Heya !

After that long trip with you all (since May already :O), here we are, here is the last chapter : )

Let's get over that final cliff and finish the last pages of "detective" ; )

Thank you once again for your support ! :D

And don't be too sad, I'll be starting to publish the sequel for Unexpected Alliances next Sunday ! That one will be much more MK-related, but there'll still be the four boys : )

I can only advise you to read (again ?^^) the first part not to be too lost at the beginning...

See you soon ! ; )

TiLi

o.O.o

Laury Rose : Ah well, I didn't really hide it : ) Thanks ! ^^ About Vermouth, yes, it could make sense.. She has always been that unpredictable... Even in that last chapter :p Uhh nah, I don't seem him suicide himself o.O This bullet was aimed straight at our Thief ^^;;; And yea, I don't think that talisman could block a bullet xD So yes, it is the end... The epilogue is at the end of this chapter :3

bobbyneko : I had to keep the best for the last cliff, nah ? ; )

emmahoshi : Ahah, well, try not to eat them now that you know ; ) And yes, I wanted the guys to look a bit smart... I mean, they're supposed to be super intelligent but I didn't show that often so here was the time to : ) Oh, I think this sentence about his stubbornness is pretty accurate, no ? xD Uh, sorry, I said the previous chapter was the last before the last but I was including it... So here is the end ! ^^; Yup, I also think she'll live and find herself a new life... That's the theory I followed in "Alliances".

LittleFan : Sorry... xD I feel like it gives dynamism to a story and, even for me, when I write, I want to know what happens next so it motivates me to write the next chapter : ) Uhhh *hides* Don't threaten me with that brush, those are dangerous you know ! I bet Gosho can think of at least 10 ways to kill someone with those ! xD Well, joking, I get the feeling ^^ But there's always a next chapter with m, as you said, so you can't hate me :) Thanks ! ^_^

Boogum : I do love her also... We'll speak a bit about her in that chapter though... : ) Thanks : ) And yes, that wasn't a big cliff, it was amusing to write though ^^ Haha, hope, my dear, hope xD

JarayZ : Haha, sorry.. I used the socks for a more original effect but well, it's something under the arm or drug to simulate the absence of a pulse and since their pockets were empty... Went for the first : ) Haha, lad to have surprised you with that poison ; ) Hmm there's still a bit more about Vermouth in that chapter, maybe you won't hat me that much...; ) Ah well, the chapter before the last has to have a cliff, no ? The climax should be at his highest point :D

buterflypuss : Thanks : )

Lady Paper : Phew, I've been afraid for a second... ; ) Thanks ^_^

Chap 28 : Endings

"- You're out of bullets, Mr. Ano Kata. And that was already your spare weapon..." Shinichi pointed out with a satisfied grin, as he heard what should be the man's last shot at him, according with what he counted.

Confident, the teen left the cover of the tree he was taking cover behind and walked towards the direction he last saw the old man, though it was hard to see anything, with the sun now gone, helped only by the moon. He was taking his time, careful not to let any chance for the man to attack him by surprise. Pushing the last branch, Shinichi saw the black silhouette of the man who was panting, lying on the ground on his stomach.

"- If that's a ruse..." He growled, coming closer, pushing with the foot the gun that was lying near the Boss's hand out of his reach.

The Tokyoite noticed with a frown something was off, though he couldn't name it, and it took him some long seconds to name it. The hair ! Their silverish colour should have been perfectly standing out, with the white light of the night, but it was barely visible, dark on dark...

"- Just what..." Shinichi started to say, before feeling his right ankle firmly grabbed and pulled, making him fall on the floor, so surprised he barely had the time to stretch his left hand in front of him not to slam his nose on a nearby root.

Unable to react at the blitz attack, his wind was knocked out of him when the BO's boss sat on his back and grabbed his hair in one hand, his right arm in the other.

"- You thought you were all mighty, brat..." The man breathed in his ear as he pulled his head to him, with a mocking tone, squeezing the teen's arm harder and harder in his back.

"- Can't it be... The APTX ?" The detective of the East concluded when he saw in the corner of the eye the face of his aggressor, now almost wrinkle-free. " But that's... "

Shinichi let out a pained cry when the man gave a stronger pull on his arm, the noise and the pain clearly indicating he just dismantled his shoulder.

