justonetruth | Here to fight fire with fire.

Entry tags:

Here to fight fire with fire.

It's night.

The flickering light of flames is cast along the walls of the corridor, the dancing light making shadows leap and jump unexpectedly. A single figure walks steadily through them, holding aloft the lighted torch that casts them. Although her pace is sedate and she is outwardly calm, she has a hand resting on the hilt of one of the two swords she carries. In the dim light, it's hard to tell that much more about her -- a straw hat, showing signs of having recently weathered a storm, hides her face, and robes she wears -- in the darkness, resembling nothing so much as the hakama and coat donned by advanced practioners of aikido, although of a colour and cloth not usually worn -- make it difficult to determine even her gender at first glance.

Coming to the end of one corridor she hesitates over which way to turn. As she is deliberating, a faint noise catches her attention and lifting the torch to see better, Ran glances back the way she has come.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Just watch." Ran-kun closed the door, thought hard of a fancy hotel room with two beds, and opened it again. Not only had the entire style changed to high-end Western, but the new room was clearly larger in size than the last one had been. "See?"

Ran blinked, stepping inside the room to look more closely. Gone was the tatami and scroll, in its place was a luxuriant room full of oddly shaped furniture. "Where did you put it?" she demanded, confused.

"I didn't put it anywhere," Ran answered, stepping in behind her. "The Mansion did it. If you're thinking of a room when you open a door, it'll usually give it to you. The only ones that don't move much are the kitchen, the dining room, one of the infirmaries, and the bedrooms that people are staying in."

Ran was silent a moment, digesting the information. She returned to the corridor and opened the next door, giving the barest glance at the standard motel-like room beyond. Then she shut the door, clapped her hands together twice in the manner of a worshipper at a temple, frowned as she thought of the room she wanted, and clapped her hands one last time. Expression intent, she opened the door into a room, similar in outline to the first she'd imagined, but obviously much more personalised.

Scrolls and writing implements fill every available surface, a cup of tea left on the low table, half buried in papers. The walls are covered with wood prints -- famous generals, distinguished tacticians, scenic vistas and known criminals (Ran-kun might be interested in one white-clad figure seemingly half-man, half-fox leaping over the roof of a house under the moonlight) and bookshelves, jammed to overflowing with scrolls and books, a good number of them apparently cobbled together by hand from whatever printed matter their owner could get his hands on.

Ran is familiar with the room. Disregarding the mess she kneels to check the cup of tea. "Cold," she says.

Ran-kun followed his counterpart inside with great interest, peering around at all the reading material and prints, and staring at the one of what is clearly some kind of Kaitou Kid.

"What is all this?"

"Agasa-Hakase has the house next to ours," Ran explained, setting the cup back down. "This is the room he used to give lessons to Shinichi." She paused. "No, it isn't. If it were Agasa's, the screen door would be here. And the wardrobe is missing too ..."

"It can't give us exact rooms from back home," Ran commented, poking among the books. "Why's Shinichi apprenticing with oyaji, anyway? The one I know is a lot better than the old man most of the time."

"If he wants to become a samurai, he needs the patronage of a samurai," Ran explained. "His mother is a famous geisha; she kept her marriage secret and his father is not a samurai so it is necessary he be taught." She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "Of course, he could have chosen anywhere ... Beika is a tiny village. Before Agasa arrived to teach Shinichi, we had no guests of learning besides Sonoko's family friends."

Her other left off his poking to stare back at her, trying to take that in. Shinichi's family being poor? Yukiko-kaachan he could kind of picture as a geisha (in a disturbing sort of way), but the rest of it...

"What does Kudo-san do?" he asked, frowning. If Shinichi's dad wasn't a samurai, then...

Ran shrugged, absently beginning to set the mess on the table to rights. "Yukiko-kaasan told my mother he was a wandering poet, Shinichi told me he was a playwright and Agasa-hakase told me that he is a courtier. I am just grateful he has a father."

"That sounds like him," Ran had to admit. He started helping his alternate pick up out of force of sheer habit. "Do you want to stay in this room?"

It seemed a little messy and cramped to claim as a bedroom, but hey, whatever he found familiar...

Ran blinked in astonishment at her counterpart. "You've met him? Or -- you know of him? What is he like? Is he a good man?"

She looked around the room, suddenly realising that it was late and that she was tired. "I think I should not like to stay here," she said slowly. "It is pleasant to be among Shinichi's things, but if he is not here, it may become melancholy." She stood, replacing the papers she'd been folding neatly.

"You haven't?" Ran-kun was just as astonished. "He's... kind of eccentric, but so's Yukiko-kaachan. They're both pretty rich and travel a lot." He scratched his head, wondering how to phrase things. He liked Shinichi's parents, for the most part, but he had to admit they were kind of... Hm. 'Loose cannons' sounded like an apt term.

"His parents and our-- my parents have known each other since we were babies. We hang out at each others' houses a lot." Ran finished stacking the books he had in his hands and stood, grabbing his flashlight again. "Come on, most people pick bedrooms on the second floor. And we can grab something to eat first if you want."

Ran shook her head. "We would not even know of his father at all, but that father made it a condition of the engagement. He had a letter from Kyoto with a seal and a crest but I was not allowed to see it."

She followed her counterpart to the door. She was hungry -- but even the thought of staying awake to eat something was an effort. "Pick bedrooms?"

Kyoto, huh? Hmm...

Ran nodded, leading the way down the hallway. "If you pick a bedroom it stops moving around -- usually, anyway. So you just think of one you want and move in."

"It seems a great presumption," Ran said quietly. "But I see I have no alternative." Hopefully the spirits would understand.

"It isn't like there isn't enough of them, anyway." As they set foot on the staircase, Ran waved vaguely upwards, indicating the way the stairs seemed to spiral up into nothingness. "Nobody's been able to reach the top floor or the end of the main hallways. It's like it goes on forever."

Ran, too, stops to stare, and requires prompting from her counterpart to move again. "How do you not become lost?"

There was a pause that spoke volumes all on its own.

"Most of the time I do," he muttered, cheeks flushed in embarrassment. At least it was another version of him; he'd never hear the end of it from a Shinichi. Getting it from his own was bad enough. "Sometimes the hallways will take you places if you think hard enough about it, like the doors."

Ran's silence was sympathetic. "The hallways might direct you? I shall remember that." She looked at the doors lining the hallway. "I might take any of these?"

"Yeah. Some of them are taken, but those usually have the doors locked." Ran-kun shone the flashlight around, checking the door numbers for one that he knew was empty. "Most of us are staying here or on the third floor."

"Most of us?" Ran said curiously, looking at all the doors and wondering how many of them were claimed. "Do you know everyone here?"

Ran shook his head. "There's a lot of people I've heard about but haven't met yet. There aren't many Hattoris, but there's a bunch of Kurobas and Shinichis, and--"

Oops. There was a thought. "...Do you know who Edogawa Conan is?"

Ran's hand went automatically to the hilt of her sword, before collecting herself -- she had no proof after all. Just her gut feeling. "Edogawa? He has a name?"

Her counterpart blinked, completely nonplussed by her reaction. "You know who he is, but you don't know his name?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject