Gin grew irritated behind the scope when his bullet only nicked his second target before that was pushed into safety. While the incident had turned into more than he had prepared for, he thought to be able to put a period to this madness. No matter who was the mastermind behind this, they gave the organisation a run for its money with a no-name detective, a couple of kids and a bunch of fishermen. And that alone was enough reason to get irritated.

As expected, the small gathering down there exploded in panic a moment later, minus the police and certain individuals from the mainland, another thing tipping him off about the people belonging to the latter group not being average citizens. Looking up from the scope, he could see more than a couple of blurry figures dancing across the objective. A group of four was heading away from the general direction the crowd was fleeing, exactly towards his location.

When he checked through his scope again, his eye came into contact with another.

Kudo Shinichi, again.

If he started on the debate whether the kid was the prophet or not again, he would go insane. He had decided to put the topic to a rest when nothing decisive had turned up during his observation and the deadline of the assignment was approaching at a steady pace as the first body had been discovered almost immediately. When he had been about to make his move, a move that only a handful of people had managed to intercept before, he had encountered resistance. Not only had he failed to carry out the assignment, but his partner had fallen into their hands too. From the people present, the kid seemed to be the most capable of arranging that.

Even his presence was confusing. In one moment, he genuinely looked like a normal teenager outcounting the detective thing, and in the next, he acted and planned like a seasoned investigator orchestrating an FBI-level strategy against them. Whenever he wanted to confirm one of those sides, he showed the other one. And while he was busy with his personal agenda, the incident was escalating slowly, lulling him into a false sense of control whereas he had had none of that since the beginning.

He out of his depth when it came to that kid, and he was hitting the roof because of that.

He would have given anything to have the kid under his hands and pry him apart for every inkle of information he had. However, the rather unfortunate flow of events only allowed him to watch from a distance, trying to figure out the puzzle that had been intriguing him since their first encounter.

He packed his things. As the ground was heating up under his feet already, he had no chance to bust out his partner or finish the job without getting caught. He would have to pull some strings to clean up the incident when he got back, and the boss was going to be pissed for sure, but it was still better than getting himself captured too. That would cost his position in the organisation for a lifetime and potentially his life, should the police and public learn about their existence.

After throwing his rifle to his back, he was ready to retreat to the ship he had docked at the uninhabited part of the shore. He had deemed it too conspicuous to use the harbour in the town, and he was damn grateful for that decision. He grabbed a tank of gasoline he had brought as an emergency measure.

He had an idea on how to take care of his pursuers quickly.

Ran could not find in herself to believe her eyes. All the efforts preventing the resolution the sight in front of her suggested, a plan beating the most effective police strategies, did not mix with the bloody heap of a body staining the ground red at her feet at a steady rate at all. Her mind stilled into black and white as anger took the place of her doubt. Nobody dared to move or speak, frozen in place by the same sight, while they did not even know. None of them could comprehend what could have been going through the person's head who had determined and outdone himself during the night to keep the most people alive, innocent and criminal alike.

Her sneak peek at his eyes found fury. It was recoiling, though understandable. He had stumbled through numberless similar cases of another timeline on years' end, had found a way back in time to correct the wrong in the world, only to facepalm the ground again.

She could only begin to imagine.

She barely heard him shouting at the inspector and the other police getting a hang of the situation, pointing at somewhere in the distance. Her mind supplied the information, that was where the shot had probably come from. Not like that mattered anyways, the only thing that mattered was that he bolted towards that direction, reason forgotten in his desire to haul up the person trampling everything he considered justice with two legs.

And before she realised it, her legs moved.

"Ran?"

Her legs moved because she knew that he was not thinking, running into danger without any regard of what could become of him. Her legs moved because she knew that trusting the police with securing the safety of the bystanders came on a subconscious level for him, even when his mind dulled into a blank sheet of raw emotions. Her legs moved because she knew that nothing good could come out of that, and she knew that he knew that too, with ten invisible years behind his back, but he chose not to care. Watching him dash off into the unknown brought an icy grip around her heart, a feeling that he would disappear forever once she let him out of her sight.

"Ran, wait for me!"

Her father was following him too, or rather her, she confirmed so in a glance backwards. The inspector was also trailing their tracks, driven by equal amounts of eagerness to catch the arrogant murderer and worry for the young detective that had run off without any backup whatsoever.

Upon reaching the forest, their chase became more difficult. Her attention had to be divided between watching out for branches and slippery sand under her feet, other branches from lower trees and bushes slapping her front as she cut through them, and keeping an eye on him who, despite equally hindered by the same obstacles, only gave up a little of his pace. He seemed to disregard everything around him, even that awful smell lingering in the air.

