Disclaimer: "Detective Conan" belongs to Gosho Aoyama, and "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon" belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.
This is an alternative story to my other fanfic "Encounter in Venice" and one of the possibilities of what could have happened if Ai had taken the antidote before Shinichi brought down the Organization.
Thanks a lot to my friends and betas Rae (Astarael00) and SN1987a and the Aicoholics on LiveJournal, without whom I would never have started this fic.
FS
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Ghost at Twilight
(edited version)
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But the sun…
But the sun is no longer above the horizon, the lady argues, gesturing towards the deep lilac sky, whose scarlet clouds have turned violet and fuchsia. Although the sky is still ablaze with its fire, today's sun has already died—and what you see is only the afterglow, the light which remains after the sun has gone down.
Disturbed by the determined glint in her eyes and the meaningful look she flashes Seiya before she continues to smirk at you, you pull him away from the temple and the creepy stranger, who keeps staring after you two. Tonight you feel even more anxious and paranoid than you felt yesterday evening, and her words have given you the feeling that she was alluding to Seiya's departure although she was only talking about the weather.
Since time is limited and you don't know how to address the real problem—Seiya's departure for New York—your mind comes up with other, less important questions: questions which should be of no importance to Seiya and you like why the crows had given Tenoh-san's mother such a cruel death and whether Seiya has really pulled the plug to Kakyuu's life support system.
"Why have the crows murdered Tenoh-san's mother in such a barbarous way?" you ask Seiya as you two are strolling back to the bench. Any other traitor you've heard of has either been executed in the gas chamber or received a bullet. You can well remember the Organization's policy of ending a troublesome codename members' life with one single bullet in the head—a difficult task, which only perfectly trained shooters like the crows could manage.
"Because she was the one who opened Pandora's Box," Seiya gravely says. While he doesn't want to condone what the crows have done, he'd like to tell you about the history of the Organization from his parents' point of view.
In the beginning, the Organization was a benevolent, heroic syndicate, which was why not only his parents and the crows but all of the codename members believed in it. After developing the Night Baron to gather information and to protect "Pandora's Box" (No. 3)—the storage of this world's truth—the "Sherringford Society", a secret Sherlock-Holmes-loving vigilante club of scientists, actors, musicians, martial artists, and hackers, set out to save victims of circumstances like prostitutes who had been sold by human traffickers, prisoners who had been wrongly convicted, homeless people who had been propelled into poverty by their government's corruption or bad management, and children who had been abused or abandoned by their parents… As it grew, the society which would later become the "Black Organization" began to raise orphans to give them a better future and a happier childhood than what the children could expect from the orphanage. To finance their operations and to pay their members, the leaders used the information in Pandora's Box to blackmail the filthy rich, immensely powerful one percent of the world's population, who were either terrified of losing their face or had good reasons to believe that an exposure would lead to their downfall.
With time, the Organization's philosophy took shape. The Boss and the seven crows, who were appalled by the information in Pandora's Box, began to believe that they needed to devise a grand plan to save the whole world and to free humanity from its self-made misery. Humans, so they argued, had always had a tendency to self-destruct. No government, no matter how benevolent or cruel, despotic or democratic, intelligent or dumb, had ever managed to stay in power and to ensure its citizen's security and happiness. Stupidity and sloppy thinking, the true rulers of the world, had always won in the end—the eternal comical tragedy of humankind's downfall, which could be prevented if the Organization managed to defeat Time…
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Time—so Gin taught you when you were small—was indispensable for humans to learn and to change. The ability to develop and master new patterns of behaviour much faster and better than any other species on earth was the greatest strength of the humans, who possessed an unrivaled brain. But this sort of learning required that you had the luxury of security, knowledge, material resources, and time—which only privileged people had. And since even the most privileged people were unable to learn from their friends' and enemies' experiences and regularly got distracted by the sheer endless possibilities in life, the most important, most understated resource in life was time.
Time, our best ally, was also our greatest enemy at the end of our lives. Unlike fanatic religious leaders who helped foster (and who capitalized on!) the lunatic, suicidal wish to find peace in death always try to make us believe, the ancient Greek knew that Death wasn't the solution to our problem. Otherwise the Greek wouldn't have mentioned Death as one of the evils in "Pandora's Box". Death is not a solution but rather an enormous obstacle to humankind's quest of happiness: If only humans could live forever, the wise ones would have enough time to pass on their knowledge!
If only humankind didn't multiply at dizzying speed to secure its survival, we wouldn't have to deal with environmental problems and overpopulation. If there was no threat of dying at all, there would be no need for religion itself—for all religions were much more concerned with the survival of the humans and more interested in an eternal afterlife than in their elusive, usually idiotic, deities! If only all the adults who were clearly dumb and immature—at least ninety percent of the world's population?—would forever stay kids, the truly intelligent, responsible, mature people would get a chance to save the world and teach the immature ones how to use their brains!
