're—oh, you're going AWAY—"
And everything vanished…..
************************************************
Conan jumped; he had dozed off. Soft earth and strands of dry grass crumbled between his fingers as they clenched convulsively on the ground where he sat behind the arcade. He swallowed hard as the familiar dizziness swept over him-----
And everything vanished…..
************************************************
Sick. He felt so sick; cold, shaking just a little, a faint fine trembling that shivered through his body, making his teeth chatter. Fever? Probably. Yeah, fever felt like that. Where---
Oh, right; back in that goddamned box.
So weak, and his head hurt as much as ever. But…..
Now he had a chance. Ran and Ai and Agasa and Sonoko, Mouri and Eri, Ayumi and Genta and Mitsuhiko—and even Hei-san, of all people—
They were all in the building. They were looking for him. And Ran and Ayumi knew he was here! Even if they didn't know where he was, not yet, they knew he was in the school…..
….. somewhere.
Edogawa Conan felt his heart lurch in the first real hope he had felt in what seemed like an eternity.
Now all he had to do was stay conscious…..
************************************************
It was all a little too much. Rin and the kids sat together at one of the tables in the empty cafeteria, unconsciously huddled in a small, short group. Ai sat between them and the adults; some part of Rin's overstressed brain wondered giddily if she should read anything into that.
Giddy was a good word for her right now; she knew that Shinichi was here, somewhere. And somehow—somehow, she knew he was alive, too. She knew it.
Ayumi was looking a little shell-shocked; she wouldn't let go of Conan's shoes but clung to them tightly. Rin supposed that this was all a little hard on the kids, although Genta and Mitsuhiko seemed to be holding up alright. Later on they'd probably have to talk all this out to avoid bad dreams among the kids—she had found herself forgetting lately just how young they really were.
Funny, that; kind of ironic.
Hei-san the Janitor came strolling back towards the table, soda in hand; rather than taking a seat with the adults he leaned against the nearby wall, arms crossed. "Huh… it's a pretty big school. If he's here, though, there's only so many places he could've gone. You said he went missing Friday evening?"
The custodial worker tugged his cap-brim a bit lower, eyes turned inward in thought. "Ummmmm….. lemmee think. There was some sort of Parent-Teacher meeting going on in the assembly rooms; that started pretty early. Most of the school was unlocked, y'know, in case of fire and all that….. Why would he come here, anyway?"
Mouri-san stirred, glancing sideways at his wife; she shrugged. "He was probably checking on one of the teachers or looking for the missing kid—something like that," he said gruffly; he had been watching his daughter closely ever since she had startled him so badly in Nodomo's office with her needle-gun. Where the hell had she gotten such a thing?!?
His eyes darted suspiciously to Professor Agasa, who flushed guiltily; he suspected that a talk with the scientist was long overdue and rather relished the prospect, all things considered.
Mouri Kogoro suddenly found himself nursing grave suspicions regarding his status as "The Famous Sleeping Detective". There would be absolute, utter hell to pay later, if what he suspected was true…..
But first he had to find the goddamned little brat. He could kill Kudo later, once Ran was happy again. Priorities, ne?
"Hei-san?" He turned his head to find his daughter's small, weary figure staring up at the janitor. "Why did you ask Nodomo-san if his son hated closed windows?"
Yeah, that was a good question. He arched a dubious eyebrow at the man; there was something fishy about Hei-san….. something that alerted his internal radar, something he couldn't quite put a finger on.
The janitor scratched at the back of his neck with one work-gloved hand. "Ummmm…. Just some weirdness that's been going on lately around here at night. The windows keep popping open—all of 'em except one, that is." He looked vaguely puzzled. "Damned—um, darned if I can figure out what's happening to make it happen….."
Genta and Mitsuhiko (who had been looking slightly lost up to this point) seized on this eagerly; you couldn't deal with Edogawa Conan for a year without learning something about investigations—always look for the exception. "One doesn't open? Which one?" Mitsuhiko half-fell out of his chair, twisting around so he could see the janitor.
The man frowned, pulling a rather grubby and well-folded piece of paper out of his pocket; he spread it out on the lunchroom table in front of Ai (whom he had been keeping a wary eye on; something about the child gave him the shivers. Of course, there was that little dartgun-pendant that Rin-chan seemed so proficient with—that little toy really made him nervous…..).
