Mikau: Hello there! Welcome! Well, it's that time again. Time to torment Kaito. Yay! So this is my entry for Poirot Café's Contest 16 "Survival". I say that it's based off of the Conan VS. Kid video, but…it's very, very loosely. So don't expect that level of excellence. I did this in four hours in order to make the deadline for the contest. That being said, I hope you enjoy it! I think it turned out pretty well.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I'd be a lot meaner to the characters. Aoyama-sensei never takes advantage of all of the angst potential. ^.~

…

To Choose Between Them

"With all due respect, my esteemed—" He said the word with all due sarcasm. "—colleague Snake has been wrong this whole time. The Kaitou Kid isn't Kuroba Touichi, but his son. I have spent the past few months since my first showdown with Kid studying the boy, and I believe I now have sufficient 'dirt', as it were, to make him do whatever we like."

"And what did you have in mind, Spider?" The voice which had only ever been monotonous and bored before now betrayed an ounce of interest.

Spider smirked, pleased to see that his proposal was being received well. "I've noticed that a certain Edogawa Conan has been coming to more and more heists recently, getting in the way of our side's search for Pandora. At the same time, he's been inconveniencing another branch of the Organization, buzzing around with the FBI infestation. I think it might be best if the tyke were exterminated sooner rather than later, and I think this might be a good first job our little Kuroba Kaito. The boy has skill; he's proven that these past two years as he's foiled our plans. It would be to our advantage to put him to work for us instead of continuing our fight against him. So?"

"Just let me know what you need to make it happen."

…

Kaito's day started with a letter and ended in blood.

He found the envelope—as black as soot and addressed in ink the color of embers—taped to his door one Friday morning. The outside read simply: "To Kuroba Kaito-sama" in Edwardian curlicues, and then on the next line: "Welcome to your nightmare."

He hastily ripped open the envelope to find a single-page letter—black paper, scarlet ink—on which was written a Beika address, a date (today's), and a time (in two hours) followed by the words "Come alone or she dies on the spot."

Kaito frowned, unable to understand until something else fell out of the envelope.

A picture.

Of Aoko—bound, gagged, bruised, and crying.

His heart leapt and his lungs seized.

"Oh, God," he whispered, feeling sick.

He went back inside and sank down on the couch. There would be no school today. He needed to think.

He obviously had two hours to get to the warehouse in Beika—he was familiar with the spot—where he would hopefully receive more information. Or die. This was undeniably a trap, and he would gladly walk right into it for Aoko's sake. It was the least he could do to atone for getting her dragged into this mess.

The Organization had found him out, and they were making him pay. He had no guarantees besides the one that Aoko would die if he didn't cooperate. That was all he knew for certain. As far as if they would actually let Aoko go scot-free if he cooperated or if there was any way for Kaito to escape with his own life…there had been no promises. For all Kaito knew, he would go to the warehouse and be shot dead on arrival.

But that was a risk he would have to take for Aoko's sake. He owed her that much for all the times he had lied, broken promises, betrayed her trust, broken her heart.

"Dammit," he hissed under his breath, riffling his hands through his hair.

He kicked the coffee table and threw a throw pillow and screamed in frustration.

And after he'd had his temper tantrum, he stood up and headed for the Kid Cave to arm himself for battle. Because he was on his own.

He couldn't call the cops, and there was no way he was dragging Jii-chan, his mom, or even Hakuba down with him. This whole plot reeked of the Organization, so informing the police and pulling them into a war with them would only get good men and women killed. Kaito's only option was to go alone and hope for the best.

…

So he went, getting there with twenty minutes to spare so that he could give the place a preliminary once over. He didn't find anything. The warehouse was as deserted as ever, not a trace of intruders or any kind of explosives. That was good. He'd hate for the place to go up with him inside of it, and he really didn't feel like being ambushed, but…there was no trace of Aoko there either.

He went inside, making himself as comfortable as possible in such a situation on the ground floor next to one of the stacks of old barrel drums.

He checked his watch, feeling anxious but refusing to let it show, as the minute hand crept closer and closer to the hour mark.

