#It’s a tragedy but it was very preventable by not flying so goddamn close to the sun

[starfast]

Cross the Kingdom- Chapter 1

“Into the Night”

Word Count: 3617

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More about this project: Intro Post | Other Info

 Nothing interesting ever happened at night. Or at least, that was how Crispin felt. There may have been a time where his father’s ship was ravaged by an onslaught of midnight attacks from other pirates, but those days had long since passed. Crispin had been living on his father’s ship for the past three years, and not once had there been a night attack. There hadn’t even been any close calls or false alarms. It seemed to Crispin that having someone stay up to guard the ship at night was rather redundant, but his father clearly felt otherwise and Crispin knew better than to try and reason with him. 

 Which brought Crispin to where he was now, sitting perched in the crow’s nest of the Mad Maiden, clutching a telescope in his right hand and a dagger in his left while the rest of the crew lay sleeping soundly in their quarters. He had lost track of time several hours ago, and stopped seriously guarding the ship long before that. At one point he had carved his name into the side of the crow’s nest, just to pass the time. 

 There was nothing in sight for as far as Crispin could see, even with the telescope. It was just his father’s ship just sitting alone in the middle of a vast expanse of dark nothingness. If he had anticipated that living on a pirate ship could be this dull, he might have opted to stay with Roger instead. At least if he were still living with Roger then he could be asleep like everyone else in Toltova right now. Things always felt safer at Roger’s place anyways. 

 It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle the fights that frequently broke out on the ship during the day, because he absolutely could. It was more the fact that Roger was the only one who knew about his power, and that his father would likely try to kill him if he ever found out. 

 Crispin liked to think that his father wouldn’t actually kill him, but he also couldn’t see it as something that would go over well. His father harboured a deep hatred towards people with powers, which according to Roger, stemmed when his father’s entire family had been killed by an all-powered crew of pirates. Most people would have grieved and moved on with their lives, but Marcus Hadley had responded to the tragedy by becoming a pirate so that he could track down the ones who had killed his family and avenge their deaths. Everyone dealt with grief differently, but unfortunately for Crispin, his father’s grief manifested in a dangerous way. So, following Roger’s advice, he kept his powers a secret. Which was almost a shame, because if powers were something that were widely tolerated he imagined that there were a number of ways in which his ability to fly could be made useful. But because some people-- namely his father-- felt like any kind of special powers were unnatural, and shouldn’t be allowed, his power was basically useless. He couldn’t even be subtle about using his powers, because there was nothing subtle about a person with wings flying high above sea in broad daylight. 

 It was a good thing then that it was not broad daylight. Even better, but no one else was around to see him. Crispin stood up, leaving the telescope on the floor, and sticking his dagger back into its respective sheath. He braced himself against the edge of the crow’s nest. 

 Crispin had never been completely sure how his powers worked. He was never really able to fully comprehend out how his wings could retract into his back when he didn’t want to use them, but it was something he’d always been grateful for. His father probably would have found out about his powers years earlier if he had to keep them hidden beneath his clothes all the time. 

 Crispin had also never quite gotten used to the feeling of his wings extending out of his back. When he was younger he used to compare it to getting stabbed from the inside out. Now that he had actually been stabbed, however, he felt like the comparison was a massive exaggeration. That hadn’t made it any less uncomfortable though. 

He guided his wings through the slits that he had cut out in his jacket before extending them to their full length. He had an impressive ten foot wingspan as of the last time he had measured them. That had been when he was fourteen, and at the time it his wingspan was almost double his own height: A less than impressive five feet and one inch. He’d grown an entire inch since then, and figured that his wings probably hadn’t grown all that much either. 

 Roger had once suggested to him that maybe the reason why he was so short was due to his powers. His reasoning was that less height would theoretically mean less weight, and less weight would make it easier for him to fly around. Crispin had shot down that idea almost immediately. He didn’t hate his powers quite as much as he hated being about as tall as the average thirteen year old. No one knew about his powers, but they did know that he was the shortest person on board the ship. They never let him forget it either. 

 Crispin stood up on the edge of the crows nest with his white feathered wings folded against his back. He drew a deep breath, inhaling the salty ocean air before he jumped. He let himself fall for a bit before he extended his wings, flapping them downwards and sending himself skyward. 

