Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ When Pandora's Box Is Opened ❯ Tropical Trigger ( Chapter 54 )

Chapter Fifty-Four

Tropical Trigger

“That was fun!” Ayumi said happily. “Wasn't that great, Conan-kun?”

“Uhh... yeah,” Conan agreed, smiling. Throughout the ride, though, he'd felt oddly jumpy. He kept feeling like he was in someone's sights. He'd even ducked when another boat had sped past them. Genta, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi had laughed, but Agasa-Hakase had looked worried and Ai had had that creepy thoughtful look. He'd had more fun at football practice during PE the other day. He'd quickly discovered an aptitude for the sport matched only by his rapidly rediscovered love for it. Despite catching a nasty tackle in his shin, he'd loved it, and felt more carefree than he could remember being- which admittedly wasn't far back.

“Let's go on this rollercoaster next!” Genta said, leading them to the dragon coaster. Mitsuhiko and Genta sat in the front, Conan sat behind them with Ai, and Ayumi sat at the back with Agasa-Hakase.

“So how are you doing? Remembering anything?” Ai said quietly as the rollercoaster started to climb slowly. Conan looked at her in surprise.

“Umm, not really,” he said. “I mean... am I meant to?”

“This place was very important to you,” she said enigmatically.

“What happened?” Conan asked curiously.

“I don't know for certain,” She said calmly. “But you do.”

Conan just sighed, not asking again. She had an annoying tendency to do that, he noticed. She seemed to know so much about his past that she wasn't telling...

She paled visibly, though, when they reached the peak of the rollercoaster. It was a long drop.

Then they dropped.

They all screamed as they practically went into freefall. Ai wasn't screaming, although it seemed to take a lot of her iron self-restraint not to. She glanced at him, the grabbed his hand tightly.

“Maybe she is scared...” Conan thought, then something tugged in his head. He blushed, then felt confused. For a moment, it hadn't been Ai next to him, gripping his hand fearfully...

It was gone as soon as it came... then they went into the tunnel.

In the darkness, his head started throbbing again, like it had before the book. Someone was gripping his hand then it was warm and damp and then they came out of the tunnel and it was BLOOD...

He glanced backwards as they exited the tunnel. He didn't know what he expected to see, but it wasn't Agasa-Hakase clutching his glasses and Ayumi screaming fearfully. For a moment...

“Are you all right?”

Conan jerked his head up. He looked over at the concerned Ayumi. The ride was over; everyone else was staring at him curiously, having already gotten off.

“I'm fine,” he insisted, getting off. “It's nothing, really...”

“Are you sure?” Mitsuhiko said. “You're kind of pale...”

“I bet he'll feel better once he eats something!” Genta said, pointing at a food stall.

“Always food...” Mitsuhiko muttered, rolling his eyes. The two boys started bickering as they wandered over to the food stall. Conan rubbed his forehead, the pounding not subdued yet. Ai and Agasa-Hakase were both watching him sternly.

He glanced over as they passed a dark alleyway...

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“Akako-sama, Hakuba Saguru is here to see you...”

“Really?” Akako said in surprise. “Well, do show him in...” She rubbed her temples as she pored over the heavy old book that she had borrowed from an older witch. “Dead languages... always such a pain to read...”

“Koizumi-san. How are you?”

“Irritated,” she sighed without looking up as the blond detective entered her library, looking curiously over the rows of books. “How is the investigation progressing?”

“Well, if the fact that someone tried to kill two of the officers that I'm working with is anything to go by,” Hakuba commented. “But as far as Conan-kun and Kuroba go... I was wanting to ask you something, Koizumi-san. It's rather... unusual, so I decided that you'd be the best one to ask.”

“Ask away,” Akako said, flipping a page.

“Have you heard of something called the “Pandora”?” he asked.

“The nosy mythical woman who unleashed all of the evils of the world?” Akako said idly.

“I mean the jewel which is connected to a legend of immortality,” Hakuba said sharply. Akako froze.

The blood jewel...

“Of course...” she murmured. “How foolish!”

“What?” Hakuba asked.

“It comes from the comet Pandora!” Akako said. “Lucifer spoke of a comet's pass... the Pandora comet only passes every ten thousand years! That is why there are no written records of it!”

“No written records? You've already been looking?” Hakuba said in surprise.

“Lucifer spoke of a blood jewel granting immortality,” Akako said offhandedly. “But if it fell to earth ten thousand years ago... Kami, that was millennia before any form of writing was invented! It is a pure oral tradition!”

“Immortality... probably the same jewel, then. And if it's an oral tradition from ten thousand years ago, then it's impossible to know the truth about it,” Hakuba pointed out. “It will have mutated beyond recognition...”

“Unless the original teller is still telling the story,” Akako said, her red eyes glinting. “It is a story of immortality, after all. Lucifer spoke of an immortal not of his doing... well, it wouldn't be of his doing, would it? If this jewel fell to earth ten thousand years ago, it predates Lucifer by some millennia, and who knows how old it was before that?”

