AN: Hooo boy this story. This started off just being a speculative oneshot that I wrote, that I put in my oneshot collection, The Beika Periodicals. What's more it's a speculative oneshot that was inspired by a very different type of blackorg!Heiji story that I was already writing, Phantasmal Black. And then I got attached to this idea as well, because it takes the concept in such a different direction than the aforementioned story, and I began to mentally play with the idea more and more and more.

And that's how we end up like a month or so later with this once oneshot turned into a proper story idea in it's own right, and one that I am looking very forward to working on, like uh, all of my other fanfics. Why do I put this child of mine through so much anyways? That is a question that I cannot answer. Anyways, with that all out of the way, I hope that everyone enjoys the work that I'm about to present to you! The original oneshot is here, though I've done some revising since I wrote it the first time, and there's an entirely new part added on at the end to bring us into a story proper.

Please don't forget to leave a review!


Black Echo

Chapter One

A Litany of Regrets


In reality, he knew it was only a matter of time before someone caught up to him. This wasn't a situation that could continue forever.

He had thought many times about bringing it to an end himself, in one form or fashion. Most of such ideas involved properly discussing the matter with the one who had become his friend before he even realized it. The famed detective of the east, who had been forced to disappear from the spotlight in order to protect his own life- and more importantly, the lives of those around him. Sometimes he worried that Kudo Shinichi didn't value his own life as much as he should, but it was exactly that kind of selfless nature that had impressed him in the first place.

Were he any different, the situation might have already ended long ago, and he'd have been the one to do it. Kudo Shinichi would have truly vanished from this world, his actions against the mysterious group known only to him as the Black Organization cut short before he could even truly raise a hand against them, before he'd even caught the faintest hint of their trail.

Instead, he'd lived, to strike several decisive blows against them, counterattacking them every time they thought they had backed him into a corner, all while not revealing the truth of his existence to them. It was incredible, really. Even as the boy gained more and more allies, he never stopped thinking five, ten steps ahead, prepared for any possible scenario that could be thrown at him, and throwing together plans in the blink of an eye for the ones that had managed to escaped him.

As clever as he was, he wasn't omnipotent.

He'd never once doubted him from the start, after all.

It was a bit hilarious, really, considering that the first time he'd met him, he'd brought along with him what he had thought at the time was a clear warning sign of his true nature. It was ironic, really. Never in a million years would he have suspected that the very liqueur his codename had been taken from would have been the key to begin unlocking the mystery behind the mysterious poison the boy had been fed on that fateful night that caused him to disappear, forced to live a lie, hiding from the world, pretending to be nothing more than a slightly smart first grade student by the name of Edogawa Conan.

Kazuha would have surely said that it was a sign. Heiji still viewed it as lucky coincidence.

He'd thought many times of bringing this whole farce to an end. Of speaking up, of saying something, of revealing his betrayal to his friend. But each time, he missed his chance. Each time, he couldn't say those words. And each time, it got harder and harder to say anything, as the two of them grew closer and closer. He wasn't exactly sure when it was that they had become such close friends, but it had happened before either of them was even aware of it. From that point on, there was nothing that could be done to stop it.

And as Edogawa Conan- no, Kudo Shinichi, got deeper and deeper into the mystery of those clad in black, as he gained more and more allies, and the stakes became higher and higher, it became nigh impossible to tell him the truth. Too much time had passed, he'd become too close to him. What would it do to him at this point? He'd never questioned his loyalty from the start, not even in the millions of scenarios that he played out in his head, planning out strategies well in advance to counteract each one.

Out of all the scenarios that he considered, the fact that Hattori Heiji might be a member of the Organization was not one of them. It had never been one of them. In fact he was pretty certain that Kudo would be offended on his behalf if someone so much as tried to tell him the truth.

As if it were a bad joke.

It wasn't by choice, not really. If he could go back now and change the past, he would have accepted the consequences of what would have followed that incident. He would have braced himself for the ensuing firestorm, for watching his dream fall apart in front of him, for the truth to spread far and wide. It was a better, kinder truth than the one he hid inside of himself now, though at the time, it had been the worst possible truth. It wasn't like he could blame his past self though. His reaction to what had happened, and everything that followed, was still understandable to him even now.

