middleofsomewhere | Orange Team Finale

Four days of ice maze, four days of cold, four days of wandering lost, falling into traps and slowly getting closer to the centre of the labyrinth.

There is very little warning in the labyrinth, those nearer the outer walls may see the storm get more intense outside but their first real indication that something is wrong is when the world lurches.

Parts of the maze have moved before, passages opening and closing. But now the whole labyrinth moves, shaking and twisting, spinning in the sky, as if it were trying to shake those inside out. They may be able brace themselves, they may be thrown down passageways, into ice walls.

The whole place seems to get colder. An attempt to freeze them out. The shaking only lasts a few minutes, but it is intense.

But even this attempt at getting rid of them isn’t enough it seems, because those close enough will soon find themselves entering through the last gap in the ice. To the machine room itself. Indeed it might be that they were flung closer by the shaking itself.

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"They got thrown around but I think.." He glanced over at Telli and frowned. "Some people got hurt but seems like everyone is accounted for." He offered his hand as Reigen gets free of the icicles. Once the older young man is seated, Heiji opened his rucksack. He paused at the question and gave him a slightly sour look.

"I like sports, but I'm a detective first and foremost. We have to be a jack-of-all-trades." He set out some pieces of wood and some gauze. So he didn't exactly know how to push to get Reigen's bones pushed back in the right place, but he could gently push the obvious parts and then wrap his leg so he wouldn't move it much till they could get him to a healer. Also he could patch up the gashes. "Sorry, this is going to hurt," he warned before doing his best to tend to the leg.

"Ok, no one fell through the ice, good sign. We can work with this." Reigen figures taking out the machine will be easy enough with all of them here: they're all smart people, and the hard part of getting through the ridiculous labyrinth is over.

"Eh? Detectives have to know first aid? How intense do these cases get?" Seriously, who lets kids solve murders? Whatever adult police detectives are there clearly aren't doing their job. "I figured because sports kids get twisted ankles and stuff all the time, you know? Baseball can get pretty intense--Ow!"

The pain from forced bone setting gets Reigen to shut up at least temporarily, as he's focused on breathing through it to keep from yelling again. "Ha...could be worse." There totally aren't tears forming in his eyes or anything. He can handle a few broken bones, dammit.

"Detectives have to know everything," Hattori explained very matter-of-factly. "I've been shot a couple times and so has Conan, but I've also seen injuries with baseball and kendu." He frowned guiltily when Reigen cried out from the pain. "Sorry, I think you should be alright till you get a proper medic."

He patted Reigen's shoulder lightly, knowing he was holding back more signs of pain. He scooped out from his pack a couple small pills and handed them to Reigen. "These are just mild pain relievers but they may help take the edge off. Acetaminophen to be exact."

"You guys have been what? What kind of asshole shoots a bunch of kids?!" People wanted for murder, probably, but Reigen would hope people had more standards than being willing to hurt children.

He'd been trying to put on a brave face in regards to the pain because he didn't want a kid to have to see him cry, but there was no way he was going to turn down painkillers for that. "Oh thank god. That's the stuff, aceta...whatever-phen." Reigen took the pills from Hattori and downed them the best he could without water. Not very dignified, but whatever, he needed the relief.

"When you're investigating a serial killer, they don't typically care if you're a kid or not." It was a sad reality, but one the high school detectives were intimately familiar with. "Didn't you say you were an investigator of some kind too?"

He gave a small smile at Reigen accepting the pills. Not that the man asked, but he would've sworn on anything the unlabeled pills were safe. "I've been bringing those along ever since that first mission I was here for. Remember we were getting a group of people to safety from that city and then there was the mudslide? I twisted my ankle pretty bad. I don't know how I've lucked out between the last one and this time, but someone else has always needed them." This time, it was Reigen. As he glanced around at the others, he wished he'd thought to bring the bottle.

"I take care of stuff people blame on ghosts and exorcize haunted buildings. Nothing like hunting down serial killers! Why doesn't law enforcement do its job wherever all you kids are from, my god..." Seriously, all these kid geniuses and superkids are starting to concern Reigen, if there's no way for them to leave this sort of thing to responsible adults.

Honestly, he wasn't thinking enough to question the pills, since he trusted Heiji knew what they did if he could rattle off the name like that. "Ha, right, I had to herd some farm animals during that--good job thinking ahead, Heiji-kun. We'll have to keep preparing for getting banged up at this rate, between this stuff and the dinosaurs..."

Hattori looked at Reigen skeptical for a moment before remembering that his world might not have ghosts, but another world might. The question about the police had him smirking. "My old man is the Chief of the Osaka Police Department so I've been around it all my life. We don't really answer to anyone so sometimes the high school detectives can go and do things police can't. Also, regular police officers just aren't as good as Kudo and I are."

He had opinions about how often the real 'kids' (from his point of view) got brought into their cases because of Conan, but he wasn't going to get into it here. He didn't like it when Kudazu and Ren got involved and they were Kudo and Hattori's same age.

That aside, his smile grew a bit at Reigen approving of his supplies. However, he chuckled and shook his head about the dinosaurs. "These missions are really weird." Anyway.. "Will you be able to walk with help now? We don't have to just yet, but at some point that machine is going to get hacked and we might have to make a fast exit." He just hoped there would be something underneath them when they jumped.

Reigen couldn't help feeling a bit conflicted at that answer. He knew a lot of young people that were capable of stuff he wasn't: hell, his own student had a power that he barely understood. Still, it couldn't be good to not let kids have the chance to have normal childhoods because of how skilled they are. "Well...try not to get shot again." Not the best advice, probably, but Reigen wasn't sure saying he was worried would go well for Heiji. He didn't want to condescend the kid.

"Ha..tell me about it. They keep getting weirder and weirder." With a small laugh, Reigen observed the busted leg and nodded. "Yeah, I'll be ok. Think Spider-san will let me hitch a ride?" That was half a joke, since riding a giant spider actually sounded terrifying.

Hattori was pretty used to people having opinions on what he did as a high schooler so he wasn't too worried when he saw the telltale signs of Reigen not being too happy about him solving murder mysteries. His mother had a similar opinion.

What comes out of the older man's mouth next though had him smiling. He appreciated Reigen saying that opposed to something like 'stop messing around with murderers'. "It's always the goal, I promise!"

He looked around for the spider, but noticed Conan was starting to stir. "I'll tell her if I see her. I need to get back to Ku-Conan. Holler my way if you need anything else okay?"

"Thanks, I owe you one. But I'll be fine, you go take care of Conan-kun!" After all, Conan was like seven, unless he turned out to actually be some immortal genius or whatever in the form of a child like Joscelin.

Reigen didn't like basically not being able to move while a crisis was going on, but better now than while they were stuck in the labyrinth, honestly. Man, when all of this was over, Reigen needed a hot bath and a nap.

Orange Team Finale

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