Archive of Our Own ^beta

Years earlier, in Beika, you could have seen two particularly well-kept houses: one belonging to a family of three, consisting of a crime novelist, an actress and their eldest son; the second property belonging to an inventor who had had no success with his works because they were too controversial. But Beika was no longer the same, just as those houses were no longer there. They had been replaced by a construction that calling "villa" would have been a shame for all the other buildings with that name in all of Japan. Was it a castle? An estate? A temple? All passersby knew was that the building was huge, to say the least. It had 4 different wings, linked by corridors full of secret rooms, hatches, hidden passages; at least those who had tried to infiltrate said so. And they were all left traumatized.

How many floors were there? They almost seemed to interpenetrate each other. From above there seemed to be a helipad on the roof and an internal courtyard with benches and an Italian-style fountain. Behind the villa there was a park a couple of hectares wide, but it was not clear what it housed, because the vegetation was so dense that not even the sun's rays passed through. Some said that there was a pond for fishing, others thought it was an estate for hunting (in the middle of Tokyo? Only the Kudo could do such a thing), others even believed that the Kudo gathered in the evening in the core of the woods to practice satanic rites. In fact, they were all suppositions, no one really knew why a house so out of place had sprung up in the center of Tokyo. But no one really wanted to ask the owners, because they were afraid of the answers they would receive. Better to ignore it.

There were many ideas regarding the guests of the house, but one more confusing than the other. According to some, Yukiko Kudo had kidnapped three children from their parents after losing her beloved nephew (but that nephew? Beika's shinigami? The one with glasses?). After that child's mysterious disappearance, the woman had gone to his elementary school and had snatched his trio of friends from the arms of desperate parents and teachers. Of course, it turned out that the parents of these children had been accused of neglect, so the woman's actions were to be forgiven.

But what about a trial? Shouldn't they have waited for the allegations to be confirmed? Shhh, don't talk about it so loud, Kudo have friends everywhere.

So Yukiko had the so-called Detective Boys housed indefinitely in the West wing, even before officially receiving their guardianship. The West wing was the most exposed to the public and the least hidden part of the house, as it overlooked the street. For this reason, by common opinion, the less dangerous and more family-friendly guests had been placed there.

Because everyone would be surprised to see a person with a rifle on an open a window, as it happened to those who accidentally approached the South wing. Wait, are you pulling my leg?

The guardian of those rowdy children was the crazy inventor whose house the Kudo had leveled to build that frightening colossus. In fact, everyone knew that the Kudo probably promised him a wonderful laboratory as a reward, considering that the West wing was the least inhabited of the four residential wings, counting only four residents, including three children.

Only the two stable inhabitants of the South wing were more innocent looking than those children (but then why are you all afraid of the South wing? The keyword is "stable"). It seemed they were a couple, a girl with an absurd hairstyle, even if no one had the courage to point it out, and a boy with feminine features who was extremely clumsy. They were perhaps the inhabitants of the estate with whom people talked the most. The boy, who turned out to be called Eisuke, was kind to the children who came to look through the gates and always gave them sweets. Until one day eyewitnesses swore they saw him return home after two weeks of absence covered in blood.

All normal for that house .

The girl was, by all accounts, the sweetest person in the house, if we excluded the fact that she knew how to throw kicks and punches capable of piercing the concrete and breaking the jaw of an adult man. Still, she was the most normal person in the whole neighborhood and the tax collectors always went to her to ask for various contributions. Sometimes a girl from Osaka came to visit her with her boyfriend (yes, you know him, the famous detective of the West! Poor him, Shinichi Kudo made him crazy as well) and they stayed there for a few days, and then they returned to their city. Although brief, the visits were very frequent and from the outside that couple seemed to bring some kind of tranquility. In reality, the Osaka detective, most of the time, consulted with Shinichi Kudo about particular bloody cases, but this was not to be known around.

