AN: Kay, a new chapter done in celebration of finally having things slowed down. This chapter tends to be a bit lighter than most will be, and as such I felt compelled to do something rather silly. In this chapter I've put in the names of a few friends of mine as well as my own. The names will be given to small characters, but if you can match them with the correct pen name, I will write something of your choosing pertaining to this story. I'll even start you off with a hint. There are five names in total, and two of them are not registered users, but we've all had our names show up on the sight. Good luck.

"Anything italicized is someone's thoughts. Anything italicized and bold is someone speaking in English. Anything bold is Spanish. Anything written regularly is in Japanese."


Conan decided then and there that he would never come to understand why Kid chose to cross dress at 99% of his heists. It was awkward, demeaning, and it just wasn't natural. He had to force himself not to fiddle with the black wig on his head. It helped that one hand was holding onto to Lupin's while the other clenched tightly at a small red handbag. It was no less emasculating, but having his hands busy made it easier to keep his cover in check. It also helped that Goemon, who was walking on the other side of Lupin, was dressed in very much the same fashion.

"I don't see why I had to be the one to wear the dress."

The Frenchman waved off any anger he felt coming from the samurai. "I already told you. Here we have to lay low. What better way to do that than to pose as a family of tourists?" He smiled cheekily, dark brown wig and glasses never for a second hiding his true nature. "Chibi-Tantei is our lovely daughter, you're the blushing bride, and I'm the handsome father."

Jigen coughed to try and hide his laughter. He had not changed too much in appearance. More like he simply masked the traits he already had with the help of a pair of sunglasses and a beatnik hat. "And what am I supposed to be?"

"My crazy younger brother who mooched his way onto our family vacation."

Conan ignored what the gunman had replied with. Instead he focused his attention on the various TV sets the group was passing by. Each held a different channel with the surprisingly same story from their respective reporters. Kid was on the trail for Lupin. Part of the not child was flattered that the thief would care so much as to try and rescue him, but, and it was here that he held onto to Lupin's hand a bit tighter, another part hoped the moonlit thief would never find him. The situation was too grave. The possibility of failure was too high. Kid would be much safer in Japan, away from him.

"Hola. ¿Cuál es tu nombre?"

Conan brought his attention back to reality. Staring at him was a young girl, with chocolate hair and eyes, looking at him with a shy smile on her face. His mind backtracked to what she must have said just seconds ago. His Spanish was about as good as his English, but he had not used it in a while. He hoped it was not as rusty as he thought it was. "Mi nombre es Alina. ¿Quién eres?" He said in a fairly feminine voice. He hoped it was decent, as he was unable to use his bowtie for the occasion.

She smiled brightly and pointed to the bag in Conan's hand. Her parents laughed lightly beside her, mimicking Lupin and the gang as they all looked in on the young encounter.

"Me gusta tu bolso." She said sweetly. "Es un color bonita."

She liked his purse. It was a bit of sting because Lupin had taken it from a local's stand. Conan didn't like having it, not only because he was a boy, but because it was a shame to take something for someone when that someone was not going to take care of it as well as it deserved. The handbag was handmade, he could tell by the stitches and the way the material was put together, and it had been worked on extensively. It was too bad he was the one who had it since he would probably throw it out later. Or maybe…

He held out his arm, the one holding onto the accessory the little girl admired. "Usted puede mantenerlo, si lo desea." He held it out further to her, offering the bag as a gift. "Realmente no me quiere."

She seemed shocked that he didn't want it. She almost looked ready to deny his offer, but Conan placed the strap in her hand. After a second the little girl smiled brightly and enveloped the detective in a huge thankful embrace. "Muchas gracias.Te prometo que cuidaré bien de ella."

"Yessenia," Her mother called gently. "Es hora de ir a casa."

The small girl waved goodbye as she and her parents disappeared behind an ally. The purse continued to remain firmly clutched in a tiny hand.

"That was nice of you."

Conan looked up to three smiling adults.

"She seemed happy."

