Disclaimer: This space intentionally left blank.

Agasa hummed thoughtfully as he scribbled on a large pad of paper. He tapped his mustache with his pen, then started writing again.

Suddenly, the phone rang, interrupting his ponderings. "Ah, hello?" he answered absently.

"Yes, is Ai-chan there?" a voice said. "This is her teacher, Kobayashi-sensei."

"Yes, just a moment," Agasa said. He set down the receiver. "Ai-kun!" he called. "Telephone!"

Ai came into the room. "Who is it?" she asked, taking the handset.

"It's Kobayashi-sensei," Agasa said, turning back to his paper.

Ai looked at the phone suspiciously. "Hello?" she answered.

"Ah, Ai-chan," the teacher said. "I just wanted to tell you that you failed that last science exam."

Ai blinked. "I what?"

There was a chuckle from the other end of the line. "Just kidding," said Shinichi in his normal voice.

"Don't scare me like that," she scolded, safely out of earshot of anyone else. "Did you find a place to stay?"

"Yeah," Shinichi answered. "Room 302, Beika Hotel. I registered as Zenigata Minoru."

"Good," Ai approved. "For now just try to stay out of trouble, I guess. Watch TV or something."

"No way," Shinichi responded immediately. "I can't just sit back and watch it happen all over again."

"You won't," Ai replied testily. "Don't worry, everything will be fine." She hung up.

"O-oi, Haibara!" Shinichi protested. He glared at the receiver and slammed it down. "Who does she think I am?" he muttered to himself.

The nondescript teenager, dressed inconspicuously in a jacket and baseball cap, wandered through downtown Tokyo.

What am I doing here? Shinichi wondered to himself. He knew the answer. Saving Ran. But how?

Ran was kidnapped on her way home from school. They could try to intercept her then.

But, he pondered, thinking back to Haibara's lecture about paradoxes, then she'd have been saved, and he wouldn't be trying to come back to save her. That wouldn't work.

He shook his head. Then they'd have to save her in such a way that he wouldn't know she'd been saved. And so that the Organization wouldn't know she'd been saved. In short, they'd have to keep it secret from--pretty much everyone. Haibara, well, no one could really get much out of her in the first place. And she was discrete enough that she could easily be trusted.

In fact, he pondered, more so than himself, at times...

He shook his head and quickened his pace. There was no one who could snatch a person from beneath the very nose of the Organization.

Or... was there?

He couldn't believe he was thinking that. There was no way he'd try to enlist the help of that person.

No way. No...

He hesitated, slowed his step. Shinichi leaned against a light pole thoughtfully. Was there anything he wouldn't do, for Ran?

He snarled. He didn't even know how to contact him. He kept walking.

"Kaito-kun!" someone hollered. He looked back to see a girl hurrying towards him... a girl who looked like Ran. He did a double take. No, it wasn't Ran... he turned and plunged back into his morose thoughts.

"Kaito!" the girl called again. She panted as she caught up. "Kaito, you..." she broke off as she looked closer. "Oh!" She turned pink. "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

Shinichi nodded glumly. "Sometimes I wonder," he muttered to himself.

Just then he collided with someone walking the other direction. "Oh, excuse me," Shinichi said, startled. He looked at the person he'd run into.

And thought he was looking in a mirror.

He blinked. The other teenager did the same thing. For a moment Shinichi thought it was a mirror, but then his doppelganger grinned. "Hey, aren't you Kudo Sh--"

Shinichi cut him off. "No, I--" Then, like lightning, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. "Aren't you--"

"Kuroba Kaito," he interrupted. "Nice to meet you." He shook hands vigorously. "Ah, Aoko! There you are!" he said, hurrying around Shinichi towards the girl who'd been chasing him earlier.

Shinichi stared after him. "Kuroba Kaito, huh?" he said to himself. "Pleased to meet you, too..."

Shinichi opened the desk in his hotel room. Taking out a telephone directory, he rustled through it. "Kuroba, Kuroba... hmm..." Nothing. Either he'd been given a pseudonym, or Kuroba-san's number wasn't listed. Tapping the desk thoughtfully, Shinichi realized that there was an internet terminal in the lobby downstairs. He hurried down.

"Kuroba Kaito, son of Kuroba Toichi, world-class magician," he read. "Toichi... wait, isn't that who--yeah, he taught Mom her makeup skills," he mumbled, perusing the archive he'd found. "Hmm. He died nine years ago in a stage accident... Nine years..." He quickly found a Kaito Kid fansite. "Nine years ago is when Kid dropped off the radar. You don't suppose..." He was on a roll now. "This is incredible." He hesitated. "And purely speculative."

Well, there was one way to confirm or deny the speculation. Shinichi closed out the web browser after looking up the Kurobas' current address. He headed through the glass double doors, striding purposefully towards the nearest bus stop.

I don't know if they have internet terminals in hotel lobbies, but it's Japan, if anyone would they would. XD

At any rate, one more chapter down... who knows how many more to go... :D

Mitsuhiko2

P.S. Don't forget to review!! ;)