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alt_pantheon

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"Sorry," Kaito mumbled. "I don't really like being manipulated like this."

His adversary snickered at his hypocrisy. "If I understand this right – Shinichi Kudou was murdered, and Conan Edogawa, who's been working the case for the past year, is dying, possibly at the hands of the same people. He wants us to take up the case." He subconsciously rubbed his cheek, reddening it. "If he's passing his legacy onto us, that's quite the compliment, wouldn't you say?"

Kaito frowned. "He has a weird way of showing it."

The chimes rang, announcing the beginning of the next period.

"Well, as a detective," Hakuba said, standing up. "I'm eager to find the answer to the mystery of Shinichi Kudou's disappearance. I'll join you after school." He glanced down at Kaito, who still wasn't moving. "I've never known Kaitou KID to back down from a challenge." The corners of his lips growing heavy, he turned towards the door. "It's time for class, are you coming?"

Kaito sighed, then plastered his poker-face on securely. Time to face that sickening wall of "purifying" sage smoke and pretend it wasn’t bothering him to Koizumi’s zombie army.

Thunder clashed overhead, but Akako didn’t hurry her stride. Rain didn’t dare land on her. Or rather, the rain gods knew better than to allow a single drop to spoil her divine countenance. She was furious. The nerve of that low-level scum! The school was her hunting grounds, her territory. Those teenagers were hers to pluck, like popping strawberries in her mouth.

As she crossed the threshold of her mansion, the lanterns and torches flickered to life, and her uniform melted away to her ceremonial robes. Her mansion wasn’t in reality, so to speak. More like a pocket dimension that was under her complete control. She strolled past the gallery of portraits – made in many mediums: paint, ink, thread, crushed stone... all of them offerings to her beauty. Each one from a different moment in time; each one of a different incarnation, a different name uttered in breathless lust by a different artist. Scattered memories from her previous lives were all that remained of them, and these fair portraits.

Speaking of breathless lust... Aoko had surprised her, helping out so readily. It had been a while since she last tasted a maiden. There was divine symmetry in their names: Red and Blue. She licked her lips at the thought. That would hurt Kuroba, leave him in agony! She paused at the top of the dungeon stairs, shuddering with anticipation. Now she really wanted to do it. Kuroba didn’t deserve a sweet morsel like Aoko anyways.

But, even she could see the problem with her plan. Kuroba had a way of fowling up her magic. Even if it worked on him for a moment, he’d end up shaking off her spell. He effortlessly evaded her control. He might be able to destroy her hold on Aoko too. She’d seen him negate her love-spells on others – like Hakuba. The tall boy had followed her with his big, soft brown eyes like a puppydog, but then he’d started carrying a strand of Kuroba’s hair in his pocket, and her power over him piddled out at only the barest of suggestion. It was infuriating. She thrust the doors to her summoning chamber open, letting them strike the walls with a tremendous noise.

It wouldn’t take much, she figured. Just a summoning circle entwined with an entrapment spell. She threw a handful of chalk into the air, and the fine grit fell into place, forming the plain interlocking circles. Then she flung her handkerchief into the circles, still moist with the slime she’s found on her school chair (HER chair!). The spells leapt to life, infernal flames churning and stealing some squealing wretch from the world. The room filled with smoke and the scent of decaying flesh. In the murk, a cage appeared, signaling the completion of the two spells. A wave of her hand condensed the pollution into a single, hard ball, that dropped harmlessly into the waste paper basket.

From the gloom immerged a truly pitiful thing. A renfield, she diagnosed. Its flesh was already starting to decay, skin turned mottled purple. It had been neglected a long time. Vampires were vile monsters, to leave their servants in such a state. An eerie whine escaped its swollen lips, droll dribbling uncontrollably down its chin, joining a fowl streak of putrid mucus on its chest.

"Who owns you?" she asked, her voice soft as the scent of violets.

Its dull eyes gazed at her with insatiable lust, lust it would never be able to act on. "Higure."

That took her aback. Higure wasn’t known as a cruel vampire. He’d led the charge for adjusting to modernity. The bloodsucker was one of the more civic-minded of the monsters, realizing that they’d have to hide from humans and their technology. It had been Higure that had established the council which decided territories for the various supernatural creatures’ appetites, including hers. He was known to be a peace broker, and rigidly kept to the laws, until now.

"Why were you in my territory?" She added a little smile, like a gift to the poor thing.

"We need a Null." It interlaced its fingers in the wire of its cage, trying in vain to get a little closer.

A Null was something very, very difficult to find. They were mostly human, but they negated all magic around them. How could you find one without casting a spell on every single human? A flame kindled in her chest. They couldn’t be talking about... but it’d make sense... but he was hers!

"Why do you need a Null?" She stepped closer.

