"Life is only precious because it ends, kid. Take it from a god. You mortals don't know how lucky you are."
- Mars, from Son of Neptune, by Rick Riordan

. : WITHOUT MORTALITY : .
... "shibō nakute" ...

a detective conan x magic kaito au fanfiction
feat. immortal!Shinichi and immortal!Ran

Four Contact Points

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan nor Magic Kaito.

... tsudzukeru ...

Recovering from the smoke was an absolute pain.

Not to mention the confused chaos that ensued when a client came along claiming to be dating Shinichi. At first, Conan almost suspected their undercover raven again, but quickly dismissed the idea. Ran was doing her overprotective thing, still worried over him and his lungs, so she wasn't in the best of moods upon hearing that. Nonetheless, she had no choice but to play along. In the end, everything was resolved fine, what with the kidnapping of the soccer player's brother having not really been all that malevolent in the first place and it being just a misunderstanding.

Conan fully recovered by the time Agasa sent them over to the mystery tour - something about a book his tousan had written, the Night Baron. However, not long after meeting all the other participants, he got thrown over the freaking balcony and plunged into the pool.

Briefly, he panicked, but managed to swim up to the surface before any bad memories could return, scrambling out of the water as fast as possible. Someone asked after him, but he ignored him, charging back up the stairs to try and see who'd had the gall to push him off the balcony.

Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone there. Later in the party, Conan asked around, discovering that the 'prize' wasn't just half the stay paid for, but also a computer virus - the Night Baron. A while after that, the inevitable death happened; someone dressed in a Night Baron suit plummeted from the sky and was impaled by a statue's spear.

Cursing his rotten luck, Conan spent a bit of his time examining the crime scene before he was chased away by Kogorou and a police officer he'd met on a previous case.

A couple of complications rose up, but in the end, Ran managed to prove her highly-respected karate champion innocent, which lead to the unraveling of the rest of the case. Only… the resolution wasn't exactly clear-cut, tainted as it was by sadness.

But maybe, Conan thought, watching the guilty party walk away, they can recover from this, in time.

Ran noted the melancholy look on his face, and tapped his shoulder. "Something happier, next time?"

"Please," he sighed - and that was how he ended up, a while later, accompanying Ran and Sonoko as they attended one of their teachers' wedding.

Between those two girls and the teacher, Matsumoto-sensei, it was a wonder that they only managed to squeeze in a few jabs to Shinichi's lack of relative pitch before the bride's father came in, momentarily freaking everyone out with his stature, before revealing that he was actually police. A superintendent, to be precise, and Megure-keibu had tagged along, too. Everyone exchanged a few words, including the groom, who came in a little later, before eventually going off on their own. Just before everything was about to get started, though, Ran pulled Conan to the side and pressed some bread and milk into his hands.

"I bet you're hungry, you even skipped breakfast today," Ran said pointedly. He rolled his eyes.

"It's not my fault that I" - clink-clink - "had to get up ear… Did you hear that?"

Ran was already moving, opening the door to the room where Matsumoto-sensei had been waiting - and gasped, taking in the scene. "Matsumoto-sensei!"

"An ambulance, Ran!" Conan snapped, crouching by the collapsed teacher's side. While Ran dashed away, he quickly scanned the nearby objects, taking in and filing away information - don't think about the blood - the can, the lemon tea, its can is starting to corrode - yet the straw is intact - that means caustic soda! I need to wash it out of her mouth, somehow.

Snatching up a different can of lemon tea, he poured its contents into her mouth, tipping her head so that it spilled out onto the blood-stained floor quickly afterwards, hopefully taking away remaining traces of the caustic soda with it.

It wasn't working as well as Conan needed it to, so he dropped the can. What else? Something with protein, something with - the milk!

Grabbing the container of milk Ran had given him, he yanked it open. Please, he prayed as he repeated his prior motions with the lemon tea, but using the milk instead. Please, work.

In his arms, the victim shuddered.

"I thought you said happier," Conan complained to Ran. "That was a really depressing case. It's a freaking miracle that she's okay and will be out of the hospital in only a couple months."

"Then you're a miracle, Conan-kun," she responded drily. "Since it was your quick response to the crisis that saved her. And you deduced the murderer."

"Which, by the way, was also extremely depressing," Conan reminded. Then, he sighed. "Not to mention what happened the day after that. Those kids are going to give me consecutive heart attacks!"

"Oh?" Ran smirked at him. "Does this have something to do with your muttering earlier?"

"About those 'goddamn idiots'? Yup. Ayumi got herself locked into some guy's trunk while we were playing hide-and-seek, and I'm not even going to mention what Mitsuhiko indirectly told me, and then we used the skateboard that the hakase made for me and chased down the car, thinking that the drivers were the serial murderers named in the morning newspaper because of the bloody head prop that Ayumi found in that trunk, and it just all tumbled downhill. Thankfully, I realize it was fake just in time, and told the people that we were chasing them because we were afraid that Ayumi would suffocate in there or something. That way, we weren't punished for anything, because we were just children worried for our friend!"

Ran made a noncommittal noise.

Currently, they were at Kogorou's class reunion - Ran recalled being present at a similar meeting five years ago, with a picture of her at the ping-pong room with a younger version of the current attendees to prove it. Conan caught a look at the picture and couldn't help but smile at the cheerful, childish look in her eyes. "You're so much better at playing the kid than I am," he'd said.

"Only because you're doing it by yourself this time, without me to help you," came the teasing reply.

Sadly, nostalgia wasn't enough to keep away another case.

