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A Curse Marked Fate
48: Games and Theories
"It's a good thing you're trapped here with a Sky Mage," Kaito told Shinichi with a cheerful grin as he poured water into two open cups of instant ramen. The water left the bottle cold, but, by the time it landed in the noodle cup, it was clearly boiling hot. It even had wisps of steam rising off it. Kaito set the bottle aside and waved his hand over each cup. The air at their openings shimmered, and the steam stopped rising. Instead, it fogged just at the lip of each cup as though it were rising up against an invisible barrier. Even the savory smells were, for the moment, fully contained. "We can boil water and heat food without any tools."
"True, but wouldn't an Earth Mage be even better?" Shinichi asked. "If you had some seeds, they could actually grow more food so you don't have to worry about rationing."
"Ah, but while that may be true, you overlook an important fact," Kaito countered, wagging a finger at his small friend as though scolding a child. "The amount of energy it takes to speed grow that food would far outweigh the amount of food you get. There's a reason we don't grow all our food instantly. There is also the matter of water. Sky Mages can clean and, to a certain extent, conjure water. You can go a week without food but only three days without water."
"I suppose you have a point." Shinichi sighed. "Why are we talking like we're stranded on a desert island?"
Kaito shrugged. "Because we sort of are for the moment. And our host is enjoying what sounds most unfairly like an incredible dinner at a fancy dinner party. And you insisted that you didn't want me testing whether he's distracted enough not to notice one of us appearing as another random party guest."
"We can't tell what the actual situation looks like from inside his pocket," the detective pointed out for the second time. "Maybe they're all sitting at a banquet table, and you're going to be the center of everyone's attention the moment you pop out of nowhere. Or maybe they're mingling, and you appear right in front of someone who crashes into you, and there ends up being a big scene. Remember, my curse may start acting up soon. It's been a while since I was last with Uncle."
"Huh. I hadn't considered that." Looking pensive, Kaito glanced down at the two cups of noodles. "Oh look, dinner's ready." He snapped his fingers, dissipating the spell he had been using to contain the heat and moisture, and suddenly their nostrils filled with the admittedly mouthwatering aroma of instant ramen. Grinning, he pushed one cup over to Shinichi and picked up a pair of disposable chopsticks, snapping them apart. "Bon appetit!"
It didn't take them long to finish their noodles or the cookies Kaito decided they should have for dessert. Left with nothing else to do but twiddle their thumbs as the people outside partied on, Kaito produced a deck of cards, and they began trying every card game they could think of.
Kaito was rather accustomed to being lucky, especially when it came to games of chance, and Shinichi was accustomed to the opposite, so neither of them noticed anything at first. When they finally did notice, it was after they had already run through most of the more interesting card games they could think of and were taking a breather by playing War.
"Wow, did you seriously just lose your very last card?" Kaito asked incredulously.
Shinichi poked idly at the two of diamonds he'd laid out and shrugged. "Looks that way."
"You lost every single match-up we had," the Sky Mage continued, sounding somewhere between awed and incredulous. "Every single one. We didn't even have a single war."
"The possibility does exist," Shinichi reasoned.
Kaito wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, but this is supposed to be the game that never ends. And you know, in the few times in my life when I have actually been bored enough to want to play it, it has done pretty well in living up to its reputation."
"Well, I can't say as I have ever been quite that bored before myself, so this is my first time playing. Maybe this is just what happens when someone with my curse plays an inane, purely chance-based game. Just look at the games we played earlier. I lost most of those due to a lousy draw at a key moment too. Chance just doesn't agree with me, and all card games are at least to some degree games of chance."
"But you won a few games too," Kaito pointed out, a thoughtful gleam beginning to kindle in his eyes.
Shinichi shrugged. "Again, games of chance here."
Kaito swept the cards they had been playing with up into a neat pile and began shuffling them, all the while looking pensive, as though he was turning over an unusual idea inside his mind—a tool he had just found, perhaps, that he was trying to understand.
When Kaito was still shuffling the cards five whole minutes later, Shinichi just had to ask, "What are you thinking about?"
Indigo eyes blinked then focused on him, pinning Shinichi to his seat with their focused intensity.
"My father told me that studying Mouri Kogoro's Curse Mark led him to several theories. One of those theories was an old one that proposes that curses are the side effects of blessings. In other words, blessings draw the energy they need to do their magic from sources the rest of us don't understand, but when they do, the side effects of them drawing in those powers is the curses we see."
"…And you're bringing this up now because…?"
"Well, the main thing about your Curse Mark is the bad luck, isn't it? It's why your parents left you with the Mouris and why you have to spend more than half the day every day with Mouri Kogoro. This made your curse weaker. But it also weakens your blessing. It was why it couldn't restore you fully right after you were attacked."
"We've been over this with Haibara already," Shinichi agreed. "What's your point?"
"My point," Kaito said slowly, eyes narrowing in concentration as he sorted through his thoughts. "Is that this might mean that the blessing that keeps you safe draws the luck out of things—games, people, moments, objects—and stores it up then uses it to make you lucky enough to cheat death."
"It's an interesting theory," Shinichi said slowly, considering. "But it's not the sort of thing you can really test. Or rather it's the sort of thing that there doesn't seem to be much point in testing."
