Nevermore
By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's Gosho's. Poe's work is referenced in the text. I make no profit from this.
Musings: This is it, dear readers, the last full chapter. Yes, there is an epilogue, but it'll be much shorter. And with this chapter, everything related to the mystery should be resolved. Information on making and defusing a complicated bomb is sparse, which I understand, Google, but that makes the details here not as accurate as other facts in this fic. So, I hope you allow suspension of disbelief and just go with this. :) I would love to know what you thought of my attempt at the mystery genre. :) The last scene(s) in this chapter is/are for my CoAi readers. Enjoy~
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Chapter 9
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"One hour?!" Mitsuhiko and Genta exclaimed in unison.
"That's not a lot of time..." Mitsuhiko added.
"No, it's not," Conan agreed. He looked back down at the five cards he held in his hand. "It's most certainly not enough time to search through the whole resort. How much of the resort did you guys manage to go through before you found this last note and contacted me?"
"Um, only the top 2 floors of the right wing," Genta answered. "Mitsuhiko said to start with the right wing since the left wing is mostly our schoolmates and it wasn't as likely a hiding spot."
"We stopped when we found the note in Enomoto-san's room on the fourth floor," Mitsuhiko informed.
Conan nodded. "We don't have a lot of time, so it's more important that we think about places with the highest probabilities and search there," he said. "Let's see... it can't be outside, because Hino-san and Ishihara-san who were kidnapped on our second day here would be long dead from hypothermia if it isn't inside."
"It has to be big enough to hold 8 girls," Mitsuhiko added.
"And someplace we haven't looked already," Genta suggested.
"But we've looked everywhere we can think of!" Mitsuhiko exclaimed. "Multiple times even! Unless the girls were moved in between?"
"That's impossible," Conan pointed out, his eyes focused on the fifth note, chin held between his fingers. "Maybe if there was only one girl, Enomoto could have moved her around while we were searching. Even if we discount Ai and Ayumi because we haven't searched the resort thoroughly since they disappeared, that's still 6 girls he would have to move around on his own the last time we conducted a search. It'd be virtually impossible to do this without being noticed. Plus, we had more than one group and didn't tell anyone we were conducting a search until we were knocking on each room's door. There's no way Enomoto could have known where we would be at all times so he could move around accordingly."
"How's that possible? We've looked everywhere," Mitsuhiko repeated.
"No, you were right the first time," Conan refuted. "We looked everywhere we could think of. There must be some place on the resort people neglect to realize exists, and that receives very little, if any, human traffic."
"Is there even a place like that?" Genta asked.
"There must be," Conan replied. "It's the only way these disappearances make sense."
He thought about the last note. It referenced 'The Raven'. Conan wondered if Enomoto fancied himself as the narrator in the poem, who grieved the loss of his beloved, and upon the appearance of the Raven in his chamber, eventually succumbed to insanity and his own probable demise. He thought carefully about the setting of the poem, since the other notes had shed light on their related crime scenes. 'The Raven' takes place in a chamber with a fireplace. Could it be one of the common rooms with a fireplace? They've been through those rooms during their searches though, so unless one of those rooms led to a secret underground passage, it wasn't likely. He frowned to himself as the stray thought passed. Underground? Did the resort have a basement? A fireplace in a basement?
He paused, then smacked himself in the forehead. "I'm such an idiot!" he exclaimed and moved to leave the room.
"Wait, Conan-kun!" Mitsuhiko called, hurrying after him.
"Conan!" Genta chimed in, running out the door after his friends. "Man, I hate being out of the loop!"
"Where are we going?" Mitsuhiko asked as he and Genta raced down the stairs after Conan.
"It's the furnace room!" Conan told them as they hit the first floor. "Most of us would never think about it because a furnace room wouldn't exist in most of Japan, since we don't use central heating. It would only exist in newer buildings in Hokkaido. That has to be it." He looked around frantically to locate a staff. There was a man sitting at the reception desk. "Hey, you!"
The receptionist looked up, a bit surprised at being addressed so abruptly.
"Where's the furnace room?" Conan asked urgently.
"What? Why would you want to know that?" the receptionist replied, confused.
"Just show me where it is!" Conan demanded. "It's an emergency!"
Something in his tone must have conveyed his desperation. Either that, or the staff was getting used to being ordered around by a bespectacled teenage detective.
"It's uh, around the back of the office, in the employees-only utility area. There are stairs that leads down," the receptionist told him.
