Current mood:	bouncy
Current music:	And you can breathe, in clear blue water
Entry tags:	series:the grey agency

Title: The Grey Agency, chapter eight: Veils and Bombs
Author: Icka! M. Chif
Word Count: 2062
Rating: Teen
Author Notes: auryon drew us this awesome pic of Kurosagi Conan!!! *Squees* So as thanks, figured we'd post Conan's first appearance in TGA. There shouldn't be any major plot spoilers for the chapters not yet posted. Thanks to Yuki for corrections!
Previously posted chapters can be found here.
Summary: The magician leaned forward, a pleasant, if dazed smile on his face. "You get yourselves into the weirdest predicaments."

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"So what do we want to try for dinner?" Saguru asked as Aoko chased Kaito in circles around him. She had just been let out of school and they were picking her up for dinner and a chance to hang out.

"You're not... huff! Cooking tonight?" Aoko asked as Kaito sought a temporary refuge on a fire hydrant.

"I did not get a chance to." Saguru ran a hand through his hair, sighing softly. His father was subtly pushing for him to volunteer for on some cases on the side, get his reputation up again as a Teenage Detective and unfortunately, the Housekeeper was starting to take his side. Which meant his access to the kitchen was slowly being cut off. "And the house isn't ready for cooking for a guest yet."

Aoko probably wouldn't care if they just ate instant ramen, but still, it was the principle of the thing.

"What about Thai?" Kaito suggested, doing a quick flip. "Something spicy."

"As long as it's cheap." Aoko agreed. "I don't think any of us have much-"

:: BOOM!!!! ::

A building across the street to them exploded, smoke followed by flames. A small bundle of figures flew into the air, pushed out by the force of the explosion. "Shyte." In flash, Kaito was gone, as if he'd teleported.

"You- DAMMIT, PUCK! GET BACK HERE!" Saguru shouted, chasing after. Kaito was almost moving faster than he could track as people started screaming and scrambling. He caught sight of the magician bouncing off a trash can, a tree, the top of a street-lamp before launching himself in to the air. Saguru spotted the tattle-tale hint of silver glowing in his hands as a large stream of flowing silver silk appeared.



He heard Aoko's shout behind him and spun around, quickly grabbing her hand and pulling her along as he fought the crowd. He glanced back up at the free falling magician just in time to see the falling tangled group disappear into a billowing swath of silver fabric and disappear. Kuroba released the silk, the cloth flying higher into the sky before disappearing, then summoned two more long lengths of glittering fabric that soared like wings behind him.

The second explosion hit. Saguru wrapped his arms around Aoko, protecting her from the worst of the impact. Pieces of office equipment and parts of the building started flying towards the crowd below.

Only to be stopped by Kaito's long veils. The fabric grew as it 'absorbed' more mass, forming a protective barrier between the building and the people below. The magician had been blown upwards by the impact and was falling towards the ground again, slowing his decent by apparently stepping on what didn't get blocked by the fabric in his hands.

"Shit, shit, shit, bugger, dammit, shit." Saguru chanted as he watched his partner work his magic, vaguely aware of the death grip Aoko had on his arm. Just how much mass was Kaito teleporting or transforming there? The aftermath of this was not going to be good, Kaito was going to crash and crash -hard-.

And then Kaito ran out of things to step on and started to fall.

"KAI-!!" Aoko's shout was cut off as he pulled her towards the carnage.

"Do NOT call his name." He warned, ignoring her large panicked eyes. Names, names had magic too. Names were also a distraction and right now they needed to trust that Kaito could take care of himself. Dammit, dammit dammit.

The dust was blinding as they staggered forward, coughing and waving it away from their faces. Then a gust of wind blew it away from them and Saguru realised with a jolt that it was because all the items Kaito's veils had absorbed had finally hit the ground all at once.

-In a very decorative wall, forming a protective barricade between the burning building and the people screaming around them. "Puck?!" He shouted, looking around.

Kaito was standing in front of the 'doorway' to the wall, looking like a sort of fallen angel with the silk fabric billowing behind him. The silver fabric started to fade away in a breeze that could be seen, but not felt. He heard Aoko take a sharp breath as she saw him, probably realising for the first time that there was often something rather unworldly about her not-brother.

"Y'know..." Kaito commented softly, looking at the patches of blue sky above as the last of the faintly shimmering material vanished around him. "I really miss flying sometimes." With a soft sigh, Kaito appeared to shake it off, pulling another silk scarf out of nothingness. The fabric hung from his fingertips like a water-droplet that grew and grew until it was almost as wide as Kaito was tall, not quite touching the ground. Then it 'popped', the ends falling down and revealing a small knot of children held safely within.

Edogawa Conan looked up at them, eyes wide and surprised as a soccer ball bounced out of his belt buckle and loudly deflated. His small group of friends blinked their eyes in amazement as one of them whispered in shock that they weren't dead.

Saguru charged towards Kaito as the magician leaned forward, a pleasant, if dazed smile on his face. "You get yourselves into the weirdest predicaments." Kaito informed them as he continued to pitch forward, falling down in a boneless slump.

"Dammit!" Saguru spat, sliding to a stop next to Kaito's slumped body. Aoko pushed him aside, quickly pulling up one eyelid as she ran her hands over his head.

"He's got a bump here." She announced. "Eyes are dilated, he probably has a concussion. We need to get him to a hospital."

"No." Saguru picked Kaito up, the magician's head lolling against his shoulder, ignoring Aoko's protests to the contrary. "We need to get him out of here." After a magic trick of that size, there were going to be questions and a lot of them. And Kaito was in no shape to be answering them. He strode off, half aware of Aoko scurrying after him.

