Heya !
And here we are, time for some Kaito goodness ! xD
Nah, promise, we'll still have our 2 detectives... Things aren't going to turn out as expected for our little Thief :p
PS :I'm so glad, I'm seeing a lot of fics with Heiji in them lately, this is pure happiness too me, writers, please go on ! xD
o.O.o
emmahoshi : Haha, yea, totally made up on the point by Heiji... He may lack some imagination ? :p As to Kaito... Of course he's somewhere... ; ) But I won't spoil it yet ^^ Ah, well, since the heist is in Osaka and Nakamori's team has been forced to stay outside, I don't think there would be much risk for Conan to be recognized... And Heiji has make-up, right ? ^^ Ok, perhaps a tiny little risk for those two ? *looks at next chapter* yea, a little xD
Chapter 13 : Blue and red
As planned, the party was boring as hell. Old ladies with so much make up they couldn't smile else they'd risk to crack it, old men looking with drool at the corner of their mouths at the few young women, mostly the waitress and the female members of the charity's entertainment team, and, of course, this whole fake atmosphere of people trying to sound smarter, richer, and more interesting than they really were, in the hope to get the attention of the press or the well-known personalities among us.
I nevertheless managed to keep my calm - ok, I almost lost it when an already drunk middle-aged woman scolded me for not being able to fill her glass fast enough... the damn girl swallowed her drinks in one gulp, who could ?! - and to, well, in my opinion, merge easily enough among the other waiters. I had a natural balance, strong arms and the ability to avoid people thanks to kendo, which surprisingly turned out to be a perfect training to hold a plate of drinks in a crowd.
Having a bit befriend with that Todoki during the wait, we exchanged some looks from time to time, rolling our eyes to such or such customer, having desperate looks towards the most annoying ones.
I spoke to Kudô a few times through the badge to hear that, just like me - dear, I was so much regretting not to be able to put my cap on my head in those moments, he had one or two close calls, his disguise being inexistent. But how could we have guessed the Superintendent General Hakuba from the MPD would come from Tokyo? Ok, his son, the pretty much annoying half-brit detective Hakuba Saguru was supposed to be Kid's Nemesis but he wasn't even here, he was still solving some case in England according to the press. Luckily for us, the man hadn't really often seen Kudô, just having a few glimpses from him from time to time when he came to the MPD's headquarters so my friend could have him think he was mistaken. With a fake Kansai-ben. Oh kami, I so regretted no having been around there when it happened ! Must have been so fun, seeing how bad he was in my dialect – though it didn't stop him to make fun of me with my poor Kyoto-ben...
I was still laughing in my mind when a hand fell on my shoulder. Turning, knowing I'd face a guest and already annoyed by that, my eyes widened when I recognized its owner.
"- Hattori-kun ?" The other said, his look watching me with a slight startle, but I knew this startle wasn't about knowing if I was Hattori or not, it was more about understanding why the disguise. He had seen through it the first second, I could tell at his face...
"- Shhh !" I said, a finger in front of my mouth as I dragged him in a corner.
What the hell was that teen doing here... Coming in his father's stead or what ?
"- Are ya in a kind o' secret mission ?" He asked with amusement.
"- Kind o'... Just don' tell anyone I'm here, Tanioka-kun. Ya were also invited?
- Ah, it's Sahashi-han... The author, ya know ? He's a friend o' my father an' invited us both ta this party. But seein' the circonstances... I didn' really want ta come but he convinced me, he was afraid ta get bored...
- Aren' ya the one who'd get bored, with all these oldies ?
- Nah, I'm good... Though probably not havin' as fun as ya... Are ya here fer the Kid ?"
The teen just gave me the excuse I needed not to have to mention Osaka's Superintendent.
"- Yea, that's it... I'm sure he's within the guests so I'm tryin' ta see as who he could be disguised...
- But there are something like one hundred guests here...
- Don' remind me..." I smiled with real embarrass : that "one hundred guests" was as much as a problem for a Thief's hunt than for a target's hunt...
"- Takeo-kun ! "
The boy in front of me turned around and rolled him eyes at the man who was waving at him, Sahashi-han, I recognized him from the pictures.
"- I have ta go ! See ya, Mr Detective !
- See ya ..."
I looked at him as he met the author and the one near him, the Superintendent. I had done my best to keep an eye on him during the evening. The man was as stern as he looked on his picture, I don't think I saw him smile even once, barely noticing the corners of his mouth slightly going up when the others around him were laughing... He had been talking to the three potential targets but his behaviour had been the same with each, though perhaps a bit colder to Yasumoto-han, the man had been denigrating the police after all...
I knew Kudô was watching Arimachi-han, since she was the Kid's target, with her huge sapphire around her neck so I didn't give Kasai much attention when he talked to her.
And now he was with our mysterious author. The man didn't speak much but it wasn't from shyness. You could feel at his determinate aura the man had no problem with who he was and just lived according to his principles. Which could explain why his books seemed too polemical, if there was no social filter on some subjects, no wonder he'd get on the nerves of some.
I looked away as a guest called me - the annoying kind, I could recognize them quite well now - and helped her with a silent sigh, before looking with the eyes for Todoki for the usual silent complain that helped me to release some tension but couldn't find him.
And the fact the lights suddenly went off didn't help.
