Unfortunately I didn't manage to fit my entire entry in under 10k for the Poirot Café's competition, so this entire thing is going to be in two parts. This is part number one, and part number two will be posted in approximately a week after the voting for the competition ends, since it will bring my total word count over the maximum 10k. Feel free to let me know of any grammatical errors you notice so I can fix them since I'm almost certain I didn't catch them all. Changing tenses last minute is a pain everybody, don't do it.

Hope you enjoy!

Warnings for character death (minor and canon) and language. Spoilers for Mystery Train and Scarlet Arc.

Her oldest brother was sixteen years old when she came into the world.

He looked down at her and saw something precious to protect. She looked up at him and he was her entire world.

When she was two and three he watched her while he did his homework. Every so often (and it really was quite often) he had to chase her around the house and keep her away and off of one thing or another. She was quite the active toddler.

She crawled slowly for a short period of time before she was darting around the house on her knees. She would hoist herself up on every surface she could reach in determination to teach herself how to walk. Help wasn't needed, though her father and mother helped her out anyway. Her brother was content to leave her to her own devices.

She learned to walk soon enough. She was certainly a proficient learner, but still wasn't satisfied.

She climbed the chairs and then the tables and then the side of the bookcase, because everything became so much taller and the world was in a new perspective. It encaptured her and she wanted to be taller. When her brother would come over, as he did so often, and ply her hands from their hold on the shelves she wouldn't even struggle because he lifted her up into the air and she was even higher then. The world was so big.

She loved the sight. She loved the attention. So every day that her brother came home from school, no matter what, she'd run around until he picked her up and took her to the skies.

Her father died when she was four and she didn't really understand it.

They were all wearing dark colours and looking very sad at the spot in the ground where they'd lowered the coffin. It didn't make any sense to her. After all, her father wasn't really in the coffin they put in the ground. Her brother said that they burnt his body and put the ashes in the urn that her mother had next to her jewelry box. That meant that the coffin was empty, so why were they standing around the dirt that they dug up?

She stood next to her oldest brother the entire time and her younger older brother stood in front of her, head low. He might be crying, she wasn't sure, but she definitely was not. Neither was her oldest brother. He seemed more intent on staying by her side than anything else, even though he had an impassive expression on his face.

Later that night, she crawled into his bedroom when it was dark and slipped underneath his bedcovers. She wanted to protect him from any monsters that might come for him in his sleep and take him away like they did their father. She didn't see her father all that much, so him being gone now didn't really bother her, but they weren't allowed to have her brother.

He woke up because of her movements and asked her what she was doing. She told him she had a bad dream.

He didn't need to know that she was protecting him. All the stories she read where the good guy exclaims their intentions they did because they wanted a reward, whether it was the princess or money from the king. She didn't want any money, so she kept her lips shut.

There was pure satisfaction when she woke up and her brother was still there.

She protected him.

She was five and in kindergarten when she met her first bully. He laughed at her clothes and told her that she needed to stop pretending to be a boy. Somehow he learned that her surname just recently changed back to her mothers and he made snide comments about wondering whether or not her father disowned her.

The first couple times the remarks just made her confused. Why was he mocking her?

And one day her brother came home from college and picked her up from school by surprise. She didn't try to contain her enthusiasm at his presence. The moment she saw him she ran into his arms and he lifted her up. She was flying again, and the world was so big and perfect around her.

The very next day her bully came up to her again, but he wasn't hurling insults at her this time. He was making fun of her brother, and that was the very first time she felt pure anger.

He had a bloody nose and a sprained ankle by the time he got away from her, limping as fast as he could. There had been no purpose to her attack. It was wild, sporadic. The only thought that came to her mind was her brother, with his nice smile and gentle demeanor, lifting her into the air with that loving look on his face.

The phrase 'that's unladylike' had never been used as a slaught against her until that day. It came from her teacher and then the administration. The students caught wind and by the end of the day people were whispering behind their hands and calling her 'such a boy', like her behaviour was such a bad thing.

When she got home that night it was to the same type of scolding from her mother. But she didn't worry about her, she worried about what her brother would say.

He was irked. He criticised her for lashing out and losing her cool. He said that if she was going to fight, she needed to learn how to do it properly, with technique and careful precision.

The word 'unladylike' never came out of her brother's mouth.

Six years old and her brother was graduating from college.

She didn't understand what the fuss was about, but as she got dressed up for the ceremony, her mother placed a cutesy floral kimono on her bed. She frowned. Her brother had left the house earlier looking cool and collected in his formal attire. She wanted to match with her brother.

