au; islandbox; red drops on white snow
This is an AU that Sair came up with!
If the floating timelines weren't so floating in DC, Conan would have been a little kid when the Rokkenjima disaster occurred.
Then I wrote this and this
and now i wrote this \o/
--
She confirmed it in the criminal database. Scrolling through newspaper articles going back years with a swiped ID card, the Rokkenjima disaster had occurred in his world-- one where everyone had died... even Ange had passed away since. The list of casualties listed her name twice-- Shannon, Kanon. Beatrice rubbed her forehead... she supposed she could maintain her existence in the boy's world on a technicality. No documentation of 'Yasu'. Dead or alive status couldn't be accounted for for someone who did not exist in documents.
The 'witch' did not possess their identities anymore-- the spirits of Shannon and Kanon had truly passed on from the world, if she could speak with love. All was left was the mannequin their faces and personality were pasted on. Still, staring at their photographs in the newspaper... Beatrice could only feel unsettled. Scrolling further and doing the math... hoh. The little boy was alive around the time of the disaster, but long before he was handling cases on his own. Still... to think they matched in age so many odd ways, once upon a time, Beatrice and the boy existed at the correct age, during the same time. If only she had met him.
Wait.
'If only I knew you'.
She swallowed hard, as if familiarity was the bile in the back of her throat. She didn't leave the island enough, the odds would be astronomical for them to have met, and what difference would Shinichi have made as a child? Still, it was a point she couldn't drive herself away from. She closed down the computer and returned the card key to the unwitting police officer's desk. She was here as a friend of the boy. All it took was a little 'creative' magic for her to sneak into the back room and sneak back out again-- he had left without her, as she told him to. She was supposed to catch up with him-- but all she could do is pace in the alley next to the police station.
"I never met you. I never met you. I never met you before the island. I never met you before the island--" She repeated over and over. Though it would hurt, being next to a Police station full of anti-magic toxin, she had to try repeating it-- crouching where no one could see her, she tried to repeat quietly, "I never met Shinichi before that island."
She choked. She couldn't do it. She had met him once when she went to land, but still, that didn't mean the meeting was significant.
-- Of course it was significant! If it wasn't, it wouldn't bother her. Like meeting someone and casually talking to them while waiting in line years ago, that person would certainly be forgotten in time-- and she did forget. But knowing his presence was there needed to remind her how. "Think, think. At an age like that, I had to meet him at the oldest point I could... it had to be within a year of the incident... maybe earlier... damn it..."
She wasn't going to find the answer in the back of an alley... Beatrice finally walked out, looking up into the sky as it began to snow.
Drops of red.
Drops of red on the white, white snow. Why did that memory come back to her? The only time she saw snow in a city...
... there had been a murder...
Yasu had nearly gotten sick. She remembered that, but the yellow tape was already up, it didn't stop her from catching a horrible glimpse of the gunshot victim. Someone lead her away from the scene of the crime-- she couldn't remember a police officer. It was someone small dragging her away, like Maria.
"That's where I met you, you sneaky brat! Of course it would be at a crime scene!" Beatrice felt momentarily victorious, stomping her foot into the ground with a laugh; attracting a few stares from passerby-- she composed herself. That was that! He left an impact on her memory without her realizing it because the first time she saw his face was without glasses, and was associated with the only time she saw blood on snow. That had to be a satisfactory answer.
... but it still didn't feel right. Before the bench could become truly dusty with snow. Beatrice sat down and tipped her head up, trying to drink in memory lane and remember. They talked. Before the boy's father took him home, they talked. His father was helping the investigation. She'd bought coffee. She asked him a few things... talking to a child like an adult, how stupid of Yasu... she bit her lip hard. Something was on the tip of her tongue and she didn't want it to escape.
"What good is... the truth..."
"What good is the truth if it won't bring someone back?"
He stopped and turned to look at her. There was earnestness in her eyes.
"It's really important... someone older than me should understand that. If there's one truth, someone strong enough to find it will. That's how the world works."
Beatrice's eyes snapped open in fear.
No.
Beatrice's form and plans had been inspired by her love for Battler. Magic could make even a scraggly servant like that girl Yasu into a beautiful woman straight out of a portrait.
No.
But the person who made her realize the truth was so important, like a pebble on the sand you need to comb for no matter how long it takes, no matter how small of a chance there was...
No!!
Had been that boy all along.
How painful.
He could never know. He could never know. He could never know that the spark that lit the story of Rokkenjima came from him, even if the rest was her machinations.
And suddenly he was standing in front of her, holding out a cup of coffee for her, the only difference between the 'him' she first met and the him she knew now, the glasses. "Are you scared of coffee or something now, Beatrice-obaasan?" He asked flatly, thinking at first he had only startled her. The way her face softened in creases of worry was what tipped him off that something was really wrong. She took the coffee, but she didn't drink. He climbed up next to her. He asked her what was wrong.
