Disclaimer: I don't own DCMK

Sky Colored Eyes

17: But it Pours

Kaito's umbrella had been built for one, so it was no surprise to Shinichi that it wasn't working all that well despite how close he and Kaito were huddled behind it. Yes, behind it, not beneath it. The wind had risen to the howling point. It caught up the fat, icy drops of rain pouring from the sky and hurled them through the streets in almost horizontal lines. Because of that, the two teenagers were forging their way down the sidewalk behind the open umbrella like it was a shield. They were still getting wet, but at least it wasn't as wet as they would have been had they been taking the sheets of water head on. Much more of a problem than the rapidly increasing sogginess of their clothes was the low visibility. The air was currently more water than oxygen and the street ahead would have been white as a waterfall if it weren't black with nightfall.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Shinichi asked. He had to repeat himself in a shout. Despite that, the wind ripped his words away almost before they could leave his lips, and he really didn't know if Kaito could hear him. He could barely hear himself.

But it seemed Kaito had good ears as he ducked his head to shout a reply into Shinichi's ear. "We should be there soon. Watch your step!" His words too were whipped away like so much dust on the wind, but not before the detective could make them out.

Deciding that all he could do was trust the magician's word, Shinichi hunched further into his jacket and let Kaito direct their steps as he tried to breathe without inhaling liquid. He just hoped they didn't get themselves run over before they reached the hospital. On the bright side, Hasagawa-san would be facing the same conditions they were.

By the time the hospital doors loomed out of the storm, they were utterly soaked. Their shoes squelched as they walked into the lobby, leaving a trail of puddles in their wake. The two people sitting in the mostly deserted lobby looked at them askance, but the boys ignored them.

"Can I help you?" the man at the desk asked, his eyes darting over each of them in turn before his brows furrowed as he couldn't see any obvious injuries or signs of illness.

"We were hoping we could see Hasagawa Ren," said Shinichi, trying to will his clothes to stop dripping.

"I'm sorry, but visiting hours are over."

"Has a woman come by to visit her since she was checked in?"

The man frowned. "I wouldn't know. I only just started my shift." His expression grew suspicious. "Why do you ask?"

"We think she might be in danger."

The frown returned, deeper this time. "Hasagawa… You're not talking about that poor child who fell down the stairs, are you?"

"Hasagawa Ren, yes. We're her classmates."

"Ah, so that's it." The man's face softened. "It's good that you're worried about a classmate, but what happened was an unfortunate accident. You don't have to worry about her."

Shinichi blinked. "Oh, no, that's not what I—"

"Thanks for your patience," Kaito cut in, taking Shinichi by the arm. "We'll be back tomorrow."

"Be careful out there. It's really starting to pour."

As Kaito pulled him away, Shinichi hissed, "Why didn't you let me explain?"

"The guy obviously doesn't recognize you," Kaito whispered back. "It'd be too much trouble to have to explain everything and convince him we're not nuts. I got her room number. We'll just go around."

"Around?" Shinichi repeated. "But—"

The rest of his words vanished into the storm as the hospital doors opened before them once more.

Kaito led him around the corner of the building. Shinichi could sense more than see the hospital parking lot opening up to their left. It was an empty, black sea broken only by the occasional hulk of a parked car. The magician slowed his pace, keeping close to the wall where the force of the storm was weaker. Every few steps he would pause and look up. He appeared to be counting the muted glow of the windows above their heads.

"How do you know which window it is?" Shinichi yelled, not bothering to look around for passing ears. After all, Kaito was standing right next to him, and he still had doubts as to whether the magician would hear him.

"I was here for a day a few years ago," Kaito bellowed back. "I was bored, so I memorized the building's floor plans." He cast another look skyward then stopped. "Here we are."

Shinichi flinched at the sudden flash of metal in the magician's hands. Then he took a closer look.

It was a grappling hook.

He stared. "Why in the world do you have that?"

"To help me get around, duh. The second and third floor rooms have balconies. They're narrow, but we should be able to use them to get up. We're lucky she's on the third floor. It'd be a pain to climb any higher in this weather."

"Wait." Shinichi caught Kaito's arm before he could make use of the grappling hook. "This is crazy. We're going to break out necks."

"I assure you, I keep all my equipment very well maintained."

"That's not the point," Shinichi protested, wondering why the magician didn't seem to understand this.

"You can stay in the lobby if you want."

The detective hesitated then sighed (not that anyone could hear him). "No, I want to go. Just—be careful."

"I always am. Stand back."

