Still no betareader, sorry. I tried to catch my mistakes. (just went over it all again and I think I got at least the terrible ones)

DISCLAIMER: I do now own any characters used in this story (so far) they are all the property of Gosho Aoyama and affiliates.

Kaito WILL be in this story! I didn't know how to get my message across but I made it sound like he wouldn't. HE WILL
KAITO IS A BIG PART OF THE STORY BUT YOU WILL ONLY FIND OUT WHAT I MEANT IN THE LATER CHAPTERS!

Chapter 1: Below the Surface

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"The expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on."
- Wystan Hugh Auden

Snake was back.

Kaito had gone after a large gem again, another diamond whose white glimmer and rumors out shown the majority of its kind.

Snake could be dealt with.

Hakuba was another problem altogether.

Kaito knew that the blond detective had not met Snake yet; wasn't even aware of the man's existence. Any mention of him had been stricken from police records for reasons Kaito couldn't understand. Snake must have inside help.

Why couldn't he have stayed out of town for this one? Kaito wondered desperately.

He wanted to run faster. He could have run faster. Out pacing Snake was an easy endeavor and didn't take much effort. If Hakuba hadn't been chasing him too, if Kaito wasn't worried about the two of them coming together and that damn gun that Snake always had, he would have been gone in a heartbeat.

The diamond was already in Kaito's possession. It had been almost too easy to get it, for him at least. Snake and the others had been watching the fake that had been put out by the gem's owner beforehand and Kaito simply had to tail the man to find where he'd stashed the real gem.

With the diamond in hand, Kaito made an appearance, showing the crowd of police officers and hidden gunmen that he'd acquired his target before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. It wasn't good to take time to taunt the police when Snake was there.

It both pleased him and scared him that Hakuba was the faster of the two. Snake was behind him and the detective didn't know about the danger he was in, but that also made him an easy target if the gunman tried to shoot Kaito and Hakuba was in the way.

There was a bridge nearby. It would be crowded so Snake couldn't do anything there. If Kaito could make it to the bridge without anyone getting hurt, he could activate the glider without being followed.

Now he just had to get there.

…

Hakuba had a hard time keeping up with the Kid. He'd already guessed that the other was faster than him but, with how close he was, it seemed like something about the Kid was wrong tonight.

He should be faster than this, Hakuba thought to himself. What's going on?

They were almost to Bay Bridge now.

Hakuba had been hearing footsteps behind him for some time now and he had thought they'd been police officers who'd seen the Kid escape. There was no conversation though and, if Nakamori-keibu was there, Hakuba was sure he would have heard him yelling.

Something was wrong tonight and it was one of the reasons Hakuba hadn't given up the chase, even though he was out-maneuvered and slower than the Kid this time.

It didn't take long before Hakuba figured out the Kid's plan. The bridge was in close proximity to them now and the thief could get away scot-free since they didn't have any boats prepared. It still puzzled the detective why the Kid went so far out of his way before trying to escape.

The detective tried to speed up when they entered the walkway of the bridge. Pedestrians that were out late that night parted in front of the Kid so Hakuba was able to gain some ground as they moved, already out of his way.

Hakuba huffed out a breath when someone shoved him hard from the side. It wasn't any of the people who had been following him as he chased after Kid, it was some punk of the street who just wanted to haggle whoever passed by.

The metal frame around the bridge stopped him from immediately plummeting into the water, hitting hard against his ribcage and leaving enough time for him to grab onto the railing before the majority of his body went over the side.

"Hakuba-kun!" He heard someone yell. The detective was still winded and it took all his concentration just to keep his hold.

Somewhere above him he heard the sounds of a fight, distant and muffled because of the hard wind blowing under the bridge. He squinted his eyes and saw something white in front of him.

"Give me your hand!"

Instinctively the detective raised his free arm and latched on. The person on the other end tried to help him up but it was clear that they didn't have the ability to. Hakuba raised the hand he was holding onto the framework with, to try and reach higher, but his full weight put too much a burden on his rescuer and he had to grab onto the same spot or risk both of them falling into the harbor hundreds of feet below.

Hakuba heard a small cry and felt something wet hit him in the face. He used his shoulder to wipe it off and saw a scarlet smear on his coat.

"I'm going to need your other hand."

Hakuba watched as the large white diamond went over the bridge and another white hand was place in front of him.

"Kid-san, why'd you just throw away the gem?" The detective looked up for the first time to meet Kid's eyes.

"Just grab my hand!" The desperation in the other person's voice was palpable. Hakuba quickly fastened his arm around the other's hand and heard as Kid tried to lift his full weight back onto the bridge.

With the help of his legs, Kid successfully did it, scraping the detective's chest yet again across the iron bar. Hakuba was swung around as Kid used his weight as more of a pulley than relaying on brute force alone. Hakuba was going to ask the other how he'd managed to lift him when he saw the scarlet just to the left of the Kid's neck.

"You're hurt."

"I'm fine." Kid tried to re-adjust the petal that had come unclasped from his coat when he'd been hit. "Get out of here detective!"

