Disclaimer: I don't own DCMK

A Curse Marked Fate

4: Turning Point

Shinichi was enjoying a cup of black coffee and one of the books he'd just borrowed from the school library in a small but well kept café near campus when Ran and Sonoko found him. He wasn't particularly surprised to see them since he knew that they knew that this was one of his favorite cafes. The way Sonoko slouched into the seat across from him, however, had him raising his eyebrows.

"Tough test?" he guessed.

She made a face at him. "I got Moriyama-sensei as my proctor. He's always so strict. He made me demonstrate lighting then putting out a fire five times before he was satisfied! I mean seriously, who cares if the kindling is still hot as long as the fire's out? It's not like it's going to burst back into flame on its own the moment your back is turned."

"Actually," Shinichi couldn't help but tell her. "Just last year, there was a camper who doused his campfire with magic but forgot to check if he actually dispersed all the heat with his spell. The thermal energy left in the firewood really did start the thing burning again. It could have led to a forest fire if his sister hadn't noticed and thrown a bucket of dirt over the fire."

Sonoko glowered at him. "Okay, fine. So maybe he had a reason, but I got it right the third time. He just made me do it two more times after that because he's a prick."

"He probably just wanted to make sure your success wasn't a fluke. Three perfect executions is standard for confirming that a person has mastered a spell."

"Ugh. Why do you even know all this stuff?" she complained. "You don't even have to take these tests."

"I just pay attention," Shinichi replied dryly. The girl stuck her tongue out at him. Deciding he didn't feel like trading verbal barbs with her, he turned his attention to Ran. "How did your test go?"

"It went well," Ran replied, smiling. "I had to put a malleability spell on a stick of wood, reshape it then take the malleability spell off, leaving it in its new form and demonstrate that the new shape was solid and would hold. They also had me identifying different types of metal and rock. I didn't do as well on that though. I think I got only half of them right. But they said that that's pretty normal at my level since my affinity is more towards the wood element."

"Hey, you guys know that the level seven exams are open to the public right?" Sonoko asked suddenly.

Both Ran and Shinichi turned to look at her, one puzzled and the other intrigued.

"I remember," Ran said. "They're being held next weekend, and one of the exam sites is in Ekoda this year. It's not too far from Beika. I thought we might be able to go watch if either of you are interested."

"Of course we have to go!" Sonoko erupted. Slamming her hands down on the table, she leaned over it so that she was glaring Ran and Shinichi full in the face, gray eyes gleaming. "There are actually three high school students taking that exam this year. Three! Do you have any idea how rarely something like that happens? One of them is actually the son of an archmage! These guys must be incredible! I bet they're hot too," she squealed, and promptly devolved into her fangirl dreams. Shinichi only shook his head.

He had heard that the Level Seven exams were difficult and often a sight to behold, and he was rather curious what kinds of mages their age would even dare to attempt the challenge before they'd even graduated high school, but he had the strong suspicion that Sonoko wasn't interested in going to see the magic. Listening to her gush over potential boyfriends wasn't his idea of a pleasant way to spend his free time. Still, he did kind of want to watch the exams. He'd wanted to sit in on them ever since he'd learned they were open to the public, but the locations changed every year. This was the first year that they were being held somewhere within easy reach.

"So what do you think" Ran asked. "Do you want to go?"

Shinichi hesitated only a moment before nodding. "All right. As long as nothing comes up."

X

Kogoro still wasn't home when Ran and Shinichi got back to the Mouri Detective Agency. Someone had left a case on the answering machine that no one had listened to yet. So Shinichi played through the clues that the worried client had recorded then spent some time on the computer, running searches on various stations and models before he found that the client's daughter had been secretly going out to learn how to skateboard. He relayed the information to the client on Kogoro's behalf then went to bed, having forgotten to eat the dinner Ran had left on the table for him.

He only remembered that he hadn't eaten when he woke up starving the following morning. Stumbling out into the kitchen, he mumbled a good morning to Ran and was surprised when she didn't reprimand him for skipping dinner. Then he spotted his plate from last night on the drying rack already dry. Since Ran hadn't been up for very long either, he supposed Kogoro must have eaten the dinner and cleaned up when he got home last night. However, like yesterday, the apartment was distinctly devoid of the sounds of Kogoro and his favorite morning show.

"Is your dad still sleeping?" he asked, pouring himself a mug of coffee.

"No. He left early again." Ran set two plates of pancakes on the table. "He's still working the case from yesterday."

Shinichi frowned into his mug. "Do you know when he got back last night?"

