Hello! I have not abandoned this fic!

I'm so sorry for taking such a long hiatus on it, but I've been trying to get inspired on how to continue the story. Everyone who helped suggest murder plots has been fantastic and I'm truly grateful, but as I kept outlining the story, I realized I had nowhere to go. It was an aimless plot with individual chapters and nothing connecting them. Nothing making it interesting or worth reading in the long-run.

However, thanks to some prodding by username gabiey (shout-out thank you, by the way), I revisited this and just this week, I created the missing element; an overarching plot! I won't tell you what it is, but I hope to have an outline for the plot itself and some key points soon.

It's more along the vein of the original Detective Conan in which there are individual murders and cases, but the overarching theme is the Black Organization. However, it will also be like X-Files (An American television show from the 90's that my dad got me hooked on last week) in that the story progresses faster and it compiles on itself more after almost every case rather than every ten-to-fifteen cases.

I just wanted to make everyone aware, I grew up and was educated in the American school system and I have no clue about the Japanese school system, so please forgive any cultural errors. I'm essentially basing this off of a few odd things I've managed to pick up from a few articles and watching a few school-based animes (which really is not a basis for such a fundamental aspect of their culture, but I made do with what I had).

Also, for clarification, I really find it awkward to do the last-name-first thing, so I just plan on doing it the standard way in most English-speaking countries; so, for example, they'll be introduced as "Conan Edogawa" instead of "Edogawa Conan".

And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for!

(P.S. I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed -Crow)

"It'll be fine, Shinichi. You'll see."

"I know, Ran, but still I don't have a good feeling about this whole thing."

Finally, after all these years, Shinichi was back in his familiar High School uniform. He was on his way to higher-level education. Challenging knowledge and puzzles instead of mind-numbing lessons. Reading and analytical homework instead of worksheets of simple problems… Exams instead of easy pop quizzes… Finals instead of juice boxes…

"Damn." He swore. Ran shot him a harsh look before he explained himself. "You know how you don't know you're missing something until it's gone?" She nodded hesitantly. "I just realized I have to go from the elementary school stuff I've been sitting through for the past 3 years to serious senior high school. I never thought I'd say it when I got my body back, but I honestly miss naptime."

She laughed with him while assuring him it'd be alright. He really missed that laugh.

He vowed to himself, he'd never let her cry again.

His smile faltered with the memory of their phone calls. Especially the ones where he'd find her locked in her bedroom that night afterwards.

Ran didn't notice the falter and she refocused on the three figures trailing behind them.

"So, are you guys ready for your first day?" She asked cheerfully.

Ayumi managed a nervous smile. "Y-yeah. I guess. We're just really nervous… you know; friends, homework, stress, studying, boys-" She choked on her tongue and blushed furiously as Ran smothered a snicker behind her hand.

"Well, Shiho did say you may notice an increased… awareness of certain genders. It comes with growing up, don't worry." Shinichi commented casually. The three not-really-teens shivered at the memories of their respective "Talks". Ayumi's father even went as far as using a rather… detailed anatomical model to explain.

Shinichi smirked at their reactions. 'Ah, the ever-elusive dilemma of a parent. How to give 'The Talk' the perfect way.' He thought to himself. 'Well, I'm sure I'll give it well enough when I have kids-'

It was his turn to choke on his (mental) tongue and blush faintly while casting sideways glances towards Ran at the same time.

He turned to his apparent "charges" and tried striking up conversation. "So… do you have everything?"

"Yep."

"Pencils?"

"Yep."

"Paper?"

"Yep."

"Notebooks?"

"Yep."

"Money for lunch?"

"Yep."

"Giant, rusty anchor?"

A brief moment of panic and a simple explanation later and they were good to go. Shinichi sighed. 'Well, that was a meaningful and entertaining conversation for all of fifteen seconds.'

He was reminded of every conversation he had with Shiho regarding the kids for the past few weeks.

*series of flashbacks*

"I'm close to a breakthrough. Don't bother me."

"I'm in the middle of some important tests. Don't bother me."

"I'm waiting to declare my undying love for you."

"WHAT!?"

"That was a joke. Haha. Now get out, you're disrupting me."

"You're better with kids."

"I need to be in the lab. I can't take care of kids at the same time."

He walked up to her and she didn't say a single thing. She must have practiced in a mirror to get it to an exact science.

