Konbanwa! Sapphire Nightshade here! Wow, I feel like I've posted a lot of chapters within a small amount of time, even though it's only been 2. 3 including this one. Well, since I haven't done this in a long time . . . Disclaimer, I don't own DC.

Anyway, onto the next chapter!

Chapter 9: Back to the Police Station:

Even though Detective Mouri was the first to wake up the next day, Conan soon followed him as he had school today. After Conan left for school, Ran came out of her room yawning. She hoped that she'd be able to investigate with Shinichi today, but maybe she would skip out on it. She subconsciously made breakfast for her dad, then collapsed onto the couch. No, I can't go to sleep yet, she thought, I need to help Shinichi . . . However, even as she was thinking this, her eyes involuntarily closed on their own.

A few minutes later, Shinichi came in. He called Ran's name when he didn't see her, but after looking around in the apartment a bit, he noticed her sleeping on the couch. He was about to try waking her up until he thought of why she could've been so exhausted. After all, she must've been shocked to find out that Conan was the one solving all of her dad's cases, as Shinichi was. After a few seconds of hesitation, Shinichi decided to leave Ran be and investigate by himself. If she didn't get much sleep last night because he told her his deduction, then it would be better to leave her alone.

Shinichi closed the door, left the apartment, and headed toward the police station. They were only able to talk to one person yesterday before he left to make sure his deduction was right. There were probably more officers that knew about Conan-kun if he went onto the crime scene that often.

As Shinichi entered the police station, a vaguely familiar police officer came up to him and said, "Hey, Shinichi-kun! What are you doing here?"

"Um," Shinichi replied, "I'm sorry, but . . . do I know you?"

". . . Hah?" Takagi replied. "Y-yeah, of course you do."

"Sorry," Shinichi said again, "I don't remember much of what happened recently."

"Amnesia?" Takagi guessed, surprised, "How?"

"I'm not quite sure . . ." he paused then added, "You don't happen to know Edogawa Conan, do you?"

"Conan-kun? Of course I know him. We've seen him on at least a third of our cases."*

"'Our'?"

"Satou-san, Megure-keibu and I. And sometimes Chiba-kun as well," Takagi replied as he started walking into a nearby office. Shinichi followed.

"Then have you noticed anything strange about Conan-kun?"

"Strange? Well, he certainly isn't normal. It's strange enough to see him on a crime scene and he often notices little things. And many times he disappears during an investigation." The same things that others said.

"Anything else?" Shinichi asked.

Takagi hesitated, thinking. Then he answered, "Well, now that you mention it, there was that bombing incident in the elevator."**

"Bombing incident?" Shinichi asked, interested.

"A while ago there was this bomber from some years before. Conan-kun and I were stuck in an elevator that had a bomb with a mercury level installed on the roof."

"A mercury lever?!"

"Aa, it was strange, though. Somehow he knew in detail what a mercury lever was, even when I didn't. He said he saw it on TV, but it still seems strange to me. Now that I think about it, Conan-kun seems to know a lot about that kind of stuff. He saw and recognized the listening device on it. That kid even knows how to defuse a bomb! He cut the last three wires in the right order without any instruction at all, not to mention that he was able to solve the code that lead to the bombs in that highschool with only 4 characters. He was also able to solve the actual meaning of the first code the bomber sent us before anyone else did."

"R-really?" Shinichi asked. Then he murmured to himself, "Who is that kid?!"

Hearing Shinichi, Takagi replied, "Yeah, I asked that, too! But since we were probably going to die in that situation to save thousands of others, he said that he would tell me 'in the next world'. Now that I think about it, he never answered that question . . ."

"Hm . . ." was all Shinichi said. Suddenly, the phone rang, making both Shinichi and Takagi jump. Since Shinichi was closer, he picked it up. "Moshi moshi," he said.

"Ah, who is this?" the voice on the other end asked.

"Kudou Shinichi," he replied.

"Oh, you're Conan-kun's older brother!" Inspector Yamamura exclaimed.***

"His what?!"

Conan sighed as he looked out the window. At least he had a day off yesterday because of a teacher meeting, but now he was stuck in school again "learning" the very basics of math. Everything was so boring and elementary. Well, he was in elementary school . . .

Yawning, Conan remembered that he had put a tracker on Shinichi. He pressed a button on his glasses and a map came up with a red dot showing where his tracker was. What's Shinichi doing at the police station? Conan thought. There's school today for him, right? Masaka . . . he isn't skipping school to investigate me, is he? Wait, he was at the police station yesterday as well. What's he doing there?

Conan's thoughts were interrupted by a small jab in the side and he looked up at Haibara who was sitting next to him.

She gestured toward his glasses. "Someone's going to notice you like that and wonder why one side of your glasses are colored."

"Ah, right," Conan replied, pressing a button on his glasses to turn them off. And just in time too, as Kobayashi-sensei called him out right afterwards.

"Conan-kun," she said, "Do you and Haibara-chan have something you would like to share with the class?"

"Ah, iya," Conan replied. "Gomen'nasai."

"Then would you like to solve this problem?" Conan solved the problem on the board very easily and sat back down, wondering what Shinichi was up to.

*Just guesstimating since they seem to be on a lot of Conan's cases and I'm sure they have many cases of their own as well

**Episode 304 (trembling police headquarters: 12 million hostages), chapters 369-373 (serial bomber case)

***At some point in the anime and manga, I think either Kudou Yukiko tells Yamamura-keiji that Conan's her son in the roundabout way that was supposed to make it seem like Conan was a distant relative like she said to Ran (episode 96, chapters 131-138) or Yamamura-keiji overhears Yukiko calling Conan her son.

Shinichi's getting more info on Conan and Conan's getting into deeper trouble. He probably never thought that he might be discovered by himself. Anyway, just another reminder, if you have an idea . . . well, you know.

Ja ne!