Conan felt his face flush, and turned sharply to avoid being seen. "Shut up. It was no big deal. I wasn't going to use it after today anyway, and she really seemed to like it. What's the use of stolen goods if they're not in the hands of someone who's going to take good care of them?"

He found his head being ruffled by three different hands. It was Lupin, though, who eventually spoke. "Now you're starting to understand the point of good thieves."

Conan slapped the hands away from his head. "What do you mean good thieves?"

"Well maybe good is a bad way to put it. Gentlemen thieves would be a better description."


Conan looked at the hallway with a critical eye. Void of their disguises, the three thieves and their detective companion looked for any minute piece of evidence they could find. But just as they thought, the place had almost been wiped clean. They had been there for a good four hours, and yet they still could not find anything that would lead them to anything close to a clue.

"Not even a bullet mark." An irritated Conan muttered. "Are you sure this is the place?"

Lupin nodded. "I'm pretty sure I'm not going to forget it any time soon."

Jigen cursed under his breath. Conan noticed he had not pulled out a cigarette in about thirty minutes. Strange, seeing as he usually went for a smoke every time he became irritated. He had probably run out. "Did we really think they would slip up this badly? If they were smart enough to almost kill us off with one shot, then they know what they're doing. They wouldn't leave something behind."

Goemon kept his eyes on something off in the distance. He seemed dazed but Conan noticed the absolute focus within his gaze. What was so important that it would require such attention?

Before he could ask, Goemon grabbed him by the collar of his shirt before slicing a nearby door open and throwing him inside. Conan wound up rolling off the bed he had landed on and onto the floor. Less than a second later all three thieves ran inside as gunshots started to ring throughout the air. It only took a moment to understand what was going on. The four of them had come back to find out where the man who killed Fujiko had gone, and it turned out he had never left.

"Why would he return to the scene of the crime?" Had he known they were coming back? Was this a trap? Or was this the break they'd been hoping for? It was hard to think straight with the sound of bullets rushing through the air like rapid fire winds in the fall. Honestly, he had never heard so many dangerous pops before in his life, and never before was he right in the middle of it all. Something about it made him feel scared.

Over the shots being nailed into walls and widows, he cursed himself for his weak state of mind. He faced death on a daily basis, and here he was afraid of a couple of gunshots? He had dealt with them before. Why was he so afraid of them now?

As if to remind him of just what aspect of a gunshot should be feared, one bullet rushed by just a little too close to his face. He involuntarily let out a small scream when a bit of blood from the scratch started to run down his face. Then, after one more heated shot from a pistol, the area grew eerily silent.

Conan finally allowed himself to breath. He could numbly hear the sound of footsteps resonating through the room. Had he been a bit more not panicked he might have been able to determine how much there were and where they were heading. But the blood was still pounding through his skull, and he had yet to determine a way to cease its continuation. For now he thought it best to stay where he was.

"Hey, Chibi-Tantei, you ok?"

Who on earth-

Conan had little time to ponder as he was picked up for Lupin's observations. When the thief noticed the bloody cheek he nearly blew a blood vessel. "Did one of them hit you?"

Conan shook his head to force his mind back into coherence. "Just a scratch."

"Then why are you acting so weird?"

He wished he knew the answer to that. "I don't know."

Lupin sighed and adjusted the child in his arms. The position was reminiscent of the first time the thief had held Conan back at the Kudo mansion. Just like then, Conan laid his head on Lupin's shoulder. The thief noticed that he suddenly looked awfully tired. "You worry me sometimes."

"Sorry." It was then he noticed that there were two others missing from the room. "Where are Papa and Goemon?"

Lupin motioned towards the door. "They went to find out where the shooter was. Maybe catch him if he stuck around."

Not likely. "We should go too."

"Are you up to it?"

Conan nodded. "Let's go. I want to question him if he's still there." Not that he really believed that a member of such a cautious organization would be caught after failing a mission twice, but it was an excuse to get Lupin moving again. He never did like being fussed over too much.

