Scarborough Fair

Summary: Kuroba Kaito finds himself in a sticky situation when he's kidnapped by a man who's also guilty for the abduction of three others. How can even the Kaitou Kid escape drug-induced paralysis, a psychotic doctor, a blackmailed housekeeper, and a mansion filled with traps and dungeons?

Pairings: Very minor hints.

A/N: I own nothing except Kojima Daisuke. Okita Soshi and Nagashima Shigeo are actual DC people. Think Yaiba and Yoban Saado. Title comes from Simon and Garkunkel song. Also loosely based around Mothy's song, 'Little Garden Girl' feat. Hatsune Miku. May be called alternate name of 'Clockwork Lullaby 2'.

Prequel(s): "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"

EDIT(19/01/2013): A few mistakes, pointed out by crimsonskyr, has been fixed. Thank you!

EDIT(11/05/2014): FINALLY remembered that I forgot to mention inspiration, which was a Criminal Minds episode. No wonder I didn't get any fellow fans talking . . . Thank you to I-Love-Saguru-and-I'm-Proud for reminding me!

One and a Half Months Ago. . . .

The boy sitting in his chair looked up from his fifth math workbook of the day with a slight frown at the impatient knocks coming from the door of the otherwise empty classroom. Who the hell was here? The teacher was gone, and the custodians knew better than to bother him.

The knocker decided to smash their fists against the door even harder now. Kojima Daisuke scowled. Lazy bastard. The door was unlocked.

"It's open!" he snapped, and growled under his breath when the knocks got louder and more frequent.

"I'm coming!" he called as he turned the lock. "What do you wan-?"

The next moment, he fell to the ground, forced into a faint by a taser. A cloth soaked with chloroform was placed over his mouth and nose before he was arranged into a large cardboard box.

No one gave the person in the unmarked jacket and baseball hat with the wheel dolly and the box a second thought.

One Month Ago. . . .

"Excuse me?"

Nagashima Shigeo looked up at the hoarse male voice. "Can I help you?" he asked after turning off the baseball pitching machine. No one else wanted to stay and pitch for him, and Yutaka was sick at home. He had been all alone in the entire stadium until the man had come up to him.

"My son is a huge fan of yours," the man paused to cough. "And he wanted an autographed ball from you. Would you sign this for him?" he handed Shigeo a pen and a baseball.

"Sure!" Shigeo took them, and removed the cap of the pen with his teeth. "Who should I-!"

He grunted instead of finishing off his sentence, his eyes widening in shock and pain before shutting in unconsciousness, and Shigeo crumpled to the ground. While his hands had been full with the pen and the baseball, the man had hit him with a taser.

Just in case, the assaulter put a cloth pre-soaked in chloroform over his nose and mouth to ensure he would stay knocked out.

Two Weeks Ago. . . .

Okita Soshi let out a huge yawn as he batted away the wooden sword of his teammate. "Is it break time yet?" he asked sleepily. Except his facial expression, there was nothing sleepy about his movements as his sword blocked and struck expertly.

A few of his teammates rolled their eyes. Soshi could be – was – the best swordsman in the school, but he was always trying to take a nap. People could – and sometimes did – set a clock by the exact time he asked for break/naptime. Always 4:32 PM. Right on the dot.

"No one's in th' equipment room, as usual," one of his friends jerked a thumb to his usual napping place. "Go get some shut-eye, ya lazy bastard."

"Will do," he yawned and stretched before wandering off. This was practically routine, anyways.

Soshi opened the door and stepped in, letting out another yawn. He frowned when he heard the sounds of something crackle behind him, and was beginning to turn when a metallic edge of some sort was jabbed into his neck, releasing a current of electricity into him.

By the time he fell to the ground, eyes closed and unable to regain consciousness for the moment, his assaulter had closed the door.

A kendo master. He didn't have his famous sword with him, but he could be lethal if he could move.

Chloroform was produced, as was a plain handkerchief, the type anyone could get anywhere cheaply. The unconscious and drugged boy was then hidden inside a wheeled crate of dodgeballs before being loaded into a waiting van.

Present Time

The chimes of the morning news woke him up. Had he left the television on all night. . . ?

"Three teens across the country have been missing for some time, and as of now, there has not been any calls demanding ransom. Anyone who has any information about the missing teenagers should call the police hotline. . . ."