Ran and Conan continued to talk freely, stopping their personal conversation only to meet up with Kogorou and watch the fireworks. Afterwards, upon returning to reunite with the other people - who'd disappeared at various points along the way to and during the fireworks - they peeked into one of the rooms to wake up the 'Madonna' of the judo team…

Only to find her dead.

The ensuing investigation started normally enough, but quickly began to skew in varying directions, different aspects of the crime scene being odd and not matching up. So, trying to make him take a deeper look, Conan pestered Kogorou about how it was too soon to assume that someone from outside their group had committed the crime, but he was cut off when the old man slammed his fist against the wall.

"Shut up!" he snapped. "I don't want to hear about it, and especially not from a kid." Conan bit his tongue to stop a retort, but continued to listen. "Of course it's not a damn outsider, why would an outsider bother to make it look like a suicide? One of us did it! One of my best friends! I don't know how or why, but I'll expose them for sure, no matter what!"

Watching the man storm off in a haze of rage, Conan's gaze shifted, echoing sadness and pain. Occhan…

Left alone in the hall, he shook himself and refocused. Now he was more determined to solve the case than ever. Heading back towards their room, his eyes strayed to the small statue displayed on a pedestal against the wall, and he idly identified the figure to be Benkei, the warrior that the inn was named after.

He almost walked right past it, but stopped, twisted around, and stared. Wait - Benkei was said to have died on his feet on the battlefield… That's it!

Understanding flitted across his face, and Conan looked back over his shoulder to where Kogorou had been stomping down the hall. He habitually flipped up the cover of his watch as he approached the other detective, getting ready to tranquilize him, but the words from minutes before echoed in his ears.

"I'll expose them for sure, no matter what!" he'd said. Who was Conan to take that away from him?

Taking a deep breath, he closed the lid on his watch. Outward signs of his focus melted away. Alright, then. We'll do it this way. Conan centered himself - and jumped forward, chirping happily, "Ne, ojisan, let's play a game of ping pong!"

A bit of metaphorically spoon-fed deductions later, everything was resolved. Kogorou took down the resisting culprit with his rarely-used judo, though he seemed rather melancholy as he watched the police cars leave with someone he had once called his best friend. A couple days later, though, everything was back to normal, including the horrifying murders with depressing resolutions.

Until the other detective came along.

Eying the kansai-ben teen warily, Conan sneezed. Ran had made up some statement about how Shinichi called her often enough, but the newcomer poked holes in that idea so fast he was worried that his cover would be blown, for a moment. But when it was proposed that Shinichi had been spying on Ran from somewhere, the uneasiness faded as both Conan and Ran traded covert looks of amusement. Technically, he was half right, since Shinichi was 'undercover', and yet technically half wrong, since it wasn't spying.

Except that amusement went away quickly for Conan when the stranger - who introduced himself as Hattori Heiji, high school detective of the west, looking for Kudo to see if he was good enough to be compared to him - fed him some drink saying it'd help with his cold.

Ran nearly doubled over in laughter when the sudden intake of alcohol instantly intoxicated him.

After that, a client had strolled in, proposing a case. And, of course, Hattori Heiji decided it would be a great idea to tag along, to Conan's chagrin. He wasn't about to leave Ran alone with him, so he went with them to investigate, too - silently suffering, as it seemed the alcohol had only made his cold worse.

I bet it's you, Conan thought moodily at his watch. Thanks for nothing, Pandora. Can't take medicine, whether that's alcohol or not, without you freaking out and leaving me with a headache and fever, is that it?

As if in retaliation to his mental statement, a murder case popped up.

While Heiji instantly pounced onto the scene and - briefly knocking heads with Conan, ow, - exchanged words with the police once they arrived, Ran leaned down and whispered to Conan, "You know, the way he moves kinda reminds me of you. Bigger you."

"Very… funny…" he panted. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his rapidly blurring vision and listen to the investigation at the same time. "And I think… I know… culprit…"

She frowned, touching his forehead. "Hey, you're really burning up. Do you want to lay down?"

"After this… definitely," he agreed tiredly. "Just… after - "

And then pain seized his chest, choking him on his next breath. His knees collapsed and almost hit the floor, if it hadn't been for Ran and her quick reflexes. She scooped him up in her arms, cradling his feverish body.

He vaguely noted that she was asking the people for someplace to lay him down, and tried to move his arms to get her attention. Through his fading sight, he made out the stature of Heiji, and he could hear that he was announcing something - with a bunch of fishing line in his pocket, if he was interpreting those weird strings correctly. But that was wrong. Wait, Conan wanted to say. There's a trick to this, and Hattori is about to fall into the trap laid by the real culprit! But nothing more than a soft, delirious moan escaped his lips.

Heat raged through his system, setting his nerves aflame - as he struggled to hold back a cry of pain, his own heartbeat resounding his ears, he spasmed in Ran's hold, grasping her clothes tightly in his hands.

She was - carrying him out of the room? And laying him down on a bed. A quiet whimper slipped out.

"Shh, it's alright," she whispered, stroking his head.

"N-no," he rasped, and jerked as another pulse of pain tore at his chest, burning his insides to what felt like ashes. "He's… w-wrong!"

"What?"

"Wrong," Conan repeated, heaving. He gritted his teeth against another rush of fire. "S-so hot…"

"Pandora is cold," Ran said, cupping his face in her hands. "Is it working?"

Hacking, he voiced a negative sound. "F-feels like… When I s-shrunk…"

Ran responded, he was sure. Her mouth was moving. But he couldn't hear her. Couldn't see her, either…

"Holy shit," he heard.

Groaning, he rolled over, absently noting that he was in different clothes, and that he was soaked in sweat. "That's the first thing I hear when I wake up. Glorious."

