Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ When Pandora's Box Is Opened ❯ Loss ( Chapter 62 )

Chapter Sixty-Two

Loss

“I'm sorry.”

Saguru jerked, whipping around to see the figure sitting on the sill of his bedroom window. Perhaps it was testimony to their relationship, both professional and personal, that Kuroba wasn't wearing his Kid regalia. He was wearing the Ace of Spades hoodie and jeans with a dark blue baseball cap pulled down low over his face, his expression hidden. Saguru tried to compose himself too, but it was difficult. He'd barely known his father, but he was his father- and he had been murdered by the very people that he'd been helping Saguru to stop.

“You heard?” he said gruffly.

“I was there, sort of,” Kuroba said in a flat, low voice. “I was stalking that sniper... I tried to stop him, to grab the gun off him, but when I did he took the cyanide capsule... and your father was shot.”

“You tried to stop the sniper, but you were too late...” Hakuba said, feeling an odd mix of anger at Kuroba for being too late and admiration for even trying. “You were the one they saw wrestling with the sniper in the bathroom...”

“Yeah, and I caught a couple of bullets for it too,” Kuroba sighed, pulling out a little plastic bag with two sniper bullets in it. “Lucky the padding I was wearing for my disguise was so thick.”

“Wait... two bullets?” Saguru said. “I thought they only found three spent shells in the bathroom... and two sniper shots hit my father's office. One smashed a glass-”

“Because his aim was rather put off by me having my hands around the barrel of the rifle,” Kuroba said darkly. “It wasn't that I was too late... I just went after the wrong person.”

“What?” Saguru said sharply.

“Listen,” Kuroba said urgently. “The guy fired three shots. Two ended up buried in the padding I was using to look like a much fatter guy. One went through your father's window, smashing a glass. That was why your father and the deputy returned fire, right? But then your father ended up with a bullet in his brain that wasn't fired by a sniper. If that first shot had hit your father and one of the volley of return fire had smashed the glass, how could your father have returned fire? But his fingerprints are on his gun, there's gunpowder all over him and his bullets outside of the window.”

“So the sniper hit the glass, Chichi-ue and Yamashiro-san returned fire...” Saguru summarised with a frown, brain whirring. “But I don't get it. Forensics said that it was a sniper bullet...”

“The forensics officer that examined your father's body was one of Them, Hakuba,” Kuroba said. “This is the bullet that killed your father.” he pulled out another bag, this time with a single bullet.

“How did you-?!” Saguru said in surprise.

“Please forgive me for breaking in to where your father's body was stored, but I had to remove vital evidence before They destroyed it...” Kuroba said, bowing his head and tossing the bag to Saguru. “If you take it to a real forensics officer, they will find your father's blood and, eh... other substances on it. They will also find that this bullet is not from a sniper rifle. It is from a government-issue service pistol.”

“A...” Saguru's jaw dropped as he realized. “Yamashiro!”

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“Congratulations, Schnapps,” Vermouth said, tipping a glass to the man.

“The mission was a success,” Schnapps chuckled. “I hadn't expected the sniper to be taken out, but at least he had the prescience to silence himself...”

“And then you made an admirable field decision,” Vermouth said with a smile. “You even sent the body to one of our people for forensic examination... I knew you had brains, Schnapps.”

“And now, I'm one of the most powerful men in the Tokyo Met,” Schnapps said proudly, raising his own glass, “in a position of almost unparalleled trust and influence. I don't know why we didn't do this sooner.”

“It was unnecessary,” Vermouth said, sipping her drink. “After all, that old fool trusted you, so you as good as had his power and influence, and such a high-level investigation would have been... problematic. But now... it was necessary.”

“Too bad we can't take out lesser officers as well,” Schnapps growled. “What are Sake's people up to? They can't even kill three officers... they haven't even tried yet for one...”

“Sato and Takagi are rare officers, it'll take more than an anonymous sniper to stop them,” Vermouth sighed. “As for Nakamori... well, what with Sake's plans for the next heist, there's bound to be a bit of crossfire, and wouldn't it just be too tragic if he got caught up in that? How poignant to die as he lived... eating Kid's dirt.”

“His grave dirt,” Schnapps growled. “Sake's getting too noticed, so next time... either Kid dies, or he does...”

“This is not a time for subtlety,” Vermouth said, standing up and swaying towards the door. “Sake's mission is very important, and its time is running out...”