Shinichi did as instructed and waited. He could detect the flurry of motion through the curtains of rain but little more than that. All he knew was that a few minutes later Kaito was leaning into his ear again to tell him the rope was ready.

The magician climbed up first, disappearing into the darkness over Shinichi's head with the ease of long practice. The detective followed more slowly. His fears about slippery rope were somewhat appeased when he touched it. Whatever the rope was made of or had been treated with, it offered a good grip even when wet. Climbing, however, was still slow going, and he was pretty sure it was only the knowledge that a life might be in danger that kept him moving even after his hands had gone numb from the cold. It seemed an eternity later when his questing fingers finally found the balcony railing. Kaito was there immediately, helping pull him up and onto safer ground.

Shivering, Shinichi tucked his hands under his arms in an attempt to warm them as he waited for Kaito to pull up the rope and get it secured to the next balcony. Around them the raindrops shimmered faintly in the miasmic glow seeping out of the room behind them. The curtains were closed so they couldn't be seen from inside, but just enough light was escaping to make the night marginally less black.

"Time to move on," Kaito announced, giving the rope a sharp tug to make sure it would hold.

The second half of the climb was even more grueling than the first. Shinichi's arms protested at the unfamiliar form of exertion and his palms felt raw from gripping the rope for dear life. At the same time the numbness from the cold was spreading from his extremities throughout the rest of his body. Soon he wouldn't be able to feel anything at all. It was not a comforting thought. When he finally scrambled over the next railing, he slumped against the wall by the balcony doors, relief sharpening the weariness in his limbs.

Kaito frowned at the detective, his thoughts flashing back to that night in the alley when he'd seen the boy collapse. "Are you all right?" he whispered, crouching down beside the detective and touching him lightly on the shoulder.

Shinichi nodded quickly and pulled himself back into an upright position. "I'm fine. Can you get us inside?"

The magician wasn't convinced, but he shelved his concern in favor of more urgent matters. "Can I?" he quipped, wagging an admonishing finger under the smaller boy's nose. "Who do you think you're talking to here? Of course I can!" He was rewarded with a weak but genuine smile. Good. "Just sit back and watch the master work."

"I'll send Hakuba-san a message and let him know that he and Nakamori-san should wait in the lobby when they get here," Shinichi replied. Turning his back to the wind, he bent over his phone, protecting it from the weather as best he could while cold fingers fumbled with the keypad. It took three times as long to type the message as it normally would have. By the time he'd pressed 'send', Kaito was already inching the door open.

The magician pressed his ear to the crack, listening intently. Then he waved for Shinichi to join him.

"Someone's talking in there," he said quietly.

Shinichi joined him, listening intently. There was no light seeping out of this room, but Kaito was right. There was a voice speaking on the other side of the curtain. It was a woman's voice just barely audible over the howl of the wind.

"Is that Hasagawa-san?" asked Shinichi.

"I don't know. I've never met her so I don't know what she sounds like."

They fell silent, trying to decipher the words being spoken.

"…really isn't fair, you know," the woman was saying. There was almost no inflection in her voice, and yet something about it sounded odd. Strained. "I wish…I wish things had been different. But I guess there isn't any point in wishing, is there? Wishing can't change anything… I…I am sorry. But you see, he—he lost so much, so many chances, so many dreams… I—I can't… I can't let him feel like I've replaced him, you know. You understand, don't you?"

"That's her all right," Kaito muttered. "So what do you want to do about it?"

Shinichi frowned. "It…sounds like she might just be apologizing. I'm not—" he started to stay before he cut himself off. He'd almost missed it because of the pounding rain all around them, but he was sure he could hear the rush of running water. Straightening abruptly (almost cracking the top of his head on Kaito's chin), he yanked the balcony door all the way open and threw the curtains aside.

"Hasagawa-san!"

Inside, a gaunt woman stood frozen, eyes wide as she turned her face towards them. She was standing at the sink, holding something pale and limp under the faucet. For a fraction of an instant no one moved. Then the first bolt of lightning to appear that night ripped the sky in half and thunder rolled over the city.

Snapping out of her daze, the woman dropped whatever it was she had been holding, turned, and bolted out the hospital room door.

"Wait! Hasagawa-san!" Cold and fatigue forgotten, Shinichi ran after her.

Cursing, Kaito took a second to shut the balcony door before dashing after Shinichi.

Doctors and nurses cried out in shock and confusion as the three wet strangers crashed through the hospital hallways. They pelted right past the elevators and down the stairs. One flight then two passed in a blur of steps beneath feet that barely seemed to touch them. Then they were racing through the lobby, and Shinichi heard the receptionist they'd spoken to earlier shout after them, but he didn't catch the words as he was already out the door again.

