hey guys. I'm back. Have a new chapter. I'm so tired. I'll edit this later, haha.
Chapter 2: Would You Fight For Me?
The buzzing in the back of his mind focused him, sharpening his vision and hearing to the point where the city flowing beneath him was startlingly clear in perfect, vibrant clarity. The scent of burning asphalt and smoke was thick in his lungs, only a slight hint of the more recognizable human scent he was familiar with remaining. The ordinary odors of the city were nearly entirely lost beneath the overwhelming stench of ash and burning.
Saguru gripped the line connecting him to the jet all the tighter, alarms blaring within his head. The endless instinctual whisper of warning, warning, warning was nearly nauseating.
The massive, burning creature that was carving its way further into the city was well beyond his pay grade, and his danger sense made sure he knew it, blaring like sirens reverberating through his skull. Adrenaline was already coursing through his veins, but there was little he could do but shift his gaze around, searching for wayward citizens. Evidently, Shinichi's evacuation broadcast had been effective, and the area in closest proximity to the monster was entirely abandoned, and the blocks further out were quickly emptying, panicked and apprehensive citizens fleeing away from the mobile volcano bearing down upon them.
Heliopause swept up alongside him, mouth turned in a ferocious scowl. "We need a way to stop that thing. If it keeps moving, it'll reach the higher population areas."
If such a huge, heat-radiating threat entered into the actual population dense areas of Tokyo, it would be a complete disaster. In a way, the emergence of this freak from the sparsely inhabited warehouse district had been a blessing.
"Considering its current pace, it'll reach the center of Tokyo in the hour. We have to stop it here, but where is it going? What's it after?" He wondered aloud, wishing for a way to deduce such answers. Unfortunately, psychoanalysis was rather difficult when the subject was obviously more disaster than human, and somehow he doubted he would be able investigate this particular crime scene all that thoroughly at a later time.
Maybe Shinichi's footage could be useful when it eventually came to that, but for now, he needed to focus on the battle ahead.
As if Hattori knew that his mind had raced too far ahead, Hattori snarled. "Like that matters right now!" Furious and reckless as ever, Hattori was streaking away in a blur of black towards the foe an instant later, light pulsating from his form. The blazing abomination took notice of the incoming assailant immediately, with whatever eyes or senses it apparently had, and turned its attention away from the fleeing helicopters buzzing in the air above. With a great, laborious movement, it hefted up an arm and launched another meteorite-like projectile, straight into the hotheaded hero's flight path. With barely even a pause, Hattori launched his own attack right back, yellow energy enveloping his hands and bursting forward. The force of the energy strike scattered the molten rock into dust, and Hattori shot right on through.
"Take this, ya overgrown campfire!" He roared, a second blast erupting from his hands and into the creature's head—or at least what seemed to be its head. The whole figure shuddered backwards but did not collapse, and instead surged forward anew, with a ferocious, earth-shaking shriek.
It swung its blazing arms forward, straight at its assailant, who had clearly moved in far too close. Hattori was his hit hard with was essentially equated to a falling mountain, and was shot backwards like bullet amidst dust and rubble into the surrounding cityscape.
"Oh hell no!" Someone shouted, a ghostly figure sweeping alongside the side of monstrosity while it was distracted. From her mouth burst forth a terrible, sharp, ear-piercing scream that made even the far-off Saguru shudder and hastily activate the noise cancelling function of the comms in his ears. His super-senses did not mix well with Banshee's own abilities; thankfully, Prof. Sun had invented a sort of cancellation device to prevent Saguru from being deafened by his own teammate. The monster had no such support, and flinched backwards with a horrible moan, aborting its attack to attempt to cover what would be its ears if it had a more humanoid form.
"Now, Tsuyu!" Saguru yelled into his communicator. "We need you now!"
"I need more time!" The girl responded, strain making her voice tight over the line. Inwardly, he cursed, they didn't have more time! If they had been more prepared for...whatever this was from the start, this battle and the ensuing chaos would long be over already. The Overseers had warned them of an impending attack on Tokyo, but not even their best informants could seem to pinpoint exactly what kind of threat was about to strike, or where, or how, or who was responsible. They knew nothing specifically, the few clairvoyants in the organization had been unable to discern anything, but technically, since they did have a warning of sorts, they had time to prep. Which meant, failure was unacceptable.
But this wasn't within the parameters of any of their expectations.
Still, they could do this. Or rather, they had to.
"Angel, can you take that thing head-on?" Saguru asked, and Ran's melodious voice came echoing back to him over the hum of the comm.
"For a couple minutes, maybe!"
The monster had recovered from Kazuha's sonic screams, but so had Hattori, having peeled himself from the crumbled skyscraper wall that he'd been smashed into like a swatted fly. Ran was now flitting around alongside the Osakan hero, who was smoking with power and fury, and together they wound around the fiery strikes the disaster rained down. While they managed to avoid being struck while showering their own attacks upon it, the wild waving of the inferno's arms and the small comets that shot from it were tearing apart the surrounding city. A single strike crushed sturdy, stout building as if they were made of plastic building blocks rather than stone and metal.
This couldn't go on; just the damage alone was intolerable.
And he had left Shinichi on one of those buildings.
A rush of fear rushed down his back, compounding the ringing in his head. "It's destroying everything! You have to stop it!" He barked at the other two, feeling helpless. He could pilot the jet, armed with missiles and turrets, but there was too much of a risk of those striking their surroundings instead of the enemy if he dared shoot them. And that was a debilitating lawsuit waiting to happen. And they had all seen what that thing had done to the helicopter.
Equally frustrated, Hattori snapped right back. "Easier said than done!" But he shot forwards anyway, streaking up underneath the beast's arm as it descended upon a building that was, for the moment, still standing. Rippling with power so bright Saguru had to look away, he caught the arm plummeting down upon him head on.
It was a completely, utterly idiotic plan, considering Hattori didn't have any sort of super strength. Thankfully, Ran, who did, was there to back him up. They made a good team against such an opponent, both solar fueled but with different results. Ran absorbed sunlight and became a sort of battery, and the energy granted her super-strength, flight, and near-invulnerability. She was an absolute powerhouse, capable of sending opponents twenty times her size flying half a block with a single punch. But the heat radiating off the creature would be a problem even for her, sapping her energy as her powers struggled to keep her from burning right up.
