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Al Rigore Di Tempo

Summary:

After everything that happened in the last years, all Shinichi really wishes for is to live a quiet, autonomous life. It's a simple wish, a modest outlook in a world where everyone is hoping for so much more. It's just as unattainable, it turns out.

Notes:

Hi,
thanks for stopping by. This is my first multi-chaptered work that I completed, so this is sort of a journey into the unknown. I hope you like the story and decide to stick with it. I plan to update once a week.
This is an alternate universe, which I was introduced to by Phantoms_Echo, among others, but I want to say thanks to them in particular for getting the idea stuck in my head. I kind of took it and ran with it, though, so I hope this won't end up too confusing. If so, let me know and I'll try to clarify it somehow.
I don't own any of these characters, and this was written purely for my own amusement.

Chapter 1: Grave

Chapter Text

The secret to independence is a solid, unwavering grounding in reality. No matter your background, no matter your identity, no matter your convictions, as long as you remain firmly rooted in the present, you cannot go wrong.

Shinichi's mind is strumming, a steady rhythm with a quick staccato of taps running through it like someone is drumming a flamenco beat into his very soul. The strange nervousness feels oddly incongruous with his focused concentration. His bespectacled eyes are roaming, skimming over the evidence at the scene, while his other senses are stretched towards the suspects. Hattori next to him has narrowed his sight to the countless shards of ceramic that litter the floor of the small studio the victim used for his clay and china work.

The drawings are clear and tasteful. They are the very opposite of that playful type of western designs which are interlaced with flowers and cheery patterns, famous all through the world. Instead, the man stuck to straight lines and small ornaments, never too detailed, always rather an understatement. They would look good in a high-class modern restaurant, Shinichi thinks, one of those sleek, nearly sterile kind of places, because the china is just like that: beautiful, but with a haughty air to it, failing to feel warm and inviting.

The man that is buried beneath his creations couldn't look more different from them, his scruffy beard and tousled hair bordering on unkempt. His skin is clean, however, and his clothes underneath the apron are of high quality. The witnesses' testimony, as far as his character is concerned, do depict him as incredibly meticulous where his work is concerned, and, according to his girlfriend, somewhat easy to get lost in it, forgetting everything else over it once he got going.

"Meeting every single Sentinel-cliche there is. Doesn't even take my genius to see that," Mouri gloated when she told them, and Shinichi still winces at the memory. All the more because he can easily tell that the victim was a Guide.

For starters, his girlfriend is a Sentinel―albeit a latent one―and, while by no means there aren't any Sentinel-Sentinel pairings around, statistically speaking Guide-Sentinel pairings are much more common. But mostly it's the scene that gives it away: the killer snuck up on the victim from behind, judging by the position of the only door in a studio that is lit by recessed ceiling lights. Also, there is the fact that the pottery wheel, situated near the opposite wall, holds a half-molded piece.

The estimated time of death is around five in the afternoon, and the wall with the pottery wheel faces west. There would have been no shadow falling onto him, and over the sound of the radio and the spinning table, he wouldn't have heard someone approaching, provided, of course, that he wasn't a Sentinel. Any Sentinel would have picked up on the sound of someone moving across these noisy floorboards, except for when they were deeply submerged in a zone. But no Sentinel zoning like that would be able to still work the clay so diligently.

So Shinichi is left with a potential Neutral or a Guide of uncertain prowess. It's not like people are forced to go to a Sentinel-Guide-Center to register anymore, so the fact that the victim doesn't have an ID from one on him isn't an indicator of the former.

What makes Shinichi certain is the broken china on the floor. The shards are everywhere, although the body of the victim doesn't reveal traces of a fight. Even Hattori's careful scanning couldn't find a single scratch on him, apart from the head injury and the marks from where he fell. The man died instantaneously, hit from behind with a large vase he kept in the corner. The fragments of it are scattered on top of those of the victim's china.

So the shards have to have been there before, which means that, in all likelihood, the victim got them there by destroying his own work. Afterwards, he must have just started to work amid the chaos.