"See--? Right there." Hei-san pointed a grubby, gloved finger at a room on the plans; a table-full of people leaned in to view it, and he discreetly stepped back out of the way. "Always ready to help the authorities, yep, that's me….." he muttered to himself with an ironic curl of his lips, but no-one seemed to notice except perhaps Sonoko, who gave him a doubtful look.
Mouri-san grunted. His wife leaned forward, adjusting her glasses and following the diagram with one finger back to where they currently were located. "This is a—what? A storage room for the teachers?" She frowned down at the floorplan as if it were a recalcitrant witness.
Hei-san shrugged. "Yeah—it's used by a real jerk of a teacher, a guy named Ojiwa Ryu. He—"
It was a good thing the Janitor liked a lively audience; the reactions of the party at the table were anything but quiet or restrained at this point, ranging from Mouri Kogoro's vociferous swearing to the shrieks of three excited kids as everyone, everyone suddenly stampeded for the exit in a mass exodus. Only Rin-kun and Ai moved quietly—but they beat the others out the door. Chairs clattered over, falling in disarray.
And Hei-san found himself left suddenly alone, standing with hands on hips in the deserted cafeteria. He cocked his head to one side curiously. "Hm; was it something I said, do you suppose?" he asked the empty room.
Then, grinning to himself (and checking his pockets for his set of lockpicks—he'd have to figure out a way to explain those to Mouri-san, he supposed), he strode out of the room. As he headed down the hall at a good clip, he sang softly to himself lyrics from an old American cartoon series he had once watched. The strongly-accented English echoed faintly in the hall:
"Heeeeere we come to save the daaaaaay-----"
All in all, it was a bit of a pity, though; if he had been watching his surroundings more closely, he might have seen the furtive figure that dodged around a doorway just before he turned the corner. Hateful, narrowed eyes watched him go, and then the figure moved out to slip through the shadowy halls behind him, moving towards Nodomo-san's office.
************************************************
The supply clerk stirred groggily in his chair as consciousness returned, trying to hold on to the peaceful darkness. He didn't want to wake—something bad was waiting for him past the edge of wakefulness, something he had let happen. Something he could not bear….. something about Toshiro…..
Toshiro. It all came flooding back to him then.
Empty; he felt so….. and there was nothing, nothing left for him in this world because he had let it happen. His son was dead because he had let it happen, had let it all happen-----
But it wouldn't keep happening—he had given the disk to that little girl, the one with the knowing eyes. The angel's eyes. She would keep it from continuing, would stop the poison and make sure nobody else died. She would---
A door opened. His office door? Had the angel come back for him?
No, not the angel; the worst of devils, holding cold, metallic death in his hands and pointing it straight at him. Nodomo felt laughter struggling up from somewhere inside him, and he knew that if he started to laugh he would never stop.
That was fine—maybe laughter would fill the emptiness. He began to laugh, watching the death quiver in the devil's hands as it strained to launch itself at him. "You're too late—I gave her the disk" he gasped between his laughter, seeing the devil's eyes blaze in hatred down at him. "I did….. and it's too late for you….."
The devil's lips drew back, showing his teeth. "No…" he hissed, fingers tightening. "It's too late for you."
There was a sound, hard and final, and Nodomo's laughter stopped forever.
************************************************
*hurry, hurry, hurry*
The words pounded in Rin's brain like drumbeats as her small feet carried her through the halls--
*hurry, hurry, hurry*
-- Ai was running with her too, and she could hear the clamor and noise of her parents and Sonoko, of Agasa and the kids coming up swiftly behind--
*hurry, hurry, hurry*
--and they were there, skidding to a stop: STORAGE-3B. Just a normal door, with a small transom window above it. A closed transom window. Rin panted, stumbling to lean against the wall as she recognized the stain beside her hand. Conan had gotten that paint-chip from it, the one with the bloodstains….. The transformed young woman heard Ai's breath catch in her throat as she took in the sight of the damaged plaster; it looked… It hardly looked like something more than a week old, in fact it almost looked like it was—
Ai moved forward, staring transfixed as Mouri and the rest came clattering up behind. The young scientist with the caramel-colored hair reached out with small fingers to brush them lightly across the stain… and then jerked back, staring at her dampened and discolored fingertips.
"Fresh…" she whispered, shaking her head. "How can it be fresh?" Behind her Professor Agasa muttered something beneath his breath, placing one hand on her shoulder.
It didn't matter. Rin threw herself at the door, small fists pounding. "Shinichi? Conan? Conan!!"