He didn't get a response. Annoyed, he opened his eyes to glare at - oh. Ran. She doesn't usually curse… At least, not out loud. Wonder what's got her so spooked?

He got his answer in the form of a mirror.

Shinichi Kudo stared at himself in the reflective surface, gaping. "I'm…"

"No longer fun-sized," Ran filled in. "Which is good. But also not."

Not. Shinichi's eyes widened as that rang a bell, reminding him of a certain situation. "I've gotta correct him!" he shouted, springing to his feet - and almost falling over as he overbalanced himself. "That Hattori's got it all wrong, he's going to blame the wrong person!"

Stumbling forward, he reached for the door. Ran grabbed one of his arms and draped it over her shoulder. Wordlessly, he gave her a grateful look as she helped him down the hallway, into the room where Heiji was just wrapping up his deduction.

"No, that's wrong!" he interrupted the 'culprit's confession, straightening and taking some of his weight off of Ran. While everyone sputtered at him and his sudden appearance incoherently, Heiji only raised a brow.

"My deduction is wrong?"

"Yes," Shinichi stated clearly, and then proceeded to rattle off all the things wrong with the Osakan detective's reasoning. Then, he leaned forward, while they were still stunned by the revelation, and continued to present his own deduction.

At that point, he wasn't really thinking about what he was saying. It was already habit to explain such things, so he could focus on something else while his mouth kept moving, such as not falling over.

Even with Ran's steady hold on his shoulder, he could feel himself swaying. This isn't good…

He was all too relieved when the end came, and leaned against the bookshelf in exhaustion.

"Jeez, so my deductin' was off from the start," Heiji noted, sticking his hands into his pockets. "Well, I hafta hand it to ya, Kudo. It was my loss through 'n through this time."

Snorting, Shinichi retorted, "Barou. There's no winning or losing in this sort of thing. It's not a game, people's lives are at stake… And besides, there's only one truth."

Heiji looked at him carefully for a moment. "Well, yer right about tha'. And… Oi, do you really have jus' a cold?" Peering closer, he added, "You look like yer about ta fall over!"

"I'll be fine," Shinichi said. Ran offered him a hand, and when he took it, she pulled him off the shelf, steadying him on his feet. He winced when the pounding in his chest redoubled, a fresh surge of heat throbbed through his body. "I don't think it's permanent," he murmured under his breath to Ran, before raising his voice so Heiji could hear, "I've got to go, there's something I need to - "

The flames built up again, and Shinichi cut himself off with a low hiss of pain. His heart pounded loudly enough to echo in his head. Refusing the urge to crumple onto the ground, he gently pushed Ran away.

Secret, his eyes reminded her. Distract him. She nodded almost imperceptibly and grabbed Heiji's arm, pulling him with her as she shouted something about calling in a doctor.

Grateful for her entire being, Shinichi limped in the other direction, nearly falling down some stairs along the way, and spotted a bathroom. He ducked into it quickly, and as soon as he closed the door behind him, his muscles seized up, sending him sprawling onto the floor. Crap, crap - I can't get up -

Heartbeat stuttering as it sounded unnaturally loud in his ear, Shinichi curled up on the ground. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep the screams from surfacing. In the end, he screamed anyway.

Upon waking, once more in a shrunken form, Conan was informed that Shinichi's name stayed out of the newspapers by Ran's insistence, and that he'd been found unconscious in the bathroom. The doctor had looked him over and said it was something akin to stress compounding the effects of the fever, and suggested some extended downtime to remedy it.

During this time, Ran had noticed that he was less than totally awake, and idly commented that she was going to meet Shinichi. Conan only nodded acceptingly, not even thinking twice about what she'd said, until she laughed at him and corrected herself. She was actually going to meet her mom, Kisaki Eri.

"And you're not allowed to leave the bed until I come back," Ran stated firmly. "And don't even think about touching the alcohol." Conan pouted at that. She knows me too well.

However, when she met the little kids upon leaving, Ran amended her rules to allow Conan to go out and play with them - as long as what they did was something that didn't require exertion on his part. They happily complied, dragged him out to the library, and ran smack into another murder case.

Then, to make sure the kids didn't investigate by themselves, Conan went with them at night to thoroughly search and find exactly what was going on. They discovered the hidden drugs and the body on the elevator, but were attacked by the culprit - luckily, with some quick thinking, they managed to take him down.

After that, Ran secretly lent him some of the alcohol, and he brought it over to Agasa to have him analyze it and its effects. He tried drinking some to return to normal again, but that only resulted in a hangover the next day. Which flat-out sucked.

Besides that, however, not a lot was achieved in the next several weeks, sans several murder cases that made 'Sleeping Kogorou' even more famous and inflated his ego even more, to Conan's chagrin. At least Agasa had made a couple of additions to his stash of gadgets, and it was much easier to manipulate the police into stumbling over the truth.

After another adventure with his classmates - who'd proceeded to dub themselves, including Conan, as the shounen tantei-dan - through a rather dangerous investigation on a treasure hunt, he finally encountered something important.

While Ran enjoyed some games at Baker hotel, where Kogorou had been invited as an honored guest, Conan went off to buy some tomato juice to hopefully eliminate the last of Kogorou's intoxication from the night before. However, just as he was about the purchase the drink from the vending machine, he heard the massive man behind him - black, paranoia whispered, but he'd ignored it - dial a call.

And say, quietly but clearly, "Yes, it's me - Tequila."

An alcohol. Conan froze. It's them. He's a crow.

Oblivious to his alarm, Tequila continued, "The exchange was completed very nicely - no, there weren't problems. Don't worry your head over it, Vodka. I'll meet you and Gin this afternoon."

