Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ When Pandora's Box Is Opened ❯ The Ghost Of You ( Chapter 69 )

Chapter Sixty-Nine

The Ghost Of You

Shinichi drifted back into consciousness, but kept his eyes closed. His head was throbbing, and even the light coming through his eyelids was aggravating it, so he didn't quite feel like making that any worse.

“There were gunshots,” he remembered, “then something... fell on my head...”

“He's in here...”

“Oh, Kami... is he all right?”

“Ran?” he realized, recognizing the voice. “Of course... if I was hurt, they'd call her.. I am so sick of waking up like this...”

“There was a bit of crossfire between the police and FBI and the criminals...”

“Kami above...”

“It's all right, he wasn't hit, but one shot knocked over a statuette sitting on top of the plinth that he was hiding behind and knocked him out... according to Nakamori-kun, Kid pulled him out of the way of any more fire by hiding him behind the barricade that they'd used to block the door to the stairway...”

“Oh, thank Kami... is it serious?”

“He hasn't woken up yet, but they don't think it was a hard knock, the CAT scan showed no serious damage...”

“I'm all right,” he muttered, opening his eyes to the now annoyingly familiar sight of Ran looking scared to death. “What happened?”

“I don't know, I just got here,” Ran said. “How's your head?”

“I've got a bit of a headache, but I'm okay otherwise...” Shinichi said, touching his head. “I remember... Tou-s... err, Yuusaku-ojisan called,” he corrected himself for the benefit of the officers hovering around the doorway. “He said a bunch of dead cops had been found dumped in the Teimuzu, uniforms stolen... so I realized that the Organization must have stolen their uniforms and used fake IDs...”

“Damn the bastards, but it worked,” Nakamori growled from the doorway. His right arm was in a sling, but he seemed as full of rage and energy than ever- more so, even, to Shinichi's complete lack of surprise. “That makes twenty officers dead, dammit, and six more injured, not including myself and Hakuba-kun... I don't know where the young idiot took off to, I think he was going to try to find Aoko...”

“Find her?” Shinichi asked with a frown. “Where did she go?”

“The bastard in the moustache knocked her out of the broken window,” Nakamori snarled. “He fell too, tussling over the damn diamond... damn thing turned out to be a fake anyway, Kami knows when the Kid took the real one...”

“She fell?” Ran gasped.

“She's all right, I think,” Nakamori sighed. “The crowd outside saw Kid catch her and fly off... the bastard fell, though. Thirty stories. Scraped him off the damn pavement...”

“So Aoko-chan's with Kid?” Ran asked, looking marginally relieved.

“She hasn't resurfaced yet, so presumably,” Nakamori said. “I am actually thankful for that... I... doubt he'd hurt her. She's probably safe enough with him.”

“So what happened to the Organization agents?” Shinichi asked.

“Well, there were twelve,” Nakamori said. “The dead one seems to have been the boss. All others are in custody- well, handcuffed to their hospital beds, anyway- except for three more who were killed in the shootout with us and that FBI agent… but we think at least two of those were down to a sniper.”

“Sniper?” Shinichi said in surprise. “A police sniper? Or FBI?”

“No, neither of us were using snipers,” Nakamori said with a frown, “and the strange thing is, aside from the three caught sneaking into the surrounding buildings earlier in the evening, nobody even tried to get into any of the buildings in the 650 yard protective radius. I mean, they could have shot from a building outside the radius, I suppose, but...”

“They'd have to be an incredible shot,” Shinichi said in surprise. “Well... whoever it was, at least they were on our side, right?”

“I suppose so,” Nakamori mused, “But still... it worries me. In any case, none of the eight survivors have said a word... we're still interrogating, though...”

“Some of them are talking,” Jodie said, striding into the room. “They don't know a huge amount, but one's been in their version of the Kid Task Force for fifteen years, he'll have something useful to say if anybody does...”

“How on earth did you get them to talk?” Nakamori said in surprise. Jodie shrugged.

“I just told them that if they didn't want to talk to the Japanese cops,” she explained, “then I'd put them in FBI custody and then we'd interrogate them like we do in the States.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment, thinking of what came naturally at that suggestion, before Shinichi finally said tentatively, “so... how do you interrogate people in the States?”

Jodie shrugged. “In English.”

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“How'd you get that guy to treat me?” Kaito asked, luxuriating in the guest bed. After nearly a month of sleeping sporadically either on a motorbike or in a cigarette-burned motel bed, this was heaven.