According to his girlfriend, he left their shared apartment at four. The drive to the studio should have taken at least twenty-five to thirty minutes, taking rush-hour traffic into consideration. In order to get this far on a fresh piece he must have been working on it for another thirty minutes minimum according to one of the victim's pottery friends. That left him approximately five to ten minutes for the extend of destruction on display.

Psychologically speaking, there is one major difference between Guides and Neutrals, and that is the ability of reading and dealing with emotions, those of strangers and one's own alike. In general, the sensitivity of a Guide is much higher, so from an early age, they are dealing with a barrage of feelings. While that seems to suggest them to be very likely overwhelmed by emotions, in practice, the opposite is true.

A general mood or sentiment seems to prevail a long time in many Neutrals; Guides, however, are able to block out any temper in a matter of seconds. Their shields can close in around them in the blink of an eye, making them often seem unapproachable, even callous, when one doesn't recognize the action as the defense mechanism it is. The ability to emotionally resonate well with others can be a curse, so every Guide almost automatically learns how to keep out any unwanted intrusion into their psyche.

As Shinichi is well aware, that does include one's own sentiments, as well. The likeliest scenario in this case would be that, after the victim was overcome by a bout of unbearable, explosive anger, the man immediately retreated behind his defenses. He probably aided the process along by starting his work, which consisted of a set of well-practiced motions he could do on autopilot, centering him and distracting him from the turmoil he felt and spread to his surroundings.

Shinichi's mind is still strumming, but the melody has changed, feeling much more like the one he prefers to set for himself. The soft, sustained Air is steadily floating on in a back and forth between ups and downs, sometimes lifting, sometimes sinking, always oscillating around a steady state. The flamenco fades out, like the sound of a retreating plane in the distance.

It's easy to let the feelings of the suspects wash through his mental calm. There is anxiety; every single one of them is scared, no matter how much they try to hide it behind fake anger or nonchalance.

The pottery friend, underneath the nerves, feels shocked and confused. He is unable to grasp what has happened, not yet in the beginnings of grief, even though Shinichi can see that he and his friend were close. They shared the taste in clothes as well as in art, that much is revealed by the still intact pieces the friend made standing proudly on the shelf second to the top. They are up high enough to be safe, but not too high to be difficult to reach, the best position in the atelier, clearly honored more than the victim's own work.

The girlfriend is on the verge of a zone, in spite of her weak abilities. She can't take her eyes off the piece on the pottery wheel, blood-sprinkled and drooping. She doesn't feel shock, clearly quicker on the uptake; she only feels pain. The depth of her grief reminds Shinichi of Ran. It speaks of a love equally as warm, an emotion strong enough to turn volatile. She might become a murderer for it, he thinks, because any sentiment that forceful can become lighter fuel, waiting for but a spark.

The sister, though, the last person in his habitual three-suspects-lineup, is just weary. She feels tired. She feels empty. She feels lost. Her sentiments are like silk threats, weaving easily through Shinichi's subtle mental grasp, getting lost in the sensory overload she feels from the reflection of the light hitting the delicate shards of porcelain. Out of the three of them, she is the easiest to place with regards to her status: a Sentinel with strong visual abilities. Her eyes are glued to one fragment in particular, showing a stylized version of a snowdrop in thin, fickle lines, drawn with a steady, loving hand.

Her name is Haru, spelled like flower.

Shinichi turns away from her and addresses the girlfriend. "Onee-san, how long have you been with your boyfriend?"

"A little over a year," she replies, her otherwise clear soprano scratchy and choked with withheld tears.

"Has he come here often for pottery making?" Shinichi asks.

It's the friend who answers. "Not quite as much, actually. Most of his work was from before he moved in with Akane-san."

Shinichi detects no bitterness in him when he says it, and the use of her first name reveals a certain degree of closeness between the victim's girlfriend and best friend. It actually indicates harmony instead of brooding conflict.

"Joji-san always said how strange it felt to visit Rin at home," the girlfriend says, and her face twists between a smile and a sob.

