D. N. Angel Fan Fiction ❯ Who is the Greatest Thief? ❯ Cause and Effect ( Chapter 6 )

Who is the Greatest Thief?

 

Chapter 6—Cause and Effect

 

Note:::

 

`. . .' is Daisuke speaking to Dark

 

:. . .: is Dark speaking to Daisuke

 

---

 

Daisuke sat on the window seat in his room, a towel around his shoulders. His red hair was still damp from his shower, and dripped onto his blue and white pajamas. He didn't notice, however; he was too busy staring off into the night sky.

 

The girls had left some time ago, saying that they were meeting someone in order to return the jewel/bomb to its real world. Since they had gone, Daisuke had turned the information they had given him over and over in his mind. His eyes fixed on a star.

 

“Different worlds. . .” he whispered. “Could one of those stars out there be a different world, and we just don't know it?” He sighed. What a stupid thought. He should really get some sleep; it was a school night, after all.

 

“. . .Hey, Dark?”

 

:What? I'm sleeping!:

 

Daisuke's mouth quirked into a smile before it slipped away. “Do you believe what they said? About the different worlds?”

 

:Sure.:

 

“But you were so skeptical when they were here. . .”

 

:It's kind of a lot to think about. Besides, I'm still not sure we can trust those three. But really, I believed them all along—and so should you. After all, you've already been in another world—the world within that mirror, the Sage of Sleep.:

 

“You're right. . .Dark?”

 

:Whaaaat?:

 

Daisuke smiled again; Dark could be such a whiner sometimes. “Do you think there really are worlds out there where, you know, we're not. . .connected? Where we're two different , separate people?”

 

Dark was silent for a long time. :Anything's possible.:

 

Daisuke sighed, leaning his crossed arms on the windowsill. He put his chin on them. “Do you think in those worlds. . .that Satoshi and Krad are two separate people, too?”

 

:That would follow, wouldn't it? Duh.:

 

Daisuke smiled softly. “That would be good. I think Satoshi would have turned out much happier. He wouldn't have to worry about caring for anyone. He could just do as he wished.”

 

Dark snorted. :What do you want to bet that Krad would still be out for my head?:

 

Daisuke laughed nervously. “Well, maybe some things never change, even between worlds. We'll have to ask Aiko, Kora and Ginryu to keep an eye out for such a world.” He stretched. “Maybe if they ever find it, they'll come back and tell us all about it.”

 

Dark laughed, but it was not kind at all. :Do you really think they'll come back once they leave? They don't seem to work that way, Daisuke. They come to the world, return the art pieces and move on to the next world. That's it.:

 

Daisuke frowned. “But. . .if we're they're friends. . .”

 

:Go to sleep, Daisuke.:

 

The teen sighed again and went to his bed, where To-to, in bird form, and Wiz were already situated. Shifting them slightly, he climbed in, and lay down, staring at his ceiling.

 

“I wonder. . .if there's a world where Riku never left. . .”

 

:Stop thinking, Daisuke.:

 

---

 

Satoshi was just about to drift off to sleep when his cell phone went off. He suppressed a sigh as he opened it.

 

“It's a school night, Father. Why are you calling?”

 

Commissioner Hiwatari chuckled before his voice became serious. “You failed again tonight?”

 

“Yes,” Satoshi answered evenly. “I was distracted.”

 

“Yes, I am watching those `distractions' on the news. Who are they?”

 

“I have no information on them. They are irrelevant to what I am—”

 

“They are in communication with Dark. They spoke on the roof before flying off together. These three new thieves could be in alliance with Dark.”

 

“Not possible.” Satoshi's voice was firm. “Dark is a complete egotist. He wants the spotlight all for himself, and wouldn't stand for it to be shared with these girls, who came out of nowhere.”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

Satoshi sighed, frustrated. “You want me to research them anyways.”

 

“Yes. And I want them out of the picture. You don't require any distractions—you've wasted too much time already fooling around with Dark. Don't disappoint me, Satoshi.” And with that, his adoptive father hung up.

 

Satoshi snorted. “Like I'm doing this for you,” he said to the empty room as he closed his cell. He leaned back against the headboard, staring at the dark ceiling, before turning on his bedside light and bringing up his laptop from where it had been lying on the floor.

 

He rubbed at his eyes, knowing he should sleep. . . He began clicking away at the keyboard, and was soon pulling profiles from Azumano High School's mainframe.

 

---

 

“What the hell is going on?” Aiko seethed, emerging from the bathroom clothed in a robe, her damp hair in a frazzeled mess that matched her mood.

 

“Here we go again,” Korazuma muttered, sprawled on the couch with a book. “How many times has she started this rant?”

