Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ When Pandora's Box Is Opened ❯ Devil's Hour ( Chapter 70 )

Chapter Seventy

Devil's Hour

Kaito lay awake, staring at the ceiling for hours, long after his father's voice had fallen silent, thinking over what he'd heard.

Even if Kid had never happened, even if Toichi was still alive... he'd still be a target for the Syndicate. He would have become one the moment they saw his face.

So was Kudo Shinichi. They were both marked by whatever genetic accident had made them doppelgangers; both trapped in some bogus dance of fate with the Syndicate. Neither can live while the other survives. Might as well throw in Gin being their father and be done with it.

Kaito's feelings on the reality of magic were mixed after meeting Akako, but his feelings on fate and destiny were not. He didn't believe in them, and didn't even like the concept. It seemed like a cop-out to him, as if people were too afraid to take responsibility for their own lives-and any mistakes made therein. They could say “it's not my fault, it was Fate.” Kaito didn't believe in that. If he screwed up, it was damn well his fault, and rather than whining about the Fates being cruel he'd rather think on his feet and fix the situation. Snake's death hadn't been destiny, just an incautious bastard getting what was coming to him.

Destiny was what you made of it. It wasn't Destiny that had made him the Kaitou Kid. It had been his father's choices, and his choices, and he knew damn well that any pain or problems that had resulted- he had seen them coming, and made his choice. He wasn't going to whine about destiny giving him a bum hand, not when he'd stacked the deck.

He didn't think it was any sort of fate or destiny that had brought him face-to-face with Kudo Shinichi, either, any more than he thought fate had brought him face-to-face with Hakuba Saguru. They were the best, dammit, of course they'd meet sooner or later. And once they met, once Kid had escaped, they'd keep meeting, wouldn't they? It was only natural for the hunter to become fascinated with an elusive prey.

So what if some weird chick had had a dream with his and Kudo's matching face in it? He looked like Toichi had when he was young, and Yuusaku resembled him as well. They could well have just been talking about their fathers, a similar genetic fluke leading them to look like brothers. It wasn't fate that had brought him and Kudo across the Syndicate. It was people's belief in fate and their decisions, conscious or unconscious, to make it happen.

He wasn't after the Syndicated because it was his “destiny”, either. He was doing it because the bastards had killed his father, plain and simple. Good ol' revenge, just like Batman. Hakuba hadn't been too far off the mark with that comparison.

The Syndicate had forged the Silver Bullets in the flames of their own fear. Unwittingly brining the prophecy to pass in their attempt to avoid it.

Baka.

Still, the tape had been a shattering thing. His father's purpose in becoming Kid... he'd been trying to stop the Syndicate long before Kaito was even born. First to satisfy his own misplaced guilt at teaching one of their assassins some invaluable skills and then... to protect him.

He died because-

“Kaito-kun?” Yuusaku said, stepping back into the room. “Any surprises?”

“Not really,” Kaito said softly. “I don't really believe in fate and all that junk. The only reason that we're in danger from the Syndicate is that they do. All that was surprising was that to realize that the whole time, the real reason Tou-san did it all...”

“He wanted to protect you,” Yuusaku said. “By the time he realized that you were in danger from Them, he'd realized the worldwide influence that They held... and how deeply They believed in the “prophecy” that made you and Shinichi dangers. He couldn't just ignore it and pray that you'd never cross paths, because They were doing precisely the opposite. So he met “fate” head-on. He made himself a nuisance and let them see his face in the hope that They'd think it was him. Same with me...”

“He let Them see his face?!” Kaito said in shock. “They knew who he was from the start?!”

“They knew his face, They just didn't know he was Kuroba Toichi,” Yuusaku corrected. “Assassins do not spend much time at magic shows. They knew who I was, They just didn't know that I was deliberately making myself a nuisance or that I even knew that they existed. The end result was that They thought They'd found their “Silver Bullet”... Toichi-kun. The Kaitou Kid. They devoted a lot of time and resources to killing the Kid, completely overlooking two defenceless little boys. I didn't really believe in fate either, just coincidence... we thought that since They believed so deeply in the prophecy, They might as well have a target that could fight back... a target they'd have a hard time killing.”