The angle of her eyebrows. The curve of her frown. The cold pupil contraction of her eyes. The angle of her joints.

Without any verbal clues, Shinichi slowly backed away and left from the perfect stance of "get the hell out and don't bother me again".

*Flashbacks end*

Shinichi shuddered at the memory of the last one. Since then, he avoided going to Agasa's basement for anything at all.

He calmly approached a familiar building standing ominously in front of him. His fellow year-mates and old acquaintances were milling around to get in the double doors. Shinichi couldn't stop the slow boiling feeling in his stomach that something, somehow was going to go terribly wrong.

Ran seemed to sense his reaction and put a calming hand on his shoulder. "Relax, Shinichi. Everything will be fine. We'll walk the kids to their homeroom, drop them off, and go on with our day until we need to pick them up. They know their cover names and we have a cover story for Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko. What's the worst that could happen?"

Somewhere, Edward Murphy (creator of Murphy's Law) was rolling in his grave.

Hiro Yakimura leaned her head against her palm as she looked out the window and twirled her black hair absent-mindedly. So far, her high school career consisted of boredom, embarrassment, and puberty. Sometimes at the same time. Hardly anything her favorite manga portrayed.

No cursed bathroom ghosts to exorcise. No murders to solve. No missing students or secret passages. No crime syndicates or mafia kids. No crime-fighting, kung-fu Chosen Ones who "want a normal life" and enrolled in her high school where they meet by pure destiny.

Overall, no mysteries or excitement to have anything to do with her.

She sighed tiredly. Her brown eyes watched a few odd birds fluttering out of some trees out back. Yeah, life was peaceful.

What a rip off.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sliding door. She glanced at them and almost fell out of her chair.

There, in the doorway of her classroom, peeking around was the Shinichi Kudo!

She could tell she was probably wearing the most idiotic, starstruck expression, but- come on, this guy was practically the embodiment of excitement! He went missing for the past 3 years on some hush-hush case and his return was equally mysterious.

Before that, every other day was some murder mystery with him. She would see his face on the local news practically every week at the very least.

She watched as he led three nervous teens around their age into the classroom. The three kept looking around as though they'd never seen a high-school classroom before. She smiled as Ran Mouri came in behind them. She knew Ran was Kudo's girl (heck, three quarters of the whole school knew that), so that squashed any hopes of a romance sub-plot within the first week of being in school with Shinichi. Even then, it didn't matter. She was never in the same upper-level courses as him and Ran.

The class around her also noticed their visitors and she noticed their conversations hushed slightly and a few glances were made their way. The unknown three just stood there somewhat awkwardly; fidgeting with their uniforms, hair, or hands.

There were two boys and a girl. The boys were practically polar opposites. One was tanned with a short buzz cut and built pretty heavy, but she could tell that a lot of it was muscle. The other was pale with freckles with shaggy, spiky hair and was built more like a scarecrow. The girl looked a lot like Ran except she had some sky-blue eyes and shoulder-length, light-brown hair and didn't carry herself as confidently.

Their homeroom teacher, Mr. Imada, walked in and asked for them to settle down. Shinichi and Ran said their goodbyes to the three and left for their own classes.

The teacher spent a minute or two going over some paperwork while the three stood awkwardly at the front. Finally, the teacher cleared his throat and spoke in his monotone voice. "Hello class. As you've probably noticed, we have three new students today. Would you like to introduce yourselves?"

The lanky boy went first. "Hello, my name is M- Hayato. Hayato Akiyama."

She caught the small stutter, but the larger boy went up next. "I'm Yuma Kobayashi."

Finally the girl stepped up. "I'm Kumiko Shizuka. It's nice to meet all of you."

The girl's voice radiated cheerfulness. Hiro could tell she would be eaten alive before the week was out.

Glancing in the corner, she saw Akiko Hasegawa surrounded by her standard clique of girls eyeing Kumiko like new meat.

She sighed as they stood and went through their standard repetitions for the morning, but glancing out of the corner of her eyes at the new kids, she saw they were slightly fumbling as though unused to it.

She doubted a high schooler who'd attained their high school education to senior year would fumble through the most fundamental part of a routine.

Unless they weren't taught in Japan.

But their Japanese is flawless, if a little formal with the lanky guy.

She stamped down on the tiny spark in the back of her mind. It wasn't a case. Those things didn't happen to her. It would be a repeat of the "case of the missing classroom gerbil" all over again.