“Do you listen to yourself?” Hakuba demanded. “Immortality-”

“Is real, Hakuba-kun,” Akako snapped. “I should know. Someone was granted immortality by the jewel and is still telling the tale, as simple as that.”

“This Organization has someone immortal among them?!” Hakuba said, half incredulous and half angry.

“Organization?” Akako said coolly, picking up her book again.

“The one that's after Kuroba,” Hakuba sighed, sitting down at another chair. “We only know of the legend of this jewel Pandora because Kudo-sensei apparently heard it from Kuroba Toichi, who was told it by a member of the Organization when they attempted to hire him to locate and steal it for them...”

“That makes sense,” Akako muttered. “Lucifer did say that it was an immortal who took the child... then he truly is connected to Kuroba-kun... they share the same foe...”

“So this jewel is real, it granted immortality to someone ten thousand years ago, and now they're a member of a criminal organization which is attempting to very subtly take over the world, kidnapped Conan-kun and tried to hire Kuroba to find their lost jewel?” Hakuba summarized.

“More or less...” Akako muttered. “The boy is a danger to them as Kuroba-kun is... but both are necessary...”

“What...” Hakuba began, but Akako cut him off.

“Even I don't really know yet,” she said. “All I know is that to destroy this Organization, we need Kuroba... and Kudo. And for that, we need the boy's memory returned...”

“What does Conan-kun's memory have to do with Kudo Shinichi?” Hakuba demanded.

“Kami above, I thought you were a Meitantei,” Akako sighed. “Have you not realized what Edogawa Conan truly is...” she trailed of, staring at the old recipe in the book.

“Amnesial,” she breathed. “But of course. Liquid amnesia. The recipe's been almost forgotten for millennia...”

“Liquid amnesia?” Hakuba asked with a frown.

“Medical drugs such as midazolam or flunitrapezam are only science's recent attempts to replicate the powers of Amnesial,” Akako said. “They cause short-term memory loss for traumatic events such as anaesthetic-free surgery... but Amnesial is true, complete amnesia. No memories, no clue... no antidote.”

“But Conan-kun has been remembering things, Kudo-sensei said,” Hakuba pointed out. “Just vague flashes, but...”

“Yes...” Akako mused. “If his mind is truly capable of recovering from the effects of Amnesial... how powerful he must be...”

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Conan took a step towards the alley.

“See you later, Ran!”

“Shinichi, wait!”

His head was pounding even harder, like something had struck him on the back of the head.

“... Let this kid tail you...”

“...rub him out...”

“... new poison that the Syndicate developed...”

“Conan-kun?”

“Shhh! He might be remembering...”

“...untested on humans... untraceable... unsolvable murderer....”

Pain shot through him, or the memory of pain, his very bone marrow burning...

“Sayonara, Meitantei...”

And there they were; the cold green eyes from his dream, the evil murderer who had taken his life...

... A cold smile...

... And he was...

...He...

“Shinichi!”

Conan jerked back to reality as his knees hit the concrete, tearing a football scab open. He was trembling violently, the impossible memories flipping through his head, suddenly crystal clear.

“Agasa-Hakase?” he whimpered, his voice quiet, desperate. “What's going on? What's happening to me? It's... wrong... It...”

“Conan-kun, what happened?” Ayumi said, approaching the kneeling boy slowly, holding two chocolate bars. “Are you okay?”

Conan glanced over at Ayumi, pure terror written over his face for a second, and then his face shut down like a mask, all the fear and confusion vanishing.

“Yeah, I'm okay,” he insisted. “I just have... a headache, that's all. Maybe it's too many rollercoasters...”

“What's going on?” he wondered. “I don't know... but...” he glanced back at Agasa-Hakase and Ai. “I think they do...”

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“Odd,” Jodie thought. “So that coaster reminded Cool Kid of something... and that alleyway? Might as well check it out...”

She crouched down in a cafe, out of sight of the kids should they pass, and started to search the internet for articles about incidents at Tropical Land. The first thing she found was a murder, about two years back, on the Dragon Coaster. A man was beheaded by his ex-girlfriend. The whole murder was solved by...

“Well, hello... if it isn't a familiar face...” Jodie mused as a picture appeared of Kudo Shinichi, talking with a stern expression to a tearful blonde woman, Mori Ran clinging to his arm and trying not to look at the bloody corpse. Jodie scanned the article, then her heart froze as her gaze returned to the picture. There, at the very edge of the frame, barely visible, was a tall, thickset man in dark clothes and sunglasses. Next to him, another black trenchcoat was almost entirely out of the picture, only the edge of an arm visible. But Jodie could tell who would be on the other end of that arm.

“Gin and Vodka...” she realized. “On what is officially the last case ever solved by Kudo Shinichi, no less...” she decided to go ask a few questions.

“Anything odd happen that day?” she asked a security guard, after flashing her FBI credentials. “Aside from a murder?”

“Not really...” the man said, scratching his head.