“We told him you were Shinichi,” Yuusaku said with a shrug. “He's a friend of Jodie-kun's, he'll drop Aoko-kun off at home and keep his mouth shut. He had a bad run-in with Vermouth once himself, after all.”

“Ah...” Dr Ariade had wrapped up Kaito's ribs. Thankfully, the fractures were lighter than they felt, and only two were in fact fractured at all- “You've got a surprising amount of scar tissue, Kudo-kun, so no doubt that helped cushion the blows; that, and as far as I can tell you must be made at least partly of rubber-” so as long as he stayed in bed for a couple of weeks and took it easy for a couple more, he ought to be fine. Kaito figured he could chance moving a little sooner, so long as he was careful- After all, he healed fast, and in any case he'd have to retrieve the real diamond and check it out. Then he'd cleaned up Aoko's leg, and Yukiko had pressed her to go home before her father worried himself to death, insisting that she could come over and she and Kaito could talk tomorrow. Kaito had agreed, partly because Aoko really did look exhausted by the night's activities, and partly because he really, really needed to talk to Kudo Yuusaku.

“I need to apologize to you, Kaito-kun,” he said to Kaito's surprise and not a little suspicion, considering what had happened the last time that he'd heard something like that. “Truth be told, I knew you were the Kaitou Kid from the first instant. I realized that you must have taken over Toichi-kun's legacy... If I had contacted you sooner about this, told you about the Syndicate, perhaps you wouldn't have tried to use yourself as bait... and wouldn't have come to so much harm. But you didn't seem to have crossed paths with the Syndicate at all, so I said nothing, thinking that you knew nothing, thinking that as long as you knew nothing, you'd be safe...”

“Wait...” Kaito said in surprise. “The whole time... you knew? Not only about me, but about the Syndicate?! How... how long have you known?”

“Over fifteen years,” Yuusaku said softly. “That's how long I've been working with Toichi-kun against the Syndicate.”

“What- fifteen- how-?!” Kaito sputtered, questions overloading. Yuusaku held up a hand to silence him, then, to Kaito's further confusion, set a cassette player on the bedside table.

“Perhaps Toichi-kun ought to explain,” Yuusaku said quietly. “Did you ever hear the full content of your father's tape?”

“Well, no,” Kaito admitted. “It had been tangled and degraded, I couldn't hear more than the first few words...”

“The tape survived the fire,” Yuusaku explained, “protected by the sheer size of the old cassette player that Toichi-kun left it in... ah, clunky old technology. In any case, I retrieved and restored it... I think it's about time you heard it all.” He stood. “I'll be back in an hour, it ought to be done by then... I think you need to listen to it on your own, though there's little in there that he didn't tell me, I'll wager. In any case... I'll leave you two alone.” He left, and Kaito stared silently at the player for a moment. Then, slowly, careful not to shift his sore ribs, he pressed play.

“Hello, Kaito. It's been a while. If you're hearing this, then there's something you need to know about my identity that I'm not alive to tell. To put it bluntly, I am the Kaitou Kid. No tricks... you'll find evidence enough in this room. I guess I should explain why. I owe you, above all others, the truth- including the truth that I've only ever told one other living person, the only person who's implicated in the same way that I am.

“It started a couple of years before you were born, not long before I first met Minami. I was in Paris, and I ran into an old friend and student of mine in college, Sharon Vineyard. She was one of the people I had worked with while running the drama club there, one of the only two people aside from you that I'd taught my father's disguise secrets to. She'd become an actress in the meantime, and a rousing success at that, having just starred in her first movie. She put it all down to my tutelage, and had done so publicly, which I suppose is why my magic shows had grown so popular so fast. We went out for a few drinks- possibly a few too many, as I ended up entering into a drunken rant about how lax the security at the Louvre had been when I was there. A woman's purse had been stolen and the thief would have gotten away if I hadn't stopped him at the door- there really was very little security back then. I'm sure I ended up sounding rather like Ginzo-kun. In any case, by the end of it Sharon had made a wager with me- that any mere charlatan could waltz in and take the Mona Lisa herself. By the time I had sobered enough to carry out the bet, I was starting to have misgivings, but rising career notwithstanding I did need money and in any case, I intended to return the painting- and hopefully, the theft would drive them to update the security. Thus, I suppose, the Kaitou Kid was born.

“Well, as you can imagine, it went off perfectly. I stole the painting, I returned it, I messed with the gendarme in the process... all in good, harmless fun, of course. Except I had an odd encounter with Sharon in between. When she came to pay up, she said a number of odd things... well, the gist of it was that she had been intending to turn me into a thief for some time- that she worked with criminals who were always on the lookout for new talents. On top of it all, it seemed that her disguise and acting skills- skills that I had taught her- were an invaluable asset to them.