Lupin took the cue and walked out into the hallway, only to come face to face with a middle aged man looking sternly back at him. The man, obviously of Spanish descent, had a fine trimmed beard and mustache with blue eyes that radiated authority, and a sort of unknown threat. And that was why Lupin had 'eeped' very childishly and swiftly hugged Conan tighter, almost as though he were afraid the man would take the child from him. Conan let out an uncomfortable grunt as his chest became associated with Lupin's broad shoulder.

"Can I help you?" Lupin shifted so that Conan was nearly impossible to see from the man's point of view. He mentally cursed himself for tossing out those disguises earlier. He had thought it best to keep switching outfits incase Pops, or even Kid, was on the lookout for them. Switching costumes had always kept Pops guessing in the past, and Kid had no idea how he operated. It seemed like a good idea at the time. He had just neglected to supply new ones when they got to the hotel.

Conan turned his mouth to whisper in Lupin's ear. "You're speaking in English."

Luckily, the man soon lost that hard look in his eyes and relaxed a little. "Are you alright señor?" He asked in a semi thick, yet still very understandable, Spanish accent.

Lupin blinked. He continued to do so for a few seconds before Conan gently kicked him in the abdomen. "We're fine. You, uh, speak English?"

The man nodded as he held a hand to his heart in relief. Lupin wished he could do the same. "Thank goodness. I was afraid those shots had taken more lives from this hotel."

"I beg your pardon?"

The man turned his head towards the area where the gunshots had come from, and ushered Lupin towards a hallway where a stairway lay. The Frenchman allowed himself to be led to and down its steps, and followed the others lead. Not like he knew where they were going anyway.

The man was still looking in every direction with an overly cautious eye. "A little over a month ago, my wife told me she had heard shots ringing out from somewhere on the second floor. She had been locking up by herself that night since I had been called away to talk with the local landowner. When she heard the noises, she went up to investigate and make sure all of the guests were alright. When she got up there, she saw the body of a woman scattered across the floor."

Both Conan and Lupin felt their muscles tense.

The man did not notice. "When the police arrived, there had been nothing there. They thought she had been making the whole thing up."

"Did you believe her?" Lupin asked.

Here the man's head lowered substantially. "I didn't at first. There was nothing to prove that anything had happened. No bullet shells," Those would not be left behind. "No one else said they heard anything," If you were intimidating enough no one would say a word. "And most importantly, there was no body." Those were easy enough to hide if you knew what you were doing. "I thought maybe she had gotten scared and imagined the whole thing."

"Thought implies that that was what you used to think. What changed your mind?"

Lupin did not get his answer right away. Instead the three of them walked, well Conan just lay there and enjoyed the ride, down to the second floor of the building and into what appeared to be an employee office. Only, and oddly enough, there were no employees to be seen. The entire lower level of the place was empty. Lupin could not even catch sight of the woman who had let them go upstairs to begin with.

"One night she was caught up in those so called 'imaginary' gunshots." The older man proceeded to close all the curtains in the room. He offered Lupin a seat with a gesture of his hand. He himself leaned against a nearby counter while the thief made himself comfortable.

Lupin almost didn't want to ask. "Did she survive?"

The man's eyes darkened. "Six blows to the head."

The thief decided that now would be a good time to remain quiet. His question had already been answered anyway. Unless she was superman, that woman had been dead before her body even reached the ground.

"Ever since Angelina's death, anyone who ventures up towards room 207 had been shot at or disappeared. I tell my staff not to rent out that floor anymore. Come to think of it, how did you get up there?"

"Well Mr..."

"Áveires."

"Áveires, your lovely staff were the ones to give us a room on that floor."

Lupin could hear the man curse. "That's what I get for hiring young people."

A tap from beneath the counter where the Spanish man was leaning against had both thief and detective nearly jumping out of their skin. Áveires however simply held up his hands in apology, and slid open a lower cabinet door that the Japanese duo had not even noticed. Out crawled a little boy with features similar to the hotel owners.

"Your son?" Lupin guessed.

The Spaniard nodded. "Jonathan had been with my wife when she died. He was the only survivor."

