Detective Conan and Magic Kaito characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō.

What You Don't Know Can't Kill You

By Taliya

Word Count: 3113

"No peeking, Mitsuhiko!" six-year-old Yoshida Ayumi called as she and the rest of the Shounen Tantei-dan scattered throughout the playground.

"I know," Tsubaraya Mitsuhiko griped as he leaned against the tree trunk and buried his face in his arms. "One, two, three…"

As Ayumi ran, she noticed the other two boys, Kojima Genta and Edogawa Conan, searching for their own hiding spots. Genta dove into a bush, while Conan squirreled himself into the sandy space below the crawl-tube that Genta barely fit through. She scanned the area, looking desperately for the perfect hiding spot.

There! Just off the playground, parked along the street, was a car with the windows rolled down. With a silent cheer of triumph, the girl crawled and wiggled through the window, hunkering into the foot space behind the driver's seat. She quietly giggled, congratulating herself on finding the perfect hiding spot.

She waited.

And waited.

She was bored of waiting. And because of that boredom, she eventually fell asleep.

When she opened her eyes, it was dark. Ayumi blinked the sleep from her eyes, squinting in the darkness in an attempt to regain her bearings. Had her hiding spot had been too good? She stirred, cautiously standing to peer out of the window. What she saw outside frightened her.

The playground was no longer in sight. Instead, a series of dark warehouses greeted her, a single lamp illuminating both the single garage and door entrances to each building. Beyond those were the silhouettes of the towering, skeletal cranes used to move industrial freight onto cargo ships. Ayumi whimpered. She was far from home, and had no idea where exactly she was. Had she been kidnapped?

She quickly decided it was better to leave the car—who knew where it would take her next if she stayed? She dropped to her feet once she had maneuvered herself out the window, her footsteps pattering against the concrete loudly in the otherwise still night. In the distance, she could hear the constant hum of cars on the highways. She picked her way around the warehouses, the light pollution from the metropolis her only source of illumination.

As Ayumi wandered through the area, she tried desperately to keep the fear clawing at her heart at bay. She tried to be strong, oh how she tried, but after wandering around for what felt like forever, she finally broke down, curled up against a wall, and began crying.

The first thing he noticed was the soft sobbing.

Somebody forgot to do a little housecleaning, he thought with a black scowl as he fingered the Beretta in his coat pocket. The row of dilapidated warehouses were owned by the Organization, used for the storage of illicit goods as well as making convenient meeting places. The fact that it was adjacent to an inlet of Tokyo Bay meant an easy method to dispose of evidence, if necessary. It also meant that there had to be routine sweeps done through the area to… clean out the rats, so to speak.

He had come this night to inspect the latest shipment of guns and ammunition, along with crates containing of bricks of C4 and wireless timers and detonators. There had also been a shipment of chemicals that Sherry had requested. He had looked it over, but considering he had no idea what exactly he was looking at, he had simply texted to her that her supplies had arrived and to send someone to pick the boxes up.

After securing the single external door to the warehouse, he lit a cigarette as he made his way to his Porsche, pausing when he heard the faint sniffling. He slowly pivoted in the direction of the noise, grasping the hilt of his gun, not yet drawing it out of his trench coat pocket. The cries seemed to originate from between the warehouse he had been in and the adjacent one, and he eased forward on near silent feet, keeping his back pressed against the wall of the warehouse. He drew the Beretta out and pulled back the slide, chambering a bullet and he prepared himself, his muscles coiled, tense, and ready to spring into action as he peered carefully around the corner.

The noise of the slide ratcheting silenced the sobbing before a childish, hiccupped, "Hello?" echoed down the narrow alleyway. There was the sound of scuffling, followed by the cautious pitter-patter of approaching feet. A child, and a girl by the sound of the voice. He switched the safety on the gun so as not to accidentally shoot himself as he pocketed the weapon, though the magazine remained within the Beretta. I'll have to determine whether or not she witnessed anything, and if she did, I'll off her. He had no compunctions about shooting a child dead—the Organization was, by its very nature, supposed to remain in the shadows. No witnesses.