Her kid brother was in tears about how Mr. Snuffles was missing from his cage that morning and she spent the better part of the morning investigating the "crime scene", interrogating her brother's fellow second-year elementary school students, and even bringing out her junior detective crime kit to dust for prints. In the end, the teacher finally broke and admitted that Mr. Snuffles died the night before and she had to throw out the body before they arrived.

Since then, she was more conservative about her suspicions and tried her hardest to not jump to conclusions.

Their teacher started talking again. "Now, what can everyone tell me about the recent economic incident?"

Hiro sighed. As an assignment, they'd been asked to follow the most recent economic decline. Honestly, it wasn't that hard. It was all over the news for the past two weeks. Anyone who's just been around would know about it.

No one raised their hand to volunteer, so the teacher sighed and looked at his attendance sheet. "How about we let one of our new students talk. Miss Shizuka?"

The girl sat like a deer caught in the headlights and stared incomprehensively at the teacher. After a minute of the awkward silence, Mr. Imada repeated his question. "Miss Shizuka?"

"I-I'm sorry, sensei. I don't know." She whispered.

Their teacher blinked, but moved on to someone else who answered it well enough.

She glanced back at Kumiko. Any high-schooler would know about that, regardless of the assignment. It was all parents, teachers, and news reporters were talking about for the past few weeks. She noticed Yuma and Hayato comforting her as best they could without talking.

They were definitely a mystery.

She grinned as the gleam in her eye refused to stay down.

A mystery for Hiro Yakimura.

Fumio Tsukino studied her biology textbook as the rest of her peers filed in. She brushed a few strands of her reddish-brown hair out of the way and pushed her glasses further up her nose.

She absentmindedly thought about their incompetence in the subject.

It really wasn't a comparison. She'd regularly gotten perfect marks in her science courses and could answer questions the teacher himself didn't know.

In short, she wouldn't say it was a far cry to say she was a genius.

That day, the regular routine of where people sat (it was an interesting sociological and psychological analysis when you thought about it as she had) was disrupted by three new people.

She watched as they chose their seats around the laboratory, carefully noting the order. The large one was partnered with someone random towards the back and was looking around distinctly uncaring. She could deduce he was largely disinterested in the finer aspects of glorious science.

The admittedly pretty girl partnered up with a boy in the middle rows (typical, she mentally griped) and said boy was drooling over her. She was looking uncomfortable, either from the material, the boy next to her, or a combination of both. She suspected that she would probably use the boy to meet her own ends in the class, allowing him to help her attain a passing grade. Something typical of the other bitches in the school.

Flawless hair, perfect skin, nice figure, and boys practically tripping over themselves to satisfy them; yet, for all their looks were worth, they didn't have a brain cell in their cranium. She would be swooped up in Akiko Hasegawa's clique by the end of the day if she wasn't already.

She never really liked her fellow females much.

She glanced around for the third member, another boy. Her eyes darted around the lab, looking for the usual spots-

"Excuse me, may I sit here?"

She was broken out of her thoughts by the unexpected question. Most people avoided her companionship, especially in her beloved science courses. They just couldn't keep up. She was startled to see the missing third member pointing to the vacant seat next to her.

Her calculating gaze analyzed his features. His speech was rather formal, indicating formal parents or parents who were obsessed with proper language. His pale skin suggested not much sunlight and his lanky frame suggested no athletic background unlike his larger friend who sat a few rows behind her.

"Y-yes. You may." Why did she stutter? It must have been synaptic misfire. The odds of any other explanation were astronomical.

He set down his bookbag and took up the stool next to her. Her attention was drawn to the teacher who introduced the class to the three and began a lecture on chromosomes.

She noted that the boy next to her had a notebook, but rarely wrote anything down besides a few words or an odd phrase or diagram. She mentally sighed, believing he would be doomed when testing came around.

"… and as you can see the mitochondrial DNA is a basis for paternal identification- Yes, Mr. Akiyama?" Hayato put his hand down and stood up, somewhat awkwardly, before he cleared his throat.

"You're mistaken, sensei." Her eyes widened. What was this idiot going on about?! "Mitochondrial DNA is only applicable for maternal identification as it is passed down through the ovum which provides most of the cellular components. The sperm of the male provides, for the most part, only chromosomes and does not contribute to mitochondria. Male identification is best applicable to nuclear chromosomes of a male as the Y chromosome is directly passed through the male lineage only to males."

