Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ When Pandora's Box Is Opened ❯ The Name Game ( Chapter 57 )

Chapter Fifty-Seven

The Name Game

“So...” Conan said, a little uncertain about the fact that he was talking to one of the most wanted criminals in the world. “Why... why are you here?”

“I was stalking you,” Kaito said idly. “I do that with a lot of my free time recently. Stalk people, I mean. Just... watching out for them.”

“You were watching out for me... because...” Conan was still surprised by the enormity of it; that this whole time, he'd been walking around with a target on his back... “because someone's out to kill me.”

“Yeah, and They want me dead too,” Kaito commented. “So I figured, since we're in the same boat... I only found out that They wanted your hide too recently, though... and then I kinda overheard your conversation with the Ojousama a minute ago...”

“They?” Conan said in surprise. “Ran-neechan only mentioned one guy... you mean there's a whole group-?!”

“I call `em the Shadow Syndicate, some call Them the Black Organization,” Kaito said, “hell knows what they call themselves. Listen, I know this is kinda overwhelming, but right now, you need to remember that you're not some frightened little kid. You are a smart, brave and downright brilliant kid, and in fact if what that girl said is true you're actually a smart, brave and brilliant guy, who has escaped these guys for two and a half years, a feat only topped by- well, me. And even as a kid, you've had Them over a barrel more than once. You're confused and frightened right now because you think you ought to be, but if you let that brilliant to the point of being a pain in the ass brain kick back in, you'll know it makes sense. Things were wrong, weren't they, when you were told your name, your age, when you first saw your face in a mirror... it was wrong, wasn't it?”

Conan stared down at his bare and slightly blue feet, curling up to tuck them under the coat. “You know a lot... and if the shrinking thing is true, do you not find that more than a little freaky?”

“Stalker, remember?” Kaito chuckled. “And as for your question... you don't fully comprehend who you're talking to yet, do you? Shrinking is one of the less weird things that happens in my world, both onstage and off. Listen, I don't mean to sound callous about how freaked out you are, but I want these bastards to go down as bad as you did, so I need that brilliant pain in the ass Kudo Shinichi back. As a frightened, stupid kid, sooner or later you'll give yourself away, They'll kill you, which doesn't do you or me any good.” He stood up. “So?”

“So...” Conan frowned. “I... You're right,” he sighed. “It's just still all... a lot to take in, that's all. But... you were right. It was all wrong, and somehow... now it makes a little more sense.”

“Exactly how I feel, pal,” Kaito sighed. “Keep the coat, but go home soon, all right? I think you've put that girl through enough already without disappearing... again.”

“Hold on,” Conan said, standing up on the bench, his height now almost equalling Kaito's. “You do what you do alone, don't you? I mean... can I talk to you again?”

“You asking me out?” Kaito joked.

“Don't be stupid,” Conan grumbled. “I mean... I don't know. There was something I knew about you, I think, something important, but... “

“Anything we have to offer each other concerning Them,” Kaito said, “Is entirely dependent on your recovering your memory. If that happens... I'll know. If not... see you at the next heist.”

“Wha-” Conan began, but was cut off as dozens of doves suddenly flew past him, towards Kaito...

... and then they flew away again, and Kaito was gone, as if the birds had carried him away.

“Shinichi... Conan-kun? Whichever? Where are you?”

“Ran?” he called, turning to her worried voice, and then realized. “It feels more natural without the “neechan”, doesn't it...?”

“There you are!” she gasped in surprise. “I was looking all over...”

“I'm really sorry, Ran,” he said, sitting down again. “Sorry I ran from you again...”

“Shi...nichi...?” she said tentatively, once she'd realized that he was using her name with no suffix. “Your memory...?”

“Not really... just bare flashes,” he said. “It's just something that the Kid said...”

“The Kaitou Kid?” Ran said in surprise. “He was here? Is this his jacket?”

“Yeah... he was here, and we talked,” he replied. “Look... I'm really sorry I ran off. That was such a scared, childish thing to do, and...” he gave her a little smile. “I'm not actually a child, am I? It's weird, but if I just think about it, instead of freaking out like a frightened child, it makes sense...”

“Are you really all right?” Ran asked, handing him his shoes.

“Not yet,” he said, “but I'm getting there. It might be easier to get my memories back now that I know what I'm looking for. It's just all... overwhelming...”

“I know,” Ran said, handing him his coat and picking up Kid's. “It was for me, when Ai-chan and Agasa-Hakase told me... Ai-chan's like you, you know. Shrunken.”

“Explains a lot about her,” he muttered. Ran giggled, smiling more naturally.

“It might help to talk to her,” Ran suggested. “And your parents. Although the woman who said she was your mother actually was your mother, in disguise... we'll go over and talk to them tomorrow, after school, all right?”

“All right,” he said, leaping down from the bench. “Heh, at least now I know to act like a little kid, I thought something was up... but when we're with people who know, I mean...” he gave her a sheepish smile. “Can you... call me Shinichi? It feels more... right. I might be able to remember stuff more easily.”

“Of course,” Ran said with a smile, taking his hand. Shinichi smiled back at her.