“Who made that prophecy anyway?” Kaito said. “Bogus dreams...”

“It seems the Organization's head heard the prophecy from some deeply trusted source,” Yuusaku said. “And nobody goes against their leader's word. They do believe that you and Shinichi are a danger...”

“And that only led them to make us into dangers,” Kaito snorted. “Baka.”

“I don't imagine it has any bearing on the situation as it is now,” Yuusaku said. “I just thought you deserved to know why all of this happened to you.”

“Yeah...” Kaito said. Yuusaku stood to leave. “But then... he died because...”

Yuusaku glanced back at Kaito's whispered fear. “He didn't die because of you, Kaito-kun,” Yuusaku said softly. “If you believe that, then you believe in fate and destiny... you believe that all of this is out of your hands. He died because of the Syndicate. If anything, he died for you... and as a parent myself, I can't imagine anything better to die for. Don't go feeling helpless or as if you're to blame, Kaito-kun. The situation is not out of your hands. The situation is never out of the Kaitou Kid's hands. Always in control, always full of surprises... is that not the Kaitou Kid?”

“Yeah,” Kaito said with a smirk. “I don't like to blame fate. If you want a job done right, do it yourself.”

“Toichi-kun lives again,” Yuusaku chuckled. “Just remember... he loved you very much. If there's anything left you could do for him, it's not to join him yet. Try not to get reckless again. The game is going to get ever more dangerous... and he wouldn't want you to die.”

“Yeah, why negate his hard work?” Kaito laughed. “By the way... the diamond...”

“I was wondering what you did with the real one,” Yuusaku said, arching an eyebrow.

“Nicked off with it during Kudo Shinichi's periodic comings and goings,” Kaito said with a shrug.

“So often, with such a flashy thief, is the possibility of old-fashioned cat burglary forgotten...”

“It's in a locker at Tropical Land,” Kaito said. “Jii-chan's got the key somewhere. As low-tech as security gets, huh?”

“I'll go talk to him tomorrow,” Yuusaku said with a nod. “Shinichi wants to try a drug trial soon, try a day in his real body... I'd rather get the Syndicate out of the way first, if they see him... he and Ran-kun are going to a few familiar places to try and jog his memory.”

“Yeah... “jog his memory”,” Kaito sniggered. Yuusaku rolled his eyes.

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Saguru sat up late, researching Kudo Shinichi. It was probably the displacement that Aoko had referred to; deflecting his mind from the vast amounts of death in the past few days, from the “Kid-heist-turned-massacre” that he'd heard journalists arguing over a snappier name for to the more personal loss of his father's death. His mother was around somewhere, but as far as Saguru could tell she'd only dropped by the house as long as it took to reconfigure her makeup and don a new black dress. The longest he'd seen her was at his father's funeral, and even then he'd spent more time with Hattori's father than her.

Possibly how bizarre the prospect of an adult turning into a child was would hit him later, once he'd gotten down to sifting what had to be a massive emotional backlog, or maybe he'd been telling the truth when he'd said that prolonged exposure to Kuroba and Akako had desensitised him to bizarre. But Edogawa Conan being Kudo Shinichi did actually make sense. He was far from a normal kid, Saguru had known from the first time he'd met him. Not the fact that a man falling dead at the dinner table didn't make him bat an eye- he followed a detective that was gaining a reputation as a Shinigami around, after all. Not the little show he'd put on for the old lady to try to get her to reveal an escape route- it had just been a show, after all... or so he'd thought at the time. It had been the speed of his response to Kid. He'd popped up the lid of his watch- which Saguru hadn't neglected to notice had crosshairs on it- and had it trained on “Mori Kogoro” just before the old lady had jumped out of the helicopter. He'd already noticed Kid and was about to take him out in a way that wouldn't alert Kid to the fact that he was about to get his ass handed to him.

