Author's Note: Hello everybody! It's been so long! Sorry I wasn't able to publish in the past months because first my computer broke down! Second I had my trimestral exams so studying comes first. I'm so sorry! I am now officially now saying that I will publish a chapter every two weeks. I also present to you the fifteenth chapter! I made this chapter with a big twist for you to be satisfied and to pay off that two months I wasn't able to publish a chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan in any way you can think of!
The Moment Where Everything Was Lost
Part I: The Eclipse
"The thing those two have that we don't...courage"
-Spirit Albarn (Soul Eater)
Chapter XV: Level Two
Author's Note: The West Imperial Stronghold story arc is nearing its end so stay tuned. Remember to keep track of the important happenings.
Shinichi's point of view
Just wait a little more Ran. We're so near you and I won't let you down. Just believe in me. We were running to the shortcut so we could get to Level Two much faster. The journey so far was the most painful we ever had but if we succeed it will be all worth it. "So for all of you to risk your lives the one we must be saving must be very close to you." Ryujin said.
"She is but Kaito has a different reason." I replied. "I know why he's here so have you lost someone?" Ryujin asked. Nobody replied and just kept running. "I'm not going to lose anyone anymore." I said. "You have some big heart you got there." Ryujin said. "Thank you." I replied. "We're near. I already see it." Ryujin said pointing to a cell to our left. When we got there the cell was empty and it seemed it was the only one in the whole level with an empty cell.
"They never put another prisoner here since I escaped. It seems they haven't found the secret passageway yet." Ryujin said. "They don't know about it? Who made it then?" Hattori asked. "Never knew who made it but it was made really good. There are even lights down there." Ryujin said.
"Wait if there are built lights down there it means it was built the same time as this stronghold. Then it was purposely made so why don't they know?" I said. "It's better if you don't think about it Kudo-kun. We're here to rescue Ran." Haibara said. "But still something's not right." I said."Shinichi's right something's not right. Why build something if you don't want it to be known?" Kaito said.
"Guys, I also noticed it but Haibara is right. We're here to rescue Ran not to figure out why a mysterious room is helping us." Hattori said. "Okay, right let's go and proceed in here." I said. I opened the cell door slowly and saw the stored dust everywhere. Just from the sight of it. It was obvious that there hasn't been anyone in this room for a long time.
I entered first and saw the toilet Ryujin was talking about. I pushed it over to the side and saw the passageway Ryujin was talking about. It was long deep narrow but there were stairs and handrails to help anyone who wants to get down. "Let's go I'll go down first and all of you just follow." I ordered. I went down slowly and looked down so I can see if there are broken steps.
It went on for quite a while before I can get to the bottom. The room wasn't big or small. The two doors are on the opposite side of each other. "The left door leads to the exit and the right one leads to Level Two. Even though you're all decided I'm still gonna ask if you're going it's still not too late. You can get out right now." Ryujin said.
"No" all of us said at the same time. "Then let's go Kudo you lead the way."Ryujin said. I opened the door and saw it was blocked by a wall. "It's blocked." I said. "It only looks blocked. Push the wall." Ryujin instructed. I pushed the wall and it opened like a door. I looked at the other side of the wall and saw a hallway. The wall was just to disguise the door leading to a secret room.
All of us stepped out the wall and observed the hallway. "The blood is gone." Takagi said. "That's not the only thing that's gone. All the cells are gone too." Sato said. "That's because this is the part of Level Three where the prisoners and slaughterers aren't aloud. Another reason is this is the only way to Level Two." Ryujin explained.
"Then let's go." I said. We walked and saw no guards whatsoever. "Why are there no guards?" Agasa said. "Maybe they're all on the other side looking for us. They only know that there's one way for us. They only know that there's one way for us to go through that will to Level Two. They don't know the secret way." Ryujin said. After a few minutes of walking we finally made it to the gate.
The gate is similar to the other gates from the other levels except this time the gate seemed like a little red. Despite the giant gate a small doorway was found on its left side. When I touched the knob to try and open the door I suddenly shrieked in pain. "What happened?" Jodie asked. "The whole gate is freaking hot! I burned myself." I explained.