"Maybe, maybe not." Kaito swept the cards they'd been playing with back into a neat stack, picked them up and began to shuffle them, hands quick and sure with the clearly practiced motions. "It's not Mouri Kogoro, but maybe it's the next best thing."
"…You've lost me."
The Sky Mage flashed him a grin. "Put it this way. What if, by playing lots of chance games, you can sort of decrease how much other bad luck happens around you."
Shinichi blinked. "So…like you think there's a bad luck quota of some kind that can be used up or aimed or something?"
"More like a quota of how much good luck your curse needs to absorb from the rest of the world to power your blessing," Kaito corrected him. "If we look at your situation in conjunction with this particular theory of Dad's then there's probably a semi-constant intake and output like water running into a tank and being drawn out of it at the same time, probably with a large reservoir that is held for major shortages. The typical outflow would be those close calls and brushes with trouble you can't seem to get away from. As long as that doesn't drain too much of what is poured into the tank, you'll have a growing reservoir of luck that is then poured on the truly lethal situations you find yourself in to ameliorate them and keep you alive."
"In other words," Shinichi said, "if there is an actual quantity of luck that my curse needs to absorb from the world around me at any given time then I could try playing a lot of chancy games to supply it with that luck so that it won't take as much from other people by causing bad accidents?"
"Exactly!" Kaito's eyes were gleaming now with the light of possibilities and plans. "So what do you think? Sounds worth exploring, yes?"
"It could be…" Shinichi murmured, not sounding nearly as excited as the older boy thought he should be. "We'd be taking a big risk if we're wrong. Or even if we're not right enough. I mean, how much luck would a lost chance game provide? There's just no way to say how the logistics of it all might actually work."
"Well, okay, you have a point," Kaito conceded. "But even if the effect is minimal, any help is better than none."
Shinichi couldn't disagree with that assessment. And in truth, he was more than willing to give the idea a try. It would definitely be a blessing if the theory turned out to have even a modicum of truth in it. At the same time, he was reluctant to let his hopes rise too quickly. After all, surely things couldn't be that easy.
Kaito produced a second deck of cards and began shuffling it into the first. "Let's see what happens if we play War with two decks."
Shinichi nearly groaned out loud, but he picked up the cards that Kaito dealt. This was going to be a long night.
X
Ai watched as Professor Agasa paced around their living room for the umpteenth time since returning to the house from his visit to the Choice Foundation. He had arrived at home shortly after one in the afternoon. It was now nearly six. Ai would not have been surprised if she had looked down to find a groove worn through the carpet.
That groove would run around the room then up to the front windows overlooking the path up to the front door. Agasa was there now. He stopped at the window and peered out at the late afternoon street.
"I'm sure they'll call the moment they can," the little cursed scientist said, breaking the silence and making the old man jump despite the softness of her voice. "We'll hear from them before they come up the driveway. So you can stop checking the window every ten minutes."
"But it's been hours," the professor said, frowning. "Why haven't they called?"
"Well, assuming that all went smoothly with the device I gave them, the actual data copying part of their task could have lasted anywhere from one to three hours. Then there's the fact that they would have to get in and out of the offices without being seen, which calls for the utmost caution. The worst thing they could do is rush, and I'm sure they know that."
"But they could have at least sent us a message to let us know they would be late…"
Ai sighed. "I am sure they have their reasons. They're smart boys. We should trust that they know what they're doing."
The professor cast Ai a curious look. "You're not worried at all?"
Ai almost snorted but managed to restrain herself. Of course she was worried. Dwelling on it, however, wouldn't help anyone.
The house phone rang, and Agasa leapt for it.
"Shin—I mean, Conan-kun?" he asked hopefully.
There was a confused pause from the other end of the line before Ran's voice answered. "Sorry, this is Ran. I was calling to talk to Shinichi. Isn't he at your place?"
"Oh. Er, well… He and Kaito-kun went out this morning to do some…uh…research relating to what happened at the institute. They didn't tell me when they'd be back."
"But Kaito-kun said he wanted to go see the Matsuharas with Sonoko and me," Ran replied, beginning to sound a little concerned herself. "You know, for the watches," she went on in a much lower voice. "He said they'd need recharging."
"A—ah, well, he said you and Suzuki-chan should handle it this time," the professor invented hastily.
"I…guess we could do that," Ran said slowly, a frown evident in her voice. "Should I send Dad over to pick them up later?"
"No, that won't be necessary," the professor assured her, beginning to sweat. "I can drop them off. I need to go pick up some groceries later anyway."
Ran was silent for a long moment before she asked suspiciously, "They're not doing anything dangerous are they?"
"What? No! Of course not." Agasa laughed nervously, realized his mistake, and turned the sound into a cough. "Anyway, you said you're visiting the Matsuharas?"
"Not them specifically. Sonoko's parents are throwing a party this evening, and they're on the guest list." Ran paused as a voice called out in the back ground. "It looks like she's here. I'll be going then. Dad will be going too, but I'll tell him to keep an eye on his phone in case Shinichi needs to reach him."
"I'll let him know," Agasa promised. "Have fun at the party."
He didn't start breathing easily again until Ran hung up. With a sigh, he returned the phone to its cradle and sank onto the couch. That was one disaster postponed, but it would be back. He wondered what he should tell the girl next time she called.
"We should decide what we're going to do if they're not back by tonight," Ai said as though she'd read his mind.
Agasa winced. He really, really hoped it didn't come to that.
TBC