Conan was gone before the receptionist's sentence was finished. He skidded to a stop in front of the non-descript door and yanked it open, dashing down the stairs with Mitsuhiko and Genta on his heels. He ended up in a semi-open space, surrounded by utility equipment. On his left were rows of water tanks, and on his left were two room: the electric room, and the furnace room.
He skipped right to the furnace room, pushing the door open.
To Conan's great relief, there were girls sitting around on the floor around the furnace, although they were tied up and some of them were slumped over.
"Conan-kun!" It was Ayumi's voice that enabled him to locate her quickly. "I knew you guys would come!"
He quickly made his way over to Ayumi, who was sitting next to Ai. As he got closer, he noticed they were all wearing vests, bulky vests that looked like... He took a sharp breath and knelt down in front of the two girls.
"Conan-kun! These are...!" Mitsuhiko exclaimed from behind him.
"They're strapped to the bombs," Conan finished flatly, eyes watching the timer on the front of Ayumi's vest.
They had just about 45 minutes.
"Ai-chan said we can't just take them off," Ayumi told him, her voice shaking.
"She's right," Conan replied, eyes taking in the details of the bomb strapped to Ayumi. "It would blow if you force this lock open without defusing it first."
"Edogawa-kun." It was Kato, their class rep, who spoke. Conan looked at her. She was sitting next to her friend Miyoshi, fear on her face. "Are we all going to die?"
"No," Conan reassured her. "I can defuse this, but I need you guys to listen to me and stay calm, okay?"
Kato nodded and gave him a shaky smile.
He took out the switchblade he carried on him and turned to Ai, who had been sitting calmly, watching him. She shook her head at him and nodded to the two girls who were slumped over on the other side of the room.
"You should start with Hino-san and Ishihara-san," Ai told him. "I looked at them when I first woke up here. I think they probably had water for the first few days, but still, they're dehydrated and are suffering from mild hypothermia. This is a basement after all, even though it certainly beats the temperature outside."
"This is the worst place in the world to defuse a bomb though," Conan muttered. He flicked open the switchblade and cut the ropes binding Ai and Ayumi before standing up and making his way over to Hino and Ishihara. "Genta, you need to go get the doctor and nurse. Tell them to stand by upstairs. We have 4 people who are going to need immediate medical attention and 4 more who need a check-up."
Genta nodded and hurried off.
"Mitsuhiko," Conan continued, "go get our teachers and tell them to start evacuating everyone on the resort. If this doesn't go well, the whole place might blow."
"Okay," Mitsuhiko agreed and dashed up the stairs as well.
Conan turned back to Hino, who was slumped over. Ai and Ayumi had made their way over and were helping the semi-conscious girl sit up. Conan cut the ropes, then traced the wires on the back of the bomb vest with his fingers, mentally making notes on the right order he needed to cut them. Once he had completed the simulation in his head, he started working on defusing the bomb. Even Ayumi managed to stay silent while he worked, not wanting to disturb his concentration.
The electronic panel on the front of Hino's vest blacked out when Conan cut the last wire and defused it. There was a lock around the front of the vest though, and they didn't have a key.
"Do you have a bobby pin, Ayumi-chan?" Conan asked.
"No," Ayumi shook her head.
"I do, Edogawa-kun," Kato's voice floated over to them. "It's just holding back my bangs."
Ayumi quickly got up and hurried over to their class rep, sliding the pin out of her hair. Ai, who was still holding Hino up, nodded towards the other girls.
"Defuse the one on Ishihara," she told him, "I can get the lock."
Conan didn't waste time questioning why she knew how to pick a lock. Once Ayumi came back, she handed the bobby pin to Ai and moved to help Conan by propping Ishihara up into a seated position. Conan quickly skimmed over the bomb to make sure it was the same model before getting to work. He was halfway through when Genta came back, huffing and puffing, but he trekked over to them.
"The doctor and nurse are upstairs," he told them.
"Can you carry Hino-san, Kojima-kun?" Ai asked. She had managed to unlock the vest and had carefully removed it from the girl.
Genta nodded and knelt down so Ai can help him scoop up Hino. He stood back up with the semi-conscious girl carried bridal style.
"When you get upstairs," Ai instructed carefully, "tell the doctor it's dehydration and mild hypothermia. No water and she's cold."
Genta looked back at her, a bit confused, but he tried his best to commit the medical terms to memory and hurried up the stairs.
"Ai," Conan called her. "I got this one too. I'm going to go defuse the one on Hamasaki next."