"- You're not the only user of that drug, Kudô Shinichi... Though I'm using the safer version... " The man in black smiled, amused by the teen's suffering, turning him ruthlessly on his back for him to have a better look at his face. "Look at the result, with just two pills !"

And indeed, the azure-eyed detective, panting with pain, could now see the face of the man and saw he wasn't old anymore, looking now in his forties, with an assurance ever more present now that his muscles were fit again, giving him a formidable aura with his wide shoulders and tall body.

His face darkened as he spoke again. "But now, because of you and your side-kicks, that project and all the others... My life and my Ravens... I have to start again from scratch... Almost fifty years of hard work, turning into fumes ! "

The Tokyoite felt his lip breaking when the man sent his fist at his face with rage fist and spitted some blood on the side before turning at the man again and challenging him with a defiant look.

"- You're going to pay for this... " The Boss announced with mad eyes, raising once again his arm.

o.O.o

Heiji wiped his mouth with his hand, taking support on a tree as he was catching his breath. Lightheaded, he now had a bad taste in the mouth, from being sick, all thanks to the leaves he swallowed.

"Damn, just how far did they go..."The Osakan grumbled for himself, wondering why he didn't spot anyone after his five minutes half running, half walking in the forest, following the noise of the fire shots he could hear from time to time. Each time another one echoed was a confirmation his friend was alive but they now stopped and there could only be two reasons for that. Either the guy was out of bullets, giving some space for Shinichi to attack him, or... He didn't even want to think about the second possibility.

His eyes widened he recognized with a chill his best friend's voice in a pained yell that echoed through the forest. Still short-breathed, the dark-skinned teen nevertheless pushed the tree to get back on his feet and rushed towards the voice, noticing some groaning not far away, gulping with anguish as he knew they were too high-pitched to belong to an old man. He stopped twenty meters later, struck with horror as he saw a man he didn't recognize sitting on a body quite thinner than his, with a white shirt, just like the one he wore, as it was a part of the suits the three of them had been given for the evening.

"- Kudô !" The detective of the West called with concern as he saw all the blood on his face and the strange angle of his arm.

Without thinking, he ran to the man and threw himself at him at full speed, tackling him away from the motionless Tokyoite. Both men fought with rage, though Heiji's was also tainted with desperation, knowing that after a self-poisoning and with a broken hand, it would be pretty hard to have the upper hand on such a formidable opponent. After a punch harder than the other broke the teen's eyebrow's arch, Hyouga took advantage of the blood hindering his sight to throw a powerful kick that sent the Osakan against a tree, knocking his breath out. The Boss, annoyed by the dark-skinned devil that interrupted his fun, had a triumphing grin when he saw he still had his collar.

"- You are so dead, boy..." He stated, taking a remote out of his pocket under the detective of the West's eyes, powerless as he couldn't even get up from the previous shock, understanding with horror the man was going to detonate the bomb he had still around his neck.

His heartbeat accelerated as his eyes crossed the man's, seeing his thumb was coming closer to the switch, the criminal now laughing at the panic he saw in the teen's look, until his finger touched the plastic. Closing his eyes, the detective of the West gulped, his mind wandering one last time towards the one he loved, when a whizzing noise caught his attention.

Heiji opened his eyelids to see his opponent was holding his bleeding hand with a painful grimace, the remote a bit further on the ground, a playing card into it.

"Kuroba !"He thought with relief, guessing the teen was near, even if he couldn't see him yet.

Spotting an opening, he threw himself at the man once again and punched him with all his might with his right hand, ignoring his sling and his pain, his only objective right now being to beat the Boss to a pulp as a vengeance. Masaki, dizzied by the first hit, couldn't really react and was now near to lose consciousness. Noticing his gaze starting to lose focus, the Osakan, helped by the fact the adrenaline was hiding the pain from his wound, sent one last time his fist to the man's face, with a shout of rage. Two cracks were to be heard : the Boss's nose and his own fingers that didn't resist the shock. He panted, his eyes watering with the throbbing pain in his hand, but saw with satisfaction the man was out.

"- Shinichi !" He called, his attention back to his best friend, tripping over his own feet as he got up to go by his side.

The Thief was just arriving near the unconscious detective, short-breathed by his long run but glad he managed such a shoot at such a distance, just on time to save the Osakan.

