A few notices first. There will be character deaths in this, I am going to make this a bit more serious. If you've read my profile you will know why I don't like Ran, but I am going to try to include Ran in this. No, it won't be a bashing fanfiction. I am going to try to do her character justice in the first arc and then I might make her a little OOC to sweep her under the rug and get to what I want to do. Also, I'm not a ShinRan shipper, but there will be slight hints of that. I don't pair Shinichi with anyone, but I can make him care about Ran. This is my first time writing a fanfic like this so please don't be too harsh. I am going to try to do every character justice. Also, Akai and Amuro are going to have the whole scotch thing cleared up because I want them to.
"Hi, Ran." a voice came through her cell phone, much softer than usual.
"Oh, Shinichi!" She excitedly sang back, "it's great for you to call I-"
"Actually, I want to talk to you about something. Would you mind coming to the my house? I know Subaru-san is there, but he said he would... give us some... privacy." Without giving her a chance to speak he hung up, leaving her slightly angry and largely confused to his intentions. Pulling on a jacket she said a quick goodbye to her father, reminded herself that Conan was spending the night at the professor's house, and left to see her childhood friend who had confessed his love for her.
Opening the door she walked in and saw the person she was waiting for, "Shinichi! What is it that you wanted to talk about?"
Shinichi gave her a slightly pained expression and motioned for her to follow him. They walked into the library and he turned to face her. "Ran, I've been lying about a few things."
She looked up and reached an arm out, "...Shinichi?"
"I haven't been lying to you about being on a case. That was all true, but it might be easier if I tell you what happened at Tropical land the time I followed those men in black. See, I saw one of them making a deal, the big one, he was blackmailing someone. I was watching really closely, so I didn't notice his partner, the silver haired man, come behind me."
Ran gave a short gasp at that, her eyes widening in fear. She was about to speak when Shinichi shook his head and said, "Don't interrupt me. Anyways, he caught me by surprise and gave me a drug. It was meant to kill me but it didn't. I lived through it, but they are part of a massive organization and think that I'm dead. There are plenty of people in the world who are part of that organization, if one of them were to recognize me, then I would be killed by the end of the week. And not just me, they would be scared I told someone about what happened and kill you, my parents, your dad, the professor, and who knows how many other people."
Ran sat down, her eyes widening in fear. He continued, "I'm sorry that I never told you about this. I had this stupid idea that you would be safe just because you didn't know. But it's going to get more dangerous soon, I might die…"
"No!" Ran lept forward and embraced him in a full hug. "Please, I can't live without you."
"I thought that you might say something like that, that's why I'm telling you to move on. Find someone else to love you."
"And you're fine with that!?" Her yelling came back, "You just want me to give up on you, to find someone else? Do you even love me?!" Shinichi pulled a hand up and wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Of course I love you. I'm fine with you moving on because I've been gone for so long that I don't yet deserve to have your love."
"Yet?"
"Yeah, when I'm done with this case, all I'll need to do is win your heart all over again, right? But this time I'm going to do everything the right way. Move on, because I'll be back soon to win your heart again." He finished with a smile. Ran was mixed between anger, happiness at his declaration of love, and sorrow so she just continued to cry with a small smile as Shinichi pulled her into his chest.
They stayed like that for a good half hour before Shinichi broke the silence and said, "Sorry, I should get going now. Don't worry. I will be back to win your heart, ok?"
Ran gave a nod and walked to the door before turning around at his voice whispering, "I love you, Ran."
"I love you too Shinichi." Another whisper, and she left.
There was several seconds of silence before a new voice broke in. "Are you sure about this Kudo-kun? It might destroy her."
Shinichi turned to face the shrunken scientist, "Like you said, she's stronger than I think. I can't keep putting her in danger like this. Oh, and thank you for giving us some privacy, Subaru-san." He finished, turning to the new arival in the room.
"Well, this isn't my house. Thank you for letting me stay here while you are off doing whatever you are doing. It's nice to meet you." The last sentence caused both of them to look each other in the eyes with a smirk of understanding and Shinichi also mouthing a small, 'I'll tell you someday.'
