Conan hadn't meant to run off alone. He'd just been going to check on Wei Ying and Lan Zhan (and maybe see if he could eavesdrop a little) when he'd heard screaming. It was a conditioned response to run toward the source of screams at this point. It always meant something had gone wrong, and at least eighty percent of the time, this meant another dead body.
With two corpses already, and potential death hanging over two other people, he couldn't just ignore the scream. Conan was moving before he even realized he'd made the decision.
The yelling was from near the animal barns. Conan zipped past two white-robed people fleeing the area, and one woman who—seriously?—was holding a sword as she crept closer. He rounded a corner only to find two young people—also with swords—waving them at something near their ankles.
"Kill it!" one of them shrieked, or at least that's what Conan thought they were saying with his limited knowledge of the Mandarin language. ('Death' and 'kill' were unfortunately relevant words for his day-to-day life, and definitely something he'd looked up when he learned they were going to China.)
Conan looked down and saw one of the largest rabbits he'd ever seen. It was one of the ones with the floppy ears, white and heavy and bigger than the average cat. Add the fact that its eyes looked like they were glowing and the people trying to ward it off looked like there was blood speckling their ankles, it was abnormally aggressive and just about the most terrifying rabbit he'd ever seen as well.
The other person yelled something about not killing, so Conan guessed that this rabbit was usually a therapy animal.
That raised a lot of questions on why it was apparently out for blood.
"Would it kill you to not run toward the screaming?" Kid asked behind him, a little out of breath.
Conan ignored him, looking for something to kick.
"Woah," Kid said, hand on his shoulder. Conan glared at him as the two people with swords dodged and swore at a demon rabbit. "You can't kick something at it, that could kill it."
"Please don't kill the rabbit," Wei Ying said, popping up from nowhere with a flute in one hand and stress in every line of his tense body. "Lan Zhan loves that rabbit."
"Well I can't exactly go grab it. It has to weigh almost as much as I do, and has teeth that could bite through my fingers like carrots," Conan said peevishly.
"Then don't," Wei Ying snapped. "I'll just…" He thumbed the flute and looked like he was debating whether or not to tackle the rabbit. One of the people in robes shrieked and climbed halfway up a nearby wall.
Kid sighed. "It's a rabbit," he grumbled. "You're acting like you've never handled a rabbit before."
"Usually Yue just wants to get scritches and steal treats!" Wei Ying said. "I don't exactly have experience with rabbits out for blood."
"This is ridiculous," Kid said. He strode forward and grabbed the rabbit with a practiced hand, holding it by the scruff so it couldn't turn to bite. He grimaced as it kicked out with clawed feet just as viciously, but he didn't drop it. "Well?" he called in Wei Ying's direction. "Do something!"
"Right," Wei Ying muttered. "This is not how I thought my week would be going…"
Conan watched as he put the flute to his lips. What followed was something that could have come from a low-budget horror movie. The flute melody was…less than melodic to Conan's ears; he could tell it was unsettling and weird even if he was tone deaf. To add to the creepiness, the rabbit started hissing and thrashing in a way that did not look or sound like a normal rabbit. Conan could swear its eyes looked even redder for a moment before it suddenly went limp in Kid's hold.
Wei Ying let out a gusty sigh of relief, lowering his flute. "Do you see a bead somewhere on it?" he asked.
Kid turned the rabbit around in his hands, ignoring where he was bleeding, and probed one of its back paws. "Ah. There's a thread wrapped around it. And a bead stuck between its toes."
"Can you get it off and throw it to me?" Wei Ying asked.
Kid took a moment to untangle it and tossed it in Wei Ying's direction. Around them, people were cautiously coming out from where they'd hidden to get away from the evil(?) rabbit.
"Great," Wei Ying said. "Wonderful. Amazing. Now I just need to get the other ones, deal with some corpses, and hopefully this whole thing will be over."
"Wait, what about catching the murderer?" Conan blurted. "And the missing body?"
"Ah, yeah, I found the body," Wei Ying said. He and Kid exchanged a glance that had Conan feeling like he was being left out of some secret or another. It pissed him off. This was life or death here. There was someone that might kill at least two more people, and they were, what, keeping things hidden?
Conan couldn't stop a frustrated sound from bursting out of his throat. "What is even happening?!" he said. "A body goes missing, a woman dies with impossible wounds, there's a demonic rabbit—"
"Yue's not demonic. Look, she's fine now." Wei Ying took the rabbit from Kid and the creature was limp in his arms, nose twitching away and ears relaxed like it didn't still have blood staining its paws and muzzle. "She just was very unlucky."