"Level Two is called as The Scourging Hell meaning it's a burning hot floor. I never stayed too long on this level because it feels like I'm burning on the inside. People who are brought here usually dies." Haibara said. "Then how do we enter?" Jodie asked. "When I was in the organization they use think leather gloves to wear and open the door." Haibara said.
"Then are you saying we should endure our skins getting burned?" Kaito said. "Did you forget or what? I have artificial metal arms that withstood a missile." Ryujin said. "So can you do it?" I asked. "Of course I can." Ryujin said. Ryujin clutched his fist and punched the door and blew it right of. "You could have just opened it you know." Sato said.
"I feel much comfortable when I do that." Ryujin said. "Well that's over with. Let's go now." I said. I stepped in and felt the heat coming up throughout my body. It was nothing I ever experienced before. My insides feel like burning and we have to go through the whole level being like this. What met us beyond the door was another stairway going down. "Whoa! It's too hot in here!" Takagi protested.
"It's hard to breath." Agasa explained. "We need to get some lung coolers if we want to live." Haibara said. "Lung coolers?" I asked. "It's a device our department invented for guards to guard this place with ease. It cools our insides even though we feel the heat outside." Haibara explained. "Where do we get one?" Hattori asked. "We need to steal one from guards. All in all we need to get ten of those." Haibara said.
"Ten?! How do you think we'll last in this heat?" Takagi asked. "Don't worry anyone can withstand this heat in twenty four hours. People who are sent here die or go mad in a month so I'm pretty confident we'll survive." Haibara explained. "Okay, so we can g faster let's go down now." I said. They followed and went down the stairway. Half way the walls started to emit a strange red glow. "Ouch! The walls burnt my elbow." Takagi said.
"What do you expect when you touch a read glowing wall in here?" Sato said. "Let's just continue to move let's not quarrel. It's just the heat getting into our heads." I explained. They calmed down and wiped the sweat from their faces and followed me again. It took about fifteen more minutes before we could reach the end of the stairway.
"It's amazing how they made it this deep." Ryujin said. With the stairway ended a hallway now met their eyes. They quietly continued to walk but the hallway was not that long compared to stairway. They went to a halt when they entered a gigantic room with a giant fountain in the middle but instead of water coming out from it, magma did. The heat room from the room was much more intense than the hallway or the stairway. "So this is the source of this heat." Kaito said. "I don't get it where are the prisoners?" Jodie asked.
"Look above." Haibara simply said. As everybody looked above gasps of fear were heard. What a gruesome sight it was. The prisoners were chained on the walls so they would take the full blast off the heat. The prisoners above were as quiet as the ones from Level Three.
"So they've also lost of the will to live." Jodie said. "This is just a part of the real cruelty this organization does." Haibara said. "So there's no point in rescuing them anymore." Sato said. "No, why would you save someone who wants to die?" Ryujin said. "Wait, what about the guards?" Takagi said. "We have no choice but to wait for a guard to come." I said.
The gigantic room contained three hallways including the one we came from. After a few minutes we heard footsteps walking towards us. We hid and waited for the guards to come to us. There were four of them. They wore a black suit but in their mouths is like a mouth mask and behind them are back packs that are connected to the mask.
It must be the source if the cool air that enters the body. "Wait we don't need to use brute force." I said. I pulled out my wristwatch and shot the four of them with my paralyzing needles. All of them fell at an instance. "That was brilliant!" Ryujin praised. "Well it's the profeesor who you should really thank." I said. "Well, I really do some great inventions." Agasa said blushing. "Even though we have four were six short." Hattori said.
"Who gets to wear them?" Kaito asked. "Well the girls should wear them first. As for the last one Professor will be the one to wear it." I said. "Why me? You don't think I can handle the heat?" Agasa said. "Let's not kid ourselves Professor. You're not as young as you used to be. Everybody age, it's what makes us human." I said. "Okay, I'll wear them." Agasa said defeated. The three girls and professor all wear them.
"Wow! It feels great! I feel the heat yet it doesn't go inside me I feel cold in the inside." Jodie explained. "Let's go now but what hallway we'll we enter?" Hattori asked. "I still have the blueprints with me." I said. I took put the blueprints and scanned the blueprints for Level Two. "Well we can go anywhere. Either way we will go to the entrance of Level One." I said.
