Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ The First Woman In The World ❯ 12 ( Chapter 12 )

Thirty-Five years ago

“Jin-chan's napping right now,” Hanako said, sitting at her dining-room table with Eta.

“How's your daughter doing at school?” Eta asked. “Her work hasn't been disrupted, I hope?” Hanako shook her head, but her knuckles clenched around her cup. At fifteen, the girl had been sent on two hits already, and proven just as skilled as her parents.

“It's strange,” Hanako sighed. “I've never found death distasteful. I can't count how many I've killed, nor James... She's no younger than I was when I first killed, what she does is no different from what I do, but... how can I say it? I decided to do what I do so that she wouldn't have to do what I do. Neither Aka-chan nor Jin-chan... I've made my peace with what I do. I didn't want them to have to, that's all.”

“I know,” Eta said softly.

“Yes... you do, don't you?” Hanako said. She alone knew about Eta's dream... and her children. Her alone... until recently.

Hanako had had Eta's dream again, and relayed it to James. She could trust her husband to keep quiet, right?

But then he'd mentioned it to Ushi, probably believing that he, being Eta's boss- Eta and Ushi had not put it forward that they were husband and wife; it would give Ushi, the boss, a vulnerability, and Eta, who preferred to roam, a lot less mobility as an agent- would know. He hadn't. James had realized what he'd done and passed it off as one of Hanako's prophetic dreams, and hadn't even told Ushi the full content of the dream, but the damage was done; Ushi knew a child was a danger to the Syndicate, the Silver Bullet. Someday, the boy would come to destroy them. Hanako hadn't given Ushi the boy's face, said only that he was Japanese. But Ushi could see it in her mind, her son's face, and her daughter's; Ushi wanted them dead, though he thought only one of them existed, and had no way to find them, thank Kami.

“I'm sorry about that,” Hanako said softly. “I know how much I want to protect my children. Besides... Don't you realize what it means? It's a prophecy. It's a really powerful one. Nothing can stop this one. If you try to resist, it'll find a way... and you will pay the price.”

“I've known that for a long time, Hanako-chan,” Eta replied, looking her friend in the eye. “That's why I figure; why not just help it happen?”

“I knew you'd say that!” Hanako said, lighting up. “What can I do to help?”

“I'm going to tell you a story, Hanako-chan,” Eta said quietly. “The true story of my past and the Organization... and about the Pandora. We must find it like we must find them, Hanako-chan... and we must help them destroy it.”

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Thirty-OneYears Ago

Eta set the phone down on the table, her face crumbling slowly, thankful that Ushi, on the other end, could not see.

Kurosawa James and his wife Kurosawa Hanako had just been executed for rebellion against the Organization. And if the way Ushi had talked was any indication, they had gone to their graves in silence about the Pandora... and Eta.

Kami, it had been so long since she had cried. It had been so long since she had cared enough about someone to shed tears for their death.

It hurt so much.

Rebellion. That's what what she was doing was called. Ushi couldn't kill her for it, couldn't lock her in a room and gas her like he had Hanako and James, but he would find some way to make her pay. It would be the ultimate betrayal.

But he had already betrayed her. He wanted her children dead.

She was alone again, but she would not let him win. She could not...

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Thirty Years Ago

It was all gone. Eta stared on as the building burned. Hanako's daughter had been locked up in the infirmary there. First she'd been locked up alone, after her rebellion-just like her parents- but then the girl had found some way to slit her wrists.

She couldn't just leave. She'd been the Syndicate's since she was born. There was no escape from that. She wasn't going to be executed. She'd already shown that she wanted death.

Ushi was too cruel to give it to her.

Then, in the night... first there'd been complaints as they cameras in the infirmary fizzled out. Then the whole building had exploded into fire.

Only one body was never found.

“Jin-chan may be the Syndicate's now,” Eta thought, remembering the little boy with the cold green eyes, so dispassionate over his parent's deaths... “But somehow Aka-chan is free... and she knows how to destroy it.”

She strolled away, fighting to keep her face dispassionate. Children...

In the Syndicate's rise to power, there had been children born to parents with the Syndicate, like Hanako's children. Those children were born and raised knowing nothing but darkness. Born and raised to kill. Like Miyano Atsushi's children would be. Upon his father's death, the boy- a man now- had taken over his father's research, and now he was getting married, to a western girl named Elena, also a brilliant scientist. No doubt their children too would be brilliant; genetic engineering at its finest, a lineage of super-scientists for the sole purpose of recreating the elixir of immortality.

Eta couldn't help despising him for the research that he worked on. She did not want the elixir to ever be completed. She did not want forever.

Ten thousand years had been more than enough.

She sighed heavily. She needed to take a break from the Syndicate for a while. She had fought for nearly ten thousand years, and she was so very tired...

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It says so much about the nature of the “children”, Pretztailfan95…

I'd always wondered about that case, DiGi… I think this chapter might imply their relationship… and the girl may also be revealed soon…

It's one of my favourite episodes, Pu7o. MK chapter AND the Sunset Manor in a onner? Awesome =D

Perhaps, StargateNerd… perhaps not…

Life can be evil, KageNoNeko, especially when it gets in the way of fic… T_T Thus the BO evolves…

Once you mentioned that arc, Mel72000, I couldn't resist putting it in… ^_-

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 698, 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 30 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).