Subaru nodded in understanding, the whole ordeal finished.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
"Conan-kun, are you ready to go?" Ran asked, not as enthusiastically as usual from the emotional night she had the previous day.
"Yeah!" Conan gave a cheerful nod, perfectly playing the kid he physically seemed to be, and running to meet Ran. He jumped up and continued, "I love Kid heists! I'll catch him for sure!" while ignoring Sonoko's mix of grumbling at his declaration and fangirling in the background.
He continued to ignore her all the way to the heist that her family once again sponsored. The heist was rather calm at the beginning. Nakamori-keibu was (amazingly) able to understand what, when and where the heist note pointed to, so Conan's assignment of solving that was taken out. In an even bigger twist, Subaru, Amuro and Sera all came along because of either Sonoko's persisting or Mori's declaration that he needed people who would follow his instructions.
Ran was still exhausted from the earlier conversation, so Conan walked over and spoke to Sera. "Hey, Sera." He started, motioning for her to lower herself, then whispering into her ear, "Ran is a bit tired today so can you make sure that she doesn't get hurt for me?" Sera gave a nod of yes and her (adorable, I love Sera) grin with a tooth sticking out.
Walking around Conan neared the jewel, thinking about what he knew of Kid. 'Kid is capable of using disguises that completely changed who he was just like Vermouth and Mom. However, they learned how to do that from Kuroba Toichi...does that mean Kid has some relation to that man. He died several years ago… what about a family member?' Conan paused and thought, 'Well, not that it matters. Even if I do figure out who he is I won't use that information to get him caught. Catching him without beating him fairly would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Now that I think about it, didn't he say that phantom lady was also his mom? That must be a weird family-'
Then, the lights went out. In the darkness it was hard to hear anything other than Nakamori's yelling and the murmuring of confused officers. A slight pop and a smoke bomb was released next to Conan, loaded with sleeping gas.
"Ladies and Gentleman!" Kid appeared on top of the jewel case holding both the jewel-and Conan. The latter of the two caught the attention of the three participants in his game who were not actively trying to catch him. Subaru, Amuro and Sera's eyes were immediately directed to the thief and the child, each deciding to chase after him. Sera ran outside and grabbed her motorcycle, hopping on it and driving around the building while Subaru and Amuro each got into their respective cars.
"I'm afraid that I will also be taking my greatest rival this heist, but never fear, I always return what I steal."
"So you're resorting to kidnapping now, Kid!?" Nakamori yelled, trying and failing to catch the thief through the smoke.
"It's fine, I mean we're practically cousins. You have nothing to worry about." His smirk disappeared in the smoke that came shortly after, Conan falling completely unconscious at his last words.
Kid hopped off the side of the building and opened his wings to 'fly' to a nearby building, finally landing and setting Conan down. A sound behind him alerted Kid to his company. He turned around and saw Amuro Tooru and Subaru Okiya opening the door to the roof and exiting.
Kid, recognizing both of them as possible threats, went on full defencive, putting on a poker face while grabbing a flash grenade from his sleeve. Both men pulled walked out, cutting off possible exits. "I don't suppose we could convince you to return the boy peacefully?" Amuro asked with a hint of danger in the background, letting the personality of Bourbon take over. He was running through all the different methods he could use to rescue Conan undamaged, viewing the other people present only as possible tools. Akai, similarly, let a mix of Akai Shuichi and Rye take over the nice mask of Subaru Okiya.
Kid tensed further when another person, Sera, came through the door as well. Deciding to try to buy time instead, he began with "Oh, you only care about the kid? I would have thought you would also want the jewel."
"No," Sera answered with a dangerous smile, "We care only care about you leaving Conan-kun with us." Kid's breathing became sharper, his mind running through different ways he could escape, only to be interrupted by small coughs.
"""Conan!""" the three detectives looked over, watching as he blinked and sat up.
"What happened?"
"Ah, well," Kid refused to turn away from the three detectives but still answered the question, "I may have kidnapped you because I wanted your help with something…" All four detectives looked at the thief in confusion, the smallest one also giving him a raised eyebrow.
"You wanted my help so you… kidnapped me?" he clarified, trying to understand the thief's logic. In turn, the thief smiled and gave him a nod, confirming his statement. "ARE YOU INSANE?!"