Stunned, the wallet slipped from Conan's hands, scattering the coins noisily over the floor. Impulsively, Conan peeled off his tracker-bug sticker as he crouched to collect them. Maybe…

"It's just a kid who dropped his coins," Tequila was telling Vodka. Then, he hung up.

Now or never. Shyly, Conan tugged at Tequila's shoe. "Excuse me, mister," he said childishly. "You're stepping on some of my coins, could you move your foot?"

He got a kick in the ribs for his troubles, which hurt. But at least didn't leave any visible marks. Besides, he'd tagged the crow's shoe with the sticker, and now he could eavesdrop.

Turning on his glasses, Conan continued to pick up the rest of his coins as he listened in. There was some static, but he could make out most of it. From the sounds… He's in the bathroom? "It's the micro…" Tequila's voice fuzzed into static, but then cleared as he muttered, "Doesn't want to go in, weird… Hm? Hey, why's it open? Ah - "

And then the bathroom exploded.

Conan ducked for cover as the blast tore through a couple of walls, but fortunately didn't reach the wall he was hiding behind. As soon as the smoke and debris began to settle, he dashed into the charred room despite some bystanders protesting worriedly.

He found Tequila's show and retrieved his tracker-bug before the police could arrive, tsking to himself. He wasn't able to prevent a death like he'd wanted to - even though it wasn't quite the death he'd been expecting.

In any case, once they arrived, he told the police what he knew. Of course, he excluded the existence of the crows' organization. And some of his deductions about what had happened.

He wondered who in the world would be targeting a crow… Or whether or not the crow was targeted at all.

Narrowing his eyes, Conan watched the reception desk give out the briefcases back to their owners - and suddenly had a thought. He observed the people who'd greeted Kogorou earlier and their actions, and very rapidly came to a solid conclusion.

Now all I need to do is convince them… I'll use occhan for this, it's too complicated otherwise. However, before he could use his tranquilizer, someone tripped him and sent him crashing into Ran's butt. She stiffened and whirled around, striking out with a foot to attack her would-be groper.

To his immense relief, Conan was too short to be hit, though Kogorou was suitably knocked out.

"Sorry, Ran-neechan," Conan apologized. "Someone tripped me, and I ran into you…"

"Ah, that's fine." Ran blinked at her dad. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Probably not, but I can use this," Conan responded lightly, readying his bowtie. Ran sighed and rolled her eyes, but stepped back to watch the deduction show.

'Le cocktail' just blew up, so that led to nowhere, Conan mused. That cafe had been where the other side of the transaction had met Tequila, but that was the only thing said person knew. And it exploded before Conan could even enter the building, so that didn't matter anyway. Still, he couldn't stop thinking about it…

Enough is enough, he thought to himself with a mental shake. If someone got caught in the blast, it's too late to worry about it now. And our bird won't get killed that easily.

Turning his attention away from the past, Conan happily announced his name to the rest of the Holmes fans in the room. They all cooed adorably at him, chattering about his splendid name. Ran sighed and looked like she wanted to bang her head against the wall. "He always loved Holmes…" she murmured, half to herself.

"Hm?" he father asked.

"Ah - Shinichi, I meant," Ran elaborated. "He'd be so excited at a meeting like this, he'd act like a seven-year-old child." She winked at Conan, who huffed at her.

Before he could respond, someone else did. "A maniac o' Holmes mysteries," came the Osakan drawl. "Better at soccer th'n music, better at deductions th'n even me, though he ran off pretty fast…"

Aw, crap. Nooo… Now it was Conan who wanted to bang his head against the wall.

"Yer talkin' about Kudo Shinichi, ain't ya?" Hattori Heiji concluded, smirking.

"Ah - Hattori-kun," Ran greeted. "You like Sherlock Holmes too?"

"No, actually, I jus' thought I'd meet Kudo here," Heiji replied with a bright smile. "Ellery Queen's works fascinate me" - his grin faltered when everyone else started glaring at him - "but I do admit that Conan Doyle's one o' the best in the genre," he added to appease the others.

Then, the host entered, cutting in and explaining some of what was planned. Conan's eyes lit up at the prospect of the prize - he already had a copy in the Kudo mansion, but seeing another, in extremely fair condition, was impressive.

Beaming, Conan took a copy of the test with him and brought it to work on in the room, ignoring Ran's amused looks tossed his way. It was relatively simple - his photographic memory helped a lot. He worked on it diligently, until dinner came, by which point he'd finished it.

Something felt wrong the moment Conan realized the host wasn't appearing on time.

The feeling only worsened with each passing moment.

Until, a little later, the corpse popped up - unsurprisingly.

Setting his thoughts of Holmes to the side, Conan focused on the current, very real-life murder mystery sitting in front of his face.

He ended up tranqing Heiji instead of Kogorou. The prior was more convenient, and more suitable, but… Oops. At least his Kansai-ben was relatively passable… Maybe. Though that didn't exactly help when the teenaged detective 'woke up', turned right around to face Conan in the eye, and stated, "Yer Kudo, ain't ya?"

Conan gave him puppy eyes, all innocence. "Wha - of course not! I'm just a kid!"

Totally unaffected, Heiji snorted. "Please. As if some random kid could deduct things like ya jus' did."

"So? Maybe I'm just smart like that."

"Ya live wit' Ran-san, who's a childhood friend o' Kudo, 'n ya have connections to a certain hakase, who's known Kudo fer a long while, 'n he probably gave ya these toys, 'm I right?" Heiji inquired, tugging at Conan's voice changer. "'M the Detective o' that West, Kudo. Didn't get that title fer eliminatin' what looks impossible. Isn't there someth'n Holmes 'bout that?"