“I refused, of course, insisting on returning the painting. She left in a huff but without too much of a fuss. But I heard her talking to someone as she left, talking about hitting a place in Prague. I felt torn. Knowingly or not, I had helped these criminals- and they had hoped for me to be one of them. But on the other hand, the theft I had pulled at the Louvre really had been a huge detriment to them- the man Sharon had been talking to had mentioned that thanks to the ramped-up security, their loyal people had been unable to steal something. I felt that I could not let these thefts- and possibly worse, as Sharon had implied, she had said that “he will not work for murderers”- go to plan. I could not let them happen. So I decided to go again. Once again, I got dressed up- and this time I added the hanglider to escape from the high building. I liked it so much that I kept it, as you've probably discovered. Once again, I stole and returned... and their plans were waylaid because of it.

“During my travels, I met and fell in love with Minami; she was the first person, aside from Jii-san, who knew about Kid. Jii-san had been there from the start; we had been dear friends ever since his highly enjoyable chemistry labs in college, and he had happily helped me plan heists once he knew my motivation. I was terrified, I must admit; I wasn't quite certain how she'd feel about an international criminal. But I'm sure you can guess the punchline; she felt that what I was doing wasn't wrong, relative to the people I was against, and her only worry was that soon they'd consider me enough of a nuisance to get rid of me. Her fears, as I'm sure you can tell, were not unfounded.

“Then, of course, in Rome, we had you, though we registered you as a Japanese citizen, since we were just passing through as entertainers. I started slowing down on heists, was even thinking of quitting- until, quite by chance, when you had just turned one, I ran into Sharon on my way out of a heist. She didn't see me- she was talking to Snake. He was asking her about a hit on a target that they weren't sure existed yet.

“The crux of it was, They had heard of some kind of dream- a prophecy a child who would be a danger to the Syndicate. Snake said that if he was located, he was to be killed, and asked Sharon to describe him. She said she could not, but as she did so I remembered a picture that she had drawn a long time ago, in college- on that she'd shown to me, showing two children that she'd heard about in a story, a little girl and a little boy. When I thought about it, I could still remember their faces.

“Then I realized. The little boy that I'd seen in a drawing five years before, the little boy that they wanted dead- it was you.”

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Yuusaku sat in the library, thinking about Kaito listening to his father's voice on the floor above. He still remembered that day, fifteen years ago, when Toichi had told him the story, his voice terse and urgent as he explained that he had unknowingly seen his own child's face nearly five years before the boy's birth. That his son, he'd thought for a long time, was the “Silver Bullet” of which Sharon had spoken- the boy who was the greatest danger to the Syndicate, the one fated to destroy them and the Pandora. Yuusaku hadn't been quite certain before if he'd believed in fate and destiny, but then again he hadn't believed in immortality either. But it had been strange that Sharon had drawn Kaito's face so long before he was even born.

It was strange that he and Shinichi, who were not even distantly related, could well have been twins.

That was why Toichi had done it- having seen deep into the dark underbelly of their world of theft and murder, he had been desperate to find and destroy the Pandora before Kaito had gotten mixed up in it all. He had been so afraid for his son- and then he'd realized that Kaito wasn't the only one in danger.

Kaito and Shinichi were so alike- too much alike. They'd met once, aged three, and then Toichi and Yuusaku had agreed that perhaps it was better that the boys didn't grow up together. There was just something strange about how, after five minutes knowing each other, they'd been able to finish each other's sentences, known what the other was thinking, sometimes even spoken in unison.

They were too alike. Which meant that Toichi and Yuusaku had no way of knowing which was the “Silver Bullet”- the one destined to delve into a world of intrigue and death, to face down the most dangerous criminal organization in the history of man. By the time Toichi had finished his story, Yuusaku had looked as his tiny son, and suddenly understood exactly why Toichi did what he did.

He knew that fear. Fate be damned, he couldn't let his son get into that kind of danger...

From that moment, an odd friendship and union had been made- an alliance of the detective and the thief, the classical antithesis united by the need to protect their sons. They had planned heists together, Yuusaku capable of controlling police presence and get access to police records and use his influence to access data that might be about the Syndicate or the Pandora. But no matter where they looked, they could find nothing on the jewel. They only had what Snake had told Toichi on the night that, not knowing that Toichi had already rejected an invite to join once, he had attempted to hire Toichi to locate and acquire the Pandora for them. Toichi had turned him down- and that's when the sniper attacks had begun. And in the end...