Wait. Morning news? His eyes flew open, and they landed on the smashed alarm clock on the ground. In that moment, that broken clock was the incarnation of evil to him. Taunting him, even in death, and having the final revenge against him by not waking him up. The teenage boy could just see that clock laughing in the hell for broken household items.

The clock on the wall was nicer, but it still told him the time. And the time told him that he was. . . .

"Crap! I'm late!"

"Despite being scattered around wide areas, authorities believe that the three missing people cases of Kojima Daisuke, Nagashima Shigeo, and Okita Soshi are all connected, as they all have extremely similar appearances."

"Damn, damn, damn!" Kuroba Kaito stuffed his mouth with two pieces of untoasted bread as he changed into his school uniform. He had been up all night planning a heist, and hadn't heard his alarm clock.

Therefore, he had to hurry. Or else.

Kaito slammed his door shut and ran, just as the news announcer began showing the pictures of the missing teenage boys. "The police are also asking that anyone with similar appearances to these missing people should take precautions, as the assaulter managed to somehow abduct both kendo master Okita Soshi, and sportsman Nagashima Shigeo. Again, since the kidnapper seems to be exclusively after people with faces similar to the ones shown above, authorities are asking that anyone who does resemble these people take care, and report any suspicious activities around them."

The pictures of the boys on the screen were near identical to the one of Kaito on his bedside table.

The teacher actually seemed surprised at how Kuroba Kaito, magician extraordinaire and troublemaker, had been detained by something so. . . so normal, like sleeping in.

Technically, this had been because he'd been planning Kaitou Kid's heist, which was by no definition normal, but he wasn't exactly going to tell her that.

Aoko just sighed in relief before moving onto her notes. Kaito didn't get it. Was she that happy that he wasn't flipping or looking up her skirt?

After the class was over, he found out the reason why. "I thought that you got kidnapped by that person going around," she admitted, brushing back her hair. Being its usual wild self, it sprang back up into its shaggy normal form.

"What person?" he asked, yawning. While everyone had been taking notes, he had fallen asleep. It hadn't been enough to let him fully catch up, but he wasn't a brain-dead zombie for now. "And why would I get kidnapped?"

Mentally, he snickered at the pun. 'KID-napped'. Ah, if that ever happened – which it wouldn't, not if he had something to say about it – he could just see the headlines of every newspaper covering him.

"Someone's been kidnapping high school students who really look a lot like you," she seemed surprised. "Didn't you know? It's been in the newspapers a lot ever since the second guy went missing."

Well, considering that he mostly paid attention to articles on either his white-garbed alter ego, or big jewels coming into Japan, no, he didn't know. Not really.

"The kidnapper has a definite pattern," Kaito scowled as Hakuba Saguru pulled up his chair to sit near them. "He has a very specific victimology, and he only takes one person every two weeks. Obviously, he's stalking them to figure out when they're most vulnerable. Since Okita Soshi lived in Osaka and the other two in Tokyo, he either doesn't care about the distance he has to travel to get to his victims, or he lives somewhere in between the three locations of the disappearances."

"Are we talking about the guy who's kidnapping students who looks like Kuroba-kun?" Akako made her way over, shooing off the boys following her like lost puppies. "If you don't mind, boys, I'd appreciate my privacy for a while."

The guys looked heartbroken, but they did what she ordered them to do. "The last victim was the best swordsman on the kendo team. Enough to be a master, and he got taken," Hakuba told them. Between the four of them, he had the best (legal and non-magical) resources. "That was nearly two weeks ago. If this person is a serial kidnapper – which there is a very high possibility of him being - he'll strike again pretty soon. He's got a pattern, and he'll stick to it unless he gets interrupted, or becomes unstable."

Three pairs of eyes turned to him. Kaito made a face. "You're not actually going to follow me around, are you?" he demanded.

Blank eyes continued to stare at him without any response.

". . . please tell me that you're joking."

"I can't believe you guys followed me here," Kaito scowled.

"We told you that was exactly what we were planning to do," Akako raised one slim eyebrow. "Why, do you have a problem with us visiting your house?" she asked rather mockingly.

"Afraid I'll find something?" Hakuba was just as bad, if not worse. Bastard.