Plus, that he even had a watch shooting what had transpired last night to be tranquilizers was not normal. They're not exactly sold at Toys R Us, after all. For whatever reason, the boy had gone to the trouble of procuring or creating something that may well have been invented by Q, and it was the whatever reason that caught Saguru's thoughts, particularly after he next saw the boy in action.

Edogawa Conan was sharp. He was calm and composed under pressure, even when bodies were raining down. Saguru would quietly admit that at the false Tantei Koshien, he had been way off the mark, allowing his predisposition to suspect thieves to cloud his judgement. Hattori had been off too, at first, he would more freely admit. He'd picked up rapidly on what the boy was trying to say as Saguru had, he was sure, but that was just it; Edogawa Conan had proven himself to be a sharper detective that others nearly three times his age. It actually made sense to find out that, technically, they weren't.

And now, apparently, Hattori Heiji had gone the same way. Saguru decided that he ought to go visit the Kudo's again sometime. He could use a good laugh. Not much made him laugh these days, but he figured that the sight of Hattori in a onesie ought to do it.

Kudo had come up against Kid once before shrinking, he'd found. He'd come incredibly close to catching him, as well, but then he'd escaped. That was the clock tower heist. To this day, the clock tower remained, as the police never did figure out the code.

When Kudo had been asked about the code, all he'd said was “Maybe he's not that bad.”

“That's because...” there was a picture of the code as well. Saguru stared at it for a couple of minutes before laughing softly.

“Even when he's being Kid, he's protecting her, huh?” Saguru chuckled, remembering Akako talking about how upset Aoko had been about the clock's impending destruction. He remembered Aoko running away from him, hopefully back to Kaito.

“I'll also have to find out if she reached him... After all, perhaps it's about time somebody protected him...”

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“There really is nothing...”

Akako rubbed her temples. No other witch had heard of the Pandora either, which meant that how to find it was solely dependent on a legend that was either corrupted beyond recognition or true- and thus protected by an immortal, who would likely be unwilling to see their jewel destroyed.

As for destroying it...

She had asked Lucifer, and she couldn't help but feel that his answer was her punishment for threatening to dump a bucket of water over him.

I do not know... but you did.

She had first wondered if he was lying, for aforementioned head-messing purposes, but she knew that this couldn't possibly be true. Demons and spirits simply did not ever lie. They could clam up and refuse to say anything, or tell the truth in such a convoluted and cryptic way that it could be vastly misinterpreted, but they did not lie. It was almost as if they couldn't. Akako had often wondered why. Perhaps it was because they dealt with the dead more than the living, a species that had no use or reason for lying. Akako thought of all the comic-book supervillans who revealed their entire evil plan to the hero because (they thought) he was about to die. Trying to BS the dead was like trying to give a toy sword to a Yakuza thug. They simply toss it aside and demand the real thing, though more often than not they already have it.

Which meant that the key to destroying the Pandora, striking a probably-fatal blow to the Syndicate, saving her friends and countless other lives... lay in her lost memories.

Memories that were only a teardrop away.

It should be so easy, right? One tear- they were never far when she thought of this choice- and hopefully she'd have the presence of mind to scream the information that they needed before falling into the hellfire.

Because that's what would happen to her, she knew. Once, when she had been a young witch, only five years into the craft, she had seen another witch cry. A single tear had fallen, and then...

Screaming. Kami, the screaming. Akako had never known what horrors had lain in the other woman's past, but she could see them cutting her to the bone. She'd curled up, clutching her chest, screaming and screaming, and the youkai that had once served her had crowded around, whispering things, her fears and pains and regrets...

Hellfire in the mind. Burning in the soul. An eternity of pain, this time with no escape. Not ever.

That was why Akako had never been curious about her past before. She feared it. Whatever had driven her to slit her wrists and sell her soul to Lucifer... it would have been immeasurably painful, unbearably so. She had given it up, knowing full well the consequences. If she had made that choice, then surely there was no way that she could want back what she'd given away?

