“Who?” Nabiki asked.
“His adopted pop,” Ranma answered. “He’s a dick.”
“Oh, like your dad.” Nabiki nodded in understanding. “What happened? Did he have bad gambling debts?” she asked Conan.
“Detective!” Conan said firmly. “He’s a private -De-tec-tive-! Surely you’ve heard of the famous sleeping Detective?”
Ranma and Nabiki looked at each other, than back at Conan. “Maybe,” Nabiki said.
“Nope, never heard of him,” Ranma said. “Except what you told me. How can he detect if he’s sleeping?” he asked.
“He’s not really sleeping. He just sits back and closes his eyes so he can visualize the scene when he’s doing his denouncement,” Conan lied. The truth of course was that he used a secret knock-out dart to put Mouri out, and then used a crystal voice modulator to mimic the detective’s voice so that he could reveal what ‘he’ had discovered.
“Denon-what?”
“Revealing the bad guy,” Nabiki answered for Conan. “So you think they were after you because of some case your adopted father is on?”
“Yes,” Conan answered, his ego feeling a bit bruised. He’d gotten used to not getting to stand in the lime light, but at least he’d always had the satisfaction of knowing that Mouri’s reputation was in a large part because of his deductive talents. Though, he had to be honest and concede that Natsumi and Miyuki had a genius for tracking down more normal perpetrators than the stone cold killers he himself favored as prey.
As the three of then had been talking, they’d been walking toward the schools. “Well, this is my stop,” Nabiki said, reluctance in her voice as they reached the girl’s entrance.
Ranma reached out and took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll be waiting for you after school.” he said with affection. “Don’t make me come in after you again,” he added in a mock stern voice.
Conan blinked at Ranma’s words. Again? The new boy didn’t seem to be joking. Had he actually slipped inside the girl’s school to go looking for Nabiki? While it was normally the girl’s who came up with elaborate schemes to infiltrate the boy’s side, it was not uncommon for the boys to try the reverse, more for the challenge of it than for the rewards. They got all of that they could handle from the older neighborhood women. The success rate for both, however, was abysmal. The girl’s principal was uncannily good at keeping his girls away from boys during school hours.
“I would not advise such a course of action,” Conan said to Ranma as Nabiki walked between the gate guards, looking back over her shoulder at Ranma until she was out of sight.
Only after he could no longer see Nabiki did Ranma turn and say, “Huh?” to Conan.
“It is amazing you managed to sneak into the school once. It would be very hazardous to try again. The principal has a very short fuse when it comes to boys interfering with the learning of his pretties.”
Ranma looked at Conan smugly. “Ya don’t got to worry about me. They ain’t going to catch this boy.”
Conan shrugged and dropped the subject. It wasn’t as if Ranma would come to any serious harm. He’d emerge through the gate face first, with a good collection of bruises, but nothing else. Still, that little twist in his mind that made him the detective he was could not help but notice that Ranma has put an unusual stress on the word, boy.
“Well, might as well bite the bullet,” Ranma said as he and Conan headed for the gate of their school. Despite his words, he had a cheerful expression on his face and certainly walked forward with none of the foot dragging reluctance they would have seemed to indicate.
Both Ranma and Conan came to a dead stop, however, as they got a look at what was just inside the gate.
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(Posted Sat, 09 Oct 2004 12:40)
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