Hey y'all!
Sorry for the long wait, and about there being no new chap for SD yet. That one should hopefully be ready in a week or so. There's just a lot going on...like grad school apps...
Thanks for all the lovely comments! You guys give me so much inspiration. Hopefully this chapter isn't too messy, but I really wanted to just publish something.
Chapter 6: Lost Your Mind in the Sound
Aoko came back to Headquarters more devastated than she left it.
He didn't feel guilty, and he certainly didn't regret telling her the truth. Even if it caused her pain, she needed to know.
Saguru just wished it hurt her less. He knew she and Kuroba had been toeing the line between friendship and romance for years, had watched their awkward fumblings around each other for long enough, but he had always doubted how much of the attraction was genuine. Kuroba was an enigma on all fronts, and somedays Saguru wondered if the criminal mastermind felt anything at all. And Aoko, pitifully, always seemed more attached to an rose-tinted past and idealized childhood dreams, anthropomorphized in her own mind as her childhood friend and roguish romeo Kuroba Kaito, rather than the person Kuroba actually was.
Now, those dreams were crumbling in her hands, and Aoko seemed to be crumbling with them. She returned pale and shaking so badly that it was a wonder she made it back at all. She had been shuddering on her feet when she had come through the hangar doors, and from the moment Saguru saw her, he knew he was out of his depth. He wished he hadn't dismissed the others earlier. Either Ran or Kazuha would probably be better equipped to help. But Saguru and Yuusaku were the only one's left in the base. And he sure as hell wasn't going to let Aoko speak with their mentor like this.
He ended up trailing after her as she made her way to the break room. She collapsed on a couch there, desolate and red-eyed.
"Are you okay?" He asked as he settled in the seat across from her, even knowing that she was obviously not.
Aoko simply shook her head slowly.
"What happened?" He prompted, despite already assuming the worst of it. "The bugs went dead the moment you two got on the ferris wheel. KID-Kuroba must have planted jammers all over the place beforehand." Had they had the opportunity to better plan the meeting, that probably could have been prevented, but honestly they'd never had any luck out planning KID before either.
"He-he all but admitted it. I guess. I don't know, we both...said a lot of things." That sounded somewhere between not good and disastrous.
He couldn't think of anything comforting to say to that. "Anything we can use to-" Get him. "Help us stop KID?"
"I-No. Nothing. I'm sorry."
He wasn't surprised to hear that; in fact, he had hardly expected anything damning to come out of this meeting at all. Kuroba was too careful for that. Saguru himself probably wouldn't have done any better in her situation. "It's not your fault, Aoko-kun. I've been trying to get him to slip up for months now and-"
"Hawk." A cold voice interrupted him, and they both glanced up to the doorway, where the dark silhouette of the Baron was illuminated by the hall lights.
"Yes sir?" Saguru said immediately, tensing. Yuusaku wouldn't disturb a conversation like this without good reason, but honestly another mission was the last thing they needed right now.
But the world never turned based on their needs.
Yuusaku's expression was uncharacteristically serious, his lips settled in a thin line in contrast to his usual affable smile. Obviously, the situation didn't bode well to him. "KID's on the move."
Saguru was on his feet in an instant. "What?" KID was a villain that operated, bizarrely, on a schedule. His heists were enormous feats of trickery and planning, and no doubt required days, if not weeks of reconnaissance, hence how he always announced his targets before time. That he was breaking pattern said much about Kuroba's current state of mind.
"Suzuki Jirokichi has put out a challenge for Kaitou KID, for tonight. "
"That's sudden." Not to mention inconvenient. "Of all days."
"Indeed. Gather your team, I'm sending you four to confront him." Yuusaku's words left no room for disagreement and paid no heed to Aoko, who wisely said nothing, but there was an undercurrent of genuine concern in his tone. "No doubt he's unbalanced and unprepared, so right now is the best chance to gain an advantage over him."
"Understood." Saguru had no idea how KID might be feeling right now actually. He could never be sure how much Kuroba actually cared about Aoko, if he really loved her or just saw her as something to use. However the confrontation between the two had went, Kuroba was at very least furious over his identity being revealed to someone so integral to his civilian life.
Yuusaku leveled him with a firm gaze. Saguru straightened instinctually, swallowing. "I will be clear: failure is not an option this time, Hawk. You must apprehend KID. To ensure this mission goes smoothly, I will accompany you as support."
Saguru felt his mouth fall open in surprise. The Night Baron rarely ever chaperoned their missions in person, let alone joined them in the field. Saguru was the only one who ever worked alongside the Baron as his partner and former sidekick, and while he still accompanied his mentor on patrol regularly, this was different.
"You're-you're going to go after KID directly?" The Baron, and most Overseers, avoided KID, leaving him to smaller sanctioned hero teams and vigilantes. The idea was supposed to be that since KID was typically nonviolent and courteous in his own absurd way that he would serve as an experience for younger heroes and bait for vigilantes that needed to be rounded up. The Overseers were usually needed elsewhere, fighting dangerous supervillains and assisting with disasters.
Yuusaku shook his head, smiling slightly. Saguru was a little relieved to see it, but the following words cut that feeling right out of him. "No, I will merely ensuring that nothing goes wrong by taking command." "We cannot afford for this opportunity to be wasted by mistakes."
At the final word, Saguru heard Aoko flinch. He felt the same way, honestly, being told to take the backseat and surrender field leadership of the team to their mentor. But recently, both their flaws and shortcomings had been placed in stark relief. He couldn't complain when two out of three missions he led in the past month ended in failure. "Understood, sir." He forced the words out around the developing lump in his throat. "I will inform the others."
