Disclaimer: I don't own DCMK


A Curse Marked Fate

15: Unravel

Conan was acting strange.

The boy seemed nervous, though Kaito couldn't for the life of him figure out why. It hadn't been obvious at first.

He and Conan had followed the maps in their books through the forest and up into the mountains, passing sunlit clearings where butterflies danced over fields of flowers like flecks of gold upon a verdant sea and corridors of towering trees whose red and gold crowns glowed like fire pierced through with shafts of light and shadow that were ever shifting under the gentle caress of the autumn breeze. They circled the shore of a small, bottle green pond across which a pair of deer watched them with large, dark eyes before turning to bound away into the brush. Later, they passed a series of tall, white stone formations that glimmered like fresh snow and almost seemed to form a natural fort. So spectacular was its appearance that they took a brief detour from their journey to explore it only to find, a crystal clear pool, perfectly circular, situated in the middle of the structure. Stranger still were the red and gold fish flittering about beneath the water's surface. Shinichi had never seen this breed of fish before, though they reminded him of koi. They moved through the water with such grace that it was almost like watching an ever moving painting drawn through the curves of their bodies and the swish of their fins.

"They're beautiful," he murmured, sitting down to just watch the fish spin threads of fire in their watery home.

Kaito made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat and sat down a good two feet away. "Did you want to take a break?" This might be a good time to talk, he thought, even if the setting left much to be desired.

To his surprise, Conan shook his head and got back to his feet. "No, that's all right. You must hate this place. Let's just try to get to that plateau Toichi-san said we should make camp at."

And so they did, but Kaito found himself wondering why Conan had thought he couldn't like that tranquil pool with its aquatic occupants. Only a select handful of people knew about his aversion to those fishy horrors. There were his parents, Aoko, and Shinichi. Of those, Shinichi was the only person who might have told Conan about it except that Kaito was certain that Shinichi was not the kind of person who would share that sort of personal information about a friend with another friend without permission or at least serious cause.

But he digressed. He wasn't here to wonder about what Conan knew that he shouldn't know—yet. What he was here to find out was why Conan, who supposedly just moved in with the Mouris, saw Ran as his sister, Kogoro as his uncle, and Kudo Yukiko as his mother.

That, and why, with every grain of sand falling through the pinch in their hourglasses, the boy's shoulders grew more tense and the frown line between his brows etched that little bit deeper.

If he asked straight out, Kaito doubted he would get a straight answer. So it would be best to go around. To pick and prod and tease until the answers he wanted were inevitably bared before him.

But first, Conan fed the fish some bread crumbs. They resumed their journey to the plateau, which turned out to be right on the edge of a deep gorge in which a mighty waterfall roared in frothing white clouds. The walls of the gorge were sheer, and they could see the many layers of stone—red, brown, orange, beige—painting a history of the world in shades of earth as the river continued to roar far below.

"Do you think we need to keep watch?" Conan asked, speaking up for the first time in almost an hour now. The last stretch of their hike had been quite steep, and he was slightly out of breath, having refused Kaito's offer to carry him over the steepest parts. "I mean, are there monsters that we're going to have to fight or something?"

"It's not impossible," Kaito admitted, but there shouldn't be unless we trigger some truly weird events. Most Vision Books are designed to focus on giving the players a chance to experience another world in all its glory. The beauty of the land, the cultures of those lands, the games, the scenery, the animals—we really wanted them to be about adventure and seeing new things and meeting new people and that sort of thing. Or, if all else fails, a peaceful place where people can unwind and relax from all the stress we have these days."

"It's a nice thought," the younger boy murmured, a small, rather wistful smile tugging at the corners of his lips. For a moment, his gaze grew distant, and it seemed as though there was a weariness in them that went far beyond his meager years.

Kaito quirked an eyebrow at that. "You really need to lighten up. Someone your age shouldn't even know what stress means. Now come on. I got marshmallows, crackers and chocolate. We'll make s'mores after dinner."

"Is all the food we've been eating real?" the younger boy asked as the two of them set about making camp.

"Yep."

"But then where does it come from? I mean, it's not possible to create entire edible dishes out of thin air even with magic, is it?"

Kaito laughed as he snapped his fingers over the kindling they had piled in the middle of a circle of stones that appeared to be the remnants of a previous traveling party's campfire. The kindling burst into flame. "Not like that, no. Like I said, this place is mostly a fabrication, but that means most of it is aesthetic. But we wanted people to be able to eat, so we've implemented a system that connects the Vision Books to a separate supplies center at Clover Institute. Food for these books is stored there either in completed forms or as ingredients but all held in stasis. When they're needed, the stasis spell breaks, and the dish or ingredient is transported to where it needs to be in the story."

