Act 3 Scene 6 守らせてくれ！ [Mamorasete-kure!] 'Let me protect you!'

Ran was awoken by a cellphone ringing in her pocket. She was on a bench in the bar down the street. Dr. Araide was at the other side of the room, working on someone. Blood was on his elbows. She sat up. Her bloody pajamas had been replaced with clean clothes, obviously from Azusa's wardrobe, and she could feel bandages on her back, arm, and side. Her knuckles were also bandaged up, and she couldn't feel her fingers much. Groggily she pulled the phone out. It was Conan's phone, the one with the smashed screen. She couldn't tell who was calling, so she answered it.

"Hello?"

"Oh thank goodness! Ran!" it was Ms.… no… Agent Jodie's voice.

"Jodie?" she asked.

"Ran, are you and Conan alright? We've been trying to get through for hours! We can't even get a helicopter in, they keep getting shot full of holes."

"I'm okay…" then her stomach twisted. "Conan! They took Conan! I was fighting two of them, and a third got Conan!"

"Calm down Ran! Tell us slowly, what happened?" The echoes on Jodie's end became louder. She'd been put on speakerphone.

"We were making phonecalls in my room, and there was an explosion outside. Then part of the building collapsed, and we were stuck in the corner, away from the door. Conan was having trouble – he hit his head during the explosion. No help came. Then one of their agents, Bourbon, also known as Tooru Amuro, knocked a hole in the wall and came to grab us. He didn't know that I knew, so I grabbed him and we fell into the rubble. I landed on him, then I tied him up and took his phone. He's hurt really really badly. I think I broke his back, and I know I broke a bunch of ribs. If he doesn't get help soon-"

"He's getting it!" hollered Dr. Araide. "The bastard'll live to be questioned another day!"

There was a chorus of cheers and "Good job Ran!"s from the room of FBI agents. Ran instantly felt a lot better. That Person's jibes felt like empty threats now.

"When I finished with him, I recognized another one. When I met him, he called himself John Mizuki, but Conan says that he's actually Gin. He tried to shoot me, but I dodged and then I was really, really mad, and it's kinda blurry after that. I think I broke his arm, and I know I got a few of his ribs and possibly a kneecap. How's he doing?" she asked Araide.

"That guy ran off, with the help of his buddy, as soon as you were off him," Azusa said.

"If he's well enough to run off, he'll be fine," Dr. Araide added. "You didn't kill anyone."

That Person was a bastard and a liar. All that was left was to rescue Conan.

"You faced Gin and survived?" someone on the FBI end of the line asked.

"Yeah, twice, actually. Bourbon introduced me to him as a bodyguard friend of his, to spar with me. That reminds me, I called their head honcho-"

A chorus of "What the hell were you thinking!?"s filled her ear. She waited for them to die down.

"I had Bourbon's phone, so I called their Big Bad Boss, and told him to let ambulances through to save his men. He said he was going to let them die because I was going to be his new agent, Rum."

Silence.

"That Person said he'd be taking care of Conan from now on," Ran bit back tears, trying not to think of what they could be doing to Shinichi. "They have no idea what they're messing with!" she declared, punching her fist through the seat of the chair besides her. "Conan's strong, not weak like other kids; he'll find a way to get away from them."

"Ran," Jodie's voice interrupted her. "It's not a matter of weakness. If they keep trying for long enough, it'll change him. Let's find him before then, shall we?"

"Let's!" The agony and terror of the past few hours lifted from her limbs.

"Thanks to the shipment of documents your mysterious defector squirreled away, we'll be able to reduce this syndicate to a few isolated cells within the next few weeks. We have an entire team of analysts doing nothing but working on that. The CIA is picking up that Big Bad Boss as we speak. Ran, you've done enough. Rest. We're sending plain-clothes officers and paramedics to you on foot. It may take them a while, but you guys are going to be safe. Don't worry about Conan; when we find the place he's being kept, we'll let you know. He'll be home before you know it."

"Thank you," Ran said. After a few more assurances, the call ended. Her attention turned to Bourbon, who was whimpering while Dr. Araide worked on him. She walked over, and looked over his shoulder.

"Out of my light, Ran. I need to see where I'm working." He was duct-taping Bourbon's back with a makeshift splint built from bar-stool legs. Bourbon had been zip-tied with his wrists in front of him, forcing him to hug the bench he was laid on.

"Ran!" Bourbon cried into the bench's seat-cushion. "They were going to kill you all; I needed to protect you! It was the only way; I had to make you useful to them!"