None of the others go to comfort her, the friend too insecure about his place, the sister still lost in the ruined pottery on the ground. Shinichi turns as Ran comes to aid, resolutely pulling the grieving woman into a comforting hug. She is a good Guide, clear and concise in how she deals with sadness, unwilling to see it being bottled up. Impeccably polite in any other situation, she is willing to forego proper etiquette in moments like these to be there for someone. Shinichi has yet to see her be rejected.

He walks across the floorboards towards Hattori, carefully avoiding the shards. They creak loudly, making him feel like he is going to crash through them. He revisits his idea about only a Sentinel being able to hear someone move through the room above the background noise. A nearly deaf person would have picked up on it.

"Those floorboards are awful," the friend mutters, probably more to distract himself from everything else than to actually make conversation.

"You probably already figured out the best way to cross them, didn't you, Onii-san?" Shinichi asks, testing another hypothesis.

The other nods. "We all did, I think. It's impossible to take now, though. It's covered in fragments of his china."

Shinichi's eyes meet Hattori's. The other detective nods almost imperceptibly, his sharper senses having already noticed some places where the shatters have been ground to something even finer, almost dust. The culprit must have approached across the shards.

Shinichi checks his watch. They have been here for nearly an hour, and it's just fifteen minutes to seven. His luck being what it is, they stumbled across the body looking for tools. Hattori is moving into this apartment complex for his studies, and Ran and Shinichi, dragging Mouri along with them, agreed to help him with the boxes and setting up furniture. That, however, proved difficult when missing the correct bit for most screws, so they decided to ask the neighbors for help.

Consequently, they discovered a body way ahead of the time anyone might have figured it likely to be found, as always. The girlfriend arrived by chance just when they waited in front of the atelier. She actually opened the door for them when they didn't receive an answer to ringing the bell and was with them during the discovery, making her an obvious suspect. She was the one who told them about the other two, because, as even Mouri realized, the door was locked and undamaged, leaving only those with a key as possible suspects. Hence, the list includes the three people in the room, all of whom showed up within fifteen minutes of the girlfriend calling. That in itself is curious, since none of them lives close by.

Shinichi and Hattori share another look. They don't do it often, but situations like these call for them to let their senses intertwine for a brief moment. Bonding theory says that the probability for a coupling of a Sentinel and a Guide increases with direct contact between their minds. And while that is true, Shinichi knows it to be irrelevant due to two simple reasons: compatibility and readiness to bond.

Neither of them are an issue between Hattori and him, both of them happier as friends. Besides, one of them is only willing to bond with a certain hot-blooded childhood friend of his, and the other is unwilling to form such a connection in general, since he has only ever been interested in a fellow Guide. A Guide, who, unfortunately though, has recently bonded with another Sentinel. Aside from that, the compatibility between him and Hattori is abysmal. Even the short contact with Hattori's aggressive, overly energetic and chaotic mindscape leaves him longing for the neat structure of his own, while he can feel Hattori fighting the restraints Shinichi's rigid order forces him into.

Still, the images they manage to transmit, of traces of blood, skin, and fabric on the maimed shards that Hattori found, and the sentiments and relationships Shinichi sorted out, slot together into a crystal clear picture.

They don't need to discuss the further course of action. It is Shinichi, who approaches the sister of the victim, touching a hand to the back of hers and pulling up his shields without warning. The zone she has been in breaks abruptly, her eyes snapping to him, and her mind is flooded with rage, grief, and despair. All of it is sprinkled with a righteousness that leaves no room for regret. He doesn't need to see her feet. He knows her socks will be bloodied, ingrained with remnants of china that could only have gotten there as she stole herself towards her unsuspecting brother, carrying a heavy vase silently as only a furious Sentinel can.

"How long has he been acting as your Guide?" Shinichi asks her, just as Division One, Inspector Megure in the lead, push through the doors in order to put her in handcuffs.

"Since he was eleven and I was fourteen," she says.

