Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ When Pandora's Box Is Opened ❯ The Dark Before Dawn ( Chapter 27 )

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Dark Before Dawn

Ran rolled over in bed, willing herself not to look at the clock. Conan-kun had almost fallen asleep in his dinner, poor thing, and his mother had had to kiss him goodbye while he was still sleeping before running for the station. He was still sleeping like the dead- he had a lot of jetlag to get over.

She rolled again, touching the earrings that she'd left on her bedside table. They were Christmas presents from Conan-kun and his family, little dangling rubies with gold decoration, a perfect match for her necklace, which was coiled next to them. She sighed, looking up at the ceiling. She had been walking on air after Shinichi left, happy enough to know that he loved her to ignore that fact that she didn't know when she'd next see him again, determined not to let it get her down, but a couple of days later she was starting to list, already missing Shinichi again with a pain just as acute as when he'd first vanished. It was even stronger now, the memories of the kisses giving her a longing for him that was a physical as it was emotional. She wondered if it was too late at night for a cold shower.

“He will be back,” she reminded herself. “He promised. You've waited for him for over two years... you can keep waiting.” But that thought brought back all the old worries of what kind of case Shinichi was on, whether he was safe or not, if he was getting help for that strange illness or if he could get hurt...

“He said he wasn't in danger,” she reasoned, but the thought gave her no comfort. The only times Shinichi had hidden anything from her were when he had been injured in football or PE or, once, when he was twelve, and he'd walked her home and then gone home alone and been mugged by a gang of teenagers. She hadn't found out until over a week later, when she'd heard Megure-keibu talking to her father about it.

“Why didn't you tell me?!” She cried. “Geez, I had no idea...”

“Ran, I'm fine, it's no big deal,” he insisted. “They just took my wallet, and all I had in that was my student ID and a couple thousand yen. It's not like I got hurt or anything.”

“Still, why didn't you tell me?” Ran said. “You just pretended that you'd lost your ID!”

“This is why I didn't tell you,” he said with a laugh, trying to calm her down. “I knew you'd freak, and now you're going to worry for days, aren't you? I got enough of that from Kaa-san. You don't have to worry about me, Ran. I don't want you to. Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I'll tell Megure-keibu that if they find the guys to hold them in custody until you get a chance to kick their asses. You've got a green belt now, right?”

“You said you have no reason not to trust him, but you know he lies to you sometimes, don't you?” she thought to herself. “When it's something that'll worry or upset you... he's hidden things like that from you before. Why wouldn't he do the same now? Especially if, if he was in some kind of danger, it'll probably be much worse than a few teenage yakuza wannabes...”

“Knowing him,” she muttered as she closed her eyes, finally drifting off, “it's probably the real yakuza...”

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“Ain't it past yer bedtime, Kudo? Ain't it past everyone's bedtime?”

“Then why are you still up?” Shinichi asked, not having expected Hattori to pick up on the first ring. “Anyway, Ran and Occhan are already fast asleep and I'm going to have to play jetlagged for a couple of days, so I figured this would be the last chance I'd have for a while to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“Kir says that the Organization think that someone in the Osaka Police is onto them, although they suspect it's an officer,” Shinichi said. “That gives you a little breathing space since you're not technically in the police, but...”

“Nah, I know what ya mean. I'm th' chief's kid an' I'm always wanderin' around the station, I'm a famously nosy bugger, I'll be suspect sooner or later. Ya tellin' me ta watch my back?”

“Pretty much,” Shinichi said. “Have you told anyone what you're investigating?”

“I've had ta get Otaki-han ta help me get inta the duty rotas, but I ain't told `im what for. Seemed safer that way, fer him as well as me. I got a coupla suspects too, so I'm wantin' ta get inta their personnel files, but I'll need Oyaji fer that, an' I'll probably hafta give `im the gist of what I'm up ta fer that.”

“Well, I can say for certain he's clean,” Shinichi said, “and his authority will probably give him some protection if they think he's the one onto them. They're more likely to try to disappear than silence him, since that's simply too high-profile, but you're another story, chief's son or not.”

“I know. Still, I ain't lettin' `em get away. Oi, did ya ever get ta Kuroba?”

“Actually, no,” Shinichi said. “The Organization got to him first.”

“Shit. Ya mean he's...”

“No, no, he's alive,” Shinichi said hurriedly, “just in hospital, and due to get out before too long. His injuries weren't particularly serious, luckily. Still, it was a close call.”