"'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'," Conan quoted with a tired sigh.

"Yeah, tha's da one."

"Do I even want to know why you know about the hakase?"

"I wuz lookin' fer ya. Well, bigger version 'o you. 'E's the one who pointed out the Detective Agency ta me."

Conan sighed again. "Remind me to thank him properly." He looked carefully at the Osakan, wondering why he'd admitted that he was Kudo so easily, since technically Heiji had no proof at all - but, for a brief moment, it wasn't Heiji's face he saw.

An old friend.

No way. "Haikuro?" Conan breathed.

Heiji frowned, furrowing his eyebrows. "Haikuro?" he echoed. "Wazzat?"

"… N-no, it's nobody," Conan muttered, waving it off. He was just tired. Yes, that was it. There was no way… "Just - you reminded me of someone."

"This 'Haikuro' guy?"

"Yeah. But he's - dead." Long, long dead.

Pause. "Sorry."

"No, it's not your fault." Conan took a deep breath, shutting his eyes. "It's just been a long day." A long life. Please, let it stop. Let us rest. It hurts -

"Conan-kun?" Blinking and looking up, Conan saw that Ran had approached and was gazing at him worriedly. "You okay there?"

"Yeah. I'm just tired, Ran-neechan," Conan replied childishly. Heiji looked between them, some sort of realization dawning on his face, but Conan wasn't in the mood to deal with him now. The hakase thinks Ran doesn't know, and if Hattori's going to be talking with the hakase, then he'll do fine thinking the same. "Can we go home now?"

"Soon," Ran said. And, somehow, her word answered his surface and hidden question, all in one.

On the ride back, Conan murmured the rest of the story to Heiji - or, at least, the same thing he told Agasa.

Once he got back home, he told Ran about the developments. She nodded with pursed lips and mentioned, very quietly, that he resembled an old friend.

"He does," Conan had responded. And that was the last they spoke of that - for now.

Cases continued as always. There was even an incident with Gomera, a popular movie series, in which the Detective Boys had been nearly driven to tears, thinking that the burned costume of Gomera meant the death of Gomera itself. Then there'd been a case involving some magicians, which briefly reminded both Conan and Ran of someone else. They tried not to think about it any further than that.

Not long after that one tided over, Yukiko ended up having a spat with Yuusaku, and returned to Japan by herself, greeting Conan along the way. When Ran asked how she was related to him, to remain in character of an ignorant person, she spontaneously claimed that he was the "nephew of the grandfather of the cousin of the daughter of the brother of my uncle!"

… Which made no sense, but Ran nodded and smiled and was about to continue back to the Detective Agency when Yukiko asked to borrow Conan for a while. Ran allowed it, probably thinking that they had a mother-son discussion that needed to be attended to.

In reality, they went to Gunma to visit Yukiko's friend. Then a murder case occurred. Of course. Worried that Yukiko would be targeted, Conan worked furiously to search for clues - eventually, he uncovered what happened and used the rather inexperienced police detective there to tell it, but wasn't able to realize the whole truth without Yuusaku popping out of the blue and helping him.

Then, he returned to Beika, solved more cases with the help of Ran, received something Agasa called the earring cellphone, solved another case, discovered that Conan and a popular singer had similar voices except Conan was horrid at singing, solved more cases, saved the Detective Boys from danger, solved more cases, and did he mention solved more cases?

Ran stared at Conan. "Are you absolutely sure that we did the renewal right?" she asked seriously. "Because we're still attracting deaths like murder magnets. And what we did was pretty much guesswork."

"I think it's more me than you," Conan pointed out. "And yeah. I'm pretty sure we did it right. Otherwise a whole lot more people would die - and those people would be closer to us. And it would make a lot less sense. More random heart attacks. Less murders-with-motives-and-reasoning."

Pause. "Side effect? Of not renewing that first time?"

"Possibly. Unfair, though, seeing as we had no clue what we were doing."

A groan, and Ran pressed her forehead against the desk, careful not to spill her tea.

"By the way, you haven't asked how my school day was."

She lifted her head to glare at him. "How was your school day, Conan-kun?" she asked, her tone utterly drowning in sarcasm.

"Great!" Conan beamed at his 'neechan'. "The Detective Boys went to investigate some suspicious stuff, but it was actually just some things being moved around, nothing gruesome or anything."

"Wonderful. So not really murders, just mysteries. I think it's Yuusaku's fault."

The door slammed open, cutting off anything Conan would've said in response. "Hey, Ran!" Sonoko shouted. "Have you seen the news?"

"What? No, I haven't. What about it?" Ran inquired, leaning back in her seat as she nursed her cup of tea.

"Kaitou 1412 is making a reappearance!" Sonoko announced.

What?!

Ran choked on her tea, luckily not spitting it out everywhere as the drink went down the wrong pipe in her surprise. As it was, some tea spilled over the edges of the cup, not that she cared.

Meanwhile, Conan almost fell off the couch.

"Kaitou Kid?" Ran clarified, already whipping out her phone and accessing the internet as she coughed. "You're sure?"

"Of course!"

A copy of the riddle was posted, and sure enough, it was headline news. "He's actually been active for a while, except he contained himself to a certain area, so his return isn't completely known," Ran noted, skimming through the past articles.

Conan's eyes widened. He recalled one heist, a short while ago - he happened to be in the area for a case - and when he heard about it, he had been furious that someone was trying to revive Kaito Kid without understanding the first's purpose, and had tried his very best to take the imposter down.

Only to realize that Kaito Kid had skill that paralleled the first. And despite his best efforts, the newer Kaito Kid managed to slip from his grasp.