It had happened back in late middle school, when he'd just started gaining a reputation for himself as a detective, when he started getting attention from the local media. He'd reveled in it then, an excited grin on his face, happy that he was starting to be doing something he'd always dreamed of doing. He'd never admit to it, but it was his father who had inspired him to become a detective in the first place- he had admired him quite a deal when he was a child, and wanted to become someone like him. And now, case by case, he was living that very dream, developing a reputation for himself as a brilliant young detective, one that held much promise for the future.

So when he'd learned that he bore no blood relation to his father at all, nor to his mother, he'd naturally been shocked. What kind of people he did bear blood relation to was what had nearly destroyed him. There were cracks, forming, all around him, threatening to shatter the world that he'd built for himself, to destroy everything. In the back of his mind, he was well aware that this was probably blackmail, watching as the pretty reporter twice his age almost gloated about the documents that she had in her hands, all the proof that she needed to release a rather scandalous story, the kind of thing the media would have eaten up, the kind of thing he'd never be able to escape from.

One that would not only surely destroy his own dream- but might take his father down with it. His father, who he admired, even if he never said that much, never spoke such words aloud, who had taken in the orphaned, unwitting baby son of murderers out of a sense of pity and duty, who had taken him in because his wife was still distressed after losing her fourth child, who was almost catatonic with despair after the doctors told her that her life could be on the line if she attempted to have another. His father, who had brought him into his own home, and raised him as his own child, and never once questioned the sort of person he'd grow up to be, in spite of knowing his origins far better than he did himself.

It had been an accident, really.

In all of her gloating, she never noticed that she'd taken a wrong step. When she lost her footing, he'd even tried to help her, to keep her from falling- but he didn't react fast enough, didn't reach out his hand quick enough. Her head broke open on the bottom step, painting the area around where she fell a vivid red, blooming like a brilliant flower. It was an instant death, nothing could have been done about it, nothing could have saved her.

It had been an accident.

But with those papers in her bag, he already knew that the world wouldn't view it as one. He should have done the right thing back then- but hell, what kind of fifteen year old was going to be thinking straight after the news he'd gotten? Certainly not him, given how overly prone to emotion and impulsive action he still was to this day. Kudo might have been able to do the right thing, steadfast and prepared for anything that might have happened afterwards.

But fifteen year old Hattori Heiji? Not a chance.

It wasn't until he was already home that he realized he'd taken her papers and her recording device with him. That he'd left her there, in a pool of her own blood, without so much as calling the police. He'd been in a daze, really, not that that was much of an excuse. Really, none of it was an excuse for anything. What his reasons were really didn't matter- it didn't matter that the Organization had found out about the incident, it didn't matter that they had used that information to blackmail him, it didn't matter that they eventually came to whisper threats of what would happen to those around him if he tried to leave them, their gazes fixed on the one person that Heiji knew that he could never stand to lose, even as his heart gradually became something twisted.

None of that mattered anymore, none of that changed anything. Too much had been done.

Talent, prospect, and location. Those were the three key reasons that they had their eyes on him in the first place. If they begun at a young enough age, they could mold him into one of them before he knew it, becoming a splendid raven himself.

And he really had.

By the time he crossed paths with the one known as Kudo Shinichi, he already felt that this fate was something that he couldn't escape from. By that time, he'd already been given a codename, had already sunk himself deeply into that Organization. The smiling face of Hattori Heiji was slowly becoming something of a mask, his real nature straying further and further away from that of who he had been before. He'd done too much, said too much, knew too many things. Slowly, bit by bit, piece by piece, he really was becoming the one they had come to call Paikaru.

It wasn't all bad, really. Not everything that they used him for was horrible, as loathe as he was to admit it. He was talented with languages, as it turned out, and there was usually very little that was objectionable about serving as a translator. He purposefully began to study more and more languages for that reason, before he knew it becoming fluent in any number of languages, so many that he nearly lost count at times. It came naturally to him- he was a proper polyglot, really, and they used him for that with great zeal.

The other reason behind his pursuit of language was, of course, so that if the day ever came, he could disappear to almost anywhere in the world. As much as he saw no exit for himself now, that didn't prevent him from planning ahead, thinking up ways to vanish, to go where they couldn't reach. Their organization was international, but it wasn't omnipresent- there were any number of third world countries he could vanish into if he needed to, so long as he could speak the language.