Right on schedule there was flash, and on top of the pile of drums appeared Spider with a gaudy laugh. "Welcome to your nightmare, Kuroba Kaito!"

Kaito tensed, gritting his teeth as he tried not to show everything he was feeling at that moment: outrage, terror, self-loathing, and desperation all mixed together along with a strong urge to strangle Spider for what he had done to Aoko.

"Cut to the chase, Spider," Kaito spat, taking deep calming breaths. He needed to keep a level head to come out of this alive.

The fiend smiled sadistically, and the eye on his head-wrap seemed to shift. "Why? Are we not enjoying the show, Kaito-kun?"

Kaito stood his ground, giving Spider an unwavering glare.

"Very well," the maniac sighed, looking rather put out. He sat down on one of the drums a good ten feet above Kaito's head and crossed his left leg over his right, resting his chin in his right hand simultaneously. "If you must be in such a hurry and in no mood for a bit of fun, we'll 'cut to the chase' as you say. You're here for your girlfriend?"

"She's just a friend," Kaito sighed, knowing the likelihood of her ever becoming his girlfriend was probably next to zero now. "We're not even good friends anymore, so just let her go already." It was best for the Organization to know just where he and Aoko stood so that they'd leave her alone in the future…if there even was a future.

"I don't think so," Spider snickered. "We still need her to control you. She'll be staying with us for the next week or so until we're certain of your compliance."

Kaito frowned, giving the villain a wary look. "What do you mean? What do you want me to do?"

Spider's smirk grew to mammoth proportions, and the eye on his forehead shifted again as he switched the cross of his legs. "You work for us now."

Kaito was about to bark, "NEVER!" when Spider clicked his tongue and wagged his finger.

"Now I know what you're thinking, Little Miss Goodie Two Shoes," Spider snorted, delighting in torturing the young man. "You'll never work for the likes of us. But do keep in mind your position, young Kaito-kun. We have the lovely Miss Nakamori, and we don't really have any scruples about the things we might have to do to her in order to get you to cooperate. We're not very nice people, I'm afraid." Here he put on an over-exaggerated long face with which to taunt Kaito. "I'd go so far as to say that many among us would quite enjoy playing with such a cute girl—physically, emotionally, psychologically, and sexually torturing her—if it would make you any more gung-ho about joining us."

"Stop it!" Kaito screamed, a blind rage overtaking him at the mere thought of anyone doing anything to Aoko. "Fine! Just tell me what the hell I have to do already!"

Spider's leer became even more pronounced as he announced, "Kill Edogawa Conan."

Kaito's ears started ringing. He gulped. "W-What?" Suddenly he felt cold. The edges of his vision were blurry.

"Unthinkable for a white knight like you, I know," Spider chortled from his perch, body tingling in delight.

The pale, horrified face that the young man was making gave Spider a sick sense of satisfaction. This would be his masterpiece. He would totally warp and destroy the Kaitou Kid that everyone knew and loved. He would break this boy beyond recognition.

"You're not serious," Kaito whispered, all of the strength gone out of him. Because he knew that Spider was deathly serious.

"Oh, but I am," Spider snickered. "You have one week to do it. If not…your pretty little girlfriend dies and we frame you for it. We'll leak your secret identity, and there will be no hope for you. Even though we know you're really a good guy, to the rest of the world, you're already a criminal. They won't have too much of a hard time believing that you snapped and killed. And then we'll take another one of your friends captive—that old man, your mother…that annoying British detective. You'll have another week in which to kill before the next victim is added to the pile. We can keep going, Kaito-kun. We can kill all of your classmates, all of the Taskforce. We won't stop, Kaito-kun, so don't you think it would be better to cooperate now? Or is Edogawa Conan's life worth Nakamori-chan's and all of the others'?"

"J-Just…give me some time," Kaito stuttered, his head spinning as he tried to come up with some way out of this. They had him trapped. Even if he somehow managed to rescue Aoko, they knew who she was, knew who Kaito was. They knew all of his family and friends. There was no way of stopping them except for giving in to their demands.

"I need some time to think about this," Kaito managed to say, voice a little stronger.