"What about me?" Aoko asked quietly. She was sitting up straight now, blue eyes focused piercingly on Yuusaku's face without a single waver.
"You're still on stand-by, Aoko-kun. You're in no state to fight." The words seemed cold, but the way Yuusaku aid them was more gentle than Saguru expected. There was a rarely seen sensitivity buried in the rejection.
Aoko stared on, unwavering in her silence. They left her like that, sitting alone in the break-room, and something like unease twisted in Saguru's gut.
Right from the start, they were playing catch up with KID. They arrived moments after the show room filled with odorous gas and smoke, just to watch the guardsmen and task force members crumble to the ground like puppets with their strings cut. The air filtration system that was supposed to prevent these exact occurrences had clearly failed, and the gas masks the task force had been assigned had been sabotaged ahead of time. Moreover, the exits that were supposed to immediately automatically be sealed in the case of the alarms being tripped hadn't closed.
"KID's already got the painting." Saguru growled. If only they had arrived earlier, they could have already spread out and marked the exits.
"He's probably heading up to the roof to make his escape." Hattori said, carefully backing away from the encroaching smoke.
Saguru quickly pulled up the museum's layout on the screen hidden in the sleeve of his glove,and transferred the information to display in the side of his mask's vision. The building was set up in a hollow prism around a courtyard; each of the five floors connected by two sets of stairs and a main hall with escalators. The painting had been placed in the secure vault room in the basement of the building, and the dummy painting had been kept in the security room on the first floor. By the thin dispersal of the gas in the security room, Saguru figured KID was probably well on his way up, reaching around the third floor by now. Any opposing guards and obstacles were notably absent, but there was no telling if that was because KID had somehow removed them, or if it was simply due to the task force's rushed attempt at security.
Either way, they were on their own.
"Angel, Heliopause, fly up to the roof through the courtyard entrances and then split up to block off both stairwells. Banshee, you and I will split up and head up the stairs from here. The Baron is monitoring the main hall, so we should be able to catch KID in between us."
"Got it!" Kazuha was immediately off, ricocheting against the walls instead of running, so as to build up as much kinetic energy as possible.
"A pincer attack, eh?" Hattori muttered as he and Ran shot off towards the windows. The Baron said nothing, so Saguru could only assume he had no issues with the plan.
The stairs, of course, were a obstacle all on their own. The two fliers had it easy, and Kazuha could literally bounce her way up, but Saguru felt each flight he tore his way up. Sometimes, he hated being the least enhanced, and the thought made Aoko's absence ache almost as much as his hamstrings. She would commiserate with him.
"Well, what do we have here?"
Saguru stumbled on the next step, his heart hammering in his chest as a mocking voice echoed in his ears.
KID. He would recognize that obnoxious lilt and smooth tenor anywhere. But the voice wasn't being carried from above by the closed stairwell. It was speaking directly to him.
But that was impossible. There was no way KID managed to hack into the frequency of their comms.
"A flightless little birdie." The voice laughed, and the sound of seemed to worm insidiously inside Saguru's head. He checked the comm number of the transmission as the volume of his own rose unbidden.
B-5. Aoko?
"You stole Tsuyu's comm?" Saguru hissed, then flinched as harsh static burst over the link, painfully loud to his heightened senses. However KID had gotten ahold of one of their comm-links, he clearly intended to take full advantage of it.
"Sorry about that, Kiwi darlin'. Interference, ya kno'?" KID's voice wavered into an Osakan accent as he spoke, and Saguru threw himself up the stairs with renewed fury.
"Helio, Angel, Banshee! Come in!" He snarled, tuning into the group frequency, but there was nothing but a mocking chuckle in response.
"Your friends are a little...indisposed."
How? No-it couldn't be true. Ran and Hattori were both not only extremely powerful, but they were masters of hand to hand combat. KID couldn't possibly take them down in a direct confrontation; the only explanation was that trickery was afoot.
Not surprising, considering they were dealing with the world's most notorious stage magician, but this wasn't KID's normal MO. He was completely breaking pattern.
"Hurry up and join us, won't you?" KID purred over the line, and the sound of it was so unnerving it had his skin prickling. "Oh, and watch your step."
"What-" He heard it before he saw it, the metallic and rythmic clicking of something falling down the stairs. Small, light-weight, cylindrical-that was all he noticed in the fraction of a second he glimpsed it before it exploded into light with a cruel, mechanical laugh. The automatic shutters of his mask, designed specifically to protect his sensitive eyes, didn't snap shut quickly enough.
The blinding, magnesium bright blast burned his vision into whiteness.
"Shit!"
White turned to a darkness of swirling, mind-rending color. Even as he forced his eyes back open, the afterimage burned into his retinas made it nearly impossible to see in front of him, as if the world was a movie reel someone had burned a cigarette through. Still, Saguru forced himself onwards, relying on the regularity of the stair steps to compensate. When he burst out onto the landing of the fourth floor, he regretted his momentum immensely as the floor turned slick underneath his feet and he found himself careening down the hall. Arms pinwheeling, he struggled to stop without crashing to the ground, but nothing seemed to slow him.
And whatever he was hurtling at, it stank of something akin to rubber, or maybe tree sap. He snapped out a Birdclaw and shot it behind himself. The grappling hook caught the wall of the stairwell and the line pulled taunt, the tension dragging him to a painfully abrupt halt.
"Oh, nice reflexes!" KID laughed again, and this time it wasn't over the comm link. Saguru snapped his head up, forcing aside his disorientation to find his opponent by scent. Further down the hall, past the odorous trap, was the familiar wafting fragrance of roses and bird feathers.
Saguru tested his footing-after the incident with the Cats the other day, he'd had his boots equipped with sturdier soles with better grip. Even so, the floor was alarmingly slippery-he'd be an idiot to try and run on. Not to mention the trap he was still struggling to see through the spots in his vision.