It whimpered, falling back from the cage wall. "A mutation!" the little thing gurgled. "It’s killed over two hundred people in Beika alone."

She stepped back. Whatever mutated monster this was, it didn’t need a Null. It needed an exorcist, demon hunter, or a slayer. "Tell Higure that the Null is mine," she commanded. "Just kill the beast that’s killing his prey."

The renfield was sobbing now, falling to its rotting knees. She dismissed the creature, sending it back to its master.

The hallway leading to Conan's room was darker than the rest of the hospital. The other rooms that attached to the hallway were vacant, their doors left open, nothing but their cold silence watching them as they passed.

Hakuba pulled his jacket closer around his broad shoulders. "Do you feel that?" he whispered in the empty hall. "It's like we’re entering a crime scene."

Kaito opened the door to Conan's room and ushered Hakuba in.

Conan's lips weren't as blue as they had been the day before, at least, that's what Kaito's optimism was telling him. Hakuba halted and stiffened up when he laid eyes on the little form. The room was echoing with the sound of labored breathing. Kaito’s own chest tightened sympathetically. The mass of tubes and wires attached to the still form suffocated and restrained him. There were more of those than Kaito remembered.

"Is he asleep?" Hakuba said in a low voice to Kaito.

With that, Conan stirred. His chubby little hand reached out, and hit the button to put the bed in a sitting position but slipped off because his small finger was slick with sweat. He gave up and lay back. To compensate, Hakuba and Kaito came to his bedside. Now that Kaito was closer, he could see that Conan's neck was swollen and a fever-rash had spread across his chest. Conan himself was drenched in sweat. His blood pumped to the surface of his skin to cool him down, darkening his skin with a corpse-like purple tinge because his lungs weren't fully functioning yet. His eyes opened a sliver, and a broad smile broke across his face.

"You figured... it ou-" his speech was interrupted by a rough coughing fit that shook his entire body.

It was hard to hate someone who looked so pitiful. "Yeah, Kudou, I figured it out. And I brought Hakuba, like you wanted."

"Cheater," snickered the impossible child.

"Wait a moment," Hakuba said, holding his hand up. "You just called Conan "Kudou."

"Congrats, mystery solved," Kaito said, thoroughly enjoying watching Hakuba struggle to put the pieces together. "Shinichi Kudou was poisoned by a mysterious crime-syndicate and left for dead, and they accidentally turned him into the most annoying seven-year-old to walk the planet. Then he ropes a poor, unsuspecting magician into pretending to be some lady they're trying to kill, and that benevolent, kind, innocent magician almost gets blown up instead."

Conan's weak voice rasped out an angry reply, "You're forgetting... Shinichi Kudou... has to pretend ...he's someone else... even to his... own friends. His... whole life... ripped away... dead... Only a child-like... ghost... is left... Their spies... closing in... been kidnapped... almost killed... so many... times... at least... you get to... keep your body... and your life." His hands gripped and twisted the bedsheets.

Kaito and Hakuba fell silent, letting the horror of what had happened to him sink in. With no response, the harsh little voice went on, "I want... you to find... out what happened... to the Mouris... and Hattori... They didn't leave... me alone... when I was... in the hospital... before... Something must... be wrong." He looked up at the two teens before him. "Please," he added.

"It'd be our pleasure," Hakuba said with a little bow. "We'll return tomorrow with our findings."

"Thank you," Conan said. He closed his eyes, falling almost instantly back into his fevered sleep. Kaito could have sworn he heard a soft, "Don't die," added on as they left.

Hakuba fled, not stopping until they were on the street. "If I believed in ghosts," Hakuba started, his face pale. He scrutinized Kaito a moment, who was catching up to Hakuba's long-leg stride. "You didn't feel that at all, did you?"

Kaito shrugged. "Are you talking about how sick he is?"

"No." Hakuba resumed walking, this time keeping a slower pace so Kaito could walk comfortably beside him. "I mean the hallway. It's all empty, even though the rest of that wing is pretty crowded. It was dirty too, so they haven't been letting the janitor down there. It hit me when we got near – a feeling of deep unease, like there was something foul in the air, but I couldn't smell it." He stopped briefly to kick a rock down the sidewalk.

"If he really was so sick, then why isn't he in the ICU?" His voice was growing softer as he was becoming more and more lost in his thoughts.

Kaito interrupted, "What do you mean, "if he really is so sick'?"

Hakuba arched his brow. "You didn't notice? Conan-" he stopped, and shook his head. "I mean, Kudou isn't ill enough to be in that plastic tent. He's miserable sure, but his body is fighting the infection."

"You're not a doctor," Kaito pointed out.