"Why was it even attacking people in the first place?!" Conan exploded. They couldn't expect him to believe that a bead and some string would piss it off enough to try and attack people. Or that a bit of weird music would calm it. The world didn't work that way! And musical instruments didn't mysteriously appear and vanish, his mind pointed out. This case just had too many things that didn't have a way they possibly could happen. Not unless there was a killer machine with human-shaped hands somewhere on the premises. Not unless there was a ground compartment for instruments that Conan had missed. Not unless rabbits' eyes glowed red from things that weren't tapetum lucidum or went berserk for no reason.
"Tantei-kun, you really don't want to shove yourself into this," Kid said with a huff.
"I need to understand—"
"Some things can't be understood by—"
"—Are going to let me see—" Ran's angry voice came from not far away even as Li Zihan's voice overlapped with her saying, "—need to see her one more time! I'll hand it over then but—"
Conan turned in the direction of the voices. Lan Zhan had Ran on one side, Li Zihan on the other, and Wan Haoran following behind with a pained expression.
Before Conan could even begin to address that, or feel more than the flicker of nerves for getting on Ran's bad side, there was yet another scream and fleeing of white-robed people.
From the infirmary.
Everything blurred in a cacophony of voices and shouting as Conan stared at what should be absolutely impossible.
Chen Xinyi was very dead, her neck still at an unnatural angle. Still, she was walking in a stilted way, like something from a zombie movie where a body was still somewhat under the effects of rigor mortis. Yue the rabbit ran by with a robed teenager right behind it and Conan's head filled with white noise as the corpse kept moving.
Everything came rushing back with the piercing shriek of a flute followed by Wei Ying's voice shouting "Stop!" in a way that somehow transcended language altogether. Everything froze.
*O*O*
Wei Ying had no idea how to get this back under control other than to throw as much power into it as possible because he could feel resonance happening with the beads, black and poisonous, where it had been shielded and seemingly in stasis before. There was a corpse in one direction, somehow escaping the seals yet again, and Lan Zhan with the two remaining possible victims-to-be who apparently had refused to hand over their beads, and the one hot in his hand that was desperately trying to force its control onto him like it had done to poor Yue.
Unlike a rabbit, Wei Ying had a lot more power and a lot more practice with resentful energy, even wild, vicious, vicious sorts like this. Nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever come close to the resentment he'd come across in his brief and unfortunate time in a burial pit. One angry spirit high off murder was nothing compared to a mass grave of people killed unjustly and left festering with regrets.
At least now, all the beads were finally in the same place and awake. This wasn't quite the trap they'd been hoping to spring, but Wei Ying could improvise. He was good at improvisation. Wei Ying's flute called and the resentment answered; resentment at its core was a voice wanting to be heard.
The ghost was fractured, jagged offshoots surging from the beads to become one broken facsimile of a man, something twisted by pain and obsessing over the emotions of its death. It was simultaneously furious and weeping, hard to look at in its duality, and even then still connected to the beads, refusing to let the threads go. Wei Ying would sever the bonds if he had to in order to get it to move on. It had passed from something that could be sympathetic on to a true threat. It had killed. Cultivators eradicated ghosts for lesser things but it would always sit uncomfortable on him if he didn't at least try another method first.
The strong thrum of Lan Zhan's guqin joining his flute was enough to show they were on the same page. Wei Ying loved Lan Zhan. So dependable.
There were all kinds of shouting going on, but it wasn't worth paying attention to when it wasn't coming from any of the current threats. With Lan Zhan suppressing the strength of the resentment, and Wei Ying calling and commanding it, he was finally able to rip the ghost from its anchor points. Lan Zhan's music kept the corpse from becoming fierce of its own will, and let Wei Ying focus on the ghost now.
"You're angry! I can see that!" he said to the ghost. "But two people are already dead, and weren't they your friends in life?"
The ghost snarled, twisting against the energy Wei Ying grasped around it.
"Whatever your grievances, whatever part they had in your death, they're dead now too. It's time to let go." He didn't have the right words for this ghost. He didn't know what exactly had happened, but if its vengeance—if it was vengeance—was complete, maybe it would be enough for it to move on.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn't enough; not with a spirit this strongly fixated. Wei Ying centered himself.
If words wouldn't work, he'd try suppressing it. His flute music shifted to something soothing. Get it calm. Get its anger down and maybe that would lead to it letting go. Lan Zhan's notes poured around them, adding to it and the spirit's fight became weaker. And yet it still wasn't giving up. What was it holding onto so hard? Who was it still so mad at that it would fight like this?
Wei Ying frowned and reached for a talisman, one hand playing a simpler melody to keep it contained. If elimination was the only way…
He readied the talisman, energy growing as he prepared to end this. There would be no more bodies tonight. Wei Ying would make sure of that.
Music rising toward an energy high, Wei Ying tensed to strike.
