[March 13, 2008] [Detective Conan/Case Closed] Different Means Achieving the Same End

[ayaia-moon.livejournal.com]

 

Title: Different Means Achieving the Same End

Day/Theme: March 13: The Rope to the Ivory Tower

Series: Detective Conan/Case Closed

Character/Pairing: Shinichi/Ran

Rating: PG-13/T

There are stories that everyone heard as a child. Some stories were told in a different way, but you could still tell it was the same story. After all, we’ve all heard different versions of the story of Rapunzel, though we wouldn’t think on it. How did the witch find out that Rapunzel was consorting with the Prince? Did she find a stray lock of hair in Rapunzel’s room? Did Rapunzel let something slip? Or was it simply fate? Fate had deemed it appropriate to test their love, and so the witch had discovered Rapunzel’s secret.

            “Kudo?”

“Hmm.”

“You sure about this?”

“Yeah.”

“You tell Neechan?”

“Yeah.”

“Liar.”

Shinichi Kudo glanced up at Heiji Hattori from the short vantage point that was his prison, and his invention, Conan Edogawa. There was still light out. To the untrained eye, Heiji and Shinichi were two more faces in the crowd, headed home. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Did you tell Kazuha?”

“Sure I did.”

“Liar.”

The two slipped into an uncomfortable silence. Shinichi thought hard about what he’d really told Ran. Two lies. One lie to explain Conan’s absence and one to explain Shinichi’s continued absence. To put it lightly, she’d been pretty angry.

 

That day that the Prince rode away from his beloved’s tower, not knowing that he was to be tricked the next day by the witch, what were his intentions? Some say that he and Rapunzel had been working on a ladder, down which the both of them could climb, to be happy forever more. Some say, however, that they hadn’t thought that far into the future yet, and who could blame them? They were in love. They had no time for logical thought. But then again…what if he had known?  

 

“What about that girl?”

“Hmm?”

“Your friend. The girl who made the apotoxin.”

“She…isn’t coming. Not right away.”

“You always this vague?”

Shinichi was silent. Haibara was her own person. Level-headed and private. Shinichi couldn’t be sure of her intentions, but he trusted that if she said she’d show up later, then she’d show up later.

“So…what’re your plans after this?”

Shinichi looked up at Heiji in shock. “What do you mean?”

“You know,” Heiji said, smiling at his slack-jawed companion. “After we win?”

“I…I dunno.”

“I’m not entirely sure either…Maybe I’ll head to Kazuha’s. Pick a fight with her.”

Shinichi chuckled a little; his first cracked smile since they’d started out. “That’s what you always do, though.”

Heiji smiled in return. “But I know it’ll be different.”

“I guess…”

“You know…if it were me? I woulda told her. Neechan. I woulda been straight with her from the start. She worries y’know…”

“That’s why I didn’t tell her.”

“Come again?”

Shinichi looked up at Heiji, but his smile was sadder now. “She worries.”

 

What if, all along, the Prince had known of the witch’s intentions? And he’d played to fool better to ease the worries from Rapunzel’s mind? How could he have lived? Tortured by keeping his own secrets from his beloved, and desperately wanting nothing more than to warn her of the approaching danger…but unable to do so. Because he loved her too much.

 

“An’ how worried will she be if we don’t walk away from this?” Heiji’s voice had taken a harsher tone. A reprimand in his comment that Shinichi picked up on all too clearly.

“Well, you said it yourself.”

“What?”

“We’re gonna walk out of this. So you can start your argument with Kazuha. And so I can tell Ran the truth about everything.”

“So yer keepin’ hope that everything’ll work out?”

Shinichi nodded wordlessly.

“Do you really think putting off telling her until it’s over will be the best thing for you two?”

Shinichi stopped dead. A few paces later, Heiji turned to look back at the shrunken detective. He was surprised to see the look on Shinichi’s face. It was pure ice.

“What choice do I have?”

 

In some versions of the story, the Prince was pushed from Rapunzel’s tower by the witch. In some versions, his grief at discovering the witch instead of his beloved led him to fall from the tower, broken-hearted at the thought that he’d never see his Rapunzel again. But in all versions of the story, the Prince lived. He lived in blindness, wandering the countryside, living off the land. Living in misery with a broken heart.

 

“I just don’t get how you think a secret this huge will just blow over.”

“I don’t think that at all. I know that it’ll be really hard. I know…that she might not even speak to me again when she finds out…”

Heiji didn’t say anything as Shinichi trailed off. There was a large pause before Shinichi looked up at Heiji again.

“You know…I did call her. I told her that I’d all but wrapped up my case…that it wasn’t definite, but that there was a major possibility that I’d be done soon.”

“What’d she say?”

Shinichi laughed hollowly. “She screamed at me for a good ten minutes.”

Heiji chuckled humorlessly. “That’s Neechan.”

“She ended up hanging up on me. I didn’t call back. Well…I didn’t call back as ‘Shinichi.’ I called back as ‘Conan’s mother.’”

“And what did Conan’s mother have to say?”

“Well, Ran took the news of ‘Conan’s’ extended leave better than the news of ‘Shinichi’s’ possible return. I wasn’t sure whether to take it as a good sign or a bad one.”

 

Luckily, in all versions of the story, there’s a happily ever after. The Prince finds Rapunzel again, after wandering for a time, and he realizes she’d been living alone rather than find someone to take care of her. She’d been sharing his fate all along, and he’d never known it. 

 

They continued walking once more. They’d reached a less suburban part of town, and they were coming across more grocery stores and gas stations. Heiji turned to Shinichi. “I take it back.”

“Hmm?”

