Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito

Neko no Triad

Chapter Nine

Hakuba groaned and palmed his face, muttering about idiot magicians and weighing the pros and cons of murdering said idiot magician. However, despite the pros heavily outweighing the cons, being stuck in a jail cell for the rest of his life really didn't appeal to him, as well as sullying his perfectly clean record. Besides, he'd probably fail anyway, especially due to the prankster's freakishly unnatural good luck. Stupid karma. Just what exactly had the retarded thief done to warrant such luck? He grumbled under his breath. It just wasn't fair.

Speaking of things not being fair...

He watched in amusement as Aoko ran past, furiously swinging a mop at Kaito and shrieking in fury, completely intent on bludgeoning the magician to death. The detective sweatdropped. Never mind. Karma definitely balanced out in this case.

His thoughts briefly wandered to his cat, Russell. The feline had taken to slumbering in his schoolbag once every week. The first few times, he had scooped up the bag and sent the kitten flying on to the floor with a painful sounding thump, soon followed by an angry squall and a set of claws sinking their way into his leg as he rushed to the door. It was strange, since the cat usually kept to himself and out of the way. Now, it seemed like Russell was more irritable and drowsy. There were a few periods of time where the feline would happily bounce about the room, mewing perkily and, in general, acting more like a real kitten. It was especially odd when he had caught Russell observing the mirror in what appeared to be blatant fascination. He was pretty sure that the cat had seen the mirror plenty of times before, as it had been in his house for months before he had found the kitten.

Lost in his thoughts, Hakuba didn't pay attention to his surroundings and was abruptly snapped out of his musings in time to hear a 'look out!' before he collided rather painfully with a dark skinned teen.

"Oy! Watch where you're going, ahou!" The teen angrily yelled at him in an Osakan accent.

Miffed, Hakuba responded back in the same way, albeit more politely. "I believe you were the one who crashed into me, sir."

Mentally, he cursed out the rude Osakan native. Blasted hothead – didn't his mother teach him any manners? He didn't realize he was glaring rather nastily at the teen until he opened his big mouth again.

"Stop starin' ahou!"

Hakuba's head snapped up. His eyes narrowed. "Who are you to be calling me names? Tch... I'd like to know the name of the rude imbecile that has just ruined my day."

The other boy turned an interesting shade of red as a vein throbbed in his temple.

"Th' name's Heiji Hattori, ahou!" The teen accented this with heated glare. "The Great Detective of the West!" The Osakan seemed proud about it, especially with the way he seemed to puff himself up as he said the title.

Hakuba stared coolly back, retorting smoothly. "Saguru Hakuba. Detective." He smirked, seeing that his icy response had ruffled the other teen's feathers, eliciting another fiery shout.

"An' no one's better than me, not even that so called great detective of the east!"

Hakuba frowned. Great Detective of the East? He remembered hearing something about that – the modern day Sherlock Holmes, Shinichi Kudo or something. And he highly doubted that this hot tempered buffoon would be anything close to that level of intelligence. Especially when one considered the Osakan teen's actions and manner of speech, it brought up a lot of doubt and uncertainty about his supposed occupation. He eyed the dark skinned boy suspiciously through half lidded eyes, having tuned out the other boy angrily yelling as background noise.

"Riiiiight..." He drawled out, interrupting the Osakan's furious rant. "Sure you are."

Hattori's face turned a lovely shade of purple and he looked like his eyes were about to burst out of his head. And then the dam broke.

"YOU AHOU! #$%^*!" Hattori raged violently, bellowing expletives and disturbing the general public. A annoyed mother fixed a rather dirty glare at the Osakan before dragging her child away, hands on his ears and muttering about how disrespectful teenagers were these days. Hakuba sighed and decided to try to calm the irate teen, mostly because of the creepy old lady glaring at them darkly from across the street. He shuddered slightly and reached a hand out slowly towards the furiously ranting Osakan teen and smacked him, not too gently, over the head.

"OW! WHAT WAS THAT FOR, AHOU?" Heiji roared at the British detective, enraged. Hakuba blinked a few times, looking frazzled as his hair was blown backwards and he appeared to have just braved a blizzard. He shook his head rapidly and smoothed out his hair, coughing slightly as he regained his composure. The detective cleared his throat and stated quietly, "You are disturbing the general public." He then waved a hand at the glaring old lady. "And the elderly lady across the street does not seem to approve. Quite frankly, she's starting to scare me." Heiji scowled and turned around, abruptly spinning back around and swallowing nervously when he caught sight of said old lady's dirty glare. The dark skinned teen's actions could be described as scared or possibly sheepish and perhaps a tad bit scared. Hakuba personally thought it was rather funny.

"Ehehehe..." Hattori laughed unnaturally. "Is that normal for this place?"

Hakuba fixed the other with a bland stare. "Just her." Heiji was about to retort when the British detective added, "And her sixteen cats." The Osakan's jaw dropped. The Ekoda detective frowned slightly. "Close your mouth. You're going to catch flies. Heiji's mouth snapped shut with an audible click. "Erm..."