A small, panicked voice called out, "Wait!"
*O*O*
Conan didn't know what was happening. Nothing in front of him fit with any logical knowledge he had of the world. If anything, the only explanation could come from the illogical, which shouldn't be possible, but even Conan could accept the impossible when it was happening in front of him.
There was a ghost. There was a ghost and it had been possessing Chen Xinyi's corpse. If it had been possessing her corpse, it could have been possessing Shen Ming's missing corpse from earlier. Which would mean that Shen Ming's body had been the cause of Chen Xinyi's death, and his body could have literally walked away.
Shen Ming had witnessed his friend's suicide—supposed suicide?—a friend who had been more than a friend to him. Shen Ming had broken his relationship with a man for the safety of a relationship with a woman, or maybe he'd truly fallen for Chen Xinyi over Huang Fang. Either way, there had been plenty of reason for Huang Fang to die angry at Shen Ming and Chen Xinyi. Plenty of reason to murder them now, since apparently murder from beyond the grave was a thing that was possible.
But if Huang Fang's reaction to Shen Ming breaking his heart had been to kill himself, why would he now be angry enough to kill Shen Ming instead of those emotions remaining self-directed?
Unless maybe it hadn't been a suicide.
Unless something else had happened here that they didn't know yet.
The ghost writhed under whatever the musical assault was doing, but it was still fighting, still trying to get at something.
It looked like it was in pain.
Conan might not know what the hell was happening or how this was possible, but if that really was a ghost, then it was once a person. And even if it had killed someone, it wasn't right to mercilessly kill it in return. Could a ghost be killed? Considering the pain, Conan thought it was likely, and it turned his stomach to sit back and watch that happen.
"Wait!" burst out of his mouth before he could even form the words for why. Before he had a plan. Conan just knew he couldn't watch someone's spirit be murdered as thoroughly as said spirit had killed its one-time friends.
Miraculously, Wei Ying really did stop, sending a glance his way though he was still poised to end everything. "Well?" he asked, a harshness that hadn't been present in his tone before now.
"Let me… Let me try." Conan didn't know ghosts. Until this moment, he had to say he didn't believe they existed. But he knew people and he knew how chains of emotions could get tangled until something broke violently and irrevocably.
"Tantei-kun," Kid said in a strained whisper.
"I have to try," he said before Kid could attempt to talk him out of this. "Getting to the truth is what I do."
The pieces were falling into place. Conan could see the shape of this tragedy. Wei Ying said something to Lan Zhan, something Conan couldn't understand as it wasn't in English. Did spirits understand the languages of the living? Would it even understand him if he spoke to it?
Conan swallowed down his doubts and insecurity and squared his shoulders. This was a case, just like any other, and he was a detective.
"Huang Fang," he called to the spirit.
It looked his way, but was more concerned with trying to escape or kill than an unknown child talking to it.
"Huang Fang…" He took a breath. "You never intended to die that night on that rooftop," Conan said, firm even though he still wasn't entirely sure if this was true. "You went there to talk."
The spirit paused. The air seemed to go still, quiet except for the hum of strings from Lan Zhan doing who knew what. All that mattered was that the spirit was listening.
"You were very close to Shen Ming." Conan took a step forward even though everything about this situation had his instincts wanting to shy away from the unnaturalness. He stepped forward to make sure it looked at him and him alone. Kid didn't try to drag him back. Neither did any of the people nearby. There was expectancy in the air. "Friends from childhood. A confidant. A lover." The hitch of someone's breathing in the crowd. "You loved him wholeheartedly, didn't you?"
Another step forward. "He didn't feel the same though, did he. You would have been happy to be with him, even hiding the relationship, but you were both getting to the age when parents start wondering if you'll have a partner or get married. You didn't care about those expectations. Shen Ming did, and he found a girl, and that hurt." He swallowed as the ghost looked flickeringly more human for a moment, like it was remembering itself. Remembering being Huang Fang.
"You thought things would end then, but they didn't. He wanted to have both, and you would have settled for that because you loved him and wanted what you could get." The way the ghost flickered more, looking like a lost young man instead of something terrible, said he was right. Conan licked his lips feeling like he was walking blind into a room with a half-rotted floor. "But he planned to marry Chen Xinyi." No that wasn't the catalyst. Huang Fang was resigned to that, had to have been from the moment Shen Ming started dating that he'd be married one day. "And Chen Xinyi found out that he was seeing you."
The ghost's lost expression went angry, jagged-spikiness of it getting wilder.
Shit. He wasn't trying to remind it of its anger.