Plan B then. Saguru retracted the Birdclaw and carefully burst forward, floor already sliding under his feet, but he allowed himself to slide rapidly towards the wall of the hall. At precisely the right moment, he pushed off the floor and jumped, hoping desperately he judged the distance right despite his failing vision. His feet found purchase, and for a heart-stopping handful of moments, he dashed along the wall.
It wasn't for long, but that was all he needed to get past the obstacle and throw himself at KID.
But KID danced away, viper quick, and took off in a run down the hall, the white of his mantle just visible behind the darkened forms still maring Saguru's sight. Saguru followed at a dead sprint, navigating around the corners KID sharply twisted around and judging distances more with hearing than anything else.
That proved to be a mistake.
"YOU BASTARD!" The furious shout rose into a horrible, deafening shriek that cut into Saguru's head like a white hot, serrated blade. Banshee-somewhere in front-his noise cancelers, why weren't they-
Sharp, piercing agony.
If he was screaming in pain, he couldn't hear it.
Saguru collapsed, hands clamped over his ears in vain as the whole world seemed to spin. His vision was darkening again, tunneling in waves that rose and receded with the pounding in his head. Barely, he could make out the white form of his enemy before him, and behind that, some sort of gelatinous mass of color and struggling limbs.
His team.
KID was saying something, but Saguru couldn't hear anything at all. There was only the ringing in his ears. Instead he read the bastard's lips with difficulty, struggling to identify the words without their auditory cue and the world fading in and out.
Something wrong, Tantei-san?
Bastard.
Saguru forced himself back on his feet, struggling not to sway. Despite his disorientation, he could make out his team behind KID. The three of them were trapped in a mess of what must have been some sort of extremely sticky polymer. They were stuck together in a ball of sickenly yellow goop that reeked of the same sappy, rubbery scent as the tap earlier. Ran was clearly struggling to break free, but she was so thoroughly buried in the gunk that it didn't allow her enough movement to exert her immense strength. Kazuha was much the same, movements so constricted that she couldn't absorb any kinetic energy. She was staring at Saguru with horror that was apparent despite her mask, and her mouth was carefully clamped shut.
Gradually, the ringing in his ears gave way to identifiable sounds, and his vision corrected itself. "I wouldn't do that again if I were you, miss." KID was mocking Kazuha carelessly over his shoulder, just casually waiting for Saguru to pull himself back together, the condescending asshole. "We wouldn't want poor Hawk to go completely deaf, do we?"
Kazuha flinched, and Saguru saw red.
He was sick and tired of this bastard hurting his friends, and the anger seemed to rush through his whole body, hot as Heliopause's fire. He drew the segments of his bo-staff out of their thigh holster, letting the magnetic pull of the pieces snap together as he charged at KID. He took a running leap and swept at the bastard, only for KID to slip out of range like water.
Water. Aoko crying.
KID, laughing.
Saguru stopped thinking and let experience-honed instinct take control.
Shinichi returned to the heist with an elevated heartbeat and a nauseating sensation of dread. He had gotten what he wanted, in a way, but that just meant that the night was still ongoing for everyone else. KID would be going for the painting, and Shinichi had a responsibility to make this whole fiasco into a worthy news article.
Admittedly though, the journalistic integrity behind writing a report on an event he essentially organized himself was questionable at best.
Questionable media ethics aside, the venue had only gotten more chaotic in his absence. KID must have already made his move, because when Shinichi dashed into the hall leading to the display room of the target, he found thick pink smoke leaking out under the doors.
So the display room was out. Just to be safe, he pulled out his handkerchief and covered his mouth and nose as he rushed past, heading for the stairs to the next floor. If KID had already gassed the taskforce, there was a good chance the thief already had the painting or was in the process of relieving it from the subdued security system. And that meant he'd be heading for an escape route next, of which the most likely option was either the roof (heavily guarded, where the Irregulars were likely to land) or the fourth floor balcony.
Except waiting at the top of the stairs was a figure cloaked in black, not white.
Shinichi paused on the last few steps, then jerked back. That towering silhouette, the cloak that seemed to absorb all light, the unmistakable shape of a top hat-it all struck him like a physical blow.
He stared up, up, up through the hole in the roof. A dark figure was blocking the light, casting a horrible shadow down on them. The light spilled around the figure's sharp edges, hiding nothing of the the Baron's intimidating profile.
The white mask was grinning, grinning, grinning, and the star was dead.
The steps seemed to disappear under his feet, and he was falling. He hit the stairs hard, scrambling to stop his fall and grateful for the coarse carpet under his hands.
The Night Baron. The Night Baron was right in front of him.
Holy shit.
What was an Overseer-no, the Overseer-doing here?
Shinichi had just fallen on his ass after slipping down half a flight of stairs and he still knew this was going to be one hell of an article. His descent had been far from graceful, or quiet, and the Baron was at the top of the stairs now, white mask grinning down on him.
Well, no point in going for a candid shot. Shinichi pulled out his camera, and without bothering to fuss with the settings, took several quick shots. The flashes illuminated the dim stairway, painfully bright, but the Baron didn't flinch.
"You shouldn't be here." The Baron said, in a voice of gravel and anger.
Shinichi swallowed and switched from camera to camcorder. The Baron was one to talk. "The Night Baron. We meet again." Stupid thing to say. Stupid.
The Baron didn't reply, leaving nothing despite chilly silence between them. Shinichi zoomed in a little, adjusted his angle, and continued, hoping to catch the hero's interest. "You probably don't remember. I once harassed your sidekick?" Silence. Well, that was fair. He was mostly testing the waters now, but if the Baron didn't remember him being there, it was probably safe to approach. Probably. "No, it doesn't matter. Please answer a couple questions for me." He took a couple steps up the stairs to reach the top. Even standing on the same landing, the Baron still towered over him in height and presence.
