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A Curse Marked Fate

57: Not So Restful or Relaxing

"We are never, ever doing that again. Ever."

"You've said that already," Kaito pointed out, half exasperated and half amused. "Seven times."

"I just want to make sure I'm absolutely clear about this," the younger boy grumbled, pulling the blanket he'd been provided by Jii closer about himself.

The two of them had splashed down in the sea more than a hundred and fifty miles off shore in a hissing cloud of steam. The water had still been warm when Kaito dissolved what was left of his last two shields so that they could swim back to the surface. Once there, he had managed to create a Sky Platform and haul himself and Shinichi onto it. Bedraggled and hearts still pounding, they'd lain there for a while waiting for the world to stop spinning until they got fed up with being smacked by the occasional wave. At that point, Kaito had created a few more platforms to get them farther from the water's surface and the reach of other incoming waves. Fortunately for them both, drying people off and warming them up were both basic Sky Magic spells. But the greatest piece of luck was definitely that the weather was clear.

And there they had waited.

For a day and a half.

It got boring fast once the motion sickness (if such a commonplace term could be applied to the horrible sensation of being rocketed over a great distance with nothing but your best friend's concentration preventing the both of you from bursting into flame or smashing into pancake-hood on water made solid via high speed impact) had worn off.

They had food and water in their pocket library, but only Shinichi had been able to come and go from the space since, if Kaito had popped into the alternate dimension of the library, his Sky Platform would have dissolved. Not wanting to abandon his friend to wait in the elements, Shinichi opted too to remain outside. He could tell that Kaito was tired and growing more so by the hour, but the only thing Shinichi could do to help was to keep him company.

And hey, wasn't it lucky that they at least had Poker cards to play with?

Rescue, when it finally arrived, came in the form of a helicopter being piloted by the aforementioned Jii. It was, they learned, one of several helicopters that had been out searching for them.

"We're sorry it took so long," the old man said earnestly, casting another worried look over the two boys before returning his focus to his flying. "You went a lot farther than we anticipated, especially since you went through twenty layers of deceleration spells. I hate to imagine where you would have ended up if those hadn't been there."

Kaito grimaced. "Deep trouble. That's where."

"Possibly in orbit," Shinichi supplied.

This made Kaito laugh. "Hey, maybe I should propose my teleportation rings as a rocket launch tool."

"…I'd be worried if I wasn't so tired." Frowning, Shinichi turned concerned eyes on the older boy. "You should sleep if you can."

It was Kaito's turn to sigh. He let his head fall back against the headrest of his seat. "I know. But I think I'm still too hyped up on adrenaline."

Since he totally understood the feeling, Shinichi wasn't sure what to say. Instead, he scooted closer to Kaito, hesitated, then shifted to lean against the Sky Mage's side. He looked up at the older boy's face to see if he might object. But when he didn't, Shinichi let his head rest against the mage's shoulder (or rather his arm, as Shinichi was still too short to reach his shoulder) and closed his eyes. A moment later, one of Kaito's hands found one of his and twined their fingers together.

"What about you?" Kaito asked quietly. "How are you feeling?"

Shinichi started to say 'fine' then thought better of it. "I've been better," he admitted instead. "But at least I was able to get some sleep. And I didn't have any spells to maintain either. I…really wish I could have done more to help."

"You did help. If you hadn't been there, I wouldn't have been able to access any of the provisions we had. Then I'd have been hungry and thirsty on top of being tired, and that would have royally sucked."

The comment startled a laugh from Shinichi. The sound had the corners of Kaito's lips quirking up. His thoughts began to drift. He could feel the fatigue finally catching up to him, and he let it, confident that Jii would get them back to where they needed to be.

Sensing Kaito's breathing evening out, Shinichi felt his own body too begin to relax. Tension that had been a near constant strain on both his mental and physical faculties now finally began to unravel and dissolve, giving way to a cotton lightness that wrapped fluffy wings about his thoughts. His eyelids drooped. Before they closed completely, however, he saw a pinprick of light—a sunbeam perhaps?—pierce the glass of the helicopter's cockpit to trace a golden thread through the shadows of the vehicle's interior.