"She confronted you!" Conan rushed on. "And so you confronted Shen Ming! You tried to make him choose because you couldn't do this halfway anymore. You had an argument! And you fell!" This was the key part, the thing that he was only guessing at but that felt true. "Maybe you slipped over the railing. Maybe he pushed you and you fell over, but you died angry, blaming him for it all, didn't you, Huang Fang?"
The ghost was a long-haired young man, furious tears on his face and blood on one side of his face where his head must have broken in the fall. He looked torn between despair and rage and unable to settle on either. His lips moved, and Conan couldn't tell what he was saying, but he somehow knew that it was accusatory. Hurt and broken and angry, and all aimed at Shen Ming and Chen Xinyi.
"You died," Conan said, voice rough as the words tried to stick in his throat. Why was the air so heavy? Why did it feel like the other people here were more specters than the ghost in front of him? "And they lived. And that solved all their problems all neat and orderly and in line with society and you hated that. You hated that they kept your beads when they were responsible in your death. You couldn't move on."
Conan didn't know how it was possible. He didn't know how a soul could latch onto an object or how it could have the strength to kill someone or possess something. But clearly it happened. "You influenced Shen Ming to get him away from everyone else and made him fall and die. Then, when Chen Xinyi went to look at the body, you used the two beads to give yourself the strength to kill her too."
Why run away with Shen Ming's corpse? What happened that let Chen Xinyi fight first? Maybe Huang Fang confronted her first, with Shen Ming's dead face and voice. Who knew what was possible? There was only one last thing he was sure of.
"And you intended to kill Wan Haoran next, didn't you? That's why you possessed the rabbit. To try and get closer, except someone noticed you. You wanted him to die because he stood by and watched your relationships fall apart and never did anything to help you or censor Shen Ming."
It felt, with the music in the background—when had that started, when did it become more than just the soft thrum of strings?—like he was looking into the ghost's innermost secrets and the ghost was seeing his right back. Something impossible, but maybe not so impossible after everything that happened tonight.
"Huang Fang, the ones that hurt you are dead. You are dead. Do you really want to kill the one friend you have left?"
The ghost broke.
Sound rushed back in, voices and Wan Haoran saying something, crying, as the ghost glowed and dissipated. Conan felt exhausted all of a sudden like he'd done something deeper than talk down a murder suspect.
He sat heavily on the ground as chaos happened around him, dimly aware of Kid returning behind him, one hand on his shoulder like a grounding force.
He must have blinked, or maybe lost time somehow because the next thing he knew, he was being crushed against Ran's shoulder and she was crying on him and yelling at him at the same time in a bewildering but familiar way.
Conan patted her back tentatively.
"Don't do that," Ran was saying. "We aren't even in Japan, Conan, we can't just call the police like home!"
"Sorry, Ran-neechan," he said meekly. He was going to be in so much trouble for this, wasn't he? Ah well. He'd be on his best behavior for a while, no complaints or sneaking off until she calmed down again. …He needed some time to process the fact that ghosts existed anyway. Conan closed his eyes and hugged her back.
*O*O*
Wei Ying was exhausted. And confused, but the exhaustion was priority. Between using demonic cultivation, barely getting any sleep, two murders on Cloud Recesses property, and sending a violent ghost to the afterlife, he was due some rest now please.
He pressed his face into Lan Zhan's back and let his boyfriend order people around to clean up the shit show.
The whole murder-ghost thing was over! Yay! They still had a cursed child that somehow had enough latent spiritual intent that he managed to focus a ghost toward the path of letting go enough that they could send it along to the afterlife without destroying it after all. Which was very confusing considering the same child had originally boosted the resentful energy. Cause and resolution all in one or something like that.
The little kid was getting reamed by his… older sister? Guardian person? Whatever. His person. It would be funny if he hadn't just watched him talk down a ghost with the seriousness of a career cultivator.
…how many murders had this kid run into again?
Wei Ying rubbed his face against the knobs of Lan Zhan's spine between his shoulder blades. "Lan Zhan," he whined. "I want to go to bed."
One of Lan Zhan's hands lifted to rest on top of Wei Ying's where they were latched around his chest. He paused in ordering the clean up and purification of the area to give Wei Ying a murmured, "Soon."
Soon. Wei Ying wanted now! Hadn't they been good and solved the problem? Couldn't it be someone else's problem now? Did they always have to be responsible?
Ugh. Yes, as senior cultivators they did, didn't they? He missed being a younger teen and handing off the complicated stuff to adults. Now he was an adult.
Adulthood sucked sometimes.
Wei Ying sighed and let Lan Zhan go.
Next to the barn, the kid had finally stopped being smothered by his sister-person and was meekly holding her hand as she talked to Kuroba.
Talk to the kid or talk to the probably-traumatized friends of the victims?
Actually, for once talking to trauma victims was preferable to diving into someone else's family issues, so he'd shelve the kid and his curse problem until he had a bit more brain power.
