Detective Conan: The Road To Hell

Fall Into Place

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Takagi glanced over his shoulder at the road behind him. This kid was really starting to bother him. Seriously, what kind of kid casually skateboards behind a line of police cars, acting as if he doesn't have a care in the world? Takagi had tried for the past ten minutes to get the kid off their tail, speeding up and slowing down, drifting left and right on the one-way road, but it was in vain. The boy kept up with every move Takagi made, persistently changing his speed and swiftly turning on the skateboard to stay directly behind Takagi's car.

Sato, however, was not nearly as annoyed with the boy as she was her partner. She started to worry when his speed suddenly began to drop, and she called his phone to make sure he wasn't drugged. No response. He started speeding up with collision-inducing acceleration, and she wanted to pull him over and give him a good whack and a hefty fine for speeding (and scaring the daylights out of her). She tried calling his phone again but yet again got no answer and it made her ticked.

She reached her limit when Takagi suddenly swerved to the side and pulled over, sending an apprehensive shiver down her spine. Immediately, she pulled over and got out of her car. She collected herself enough to remember to put the parking brake on before she slammed the door behind her and marched to Takagi's car, muttering something about an idiot and dinner.

As she glared at the stopped police car, a boy— about Ran's age, she guessed— came around the side of the car to the driver's door. Takagi got out the car, clearly angry— arms crossed, his normally open expression clouded by a darker one, and, as neither Sato nor the boy failed to notice, a pair of handcuffs in his hands.

Sato frowned. Was that boy the reason for Takagi's erratic driving? If so, who was he, and how and why was he tailgating a police officer on a skateboard?

Takagi shouted at the boy, gesturing angrily and pointing to his car, and then back to the boy. The boy gave some sort of response, and immediately, all signs of agression disappated from Takagi's bodylanguage. He broke into a huge smile and struck up a conversation with the boy in the baseball cap as Sato walked up. She'd calmed down from her initial fury, but she wasn't going to let this go.

"Takagi-kun," she yelled at him, pulling him closer to her angrily by his ear and earning a yelp of pain and surprise from Takagi in the process. "What do you think you're doing? That sort of driving is going to make you crash, and then we'll have to deal with your death before this other murder case!"

Takagi sweatdropped, tears of pain welling at his eyes. "Sumimasen, Sato-san," he apologized, and the boy laughed.

Throwing a skeptical look at the boy, Sato pulled on Takagi's ear again, bringing his face near hers, and whispered in his ear. "Is this kid the reason why you were driving so strangely?"

She let him go as he nodded, rubbing where her death grip had pulled his ear. "He was tailing me. I thought it was strange, but it's okay now. I was actually about to give him a ride to the scene, since he's not busy at the moment."

Sato glared at her subordinate. "Seriously? What kind of kid do you bring along to a murder scene?"

The boy walked up from behind Takagi. "Excuse me Takagi-keiji, Sato-keiji, but the rest of the patrol is going to get worried if we don't start going soon."

Sato redirected her glare to the boy. "Who exactly do you think you are?"

"I thought you'd remember me for sure," the boy said with a slight frown. He pulled off his hat, and immediately grinned at Sato's look of shocked recognition. "It's nice to see you again, Sato-keiji."