Hattori, on the other hand, being an absolute hothead, only grew stronger from contact with the blazing inferno. He burned hotter than almost everything, all the power of a dwarf star packed underneath his skin, and practically altering him into living plasma carefully contained in human form. He even had his own gravity, and was so dense that he could take even the harshest of hits without injury.
But though they could take the monster's blows, and bat it around right back, they had no way to actually stop the thing. Together, Ran physically shoving, and Hattori firing magnesium-bright plasma blasts in a constant stream above his head, they managed to turn back the monster's arm, sending the whole inferno toppling backwards.
Idiots.
The sixty-story tall and tons heavy creature came down like a lava-hot rockslide, crashing back on the street with a force that shook the whole city. Its waving arms smashed two stout buildings on the way down, reducing them to mounds of melted rubble and bubbling concrete.
Saguru told them to stop further destruction of the city, so of course they went and caused some more. Why not? Instead of pointing out their mistake, he focused on what could be done right then and left tearing them apart to later. "Banshee, keep it down!" At his order, Kazuha came bouncing back into the battle, pin-balling between half-collapsed buildings and rippling with gathered energy.
"Ya got it!" She chirped back, before taking a very deep breath. Knowing what was coming next, he reactivated the noise cancelers in his ears, just before she let out a long, deafening wail.
Again the city shuddered, but this time with the force of her prolonged sonic scream, and the downed monster screamed right back, like an erupting volcano, all noise, ash, and collapsing rock, as it writhed in pain.
When her wail broke off, out of breath, the fallen creature seemed to slump in relief. A sharp intake was the only warning it got before the torture resumed, another horrible screech bursting from her lungs.
"Alright, I'm almost there!" Aoko's voice came through over the comm, tight but determined. In an instant, all three of the heroes pulled away from their opponent, shooting further up in the air. "Here is comes!"
First, they heard the roar of a torrential downpour or rumbling waterfall. Then, like a tsunami thundering across the coast, a great mass of water burst onto the street from the East. Black, brown and crested with white, the wall of seawater crashed over the giant blaze in a flurry of steam and swirling waves. In the center of the chaotic surf rose a figure in blue and white, her soaking wet hair clinging to her neck and face as her hands cut through the air like a maestro conducting.
At Aoko's direction, the water swirled and swelled up, spinning viciously around the stunned fire colossus, until the waterspout stood over two hundred meters high and a quarter as wide. The vortex entrapped the howling monster, an entire river's worth of water pouring down upon its searing hot form, as steam billowed upwards into the forming Cumulonimbus cloud above. But the condensation funnel did not abate. Its mistress may have been straining to control so much water with precision, but she was determined all the same.
Aoko was that kind of person; once she set her mind on something, she would pursue it with everything she had and then some. Stubborn to a fault and as unstoppable as the tide, she created a disaster of her own right in the downtown streets, having forcibly carried the water kilometers to this point entirely by herself.
It was an impressive feat; one she had never performed before. Most days she only manipulated a couple gallons of water that she had to carry with her, or pulled from pipes or fountains. At most, on a particularly crazy day, she wielded enough to fill a pool, but this, this was definitely the furthest she had ever pushed her powers.
They all could only stare as the inferno was slowly extinguished inside the tornado of water, leaving behind a charred black giant. As the water descended down, so did what remained of the monster, crumbling in on itself like charcoal in an ash pit.
It was over.
And Aoko collapsed boneless to the ground, chest heaving with rasping breaths.
"Tsuyu!" Ran yelled, panicked, as she shot towards the other heroine, who laughed weakly over the comm.
"I'm okay. Just—" She gasped for breath between each word. "Just exhausted."
He couldn't blame her, but there was one problem with that.
She didn't have the energy to control the water anymore.
The waterspout, which had been slowly slackening under her direction, suddenly broke down, pouring down in a torrential rain of filthy water. Ran shot forward and snatched Aoko off the street before the flood hit, washing over their collapsed foe with the force and mass of a broken dam. Whatever remained of the giant dissolved into sludge as tainted seawater rushed down and through the streets, over the rubble and filling the buildings that had managed to remain standing.
To be frank, it was a disgusting mess. The water damage alone would take weeks to repair.
And most of that water, and the monster it had defeated, would gradually flow right into the sewage system. Saguru couldn't even guess what sort of contaminates were in it, but certainly they were bad enough to considered an ecological disaster of their own right.
With a sigh, he directed the jet back to the building where he had left a certain reporter. It was still standing, and surprisingly, Shinichi was still there, watching his approach with keen eyes and armed with a camera and microphone.
Oh god. He should just turn the jet around and run, but no doubt would Shinichi write a particularly scalding editorial about that if he did.
So he took a deep breath and prepared himself to face an onslaught of questions that would probably be sharper and more piercing than arrows.
At least the other had done as he said and had remained there—no, wait he hadn't. There was a distinct sheen of sweat on Shinichi's brow and a flush in his cheeks. Shinichi had been busy, buzzing around the area for the best action shots, evidently, and only returned here to for a chance to put Saguru on trial.
Great. Just great.
"That was quite the spectacle," Shinichi said blandly as Saguru dropped down on to the roof. He was looking distinctly unimpressed, but Saguru knew that that was more his resting face than anything else; or rather, Shinichi Kudo spent his entire life rather unimpressed and unenthused by the people around him.
"These things tends to be flashy." Saguru tried to say dismissively, but it came out flat. Shinichi gave him a baleful look, and lowered the camera.
Saguru struggled to not openly slump in relief.
No, wait—Shinichi turned on his heel and went over to the big shoulder bag he left with that morning, pulling out pieces of a tripod.
"Care for an interview?" Shinichi smirked, and Saguru wanted to balk and back out, but held his ground instead. They had done this countless times before, Saguru would never forget the first time: when he was twelve and an amateur and really shouldn't have left his boss's side as often as he did, and found himself cornered by his own boss's sharp-eyed son. The aftermath of that graceless interview would have been far more disastrous had Shinichi been a more reputable reporter at the time, instead of a kid with too many resources at his fingertips.