He hadn't heard much about it afterward, and assumed - from what he'd decoded from the clock - that it was a professional magician trying to impress a loved one, so he'd just let it slide…

But this Kid, according to the what Ran was digging up through research now, appeared regularly, and was just as skilled as the original.

"The riddle," Conan urged, nudging Ran's side eagerly. Wordlessly, she pulled it onto the screen. Then, she handed her phone to him and turned her attention to Somoko, who was waxing poetic about the thief. Disregarding them, Conan looked over the heist note.

April Fool: When the moon separates two people, I will come to get the Black Star with the invitation of the waves. Kaito KID

Oh, how he missed these sorts of riddles. Grinning, Conan reread the notice a couple times, carefully picking out various word choices and hidden references. Several minutes later, he cracked it wide open and knew exactly where the thief would be, as well as when.

While the two girls chatted, Conan slid out of his seat and walked away, taking out his own phone. Once out of earshot, he dialed Agasa.

"Hey, hakase," Conan said the moment the other side of the line picked up. "I need a favor. Can you go through my dad's files and pull up the ones on Kaitou Kid? It might be labeled Phantom Thief 1412."

Some shuffling on the other end. "Sure, but why? You don't deal with thieves, do you?"

"Call it a hunch. Just pull it open and put it on the library desk, please."

"I will. If you're going after him, be careful, Shinichi-kun."

"Sure thing - thanks again, I'll probably drop by later to see it in a couple of days."

Ending the call, Conan returned to where Ran was speaking with Sonoko. He listened patiently as they finished their conversation, and Sonoko finally left for home.

Ran glanced at him, the door swinging shut behind Sonoko's departure. "So? You look like you're planning something."

Conan winked. "Ne, Is Ran-neechan okay with Conan-kun running off to meet Kaito Kid in the middle of the night?"

"Of course not." She smiled. "But if she doesn't know about it, then who'd be the wiser?"

"Then this conversation never happened."

"What conversation, Conan-kun?" Ran ruffled his hair. "Just don't get into too much trouble."

Getting up on the building to set up the fireworks was easy enough - he was too small to be suspected of being Kaitou Kid in disguise, so the police let him pass without a second look.

A quick look at his watch revealed that it was showtime. His thoughts were confirmed when he heard the smallest sound of silk sliding against silk behind him, along with a small gust of displaced air.

Slowly, Conan turned around to face the phantom thief, casually assessing him. He revealed nothing on his face, but inwardly, Conan frowned. Even with this dim lighting, he looks really young - younger than twenty, at the very most. So it's not him. Of course not.

However, it took all of Conan's will to hold himself in place when Kid spoke, "Hey, little boy… What're you doing in a place like this?", because his voice was exactly the same.

Conan hid it all behind a mask of indifference as he turned around and lit up the firework. It quickly flew off into the sky, hissing, and exploded with a brilliant flash and booming noise. "Fireworks!" Conan chirped unnecessarily. He gazed into the distance. "Oh, look! A helicopter - I think it noticed us!"

Kaitou Kid was silent for a moment, then gave a low chuckle and said, "You're not just an ordinary little brat, are you, boy?"

Smirking, Conan announced, "Edogawa Conan - tantei sa. Don't you think those helicopters are coming really close?" Now, what will you do, mister imposter? Prove to me - prove to me that you are capable of holding Kid's mantle. Will you stay true to what the original would do, or will you flee?

Behind his back, Conan flipped up the face of his tranquilizer watch.

However, Kid hardly paused before pulling out a walkie-talkie. He cleared his throat, then shouted into the device in a voice that wasn't his own, "Ah - Chaki here! I've found Kid on the roof of the Hyde City Hotel!" And without missing a beat, he switched voices and exclaimed something similar again.

… He did it. Whoever this guy is, he's got guts, and the full confidence claiming that of course he is the same as the one who vanished years ago. Tipping his head a little, Conan closed his watch with a gentle click. "Clever, Kid-san," he said. "Maybe I'll let you go tonight, as thanks."

"Oh?" Kid eyed him. "Thanks for what, tantei-kun?"

Conan shrugged. "Who knows," he offered, as the helicopters arrived.

When the police officers ran onto the roof, shouting for all they were worth, Conan took a step back and let them surround the thief.

"Some way of letting me go," Kid sighed dramatically, but his grin was razor-edged as always. "Tantei-kun, did you know? A phantom thief is a creative artist who takes his prey with style, but…" A strange little item fell onto the ground, rolling slightly. "… A detective is nothing more than a critic who follows our footsteps, looking for flaws."

The flash bomb detonated.

Averting his eyes and shielding himself with his arm, Conan hid a smile. Knowing the thief would hear, he said softly, "I've heard that before, you know."

So he's already here… And we need a secret word, huh? Leaning towards Ran's ear, Conan whispered, "I'll say 'raven'!"

"Then I'll say 'dove'," Ran replied in an equal whisper. Conan froze.

Something clicked, and the lights shut off. Conan tensed at Ran's side, scanning the room - but he quickly spotted the spotlight shining on Kaitou Kid, who was on the corner of the ceiling.

He nearly had a heart attack when Sonoko's mother suddenly began firing at the thief, splotches of blood appearing on the once-white suit as he toppled onto a table, limp - but breathed a huge sigh of relief upon realizing that it was just a trick.

"That was cruel," Conan muttered to himself, shaking his head. He let his gaze wander, idly wondering who Kid was currently disguised as, when the back of his neck prickled. Compulsively, he whirled around.

Someone's watching me.

And not just anyone, Conan realized. Kaitou Kid.