Or, perhaps, not entirely. He was muttering under his breath.

"This smell—"

"Wait, Kudo-kun—"

The inspector seemed to have caught on when the person undisclosed leading the chase suddenly stopped, arm held in front of them in a protective manner. She only had a couple of spare moments to slow down, wondering what was happening while her mind was connecting the dots with that awful smell. Her eyes widened, both in realisation and witnessing the result of that realisation at the same time. All of a sudden, the forest in front of them came up in flames, cutting their way short before an explosion shook the ground under their feet. Her eyes reflected the fire as she stopped right behind his hand holding them back, the newfound obstacle making further pursuit impossible.

"Gasoline, huh. Keeping us here with cheap tricks."

Effective, she could hear the unsaid words.

"Ran!"

Shinichi grabbed her forearm, pulling her towards himself harshly as she turned to her father. Before she could ask what the matter was or even take a good look at his face laced with terror and desperation on her behalf, a burning trunk fell between them, separating them into two groups. While catching her breath in the protective embrace that had saved her from her untimely demise, she could feel her father calming too upon witnessing her getting pulled into safety.

"You have my thanks, Kudo."

"Nah, save your gratitude for the time this is over." Shinichi loosened his grip, but still held her firmly. "You two go back to the town. This is the goddamn dry season, the fire will spread soon no matter what we do. You have to warn everyone and prepare and evacuation route if things turn for the worst. All we can do is getting the shore safely, we have to depend on you to escape from that point. Go around the island on a boat looking for us, we'll be somewhere there."

His words surprised her. While she genuinely thought he was being reckless, he seemed to have a backup plan for a backup plan in mind. No, he could not have planned everything beforehand, they had not known about the fire until a moment ago. That meant he put it together within a second.

The inspector sounded the same surprised.

"That—sounds reasonable. Mouri-kun."

"I really advice you to look out for my daughter, brat!"

"We should get going too. I would rather not become charcoal." Shinichi looked around after the two adults had left to act on the impromptu plan. His grip was tight on her forearm, even painfully so. However, she knew that small pain would be the thing granting her safety, even when a godforsaken forest fire was slowly closing on them. From time to time, she wondered whether their long friendship was the sole reason she put so much trust in him. He guided her towards a steep slope nearby. "We have to head down there. It might be a little bumpy, but that's the fastest way to get away from the fire. Hold on tightly."

A yelp left her mouth when he wrapped his arms around her and dragged her down with him. His feet occasionally slipped on the steep ground, but he never once lost his balance. Upon gaining more momentum than he wanted, he reached for a branch to slow himself down, but his choice was poor. When it snapped under their weight, he fell forward together with her. Her vision consisted of flashes of lights and blurs until they came to a sudden halt.

After listening to her erratic breathing for a couple of seconds, she shot uptight, checking the situation. From the sand her fingers touched under her, they managed it to the shore. A trail of smeared soil in the forest was leading to them, more than likely made by them rolling the rest of the way down.

Shinichi was behind her, eyes gazing into the sky above them.

"Ran, are you okay?"

"I am—"

As the initial shock faded, her body came forward with the protests. Discomfort washed over her in a second, as every inch of her body felt sore and hard to move, her arms taking the worst hit out of all. Whether that was because she had bounced down a smaller hill or that he was holding on her like his own life, she did not know. However, her own injuries were disregarded as she looked at him. A deep cut was oozing blood on his cheek, and that was only one of the many similar wounds on him. His back remained unseen, perhaps for the better. Not that the fact that the difference between their injuries was thanked to his stupid desire to protect her helped anything.

Her eyes welled in tears as she bit down on her lip. Her thoughts were tangled up thanks to the worry and anger she felt seeing his miserable condition. He had always been like that, caring about solving the case as much as about minimalizing the damage to others even on his own loss, making her fear the day he would go too far. And it seemed like that the future did not beat sense into him in that aspect, but rather strengthened his crazy habits.

Her father was going to come looking for them, it would be okay.

As long as this dumbass would not hurt himself further by trying to sit up.

"Hey, lean back. You're injured."

"Ran—good."

"That's all what you have to say?" Her voice slipped up in exasperation. Had he not been injured, she would have smacked him for such a dismissive comment. As if pulling stunts that could have easily killed him, and her, was a habit. Having no other choice in the given situation, she decided not to criticize his judgement, but he was underreacting this to a disturbing extent. If they had run short on luck, they would have been dead. "Look at yourself!"