And as Shinichi watched in a dreamy, detached wonder, that golden thread seemed to multiply. It traced silken threads of radiance across the back of Jii's pilot's chair and over the old man's shoulders and hands. Another thread touched the far fringes of Kaito's mop of dark hair as though seeking to gild it in gold. But the threads weren't all just highlights. They spun away from the shadows they delineated as well, creating odd, complex geometric patterns that shifted and danced, growing more and more complex as the real world grew darker and ever more indistinct.

Then suddenly those shining threads and the patterns they wove and were weaving was all that was left. They had become the world, and he, a disembodied consciousness, floated in the heart of that world, mesmerized by their dance.

Realizing that he hadn't heard either boy say anything for the last several minutes, Jii spared a moment to look back at his passengers. He found them fast asleep. Kaito's arm was wrapped protectively around the smaller boy, who was snuggled right up against his side. Smiling faintly, the old man turned his attention back to his piloting.

X

High school, Ran had to admit, had become a refuge for her over the last few months—ever since Shinichi's near fatal first encounter with the Choice Foundation in fact. It was a place of normalcy filled with normal problems like coursework and normal people who were preoccupied with normal things like clubs and grades and friends and gossip. For those few precious hours when she was immersed in that ordinary life with its predictable rhythms and expectations, she could, with a little effort, ignore what was beginning to feel like a growing tidal wave of impending doom poised to come crashing down over her family life.

And okay, maybe that was too dramatic a way to put it, but these last few nights, she had lain awake and wondered and wondered until all the worst possibilities were all that she could think about.

Like losing Shinichi—someone she had come to love as family despite being no blood relation.

Like people trying to burn down Clover Institute, a beacon of hope in magical research and development, just because there was a chance that the institute might develop something that would get in their way.

Like unscrupulous scientists angling to take over the world through mind control magic.

It was like being stuck in a movie, and she wondered why anyone would ever wish for a more exciting life. She'd choose an ordinary life any day and be grateful for it.

Normal, however, simply wouldn't be in the cards for her so long as she was family with two of the Marked. And, when she thought about that, she had to admit that between not having them in her life and getting that normal, peaceful life she fantasized about, she would always choose the former.

That was what it meant to be family after all. Family was the people who made your life feel colorful and full even when they brought trouble and frustration and all those other problems that were only problems because you cared and you knew that they cared too.

So it was that when she received a phone call from Ai in the middle of the school day, Ran found herself smiling after the initial spike of worry.

The news in this case was good. Kaito and Shinichi had been found and were now resting at Professor Agasa's house under the care of said professor and his surrogate niece.

"Are they all right?" Ran asked, holding the phone close to her ear and speaking quietly because she didn't want her curious classmates listening in.

"They're fine," Ai replied. Her calm, professional tone belied her child's voice in a way that made Ran feel both grateful and unsettled at the same time. But she tried not to think too hard about that.

"Kuroba-kun used up a lot of magic. But judging from the rate at which his energy levels are rising, I think he should be back on his feet by the end of the day. Day after tomorrow at the absolute latest. Other than energy exhaustion, he's not suffering any injuries or other conditions."

"What about Shinichi?"

There was a pause, and Ran's heart skipped a beat.

"Shiho-san," she said, falling instinctively back on the little girl's true name in response to the seriousness of the situation. "What about Shinichi?"

Ai sighed. "You remember what I told you about the interaction between the curse used on him and his own blessing?"

"I remember," Ran said immediately. Frankly, she couldn't have forgotten if she'd wanted to.

"The time away from your father has sped up the process. It is taking a toll on his body, but I believe he will pull through now that we can monitor his condition and ensure he gets the rest and nutrition he needs."

Ran let out a snort before she could stop herself. "That might be harder than dealing with that Foundation." Then she sighed. It was a sound of both relief that her wayward friends were back and resignation for the turbulent times she knew were still to come. "So, um, should I bring Dad over after school?"

There was a long hesitation on the other end of the line which she did not particularly like.

"I…am not entirely certain whether that would be better or worse for Kudo-kun at this point," Ai said finally, sounding the most unsure Ran had ever heard her. "The process has clearly reached a tipping point. Prolonging it will also prolong his discomfort."

Ran shivered as her mind mentally replaced the little scientist's carefully chosen words with ones much less palatable. "But wouldn't Dad's presence make it less taxing?"

"Perhaps. But whether the trade off would be proportional is another matter entirely."

There was a tense silence as both girls thought that over.

"I…guess that's probably a decision only Shinichi can make," Ran murmured eventually, speaking more to herself than to Ai.

