Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ The First Woman In The World ❯ 13 ( Chapter 13 )

Twenty-Three Years Ago

“Are you here to audition, Ojousama?”

Eta nodded distractedly. She had decided to try college for a few years. She had probably taken too easy a subject, though; she was forever searching for fresh distraction. In the end, she had come for drama because it looked interesting. She glanced up at the speaker, figuring that even here she would not find what she was looking for.

A young man was watching her with concerned eyes. Twinkling, blue, concerned eyes. A blue she had seen before.

“You don't look in a good mood,” he commented, popping out a rose and handing it to her. She couldn't help laughing.

“Forgive my presumption, but you looked like you could use some cheering up,” he laughed. “Kuroba Toichi. Chemistry Junior. Wannabe magician. Leading male in the drama club. ”

“And leading lady sometimes,” one of the girls called.

“The show must go on,” Toichi called back in the girl's voice, to mass amusement.

“Sharon Vineyard, World History Sophomore,” she said, shaking his hand. Eta watched him out of the corner of her eyes. He looked almost exactly like her son, in her dreams... almost...

Not yet...

“How did you do that?” she asked curiously. “I mean, do that girl's voice?”

“It's a little trick of mine,” he said with a shrug. “It takes a lot of practice, but imitating voices is easy once you get the hang of it...”

“It seemed like magic,” she laughed.

“It's supposed to,” he said with a cheeky grin. “I'm a magician, after all.”

“You dream, Kuroba, you dream...” one of the other students laughed.

“But if you want to learn, come along anyway,” Toichi continued. “Most days, from about five to six, I've been giving tuition to a young actress... Fujimine Yukiko. Her agent's an old friend of mine, so he asked for my help... I've been teaching her voice techniques, role play and disguise.”

“Disguise?” Eta asked, glancing at the makeup stand where a girl was trying out different blushers to try to make herself look like a zombie. “Like makeup?”

Toichi flashed that cheeky grin again. “Trust me, you won't have seen makeup quite like mine...”

***************************************************************** ****************************************

Twenty-Two Years Ago

“I didn't know you drew, Sharon-chan,” Toichi said, glancing at the sketchpad. Eta jumped, having not heard his approach.

“I'm a woman of many talents,” she said with a wink, pulling the Poker Face that he'd taught her into play. “This is one I prefer to keep to myself...”

“That's a cute picture, though,” Toichi said thoughtfully. “The children playing in a field...”

“It's after a story I heard, a long time ago,” Eta hedged, twirling her pen in her fingers, “about two very special children...”

“What's so special about them?” Toichi said, quirking a little smile.

“They're special to the whole world,” she said with a soft little smile of her own, “they're the Hope from Pandora's Box...” “My children...”

“Sorry I'm late!” Yukiko trilled as she bounced into the clubroom. “Sensei kept me behind because I got a red mark... Really though, It's not my fault that we lost a major scene when the tape got overexposed... re-filming went on so long that I never had time to finish my physics homework, but really, is that my fault?”

Eta laughed, quickly tucking away her sketchbook. She hadn't meant for anyone to see the sketch. Toichi didn't say anything, but just smiled too as he started pulling wig materials out of his bag. Fujimine Yukiko, on top of her dramatic talents, really did have a talent for lightening the mood, as if her bubbly personality was too much for one girl and so was projected onto everyone else in the immediate vicinity. She even always managed to make Eta smile. “First Hanako, and now Yukiko... it seems that the closer I grow to human, the easier it is for me to love people...”

She'd learned a lot from these two people; not least that she still had the capacity to care, but a lot of useful skills as well. While Yukiko had never managed to change her voice hugely beyond changing her dialect and accent- though she did that so skilfully that it was hard to tell that she was hardly changing her voice- Eta was getting better every day, and Toichi's disguise techniques really were incredible- combining the disguises and voice changing techniques, Eta had managed to prank Yukiko once by strolling in disguised as Toichi. She fell for it until the real Toichi had walked in, who had then laughed so hard that he'd had to lean against the wall.

Most useful of all was the Poker Face.

Toichi had first told them about his Poker Face when they'd been getting ready to head for home, and he'd asked if they could tell that he had had the mother of all hangovers all day. Apparently he'd been drinking with a good friend from the nearby Police Academy the night before, who, for a police officer in training, could really hold his drink. Yukiko and Eta hadn't noticed a thing. Most of all, Eta wanted to learn that skill; that perfect, unwavering Poker Face. As the game neared its end, the stakes were going to be high, and Eta would need every skill of deception and stealth she could muster to find and protect her most precious children...

***************************************************************** ****************************************

Well, there's a Kuroba and a future Kudo here, Mel72000…

Perhaps, Pu7o…

I'm glad I characterized Hanako so well, Pretztailfan95- for such a short-lived character, I liked her a lot. ^_^ no wonder indeed… The distances are getting shorter the closer we get to the present…

The full story behind that family will appear in WPBIO, StargateNerd… for now we have only deductions XD

They already had vague backgrounds, TwilTye, I just decided to flesh them out a little more… Which could it be…?

Eta and Ushi are still (just) human, KageNoNeko, and so their feelings can and do change… neither are the people they were ten thousand years before. But perhaps some things remain…

Some are kinda obscure, Desperatembrace… This story is 21 chapters, though I'll probably release chapter 69 of WPBIO alongside the next one. So it'll be a week XD

I have no idea where the thought came from, DiGi… it just did... XDXD

*bows* that's what this is for, FHP2208- explanations! Except for a few extra questions which will be answered at the end of WPBIO…

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).