He sat down and avoided eye contact with everyone who kept staring at him during his speech. Their science instructor blinked away his shock and checked the book… then another book… then the internet…

"He's right." He mumbled eventually.

Around her, Fumio heard the scratching of pens crossing out the last few lines and replacing it with what Hayato said. Meanwhile, Hayato just doodled absently on the margins of his notebook.

As she wrote down what he said, she re-analyzed his worth.

Maybe he wasn't as inferior as she initially thought he was.

…

Maybe.

Akio Tanaka was lifting several weights in their physical education class. After about 5 repetitions of a set of 10 for a warmup, he dropped the barbell and watched everyone else while he drank some water.

Three new classmates joined. Two boys and an, admittedly, pretty good-looking girl. The lanky guy was on the track and Akio snickered despite himself as he saw he was pretty out of shape cardio-wise. The girl was over by the gymnastics area doing-

He blushed before looking away and discretely wiping away a small trace of blood from his nose.

The big guy walked over to the dumbbells and was looking over them. Akio looked him up and down. He had some pudge to him, but overall most of him was muscle.

"Hey." He said casually, grabbing the guy's attention. "What do you bench?"

The guy furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "Uh, bench?"

"Yeah, you know, bench press."

"I dunno. I've never done it before."

Akio raised an eyebrow. The guy was pretty athletic-looking and bench-pressing was pretty much fundamental to any workout. He shook it off and started explaining the exercise. The other guy nodded in understanding. He even offered some tips and pointed to which muscles are used.

He grinned as a thought came to him. "So, do you wanna see who can lift more?"

"Go! Go! Go! Go!" The class chanted around them.

So far, everyone had come over to witness this. Even the gym teacher stepped over to supervise the event. They were tied at 130 kilograms (about 290 pounds). They'd started all the way down from the bar's weight alone and went up 5 kg intervals (about 10 lb intervals). At around 50 kilograms (100 lbs) people started noticing, then at 90 kg (200 lbs) the teacher got involved and people started giving out betting tickets.

Two students added on 5 more kilos to each and they both strained under the effort. They managed to straighten out their wobbling arms and managed the lift.

As the students interchanged the weights to add 5 more kilos to each, Akio turned to the other competitor "So (*huff*) do you (*huff*) think you (* huff*) can beat (*cough*) me?"

The new guy grinned. "I (*huff*) hope so (*huff*)."

Their impromptu umpire (aka their gym teacher) called out loudly. "Mark! Ready yourselves… Lift!"

Akio managed to get halfway to the straightened arm position before he cried out and his three spotters caught the bar. Victory was hardly worth a collapsed ribcage.

As the others put the bar in its slots, he glanced over at the other guy. He was struggling, he could visibly see that, but he just kept huffing in and out before-

"RAAAHHHHHHH"

With a battle-cry, he straightened out his arms and the barbell gleamed with the sun behind it. It was a moment of history! His competitor barely managed to lower the barbell into the slot before giving out and lying on the bench press.

He grinned and turned to Akio. "I guess (*huff*) I win (*wheeze*)." He weakly gasped out.

Akio returned the grin. "Yeah. (*cough*) I guess you did (*huff*)." He frowned at a sudden realization. "Hey (*huff*) you know this entire time (*huff*) I didn't get your name (*wheeze*)."

The other guy weakly raised a closed fist in his direction. "Name's Yuma Kobayashi."

Akio just-as-weakly fist-pounded with Yuma. "Akio Tanaka. Nice to meet you, man."

He decided to add on. "But just so you know, (*huff*) I'll beat you one day (*puff*)." He vowed.

Yuma laughed tiredly. "That'll (*cough*) be the day."

And with that they collapsed completely.

"It's a shame that Gen- I mean, Yuma fainted. He would've been great on the drums."

"Yeah, *wheeze* I'm sure he would *cough*."

"Wow, Mit- er Hayato, you really are out of shape."

Katsuro Suzuki glanced over at the newcomers. He'd already heard the rumors of the three new kids in their class. He glanced at them. A pale, lanky boy and a girl.

"Well, *huff* I'm off to my computer course *cough*." The lanky boy left down the hall towards the science departments and the girl started awkwardly walking around.

Katsuro returned to tuning his violin. He, as the class virtuoso, had his job to uphold as first chair, first violin (AN: a really important position in the orchestra). He adjusted his A-string peg. It was a few decimals of a cent off.