 

“Eight since we got home,” Ginryu replied, from where she sat on the floor, surrounded by textbooks. “Hey, have you finished that French assignment?”

 

“We go to an arranged meeting,” Aiko went on, oblivious to the fact that her friends weren't even listening, “to return a freaking bomb that we could have been killed by—and do the creators even bother to show up? Of course not! No, we have to risk our lives stealing back something that they were stupid enough to let get stolen in the first place—and then they don't even show up to retrieve the damn thing!” She flopped down on the couch, narrowly avoiding crushing Kora's legs, which the girl pulled up with a yelp.

 

Ginryu blinked at her before setting down her notebook. “Y'know, I've been thinking about that—”

 

“I smell smoke,” Aiko and Kora said in unison.

 

“Oh, ha, ha. What I've been thinking is that this particular case was weird from the beginning. I mean—our first real case in this world, and we don't get all our information before our retrieval. The object turns out to be more dangerous than we anticipated. And then our rendezvous doesn't show up.”

 

“And we don't even know who our rendezvous is supposed to be—that information seems to be missing as well,” Korazuma added.

 

“So—what?” Aiko leaned forward, face serious. “Do you think our communications have been compromised?”

 

“I think we need to send someone to speak with our `travel agent',” Kora said. “She'll give up information for the Divine Star—and we can get rid of it. Two birds, one stone.”

 

“Oh, I'll go!” Ginryu stuck up her hand. “I love chatting with Yuuko!”

 

“No, you went last time,” Aiko objected. “It is totally my turn. But can you guys handle any new cases without me?”

 

“We can put that off until you get back.” Korazuma stood and walked over to the computer. “If we can't trust our contacts, we can't just go forward blindly like we did tonight.”

 

“True enough. Guess we should learn from our mistakes.” Aiko stood also, stretching. “'Kay, I'll leave first thing in the morning, and meet you back at the school when classes are over.”

 

“Damn,” Ginryu said, making a face. “That means I need to finish my homework.”

 

---

 

(the next day)

 

Daisuke walked into the classroom, yawning. He heard Ginryu laughing and turned to see her sitting down with a grin on her face. Korazuma leaned on Ginryu's desk, her face flushed with embarrassment.

 

He was about to go over and ask what was wrong when, rather inevitably, Takeshi descended on our hapless hero.

 

“Can you believe it??” the reporter-wannabe asked, excited to a whole new level. “He's calling in reinforcements!” He waved the morning paper in the air.

 

Daisuke caught a glimpse of the front page: a blurry picture of Dark, Akkiko, Tenshi and Kitsune on the roof of the museum. Great.

 

“Reinforcements?” Daisuke echoed, snatching the paper so he could actually read the headline.

 

The Mysterious Three…Dark's companions…or competition?

 

:Oh, for Christ's sake…: Dark grumbled. :Could they get any more dramatic?:

 

`You wouldn't be saying that if it was just you,' Daisuke retorted.

 

Returning the paper to Takeshi, Daisuke went over to the two girls. “What's wrong?” he asked the red Korazuma.

 

“Say a word and I will kill you,” Kora snapped at Ginryu.

 

Daisuke sweatdropped and changed the subject. “Um. . .where's Miss Aiko?”

 

Ginryu leaned forward, whispering, “In another world.”

 

“You're such a drama queen,” Korazuma said. “Anyways, last night our rendezvous never showed to take the bomb from us.”

 

“So what does that mean?” Daisuke asked.

 

“It means that our information was bad,” Ginryu said. “What we stole was from another world, but it wasn't our normal contacts who set us up with the job. Something's screwed up in the system, and that pisses us off.”

 

“So Aiko's going to get some uncorrupted information from our travel agent.”

 

“And who's that?” Daisuke asked, but at that moment the teacher came in, causing everyone to scatter to their seats.

 

---

 

(after school)

 

Outside the empty classroom, students chattered as they gathered their coats and homework. Inside, Ginryu and Korazuma waited. The space at the front of the classroom wavered and stretched impossibly before Aiko emerged.

 

“Hey, guys,” she said, grinning.

 

“So?”

 

“She says that we should probably ignore any orders that come in, and she'll do some digging on our behalf if we bring her treasures in exchange for that information.”

 

“Does bringing her treasure mean endangering ourselves further?” Korazuma asked.

 

“You know Yuuko,” Aiko said. She posed, one hand placed coquettishly on her lips. “An even exchange must be made for the right information. You may endanger yourselves by not getting the information; thus, there is danger either way.”

 

“So basically, we do what she says and if the shit hits the fan, it's still our own fault.” Ginryu stood and stretched. “Yep, she hasn't changed.”