"Oh, we'll give you plenty of time to think, Kaito-kun," Spider assured in a cajoling, singsong voice. "You have the whole week to do it. Just keep in mind, though, that Nakamori-chan is going to be in our keeping for however long you take to think about it. We'll leave her alone today and tomorrow—scout's honor—but on Sunday…you'll find her left pinkie finger in a little box on your front porch, and that's when we'll start having our fun with her. So if you're going to think about anything, I'd advise that it be about how much time you actually need, Kaito-kun, to make a decision. You have to choose between them: Nakamori Aoko or Edogawa Conan. Wouldn't it be better to kill the boy quickly and painlessly like we all know you're going to do eventually after we kill enough of your friends, than to oblige us to slowly torture and kill such a sweet girl?"

Kaito was definitely going to be sick as soon as Spider left. He wouldn't give that creep the satisfaction of witnessing it, but the minute Spider was out of there, Kaito's half-digested breakfast was coming back for an encore.

"And…" He struggled to keep his words steady, his breathing even. "What if I do k—…k-kill Edogawa Conan? What happens to Aoko and me after that? Will you really let her go and promise not to bother her again, or are you just going to kill her anyway?"

Spider smiled amicably, tilting his head to the side and chuckling like a possessed doll. "You're so cute, Kaito-kun. Don't worry. We'll let her go about her life so long as you behave. It'll be up to you whether she gets used as leverage against you again. As for you, you work for us. And once you get past the initial ick factor of killing someone, I think you'll like the work. The Organization has all kinds of stealth jobs for you to do. You obviously have a taste and a talent for crime already what with your elaborate heists that you seem to delight in so much. We're just going to take the gift that you already have and develop it to its full potential."

"And you'll use it to destroy lives, destroy families like you did to me," Kaito mumbled, seeing a clear picture of his fate.

Spider only smiled. "You have your instructions. One week from today, Edogawa Conan has to be dead at your hands, or Nakamori-chan will be the one whose blood will be on your head. Think carefully about this, Kaito-kun. It's an important decision. Oh." He chuckled. "But don't take too long thinking about it for poor Nakamori-chan's sake. A few of our members have been eying her, waiting for the chance to get a piece of her…both literally and figuratively speaking. If you don't make up your mind by Sunday…you'll be getting a finger in the mail, and Nakamori-chan will be in a whole world of hurt. And it will be your fault."

The eye on Spider's bandana seemed to move again, and in a flash he was gone.

Kaito dropped to his knees and was sick right there. His sobs shook his whole body as he cried bitterly.

He knew what he had to do, but he couldn't. And he couldn't leave Aoko in the lurch either. Either way he was a murderer. Spider was right. Could he really leave Aoko to suffer when he could free her right now at the price of Kudo's life?

Because if he didn't kill Tantei-kun, Aoko would die and more people after her. There was no choice in this situation. It was Tantei-kun or everyone else that he cared about. He had to do it. It would drive him mad to take a human life, but wasn't losing it all in one go better than slowly going crazy as body after body of his friends and family piled up at his feet?

He had to kill. There was no way around it.

…

He took the whole day to plan it out, treating it as if it were a heist instead of a murder. He took breaks to go hang over the toilet every fifteen minutes to half hour at first, but he quickly got over his squeamishness after convincing himself to concentrate on Aoko, what she must be thinking and feeling. Aoko was scared, cold, hungry, and alone with those villains. He was doing this for her. It was his fault that this had happened, and he had to make things right.

Earlier that day he had been prepared to walk into a trap and die for her. He just had to think about this murder…about his becoming a monster, as dying for her in a different way. He was still exchanging his life for hers. This was just a little different than he had imagined.

And who knows. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad. Maybe he'd just go absolutely nuts and completely lose it when the time came and Kudo's body was lying lifeless in his arms. Maybe he would lose his mind and he wouldn't care anymore about human life. Maybe once he had killed once it would get easier. Maybe Spider was right and Kaito would start to enjoy it.

Kaito shuddered at the thought, feeling dizzy and sick. He went to go hang over the toilet again, afterwards taking a break to cry.

He was losing it already.

