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A Curse Marked Fate

5: The Archmage's Son

It was a nice park. Nakamori Aoko could admit that much. It was very green and always peaceful, and she supposed that that was why a particular wayward friend of hers liked it so much. The problem was that it was all the way in Beika. And because it was in Beika, she simply couldn't find it in herself to appreciate it the way she knew she would have if it was just a little closer to home.

This was not because she had anything against the Beika district. It was just that the aforementioned friend of hers had a tendency to disappear into this park just before such important events as Mage Certification tests (with his phone off, no less), which meant that Aoko, being the responsible and thoughtful friend that she was, had to rush across the city to find and remind him not to be late. As it was, she had come to associate Beika Park with a feeling of frazzled irritation. Of course, she didn't strictly have to travel all this way to fetch Kaito. It wasn't like he'd asked her to, and she knew he wasn't the sort to forget appointments. It was just that, for all that the long trip often annoyed her, she couldn't help but be curious too. Every time she came to this place, she would look around and wonder what exactly made it so special. Ekoda had parks every bit as beautiful and tranquil as this one. If anything, she was of the opinion that the park near her and Kaito's homes, with its grand old clock tower, was much more impressive.

Shelving the mystery of the park for later, Aoko marched across the sun-drenched lawns towards the small lake she had come to know so well from all the trips she had taken before to this very place. On its grassy shore stood what was perhaps the largest tree in the park. Planting her hands on her hips, she glared up into the tangled web of branches. There, sitting on one of the thickest of those branches with his back against the tree trunk and one leg dangling casually over the side, was one Kuroba Kaito.

Talk about looking like he didn't have a care in the world. He was the only person Aoko knew who could look like that right before a major exam. It was both one of his best and most frustrating qualities, she mused.

"Hey, Bakaito! Are you asleep up there?" she shouted up at him.

"Yes," he called back without moving.

Aoko rolled her eyes. "You remember you have to sign in for your exam an hour before the actual event, right? If you don't start heading over there now, you're going to be late. They dock points for tardiness. It'd be a pretty pathetic way to fail."

The young man who had professed to be sleeping let out a hearty laugh. Straightening, he swung both legs over the side of his perch and dropped. If Aoko hadn't seen him do this countless times, she might have screamed. After all, the tree was a tall one, and that was not a drop to be taken lightly. But by now she knew better than to worry.

As expected, Kaito landed perfectly. Rising from his crouched position, he dusted himself off and made a show of straightening out his clothes. Aoko looked him up and down, noting that he had at least dressed nicely for the occasion. That was a good sign. For all his nonchalance, she knew that he did indeed care very strongly about performing well on these upcoming tests. After all, his goal was to become a mage even greater than his father one day. And Kaito took his goals seriously even if he didn't often act it.

"So do I pass muster, oh great Ahoko?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.

She sniffed. "You'll do."

"Then I guess we'd better go." Despite his words, Kaito turned for one last long look out across the mirror bright waters.

Aoko studied his profile, noting the distant look in his eyes, and she wondered again what it was that kept drawing her friend back to this place.

Unable to quell her curiosity any longer, she asked, "Why do you always come here before important events?"

"For good luck?" Kaito suggested offhandedly.

Aoko looked dubious. "Luck? You? If there's anyone who doesn't need more luck, it's you."

Kaito laughed. "Then maybe I just like the view."

Aoko bit back a sigh. And this was why she always regretted it when she asked him about this park. He always answered with something different, and she honestly couldn't tell if he meant any of what he said. Sometimes she wondered if Kaito even knew how to give a straight answer.

"If you don't want to tell me, you can just say so. Anyway, I'm going to head back now. Are you coming or not?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Kaito pivoted and jogged after her, catching up in a few long strides. "Honestly Aoko, you're always so grumpy. You should be careful about that. It's bad for your health."

"I wouldn't be grumpy if you weren't so exasperating," she shot back. But then she smiled, and Kaito grinned, and their was laughter in their eyes as they proceeded out of the park.