To her horror, he wobblily stood up.

"T—This is nothing."

Before she could protest against him even thinking of moving with an unknown extent of damage to his body, another burning tree crashing into the sand disproved her arguments. Looking at the hill they had come down from, she realised that almost the entire island had already been engulfed in the flames that had stated back there. He was apparently not kidding when he had said that the fire would spread quickly, but to do so within minutes was just ridiculous, no, terrifying. A pit formed in her stomach as she came to realise that not even the shore was absolutely safe. Her father had to hurry or—she refused to consider the other opportunities.

He was muttering to himself again, of which she caught the last words.

"—Gin probably went there."

While the name was not familiar, it did not take a lot to figure out whom it belonged to.

"Knock it off already! You can barely stand and the island is burning up. Trust the police with finding the guy—"

"At this rate, we will be trapped before the inspector and your old man come to rescue us. However, not only we have to escape from here, but they too." A shudder ran down her back at the tone he referred to that organisation. "When I went to the harbour this morning to gather people, I did not see anything that could belong to them, so they had to hide it on the other side of the island. If the help is late, stealing their escape vehicle might be our only shot at getting out of this alive."

That was unsettling, even if logical. "You would leave them to burn?"

"They, especially that person, would not hesitate to leave anyone. He survived too many things that would have killed anyone to die in a mundane forest fire. I crashed him with a helicopter twice and he was the one to drag me to their headquarters in the end."

He crashed him with a—what?!

As if on a cue, a sudden turbulence whipped her hair into her face. Looking towards the assumed source of wind after clearing her sight, she could see the very helicopter the police had on the spot swaying in the air dangerously above them. While cringing at the aircraft about to crash land into the ground in any moment, her expression remained passive. At that point, she would not have put that past being part of some elaborate plan.

And then she saw the utter shock on his face.

"What the—"

Shiratori agreed that this day might was not his best one. Not only had he been called in early in the morning to be shipped off to a no-name island in the middle of nowhere, even for a case involving certain rather curious individuals, but the said case turned out to be a potential string of murders connected to some sort of mafia showdown. Fortunately, the majority of the incident had been wrapped up by the time he landed with the helicopter on the island. He and the inspector had only supposed to pick up the remaining targets and the assassin that the folks present the scene managed to capture in a way he did not even want to know.

And then a shot rang out from the distance, taking out one of those people.

Any doubts about a criminal organisation being involved dissolved at that development. Whoever the shooter was, their intentions were clear as the sun. The organisation standing behind the case was likely keen of keeping its secrets intact, to the point of eliminating its members about to be captured.

Kudo Shinichi had pointed out the location of the sniper, and the inspector had followed his lead without a second thought. Mouri Kogoro and his daughter had fancied on the idea of joining the chase even less, leaving him alone with a startled crowd, a bloody corpse and two captives in the helicopter. His orders from the inspector had been clear: guard the helicopter. He would have proceeded with his task flawlessly had he anticipated an ambush coming from a cuffed and tied person.

As a true assassin would, he had taken out the last remaining target as soon as he found his way out of the ropes. He had realised what had been going on when a gunshot having no place in the cockpit had rung out. He had internally cursed himself for not double-checking the person for hidden weapons, he was a professional after all. Not that he had had time for that though, as in the next second, a bullet had grazed his temple. While he had been stranded in shock of his close brush with the reaper, the assassin had taken off with the helicopter, the sudden instability of the aircraft sending him and the fresh corpse on the backseat to the side of the cockpit.

When the momentary surprise faded, his training had kicked in. He had wrestled the criminal with a swift move, attempting to lead the helicopter back to the ground. Not that the assassin had any intention of admitting defeat, he had tried with his might to regain the upper hand.

And there he was, fighting over the control for the helicopter with the assassin.

The leg of the helicopter scratched the surface of the water as their beeline of a flight had brought them above the sea, another grim reminder that he had to overpower the other soon to save his hide. However, the bulk of a man wearing black was revelling so much in his advantage that his attempts at moving him from there were as feeble as the hits of a puppy. He found himself face to face with a barrel once the assassin drew the line of annoying.

He grabbed the hand holding the weapon and forcefully directed away from himself, a feat taking all of his power alone. He could feel the aircraft swaying under them dangerously as a result, but that was better than getting shot in the forehead. With a sudden urge of muscle power, the assassin managed to throw him off, straight to the loosely closed door of the cockpit that opened under his weight. Before the first thought could cross his mind, he was falling free.