Conan found himself turning his head to glance down at the little boy. What he was instantly drawn to was the boys face. Such emotionless eyes he had. No real child should ever have those. Ever.

The detective jumped out of Lupin's arms, much to the thief's protest, and landed near the boy that physically looked close to him in age. "Do you speak English?"

Jonathan nodded. "My mom was American." He numbly stuck out his hand. "What's your name?"

Conan had to think for a minute. Neither the boy, nor the hotel owner seemed to recognize who he was. "Arthur." He answered before finally taking the boy's hand and giving it a firm shake.

Lupin face palmed before plastering on a smile "And I'm his father Russell."

Conan turned his attention back to the little boy in front of him. "Did you see what happened to your mom?"

The boy's eyes took on an empty quality. It sort of looked like how Conan's eyes used to be. Before Lupin, before Kid, before he realized he had a purpose again. "Yes."

"Mine died too." He had already stolen for a good cause. He might as well add in another good crime to the mix. "I think yours might have seen her."

A bit of life dwindled in Jonathan's eyes. "Really? That women?"

Before Conan had time to answer, he felt Lupin put a hand on his shoulder.

"Why don't you two go play while I have a chat here with Mr. Áveires?" The thief looked back up to the innkeeper. "You know any safe place these two could play?"

The man nodded. "Jonathan knows a lot of the neighborhood kids. In fact," He walked over to the desk placed in the center of the room. From it he took out a pen and a piece of scrap paper he used to jot something down. Once completed and looked over, he handed it down to Jonathan. The boy folded it up and put it in his pants pocket.

"I'll send them to the local daycare. The woman who runs it is a good friend of mine. Don't worry, the tab is on me." He nodded once to Jonathan and pointed towards the door. "Hurry, before she serves lunch without you."


Conan would admit that she was pretty. He had not expected the caretaker of about a dozen other children to be so friendly and warm, and good looking. What he had expected was a grumpy bat who looked about as old as the dirt she angrily stomped on.

The daycare worker smiled at the two boys upon answering her door. The smile only grew in warmth when she saw that Jonathan had a friend with him. The note he passed her must have told her all she needed to know, because she let them right in without asking for any type of payment.

"Gracias señora Calina." Jonathan said politely.

She gave the boy a soft pat on the head. "I see you have a new friend." She held up the piece of paper for Conan's viewing pleasure. "It says here that you speak English."

Conan nodded.

"Wonderful. Most of the kids here are trying to learn English. Feel free to test them on what they know." Swiftly she ushered the two boys inside. "Have fun."

Jonathan led the way into the largely populated day care facility. Dozens of small children ran around the perimeter of any and all rooms they could get away with running in. Jonathan told Conan not to focus too much on them. They were all the younger kids, he said, who needed to be looked after constantly. The oldest child down on the first floor was five. The two of them, on the other hand, were old enough to look out for themselves. They were allowed to go up to the second floor of the three story building.

Conan kept his vision sharp. He had no idea how grave his team's, and it felt kind of nice to consider himself a part of a team again, situation was. He had not seen Goemon or Jigen before he left. Nor had he seen the shooter who had tried again to assassinate them a second time. But there was something that was bothering him.

The hotel owner said that a number of shootings had occurred since Fujiko's death a few weeks prior. It had to be the Black Organization. The cleanup and un-detailed records kept for these shootings could only mean it was their work. So why had the job been so sloppy? Why was the assassin someone careless enough to keep shooting at random? Why had he decided it was a good idea to keep shooting until he got what might have been the thieves he had failed to kill? That just reeked of panic and amateur reflexes. Why would someone like that be in the organization in the first place?

Well, the only way he would get some answers would be to talk to a witness. And there was only one in the entire country of Argentina who would be able to tell Conan what had happened.

"Jonathan," Conan whispered before the boy opened one of the last doors on the floor. "I need you to tell me what happened to your mom."

Jonathan turned around to face him. Those same empty eyes were searing into the detectives like heated daggers. They almost made Conan want to flinch away. They were…painful to look at. "What does that matter?"