“What happened?”

“Hit-and-run framed to look like an accident in the course of a street race. His mother's injuries are more serious, but she'll live, thankfully. I hate to think how much farther he'd go if he had both parents' deaths to avenge.”

“...Geez, Kudo, I sure as hell got an interestin' life after I met ya.”

“Which is why I've told you more than once that you're better off forgetting about me before you get an interesting death.”

“Are ya kiddin'? What kinda pal would do that? Anyway, no sweat. Look after yerself, Kudo.”

“Isn't that what I called to tell you?” Shinichi laughed.

“Yeah, but you have an interestin' life too. Y'know how there's a Chinese curse, “May ya live in interestin' times”?”

“I don't think that's the precise wording, but yes, I know what that curse means very well.”

“Don't slag the Osaka-ben. Anyway, I just got a bad feelin' ever since the heist. Ya ever get that feelin', Kudo? That li'l shiver that tells ya somethin's about ta happen? Well, I got that feelin', and if anythin' happens it tends ta happen ta you. So watch yer back.”

“I will if you do the same,” Shinichi said. “Keep your head down, Hattori.”

“Sure thing. I'd say the same for you if I thought ya needed ta...”

“No height jokes or the next time I see you I tranq you.”

“Later, Kudo.”

Shinichi hung up and shivered. Yes, he knew that feeling. A few too many American movies made him inclined to call it his “tantei-sense”; that little alarm in the back of his brain that always went off a second before the body was found, the lights went off, the scream was heard; like a little notice left by Death to tell you that He was in town. He had that feeling now, and it was screaming.

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Aoko, Kami bless her and keep her, had made them bring him his laptop. Now Kaito had some distraction to assist him in his forced insomnia. At least the hospital had an internet connection, although he had to plug his laptop in for it, as wireless couldn't be used. Still, it connected, which was what was important. It allowed him to do a little research. This could have been problematic, seeing as the hospital could see which sites he'd been on, if he hadn't messed with his browser history to make it look like he'd been watching stupid movies, magic shows and Kid heists on YouTube.

“Oh, very nice,” he thought, flicking through the Beika Museum site. An underground vault estimated to have been hidden for over 500 years... that was a good place for a jewel to never see the moonlight...

Unfortunately, the most attractive target, an unusually large diamond, had been sent to Britain for examination; apparently it was suspected of being part of the English crown jewels that vanished in the thirteenth century. It was going to be examined and compared with historical documents and then, if it matched, it would be left in Britain as English historical property.

“Which will make it harder for me to get,” Kaito thought, “But if I'm planning to fly solo and disappear for a while, I can manage it...” he'd already decided to vanish once he was released, and hang whatever explanations people came up with. He wasn't worried about his mother's safety; he'd noticed the people watching his room whenever the door opened to let a nurse or doctor through, and a subtle peek through the door late last night had proved that there were two nearby at nights as well. They weren't Ravens, he could tell; they had the air of policemen about them, but were a little more subtle, a little more serious. He fingered them as Interpol or similar, which had two possibilities; they had noticed that the Syndicate was involved (likely, after that nurse's arrest) or they guessed who he was (unlikely, because he wasn't tied to the bed). They'd almost certainly keep an eye on his mother when he slipped away.

Luckily, he wasn't going to have to slip out of the hospital; they were going to release him on New Years' Eve, if his brain scans looked normal (“Or as normal as my brain scans get,” he'd thought with a grin,) and then... maybe he wouldn't leave Tokyo straight off, he just wouldn't go home- They would be watching his house. Maybe he'd hang around at Jii's. He'd also have to pick a target from that exhibition at the Beika Museum; Diamond or no, there was no way Kid could pass up the chance to nose around in a haul like that. Besides, if they brought the diamond back, they might let their guards down since he'd already stolen from them once.

He sighed as he clicked back to his favourite search engine. He'd been to that museum a couple of times, and he already had something of a plan in mind. That left him with quite a bit of boredom still to kill. He opened Wikipedia.

“If I've got nothing more important to do, maybe I should learn a little more about a couple of mind-reading Meitantei...”

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Ginzo knew he should probably be in bed by now, but he couldn't go over the reports on Kuroba-kun's accident at the office any more without getting in trouble. He knew that his unit was supposed to be Kid and Kid alone, but there was just something wrong about the accident like there'd been something wrong about Toichi's death. And he couldn't investigate without his superiors finding out. Call it paranoia if you like, but he was fairly certain that a couple of the newest rookies were spying on him.