Ahead of him, the fleeing woman was showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. He tried calling out to her again, but if she heard him she didn't react. He had no idea if she even knew where she was going or if she was only running because he was behind her, but he couldn't worry about that right now. If he wasted any energy on pointless thoughts he was going to lose sight of his quarry, and in this weather he'd never find her again.

The force of the rain had lessened, but the storm showed no signs of breaking. Another streak of lightning burned across the black sky, throwing everything into sharp relief before the darkness rushed back thicker than ever. That flash, however, had been enough for Shinichi to see that the street they were racing down headed out across a bridge. And there, caught for a moment out of time, was the thin figure of the Hasagawa woman throwing itself into the river.

Horrified, he dove after her. Stretching out his arm, he just barely managed to snag the back of the woman's dress. He made a wild grab for the railing with his other hand and caught it. For a moment, he thought it was going to be okay. But the metal of the rails had turned slick with the rain and he couldn't get a purchase on it. The next thing he knew, the water was closing over them, fast and cold and strong.

Fighting to hold his breath, he managed to shift his grip from Hasagawa's dress to her arm before he struck out against the current, hoping and praying that he was headed towards open air because his lungs weren't going to hold out much longer.

X

"Kuroba!"

"Kaito!"

The magician cursed inwardly as he spotted the two familiar faces coming through the door. He would have just barged past them, but Aoko caught his arm.

"What's going—"

"Damnit, get out of my way!" he snapped, frustration making the words emerge almost in a snarl. He freed his arm with a practiced twist and elbowed past the shocked duo, breaking out into a flat out run.

Aoko stared after him, her mouth slightly agape in shock. Kaito had never spoken to her like that before. Nor could she remember ever seeing him looking so… She wasn't entirely sure how to describe it. It wasn't that Kaito never got angry or upset, it was just that Aoko had always felt as though, behind it all, he was still thinking everything through carefully and deciding how best to perform his reactions. She'd chalked it up to him being such a showman. So to see him lose his cool like that (so…honestly)—it was just weird.

Saguru didn't seem to have noticed though. He only cast an annoyed frown after the departed magician and moved to ask the gaping receptionist what had happened.

Aoko gave the closed doors and the rain-wet winds beyond one last look before joining him. She fished out her cell phone and dialed the number for the police while she listened to the receptionist's garbled explanations. This was the second time in less than twenty four hours that her fingers were pressing these numbers. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she wondered if this day would ever end.

X

On one hand, the rain had thinned enough that Kaito could see where he was going. On the other hand, his run-in with Aoko and the idiot, though brief, had delayed him so that he now had to struggle to keep his quarry within sight. The sporadic bursts of lightning were only a marginal help.

His internal map told him that they were headed straight for the river. Despite that, he felt a certain pang of surprise when he saw the bridge ahead. That surprise crystallized into something sharp and cold when the next lightning strike lit up the two figures falling. One was the Hasagawa woman. The other was Shinichi. How the detective had ended up in that position, the magician hadn't seen and really didn't care right now. What he did care about was that the river had swollen with the rain and the current would be strong.

He had to move fast. There was no time for unnecessary thoughts.

He ran through the facts he had to work with in his mind with the speed of someone to whom improvisation was a finely honed survival skill. Fact one, jumping into the river would be a bad idea. Fact two, running to the spot where the two had fallen in would result in him arriving after the two were long gone. Fact three, if he turned here and took a few shortcuts, he would be able to meet the river at a point considerably downstream from here where there was another bridge. Fact four, he still had several lengths of water-resistant rope, an assortment of other tools, and his own in-depth knowledge of a wide variety of knots.

Okay. A sharp, shark's grin spread across his face. He would have to work fast. Failure was not an option. Shinichi was going to owe him a whopping big favor by the end of the night, but that was a matter for a different time.

X

How long had they been in the water? Shinichi had no idea. It felt like hours, but it was probably only minutes. They weren't going to last hours.

Striking out with his free arm and kicking with his legs, he was just barely managing to keep them bobbing at the surface. Well, calling it 'at the surface' might have been a bit optimistic. Every now and then, his head would break the surface, and he'd take a gasping breath of cold, night air before the water closed over him again. He was fighting not only against the current and Hasagawa's limp weight, but also against time and his own growing fatigue. He had no idea if the woman was still conscious or even if she was still breathing, but he couldn't afford to worry about it. He had to find a way to get them out of here.