His eyebrow twitched at the voices of the teacher and the new arrival interfering with his acoustics. "Hello, Miss Shizuka, do you have an instrument preference?"

"A-are there any violins left?" The girl asked timidly.

"Yes. I believe we have a few rentals. They're not as good, so we encourage you to find your own as soon as possible if you want to pursue higher level departments."

The girl nodded gratefully and took a beaten-up, old rental violin from the cases in the back before taking a seat in the back area.

Mr. Hisaishi got up to make the standard announcement whenever someone new joined the orchestra. "Everyone, please listen. We have a new member today, Miss Kumiko Shizuka. As a tradition in this orchestral group, we have every member play a certain piece from the music we will be performing later this semester. Based upon difficulty, sound, and technical correctness, we evaluate where you sit in the orchestra.

"Violins have measures 28-36. Violas have measures 50-67. Cellos have measures 35-49. Basses have measures 80-96. You will be allowed five minutes to silently look them over. Begin."

Katsuro's eyes glided across the notes, taking in every intonation, bowing, fingering, and some possible personal touches. He smirked as he already had it planned out in his head.

Mr. Hisaishi had him go first. He played immaculately and beautifully. His bow glided along the strings and his fingers hit the notes dead-on. His personal touches he'd planned out gave even himself goosebumps at the sheer beauty of them. As usual, a beautiful performance.

When he was done, he nodded gracefully to the thunderous applause of his peers. One-by-one his peers gave similar, though far inferior variations of the measures. A few even tried adding the nuances in an attempt to beautify their own version.

Finally, going from right to left through sections by rows, everyone eventually performed save for the new girl, Kumiko Shizuka, in the very last seat at the back.

She shyly smiled and picked up her battered, old violin. She plucked the strings experimentally and frowned as she tuned the instrument on-the-spot. No one commented, those school instruments were awful and went out of tune too easily.

She rather gracefully flowed into position.

Her bow set on the strings.

And she began.

Katsuro listened, entranced, as she created something unique. It wasn't rote memorization or repeats of the other groups. Nor did she use any one of his personal touches.

It was her own version of the exact same piece.

And he didn't reflect on it often, but he found it remarkable how the same notes, the same pages, the same exact excerpt could sound so remarkably different.

Despite it being out of the era of the piece, her trills, ornaments, crescendos, and decrescendos were perfect mirrors of the piece's tone. Her bow never scratched and each note flowed into each other like a vocal song.

He barely registered as she finished and the last note rang out in the room.

Her eyes glanced around fearfully before she blushed and sat down quickly in embarrassment at the silence and staring.

Mr. Hisaishi's sudden clapping opened the floodgates and the room erupted in cheers and applause. Kumiko shrank into herself slightly and blushed in embarrassment at the attention.

"Wonderful! Wonderful! Just wonderful! Now, let's rearrange!"

Katsuro stayed where he was (naturally), but was surprised that Mr. Hisaishi placed the new girl right next to him in second position. Personally, he felt it was a challenge.

He refused to be upstaged by this girl.

He stared through the sheet music in front of him and made a mental note to give an extra hour of practice that night.

The three kids-turned-teens walked away from the cafeteria line with some trays of food and found an empty table nearby. Ran and Shinichi joined up afterwards, bringing some home meals with them.

Ran smiled kindly. "So, how was everyone's first day?"

Ayumi beamed. "It was so much fun. We have a lot of homework, though, but all-in-all I don't see why you complain about it all the time."

"Just wait until Finals." Shinichi grumbled. Ran playfully smacked the back of his head with a disapproving frown.

"We should be encouraging them to enjoy school, Shinichi, not pushing them away from it." She chided.

"RAN!" Ran barely had time to look around before she was lifted off her feet by her fashionable friend's hug. "I heard he came back! Did he come back? Oh, you better believe me, I'll kick his ass for you if he's leaving you again! I don't care if you like him or not, I will personally murder him and not even make it a mystery! I won't even grace his memory with a mystery death! I will shove a confession note right up his-!"

"A-hem."

Sonoko stopped her ramble mid-explitive as she noticed the presence of said would-be-corpse. He paled as her face became redder than her purse. "YOU!"

He shielded himself as best he could from the barrage of purse-based-attacks from Sonoko (and considering all the heavy, cosmetic bottles she has in there, her attacks were pretty effective). She punctuated each word with another smack. "WHY. DID. YOU. LEAVE. RAN. ALONE!"