“And yet almost no-one knows what it is,” Schnapps muttered irritably. “Well, what are you up to?”

“Places to go, people to meet,” she said, waving her hand airily as she stepped out of the door. “Good luck... Superintendant.”

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“Kami above... one of Them is in charge of the Tokyo Met...” Saguru gasped, staring at the bullet in the bag.

“And he's already closed the investigation,” Kuroba said.

“I know,” Saguru said quietly. “Chichi-ue's funeral is the day after tomorrow. State funeral for such an outstanding civil servant, of course... but with this evidence...”

“It would only work going to the Commissioner General, he's the only one with enough power to arrest Yamashiro,” Kuroba said.

“Then that's what I'll do... Kuroba...” Saguru said quietly, “This... reminds you of your father's death, doesn't it?”

Kuroba remained expressionless, but quietly he said, “I couldn't bring the truth of my father's death to light... I don't intend to fail again.”

“Thank you,” Saguru said quietly. Kuroba nodded, then turned and slipped out of the window.

“Kuroba, WAIT!” Saguru yelled, running to the window, but he was already gone.

Saguru stared down at the two little bags, feeling... grief, and odd sense of loss for a man he'd barely even known. How bad must Kuroba's pain have been?

Well, no more. Not ever. For the first time in longer than he'd care to remember, Hakuba Saguru was angry.

“Like you said, Kuroba...” he said quietly, reaching for his phone, “the truth will prevail.”

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“Is that true? Kami... no, I can be there. Yes, of course. All right. Sayonara.”

“Whassup, Oyaji?” Heiji asked, trying not to itch as Kazuha cut tags off of the clothes that her mother had bought for him. His mother and Kazuha wouldn't leave him alone, hovering around him worriedly as if the next time that they took their eyes off of him he'd vanish entirely. A warrant had gone out for the two men, whom Kazuha and Heiji had both described, but officially only Kazuha had been found. The men hadn't, the bastards. The blizzard had died down and the roads had been cleared, so Heizo was trying to find some excuse to go to Tokyo while he was supposedly heading a manhunt for his son in Osaka- he wouldn't trust the task of looking after Heiji and an insistent Kazuha to anyone else.

“Looks like we have that pretext to go to Tokyo,” he said quietly. “Superintendant Hakuba's dead and I've been invited to the funeral.”

“What?!”Heiji yelped, shooting to his feet. “Dead?!”

“Officially, it's a sniper shot,” Heizo said. “But Hakuba-kun... Hakuba Saguru-kun, obviously... implied that there was more to it... I'll be able to get more details when I get to Tokyo, but... Well, I promised to start driving out tomorrow morning. There's a review that I have to attend then, to determine precisely what happened. I said I'll be coming alone, but I'll take you two with me and drop you off where you need to be on the way. Will that work?”

“Perfectly,” Heiji croaked. “Holy hell... geez, I wonder how Hakuba's doin'...”

“I think you'll both have some surprises for each other tomorrow,” Kazuha said dryly.

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“Nnnnn...” Wataru winced in pain as he drifted back to consciousness. “Okay, that hurts... but pain means alive, so that's all good...” he opened his eyes, staring around a little muzzily at the hospital room.

“Oh, thank Kami you're awake,” he heard Sato's voice say. He glanced over to see the not unpleasant sight of her sitting by his bedside, whole and unwounded. “Are you all right?” she asked worriedly.

“I'm fine, I'm alive,” he muttered. “You?”

“They didn't get a single hit on me, thanks to you,” she said with a teary smile. “But your right shoulder and gut both have holes, and you have a few more scrapes... nothing fatal, but...”

Wataru glanced over and groaned. “They put me in Shiratori's room?”

“It's two or three beds to a room, and they probably thought you'd like to be with a familiar face,” Sato chuckled. “He's out a lot of the time, though... he's got no energy after having his stomach scraped empty, and all of his food's in IV form for a while, until the poison's worn off. He's been awake long enough for us to give him the gist of the situation... he wants to help, once he's out of bed.”

“I do feel kinda bad that he was poisoned by what was meant for us...” Wataru muttered guiltily. “We're lucky it was just a drop... enough to save him. Kami, if he'd taken so much as a full sip...”

“He got lucky,” Sato sighed, “and so did you. But...” she looked away.

“What happened?” Wataru asked, suddenly fearful. Sato wasn't normally the type to run from bad news. “Sato-san? What happened when I was out?”