"How did you get here?" Kaito asked.

"I took the train. What about you?"

"My Sky Cycle's parked just outside the park. I can give you a ride, if you want. I brought an extra helmet with me."

"I guess that would be faster," Aoko said after only a brief hesitation. Sky Cycles were a new invention not yet available to the public. Modeled off of motorcycles, these vehicles had to be operated by users of Sky Magic. But, when properly handled, they could travel over almost any surface from roads to waterways to open air if the magic of the user was strong enough. Or at least that was what the creators had claimed. Aoko had known that Kaito had recently received a prototype Sky Cycle as part of a beta testing program, but she had yet to see it. The thought of actually getting to ride on it was actually kind of thrilling.

"Is it safe though?" she asked. "Are you even allowed to have passengers? I mean, it's still in the testing stage, right?"

"Yes, it's still in the testing stage, but I've been using it for four months now, and I can vouch that it's safe. I was told last week that testers are now allowed to take passengers—only one at a time, naturally. So we can make sure it works all right with the extra weight."

Aoko frowned. "Is that supposed to make me feel safe? Because it kind of makes me want to take the train."

Kaito laughed. "Come on, don't you trust me to protect you?"

"Depends on what from," she muttered, but she accepted the helmet that he handed to her and climbed onto the cycle behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and waiting with bated breath.

Kaito slotted the key crystal into place then placed his hands on the handlebars, channeling his magic into the crystals there. There was a soft hum. The wheels began to turn, and suddenly they were off, soaring down the street so smoothly and so quickly that Aoko thought their wheels weren't even touching the ground. It was like flying, she thought. Honest to goodness flying!

It was enough to make Aoko wish that she had been born a Sky Mage too.

Seated before her, Kaito grinned into the wind.

X

It was a little crazy how fast things could change, Shinichi thought. In one weekend, he had gone from being a high school detective to an elementary school kid who would be enrolling in first grade. He had tried to protest that he could simply switch to homeschooling, but Kogoro hadn't been particularly enthusiastic about the work that that would cause for him. But it was an option Shinichi was determined to explore. However, in the meantime, he found himself being dropped off at the local elementary school by a Ran who looked torn between apologetic and amused and a Sonoko who just plain sniggered.

Thus followed the longest week of Shinichi's life. The mind numbing boredom of elementary school classes was nothing compared to the exhausting task of fending off curious little kids who didn't seem to understand the concepts of personal space or privacy. There were three in particular who just would not leave him alone. They had even followed him home.

Ran thought they were cute. Shinichi didn't understand it.

By the time the weekend rolled around, he could have cried from the relief.

"We can still tell the police what happened, you know," Ran said as they sat together on the train to Ekoda. "They could help."

"We don't have anything to go to the police with."

Ran leveled him with an incredulous stare. "They tried to murder you."

"We don't have any evidence of what happened, and I didn't get a good enough look at any of them to identify them."

"Uh, but just look at you. You didn't do this to yourself. Even if there's no way to find the culprits, the police might still be able to identify the spell those people used on you. I mean, spells that shrink people can't be common. If we knew that, we might be able to find a way to fix it."

"I'm guessing what happened to me was an accident. It's probably because of my curse."

"He has a point," Sonoko said, dropping into the empty seat across from Ran. "If there was a spell that could make people younger, it would be all over the news in no time. People would kill for spells like that. I bet if anyone found out about the little detective brat here, they'd cart him off to a research facility faster than you could count to three."

Ran shuddered. That was a singularly horrifying thought. Worse still, she could actually picture it happening. History was riddled with terrible tales of the crazy and often illegal things people had done in pursuit of eternal youth and beauty. Some of those tales weren't even that old. She vowed to herself then and there that no one she didn't trust a hundred percent would ever find out about Shinichi's condition from her. Or rather it should be Conan shouldn't it? Trust Shinichi to pick an alias like that. She'd almost laughed when he'd suggested it, but she had managed to suppress the urge. After all, he had enough to deal with already.