Hot rage churned in her chest and sent searing words to her lips. Like a tea kettle whistling, her voice got louder and harsher as she spoke, and it ended in a scream. "Protection? You need protection from me. You told me I'm the most talented martial artist you've ever met, and I can dodge fucking bullets!" She panted, backing away, afraid she might hurt him again. "Shinichi told me that their agents commit suicide if cornered. Be careful," she hissed, her fists clenched, the exhaustion and lack of sleep returning to her. She couldn't sleep. Dr. Araide needed help, and he couldn't subdue an experienced fighter. She took up a post by Bourbon's side, as both nurse and prison guard.

Author's Note

Since we got into a bit of phonetics and phonology in the last chapter, I think that we can continue this theme and go over the sounds in Japanese.

Inventory of Vowels:
Japanese vowels come in two types: long and short. Ignore what English spelling teachers have told you about the meaning of Long and Short in reference to vowels, by the way. I'm referring to the length of time that the vowel is said, not vowel raising or diphthongization.

Short vowels:
a, i̊/i, ů/u, e, o
Long vowels:
aa, ii, uu, ee, oo

Any vowel can go beside any other. EI and OU have blended with EE and OO, which is why "Heiji" is pronounced "heeji".

Inventory of Consonants:
The vowels and palatalization can change the consonants into other consonants, but these are the core, unmodified consonants. The way I listed them, they are separated with commas, and if they come in a pair, they are voiceless/voiced.

Stops (air is stopped, then released in a little blast)
p/b, t/d, k/g
Fricatives (air is pressurized into a hiss)
s/z, h
Nasals (air is diverted through the nose)
m, n, n (that takes up a mora)
Approximants (mouth is moving, transitioning. These are the most vowel-like consonants)
y, w
Tap (tongue is flapped really fast. These sounds are really close to being Stops, and if done in rapid succession, you get a Trill)
ɾ (Japanese R)

Palatalization:
The consonant Y is a palatal sound that is on the border between being a consonant or a vowel. The vowel it is closest too is /i/. It can be combined with the following consonants at the onset of a syllable.
py/by, ty/dy, ky/gy
sy/zy, hy
my, ny
ry

The palatalization changes the following sounds, due to the sounds assimilating the Y.
ty-ch, dy-j, sy-sh, zy-j

The vowels also change the consonants directly before them:
ti-chi, tu-tsu, du-zu, si-shi, zi-ji, hu-fu

The Approximants, being almost vowels, can't be paired with the vowels that are most like them. These are the remaining combinations:
ya, yo, yu, wa

You may have seen "wo" written before, but it's pronounced "o". "Wo" is only pronounced in a handful of dialects. In Japan's past, "wo" was pronounced and got into the writing system, and since it is a very important post-position, marking the direct object of the sentence, its spelling hasn't changed, even after the major reforms done in Japanese spelling in the last century.

Because Y is only compatible with A, O, and U, the palatalized consonants can only be followed by those three vowels. If you come across a "je" or something similar then you know it is a recent loanword in Japanese.

All of the consonants can be doubled, even the palatalized ones. The only non-double-able consonants are the Approximates, because they are too close to being vowels.

Speaking of loan-words... Because of Japan's close connection to the US, English is changing the available sounds in Japanese, and the available consonant-vowel combinations. Here are some examples:
fa/fi/fe/fo [fan] "fan" [fiona]"Fiona" [fea] "fare" [foa] "four"
Before, F was only found before Us.

va/vi/ve/vo [vanira] "vanilla" [vira] "villa" [veeru] "veil" [voruto] "volt"
Before, there were no Vs – though it should be noted, this V sounds more like a Spanish or Italian V, being bilabial, instead of labio-dental like in English. Old people struggle with this, and usually just make V into a B.

che/je/she [chea] "chair" [jetto] "jet" [sherii] "sherry"
These didn't occur in Japanese simply due to its phonetic history with Y and E.

ti/di [paatii] "party" [disuku] "disk"
These sounds have re-entered Japanese. They did exist in the distant past, but were changed due to assimilation.

And last, but not least, the moraic-N. This sound, just like the 'n' of English, changes to match the consonant following it in a word. In some dialects, the moraic N assimilates with the vowel before it instead, becoming a nasalized vowel. If you listen closely to Ran's Japanese voice actor, you'll hear her speaking this way. Thus, "senpai" could be pronounced /sɛmpai/ or /sɛɛ̃pai/.

また来週！(See you next week!)
dreamingfifi