"- Ladies and gentlemen !" echoed through the room as the spotlights focused on a single point on the scene, showing a man dressed in white, bowing with a malicious smile, his hand on the rim of his hat.
I smirked at his outfit. I had of course already seen some pictures on the press and caught a glimpse of the Thief on some cases but it was the first time I was so close to him.
I couldn't stop myself to imagine that guy as a child, with his parents like : "Hey kid, if ya wanna go incognito when ya grow up, don' forget ta jump into yer white tuxedo an' its assorted hat". That was so ridiculous for a thief to hang around in such flashy clothes. Wondered how he lasted so long… Something like at least 10 years ? Crazy…
The room was still dark but I could hear the precipitated footsteps of the dozen of undercover cops in the room, rushing around the heiress, ready to protect the woman against any attempt of the Kid.
A sudden burst brought the light back in the room, forcing me to blink while a rain of confetti was falling on us, some exploding in a colourful cloud, covering with paint the ones on their way.
I was now the happy owner of a red sleeve and the cry at the other side of the room informed me that, while Arimachi was now covered with blue paint, there was nevertheless a lack of blue, just around her neck.
When the Kid, on the other side, was holding in his hand a bright sapphire that seemed to have been teleported as if by magic. The hell had been his trick ? I didn't notice anything…
"- As a modest payment for bringing some colours to this dark party despite its appraisable intent, I'll take that single necklace..."
"- Catch him !" I heard Kasai yell to his men.
At the exact same moment, I saw the Thief move one step aside, just as if nothing happened, to avoid by an inch the soccer ball I knew had been sent by my best friend and spoke again.
"- Please forgive my intrusion and enjoy the end of your d... !"
His playful tone was interrupted by a salve of bullets that echoed in the room, triggering a series of yells from the guests.
"- Sorry but we'll be the ones to get the sapphire, Thief !" A new voice announced as the lights came back into the room.
Looking in the direction it was coming from, I froze when I noticed a pack of at least 10 to 15 men in black and hoods over their faces, armed to the teeth, were entering through a door on the left of the scene. What the heck were the security and the police doing ?! And just how cursed was this party, with a murder attempt in progress, a Kaitou Kid heist and now more thieves, with a bunch of weapons ?
I saw, in the corner of my eyes thank to the spot that was directed towards him, the Kid turning on himself with a swift move of his cape when they tried to shoot him, disappearing in a bang, just before the light came back.
"- He's hiding among the crowd, find him !" Their leader ordered. "And neutralize the cops !"
Before the police officers could even react, unable to shoot because the guests were in their way and they'd risk to hit someone by accident, the criminals, having probably used Kid's performance to spot the undercover agents, were now shooting into the crowd, clearly aiming for the policemen.
Seeing one of those criminals was near of me and Sahashi-han and that we were clearly in his line of fire, I tackled the author as I could, my hands on my ears to try to attenuate the noise of the machine guns and the yells from the guests who were trying to shield themselves of anyway they could.
"- Stop that !" The Superintendent General roared among the last gunshots, getting also his weapon out to fire in the air, looking uneasy to see all his men had been, as promised, neutralized to various degrees.
I helped the old man on his feet, brushing his "thanks" away with a shrug, to see the group's leader approaching the police's leader with an arrogant look.
"- Who do you think you are ?
- Kasai Hirô, Superintendent General of Osaka's Police. Free the hostages and surrender yourself before this turns nasty. The whole place is surrounded by the police, in case you didn't notice...
- Don't worry about us, we know what we're doing..."
The guy had a subtle nod and one of partners slammed his weapon against the back Kasai's neck, sending him to the floor, unconscious.
Ok, that was perhaps the end of the theory "Kasai is behind all this", unless he was really a masochist...
"-Ladies and Gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt you during such a fancy party. Please understand that, if you behave and do as I say, there won't be any other dead. Except for the Kaitou Kid."
I was frustrated not to be able to see any of those guys' face, with their hoods. I would recognize the voice of the leader, like everyone here, but had no clue about the others...
Turning my head back to the man who almost shoot the author, it was with startle that I noticed he wasn't here anymore. Anymore at all, since the only ones I could spot were the ones I already noticed. Ok, it was a bit unconsciously but thanks to my perfect visual memory, I was sure of it.
Wasn't the guy one of them then ?
I paled at that question to myself. With a second thought, the man's clothes were a bit different from those of that commando. Ok, he had the same kind of hood but his vest and his pants... were more from a tuxedo ! Now that I thought about it, he even had some yellow on his collar, due to Kid's paint. That man was part of the guests ! And he had been aiming for... Sahashi-han. No doubt about it, his weapon was pointed at the old man's back.
If I hadn't been there, the man would be dead and the police would have blamed that group, not an isolated man. Perfect plan. But how the hell could anyone organize that ?! Just how precise had been that plan... I was lacking proofs and answers but I knew I had very probably found my target. Question was how Kasai had done it and who worked with him among the guests, since the list had been so restricted...
A hit against my side with a machine gun got me out of my reasoning, forcing a surprised grunt out of my throat.
"- You didn't hear ? You go over there !"
Refraining myself from trying to knock him down, not wanting to have his other friends with machine guns on my back, I bowed my head and stepped towards the direction he indicated, sticking to Sahashi-han since he was going with me.
I clenched my fists as I looked at his back. This was going to be complicated but I swore I was going to prevent that murder. I wouldn't let Kasai win this round.