-Author's nonsense-
Yay! School! And painting classes! Mouahahaha! No longer do I need to fend off boredom!
In other words, my next chapter/story might be a while :c) depending on inspiration… Good thing about school is, if I ain't too tired, it sparks my inspired rebellious grey cells every now and then. We shall see what comes of it… :cD
As for this story, I think we are approaching an (evil) climax 9.9
...
And, oh my god, they've done it again, they've stripped that weirdnumber symbol now ;.; Oh well Y.Y (snif)
-End of blab.-
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Chapter 9: The search.
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Rona stopped in her steps. Her ugly face turned her glassy-eyed gaze towards the park.
'What now?' thought Vermouth.
It took the other three some time to notice that the girls had stopped walking. When they did, they stopped too, looking back at them. What were they waiting for?
Suddenly, the gerudo witch darted into the park. The men, realizing she might be attempting to run away, ran back to chase after her. Vermouth joined in half-heartedly. This was not how she had planned to spend the day…
When they arrived earlier at the place where Kid had stolen the lion's ruby from, Gin had asked her to disguise herself and rapidly get some inside information. The deprived owner of the ruby was a jeweller who, accessorily, traded precious stones. There had been a rumour that the jeweller was going to acquire the other two gems: the Centaur and Mermaid rubies. The rumour was true, and he had been expecting to get his hands on them that very morning… Alas, the dealer had still not showed up. Vermouth left behind a few bugging devices, in case the delivery took place later, and went back out. She then lead the group in the direction Kid had been seen departing in. The direction was sadly way too vague, and they ended up walking aimlessly, until they reached Beika Park.
The three black Org' members stared at Rona. She had stopped and was now on her hands and knees, searching in some patch of grass. Not far from her were the remnants of what looked like a small twig campfire.
Ganondorf stepped forth.
« What is the meaning of this, Rona? » His voice was low and full of menace.
The witch combed the grass a small moment longer. The black org operators were dreadfully conscious of the strange looks passer byes were giving the ugly gerudo female.
« Aha! » Rona victoriously held up a trampled blade of grass. Ganon glared meaningfully at her. She scowled.
« This… » she said, pointing at the shred of greenery, « stinks of raw Magic. »
Vermouth wrinkled her nose. There was definitely something that stank in the vicinity, but to her it smelt more like a dump. She wanted to move on fast.
« So? » said Gin. He seemed to have been thinking along the same lines.
Rona sighed.
« This here, » she said again, « will lead us to one of the three rupees. »
Ganon, understanding what this meant, grinned evilly.
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« So… »
« So? »
« So what now? »
Conan looked up at Kuroba. Kuroba smiled. Conan glared.
« I don't know! » The small boy said.
« You don't? » Kuroba chirped, a bit too gleefully. Conan grumbled.
Why did he have to have Kuroba in his group? Sure, the teenager was friendly enough, but he had this knack for annoying Conan tremendously.
First he called him squirt, second, he was shadowing him a shade too close and quietly, and most of all third…
Seeing that Conan wasn't talking to him anymore, Kuroba made a flower appear out of nowhere and graciously offered it to Ran.
If looks could kill, Conan would have murdered the young magician.
« Kurobaa! »
The teenage boy's face seemed to freeze. He slowly turned to look at where the voice had come from.
« Ko-… Koizumi! What are you doing here? I thought you were with the Professor, Genta and that other old guy… »
Conan noticed the stutter, slightly amused. Akako Koizumi beamed.
« I thought it would be more fun if I came to join you guys. » She caught Ran's shoulder and winked. Was that a twinkle of malice in her eye? « Right Ran? »
Ran smiled. « Why not? »
Kuroba stared dumbly at Ran. Akako smirked, and Conan snickered.
« Yay! I want miss Koizumi to join us too! » He cried.
Koizumi patted him on the head. « That's so sweet of you! »
Now it was Kuroba's turn to give Conan a death glare.