Immediately protesting, her mother didn't listen. She told her that it was her job as a lady to look nice for an important event and her brothers would be wonderfully surprised to see how pretty she looked. Wouldn't it be such a nice surprise for her oldest brother?

She still wanted to match his outfit, but her mother wouldn't give her anything else to wear and she couldn't risk not going to the ceremony. It was important. Everyone kept telling her that, anyway. So she put on the kimono and shoes and her mother added a bow to her hair and they headed off, her and her mother and her younger brother, to meet her oldest brother in the graduation hall.

It was crowded and the buildings were large. She wanted to climb to the top of them and look around the horizon, but she knew that she couldn't. Before they could get inside, she and her middle sibling were separated from their mother amongst everyone and after a quick shout to meet them inside, her mother headed to the entrance to save the three of them some seats. She initially moved to follow in her direction but was held back by her younger brother. He was smiling and told her to follow him, and then she was being dragged by the wrist to another part of the building.

Excitement bubbled in her chest and she giggled, wanting to know what type of adventure he was leading her on.

They ended up at the bathroom on a different side of the building and graduates in their formal outfits were flitting around trying to get organized.

Her younger brother ushered her into the boys restroom and before she could protest she was pushed inside. She immediately saw her oldest brother leaning over by the stalls and she forgot about everything and smiled, running over him to give him a hug. He hugged her back and hoisted her onto his hip, then held up a dry-cleaning bag to her. She opened it and inside was an exact replica of his own clothes, in her size.

She smiled brighter than the sun and grabbed the bow off of her head, tossing it to the ground.

Her brother seemed to disappear off the face of the earth after his graduation.

He started sending her martial arts videos in the mail with letters inside telling her to practice, so she did. She wanted to be strong, and she saw her brother practice the techniques as well. She wanted to be just as good as him, or at least a worthy opponent.

The few times he dropped by during that year his entire focus was on her. He helped her with her posture and technique and style, and she committed every teaching to memory. Any spare moment they had was shared together, and she cherished it. Sometimes her other brother would join and they'd laugh and joke around, just like a happy family.

She didn't notice how her brother was withdrawing from them and becoming more distant. When she opened her mouth and teased him, he gave her that loving expression like always and teased her back, and nothing seemed to be different.

She told him to pick her up and spin her around and he joked about how she was getting too heavy for him – he wasn't that strong. She took to running at him and jumping on and off of him instead and, in hindsight, they might as well be the same thing, right?

And the entire time, he didn't say a word about what it was he'd been doing. She didn't think to ask.

She was nine and she'd gotten rather good at board games. She played against her younger brother while he went through his own college classes and it would never cease to amaze her how smart he was. Her older brother was smart too, of course, but her younger brother could recall facts and information so easily. He was going to be graduating at the top of his class again, she was sure of it.

Meanwhile, her mother finally gave in and enrolled her in martial arts classes. She didn't last very long in them, much preferring the experience of learning from her brother's tapes, but it still helped her work on her technique and her power. No boy had tried to mess with her since she'd proven what she could do with her kicks and a block of cement in the school parking lot. She felt giddy after that, and sent a long text message to her brother telling him all about it.

He responded quickly like always. She still didn't know what he was doing and his visits had become increasingly less often, but even after only seeing him in person twice in the past year, his instant response made her feel protected.

The knowledge that, if she ever were to really need him, he was always ready to offer advice or come to her aid.

It was her eleventh birthday and instead of planning a big birthday party and inviting tons of people over to celebrate, she sat back in the sun and crossed her hands behind her head. The air was fresh and the rooftop of her family's apartment complex was completely empty, leaving her to sit and enjoy herself.

She'd been reading a book there for a while. After that she moved towards the railing and took in the open air and sky all around her. Feet dangling off the ledge in between the bars, she closed her eyes and just breathed in the fresh air.

After some time, a weight settled down beside her and she turned, ready to see her younger brother telling her that the 'surprise' he'd planned for her is finally complete downstairs, but it wasn't him that she saw.

Instead it was her oldest brother, looking down at her with a bemused expression.

He seemed less openly warming than she remembered, but that was just on the outside. It didn't bother her in the slightest. Maybe he'd become more unapproachable and closed off from others for whatever reason she didn't know, but it didn't matter. She could be open and expressive enough for the both of them.

Just to prove it she leaned up and immediately wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close for a big hug and smiling.

A moments pause had him finally bringing up his arms to reciprocate and for a moment she allowed herself to wonder what it was that changed her brother so much.

But it didn't really matter now.