 As much and all as Crispin disliked his powers, it was hard to deny that he didn’t love the thrill of flying. There was something very liberating about the feeling of soaring through the sky as the wind ran through his hair and his feathers. He kept his eye on his father’s ship, not wanting to stray too far from it. He watched it grow smaller and smaller as he increased his altitude. Soon, the Mad Maiden was no more than a dark spot sitting on the even darker ocean. 

 Crispin could have spent the rest of the night up in the sky, but he liked to play it safe. Staying within his comfort zone was something that, as a pirate, he adhered to very rarely. Yet, when it came to using his powers he had always done what he had to do to prevent anyone from finding out. That mostly meant cutting his late night flights short and returning to the ship after only a few short minutes of flying. That time had come already. He circled the ship, lowering his altitude until eventually he was low enough for his feet to touch the deck of the ship. 

 “Crispin!” 

 There were many things that Crispin would have never expected to hear at such an ungodly hour of the night, and the sound of his father shouting his name from the opposite end of the deck was perhaps the most terrifying. He pulled his wings in, trying to hide them from his father almost on instinct. Judging from the harsh tone that his father had used, it didn’t really matter whether he hid them at this point or not.

 “Fucking hell, Dad,” He snapped back, “What are you doing?” 

 His father didn’t answer him. Not right away at least, and in a way that was more terrifying. He caught his father’s hand drift over to the hilt of one of his knives. 

 “This whole time” his father seethed, “This whole time you were a goddamn freak!” He studied him up and down, and then added, “I swear, Crispin, you’d best have a damn good explanation for this!” 

 Crispin drew in a deep breath. And another one. He could feel his hands trembling and hoped it was not as noticeable as he thought it was. Crispin didn’t normally get worked up over name calling. In the three years that he had been living on the Mad Maiden he had been through a lot. He’d had more than a few close encounters with death, and it had certainly desensitized him to a lot of the violence and brutality that came with living on a pirate ship. He could deal with physical pain in both large and small doses, and name calling was something that he was used to at this point. 

 But this was different. His father had never treated him any differently than the rest of the crew. He had made it clear to him three years ago when Crispin first joined the crew of the Mad Maiden that he wouldn’t get any special privileges for being the Captain’s son. “There’s no room for weakness on a pirate ship, Crispin,” he had said to him, “The very second I start showing any signs of favouritism, the rest of the crew will use it against me. I can’t have that.” When the other crew members poked fun at Crispin, his father never stopped them. In fact, it wasn’t all that uncommon for him to join in, but Crispin had learned to take it. He had learned to fire right back, because it was all in good fun. 

 This wasn’t. The words had been spoken with a pure malice that Crispin had never heard from his father before. It was as though the words were a knife and his father had thrust it into his heart, where it would hurt the most, before twisting it just to make it all the more painful.

 “I was guarding the ship just like you asked,” he said firmly, hoping that he could hide his emotions. 

 “Think you’re being funny, do you?” His father snarled.

 “You asked me to explain myself so I did,” Crispin shouted, “You asked me to guard the stupid ship at night, so here I am, guarding the stupid ship at night even though there’s nothing to fucking guard it from!”

 Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have dared to mouth off to his father like that, but these weren’t normal circumstances. Although, even at the very best of times, his father was not a very easy person to reason with.

 “You know damn well that’s not what I’m talking about,” His father fumed, “Now are you going to explain yourself or not?” 

 Crispin cringed, fully expecting someone to wake up to the commotion as his father’s voice crescendoed to a shout that echoed across the silent sea. If anyone had awoken, none of them came to inspect the screaming match. Crispin exhaled in relief. He didn’t want anyone else to know. Anyone with a brain would have sided with his father. No one would dare defend him in front of the Captain, regardless of how they truly felt.

 “I don’t know what you want me to explain,” Crispin yelled back, “It’s not like you’ll listen to me, anyways,” He averted his gaze for a split second and added, “I didn’t ask to be this way, you know!” He hadn’t even meant to say it. In the heat of the moment, the words just slipped out of his mouth. It was something that he thought about frequently, but had never quite been able to bring it up with anyone. He figured that eventually he might bring it up with Roger, but it wasn’t really a conversation he wanted to have yet. Not with Roger, who was the only person who Crispin ever talked with about these kinds of things . And certainly not with his father, who was too caught up in his own flawed logic to care how Crispin felt. Crispin didn’t see how being able to fly made him any more or less of a threat than anyone else on the ship. He carried six knives with him at all times, but somehow it was his ability to fly that made him dangerous. That was his father’s opinion and there wasn’t anything that Crispin could do aside from just dealing with it. 