"What's going on?"

Kid was about to yell something back at him when he was hit in the shoulder by another bullet. Hakuba watched as Kid did what he must have done a few minutes ago, and toppled over the siding of the bridge.

"Kid!"

Hakuba ran over and saw that the thief had managed to grab onto the lattice work as well, though he was a good seven-feet down and Hakuba wouldn't be able to help him.

"Hakuba-san you have to get out of here!" Kid tried to yell to him, his voice mostly lost in the wind.

"I can't just let you fall!"

The cape still hung half off Kid's coat so the glider would be useless. The gusts had it flapping around the thief like he was in a hurricane. It may be Kid who had escaped from a hundred impossible situations hanging down there but damn it, he was still human. Falling from this height and surviving was unthinkable.

Hakuba heard running footsteps coming towards him and looked over his shoulder to see a bunch of men in beige suits coming towards him. When he looked back down he saw the thief was smiling.

"Don't worry Hakuba-san," Kid looked up at him and flashed a confident grin. "Just get out of here."

Hakuba watched as Kid simply let go of the railing. He would have thought the thief suddenly suicidal if he hadn't of caught the serious look on his face before he fell.

The detective should have left then, should have listened to what Kid had told him, since the men slowly closing in on him were so dangerous Kid thought jumping off the bridge was safer than staying around to greet them. The detective should have done a lot of things. But he didn't. Hakuba stood there to watch because he needed to know Kid would be alright. Needed some solid proof that he hadn't just lead another person to their death, thief or not.

A few feet before hitting the water, Kid tried to deploy the glider. The one side didn't catch since the cape wasn't attached any longer, but the wind draft the other half caught was good enough that the g-force wouldn't kill him. Hakuba saw him plunge into the water, somersaulting yet still managing to land feet first. The glider must have broken on impact since the detective could see pieces of it floating in the water.

As one of the men reached his position, Hakuba saw a gun riding in the crook of his arm. The detective shot off, trying to make it seem more like he was running to see if he could find the Kid rather than running away from them. In actuality, Hakuba wasn't sure which he was doing.

It was a good fifteen minutes or more before he made it to the lake bed. It was as he suspected though, and the thief was nowhere in sight. If he'd been injured in the fall badly enough he wouldn't have gotten far. A voice in the back of Hakuba's mind reminded him that Kid was running around with at least two bullet wounds as well.

Another twenty minutes showed no results. Either Kid was well enough that he got away before Hakuba had arrived or he'd hurt himself too severely and was somewhere in the water still.

There was nothing the detective could do in either case so he walked off in the direction of the nearest street, keeping an eye out for the men in the light colored coats.

…

Hakuba couldn't say that he wasn't concerned when Kuroba didn't come to school the next day. He wasn't overly worried but it wasn't as if his classmate's absence had no effect on him. Or the rest of the class for that matter.

The teacher even seemed less happy then usual when she wasn't interrupted by his antics.

Aoko was the worst though. She spent the whole day looking out the window nervously without taking notes. The teacher didn't call on her but that didn't mean that zoning out through a day of class wouldn't get back at her.

No, it didn't concern Hakuba much when Kuroba didn't come to school that day.

It started to concern him when he heard nothing of the magician a good three days later.

"Aoko-kun, you don't happen to know what's keeping Kuroba-kun from school do you?"

Aoko looked up from her desk where she'd been milling around with some stray sheets of fringe from her notebook. She shook her head.

"I went over to Kaito's house but his mom said he was too sick to come out. I'm really starting to worry about him."

He couldn't have gotten sick from falling into the river. The waters were cool but it was summer. If his mother was lying for Kuroba's sake, then something was going on with her as well.

Hakuba shook his head and thanked Aoko for the information.

When the school bell rang for the day, the detective took his schoolbag and made his way over to Kuroba's house. If he wanted answers, he was going to get them.

The walk was short and Hakuba was surprised at how close to the school the magician lived. Hakuba had to take a bus to get there, but then, he'd picked the school purposely after narrowing down the area where he thought Kaitou Kid was most active in. He been closer then he thought at the time.

Not that the magician would give him any ground. Though Kaito was a perfect suspect, Hakuba couldn't get anyone to believe him without proof. The detective hoped no one would be able to beat him to it, since no one else considered that the infamous thief was really a high school student.

Hakuba hadn't figured that part out yet but he was sure that Kuroba was the one carrying out Kid's acts now. There could be a million other scenarios for how he'd picked up the job. In Hakuba's own opinion, it seemed natural for the magician to play with other people like that, it was what magicians did.

And yet – he'd gone out of his way to save Hakuba at the cost of losing, not only the gem, but his own life.

That didn't suit the Kuroba in his mind. Kid, though playful in manner, wasn't as careless as he appeared but Hakuba hadn't seen anything of that nature from him either.

His shook his head at his own puzzlement. If Kuroba was home, he would get his answers.

