justonetruth | Here to fight fire with fire.

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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.

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"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?"

"He does not know his name," Ran explained. "Or so he claims. He does not remember anything before the storm, and Agasa-hakase says it is not unheard of for a traumatic experience to effect a person's memory."

A storm and memory loss...

"I think you'd better tell me what happened," Ran said, his expression serious.

Ran is quiet a long moment. "Not here," she says at last. "Let us find a room first. It -- is not a story I should like to be overheard."

"Right." Her counterpart turned and moved a little farther down the hallway, then stopped in front a door. "I'm pretty sure this one isn't taken."

Ran is too rattled to picture a room in her head, taking a moment to steady herself before opening the door. The room is similar to the room she brought up earlier, but has been influenced by Ran-kun's expectations of a room as well: the number of tatami mats has increased, a sword stand, currently empty, stands in the alcove. Two sitting mats are placed ready at the low table, and a wardrobe with the door half open to reveal a futon folded away completes the room. Ran gives the chests and cupboards the quickest glance, sitting at the low table and taking a moment to collect her thoughts.

Ran-kun shuts the door behind him -- it's weird, seeing a Western-type swinging door instead of a shoji in a Japanese-style room -- and sits down across from her, patiently waiting for her to start.

And start Ran does.

"Winter was bitter," she said. "Shinichi was not with us, but he had promised to be back -- we expected him daily. As it neared the end of the winter months, the weather grew worse and I was concerned for his safety. He is not always sensible where safety is concerned and he does not know how bad the weather in the mountains can get. There was a sudden storm, snow so thick we could not see our way to the village. I was worried for Shinichi, and I made my way to the temple despite the weather, intending to make offerings for his safety. I found Conan there."

Ran-kun frowned thoughtfully.

"Shinichi wasn't doing anything weird before he disappeared, was he?" he hazarded. "Investigating something, maybe?"

"That depends," Ran said blandly. "Is preparing for his wedding considered weird?"

She frowned. "Samurai must have the permission of their daimyo to marry," she said. "To marry into samurai family, Shinichi had to satisfy Megure-daimyo of his fitness to serve him, and to provide for a family. Megure-daimyo was not against the match, but he was worried Shinichi was too young. Shinichi was some time in the city, and he cannot ever visit the city without being involved in some trouble or other."

"Wedding?"

Ran-kun couldn't help the yelp. Shinichi couldn't be much older than he was unless things were drastically different over there (which they were, only in a different way, and man this place gave him a headache sometimes), and he was getting married?

--wait. Edo period, or something like it. It isn't that weird to get married young back then, Ran reminded himself, dredging up the memory of school history lessons.

....But it still seemed really, really weird. Shinichi. Getting married.

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