 “I didn’t ask you to be my son either,” his father snapped back at him, “We can’t always get what we want.”  

 The words stung, but Crispin clenched his jaw, determined not to let it show. He had always known that having a child was never something that his father had wanted. Not only did his father make no effort to keep this a secret, but he seemed to constantly remind Crispin that his birth had been entirely accidental. 

 “Yeah, well,” Crispin said squaring his shoulders, “Unfortunately for both of us, I’m still your son.” 

 “Are you really?” 

 Crispin froze, caught off guard by the question. His mother had abandoned him as a newborn, leaving him in his father’s care when he was only a few days old. His father had then left him in the care of Roger, his close friend, since a pirate ship was no place for a baby. Crispin had often wondered about the identity of his mother. He’d asked his father if he had even the slightest idea of who she could be, but if he did, he never told him. Crispin had always just assumed that his mother knew with complete certainty that Captain Marcus Hadley had been his father. He’d never thought to question it, but maybe there had been a mistake. If his father didn’t know who his mother was, then could it be possible that his mother didn’t actually know who his father was? 

 Nope. No. Not right now. Absolutely not. He knew what his father was doing, and he was not going to question this now. 

 “Yeah,” He said with as much confidence he could muster, “Yeah I am.” 

 “Oh, Crispin,” his father chided, “Even if you are my son, do you really think I would let you get away with this? I can’t allow this, you know that, don’t you?” He took a step towards him and added, “I can’t treat you any differently than anyone else on this ship. You know how things are here.” 

 “Oh, and what are you going to do then,” Crispin taunted, “Kill me?” He almost went as far as to add that killing someone solely because they had powers was legally considered a hate crime, and was punishable by whatever the King’s men decided. In Coral Bay, favoured punishment was usually death, but this wasn’t something that happened nearly as much as it should. Crispin only knew that because Roger had told him as much. Nobody on board the Mad Maiden had even a shred of respect for the law. 

 “How are you going to explain that to the crew? Are you just gonna--” His words were cut short by the sudden jolt of pain in his left shoulder. He looked down, and saw the handle of a knife protruding out of him. The pain had stunned him into silence. All he could do was stare down at the silver knife handle and watch as his own blood spread out across his jacket. He was still in shock when he finally managed to say,  “Oh, you really went there, didn’t you?” 

 Crispin’s father could throw knives with deadly accuracy. He could take out a knife and throw it so fast that most of the time, his victims never saw it coming. It was something that Crispin could now attest to, because he definitely had not seen it coming. Sure, he may have literally asked for it, but he didn’t think that his father would actually do it. 

 “Get out of here, Crispin,” His father growled, “I’ll take care of your mess. Just go.” 

Crispin felt like he was watching his father through the wrong end of a telescope. Everything felt distant. He could barely even register what was happening. It almost didn’t even feel real, like the whole thing was just a really terrible dream. Any moment now, he expected to wake up in his hammock and go on with his daily life. 

 But then there was the knife. A deadly reminder, coupled with the pain that confirmed that everything he was experiencing was real. Crispin glanced down at the knife once again. He knew better than to pull it out, but he couldn’t stay on the ship any longer. He gave a slight nod, and mumbled, “Yeah, I’ll do that,” before he clambered over the side of the ship and jumped off. He struggled to get himself skyborn and began flapping his wings frantically as he dipped down dangerously close to the ocean. With one last powerful flap he levelled himself out and went soaring off into the night. 

 Crispin decided that the best course of action would be to head back to Coral Bay. For one thing, it wouldn’t have been that far away since they had only left the city earlier that evening. Roger lived there as well, which meant that Crispin could have a place to stay until he sorted things out. He figured that he would probably never be welcomed back on his father’s ship, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t start over somewhere else. Maybe he could even find work on another pirate ship. That would make his father even more furious, which almost made it even more appealing. Or perhaps he’d travel inland. He’d only ever seen the coasts of Toltova. As much as he felt at home by the sea, part of him wondered how the rest of the kingdom compared. 

 Crispin decided he would figure that out later though. Right now, he had to focus on getting to Coral Bay. He wasn’t even sure how long he had been flying for, but his injury was starting to take a toll on him. The knife sent a harsh shock of pain radiating across his chest and shoulder with each flap of his wings. He gasped for breath and longed for somewhere to land where he could rest at least for a few minutes, but there was nothing below him except the ocean for almost as far as he could see. 