Nothing.
"Something is wrong."
"Nothing, please do not ask."
"... you know you can't ask me not to ask."
"If you ask, then you'll definitely figure it out, so don't ask..."
There was a strained pause between them.
"Beatrice... what is it?"
Setting the coffee to the side, she buried her face in her hands. "Isn't the snow... beautiful? There isn't a drop of red on it, just slush from the cars... no red..."
"Why is the red important suddenly?"
The witch exhaled. "Because I couldn't repeat it." There was a broken smile on her lips. "I couldn't repeat that I had never met you before we met on the island."
Shocked, he looked at her for any sign of a joke, a mistruth, but there was nothing but her wry, pained expression. She was telling the truth. They had met before-- and if it hurt her so much not to just joke about it, to mention it in passing, then something was even worse. "Why is it significant? Beatrice, you have to tell me!"
"Don't. Ask! If you ask, you'll find out, if you think about it, you'll remember, just don't make me tell you..." She hugged her arms and shivered, with no strength of her own. Seeing her so weak like that--
A blonde woman, peculiar, met her only a couple times, but each incident was strange--
So different from the real Beatrice-- but no, Beatrice was fake. He'd met--
A servant girl who asked peculiar questions and he gave honest answers to.
The real Yasu, back when he was the real Shinichi. Red on snow. A letter in his mailbox that got thrown out by someone with time, a riddle he tried solving though he didn't understand it.
A letter from a witch. A letter from a witch thanking him. He suddenly understood Beatrice's fear of him knowing-- the cycle, had it been simply helped, or started by casual words he threw around simply because he believed in them? Had Rokkenjima entered its recurring cycle of death because someone... had to find the truth, even at the suffering of others? What's more, his world, this world, hadn't held the Rokkenjima to live happily ever after. Who knew how many... even outside of the Witch's game, outside of how many Beatrice bluffed and claimed...
His head hit the back of the bench gently as she buried her face in her hands again. They went back farther than either of them had ever guessed. Suddenly, his promise to Beatrice, to 'take responsibility' for all of the kakera he might have created out of a promise in red was much more expansive, much more severe... and so much more disheartening.
The snow was beautiful, but was it ever cold.
--
a little fanart
If the floating timelines weren't so floating in DC, Conan would have been a little kid when the Rokkenjima disaster occurred.
Then I wrote this and this
and now i wrote this \o/
--
She confirmed it in the criminal database. Scrolling through newspaper articles going back years with a swiped ID card, the Rokkenjima disaster had occurred in his world-- one where everyone had died... even Ange had passed away since. The list of casualties listed her name twice-- Shannon, Kanon. Beatrice rubbed her forehead... she supposed she could maintain her existence in the boy's world on a technicality. No documentation of 'Yasu'. Dead or alive status couldn't be accounted for for someone who did not exist in documents.
The 'witch' did not possess their identities anymore-- the spirits of Shannon and Kanon had truly passed on from the world, if she could speak with love. All was left was the mannequin their faces and personality were pasted on. Still, staring at their photographs in the newspaper... Beatrice could only feel unsettled. Scrolling further and doing the math... hoh. The little boy was alive around the time of the disaster, but long before he was handling cases on his own. Still... to think they matched in age so many odd ways, once upon a time, Beatrice and the boy existed at the correct age, during the same time. If only she had met him.
Wait.
'If only I knew you'.
She swallowed hard, as if familiarity was the bile in the back of her throat. She didn't leave the island enough, the odds would be astronomical for them to have met, and what difference would Shinichi have made as a child? Still, it was a point she couldn't drive herself away from. She closed down the computer and returned the card key to the unwitting police officer's desk. She was here as a friend of the boy. All it took was a little 'creative' magic for her to sneak into the back room and sneak back out again-- he had left without her, as she told him to. She was supposed to catch up with him-- but all she could do is pace in the alley next to the police station.
"I never met you. I never met you. I never met you before the island. I never met you before the island--" She repeated over and over. Though it would hurt, being next to a Police station full of anti-magic toxin, she had to try repeating it-- crouching where no one could see her, she tried to repeat quietly, "I never met Shinichi before that island."
She choked. She couldn't do it. She had met him once when she went to land, but still, that didn't mean the meeting was significant.
-- Of course it was significant! If it wasn't, it wouldn't bother her. Like meeting someone and casually talking to them while waiting in line years ago, that person would certainly be forgotten in time-- and she did forget. But knowing his presence was there needed to remind her how. "Think, think. At an age like that, I had to meet him at the oldest point I could... it had to be within a year of the incident... maybe earlier... damn it..."