I took away the blueprints and entered the left hallway. As I enter Ryujin stopped me. "I suggest we split up so if one of us gets captured there will be someone who rescues us or finishes the mission first." Ryujin explained. "Then Kaito, Hattori and Haibara will go with me. The others will go with you. If one of us gets captured just push the alert button and the other will rescue you." I explained.
"Okay, let's go." Ryujin said. We parted and swore to each other to meet at the entrance. "Wait, we still have to get a lung cooler." Kaito said. "I know, the others should have known that they need one." I explained. "So what's the outline of this level?" Kaito asked. "I don't get it either. This level only has one room. It might be like level three with a secret room." I explained. "Even though it was only one room. It was gigantic. I can't even see the ceiling." Kaito said. The conversation continued as walked. Our conversation ended when Haibara spoke. "Kudo-kun, I've been thinking if we successfully rescued Ran how do you think we'll escape?" Haibara asked through the mask.
"I've also thought of that and I think there is only one way and that is to escape from where we came from." I replied. "Wait what?! Are you seriously going to go with that plan?" Kaito said. "We'll as you can see there is no other way!" I fiercely replied. "But don't you think we'll get killed by that way?" Kaito said. "Don't fight! Kudo-kun is right there no possible way for us to escape except the one we came through." Haibara said. "Okay sorry I just lost my temper." Kaito apologized.
As Kaito apologized we suddenly heard footsteps." Someone's coming. We must hide." Haibara "We can't There's nowhere to hide we're in a straight hallway." I said. As we saw the three guards they charged at us and took out their knives. They started to swing knives anywhere. When Kaito dodged he took out his cape and startled the three guards. Without losing precious moment Kaito raised both his hands and ropes came out from his sleeve and tied the three guards together.
"You know I never get tired of seeing you do that." I complimented him. "Well that's one of a magician's jobs." Kaito said. "How do you do that?" Haibara asked. "A magician never reveals his secret." Kaito said. "Typical." Haibara said. "Let's get their lung cooler." Hattori suggested. We followed and took off their lung coolers and wore them. I realized how Haibara felt. I could feel the heat but it wasn't entering my body. "Wow, it's like I've never breath like this before." Kaito said.
"But somehow it feels weird." Hattori said. "I can relate. I can breathe but it feels hard to adpt like this." I said. "Since we all have lung coolers let's just go straight." Haibara suggested. We followed her and went straight on. The hallway didn't end for another fifteen minutes. We reached the end but the others were nowhere to be seen. "Where are the others?" I asked. "I don't know. Let's just try and wait." Hattori said. We waited in front of the giant gate and thirty minutes passed away and still there was no sign of them.
"Do you think they got captured?" Kaito sadly asked. "Impossible! Shuuichi and Ryujin are there." I replied. "There's nothing impossible here. The organization might have cornered them." Haibara said. "Don't say that!" I said. Someone suddenly stepped out but it wasn't the others. The four of us stood up and prepared to fight. "What are you doing here Vermouth?" I asked.
"Why can't I give myself a tour of the headquarters?" Vermouth said. "Where are the others?" I asked. "Oh the other advanced guards took care of them. They put on some quite a fight almost blew up the hallway but in the end they suddenly fell quiet." Vermouth said smirking. Haibara gave off a small squeal and tears ran down her eyes.
"Don't believe her Haibara!" I said. "By the way Sherry it's nice to see you in your old body you'll have to die before she sees you." Vermouth said. "Don't you dare talk about her!" I shouted. "You know she talks about you a lot. I've never had this fun since the time we killed a magician years ago. I think Kuroba was its surname." Vermouth. Kaito finally broke and let out a shout of anger and charged. "Don't you dare talk about my father!" Kaito screamed.
Kaito pulled out his cape and took out a sword. "Fool" Vermouth said snapping her fingers. Kaito fell to the floor. He was struggling and squeezing his chest. "I can't breathe!" Kaito said. The three of us ran towards his body gasping for air. "It ends here." Vermouth said snapping her fingers.
My chest hurt and I can't inhale air. The three of us fell to the floor twitching. I tried to take off the mask but it won't. I was twitching in pain gasping for air. Everything started to become out of focus. A few moments after that I've reached my limit and everything went black. I failed.
Author's Note: I hope you loved that chapter and please forgive me for not updating for so long! I hope the story helped you forgive me.
Coming Soon: Chapter 16: Decisions