“But I guess the world didn't like our interference, huh?” he thought sadly. “Was it mere coincidence that Jii-san only got the idea of dressing up as the Kid to draw out your murderers after Kaito was old enough to take up the mantle? It certainly can't be a coincidence, the number of bodies that Shinichi runs into... we tried to protect them, but in the end it was drawn to them, like a magnet. Death and disaster is drawn to them... because they can handle it. Because they can see justice done. Even when Sharon tried to make Shinichi forget who he was, what he was... she couldn't. And the thing is... they are doing it. And they're not doing it alone, either. People who can and will destroy the Syndicate are also drawn to them. They're the cores around which the Syndicate's enemies form, bringing them together into something that will finish them. In the end, they may not have to do a thing... what they begun cannot be stopped. Not now.

“We feared that it would be one or the other, Toichi-kun, but perhaps... it's both.”

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Don't worry, FaithlessGirl, he'll be fine XD

That was the discussion Mel72000… like the one between Shinichi and Kaito, it's “to be continued”…. XD dou itashimashite!

You almost did, I actually did, A Midsummer Night's Dream… can you believe that all of this evolved out of a form of that one scene? It was a very important and emotional scene for me to write… T_T

I'm skill enough to trip over flat surfaces, Kayla Edogawa, never mind moving ones… XDXD that's one of my favourites too. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” XD Shinichi and Aoko will both get their chances to talk to talk to Kaito (he's in high demand, isn't he? XD) I might chibify Heiji and Saguru someday… I just love pics of the chibis. KAWAIIIII! XD I don't think anyone can guess what Aoyama-sensei's thinking… XDXD But of course I'm updating daily now! ^_-

Who doesn't love Kaito, FHP2208? ^_- Hakuba's a good friend to Kaito and Aoko…

Aoko's not listening in, HikariPachi, she went home… she'll get her chance to talk to Kaito… Heiji and Kazuha, hmm? *plots*

I hate running myself, Marie Ravenclaw… have fun! XD Hakuba got just what he was intending… sweet of him to try to bring them together in his own way… and it worked! :D

I missed my Kaito, KageNoNeko… XD Here's a very big piece of the puzzle, but I worry about it as it's where I start dragging in the mystical weirdness… XD

I loved writing that fluff, MyMelo, since I haven't written any for a while… and Kaito-Aoko fluff too ^_^

Really, Pretztailfan95? I was rather proud of it… T_T Rosebud? *has not seen a movie mentioning sleds named Rosebud* I haven't seen that movie since I was about nine or so, give me a break… T_T Snake is… already dead. He fell from the building, remember? Everybody loves a mop-chase XD

… guess what, International DCFanficNut 1207? So did I ^_^

It was important that somebody turn into a kid, Ebil Stasia, so I chose Heiji… because who doesn't love our detective of the West? XDXD

Fluff overload, bobbyneko… just for Kaito and Aoko ^_^

You seem to have a whole pack of them, JapaneseAnimeFreak16! XD I'm so proud of how Hakuba's come along… ^_^ I just visualized everybody as chibis in one of those Japanese doll sets… XDXD he's alive, and unfortunately, contrary to cartoon belief, further head trauma does not cause memories to return… ^_^;

I love randomly sticking in Yuusaku, Desperatembrace… he's fun to write XD

XD ah, I'm so proud of how Hakuba's come along, Kairi922… XD Happiness shall reign until… something else happens XD Much as I wish I could just write endless Kaito and Aoko, yes, there are OTHERS… XD There's more fluff to come, of course… (chu-chan be bringin' da chus! XD ♥) I think I'd like to go to Hawaii someday… get all those licences that Shinichi has for… everything… XDXD

I cried writing it, DiGi… ^_^* My spellchecker keeps randomly oscillating between American and British dictionaries, which makes it fun handing in typed essays because if words like “colour” appear more than once they'll be spelt differently each time… -_- Saguru's getting a lot of love now :D

That was pretty much how the character design for Shinichi and Ran happened, PlayingThePiano… XD (who are you talking to? The voices? XD) I dunno how it's Romanized, but it's called “The Seven Roads of Kyoto”… dunno what it is in Japanese. But it's a real song, it's taught to children to remember the seven main east-west roads in Kyoto… I think he was about seven at the time. They grow up so fast XD

XD I'm not sure Saguru or Kaito will ever outright thank one another, Sharishima, they'll just keep helping each other out… which is nice that they're properly friends now ^_^ That is, more or less, what Yuusaku was up to… I really don't know how this chapter is going to come off…

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).