Between the Devil & Me

By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to Gosho Aoyama. I make no money from this.

Opening Notes: This started from a joke conversation about Shinichi encountering dead bodies wherever he goes, and turned into 3 conversations I wanted to write between Shinichi and Ai. Then I filled in scenes to make it make sense to a reader. If you're expecting the depth of "500 Days", you're going to be disappointed. This was just something short and fun I wanted to write. I hope it entertains someone for 5 minutes anyways. :)

Major characters: Shinichi (Conan), Ai (Shiho)
Minor characters: Ran, Yukiko, Agasa

Pairings: minor Shinichi/Ai (Shiho) if you squint. (It's like...2 lines in Part III. :P). Suggested Shinichi/Ran.

Inspirations: the Harry Potter scene between Dumbledore & Harry, minor elements of Bleach, a fanart of Ai with black wings.

Warnings: Weird, like in a supernatural way. If there are any religious overtones, they're not intentional. Also possible typos, decidedly non-canon, and did I mention weird?

-o-o-o-o-o-

Part I: Prelude

-o-o-o-o-o-

"No, I don't want to go to the festival today!" The five-year-old boy pulled away from the little girl as they walked home from their elementary school classes.

"But you said you would come with me last week!" The girl frowned. She put her small hands on her hips and glared at him. "Are you breaking your promise, Shinichi?"

The boy glared back. "I didn't promise it had to be today," he argued. "The festival goes on for three days."

"Why can't it be today?"

"Because I want to play soccer with the other boys today," Shinichi explained.

The little girl started blinking rapidly, like she was trying not to cry. "Shinichi always puts other things before me," she accused.

"The festival will still be there tomorrow," he replied. "And I told you. You should call me Kudo-kun and I will call you Mouri-san from now on."

At this, the girl looked sad and angry. "Shinichi's an idiot!" she yelled. She reached out and knocked the soccer ball out of his hands, then turned and ran across the street.

"Hey!" he protested as he chased his ball.

He had barely caught it when he heard loud honking noises. Turning, he saw the oncoming truck, the girl standing wide-eyed and frozen in the middle of the street, and found himself running towards her before he even knew what he was doing.

"Ran!" he screamed.

He couldn't remember what happened next, but he did remember everything turning black.

-o-o-o-o-o-

He opened his eyes to an all-white room. Blinking, he sat up and looked around. Funny, he thought getting hit by a truck would hurt more than that. He didn't feel any pain on his body.

The "room", if it could be called that, was devoid of anything except an armchair that looked an awful lot like the one in his father's study. Frowning, he climbed up to sit comfortably in it and looked around. Where in the world was he?

"Ah, I see you're awake," came a soft voice.

He whirled around and found a girl standing in front of the armchair. She looked about his age, with strawberry blonde hair and big green eyes. She wore a floor-length black dress trimmed with ribbons that seemed to float around her, but by far her most unusual feature was the dark wings protruding from her back.

His eyes widened and he wondered yet again where he was.

The girl seemed amused by his reaction. "Welcome to Limbo, Kudo Shinichi-kun," she said by way of explanation.

"Um...what?"

She climbed up onto the armchair and seated herself next to him. Shinichi watched her with undisguised fascination, reaching up to stroke the ends of her wings.

"Are these real?" he whispered.

"Of course they are," the girl replied dismissively. "Don't look so amazed. They're actually quite tedious. I always seem to knock things over because I've forgotten about them."

"That's just because you're clumsy," Shinichi blurted out before he could stop himself.

The girl narrowed her eyes at him and folded her arms.

Shinichi swallowed. "Um, that is," he stammered, "I mean..."

She waved a hand in his direction in a haughty manner. "Forget it, you're not the first rude person I've met," she huffed.

"Sorry," the boy mumbled. "Um...where am I?"

The girl sighed. "Limbo, the passage between life and death."

"Okay," Shinichi replied slowly. "Why am I here?"

"Because the Living is trying to get rid of you and the Afterlife doesn't want you," the girl responded with a sardonic smile.

A moment of silence passed between them while Shinichi stared at the mysterious girl sharing the armchair with him. "You're not very nice," he finally decided.

She snorted. "Not in the job description."

"Job?" Shinichi echoed.

The girl shrugged. "I guide souls. There is an agreement between the Living and the Afterlife of when each soul is supposed to pass through Limbo from one world to the other. I'm a Shinigami – a god of death, if you will – who ensures the agreement is met. Only those who are meant to go to the Afterlife can pass."

He gawked at her. "Wait," he began. "So, I'm about to go..."

"No," she refuted. "Actually, you're not allowed to the Afterlife. I'm here to guide you back. You shouldn't be here."