The world's greatest detective, the leading authority on justice, the head advisor of the ISHA Board, turned away, his mask rotating in the darkness. "You need to leave." He said, voice hard and commanding. It was infinitely more threatening in person than on TV.
Shinichi wished he had been able to prepare for this situation. He had long ago memorized the kinds of questions he wanted to ask in the case of being lucky enough to encounter an Overseer, but when actually faced with the elusive dark hero himself, he felt like his brain was shriveling up and crumbling into sand. Get a grip, Kudo, he chided himself. Ask a question. "The Overseers have been ignoring the matter of Kaitou KID for-"
"That wasn't a request." The Baron did not take so much as a step closer to him, but still Shinichi flinched slightly as he was interrupted harshly. The atmosphere in the room-no, the presence of the Baron was suffocating. He felt like his very thoughts were being consumed before he could properly think them. "Leave, or I will make you." The Baron left no room for argument, but Shinichi had never let that stop him before.
He forced himself to breath easy, to stay loose and cocky. He was a civilian reporter, and a high profile one at that: the Baron couldn't touch him. "...Are you threatening me?" He asked, voice smooth as ice. Even if his mind was worryingly blank, that only meant his head was startlingly clear.
"Hardly. Now leave." Leave. He imagined standing up and just leaving the heist, news be damned. Wouldn't it be nice to just go home?
No. Shinichi had never thought such a thing in his entire life. Which meant that that wasn't his thought. Even realizing that, the compulsion was hard to shake. His whole body itched to walk back down the stairs and out the door; even keeping his camera aloft seemed to take momentous effort.
But Shinichi had spent years learning how to close his mind off, to block invading presences out, to divide his own thoughts off from the world. Even a direct, purposeful invasion like this was nothing more than an everyday inconvenience.
And two could play that game.
He let himself go limp, obediently lurching on his feet, as if to stumble back home like a good little teenager. The pressure rescinded, slightly, and in the brief lull, Shinichi lunged forward, seizing the Baron's wrist with all the strength he could muster. Between the sleeve and the glove he had no access to direct skin, but it would have to do.
He forced his awareness forward with all the power he could muster. "Are the deaths of the four civilians eight years ago the reason the Overseers refuse to go after Kaitou KID?" The moment the question, moderately demanding, left his lips, he was hit with a memory so powerful is may as well have been a gust of wind.
He was standing high up, looking down through the wreckage of a roof. Through the crumbling insulation and concrete, he could see the floor below, and the crumpled form haloed by the moonlight. A man in white lay at the bottom, his limbs twisted unnaturally, and a pool of dark red slowly spilling around him like a spreading stain.
He was dead, that much anyone could see.
Someone made a hiccuping, gasping noise. At the edge of the light, mostly obscured by the darkness, was a little boy, covering his mouth in both horror and obvious terror. "No, no, no, Dad, no!"
He-his view shook, jolting. The child was crying now, breath ragged, eyes locked onto the broken corpse, before suddenly looking forward. He followed the child's gaze only to clench his teeth around a gasp of his own. Directly on the other side of the corpse was another child, frozen still with wide blue eyes.
"No-no, why are you here?"
Violently, Shinichi was forced from the the memory and the Baron's mind as if being dragged from underwater into the startling clarity of fresh air. An intensely powerful mental force crashed into his mind. All thoughts and emotions ceased, evaporating away until he was merely swaying dully on his feet, a puppet suspended on strings.
"Leave." The Baron ordered, and Shinichi turned on his heel and left, memories crumbling like sand.
Saguru charged once again, staff in one hand and razor-sharp shuriken in the other. He released each with precision accuracy, but KID was nothing if not the essence of the artful dodger. But the bastard was no longer smiling, the clear ferocity in Saguru's attacks keeping the thief on the defensive back foot. This time, it was Saguru acting, and KID reacting, and it showed.
Frustration was giving bay to cool determination as Saguru concentrated on his target, forgetting all indignities and slights.
Personal feelings have no place on the battlefield of a hero, his master had told him long ago, and Saguru had taken it to heart. Something about KID always tested his resolve, though.
"Heliopause, can't you melt us out of here?" Ran was saying, her voice strained. But she sounded fine.
"Not without burnin' Banshee to a crisp!" Hattori harriedly replied, and at that there was an impressive amount of muffled yelling from Kazuha, who kept her mouth carefully clamped shut. Clearly, Saguru was on his own.
Despite himself, despite the situation, Saguru couldn't help but crack a smile. The anger finally bled away completely, the almost maddening haze easing to a more familiar aggravation that he easily pushed aside.
Everything was fine. He could manage; he was vastly superior to KID in single-hand combat and had just as many tricks and gadgets up his sleeves.
Even if most of them didn't seem to be working. He'd think about how KID sabotaged his gear later, for now he swiped downwards with his staff, forcing the thief to dodge right into the path a Birdclaw. The hook skimmed past KID's foot, and with a jerk, Saguru had it swinging back around around KID's legs. The tangled thief was swiftly dragged off balance by another jerk on the line, and KID toppled over with a undignified yelp.
Saguru didn't hesitate to rush forward and bring his staff down on KID's obnoxious hat. But the moment the steel touched the thief's prone form, he erupted into white smoke. Instinctually, Saguru flinched back and held his breath, feeling the line going slack in his hand.
Damn escape artist.
The smoke set off the fire sprinklers, but the spray came down with unnatural pressure, each drop stinging like a pebble.