He relaxed after that. They went back down to the apartment to find that her surprise was a cake designed exactly like a chessboard, with martial arts figures as the chesspieces. It was the most beautiful design she'd ever seen.

They spend the rest of the day telling stories and watching movies, and long after the happiness and sugar and caffeine finally wore off she dozed off on the couch, completely content.

She was brought to a fuzzy awareness sometime later, in the midst of a warm pile of blankets that she belatedly realized were her own. Her brother was running a hand through her hair and absentmindedly staring into space next to her. She stirred and tried to bring herself to full wakefulness by sitting up, but he gently pushed her back down and placed a kiss to her forehead.

"Go back to sleep, Masumi."

She grumbled back, but closed her eyes again, instead reaching blindly for his hand. He wrapped his fingers around hers, and leaned in close to her.

"I'm going to be going away for a while, alright? You won't be able to contact me, by phone or anything," he paused.

"I'll always come back home, no matter what. I promise. But I need you to be strong while I'm gone. Can you do that for me?"

Something about his statement set off warning bells in her head, but she wasn't awake enough to comment on it. Instead, she nodded, mumbling a brief 'mhm' before slipping back into unconsciousness.

Hours later she woke with a start and couldn't remember what it was that had woken her up.

The bed was cold and she felt an unexplainable pang of dread wash over her.

And for some reason, she felt as though she was never going to see her brother again.

True to his word, none of her texts were answered. Not in the days leading after her eleventh birthday, and not weeks or months past that. By the time she'd turned thirteen, she had accepted that her brother was out of her reach. She didn't know why and didn't really want to think about it, so she buried herself with other things.

Both she and her mother moved to America. It was sudden and she didn't know why, especially because her younger brother stayed behind in Japan. But he didn't give her any more clues despite the fact that she was emailing him and asking him about it regularly. She would rather text, but the messaging rates were just too high and she knew she'd get scolded if she even tried.

She got along better with the boys in the American middle school rather than the girls, but she couldn't tell if that was because of her apparent athleticism or because she always got nervous around the other girls in her grade. They were all cutesy types with dresses and heels along with their friends, where her wardrobe had developed into a laid-back boyish style. Not that she had anything against dresses in particular, but it was much easier to get a good kick in with trousers on.

On the rare day that she decided to dress a bit more nicely – it's picture day her mother implored her, and why she was always trying to stick her into dresses or a kimono she didn't know, but she also knew the drill well enough by now that she didn't feel like wasting the time arguing about it – she felt uncomfortable.

Everyone at school was looking at her oddly and she couldn't figure out what for. That was, of course, until the boy she liked to spar with in martial arts class – Dylan, his name was, and he was the closest thing she had to a friend – caught sight of her and his eyes bulged out of his head before he loudly proclaimed, "You're a girl?"

The surprise shocked her. She hadn't exactly been hiding her gender, her name was Masumi, after all. And sure she was completely flat chested but that didn't mean anything. Her figure would fill out in time, she was sure. It had for her brother's, though certainly not in the way that she wanted for herself, but her mother always claimed that she got her large breasts at the end of high school. She still had at least four years to go.

Dylan didn't seem to think so. Or maybe Dylan thought it was so preposterous that he'd been hanging out and enjoying the company of a girl this entire time that he felt the need to tell everyone that, "She's basically a guy," as if to make up for the transgression somehow.

Masumi didn't know, and she didn't care. It wasn't like 'being a guy' was an insult, anyway. But neither was being a girl.

So she didn't really talk to Dylan much after that. Especially since he'd started refusing to spar her in class because she was a girl. Instead, she pushed the nervousness aside and started making friends with more of the girls in her grade. Aside from a few of the more snobbish girls, they accepted her quite easily.

And, she learned, that maybe she liked girls better after all.

Almost fifteen years old and she was determined to find her brother.

It had been nearly four years and she hadn't heard a single word from him. She didn't know what he was doing or where he had been, and more than that she couldn't figure out why she couldn't find him. She hadn't broken her promise, not yet. Didn't plan to. But he never said that being strong meant she just had to sit idly on the sidelines to find out what happened to him. That sounded more like complacency.

Before she moved to America, her younger brother made multiple remarks on her deduction skills. He said she was noticeably improving on connecting pieces together, in chess but also in everyday life. She hadn't noticed it before then. She always figured it was something that came naturally to everyone, only to find out that it didn't, not quite.

His praise made her heart swell. By a long shot, she never considered herself even close to her brother's intellectually. But with his continuous remarks, maybe she wasn't nearly as far behind them as she thought.

So why not put it to the test?