Instead, he flashed a smile of his own, forcing up the confident air he wore when on a case. God, he would take a good mystery over this right now. "Apologies, but I really must decline." He tried to make the denial sound as casual as possible, as if he wasn't that intimidated little kid anymore.
Shinichi sighed through his nose and set up the tripod with quick, practiced movements. Thankfully, his bright eyes were turned away, back to the desolated cityscape.
For a moment, Saguru counted himself lucky that Shinichi didn't push the issue.
He should have known better. Because when he looked behind him, he saw Hattori blazing towards them like a particularly vibrant rocket.
Great. Just what he needed right now.
Hattori touched down on the roof, completely ignoring Saguru's not-so-subtle gestures to beat it. He was still blazing, his form burning so hot it warped the air so it rippled like cloth.
"Yo, Kudo! Saw ya take a dive there! Ya alright?" Hattori asked, cementing himself as an epitome of sensitivity, and still ignoring Saguru entirely.
"Just fine, thanks to Angel," Shinichi replied, taking the comment with his usual grace, meaning Hattori got a look so scalding it made plasma blasts seem cold. "Seems like one of you can do something right, at least."
Saguru nearly groaned aloud, because he knew exactly where this was going, and Hattori pulled back, shoulders shooting up defensively. "That's that supposed to mean? We beat the monster, didn't we?" The issue with hotheads, Saguru felt, was that they were predictable. They were easy to lead, because they reacted to things emotionally before critical thinking could catch up to them. And Hattori Heiji, for all his intelligence, was first and foremost an absolute hothead.
Shinichi clicked his camera into place on the tripod, and cut in, "and leveled two blocks, flooded at least five streets, and no doubt washed away any and all evidence of what that thing was and what it was after." Hattori seethed at the words, but Saguru had to admit that there was a good point there. It would be difficult to retrieve whatever remained of the hellish creature, considering even the initial sludge had been swept away in the torrential downpour. The Overseers probably would want samples for testing, and Saguru was going to have to look his seniors in the eyes and tell them to check the sewers.
"Come on, we stopped that thing! Without us, that thing would have stomped all over Tokyo!"
"Oh really? It seems like about seven minutes into the battle, Angel and you knocked over the monster and caused an immense amount of property damage, particularly to the Higo Foods storage facility. How do you intend to apologize to the building's owners and the people who worked there?" Of course Shinichi hadn't missed that. Shinichi didn't miss anything.
"Hey now, we were savin' the city! The beast would have destroyed it on its own anyway!" It didn't take a detective to tell that Hattori's temper was mounting. The air around them even turned notably warmer.
Shinichi, though, didn't even sweat in the face of an angry human solar flare. It took more than a couple degrees to melt this iceberg, apparently. "Maybe, but there were at least seven other strategies you could have pursued to avoid the additional destruction. Why didn't—"
"We had to do something!"
"Tell that to the people." And there it was. The trap snapped shut, and Hattori was hooked. And Saguru was way too exhausted to stop it.
"Fine! I will! Turn that thing on right now!" Hattori shouted, pointing at the camera, which Shinichi quickly flicked on with a satisfied smirk. Shinichi held out the microphone to Hattori, who tried to reel himself back in before he ended up growling at thousands of viewers.
"Heliopause here to tell y'all that the city is safe." He started, first, before pausing to cough. Saguru made the note to have everybody check their lungs once they returned to base. They all probably inhaled their fair share of smoke. "Downtown got a bit messed up, and we're real sorry about the damages. We're sorry the facility got crushed, but we did what we had to do to save everybody's lives. Everybody can work together to handle the aftermath after, but in battle, we had to take that thing down before it could hurt anybody else!" Hattori turned towards him. Don't do it, don't do it—"Right, Hawk?" And the idiot did it.
Shinichi turned the camera and microphone Saguru's way, only the slight turning of his lips giving away his amusement.
Saguru coughed as well, to cover his dismay. He could tell they were both laughing at him.
"Yes, that it correct." He said into the microphone, carefully looking into the camera's lens. "The Overseers with release an official statement at a later time, but for now I can say this: Tokyo is once again safe for its populace. We, the Irregulars, are here to protect the people." It was a good, neutral statement. Years of practice at work.
Satisfied, Shinichi pulled back the microphone and turned towards the camera himself. "Thank you very much, gentlemen. This is Kudo Shinichi with an exclusive interview with the Irregulars, stay tuned for a complete report on today's catastrophe."
It took Hattori a solid fifteen seconds to catch up and realize what happened, before he stumbled out of the camera's view, dragging Saguru with him. "Damn. He tricked me again, didn't he?"
Saguru took a page out of Shinichi's book and didn't ever dignify that with a response. "Just get in the damn jet."
There really was nothing else to say.
They returned to base together, all slumped in their designated seats in the jet. It had been a tiresome battle for most, but Saguru was fine: he'd spent almost the entire time rescuing civilians who had gotten caught up in the wreckage. Even as the jet pulled into the base's hangar, he was still buzzing with unspent energy.
The Night Baron was waiting for them in the hangar, face hidden behind the perpetually grinning white mask. It was impossible to guess at his mood, but knew that would be true whether the mask was on or off: Yuusaku was a man that thrived on leaving people wondering.
"Mission complete, sir," Saguru said, as the rest of the team filed out of the plane at a snail's pace, obviously exhausted. They lined up before the boss, barely managing to stand at attention. Aoko kept tilting to one side, barely keeping on her feet, and Hattori was visibly slouching, a dazed look about him. Ran and Kazuha were comparatively more energetic, but that didn't mean much when the competition were practically dead on their feet.
The Baron gave them each a long look, before reaching up and slipping off the mask, revealing an easy smile. "Good work. I'm glad to see you all back uninjured." For such a high-stakes battle, they had come off easy this time. Only Ran and Hattori had taken a hit, and thanks to their advanced durability, the most they had suffered were a couple bruises and burns. If any of the rest of them had gotten hit by the burning-hot monster, they'd probably be dead.
"Yessir. No damage to the jet either." Saguru pointed out.
