Kiss of Death
Part 33
Chapter 32
"Checkmate"
Conan was alone.
The boy was sitting in a fetal-like position, eyes as lifeless as the people in the recent massacre. He had always liked being a detective, didn't he? Oh how fun it was, solving murder mysteries daily and feeling a sense of justice when the accused has been put behind bars. It seemed like a game for him before.
Yet, this was real. In fact, those murders had been real, it was just that it did not affect him. Did the deaths of the people he cared about had to happen before he actually starts to comprehend the unhappiness of people during cases? Maybe.
He was still staring at the wall like it was his enemy.
For the first time in his life, he could not think.
At all.
The deaths...they were all washing him like a tsunami. Everything was a disaster so far for him.
He was useless tool -it had been a while since he felt like this. The last time he did, was pertaining his failure to Akemi's death. And that crying face -Ai, his heart ached of seeing a beautiful girl could be so unhappy. Her tears were staining his shirt, but it did not matter - Why? If you're such a great detective, then why couldn't you have saved my sister- her words... he felt so useless. He tried to protect Ai and everyone else, futilely. He tried. Yet everyone was dropping dead, as if they were just rain.
It hit him. How being Shinichi and Conan were different. When he was Shinichi, he only had Ran (and maybe considerably Sonoko) as his true friend. But as Conan... perhaps it was the fact that he had very few individuals to be sincere of as Shinichi made being a detective easier. With the exception of Ran and Sonoko, he had no friends to actually worry about. Even so, whenever his friends were on the edge of dying, he had never failed to save them -except this time of course. Ai, Cedric, Genta, Heiji, Megure -anyone else, they were either gone, injured or on the verge of danger.
It was all because of his incompetency to predict all of this.
Thinking back now, he shouldn't have taken things for granted... then maybe the raven wouldn't have clawed back at him...
[Flashback]
"Geez, what's taking the other teams so long?" Conan lamented.
But in actual fact, he hated this. He remembered doing a similar game when he was Shinichi. But because on that day, both Ran and Sonoko were ill and unable to go to school, leaving him isolated. No one wanted to join his team, given that they are already in other groups; or simply did not want to join him in fear of having their intelligence insulted by seeing how capable Shinichi was. So in the end, Shinichi, at the tender age of 14, had to go through the game by himself - how he dreaded it, in spite of winning the game. To make matters worse, his lone victory made others' blood boil, since they had worked with three heads and yet their efforts to solve this mini-case were futile whereareas Shinchi triumphed alone. He recalled having a bunch of boys assaulting him for the prize on the way to the café, leaving him in salty tears.
Conan wanted to be anywhere except where he was now, given that this familiar situation was giving him poisonous memories.
They were at an event held by the school. It was "The Mystery", where the Science department had set up a crime scene - with red paint as the hoax blood, footprints, pen ink stains - and other clues. On teams of three, they had to use their own wits and scientific methods to deduce which of the fictional suspects was the one guilty of murder.
"Don't be so harsh on them. They are still middle schoolers after all," Ai coaxed him. She looked a little pale, as Conan had noticed- perhaps not feeling well?
Conan's team consisted of himself, Ai and Cedric. Conan could use his acute observation, Ai could use her chemistry expertise and Cedric can use his art of persuasion to gain information from the "witnesses" and "suspects". Truly, the best combination of wits. Each process they did was way faster than the rest.
Because Genta had a fight with Tyler, he was suspended. Tyler was still at Dr. Araide's office, knocked out cold.
Then there was Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Phoebe on another team (more like Mitsuhiko being the brain and Ayumi being the eye per se- Mitsuhiko looked like he was going to tear his hair strands out, being the only one who was serious about this). They were still at the first station. They were supposed to perform a paper chromatography on the sample of the ink evidence found at the crime scene and compare it with possible pens given.
[A/N: Various people use paper chromatography to separate the components of a specific ink to compare it with other inks or substances. This purpose can be use to either detect poisons in food dyes or simply deriving the components of the ink in question]
Conan's team was already at the Blood Analysis station. There was a question: What chemical do investigators use to detect bloodstains and how?
Ai smirked and quickly explained, "Luminol. It catalyses with the iron found in the haemoglobin of red blood cells, thus detecting the bloodstains." Then, Ai shifted her glance, as if a little paranoid.
[A/N: Forensic investigators use Luminol to detect blood stains, even after they have been washed away. But Luminol can also react with substances like Copper]
"Good work, Ai!" Conan exclaimed, patting the top of her head. A pink tinge was sprayed across her nose. His touch was so endearing, that it was sending her fluttering butterflies into her gut - calm down, Miyano Shiho, it's just a pat on the head.