And so it went, like a relay. Ayumi helped Conan get the girl into a position that would make it easier for him to defuse the bomb, Ai would unlock and remove the bomb vest, and Genta would show up to help carry the weakened girls upstairs to the doctor. Miyoshi and Kato, who had not been trapped there as long as their other four classmates, managed to sit up by themselves while Conan defused the bombs. Kato, being in their class and knowing them better than her friend Miyoshi, even threw her arms around Conan once she was free from the vest.
"Thank you!" she exclaimed.
"Uh, it's nothing," Conan replied. "You should get a check up with the doctor upstairs."
Mitsuhiko, who had come back after telling the teachers to organize the evacuations of the guests, and Genta helped the two girls up the stairs.
"Nice going, Casanova," Ai smirked once they were out of earshot. "I think you got another one."
"Another what?" Conan asked, giving her a questioning look.
Ai sighed. "Your cluelessness knows no bounds," she shrugged. "Anyways, this really isn't the time to chat about this." She pointed to Ayumi, and Conan smiled at their friend.
"Ready, Ayumi-chan?"
She nodded bravely, and Conan got to work. By now, his movements were almost automatic. He had defused six bombs already that were identical; this one wasn't difficult either. The front panel on the vest blacked out once the last wire was cut, and Ai immediately got to work on the lock. The soft click let them know it was unlocked, and Ayumi shrugged off the vest with an audible sigh of relief.
"Now, Ai-chan!" Ayumi exclaimed.
Conan grinned. They still had a good 15 minutes according to the electronic panel. He gestured for Ai to stand still and went to cut the first wire...and paused. Hold on. He looked more carefully at the bomb and counted the wires, running through the defusing simulation in his head.
"What's wrong?" Ayumi asked when she realized he was pausing a lot longer on this bomb than he had on hers.
"This one's different," Conan answered, trying to sound calm. "There's an extra wire here. This..." He looked at Ai's face then, noticing her unsurprised expression.
"You knew..." he whispered hoarsely. "You knew yours is different."
She nodded silently.
"Why didn't you say something?" Conan demanded, grabbing her shoulders. "I would have worked on yours first, figured it out with more time."
"And what?" Ai asked. "Left the other girls to wait while you try to solve this one? Besides, look behind you."
Conan turned around and noticed for the first time that there were a number of smaller bombs attached all around the room. None of them had a timer, but each had two glowing triangle symbols with a line through it that blinked steadily.
Mitsuhiko and Genta came running back then, panting from their various trips up and down the stairs.
"That's it, right?" Mitsuhiko asked. "Did you defuse the ones on Ayumi-chan and Haibara-san too?"
"I'm fine," Ayumi answered, walking around Conan and Ai so that Genta and Mitsuhiko could see that she was free from the bomb vest. "But Ai-chan..."
"Why is this one different?!" Conan gritted his teeth. Enomoto's voice taunting him about one of the kidnapped girls – the strawberry blonde – being his, echoed in his head. "He did this because you're the one I can't lose," he concluded flatly. "He knew you were mine."
Ai glared at him, clearly annoyed. "I'm not a possession. I'm not yours."
"Of course you are," Conan argued as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
Ai scowled. "How would he even know you would be the one to solve the case when he strapped me to this? Not everything's about you. Did you ever think that he did this because I gave him trouble? I punched him in the face right before he chloroformed me."
Conan couldn't help smiling at this. "We're shelving this argument until I get you out of this," he decided, taking a closer look at the front panel and trying to remember what the one strapped to Ayumi had looked like. He pointed to the small blinking triangle with a line through it that was in the upper right hand corner of the panel.
"This is the same symbol as the one on the smaller bombs," he pointed out. "Except there's only one. The others have two."
Mitsuhiko came over to take a look too. "It looks like a wireless symbol," he said.
Conan frowned. "'The Raven'," he muttered. "Shadows. I think there's a counterpart to this bomb. The small bombs are using this wireless signal to detect this, and a second signal to detect another piece. If either signals go out, those bombs will latch onto the other signal and go off, which will probably set off this whole resort considering this is the furnace room."
"So we have to find the other piece, and defuse it together," Ai concluded.
Conan nodded. Where would that second piece be though?
"Let's split up and go find it," Genta suggested.
"No!" Conan protested. "You guys are going to go help our teachers get everyone evacuated. Just in case this doesn't go well, I don't want any additional casualty. Every guest has to be out of here and you guys need to go help."
"But we want to help with this!" Ayumi insisted.
Conan took a deep breath. "Look, you guys want this to be a team effort, right?"
The trio nodded.