He leaned nonchalantly against the corner and took a drag from his forgotten cigarette as the child emerged from the alley, and in the weak lighting of the warehouse entrances, he gained his first look at the girl. She was a tiny thing, with dark hair cut into a chin-length bob held back by a light-colored headband. The outfit she wore was streaked with dirt. She possessed wide eyes set in a dirt-smudged face—eyes that were currently brimming with unshed tears.

A long-forgotten face ghosted across his memory, and his breath inaudibly hitched. She looks just like…

"O—onii-san…?" she murmured, her voice audibly wavering as she fretfully kneaded the folds of her skirt in her hands, eyes cast upwards at him.

He blinked in surprise, his brow furrowing at the appellation. I haven't heard that directed at me in years…

His stillness must have meant something to the girl for she rushed forwards at him, and it took all his formidable will not to reflexively draw his gun and fire at the wailing little ball of tears and snot barreling towards him. Instead, he stared wide-eyed as he pressed himself flat against the warehouse exterior, unsure of what to do with the child as she crashed into his shins.

"Onii-san!" she cried, running up to him and snagging the folds of his coat in tiny fists, her face buried in the top grain leather of his rather expensive coat. "Onii-san, I think I'm lost and I don't know what to do! I fell asleep and woke up here!" She fell to her knees, still clutching his coat as she began to cry in earnest.

Normally, weepy children grated on his nerves quickly enough to where immediately vacated the premises lest he plant a bullet through their pathetic, irritating little skulls.

But for some reason this child stirred something unidentifiable within him and he could not for the life of him figure out why.

Again, the faded memory of her face drifted through his mind, this time accompanied by a recollection of a voice.

Onii-chan…?

The voice echoed in his brain, soft, gentle, and filled with so much tender affection.

Anneliese…

Seven-year-old Hraban ripped the small bit of bread he had managed to steal in half, splitting the sustenance with his five-year-old sister, Anneliese. The two children huddled in one of the dirty back alleys in Setagaya. The older blond boy watched his younger brunette sister with deep worry, for it had rained steadily the past week, and Anneliese had developed a nasty cough.

"Come on, Anneliese, you need to eat," he urged, ignoring the gnawing pangs of hunger in his stomach as he tried to get his younger sister to eat. The siblings' parents had both died; their father had been a jobless alcoholic and their mother an opium addict. Annaliese had never met her father, and Hraban had been taking care of his sister since he turned six, when their mother died of an overdose. They had been turned onto the streets and left to fend for themselves. For a while, Hraban had barely managed to keep the both of them fed and clothed, though shelter had been an issue. But now…

"Onii-chan," Anneliese murmured weakly, her entire body trembling, "Why is it so cold?"

Hraban gave up trying to feed his sister and instead settled on the grimy floor and curled as best he could around her small frame. "You're hot, Anneliese," he exclaimed softly. "You're not sick, are you?"

Anneliese sniffled. "I don't feel good."

"Hush," he murmured, hugging her tightly. "Get some sleep, maybe you'll feel better when you wake up?"

"Okay," she replied, closing her eyes.

She never opened them again.

Hraban had spent the next few days in shock, barely paying attention to the needs of his body. His family was… gone. His father had beaten him and his mother both too many times to count, his mother never paid any attention to him, and so he never really cared about either of the people he called mother and father. But Anneliese had been the only one who had cared about him, adored him, idolized him, and so he worked hard to protect her, provide for her, care for her in return. Anneliese had truly cared. And now… and now…

… now she was gone.

Hraban blinked the dryness out of his eyes. It's not worth it, he decided. Caring for people only led to pain and suffering because in the end, they all left you alone and hurting. A dark glint glittered in his eyes as he made a vow to himself. I'll never care for anyone. Never again.

She reminds me of Anneliese, he realized, staring down at the sniffling, hiccupping child at his feet. Usually he would brusquely determine whether she was not a threat to the Organization's cover, but her uncanny resemblance to his long-dead sister prevented him from acting as he normally would. "Let go," he rumbled, feeling his chest squeeze as she froze fearfully. The additional word felt foreign, clumsy, and unnatural on his tongue. "Please."