Yuusaku nodded, looking pleased, though Saguru couldn't even hazard a guess at whether he was genuine or not. "Good, good. Alright, full debrief in the conference room in thirty minutes. Take a rest and get something to drink, alright?"
The team notably relaxed at those words, happily stumbling off to go collapse on whatever couch or comfortable-enough looking surface they could each find. Saguru knew better to relax, the easier Yuusaku went on them directly after a mission, the harder he'd be on them a little later. Before any of them could get to far, he called after them sternly, "and I want everyone to remember to visit the med room for a lung check!"
A chorus of affirmative grunts were thrown back at him, and Saguru and Yuusaku watched them go with measuring eyes. As soon as the rest of the team was gone from sight, Yuusaku turned Saguru's way with a more grave expression.
"Initial report?"
"It was a messy battle. Hattori and Ran—" Yuusaku raised an eyebrow. "I mean, Heliopause and Angel made some rash decisions in the middle of battle, but for the most part handled themselves well against a foe over a hundred times their size. Still, Heliopause's temper and his showing off detracted from his contribution, and Angel still has a tendency to act first, think later." Personally, Saguru felt they had done well, on such limited time, information, and manpower. Teams of their size and age weren't usually capable of taking such disaster-level threats head-on. But he couldn't let pride blind him to their faults. "Banshee did well incapacitating the opponent at the right times, but still needs to remember to warn me before she screams. Tsuyu did remarkably well, considering her inexperience, but not well enough. She couldn't hold it together until the very end. We need to work on her endurance."
Yuusaku nodded, before giving Saguru a scrutinizing look. "And you?"
"Need to show better blow-by-blow leadership. If I was more quick to call the shots, almost everything I just said could have been avoided." Often, in the middle of battle, his senses got so keyed up that he wasted time absorbing it all. As a result, he tended to default back to silently observing his enemies, a habit long ingrained from acting as the Night Baron's sidekick, instead of directing his team.
It was an honest self-critique, one that seemed to satisfy Yuusaku. There was even a slight smile pulling at his mentor's lips, which did make Saguru feel better about the day's events. "Alright. Take a break, and then come back with the others. We'll talk about the rest then."
The conference room was Spartan in design and ominous in its size. Large, expansive, but mostly empty, it had harsh lights and walls lined with monitors, and single, long silver table around which they sat in hard chairs. In the front of the room was one large screen, big enough to span nearly from wall to wall.
It was also the least liked room in the entire base, but Yuusaku, for some reason, seemed fond of it. And Saguru had not doubt that Shinichi would love the spacious, minimalistic practicality, not to mention the tech: hell, maybe that was why Yuusaku liked it.
For the most part, the mission debriefing went as usual, with each member of the team taking a turn to outline his or her contributions and reflections. For the most part they all had a good grasp on their own strengths and weaknesses, and well, Hattori and Kazuha were all too eager to point out each other's flaws. Breaking up that resulting argument had been a chore and a half.
And then Yuusaku, instead of taking the floor and critiquing them to hell and back, picked up a remote and pressed a single button.
Before them, the room-spanning screen lit up, revealing the familiar image of Shinichi, armed with a microphone, standing before a crumbling cityscape. One of his webcasted breaking news reports, and going by the time stamp at the top, the footage was as recent as an hour ago.
On camera, Shinichi's eyes were piercing, and his voice strong and clear. "Damages are currently estimated to be in the millions, if not billions." In the top right corner, a box displayed footage of the extensive damage dealt to the roads downtown. It was hard to imagine that the rubble on screen had been the same buildings they had seen standing earlier just hours before. "How this event will affect the upcoming elections, particularly the Vigilante and Crime Insurance policy debates, has yet to be seen. Without a doubt, we can expect this battle to be discussed by both fronts of the Proposition 38 debate, as well." The footage shown then changed to a scene Saguru remembered much more vividly: a great black jet hovering in the air above the city, and a trio of figures flitting about the molten golem. The angles kept shifting to display different clips of the fight, and part of Saguru wanted to groan in exasperation. Shinichi must have been hopping from building to building throughout the catastrophe; probably using the very same grappling hook Saguru had gave him. And, he couldn't help but notice the shots centered on the white-pink blur that was Angel more often than not.
Shinichi, continuing his report, didn't seem sheepish about it at all. "The sponsor of the Irregulars, the Night Baron, and the International Hero Society, aka the Overseers, have yet to release statements on the actions taken today." As a group, the five of them turned to look at Yuusaku, who was watching his son's report with an easy smile. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
"Several apartment buildings were caught in the crossfire here today, leaving an estimated three thousand people without homes. The Disaster Recovery Charity has set up temporary shelters for the victims in the Shiodome Arena and the Marin's Coffee Convention Center. The destruction of countless other buildings has left many others without jobs or support. The Sumida River's water level has also dropped several centimeters due to the actions of Tsuyu, the most recent addition to the Irregulars." Next to him, Aoko shifted uncomfortably, as the footage changed to show her, a small figure clad in blue, and the great wave of black-grey water rushing behind her. There was something stunning about the shot of her in the midst of battle, wielding actual tons of water with precision and overwhelming power. She didn't look like an amateur or a newbie: she looked like a full-fledged superhero.
Shinichi's voice, unwavering and neutral, went on. "The water will likely have to undergo extensive decontamination and purification, and even afterwards, it is unlikely that it will be returned to its original water source. The ecological ramifications of this are as of yet unknown." As the report went on, each teenager began to gradually slump in their seats, abashed. Damage reports were always demoralizing, but this one was particularly rough.
"Alright, I think that's enough." Ran said, muting the sound. On screen, the report continued on, Shinichi's mouth opening and closing soundlessly, as they all turned to look at her. "I think we've all got a good idea of what we did good and bad this time."
"Excellent catch with my son. Not so excellent catch with the Higo Foods facility." Yuusaku summed up, perfectly. Ran and Hattori shifted uncomfortably, but Saguru was sure that they could turn the frustration and shame into something productive. "Aoko-kun, you did very good work today. Very impressive. However, when using such a risky tactic, you have to follow through. Either do it right, or don't do it at all." It was harsh, but Saguru couldn't disagree with the reprimand. When heroes took risks and failed, people who might not have been in the line of fire at all got hurt. As interfering parties, they were responsible for the consequences of their every action.