Saguru cursed, struggling to find the white-clothed thief in the rising mist. The water was washing away all the scents, and the hissing of the sprinklers drowned out KID's already near silent footsteps.
He still sensed the strike seconds before it hit, just managing to duck in time for a dart and some other projectile to skirt past his face; there was no missing the hum of electricity. The dart-like electrodes were wireless, but he suspected if they buried into his skin, the charge they release would less than harmless.
Still, the spray was abating, and with a quick trajectory calculation, he knew where KID would be next.
Saguru threw himself around and released a barrage of shuriken.
KID stepped easily out of the way, circling Saguru with feline grace and nonchalance. Saguru had another volley in hand in an instant, but paused when he realized what KID had placed his back towards: the other Irregulars.
If Saguru shot and missed, he could end up injuring his own team.
"Coward." Saguru hissed as KID swaggered backwards, but he stayed his hand, feeling the cool metal of his shuriken even through his gloves.
The thief merely hummed as he turned to admire his work. The others snarled up at him from the mess, but it was obvious they still hadn't managed to pull free.
"Do you like it? I created it just for my critics." KID said, as if they should be grateful. "It's a special extra-sticky polymer that's activated by contact with extreme heat."
Well. That explained a lot. Hattori was hardly difficult to bait, after all.
"You know, if you used that brain of yours for good instead of personal profit, the world would be a better place." Saguru said, though he really doubted Kuroba would ever care about benefitting others. He was too self-absorbed for that. Yet, he still couldn't help but lament the waste of such a brilliant mind at times. Not just lament, but resent as well. KID could use his talents for so much more than burglary and grand theft-larceny, but actively chose to be an menace to society instead.
It grinded on his nerves.
"Oh, but I would be so less rich." KID pouted exaggeratedly, and Saguru shifted his weight as he waited for an opening. At some point, KID would move, and that would be his chance. "Even when you're flattering me, you misunderstand, dodo."
"What don't I understand?"
"That I'm distracting you."
Shit.
The other projectile. The taser. Extreme heat. The pieces fell together in his mind a moment too late.
KID hadn't been aiming for Saguru at all.
Saguru heard something bubble, and turned just in time to see a mass of gelatinous gum erupt behind him, bursting forth faster than he could flinch backwards. In the blink of an eye, he was trapped, hands and legs stuck in a disgusting ball of god-knows-what.
"Gotcha." KID celebrated, and Saguru tugged uselessly on his hands. He was stuck up to his elbows: not even pulling out of his gloves would help.
Saguru glowered over his shoulder at his opponent, frustrated with the thief and himself. How had he fallen for that? And where the hell was the Baron? Shouldn't their mentor have interfered ages ago, when KID commandeered their comms?
Unless KID had found a way to get the Baron out of the picture. Was that even possible? What was the purpose of this, of any of this? The painting wasn't even that valuable, and from what Saguru could see, KID didn't even have it on him.
"Why?" There was no way to say the word with nearly enough venom, but Saguru tried, as if spitting enough acid could melt his bonds.
KID smiled nastily back at him. That was certainly the way to describe KID's behavior. Nasty.
"You know why." KID sang back, and Saguru tried to jerk himself free again. Normally, KID would have made his escape by now, but he was clearly hanging around to gloat. And there was nothing Saguru could do about it.
"You haven't won yet, Kaito." A new voice said firmly. KID whirled around, and just for a moment Saguru caught a glimpse of his one unobscured eye, wide with shock.
Aoko stood in the hall, costumed and wild-haired, with a wall of water glistening behind her. The show of power was only matched by the ferocity in her expression.
KID went very, very still. The dangerous kind of still, like a poised viper or the suspended blade of a guillotine. "Well, well, look who decided to join the fun." He purred, and once again, the sound had shivers running down Saguru's spine. "Sure you're making the right choice, mademoiselle?"
"Yes." Aoko said, and Saguru wondered if she felt half as resolute as she looked. He couldn't imagine how difficult this must be for her. "Are you?" For a moment, her expression softened, eyebrows turning up and mouth falling into a shape that was soft and pleading. "Last chance," she said, in a voice quiet enough for a confessionary.
If KID saw the appeal of it, of her, he didn't show it. Instead, he merely watched her cooly, with a condescending smile fluttering on his lips. "Oh, sweetheart." KID reached into his jacket and pulled out a silver gun. Saguru tensed, testing his bonds, as he watched the weapon warily. KID had never drawn any sort of weapon, beisdes smoke bombs and flash bangs, on any of them before-the lone exception was the taser, and that hadn't really been meant for him at all-but he recognized the sleek pistol as the card gun mentioned in the Baron's reports. "I made my choice a long time ago."
Aoko took a breath and shut her eyes. When she opened them, they shined with furious tears. The water burst forward without another word, parting around Aoko and rushing towards KID with all the force of a waterfall. KID's free hand shot forward, pitching one of Saguru's own liquid nitrogen capsules right into the wave, and Aoko made a choked noise of surprise. Saguru had no idea when in their scrimmage KID had lifted them off him, but he regretted bringing them then. In an instant, the water was frozen solid, trapping Aoko in between two walls of ice. KID didn't hesitate before tightening his finger around the trigger of his card gun, and a flurry of sharpened cards cut through the air. Aoko threw herself down, but she wasn't near fast enough to escape the steel sheets that sliced past her arms and legs, leaving behind thin, jagged wounds. The shallow cuts bled sluggishly as Aoko scrambled forward, and the whole hall groaned with the sound of pipes bursting. But the water that came through the walls and ceiling was only met with more freeze pellets, until sleet was flying through the hall in all directions.