Conan looked thoughtful. "Does that mean these Vision Books won't be sold then?"

Surprised by the question, Kaito shrugged. "Right now, no, I guess they can't be. We think it would work best if we just set up a sort of Vision Book Arcade at the Institute where people can come in for an hour to use one. There'd have to be a small fee that covered the raw materials like food stuffs that actually get consumed during the process, but it won't be complicated."

"That makes sense."

"I want to try making a few that can be collected though," he added as an afterthought. "Maybe like a playground or a park you can keep in your back pocket."

"Or a library," Conan suggested, brightening. "So you can keep all your favorite books in one book."

"Funny, someone else said something similar to me once," the magician mused. Reaching into his pack, he pulled out two bento boxes and handed one to Conan. "This friend of mine really loved books, and he was always wishing there was an easier way to carry more of them around. I suggested he just load eBooks into his phone, but he said he didn't like looking at screens all the time or the way electronic books felt. The lack of proper weight and the feel of paper under your fingertips and all that. We ended up talking about portable libraries. I mentioned the idea to Dad, and he introduced me to the Vision Book Project."

Kaito paused, noting the rather odd expression on Conan's face. "What's the matter?"

The boy started then blushed and looked down. "It's nothing. I was just thinking. Anyway, this bento box says it's self heating?"

"Yep. Open it."

Conan did as instructed. The instant he lifted the lacquered lid, the entire box grew warm, and a waft of steam rose to tickle his nose with the mouthwatering aromas of fresh rice and curry. His face lit up with a delighted smile that, for a moment, made him look like the child he was for once. The sight made Kaito's lips twitch into an corresponding smile.

Shinichi had liked curry too, Kaito recalled.

So many coincidences.

Later, as he lay in his sleeping bag with his arms folded behind his head, looking up at the breathtaking sky full of stars and a moon so clear it looked like he could just reach out and touch it, he turned over his growing list of moments and signs and wondered.

If it had been Shinichi with him then Kudo Yukiko's appearance in the town hall would have made perfect sense. If it had been Shinichi with him, Ran's appearance as the boy's sister would also have been unsurprising. She had, after all, been a sister to Shinichi in everything but blood over these past few years of living together. Uncle Kogoro too was a logical extension of the family.

But it wasn't Shinichi here with him, was it? It was Conan, a cousin to the young detective who couldn't possibly have developed the same relationships to the Mouri household that Shinichi had in the few weeks he had been in their home.

What was he missing?

Come to think of it, why would Shinichi have left the Mouris for an extended stay in America or anywhere else for that matter when the reason he was with the Mouris to begin with was so that Kogoro's curse could help Shinichi keep his own in check.

Turning his head to the side, Kaito gazed at the small figure curled up in the sleeping bag next to his. Conan was facing him with his hand curled up and tucked under his chin as he snuggled into his pillow. His face, unshielded by his glasses, looked soft and delicate in slumber and exactly how Kaito remembered from those warm, summer afternoons when Shinichi would fall asleep reading and Kaito would just sit and watch him, content in the knowledge that his often stressed friend trusted him enough to actually fall asleep in his presence.

"Everything makes sense if it's you," he murmured to the sleeping child. "But if it is, why haven't you said anything? Why this pretense? You always hated deception."

Of course, he could be barking up the wrong tree here, but the more he mulled over the day's discoveries, the stronger his suspicions grew. The question was, what should he do about it?

For the briefest of moments, he pondered whether, in fact, he should really do anything at all, but he dismissed that thought even before it had finished forming. He had decided that he would find Shinichi and reestablish their friendship, and that was what he was going to do. If this child was somehow Shinichi trying to avoid him, well, he was just going to have to learn that Kuroba Kaito was not someone you could get away from.

Kaito fell asleep that night plotting increasingly bizarre schemes for cornering his prey and forcing some answers out of him. That night, he dreamed of two boys sitting under a tree on the grassy shore of a lake in summer and of a pair of bright blue eyes that sparkled as their owner laughed, the sound all the more delightful for the rare and honest joy that it expressed.

How simple those times had been, he thought even as he felt his consciousness drifting back towards the waking world. So simple that they had slipped away before he had even realized just how precious they had truly been.

X

The following morning, however, Kaito found himself putting his scheming on hold as he once again noticed that his little companion was acting strange. The boy was jumpy. He kept looking back over his shoulder or up at the rocky cliffs looming around them. He slipped a little at one point as they started up another rocky mountain trail, but he refused to let Kaito hold his hand. When the older boy offered to just carry him, he had shaken his head and insisted that he could walk.

"We're not making very good time," the Sky Mage informed his young charge, glancing first at his hourglass then up at the sky, where the sun was already nearing its zenith. "According to the instructions in our map books, we need to be at the temple gates by noon. From the look of that sun, we've only got half an hour left to make it."