"But we can't do nothing," she murmured. She turned her gaze on Shinichi. She didn't for one moment believe that he was planning to just forget about what had happened and move on. "You're going to look for these people, aren't you?"

Shinichi flushed. "Uh, well, I mean—"

"Don't you dare deny it," she said warningly. "We're your friends, Shinichi. We can help you."

Shinichi looked down, gratitude for their support warring with shame that he had dragged them into yet another potentially dangerous situation. But there was no point dwelling on what could not be changed. What he could do, however, was put every ounce of energy and intellect that he had into making sure that no one got hurt as he worked to figure this bizarre mess out. To do that though, he needed information.

"Hello~!" Sonoko waved a hand in front of his face. "Earth to Detective Geek. Spill, or Ran here's going to karate chop you into next week."

Shinichi rolled his eyes, pushing her hand out of his face. "We have two leads," he said. "One is the Curse Mark I saw when they used their amulet. There is extensive documentation on Curse Marks from all around the world dating back quite a long time. If we can identify any part of the Mark, it may tell us more about the spell they cast on me."

"That makes sense," Ran agreed. "And the second lead?"

"One of those men had access to some kind of classified government information. More likely than not, that means he has some official standing. I didn't get a good look at his face, but I think I'd recognize his voice."

Sonoko snorted. "That's not a lead. What are you going to do, sit around outside government buildings and listen to people talk?"

Shinichi ignored her. "I think it would be easier to start with the Curse Mark archive at the main city library. We should also research how a Curse Mark might relate to an amulet. Curses aren't like spells that can be cast after all."

"Sounds boring."

"No one said you had to go," Shinichi said dryly.

The overhead speakers crackled, and a woman's voice announced that they had reached their destination. Sonoko was on her feet in an instant, all serious matters forgotten.

"Come on," she exclaimed. "I want to get good seats!"

Ran and Shinichi traded half amused, half exasperated looks before rising to follow their friend off the train.

X

The Level Seven Mage Certification Exams were being held in Ekoda's Minazuki Stadium. It was an enormous venue with seats for thousands, every one of which was filled well before the first examinee was to take the field. It was a mark of the event's popularity despite its nature as a test. It seemed an awfully noisy kind of setting for any kind of exam, Shinichi thought, but he supposed that it was all part of the challenge. If you could concentrate in this din, you could concentrate anywhere.

"The Level Seven Practicals have two parts," Ran said, reading over the program they had picked up on their way into the stadium. "The first is a free demonstration where the examinees have to perform at least ten spells of their choosing from the options listed in the exam guidelines. They don't include those in here, but they say you can look up a list on the Mage Certifications website. The second part is a problem solving test. The examinee will be confronted with a series of ten to twelve hypothetical situations, and he or she will have to deal with the problem using whatever spells he or she deems most suitable. The demonstration will be done first individually. The situation test will be carried out with multiple examinees at the same time. Exam groups are determined by random lottery."

"What about the demonstrations?" Sonoko demanded. "Is there a schedule?"

"Let me see." Ran skimmed over the rest of the brochure. "Oh, here it is. It looks like it's alphabetical. Every examinee will have five minutes. Wow. That's not a lot of time. They'd only have like half a minute for every spell."

"Casting speed must be part of the exam," said Shinichi. His own excitement grew as he studied the field below. It had been divided into four quadrants for the demonstration portion of the exams: a grassy field, a pool, a sandpit and a metal structure consisting of a series of platforms connected by ladders like part of a jungle gym. There were large boulders scattered throughout the sandpit and a picnic table on the grass next to several large logs. He was intrigued to note that there was even a live if small pine tree growing on one corner of the grassy quadrant. It must have been planted and raised by a high level Earth Mage just for this exam the same way the rest of the field had been constructed since the stadium was usually nothing more or less than your typical sports arena.

The large screen overlooking the field suddenly blinked on, displaying three names, the first of which was highlighted.