But the South wing was not feared because of these people, who were not so bad after all (excluding the blood, blood everywhere). That part of the house was famous for hosting even the less frequent residents of the house. It was, in short, the guest wing. And obviously a crazy family could only have equally crazy guests. Because the guitar cases did not deceive anyone at all, not when you saw a viewfinder and a silencer sticking out of the windows.

Remember to pretend not to see FBI agents, CIA agents and I don't know what else come out of those rooms. But they are on an official mission, probably, right? "…" Right?

There were many guests, which is why that wing of the house consisted of rooms only, no workshops or vaults. Among the most popular guests there were a blonde American woman (is that my old English teacher?) and her husband, or so the neighborhood polls said. 60% stated he was her husband, 20% the lover whom she fled to Japan with, 15% a colleague and 5% a relative. There were polls on all the residents of the villa though. Sometimes a particularly muscly man with a grim look came with them (and what if he were the lover?); he was rumored to have caused or prevented, depending on the point of view, a large number of car accidents across the country. Maybe he was a Formula One driver, but no one had ever seen him in official races.

However, we must point out that if there was the blonde's husband, who was a man with a wool hat and a neckband even in summer, who seemed to wear too much eyeliner, then another man had absolutely to be absent: a Japanese man with tanned skin and blond hair. Some swore his name was Zero, but who would call their son that? Still, it was clear that Zero and Eyeliner did not get along, because the last time they were present at the same time gunfire was heard coming from the center of the courtyard.

And no one alerted the police? “They” were the police …

More or less the regular guests were these, although there are those who said they saw a girl with too much eyeliner who looked particularly like the other man and a woman who could have been the mother of both. Then there was that other woman who was rumored to be Rena Mizunashi (wasn't she dead?), while others bet that she was the sister of that Eisuke mentioned earlier. But not-Rena sometimes headed for the North wing, not the South, possibly for some inter-family feud. Afterall all the residents seemed to be related in some way.

Two guests in particular, however, stayed in the East wing, also known as "Kuroba’s Wing". It was never clear if it was the Kudo who passed their madness to the Kuroba family or vice versa, sure fact was that the madness of that family reached unimaginable levels and perhaps, for this reason, those two families had decided to move in together.

We're talking about that Kuroba, right? The revived magician ? Where else could a zombie live except with the Kudo .

The two Kuroba's exclusive guests were a fierce red-haired girl who claimed to be a witch (nothing new on the madness front) and the famous London detective who was a die-hard Sherlock Holmes fan, the famous Hakuba. They both seemed to be very close to the eldest son of that family, although there was a rumor that said that the detective once hang his friend upside down in an aquarium after the magician had dyed his hair with blue dye.

In that family there were 4 people: mother, father, son and daughter-in-law. Two years after the defeat of the Organization, the destruction of a Japanese branch, brought Toichi Kuroba back to life. He obviously came back thanks to the help of Yusaku Kudo, because who else could have brought anyone back to life but him (and Kudo’s daughter-in-law). Within the whole Kuroba family, this zombie was certainly the most normal person. Because everyone knew that you should never, ever clash with a Kuroba, mother and son had made it clear with their innocent jokes. As innocent as it can be to trip a person crossing in the middle of a road or to steal all credit cards from someone else wallet. Maybe they were kleptomaniacs, maybe they had taken the magical misdirection too seriously and felt they were living in a soap opera of magicians, no one knew and no one wanted to know after all. Actually, the Kuroba were a very closed family, they didn't like to talk about themselves in public, all they showed was their sparkling magic tricks. Quite the opposite of the Kudo from this point of view.

Finally, there was the daughter-in-law. And her name was known to everyone. Sonoko Suzuki. Yes, the heiress. Because obviously the daughter of the richest family in Japan lived in the Kudo house. And Sonoko was not just an heir, but a true CEO and many said that the Kudo’s own wealth came in part from her. Afterall the Kudo and Kuroba seemed like a real extended family. Miss Suzuki was famous for her impromptu stunts, like that time she had gushed golden water from the courtyard fountain, or that time she kissed Kaito Kid in front of everyone.