Ran managed to grab her friend's arm before the next one connected. "Ow, ow, ow! Come on, I was in a pretty dangerous position! The people who were after me were out for blood! It wasn't just some kiddy mystery, they were out to kill me! I couldn't bring Ran into that!"

Sonoko blinked and realized that half the school now heard that as she'd created the scene. "Oh… well, then I forgive you." She said, saving face. "But I'm still mad."

Shinichi sweatdropped. "Okay, then… uh, thank you?"

Sonoko glanced up and noticed the three new people sitting with them for the first time. "Oh, hello there, who are you?"

"I-I'm Kumiko Shizuka. W-we just transferred." Ayumi said, still terrified from Sonoko's display. She knew Ran's friend had a temper, but she didn't know the extent until just then.

"I'm Yuma Kobayashi."

"Hayato Akiyama."

"Well, I'm Sonoko Suzuki, Ran's friend." She said cheerfully.

"Oh, are you related to Katsuro Suzuki?"

"I think he's, like, a distant cousin or something. I dunno, he's so wrapped up in music I hardly ever meet the guy. Even then, the most I see of him is when he performs and my parents drag me to the concert."

They eventually settled down to eat their respective lunches. Genta got the general food available and got lots of it, which he enjoyed thoroughly. Shinichi noted that there may be scientific evidence of a sort-of universal female deterrant from food as Ayumi unconsciously picked out smaller portions of less-fattening foods and a small slice of strawberry cake. Mitsuhiko had general food and a milk carton.

Shinichi noticed Mitsuhiko take his chopsticks occasionally and sift through his stir-fried vegetables and rice to pick out tiny orange bits, glaring at them with disgust. "Hey, Mi- er, Hayato. What're you doing?"

Mitsuhiko glanced up after adding another bit of orange to the growing pile. "I'm picking out the carrots."

Sonoko raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because carrots are disgusting." He declared.

Ayumi poked him. "But you need carrots. They help you grow." She insisted.

Mitsuhiko smirked smugly. "Well, I figure that I'm already grown. Ergo, I don't need them."

"Wow, talk about childish." Sonoko deadpanned. "You know, you three remind me almost too much of these three brats I got to know."

The group paled before Ran moved closer to her friend and spent a few seconds whispering in her friend's ear. Suddenly, Sonoko jumped up, wide-eyed. "You guys are the brats!?"

Her voice echoed in the once-more quiet cafeteria as she, once again, made a scene of their table.

Ran and Shinichi nodded to each other and did damage control. They pulled Sonoko down by her shoulders and took turns hissing in her ear. "Yes, they're the "brats", Sonoko."

"We're working on a way to reverse it."

"And in the meantime, we'd appreciate a little bit of discretion."

Ayumi shyly whispered. "H-hi, Miss Sonoko."

Sonoko nodded dumbstruck and Ran whispered to reassure her that they'd tell her more when they were alone.

Conversation started back up in the cafeteria pretty quickly and Sonoko's outburst was ignored once more. Ran was the first to start asking questions. "So, how did you guys do today? Anything interesting? No rivals, enemies, love-interests?"

The kids shook their heads "no" as a group of passing students walked by.

"Did you hear? That new girl, Kumiko Shizuka, almost upstaged Katsuro Suzuki."

"The prodigy?"

"Yeah. Mr. Hisaishi was almost in tears by the end of her performance."

"Well, she certainly made an impression of herself."

"She'd better be careful, Katsuro is not going to take this sitting down."

The pair walked away, oblivious to their conversation practically turning three children-in-teenaged-bodies to stone.

Ayumi recovered first. "Um, well, I may have made a minor enemy in music class, even though it wasn't intentional-"

"NO WAY!" They jumped at the loud shout of another random. "Someone took on Akio Tanaka?!"

"Yeah, Yuma Kobayashi, and he beat him too! By 5 kg!"

"Woah, he's the strongest kid in school, then."

"I dunno. Now they have some kinda rivalry going onto see who can cap whose record." They walked away to find a table at the other end of the cafeteria.

Ran turned to Genta for an explanation. "Oh… uh… I made a new friend, his name's Akio. Uh, yeah…" he finished lamely. Shinichi absentmindedly wondered when the Universe would be done.