Her oldest brother's departure had bugged her from the moment it happened. No, he hadn't been around nearly as often as she remembered from when she was little, but it still felt as though he just disappeared off the face of the earth.

His phone was dead or untraceable – she'd checked. Multiple times. His car had been sold to a private buyer. No addresses or listings provided his name or contact information. There was nothing to get a hold of him

But after a decent amount of hacking and backtracking, she found something she hadn't even thought to consider before. The possibility hadn't even popped up in her mind.

Her brother's name, right there, listed under employee's in the Federal Bureau of Investigations records.

When news got to her not two years later that her brother had been killed in Japan, she was in shock.

She felt a crushing pain in her heart that was threatening to to overwhelm her. She wanted to cry. She wanted to punch a wall. She wanted to wail and yell and scream and curl up in her bed and shut the entire world away. Her world had just been ripped away from her, and now she was stuck on the ground, never able to reach the skies again.

Masumi pushed all of those feelings down. She locked them up and put them away because it was impossible, she convinced herself. Her oldest brother promised her that he would come back, and she made a promise that she would stay strong.

He wouldn't break his promise to her. And she wouldn't to him.

And she was going to find him. Alive.

Then she was going to wreak hell on him for allowing even the idea of his death to get back to her. For it to exist at all. It was such a preposterous suggestion that there was no way there was any truth to it at all. Her brother was fine, but missing.

She was going to find him.

It took a great deal of effort to convince her mother to allow her to go back to Japan on her own, but she did it. She was sixteen now, after all. She could take care of herself, and a wealthy family friend offered to pay for her living expenses as thanks to 'the lovely female detective' who found his missing daughter after six months. Why he was so insistent on calling her that she didn't know, especially because she helped him out because it was the right thing to do and nothing more, but she wasn't going to argue.

He was, after all, going to pay for her to stay in a hotel as long as she needed. And 'detective' had a nice ring to it, anyway. After he'd called her that, she'd started using it. It was a way to single herself out. She felt special, knowing that there was something that she was good at intellectually.

It was little compensation for the loneliness she felt when she thought about her brother.

Information that she gathered during the past two years was all she needed to figure out that her brother was in Japan. Or at least, her brother had been last seen in Japan, before the report of his death appeared in the system. Either way, Japan was where she had to go to start getting clues.

Her mother waved at her from the door of their home for the last three years while she entered the cab. She waved back because she knew her mother wouldn't be happy with her if she didn't. She thought Masumi just wanted to go back to Japan because it was her birthplace and because she would rather finish her studies there.

It really was partially true, but she knew if she revealed the main reason her mother would have never let her leave. This option was better.

And she promised to stay in regular contact with her and her younger brother.

She would go to school. She would be a normal high-school female martial artist amateur detective and she would make friends.

And in her spare time, she would find her brother.

Despite the rough patch she encountered when she first got back, everything had been going fairly well.

She had a play to stay. She made friends at Teitan High and there were more than enough mysteries in Beika to keep her interested when a lead about her brother didn't pan out.

Detective was a title she fully embraced now after everything she'd encountered and with further encouragement from her younger brother. She hadn't been able to meet with him nearly as often as she wanted, but that was alright. It would happen eventually, and he was fairly busy. Until then she was much more satisfied with texting him as opposed to the emails that she had to resort to during her time in America. He responded quickly, and it was so much like how things used to be with her oldest brother that she couldn't help but laugh. The two were so much more similar than they thought.

But part of her was desperately hoping he didn't disappear the exact same way that her oldest brother had. She wanted him to promise that he wouldn't, but she was unwilling to voice her insecurities to him like that.

And it would mean informing him that their older brother might be dead. If he didn't already know or have an idea, she didn't want to break the news to him. Not ever, but especially not until she was one-hundred percent sure.

Her first lead popped up on her walk home from school with her new friends. They chatted and for the most part her oldest brother had slipped from her mind – she was enjoying the day and the chatter.

Then right outside her field of vision was her brother. He was amidst a crowd of people with his signature hat pulled over his eyes, but there was no mistaking him. That was, not until her eyes fell onto the scar on his face.

It was enough to get her running though, and she darted forward as quickly as she could, all thoughts towards the conversation with the girls forgotten.

Somehow, in the split second it took her to make the decision to run after him, he disappeared.

But she saw him. He was there. He was alive. And that was enough to bring the hope back into her heart.

He was avoiding her for some reason she didn't know, but he was alive. That was all that mattered.

It was almost surprising how something so simple could kick her back into gear.