 

“She has a new kid working for her, though,” Aiko said. “Watanuki-kun. He's such a spazz—you should have seen his face when Yuuko told him the Divine Star was a bomb.”

 

“Let me guess; he was holding it at the time?” Korazuma shook her head as Ginryu laughed. “Poor kid.”

 

“So, shall we go?” Aiko pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket. “Yuuko already has a job for us tonight, and I need to scope the museum we're crashing.”

 

“She works fast,” Ginryu said, raising her eyebrows. “Geez,, she's not going to let us rest for a second, is she?”

 

“Hey, she's our only reliable source now,” Kora said. “We can't exactly argue if we want to know the truth.”

 

“As Watanuki said—we're `in her clutches',” Aiko put in, giggling as the girls walked into the nearly empty hallway.

 

“Excuse me.” The girls turned to see Satoshi Hiwatari leaning on the wall.

 

“Ah—” Ginryu grinned and pushed Aiko past him. “Come on, Ai-chan—I think Kora has something she wants to talk to Hiwatari-kun about.”

 

Korazuma flushed again, glaring after her friends as they disappeared around the corner.

 

“What was that about?” Satoshi asked, eyebrows raised.

 

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Kora turned to him. “What do you want?”

 

“I though it would be prudent to inform you that I've been…asked to get rid of the distractions that have popped up.”

 

“I thought your objective was to capture Dark?”

 

“It is. However. . .”

 

“You don't like these new terms, do you?”

 

Satoshi looked up sharply.

 

“So why bother?” Kora continued.

 

“Because you are an annoyance.”

 

“We usually are to policemen.”

 

Satoshi pushed off the wall to stand in front of her. “As I told you last night, I am curious about why you three do what do.”

 

Korazuma smiled and started to walk past him. “It's a secret.”

 

Satoshi grabbed her arm. “Why are you stealing artwork?”

 

Kora stared at him for a moment, her eyes growing hard. “That isn't your concern. And we won't stop you from capturing Dark. If you can ever catch him, that is. It's been coincidence up until now we're even stealing from the same museums on the same nights. Whoever wants you to get rid of us should mind his own business.”

 

Satoshi agreed, but still didn't let go. “It is my concern. What are you doing with the pieces?”

 

“They're safe, if that's what you mean. Just like the pieces Dark steals.”

 

Satoshi winced. Korazuma stepped up to him.

 

“Why do you want to catch Dark?”

 

“Why do you steal artwork?”

 

“It's what I'm good at.”

 

“It's what I have to do.”

 

“Why?'

 

Satoshi leaned back, sighing. “Frustrating,” he muttered, letting her go.

 

“No kidding.” Korazuma rummaged in her backpack. “But you know. . .I'm avoiding what I really want to ask you.” She pulled out a drawing. “I know about Dark and Daisuke. I know you know about the two of them as well. So how does he fit into things?” She held out the picture.

 

Satoshi stared at the picture, the letters JUDGEMENT just as piercing as Krad's eyes. He looked away. “What do you mean?”

 

“I told you; I drew this based on a dream I had. And this guy. . .” She put away the picture, looking uncomfortable. “He's dangerous.”

 

Satoshi snorted softly. What an understatement. “He's not a danger to you or your friends, at least. Go home, Miss Shido.”

 

“Satoshi. . .” Korazuma stepped forward, and to anyone watching, it would appear that she merely brushed his hand.

 

She abruptly stepped back, knowing she had overstepped herself. Flushing, she muttered some sort of farewell and turned, hurrying down the hall.

 

Satoshi blinked, his hand clasping something hard. He held up the object and felt his lips twitch into a smile. It was the handcuffs he had used on Tenshi the previous night. Twined between the bracelets was a note:

 

See you tonight. Catch us if you can.

 

---

 

Author's Notes: For those of you who have read xxxHOLiC, yes, Yuuko is the girls' `travel agent' XD

 

Will Yuuko be making an appearance? (making this a crossover as well as a self-insertion?) . . . Perhaps. In the very distant future. Maybe.

 

God, 5 months. . .this update took too long. . .and the next few chapters are already planned out, but (as always) when I actually get around to writing is up in the air. I also really want to do fanart for this fic, but first I need to do commissions for other people. . .So, I have many things planned, but no time to do them! :( Ah, well. . .

 

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, or Hanukah, or Kwanzaa, or Yule, or any other December-based holiday that exists! This is a little gift to anyone who still bothers to read my stuff :) I lurv you all.

 

Disclaimer: I do not own D.N.Angel or any of the characters/settings from the series. I do own all original characters and settings.