…

Kaito's first heist had been nerve-racking. His heart had pounded so hard as it raced, and his lungs had felt like they were about to give out. He felt a lot like that now as he sat on the ledge of the Mouri Detective Agency window, staring at the sleeping forms of Old Man Mouri and Kaito's intended target. Back then it had been exhilarating. Now… Now Kaito was just trying to keep from being ill.

He tossed in a sleeping gas bomb to ensure that both detectives stayed sound asleep.

Kaito waited for the smoke to clear a bit before he tiptoed in as lightly as if he were hovering just off the ground. He slowly crept up to the shrunken sleuth and reached out, gingerly placing a shaking hand over his rival's tiny mouth. He took a deep breath and pinched Kudo's nostrils closed.

Kaito's whole body trembled, and he counted the seconds.

But…how long did he have to do this? How would he be sure that it was safe to let go and that Kudo would be dead and not simply mentally handicapped?

Kaito got to ten before he let go, breaking out into silent tears.

He couldn't. He couldn't.

Not even for Aoko, he couldn't. He was too weak. He'd rather die himself than be made a slave, a killing machine for the Organization. …But he was too weak to kill himself.

Changing his plan, he grabbed Tantei-kun, deciding to carry him off and keep him in his basement until he could gain the nerve and the resolve to actually do what he had intended.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been prepared to kidnap. He was doing this completely on the fly and had to gas the poor detective once more before they finally got back to Kaito's house.

Kaito was going to have a heart attack. He was sure his blood pressure was through the roof, and his breath was so ragged, it sounded as if he had just run a marathon in under two hours.

And now he had no idea what to do. Tantei-kun was out cold in his basement, and he had just over twenty-four hours left to kill him before the Organization started torturing Aoko.

Kaito sat down on the floor a good twelve feet away from where Conan lay unconscious on top of the blanket Kaito had set down for him, and Kaito tried to concentrate on Aoko. He imagined Snake touching Aoko, running a hand through her hair as she kicked and yelled, cursing like her father. He envisioned him stroking his handlebar mustache as he ripped open her shirt. He imagined her wailing and sobbing. He thought of Snake burning her skin with cigarettes and kicking her in the side of the head. He called up memories of her screaming as he imagined Snake pushing her down and forcing himself on her, cutting her skin with a piece of broken glass, grabbing her hair and pulling until chunks came out. He envisioned Spider holding her down while Snake chopped off a finger to send to Kaito.

And that did it. After filling his head with nothing but the horrors Aoko would have to suffer because of him, Kaito was ready to kill.

Just a few minutes after Kaito had strengthened his resolve, Conan began to move, slowly shaking off sleep and coming back to consciousness.

Kaito allowed him the curtesy of taking in his surroundings and seeing Kaito, seeing his murderer before he struck.

Kaito stood up and leveled his cardgun at the sleuth. "I'm going to kill you. Run." And that was all the warning he gave before firing.

Conan was lucky enough to have the presence of mind to dodge.

He stared at the young man with his own face and a familiar weapon with a wide-eyed, startled look of confusion. "K-Kid?!" Conan gaped at the thief as Kaito shot another razor-sharp card right at his heart.

Conan jumped to the side, and the card only took a chunk out of his arm.

He screamed, but managed to grit his teeth and bare the pain as blood started to run down his arm. He glared at Kaito, keeping himself at the ready to dodge. "Kid, what the hell are you doing?!"

"I'm…going to kill you," Kaito repeated, voice sticking to the back of his throat. He fired another shot, getting the other shoulder instead of the jugular.

"Why?! What's going on?! Have you completely lost it?!" Conan jumped back as another card nearly took out his ankle.

He scanned the concrete basement that looked like it had been converted into a storage/weights room for an exit. He'd have to get past the deranged Kid first.

"I have to kill you!" Kaito yelled, firing four shots in succession with increasingly poor aim as tears clouded his eyes.

He couldn't do it.

"I have to kill you," he whispered, sinking to his knees and sobbing bitterly at his situation as well as his own uselessness. "Because they have Aoko."

Conan cautiously crept forward, prepared to fight to disarm the thief if it came to that. "Who has Aoko, Kid?" he inquired in the calm, comforting voice that cops often used to talk a suspect down.