With a sniffle, the girl backed off. He glanced down at his coat and suppressed a wince at the residual… liquid. Well, he had seen worse, but never had any of that ended up on his coat. He was meticulous in that way.

He took another drag from his cigarette as he tried to figure out what to do. He had never truly believed in the idea of a doppelgänger before, but before him stood a puffy-eyed, sniveling bit of proof that physical doubles existed. He exhaled, the smoke leaving in streams from his nose. First things first: interrogation. "Name?"

She snuffled. "Yoshida Ayumi," she answered.

"Age?"

"I'm six."

"Why are you here?"

Ayumi's lips trembled. "I was playing hide and seek with my friends and found a spot inside a car… I fell asleep and woke up here." Her watery eyes beseeched him to do something. "You could help me get home, right onii-san?"

That lost, yet hopeful look was just like Anneliese's that one day she had gotten lost and he had searched two days for her. Bleeding heart tendencies, he growled at himself with scorn. "Did you notice anything strange going on here?" he asked instead of answering her.

The child shook her head. "It was dark, and there were no noises, and—I just want to go home!" she wailed the last part.

His jaw worked as he contemplated the conflicting sensations warring between his chest and his brain. Logic stated to dispose of her and be done with it, and yet some strange feeling in his ribcage cringed and rebelled against that idea. But her answer had proven to him that she knew nothing of the Organization and that she was most likely who she said she was: a lost girl who had somehow ended up in the wrong part of town. As for her seeing his face, well, he was taller than her, the lights angled so that his hat shielded his features, and his clothing was rather nondescript. The only way she would be able to identify him would be his hair, but even if she did manage to correctly identify him, he now had her name and would soon have her address if it came down to it.

"Come. I'll take you home," he said gruffly, trying to convince himself it was more for information-gathering purposes than it was because she simply reminded him too much of his long-lost sibling.

"You will?" she breathed, tentative hope kindling in her eyes. "Thank you! Thank you, thank you, onii-san!" she cried, latching herself around his legs once more, though this time it was in a grateful hug.

Warmth enveloped his chest as he gently shook her off and guided her to his car. He opened the door for her and she crawled into the passenger seat, shutting the door before climbing into the driver's side. The engine rumbled to life as he steered the vehicle out of the warehouse district and towards the Shibaura Tollroad after obtaining her address in Beika City.

"Onii-san, your car is so very nice," Ayumi cooed as her eyes roved over the luxury car's interior. "You take good care of your car, don't you, onii-san?"

"I do," he allowed, still trying to identify the oddly content feeling in his chest.

He allowed her childish chatter to wash over him, half listening as she explained what her hobbies were and who Kojima Genta, Tsubaraya Mitsuhiko, and Edogawa Conan were. He pulled a last drag before flicking the butt of his cigarette out of the window.

"Onii-san, you shouldn't litter," the girl chided.

His eyes slid to the child, who was staring at him with those wide, blue eyes of hers. Her expression was one of upset, completed with pouted lips and puffed cheeks. It was also a very Anneliese expression. "I'll promise not to do it next time," he said, humoring her.

"Okay!" And she was instantly back to her cheerful self, this time babbling on about how her friends had formed a detective group. He vaguely wondered if he might have done something similar if his and his sister's situation had not been so dire and they had had friends.

Eventually he pulled up to a tall apartment building. It was a standard middle-class type housing, nothing exceptionally fancy, but definitely not something the average grunt could afford.

"Thanks, onii-san!" Ayumi chirped as she let herself out of the Porsche. "You know," she said thoughtfully, "you're really nice."

Taken aback might have been an understatement for how he felt at her declaration. Nobody called him nice. "Just get inside," he said gruffly, lighting another cigarette to cover his unease. "Your parents are probably worried."

Ayumi nodded. "I will. But before you go, what is your name, onii-san?"