 Crispin didn’t know how long he had been flying when he finally spotted the distinctive glow of the Coral Bay Lighthouse. 

 “Oh thank goodness,” he panted. The lighthouse was still a little ways away, but at least he was getting close to the shore now. He deviated slightly to the right, knowing that the lighthouse was closer to the edge of the main city. He didn’t really want to be flying into the busiest part of the city, but it wasn’t like there would be many people out and about at this hour. It was quicker just to fly right in than to land somewhere on the outskirts and walk. It probably wasn’t even any more or less safe either since Coral Bay had a bit of a seedy reputation. Regardless of where he landed, he was bound to run into someone who was up to no good. He wasn’t too worried about that though. He’d been born and raised in the city, and he was well aware of which areas to avoid at all costs, and which areas were deemed safe enough. Roger’s house was within walking distance to the Harbour Strip- a row of shops and businesses that lined the coast and looked out into the harbour. Being one of the busier and well lit areas, it tended to fall more on the safer side. He would be fine. 

 By the time Crispin was able to see solid ground beneath him, his injury had only worsened. He had planned to go straight to Roger’s house, but at this point he knew it would be better to find a healer. He was starting to feel dizzy and lightheaded which was making it all the more difficult for him to stay in a straight line. 

 Crispin had been living in Coral Bay long enough to know that there were more than a few healers in the city that could help him. He wasn’t sure whether any of them would be open at such a late hour, but he knew that there was at least one somewhere along the Harbour Strip, which was almost directly underneath him. Crispin flew above the Strip, searching for the perfect landing spot. He didn’t want to be right out in the open when he landed, but he also didn’t want to get too close to any of the buildings. When he started seeing dark spots that clouded his vision he knew he had to land as soon as possible. There wasn’t anything that he could do to help his injuries aside from get to a healer, but at the very least he could prevent more injuries by landing rather than falling from several feet up in the air. 

 Crispin tried to lower his altitude slightly, but he found himself dropping downwards at a much faster rate than he’d anticipated. He flapped his wings trying to regain balance, only to clip the side of a building with his left wing which not only set him even more off balance but also sent a searing pain up and down his wing. 

 Time somehow seemed to move differently after that. He felt like things had slowed down around him, but at the same time things were moving so quickly that he didn’t have time to do anything else but frantically flap his one uninjured wing and try his best to see where it got him

 As it turned out, trying his best only sent him crashing into the side of a building, before falling onto an awning and finally, onto the cobbled road beneath him. 

 --

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[backtodc]

As fun as it is to throw salt at Gosho I think this could be a good time to talk about some good DC cases. So, which are your top ten cases so far?

Hmmm, this took some thought–presented chronologically because I couldn’t pick preferential order XP

Billion Yen Robbery (013-016): Even disregarding its long-term impact on the plot, this case on its own had a good twist in how Akemi disguised herself and the lies she told to track down her robbery partners. I’m always a fan of people, rather than going for big heavy-duty disguises, just using little details of makeup and presentation to completely change their appearance. Ran’s big heart was evident in this case and how strongly she felt about “Masami”‘s safety after just meeting her twice, and this one also what is still one of my favourite ninja-Ran moments to date. Potential kidnapper/murderer across the street? Maybe we should call the police, or run down the stairs OR I GUESS WE COULD JUMP OUT OF A FIRST FLOOR WINDOW AND CHASE HIM ACROSS THE STREET AND DO A FLYING KICK TO DESTROY HIS CAR WINDOW AND ALSO HIS NOSE

Akemi’s death opens up a shitton of plot, and, despite how it gets slightly overused later on (not quite to “did you know Bruce Wayne’s parents got murdered” levels but definitely a biiiiit overused) it’s still one of the most genuinely tragic deaths, especially since Shinichi admitted his real name to her to try and offer her some comfort as she died. TEARS Q_Q

A Haunted Mansion Murder Case (017-019): The case that introduced the Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta. I always think of this one quite fondly. It had a genuinely creepy atmosphere–the “haunted” mansion looks the right side of cliche-creepy, especially once it turns out there’s actually someone around, and honestly I can forgive the incidents of the kids wandering off alone and vanishing because they’re six, of course they’re gonna do silly shit like wander off alone in a haunted mansion. And the truth of the matter is something that’s vanishingly rare in Detective Conan, something I wish we saw more often: a crime of passion. 