"Them!" Kaito screamed, pounding the ground with his fists. "Them! The Organization! They have Aoko, and they're going to…to…" He screamed again, hurtling his cardgun against the wall in anger and desperation. "I can't even tell you what they're going to do to her if I don't kill you!"

Conan's ears perked up at the word "Organization". "Kid. Let me help you. If this Organization is the one that I'm thinking it is, I've got friends that can help. We can get Aoko-san back, and then you don't have to do this, right?"

Kaito looked up at his rival, his sometimes partner, and friend, and their eyes met.

In those tranquil blue eyes, Kaito saw confidence and strength, and those were two things of which Kaito was in desperate need right now.

"You can h-help?" Kaito's voice cracked. He trembled as the tears fell freely.

He felt so weak and powerless. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't save Aoko by himself. He needed the Heisei Holmes and his penchant for making miracles happen to save the day for him.

Conan nodded. "Just let me make a phone call to the FBI. We'll assemble a team. I'll call in all my favors. We'll get the CIA and the secret police in on this too. We'll rescue Aoko-san, Kid, so you don't have to worry. Okay?"

"P-Promise?" Kaito wept, not really knowing what he was feeling. Relief? Regret? Helplessness?

"I promise," Tantei-kun swore, his tone so absolute that Kaito could do nothing but trust in it.

…

Before Kaito could really process what was happening, Conan was on the phone, making call after call to get together his team.

It was all a blur to Kaito.

There was a car outside of his house, and an American woman—a blonde with short hair and a shorter skirt—was all over Conan, assessing his wounds.

"Jodie-sensei" drove them to a manor house in Beika where a squinty-eyed man with glasses and flyaway hair met them. They were soon joined by others—an old man and another American (this one male with sort of long, straight brown hair) among them.

They talked a little fast for Kaito to keep up with in his present state, but he could tell that Conan and squinty eyes were in charge…and he and Aoko were in good hands.

They asked him questions from time to time, made him start from the beginning, tell them everything. He talked for what seemed like an hour straight about his father and the Organization, Pandora, himself, and the situation with Aoko…what they had tried to make him do.

Squinty Eyes nodded and patted him on the back. "It's okay. I have some idea of where they'd be keeping her. It's going to be difficult, but if we call in the help of our double agent friends, I think we should be able to manage it by Sunday."

"See? So there's nothing to worry about, Kaito-kun," Jodie-sensei assured with a bright smile.

"But what are we going to do about him?" Conan spoke up, looking back and forth between his comrades. "He's not safe as Kuroba Kaito. The people around him aren't safe as long as the Organization still thinks he's alive."

"We'll just fake his death," Squinty Eyes shrugged, shooting Conan a knowing smile.

Kaito got the feeling that there was some kind of inside joke he was missing.

But Conan laughed and nodded in acquiescence. "Yeah. We should be able to manage something, but what are we going to do with him once he's quote, unquote 'dead'?"

"He can join us, can't he?" Jodie looked at the older gentleman.

The white-haired man nodded. "I think the Kaitou Kid would be a worthy acquisition to our cause. He's already proven himself by acting on his own these past two years, hasn't he?"

"Yeah," Conan agreed. "And he already has the skill to assume a new identity on his own. It'll just be a matter of getting him into the witness protection program or getting him the formal training to join the FBI, but…" Conan looked like he suddenly remembered something. He turned to Kaito and gently asked, "But…what do you want to do, Kid? It's your life. Would you be able to leave all of that stuff behind and work with the FBI?"

Kaito smiled softly. "This morning when I went to that warehouse, I was prepared to die for Aoko. As far as I'm concerned, Kuroba Kaito is dead. I'm ready now to be whoever I need to be to keep the people I love safe. Maybe Kaito can come back after we've taken down these guys, but…right now, I'm just going to focus on doing what I need to do to survive. I'll survive now so that I can actually live after this nightmare ends."

The

End

...

Mikau: So. There it is. I had a lot of fun doing this, actually, and I hope you enjoyed it too. ^.^; I should play around with the FBI and Amu-chan and all of them more often. I'm definitely branching out with my repertoire of characters lately. Anyway, thank you for reading! Let me know what you thought! Please. And thank you!