As he saw the helicopter distancing from him, the realisation kicked in.

And then he splashed into the sea.

With the touch of the winter sea holding his body in its icy grip, he could not even think about his luck that the helicopter had been close to the surface when he fell. A couple more feet above in the air and freezing might have been the least of his concerns, and that was not a joke either.

His breath hitched in the air once his head popped from the water, his entire being already chilled to the bone. He could do nothing other than spitefully glaring after the helicopter in the sky that was proceeding in a much more relaxed manner. He forced himself to leave behind the mark of his failure and concentrate on what could be done. If he told the inspector, the headquarters could track down the helicopter. It had barely enough fuel to make it to one of the neighbouring islands, they could catch these goons with setting up cordons there. Freezing to death did little to help the investigation though. With that in mind, he turned to swim to the shore.

And he faced a land of inferno doing so.

"What?! The helicopter vanished?"

Megure massaged his temples at the screeching comment from his old friend. After a decade of collaboration when he had been on the force, he knew better than putting the father down as a complete idiot, but his cluelessness was annoying at times, especially when one of his men could be in a pinch.

"No, someone took off with it, and it was not my assistant."

"Whoever it was, used the chaos to make a break. I wonder whether it was the assassin or the other."

"My money's on the first one. We were careless."

A moment of silence fell between them. Everything around them had sunk into a mayhem they had barely managed to contain once they had gotten back to the civilization. Looking back at the mountain gilded in crimson, he had to admit that this level of destruction dwarfed all the shit he had seen in his lengthy carrier in the law enforcement. No wonder that the locals, who were unaccustomed to world-shaking crises, and generally everyone had no grasp on what they should do.

He knew that their priority was leading the citizens to safety, but that was easier said than done. At the expense of some minutes spent searching for someone who would actually listen to them between planning their funeral and running off on their own, he had managed to arrange a ship that could have the few thousand inhabitants of the island on board. Mouri-kun had gathered a few volunteers who had gone around the island, telling everyone the most secure way of leaving the island and aiding them with supervising the boarding process. Many of those volunteers were those who had helped back at the community centre, a young doctor leading the line.

He had heard that the young doctor had been involved heavily enough to be interrogated later, though—

A child tripped while his family was hurrying to the ship.

Before either of them could move, the young doctor was helping the child to his feet.

"Here you are, just a scrape. You'll get a nice band aid on the ship, 'kay?"

"Yup, Narumi-sensei!"

His parents nodded a thanks before getting on board.

Nevertheless, they had to hurry. Not only did they have to take care of the civilians, but also get a boat and pick up those two teens from somewhere alongside the shore. A glance was enough at the rapidly growing fire in their back to determine that not even the shore was safe anymore. Kudo-kun made a great and, above all, selfless decision with ordering them to retreat. Had he asked them to save him and his friend, they would not have had enough time to evacuate.

Mouri-kun did not fancy it that much though, as the friend in question was his daughter.

And then, the helicopter took off. It did not help his overloaded to-do list that probably one of his subordinates was in danger too. A glance at his old friend was enough to see that they shared the same eagerness to bolt off and help those important to them. However, they restrained themselves.

For the people who depended on them.

Far away from the chaos, a motorboat was cutting through the waves at a high speed. While the person driving it had no reason to hurry, he wished to be updated on the situation back at his home island, a land he personally felt responsible for. As soon as the island in question came into sight, his face took on a paler shade. He looked at the cloud of smoke gathering in the air around the piece of land, hiding the true extent of damage under a smokescreen.

"W—What in the world—"

"T—The island is—"

Shinichi grimaced at the implication. He knew that things tended to escalate whenever the organisation was involved, but he could not foresee this conclusion to save his life. With a body on their hands and the island rapidly turning into one big inferno, he could hardly say that he outperformed himself. He wondered if any of this could have been prevented had he not chased the crows mindlessly, or if he had accounted for snipers in the first place. His head dipped down as he pushed forwards with his childhood friend in tow, keeping close to the shore to avoid the fire and potentially get their escape vehicle.

His mouth curved into a smirk as he spotted a ship anchored near the shore. There was a path heading into the forest alongside the cliff covering the vehicle, burnt to the point of unrecognizable by the time they arrived. A rock loosened from its position due to the extreme heat, bouncing off the cliff and landing a few feet away from the ship. It was safe to assume that no one else was going to approach it if they had not already.