“There was that weird kid,” another guy commented.

“Oh yeah!” the guard remembered. “We never did find him...”

“Weird kid?” Jodie said sharply. “Was it a little boy?”

“Yep,” the man confirmed. “About six or seven... elementary school, anyway. He was lying underneath the Ferris wheel in oversized clothes with a head injury... we figured he was a runaway. Came up with this crazy story about blackmailers and gun smuggling... anyway, he legged it out of a window when we took our eyes off of him and ran like hell. We tried to chase him but he was a nippy little bugger... lost track of him completely. I guess he must've gotten picked up somewhere else, since we never heard any missing child reports... weird little kid...”

“Thank you for your time,” Jodie said politely, walking away to inspect the now-empty alleyway. As she had suspected, it led out to an empty lot below the Ferris wheel. She wandered around, as if expecting to see some clue left untouched in two years.

“Kudo Shinichi solves a murder at which Gin and Vodka were present,” she summarizes, “mere hours before a boy whom I'm almost certain is Edogawa Conan is found in oversized clothes, with a head wound and a crazy story... Are the two connected? Hakuba said that both boys had seen something that they shouldn't have... the gun smuggling? Gin and Vodka were here to blackmail someone and they saw? But then Kudo-kun vanishes and Conan-kun is left behind with a head injury... did Kudo-kun try to lead them away, then go into hiding because his face was seen? But then how did Conan-kun get the head injury? Did Kudo-kun knock him out to keep him from following? It seems like the kind of thing that the child would do... whatever it was, he seems to remember it...” then she frowned. “Wait. But how did he remember the murder on the rollercoaster? The newspaper report said that those on the rollercoaster were six adults and two minors, but neither of the minors were Conan-kun-kun... they were Kudo-kun and Ran-kun... but Conan-kun appeared to remember something on the rollercoaster, not on the platform where he might have seen the body...”

She fisted her hands unconsciously at the thought of Gin hunting Conan down. “What is going on?”

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What else is new, FaithlessGirl? XD

Surprise, AngelRoy! :D Akako's already got ideas, I dunno if she knows about Ai... I didn't kill Snake, unfortunately. He's still around. Saku was a lesser member, the lead infiltrator of the Osaka Police. I only have a few chapters left to write, I'm sure... so nearly at the point where it all goes boom... but no time to write! T_T

It is coming, Pretztailfan95, It is coming... You're crazy about Heiji, I know XD his time will come... I'll send my BLACK CHARIZARD! Gin will be incinerated, and it's no less than he deserves, damn him... I know I make him do evil things, but I only do it because I know that he'll do them... he is EVIL! What can I do? They wrote longer reviews! ^_^;

I like writing Kaito and Aoko, KageNoNeko. And dream sequences, if the number that I've done isn't any indication XD

XD Marie Ravenclaw... XD I also call them the AAA (Anonymous Alcoholic Assholes) What will become of Heiji and the identity of the mystery person will come clear soon...

Hooked another one! XD here's another update, MimzSilver! ^_-

Maybe, Mel72000... My updates are becoming faster because I'm so near being done... I want more time to write, but I have no time this week! DX

You're welcome, Kayla Edogawa! ^_- Really? I worried that it was another one that had been done, like amnesia... They're so close, yet so far... like Shinichi and Ran. T_T Another parallel... The next chapter ought to be out on Wednesday. *crosses fingers* Is there a manga of Howl's? The movie is definitely worth it, and since it's made by Studio Ghibli it's even good in English- they get decent voice actors instead of the dregs of the CBeebies cartoon voice actors DX They're cool either way, and Holmes is good, isn't he? A bit of an arrogant prick sometimes, but we forgive him that for being so sharp. Except for when he first meets Lupin, when the thief steals his watch and he doesn't notice until Lupin posts it back XD

Fight the boredom, JapaneseAnimeFreak16! XD Yeah, my house isn't waterproof... ^_^; No, Heiji can't hear you, and thankfully neither can Gin, otherwise he'd kill you too... XD

What will I do to Heiji, HikariPachi? *muahahahaha* Yep, a heist is coming... and with it a choice for Aoko...

Desperatembrace! YOU ALIVE!! Glad my fic gets in your head, but it's nice that you reviewed again too. They're great to get. ^_^ No-one can guess what I'm planning, because my reality and what is often termed “normal” reality rarely overlap XD Joy! Less joy for me, because I STILL DON'T HAVE VOLUME 30... and there's still no chapter 701... T_T I have religious followers? MUAHAHAHAHA! *ahem* not that I would abuse that kind of power to stage a coup and take over the world. Or at least the Hershey's factory. Not at all. *cough* Hyper fit! XD

You shall find out... someday, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Nobody will tell me their suspicions of who the masked figure was, not just you, Yuki Taiki! I can't mess with you then... T_T XD COOKIES! SWEETS! *goes on sugar high from cookies, sweets and chocolate and doesn't sleep for a week* XD Sleep is for mortals! XD

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).