Conan continued. "A team working together isn't always going to be everyone doing the same thing at the same time. Sometimes, it means doing different things to achieve the same goal. We all split up to address different things when we were trying to solve the murders, right? Now, our goal should be to save as many lives as we can from the bombs. Ai and I are going to look for the second piece to this bomb and try to defuse it before the time limit. Meanwhile, someone needs to make sure everyone's away from the vicinity of the bomb if it does go off. I'm trusting you guys to do that."
The trio exchanged glances.
"You will bring Ai-chan back alive, right?" Ayumi asked, making an effort to keep her voice from shaking.
"Of course!" Conan replied.
"Then okay," Ayumi decided. "On one condition. You guys have to leave the detective badge line open, so we can hear and come back if you need help."
Conan reached into his pocket and gave Ayumi and Ai their badges back. "Deal."
Ayumi nodded. "Come on, Genta-kun, Mitsuhiko-kun. Let's go make sure everyone is evacuated."
Once they were out of earshot, Ai turned to him. "You're not going to keep that promise, are you?" she asked knowingly.
"If we can't find or defuse this in time, I will say whatever I need to in order to get them out safely, and turn this off." he confirmed quietly. "But until then..."
Conan clicked open the line on the badge as Ayumi had requested.
"So, where do we start?" Ai asked.
"The fireplaces," Conan answered with conviction. "In the poem, the raven visits a chamber with a fireplace. There are three or four rooms with a fireplace in the common areas. Since we had checked them all before, it must be hidden, maybe up the fireplace. Otherwise, someone would have noticed."
He held out his hand and she took it. Together, they ran up the stairs. The front office was already empty and they could hear chaos in the lobby, but they ignored this, running up the back stairs to check each room Conan recalled having a fireplace. They could hear Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko guiding people out of the resort from the open line on the detective badges.
With each fireplace they found empty, Conan grew more agitated, but they kept going. He wouldn't give up until that timer got to zero. The last of the rooms with fireplaces was the Sun Room. Conan let go of Ai's hand to search for the missing piece of the bombing device. The panel on the front of Ai's vest was down to 3 minutes. Soon, Conan yelled out in triumph from the fireplace. He had pulled from up in the chimney a rectangular box. The panel on top showed a timer and a symbol that matched the ones on the bombs in the basement.
Lifting the panels, he found a mass of wires inside. He mentally simulated the process in his head and worked out which parts had to be cut together. When he looked up again, Ai was holding a pair of scissors she must have lifted from the cafe next door.
"Do you think there are more?" she asked him quietly.
"No," he replied. "There were only two signals on those bombs downstairs, and a shadow only has two pieces: the silhouette and the object making the silhouette. You could argue for a light source, but we're already in the Sun Room."
"Do you need me to do anything?" she questioned after a pause.
He hesitated. "You have to defuse this one. I can't defuse both the one on you and this one at the same time."
"You know," she said quietly. "There's still time for you to go and get to a safe place before this goes off."
He laughed humourlessly at the comment. "You really thought that was worth saying out loud? You should know me better than that by now."
"You do have a hero complex, you know."
"No, I just don't like losing my possessions," he bantered, voice deceptively light for their current predicament.
She scowled and he grinned back boyishly.
"Listen," he started, "the two look like similar models, so you should cut the wires in the box bomb in the same order as I cut the ones on this vest. The wireless detector won't kick in until we cut it near the end, so we should be fine for now."
He proceeded to outline the instructions for her as he defused the vest bomb: which parts to look for, which lines to cut. She responded curtly as she quickly followed each step.
"Last one," Conan muttered, holding the black wire in his left hand.
"Same here," Ai confirmed, looking up from the box bomb.
Forty seconds, the timer read.
Conan swallowed thickly. "Hey," he began softly, "listen, if I turn out to be wrong and there's a fail-safe or something that makes everything go off, or if we don't end up cutting them at the same time..."
"We'll never know," Ai interrupted. She reached out with her free hand and grabbed his, squeezing it.
"No, we won't," Conan conceded. "But I...Is it really cliché to want to tell you that I love you right now?"
"Yes."
"Is it really cliché to want you to say it back right now?"
"Yes."
"Huh, well, I'm fresh out of ideas, so...I love you."
Ai stared at him in silence, then she smiled wryly at him and shook her head in an exasperated manner. "You have all these great motivational speeches about justice and teamwork and world peace, but that's the most romantic thing you can come up with?"
"You're not dating me for great romantic speeches," he shrugged.
"No," she drawled, "just your bomb defusing abilities."
Conan rolled his eyes. "And you're so romantic yourself."
Ai shrugged. "I'm the pot," she reminded him. "Do you think we'll ever go anywhere out of town and not have someone murdered while we're there?"