“Superintendant Hakuba,” she said, more than a slight trace of anger in her voice. “He's dead. A sniper got him- probably a pal of the guy who shot you. Our sniper escaped, the guy who got Superintendant Hakuba took a cyanide pill. We've got no leads, just an unidentified dead body...”

“Dammit,” Wataru hissed, fisting his hands, wincing as his right hand twinged. “So what's happening now?”

“Well, they're not getting at you in here, I can promise that,” a woman's voice said. Takagi glanced over at the doorway as Sato stood up defensively.

“Jodie Saintemillion, right?” Wataru said in surprise. “Ran-kun's English teacher?”

“And FBI, remember?” Jodie said, closing the door behind her. “I told you I was on break from working in the FBI, but that's not strictly true. The organization that you're dealing with is an incredibly dangerous one, one that we've been hunting for some decades. For a couple of years now, we've been focusing our investigation on Japan because we believe their boss to be based here. But we've been keeping the investigation quiet to avoid attention from the Japanese police... and their people in it. I've been talking to Hakuba-kun... I assume you two have as well?”

“Yeah,” Wataru said. “He was the first one to warn us about the kind of trouble we might get into by investigating Conan-kun's case... and the Kuroba case. We don't know how it's connected, but...”

“They want Conan-kun and the Kuroba boy dead,” Jodie said, “among many, many, many other people. But we need people in the police just like they do, and since you two are definitely clean...”

“Nakamori-keibu and Megure-keibu as well,” Sato said. “And Shiratori-kun.” She gestured to the pale, sleeping Shiratori.

“Yumi and Chiba, too,” Wataru said, “though let's try not to get them involved...”

“No, not unless absolutely necessary,” Jodie agreed. “We're trying to keep this as minimal an operation as possible. But there's tons of them been caught in about two dozen prefectures now, and many more have vanished entirely. What Hattori-kun started is a wave that's got them scared and running. I have little doubt that they'll regroup eventually, but they'll have to start from square one for police influence, that ought to set them back... I'll need to talk to you and see what you've got.”

“Go over to Hakuba-kun's some time,” Sato said. “He's got all the data stored... they must have thought it was his father's work. That's why...” she stopped, her voice sounding a little choked.

“Right,” Jodie said. “Anyway, the FBI are keeping an eye on you. We're keeping an eye on the hospital anyway, since the Kuroba boy's mother is still comatose on the floor above. You're safe here, until you heal. Until then... I'm going to go talk to Hakuba-kun. The FBI needs to coordinate our efforts with the police. That way, we've got a good chance to deal them a major blow... heh,” she chuckled, giving a sad little smile.

“What's so funny?” Wataru asked, confused.

“It's just... they've already dealt us a major blow as well,” she said softly. “It's taking dozens of us to devise a plan that'll hurt these people... dozens of us to do what Cool Kid did all on his own...”

“You mean Conan-kun?” Sato said in surprise. “He...”

“That mind of his has hurt them before, driven them into corners,” Jodie said, almost proudly. “That's why they took his memories. I don't know who or what he is... but it's incredible, whatever it is.”

“Yeah,” Sato said, “Conan-kun... he really is incredible.”

“I'd better get going,” Jodie said. “I've got another investigation to look into... watch your back, Sato-keiji.” With that, she left.

“So Conan-kun really has been working with the FBI...” Wataru said.

“He's more than a kid, that's for sure,” Sato agreed. “I just hope he'll be all right... Ran-chan said that his memories were starting to return...”

“I just hope They don't come back for him before they do,” Wataru said worriedly.

“Yeah...” Sato said thoughtfully. “I'll keep an eye on him.”

“Be careful,” Wataru said, taking her hand. “I mean... I wouldn't want to get so banged up for nothing, after all...”

“Don't worry, I won't put your valiant efforts to waste,” Sato giggled, leaning over to kiss him on the forehead. “I am glad you're all right, though. I thought my heart would stop when you collapsed...”

“Sorry, Sato-san,” Wataru sighed.

“You know... you could just call me Miwako,” Sato said, squeezing his hand. “Considering how often you've saved me... not always from crazy killers. So... I'd like you to call me by my name, you know... Wataru.”

Wataru could feel himself heating up, but he couldn't help smiling as he squeezed her hand back. “Okay, then. Please, be safe... M-Miwako.”

This time she kissed him on the lips.

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Two chapters today, because document manager was down on Sunday T_T death and fluff! XD