He found Li Zihan and Wan Haoran sitting on a flat stone wall with shock blankets and cups of tea in their hands looking like, well. Like they'd seen a ghost.
They kind of had, so fair enough? Wei Ying tried for a neutrally sympathetic face as he approached, but he probably looked as tired and strained as he felt.
"So," Wei Ying said with forced optimism, "I think we can say that things are resolved now. Though to be extra sure, we're probably going to need to cleanse those beads and stuff because, ah, I don't think there will be a repeat of that, but we'd like to be extra sure." And they should probably send someone out to the grave site to be extra extra sure that this ghost was totally pacified. Even though Wei Ying was ninety percent sure that the kid's callout speech had done the job of making it let go. "Ah, how are you holding up?"
"My best friends killed each other," Wan Haoran said dully. "How do you think?"
Eh, yeah, kind of a dumb question, wasn't it… Wei Ying scrubbed his hair, probably tangling it to even more of a rat's nest than it already was from sleeping on it earlier. "How much of what the brat was saying was actually right?"
Wan Haoran shrugged. "Most of it. Probably. Only Shen Ming and Huang Fang would know how the rooftop went…" The tea in his hands was untouched as he stared down at it like the faint wisps of steam held the secrets of the universe. "It probably would have been justified, Huang Fang going for me. I should have said something. I should have at least asked if Huang Fang was okay with how things had changed. Or. Or anything."
Li Zihan didn't even move when Wan Haoran brushed against her, shifting, and didn't even seem to be wholly present. Wei Ying should probably get a healer on that.
"Too late now though," Wan Haoran said with an empty laugh. "Too late for anything…"
And Wei Ying was not the one qualified for this sort of emotional fallout. "For what it's worth, it looked like being reminded of your friendship was part of what finally let him let go of his anger."
Wan Haoran gave a tiny shrug. Great. Wonderful.
"…We have on-staff grief counselors?" Wei Ying offered. Nothing. Okay. "I guess I'll leave you to, er, process then."
That finally got him a hum of acknowledgement, but Wan Haoran still seemed more out of it than not.
Well, grief happened in stages. And no one should have to find out that their source of grief is caused by another source of grief through improbable supernatural means. It happened a lot more often than it should all things considered. But maybe Wei Ying was biased since he was a cultivator and dealt with restless dead frequently.
It was sad though that this whole thing had been a tragic love affair that could have been prevented if only society was more accepting. Wei Ying looked toward Lan Zhan who had been handed the rabbit from earlier and was petting Yue's ears with the same care he gave to every rabbit in the barn. His heart always got a little squishy and gooey feeling seeing Lan Zhan with animals or small children. Wei Ying was so lucky that he had him and that people in the Cloud Recesses didn't care that they were together. Or at least that they didn't care about them both being men—Wei Ying as a person was a bit more controversial.
Ah, he could just stand and watch Lan Zhan holding cute bunnies for ages. It made him want to grab him and pull him somewhere and cover his face with kisses until Lan Zhan's ears were almost as red as Wei Ying's preferred hair ribbons. Darn responsibilities for being a barrier once again.
And now to check on Kuroba and the kid. At least it looked like the scolding had wound down.
Wei Ying nodded to Kuroba and braced himself for potentially angry family backlash aimed at him for no other reason than he was there and clearly part of the people that belonged here. Instead, the young woman turned to greet him at Kuroba's acknowledgement and gave a quick bow, making the kid bow too.
"I'm so sorry for any trouble he caused," she said in fairly clear English. "Thank you for helping to look after him."
"Uh." Being thanked didn't actually happen to him often. "No problem?" Wei Ying laughed uncomfortably. "I got the impression that this happens a lot."
"That doesn't mean that Conan-kun can't do better in the future," she said, frowning down at her charge.
"Ah, children get into trouble all the time. You don't want to know the kind of things I got up to with my brother when no one was looking. It's a miracle neither of us broke many bones or drowned in retrospect."
"Edogawa likes to push the limit of near-death experiences," Kuroba quipped.
Edogawa—that was his name, right, maybe it would stick if he wasn't so tired—kicked Kuroba in the shin, quick and vicious. Kuroba winced.
"Conan-kun!" the girl said with an exasperated sigh. "Really, now."
"Ah, I thought I saw a bug on his leg," Edogawa chirped in a creepy fake-childish voice. "It must have flown away."
The girl sighed again and gripped the kid's hand tighter like it would keep him from doing something like that again. Good luck with that; Edogawa seemed like he didn't care what anyone wanted him to do, he'd just go and follow his nose for trouble anyway.