“I dunno if I would’ve told Kazuha, if it were me. I know Ran worries…but Kazuha does too. But when Ran worries she cries, and when Kazuha worries…she denies it. And punches things. Or she shuts down. And I don’t think I’d like seeing her worry.”

Shinichi grinned absently. “She does still worry…but it’s a healthier worrying. And there’s not as much of her crying as there are intense bouts of her cleaning things. And Ran punches stuff too.”

Heiji grinned. “Why’d we choose such violent women to grow up with?”

Shinichi shrugged. “I blame the karate. You haven’t known fear until you’ve seen Ran down a streetlight in one go. With her fist. Without even trying.”

“Hey, you let Kazuha take you on with her aikido and then we’ll talk.”

 

Her tears of joy fall into his eyes, and he can miraculously see again. He takes Rapunzel for his bride, and they set off together to rule his kingdom and be together forever more. But you have to wonder why such different versions of the story can all result in the same ending.

 

Shinichi looked up at his companion again. “Do you think that this’ll turn out okay?”

Heiji grinned. “What happened to that hope? We can’t go into this thinkin’ we’re gonna die.”

“Well…it is kind of a long shot.”

“Well, you should have died, right?”

“What?”

“When you took that pill. It was supposed to kill you. What were the odds it would shrink you instead?”

“I’d give you the numbers, but they’d bore you. The chances were pretty slim, suffice it to say.”

Heiji and Shinichi whirled around at the same time, looking in amazement at the source of the voice. One Ai Haibara.

“Haibara...what were you…”

“Gathering weapons. You didn’t think I was lying when I said I’d catch you up, did you?”

Shinichi grinned. “I didn’t. I know you better. But Heiji here…”

“Hey!”

 

Perhaps it’s simply because all fairy tales need a happy ending. Perhaps it’s a hidden moral, cautioning all of us against keeping secrets, lest something terrible befall us. 

 

"Half of this stuff is just parlor tricks from Agasa-hakase. Longer lasting tranquilizer darts, for one, and a bunch of little speakers for the voice-changer. I figure we’ll have to split up once we reach the base, so I thought some of it would help.”

"How will this stuff help?” Heiji interrupted, scowling at the trinkets that Haibara was pulling out of her knapsack. Haibara leveled him with an icy stare.

“You’d be surprised what this ‘stuff’ can do when luck is on your side. I had one pill of my own invention. One. And it was meant to end my own life. But it ended up saving me.”

“What’s up with the shoes?” Shinichi interrupted.

Haibara pulled out a small pair of tennis shoes, almost identical to the pair Shinichi wore on his feet. “You never know.”

“So, what? We’re gonna go up against the most Evil Organization known to man, just the three of us, and we’re going to defeat them using some crazy has-been scientist’s weird inventions?” Heiji said sarcastically.

Haibara blinked her face impassive. “Did you have a better idea?”

 

But, then again, perhaps it’s just a story in need of a good ending. Because where would Rapunzel be if the Prince had glimpsed the ivory tower and decided it wasn’t a mystery worth pursuing when he heard the lovely voice issuing from its top? Sometimes, then, secrets are necessary. Not because they make for a good story, though they certainly do…

 

“Here,” Haibara said, before Heiji could retort. She handed him a small lapel-pin. Heiji looked at it in confusion.

“What’s this for?”

“It’ll probably be useless. It’s like a miniature walkie-talkie.”

“Same kind the Shounen Tantei has,” Shinichi deadpanned, reaching into his pocket, retrieving his badge for the Detective Boys.

“But it’s pointless. They’ll have something in there to scramble the signal.”

“Show a little ingenuity. Think of another use for it. I thought you were supposed to be smart.” Heiji opened his mouth in outrage, but Haibara ignored him, packing everything smartly into her knapsack, subsequently giving it to Heiji to carry before walking smartly ahead of the two boys. “Just kidding. Were we going to go, or not?”

 

Overcoming the secrets we keep from each other is what makes every story worthwhile. And the victory tastes sweeter somehow if you reach it after first overcoming monumental obstacles. 

 

“By the way, it’s not all trinkets in there. I think I put in a handgun.”

Heiji jumped, jerking the knapsack away from himself.

“Safety’s on. And the bullets are separate from the gun. I’m not dumb.”

Heiji muttered some choice phrases under his breath, and Shinichi grinned. This certainly wasn’t going to be as easy as Haibara seemed to suggest with the trinkets she brought, but it suddenly didn’t seem as hard as he’d thought it would be a moment ago.

“Just proves what I was sayin’ before, Kudo,” Heiji muttered mutinously, glaring at the knapsack he was carrying on his shoulder. His anger might have had something to do with the violent shade of purple that dominated the color scheme of the very girly-looking bag.

“What?”

“We picked the worst women to boss us around in our lives.”

They’d finally reached the more industrious part of town, and Haibara, whether she realized it or not, had slowed up to walk beside them instead of in front. Their joking manner seemed to wither and die the closer they got to their destination.

“Well gentlemen? I hope you had a better plan than ‘Go in there and kick some ass,’” Haibara said softly, breaking the silence they’d fallen into.

“I was more thinkin’ we’d wing it,” Heiji replied, looking somewhat apprehensive.

“Which is worse,” Haibara chided, folding her arms and looking at Shinichi expectantly.

“Well, we’re not getting any younger…well…I hope not anyway,” Shinichi said, cracking a determined smile. 

 

And whoever said that overcoming obstacles was easy? Just worth it.

 

                                       -O-

 

A U T H O R S   N O T E

 

O.O

 

Yeah…this morphed into some kind of beast halfway through that I wasn’t sure I could handle…and then Haibara poked me, and said there should be slight comedic relief. And I obeyed her.

 

~Ayaia