Conan sighed. "Or kidnapped or explode or stolen," he added.
She snorted. "That might be asking for a bit much since it's you."
He grinned at her. "Hey, if you were going to wish for a miracle anyways, might as well go big."
Ten seconds.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied.
He put the switchblade on the wire.
"Hey," Ai suddenly spoke.
"Yes?"
"I love you, too."
Conan smiled. They didn't count down out loud. Conan merely took a deep breath and pulled the switchblade through the wire, severing the power to the bomb and cutting the wireless connection in the process.
-o-o-o-o-o-
For about ten seconds after he cut the final wire, Conan held his breath, waiting. Ai was equally silent. When he realized nothing was happening, he slowly turned Ai to face him, and looked down at the electronic panel on the front of the vest.
It had been blacked out.
So had the one on the box bomb.
And nothing in the resort had exploded.
Ai silently handed over the bobby pin, and he picked the lock on the front of the vest quick enough to make the Kaitou KID proud. He helped her out of the vest and put it onto the ground, out of their way. God, if he never saw that thing again, it would be too soon.
"Well," she drawled. "I guess all's well that mmph-"
Conan cut her off by pulling her into his arms and pressing his lips against hers, hard. He cupped her face and let his tongue move over her lips, prying her mouth open, trying to confirm for himself that she was warm and breathing and alive. He had made it in time; he had been able to save her. His hands moved to hold her head at a better angle, then made their way around to her shoulders, her back. She could almost feel his desperation as his fingers moved to run down her ribs, his tongue plunging into her mouth, tasting her. She slipped her arms around his neck, letting him deepen their kiss, trying to convey to him without words that she was still here with him, that his worst nightmare hadn't turned into a reality. She could feel him moving her backwards, but she wasn't sure where until she felt the cold solid wall hit her back.
With a soft grunt, he hoisted her up and pressed her body into the wall with his own. Ai let out soft gasps as his lips attacked her neck and throat, nipping and marking her. She let her fingers run through his hair and threw her head back to allow him better access.
"Mine," he growled softly. "God, I'm so glad you're alive."
"Which of the two are you trying to prove here?" she asked hoarsely as he sucked on her pulse, his body still flush against hers.
"Both," he answered as he continued his ministrations.
"I'm still not a possession," she managed to retort.
She moaned when she felt his fingers under her shirt. They were warm as they gently ran up and down her sides, teasing the bare skin of her sides and waist.
"Really?" he sounded amused as he watched her reaction.
She gritted her teeth and looked like she was about to retaliate by maybe kissing him senseless when they heard Mitsuhiko's voice.
"Guys? Guys!"
Conan almost cursed in irritation. He managed to grab his detective badge out of his pocket without letting go of Ai. "What?" He snapped into it.
"You guys know you left the line on, right?" Mitsuhiko asked dryly. "Just wanted to let you know emergency services are here and coming to get you. Also, the least you can do is tell us you're fine and turn the line off before...you know."
"We're fine," Conan ground out, obviously annoyed. Then, unceremoniously, he cut off the connection on the detective badge without another word.
He looked at Ai, still pressed against the wall. Her hair was dishevelled from his fingers and her lips were slightly swollen from their kisses. She looked half-ravished, and he was extremely tempted to finish what he started. Now that this case was finally solved, his mind was automatically going back to that night in the resort library. Unfortunately, the sound of sirens he had heard through the detective badge meant Mitsuhiko wasn't lying and that the police would soon come looking for him and Ai to get their statements.
He sighed and moved back to release her from where he had trapped her. "The next time this happens, we'd better not get interrupted," he grumbled.
"You're thinking of a next time?" she asked, looking torn between being amused and outraged.
"Yes," he replied curtly. "Technically, you started it and never followed through. I'm just being proactive by helping you finish it."
"Helping me?" she echoed incredulously. "And I don't think that is the right use of the word 'proactive'."
"I'm coming up with a plan to avoid unexpected and unwanted interruptions the next time I have you against a wall. I think that's pretty much the dictionary definition of being proactive."
"A wall? What are you, a barbarian?"
"I'm not picky. We can change the plan to an armchair if that's more your thing."
"It's been like...10 seconds," Ai stated flatly. "How is there already a plan?"
"There is a perfectly good plan. It involves no cell phones, the detective badges being off, the doors being locked, and the privacy of the Kudo mansion."
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End Chapter 9.
Word Count: 4,529
Cumulative Word Count: 42,556
Chitsu's Corner: Yes, I did write them arguing about making out. If your mind needs to go further than that, your mind is on its own. :)