He nodded. "Of course not, and there may be something I'm missing," he admitted. "But, Co- Kudou had a fever and swollen lymph nodes. His immune system is doing its job. And he didn't need most of the machines connected to him. Those were there mostly so they wouldn't have to open up his clean-room tent, which he doesn't need. It's like they're trying to quarantine him without officially quarantining him, which makes no sense."

"That'll be something to ask the Mouris, I guess," Kaito said. He took a quick last glance at the hospital, and found to his surprise he could easily pick out Kudou's hospital room because it was amid a line of dark windows.

"The tent too... I could have sworn it was tinted blue. His face is probably flushed red with the fever, but we couldn't see it." Hakuba stopped suddenly. "The rash, the swollen throat, those symptoms also match an allergic reaction. I think..." he paused to grit his teeth and swallow back some anger. "I think someone is going to great pains to make it look like he's sick, and hiding him from any casual observer."

Kaito gaped, feeling the blood drain from his face. Then, he realized a small nugget of information that didn't match that assertion. "Then why did they bring me over to cheer him up?"

"Good point," Hakuba admitted. Even so, the worry didn't leave his tense face. "Unless you're a target too, for some reason."

Kaito swallowed heavily.

"But," Hakuba said suddenly in an uncharacteristic cheerful tone, "we're probably making conclusions with too little information. "It's all a big conspiracy" is almost never the correct answer. Maybe our bias of not wanting Kudou to be sick and dying is clouding our reasoning."

The magician nodded, not sure which conclusion he should hope was the right one.

It was nearing suppertime when they finally made it to the Mouri Detective Agency, as neither of them were familiar with Beika's streets. The light was still on, and they could see Detective Mouri dozing in his chair, watching TV through the window. They couldn't quite make out the individual words, but Ran Mouri was yelling at her father, from somewhere out of sight in the apartment.

"Well, it looks like they're fine," Kaito said, staring up at the window.

Hakuba nodded. "But, it's out of character for them to leave Conan all alone in the hospital for so long. You said that the nurses had noticed it too?"

"Let's go up then," Hakuba said, pushing Kaito up before him.

"Why do I have to go first?" he hissed.

"Because you've disguised yourself as both of them, and I've only met Ran. Besides, you look like someone they know, right?"

"I'm not pretending to be Shinichi Kudou," Kaito whispered as they neared the door. "That name kinda has a death sentence attached to it, you know!"

"Fine," Hakuba said back. He straightened out his school uniform and knocked on the door with a succession of sharp strokes.

They heard Mr. Mouri's voice yelling, "Ran, get the door!"

"But you're right there!" Ran yelled back, stomping her way to them. She practically ripped the door off its hinges, and yelled, "What do you want? It's almost dinnertime!" Then she stopped, and stared directly at Kaito, frozen. "Shinichi?" she whispered, her voice catching as though she was about to cry. He stepped back, hands up. This was becoming an even worse idea by the second. She ran forward and wrapped her arms around him, making him freeze at the unexpected physical contact. Kaito tried to squirm out of her arms, which was difficult with Ran's surprising amount of upper-body strength.

"He's a classmate of mine; he's definitely not Kudou!" Hakuba tried to push them apart, but Ran had to strong a hold on Kaito's torso.

"I'm sorry, I'm really not your friend," Kaito plead.

She stopped and studied his face for a moment, her own face nearly brushing Kaito's. He looked back into her eyes, gentle brown, but bloodshot from crying. She gasped and jumped back like she'd been slapped, tears starting to leak down her cheeks. "I'm sorry; you just look so much like him..." she wiped the tears from her reddening face and asked, "Would you like to come in?"

Bowing graciously, they accepted her offer.

A few minutes later, they were sipping tea quietly in the living room, watching Mr. Mouri down canned beer after canned beer. Ran emerged from the kitchen with some cookies artfully arranged on a plate and sat down to join them. She'd taken a moment to wash the tear-trails from her face, though her eyes were still red, and she'd neglected to re-apply her make-up. Kaito remembered when he'd disguised himself as her. It'd been surprisingly easy. They were the same height, and he'd needed only a small amount of latex additions. Her brow was a little softer than his, and her nose a little more pronounced. Wearing a stuffed C-cup bra had been a lot of fun too, not that he'd admit it. Jumping into the ocean half-naked and getting the flu afterwards hadn't been very fun.

Ran's voice brought him back to reality. "So, how can we help you?"

Hakuba set down his tea cup and leaned forward slightly, glancing at Kaito, indicating that he'd take charge. "I'll be brief, Miss Mouri. Conan asked us to come and visit you, and make sure that you're alright. He's worried because he hasn't seen you in a while."

Mr. Mouri stood up and stomped out of the room the moment the name "Conan" left Hakuba's lips. They flinched as he slammed every door between them and his bedroom upstairs.