"Tsuyu!" Saguru yelled, and for a brief second, her wide, almost panicked eyes met his. "You need more water than he can freeze!" He deliberately looked towards the ceiling, and hopefully, the water main labeled on the map of museum.
Aoko pursed her lips, eyes flashing left and right as she was forced to roll under another volley of cards. KID was shooting with precision that somehow managed to still come off as careless. The smile on his face was deviously sharp and he sniped at Aoko's hands and legs with almost wild abandon.
She would need to get past him to reach the stairwell to the roof, but he kept her at bay easily. With every jet of water she sprayed at him, he shot half a deck's worth of cards right back, but while Aoko was struggling to dodge the projectiles, he either slipped around her attacks or froze them midair.
And then Aoko suddenly just stopped, standing still in the center of the hall, an open target.
Saguru's heart nearly stopped in his chest as KID pointed the gun directly at her head and laughed. "Giving up so soon?"
"Like hell." Aoko snarled, and she threw her hands up just as KID took the shot. The water gathered around the room suddenly burst into mist that flooded the whole hall, obscuring everything from view-almost the same tactic KID himself had used earlier. Even Saguru struggled to see through the sudden fog, but he could hear Aoko rushing forward and sliding right past the disorientated KID. She sprinted to the stairs, fog condensing back into tendrils of water behind her that whipped at her opponent as he threw himself around to pursue.
The tendrils didn't last long, frozen solid instantaneously, but Aoko had already made it to the roof. KID was hot on her heels.
Saguru and the others stared after them, helpless as both combatants were already gone.
Shinichi came back to himself in his own bedroom. He knew he traveled home on his own, but the memories were almost nonexistent, more than if he was simply in a daze.
He didn't even know why he'd left. He couldn't remember much of anything after his conversation with KID, except the compulsion to return to the manor. He'd never abandoned a story before.
The footage he'd obtained from the heist was concerning: the memory card and what he recorded earlier that night both.
The most concerning part, though, was that he didn't remember the encounter showed in the video at all. The video and pictures he had taken clearly showed him encountering the Night Baron and approaching him for an interview, but his memories of the event were hazy and scattered. Had he left just because the Baron told him to?
Something had happened when he grabbed the Baron's hand. He just couldn't recall what, and the footage of it was frustratingly unhelpful. Why had he even done such a thing?
Shinichi spent the vast majority of his life trying to avoid unnecessary physical contact with others. Even soccer sometimes pushed the edges of his tolerance, and there had been a time when he'd only ever reach out to Ran willingly. He didn't want the burden of other people's shameful secrets and petty thoughts-he could barely manage his own.
But he, possibly, attempted to purposely insert himself into the Baron's mind.
That was not something he would do lightly. What had prompted him to do so? And why would he forget afterwards? The only conclusion he could come to was that the Baron tampered with his mind, but that introduced a new slew of questions. Did the Baron do it on purpose, or was Shinichi simply more susceptible to any mind bending affects the Baron's hypothetical powers had because of his own?
Tiredly, he pushed the thoughts aside. He was thinking himself into circles that brought him no closer to a satisfactory answer.
So he focused on the other cause of his distress and inserted the received memory card into his camcorder with no small amount of trepidation. But when the files loaded, he couldn't ignore the swell of hope within his chest. All the videos that had been lost when Tequila busted his previous camcorder had been salvaged somehow, undamaged. KID had, for some reason, taken the card he swiped from the police and transferred the memory from one storage disk to another.
Why? How had he known Shinichi had been carrying it? Did he watch the videos? Did he know something about the crows?
Shinichi's unanswered questions only increased, exponentially, when he noticed that there was an extra file.
He knew, logically, that it was a bad idea. But he wanted at least some resolution, so swallowing his nerves, he carefully hit play.
She woke up to sunlight filtering cheerfully through her blinds. Morning had come, but the world wasn't suddenly a brighter place. The problems of yesterday hadn't gone away.
She swallowed around the lump in her throat and rubbed the grit from her eyes as she forced herself to get up, trying not to think about how long she'd spent crying into her pillow last night.
She needed to look presentable; there was no point getting in trouble with her school too for being sloppily prepared for class.
But hell, Aoko had never wanted to go back to school less.
She had half the mind to call in sick, crawl back into bed, and pretend that everything was okay.
But at the same time, she didn't think she could run away from this. She would have to face it, eventually.
But the cuts from the day before were aching. They had scabbed over quickly, swallow as they were, but they certainly didn't look good. At least they hadn't switched to summer uniforms yet, because she'd never be able to hide them all in short sleeves. She wasn't particularly eager to show the marks of her second failure, especially if she too had to look at them.
The usual routine of preparing for school took longer than usual. She kept dropping things: her toothbrush, the frying pan, the bread. But lethargically, she couldn't even begin to care, just continuing on autopilot. Toast, butter, chew.
She didn't watch the news. She knew what it would say: Kaitou KID escaped again.
The walk to school was so mundane that she barely registered any of it, even the energetic conversations of the other students. She felt like she was traveling in a fish tank, sounds and sights filtered through several liters of water.
But at the school, a rush of cold fear stopped her in her tracks. Last night hadn't ended well for anyone, and now she was going to have to face it all over again.
"Fear is the heart of sin, you know." A smooth voice told her, an unusual shade of red creeping into the peripheral of her vision. She turned to find a girl smiling cooly at her with striking red eyes.
"Sorry?" The word slipped out before she could stop it. If she was remembering right, the girl was the transfer student who joined their class around a month before, who had been rising in notoriety ever since. Koizumi, known for her red hair and absurdly alien attempts at conversation.
"There's no running from truth." Koizumi said, and Aoko watched her red lips glisten in the light. "It tends to catch up with you."