He hesitated. There was no way he would introduce himself to her as Gin, but maybe…

"Hraban," he answered, watching her eyes light up.

"Well, thank you Hraban-no-onii-san!" she chirruped. She closed the door and scampered towards the automatic sliding doors of the apartment entrance.

He shifted the gears from neutral to first, the sports car rolling away as he pressed the gas pedal. Through his still open window, he heard a shouted, "Bye, Hraban-no-onii-san! And thanks!" And in his rearview mirror he caught sight of her standing before the open doors, waving enthusiastically at him. The girl calling out his name did not bother him. He no longer went by that appellation, and those who had known him as Hraban were all dead.

He sighed as he mouthed the cigarette dangling from his lips. What he had done tonight had been… very much out of character for him. But in all fairness, her physical similarity to his sister had taken him by surprise. He wondered how he could still so clearly recall her face, despite having not thought of Anneliese for decades.

The corner of his lips curled up in a smile—a genuine smile. He felt—satisfied—helping little Yoshida Ayumi. It was a vastly different sort of satisfaction than what he felt whenever he successfully completed a job or when he pulled the trigger, but it was gratifying all the same. It was a softer, warmer sense of fulfillment than the usual fierce thrum of accomplishment.

I'm getting soft, he growled at himself even as he tried to wipe the smile off his face. But then again, no one witnessed it.

But maybe just this once, he could be the boy he once was, the one who had protected his sister with everything he had, the one who had allowed himself to go hungry in order to care for another, the one who had been exceptionally compassionate towards the plight of the one person who had been his world for five short years.

And if he allowed this one single act of compassion now, well, again—who would know? He would see them dead before they ever had the chance to tell anyone anyway.

"Ayumi-chan!"

"Ayumi!"

"Ayumi-chan!"

"Ayumi-chan!"

The girl, upon entering her home, immediately found herself engulfed by her friends and her parents.

"Where were you? We were so worried!" her mother exclaimed.

"You're not hurt are you?" her father asked.

"No, I'm fine," she answered.

"What happened, Ayumi-chan?" queried Conan. "Where did you end up hiding? Genta, Mitsuhiko, and I looked all over for you and couldn't find you!"

Ayumi's eyes glowed with excitement at the chance to tell a story. "I fell asleep in a car because I was waiting," she explained, "and I woke up somewhere else. It was dark and scary, but a nice onii-san brought me back!"

Everyone blinked. "Nice onii-san?" her father repeated.

"Yep!" she replied with a nod. "He was really tall, and wore all black so he looked kind of scary, but he had really long light-colored hair and drove a black sports car!"

"He wore all black and drove a black car?" Conan asked, his expression suddenly fierce and intense. "Did he give you a name?"

Ayumi nodded, a little taken aback by Conan's sudden attitude change. "He said his name was Hraban."

There had been no trace of Gin, and Shinichi cursed in his head as he made his way back to the Mouri residence. Upon returning home, long after both Kogoro and Ran had fallen asleep, Shinichi sneaked onto the computer to search the name Hraban. The name was Germanic, and translated to "raven".

"Figures," Shinichi scoffed. "Gin would pick a pseudonym like that." He paused, thinking. "But Gin would not have acted like that…" After a bit more pondering, Shinichi shook his head. "Nah, it couldn't possibly have been him…"

Author's Note: I had this brainwave of, What if I threw the most unlikely characters together just to see how they would interact? So of course, I had to pair up the most unlikely characters that we routinely see: Gin and Ayumi. Next came figuring out a reason why Gin wouldn't shoot Ayumi on the spot after discovering her. Anneliese is a German compound name of the French Anne, which means "favor or grace", and the German pet name Liese, which means "God is my oath"; Hraban is a Germanic name derived from the word hraban, which means "raven". I chose to make Gin German since he looks very… Aryan, and also because of the rather strong ties between Japan and Germany. This was rather difficult to write, but so much fun. No Shounen Tantei badges, as it would have ruined the plot entirely. I hope you enjoyed it.

Completed: 03.01.2016