"You don't know?" Ran asked, looking back and forth between them, confused. "I thought everyone in the police force knew by now; they even brought in Inspector Nakamori to testify..."

"We're still minors, so I guess they left us out," Hakuba said softly, playing the flirty gentle giant that always managed to get under Kaito's skin, like ticks, or those bamboo slivers that are too small to see but hurt like fuck. "Could you enlighten us?"

"Someone filed a complaint anonymously against Dad, saying that he was abusing Conan." She closed her eyes, to hold back another outburst. "They had no real evidence! The judge just took all of this flimsy testimony without proof from a lot of people who we've never seen before – not a single doctor! Just this psychologist who has never even laid eyes on Conan. He told us that Conan's behavior indicates that he's likely been abused and neglected all his life, so he wouldn't know that what Dad was doing was wrong, even though he's really smart and perceptive. I tried to defend Dad by testifying too, but they ignored everything I said! Conan didn't get to testify at all either, because he was too sick to be interviewed! And all of this when he just needs us to be there, watching over him!" Ran was ranting now, all sense of decorum lost, her private feelings pouring out uncontrollably.

Hakuba lifted her clenched fist, enveloping it in his broad palms. "So, Conan's a ward of the state now, isn't he?"

Ran paused to catch her breath, nodding. "The judge just decreed it. Mom thinks that the judge was on someone's payroll, because they had no proof."

"And they've banned everyone from seeing him?" Kaito added.

"They won't even let Professor Agasa or Hattori visit, because they've banned anyone who tried to defend Dad."

"That sounds harsh," Kaito said. He fiddled with the hem of his uniform, thinking. If there was abuse going on, he hadn't noticed it. Conan didn't seem like what he thought someone surviving abuse would be like, but maybe that was useless stereotypes muddying the water. He'd never seen Mr. Mouri strike Conan, but then again, he hadn't pried very far into their private lives, since he was disguising himself as them for only a brief period of time. Most of the Mr. Mouri he played was what he got from his television appearances. What he'd gotten from his interactions between them was – Conan, or rather, Shinichi thought of Mr. Mouri like a big, dumb elephant, and that he absolutely adored Ran.

"Conan will be relieved to hear that everyone is healthy and unharmed," Hakuba was saying as Kaito surfaced from his thoughts. "When you stopped coming, I think he feared the worst."

Kaito interrupted, "What if we sneak Ran in?"

They looked up at him in surprise.

"Conan's well enough to have guests. I could dress Ran up in a simple disguise and she could visit him after school with us. What do you think?"

"You'd do that for me?" Ran asked, her face brightening up.

"Sure!" Kaito exclaimed. "It'd be easy. Just fix your hair, a little bit of make-up, change out of your school-uniform, some adult shoes and a pretty scarf... your own dad won't recognize you."

"You're a guy, how would you know how-" Ran protested.

"It'll be easy for him, seeing as he's probably Kaitou KID," Hakuba laughed, dodging Kaito's vain attempts to cover his mouth.

Arms folded, Ran sat back, watching the struggle. "That'd explain why you're nosing around," she said. "Kaitou KID does have some sort of weird obsession with my family."

"Does not!" Kaito objected. "You guys just happen to be in the middle of everything, making you convenient disguises."

"Finally admitting it?" Hakuba smirked.

"I say that as Kaitou KID's number one fan, of course," Kaito retorted. "Besides, we're here for Conan, let's focus on that."

The detective sighed, dropping his hands. He turned to Ran. "Shall we meet in a public restroom in Haido Park after school? You'll have space to change clothes, and Kaito can work on your make-up."

Ran nodded fervently.

After they'd said their good-byes and started towards home, Hakuba interrupted the uneasy silence growing between them. "You know what I said earlier, about Conan's putting up with Mr. Mouri's abuse?"

"Yeah," Kaito said, eying a ramen shop across the street.

"I was half-joking, but it was based off of rumors I'd heard around Section 2."

"What, you think he really was being abused?" Kaito asked.

"Maybe." Hakuba kicked a pebble down the street, frowning. "I hate cases like this. They're so murky. When you're an outsider, how can you tell if what you're seeing is abuse or discipline? It's all about things going on inside people's minds, and that's just about impossible to prove one way or the other. Mr. Mouri has a reputation for being rough with Conan while trying to keep him out of crime scenes, which could be argued is for the best, because no child should ever see those horrors. After all, he has no idea that Conan isn't a child. He probably thinks he's acting responsibly. Can that be called abuse?"

"Maybe it's about the action itself," Kaito reasoned. "Mr. Mouri has struck Conan in public, before witnesses – that seems to be the only fact that's not in question."

"Maybe, maybe, maybe," Hakuba grumbled. "You keep looking at the ramen stand; do you want to stop there?"

"Yeah," Kaito admitted.