Aoko opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Koizumi strode into the school as if they'd never spoken at all, her red hair blazing like a beacon guiding Aoko inside.
Entranced, she followed after, but with each step her nerves flared. Too soon, she reacher her homeroom, and she froze all over again at the sight of it.
No running, Koizumi had said. Aoko didn't quite get it, but she knew the words weren't random bullshit. The strange girl had been trying to tell her something.
Aoko stepped into the classroom, and the world didn't end. Nothing horrible happened. The planet spun on.
As if nothing was wrong, Kaito tossed her a mischievous smile and waggled his eyebrows. She very purposely looked away. Still running.
One week felt too short a period of time, and yet nowhere near long enough. Despite the retrieval of the footage of his attempted kidnapping and the trap in the warehouse, he couldn't deliver any of the videos to the police. KID had been clear about that in the message he had left, but Shinichi knew it wasn't an option in the first place. The police would know that he'd stolen evidence from the station, and was fraternizing with a wanted criminal. At best he'd be placed under police surveillance, and further investigation would be impossible. And while the footage proved the crows existed, the police already knew that. Whatever was going on, they were trying to sweep it under the rug, or at the very least, out of public's line of sight.
Releasing the videos to the web wasn't exactly a good idea either, even if it would make quite a splash. He couldn't make any sort of report so long as the kids were still in danger, with the likelihood of the crows continuing their method of burning the evidence left behind. Inciting the culprits wasn't going to help.
Which left Shinichi with very little to go on, and two deadlines hanging over his head. Not only was the shadowy time limit of the children's lives looming on the horizon, but KID's deal was wracking his nerves as well.
Any further leads were refusing to come to light, despite the fact that he had carefully perused the videos multiple times, combing for hints.
An organized criminal group kidnapping homeless children, including Satoshi, from warehouses across the city and burning the evidence to the ground; an all together unsustainable plan. A spontaneously emerging giant of fire that, for some reason or another, tried to go to the the warehouse from which Satoshi was taken, only to destroy all the evidence before the crows did. An anti-meta group stealing technology and research relating to the the genetics and biochemistry of metahumans, including the work by an obviously brilliant but unknown and unpublicized scientist.
Miyano Shiho was researching the science behind the development of superpowers. Something or someone triggered the emergence of the flaming Goliath that decimated downtown Tokyo. Miyano, if she was alive, was clearly working privately and discreetly, possibly only sending her work to a few select individuals for peer review. In all likelihood, she was unaffiliated with the Red Siamese Cats, otherwise they would have no need to steal her research, but somehow, the Cats had known exactly where to retrieve the files from. Moreover, there was a chance she wasn't unaffiliated with the other incident of the week.
It was a stretch. And yet, the idea wouldn't be shaken from his head, as if it was a certainty.
He had to find Miyano Shiho, and that led him right back to Nanyo University.
He had emailed the professor, Hirota Masami, from Nanyo, who had reported the robbery of his files to the police, under the pretense of writing an article on the Cat's crime. The professor had agreed to an interview, and so here he was, armed with his best equipment.
"Thank you for agreeing to speak with me."
Professor Hirota was an older man, edging his way towards being elderly and with a haphazard look in his eye. The kind of man that was becoming flighty in his age and becoming more careless; just like Professor Agasa.
"Not at all!" Oblivious to Shinichi's amusement, Professor Hirota replied jovially. He looked tired and worn from recent events, but still maintained a kindly, cheerful air. "In fact, I'm a little starstruck. My granddaughter loves your website, and I must say, it's nice to see young people so involved in current events."
Well, at least someone thought so. Everybody else seemed to think he'd be better off less involved. "Events like these are hard to ignore." An understatement, and yet so many people in Tokyo managed with nothing more than willful pigheadedness. "Are you doing alright in the wake of the robbery?"
Professor Hirota smiled, tired but earnest. He didn't seem too put-out. "Fine, fine. I wasn't even here. It's a pity about what was taken, though. I haven't any copies of the files they stole."
"You don't have digital versions?" Shinichi put on his best innocent face, pretending that that wasn't totally his fault. Professor Hirota, thankfully, didn't seem to think anything off.
"I did, but one of the thieves somehow cracked my computer and deleted all of them." Now, how had that happened? Hopefully, no one would ever find out. Good thing Shinichi had been wearing gloves the night of the robbery, or he'd be the one answering some pretty uncomfortable questions.
"What about the sources of the files?" He carefully controlled his expression, maintaining the facade of someone curious and concerned.
"I obtained them privately from a colleague, unfortunately."
"Can't you ask the colleague to send them to you again?"
"No, sadly. I did try but she seems to have changed all her contact information. I haven't been able to reach her at all." Damn it.
"Why do you think the culprits would target these particular files? What were they about?"
"I'm not sure I should say. I am concerned, though. No one steals scientific research with good intentions in mind, and this is too large to be someone simply trying to steal credit for the work." "The papers were all written by the same woman, on the molecular biochemistry of manifestation of meta-organism abilities."
"Meta-organism?"
"The manifestation of 'superpowers'," the professor made air-quotes with a wry eyebrow quirk, "is not restricted to human beings. Strange and extreme mutations are appearing in all sorts of living organisms, from microbes to amphibians to mammals. The resulting abilities can be very dangerous, even devastating. We might be looking as a new generation of super-superbugs in the next few years; my colleague was searching for a way to prevent and control these manifestations."
"That's amazing." He could easily guess why the Cats were interested in her work, then. "But couldn't that kind of research also go the other way?"