Aoko flushed, unused to the attention. Saguru gave her his best encouraging smile, which she returned weakly.
"Still, all in all, a much better show than the previous mission." Collectively, they all winced. Saguru didn't want to even think of their disastrous attempt at catching Kaitou KID. He still hadn't figured out just how the thief had jacked the jet, let alone managed to weasel through the state of the art electronic security system that assaulted even the Taskforce and the Irregulars themselves. It hadn't just been humiliating, but the jewels had yet to be returned. Considering KID's returns were usually almost immediate, he had probably pocketed this most recent haul for good.
Which turned Saguru's mind to the other matter that he'd been mulling over.
When the dismissal was given, the others were quick to make their separate getaways. Saguru, though, hung back once again, which didn't seem to surprise Yuusaku at all. Casually, his mentor settled down as the table, steepling his fingers together.
"Shall we go over the heist again?" He asked, but Saguru shook his head.
"That won't be necessary, sir. But it is related to what I wish to speak with you about."
Yusaku pressed his lips together. It was a telling expression, one that suggested that he'd been expecting this, but not looking forward to it. "Alright, what is it?"
"Kaitou KID's identity, sir."
Saguru's mentor took a long breath through his nose. Those were the words he probably heard more often than he'd like. "We can't do anything without proof, Saguru-kun. Unless we catch him in the act, it's out of our hands. You know the Overseers' regulations are very tight." Too tight, Saguru sometimes felt. He'd been raised to be respectful of rules and the law, but like any self-respecting teenager, Saguru had his own issues with authority.
But that wasn't the point, not now. "I understand that, sir. But it's important that the team at least know."
"Ah, this is about Aoko-kun." And there it was: the elephant in the room.
"Yes. Aoko-kun still doesn't acknowledge it." Saguru had suggested it to her more times than he could count. Casually, directly, cryptically: he'd tried every method he could think of to open Aoko's eyes to the truth. But something like pure-hearted faith, or maybe just denial, had made getting through to her practically impossible.
"She doesn't believe that her long time friend is a wanted criminal without evidence. It's understandable." Understandable wasn't necessarily the word Saguru would use.
"Yes," he agreed anyway. "That's why I ask that you tell her it's the truth. She might not believe it coming from me, but…" Saguru trailed off, letting the request stand for itself. Yuusaku turned in his chair, looking over at the screen, which was frozen on a still frame of his son. For a moment, they both said nothing.
Finally, though, Yuusaku looked back at him, with a grave expression. "You are worried that she may have a conflict of interest and jeopardize a mission?"
"Yessir." That was just one of his concerns. "And her continued interactions with him. He's been using her as a source of information on police activity, and sometimes even an easy in through security, for over a year. It's also a security concern. All of our identities are at risk, if they haven't been revealed already." Nothing quite induced paranoia like being in the same homeroom as a potentially dangerous, and possibly insane, criminal. Not that it was ever just paranoia when it came to the Kaitou KID. It wasn't paranoia when the thief really might jump him, shove him in small bag, and the flawlessly replace him with a clever disguise at any given moment.
Yuusaku nodded, and his eyes were hard and merciless. That gaze made even Saguru nervous, so he couldn't help but pity the poor fools that found themselves faced with the Night Baron on a cold, moonless night. "To be specific he's made her an unwitting accomplice in over thirty cases this year."
That caught Saguru by surprise. "You've already investigated this?"
"Of course." Well, he should probably have expected it. He'd never beaten Yuusaku in an investigation before. "And I agree, it has to stop. When KID is eventually caught, and his identity revealed, Inspector Nakamori will be lucky to get away with just being fired."
Saguru couldn't help but perk up. "So you'll speak with her?"
"Actually, I have another idea." He didn't like the smile Yuusaku flashed, not one bit. It made the Night Baron's grin look positively friendly.
News Advisories arrived in his mail everyday, cramming both the mailbox and his public email, and his work phone seemed to be constantly buzzing. Due to the constant influx of requests, he was forced to keep it on silent while in school, with an answering message instructing eager informants to leave a message with their pitch.
He usually responded to the ones that sound interesting immediately after soccer practice. Which was easy, because those were not as common as he would like. But that wasn't really a problem either, since he was inevitably bound to trip over some crime or scandal or something on his way home anyway.
Honestly, it was a miracle he made it to school at all, to be entirely honest.
Today, though, was Sunday, the day following the disaster, and there was already a total of six inviting him to cover the cleanup and disaster recovery operations beginning downtown. Normally, he would leave these cleanup jobs to the professional press, but as he was heading down anyway, he felt he might as well live stream the damage and encourage voluntary relief efforts from his viewers.
But standing before the melted rubble of what was once a street, camcorder in hand, the rush of terror that swept over him knocked his breath out like a punch to the gut. The anxiousness and dread that tinged the air and the cement was nearly overwhelming.
He sorted the feeling, categorized it. A raw sort of terror lingered in the air, matched only by the stench of soot, char, and melted asphalt; the fear of people staring up at something much larger and more dangerous than themselves, bearing down on them like an exterminator descending upon an anthill. More recently, adult worries radiated from the broken glass of the remainder of a shop window, the owner's concerns and despair over the loss of his only source of income spreading through Shinichi's fingers as he leant down to investigate the door, which seemed to have been forced open by someone much smaller than the monstrosity of yesterday.
Someone looted the place in the wake of the smoldering creature. They stepped on the glass and walked it into the wrecked shop, and the tables and pots were overturned in a way that is too unnatural to be the result of the earthquakes. Clearly much of what he presumed was valuable has been taken, based upon the empty shelves and disorganized desk.
He made these observations aloud, before stepping back into the harsh sunlight outside. Like the bright lights of an autopsy room, the sun seemed to bear down upon the desolate scene with uncaring harshness, reducing human tragedy to just another turn of the cycle of life and death.