"I asked, but he didn't remember."

A feeling of foreboding stirred in Shinichi's stomach. Through trial and error, they had deduced that Shinichi needed to spend at least six hours a day around Mouri Kogoro to keep his curse in check. Last time Kogoro had been held up by bad weather, leaving Ran and Shinichi alone for two days, Ran had broken her arm falling down the stairs outside the apartment, the power in their building had shorted out, and someone had dropped a match on a pile of newspapers in the café downstairs, nearly setting the place on fire. "Maybe I should stay home today."

"Don't be ridiculous," Ran admonished. "It's not like Dad didn't come home last night. Anyway, we already promised Sonoko we'd all go to Tropical Land today to celebrate the exams being over. She'll throw a fit if you skip for no reason."

"I wouldn't say it's no reason."

"Just come. And if anything strange happens then come home."

Shinichi could tell from Ran's tone that she was determined to make him go even if it was only for part of the day. Well, like she'd said, Kogoro had been home. They didn't know for how long, but he had. Shinichi reminded himself of this as he followed Ran out the door. Despite the reminders, the uneasy feeling followed him all the way from the apartment to the train station where they met up with Sonoko.

They boarded the train and made it all the way to the amusement park without incident. By the time they had gone in five rides and visited three other attractions, Shinichi began to relax. Of course, that was when someone died.

Still, he reminded himself as the police swarmed the rollercoaster, cordoning off the scene and interviewing witnesses, murders tended to happen around him even when Kogoro was around. Inexplicable as it had to seem to most people, such incidents were not a byproduct of his curse. So why couldn't he shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong?

X

"Hey, where'd the detective geek go?" Sonoko asked. She had just returned from a quick trip to the restroom to find Ran waiting for her alone on a bench near the ice cream cart.

"I'm not sure," Ran replied with a faint frown. "He said he had to check on something and that we should go ahead if he doesn't get back soon."

"And how long ago was that?"

"He left just after you did."

Sonoko thought for a moment. It had taken her a while to find someone who could give her directions to the restroom. Then she'd spent at least ten minutes waiting in line to get in. All told, she'd probably been gone for a little over half an hour. That…was a pretty long time for just checking on something.

On the one hand, that bookworm got distracted rather easily by the most ridiculous little things like why some random stranger was wearing a hat indoors or why some other stranger was carrying a bag designed for golf clubs through an aquarium (and okay, so the first stranger had been a wanted felon and the second a crazy seafood fanatic intent on tasting a rare fish that happened to be on display in said aquarium, but that didn't change the fact that Shinichi had gotten sidetracked and been late to meet up with her and Ran both times). That meant Shinichi could simply be off following some other weirdo and forgotten the time. But on the other hand, he always seemed to be getting into trouble (like that time last summer when he'd gotten himself locked in a building that was about to be demolished. He'd only gotten out of that one because Ran had found the phone he'd dropped outside the building). Curse or no curse, he really was unlucky.

"You should call him," she declared, face uncharacteristically serious. "I am not missing out on watching those exams next week because he landed himself in the hospital again."

Ran dialed Shinichi's number.

There was no answer.

She tried again, but still, no one picked up. By the third try, she was truly beginning to worry.

The two girls traded looks. Neither of them even considered leaving.

Sonoko snapped her fingers. "That Earth Magic compass spell for finding things you know really well. You learned it, right?"

"I did," Ran said hesitantly. "But I'm not very good at it."

"Better than trying to search this whole place," Sonoko retorted. "I'll be right back."

The petit girl sprinted off and returned a few minutes later with a metal hairclip she'd just bought from one of the many souvenir vendors scattered throughout the park. She handed this to Ran then stood back. "Go on. You can do it."

Ran lay the pin across her open palm then closed her eyes. She conjured a picture of Shinichi in her mind, trying to make it as clear as possible. Then she traced the requisite signs in the air over the pin as she chanted the spell. Coming to the end, she opened her eyes and stared down at the pin, hardly daring to breathe as she willed it to point her towards Shinichi. For a long moment, the pin simply sat there, and she wondered how she would know that the spell was working if it was already lying in the right direction. But then the metal warmed and the pin rotated thirty degrees counterclockwise.

"This way!" She set off at a run with Sonoko close on her heels.

With closing time fast approaching, the crowds in the park had begun to thin, so they made good speed. Not that they had very far to go. The pin led them around to the back of a ride that had already closed for the night. Ran's heart leapt into her throat when she saw what appeared to be the shadow of a body lying on the ground ahead. Her concern grew when she recognized Shinichi's jacket. But as she came to a stop next to the 'figure' on the ground, her worry turned to confusion.