"What's that supposed to mean? She was your mom."

"And no one believed her when she said something was wrong. Why should anyone believe me?" His gaze lowered to the ground. "No one would anyway."

"I would." Conan insisted. "I think she saw something really important."

"Then why did everybody ignore her!" Jonathan's head shot back up. Tears brimming the corners of his eyes, his body shook in restrained emotion. Anger, sorrow, guilt, suddenly it all made sense. Those eyes Conan had seen before, they had not been empty at all. They had just been numb.

Conan suddenly had the desire to give the other a hug. "The police were stupid. They should have paid attention. Because they didn't she died. I know that makes you upset."

Jonathan looked ready to protest.

"They took someone from me too, remember?" The boy nodded. "I came here to get justice for her, to take down the people who hurt her. I can do the same for your mom."

The boy's eyes widened. They started shaking, like the tears he held back were suddenly going to pour out at any minute now.

"But I need your help. You're the only who saw what happened. The only one who can give me the clues I need to put these people behind bars. Will you help?"

Jonathan started to cry. No shrieks, no shouting. Just sobs of painful realization, and flowing creeks of memories. For the first time that day he seemed like an actual kid. He was just a little boy who had lost his mom, and carried the burden of being the last to see her alive. A little boy who had lived through the pain of surviving, just like Lupin had, with the regret of outliving his mother.

"It was late," He muttered. "It was late the night when papi had gone out of town. Mami had seen someone dead on the second floor. But no one believed her. She told me she was scared someone was attacking the hotel, maybe someone looking for papi."

It had been chance, Conan noted, that anyone bore witness to the aftermath of the first crime. Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon had already left by then. Jonathan's mother must have just missed the action when she came up. Not knowing the situation, of course she would rush to the conclusion that it was her family under attack.

"She kept hearing them. Different people kept going missing. She was afraid that someone might have thought we were responsible."

That would have most certainly been the case if someone had reported someone missing. Multiple reports would have been even worse. The fact that they had all been at the same hotel before they disappeared would have looked suspicious.

"So one night she went up to the same floor, in front of the same room, to see if she could find something. Anything she could to give to the police. I followed her up, to try and play a game with her. She was mad for a second. So I tried to make her go along with the game."

"What did you do?"

"I ran around her in circles for a little while to get her dizzy. Then I ran inside the room to play hide and seek."

"Where did you hide?"

"Under the bed. She was going to come and get me, but then these shots started ringing out. They were flying everywhere. Bouncing off everything, and then," A few more tears fell to the floor. "Then she fell. There was so much blood."

Conan needed more, and he needed to steer the boy away from too harsh memories. "What happened next?"

"After a while, he came down."

"How'd you know it was a man?"

Jonathan wiped at his eyes. When he finally looked back to Conan, they held some slight annoyance in them. "Unless a girl can look that fat with legs that sound like a steel monster truck, then it was a man."

Conan held up his hands in defense. "Okay, sorry, continue."

"He cleaned up a bit. I thought he would take mami too, like he did with the things he shot, but then he heard my papi calling me. He ran."

Still, Conan needed more. This story would all be well and good when he caught the son of a gun, but he needed something that would help capture him in the first place. "Think Jonathan. Was there anything he left behind? Anything he overlooked that's still in that room?"

Jonathan scratched his head, trying to force his memory to come back to him. The action paid off. "The floor in that room has always been made of wood. One of the boards has had a hole in it since the day the room was made. When that man shot mami, one of the bullets went through that hole."

That was it! "Did he ever find it?"

Jonathan shook his head. "No. He tried to look for it, but he never noticed the hole in the floor."

Bingo! "Jonathan, I need to get back to the hotel. I have to find that bullet. Is there any way I can sneak out of here without Calina noticing?"

Jonathan nodded, and quickly opened the door in front of him. There was only one other child in the room. A little girl was at a table coloring some strange picture. She looked up when she noticed the two boys letting themselves into the room.

"Katarina," Jonathan whispered. "I need your help."