Should that day ever come, the worst possible scenario would have already played out. Heiji could only hope that it would never happen.

But when it was bad, it was bad. Even worse was the fact that he was becoming increasingly numb to it all. Even after meeting Kudo, even after changing for the better, there was still a certain sense of numbness that lingered, an indifference to the things he'd done, the things he was capable of doing without so much as batting an eye which only managed to heighten his guilt.

His reputation as a high school detective and his connections to his father made him the perfect candidate to help root out and chase down traitors within the Organization, be they members, or those who the Organization had blackmailed who were now trying to seek help. He was the perfect person to get close to those people- and the perfect person to betray them. On good days, all he had to do was lure them somewhere, and his job ended there.

On bad days? The Organization had taught him any number of skills, skills which he had on more than a few occasions, put to use.

Given that he'd been sent on a mission to investigate Kudo Shinichi, and to determine if he had really died after being given the experimental poison, Apotoxin, he honestly didn't know why he hadn't said anything when the supposedly dead high school detective himself had suddenly shown up at the crime scene. He'd jokingly wondered if it were perhaps love at first sight, but given the way he'd been so awed by him, the way that he had been so entirely against Heiji's expectations, maybe that wasn't so far off after all.

Whatever the case, he said nothing at the time, biting his tongue and burying the truth from those who asked. He'd seen nothing, he'd heard nothing. As far as he knew, Kudo Shinichi was still dead, given the way he'd all but disappeared after giving his deduction, almost like a ghost. There was still a mystery there, still a hint of something that needed to be solved- and so Heiji continued to chase the scent, as much for himself as for the Organization now.

He was curious. Curious about the one that the papers had dubbed the high school detective of the east, his rival. In truth, he'd already long since beaten Heiji, and all he'd needed to do was not stay in that bright world of his.

It was that scent that drew him to the meeting of Holmes fans, and although he was disappointed to not find Kudo there as he expected, he nevertheless did find some familiar faces- the Mouri family and their young, curious ward. A ward that became more and more curious after a murder happened before his very eyes, as the investigation proceeded and he began to notice him more and more, seeing in him an echo of the one he'd been sent to track down.

"Yer Kudo, aren't ya?"

Edogawa Conan and Kudo Shinichi were one and the same.

This was the very answer that he had been sent to find, and though it was one that sounded absurd on his lips, it was the truth. He'd heard that much from the boy himself, knowing at once exactly what the Organization he spoke of was. And yet, even so, he still didn't say anything, pretending he'd seen nothing, he'd heard nothing, he knew nothing.

It probably wasn't until he met him next that he began to understand why. Being a detective had once been his childhood dream, but even though he'd been gaining praise right and left for his deductive abilities, that dream had lost it's luster. There was no spark, no passion behind it. No joy at having correctly identified a culprit, nothing. The Organization wanted him to polish his skills, seeing great promise in that area one day, and with that knowledge weighing on his mind, the appeal of chasing a mystery had slowly begun to wane.

Kudo Shinichi was the spark that brought it all back, lighting up his world in a way that it hadn't been for a long time. He hadn't even realized how deeply he was drowning in black until he came into his life, slowly bringing color back into it. Suddenly, there was excitement again- working together with him to solve the mystery at that mansion had unlocked something within his heart, something that he thought long buried.

And he was more grateful for it than Kudo would ever know.

And yet, at the same time, it made everything all the harder.

"Hattori- have you... have you ever killed someone?"

There was no way he could ever tell him the answer to the question that had managed to catch him so off guard was yes.

Kudo would tell him about it later- what had prompted him to ask that question, how he was still haunted by what had happened on Tsukikage Island. How he couldn't save the culprit, couldn't prevent them from committing suicide, letting their body be consumed in flames, heading on to join the rest of their long departed family. How he cursed his tiny body, how he was certain that he could have done more had he realized sooner, had he not gotten so caught up in his deduction.

How he couldn't prevent a woman named Miyano Akemi from being killed by the Organization. How he had gotten there too late.

He hadn't noticed the way that Heiji had swallowed at the mention of it. He'd already heard about that incident himself. Something about the woman wanting to free her sister from them- a girl scientist not much older than he was by the name of Sherry. He'd never met her, but he knew her reputation- and he knew full well that she was the one who had developed the poison that had caused Kudo to shrink in the first place.