Ran picked up Kid's coat, planning to hang onto it until he presumably stole it back, when she frowned. “Is there something in the pocket?”

It was a little piece of card. Ran unfolded it, reading the message aloud.

I shall bypass the blind queen to take her false king awash with blood, before the circling ravens can strike.

Kaitou Kid

Then there was the demented but posh smiley face, like the one on the playing card.

“A heist notice!” Ran gasped. Almost before he realized it, Shinichi's brain was whirring, analyzing the note, staring up at the sky.

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Kaito idly whistled a Lupin III theme tune as he wandered down the dark streets. He was slightly weirded out, but what he'd said to Conan- no, Kudo- was true. A jewel crying tears of immortality was pretty much on a par with adults shrinking into little kids, although admittedly both were still so far off of even his weirdness scale that they had shot out of the top and were having a picnic on the moon.

Speaking of which, he wondered if the kid would figure out his riddle. After all, that powerful mind should still be intact even if the memories weren't; that powerful mind that had so easily caught him out two years ago, the very first time that he had been caught by that piercing glare, adult's eyes in a child's head; the first time that he'd come across that strange child whom he had always felt was so much more...

He hadn't meant to overhear Mori Ran talking to him, but he'd just thought he'd check in on the kid to see how his memory was doing, and seen Dr Ariade approach, heard about his collapsing, and he hadn't been able to tear himself away from perching by the window, listening in, praying that his mind wasn't falling apart completely. And then he'd heard...

“We really are alike,” he mused with a little half-smile. “Hiding behind our masks, lying to those whom we least want to hurt... But Mori... she forgave him just like that. Admittedly, she didn't utterly despise Edogawa Conan to start with, but he did hurt her, I've seen enough of them over the past couple of years to tell that. And she forgave him, because he was hurt too, and because... because she loves him.” He had seen that, too, on Boxing Day- “Come to that, how come he was full size then?”- when he and Aoko had run into the two; they had clearly been very close, and he'd seen their expressions when they looked at each other. He'd spent most of the time surreptitiously watching Kudo, after all.

The shrinking story, whatever the details behind it, made sense; and it said a lot for how Kaito's world had been for nearly three years now that something like that made perfect sense. But...

“The fact remains that he still doesn't really remember anything,” Kaito sighed, remembering Kudo's plea to talk. “There's nothing he can tell me, and there's little that I could tell him that he would understand. For now... When he gets his memory back, I'll know. And anyone else ready to talk... ought to be at the heist.”

He sighed heavily, tipping his head back to stare up at the sky. “I'm tired... I just want... to take off the mask...” he looked down again, his jaw clenching even though a cheeky smile was forming at the impending mayhem.

“Then let's get this over with.”

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“I thought you weren't going to leave Tokyo...”

“I'm sorry, I got so bored. Anyway, I thought I'd go back Gin up. After all, you know what his track record for silencing this kind of person is like...”

“That was a fluke. I trust him to do the job.”

“We still need to be careful, you know. We don't have anyone in their police any more, and the Tokyo Met seems set to go the same way... and if they catch our people there...”

“Schnapps is handling that.”

“Really? Well, he's playing a risky game...”

“He often does, but at this stage of the game I don't really care as long as his devil's luck holds out. Besides, some of Sake's people are backing him up.”

“Really? I suppose they don't have anything better to do, the Kuroba boy having slipped from the radar...”

“He'll be back soon, no doubt. That diamond that will return from Europe soon... it's a highly attractive proposition. Sake is already planning to acquire it, and given his track record, that makes it almost certain that he'll be there.”

“And given his track record, he'll no doubt slip us again.”

“Not this time. Sake's increasingly noticeable failures have finally caught widespread police attention, so he's going for broke. He's going to try and make it look like a lowlife Yakuza deal...”

“Finally, a plan within his intelligence.”

“I would prefer if you were in Tokyo on the heist. Sake knows that there will be... watchers for this heist. He knows the consequences for getting caught... he's carried them out more than once himself. Which means that he'll have contingency plans for the normal methods, such as snipers. So your particular brand of subtly duplicity will be... useful.”

“I understand,” she said, a little smile curving. “Not to worry. I'll always be there to keep an eye on things.”

“I know. It's where you go in between times that worries me.”

“Now, now,” she laughed. “Have you really anything to fear from me?”

“I have nothing to fear from anyone. You ought to know that.”

“So very well,” she replied, the smile turning sad. “Well, I'll be back soon, never to fear. Gin is so very efficient, after all.”

“Good.” Vermouth blew a little kiss into the phone before hanging up. She then redonned her helmet and booted her motorbike back to life.

“Hmmm... so there'll be a heist soon, eh?” she thought. “I wonder if my darling Silver Bullet will be there...”

“His own memories are confusing and frightening him...”

That had been one of the many times that she had been glad that she'd picked up more than disguise skills from Kuroba Toichi. She'd been utterly floored by the intimation that the boy's memories could return. She'd used Amnesial many times before, and no-one had ever remembered a thing, no matter how many prompts or triggers those around them had presented. More than one had simply gone completely Jon Doe, starting afresh, and had died never knowing who they really were.