The other three were silent watching as the person they were trying to rescue acted like a parent to his kidnaper. The thief flinched at being yelled at, trying to defend himself with, "Well what else could I have done? Pretend to be your relative and pick you up?"
"YES! It wouldn't be a good method but it would still attract less attention than kidnapping me in front of a huge crowd!"
"Well, see I didn't think you had bodyguards…" Conan gave kid a glare at the last bit, listening as kid continued with, "by the way, why do you have bodyguards?"
"They. Are. Not. My. Bodyguards. They are people I know. Which brings us to a better question, why did you kidnap me?!"
Kid kneeled down so that he could whisper to Conan without being heard by the others. "I'm not answering that question surrounded by such dangerous people."
"And why do you think they're too dangerous to be trusted?"
"All of them have tried to kill me!"
"Huh?"
"Remember, the turtle heist, the mystery train heist and the box with the moonstone heist."
"Sera only broke your nose, and what are you talking about for the other two?"
"When I met Subaru he shut the door and asked for me to give back the picture."
"How does that translate to tried to kill you?"
"He would have killed me if I refused!"
"Of course not… well, I think it would take more for him to try to kill you…"
"You think?"
"That's beside the point, neither of them actually tried to kill you."
"Amuro Tooru held a gun to my face and forced me into a train car with bombs!"
"He didn't know about the bombs… and besides, he only did that because you were dressed up as the person I told you to pretend to be." Deciding that their argument was over, Conan stood up and dusted himself off, "And what were you thinking telling the world that we were practically cousins?"
"We kinda are."
"No we're not."
"Our parents knew each other…"
"No, my Mom knew Kuroba Toichi and my dad tried to catch Kid, they did not know each other." Kid slightly flinched at the connection to Kuroba Toichi, but knew Conan would never act on it.
"We're both half Japanese."
"That in no way makes us 'practically cousins.!'" a deep breath came from Conan as he tried to calm down, "Anyways, what was the thing you wanted help on?" Kid looked at their audience, "No, I'm not sending them away."
Kid sighed in defeat at the realization that the tree people who tried to kill him would not leave. "Well, I have this friend. (OC) He had a huge gem, but one day he got a phone call by someone that said they would kill him if he didn't hand the gem over to them. Naturally, he refused and told me about it but yesterday he was killed and the gem was stolen."
"And you want me to arrest the people who did it?" Conan cupped his chin and sat in silence for a while. After several seconds he paused and smirked. "Alright. But, you are going to have to do something for me in exchange."
Kid gulped at the last bit, "What, exactly, am I going to have to do?"
"Nothing to worry about now. Anyways, you don't have much choice because any detective smart enough to find your organization would also realize you're Kaito Kid. I highly doubt they would continue to work with you then."
"Uh-huh. And what about the three of them." Kid pointed at the three detectives who were watching their conversation in amusement. "They work under you, right?"
"Of course not, they- well, they don't really work under me. I've just… asked Sera-san to watch over Ran and made a deal, I guess, with Amuro to watch over Mouri Kogoro and… I guess you could say that I've hired Subaru to watch over one of my friends but they aren't being payed by me or anything."
"Right… oh, I have a clue for you to use." Conan perked up at that, former conversation forgotten. "I don't know how helpful this is but I recorded a phone call they had."
He held up his phone, letting the recording play.
"And? Were you able to get the jewel?" a woman's voice played out. Conan, Furuya and Akai had a sharp intake of breath recognizing the voice as Vermouth.
"Y-yeah. Thanks to your help we were able to get it easily. So, those files…"
"We will give them back to you. I'm at the safe right now. We will be watching you. When you open the safe place the jewel with everything else you find and ship the agreed amount to us."
"R-right."
"Don't get caught now."
"Uh, we wo-" and the woman hung up on the man.
"So? Think you can do anything?" Kid asked.
"Actually, I'd like to help too." Subaru said with Amuro agreeing shortly after.
"Then I'll come too!" Sera said, not recognizing Vermouth's voice but wanting to go on the trip.
"It seems all of us are going." Conan looked up at kid, "Will you be able to trust them?"