"Oh." Well, that was a relief. He wasn't quite ready to leave the Living world yet. He had soccer to play and he should probably apologize to Ran. Wait... "Where's Ran?"

The girl next to him sighed. "The agreement between the Living and the Afterlife states that Mouri Ran will travel through when she is 5 years and 163 days old. That is, she needs to come through today."

"What?" Shinichi stared at the Shinigami, wide-eyed with disbelief. "You mean...Ran's supposed to die?"

"Yes, I believe that's the right term."

"No!" Shinichi reached out and grabbed the girl's arms. She seemed surprised by how close he suddenly was. "Ran can't die!" he protested. "She's my best friend!"

The strawberry blonde slowly pried his fingers from her arm. Her green eyes bored into his, and Shinichi suddenly realized he was inches from kissing that girl. Hastily, he drew back and promptly lost his balance, falling off the chair and onto the ground.

"Ouch!"

She peered at him from the chair she was still perched on, half-amused and half-solemn. "Unfortunately, Kudo-kun, the Laws of the Afterlife aren't that easy to alter," she informed him. "You can't break someone else's agreement – or your own, for that matter – just because it suits your fancy."

"I... Is there no way to extend the agreement?" he asked quietly, looking up at the winged girl pleadingly. "Ran can't die. She's my best friend!"

A long moment passed between them, and Shinichi can't quite tell what this girl was thinking.

Finally, she started softly. "There is a way..."

"Okay!" he agreed quickly, as though afraid she would change her mind.

She shook her head. "You should hear it before you agree," she suggested. "It will undoubtedly change your life as you know it."

He swallowed. That sounded ominous, but Shinichi was nothing if not stubborn. He stuck out his chin but kept quiet.

"You can make a...deal," the girl explained carefully. "Mouri Ran's life will become a...loan, if you will, that you agree to pay back, with interest."

Shinichi frowned. "How do I pay it back?"

"The Laws of the Afterlife state that no soul shall interfere with its agreements with the Living without approval," the girl continued. "When one person in your world deliberately kills another, they upset the balance in the agreements between the two worlds. The victim cannot enter the Afterlife before their time, but their bodies are no longer able to hold their soul in the Living. Lost souls then wander either in the Living or here in Limbo, causing further problems."

"I don't know what that has to do with the loan on Ran's life," Shinichi said, confused.

"You asked me how you would pay back that loan," the girl answered. "The short answer is – by working for the Afterlife. When the killer is brought to justice in your world, the Shinigami can arrange for the victim to enter the Afterlife prematurely by adding penalties in the agreement of the killer. It's...equivalent exchange, of a sort. Since they have disrupted the balance, they are punished in order to regain balance. This allows the Shinigami to clear the souls wandering around in Limbo and the Living, but only if the right person is held accountable. If you take this agreement, you will become a Harbinger, tasked with readjusting the balance between the two worlds. For every time you readjust the balance, you pay off the interest and loan."

"So I...need to catch killers in order to keep Ran alive," Shinichi summed up.

"Simply put, yes," the girl replied. "If you default on the payment, the deal will be broken."

"And she'll die – again," Shinichi finished.

"Yes. You understand though, that if you agree to this, your life will undoubtedly change," the girl repeated her earlier warning. "You'll likely have to become a detective or police officer to keep your end of this deal. You'll be giving up whatever other dream you may have."

Shinichi frowned. "Do I have to go out looking for dead people then?" he asked, wrinkling his nose.

The girl laughed, and Shinichi stared at her. Her laughter was like silvery bells on a cold winter evening – soft and tinkling, but leaving him just a bit cold.

"If you agree," she told him with a small smile, "and you turn out to be any good at it, the Shinigami will no doubt ensure you are in the area to help them with their job. Good Harbingers are difficult to come by."

"I don't think my mom will let me near dead bodies anytime soon though..."

She smiled again. "The payment terms won't start until you become of age," she clarified. "By the Laws of the Afterlife, when you turn fifteen, the repayments will start. However, in the meantime, interest will continue to build. Any interest you cannot repay on Mouri Ran's loan of life...will come out of yours."

Shinichi swallowed. He had always been smart for his age, but some of what this Shinigami (or angel or devil) in front of him was suggesting was still a big question mark to him. All he understood was that in order to save Ran, he had to start catching killers once he turned fifteen – just about ten years from now. And for his five year old mind, that was enough.

"I agree," he decided, staring boldly at the pretty strawberry blonde. "I'll do it."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Shinichi didn't really know how the whole right side of his body could ache so badly while the left side felt numb. He opened his eyes warily and blinked against the sunlight shining through the window. His eyelids felt heavy.

"Argh," he grunted.

"Shin-chan!"

Warm hands grasped his and he squeezed back blindly. "Mom?"