Look at all these pathetic cowards… how they all wear the same things and stick to their little groups during breakfast as if they'd die a painful death if they were alone! Gin had sneered when he visited you for the first time in New York. How many students of your age were even able to choose their clothes independently, without being manipulated by the ridiculous ads they imbibed every time they watched TV? They kept a safe distance from you because they could feel that you belonged to a completely different species. You will have to get accustomed to loneliness since solitude is the Gods' punishment for the few human beings they envy.
On the other hand… The dumb kids might be blissfully oblivious but not much happier than you, he mused. True friendship or even kinship seldom existed in this world—and the most rickety bridges were often maintained for life while the strongest emotional ties could be severed on a whim. Even at school, you could sense the gulf between the different social groups. In the Organization, however, all members were treated as equals regardless of their family background, race, culture, social status, sex, sexual orientation, charms, and looks—and only the ones who had repeatedly proved to be extremely competent and dedicated were honoured with a cocktail codename.
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The Werewolf in Man is the savage, powerful inner idiot every human being has to fight—and the Silver Bullet is the only weapon that can effectively kill it by reversing the Stream of Time. A few years after its foundation, the Organization changed its name, and the leaders called themselves "Anokata and the seven crows", Seiya continues. They chose these birds not only because of the well-known children's song but also because of the characteristics of the crow.
It made sense that humans liked pigeons and peacocks but hated and feared crows, his mother once said. Humankind had always preferred the imbecile follower and the flashy airhead to the loyal, tough, intelligent one. Crows were met with superstition and fear because they were ruthless, industrious, strong, and extremely smart. In contrast to many other birds, crows could adapt to all weathers and defend themselves as individuals, in monogamous pairs, in small families, and in large groups. Capable of love and empathy and hate, they mated for life, protected and taught their young, helped their parents raise their siblings even after they had left the nest, shared their knowledge among their peers, and used all the tools they could get to find food in winter even when many other birds have died or flown south. Crows were also known to bring the people who fed them gifts. If you hurt one of the birds, however—and their excellent memory for faces enabled them to nurse a grudge—not only the crow you had angered but also its peers would hunt you down.
"That's why the codename members wore black. It was only meant to be the colour of the seven crows at first, but the other codename members liked the idea of being crows so much that they all voluntarily wore it."
The Organization grew stronger with every passing day. The second generation—most of them orphans who wouldn't have had a real chance of being adopted if they had stayed in the orphanage—had been raised with love and attention and had enjoyed the best education the Organization could give. Politicians, terrorist groups, and even the secret services began to fear the people in black. The data in Pandora's Box was moved to the Organization's cloud, which was protected by the Night Baron, while the most important files, which the crows tried to memorize, remained on the hard disk. Anokata ordered the crows to build a ship, which was also named "Pandora's Box" (No. 1) because it contained the laptop with their most important files. It was hidden beneath the subterranean passage under the Werewolf Cliff so that no one but Anokata and the seven crows could find it. After all, they had to prepare for the unlikely scenario that the secret services of the governments they blackmailed would try to destroy their organization.
Naturally, while everyone enjoyed the privileges the Organization offered, not everyone showed the same dedication as the codename members when it came to work and fighting. Many members were also paranoid about their personal security, claiming that not only the secret services but also terrorist groups could infiltrate into the ever-growing group. Hence the crows decided that only the codename members deserved to know about the Organization's goals and the Silver Bullet. Anokata and the seven crows and the first codename members, who had been parts of the old Sherringford Society, were also the only members who knew about Pandora's Box and the Night Baron.
The Organization's leaders, who had made the greatest sacrifices to uphold their standards and to protect the Organization, continued to save lives and to develop the Silver Bullet stealthily, secretly, without claiming any rewards or accolades. They only killed in self-defense during their operations and never resorted to violence even towards the people they blackmailed. You could say the Organization was "just like Haruka-san's prodigy group" with the difference that the Organization was much larger and consisted of like-minded people from different cultural backgrounds, who were willing to make the supreme sacrifice for their goals. The crows, who met up to vote at "Pandora's Box" (No. 2)—the log cabin which led to the secret subterranean passage where the ship (Pandora's Box No. 1) was hidden—whenever an important decision had to be made, didn't use secret ballots because they were of the opinion that an open discussion could only happen when every single member had the backbone to voice their opinion.
"I've given the three Pandora's Boxes numbers because I'd always mix them up," Seiya dryly remarks.
As the research on the Silver Bullet continued and the first cases of age reversal in the rats occurred, utopia finally seemed within reach. Anokata and the first six crows were on the same page and the Organization flourished—but the seventh crow undermined the whole system by deciding that she knew better than all the others what the Organization needed.
It started so harmless that the others didn't intervene at first. Not only children but also older teenagers were suddenly rescued from the streets. Not only prisoners who had been wrongly convicted but also those who had received a slightly harsher sentence than what they deserved were suddenly freed. Unfortunately, it wasn't only a phase and didn't stop at this initial stage. The Organization should be even more benevolent than it had been, the seventh crow thought. After all, humans were prone to make mistakes… And when everyone deserved a second or even a third and a fourth and a fifth chance in life—who were we to decide which criminal deserved to be saved?
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