She was happier than she could remember being in a long, long time. At the time she thought it was impossible and that there was no way that man could be her oldest brother and she knew it, but she couldn't help the swelling of her heart and the absolute hope that rose within her. Despite her initial and later reactions, his face was just so clear in her mind that she couldn't help but subconsciously think it was actually him.

It had to be him. He had to be alive. Her effort was paying off.

She felt like a good detective. She tried harder on any cases that popped up and she felt more involved with Ran-chan and Sonoko-chan and the rest of the students of Teitan High School. They all certainly liked her more than the people in America did, and she was incredibly happy and felt like she fit in again.

A number of new people had come into her life. Watching Conan-kun and Mouri-san bicker with each other always made her laugh, and though it was only for one case, meeting with the Detective of the West had certainly been an adventure. That was one case she wasn't soon to forget, and her deduction had been close to the more skilled high school detective's. She was getting better.

But for all the times that she met him (and it wasn't many) Subaru Okiya was an interesting character. She wasn't sure what to think about him and quite honestly, he made a few warning bells go off in her head. Something about him was just suspicious. She would get around to investigating eventually, but more important things took the forefront.

When Sonoko-chan invited her with the group to the Bell Tree Express, she was elated.

They considered her one of the group, and they held her in high enough regard to think that she should be invited, and it made her feel more at home in Japan than she had in a while.

But she'd done enough investigating up to this point to know not to put her guard down. Every bit of information she'd come across up indicated that something big was going to happen. There was too much mystery wrapped around the Haibara girl that Conan-kun was friends with for it not to.

She looked like the splitting image of a girl in a picture she'd run across while looking up information about her brother.

Or, to be more accurate, the sister of a girl who was pictured walking down the street with her brother.

So imagine her surprise when she was wrapped up in a case, determined to find the children to help figure out who the murderer was -

And she practically ran right into him.

She wanted to scream.

"Who are you?"

There was too much hope. She felt like her heart would burst. He was there. He was finally back and she finally found him and he was alive. But she was also too angry about everything that happened to admit her relief. Why did he leave her without any explanation? Why didn't he tell her what he was up to? Why were there reports of his death? It has been nearly six years since the last time she saw him, it might as well have been ten years for the last time he'd been around. She never really realised it until that moment but she was angry.

"Who the hell are you?"

He just laughed at her, smirking in that irritating way of his.

"You haven't changed a bit, Masumi."

Her heart soared. She was in shock. Because it was him. It was really him.

"Shuu-nii..."

She knew it. He hadn't been dead after all.

But that didn't answer a single question she had since she started looking into his disappearance.

"Shuu-nii, is it really you? But how? I heard you were dead!"

The last thing she remembered before the world turned black around her was his face.

The next couple of days after that were a whirlwind of emotion.

At first, she was relieved. Her brother was alive. Somehow, someway, the FBI got it wrong. The information in their system was wrong. Part of her wanted to hack into it and change the status under Akai Shuichi's name from Deceased to Active, but as bitter as she was at the misleading information, she wasn't stupid.

A week passed, and she slowly turned from relieved to angry.

She met him on that train, she knew that she did. No idea why her memory stopped after that point, but the information she gained from before the blackout was still vivid in her mind. It was the first time she'd seen him since her eleventh birthday. How was she supposed to forget that?

But he hadn't contacted her since. She hadn't heard a word from him. She even sent multiple texts to his old phone number in the hopes that maybe he turned it back on. No such luck. No phonecalls, no personal visits, nothing.

And she was getting angry, because the situation was making her doubt her memory. The picture was so clear of him standing above her, wearing the hat that she now held on to and refused to let go. His hair was a little shorter than she remembered, he was taller and more built, and there was that horrible scar on his face, but it was him.

Unless it wasn't.

A month went by without any word from him and she was very irritated about it. And if that irritation showed while she was trying to have a good time with Ran-chan and Sonoko-chan or when she was messing around with Conan-kun and the Detective Boys, well, no one commented on it. Not even Subaru-san, though he gave her an odd look when she declined his invitation to join the kids for tea and chose to walk back to the hotel instead.

But it was raining and she didn't have an umbrella with her, so maybe that was what the look was for.

She had a good immune system though. A hot shower when she got home with a cup of coffee was all she needed to feel better afterwards. She didn't even catch a cold.

She hit a lead and that exact reason was why she found herself running down an alley, trying to catch a sniper that had been trained on the son of a wealthy businessman.