His pace fastened up as the grip on her arm got stronger. His legs cut through the shallow icy water and jumped to the deck, helping her up a second later. While he was already searching for the wheel, not wanting to waste any time in an unsafe location, she followed his footsteps curiously.

"Do you even know how to drive a ship?"

"My father taught me in Hawaii."

That excuse never got old.

In the next moment, however, the ship started moving under them, causing both of them to lose their footing. Both of them were equally surprised, but he was quicker to recover. Not wanting to tempt fate, he pulled her into the nearest hiding place he found, which happened to be an unlocked cabin. Half of his mind expected the ship to stop and someone to come and check on the situation. He must have heard them stumble upon the sudden departure. However, as painfully silent seconds passed with him peeking through the door opened to a gap from the crumpled cabin that was barely large to fit both of them, he was enticed to believe that they were safe.

As safe as they could get on a vehicle with an organisation agent going who-knows-where.

"Shinichi, who is driving this ship?"

"Gin—the sniper from before. He is the other assassin."

Ran stayed silent, as if thinking deeply about something. He had a solid idea about that from watching her expression shift from the initial worry and fear to hardened determination and will to prove herself. Even though, that was dangerous in a highly area of movement with no hiding places.

"Ran, stay put."

"We have to fight! He could be taking us to his organisation for all we know."

That would be useful information, he restrained himself from retorting with the obvious. He knew that regardless the potential in eavesdropping their agents, getting hauled in their headquarters did not worth the benefit. He recalled the time when his plan of saving his shrunken scientist partner had lowkey aimed for that. In hindsight, he was grateful that it had not been successful. He had been reluctant to admit, but the FBI messing the equation up had saved his hide there.

Regardless that, they really had to do something.

As if on a cue, the ship stopped.

"I meant that we have to think before we act. I did manage to restrain him in the community centre, even if for a minute. We need a coordinated surprise attack planned, an exact idea on how to put him out of commission for a while and hijack the ship—"

His sentence was cut abruptly as he got goosebumps. He could feel the faint warmth of the sun heating his back in a line suddenly disappear, and an icy presence taking its place. He knew who that was, by raw logic alone, and he knew that she knew too. That person was standing right in front of her, with only his body separating her from the ruthlessness the one in his back represented. Her eyes were wide, resolve gone in an instant, while her mind was too frozen to order her lips to move, to warn him of the imminent danger that she thought he was unaware of. He should have known better than judging the situation based on a split second of peace.

"You're one interesting kind of detective, brat."

He snapped out of his daze, forcing her behind him and keeping her there with a strong grip. While the true weight of the trouble they had found themselves in had probably sunk in for her, she was too shocked to resist his protection, for which he was nothing sort of grateful.

Gin leisurely lit a cigarette, obviously not expecting any counteraction against his person. He was right in the sense that they really did not have the time to come up with any plan, and without that, they were as good as hopeless when it came face to face with him. He wondered whether the assassin had noticed them when they departed or when they climbed on the ship that they had thought was abandoned. After all, it would have been his best interest too to get away from that cliff about to crumble in a second as soon as possible. Knowing him though, it could have been even when they approached the ship in the first place.

"I started to doubt that I would get the chance to meet you this close up, lucky me."

He had really noticed them early on, it seemed.

He regulated his expression to match his cover. He was not supposed to know about the organisation or agents even if the one hovering over them like the shadow of death looked convinced about their, or at least his, interconnection. He could have deducted that he was an assassin though, that was a good starting point. He relied on his multitasking abilities to cook up a plan to escape while prolonging whatever his archenemy was about to bestow upon him.

Gin took the cigarette between his fingers, a cloud of smoke leaving his mouth.

"I need answers and I have a feeling you know more than the rest of the people around you. It is highly unusual for a ragtag team of detectives and high-school students to stand up to us, let alone capture on of our members. So, what are you, little mastermind?"

He guessed that much would be questioned. His actions had raised some of that even amongst their own midst, and the person in front of him was no slouch either. He hoped that he really did not know his identity instead of testing the waters before probing into more detail.

"A simple detective."

"I have seen many detectives, and none of them came close to what you and your little friends did there. You might have fooled me by claiming that you were invited and did not know anything about us beforehand, but the plan you orchestrated is familiar, from overseas no less. If you were older and less famous, I would assume that you have connections and would have eliminated you on sight as a potential danger ages ago."

Time for some roleplay, then.

"You were watching us?!"

"You sound awfully surprised for someone who noticed us at the very beginning. I suggest you to drop the dumb act and tell me what you have on the person many call the prophet. Tropical Land and this confirm that you have a strange connection with him." He calmed himself down with a deep breath to keep his face straight when his interrogator pulled out a gun. He had to struggle to keep the girl in the only cover he could provide. "What about his name?"