Shinichi kept walking. This portion of the city was buzzing quietly with drawn faces and vain efforts to shift through the remains of what were once livelihoods. To his left a group of young college students, volunteers, moved chunks of molten asphalt with tremendous effort, while business owners tried to piece their door frames together and salvage anything left over.
To his right, in the shadows of the damaged buildings, there were others tucked into the alleys, peering out into the harsh sunlight with dark, furious eyes. He was careful catching them on camera, making sure that while they lingered in the background of his shots, they never seemed to be the focus. Best not to bring too much of their attention on to him.
He continued to trek along the edges of the line of the destruction, the immense footsteps sunk into the road like it was made of sand, not asphalt, occasionally pausing to interview the others lingering on the scene; dislocated city dwellers who no longer had homes, local students setting up water stands, the construction workers moving in to clear up the roads as much as they could.
They all had the same things to say; they always did. Disaster struck in this city far, far too often. Only a certain amount of desensitization and pure faith, maybe even foolishness, kept most people living here. Well, that and the terrible economy.
No doubt some incredibly high claims of the supernatural disaster and empowered malicious crime insurance were pending. Taxes would be upped too. The FDA would have to test the local bay to make sure the contaminated runoff hadn't made fishing in the waters into a poison hazard, so there was a potential another thousand jobs lost.
It was emotionally exhausting just to think about all the consequences of a few hours of terror. There was a certain difficulty to sorting through the pain, compartmentalizing it, when all of it felt so far out of his control.
But thinking of what he came here to do and focusing on his objective helped; it was always easier to tackle problems one knew how to go about solving.
And that's why he followed the destruction all the way to the end, until he found the start, deep in the warehouse district. Only there did the destruction lead away.
This was where the monster first appeared. The area had been reduced to nothing but rubble studded with steel reinforcements and the remains of tattered buildings, a large crater in the center spanning seventy meters across. The surrounding buildings had all suffered, most completely caved in, and other with huge chunks blasted out of them, as if the monster had been swinging madly around.
By sight alone he couldn't decipher what the area had originally held, but the map app on his phone landed his position in the center of a factory belonging to some computer manufacturing company, TQ Electronics. Just blocks away from the warehouse he had been in yesterday—
In fact, according to the map, Satoshi's warehouse was directly in the line of destruction the monster had carved. Shinichi stared at his phone, and then checked the area again, a strange idea forming in his mind. The path the monster had taken through the city was strange: it didn't seem random, but didn't look entirely deliberate or planned either.
Shinichi investigated the area for a while longer, but there wasn't much he could find on his own in the wreckage. Which left one place left to go.
The route he had walked yesterday hadn't changed much, most of area being thankfully spared despite being so close to the disaster zone. That itself was a relief, he felt, as he looked up at the same dilapidated dwelling he'd been in just a little over twenty-four hours before.
Daichi met Shinichi at the entrance. "Figured you'd be back, after what happened yesterday." He grumbled, his arms crossed. He stood in the doorway like guard, but Shinichi paid it no mind, recognizing posturing for what it was.
"Is everyone alright?" Shinichi asked, peering around Daichi's larger form, trying to gauge the situation. For the most part, the quakes of yesterday seemed to have only disturbed some dust. At least, there was no sign of the ceiling caving in.
Daichi looked him in the eye and glared. His interest was clearly unappreciated."Yeah, the worst we got were a couple shakes. The kids were scared, but nobody got hurt."
"That's good." It was a relief to hear. Even if the golem hadn't trekked over this area, all it would take to endanger the residents of a dilapidated place like this was a good, long earthquake.
"Yep. Now leave." Daichi's voice was hard and sharp. He held his composure well, but not well enough. Shinichi could see the sweat on his brow, and the uneasy shifting of his stance. He was even more unhinged than yesterday.
"Not until you tell me what has you so scared." Shinichi said, resolute, and Daichi flinched slightly under his gaze. As tough as the other teen was, Daichi was still young, and still vulnerable, with a lot of younger kids counting on him. That kind of pressure and constant fear could break anyone down. Daichi's defenses crumbled easily in the face of interrogation.
"A fu—fricken' volcano just trampled everything a couple blocks over." Daichi tried, correcting his language out of habit crafted from endlessly trying to be a better influence, but his voice shook. His eyes were darting around, no longer able to keep eye contact.
"You were scared before that too." Shinichi pushed, sternly looking Daichi in the face. Backing down from this wasn't an option.
"Look, you're just here about that kid, right? I told you everything I know."
"I went to the warehouse. He wasn't there, but someone else had been. A group of professionals that roughed the place up, and as I suspect, took him." For what, Shinichi had every intention of figuring out. But the ideas already forming in his head were unnerving enough on their own.
Daichi flinched openly, face pale, and Shinichi forced his shoulders back down. With a softer, but still firm voice, he continued, "I know you, Daichi-san. Kids don't just disappear under your watch." Shinichi wasn't blind, he hadn't missed the scars scattered across Daichi's fists, arms, and face, not even on the first day they met. Scars like that only came from street fighting, taking too many hits without the proper protection or medical care afterwards. There was no doubt in his mind about what Daichi fought for. "And considering how anxious you are, I'm guessing that this isn't the first runaway that's suddenly disappeared." Daichi flinched again, teeth clenched and hands fisted. Pain lingered in the twists of his expression, and in the wet edges of his eyes. Shinichi's heart sunk. Not only was he right on the mark, but it seemed the situation was even worse than he originally thought. "How many, Daichi-san?"
For a moment, the question hung between them like a discarded cinderblock plummeting to the bottom of the ocean: heavy, slow, but inevitable. Daichi took a harsh breath, looking wrecked. The broken expression made him look years younger. "I—I don't know. Six, from this area. And others, from all across the city. Thirty, maybe forty, tops, from what I've heard on the streets."
Forty kids.
Forty vulnerable kids were snatched off the streets.
Shinichi had to take a breath, too, as horror twisted in his gut. Sort, compartmentalize, focus on the objective, he told himself, pushing away the horrible feelings that suddenly kept rushing in from Daichi, the building, the city itself. Disconnect.
"And since all these kids were technically already missing, you've got nothing for the police." He said once he'd gathered himself, and Daichi nodded, like he'd given up entirely.