"Anyway," Wei Ying said, "while he did butt into our investigation, he also lent a hand, so I can't get too mad at least. Ah, the Lan are a bit pickier on rules though, so you might want to try and be quiet about the whole running around in the middle of a crisis thing so the elders don't hear about it. They're sticklers for details. When I visited to use the library here as a child, I ended up writing lines every other day for being too loud, or running, or drinking, or eating meat, or—you know what, I broke a lot of rules and let's leave it at that."
The young woman smiled. She had a nice smile, a kind smile. "I'm Mouri Ran, you are?"
"Wei Ying! Are you the lucky lady that won the trip here or…?" He knew it wasn't her, but he couldn't remember who the last member of the group was.
"Oh, no," Mouri Ran said with a pretty blush. "My father did. He's a detective. Conan-kun is staying with us for the moment."
Huh. So not a sister, or a sister in the unconventional sense that Wei Ying's own familial ties had. "I hope you enjoy your stay. It's a little dull here, but I promise there's things you can find to do that are fun." He grinned and leaned in conspiratorially. "The north waterfall is a nice place to avoid people and goof around. If you like animals, there's also the barns. You can bury the kiddo there in bunnies."
Mouri Ran laughed. "Oh, that would be adorable."
"I've buried my friend's cousin in them before. It really is cute. There's other animals too, but the bunnies are the best. Avoid the donkey. It's a jerk."
"That sounds lovely. I'll have to do that." She swung her hand with Edogawa's. "Either way, Conan-kun will be staying right with me, right Conan-kun?"
"Yes, Ran-neechan," Edogawa said like a child that was told they had to skip their favorite television show for bad behavior. Considering Wei Ying met him in the library, that was probably more his taste than petting zoos or waterside meditation points. Tough luck, kiddo. Wei Ying wasn't going to intervene for him.
Actually though. If Edogawa got into trouble all the time, and also lived with a detective, and ran into dead bodies all the time, the whole group could probably use a few sessions of music therapy to clear resentment and calm the mind. And a curse breaker taking a crack at the kid.
"I'll put in a word with some specialists to walk you through some meditation techniques," Wei Ying said, still outwardly cheerful. "When bad things happen, it's important to process them before things pile up, yeah?"
"That sounds really nice, actually. I do karate, so I'm familiar with katas and moving meditation."
"Oh, we have that sort of thing here too!" Oh neat, the kid had someone potentially able to watch his back after all. "Honestly moving meditation is easier for me than the standard sitting kind. I'm too easily distractable."
"I was as a child too. The karate gave me an outlet." Mouri Ran smiled in earnest pleasure at finding someone who could understand.
Wei Ying totally got it because when he first came to the Cloud Recesses, they hadn't actually had a proper moving meditation practice. Wei Ying had nearly gone stir crazy trying to force himself to do something that was against his nature. The teachers probably thought they had it worse though since he'd ended up distracting everyone in the end.
"Mm, yeah, I did sword drills."
Edogawa was frowning at him. Why was Edogawa frowning at him? He was just trying to be friendly.
"Anyway, things should calm down tomorrow. I promise it's not usually like this around here."
"I'm used to this sort of thing," Mouri Ran said with wry resignation. "The side effect of having a detective for a father."
Or a cursed child under your roof. "If you need anything, don't be afraid to reach out." He wasn't going to be able to corner Edogawa about the whole chaos thing and needing to do tests with his guardian right here. Hopefully he'd manage it before they left.
"Thank you, Wei Ying."
Wei Ying gave her his best charismatic smile before turning to Kuroba Kaito. "Hey, can I talk with you for a second?"
"Of course."
They moved a bit away from everyone else and Wei Ying pretended he didn't feel the curious eyes of a child following him.
"Well that sure was eventful," Kuroba said lightly.
"Yeah, just a bit." Wei Ying eyed Kuroba. He was too calm in the way that spoke more of being a great actor than really being calm, and his hands had been shoved in his pockets from the moment Wei Ying approached Mouri Ran. "How bad are your hands injured?"
"Nothing that needs stitches, but I'm going to need to disinfect the hell out of them."
Hmm, yeah, bunny teeth and claws weren't as bad as a cat, but they weren't exactly clean either. "You're handling all this pretty well."
"I already knew ghosts existed from reading some of your library," Kuroba said. "Can't say I expected to have to deal with one up close and in person, but not exactly a world-changing shock. Edogawa on the other hand…"
"Yeah, about him. I'm about ninety percent sure he's cursed and I have no idea how to get him tested when he has Mouri Ran gluing him to her side. Thoughts?"
"Being cursed would explain a lot," Kuroba said, a flash of disgruntlement showing through the charismatic mask he showed most of the world—understandable; Wei Ying had that mask too most of the time. "You'll need to get the brat on your side. He can talk his way out of most things."