************************************************
He could hear her. Conan could hear her. Through the waves of dizziness that came and went, the frantic door-muffled voice was the sweetest thing he had ever heard, and his heart jolted unnervingly in his chest at the sound. *Ran. Rin. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here! Hurry!*
************************************************
Large hands reached past as her father twisted the doorknob; it held. The detective growled in annoyance, his breath coming a little fast after the short run down the halls; moving his daughter aside carefully, he planted a shoulder against the door and shoved—and drew back and body-slammed it hard—and tried again—and again------- The hallway reverberated with his efforts. Halting for a moment, Mouri Kogoro paused to massage his shoulder before drawing back for another try—
"Don't bother; it's a steel door." He spun about angrily.
Hei-san the janitor leaned nonchalantly against the opposite wall, hands in pockets; he gave them all a slightly crooked grin, remarking casually "I might have something that'd help here; matter of fact, I've been wanting to do this all week." Grumbling, the detective moved to one side; Rin hung back, trembling as the custodian knelt before the door and pulled out a slim packet of tools.
Behind them both Eri-san's gaze sharpened as she took in the ease and familiarity with which the janitor handled the lockpicks; Professor Agasa gave a scientist's 'hrmph' of appreciation, but she had seen lockpick sets like that presented as evidence in court cases before…..
"Do you do this sort of thing a lot in your line of work, Hei-san?" she asked casually as he delicately ran the rake-pick across the lock's pins. "Oh, you'd be surprised—it's not unusual for me to run across doors that just won't open any other way; all part of the job, I guess…" The janitor's voice trailed off, a trace of humor tinting it very faintly. Mouri-san eyed him with misgivings, but said nothing; Hei-san allowed a small grin to slip through his concentration, then gave a grunt of triumph as the last pin clicked aside.
"There we go—" and he yanked the door open; it pulled free with an audible schuff of a tight seal being released. "Now we can--- God, what the hell's that smell?!?" He stumbled back, a hand over his face.
It gusted forth, vile and sickening, and Mouri-san coughed as he pulled his sleeve over his face. "Get the kids back out of the way, Eri," he commanded in a voice that would brook no opposition. She shuddered, gathering Genta, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi against her and pulling them away to the jointure of the two hallways. Ayumi looked up at her, troubled without knowing why; "But… but I want to see if Conan's there too, Eri-san! Why can't we—"
"Shhh….." hushed the woman, her eyes fixed on the open door; "Let them work. It's okay, just stay here and be still, hmm?" Beside her the two boys traded worried glances.
It was a wary Mouri Kogoro and Hei-san the Janitor that edged carefully into the room; the custodial worker slid his arm along the wall, looking for a light-switch; but when he clicked it, there was no result. "Bulb must be out," he muttered. The open crate towards the back of the room drew their immediate attention, and they approached it with trepidation; the smell…..
Mouri-san had been a cop; he knew what that smell came from, and he dreaded finding it. He struggled to climb over the boxes, cabinets, mounds of books, old science equipment… It occurred to him vaguely that that Hei guy seemed to be letting him do all the work and he scowled, motioning the janitor into the room with a thumb. The thin man shrugged briefly and began to clamber across a pile of old cabinets. He moved with remarkable flexibility for a janitor, didn't he? The detective wondered briefly about that, and about the lockpicks…. *Hrmph; second-story man, maybe? Got a part-time job, Hei-san?*
But later for that. He had reached the box; hating the necessity (and God, how he wished he didn't have to do this!) Mouri-san pulled hard at the askew lid with his free hand, his sleeve clamped even harder over his nose---
There was just enough light coming in through the door to tell him that what he had found was not Conan. Mouri Kogoro closed his eyes briefly in a thankfulness that he would later refuse to think too hard about.
Right beside him he heard a choked-back sound, half of sickness and half of relief. "It—it's not him. Not Conan." And he opened his eyes to see his daughter's white, shivering face as she slid back from where she had peered into the crate, her eyes enormous above the hand she had clasped across her own nose and mouth. "Ran? Get out of here!"
She didn't even bother to answer him. When the hell had she become so stubborn? He looked wildly around the room; now where was that damned boy?
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….. dark, and he thought he had maybe gone under again. He hated that.