“But that was when I was alone,” Akako. “When I had nobody to leave behind... nobody to help. When nothing I was or knew had any value to anybody. But now...”

“Surely,” she whispered, “If I'm not alone at the time... if someone's there to tell me that it's all right, that it's all over... it won't hurt as much?”

“That was what Kuroko-sama said, I believe,” her youkai servant said.

“Go away,” Akako snapped, but he was right; she'd tried talking to Kuroko, but what could she say? How could she deal with demons that she couldn't see, didn't know, existed only in her friend's mind? What could she do? In the end, she hadn't been able to do anything but watch in horror as her friend faded into the shadows, never to return.

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Thirty Years Ago

It was all gone. She stared on as the building burned. Hanako's daughter had been locked up in the infirmary there. First she'd been locked up alone, after her rebellion, but then the girl had found some way to slit her wrists.

She couldn't just leave. She'd been the Syndicate's since she was born. There was no escape from that. She wasn't going to be executed. She'd already shown that she wanted death.

Red Rum was too cruel to give it to her.

Then, in the night... first there'd been complaints as they cameras in the infirmary fizzled out. Then the whole building had exploded into fire.

Only one body was never found.

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Back to school *insert funeral dirge here* so I'm posting in the evenings rather than the mornings… I might not post some days if there's really too much going on, but hopefully I'll always be able to find time… ^_^;

More Kaito and Yuusaku, FHP2208… and more important information…

Akai, hmm, Mel72000? Interesting theory on the relationship between Vermouth and Sherry too…

I think it's mainly down to that a lot of mangaka's protagonists tend to look the same, PlayingThePiano… Takahashi-sensei's InuYasha, Ranma and Rinne all look similar… and Watase-sensei's Yuuhi and Tamahome… Or maybe he just liked the character models too much to stop using them. ^_^ Either way, I just loved it when he made a gag out of it, with Ran mistaking Kaito for Shinichi… XDXD NOOO! MOP! FLEE! *hides under bed* XDXD I think it was just because they'd known each other since they were babies, pretty much… Conan and Ayumi met in grade school, which is after kids develop that sense of propriety that demands suffixes (as shown by Shinichi's attempt to switch to “Mori-san”), which is probably it… oh, and according the DiGi the song is actually called "The Childrens Song" or "Kyo Machi-suji Warabe-uta" ^_-

Pretty much, KageNoNeko… is your college going back already? I've got a couple of friends in college who don't go back for a month… and rub the fact in our faces at every opportunity… T_T

Ermm… fine fine, FaithlessGirl? XD the story's getting nearer to the climax…

It's a tragedy, Pretztailfan95 XDXD ARE YOU SAYING THAT KID-SAMA IS UNINTERESTING?! *sets the fangirlz on you*

*high-fives Kayla Edogawa* XD yes, the two sides of the coin are necessary… even if they are opposite sides of the coin, the fact remains that it is the same silver coin… Kaito is a wee bit of a sceptic about it XD poor Shinichi, I put him through so much… XD the Sicilian is amazing. Magic Max is still the best in my opinion, though… XD I read a fic once with a chibi Hakuba, but I can't remember who wrote it… :( I WANNA KNOW WHO BOURBON IS! Is he Okiya? Akai? Kogoro? XDXD

Now Kaito and Yuusaku have pretty much the whole story, Desperatembrace, but the most important information lies in lost memories…

XD further than I can generally run, Marie Ravenclaw… XD well, there's a reason the silver bullet began as a coin with two heads… I don't really have orientation, just get thrown straight back into the grind… T_T

Always take the logical approach, DiGi… I'm actually quite surprised that nobody seems to have guessed the girl's identity yet… I know, it's annoying… it's all the same language, people! Although not everybody seems to realize this… the last time I was in the States visiting relatives, one of my cousin's friends asked me what language I speak at home… -_-

A creepy bond, A Midsummer Night's Dream… although my two BFFs and I tend to do it too when we hivemind… XDXD

Guess, HikariPachi? ^_- of course, I think everyone has the same guess on it… 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).