And the Kuroba didn't say anything? They actually congratulated her.

In short, with her eccentricity, she was perfect for that chaos.
But no one, absolutely no one, could overcome the madness of the inhabitants of the North wing, the Kudo family, the originals, those who had assorted this bunch of extravagant people. Yusaku Kudo might have looked normal, but everyone knew in their hearts that Yukiko Fujimine's husband couldn't be normal, not after marrying her. Yukiko was in fact the quintessential example of eccentricity. She was competing with Sonoko for the title of who bought the most extravagant furnishings. If Sonoko bought a gold table, Yukiko had to buy platinum chairs, if Sonoko bungee jumped from K2, Yukiko had to do it from Everest. Having kidnapped three children was nothing considering her character. She was always on a different journey and didn't stop for more than a few days in one place. It was said that she was the one who brought into their home the most mysterious female figure of all, a woman who resembled the late Sharon Vineyard.

As dead as Toichi Kuroba? And as much as Shinichi Kudo. And Rena Mizunashi.

This Sharon-non-Sharon never showed up in public and she spent her days painting in the yard and taking long walks in the woods, except for those frequent times when she, Yukiko and Ms. Kuroba went on vacation all together. In a sense, if we are talking about Kuroba-Kudo spouses, she too has to be included between the two couples. Everyone said she had to be a saint considering the patience she had to have to handle an insane couple, even two sometimes. Until one day they saw her make ten perfect target shooting centers from a distance of more than 100 meters. After that everyone agreed that she was a Kudo, if only by extension.

Finally, there were the two owners of the house, whose name was known because of the plates placed as an intercom. Yes, the old Kudo spouses weren’t the ones who created that monstrous estate. Their son and his wife did, Shinichi and Shiho Kudo. No one knew where that money came from. According to the latest polls, she was a retired thief who had to somehow launder dirty money and had married Shinichi through a series of blackmails. Because only with blackmail someone could fall in love with such a scary person. When she looked at someone, they froze, as if they were looking at Medusa. She had ice-cold eyes and never smiled.

In fact, I have heard that she is particularly fond of Yukiko's kidnapped children. Maybe she wants to eat them.

She was often seen in the presence of other policemen and forensic doctors, so it was assumed that she was a coroner. Everything fit together, were it not for her constant mentions of laboratory experiments and sacrificial guinea pigs (perhaps the husband himself was a guinea pig). However Shinichi Kudo, for some absurd reason, smiled at her every time she threatened of slow and painful death someone who had gone against her. Indeed, perhaps the reason was not so absurd, considering that Shinichi himself was a shinigami. Wherever he went he sowed death and despair.

When he walked through the streets of Beika, passersby locked themselves up inside the house and began to tremble. Children and the elderly people prayed that he would not just stop in their shop, but that he would go to the next one. And when he stopped to talk to someone, that person would call their family to warn them of their impending death. Only the residents of the Kudo house were immune to his spell and therefore were seen as gods by the local population.

Yet the Kudo had not always been like this, there are those who still remember past times, when Shinichi was a simple high school student, before he disappeared and was believed dead, before he reappeared bringing with him the destruction of a huge mafia group. Good times. And with his appearance, all the residents of the Kudo house had arrived. Hence the opinion that in reality the mafia group had never been vanquished, but that it had actually taken refuge in that far from humble house.

Still, the Kudo of today were much more open, more friendly and with more knowledge than in the past. Each had their own story, stories that came together or collided, unimaginable tales of incredible adventures on the verge of reality.

And it is said that if you listen carefully enough, among the rustling of the trees in the park behind the house, you will hear many extravagant stories, almost as eccentric as their protagonists.

Welcome to Kudo's madness.