The house that the detective came to was more normal looking then he would have thought. There were a row of bushes underneath the first story windows, placed amongst dark bricks and white shudders. A feminine touch play in along the curtains and a rusted, black railing lead up three steps to the front door, a white screen in front of a larger wooden one with diamond shaped window.

Ironic, Hakuba thought to himself. Everything looked so normal for someone who was definably not.

He ran the bell and waited as someone who looked too young to be Kuroba's mother came to the door. Hakuba's detective instincts took over first and he noticed how tired she looked. Her clothes were shabbier than they could have been and she wore an apron with no stains to prove how tidy she normally kept everything up.

"Kuroba-kun's not home is he?" Hakuba asked with more distress than he let his voice get across.

"He's sick. I'm sorry but you'll have to come back later."

Hakuba knew the lie when he heard it. The woman's voice didn't leave any doubt in her sentence but her appearance did. Though tired, she came across with strong conviction and hidden strength.

You're as good at hiding things from me as your son is. Hakuba leaned against the wall so that he didn't have to look at her and closed his eyes.

"Kuroba-kun hasn't been home since that night has he? It doesn't look like you've gotten any word from him."

All Hakuba needed was her silence. He didn't notice how much he'd been hoping that he was wrong. If Kuroba hadn't even come back home, that meant he hadn't gotten out of the river that night.

"Damn it" Hakuba cursed, aware that Kuroba's mother could hear him. "I'm going to find him if it's the last thing I do."

The detective walked away, feeling dirty. Why'd he leave the river when Kuroba – Kid, it was easier to think that way – when Kid could have needed his help. It was Hakuba's fault that he'd had to come back; that the thief's plans of escape had been wiped away.

But it wasn't all his fault.

Hakuba remembered the men in the suits. They were no business men and they were definitely the ones who had shot the Kid.

The detective knew where he had to go next.

The bus ride to the police station didn't take long. It was still afternoon so Nakamori was in his office on the second floor, doing whatever the man did when Kid didn't broadcast any upcoming heists.

"Damn it to Hell! Takanuma-san I need you to get off of my back!" There was a loud crash as Nakamori hung up the phone unnecessarily hard. "Damn it!"

"What's the matter?" Hakuba couldn't help but ask.

"Oh Hakuba-kun. It's nothing. The guy who had that diamond won't stop calling and asked if we've found it yet. I can't send my whole damn team out to look in the river for a rock! It's not possible!"

"I'm sorry I let it happen."

"Humpht. It wasn't your fault." Nakamori turned away to shuffle some papers. He stopped with a halfhearted sigh. "I've never had to deal with this before. Kid's always given the gems back."

"I know." Hakuba walked over to him and placed both hands firmly on his desk. "About the Kaitou Kid. Do you have any files on someone who may be after him?"

"There are a lot of people after the Kid" Nakamori huffed, "I can't keep track of all of them."

"No, this wouldn't be one man, it would be a group, armed and after his life, not his capture."

The Inspector's eyes narrowed and he looked darkly back at Hakuba before answering. "One case. There was a case a while back where with two gunmen involved. One was after Kid, according to a witness, the other played decoy and we were stupid enough to follow him." Hakuba watched as Nakamori clenched his fist. "The decoy opened fire on us. We're not sure what happened, but were positive that the Kid got shot that day and we found traces of blood at the scene. The two men who orchestrated the incident got away."

"But they were definitely after the Kid." Nakamori looked up at Hakuba and shook his head.

"We couldn't follow up on anything because there weren't any leads. Everything was dry and the witnesses who saw the man refused to give testimony."

"Why?" Hakuba asked, confused. If the main gunman had been after Kid and there were witness, why remain quiet?

"We got one of them to answer us at a point, but it only made the situation more confusing."

"What did they say?"

"It was an older man. He told the questioning officer that the Kid had told them not to say anything about the gunman, or what he looked like. Why they would listen to a damn thief," Nakamori spit out the word, "and not the police, I don't know. They must have been crazy."

"So the Kid had told them not to give any information to the police." Hakuba raised one of his hands off the desk and placed it in his pocket. "Maybe it was to protect them."

"I thought of that too." Nakamori sighed again and crimpled one of his papers when he took it in his hands with tense fingers. "That's why we dropped the questioning. Without any leads on the attackers, we wouldn't be able to protect all of them."

"Has the Kid always been like that? Protective?"

"Always." Nakamori looked to the side, towards his window that was too dirty with years of cigarette smoke to see clearly out of. "One of the only things I give the guy, he doesn't like when people get hurt."

"I never realized that." Hakuba shook his head.

"It's not like the Kid publicizes his humanity." Nakamori crossed his arms as he thought about what he'd just said. "In fact, he does the opposite. If anything, the public knows more of Kid's bad side than those of us chasing him. It's strange. You'd think he'd want the fans."

"Humanity can be used against you. Reckless abandonment cannot."

Nakamori huffed again before going back to his paperwork.

"Is that all you wanted Hakuba-kun? What is it about these people after the Kid that caught your attention?"

"I think they may have finally gotten him."

Hakuba turned away without seeing the Inspector's hard look. He couldn't face it.