But Kudo...

“I told him that story thinking that he'd never remember,” she mused. “I seem to have fallen into the comic supervillain trap... revealing my whole evil plan thinking that the hero will never get to tell it... but the hero always wins in the end. Even the antihero. Well, things will certainly get more interesting if he does remember everything. Will he know... will he realize... what to do about it? Or will he have to find...”

She thought of the only person whom she had ever told the story to. She did not strike up friendships easily, mainly through choice; there seemed little point. Fujimine Yukiko had been one of the rare exceptions; the sheer, bubbly force of the younger woman's friendly personality was strangely irresistible, even to a self-proclaimed hard-bitten, murdering bitch like Vermouth. Kuroba Toichi, too, had been an odd exception. Possibly it was because she'd put the crime on hiatus while studying Toichi's disguise skills, or maybe...

Even then, she had sensed...

But before then, there had been one other person. Vermouth often picked up kids with possibilities. She'd briefly entertained the thought of taking Kudo back to the Syndicate once his memories were wiped, but there were just so many levels on which it wouldn't work, not least the fact that, memories or no, he would never be a killer. He just couldn't, any more than he could be an elephant. But other kids, desperate kids, kids with a weaker or more easily redirected sense of justice... Vermouth took them in, fed them, clothed them, put a roof over their heads... and then taught them to kill. Most eventually grew suspicious of her, as Chianti was a prime example, as the absorbed the creed of the Syndicate... Anokata's creed. But this girl, Otoshi Hanako... she had remained eternally grateful to Vermouth, and Vermouth had been fond of the girl, in an odd way. She'd gone to her wedding, for Kami's sake. Hanako had been a skilled fighter, and had often asked to accompany Vermouth. And she'd had that odd little sentimentality of always closing her victims' eyes.

“I know I should just get off the scene as soon as they're dead, but I just like to do it. It looks like they're sleeping. There's nothing wrong with just laying them down to sleep. I bet they have the most fantastic dreams.”

In the end, it was dreams that had done it. Hanako had had another little oddity; her dreams. She saw things that would happen, warnings that she could pass on. And one night, she had seen that dream, and that was what had bound her and Vermouth together, indivisibly and eternally.

“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. That's why I figure; why not just help it happen?”

“I knew you'd say that! What can I do to help?”

“I'm sorry, Hanako-chan,” Vermouth thought with a bittersweet smile. “I'm sorry that you paid the price... but in the end, you and your husband never said a word, did you? You protected me... and your daughter's alive too, I know it. She knows. She knows the secrets that I shared with you. Thank you. I'm sorry that you paid for the dream, but I can still make it come true...”

That dream would come true, she had vowed over an empty prison cell. The dream of the red sun and the angels and the darkness...

And the silver bullet.

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It's because they're evil, Desperatembrace. They create evil cliffies... no, wait, I do that too. *evil grin* KIIIIIR! I don't like to be predictable. It's so much more fun when something happens that you never expected, eh? ^_- That was The Talk, part 1. And now to prepare for the heist...

I read it, Mel72000! Interesting idea... I thought it might be Bourbon, actually, since he seems to know who Conan is... it'll probably end up being neither XD

Poor Kogoro isn't going to be very happy, is he, Yuki Taiki? XD Eisuke, hmmm...?

I doubt Ran would let Kogoro kill Shinichi now that she's finally gotten him back, HikariPachi...

Fingers crossed, eh, KageNoNeko?

Round and round Mangaluva goes, where she stops, nobody knows... XD That could certainly be fun, International DCFanficNut 1207... She could probably smash it with a karate chop XD

Everyone seems surprised that I did it that way around, BobbyNeko... XD

I think that's your shortest review ever, Kayla Edogawa... XD

DON'T KILL KIR! I know, Kairi922, I just wanted to see Ran kick Gin in the head... he so deserves it... Kaito and Shinichi reall are alike, aren't they? And as for Heiji... hmm... *evil grin*

Yeah, part of the course is warning you that kids and adults alike are going to be pretty snotty, Marie Ravenclaw... actually, the teacher said that adult classes are even worse, because you get business execs who need to know the language for work and rule the roost in work. I just could not get interested in science... I daydreamed all the time and wrote fanfic in the back of my notebook XD If you read a lot, you can probably write... I've only been writing properly for a couple of years. Before that, I just read all the time... I did that for funsies. I realized that we hadn't really had any silliness from Kaito in a while... XD Kir! I don't want her to die... what would happen to Eisuke?

*fangirl-five for ObssessedConanFan* At least Conan's back on track now...

At least he came back, HaibaraDaiFan ^_- Don't freak out, you always say they'll be horrible and they never are! ^_- What's the address? I wanna see... and competitors have no right to attack you, it's not like it's any more legal for them than it is for you XD Love you too! *mwah*

Hola, FHP2208! She's certainly strange, isn't she? There ya go! ^_-

Nope, it's Kaito, JapaneseAnimeFreak16... The clock is ticking for Heiji! How would those around him take it, I wonder?

In the manga, A Midsummer Night's Dream, it's been stated that Kaito doesn't know, so I was going with that... but now...

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).