The special unit got rookies a lot. It was a job that involved a lot of night shifts and running, both of which were things they'd have to get used to as police, and encouraged them to think creatively (because they didn't come much more creative than Kid) while involving enough being yelled at to give them a healthy respect/fear of authority. One of the other senior members of the unit- the rookies often changed, but his core of senior officers had been the same for 20 years- had joked that working under Ginzo was a good way to give the rookies the standard colourful policeman's vocabulary. Perhaps what was most important, of course, was that in chasing Kid, even the most dim-witted rookies were unlikely to come to more harm than having a nap in the bathroom in their underwear or a stitch from chasing the thief up twelve flights of stairs or possibly finding themselves in a fetching pink ball gown (never mind the jewels, Ginzo would never forgive the thief for that one). Still, Ginzo sometimes felt that the unit was viewed, as a whole, as a training ground and entertainment.

Well, he was still a police officer, and he had been for over 20 years. And he just couldn't let something like this pass him by again. Was it so wrong to believe that catching murderers was more important than catching Kid? Catching the phantom thief may have been his job and life's work, but if he had Kid and a murderer cornered and only one pair of handcuffs, Ginzo knew which one he would let fly. In fact, he had.

“Theft is a terrible crime, Nakamori-keibu, but the most terrible crime of all is the theft of a life. That is something that can never be returned or replaced.”

Yeah. That had been a strange heist, the last one before the Kid had disappeared for eight years. A couple of snipers had shot at Kid as he was escaping. They'd missed Kid, but an officer had been hit and killed. Kid had cornered one of the snipers and Ginzo had wasted no time in cuffing the bastard. Kid had flown after the second sniper, but he'd been too late- the arrested man's brains were shot out as Ginzo took him back to a squad car. His superiors had never allowed Ginzo to pursue a full investigation of those snipers. It had annoyed Kudo as much as him. Not only were they getting away with murder, but if they'd missed Kid once, they'd almost certainly be back, and Ginzo wasn't going to stand for that. He couldn't condone murder in any form, but this was personal; the Kid had been his target for twenty years. He was his thief, his rival... and perhaps could be tentatively called a friend.

Why had he come into the office? Maybe he was hoping for a Kid notice, something for him to think about or do, something to fill the void ever since he'd had to come back from the hospital alone and inform his five-year-old daughter that her mother wouldn't be coming home after a few days this time. Akane wouldn't be back ever.

He hadn't known what to do with Aoko. She kept asking if she could go to the hospital, maybe she could convince her mother to come back. In the end, Minami and Toichi had offered to look after Aoko for a day or two while Ginzo took care of funeral arrangements and such. And he'd done all of that, but he just couldn't bring himself to go back to an empty apartment. So he'd come here, to the condolences and odd quietness of the unit.

One of the younger men cleared his throat. “Nakamori-keibu... there's, um, a message for you.” Ginzo looked up as the officer placed a large glass vase containing a huge bunch of black roses on his desk. There was a card attached with a length of black ribbon.

“My deepest condolences for your loss, Nakamori-keibu. Now go home. Your daughter's lost her mother, she might at least have a father. If you don't, I may well have to take a break. If I'm not stealing anything, you have no reason to be at the office instead of at home with your daughter, do you?”

The card was signed with the characteristic caricature, but it wasn't grinning as usual. It was frowning sadly, a little teardrop was drawn on the tag to the monocle, and it was wearing a black hat instead of white. Ginzo had stared at it for a long moment before laughing quietly and going to the Kuroba's to get Aoko.

Eventually, of course, Kid returned to action and so did Ginzo, and over the years he often worried that he had slid back into spending more time at work than at home- a habit that had allowed Akane to hide her illness until it was too late. But his relationship with Aoko might have become so much worse if Kid hadn't pushed him to go home. Then someone had started shooting at Kid on his heists, and Ginzo had happily accepted capturing these snipers as being under his jurisdiction. No-one was going to shoot the Kid on his watch. Evidently, however, someone had nearly managed it off of it.