There’s no clever trick to the murder: the son, Akio, just loses the rag under a torrent of verbal abuse and smashes his father’s head in with a candlestick. There’s no clever trick to the cover-up, either; his mother messed with the crime scene a bit and reported it as a robbery, and given that the family’s obviously very wealthy, money probably changed hands if any investigating officer did think to suspect anything other than a robbery. All she’s thinking about is protecting her son from the consequences of his crime; all he can think about is his guilt and horror over the murder he committed. The case goes from genuinely creepy to honestly tragic. It’s a proper emotional story, and at no point do any six-year-olds have to witness a human corpse, which I’m always in favour of. And I like Genta, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi and I’m glad they were introduced shut the fuck up

The Hatamoto Family Case (020-025): This was another case with good creepy atmosphere, a solid closed circle situation, classic big fucked-up family situation but at the heart of it, Natsue and Takeshi are a genuinely sweet couple who really don’t deserve all this bullshit and you spend the case really hoping for them to be safe and things to turn out okay for them, the traumatic deaths of several close relatives aside. The murderer is pretty sad, though I feel like Gosho intended him to be more sympathetic than he actually was–he certainly could’ve done with less abuse from his grandfather and been allowed to emotionally invest in his art more, but the cousins thing aside, murdering multiple people over a girl you’ve never even approached marrying somebody else with whom she’s had an actual relationship and is in love with is… not sympathetic. But I’m also glad that the nice chef uncle came out alright too, and that all three of the sympathetic family members reappeared in later cases since they were all very likeable characters. 

Moonlight Sonata (062-067): This one sticks in a lot of people’s minds, and I think it’s for the same reason that the haunted mansion case sticks in mine; atmosphere. This is another one with a good, genuinely creepy atmosphere from the immediate sense of “small town with a dark secret” we get as soon as the Mouri Detective Agency arrives on the island. Gosho was very good at building these atmospheres once upon a time, I would’ve liked to see him write a horror manga. The case is deeply tragic from start to finish, from the murders of the Asoh family, to the fact that Seiji/Narumi got the idea for the “curse” from playing a funeral song for a man who’d just had a heart attack after admitting to murdering their family, to the complex nature of Dr Asai’s grief and guilt that they felt the need to avenge their family but simultaneously called for a detective in the hopes that they’d be stopped, to their suicide at the end because they can’t live with what they felt obligated to do. There are Gosho’s usual… issues… with gender, and given the bigotry that became obvious later he probably had no clue at all what he was doing with Dr Asai’s gender, but I feel like they weren’t handled unkindly for an AMAB character living as a woman? I could be wrong and I wanna open this one up to the trans folk in the audience because I’ve never found a trans fan’s commentary on Dr Asai and how they think they were handled, but goddamn I still cry thinking of their suicide at the end and I appreciate that this was a one-off case that had a visible long-term emotional impact on Conan.

Magic Lovers’ Murder Case (192-196): As well as being an interesting murder involving some quite sympathetic characters, this is a really good case for seeing what Kaitou Kid’s like under the mask (or was like; I feel like he’s lost depth since this?) as expressed through Katsuki Doito. He came along to investigate suspicious user activity, but he joined the magic-lovers’ forum because he is a nerd for stage magic and stage magicians and enjoys nerding out about stage magic and stage magicians. He gets to unapologetically fanboy over his late father with other magicians, with is pretty goddamn cute imo. He also gets to show off knowledge and fondness for other magicians, and his knowledge of magic tricks is useful in solving the case, even though, by his own admission, he’s no detective, and it led to tragedy. We don’t really see how Kid felt about being unable to prevent that murder, since he was still being played as pretty mysterious at the time, but it was a good choice for his second appearance in DC imo since it cemented him as Not A Bad Dude. Also, Conan gets to be one of Those Shonen Protagonists by running across a burning bridge, which, y’know, is always cheesy, but also always kinda cool (the artwork was particularly effective imo)

Twilight Mansion (299-302): I genuinely enjoyed the gathering of the knock-off famous detectives and was pleasantly surprised by Hakuba’s appearance (back when I still held out hope that that kind of thing meant that Kid would get more involved in the plot). The mansion itself is actually quite gorgeously designed and rendered, especially at the end when the exterior crumbles, and again, DAT CREEPY ATMOSPHERE. I guess it’s officially plot-important now, too, which I just wanna say, I officially called nine years ago, but also I was hardly the only one calling BO involvement with Karasuma. 