Poison that he happened to have himself. Poison that he couldn't think of a way to give to Kudo without revealing everything. Poison that he wanted to hand over to him, poison that he fantasized that would make Kudo forgive him for everything if he gave it to him, but knew that he wouldn't. If anything, it would probably just make everything worse.

Heiji never thought he'd be able to become the kind of person who would take a bullet in order to keep someone from killing themselves. Maybe it was Kudo who changed him, or maybe that had been in him all along, and he'd just managed to forget it as he slowly became someone he wasn't. In that ambulance, as those gathered worried that he wouldn't survive, he almost wondered what he'd done to deserve any of that.

Of course, none of them knew. None of them knew who he was, what he'd done.

Especially not Kazuha. Never Kazuha. He never wanted her to know what type of person he'd become, how he'd strayed so far away from the bright world where she lived and thrived. How he wasn't certain if he could ever quite make it back there. He tried to push her away sometimes, but she would always push back, invading his life like she never had any intention of leaving it, no matter what he said to her. They were linked by bonds of steel, she'd say- strong, unbreakable chains that held them fast to each other even long after they had been removed.

Maybe it was good for him. Whenever he thought he was at risk of falling too far, she was there for him, holding out her hand, a bright smile on her face. Before he had met Kudo, she had been Hattori Heiji's only lifeline, bringing him out even when he was certain that the smiling, quick tempered teenager had ceased to exist. When he was with her, he could forget, as if in a dream. She'd probably saved him more times than she realized, and not just because of her lucky charm, which sometimes felt like a lead weight around his neck whenever she hung it there, fussing about him having left it behind again.

He didn't deserve something like that.

When he realized he was in love with her, he had sworn considerably in every language that he knew- a rather impressive litany, all told. Of all the things that he hadn't planned for, developing romantic feelings for anyone- much less his childhood friend, who he treasured so much already- was right up there on the top of the list. He was so convinced that he didn't have that in him, that he didn't even notice his own feelings for her until it was far too late. They'd already taken root.

"What the hell are ya doin' to my Kazuha!?"

As if he had any right to say something like that. As if he had any right to fret and worry about how to confess to her, how to top Kudo's confession and blow her away. As if he had any right to so much as be anywhere near her.

Because even as Hattori Heiji continued to assist Kudo Shinichi whenever he asked for it, Paikaru still continued to work for the Black Organization, always holding his silence, but never objecting to any of the missions that they handed to him. He didn't have that privilege, acting against their interest as he was. If he hesitated, they'd know. No matter what happened, he had to play out his role perfectly.

On one occasion it had lead him to come to meet Kudo, the smiling mask of Paikaru firmly in place, wearing it so well that the shrunken detective couldn't even tell. He wasn't certain how he felt about that. Maybe he'd hoped that everything would have blown up in his face back then- but he hadn't so much as even batted an eye, never once questioning him.

Go investigate the mysterious woman who has started snooping around us, they'd said. An English teacher by the name of Jodie Saintemillion, who apparently taught at Ran's school. Go and confirm if she's really with the FBI like we suspect she is. It wasn't as if it was his intention to approach Kudo with this mission in mind, that Professor had merely just happened to call around then. But the fact still remained that he'd taken the chance provided him without a second thought, effortlessly acting as both friend and foe without anyone noticing.

He really was a better liar than people gave him credit for. Being a wonderful liar while acting as a terrible one was a piece of Paikaru's mask he could never fully take off.

"Isn't there one? A strange, foreign woman around you."

The suggestion had slipped naturally out of his lips. The best method of approaching the woman involved using the fact that he was one of Edogawa Conan's friends to his advantage, to get close to her without her so much as suspecting a thing. She would never second guess one of 'Cool Kid's' friends, and she never had.

He'd used Kudo. He felt awful about it, sure, but even so, he hadn't thought twice about it. Heiji wondered sometimes if he would have done it differently today, and then decided not to dwell on it, afraid of what the answer might be.

Guilt had already become a familiar friend to him at that point. Everything would have been so easy for Kudo if he could just be honest with him and confess that he knew far more about the Black Organization than he had been letting on- of course he did, he was one of them. One of those same people that he despised, one of the ones who had torn him away from his normal life, had forced him into hiding, had changed everything.