Kid's smirk widened, "Sure, why not? While thieves unlock physical doors, you detectives try to unlock the doors of truth. Like I said on our first encounter, we're both two sides of the same coin." With that, he pulled out a phone for further contact and jumped off the side of the building, disappearing with the wind.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
"Hey, Kid. It's Conan." Conan had finally called him after three days. "I had Hakase look into the conversation, we were able to track where the woman was calling from."
In the background the three detectives listened with a smile, happy with how well the investigation was progressing. "It seems that it came from one of the nearby Islands, we should probably head there."
A pause. "I know, I'm not saying it won't be tricky. I think I'll get tickets and deliver them to the Mouri's like they won a prize." Another pause, "Uh-huh. I'll send you the details on where we can meet up, see you there," the call ended.
"I can send all of you tickets too, we can probably play it off as Hakase also entered the competition and wanted to invite all of us." Receiving their nods, Conan walked to Hakase's house from the Kudo home to tell him the plan.
"Hakase, can I talk to you?"
Agasa stopped tinkering with the invention he was working on to listen to Conan. "Sure, what do you want to talk about?"
"I'm going to play off the whole us going to the Island think for Kid as you entering a competition and winning the prize. Would that be ok with you?"
"Sure Conan-kun, just leave it to me."
Conan gave him a grateful smile, "Thanks that's all I wanted to talk about. See you late-"
"Edogawa-kun, I need to tell you something."
Conan turned to see Haibara Ai motioning for him to follow. She brought him to a corner of the house and whispered, "I need a place with no one watching."
"What do you-"
"I'm sure you have someone watching me or cameras around here Mr. Keeps-information-all-to-himself, I want somewhere that no one can listen from." Conan paused for a moment, wondering what could cause her to act like that.
"Follow me." Conan brought her to the nearby park, sitting on a bench with her, "So, what do you want to talk about?"
"I've made a new discovery about the APTX. Well, discover might be pushing it, I have found that there is a slight possibility of something."
"A possibility? If it's just a possibility then why are you getting so worked up?"
"This is important." She stopped and collected her thoughts, "I've noticed something. We always go back to the same age when we take an antidote right, even just drinking alcohol made us return to our normal ages. There is something that makes us switch back to that specific age."
"And?" Conan leaned closer to her, "What's your point."
"Kudo-kun. We might stop aging once we reach our normal ages." Conan's eyes widened and he stopped breathing. Turning away from her he cupped his chin and sat in thought.
"Then, we have a time limit, huh. After we reach that age even if we disguise someone is bound to notice we've stopped aging sooner or later."
"Yeah, but if it's any consolation, once I finish the antidote we won't need to worry about that because the antidote negates all effects of the drug. It just depends on if I'm able to finish it."
"Yeah guess so." Conan spent a majority of the rest of the day in a stunned silence, thinking about the dangers that new possibility carried with it.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
"Furuya-kun." A PSB agent motioned for him to follow, bringing him to a room with Akai (as Subaru) and Hidemi.
"Kir!"
"Bourbon!"
Akai looked between them, "I'll properly introduce you, Furuya Rei and Hidemi Hondou." Both nodded at each other in mutual understanding, turning their attention to their coworkers.
Furuya looked at the other PSB members confusion and clarified, "Subaru-san has a relationship with the FBI." The other members wanted an explanation but understood that there were more important matters to take care of.
"What have you called us here for?" Hidemi asked, worried that the organization would question her absence.
"I have some bad news," James motioned to a computer screen, "(I'm going to be making up some technology for this next part, I don't know if this is possible) An English crime organization was working on a way to hack into the controls for different countries nuclear bombs, but the flash drive containing the information how to was stolen. When the English government managed to finish apprehending the group it was revealed that the flashdrive was taken to Japan on an Island close to the mainland by a member who escaped."
Furuya recognized the island on the map, "That's where-"
Akai agreed, "Seems to be."
"What do you mean?" James turned to face them.
"We can worry about the flash drive." Akai stated, "We will be going to that island soon, we will be in the best position to take it back without alerting anyone to our interference."
"If you're sure." James finished, giving them a stack of papers with the information they currently had.