Noise? What was that noise? Clattering and shifting, boxes moving and grunts of effort….. and a well-known voice cursing half below his breath: "—Goddamned brat better be here somewhere… swear I'm gonna knock him into next Thursday for putting me to all this trouble-- Hei-san, you see anything over there? Ran, get out of here! You're just going to trip over something and get hurt and Eri'll have my skin for it—"
"No."
Oh, God, that beautiful, stubborn, single little word----- Conan struggled to cry out, tried to cough, to gasp, to do ANYTHING, make any damned noise…..
….. and nothing came out. His throat was just too swollen. Fine, there was one thing he could still do, small confined space or not. Gathering his strength for a moment while his prospective rescuers shuffled boxes and stumbled on the other side of the room, he drew back his short legs---
--- and kicked as hard as he could: BOOOOM!
Immediate silence filled the room as everyone paused.
*Goal* thought Kudo Shinichi faintly as hands tore away at the boxes blocking the drawer that he lay trapped in.
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And this is what the others heard and saw:
First there was Rin's shriek, followed by Mouri's exclamation and the flurry and thud of things being moved; a rasping, sliding sound, metal on metal, and a little girl's wordless outcry as her world snapped back into place.
The watchers would remember later that it was Mouri-san who had come out of the room first, carrying the small figure that he had wrapped in his jacket; the gruff man hefted the boy's limp form with a curious gentleness totally out of context with his usual behavior, and his smudged and dusty face was actually filled with a grim smile.
And Ran… Rin… was right there.
She clung to her father's side, her eyes fixed on the young, pale face of the half-conscious boy cradled in her father's arms. The intensity of relief that lit her face from within had no place on a little girl's countenance, and neither did the way she reached out to stroke the boy's cheek with one shaking finger as the detective gently laid him on the ground.
A single small hand slid up to wrap weak fingers around hers as dark blue eyes attempted dizzily to focus on her face; Mouri's own eyes narrowed, noticing the fixed and uneven pupils and the abraded throat of his erstwhile charge. "Concussion—and look at his throat. He couldn't have called out for help even if he'd been in a place where he would've been heard….."
At that, the boy stirred a little, gasping as he tried to form words; nothing, though, no sound at all. "Conan-kun?" whispered Rin, her hands stroking his face, brushing the hair back from his forehead…..
His dazed eyes tried to meet hers, tried desperately hard to impress something on her, something important; through a blur of tears she thought she understood the words that his lips were trying to form-----
"'Open… the—window?'" said Rin hesitantly; behind her she heard a pop and the creak of hinges, and she turned her head.
Hei-san the Janitor stepped down from the box he had climed up on, dusting his hands. "There," he said with satisfaction, as dust sifted down from the long-unopened window.
Time seemed to slow, to pause; a strange, tense silence fell. Then…. Then, it was as if a breeze had blown through STORAGE-3B without the slightest iota of air moving—stillness in motion, a fresh clarity that swept the fugue of vileness and decay away for the barest of moments as something…..
….. something left. And Conan's face relaxed as he smiled faintly, his lips moving once again to shape two more words:
Abayo, Toshiro-kun.
He sighed, closing his eyes and turning his face to press one cheek against Rin's palm.
* * *
Beyond the small group at the doorway, three kids cheered and hopped up and down beside Eri, who was wishing desperately that she had a third hand to hold them back.
A little ways away Haibara Ai sighed, tension slipping from the narrow shoulders and leaving her slumped against the Professor with relief. It only lasted a moment, that brief weakness—almost immediately she drew herself up as the familiar calm mask slid down over her face—but Agasa noted her expression for posterity's sake and smiled just a little to himself.
Thus occupied, he might have been excused for not seeing the blur of activity that suddenly happened just beyond his right shoulder---
---as Kisaki Eri suddenly cried out in alarm, as the shrieks of two little boys and one little girl blended with the violent sound of a gunshot-----
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TO BE CONCLUDEDYSABET'S NOTES: Okay, the downhill stretch. This section was humongous, but I just couldn't bring myself to break it up. Reviews, flames, and whatever will be gratefully accepted….. and if anybody feels like drawing a pic of the bit where Rin finally sees Shinichi in the hall, I will be forever grateful, because I dreamed that bit up after WAY too little sleep and I want to see if a pic matches my dream. Silly, ne? But so it goes. Ummm, Majik? Are you reading this? If I beg a lot, could you pleeeeeeeeeease draw it? I mean, if you want to….. I absolutely LOVED your pics that you drew for Becky Tailweaver….. XD