Everybody else in the room apart from Hattori gasps in shock. While Sentinel-Guide relationships are accepted broadly and with complete disregard to gender, such pairs among siblings remain a taboo. Even if they are platonic, a Sentinel especially often can't bear to share a Guide once they intend to enter a relationship with someone else.

"He broke it off when he met her. Told me we couldn't keep doing it, even though we knew it grounded us. Kept us functioning. None of us can be without the other. Look at his art. It vanished once he shut me out. And he knew it. We've gone back and forth, last year. Trying and failing to sever the bond. But today, he..."

Today the bond snapped, Shinichi realizes, and a sick feeling overcomes him as he recognizes the fatigue she feels as a dangling bond, already bled dry. They probably never received training, seeing as none of them is registered. It suddenly becomes clear to him that what the brother did to his sister is as cruel as what she did to him.

"I already went past the initial shock," she whispers, eyes still on Shinichi, even as they glaze over, "I can feel the zones looming. They'll come to freeze me to death. My parents always said they named us wrong, you know? Rin, written as ice, and Haru, written like flower but meaning spring. They said he was so much warmer than me. What a joke. Can you feel it, little boy? How cold he is?"

There it is again, the despair, and Shinichi feels his carefully constructed shields around her breaking, not tethered strongly enough to her to keep her safe, to protect her sanity. If a Sentinel bonds before they learn to control their senses, once they come to rely on someone to keep them anchored to reality, they can't do it on their own anymore. Despite all progress in research, such a broken bond is still a death sentence to many of them.

As she is being led away, she succumbs to her senses again, moving like a puppet on cut strings, unseeing and unfeeling. Her eyes look as blank as the cold white china, the patterns of the broken flowers and delicate lines losing their shine as the sun sets and the lights are switched off.



***



When they leave the rubble that remains of that forbidden bond only Mouri's mind remains unchanged, still focused on his craving for a beer. Hattori's emotions twist and turn like a storm brewing, his senses itchy from overuse, his thoughts probably dark and upset, still figuring out at whom he ought to be more mad. Ran's are a swelling ocean of grief, tainted by the feelings of the bereft girlfriend she consoled and her own compassion for the tragic end of the siblings. She is always sympathetic, even if the concerned party committed a crime. Shinichi's heart aches for her.

"Maybe you should go and visit Araide-sensei tonight, Ran-neechan," he says once they took leave from Hattori and made their way to the entrance of his building. She smiles down at him through unshed tears. Araide's gentle mind that sees so much beauty in the world always manages to clear the deep waters of her sorrow and gets them to sparkle in the sunlight. She doesn't deserve any less than that.

"I think I really should," she says. "Will the two of you be okay?"

"Sure, Ran-neechan," Shinichi replies and forces a smile of his own.

They separate at the subway station. Shinichi is trudging behind Mouri listlessly, mulling over unhappy thoughts as the soft tune in his head turns more and more morose, a requiem's heaviness replacing the Air's soaring lightness. Suddenly, the speed picks up. It's the second time today he feels this disconnect between his sentiments and the sounds in his mind, and this time, not distracted by a case, he realizes what it is: a resonance.

Shinichi has never lived through one before. He has heard of it, though. A resonance is the alignment of the mental barriers between a Sentinel and a Guide. Each Sentinel and Guide has their own way to protect their mind, their sanity, from the constant influx of either sensations or emotions surrounding them. If that barrier is similar enough, if they suit each other, it's possible for their shields to coalesce without a bond in place. What Shinichi is listening to now is the sound of someone else's mind. He stops dead, eyes widening in shock, as the truth sinks in.

The only surefire ways to bond with a Sentinel are repeated, close contact, a willingness to form the connection, and compatibility. And while the first two are more or less in his own hands, the last one decidedly is not. Given that he is standing on a near empty street next to a Neutral and is just as unwilling to bond as ever, it is, however, the only remaining explanation for a resonance that clear.

"Fuck," Shinichi mutters, as the rhythm of both, him and the unknown intruder, screech to a sudden halt.