Maybe it wasn't hopeless, though. He'd seen the way that he treated that Haibara girl, that girl that he knew had once been Sherry. Of course he knew who she was- searching for traitors was part of what he did. More than anything else, it was what he was most known for in the Organization. Paikaru was one of the codenames those who betrayed the Organization feared the most, though most of them had no idea that he hadn't even so much as graduated high school yet, most not having a face to attach to the name. Suffice to say he knew everything about her. It wasn't hard to recognize her face, just ten years younger, given what he already knew Apotoxin could do.

Maybe he wouldn't hate him after all if he knew the truth, wouldn't cast him out as a traitor. Maybe he'd even try to help him. Would apologize to him for not noticing anything for so long, for letting him struggle so long on his own.

But the difference between him and Sherry was the fact that Sherry hadn't been working for the Organization all along. She'd run away from them, betrayed them outright, and that was why that old man Gin was looking for her with such fervor. As much as she blamed herself for creating that poison, she had no blood on her hands, much as she seemed to be convinced otherwise. She wasn't the one running around and using it, after all.

When he'd first met her, Heiji almost felt his heart skip a beat, feeling as if this surely would be the end of everything. And yet, strangely enough, she didn't react to him at all, didn't even so much as bat an eye at him. Like Kudo, she never once questioned him, never once suspected that he might have any connection to the people she was trying to run away from.

He probably had Kudo to thank for that.

Acting as Paikaru had become all to easy for him over time. It was something that was ceasing to be a mask, one he wore to survive, starting to become his real face. Meeting Kudo changed all of that, turning Paikaru once more back into a mask, one that he could still slip on effortlessly, but one that he didn't wear easily any longer. If it was Kazuha who kept him grounded throughout all those years, it was Kudo who helped turn him back into the person he once was, before any of this had begun.

And if that brought with it an overwhelming sense of guilt and a deep sense of remorse for everything that he had done, a burden that he would have to live with for the rest of his life, then that was fine. For the first time in a long time, he found himself wanting to truly just be Hattori Heiji again, the high school detective of the west, Kudo Shinichi's rival and best friend. He wanted nothing more than to cast aside the still necessary mask of Paikaru, to fully embrace the hotblooded, sometimes reckless, often impulsive detective that had earned him so much criticism from the likes of his fellow high school detectives.

"I guess they call such a person an 'unqualified detective'."

It was that case that really helped him come to understand just how much he'd changed. It was true that he was an unqualified detective, but it was hardly his hotblooded nature that marked him as such. If anything, that was an improvement- he'd taken it to heart more than Kudo had realized, when he quietly spoke words of support for him. He didn't deserve them, honestly, but it still made him happy to know that his friend really did value his skills as a detective.

They couldn't know. They could never know. He'd drag this secret to his grave if he could.

Sometimes he'd forget that he carried that mask at all. But blissful as such times were, they would never last that long. There was always something that reminded him.

Truthfully, he thought his death sentence would come after that night on the haunted ship. He'd been half tempted to tell Kudo that he couldn't help him, but he knew that after coming this far with him, he couldn't abandon him like that. His friend needed him, and damn it, if there was something that he could do to help him, then consequences be damned, he would. Whatever happened after that would happen, he thought, making as many arrangements in secret as he could, before he arrived in Beika.

The mask he wore that night was a very literal one indeed, for a night allowing him to become none other than the one he'd come to value so deeply, the one he wanted to protect even as he lied to him.

He probably never would have gotten through the aftermath without Vermouth, ironically enough. Not only did she know about Kudo, it seemed as if she had long since known about him- and for whatever reason, she found it amusing, and had decided to say nothing. So when he had lied and told Vodka that he had decided to impersonate Kudo Shinichi in hopes of drawing out information about him, hoping to learn if he was truly dead, Vermouth had been the one to happily supply that she had been the one who had instructed him to do so. There was a look in her eyes that he knew, one that told him that she owed him a considerable favor now, and that she one day expected it to be paid in full.

She held her tongue, and he held his.

There were still whispers after that, of course, but they had been settled when Paikaru carried out his next mission without hesitation. After the quite literal mask he'd worn on that ship, he slipped on the metaphorical mask once more, shifting from hot to cool. There was a man who they believed was at risk of betraying them to Interpol that needed to be taken care of- as well as his contact with him. He'd holed himself up in a certain hotel, and wouldn't come out for anyone, waiting for a contact that he had in Interpol to arrive.