"They wouldn't believe us anyway. Nobody has seen anyone get taken, and they leave nothing behind." No witnesses and no evidence. That meant only one thing: professionals, probably paid. But possibly not hired. Jobs like this weren't the kind of thing that freelancers could be trusted to keep quiet about.
"Were most of these kids taken from where they were staying?" Shinichi asked. If he could get to each crime scene, he might be able to notice something nobody else had, especially since it seemed unlikely anyone but a couple of scared, inexperienced kids had checked over each site.
"We don't know—probably. A lot of places have been burning down recently. A warehouse a few districts over went up in flames just a couple weeks ago. I know a group had been living there, but haven't heard from them since."
Missing persons, kidnapping, arson possibly committed by some organized crime group covering their tracks, and some connection to the destruction of a quarter of downtown. Just thinking about it made his blood pound.
"When did this start happening?"
"I don't know. The first one from here disappeared four months ago." Four months. That was a long time for kids to be missing, and an even longer time for a crime scene to sit undisturbed. Nevertheless, he had to try.
"I'm going to need names and places; and if you can't tell me them, I need you to tell me where to find someone who can."
The conversation from the day before weighed heavily on his mind. Yuusaku had said he'd think it over, but that didn't put Saguru at ease. It was frustrating, going to school six days out of the week, and having to face a wanted villain that sat in his classroom, spoke with his classmates, and mocked his teachers. Everyday, his skin crawled as he sat at his desk, knowing he was showing his back to one of the world's most clever criminals. Just attending class was an act that required constant vigilance and awareness of his surroundings, lest the thief get close enough to place a tracker, a bug, or any other kind of trap.
He spent every moment at school keyed up, unwilling to become a liability and security risk like Aoko, and on the look out for anything that could be evidence.
At least his enhanced senses helped. It was difficult to bug him without his knowledge, when he could sense even the slightest increase of weight and the shift of a single hair. It didn't matter how silently the thief could move, because it was physically impossible to move quietly enough to avoid Saguru's hearing.
Small mercies. But it didn't change that he'd have to do it all again tomorrow, or the part of him that wanted to, that reveled in the challenge. School certainly wasn't boring anymore.
But Saguru needed to catch KID. How could he ever surpass Yuusaku if he couldn't even catch a criminal in his own classroom? He'd never be the world's greatest detective like that.
The thoughts, plans, and insecurities spun in his mind, winding around in endless little circles. And like always, when he got anxious, his became far too aware of his surroundings, his senses ramping up to a near intolerable degree. His head pounded with each distant footstep and laugh, until he fled to the only guaranteed quiet room in the manor: the library.
The Kudo library was an impressive room: large, expansive, and well stocked. Soundproofed and peaceful, it had stolen Saguru's heart the moment he walked in nearly seven years ago. Ever since, it had served as a sort of sanctuary for him, a place he could sort through his thoughts and clear his head.
And it was special for another reason. After all, he wasn't the only one who found the quiet, still room comforting.
As expected, he could hear the familiar, soft sounds. Even, gentle breathes, a strong, steady heartbeat, and the sweet turning of pages. Shinichi was lost somewhere in the shelves, as per usual.
Relaxing, Saguru made his way over, finding the other teen perusing a shelf of encyclopedias. Not an unusual choice of reading for Shinichi, who, like Saguru, absorbed information and facts like a sponge. But it did suggest that Shinichi was in a work mood, and probably didn't wish to be disturbed.
Saguru was all right with that. He didn't really want to talk right then either.
Except, as he moved on, he heard a book snapping shut and Shinichi hurriedly looking up. "I need to talk to you," Shinichi called, and Saguru turned back, surprised. Shinichi rarely opened a conversation so seriously, not unless it was about a case. But school started up again the next day, and Shinichi had just finished up a massive scoop. There wasn't any time for picking up another case.
Unless, it was about the battle the day before, and the lead Shinichi has briefly mentioned.
He thought back to yesterday, to the sight of a form tumbling free from a careening helicopter, and his muscles tensed under the stiff fabric of his dress shirt. Shinichi shouldn't have even been in the line of fire, and as a civilian, he had no place in that copter on the front-lines. Which mean that somehow, something he was working on had led him there. And that made Saguru uneasy. "What about?" Saguru asked, and Shinichi met his eyes with a sharp gaze.
"A possible lead on the disaster yesterday." Not monster, disaster. It was unlike Shinichi to use such general terms; he was a man of specifics.
"A lead?" Saguru prompted carefully. He wasn't entirely sure he liked where this was going. Whatever happened yesterday, he was sure everyone would prefer if Shinichi stayed out of it. "Yesterday, I started investigating the case of a runaway."
"A runaway?" Saguru repeated skeptically, without thinking. He'd been expecting something else: a murder, or scandal, or fraud. Not something as benign as a runaway. Shinichi gave him a disgruntled look at being interrupted, and Saguru raised his hands apologetically. "Sorry, I'm just surprised. You usually work much larger cases." Shinichi had a knack for finding the biggest, nastiest conspiracy in town, or the most convoluted homicide, or the most contrived kidnapping.
"No case is too small." Shinichi said, his bold posture not quite haughty, but far from humble. It was a pose Shinichi had apparently mastered from birth, because it had been just as polished and sure when they first met practically decade ago.
"And no case is too large either, right?" Saguru filled in the rest, and got another venomous look for his efforts. He stared right back, used to it. "Don't posture, we both know which kind you prefer." Shinichi had just returned from spending his holiday in India investigating structurally unsound factories, after all. Small time reporters just didn't do that, especially not ones in high school. Shinichi ignored the implications easily, shrugging them off with the ease and grace of a practiced interrogator.
"A runaway adolescent that was living in an abandoned warehouse by the docks disappeared from the streets roughly a week ago."
Saguru raised an eyebrow, not seeing where this was going. "So?"
"That warehouse was destroyed yesterday," Shinichi said, gravely, as he pulled out his camera and showed Saguru several pictures. Some were of an old, decrepit building, others inside it, in the gloom of dust, and the rest were of wreckage. So Shinichi had been in the area before the attack even began. No wonder he was able to respond so promptly.
