So, time for a part of a fic universe you guys have never ever seen, woo! It's...sort of a prologue, really. I guess. Yeah.

Oh, and if you've never read "The Hollow Needle" in the Arsene Lupin series, you'll be a bit, ahhh, confused. But just go with it.

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All in all, Arsene Lupin thought, living a new life was not all it was cracked up to be.

Sure, he was given a new chance at life to make up for the mistake he'd made years past with that person. Sure, living a hundred years in the future was rather "cool", and all the new inventions fascinated him.

But when you couldn't actually interact with said things, and was stuck merely watching through his current incarnations eyes, it got rather dull after a while.

However, this new life of his was interesting enough even if it really wasn't his own. He'd never met a Japanese person all during his first life, even with his fame, and now to actually be born in the modern culture was something of what they called "culture shock". To read graceful patterns as words instead of pictures, to eat food entirely different from what he was used to, to have a social mentality the exact opposite of French - was all so different, and rather fun.

And his incarnation even got to be his modern-day counterpart. All in all, it was a nice reincarnation.

If only it was solving the problem he'd prayed to be reincarnated for.

All these years in this new life (his incarnation was almost eighteen now), and not one glimpse of the person he was searching for, the one he had to apologize to. The one he'd hated and cursed when they both were still alive, then slowly had come to love, but only after the other was out of his life. The one he'd spent fifty years searching for before his body had given in and died.

Sherlock Holmes. A detective. No, not just any detective...the detective. The only detective in his mind.

before that one unspeakable event that had changed everything, he would have rather died than even consider the detective close to him. He would have bit his tongue and choked on it before he apologized. He had hated Holmes with every fiber in his body, a burning, thrumming passion that coursed up even when he had just heard his name.

Now...after that event, things were much different. He'd first started searching out of revenge, to exact the suffernig of his poor Raymonde out on the one he considered responsible for her death. But as the years passed and every search for the missing sleuth was fruitless, his hatred began to wane, the despair of his beloved's death slowly fading away into memories. And as the years went by and he thought on the detective as he searched, he realised that the "burning passion" was no longer tainted by hatred, but it still remained. And then he remembered an offer, that had been expressed with pure, hopeful blue eyes and the shy hope that youth possessed. An offer to be friends, to be equals. And perhaps more.

He'd laughed in Sherlock's face then.

He'd been far too proud then - full of the arrogance brought by nationality and youth. He couldn't have imagined going to bed with an Englishman, and a detective at that. And he'd smirked at the raw hurt on the other's face when he'd rejected him, hurt that had faded away into the layers the man kept around him. But the hurt never faded from those brilliant blue eyes, that had seemed to dull a little more each time they met.

He had never found out what had happened to Sherlock until this new life.

Death by cocaine overdose. Not even five years after the Hollow Needle and Raymonde's death. To think he'd spent his last forty-five years in his own body searching for a dead man. How ironic.

In retrospect, everything was his own fault, really. If he'd only accepted the offer, accepted that strange fluttery feeling he'd gotten the first few times they'd clashed, of equal and brillaint minds going against each other, each carefully trying out the role they'd chosen for their new adult lives. If only he'd accepted the fact that in those first few moments, he'd fallen completely and utterly in love with the detective, then all these unhappy events cuold ahve been avoided, and they could have been together even now.

He couldn't change the past.

However, he could change the future.

He'd find Sherlock again and repent for his past mistakes, and praying against everything that the detective would reiterate his offer, which Lupin would definately accept this time around. Especially with such a new, healthy young body, he was bound and determined to quite thoroughly enjoy Sherlock's company this time around. His incarnation might have some objections - people nowadays had funny ideas about waiting for sex - but he'd come around. Especially since he'd apparently inherited quite a bit of Lupin's innate hedonism and sensuality, and seemed to enjoy sessions with his own hand well enough.

before the fun, however, he needed to find Sherlock and apologize to him first. And this frustrated Lupin the most.

He'd spent fifty bloody years searching for the man last tmie, how was he supposed to find him now when he didn't even know where and how he'd been reincarnated?

He would be in the same country - fate wasn't that cruel - but Japan seemed to be the country determined to stack millions of people in a space barely the size of France's coast. It was the proverbial needle in a haystack dilemma. And Lupin had no choice but to go through each straw one by one.

When his incarnation's seventeenth birthday came and passed, Lupin was extremely frustrated. Here he was trying to redeem his very soul, and he'd made more progress when his incarnation had been but a child. At least he still had his outlet of thievery, though the "return" bit seemed a bit silly to him. If you were going to be a thief, be one fully and not just halfway. But he definately appreciated the showmanship. Slieght-of-hand was a wonderful invention, and he loved it just as much as his incarnation did. He continued in this manner for some time, growing more and more frustrated each passing month as no leads showed up. Perhaps fate really was cruel, and Sherlock had been ironically reborn in France or some sort. Lupin and Fate were going to have a little "talk" once he died again. He also felt hopeless, and despaired of ever setting things right with Sherlock. He prayed for anything, any sort of sign at all.

And then one routine heist night, he'd landed on a roof and a child had turned to stare at him with Sherlock's deeply brilliant blue eyes.

He'd found him.

But why was he so small!?

At first he'd thought it a joke of Fate's - she'd give him the chance to make up to Sherlock, but forever doomed to be seperated by age. Then he'd gotten to know the child, and knew.

This wasn't a child. This was a full-grown adult hiding in a child's body. Something had happened to Sherlock's incarnation, to turn him into a little boy, he was certain of it. Never mind it seemed out of a fairy tale, it was the only acceptable truth.

But who was he? The boy's name he knew was false - no one would hide out as a child and keep their name. But as to who he was before...it was a blank. He needed to find out more.

But suddenly one day the boy disappeared.

Lupin was frantic. He'd found his Sherlock, he couldn't possibly lose track of him now, not when he was so close! For abuot a month or two, he'd despaired of ever finding the detective again. his depression was enough to affect his incarnation, who became listless and slightly agitated in the face of feelings that had no cause. Lupin wondered if it was worth it to try - if he should just receed and sleep away the rest of this life and hope the next gave him a better chance to try again.

And then, on another heist, as his incarnation danced over rooftops, they'd been cornered by someone. Someone who eerily resembled the boy, down to the same bright eyes and fierce intelligence, but only now the same age as his incarnation.

And Kudou Shinichi introduced himself to the Kaitou Kid.

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