He'd wondered, often, about how Kid knew so much about him, and his disappearance had coincided with Toichi's death- but no, Kid was back, and Toichi was dead, wasn't he? Subconsciously, he blocked the possibility of a second Kaitou Kid- that was part of why he'd been so angry at Hakuba for suggesting that Kid was a high-schooler; that lead him to one target, DNA information or not. So the chase resumed, and no-one was going to pull Ginzo off of it, or the investigations into the tragic and in one case fatal accidents that had befallen a family that was so close to his as to practically be part of his family. His superiors could make all the complaints they wanted about it not being part of his jurisdiction, but they couldn't very well fire or demote him- they knew as well as he did that if any officer (Hakuba and that creepy Edogawa kid didn't count, they weren't employed by the Met) would be able to catch Kid, it was him.

For now, he was happy to keep up the entertainment front of pursuing Kid if it meant he could find whatever dark figures were hunting the white thief, no matter what his superiors said. If he had been the paranoid or conspiratorial type, he may have wondered why his superiors weren't willing to look the other way in order to see justice done. He may just have come up with the vague, crazy thought that maybe, just maybe, they had some reason to not want the snipers caught.

“Lucky for the Ravens that Nakamori has already proved himself to not be a particularly suspicious type,” she thought, smiling wryly, “But he has proved himself the fiercely loyal type, which can be just as much trouble... as it's already clear that his first loyalties do not lie with his superiors... Really, this gets more fun every day...”

The Shadow Syndicate had operated in perfect secrecy for a long time- too long. Such secrecy is only maintainable for so long, and then it gets too big, controls too much, and some quiet little mind realizes that much of the scum and villainy it sees is connected, and then before too long several quiet little minds meet on their way to the centre of the web and it's only a matter of time before Moriarty goes over the waterfall. And no matter how many snakes Medusa has in her hair, cut off her head and they will all wither and die.

The Syndicate was at the point where a lot of quiet little minds had noticed them. She'd have a hard time keeping an eye on them all if she needed to sleep. Lucky that she didn't, not if she didn't want to. But in the end, only one of those quiet little minds was necessary. Only one Silver Bullet was needed to kill the beast.

And the hunt had begun.

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Teasers are all you get for now, FaithlessGirl. Don't worry, all will come clear in due course...

I write when I feel like writing, A Midsummer Night's Dream, which thankfully is pretty much all the time at the moment. I have a really big buffer between the chapter that I'm writing and the chapter that I've published just in case writer's block does hit, because I don't want to screw up this fic like the end of my IY one...

Is the cop explained now, HaibaraDaiFan? I like Akako, I wish she'd show up sometime in the DC manga, although she has been in a couple of episodes of the anime (although they were both based off of Magic Kaito chapters, the first OVA and the Clock Tower heist). I wish Aoko would show up more too. She's only been seen in two chapters of the manga and two of the anime, one of which was the fourth OVA. Me want Magic Kaito! *tantrum* I hope you figure out the Secret Of Kabuki, too. Little Secrets is a great fic and I wanna read more! </shameless plug>

Patience, padawan! I promise that they'll meet, Mel72000, but who can say when? (Well, me, obviously, but I'm gonna be mean and keep mum :P)

I hope you passed your exams, Kairi922! I just have one left- Psychology. Then- summer! *does a little dance*

Short? All my chapters are pretty much the same length, Pretztailfan95... ^_^; MORE FLASHBACKS! There's gonna be a lot of them, I'm afraid. The past is very important to this fic, because a lot of the clues to the case exist only in the memories of the living... and in one case, the dead... BUT NOT KAAAIIITOOOOOO! Ah, but now he is a true Phantom Thief... time to mess with Snake... *muahaha* Don't stop talking? But what more can I say? Oh yeah... MORE WHAT IFS! Although I think the first one was a lot better than the second... and... ummm... *desperately wants to drag the reply out long enough to save Kaito* although the more time I spend answering you, the less time I have to write the fic... some characters may have to be cut... GUESS WHO'LL BE THE FIRST TO GO? *muahahahaha*

Glad ya love it, Ziraulo! There's a lot more still to come, so stick with me! ^_-

I do not claim to own any of the characters in Meitantei Conan. They are the intellectual property of Aoyama Gosho. All characters, couples and locations, if Canon, will be faithful to the manga, so if you're into fics with weird pairings like Shinichi and Heiji, the back button is at the top there. The fic may not make sense if you have not read up to chapter 693, which you can do at a site called (read between the lines) O/n/e/ma/n/g/a, but I advise you to buy the official Tankoban novels (up to volume 29 are out in English at the time of writing) so that Aoyama-sensei can afford to continue gracing us with his imagination. Now, I hope you enjoy the fic! (If you don't, please see my previous comments re the back button).