Ran dragged Sonoko up to the stage, where they eagerly participated in a card magic trick. Meanwhile, Conan had a sudden thought, and asked an attendant for a list of all the guests. He flipped through the pages for a moment, but then found what he was looking for.

Ah. I know where your target is, Kid. And I know who you are, too.

Conan returned the list, just as shouts of shock arose from the stage - apparently, the thief had hijacked the card trick, and was openly taunting now.

Not moments later, several pearls that looked very much like the counterfeits everyone was wearing rolled across the floor and sent out sudden plumes of smoke with a foreboding hissing noise. Conan knew they were harmless, as with Kid's policy, but others seemed to have forgotten, and stampeded.

In the chaos, Kid's targeted jewel vanished from Sonoko's mom's safekeeping. And now it begins.

"Ran-neechan!" Conan latched onto Ran's arm. "Come, come, I know where Kaitou Kid is!" he exclaimed cutely. "Follow me!"

"Ah - okay, Conan-kun."

Conan dragged her through the ship, and eventually separated from the rest of the group and slowed to a halt in the boiler room.

He found the soccer ball he'd stored there earlier, and began to kick it around casually.

"Conan-kun?" Ran asked warily. "Is Kaitou Kid here?"

"Ran-neechan and I have a game we play a lot," Conan stated nonchalantly. "When we're bored and Kogorou-ojisan is investigating cases, we exchange secret words."

'Ran' stiffened.

"That's right." Conan stilled the soccer ball, pinning the disguised thief with a sharp blue stare. "And when I say 'raven', she always says… 'crow'."

"I just felt like changing it up - it sounded suitable, since we're dealing with a magician," 'Ran' tried to explain, but 'she' froze when the soccer ball suddenly slammed into the wall just beside 'her' head.

"Actually, I'm pretty impressed - I didn't even notice the switch until then," Conan continued. And he was. Usually, he could somehow feel when Ran was near him, and somehow Kid had disguised well enough that such wasn't the case. Or maybe it wasn't just the disguise. He brushed the thought away. "Oh, and by the way, when I say 'raven', she actually says 'flock'."

Kid pouted. "You tricked me!" he whined - in his original voice, which was weird to hear from Ran's face.

"Well, I only just did," Conan corrected. "She actually does say 'crow'. I lied."

Kid stared at him, completely deadpan. And then he shook his head with a muffled laugh and held up the Black Star - the jewel of this heist. "Well, you win this time, and it's not the one I'm looking for, anyway," he said, tossing it back.

Conan almost dropped it. He knows? How'd he figure that out?

"Oh, and do watch out for your neechan," Kid added. "I'm a perfectionist, if you know what I mean." Winking, he tugged on his stolen dress. "It's rather cold this season - "

Conan gaped for a moment, and in that one second of surprise, Kid released a smoke bomb that obscured his vision long enough to allow the thief to escape.

"Damn you, Kid!" Conan shouted after him. But he ran for Ran anyway.

(She was found fully clothed, wrapped in a blanket, and calmly asleep in one of the lifeboats.)

Any other heists that Kaitou Kid pulled since then were located too far away to go to on a whim, and Conan was fine with ignoring the thief for a while, anyway.

Cases cropped up as per the norm, though he met a helpful police officer - Takagi-keiji - who didn't dismiss him as easily as the others did. Conan was careful to conceal most of his intelligence, but at least he didn't have to run between evidence and Ran all the time, which would've gotten suspicious eventually. He also ran into some girl who had liked him (as 'Shinichi', of course) since Middle School, but he had turned her down with both Ran and Pandora on his mind. Despite how long ago it was, Ran still wrapped Conan in a large hug afterwards.

It was the new student at school that caught his attention, though. Haibara Ai.

The fact that she went directly over to the empty seat beside him was strange enough. The feeling he got from her was another thing - like Kid, a faded, echoed version of Ran.

He tried not to think about why, because the answer - for Ran, at least - was Pandora. And everything got messy once Pandora was involved.

So he ignored her as much as possible, and tuned out whatever she and the other Detective Boys were discussing, even as he followed them to some case they'd stumbled upon. While investigating the child's home, though, upon the mention of a lady dressed completely in black, Conan cursed under his breath.

If this is truly the work of the crows, I can't risk the children. Conan glanced back at the downtrodden kids, who were still searching for clues. But I can't leave them alone, either. I'll just have to try and guide them across the safest way, and if it really is the crows…

He didn't know what he'd do, but he'd do something. Just in case, he shot Ran a coded text explaining what was going on.

Later in the search, they found a man paying with a counterfeit bill and tailed him. It was definitely related to the kid's brother disappearing, since he was a talented artist. He could be forced to draw fakes for them, maybe under the threat that the little brother currently with the Detective Boys would be harmed.

That wasn't like the crows, so Conan breathed a sigh of relief. Still, it was dangerous. He led the others as close as he dared and tried to convince the police officers of the kidnapping, but, as expected, none of them believed him.

And I don't have someone to be my voice… Geez, I'm getting way too reliant on Ran. "Hey, stay here with the officers, alright?" Conan told the kids firmly. "I'll be right back - need to make a call."

"Okay," they all agreed, and he ran off.

Once he was a safe distance away from everyone and anyone who could overhear, tucked somewhere in a secluded alley, Conan pulled out his 'Shinichi' phone and called Megure-keibu, adjusting his bowtie to change his voice into Shinichi's.

A couple of rings later, the inspector picked up. "Hello? Shinichi-kun?"

"Keibu! There's a kidnapping I need you to act on," Conan said quickly. He read off the address, asked him to be careful, since the culprits had hostages, and hung up.