"They're starting," Sonoko said enthusiastically. Her words were lost in the cheers that rolled throughout the stadium. Far below them, a woman in her mid twenties jogged out onto the field.

The exams were officially underway.

It was magic on parade. They saw people call lightning down out of a clear sky and pull fire from thin air. They saw mages shape the metal jungle gym into a metal castle while others broke the boulders into perfect cubes to build their own small fortress that then melded into a seamless whole. One woman righted a fallen log then brought it to life, making it send roots down into the earth and spread branches up towards the sky until it had become a fully grown and vibrantly green tree casting a pleasant shade over the picnic table.

"I didn't even know that was possible with dead logs," Ran gasped, awed.

But then the name Kuroba Kaito came up on the screen, and Sonoko was leaping up in her chair with a shriek.

"That's him!" she cried out. "Archmage Toichi's son!"

As though her cry had been a signal, there was an explosion of lightning in the middle of the field that sent the entire stadium into a dead silence as every pair of eyes turned to the heart of the light where a young man materialized out of nowhere to stand in mid air nearly twenty feet above the stadium floor. Seeing that he had everyone's attention, he bowed. Then he snapped his fingers, and all the water in the pool below his feet suddenly rose in a cloud of hissing steam. It arched up and over his head, and, as it did so, it condensed, going straight from steam to solid ice in the shape of a dragon. The dragon spread its icy wings and roared, the sound so real and so powerful that it made the audience's seats rattle. Then the beast blew out a jet of fire before dissolving into steam again. Out of the steam came another dragon of pure flames, all orange and blue, with golden eyes and claws, which in turn breathed frost across the entirety of the field below.

The crowd was going wild. Not only was the performance spectacular to watch, but manipulating so many different elements at the same time was notoriously difficult. Shinichi could sympathize with their amazement, but his own mind had gone blank with shock of an entirely different nature.

That was Kaito.

He knew it was Kaito even though it had been eight years now since he had last seen him.

That was Kaito's messy hair and sharp, indigo eyes. That was Kaito's mischievous grin and confident stance. He was eight years older, a great deal taller, and his features sharper, but it was still the same Kaito who used to tease him and write riddles for him to solve.

The same Kaito who had been his first friend and given him the book that had served as his anchor all these years.

Seeing him here now, grinning that devil-may-care grin of his as he wove spectacle after spectacle for his enraptured audience, filled Shinichi with an odd mixture of sensations both joyous and painful. The greatest emotion—and the one that ended up eclipsing all the others, however, was relief. Kaito was obviously doing well. Knowing that allowed Shinichi to put all the other jumbled feelings to rest and simply be happy for his old friend.

It really was fitting too, he thought with some amusement, that Kaito would be one of the only high school students to take the Level Seven exams. If anything, Shinichi was surprised he hadn't taken them sooner, considering that many of the spells he had demonstrated for Shinichi back when Kaito had only been nine were already highly advanced magic.

Lost in his thoughts, Shinichi had missed half the five minute show, for Kaito was now taking his final bows—still standing in mid air. It was as the magician straightened from his bow that his indigo gaze met Shinichi's sapphire blues for just an instant. The moment passed so quickly that Shinichi wasn't even sure if Kaito had noticed him or just been looking in his general direction. But the moment was past, and Kaito had moved on again.

That one moment of eye contact, however, left Shinichi's heart beating a little too fast to be normal, though why it was doing so, he had no idea. Feeling confused and a little perturbed, he gave himself a shake. Kaito probably hadn't really seen him anyway. Even if he had, it was doubtful that Kaito would remember him. Even if Kaito recognized him as Shinichi grown up in his natural state, he would never associate this child with his old friend.

And it was better that way, Shinichi told himself. Kaito was a skilled and powerful Sky Mage with a promising career ahead of him in whatever field he chose to pursue. Better that Kaito stay away from Shinichi and his curse. It would be better for the magician's future and better for Shinichi's peace of mind.

But first, Shinichi still had a promise to keep.

TBC

A.N: And a happy Lunar New Year to everyone!