She slapped his hand away, "don't contaminate my hair with your filth. Who knows what you use your hand for," she said sarcastically.
"What the-? I do not!" he said defensively, flustered all over his face. Thank goodness his huge glasses covered a part of his cheeks!
"Oh, someone looks guilty," Ai cooed, raising her eyebrow.
Cedric stifled a laugh. Conan shifted his eyes at the golden boy, as if saying: damn it, give a back up for a fellow man here.
The blond feigned a cough, "Haibara-san, why are you concerned if he does? It's not like you're the one on his mind if he has a date with his hand."
Both of the boys chuckled and bro-fisted when she went full red. She stammered, "why, you little brats-"
"Or maybe, if you wanted it that way, you could've said so. I'd try, but it probably won't be satisfying," Conan chimed in, adding salt to the injury.
The two boys laughed harder.
"Oh lord, can Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen just help me with the investigation please? We need to find where the blood splatters come from. We need to use strings." Ai hissed, exasperated now with their nonsensical comebacks. Ai hardly loses any of her sarcastic verbal feuds with Conan, but for now, she was as good as roasted by their insults.
"Okay!" both said in unison, like a pair of child twins obeying their mother's instructions.
"Haibara," Conan whispered, "do you remember trigonometry? I can't really recall but it has something to do with this."
"Oh? So the great detective can't solve this via forensics then?" Ai replied slyly, sticking out her tongue.
"Why you! It's because I learnt it while I was Shinichi a long time ago and our syllabus hasn't touch on that!" he rebuked.
"To calculate the angle of trajectory of where the blood splatter has originated," Cedric started, "we use trigonometry. We inverse sine the numerical value of the width of the blood splatter divided by the length of the blood splatter. Keep in mind not to include measuring the tail because that is due to gravitational force." He started to measure the artificial blood splatters and took out the calculator application on his handphone to get the angle, then used the string to have a better visualization of where the angle came from.
[A/N: I've been to a forensics workshop in high school and apparently you can use trigonometry to conclude where the blood splatter come from, in which angle. You can use the formula: inverse sine (width/length) of the blood splatter]
"That's great! I've completely forgotten about inverse sine," Conan complimented, "from this, we'll know the angle of impact. Then we can deduce the height of the culprit and an estimate of where the blood originated from!"
"Oh, it's nothing great, really," the other boy replied, scratching his head, ashamed, "I had been through a similar crime investigation game in my school. I don't really know what trigonometry is, I just remember this method."
"Doesn't matter. At least you've been useful, unlike some other kid," Ai said, eyeing out on Conan.
"Oi, oi. It's not like you have any help," the bespectacled boy retorted.
Ai raised her eyebrow, "I was the one who answered the luminol. You haven't done anything, tantei-kun."
"Calm down you married couple," the green-eyes boy teased, "we should just finish this crime and get our prize!"
"We're not a couple-!"
Hours later, Conan's team had easily solved the case and had won the free Poirot cafe meal vouchers -much to Mitsuhiko's chagrin.
Despite the small victory, Ai was still feeling a pounding headache.
"Are you alright?" the blond asked.
"Nothing, just a headache," she replied, "or maybe it's the sight of Phoebe that I hate."
"You sure?" Conan said, slightly anxious. In fact, very.
"I'm heading home. Ice cream is bad for my diet anyways. Come home early, boys. And don't eat too much sugary food," she advised, giving the other voucher to them.
Minutes later, Mitsuhiko's team was there, looking disheartened.
"Conan, maybe we should give the prize to them? They seem upset. They've worked hard for it," Cedric suggested, "especially Mitsuhiko."
"I wouldn't mind it. Since the case was not much of a challenge for Haibara and I. But what about you? Pretty sure you worked hard for it," Conan answered.
"Oh this?" the other boy raised up his voucher, "I've already said, I've done a similar game in my old school before. So in essence, our team had a large unfair advantage. I'm giving it to them, so long you and Haibara-san won't mind."
"Well," he sighed, "I doubt Haibara will care what happens to the vouchers. She might even be proud of us if we gave it to the others."
As decided, they called the other 3 out across the road. They gave the vouchers to them, in which surprised the other 3 teens. Both girls blushed at the two boys' generous gesture, while Mitsuhiko felt appreciative.
"I'm going to Dr. Araide to check up on Tyler," Conan informed, "you should head to Hakase's first. You should use my skateboard, it'll get you home faster."
"Alright, thanks!" the other boy said, smiling, "Also thanks for today. Wouldn't have completed the game without a genius couple in my team." Conan went bashful when Cedric described Ai and him as a couple.