She wasn't going to find the answer in the back of an alley... Beatrice finally walked out, looking up into the sky as it began to snow.
Drops of red.
Drops of red on the white, white snow. Why did that memory come back to her? The only time she saw snow in a city...
... there had been a murder...
Yasu had nearly gotten sick. She remembered that, but the yellow tape was already up, it didn't stop her from catching a horrible glimpse of the gunshot victim. Someone lead her away from the scene of the crime-- she couldn't remember a police officer. It was someone small dragging her away, like Maria.
"That's where I met you, you sneaky brat! Of course it would be at a crime scene!" Beatrice felt momentarily victorious, stomping her foot into the ground with a laugh; attracting a few stares from passerby-- she composed herself. That was that! He left an impact on her memory without her realizing it because the first time she saw his face was without glasses, and was associated with the only time she saw blood on snow. That had to be a satisfactory answer.
... but it still didn't feel right. Before the bench could become truly dusty with snow. Beatrice sat down and tipped her head up, trying to drink in memory lane and remember. They talked. Before the boy's father took him home, they talked. His father was helping the investigation. She'd bought coffee. She asked him a few things... talking to a child like an adult, how stupid of Yasu... she bit her lip hard. Something was on the tip of her tongue and she didn't want it to escape.
"What good is... the truth..."
"What good is the truth if it won't bring someone back?"
He stopped and turned to look at her. There was earnestness in her eyes.
"It's really important... someone older than me should understand that. If there's one truth, someone strong enough to find it will. That's how the world works."
Beatrice's eyes snapped open in fear.
No.
Beatrice's form and plans had been inspired by her love for Battler. Magic could make even a scraggly servant like that girl Yasu into a beautiful woman straight out of a portrait.
No.
But the person who made her realize the truth was so important, like a pebble on the sand you need to comb for no matter how long it takes, no matter how small of a chance there was...
No!!
Had been that boy all along.
How painful.
He could never know. He could never know. He could never know that the spark that lit the story of Rokkenjima came from him, even if the rest was her machinations.
And suddenly he was standing in front of her, holding out a cup of coffee for her, the only difference between the 'him' she first met and the him she knew now, the glasses. "Are you scared of coffee or something now, Beatrice-obaasan?" He asked flatly, thinking at first he had only startled her. The way her face softened in creases of worry was what tipped him off that something was really wrong. She took the coffee, but she didn't drink. He climbed up next to her. He asked her what was wrong.
Nothing.
"Something is wrong."
"Nothing, please do not ask."
"... you know you can't ask me not to ask."
"If you ask, then you'll definitely figure it out, so don't ask..."
There was a strained pause between them.
"Beatrice... what is it?"
Setting the coffee to the side, she buried her face in her hands. "Isn't the snow... beautiful? There isn't a drop of red on it, just slush from the cars... no red..."
"Why is the red important suddenly?"
The witch exhaled. "Because I couldn't repeat it." There was a broken smile on her lips. "I couldn't repeat that I had never met you before we met on the island."
Shocked, he looked at her for any sign of a joke, a mistruth, but there was nothing but her wry, pained expression. She was telling the truth. They had met before-- and if it hurt her so much not to just joke about it, to mention it in passing, then something was even worse. "Why is it significant? Beatrice, you have to tell me!"
"Don't. Ask! If you ask, you'll find out, if you think about it, you'll remember, just don't make me tell you..." She hugged her arms and shivered, with no strength of her own. Seeing her so weak like that--
A blonde woman, peculiar, met her only a couple times, but each incident was strange--
So different from the real Beatrice-- but no, Beatrice was fake. He'd met--
A servant girl who asked peculiar questions and he gave honest answers to.
The real Yasu, back when he was the real Shinichi. Red on snow. A letter in his mailbox that got thrown out by someone with time, a riddle he tried solving though he didn't understand it.
A letter from a witch. A letter from a witch thanking him. He suddenly understood Beatrice's fear of him knowing-- the cycle, had it been simply helped, or started by casual words he threw around simply because he believed in them? Had Rokkenjima entered its recurring cycle of death because someone... had to find the truth, even at the suffering of others? What's more, his world, this world, hadn't held the Rokkenjima to live happily ever after. Who knew how many... even outside of the Witch's game, outside of how many Beatrice bluffed and claimed...
His head hit the back of the bench gently as she buried her face in her hands again. They went back farther than either of them had ever guessed. Suddenly, his promise to Beatrice, to 'take responsibility' for all of the kakera he might have created out of a promise in red was much more expansive, much more severe... and so much more disheartening.
The snow was beautiful, but was it ever cold.
--
a little fanart