He weighted his options. He was on a ship to a distance from the shore, with a friend to protect and nobody to seek protection from. Regardless his predicament, he could not let them find out about his identity, or gain confirmation on any close theory they had in mind on him. While his secret would definitely come to light eventually, this was way too soon for his liking. If that happened before he had the chance to gather allies around himself, he would have to give up on his normal life again and go into hiding until the information he fed the numerous law and intelligence agencies cracked the organisation enough for him not to get assassinated upon sighted in public.

That would be one hell of a war that he had waged before, and was not about to repeat the experience.

However, the other option did not promise a brighter future either. He knew that look in the eyes of the assassin revelling in the control over him, that he was ready, no, eager to torture the hell out of him for his own pleasure and the benefit of the organisation. He remembered finding the ship, swaying on the waves abandoned as the ground was burning up around it. He had said it himself that this crow would never die in a mundane forest fire. He really should have seen this coming.

And thanks to his short-sightedness, she was stuck with him.

"That would be yours, is that right?"

Despite the conviction dripping from every syllable, he knew that he had no evidence. It was one of his tactics, intimidating the other to the point that they would reveal information believing that the situation was hopeless. He knew that everything stood on his ability to keep the act, but he was unsure how long he could do so, especially since the fast breathing tickling his neck from behind reminded him of the presence of the person that he could not handle getting hurt.

"You jump into the worst kind of conclusions."

"You recognised me during the case at the roller coaster, happened to receive instructions on how to sabotage our transaction, managed to pull it off and have another person, the prophet, taking responsibility of everything to sweep you under the rug. Even the police were suspicious of you before you wormed your way out of it. And now, when we try to do something, you show up and almost ruin everything again. The chances of this being a mere coincidence is near zero. Either the prophet is covering for you or you are the prophet himself. I lean towards in the second option. I should congratulate you for deceiving the other agents so long."

He was a little startled to learn how early their suspicion had arisen.

"I already know who you are. I want to know the how's."

"I can hardly share information that I don't have."

"Back to square one, detective." He was having a harder time restraining the doubtlessly furious girl forced behind his back with each passing minute, and that only escalated when the assassin pointed the gun towards his upper arm with an agonizingly slow movement. He was seething on the inside himself, knowing that his archenemy wanted to ensure that the sight would haunt his companion forever. "I bet your girlfriend would hate to see this happen."

Ran trashed harder as the assassin gripped the trigger.

"What is the name of your spy?"

"My—spy?"

Had not been for the dire situation, a snort would have accompanied the hint of amusement in his voice. It was speaking volumes about the organisation and that infamous paranoia of theirs that they thought that he, a high-school student on paper, had an undercover agent within their ranks. That, or this theory was born and raised within the imagination of his interrogator. He could hardly blame him, or anyone, for not considering time-travel amongst the first options though.

Gin hardly appreciated his amusement.

He gritted his teeth against the searing pain shooting up from his arm, which undoubtedly had a bullet embedded in. He had been shot too many times not to feel that immediately. While a gunshot wound was just one entry adding to the long list of injuries he had already managed to sustain, it did not make it easier to ignore the discomfort much longer. His eyes filled with hatred and a tint of fear upon looking over his archenemy as a hand subconsciously clutched on the source of the blood staining his sleeve. With the only exit behind his back, they had no choice but tackle the assassin in their way somehow—which was the question of the day.

"Shinichi!"

Ran screamed in agony, as if she could feel the pain he did. For an empathetic person like her, watching a beloved one being subjected to harm equalled the worst nightmares. He had been hesitant to actively involve her for that reason. He wanted her to know, to let her in his messed-up excuse of a life, but he preferred her to entrust him with handling the scum of humanity. He should have known that that had been destined to fail from the beginning. However, that did not mean that he could stomach her getting hurt, or her seeing him getting hurt, which he knew that would inevitably happen down the line.

Ran excelled at fighting and was one of the people he could unconditionally trust. Her karate had saved his life more times he could count it, even after he gained expertise in his own martial art. But there was always a point at which people would meet their match.

And then, she was growling at that very match.

His hold loosened as his deep, laboured breaths answered her call. Opposing his expectations, she did not immediately dash towards the person responsible for his newfound injury. As a karate expert, she might have been able to estimate the abilities of the opponent too, and she was thinking of a way to turn the tables to their side having come to the same realisation as he had. He knew one thing for sure, that she was tense, ready to act in a fracture of a second if the opportunity arose.