"I suppose theoretically it would be possible for meta abilities to be forcibly amplified rather than suppressed, but these 'powers' don't come from nowhere. What we are seeing is the extreme expression of genes in a form so incomprehensible to our current scientific knowledge that they seem supernatural." Professor Hirota explained, obviously shifting slightly into lecture mode. "There is no current basis for the creation of superpowers in an organism not genetically coded to manifest a specific set of abilities."
"Have you told this to the police?"
"I certainly mentioned it, but I'm not too concerned. My colleague's work was very preliminary and almost rudimentary; it's all just pathways and biochemistry. It would take years, maybe even decades of experimentation to even fully understand the true depths of these biological functions, let alone tamper with them." Shinichi wondered if that was really true. He was woefully undereducated in the matters of anything beginning with the word meta, but truthfully, so was vast majority of the population. The study of meta-human abilities was still more theory than an united discipline, despite the immense progress humanity had made in the recent years.
But a simple reporter couldn't show too much interest in that. "Can you tell me about what else was taken?"
Professor Hirota shook his head. "Not much, from what I can tell. Some machinery in one of the labs got taken; expensive stuff, but not anything you can't replace with insurance money."
Insurance. The Cat's knowing where to find the research. The ability and training to make use of Miyano's work.
An inside job.
A sick, dreadful feeling crawling up his spine.
"I would love the opportunity to speak with your colleagues about the incident. Is is possible you could introduce me to some of the others you work with?"
In the end, speaking with the professor's colleagues had been fruitless. The staff of just the targeted building alone was too numerous a group for him to question on his own. It was frustrating, but Shinichi knew he'd have to come back to the issue of the Red Siamese Cats with a better game plan. He'd eventually called it a day and left the campus, stopping over in a small park to gather his thoughts before returning to the manor.
Going home left a back taste in his mouth these past few days, after what happened at the heist. The article he'd written had been less than stellar, but at least Jirokichi was more easily satisfied than Shinichi's own inner demons.
But for once, he wasn't facing a dead end. He could work with the opportunities the university presented to him; maybe if he got into the staff rooms and offices again, he could discern something. It would be tedious and taxing, but if he could figure out who the leak was, he might be able to tail them back to the elusive Miyano.
And on the topic of tails…
"Are you following me?" He said aloud, not particularly looking anywhere. The sun was setting over the city, painting the towering skyscrapers of glass and steel viciously orange. The shadows of trees were lengthening across the park, creeping over the walkways and fountains.
Somebody behind him laughed. The voice was entirely unfamiliar, but the tone wasn't. "Depends on how you define the word following."
So he had guessed right. Considering what had happened the other day, Shinichi hadn't dared to think that the magician wasn't keeping him under observation. KID had been monitoring him through security feeds and a traffic cams, but once he stepped into the camera-free park, the thief had been forced to take his spying on foot. Shinichi didn't have the energy to be aggravated over it, not when he had plenty of other reasons to be angry with KID. "Worried that I'll go to the cops? Or maybe ISHA?" A tall, broad shouldered man with a plain face and murky brown eyes sat down besides him, wearing an easy smile and a blue-collar uniform. The man said nothing; just lounged on the bench and watched the water in the fountain. Shinichi wondered if if they were thinking about the same thing. "I hear your last encounter with the Irregulars got messy."
"Messy is a good word for it." KID replied, huffing with amusement. Shinichi didn't think it was particularly funny, but he and KID didn't always have the same sense of humor.
"Get too obvious and they might figure out what your powers are." He was relatively sure they didn't know already, because they hadn't reworked their strategies to better counter KID's hidden strengths. Not like Shinichi had. He'd discovered a few days ago that KID somehow had full access to his computer, possibly through some hidden bug in the returned files, and ever since he'd taken to working with paper and pen.
"Worried about me? You're surprisingly into this partner-in-crime thing."
"Hardly." Just that one word carried a fair amount of scorn, just in case KID was feeling particularly thick and hadn't noticed that Shinichi was not enjoying their usual games. "But it'll take the breath out of my article unmasking you and your tricks if everyone is already in on it." Before this stupid case began, he had never once spared a thought to KID's identity and the possibility of unveiling it. Now, he found the usual empty threat wasn't so empty.
He was probably not being fair, hell, KID was probably not even the one he was really angry with. Just a convenient and uncomplaining target he could vent his frustrations on.
"Keep dreaming, stringer. I hear it's good for kids your age to have imagination." The thief snapped right back, a surprisingly honest undercurrent of bitterness in his tone. Shinichi took a breath and released it as he tried to not remember the rough, frost-bitten edge of KID's mind. Neither of them were in a healthy enough mindset for their usual banter to come off as anything but sour.
But clawing at each other didn't solve anything.
Maybe KID was thinking the same thing, because he notably, deliberately eased, shoulders falling back and body folding forward slightly. When he spoke again, his voice was lighter. "You said hear. So you really ditched the heist before it even ended?"
"I ran into the Night Baron."
KID didn't look surprised. There was something akin to empathy gleaming in his eyes behind those awful contact lenses. "That guy's the worst."
"...Agreed."
"Well, then you might like my plan more than expected." KID rose from the bench with none of his usual fluidity, perfectly mimicking the tired slouch of a weary middle-aged worker. Shinichi was almost too fascinated by the change to pay the next words their proper attention. Almost. "Come with me, it's about time we went over the game plan."
Uh oh.
Shinichi turned his eyes to the pastel sky as he lifted himself off the bench, ignoring the rising chill in the air. "Why me?" He asked.
The grin KID struck him with should have been positively terrifying. But Shinichi didn't feel scared in the slightest. "Hmm, well, I made a promise. And let's just say, I'm a man of my word."
Curiosity burned in his brain like a brand, and Shinichi couldn't help but willingly fall into step behind one of the greatest criminal minds of the century.
If nothing else, this could turn into one hell of an article.