"Oh, thank goodness!" the brunette by his bedside exclaimed, reaching up with one hand to brush away her tears. "You and Ran-chan gave us such a scare!"

"Ran!" Shinichi sat up quickly in the bed and a hot flash of pain seared through his body. "Argh!" he cried out.

His mother gasped and pushed him back down onto the bed. "What are you doing?" she scolded gently.

"Ran," Shinichi repeated, feeling exhausted. "How is she?"

His mother's face softened. "She's fine," she reassured him. "They thought they lost her for a bit when her heart stopped, but they got her back. She's in the next room."

Shinichi nodded. Ran was alive. Now that he was lying in a hospital bed, pain searing through him, the whole conversation with that strawberry blonde seemed surreal. Maybe the whole thing had been a dream. Yea, that sounded more probable than the fact that he had really made a deal to loan out Ran's life. Ghosts, or wandering spirits, or Shinigami...they didn't exist.

Still... What if...

It couldn't hurt to maybe read about solving murders. If it turned out to be a dream, he would have lost nothing except some time reading.

"Mom," he started. "Do you think you could bring me a book? A mystery, maybe?"

His mother looked surprised. "Your dad has been hoping you would get into reading for a while and you've always preferred playing outside," she said. "What changed?"

Somehow, even at five years old, Shinichi knew that telling his mother he might have made a deal with the devil was a bad idea.

"Just...I don't want to stay here with nothing to do," he shrugged.

"Alright," his mother responded with a smile. "Your dad went home for a quick shower. I'll phone him and tell him to bring a book."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Shinichi had always been smart for his age, but the speed with which he read through the small collection of children's mystery books in the Kudo household still shocked his parents. They were proud of him though, and his dad decided one day that if his only son loved reading so much, he would build into the house the largest library of mystery novels possible.

Shinichi found, as he continued to read, that despite the endeavor starting as somewhat involuntary, he rather enjoyed mysteries and cases. He started to solve the cases in the books before the characters, observed his father while he consulted for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, and picked up reference textbooks to expand his knowledge, much to the bewilderment of other kids his age.

By the time he hit his pre-teen years, the other kids regarded him as somewhat of an eccentric, reciting random facts and blowing through puzzle books faster than they were published. Oh, they certainly liked him enough. He was a great soccer player and the smartest student in their class, but hanging out with him after school was never on anyone's list of things to do.

Except for Mouri Ran. Ran had stuck with Shinichi since the incident when they were five, and they seemed to be together all the time. On Shinichi's fifteenth birthday, Ran insisted they go to the ice-cream parlour to celebrate the occasion. They had just ordered sundaes when screaming came from the direction of the washroom.

Ran jumped in surprise in her seat. "What's going on?" she asked, looking around.

Shinichi looked in the direction of the washroom too.

A woman came stumbling out into the parlour, her eyes wide and fearful. "There's a...a...body!"

Some customers started to get up in panic while the store manager frantically tried to get everyone to stay put. "We've called the police," the manager raised his voice above the crowd. "Please, everyone, please calm down."

Shinichi met Ran's eyes across the table. She looked scared, and for a second, Shinichi thought he saw green eyes, even though he knew, without a doubt, that Ran had blue eyes.

"Shinichi," she whispered. "What do we do?"

He was silent for a moment. He had seen a million pictures of dead bodies in books, knew the criminal act inside out, had seen the proper police procedures for evidence gathering and interviews. But still, to approach a real dead body without anyone to help was daunting. This wasn't just a puzzle or one of the middle school students' missing jewelry.

He wanted to wait until the police got there. He looked outside the window to see if he could catch a glimpse of police sirens...and froze at what he saw in the window.

He could see his own reflection, and just to the right, in the place where the table should be, a strawberry blonde with green eyes stared back at him. She looked older than he remembered, probably around sixteen now. Her dress was shorter, with a ruffled skirt that came down to just above her knees, and her wings spread behind her like some curtain made of the midnight sky.

He turned his head away from the window and back to the table, but all he saw was Ran. She was still looking at him questioningly, wondering what to do. And it was obvious to Shinichi that she hadn't seen what he had seen in the window. Ran's hair was long and shiny, her blue eyes full of life. She was a karate champion with her whole life ahead of her – smart, kind, and beautiful.

Shinichi stood up and started walking in the direction of the washroom – the crime scene.

Maybe that strawberry blonde was a hallucination, but just like ten years ago when he had first asked his mother to bring him a mystery novel, Ran's life wasn't a risk he was willing to take. He would investigate, and like his foray into reading, he was sure that the cases would get easier as he continued to be exposed to them.

He would solve cases in real life just like he solved them in the books he read – because Ran was lively and beautiful and he still didn't believe it was her time to go.

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Part I.

Word Count: 2,686