Those were definitely Shinichi's clothes, but…where was Shinichi? She wasn't seeing any hands at the ends of those sleeves, and those shoes weren't actually on anyone's feet. The clothes weren't lying flat on the ground though.

Ran crouched and peeled back the jacket. She gasped.

Sonoko leaned over her shoulder, eyes wide. "No way…"

X

Shinichi woke with a splitting headache. Groaning, he shifted in search of a more comfortable position only to wince as every muscle in his body protested. He felt like he'd been run over by a truck.

He spent a moment wondering if he had been in an accident. But he couldn't remember. In fact, the last thing he could recall was being at Tropical Land with Ran and Sonoko.

He could hear voices in the distance. They were muffled, but there seemed to be at least two voices, both female. He lay there for a long moment just listening to the fuzzy streams of indistinct syllables as his thoughts drifted. He was on the verge of sinking back into the welcoming arms of sleep when he heard the sound of a door opening.

Then someone turned on the light. The world behind his eyelids blinked red, and his head throbbed. He let out an involuntary hiss of pain.

"Shinichi?"

It was Ran's voice. Her concerned query was followed by the sound of hurried footsteps. A moment later, the lights dimmed as Ran leaned over him, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead.

"Well, your fever's gone down," the girl said with some relief. "How are you feeling?"

"Head hurts," he mumbled, forcing his eyes open with an effort. He was lying in his room at the Mouri Detective Agency, he noted. But how had he gotten back here? And why did his voice sound funny? "What happened?"

"We thought you'd be able to tell us that," Sonoko's familiar voice remarked from somewhere near his door. "You ran off by yourself again at the amusement park. Then when we finally find you, you're like this. I mean seriously, how do you even find these kinds of messes to get into?"

"What are you talking about?" Shinichi asked, now thoroughly confused.

Ran turned her head, and he assumed she was trading speaking glances with the other girl. There was the sound of rummaging. Then Sonoko appeared over Ran's shoulder. She handed the brunette a hand mirror, which Ran in turn held up in front of Shinichi.

He didn't understand what he was seeing.

There was a child looking back at him out of the mirror. The boy had black hair and blue eyes just like Shinichi did. He had the same odd cowlick too. In fact, the longer Shinichi looked at the boy, the more he began to see himself in that face.

"What…" he started to say then stopped again. He swallowed with a throat that had gone abruptly dry. Taking a deep breath, he looked down at his hands, hoping to find that the mirror was some kind of bad joke. But the hands clutching his blankets—his hands—reflected what he'd seen in the mirror. They were the hands of a child. "But… How?"

"We don't know," Ran said before Sonoko could open her mouth. "We went looking for you when you didn't come back. By the time we found you, you were like this. Can you remember anything about what happened? Like what you were going to check on?"

Her last question caused something in Shinichi's memory to stir. "There were these two men," he said slowly, trying to focus even as his head continued to throb. "I thought they were kind of strange, so I followed them."

Sonoko let out a loud snort, but Ran shushed her.

"Go on," she said to Shinichi.

"They were meeting someone. It was this other man with a small dog in a carrier. It looked like some kind of exchange. They were saying something about a classified government registry." Shinichi's brows furrowed as he struggled to piece the memory back together. "There was also something about a breakthrough and some kind of demonstration, but I didn't catch what kind. I was going to take pictures of the three of them for later identification, but that was when I realized that there were only two people left. Then someone hit me." He trailed off, grimacing. He should have been more careful.

"Is there anything else?" asked Ran.

"Well, I… I think there was an amulet."

"What, you mean those things people store spells in?" Sonoko asked.

"Maybe. It was kind of similar, but the design was weird… And there was something like a Curse Mark."

"What, on the amulet?"

"I can't remember," he replied, frustrated. "I just…have this picture in my head. It was glowing, and it was definitely a Curse Mark." He also remembered a sudden, excruciating pain. It had felt as though he was being burned alive from the inside out—like his very bones were melting and a giant's hand was crushing his heart and squeezing the air out of his lungs. But he didn't think the girls needed to hear that. "They also said something about not leaving a body."

Ran drew in a sharp breath. "Then they were trying to kill you."

"Er, well…" He rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling strangely guilty at the expression on Ran's face as though it were somehow his fault that someone had tried to murder him. Having people worry about him always made him feel uncomfortable. "I guess it's a good thing I'm cursed then…?"

Ran was not amused.

TBC