When they both finally came out of the hotel, Paikaru had long since been waiting. It was finished within two shots, before anyone knew what had happened. He'd spent two days staking out the hotel, and it had been over in an instant. Packing his bag, concealing the rifle within a guitar case, he'd effortlessly slipped back into the crowd, blending amongst everyone long before they had been able to figure out where the sniper had shot from. Even as a familiar pair of Tokyo MPD officers hurried past him, he slipped by them without them even so much as recognizing Hattori Heiji underneath Paikaru's mask.

This too, was something the Organization had taught him.

"He'll be scary in the future."

Kazuha's father had said that in regards to his deductive abilities, but if he had never ended up crossing paths with Kudo, that very much well might have been true in a way that the man saying them never would have expected. In a few more years, he might have completely lost himself to the Organization, and it would be Hattori Heiji that would become the mask, not Paikaru. It terrified him to think about now.

When Kudo stopped contacting him about the Black Organization, Heiji feared the worst. That he had realized his secret without him having to say anything, had finally learned the truth that he had been hiding from him all this time. But when he suddenly called him out of the blue one day to talk about a mysterious female detective who had appeared with questions about Kudo Shinichi on her lips, he breathed something of a sigh of relief.

The guilt only managed to grow, especially once he realized that the reason Kudo had suddenly started keeping him out of affairs dealing with the Organization wasn't because he didn't trust him, but because he had come to value him so much that he didn't want to put him at risk. He'd become someone so important to Kudo, that he'd become someone that he wanted to protect, to keep safe from their reach. It was touching, moving- and it also made him feel like the worst person alive.

Because he still couldn't bring himself to say anything. At this point, it was already impossible. His overbearing sense of guilt, and his fear of destroying his friendship with this person who had changed him for the better, who had dragged him out that black abyss, forever sealed his lips.

Any illusions that he might have about Kudo forgiving him were long gone now. Too much time had already passed, too many things had gone unsaid.

He wondered how much trouble Kudo might have avoided if he'd just told him everything that he knew. He already knew who Bourbon was, it was part of why he'd been trying very hard to avoid crossing paths with the young man named Amuro Tooru- they'd already met, in entirely different circumstances, using entirely different names. If he crossed paths with him as Hattori Heiji, and he came to learn that he'd been aiding those chasing the ravens all this time, he knew that it wouldn't end well.

He admittedly hadn't known that Bourbon was a mole, working for the secret police. Although he refused to involve Heiji while he was still looking into the matter, he did tell him a number of things afterwards- though he'd skipped over the identity of the mysterious young man living in his real house. Heiji was able to guess who he was anyways, judging from the intelligence he'd gotten from the Organization itself. They'd never crossed paths while he was undercover in the Organization, thank god, Heiji had still been a novice without a codename then- but he'd more than heard of him.

FBI investigator, Akai Shuichi. What Gin would have given for that kind of information. This too, would be something that Heiji would take to his grave, alongside the location of Sherry, and alongside the true identity of Edogawa Conan. Hell, he'd take Bourbon's true identity with him to the grave as well, and he honestly wasn't even quite sure if he even liked the guy. He'd definitely use it to blackmail him into silence if it ever came to that, though.

There was always a sense of worry that manifested in him every time he visited Kudo. Even as he joked with him, even as he worked to solve cases with him, even as they interacted as best friend and rivals, he always wondered when the day was that he'd hear his own codename roll off of his lips. That he had caught a whisper, a rumor, of an Organization member with that codename who worked out of Osaka. One who hunted traitors, one who was fluent in more languages than he could count on both hands, one who was regarded as a budding detective.

One that he wanted Heiji's help in catching.

What would he tell him then? The truth?

"Ya already caught 'im long ago, Kudo, he's right here. He's me."

No, he couldn't say that. If anything, he'd work against him, trying to keep him from finding out for as long as possible. It might be a fruitless effort- whenever Kudo finally managed to drag the Organization down, the truth would probably emerge in the fallout. Disappearing might not be a bad idea after that.