The problem was that when he went back to the children, they were gone - off to gather evidence of the counterfeit. And thus, in danger.

Gritting his teeth, Conan ran for the building. He ignored others' startled looks and dashed up the stairs. Eventually, he heard their voices - don't they know to keep quiet? - and reached for the handle to drag them all out the door -

The cool muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head. "Don't move, kid."

He was in no mood for this. "Sorry, ojisan," he apologized, flicking open the lid of his tranquilizar watch. "I'm a bit busy, so you're going to have to take a nap."

And then he whipped around and shot the man directly in the forehead.

Before the body could even hit the ground, he was moving, turning the dial on his shoes and kicking the dropped gun inside the room.

It hit the hand of the lady dressed in black, forcing her to drop her own gun.

She turned, snarling, "Who - "

Conan walked calmly into the room. "What a cozy little gathering," he mocked.

"Conan-kun!" the Detective Boys chorused, sounding very relieved.

"Didn't Inuyama take care of you?!" the lady hissed.

"Oh, that old man?" Conan inquired, walking over to the side and looking through one of the boxes. He pulled out a couple of cans. "I knocked him out. Simple enough, ne? Then I kicked his gun at you. I've got really good aim, don't I?"

"K-kicked?"

"Yeah, just like - this!" Conan sent the cans flying to hit the woman and her partner, and they stumbled back with curses on their lips.

She growled and reached for the gun - but Haibara picked it up before she could.

Conan flinched at the loud gunshot, which went flying just past the lady's head. Then, he steeled himself, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

And then the police arrived with Megure-keibu. How helpful.

Haibara managed to escape trouble about the gun by sobbing her eyes out. Conan volunteered to walk her home, though she led him, as he had no clue where she lived.

"Stop crying already," he said as they walked, hardly looking at her. "You held that gun in no way but a trained hold. You knew exactly what you were doing."

She paused to look at him, eyes instantly dried.

"Who are you?" Conan asked, stepping and stopping in front of her.

She shrugged. Then, she said calmly, "APTX4869."

That rings a bell… "What?"

"That drug you swallowed," she continued, tone airy and light. "APTX4869."

Conan twitched for his shoes. "I don't recall taking any drugs recently, you know."

"Poison, then. I'm sure I don't have the name wrong - I'm the one who created it after all…" She paused for a moment, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Perhaps I should re-introduce myself. I'm Sherry."

Cherries. Unwilling crow. Bound wings will fail her. The silver crow will throw her into the abyss. You will not fall because she does. We will see if she has the courage to fly away to her freedom.

"Ah," Conan murmured. "You're the one trying to escape. The other crow's sister."

She froze in surprise. "How…"

He regarded her. That's right… I remember now. I tuned it out, but she told those Detective Boys - she lives at the hakase's place. I can't tell her what I haven't told him.

"I'm a detective, Sherry," he said at last. "You two look alike. And there was no need for you to take the drug unless you wanted to escape." He advanced until he was directly in her face. "You tried to look intimidating just now, but I saw the disgust in your eyes. You hate being a crow. And now you've finally flown the nest. So now what? No doubt the others hunt after your body. No doubt you have no place to go, so you come here," he gestured to the familiar neighborhood, "to the sole death that intrigued you, Shinichi Kudo, because his body vanished - some other test subject of yours, perhaps mice or rats, had a single case that regressed age as well. But you kept it a secret, probably investigated my house and found my childhood clothes gone. And before your execution, you tried to kill yourself with the very same poison - but shrunk instead, and managed to escape. You came to my home, but I wasn't there. The hakase found you, and took you in. And - so now what, Sherry?"

He stopped himself before emotions could force red into his eyes, but she didn't seem to notice.

"If you're so good at deducting," she whispered, real tears in her eyes, streaming down her cheeks, stumbling into him and grabbing at his jacket, "then why couldn't you save her - why couldn't you save my sister? You knew, didn't you? So why, why?"

He had no answer, and she screamed her grief into the skies.

... tsudzuku ...

Author's Note:

My last update before November. I felt kinda guilty leaving you all alone for a full month plus some, so here's a little compensation chapter. I say "little" extremely sarcastically because I tried to cram a lot of stuff in this chapter, which is now almost 9,000 words. Instead of the usual 7,000. I also want to even out the chapters a bit, move the events to different chapters and stuff. Because the first few chapters were pretty short in comparison to this one, and I've still got a lot of ground to cover in the last one.

But I'm almost done. Maybe I'll squeeze everything about the FBI into the next chapter and be done with it all. And then start actual plot! Yay! That'll probably make chapter updates a lot sparser than they have been recently, though.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed yet, Shinichi is really, really bad with names. That's because he's lived for so long he doesn't have any reason to memorize people's names he's only going to use once, maybe twice. Of course it's not because I get tired of copying down the manga and its random names! Pssh, where'd you get that idea?

WARNING! SPOILER ALERT NEXT CHAPTERS!

Next chapters will include lots of plot. Spoiler plot. If you haven't gotten past the whole arc with the discovery that, hey, this one person isn't quite as dead as the BO and most of the FBI think, I suggest you go catch up on that and read this afterwards. Just a little warning. Actually it'd be best if you just catch up to current.

Reminder: No update on NaNoWriMo, AKA November.

xThomas: Just quick little thing, I know Ran needs more screen time, but she doesn't get much in the manga, which I'm currently following. I swear, though, once I get on to my own plot, she'll have plenty of things to do on screen. Like kicking butt.

shinshinjane: Thank you, I'm glad you like it!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, I'm responding through PM - but if that's turned off, I'll put it here, if it was for the last chapter. Also, thanks for reading!

*posted: Oct 20th, 2014