Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan.
The Truth about Lies
A voice told her to let go of her cold outer shell, and expose herself, because it was only the quiet, harmless Mouri Ran that could stand any chance of survival against these two at the moment. She obliged gladly. She couldn't fight ice with ice, and these people possessed chilled hearts. Her eyes sought comfort on the stagnant, moonlit ground. A soft, reminiscing smile touched her lips and her words were wreathed in a serenity that made them all the more powerful.
"I have said that and I do claim that, because I miss him." She raised her eyes to meet Gin's. Cold, cold eyes betraying no emotion. She wasn't anything like him, so why should she pretend to be?
"You were there the day he disappeared, so naturally when you called, I linked you to his disappearance. I guess . . . I guess I was right in doing so. Haven't you ever loved someone so much you can't bear to live your life without that person? You probably haven't, and you won't live until you have. Everyone said that he was dead, but I wouldn't accept it . . . because I know Shinichi. I've known him for so, so long . . . I could never give him up. Never forget him."
What was she doing? She had never really told anyone that she had secretly loved him, except for Conan, and that was because he was so innocent that she knew she could trust him. She never even told Sonoko, her closest girl friend, but Sonoko had guessed and Ran couldn't change the truth. (Nor do I want to, she realized then.) So why was she telling all these preciously guarded, personal feelings to someone who happened to be pointing a gun at her? She didn't know, but sometimes, more and more recently than ever before, she didn't know herself. All she knew was that she had to keep on talking. That way, at least she could stay alive.
"I couldn't bear the thought of him not being in my life, only in my memory. I didn't want to think about not being able to love him because he was dead. I didn't want to think about my days, my future, without him when I've been with him for so long, so precious long. I didn't care if he was famous back then, and I don't care now. He was Shinichi, my best friend, my Shinichi, so special to me that I couldn't ever think of him as gone. He's haunted my days, and I know now that that is all I can ever hope for."
She sighed, wiped at a fake tear she realized was real, and continued, "So congratulations. Now you know something I've wanted to keep hidden forever. I made up my little fantasy and I've lived in it. Lived in it so much that it's become truth, my truth, and a truth I've led you to believe."
The silence that filled the alley, the lights of Tokyo bit straight at her heart. She took a deep breath, filled with all of the tears she had shed over him, filled with all of the untold wishes she had poured into the stars ever since realizing how much she missed him, and waited. She had become incredibly good at waiting.
The other one spoke for the first time, shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. "Gin…"
Gin? So that was his name. She smiled. Knowing one's name made one seem a lot less indestructible. And Gin's chilling eyes didn't seem half as forbidding, the absence of his malicious smile half as terrifying.
The gun dropped to his side. Finally, he said, "Very touching, Mouri-san. Very touching."
Her hands clenched themselves before it even crossed her mind to feel relieved. No, they weren't going to let her go that easily. Not when—
"But you know that we have something to do with Kudo Shinichi's disappearance, unfortunately for you. And if you know that much, you've already known too much."
The gun was raised again, its barrel directed above her defiant eyes.
"It was a pleasure talking to you, Mouri Ran."
The adrenaline rush was intolerable, but it helped her out of the paralyzed fear the gun had put her in. She ducked a split second before the bullet whizzed past her head, the herald of a messy death making an irremovable dent onto the brick wall behind her. Before the expressionless glass of Gin's eyes could even have a chance to transform into shock, she had punched him in the stomach, panic and anger all rolled into one inside her fists. Then his eyes could do nothing but look shocked. She slid her leg under his feet, tripping him like she did most of the crooks she was put up against.
However, adrenaline could do nothing as Vodka drew a knife from its hiding place at his ankle and, in one swift motion, pinned Ran by the neck to the wall, the knife raised above her.
"You're gonna pay for that, you little b –"
He was cut off as he dropped the knife, and the hand that had taken hold of her neck went to his other wrist. He screamed in pain, and Ran realized for the first time that the hand was broken. It was then she noticed the case sprawled open on the floor near the fallen knife, its contents – several pills and something that looked like a flashlight – scattered across the floor.
Then she saw the newcomer who was responsible for this, breathing shallowly, an expression of anger mixed with regret etched over his face, deep within his eyes. It was Shinichi. She sucked in air, trying not to believe her eyes, but realizing that no matter how much she tried, she would have to believe them. Because even if she was afraid that what she saw was not true, she knew she had wanted to see what she saw infinitely more. Her mouth opened to speak, and her lips moved to form words, but her voice failed to carry her message.
All she could manage was silence, silence not unlike the ones she had endured all those cold, sleepless nights, wondering if the sky was nearer to her than he was. She bit her lip and decided that no matter how long it would take, this would have to wait. Something more urgent, although never more important, had to be done. Turned back to the man attired in black before her, and back to the matter at hand.
At first she had just thought Vodka had dropped the knife by accident – the case Shinichi had kicked had come so quickly she didn't even see it. She had been too busy staring at the knife, wondering when he would bring it down to make contact with her skin.
She wasted two seconds staring at her savior before realizing that, although his hand was hurt, Vodka's threat to both their lives was not in the least bit disturbed. A high kick to his shoulders followed by a trip like the one she had dished out to Gin, and Vodka collapsed on the floor just like Gin had been. Gin. Ran dug her knee into Vodka's spine, grabbed his right arm by the wrist, twisted it, and pinned it behind his back, not noticing the other black figure picking up the gun he had dropped and getting up, the other hand to his stomach.