"- It's ok, he's alive, Hattori." Kaito said with a grave look as he was already crouching near the Tokyoite.

Heiji put a gentle hand under the detective's head to put it on his lap, offering a less hard surface than the ground for his skull. Shinichi was reacting to his touch but he wasn't really conscious, the dark-skinned teen could tell by his shrouded look. His mouth twisted with anger as he saw the bruises on his friend's face, and the wounds where his skin had been broken under the violence of the man's hits.

The detective jumped as he felt some fingers around his neck, before feeling they were removing his collar : while he was looking after Kudô, the Kid had been fetching, with his usual discretion, the remote control to neutralize the explosives and had been able to set him free.

"- Thanks... Without ya, I'd been smashed ta smithereens... " The detective observed, raising a grateful look at his magician friend.

"- Anytime, Tantei-han..." He smiled, putting a hand on his shoulder.

The Osakan's eyes widened as he saw it was bloody, and even more when he saw a glimpse of scarlet on the shirt under Kaito's black tuxedo's vest. "Hey, are ya hurt, Kuroba ? !

- Gin. " The Thief explained, his face darkening. "But he won't be able to hurt anyone any more... The gun accidently fired when we fought and... One bullet touched my arm and the other killed him.

- ... At last, he'll stop killin' people..." Heiji concluded with a dark expression. Crossing the other's eyes, he saw the boy wasn't completely at ease. " Hey, don' tell me ya're... that man was a bastard an' was clearly tryin' ta kill us all. Whatever happened there, that's self-defence ta me, don' ya dare ta think otherwise an' don' ya dare ta regret he died when ya lived... We'd be dead too if ya hadn' been here ta save us...

- I wasn't planning to..." Kaito denied, not admitting there was some kind of relief to hear someone saying out loud what he wanted to think but didn't dare to believe in. "Stay with Tantei-kun, I'm going back in to call for help, our phones should be somewhere in the house..."

Both teens exchanged a nod and the Thief rushed back to the manor, holding his wounded arm against him.

o.O.o

Taking the hidden exit from the locked room to go in, the magician, starting to be a bit dizzy with all his running while he was losing blood, sighed as he walked into the place once again, forced to see once more the dead blond-haired man.

When he saw during their previous fight Gin was pulling the trigger, he had done his best to offer his already wounded arm, avoiding a bullet in the chest at the last moment, but the hit had still been extremely painful. Biting his lower lip, Kaito had been able to stay conscious and to use his right hand to put it on the gun's barrel and forcing it to any other direction than his. He had been rolling once again with the blond-haired on the floor and that was when the man accidentally pushed the trigger, sending directly a bullet in his chin, killing him on the spot.

The indigo-eyed teen, hurt, slightly sick because of the blood and the fact he just had an active role in someone's death, had gotten up on wobbling legs and had tried to look for his card gun, unable to touch a real gun anymore, to help his friends. He had found it in a small video room not far away, probably the place from which the Boss had been observing them, and had left to help Heiji and Shinichi.

A bit wincing, the Thief was heading towards the video room once again, when he stopped breathing at the sight in front of him.

Vermouth.

Her dark clothes as bloody as when he left the place.

Except that... She was looking at him.

"- Oopsie, I thought I would have been able to leave before anyone came back..." She smiled with a shrug, moving to sit down. "Oh, come on, don't make that kind of face, if anyone can understand this, it's you, Kaitou Kid.

- I'm not..." Kaito answered by pure reflex, still completely frozen at the miracle. "You had a bulletproo... ?

- Haha, nah, got that one straight into my lung..." She laughed casually, getting on her feet, looking with a sigh at her tainted clothes. "And close that mouth of yours, I thought you had manners..." The blond-haired smirked at the Thief startled face.

"- But you died then and...

- And... ?"

The truth hit the teen has hard as a truck when his shrouded mind realized what happened. "Could it be... Pandora ? !

- Bingo ! Dear, it took you a long time, for someone looking for it for so long..." The woman smiled, gently taunting him.

"- But it's supposed to pass only in 6 months, how could you...

- Crossed it by accident, last time.

- But it was..." The magician couldn't finish his sentence, too astonished by the other answer.

"- 10 000 years ago, yes... Now, if you'll excuse me, it may sound a bit improbable to you for someone who lived so long, but I'm in a hurry... Just, one question : did Cool guy got him ?

