Another day, another mystery to solve. It had been pretty nice that day. Sure, no steps were taken towards shutting down the Black Organization, and no discoveries had been made over the antidote to APTX 4869, but nothing bad had happened either.

Conan had spent a day kite flying with the Detective Boys and Agasa. He had taken care of the murder attempt smoothly without the adults raising any eyebrows. No one actually got killed, either. It was another step in the right direction towards justice. He also got to find out what Haibara had been listening to. She liked Okino Yoko (but not as much as Ojisan did. His obsession was almost pathetic.) It was nice to see her enjoying life. He was going to continue to protect her and stop the Organization so no one would have to fear them again. He would do whatever it took to take them down.

Haibara was worried about Shinichi.

Not that he was in danger or anything. He was the danger.

Today she had watched him slip between being an innocent, bright first grader and a skilled detective as easily as flipping a switch. He would smile at the cops and then, when no one was looking, glare at the culprit. His words would egg on the police detectives to figure out what was going on, cleverly making their trains of thought take specific routes that would end up at the conclusion he was aiming for. His deductive reasoning was disguised as the simple-mindedness of a child, and his mentioning of detailed facts from advanced crime-related topics was excused as stemming from children's natural compulsion to tell things they learned to impress adults. Nobody bothered to question it. This person had gradually developed into a persona somewhere between Conan and Shinichi, and it was unsettling. He was in complete control of everybody around him to the point that he could pull these stunts repeatedly without any hitches. And that was the main issue.

Haibara remembered the first night that she had met the guy. Her first impression was jarringly different than the Conan of recent. He acted nothing like a little kid, would react conspicuously to the mere mention of people wearing black, and sometimes would monologue to himself out loud without noticing. She had taught him to be less blatant by reminding him of the general danger he faced. Maybe he had taken this concept and ran with it much farther than he was supposed to.

The Conan she now faced was a dangerous threat for a completely different reason. He was blatant because he knew no one was going to stop him. If faced with an urgent problem, he would put on his trademark smirk and pull off an ingenious plan without a hitch. It happened every time, even against the Organization, against Gin, and that was unnatural. A strategist should not have a 100% victory streak. There should always be a spanner in the works, a fly on a typewriter, any sort of mistake to make them trip up. Conan had not fallen. Haibara grew more and more anxious, waiting for something, anything to screw up, because it was supposed to. It never did. Conan always won.

He pulled risky maneuvers frequently, always dancing on the edge of being discovered. Her first genuine adventure with him was a huge testament to that. He rummaged around in Gin's car like it was nothing. When she was on the roof with Gin and Vodka, about to be mercilessly killed, he stood behind a door and used the bowtie to distract them. He pranced around the storage room, out of reach of the Organization, leading Pisco directly into a trap as if his every move was that readable. Pisco was high-ranking, clever, and shouldn't have been outsmarted by an act put on by Kudou Shinichi. If things had been different, if the odds were ever so slightly out of his favor, he would have been killed then. In fact, he would have been killed that first night by the apotoxin doing its proper job. And through all of these dangerous maneuvers, he was confident and always thinking far ahead. People who watched him would have thought he had a death wish.

Maybe she should have felt reassured by this. After all, if things continued as smoothly, then she should have no worries about the Organization finding her or her friends. They would continue to be safe, on the side of justice, completely out of the line of fire, etc. All the loose ends would be tied and buried. But it felt so wrong.

And he did so much wrong, and he knew it well. He avoided answering questions. He only told half the story. He didn't tell her that the person next door wasn't an active Organization operative, leaving her in turmoil for weeks. He emotionally manipulated her so many times that it was becoming routine. In fact, he emotionally manipulated almost everyone he was around. Kudou did this without visible guilt or remorse, insisting it was for the justice he was planning to use on the Organization. His sense of justice was no longer in the right.

People should have noticed his double-sidedness, but they turned a blind eye. By now, someone should have caught on, called him out, discussed the matter privately. Any psychologist who spent five minutes in proximity to Conan would have demanded him to come to therapy. Was it really true that people did not pay that much attention to his antics? And what about Ran, who had cornered him multiple times? Was she noticing how cocky he had become?

How Haibara had gotten down this thought trail had began with the events of that day. It had been a standard routine for a murder case, but this time there was an additional hitch. Kudou had crossed the line between acceptably manipulative and personally offensive. For some reason, he had felt inclined to find out what music she was listening to. Surely it was a petty matter to be concerned about on the surface, but Haibara had seen Conan sporting a heinous expression as he was about to bug her phone for the answer instead of directly asking. He no longer had any sense of privacy or boundaries. It was concerning enough for her to warrant a discussion with the Professor.

Over a couple glasses of tea, they began their discussion.

"I think there's a problem with Kudou-kun."

Agasa scratched the back of his head anxiously. "What do you mean by that?"

"Have you been watching him during cases?"

"Well, I suppose I have, but I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary." Agasa looked confused, but at the same time, he seemed to faintly know what she was getting on to. If anything, this statement meant he just wanted her to elaborate on what was so wrong about Kudou-kun's rampant pride complex.

"He's becoming a monster."

Agasa paused, looking sort of surprised. "Well, if you put it like that, sometimes Shinichi's arrogance does get the best of him. That's how he is."

She didn't push the matter on him.

Agasa was one of the reasons why Shinichi was acting like this. Most of Agasa's reactions to Shinichi's plans were simply unconditional agreement. He would be stunned, repeatedly in new ways, by Shinichi's perfect planning, and then stumble along behind him willing to do his every bidding. Agasa never disagreed, and that was a huge part of the problem.

If anything was to be done, she would need to cut off the stems before dealing with the flower. His enablers had to be stopped.