Konbanwa! Sapphire Nightshade here! Back with the 7th chapter! I launched a rocket today (one of those small ones. It looked like an orange crayon). It was fun, but our dog got freaked out, lol.

Anyway, there'll be a question that I'll ask you at the end of the chapter, so please respond.

Chapter 7: The New Family Member:

Conan sighed, head down, as he walked back to the detective agency. In contrast, Kid was walking happily behind him, seeing the chance to tease his rival instead of helping him. As they walked down the street, Kid started saying random sounds as he saw the hiragana letters that went along with them.

"What are you doing?" Conan asked, glancing back at the phantom thief.

"Trying to come up with a good false name," Kid replied. "Once I get eight different sounds, I'll rearrange them and try to come up with a good name. Ah," he added as he saw the い character, "'I', that's my third one."

"Naruhodo," Conan replied, not paying any more attention to the kaito. Eventually, Kid had gotten his eight hiragana characters: ね (ne), う (u), い (i), で (de), りゅ (ryu), ん (n), ら (ra), and が (ga).

"Hm, 'Neuide Ryunraga'," Kid said aloud.

"That makes no sense," Conan replied.

"I said I would rearrange them! Maybe . . . 'Garan Ryudeiune'?"

"At least it sounds a little more Japanese," Conan offered, "But still not really."

"All I did was say them backwards," Kid replied in defense, "I wasn't expecting it to work."

Conan and Kid stayed silent for a few minutes, mixing up and rearranging the hiragana in their heads. They passed by a gaming store that had a new game displayed in its windows that showed the main character, Kurogane, slaying a dragon.

Dragon . . . Kurogane, Conan thought to himself, Ryuu, Kurogane. We have four of those hiragana characters: Ryu, u, ga, and ne. Ah le? That sounds like it could work. Ryuugane. Yeah, it sounds like it could work well. But that would be a last name. What could his given name be? Well, he decided that he might as well at least tell Kid what his last name could be.

"Ne, how about 'Ryuugane'?" he said.

Kid looked up at him. "I like it," he replied after thinking about it and smiling a bit, "It sounds good."

"So then what's left for your first name?" Conan asked.

"Hm," Kid replied. After a few seconds, he remembered, "I, de, n, and ra."

"Naruhodo. Idenra . . . Randei . . . Deinra . . . Nidera . . . Radein . . . Raiden?"

"Ryuugane Raiden. I like it," Kid said as they walked up to the front door of the detective agency.

"Tadaima!" Conan said as he opened the door.

"Mou, Conan-kun," Ran said as she went to see Conan, "Why did you come back so late?" Then she saw the shrunken Kid behind him, "Ah le? Who's this?" she asked.

"T-that's why I'm late," Conan replied, "This is my brother, Ryuugane Raiden. My mom said that he was getting too troublesome in America and had to come back to Japan and stay with me."

"Eh? You never said that you had a brother."

"W-well . . ."

Ran walked up to the two boys and knelt down. She looked at Raiden, who was doing his little kid act by shyly hiding behind his "brother".

"I'm Mouri Ran," Ran told him, "but you can call me Ran-neechan. Yoroshiku."

"I-I'm R-Ryuugane Raiden. Y-yoroshiku."

This guy's good, Conan thought to himself.

"Wait a second," Ran said to Conan, "If he's your brother, then how come you guys have different last names?"

"O-oh," Conan stuttered, "Well, uh, he's my half brother."

"Ah, soka! That explains things. Well then, Raiden-kun, let me show you around."

"U-umn," Raiden replied, following Ran into the kitchen with Conan trailing behind.

When they walked into the kitchen they found Sonoko and Kazuha at the table drinking some hot tea that Ran made for them.

"Oh, okaeri, Conan-kun," Sonoko said when she saw him.

"Okaeri," Kazuha echoed.

"Tadaima," Conan said again.

"Oh, who's this?" Sonoko asked, seeing the new boy who had followed Ran.

"This is Raiden-kun. He's Conan-kun's brother," Ran introduced. "Raiden-kun, this is Sonoko and Kazuha."

"Yoroshiku," the three said.

The conversation was interrupted when Heiji came in through the door.

"Where were you, Heiji?!" Kazuha asked. "After the hornet incident, you hadn't come out of the mall and I was getting worried!"

"G-gomen'nasai, Kazuha," Heiji responded, a bit surprised at her outburst, "but shouldn't you be in bed by now? It's nearly 1 in the morning."

"Baka! How could I sleep while I didn't know if you were okay or not?!"

"Oh, so you actually were getting worried about me?" Heiji asked.

"I-I didn't say that . . . !"

"Hai, you did," Heiji said, "you said that I 'hadn't come out of the mall' and you were 'getting worried'."

"Baka," she muttered.

Heiji finally seemed to notice the phantom thief, whom it seemed like had recovered from being shy. "So, who's he?" he asked Conan specifically, talking about his name and why he was here.

"Ryuugane Raiden," Conan replied in a child-like voice, "He's my half brother. My parents thought he was causing too much trouble in America, so they sent him back to Japan with a translator to help him understand any English that was said on the plane that he needed to hear."

"Ah, soka," Heiji replied, a slight grin on his face as he looked over at the kaito. "Konbanwa, Raiden-kun," he added, stressing the "-kun". Raiden resisted sticking his tongue out at the detective.

"Jaa," Ran said, "since the two are brothers, I think Raiden-kun should sleep with Conan-kun. That said, I'm feeling a little tired myself."

Sonoko yawned, "Me too," she agreed, "Is it okay if I spend the night with you two?" she asked, addressing Ran and Kazuha.

"Sure, I don't mind," Ran replied. "Kazuha?"

"Why not?" Kazuha responded, yawning as well.

As the three got ready for bed, Heiji, Conan, and Raiden sat down on the couches in Detective Mouri's office. It looked like they were discussing a serious topic. Hm, Ran thought as she turned her head away from the boys and walked into her room where Sonoko and Kazuha were in futons on the floor, already almost asleep.

Ran sighed as she plopped down onto her bed. Conan was acting weird again. Or, more like it, he'd been acting weird all along, and she just realized it now. For the whole time that Conan had been at the detective agency, he never once had gotten homesick. A normal 7-year-old boy would've gotten homesick long before. And then he suddenly brings home a brother that he's never told them about before. Not only did he never tell them about Raiden-kun before, he'd never told them about any of his family before. Ran thought back to the first time that they saw Conan's mom. When she came to pick him up, Conan had said that he'd never seen her before, and his facial expression went along with his statement. His mom had brushed that off as rejecting her since she'd been gone so long, and when they'd come back later, Conan seemed fine with her. But still, something seemed somehow . . . off. However, Ran's sleepiness took over, and she fell into a restless sleep caused by the confusion swirling inside of her.

Hope there wasn't too much dialogue . . .

Anyway, I have a question. When do you guys want the story to begin to end? Because I already have a 3-step ending in mind that would probably be at least 2 chapters, at most 5 (well, maybe a little more, idk). So what do you guys think?

P.S. Ja ne!