She'd been at an expensive house party hosted by the Suzuki Financial Group, invitation courtesy of Sonoko-chan as usual, when movement across the street caught her eye. She hadn't thought much about it at first but then that red dot had appeared on one of the party goers and she immediately pushed him out of the way. The bullet hit a table full of expensive dishes instead of its intended target thanks to her, but that didn't stop her from sprinting full speed out the door and towards where she'd seen the movement before.

And there was the reason she didn't like wearing dresses to a formal gathering. Pursuing the sniper would have been impossible in a dress and high heels.

Small footsteps from behind her notify her of the presence of someone else following her, but a glance over her shoulder revealed that it was no one to be concerned about. Conan-kun was at that party too and he was the only person that short that would be running towards danger with her.

Turning the corner, she caught sight of someone with red hair holding a large duffle bag and ducking into a vehicle. She cursed, but memorized the make and model of the blue car along with the license plate before it drove off.

07 70-98

From behind her, she heard a curse that a seven year old really shouldn't know and -

"Chianti."

For the life of her she didn't know what a wine had to do with any of this, or why Conan-kun said the liquor with such disgust, but that information was also going to be filed away for later use.

What startled her the most, though, was the person across the street from her with a figure all too similar to her brothers that stepped out of the shadows the moment she turned away.

She whipped around quickly to get a better look but he was gone.

And she got the idea that maybe, just maybe, whoever this person that she was just chasing was, her brother was involved.

It was a blustery Saturday, and she decided that it would be fun to head to Professor Agasa's place to see if Conan-kun wanted to go to the park with her. She could show him some of her Jeet Kune Do and maybe he could show her some soccer ball moves. It would be fun, and she was in such a good mood that the Detective Boys could even come if they wanted to.

But on the way there her brothers hat got caught up by the wind and flew right off her head.

A moment of panic overwhelmed her as she sprinted after it. She couldn't lose that, not right now. It was her driving force, the constant reminder of what she was after even during her daily life when she was trying to live like a normal girl.

And she was so close she could almost taste it. Whatever this new lead was, it was just as big as the Mystery Train.

It would be alright. If he wouldn't go to her, she would find her brother herself. And then yell his ear off and demand to know why he didn't contact her after meeting her on the train.

The wind finally dropped enough to land the hat on the sidewalk across from her, but she was stopped by the traffic going across the street before she could run after it. In the distance, she could see someone walking in the direction of the hat and picking it up.

She worried for a moment that they were going to walk away with it.

The street finally cleared long enough for her to dart across, ready to use her Jeet Kun Do on the culprit if he tried to walk away with her hat.

"Hey!"

Fortunately he hadn't moved any further away and was just inspecting it, but when the man turned to her it was a surprise.

"Subaru-san?"

He smiled down at her and held out her hat.

"Would this happen to be yours, Sera-san?"

She nodded dumbly for a moment before taking it from him, and immediately let out a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding.

"Yes – well, it's not mine. It's my brother's. But I'm holding on to it for him right now."

He chuckled at her, "I see. It must be very important for you to go running across traffic for it."

She blinked and looked down at the hat but then realized that, actually, he was right. It was silly since it was just an object and she honestly didn't even know if it was actually her brothers hat, but it looked exactly like the one he'd been wearing on the train so she had assumed. But at the same time, it had become her sign of hope, so she nodded.

"It is."

Subaru-san nodded back and turned to walk away.

"Well, I'm afraid I must be on my way, but be sure not to lose that. I'm sure your brother will want to have it back eventually."

She laughed and placed the hat back on her head.

Something about him still made her wary, but the feeling got better the more times she ran into him. Reluctantly, Subaru-san started to grow on her. And it could just be her imagination, but she thought she saw a smile appear on his lips before he turned away. She couldn't help but feel one spreading across her face as well.

That was, until she walked down the street and spotted a blue car of the same make and model as the one from the other night.

It felt as though the license plate was glaring at her.

07 70-98

All thoughts of the park left her mind.

The building she was staking out was probably pictured under the dictionary definition of sketchy. It was more than one movie cliché combined – including a secluded part of town and a pier near the docks not a minute walk away. They even had the dark and gloomy atmosphere and full moon to add to the effect.

To say she was on her guard would be an understatement.

She has absolutely no idea what was supposed to be going on in the building across from her, but she saw the redheaded woman from the Suzuki's party and another brunet woman go in. There wasn't any sound after that, gunshots or the like, and she would know because she was barely a block away from the warehouse.

But that being said, no lights came from the building either. Clearly these people were at least smart enough not to turn on the electricity for a building that hadn't been used for months, but she at least expected a flashlight. Nothing.