The other girl heard though and apparently agreed. "I will see how he is when he wakes."

"Right. I won't bring Dad just yet then. But I'm going to head over after class. Do you need me to bring anything?"

"Food," Ai replied, tone dry but touched with the barest hint of humor. "Lots of it."

X

It was the hunger pangs that woke him. They stabbed through his stomach like a hot knife, and he groaned. He didn't want to move. His head was heavy and aching like it had not that long ago when the caffeine withdrawal had hit him only ten times worse.

He wanted to burrow back into the warm, fluffy mounds of pillows and blankets he could feel heaped around him and just go back to sleep, but he couldn't. The pain in his stomach wouldn't let him.

At that point, his thought processes finally caught up to the present, and Shinichi wondered where he was. It was a fuzzy, distant thought, but it was enough to wake him just a little more.

Blue eyes opened to stare at a vaguely familiar ceiling. It took him a moment to place it, but the name came eventually. Professor Agasa's guestroom.

More thoughts came drifting out of the haze of pain that was his pounding head. He remembered the sight of the sea stretching out towards the horizon in every direction and the undulation of the waves below. He recalled the loud, rhythmic thwacking of helicopter blades and a ladder falling from the sky. He remembered an old man's relieved smile as he sent out a radio message that he had found the boys, and that they were fine.

He remembered a strong arm around his waist, holding him close to Kaito's side. He remembered the warmth and a sense of contentment and safety. Shinichi closed his eyes then in an unconscious attempt to hold onto those sensations.

The door opened, and the scent of curry hit him like a freight train.

Ai came into the room pushing an honest to goodness food trolley. She rolled it up alongside Shinichi's bed, apparently paying no heed to the boy sitting on said bed and staring at her. Once she had it parked, she began removing covers and pouring sauces. In minutes, Shinichi was looking at the largest bowl of curry and rice he had ever seen in his entire life. The container it was being served to him in looked suspiciously like a metal wash basin. The entire thing steamed aromatically at him, and he found his mouth watering even as his eyes bugged out at the sheer size of the portion.

"Um, isn't that a bit…" he half croaked, half whispered through a throat that felt parched and strained like he'd been screaming for hours even though he couldn't remember doing any such thing.

"It's just the beginning," Ai replied, setting a spoon down next to the massive tub of curry and rice. "I am boiling eggs now, and Ran-san is preparing a fruit salad. I suggest you get started on this curry before it gets cold. Everything else should be about ready for you by the time you finish."'

Shinichi found himself herded across the bed until he was seated on its edge with his legs under the trolley and the curry rice was staring him in the face. The spoon was even in his hand before he could figure out anything to say.

"I don't want to hear any arguments from you," Ai said before he could find his words, her tone stern and sharp. Commanding. "If you don't want to end up being a liability to all of us when the time to move comes, you'll do as you're told. Now eat."

"Where's Kaito?"

"Sleeping in the other guestroom. Now I said eat."

Too confused, tired and hungry to even try to argue, Shinichi began to eat.

The moment the curry and rice touched his tongue, he felt as though his world had exploded. Every cell in his body seemed to come to life. The higher processes of his brain simply shut down.

In moments, he had inhaled the impossibly enormous portion of curry and rice, but he still felt like his stomach was going to collapse in on itself. It growled loudly, and Shinichi seriously wondered in his woozy, head-pounding state whether all that food had been an illusion.

But the dirty dishes were still there, clear proof that something had been consumed.

Still, he couldn't possibly have eaten all that food. It was physically impossible. He knew for a fact that his stomach wasn't that big.

An exceptionally strong wave of dizziness washed over him, and he thought for a moment that he was about to throw up. He didn't, which was nice, but he still felt dreadful when the moment passed, which wasn't.

He really wanted a shower. Maybe that would help.

Slowly, he edged to the foot of the bed where the trolley wouldn't be in his way and eased his feet to the floor. Then he took a deep breath to brace himself and stood. His legs wobbled alarmingly but held.

He still felt like he was going to fall at any moment.

He turned his eyes to the door and nearly groaned out loud. It looked miles away, and he would still have to make it down the hall.

Well, the bathroom wasn't going to come to him. He was just going to have to take this one step at a time. Literally.

He could do this.

He closed his eyes for a moment and just breathed as he gathered his strength. Then he opened his eyes, face set in determination. Time to move.

But slowly.

TBC