"I find Hayato's theories fascinating." A group of brainiacs mentioned causally. Shinichi nodded, here it comes. "He's already corrected each science teacher several times and worked out a theoretical program on his first day in computers. He even said he'd barely touched the internet since two weeks ago."

"We must step up our game, then." The other commented astutely. The other nodded and continued on their way.

Ran and Shinichi just gave an exhausted "look" towards the last member of the group, sheepishly fidgeting in his seat. "Um… I may have… miscalculated what an average high schooler knows and brought out some… advanced stuff Shiho taught us."

Shinichi just pinched his sinuses to relieve a growing headache and desire to strangle Shiho.

"Ah-CHOO!"

Her sneeze sent two particularly volatile test tubes smashing to the ground. She blinked away the soot from the resulting explosion. Somehow, someway, she knew exactly who was responsible.

"I'm gonna get you for this, Shinichi." Shiho growled.

Shinichi shuddered as a sudden chill went down his spine.

Ran, however, was too busy staring down their wards. "So, is there anything else we need to know? Any fires, explosions, trips to the infirmary?"

Mitsuhiko paled at explosions. "W-well, you see- in chemistry, some of the chemicals were mislabeled and normally it's safe to add them, but… um…"

Genta also awkwardly explained. "Oh, a-and I may have needed some treatment for muscle exhaustion earlier today… hehe…"

Shinichi's head met the table with a dull *thump*.

That afternoon, the final bell rang and the six teens stepped out on their way home.

They waved to each other as they each took their own ways home.

Ran and Shinichi both headed towards the same bus stop. Ran cleared her throat. "So… I guess they know how to make first impressions."

"Yeah, several rivalries, a possible enemy, and the whole school knows who they are. What else do we need, some wanna-be detective suspicious of them, too?"

Nearby, a brown-haired girl hiding behind some bushes while investigating a suspicious hobo sneezed completely alerting her presence to the hobo, who proceeded to throw obscenities at her along with a few bits of nearby debris for stalking him.

"Woah, what do you think happened there?" Shinichi asked as he watched a girl erupt out of a bush and run screaming with her arms above her head to protect against debris thrown by a seriously p*ssed off hobo. Ran shook her head dumbly before turning back to him.

"Well, so it wasn't a great start, but they're doing well, aren't they? Yeah, they got some attention we didn't want, but at the very least they're not failing classes or anything already."

Shinichi sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I just wish Shiho would hurry up with the cure already."

Ran smiled. "Well, on the bright side, we get to do the whole thing again tomorrow!"

That evening, Shinichi was brushing his teeth absentmindedly thinking about the day. He was still in shock after Ran's statement and he imagined graduating with, being employed with, and (quite possibly) retiring with those three kids-in-older-bodies right next to him.

His mental vision went a little weird when they proceeded to repeatedly ask "Hey, Shinichi? Hey, Shinichi?" while knocking against his head with their canes and, at one point, floating around him in circles.

He shook his head to clear it and spat out the glob of foamy-black toothpaste-

Black?

He looked at it again. Yep, definitely a liquorice-black glob.

He stared at his reflection and his eyes grew wide at the sight of stained-black lips. He grinned to expose his teeth-

"AAAAAUUGHHHHH!"

Shiho went to bed, content at her revenge. Even more so when Shinichi's cry of despair carried through her window.

She tucked away her spare key to the Kudo residence and a small vial of black prank dye she whipped up before crawling into the sheets.

"That's for earlier, Kudo." She mumbled.

AN: Kudos to those who got the SpongeBob references (hint: there are two solid ones) (I also don't own it).

So, this chapter introduces the kids to High School through the eyes of rivals, enemies, and possible love-interests (I'll see how they develop). It also gives me several new Points of View to add more dimensions to the fic.

I had them be in the upper part of their class or skill set because I figured their neurostimulant would be a) pretty powerful and b) they don't make a splash in High School by being just mediocre (and with drama, there's no better way than making a big splash on the first day).

I know my writing style may have changed a bit, but in the last few months, I've grown as a writer and I'm proud of it.

I already have the outline for the first case, so I hope to upload that one soon. Thank you all so much for reading the chapter and I look forward to continuing the story.

Sincerely,

-Crow

P.S. Does anyone know a shorter nickname for Mitsuhiko? In the dub, it was Mitch and that's okay, but I haven't listened to enough sub to decipher any sort of nickname for him. After some time, it gets tiresome to keep typing Mitsuhiko. If anyone knows the shorter version, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.