A New Beginning?

Chapter 9

It had been 21 minutes and 56 seconds since Kaito and dashed out of the front door after Aoko and the three of them were watching the clock, wondering if both of them would come back together or whether it would just be Kaito returning unsuccessfully having given up trying to find her.

Hakuba sighed, tearing his eyes from the clock. "This is all your fault Sherry. She was doing fine until this evening."

Haibara snorted. "That woman was a bunch of fraying nerves. She was obviously faking happiness- didn't you see her shaking hand or spot the nervous movements?" she retorted. "It was an accident waiting to happen."

Conan glared at her. He was slowly becoming exhausted by her snarky comments. "We both noticed it, but the plan of having her improve her physical and mental health by living with Kuroba-kun was optimistic in the outset and she had improved greater than expected."

Her only response was to scowl and look away. Shiho Miyano had not been expecting a warm welcome, but she had not been expecting this outright hostility either. She hypothesised that it may have been t her blackmailing of Hakuba so he would send his private plane to Japan so she could come to England.

"Do you think that they are going to want out of the plan?" Conan mused out loud whilst tapping his fingers on the table.

"Undoubtedly, but they cannot. It is too late," Hakuba replied sadly, upset that his plans of matching Kaito and Aoko had gone awry along with his main plan of trapping the Organisation. "I wonder if Kuroba will use this opportunity to confess…" he uttered under his breath.

He wanted them to be together as it was an ending that Shinichi Kudo and Ran Mori would never have again due to the Organisation and he didn't want a repeat of that with the two that resembled them.

"He won't and he probably will never tell her," Conan decided. "I know I missed lots of opportunities myself, but the time isn't right now."

Everyone in the room jumped when the front door was opened and Kaito and Aoko entered the room holding hands. Aoko's face was serene and relaxed as if a heavy load of worries had been lifted from her whilst Kaito was wearing his best poker face.

"Hakuba, we would like to leave the agreement we had with you We've gone along with everything you've said and nothing has come of it, even you admit that events have not gone as you planned," Kaito said levelling his line of sight with Hakuba's to show that he was completely serious.

Hakuba twitched a single eyebrow. He had been expecting it ever since Aoko had stormed out of the house and he had searched silently in his mind for a way to make it work in his favour.

"It can be arranged- for a price." He winked at Kaito who glared momentarily and nodded.

"I expected as much," he switched his attention to Aoko. "Aoko, I think you should go up to bed. This is going to take a while and it's getting late"

"I'll stay with her upstairs until you're ready," Conan offered, understanding why he wanted her out of hearing range and knowing that when left alone she had a habit of listening into conversations she wasn't intended to hear.

Kaito shot him a grateful look. "Aoko?"

As if on cue Aoko yawned tiredly and rubbed her eyes which were bloodshot with red from crying. "I am feeling tired. I'll see you later then," she said turning to leave the room. "Conan- I mean Kudo-kun, are you coming?"

Conan slid off his chair and followed her out of the room, closing the door behind him after shooting Hakuba a warning glance.

Haibara yawned. "So the brave Knight is going to sacrifice himself for the Princess, how tragic," she said snidely.

"Shut up Sherry. I don't have much patience left." Kaito clicked his fingers and Haibara's hair turned bright bubblegum pink. "That's for annoying me."

"Still childish in serious situations, Kuroba? Hakuba smirked, glad that someone else was getting annoyed with Sherry too, before turning serious again. "What will you give me in return for Nakamori-san's safe passage out of here?"

Kaito shook his head. "Before that I want to know everything that has been going on. I'm sick of not knowing anything."

He couldn't be left in the dark now, now that he needed to protect someone besides himself. Over the years he had learnt that ignorance about dangerous things is life threatening. He just wished that he had been able to sneak some of his favourite Sodium Pentothal past airport security for getting the truth out of bratty detectives.

"I suppose it would be better," Hakuba mused thoughtfully. "Firstly, there is, and had been for the past 6 months, a spy for the Organisation living in this village."

"What!" Kaito exclaimed. How could he just impart serious information like that so casually?

Hakuba shrugged casually, unconcerned. "He is just here to report my movements so I have not bothered about him and it is fine for Them to know I am at your house as They know we are planning something"

"What is your epic plan?" Kaito latched onto the last sentence.

"At the start I needed some prime bait to lure them in, you and Nakamori-san so we can capture some high ranking members in the very least."

"How are you going to go about that?" Kato asked sceptically, not believing what he was hearing.

"Have you ever noticed that there is only 1 hotel to stay in here and there is only 1 way in and out of this village?" the detective smiled, happy to explain the ingenuity of his plan.

"Come to think of it…"

"There is also no other town within 10 miles of this village," he nodded sagely. "This place is surrounded by the sea and grassland."

Kaito picked up the hints and threaded them together so he could construct Hakuba's plan. "You're going to trap Them here? Is that really going to work? I don't think they would fall for something that simple."

Haibara spoke up from the other end of the table causing Kaito to flinch and jump- he had been so intent on his conversation that he had forgotten that she was still there. "It's a simple plan and depending on the circumstances it may work."

A thought struck Kaito suddenly. "What about the ordinary people here? Are they just going to end up as collateral damage?"

"Most people here have been hired by me and are a mix of former police officers and members of my group. As for the few families which have no connection to me, I have arranged for them to take a month's holiday starting today."

The depth of the plan began to sink into Kaito's brain. The prim blonde was obviously completely serious about bringing Them down and had evidently spent a lot of money and resources on it hearing the truth now for Kaito portrayed Hakuba in a more favourable light. Before he had just believed that he was a conceited and stuck up detective with too much money.

"How long have you been planning this and how much have you spent on this?"

Hakuba calculated it for a second. Had it really been that long? "1 year and 2 months. I was not sure if I could do it alone, then Kudo-kun joined me 3 months ago and he formulated a back up plan which he refuses to tell me. As for the cost £3 000 585 exactly or at least as of today… I keep a running total."

Kaito whistled. The man was obviously rolling in money, yet he hadn't seen any signs of anyone else in his manor that did the chores like cleaning and washing clothes. He must do the cleaning himself to save money, Kaito thought wryly to himself, amused be the idea of the blonde wearing an pink filly apron and carrying a feather duster.

"I am only paying for 30% of it myself. The organisation I work for paid the rest," he added, afraid that Kaito would think that he only got where he was because of his wealth.

"I've been meaning to ask, I know I met a few people from it and visited their headquarters in Tokyo, but what do you work for and what arranged all this?" Kaito asked, perturbed by the mention of "Organisation" even though he knew Hakuba wasn't talking about The Organisation.

"You could say that the people that we are fighting against are the Black Organisation and we are the White Organisation that was created around the same time to eradicate them, but nothing has really been achieved yet."

"So this is a last ditch attempt then? And how has Sherry messed it up?" He recalled all the glares sent by Conan and Hakuba at the scientist.

Hakuba sighed deeply. "The plan was to slowly lure them in by adding to the bait, we were going to reveal who Conan was "accidently" to the village and this place would slowly fill up with Black Organisation spies, but the presence of Sherry has sped events up and we are not ready to face a large number of people yet so I am going to need your help, or more specifically I need the co operation of… Kaito Kid."

"…As long as you get Aoko out of here…"


Thank you to all the kind readers who have been reviewing this fanfiction like GothicAngel09 and the annonymous reviewers By the way it's still raining...