"So anyways, you say you used to participate in a similar game before?" Conan asked, trying to divert the topic.
"Yeah, I guess..." Cedric replied, scratching the back of his head, "but back then, it was a pair-work and they had an odd number of students. I still won though. But still... it was a little horrible. Doesn't matter now."
He laughed nervously.
"I see-"
Conan smiled sadly -it reminded him of his situation several years back. He too, did the investigation in a crime forensic game alone. But unlike the golden boy, Conan could not just dispel the loneliness with a nervous laugh.
The top of the hierarchy of success was a small triangle - so few people could inhabit in it, such an isolated place.
He could not dispel it with a nervous laugh and think it was okay. It was never okay. That very day... His mouth was tasting tears, getting robbed by the other angry kids for his prize that he earned by himself. It was not just the prize that they had stolen, they had stolen his happiness - that sense of achievement he had felt when he was able to deduce the case correctly like a true detective.
"Is something wrong, Conan-kun?" the other boy asked, seeing that the bespectacled boy was in a trance.
"It's fine," he answered blandly, "just head home."
"If that the case, then see you around," Cedric said as he set foot on the skateboard, "thank you once again for not letting my second detective game be another lone experience."
"No... those should be my words," Conan whispered, but the other boy heard him.
"Are you really okay?" he eyed on his facial expression.
"Nothing," he replied, he tossed a 100 yen coin at the other boy, "it's just like that."
Two boys, two different sides of the same coin.
"Alright. I get it," the green-eyed boy hopped on the skateboard and waved goodbye, towards Beika street. Conan watched him leave with the skateboard.
Thank you, both of you. Especially Haibara. Without her, I might have been experiencing this second life of mine alone. I'm okay, I'm feeling fine - I'm great. I've been said to be a great detective, but I can't seem to figure out... why... there's this void in my chest... I can't decipher it. I can't seem to figure...
...out anything. Why was he even thinking about this all of a sudden?
That's right.
Maybe he'd lose it all in the end. Was he willing to see his friends getting harmed, like Mitsuhiko, Ayumi and Ai...
No.
Not Haibara Ai. Not her.
For her to go back to the Black Organisation, to be in the hands of someone like Gin? Never!
He tried to put her away, far away from him and the dangers that sucked on him like leeches (and even so, unknowingly, he failed at that part too, given that they had attempted to attack Ai). He had placed his trust on Jodie and the others to do their job and protect those that needed to be protected.
And even now, as many other agents like Rei, Akai and Jodie were fighting to defend others, he was just paralyzed - he tried to think, to come up with another plan to counter the Boss's assaults at them. Yet it was consecutive moves from the Black Organisation, time and time, all occurring within a short period, that it did not give any mercy for Conan to even contemplate on his losses.
He's doing nothing. Not even thinking, even if the rest were fighting. It sickened him, because all these while, he had been such a self-centered fool. Even now, his troubles distracted him from saving everyone.
No wonder Ai told him that he was hard to love. Nobody can love a selfish bastard for a long-term.
He could not use his bloody, broken, brilliant brain of his to even think.
Did he just gave up?
Shinichi Kudo, the Great Detective of the East, never gave up on any case. But was he even Kudo Shinichi anymore? He was Edogawa Conan - same, yet different.
Two different sides of the same coin.
What a sad waste.
Here he was, feeling so lost - a lone man in a deserted island.
It was so, so pathetic, even for the level of a lowly human. To fail so immensely and having others' lives as the consequences.
Stand up, stand up! - a small voice of a child screamed, it was an image of a battered child, the child that had been brutally assaulted by an envious hoard of boys for the mere prize from the mini-Detective game.
I can't, I can't. It's useless. My whole life has been a lie, as Shinichi living in pretense of arrogance to avoid solitude, as Conan deceiving everyone of my identity. There's no point... Everyone's dying, and I'm the culprit! - he shouted back internally.
If you perish here, then you've abandoned Haibara, understand? You'll betray everyone by not helping them when you could. And most of all, you'll betray her too. You're a hypocrite, you're a liar, you're selfish, you're egoistic; is backstabber going to be one of your labels too? -it said.
Conan considered it. Whoever was the voice in his head, it hit a soft spot - can he ever betray Ai?
"Okay, I wo-"
Too late!
Sometimes when you want to bounce up again boy, it's too late! - another voice, a more mature and egoistic one, chuckled.
His trance had been intervened by a hysterical laughter.
"Checkmate!" Vinsanto appeared. How long was he talking to the voices that he failed to notice that he was surrounded.
