Kaitou Kid breathed a sigh of relief when he finally had managed to shake the last of the police. He continued on for a while nevertheless until he made it to a park where he finally held the gem up to the sky.

"It's not Pandora," a voice in his back suddenly said. Kid spun around. He knew that voice. It was that midget that had come close to catching him quite a few times already. "I already checked."

Kid could only stare at the boy. How the hell did the kid know about Pandora and that he was looking for it?

"Will you take it back then?" Kid asked once he found his voice again.

"Of course," Conan answered. "But the gem is not why I'm here and neither is your arrest."

Kid could only blink. Why didn't the boy want to arrest him? He would have thought he wanted that with how often the other had come close already.

"Why are you here then?" he asked after a long moment of silence.

"I have a proposition for you, Kuroba Kaito," the boy said and smirked when Kid paled. There had been so much conviction in his voice, not at all how Hakuba tried to get a rise out of him. Then there was always some lingering doubt. Here there was none of that.

"Oh calm down. I've known your identity for a few weeks and haven't done anything about it. I wanted to make sure of your motives first and I find that you and I work towards the same goal," Conan said.

"Which would be?" Kid asked.

"We both want to bring the Templars down that by now call themselves the Black Org," Conan answered and again Kid could only stare.

"How does a child like you know about them?" Kid asked, dumbfounded.

"Don't play dumb," the detective said, "you and I both know that you know I'm no child, that I'm Kudo Shinichi. I witnessed one of their deals going down and they thought me just a normal citizen which is why they used some poison to kill me and not a blade. My luck I have to say and now they won't know what hit them. Who would think a seven-year-old a fully trained assassin? Normally I wouldn't even be a novice yet."

Okay, so the boy really was Shinichi, his childhood friend and fellow novice until they were ten and Kudou's parents had moved out of the country for more training and their own jobs. And Shinichi had also figured out just who Kaito Kid was and that he was still living by the Creed even though he was using his skill to steal now.

"However that is also my problem," Shinichi continued after a moment of silence. "I look like a child to everyone, even the informants and other assassins. Nobody takes me seriously anymore and I don't want too many people to know about me still being alive and like this." When he said that, he gestured down his body and Kid could understand why. Even if he was fully trained, Kudo still lacked the height and muscle mass to do much damage. Kaito however had all that and he also looked like Shinichi and sounded like him, never mind that he was a fully trained assassin in his own right.

"So do I understand that right... you want us to work together to bring the Black Org down, you doing the thinking and me the legwork that you can't do?" Kid asked, a bright grin on his face. "And you won't arrest me for the thefts I did?"

"That's the plan," Conan grinned back. "Not like I would have done that anyway. You are a part of the brotherhood after all and we care for our own as long as they don't go awol."

Kid held out his hand for Conan to shake and the kid, the man, took it to shake.

"I can also help you with your thefts, finding Pandora and keeping it out of the Templars' hands is a good goal after all," Shinichi added.

"I believe this can be the beginning of a great partnership," Kaito replied.

"I sure hope so," Shinichi said. They both grinned at each other, before they separated, the detective taking the gem and going back to being a seven-year-old, Kaito to pretend that he wasn't a thief.