A New Beginning?

Chapter 6:

1 month later

Tokyo

"Gin, you have let me down a few times recently, haven't you?"

The raspy voice seemed to echo through the speaker of the phone that the man in question was holding. He had been dreading hearing those words since he girlfriend had attempted to commit suicide and he been taken in by the Police.

"First Aoko Nakamori, Kaito Kuroba and now Sherry," Anokata's voice disguised by a scrambler continued on.

"It won't happen again," he replied, clamping an unlit cigarette between his teeth to help him hide his anger at himself.

"You said that last time and the time before that. If you mess up the assignment I'm about to give you, you will be forced to leave the Organisation and we all know that no one leaves alive."

"What's the job?" Anokata hadn't said anything that he hadn't predicted yet.

"I've sent you a file. It involves some of your past acquaintances. Don't mess this one up, it is your last chance."

Anokata rang off leaving Gin listening to the shrill sound of the dial tone.

He gripped the phone tightly in his hand. He had been quickly promoted through the ranks of the Organisation soon after he had joined and shown immediate potential for a perfect, cold blooded agent who carried out order to the letter without letting any emotions get in the way. Or had been until the Anokata had found out that he had a girlfriend that knew everything after her suicide attempt and to make matters worse before the Organisation could retrieve her she had been whisked away by the Police as a witness who could testify against the Organisation. Then he had failed with Kaito Kuroba, spending too much time torturing him instead of killing him like he was supposed to allowing him to get away and run to the Police for protection.

After that day he had known that his days until a serious talk with Anokata were numbered and getting shorter.

Then the final straw had been the escape of Shiho Miyano aka Sherry, the gifted scientist he had been assigned to keep an eye one. Her escape had taken place two days ago and seemed impossible as she had been locked in a room with only one exit which had been locked. In addition to his mountain of problems it turned out that the corpse Shinichi Kudo, the detective he had killed, had never been found. He had argued that the APTX 4869 had sped up decomposition rate, but no one in the science department would believe him and neither did Anokata.

To say the least he was in an awkward situation with his superiors and only had one chance left until he was given a traitor's death as a warning to any other members that messed up. Ironically he had carried one out the week before all his problems had started. The agent had been elderly and his mind had been going senile and he had been classed as a liability so Gin had killed him.

Gin looked up as his partner entered the room holding a thick file.

"The file just arrived, Aniki," Vodka announced, dropping it onto the table.

In reply Gin grunted and slid it towards him. "Close the curtains. The sunlight is giving me a headache."

Behind him the curtains were whisked shut and a pair of arms looped around his neck and the voice of the woman that he hated the most whispered in his ear

"I can soothe that headache."

His only reaction to the sudden change in attitude and voice was to remove the arms from his neck and say, "Don't you have better things to do Vermouth? And take that awful mask off."

Vodka's face pouted and was ripped off to reveal Vermouth's face.

"You're on your last chance," she said brightly, sitting herself down in the chair opposite him. "You will love the assignment."

Raising an eyebrow he opened the file and blinked in surprise. A photo of Shinichi Kudo's face was staring up at him along with one of Kaito Kuroba's. He had never put those two together and realised that they almost looked the same. He would have forgotten their faces, but since they were his failures they were permanently in his head, reminding him that he had failed.

"Turn to page 2. It gets better."

Gin uttered a curse when he found another collection of images, this time of his ex-girlfriend and Shinichi Kudo's wife. He had never spotted any resemblance between them either, but he spent a lot of time trying to forget Aoko's face.

"Two people matching descriptions of Shinichi Kudo/ Kaito Kuroba and Ran Mori/ Aoko Nakamori have been spotted in England by the agent that observes Saguru Hakuba. As you can see we don't actually know which people they are due the resemblance."

"I see."

Vermouth leaned forward and lit up the unlit cigarette which was still hanging out of his mouth.

"Yes, anyway the pair moved into a house in the village where he lives a few weeks ago. We are of the opinion that they are acting as bait to lure us into a trap as all four of them are wanted by the Organisation."

"So we are going to enter it anyway?"

"With precautions. There is also another factor which needs to be taken into account," Vermouth tapped the file with a manicured fingernail.

In compliance he turned a few more pages until he found yet another photo.

"Sherry," he breathed.

"Isn't it a tantalising last chance, Gin? All your failures rolled into one assignment- your chance to get even with those who have evaded you."

Gin ignored her, knowing she knew that that was exactly what was going through his mind. He kept his eyes down, fixed to the text on the page in front of him. According to it Sherry had been showing interest in the case of Shinichi Kudo before her escape 2 days ago and had been aware of the sighting in England, leading the belief that she had fled to that country.

"Interesting…"

England

Aoko hummed happily to herself as she skipped around the house with a bright yellow feather duster. It was her third week of living in England with Kaito and she had nearly forgotten about the Organisation and was enjoying herself. She paused in her dusting of the windowsill in the front room to glance out the window to gauge the weather.

"It's raining, again…" she complained out loud to herself. "It's supposed to be summer."

A loud yawn came from behind her. "It was sunny every day last week, you can't complain and you got a suntan and I got a sunburn," Kaito yawned and ruffled up is already messed up hair.

"Kaito. Good morning, it's rare for you to actually get up before noon," Aoko turned and smiled radiantly at him.

Kaito flushed at the sight of her smile which he still had not become accustomed to seeing.

"Your humming and skipping kind of woke me up."

Aoko's face fell. "Sorry."

He hurried to placate her. "It's okay, I was already awake and it was a nice song."

"That's good. Anyway I was just going to make some coffee. Would you like a cup?"

Kaito nodded and Aoko left the room, still holding the feather duster. He smiled to himself and sat down on the sofa. Living with Aoko was not what he had expected at all. Instead of moping around the house, not eating properly and looking depressed she had thrown herself into the housework, gained a tan which made her look healthier and smiled at him frequently which had been a little unnerving at first. She had experimented with cakes and desserts and had put on a few pounds- in her case it was a good thing. He enjoyed having a person like her around the house. Although he wondered if she was really as happy as she seemed to be or if she hadn't forgotten the Organisation and was putting on an act.

Something hot touched his cheek suddenly, causing him to jump in his seat. Aoko was standing beside him holding out a cup to him. He had been so intent on thinking about her that he hadn't noticed her enter the room. He would have to work on that. Before he had been very sensitive in his surrounding and reacted at every little noise. He accepted the cup from her with a small smile. Aoko sat down next to him.

"Hakuba-san phoned earlier to say that he is coming around with a guest this evening," she said after a short silence with just the sound of them slurping coffee.

"Hmph. I suppose that means he's inviting himself around for dinner. Did he say who the guest was?"

Aoko shook her head. "I assumed it was Conan-kun, but I'm not sure now. What would you like for dinner? We haven't tried anything with fish in yet."

Kaito squirmed and pulled a repulsed face at the mention of the word "fish".

Aoko giggled, "I'm only joking Kaito. It said you had Ichthyophobia in your file. I just wanted to see your face." She winked.

He turned his head to hide his flushed red face. She couldn't be faking all of that, could she? That Aoko that he had met a month ago would have never winked at him. She had definitely changed, but for how long? They couldn't hide from the Organisation forever.

I'm back from exam hell and have nearly finished school forever. I just have attend Prom.

I haven't written anything creative in a long time (English exams do not have creative writing questions) so I am a little out of practise. The updates, if anyone is still reading this, should be more regular now