"Saguru!" She snapped, dodging people as he moved as fast as he could without jolting Kaito further. "He needs-"

"Not. Here." Saguru snapped, slowing his stride momentarily to allow her to catch up and giving her a stern look, she had a stubborn tilt to her jaw, but a scared look in her eyes. "We have dealt with this before." He allowed, picking up his pace again. She jogged after him as he flagged down an empty taxi that was stopped at the street, startling the surprised driver.

He released Kaito long enough to grab his wallet and thrust a 5,000 yen note at the driver. "Go." He instructed curtly as Aoko scrambled in after him, the door shutting on her as the driver sped off.

"He needs-" Aoko tried again.

"To get home to safely recuperate. Preferably as fast as humanly possible." Saguru cut her off. Kaito's skin was turning a grey colour, dark smudges forming under his eyes. "It is not the possibility of a head-wound we have to worry about."

Aoko made a soft whimpering sound as she looked at Kaito. Saguru sighed, giving driving instructions to the driver, who watched them with wide eyes, but kept his mouth shut. "This happened once in America." Saguru finally explained. Aoko looked up at him with wide eyes, but nodded, holding her tongue.

The drive was quick and silent after that. They pulled up in front of the building with a slight jolt, the car doors automatically opening for them. "I trust I do not have to request for an oath of silence on this one?" Saguru questioned the driver.

The driver shook his head, waving the 5,000 note. "This one's off the books." He promised.

"Thank you." Saguru nodded his head as he stepped out of the car, taking Kaito with him. "It is nothing you need fear retribution for, it's for our own privacy's sake."

The driver relaxed his grip on the steering wheel slightly at that. Aoko got out of her own car door, scurrying after him. The taxi quickly drove off, vanishing in the distance.

"Follow me." Saguru instructed, nudging the white gate with a leg. It opened for him and he stepped through the rose covered arbour, walking towards the front door. It took some fumbling, but he managed to dig his house keys out of his pocket without jostling Kaito too much and stuck it in the front door.

The lock didn't budge.

"I know you do not care for me much." He addressed the house. "But Kaito is hurt. We need to get him into bed as quickly as possible."

He couldn't read the house nearly as well as Kaito could, but he could sense a -shift- in it. The door opened under his hand. "Thank you." He said quietly, stepping through the doorway.

-and into the bedroom, on the first floor.

Well, he had said they needed to get Kaito into bed as quickly as possible.... He shrugged it off, setting Kaito down on the bed, then quickly undressed his lax partner.

"Saguru?" Aoko's uncertain voice followed.

"Come in, Aoko." He called, stripping Kaito down to his shirt and underpants, then pulled the duvet out from under Kaito and covered him with it. "Say hello to La Rouge Maison, the Red House." Kaito's temperature was down, he was slightly chilled to the touch, but he was breathing steadily. The magician had slept for almost three days after the first time he'd teleported a great distance with Saguru, how long would he sleep this time?

"Nice to meet you." Aoko said, shutting the door behind her and pausing to take off her shoes. "Um...."

"My apologies, this is not the best introduction to the house." Saguru said with a sigh, brushing some of the fringe out of Kaito's face. He turned and busied himself with folding the clothing Kaito had been wearing and setting them on one of the chairs in the room. "Come, I will fetch you a cup of tea. That will fix you right up."

Aoko was looking around the room in obvious confusion. There was only one door in and out of the sparse bedroom, the one they had just come through.

Saguru gave her a faint smile, reaching past her and opening the door again. To his relief, this time it lead where it usually did, to their living room and kitchen. "This way."

"How-?" Aoko gaped, taking her shoes with her.

"La Rouge Maison belonged to Koizumi's Great Aunt Rose." Saguru explained, toeing off his own shoes and setting them next to the door to the stairs. "Kaito has been working on fixing it up. I would give you the grand tour, but it is safer if Kaito does it when he wakes up."

"Safer?" Aoko questioned, looking around the room.

"The house tolerates me because of Kaito, but it still attempts to devour me on occasion." Such as six flights of stairs instead of three to get to the toilet. Saguru gave her a small smile before busying himself with making tea. Earl Grey with milk and sugar. He needed the fortification the caffeine and sugar rush brought. He would put a cup next to Kaito as well, perhaps this burn out wouldn't be as bad as the previous.

Aoko was quiet while he made the tea. He finished, setting two cups and saucers on the low kontatsu before walking into the bedroom placing the third next to Kaito. Usually he would make an extra sitting for the house or the familiar that wandered around, but he didn't feel like taking the risk of making four cups at the moment.

He sat down across from Aoko, who had her hands wrapped around the mug, a thoughtful look on her face. He took a sip of his own tea and waited.

"There's a lot that you haven't been telling me, isn't there?" She finally said in her very best stubborn Nakamori voice.

"Yes." Saguru agreed. She glared at him, spitfire in her blue eyes. He gave her a faint smile back, vaguely reassured by her temper. "And I cannot tell you all of it, but I will tell you some."

"Like why you're not surprised that Kaito passed out." Aoko said grimly. "He's done this before."

"Yes." Saguru agreed, then proceeded to explain what he knew of the physics of magic, Kaito's relationship with magic and the role magic played in their daily lives.

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To be continued.

5,000 yen = roughly $50USD.

-Most of chapter 3 was lost when our computer when down and we haven't felt up to re-writing it, we want to finish the kink fic before posting chapter 4, chapter 5 is done, and chapter 6 is almost done. Will hopefully post some of these missing chapters soon. #^^#