A car drove up about fifteen minutes after she saw her suspects go inside, but whoever it was went in, got whatever it was they were there for, and then left not even ten minutes later. There wasn't any movement after that, and a half hour had passed.

She was either about to call it quits or go inside the warehouse herself. It would be an incredibly stupid and risky move but it might answer some important questions. On one hand, she could go in and it could be all for naught because she found nothing. In that same scenario she could also potentially get caught and killed by the two women she saw go in earlier. On the other hand, just giving up and going home was not only not in her nature, but also meant that she got this close and spent the last hour staking the place out for nothing.

In the end, she decided to flip a one-yen coin. Heads and she would turn around, give it up, and head home. Tails and she accepted her potential death and headed inside anyway.

The coin was flipped up into the air and flew off of her finger the moment before she heard movement from behind her. She didn't even get the chance to turn and see what caused it before something cold and metallic was pressed up against the small of her back. She froze.

The the coin clinked to the ground somewhere in front of her she heard the distinct click-click of a bullet being loaded into the chamber of a gun. That took away any doubt of what the object pressed against her back was.

"And who are you?"

The voice behind her was distinctly female, and it sounded vaguely familiar, but she wasn't spending the time thinking where she might have heard it before. The gun pressed even further against her back.

"I asked you a question."

She swallowed a breath. She needed to say something before she got killed but she wasn't too keen on giving out her actual name.

"Just a curious passerby who thought she saw someone she knew."

It was hard to tell if the woman bought it given that she was behind her and Masumi couldn't see any facial features or body language, but she wasn't really betting on it. If she found her in this spot that meant she likely knew that she had been standing there for a good five minutes. Five minutes at least, depending on how quick this person could be when they were being quiet.

"Is that so? And who is it that this person thinks she saw?"

That gave her pause. She hadn't exactly been thinking of anyone in particular when she made up the lie, but the whole intent behind her being there was to gain more clues to her brothers whereabouts. If this person knew anything about him at all, she might actually be able to learn something.

But it would be risky.

Still, she was looking at the possibility of getting shot either way, so why not?

"My brother," she said in a hushed tone, and then slowly inched around to face the woman. The barrel of the gun bit further into her back when she turned but the expected shot didn't come, even as she turned completely around to face the woman.

Her finger was on the trigger though, and now the gun was pressed directly to her stomach. Masumi was in big trouble if she decided to shoot.

"Perhaps you know him?"

The grin she wore likely wasn't appropriate for the situation, but the woman – who, she noted, was the brunet from earlier and definitely seemed a tad bit familiar – didn't budge. She just raised an eyebrow, looking doubtful.

"And who is your brother?"

"Akai Shuichi."

The widening of her eyes made Masumi's heart flip in her chest because finally she found a clue. And she'd be damned if she let this woman get away without giving her more answers.

Assuming something could be done about the gun trained on her. Though apparently that wasn't that hard because with the woman's shock she also took a step back, now more focused on looking around her for a reason Masumi didn't know.

The shock faded an instant later to be replaced with anger. The woman steadied her grip on the gun, now pointing it directly at her face.

"Impossible. Were you trying to fool me with your tricks so you'd have enough time to get away? Well it looks like you've lost your chance. I'm not falling for it. Akai Shuichi is dead, there's no possible way for him to be here."

Masumi grit her teeth, anger rising.

"No he's not. I saw him. I know he's alive."

The woman's eyes narrowed, she looked incredibly doubtful.

"And when exactly did you see him?"

She probably shouldn't give out the information, Masumi knew that. But this woman had answers and it has been months since she'd come to Japan. She hadn't gotten any closer to finding her brother than a meeting on a train that she continued to have to convince herself wasn't a dream. She was desperate.

She paused a moment before answering, "On the Bell Tree Express. He was there."

Admittedly, she didn't know what she expected this woman to do, but to roll back her head and laugh wasn't on the list.

Masumi bristled, suppressing the urge to shout and her and demand to know what was so funny.

It took a moment but the woman settled down, flipping the safety back onto the gun and shoving it into her inside jacket pocket. The look she gave her now sent all sorts of warning bells ringing through Masumi's head, but she almost felt glued to the spot.

What was she laughing about? What did she know?

"Akai Shuichi is dead," the woman said again, but with an air of finality that Masumi couldn't help but open her mouth to argue. The brunet cut her off, and she looked so dangerous that she clicked her mouth shut before even forming her protest to the statement.

"The man you met on the Bell Tree Express was one of our operatives disguised to look like him, to coax the annoying rat out if he was still alive. He didn't come out. He's dead."