"I'm not sure what you are saying. Half of that area was demolished yesterday." Shinichi's fingers fidgeted along the camera, drumming its edges, before they stilled. Saguru knew better than to think it was a nervous motion. More likely, it bared Shinichi's impatience with him. "The...fire monster from yesterday appeared near or in a factory. From there, it destroyed the area, with no identifiable pattern." Shinichi explained, "but then, it made a beeline for the warehouse blocks away. It walked right over it and then did the same thing and started rampaging. From there on there was no sense to its movements, like it didn't know what to do."
"Kudo-kun, what you are saying—" Saguru tried to cut in, but Shinichi barely paused to allow him a word in.
"It was panicking. It started off confused, then tried to go to the warehouse, and once there, for some reason, started to panic." There, Shinichi stopped, eyes sharp on Saguru's face, judging his reaction, most likely.
For a moment, Saguru considered facts Shinichi was presenting, and the proposed hypothesis. While such a pattern of movement and behavior would suggest something of the like if the culprit were human, they weren't talking about a spooked crook or a confused civilian. The closest the inferno from yesterday was to humanoid was in its most basic form. It resembled a sort of flaming giant at the first glance, but it had to have been made up of some kind of dense, temperature resistant substance to not collapse in on itself, melting down like lava. There couldn't have been anything human about it, not unless it was something like Hattori, who had an ability that was so rare that it bordered on almost impossible. But Saguru wouldn't know the nature of Heliopause's abilities, only Hawk would.
So instead of complying, he dismissed the idea of it, as he would normally reject such out of bounds thinking. "What's your evidence for this? It sounds like wild conjecture." Shinichi pinched his lips together, eyes going suspicious and contemptuous. Saguru wanted to wince under the look, but held firm.
It was ridiculous, some days, this heartless charade, always keeping his mouth shut, and lying when Shinichi wanted honesty. It felt especially wrong to do it here, in the room where they first met and bonded as kids. These endless, half-accusatory, half-denying dances around each other were constantly pushing them all apart. There was a time when it hadn't been so hard, when they were both children with a limitless future, chasing each other around this huge manor and endlessly chattering about their favorite books. Back when Saguru didn't really grasp the severity of the secrets they kept, and didn't understand how painful lying could get. Years and age and a thousand little bitter things held against each other had piled up almost tangibly between them.
But despite it, they both kept trying to close that distance, kept on trying to connect.
Just like now, as Shinichi took a sharp breath, held the camera out to him again, and insisted, "Come look at the rest of the footage I took yesterday, and the birds eye view pictures of the destruction. You'll see that there's clearly—" But Saguru couldn't. Yuusaku had made it clear time and time again that he couldn't encourage this kind of investigation, that they had to keep Shinichi as far out this life as possible.
It hurt, it was frustrating, but he pushed the camera away. "It sounds like coincidence, Kudo-kun. Aren't you drawing connections between two completely different events?" As he spoke, he could see Shinichi's already cold eyes grow icy, angry and fierce. He kept going anyway. "What possible link could there be between a missing kid and a walking volcano?" he said, like the idea of it was especially foolish, as if he were was mocking a politician on TV.
Shinichi tensed up, predictably insulted, but maturely didn't rise up to the attack on his intellect. "That's what I'm trying to figure out—"
"You're reaching. You want an excuse to stick your nose into what happened yesterday." That, at least, was true. Even if this theory was less crazy than it sounded, he had no doubt in his mind that Shinichi wanted the two events to be connected, wanted a reason to get involved. "But this is too dangerous. You should keep out of this one, focus on your schoolwork, or soccer. The regionals are coming up soon, aren't they?"
"This is more important than—"
"It is? Or do you just want it to be so you feel like you're doing something?" Coming from anyone else, the words might have been careless. But Saguru chose each deliberately, as they were the one's that would discourage Shinichi the most. "You can't be that confident in this theory of yours, or you would have brought it to your father. Instead you bring it to me." That was the fatal blow, metaphorically. A sure fire way to get to the usually invincible Kudo Shinichi: press the Yuusaku button.
Predictably, Shinichi's expression visibly twitched, hurt rippling across his face, before cold detachment fell back into place. "I didn't bring this case to father because I have every intention of solving it on my own." Shinichi said coolly, before storming away. It was a sadly familiar sight, these days. One that used to make Saguru wallow in guilt for days, but now had become something of a relief.
Alone again. He sighed. So much for peace and quiet: his head was pounding. But that conversation didn't leave his mind either, even as he tried to stop thinking and just relax over the course of the next few hours. He had dismissed Shinichi's theory—conjecture, whatever that was—easily out loud, but inside he wasn't so sure. Shinichi was fiercely intelligent and observant, and an excellent behavioral analyst. The other had proven his investigative ability a thousand times over, again and again, despite endless obstacles. In the end, Saguru had no choice but to consider his words, but the implications of them made something twist in his stomach. Shinichi was suggesting that the monster the day before had feelings, and that it had been rampaging not out of malice, but out of panic. It was too disquieting to think about.
As of yet, they had no leads on how the disaster had begun. For all intents and purposes, the inferno had seemed to just erupt in the downtown area with no warning besides some strange energy fluctuation in the whole area. The League had been monitoring the fluctuations for days, but had learnt nothing from the seemingly sourceless radiation. They hadn't been able to spare the manpower and effort to investigate the area on foot or in depth, and now they had paid for their inattention. A boy had disappeared last week. The fluctuations had begun in the same timeframe. Coincidence.
But was it ever coincidence when Shinichi was involved? He would have to look into it, if only to assure himself that for once, Shinichi was chasing the wrong scent.
And if Shinichi wasn't… Well, Saguru would just have to keep him out of trouble.
.
This chapter was mostly dedicated to setting up Shinichi and Hakuba's relationship in this AU. They're a bit like brothers, and have some rocky history we'll eventually go into. Bit of sibling rivalry going on, huh? Next chapter will focus of Shinichi and Ran, and Kaito and Aoko. After that comes Heiji. And you know, more plot progression.
Hope you enjoyed, and forgive any errors for now, I'll fix em up tomorrow!
R & R?