She nodded enthusiastically before bounding over to Jonathan. She crushed him in her arms when she got close enough. "What do you need?"

He pushed her away. Ignoring the pout and whines she made, he alerted her to Conan's presence. "He needs to sneak out of here now."

"Ooooooooooooooooo!" She pointed at him accusingly. "You're breaking the rules!"

"Yes." He said bluntly. "Yes I am. Now help him get out of here."

She pouted again. "Fine." Grudgingly she walked over to a toy chest in a corner of the room. She pulled from it what looked like a rope ladder made from various pieces of material. Nodding to herself, she went over to one of the windows and opened it up. "Two people need to hold this."

Jonathan nodded and went over to lend a hand.

But Conan suddenly had an idea. "Do you guys have a disguise I could wear? Something I could put on so that no one will recognize me?" It was good to have a backup plan in case he got caught.

Jonathan pointed to the toy chest. "Just the clothes the girls dress up in."

Well wasn't that just a kick in the head? "Fine. Those will work."

Katarina rushed over to the toy chest of humiliation and pulled out an entire arsenal of girlish items. She took the liberty of dressing Conan up like one of her plastic Barbie dolls. It was the most embarrassing thing Conan had ever experienced. He ended looking somewhat like that Yessenia girl he had seen earlier that day, in a sparkling blue dress and matching shoes. The only difference was that he didn't have her pigtails.

"Done!"

"What's done?"

The three in the room froze when the new voice was introduced. They saw, standing in the doorway, two girls about their age. One was unknown to Conan, but the other he had seen before. And it was the girl who he had given a purse to in the market.

"This isn't what it looks like, Lesley." Katarina said nervously. "We were just playing."

Yessenia took a good look at Conan. She seemed to recognize him, even with the change of wigs.

Lesley took a look at the rope Jonathan was holding. "What are you doing with that thing?"

Katarina tried to come up with a good excuse, but after moments of useless trying, she let out a shout of "Seize her!", and jumped on top of the other. From there she tried to stuff one of her socks in Lesley's mouth.

Yessenia just blinked in confusion.

Jonathan motioned for her to come to him. She did so curiously.

"I need you to hold onto this half of the ladder so that he can get out of here, okay?"

She looked unsure.

"He's going to figure out who killed my mom." He tried again. "And then he's going to make sure they pay. But he needs to find something first. We have to help him, okay?"

She nodded happily after the explanation. It seemed to Conan that she would do anything to make Jonathan happy. So she took hold of the other side of the rope-ish ladder, and together the two of them hoisted it over the window sill. Conan wasted no time in climbing down it. It was no easy task to do so in the dress and shoes he currently had on. It was also a great deal harder to hold onto the ladder with a bag of his original clothes stuck in his hand. He would apologize to whoever Hose was for taking his backpack, if they ever met up in life.

"Hey Arthur!" Jonathan called out when Conan got his feet on the ground. "When you catch the guy who did it, send me a picture of him behind bars."

Conan smiled. "Will do."

The detective broke out into a run. He must have looked so strange. Here he was, running through the streets in a sparkling dress, heels, a backpack in his hand, and a cell phone next to his ear. He would look back on it in complete disbelief later on.

At that moment he just needed to get in touch with the thief he was so desperate to help. "Come on, come on. Pick up, pick up."

"Chibi-Tantei!" A voice from the other line answered. "Something huge has just happened."

"I know." Conan breathed out. "Jonathan-"

"Tell me about it later."

"It's important though!"

"I know, but you need to get back to the hotel stat."

"Are you even listening to-"

"Goemon and Jigen caught the guy who was shooting at us."

This day could not have gotten any better. "I'm on my way."


AN: Good God that was a horrible chapter to work through. The languages, the names (which I'm convinced I made far too easy), more detective work, and the work on the wording was just ridiculous. Not to mention how long it took to post it up. I'm half convinced that it should be scrapped. Though I suppose I have a duty to readers to post what is complete. Do tell me if I was better off tossing it though.

Vocaloid song of the day? Melody by Miku Hatsune.