Gin seemed to misunderstand their lack of action.

"I know your kind. Arrogant, confident little brats who think the world is theirs until first thing goes wrong. You lose your head in trying to figure out what to do when those precious friends of yours are out of reach, when you realise that nobody is going to come no matter how well you stand your ground. While you might have had a peek at the darker side, you always had other people watching your back and praising you along the way. You know nothing of despair, the feeling of being cornered and afraid for your life. I know that it takes a little taste of that to shatter you completely. Your kind breaks the most beautifully."

He decided to let his archenemy dwell in his misconceptions.

"I bet you keep it together for the girl behind you. I wonder how long will that last."

"Keep away from Shinichi, you—"

Ran gently wrapped her arms around him as her eyes attempted to set the crow on fire. While she apparently had the mental presence not to rush into certain death, nothing could stop her from standing up to him—and oh, how much his horrified conscious wished her to sink into the background that his intriguing agendas had shadowed into oblivion. He had done a great job keeping the malicious attention alone, and that would be futile had they noticed her.

But that was also inevitable.

As long as her name was connected to him, she would pop up on their radar regardless that she supported him or disapproved his actions. As long as his name was known, as long as he existed and continued to chase the crows behind the crown, nobody around him was safe. As if he was forced to choose between maintaining dignity and justice in his country at the expense of losing or forsaking his family, and enjoying the marked number of days with his loved ones with every additional victim of the organisation on his conscious. He had been traumatized by the first option once, and he found the second one, if possible, even more agonizing.

"Ran—"

He barely registered the gun clicking again, this time aimed for his tight. If he got more wounded, he would have to kiss goodbye to his escape plans. And the thought of leaving her without a thread of hope in the darkest pits was enough to tip him over the edge.

This timeline would be everything the original was not.

And he laughed in the face of impossibility.

And again, his conviction seemed to fill him with strength. He batted away the gun with a quick move, so that the reflexive shot would only clatter on the wall instead of hitting either of them. His eyes that had been avoiding the inquisitory gaze of the assassin looked up, shocking the already shocked crow further. How wrong he was to expect him to lose his spirit after a brief torture and a degrading speech. His grip tightened on the hand holding the gun, trying to keep the weapon aimed at the nothingness on the wall. He had to struggle keeping up with the strength of the opponent, but he overcame that a few moments later and moved out of the way.

Ran needed no instruction to punch the living crap out of the assassin once the chance arose. He was startled by the amount of power that she packed into that hit that made her fist embedded in the abdomen clad in black, making up for the surroundings restraining her strength in kicking. While the crow was too busy taking in the damage, he could easily twist the gun from his hand and kick the door open. No sooner did the crow stagger back than they reached the deck.

"Ran, put something under the—"

Again, no instruction was needed. Without any stool to prop up the handle, she used her weight to hold the enraged beast inside that soon gathered himself and started assaulting the door with full power. He was looking around for a lath or something, anything that would make her job easier and their safety less transient, but the deck was clean and empty. He planned to find the wheel and drive the ship to the harbour to hand over this crow to the police too, but he could not leave her like that.

As the door opened to a gap with every push from the inside, he rushed to aid her. He leaned to the door with his relatively uninjured shoulder and gained good footing while she was pushing the door close near the handle. He hissed as the jerking of the door jerked his arm too.

Ran gritted her teeth looking at the blood dripping to the deck.

"Give yourself a break dammit. You can barely stand."

He used the second of pause in the onslaught on the door to catch a breath.

"How long you think you can hold him alone?"

"...not very long."

Then the door busted into his face. A second later he found himself sprawled out on the railing with the world spinning around him. He could catch glimpses of the opened door—uh oh—and a blackish blur that exited it in a frighteningly calm manner before focusing every bit of its attention on him. As his vision regained its edges, the blackish blur distilled into a familiar figure. His limbs ached enough to make scratching himself off his position a lengthy process.

To his luck, the crow was forced to delay whatever he was planning to do upon dodging an incoming attack from the back. Ran sported a split lip, the door had likely hit her harder than it had him, but she looked miles better for wear than he probably did. Her assault was immediate and ruthless, but her efforts were either sidestepped or blocked by the crow. While the upper eight were allegedly on a different level, her abilities were their greatest chance of escaping in the current situation. He could walk if he tried, but in his condition, his jeet-kune-do would hardly harm a fly. And there was she, looking ready to incapacitate the opponent.

