Chapter Text
Shinichi glanced down at the card in his hand again while they waited on the officers slowly forming a cordon around the large ostentatious case with their gazes fixed on the door to the vault. He’d joined the task force that morning, first day on the job, and he was already faced with a riddle, though a simple one at that.
‘In the end the one truth rises above the rest’ below a detailed schematic of the vault, information about the Azure Pendant that no one should have had. Tucked into his pocket like he was just a messenger boy for the police. What rankled him the most was how he couldn’t even guess who it had been in hindsight—the woman on the train brushing past him on her way out, the vendor who had accosted him selling watches, or the high school student waiting impatiently at the crosswalk—and yet it hooked his interest in the case more than anything else could’ve.
“Step outside, out of the way in case things get ugly,” Inspector Wakatoru ordered, gesturing towards the entrance without looking up from his watch. “Don’t want our ‘star detective’ getting lost in the very first case. Even if it’s another dud of a night.”
Stepping over the raised threshold of the vault, Shinichi held back a sigh and rapped the card against his thumb in thought. Why him? He’d answer the summons, purely for the sake of seeing who could want something from him, the newest and least respected recruit to the team. But it would have to wait until after the night was done, quiet or otherwise. He’d hoped to see the Pandora Syndicate in action, despite finding his assignment dubious. Previous dealings with organizations like this were a personal matter, not one he wanted to encounter again in his work and certainly never its members, but curiosity was a fickle and infuriating thing when it sunk its claws into him and refused to let go. Why target gems? Why leave them to be discovered on the black market, their tracks hidden laughably poorly? Why could the police never figure out how the thefts were carried out?
The line of officers disappeared, swallowed by a wave of black smoke that filled the safe to the brim. Shinichi stepped back, eyes narrowed as he tried to see anything between the billows, anything to give a hint as to just what or who was responsible. The pendant had been housed securely in an impenetrable viewing case, there was no reason to assume that the foiling of the police would mean the same for their last line of defense. Objects tended to be less fallible than people, in any case.
A hollow click sounded from within the miasma and Shinichi dropped the card as a figure leaned out of the smoke towards him. Only their upper body materialized, the rest still swallowed by the thick billows spilling onto the floor, they bowed low and sweeping. Not a single inch of skin was visible, hands sheathed in midnight and hood pulled low, but even as they turned to face him, Shinichi saw the mask over their face, white set in a frame of black with a wide toothy smile drawn underneath a single round eye lopsidedly on the left. Its cartoonish grin matched the unmistakable glee with which they spoke.
“A new player!” Anything that Shinichi could have deduced from the voice was hidden behind the scratch of modulation that distorted it. “It’ll be our secret.”
With a finger pressed across their mask’s mouth, they melted back into the dark smoke and despite the vault’s fans finally clearing the space, there was nothing left behind of the figure. Nor of the pendant, the case splayed open like a cracked egg in the center of the confused mass of officers.
Seeing the seething rage on Inspector Wakatoru’s face, Shinichi retrieved the card from the floor and slipped into the stairwell before beginning to climb. There was no reason to stay now that he’d seen the main event, the sideshow of police pompousness wasn’t anything special or noteworthy after that. On the long way up to the roof, the mask of the thief hovered at the forefront of his mind, the finger held to their mouth, a black slit against the white. In all the briefings, there’d been no mention of anyone like that, the police had suspected a team based on the scale of some thefts’ machinations, but never a visual description. For whatever inexplicable reason, Pandora’s agent had decided to peel back a layer of their smokescreen and peak through.
He took the elevator the last 20 floors, stepping out into the sky-restaurant’s dark dining hall. Staring down over the surrounding streets, Shinichi waited.
The light clicked on, flooding the restaurant and blinding Shinichi to outside the windows, the sudden gesture of normalcy spurring him to turn around. A barrel touched the back of his head, pressed firmly but not roughly into his hair, keeping him facing the newly opaque glass panes. His eyes slid to the side, hoping to catch a glimpse of the figure behind him in the reflection but either the culprit was lucky or knew, and he saw only the pale fingers holding the trigger and the brim of a baseball cap tipped low.
“Excuse the greeting, detective, but in the informant business, it pays to be discreet.” His voice was smooth, clear and surprisingly young. “I chose you for your intellect, and as such do me the honor of not attempting any stupid endeavors such as complicating our relationship.”
“Your information was unexpected but also unimportant in the long run, as an informant that should be the first priority,” Shinichi replied, going still. The menace in the voice was layered, a quiet intensity that he was sure he didn’t want to test.
“This was not a transaction, this was an introduction—”
“Then tell me your name.”
The silence that followed was enough to chill Shinichi’s spine, his mind whirling through the variables of whether he’d pushed too far or if he should’ve waited until the balance was tipped more in his favor. But he’d had a runaway mouth for his whole life, that wasn’t going to stop now when faced—or rather, faced away—from an intriguing persona.
“You can call me Fourteen.” The gun dug into his head, pushing Shinichi’s forehead against the window’s glass. “Now that we’ve been properly introduced, the transaction can start. I’ll send you their next target, their movements, their plans, and you play the good little detective who happens to have epiphanies. An excuse you’re used to, right?”
If anything, Shinichi felt even colder. He’d been debating what use they’d have of the targets considering the Syndicate had been reliably targeting only the most valuable jewels, although with the upcoming exhibition that was the reason for the task force expanding, they’d be spread rather alarmingly thin. But Fourteen knew more than that and Shinichi could read between the lines to the real threat of retaliation if he deviated.
“This seems rather one-sided, what do you gain from this?” Shinichi pushed back against the barrel, his head aching from the force.
“Revenge.” The pressure against his scalp disappeared with that last word, leaving Shinichi with an empty room and a head full of questions.