He couldn't react. He was even more immobilized when the crazed girl playfully gave him a starved kiss on his lips. He could taste poison, stinging his gums. Then as she pulled away, with a knife to his throat, and he could see the Boss walking slowly towards them.
The Boss took another foot forward.
Conan now understood everything.
It would not have crossed his mind.
Step.
This kiss... was the Kiss of Death.
[A/N: Kiss of Death is a Checkmate chess move where the Queen is a square away from the lone opponent King. The lone opponent King cannot overtake the Queen because doing so would make him vulnerable to its King. In biblography, Kiss of Death is also a phrase derived from Judas's kiss on the cheek of Jesus Christ, during his betrayal. In mafia, it's usually the phrasing of the death of a mafia member, most likely due to betrayal.]
Step.
He could not breathe, his heart was going to explode into a cardiac arrest.
Step.
"Don't come any closer! Get away!" Conan shouted hysterically, as it he saw a ghost. Vinsanto jabbed an injection in his throat, making him paralyzed from the neck down.
Step.
His pleading was useless. Tears silently fell. Why, why, why?!
Step.
"Conan Edogawa-"
Step.
"Shinichi Kudo-"
Step.
"Silver Bullet. Great Detective of the East. The Modern Sherlock Holmes. You too, have many names," the Boss - or whatever you call him- said.
The Boss took the Silver King piece, the one from the crime scene, from Conan's pocket. "I'll take this back. It contains a lot of data - the various data experiments dating even way back in the World War 2 and the life of a certain person. Violette Cisson had disguised it, but we mistook it for the gold one, instead of the silver. Lucky for me, you were too concentrated in all the chaos that you had forgotten one thing - to figure out why we were after the Chessboard of Gwendellau. If you had broken this chess piece, you could have obtained a data that immediately gives you information of my identity. But you didn't. I'll admit, there are flaws to my game plan but the risk was worth it."
Checkmate, Tantei-san.
Conan started to weep once more. The Boss patted him on the head, hushing him.
"Another mistake that you've made is that you had assumed that we were interested in taking Sherry. Of course, Gin wanted to take Sherry but that's not who we wanted. Definitely we wanted Dr. Tomoaki Araide for his medical knowledge and research; also additionally Tyler because he's my grandson. But most of all, I'd like you to come with me -well, it's not like you had a choice, but I'd rather treat you like a dear friend," the Boss eloquently said, as gentle as a baby's whisper.
"Additionally, I'm pretty sure you'd have a lot of questions. Of course, I'll answer them in due time. I'd like you to understand," he said.
There were more tears from Conan. It was unbelievable -the person spoke to him as if they were siblings. It seemed strange. Naturally, one would not be voluntary of being a prisoner of a syndicate. Yet, Conan did want to figure out - the backstory, the reasons, the Boss's methods, his mindset - everything.
He wanted to figure out his friend like a broken compass in a magnetic field. Yet, it was peculiar.
Conan labelled himself as a hypocrite, a liar, a lonely child masking himself with arrogance, a selfish brat, a dagger smile in an angelic face - it was as if, he was staring back at his own reflection. That person could disguise himself easily as Conan anyway, as he previously did. They were the same built.
Except he didn't have any green in his eyes.
"It's okay. You made mistakes in your deductions, I did too, so horribly, when I was around your age. But it's okay, I said we would play chess again, remember? It'll might help with your sadness-"
The Boss with green eyes lifted Conan to a piggy-back.
"Here's your 100 yen coin back-" he handed it to Conan.
He accepted it.
[A/N: I AM SO SORRY FOR DECEIVING EVERYONE. I've been planning for this right from the very start of this fanfic. I did try to drop a few hints (kudos to people who actually picked it up!)].
A/N: Many people expected Ai to get kidnapped or something, but I think the whole girl-save-guy is cliche. And I need Conan to get caught for this story to progress. I didn't know it would take 32 chapters before Conan gets caught by the BO! I think the parts where Conan is with them will be what makes up rated M and the chapters after this will be exciting to write. I will explain what tricks they used to fake death and more on the Boss's backstory. Also more on Conan's state of mind. But for now, have fun theorizing.
Unfortunately, I really need to take a hiatus until December. Which is why I wrote 7 chapters within the past month before my term started. I'd like to write up a chapter of author's note explaining in detail why I need to take a hiatus and also plans/comments for this fanifc, but since this site does not allow me, I'll only put it up on Wattpad. Do search for it (has the same title) if you would want to read the Author's Note.
Thank you for the support and I hope you guys understand. I'll still have a few update posts (if you'd like to see if I'm alive or not) on my CoAi fandom Instagram (see my Bio).
-Spreading the love of CoAi, Numbkid