"Then you should go ahead," Conan told him. "I'll follow. There's only one path. I won't get lost."

"It would be faster if you let me carry you."

"It'll be faster if we just get moving instead of standing here arguing about it," Conan retorted. To prove his point, he walked past Kaito and began the slow trek up the narrow, rugged path.

Almost instantly, the rocks under his left foot crumbled to go skittering into the river gorge down that side of the mountain. Conan let out a yelp and tried to throw himself the other way to avoid tumbling down into the gorge. But a large hand grabbed him by the back of the collar and hauled him back onto firmer footing.

"Well that was close," Kaito noted, frowning. "I would've thought Dad's team would have made sure the paths were better made than that. But I guess they wanted realism. Try to stay away from the edge.

Conan didn't need to be told twice. But he continued to insist that he didn't need help. Indeed, he seemed to be purposefully trying to keep his distance.

Kaito puzzled over this odd behavior. The boy hadn't acted this way before—either at the resort or earlier the previous 'day'. And the older boy couldn't think of anything he might have done to spook his small companion.

"Honestly," he said, exasperated when Conan immediately stepped away from him after he'd lifted the child up over a difficult ridge and set him down. "I don't smell, do I?"

He lifted his arm to sniff theatrically at his own sleeve.

Conan blushed and ducked his head, stammering out an embarrassed denial.

"In that case, up you go." With that, Kaito scooped the child into his arms, pack and all, ignoring the spluttered protests. "If we don't hurry, we're going to be late."

With a muttered chant, Kaito turned and hopped off the side of the path out into open air. He grinned when Conan let out an involuntary yelp of alarm and clutched at him.

"Open your eyes," he advised as he set off running as though there was a path beneath his feet as opposed to empty air. "The view's amazing~. I promise I won't drop you."

The towering, mountain walls around them opened out, and a sudden, powerful gust of wind nearly knocked Kaito off his feet.

"Look out!" Conan exclaimed as they careened sideways, dropping several feet to nearly run straight into a ledge jutting out of the side of the mountain.

"Whoops." Kaito ducked under the ledge and twisted, shielding Conan with his body. His backpack took the brunt of the collision with the cliff side, and they rebounded. It was another second before Kaito had them steady again, both feet firmly planted on thin air.

"Whew, that was close," he remarked with a wholly impropriate laugh. Then he nudged the child in his arms. "You okay down there?"

An extremely pale Conan nodded but didn't speak. Frowning, Kaito jogged back up his invisible path to the plateau above, where he set them back down on solid ground. He lowered the younger boy gently to the ground then crouched so that they were at eye level.

"Are you all right?" he asked seriously.

"I'm fine," Conan said automatically. His heart was still pounding against his ribcage, but he wasn't about to admit it. That near-fall had been truly terrifying. Worse still was that ever present concern that it had been his fault—that his curse had induced the unfortunate accident.

Kaito gave him another long, searching look then straightened. "All right then. Just so you know though, there are fail-safes built into these books so people can't actually get injured."

"But we would have fallen?"

"I would've caught us before we hit the ground," Kaito replied airily. "But if I hadn't, we would probably have landed on something that could have broken our fall like a deep, bouncy pile of leaves or something like that. Though it would have meant we'd have to climb all the way back up."

"What happens if we take too long?" the boy asked, curious.

Kaito shot him a droll look. "Then this becomes the story of our epic failure and the start of this land's next era of hardship. But we would've been offered other opportunities to finish the quest first. All the Vision Books provide multiple paths with successful endings. After all, people should be allowed to make a few mistakes or take a few detours—especially since you can't try again until you finish the entire hour of story. It's actually pretty hard to end up in the worst case scenario so long as you put some effort into the tasks at hand."

He kept talking, describing some of the brainstorming sessions that the Vision Book Project team had had on the various potential scenarios in different books and watching out of the corner of his eye as Conan gradually relaxed. The scenarios ranged from improbable to outright ridiculous, so they made good telling. They also appeared to be just what he needed to pull Conan out of his earlier mood. He soon had the boy asking questions and participating in the conversation. The Sky Mage congratulated himself on a job well done even as he added another note to the list of observations he was making of the child who might or might not be his Shinichi somehow made younger.

Something either about this place or Kaito himself was making Conan uncomfortable. Or perhaps it was a combination of the two? Something different about this little adventure and the time they had spent together before.

Time…

Indigo eyes narrowed.

Now there was a thought.

TBC


A.N: I hope you're all doing well. Just a quick heads up that the next update will be a little later as I am almost done with the next chapter for The Show Goes On and will be posting that first. Thanks for reading and take care!