Most of all, in general, I just really like watching and reading things involving skilled people being very competent at what they do, so the fact that ALL of the gathered detectives (save that one dead one) figured out what was up and were able to communicate and come up with a plan without revealing themselves to the brilliant detective BEHIND the whole thing, and the execution of that plan, were all very, very good and I liked it. I might reread this one right now, actually, while I’m thinking about it, I really do enjoy it top to bottom.

Golden Apple Case (350-354): PEAK interesting backstory on the part of Vermouth and Yukiko, a reasonably interesting murder, Yukiko’s RAD driving scene, and one of my favourite Ran moments ever. The confrontation with the serial killer/Vermouth is tense as hell, and the fact that Ran reacts instinctively to save his life and just can’t bring herself to drop him and let him die, to be responsible for a death, no matter whose, is a very powerful statement on the integrity of her character. She’s just to her core, and Shinichi does steal the moment a bit by helping her pull the serial killer up and getting the really good “you might need a reason to kill, but you don’t need a reason to save a life” line, but this still feels entirely like a Ran moment for me. We find out later that this incident had a profound effect on Vermouth, too, and is possibly the entire reason she’s hiding Shinichi’s secret from the BO and explicitly the reason she doesn’t want Ran to come to harm. Shame we haven’t had much Vermouth character development in a while because this stuff was JUICY.

Two Cases Under One Moon (429-434): An ICONICALLY good Bo-fightin’ case where everybody involved is putting in Maximum Effort. Heiji puts on an extremely good show as a fake Shinichi (the boy’s an extreme drama queen and Heiji does that very well), Yukiko’s disguise skills are valuable and well-used, we finally get the revelation that Vermouth has been Dr Araide for a while AND that she’s maybe immortal (…not… that we’ve gotten ANYTHING on that since..) AND we get the VERY interesting nature of her feelings concerning Shinichi and Ran. Also, we get Ran so concerned about Ai’s wellbeing that she hides in a car boot and then jumps into gunfire in order to protect her, GOD that’s SUCH a good Ran moment. Shinichi, Jodie and Akai all also get to be very brave and very smart and very badass, and ugh really I just wanna go back to everything about Vermouth in this case and explore more of that forever. Please. Also more Jodie, whose backstory we finally got in this case after revealing that she’s not Vermouth. What is it with interesting women disappearing as soon as their backstory is out MOVING ALONG 

Clash of Red and Black (595-609): This case is a cracking case. This one was long and complicated and many-layered and everybody involved was on their highest gears and it was great. Akai and Conan work as a fantastic team and Conan gets free reign to do some very good detective work for the FBI (I still believe he told Akai who he was during this case, it would make sense and undercuts how concerned I am with all of these grown adults letting a six-year-old run all around an active incident). We get a good look at the incredible power and cruelty of the Black Organization when they cause immense collateral damage just to flush the FBI out. We get the story on both Akemi and Akai’s relationship AND the Hondo family, and OH BOY THE HONDO FAMILY.

It’s also one of the most interesting Eisuke cases, imo, where not only does he do some solid investigation to find Mizunashi Rena, we get a glimpse of some real deep trauma over losing his last family member that’s driven him to be willing to attack Rena with scissors out of desperation to get answers about what happened to his father and sister. I mean, I am most definitely not advocating stabbing coma patients, but for Eisuke a lot of the trauma of your whole beloved family dying or disappearing was just implied and not explored, and then he got booted from the series immediately after things got interesting with him, so bleh. We also barely see Hidemi after this, and ?????????? because she’s a CIA agent who’s in DEEP to the BO after surviving a HORRIFYING situation where she has to proudly boast of murdering a man who was secretly her FATHER, who SACRIFICED HIS LIFE TO PROTECT HER… why are we dicking around so much with Mystery Family instead of exploring this one??? This case is kind of the last hurrah for anything interesting happening with the Hondos so I love it for that.

And I love the complicated counter-bluff involved in delivering Kir back to the Black Organization without looking like they were delivering her. Again, this was apparently in exchange for her assisting the FBI and she barely appears after this…? Nope this isn’t about salting at Gosho moving on

The Life-Threatening Broadcast of Love (804-808): I love this one solely and 300% for the part where Miwako Sato jumps out of a helicopter, shoots a noose off of her boyfriend’s neck, grabs him, wraps her coat around him to protect them and knocks both of them out of the range of a bomb blast at the last second, like the goddamn action hero that she is.

So in no particular order, those are my top ten: how about the rest of you?