"It's for your safety," Aoko, at least, had good intentions. "None of us want you to get kidnapped, you know."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Kaito nearly laughed at the unintended pun, holding it back with only the help of a hastily-applied Poker Face. It looked like both Hakuba and Akako had gotten the pun about 'KID-napping' as well, though they had better control over themselves. The half-British detective turned his attention to his pocket watch to check the time. "Sixteen o'clock, fourteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds," he announced. "We'll be here till midnight."

"#$%&!"

"Kaito!"

"Damn it! I'll lock the doors! I'll be fine!"

"He really doesn't want us to be here," Akako commented, fingers idly brushing over a family picture, taken two weeks before his father had died. "Most likely scared at having someone come too close to his well-guarded heart. Afraid of having something stolen, Kuroba-kun?"

Aoko stared at her, having understood none of that, but Kaito made a face. "No, I just don't want you guys around here. I appreciate your concern, but really, honestly. . . I don't want you here."

He really had to have a word with his favorite detective later. There is only one truth. . . . try that with these three. The truth was that he could take care of himself perfectly fine, and had no need of three extra high schoolers as bodyguards, yet it took him two hours of fierce debating, arguing, and occasional violence, taking all three of them on all by himself. Quite unfair, really. When he broke one down, the other two leapt in and let the person recover while he took them on.

Still, by the end of that, they settled for checking all the closets and hiding places – minus the secret room behind the portrait – and giving him back his cell phone. "Press one, and the speed dial will connect you to the police immediately," Aoko told him, all business. Childish Aoko being serious. She was the one who would be more serious, between the two of them, but this was the girl he'd seen ever since she was a kid. The business-like Aoko wasn't quite her.

Akako muttered something before wiping her palms on her skirt. "Will your mother be coming back anytime soon, Kuroba-kun?"

"Huh? No, I don't think so. Last time I checked, she said she was in Chicago meeting an old friend."

"Your mother's in Chicago?" Hakuba looked at him.

"Yeah. Problem?"

"No, not at all. Just a bit surprised at the coincidence. You see, my mother has also gone to Chicago."

Coincidence? A chill went up his spine. Since Hakuba had nearly nothing in common with his father, he probably took after his mother. Hopefully, the retired Phantom Lady wouldn't have the misfortune of running into Hakuba's mother.

"In that case," Akako tossed her red-tinged hair back. "Lock the doors well, Kuroba-kun, and keep your phone in your hand at all time."

. . . he really hoped that he had just imagined the red sparks at her fingertips at that moment.

"Aww, my little Kid Junior has such cute friends!"

"Mom."

"Sorry, Kai-kun, but it's so cute!" he could practically hear his mother grin over the phone. "Anyways, I'm at the Vancouver International Airport now-"

"Vancouver?" he interrupted. "Like, Canada? I thought you were in Chicago?"

"No, no, that was last week. My friend left to Japan after that, but she asked me to drop something off at her house in Vancouver, and gave me a bunch of stuff to make sure I got there in style and comfort! First Class is so awesome, and she lent me her vacation house in Whistler Village! The view on the PEAK 2 PEAK gondola is absolutely gorgeous! Kai-kun, we'll come here together one day, right? You'd love skiing here! It's the world's best ski resort! Wouldn't that be great?"

Kaito frowned. His mother's usual words, but they seemed off. "Hey, mom," he began. "Are you alright?"

"Alright? Of course I'm alright. Why wouldn't I be alright?"

There it was, getting more and more pronounced. She was nearing the point of ranting, which meant something big was on her mind. "Mom, what's wrong?"

"Oh! Gotta go, Kai-kun!" she trilled. "See you in twelve hours!"

"Hey, mom, wait, don't-" the dial tone buzzed in his ear. "-hang up."

Kaito really wished his mother would tell him things in advance. Now he had phone Akako to find out just what kind of voodoo witchcraft she had done to his house so that his mom didn't get turned into a toad or something.

Wait; did he even have her number?

Oh, well. He could find out by looking into her files at the school office. This, in his mind, gave him a perfectly justified reason to break into the school. Besides, he hadn't done that in a long time now.

Grabbing a few basic lock picks and his cell phone, Kaito left his house – locking the door – and whistled as he walked the night's shadowy version of a path he crossed every day to get to school.