The bad thing about having become a better person was that he was certain that nobody would forgive him for the things that he had done, because he sure as hell didn't forgive himself. And he wasn't certain if he could handle that. There was still plenty of good stuff in the world he could do to try and balance it out, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to disappear once the Organization fell, once the truth came out, and try to pick up his life somewhere else, becoming someone else once more.

Most of all he didn't want to see the looks in their eyes when they realized the truth. Not Kudo, not Kazuha, not his mother, and certainly not his father.

What face would be the easiest to give them when they did? Would the answer change depending on who he was dealing with? Hattori Heiji's, racked with guilt, full of apologies but no excuses- excuses were meaningless when weighed against the things he'd done. Or the mask of Paikaru, the liar, the one who could wear a smile even as everything went to hell around him, who could act like this had all been part of one long con to ensure his own survival as everything fell apart.

Provided he even had a choice, that is. It was his second worst fear- crossing paths with Kudo when he was working as Paikaru, in a situation that he couldn't explain himself out of. He hadn't noticed anything the one time they'd met when he was wearing that metaphorical mask- but he'd also been Paikaru acting as Hattori Heiji at the time. Should a situation arise where they crossed paths as detective and Black Organization member, Heiji knew full well there would be nothing he could do to stop Kudo from realizing the truth- and he'd have to watch him do it.

But even that would be better than what would happen if the Organization learned the truth. He wasn't so much worried about his own life- he knew the ins and outs of how they hunted traitors like the back of his hand, it was part of his job after all. Disappearing would be a simple matter. Rather, it was the lives of those he would leave behind- he could only hope that vanishing into the ether would be enough to cause the Organization to leave them be.

One day, someone would catch up to him.

And honestly, Heiji prayed that it would be Kudo.


"What's up, Kudo?"

Honestly, of all the times for his phone to ring. And of course, the person on the other end of his phone had to be none other than the person he'd ended up calling his best friend.

"As it turns out, Uncle, Ran, and I ended up in Osaka today for a case he was working on. It just wrapped up a minute ago, so Ran was saying that she wanted to stop by your place, Hattori." Conan's voice on the other end of the phone finished his sentence with a slight sigh. "So I thought I would give you a call and let you know. Some of us like giving people warning when they come visit."

"Ah, over ta my place?" Heiji asked, a slight frown crossing his features. "I'm afraid that's no good, Kudo. I'm actually not home right now. I'm out workin' on a case myself."

"Eh, is that so?" He could almost hear Conan blink over the phone. "Figures. The one time we try and take you by surprise, you aren't even home. When will you be getting back?"

"Not fer awhile at least. I'm out of the city at the moment." Heiji told him. "Well, when are ya leavin'? Tonight? Tomorrow? If it's tomorrow, then maybe..." He paused then, considering his words for a moment. "Well, maybe around tomorrow evenin', at the very least."

"We're leaving tomorrow afternoon." Conan responded. "Looks like we might miss each other this time."

"That figures." With a slight laugh, Heiji shook his head. "Well, you an' Neechan can still go over ta Kazuha's place an' visit her at the very least. I didn't bring her with me this time, an' I'm sure she's dyin' ta see Neechan again, with no nues involved. Do ya know her address?"

"No, I don't think so." Conan said. "What kind of case is it that you're working on, Hattori?"

"Ah, it's nothin' important. I can handle it plenty well on my own." Heiji told him with a quick grin. "Anyways, I'll shoot ya Kazuha's address once I hang up, okay? It would be a waste fer the two of ya ta come all the way out ta Osaka an' not be able to visit either of us. The two of us will just have ta make plans fer some other time."

"I suppose that's true. Well, visiting Kazuha as opposed to you might actually be more interesting, anyways." Conan responded, letting out a slight laugh at the grumble he could hear his friend make from the other end of the phone. "I'm just kidding, Hattori. We'll make plans later."

"We'd better. Honestly, sometimes I feel like my generous friendship with ya isn't appreciated as it should be." With a slight grumble, Heiji nevertheless let a hint of a smile cross his face. "Well, I have ta get back ta my case, but I'll call ya later, Kudo."

"Right. Don't forget to send that address, Hattori." Conan added, almost as an afterthought. He knew how distracted Heiji could get from time to time. "Then, I'll call you later."