Ran sensed something wasn't quite right, and turned to see Gin aiming the gun at her, the corners of his lips curving upward in an essence of that hateful smile. She sucked in her breath. The last dodge from the bullet was unbelievably lucky. She couldn't count on her karate skills this time. This time, it would be inevitable.
Gin grinned fully this time, savoring her fear. Then he shifted the gun from Ran to Shinichi.
"You're supposed to be dead," muttered Vodka, picking himself painfully from the ground.
"Exactly," from Gin. "You're supposed to be dead."
Neither Shinichi nor Ran said anything in reply.
"Explain why you're still here."
She swore she could hear the sneer of the notch as Gin's finger tightened on it after seconds of silence that lasted days. "Please. For your own good. Because the more you say, the more time you have left to live. And from my experience, most people want more time left to live, however desperate and pathetic those last minutes may be."
She heard a sigh, and then the words.
"There are a lot of things I've missed out on . . . lots of things." He snuck an eloquent glance at Ran, and something told her that although he spoke upon Gin's prompt, those words were for her. "I know you sure didn't mean for what happened to happen. I also know what you did want to happen – I've seen the things you do. And things like that… it's the things like that that have given me my calling. Something I still haven't exactly given up despite the . . . predicaments I used to have."
"Shinichi . . . " she whispered, feeling the familiar tingle beneath her eyes again. His form blurred before her and she had to blink several times to free the tears.
"Ever since, I've tried . . . to know more about you, to get a sample of the drug so that maybe there was a way to find a counter-drug. But nothing worked. I had few people to turn to, few people to confide in. I couldn't even confide in Ran, for fear that I might put her in danger. And I didn't want to think of it as being because of me. For all the trouble that caused . . . I guess it did nothing to protect her. Instead, all it did for her was make her suffer."
"But it was worth it," she said softly, so softly that even her oppressors didn't seem to hear. But Shinichi turned to her, and she raised her eyes to meet his questioning ones, her soft smile being all the explanation she could give him at the moment.
He seemed to understand that, and turned back to Gin. "She's just as good an actress as my mother. I heard what she said. About making it up, pretending about the phone calls. The only reason I didn't knock the gun out of your hand the first time, Gin, was because you fired too soon for me to react. It's only bad luck for you that she managed to dodge it. Now you know that was a lie. Kudo Shinichi isn't dead. And until you came along, Edogawa Conan had no place in this world. But you came. And that's all I've got to say."
Gin's grin resounded itself on his lips. "Good. Tell you what: I've decided I won't shoot you. Yet."
The other three raised their heads in alarm, and none of the expressions appeared hopeful in the least. That was to be expected on the first, and the other two were too smart to know what kind of intentions this world was filled with.
"What you've said intrigues me greatly, Detective. Enough so that I think it's worth reporting. And since I'm feeling nice today - " Shinichi couldn't help but snort at the probability of that " - I'll take you along with me. Besides, it's always easier to believe something when I've got proof – you should know that. And what better proof of a transformation than exactly that, in front of an audience?"
He was going to use the apo-toxin on Shinichi again, and there was no way of transforming back. Shinichi swore under his breath but followed Vodka's lead out of the alley. He could almost feel the eye of the gun boring a hole on their backs, as if that empty eye held a menace that possessed its own, cold-metal danger.
They trudged a block in almost-resigned lifelessness. Almost, but not quite. Shinichi slowly counted the steps. By now, Gin would've let his guard down just a smidgeon, and he had a feeling that, wherever they were taking them, they still had a long way to go unless he had any say in it. His eyes wandered over to Ran. Her blue-purple eyes rose from the ground to his, and in the second that the look passed between them, she realized what he intended to do. A nod, with a grin as indistinct to match, and she dropped to her knees onto the cold pavement, sending Gin, who had guarded her as closely as he had Shinichi with the gun, stumbling over her and sprawling to the ground.
Shinichi tackled him, grabbing the wrist that still clutched the gun ever-so-tightly in an attempt to arrest it. Ran picked herself up and grabbed Vodka by the wrist, twisting it so it made her captive cry out, and pinning it high on his back. With that, she forced him to kneel onto the pavement, Ran digging her knee onto his spine in a way she knew was painful. Shinichi was having no such success with the more sinister of the twoCrap, I so should've taken karate with Ran when I had the chance, he thought, trying to wrestle the gun from Gin. Even if the blonde terror was lying on the ground, facing the pavement, all those years with a gun were earning their keep at the moment. Gin squeezed the notch one more time, grinning at the beloved sound of the bullet bursting out of the barrel.
A wisp of smoke erupted from the cloth of Shinichi's left shoulder, but that was all. The second that Gin's index finger had hooked onto the notch was the same one that his strength gave out in a final, stillborn wish. Shinichi grabbed the gun and got up, nodding at Ran, who abated the pain on Vodka's arm and stepped back. Vodka actually found himself thankful that now there was only a gun pointed at him instead of the expertise of well-practiced muscle, especially Ran's. Gin's eyes narrowed in hatred at Shinichi, as if promising to not it end like this. But that was an empty promise. Behind those narrowed, icy eyes, he knew it was too late.
"Edogawa Conan had no place…" repeated Ran in a whisper, bringing up what he had said. "Shinichi - "
He cut her off, knowing what she was going to ask, and knowing that she already knew the answer to her question. But he answered anyway, because she had asked to be consoled. "I'm Edogawa Conan."
This time, she ignored the objections of her reason, believing instead in her faith in someone who stood for the truth. After all, a small part of her heart had been whispering the exact same thing ever since Shinichi had left her life to make room for Conan all those months ago.