- ... The three of us did." Kaito answered after a small pause, concluding it wouldn't harm anyone to tell her the truth. "I've tied him in that forest, he won't be able to escape, it's over."

Vermouth had a wide smile at the news. "Thanks for the good work. And another thing... I know I'm perhaps asking too much from you but could you just forget what happened ? You can't say I haven't been doing my best to help you lately... I'll be of course keeping your ID secret on my side also. "

The Kid looked at her, considering her proposition a few moments. "Ok, but I need you to give me a phone.

- Deal ! " She agreed, taking hers out of her pocket to send it to him. "Good luck and thank Cool Guy and his Osakan friend for me." The woman added, turning her back at him and waving her hand behind her.

o.O.o Epilogue o.O.o

Heiji's body went stiff as Kaito hugged him on the train platform, a bit clumsily as his left arm was bandaged almost from the shoulder to the wrist.

"- Hey, what ya doin'... ? !"

Three days after their previous fight, the three friends were now at Tokyo's station, saying good bye to Hattori who was finally going back to Osaka. They all bore the wounds of their confrontation : heavily bandaged upper left arm for the Kid, right shoulder into a sling for the detective of the East, along with stitches on his cheekbone and bruises on the face, another sling for the right hand for the dark-skinned detective who had now two broken fingers and a few stitches on his eyebrow's arch. They were all smiling but clearly, there was some reprobating looks at them, all those bandages giving the impression they were some kind of gang members after a bad fight. The result was however here : the Black Organization was absolutely finished, every last member neutralized.

"- Come on, don't be shy, Tantei-han ! " The Thief winked as he released him and stepped back. "I'm not going to handshake with your broken hand and shaking the left is a war declaration...

- Haha, he's right, Hattori..." Shinichi softly laughed, grabbing also his best friend into a firm hug as he could with one arm. "Thanks for everything. Sure you don't want to stay longer ?

- Nah, thank ya, dude..." The Osakan smiled, stepping away to come closer to his bag. "I've got ta go back ta Osaka, I've been away fer too long, the criminals will have the feelin' they can do whatever they want in my city... An' I got ta have my eardrums blown out by a certain young lady... " He added with an embarrassed grin, getting laughs from both other teens.

"- I can disguise myself as you, if you want to, Tantei-han... My prices aren't that unaffordable, you'll have a discount... " The Thief proposed maliciously.

"- Ah, no thanks, I've seen how ya hug the other's girlfriends...

- Reminds me..." The azure-eyed turned to the Kid, his face dead serious. " What have you done to my Ran ?

- Me ? " Kaito tried to look innocent, though sweat dropping in his thoughts.

"- Between that and the fact you tried to kiss her last time..." The Tokyoite growled, bringing his left hand to his belt, the one Agasa designed for his small self.

"- Hey, it's not my fault if she's crazy about me..." The magician shrugged, stepping one or two feet away, under Heiji's amused smirk. "And she wasn't even your girlfriend yet... Hey ! What are you doing ?! Not the ball, not the..."

A loud "Bam!" echoed in the station, along two teens' laughers and, after a short hurt silence, a third joined them.

Believe it or not, thieves and detectives weren't that incompatible, in the end.

END ~

Here we are, this is, as written just above, the end !

Soooo I guess some may be surprised me to have Kid kill someone, even if it wasn't intentional... Let me explain a bit. I didn't want Gin to stay alive. That guy is a monster, and I bet that even with 3 bullets in the chest, he'd be able to go in a rampage. And since Shin was hunting the Boss and Heij not really useful, I imagined that accident. I don't think Kaito would get out unharmed of such a thing (I tried to picture it a bit...) but, with Shin's and Heij's help, I bet he'd be able to at least start to forgive himself... Though I'm really wondering... What would happen of Kaito's "no one gets hurt" motto if he faced Snake ? He became a Thief to avenge his father and, since he has no proof, justice would not be of any use there... So I really wonder if he'd try to kill Snake out of rage or find a way to have him in jail for another motive...

As to Vermouth... it was my lil reference to MK, mostly to have fun and because I didn't want Vermouth to die ! :p

o.O.o

That's it for detective ! : ) Don't forget to review if you liked the story :D

And before someone asks, nah, no sequel for that one :p

And out of curiosity, for those who read "alliances", which one did you prefer ? : )