Her heart was beating so frantically in her chest that she felt like she might throw up. That couldn't be true. This woman was lying. That person on the train not being her brother? That was impossible. He recognized her. It had to be, he had to be.

But another voice spoke up from the back of her mind, whispering things she never wanted to think about. That would explain why he never called her afterwards. That was the reason he didn't bother to stay with her until she woke up. That was the reason she couldn't find him.

"I would know. After all, I'm the one who killed him."

Everything ground to a halt and the rage that was building spilled over. She ran at the woman, throwing back her hand for a punch or anything she could manage so that she could get her hands on her. But one sidestep from the woman and she avoided Masumi and the punch completely.

She planted her feet and turned back around to find the woman looking back at her, gun pointed at her chest.

"One bullet to the lung," the gun moved from her chest to her head, "And one to the head. Then I blew up the car he died in, just to make sure."

Her tone of voice was nothing but mocking and Masumi wanted to scream that her brother couldn't be dead, but she couldn't. Her voice stuck in her throat and the woman finally put the gun away again and turned around.

"I'd keep your nose out of our business if you don't want to end up just like him."

And like that she turned and walked away, out of sight.

She drove.

Masumi didn't know how long she'd been driving on her motorbike. She had been desperately trying to keep her whirlwind of thoughts at bay, determined not to think about them.

Until she did.

Her motorbike ran out of gas and she didn't even notice until the change in momentum caught her off guard. Because of that, instead of slowing down nicely her body tipped forward while the bike went backwards and she flew forward, not with much momentum but enough that she travelled a few feet away from her bike before hitting solid ground. She skidded, scraping her elbow and knee along with other parts of her body against the concrete.

She could barely force herself to crawl to her knees and toss off her helmet before she broke down. The tears started before she could stop them and then she was sobbing. She was crying for everything – her brother and her childhood and her determination and optimism and all of it.

She was never going to feel like she could fly again, because he was gone. She was never going to get to see his smile or his smirk or be taunted and teased by him again. She would never be able to laugh like nothing in the world could hurt her, because the world had just taken away the most important thing.

Her arms wrapped around her chest and she cried into her knees, huddled against the wall of the street and her motorbike forgotten.

"I'll always come back home, no matter what."

He promised.

And so did she. But she couldn't be strong. Not anymore.

He died and she was never going to see him again. She couldn't keep being strong until he returned, because he wasn't going to return.

Her brother was dead.

"Sera-san?"

Startled, she jumped at the unexpected voice and immediately moved to start wiping away her eyes, cursing herself for being so unaware of her surroundings. Breaking down like that, how could she be so stupid? Who knew who was out here at this time of night. Still, clearly she was rattled because it took her a moment more of trying to look presentable and not like she had been sobbing to realise that the person had just referred to her by name.

She looked up.

Subaru Okiya looked down at her, concern etching his features.

"Are you alright?"

It took a moment for her to become fully aware of her surroundings. But when she did, she found that she had ended up in District 2 Block 21 of Beika, right in front of the Kudo mansion.

She wondered if she was subconsciously running to Conan-kun next door.

Gathering her bearings Masumi sniffed and finally stood up, wincing the entire way, and tried to brush off her clothes and look at least somewhat presentable.

"I-I'm fine, I just..." she trailed off, trying to think of some way to articulate everything that had just happened. She fell short.

Subaru-san wouldn't understand, anyway.

"Fell off my bike, is all," she smiled at him as brightly as she could muster, but it still felt flat. He didn't need to know why she was crying, if he even saw that at all. And she desperately hoped that he hadn't.

He made no comment on it and she was content to assume in her favour.

"I see, that..."

He paused for a moment and she wondered what he was thinking.

"..You do look like you've taken a nasty tumble. I'm sure you're a bit scraped up. Would you like to come inside? I'm no medical student, but I'm sure I can help you dress your wounds."

She hesitated, but nodded in the end. Something to take her mind off of everything would be good, and she hadn't been paying attention to it earlier but she was incredibly sore, not to mention hurt in more ways than one.

"Good. You head inside, I'll grab your bike and wheel it inside the gate for you to grab later. Would you like a cup of tea as well?"

She didn't quite understand why he was so friendly to her. It was probably close to midnight and no doubt he was having a quiet night at home before she'd crashed her bike. He didn't owe her anything, so why?

"Yes, but-"

He turned around from his position by her overturned bike and looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes?"

In the end, she couldn't force the words out. It wouldn't be fair to question his hospitality.

"Thank you."

She turned and pushed the gate further open, leaving it that way, and headed into the house.