Kicking herself from the railing, her foot colliding with his upper back seemed to topple the assassin. Unfortunately, the crow was prepared for her actions and adjusted his footing to counter the weight attempting to take and keep him down. As she was caught during a move, not even with seeing through his intentions in a split second could she resist when she was grabbed her by the ankle and shoved to the deck like a ragdoll. Her head collided with the railing with a sickening sound.

He saw her lying limply on the deck, unmoving.

And the next thing he saw was himself choking the crow.

He had no recollection how he did it, not to mention how he actually managed to overcome the obstacle that not even his karate expert could. None of that mattered, nothing mattered asides from that she was—no no no. His wide, unfocused eyes locked on the smug smile the assassin was giving. he could not begin to comprehend what kind of person would give that smug smile when he was getting murdered and have murdered—no. Lies lies lies—

"..."

His head slowly turned into the direction of her body, afraid that the voice that he had thought to have heard was merely a part of his imagination. Her eyes stirred open and her hand reached for him, vanishing the rage that had taken control of him.

"...ichi."

His chokehold loosened.

And in the next second, he was punched harder than he had ever been before. He could barely see the crow gaining advantage of his moment of hesitation before he was flying, towards his childhood friend who was trying to hang on her consciousness. He crashed into her before she could even notice him coming, toppling both of them over the railing. He saw the blueness of the sky taking over his vision before he crashed into the water.

He was sinking a good couple of seconds, stunned by the freezing seawater making invisible needles poking into each of his injuries. His eyes, unbothered by the salt in comparison to the ache wrecking every inch of his body, remained opened, staring at the blur of light dancing above him that marked the surface of the water beyond the rapidly growing layer of water tinted red—oh, that was his blood. He was tired and felt a wave of dizziness wash over him, but he forced himself to stay awake and endure to make sure that she would live. If her head injury was as serious as it had sounded, she could have been in a life-threatening condition.

Ran was unconscious, sinking like deadweight—no, he would not think that. He channelled every bit of his willpower into his limbs to grab her. Her body laid in his arms lightly, her mouth hanging open. He covered it with his hand, so that she would not have any more unneeded water in her system. His own lungs were burning too, having breathed in some water on accident. He knew he had to swim to the surface unlike he wanted both of them to drown.

Even better if he could make it to the shore.

And so, he gritted his teeth and started swimming, carrying her with his injured arm. His eyes fixated on the blur of light in the distance above as he tried to listen to the mantra inside his head telling him to ignore the pain, to focus solely on getting out alive.

His lungs sucked in the precious air greedily when his head popped up in the surface at last, occasionally interrupting the process with whacking up the water that had accumulated in his respiratory system. He looked at her with concern as her breathing felt faint, almost transient. Faced the shore with determination to bring her back to the land of living, his hopes shattered. Between bleeding out and drowning, he seemed to have forgotten that the water met fire over there.

He heard something coming.

He barely had any time to take a deep breath and duck underwater before a ship ran over the spot where they had been. When he resurfaced only a second later, he already knew what was going on. He looked hatefully at the ship, the very same ship they had just unintentionally escape, altering its direction and heading towards them again at a speed that he could not avoid. His archenemy had given up on interrogating him, it seemed.

He narrowly dodged the next couple of attempts, set on surviving this and provide her medical attention as soon as possible. He was not going to die at a place like this, not before he took down the organisation and made sure she was happy—and alive.

However, moving gradually became harder on him with every passing second as he fought a losing battle with fatigue and blood loss. His hold on her was careful and impossibly strong at the same time, unwilling to let her go even in death. He knew the ship was coming again, he could hear the motor buzzing even though his vision had blurred to the point of blindness, but he had lost the control over his body. His thoughts slowly began to fade away as his doom impended.

And then, everything faded to black—

—and the world disintegrated.

Published: 18/09/2022

I think this chapter defines my apparent inability to follow canon. And action on the top of action.

On another note, I would like to inform those who may not experience it directly, but a pesky thing going by the name school year has started. If that alone does not carry enough dreadful news regarding updates on a fanfiction site, this is going to be an exceptionally busy year for me. I will return to an update in a month or two schedule that was originally planned for this story until the summer. However, no matter how sporadic the updates are going to be, this story will never be abandoned.

*Applauding myself for my bravery for putting up this notification after leaving the chapter on a cliffhanger.*

Anyways, thanks for everyone who took the time to enlighten me about the prompt weeks and such, and generally everyone who decided to drop a review. I hope you will continue finding entertainment in the upcoming events in this story too.