Each time his head broke the surface, he squinted through the darkness, searching frantically for anything they might be able to grab onto or signs of someone to whom they could call for help. If only he could get them to the shore…

With another burst of effort, he resurfaced again. Odd. He couldn't feel the rain anymore, but he could still hear the storm. Another bridge? That could mean people.

"Help!" he called out, getting a mouthful of river water in the process. He choked, flailing to stay afloat as he started coughing.

"Shinichi!"

That was weird. Had he just heard his name?

The thought had just barely had time to register in his mind when a human hand caught the arm he'd been using to try and claw his way out of the water. A moment later his whole body jerked to a stop. The current was still running past them, pulling his body and feet in the downstream direction, but he wasn't actually going with it anymore. Confused, he shook his head to clear the water from his eyes and looked up.

"Kaito?" he gasped, not entirely sure what he was seeing. It was Kaito—floating? No, of course not. Now that he was looking, he could see the shadow of ropes that had been woven together into a kind of makeshift ladder with additional harness hoops…? He opened his mouth to ask about it, but he was already being hauled up and out of the river. A moment later one of the rope harnesses was tied securely around him and he was left to dangle as Kaito took the arm Shinichi had been hanging onto and pulled Hasagawa out of the river too. She was then wrapped in a second harness.

Climbing about the rope contraption like a monkey (or maybe a spider), Kaito took Hasagawa's harness and began securing it to the back of his own.

"I'm not sure she's breathing," he said by way of explanation to Shinichi. "I need to get her up on flat ground to see if I can help. Hope my CPR's not rusty. You just hang tight and wait until I come back for you."

Shinichi could only cough and nod. Kaito disappeared upward, presumably onto the main roadway of the bridge. Shinichi stared down at the dark waters still rushing past just below his feet. He'd been in there just moments ago. It had felt like another world in another time. Now that the struggle had ended, he felt a bit dazed.

"Shinichi."

Forcing tired muscles to work, Shinichi turned his head to find that Kaito had returned. "Kaito? How is Hasagawa-san?"

"She'll be fine. I got the water out of her, the rest is up to her."

Shinichi let out a sigh of relief. "That's good." There was a long moment of silence. When it began to grow uncomfortable, Shinichi shifted in his harness. "Um, can you…help me up too?"

"In time," Kaito replied, his tone calm, almost cold. It sent an uneasy shiver down Shinichi's already cold spine. "First, tell me, were you trying to get yourself killed?"

"What? No," Shinichi replied, startled by the accusation. "I was just trying to stop Hasagawa-san from drowning."

"By drowning yourself? Brilliant, Detective, you deserve a prize for that one."

"I didn't mean for it to end up like this," Shinichi protested, feeling strangely as though he had to defend himself and maybe a little hurt by the magician's scathing tone. "I just—"

"Never mind, it's not important," Kaito cut him off. "Come on, let's get back to solid ground."

Stunned, Shinichi remained silent as Kaito helped him up over the side of the bridge and onto the rain-wet street. They found that Hasagawa had woken up. She was sitting with her back against the rails and her knees pulled up to her chest. Her eyes were blank as they stared straight ahead of her at nothing. She didn't respond to their voices or a hand waved in front of her face. In the end, they left her alone and called for the police.

Hasagawa-san was taken back into custody, but this time she was carted to a special room in the hospital where she would be under guard. The officers had found a wet towel under the running faucet in Ren's room. No one was entirely sure if her stepmother had intended to help or harm with it, but most of them were inclined to think the latter. They had called for a psychiatrist to come and speak with her, but the doctor in question wouldn't be back for another few days.

"And so we're back to square one," Kaito drawled as, once again, he, Aoko, Hakuba, and Shinichi left the hospital building.

"This was a long day," Aoko sighed. "I just want to go home." She didn't want to have to think about any of this anymore. At least not until morning.

"We did learn one thing though," Shinichi murmured, huddled under his wet jacket and the equally soaked scarf Kaito had loaned him long before the commotion. "They've all lost."

"What are you talking about?" Hakuba asked. "Who lost?"

Shinichi gazed blankly at the street ahead before giving his head a slow shake. "I…it's nothing. Just an idea. But I…can't think right now."

"We're all tired," Aoko said diplomatically. "I say we all go home and get a good night's sleep. Or what's left of a good night's sleep for us anyway."

General murmurs of agreement drifted over their heads. Not much more was said after that.

TBC

A.N: Hello, I'm back! ^_^ I hope you all had a great holiday. Happy New Year!