"…Swing it as therapy?" Wei Ying mused.
"He probably doesn't believe in curses."
"That was before seeing a ghost," Wei Ying reasoned. "Coming face to face with one has to open the realm of possibilities, yeah?"
"You'd think," Kuroba said with a snort. "If I told him I was looking for a rock that grants immortality, he'd laugh at my gullibility."
"But you think I could get him alone?"
Kuroba shrugged. "Convince Mouri-chan and he'll have to go along with it."
Good enough. Wei Ying sighed. "I am so damn tired."
Kuroba laughed. "Oh, so am I."
"How do you look so awake and put together?" Wei Ying grumbled. Kuroba looked put together no matter when he saw him, be it during meals or them both raiding the library after hours at three in the morning to follow a random trail of thought.
"Lots and lots of practice," Kuroba said with a grin.
"Have a comb? My hair is eating my head alive."
Kuroba, being the kind of person that seemed to have pretty much everything on hand all the time, pulled a comb out of somewhere.
Wei Ying took it and started de-tangling the ends of his hair. There were bits of plants in there from when he was searching for the corpse earlier. "Got any energy drinks too?"
"If I did, I wouldn't be giving you one," Kuroba said, amused. "You should just go back to bed."
"I'm going to have to talk to people in charge," Wei Ying whined. "And give explanations. And defend my choice to use illegal cultivation methods even though that was literally the most direct way to keep a resentful being from causing harm." Wei Ying shook the comb at Kuroba. "That's almost as bad as trying to defend a research thesis against a bunch of conservative old men!"
"It's a good thing you have your boyfriend as backup then," Kuroba said, still smiling.
"Heck yes."
A moment later a small bag popped into Kuroba's hands. "You can have three," he said, holding it out, "but if you eat more than that I'm going to be annoyed."
Wei Ying paused in untangling some kind of burr. "What are they?"
"Chocolate covered espresso beans," Kuroba said giving the bag a little shake. There couldn't be more than twelve in the bag with how small it was. "They're perfect for a quick caffeine and sugar jolt."
"You had me at the word chocolate," Wei Ying said. He fished out the candies and crunched them between his teeth. A little weird and gritty, a little bitter; he'd never had a chance to try coffee beans covered in chocolate, but he had the feeling he could become addicted to them if given the chance. "These taste amazing."
Kuroba popped one into his own mouth and tucked the bag away. "You're welcome."
"I'll help you with your research tomorrow," Wei Ying promised. After everything calmed down and he got some sleep and food and snuggled his boyfriend until he felt ready to face the world again.
Kuroba flashed him a grin. His eyes flicked back toward Mouri Ran and Edogawa. "I'll keep an eye on them until you can get Edogawa looked at."
"Great." Wei Ying sighed with his whole body as he saw an extremely frazzled Lan Qiren approaching Lan Zhan across the way. They were definitely going to need his version of events soon. Wei Ying hoped that caffeine started kicking in.
Wei Ying handed the comb back to Kuroba, and it disappeared up his sleeve like it never existed.
"Well, going to go face Old Man Disapproval," he grumbled.
"Good luck," Kuroba said, eyes glinting in a way that meant he was probably laughing at him inside. Whatever. He had to deal with the creepy child, so Wei Ying wasn't sure which of them had the worse scenario. At least Lan Qiren didn't incite corpses.
Wei Ying gave him a wave and headed toward Lan Zhan like he was gearing for battle. Time to defend all the choices he'd made in the last few hours.
*O*O*
Kaito was tired, and no amount of dark chocolate espresso beans were going to be enough to push back against the exhaustion of dealing with multiple dead people, supernatural fuckery, and a tiny detective that had it in for him. Still, he couldn't sleep yet, not when he was still playing a role. Kuroba Kaito, paranormal researcher, was the kind of person to check in with others, and stay awake if the rest of the group was awake, and unfortunately for him, Mouri Ran was currently part of the group he'd let himself be assigned to. Kaito might be used to late nights and erratic sleep schedules, but that didn't mean he enjoyed being up at odd hours unplanned or getting dragged into stressful events.
At least, he thought as he tried to channel the morning-person mentality of one of his teachers, Edogawa was in just as unhappy at the moment.
"So," Kaito said lightly as Ran left their side for the first time in the last hour to use the restroom. "How are you holding up."
"I'm a step below contemplating assault for coffee," Edogawa grumbled.
"Hmm, pretty sure Wei Ying is the only person here who has access to coffee."
Edogawa shot him an unhappy look. "Seriously?"
"They're traditionalists," Kaito said patiently. "There's plenty of caffeine-heavy tea."
"Tea is never the same," Edogawa sighed, shoulders slumping. "…You don't seem to be very affected by what happened."