At the sound of the firm click of the person on other end of the line hanging up, Heiji let out a slight sigh, pulling his phone away from his ear. With one gloved hand- he only had one free at the moment, after all- he carefully shot a mail off to him, sending him Kazuha's home address, before shooting Kazuha a message that the two of them were coming for a visit. With that all sorted out, he finally tucked his phone back away, remembering to turn it off this time.

And turned his attention back towards the matter at hand.

"Sorry, sorry." That bright smile on his face was completely out of place for this situation, he knew. He hadn't quite flipped his switch back over again. "That was a friend of mine. He worries if ya don't pick up when he calls, so I had no choice. Now then," Reaching down to remove the tape he'd hurriedly slapped over the man's face, he ripped it off in one fell swoop, all while not moving the pistol that had occupied his dominant hand the entire time from his head. "Where were we, Kawano-han?"

"I'm not going to get out of here alive after hearing that, am I?" The man slowly asked, gauging the reaction of the person in front of him. Out of all the people to come after him, he would never in a million years suspect that this teenage boy was one of their number- and it was a mistake that had cost him dearly.

He hadn't quite expected that the young man that had just spent the better part of the hour interrogating him would suddenly answer a personal phone call with a friend, seeming to flip a switch from the person he'd been just a second ago, acting as if he was someone else. That friendly, easygoing persona that he'd suddenly taken on had only managed to send a chill down his spine, as he watched just how easy it was for him to switch from the cold, yet still smiling one he'd been acting as just a second earlier. He'd tried to call for help, of course, but with his own sock stripped off and shoved into his mouth, and his mouth taped shut, such a thing was impossible.

Not that anyone would ever believe that the famous high school detective, Hattori Heiji, was doing such a thing. He half didn't believe it himself, and he was the one with the gun trained on his head.

"Nah, sorry about that." Flashing him what almost seemed to be an apologetic smile, it lasted only for a second- before he finally flipped the switch again, metaphorical mask sliding right back in place, as if it had never left him. With a cold look in his eyes, the one known as Paikaru released the safety on his gun, looking down that man nearly twice his age. "I don't suppose ya want ta finish what you were sayin' earlier, anyways?"

"Not a chance."

"That's what I thought." With a slight shrug of his shoulders, and a practiced indifference, Paikaru pulled the trigger. He'd feel remorse for the action later, but it wasn't as if he could let the guy live, not after that phone call he'd overheard. Well, granted, he wasn't planning on letting him live in the first place, but he'd been planning on turning him over, rather than doing it himself. "An' it was goin' so well, too. Well, whatever. It's not like it's goin' ta be that long before I find the rest of yer friends, given how poorly ya were hidin' yerself."

Ironically enough, he'd actually found himself in Tokyo that afternoon. While he was far from his rival's usual stomping grounds, it was amusing to think that they were walking around each other's hometowns like this, all while the other was nowhere around. Perhaps that was for the best, though. The circumstances that had brought him to Tokyo that day were far less than ideal, he thought to himself, carefully checking the dead man over, pulling out anything that could be used to identify him, and throwing it back into his own bag. He still had a lot of work to do, after all, he couldn't just linger around here. There were two more people he had to head off, after all.

Remorse would come later, once his work was taken care of, once the mask fell, once the switch was flipped. It was better than when it had never come at all for him- that was something that meeting and befriending the likes of Kudo Shinichi had brought back to him. However painful it was, he felt that it was a good thing to have. It meant that he wasn't a total monster, that there was still something good left within him, that he hadn't totally lost himself to the mask he was wearing.

He'd been heading down that path before, and he never wanted that again. Never again.

Zipping up his bag, and slinging it over his shoulder, the one who now went by the alias of Paikaru twitched up the hood of his black jacket, allowing it to shadow his face. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a cellphone- a different one than before, one that connected to different people, shooting off a message for someone to come clean up the mess that he'd made.

For the moment, all other thoughts would be put aside, as he opened up the door, stepping out into the bright afternoon sun. He had work to do- and the faster he did it, the sooner he could go back to being just Hattori Heiji again.

Well, not just. Never just, however much he'd come to want that lately. Not until the day came when the Organization's remains were swept away, the mighty empire having fallen. It would happen some day- and he didn't doubt that it would be Kudo who would be the one to do it.

The only question that remained was where he would be standing when everything was over. Because at some point, this truth he'd been working to conceal all this time was bound to come to light.

It was just a question of when.