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Now to make things a bit clearer, it might be a good idea to define where everyone was, and in which groups they were…
Both the Orc and Tsuki were in the 'I'm on my own-group', being separated by quite a fair amount of ground and plenty of walls… Of course, one might argue that Tsuki wasn't on his own, but with Ihara's ghost. That would really depend on what your opinion concerning the existence of such things was.
Gin and Vodka didn't believe in ghosts. Vermouth wouldn't say, but if she did believe in them, she did a good job of keeping it a secret.
The three organisation members were now following Rona and Ganon. For some reason, they were being followed by some dreadful stench. Vodka had a terrible feeling it had something to do with his shivers. The others had a dreadful hunch it had something to do with Vodka… So they decided to split up into groups, asking Rona to give them a 'make-shift magic compass' for each. They forcefully decided to meet up in the Park at sunset.
During this time, Genta, who was paired up with Agasa and Rauru, kept looking around to see where pretty miss Koizumi had gone, while the two older men gossi'-… er, talked.
We, naturally, already know where Koizumi Akako was. We know she was with Kaito, Conan and Ran.
The others did not know this.
Mitsuhiko, who was with Glink and Impa, assumed she was still in Genta's group. This was also assumed by Haibara, who was with Saria and Zelda, although she didn't really care which group the dark haired beauty was in.
Ayumi's group included herself, Ruthan, and Link. They had totally forgotten about Koizumi…
They were talking enthusiastically about what they saw, Ayumi thrilled at playing 'Tour Guide of Beika district'.
Of course, all five groups were on the look-out for Tsuki Ichigo… Well, more or less-…
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Tsuki Ichigo stared over the wall at the three individuals. Two children, one young adult. Tsuki was intrigued. He was staring with particular interest at the young adult's ears…
They were pointy.
He hadn't thought of this before. Now that he was reminded of it, he was absolutely certain Ihara's killer had pointy ears too…
Before that night, Tsuki had never seen anyone with pointy ears like that… Except perhaps on TV shows, in movies or on Anime Convention Cosplayers; not that he saw much of those, and they certainly weren't as convincing.
It was then that he noticed another thing. One of the children was waving around with a paper in their hand. He squinted at it. It was a photo of someone he recognized. It was a photo of Himself.
« I see… » he whispered. « They are already looking for me. »
He grinned in an inane fashion, tightly gripping his fingers around the contents of his right pocket. His blood rushed noisily through his veins, his ears rang from the growing louder beat of his heart.
In his madman's brain, a plan was taking form. In his sleep deprived state, the plan seemed absolutely perfect.
He would not see the daring of it, nor the danger, let alone the insanity.
Chuckling, he went back to where the three were unlikely to see him. With a stumble then a stride, he went to put his wonderful plan in action, muttering excitedly to Ihara's smirking shadow.
The young adult with pointy ears looked up just a moment too late at the wall. The young man's crystal blue eyes seemed puzzled. He was certain he had heard a voice coming from over there…
« What's wrong, Link? » asked Ruthan, noticing the blond's distracted air. Ayumi too had stopped chattering to look up at him, Tsuki's paper picture flapping in her hands.
« Oh, nothing, » he answered, and forced himself to smile. « Nothing at all. Hey, where do you think we should look next, Ayumi? »
Reassured, the young girl pointed towards their next destination, apparently a tall glass box with a small grey one inside it. On their way, she and Ruthan made a big show of looking in all the most improbable corners. They were smiling and laughing, as if they hadn't a worry in the world.
Link's sixth sense though, was screaming. His hands itched for a weapon or a shield, anything to defend himself with. Something bad was coming, he could feel it.
His eyes were no longer searching for a stringy and oily looking man, they scanned the surroundings for potential weapons and enemies.
He tried to tell himself he was being silly, they didn't have monsters in Japan. How he wished his sixth sense was wrong…
Because if it was right, the lack of hordes of monsters announced one heck of a mighty Boss.
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