Anything else that Hattori was about to say was abruptly cut off when a cat lazily ambled over and , rebounding off of a few objects, perched itself on the Osakan detective's head. Hakuba noted in amusement that the feline that was currently sprawled in the dark skinned teen's hair was indeed Russell. Heiji, snapping out of his shock induced stupor, realized that there was a cat on his head and yelled, swatting at his head. Russell 'mrred' in disapproval and gracefully leaped off, completely undetected, leaving the teen to wildly flail around and smack himself as he tried to dislodge the cat that he still believed was on his head. The aforementioned cat – Russell – yawned slightly and trotted over to the flailing detective. One loud meow was all it took to startle the Osakan and cause him to trip over his own feet, landing with a painful thud. The kitten blandly bent down to stare into the fallen teenager's eyes and, to Hakuba's surprise, stuck its tongue out with a 'pbbt' in the Osakan's face. That was a strangely human behavior for the cat. Then again, he mused, Russell never did fit the standards of normal. Was Russell really even a cat in the first place? Hakuba allowed himself a small chuckle at Russell, who had flipped up his tail and turned his nose up into the air, making a noise that vaguely sounded like a 'hmph' of disapproval and trotting away. His amusement simply increased at the hothead's expression – he was gaping at the cat and looked like someone had tried to knock him out with a bouquet of daisies.

"What kind of ahou's cat is that?" Hattori grumbled angrily. After the other teen had collected himself and stood back up, Hakuba decided to drop the bomb. "That's my cat, Russell." He watched as the Osakan began spluttering and spouting random gibbering exclamations of surprised shock. This was highly amusing – perhaps this was why Kuroba enjoyed playing pranks so much.

…

Ghk.

There was obviously something wrong with him today if he was relating to Kuroba of all people today. After that realization, Hakuba proceeded to try and knock himself unconscious against a nearby wall much to the confusion of passing pedestrians.

Meanwhile, Heiji whirled around walked a few paces forward to escape this weird town and its crazy inhabitants and smacked face first into the nearest pole. Hakuba turned back around and paused in his attempts at knocking himself out in time to see the Osakan collide with the pole. Russell seemed to have found the Osakan detective's stumbling and reeling to be hilarious as he toppled backwards and landed flat on his butt in the road. Had he been human, the kitten probably would have been mirthfully cackling on the ground in a fit of laughter, especially if Hattori had gotten himself run over at this point. Personally, he agreed that it would have been nice to see the hothead get knocked down a few pegs. He most likely would have laughed too.

Any person walking past at the moment would have been momentarily baffled at the sight of the dark skinned teen sitting in the road looking like he had been struck dumb and a foreign teenager repeatedly smacking his head against a wall. (Hakuba had noticed that he was starting to think like Kaito Kuroba again and had resumed his attempt at bashing his brains out.) The nearby kitten collapsed on the ground and sounded like it was laughing certainly didn't help one's sanity either.

An enraged Aoko randomly dashed past swinging a mop and chasing a terrified Kaito across the street.

A few minutes later (Maybe hours? He wasn't really sure, especially with his pounding headache.), Hakuba found himself wandering around his house, Russell in tow. The displeased cat was meowing and pawing at his sleeves, demanding to be put down now or else there would be hell to pay. He complied and set the feline down, Russell bounding from his arms and perching himself on the couch, fur ruffled. Perhaps it was because of his temporary stupor or the headache, but for a moment, it seemed that there was another teen sitting on the couch, glancing at him with confused blue eyes under feathery chocolate brown hair. Hakuba blinked and gaped, shaking his head back and forth rapidly to disperse the image. The teen dissolved into mist and he found himself staring into the worried blue eyes of his cat. What the – ? He could have sworn that the previously imagined teen and the cat were one and same. He scrutinized the cat, noting the vaguely human like behavior of the feline. Just who was Russell really?

A pair of sapphire eyes gazed at him uneasily and a faintly worried mew soon shook Hakuba out of his musings. His stare transferred to the disquieted expression of the subject of his thoughts. Russell had padded over quietly, eying him warily and (seemingly) wondering what was going on. It was as if he had sensed the mood and deduced exactly what Hakuba was thinking. And for some reason, he was nervous that Hakuba was straying towards that conclusion – perhaps it was the truth?

Russell shied away from Hakuba's intense stare. This wasn't good. If he was found out now– ! The results would not be very good. In this case, just what exactly could happen? There were thousands of different possibilities and reactions towards something as impossible as turning into a cat. And to top it off, his conscience and detective pride kept nagging at him for helping a thief. That, and the fact that he had been sitting on his furry rear and endlessly sleeping for the past few days. It just didn't seem to be very moral. Plus, when did he stop trying to return to his original life?

…

Well, besides the fact that he was supposed to be dead, but still!

Unnoticed, Hakuba quietly sidled up to the distracted kitten and lightly tapped it on the head, curious about the feline's abnormal stillness. As expected from anyone who was feeling rather paranoid, Russell sprang up in the air, yowling in shock. Hakuba fell backwards, shouting in complete shock, completely surprised and unprepared for the cat's overly strong reaction. He clutched a hand to his chest, breathing heavily – Nah, he was definitely hyperventilating. "Dear lord!" Hakuba blurted. "Nearly gave me a heart attack..." Russell stared up oddly at the half-Brit, a perturbed expression on his face. Human-like expressions... Well, there was another reason to add to the list of Why Russell Can't Really Be A Cat.

A/N

Gack. I think I've temporarily lost track of just where this story was supposed to go. Excuse me for a moment while I renew my inspiration. And it seems that I've also started to attempt to write another fic(s).

Ahem.

Well, say hello to Heiji Hattori, the resident hothead. Hakuba doesn't really seem to like him very much. And the feeling seems to be mutual.

This chapter is late due to exams at school and inspirational difficulties. I'll be able to write smoothly once I figure out where Russell wandered off to in my head.