"I was already aware of ghosts and magic," Kaito said. Akako was a very unwelcome slap in the face on that note.
"…Is it magic? Or just science we don't have a way of understanding?"
"Eh. Either or. The effects don't change."
Edogawa was tense, folded in on himself, looking more unsure than Kaito had ever seen him. "Is. Is it common? Is this sort of thing happening regularly, or were we just unlucky here? Do you think I've…"
Kaito sighed. Of course the detective would jump down the thought train of worst scenarios. "I haven't run into much. Not unless I was seeking it out, or it was seeking me. You're probably fine as far as your past cases go. Think about it, Tantei-kun. In most cases I've seen you on, your suspect confesses to it all by the end. It's entirely possible that you've never run into magic before now. Most people live without ever running into it."
"If murder victims or people who died angry or with regrets can come back, I would have thought I'd have seen it before. It's not like I have a shortage of violent deaths around me."
"Hmm." Kaito hummed thoughtfully. He looked out at the little garden their window framed. The sun was rising, all misty silvery green at the edges from filtering through leaves. It was a beautiful place, and not really like anywhere Edogawa visited before. Not like anywhere Kaito had been before either. "I have an idea about that, but I still don't know enough about all of this to be sure. I think it might be this place that let it happen; ironic since they fight ghosts and corpses here."
"Why would the place matter?"
"Energy," Kaito said. "Nature holds more energy than cities, though I've read a few stories about the kind of creepy-crawlies a poor sector of a city can produce… Our ghost was in the beads from his prayer bracelet. It probably took some time for him to get energy to manifest, and when they came here, there was more energy to draw from."
"…So he was finally able to act," Edogawa concluded. "So you're saying that all those times, there wasn't enough time for the ghosts to gain power? Or that there might not have even been any power to work with?"
"Maybe. But you usually deal with fresh deaths. A ghost probably doesn't have time to form yet, and then you solve the murder and they have no reason to hold on when you've gotten them justice." All theory of course, but not everyone even formed a ghost. And there were fewer ghosts in today's society than in the past so far as Kaito could tell from passing conversations.
"Hm." Edogawa sighed. "Hey Kid? Are you really here studying legends?"
"I am," Kaito said slowly.
"Why China?"
"One, they have a lot older written records than what you can get your hands on in Japan. Two…" Well, the main magic users here called themselves 'immortal cultivators,' so where better to look for an object promising immortality? "A… friend… really did recommend their library. I've run out of primary sources I can get to in Japan."
Edogawa gave him a skeptical look. "You can break into almost anywhere and hack pretty much every digital file source out there."
"The magic societies tend to run a bit slower in accepting technological progress," Kaito said wryly. Something Wei Ying mentioned he was interested in changing if he could ever get an argument that would stick with the elders here. "And it's not like I know every occultist or folklorist in existence. Sometimes it's easier to go to an established library than to break into a hundred different homes on the off chance one might have a relevant book."
"Okay, that's fair."
They watched birds flit around outside and the world grow brighter. It would be better to just stay up by this point.
"…Edogawa, Wei Ying is probably going to approach you about something."
"What kind of something?" Edogawa asked suspiciously. "If it's about not spreading knowledge of ghosts, I could walk up to someone and say something and no one would believe me considering my age. And I can keep a secret."
"Ah. No." Kaito rubbed the back of his neck. How to say that Edogawa was probably cursed? "There's some odd energy around you," he settled on. "Wei Ying said he wanted to make sure nothing sinister was happening there."
"Oh." Edogawa frowned. "I guess I could let him check. Is it likely though? I know a lot of people are angry for me putting them in jail, but…"
"Eh, better to be safe? Especially after the ghost here."
"I guess…"
"Great." Kaito gave an internal sigh of relief. If they could do something, maybe Edogawa would have a bit less of a chaotic life. It really couldn't be healthy to run into that many murders. "And there's Mouri-chan," he said as she returned from the bathroom with a wet cloth. Probably for Edogawa since he'd gotten a bit dirty with all the goings on.
"I ran into a person in the hall," Mouri said. "They're going to extend the breakfast hours so anyone who was up in the night has a bit more of a chance to rest."
Oh thank goodness. The hours people kept here were ridiculous. "Ah, I should probably head back to my room then," Kaito said. "Try to stay out of trouble, hm?" he directed at Edogawa.
Edogawa rolled his eyes.
"Thank you for looking after Conan-kun," Mouri said.
"Oh, no trouble at all," Kaito said lightly, though anything with Edogawa was always trouble. He gave a little wave and wandered away.
Catch a catnap, eat, then see if he was needed before getting back to the whole point of being here. Nothing ever went how he planned when Edogawa entered the picture…