Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito.
Neko no Triad
Chapter Ten
"It is time." A voice echoed dramatically, booming and filling the entire area. The occupants of the room shifted uncomfortably and glanced at one another nervously.
"Hey, do you think he's really going to do it?" One of the students whispered to the occupant of the desk beside him. A sudden plume of smoke interrupted the other student's answer as the room was flooded with showers of confetti and random pool inflatables. (Absolutely no fish, quite obviously.)
As the occupants of the room were left to deal with the after-effects and chaos of the prank, a certain magician effortlessly leapfrogged over the masses, going from desk to desk before settling on the one in front of Hakuba.
"Whatcha doing, Bakuba?" Kaito ignored the occupant of the desk's disgruntled squawk and carried on his friendly conversation (If one could call it that...) with the half-Brit.
The detective snorted in disapproval, barely offering the magician a mere glance.
"Of course you'd be the one to come up with a silly nickname. What next; are you going to rename my cat?"
Kaito pretended to look thoughtful, looking pensively up in the air and switching his gaze to said cat lazily sprawled over Hakuba's desk. "Hm..."
He abruptly grinned, his smile splitting his face. "You know what, that's a great idea!" He raised his hand and waved it wildly, announcing the new name for the kitten.
"From today on, I dub thee... Mini-me!" Russell looked up from his position on the desk to meow blearily at the teen and dropped back face-down. Hakuba flicked his eyes from his cat back to Kaito.
"I do not think that Russell approves." Hakuba stated monotonously.
Kaito flapped his hand at detective. "Pshaw... I'm sure he loves the name. He's probably tired, as expressive and boring as you are." He scooped up the kitten, Russell barely protesting, and clutched him to his chest. "I bet you'd rather live with me instead of this stick in the mud, right?"
Russell flopped bonelessly and tiredly meowed in response. Both teens stared down at the cat.
"..."
"Was that a yes or a no?"
Shinichi eyed the two teens, callously brushing off their confusion and propping his head up on Kaito's arm. Just what exactly was he supposed to do now? He didn't have any leads on the organization that shrunk him and he wasn't getting any closer to a cure. Although there was a temporary one, he had already begun to notice the slight miniscule decrease of time he remained human each time he took the medicine.
Shinichi groaned and slammed his head repeatedly against Kaito's arm, startling the magician and almost sending himself towards a painful meeting with the ground. He ignored the bewildered looks that Hakuba sent him in favor of attempting to beat his brains out. Never mind the fact that this would probably give the British detective another plausible reason to why he couldn't really be a cat, because this was completely worth it, mostly because his current situation didn't seem to be getting any better. He was still a cat, the cure was only temporary, and he was becoming immune to said cure. Which meant that one day, he was going to be stuck as a cat forever.
…
This really wasn't helping his morale at all.
Shinichi slouched back and grumpily glared at Hakuba. Why did the oh-so logical half-Brit have to be so darned perceptive? He already had more than enough problems on his plate; having to worry about protecting his identity from an esteemed detective just made it twice as hard to deal with them. Not to mention that there was a lack of interesting things to do; no challenging cases or even KID heists.
He was basically bored out of his mind. If nothing interesting happened soon, he would be forced to create his own entertainment: helping Kaito annoy the hell out of Hakuba. But he highly doubted that would last very long in terms of amusement and Hakuba'd probably see it as another reason or piece of evidence of him not truly being a cat.
Although... it still would be fun. To an extent.
Specifically, until Hakuba lost his temper and started cursing Kaito out with the most colorful language he could think of. Which typically included the word 'bloody' and various other curses. It was pretty funny to see how many different shades Hakuba's face could change when he was annoyed.
"–do you think he's alright? I mean, he's not moving, even when I shook him..."
Shinichi caught the last bit of Kaito's worried inquiry – and abruptly felt nauseous as Kaito rapidly shook him back and forth again.
Hakuba glanced at the swirly eyed and very queasy looking kitten and angrily swiped at Kaito, yelling at him.
"So god help me, Kaito, if you just killed Russell from all that rough and completely unnecessary shaking, I will personally murder you with my own hands– "
Finally over the nauseous feeling, Shinichi groaned – or at least as much of a groan a cat could achieve – and deftly squirmed out of Kaito's grip, gracefully landing on the floor with a dignified air.
He petulantly glared up at the prankster and self-proclaimed magician and whipped around, stalking away to seat himself beside Hakuba.
The half-Brit paused, as if he were weighing the pros and cons of it, and then gently lifted the kitten off of the ground and cradled him in his arms. Russell started for a second, but quickly calmed down when he realized that it wasn't Kaito or some other random overenthusiastic person (cough, cough, SONOKO) picking him up.
As Hakuba held the cat, an idea slowly dawned on him. It was stupid, crazy, and would never work – but with Kaitou KID's exception from the law of reality, it probably would.
This could just reveal the identity of the Kaitou KID and possibly give him an insight into who Russell really was.
Although he wasn't positive, Russell's human form most likely looked something like Kaito. And the kitten's surprising intelligence and ability to bring his attention to important clues, he was obviously someone with a high IQ – maybe a detective?
More importantly, in the past, Russell had come very close to capturing the Kaitou KID. So, there was a chance that another person who had done the same thing and had disappeared recently existed out there.
" –akuba! Hakuba!"
Hakuba quickly snapped out of his epiphany and whipped his head to face the owner of the voice.
"What?" He snapped, annoyed at being distracted from his new and brilliant plan.
A worried looking Kaito stared back, unnerved by the wide grin that had been steadily growing on Hakuba's face, unbeknownst to its owner.
"Uh... Hakuba, are you alright?"
Hakuba scowled. "Of course I'm alright! Why wouldn't I be?"
"...if you're sure." Kaito croaked out with a disturbed expression, one eye twitching madly.
Below, Russell appeared to retain the same expression as the magician. A happy Hakuba was not very good for one's health.
Hakuba glowered unhappily at the duo. Couldn't he be happy without being looked at oddly for at least once in his life?
The detective muttered under his breath and grumpily waited for school to end. He couldn't wait to leave Kuroba and his bloody eccentricity behind.
Russell bounded ahead cheerfully and glanced back at Hakuba, meowing joyfully. The half-brit allowed a fond smile to creep onto his lips. It was times like this where he could forget his suspicion of the kitten and watch the cat act normally – dare he say, cutely?
He watched as the feline happily chased after a white butterfly and chuckled when the kitten was unable to keep up with the evasive insect's acrobatic fluttering and collided with a telephone pole.
For some reason, it reminded him of a KID heist. He wasn't sure why, but perhaps it had to do with attending one too many KID heists.
Hakuba quickly shook his head back and forth rapidly.
Okay, maybe he was thinking too much. That probably didn't have anything to do with it. Nonetheless, he did need to finish some research to find out who Russell could be. He did have some leads, although it wasn't solid evidence. But either way, his deductions could prove to be fruitful.
"Meow?" Russell pawed questioningly at Hakuba's pant leg, eyes innocently wide in genuine confusion.
The British detective paused and bit his lip, twitching slightly.
…
Forget appearances, he was going to hug the kitten anyway. His reputation would hold.
Russell squeaked.
"WHAT?" Nakamori all but shouted at Hakuba.
The inspector flailed his arms irritatedly in the detective's unamused face.
"Just what kind of a stupid idea is that?"
Hakuba sighed. "It's a perfectly imaginable idea, keibu. All of our other more rational ideas have never worked and the only person to have nearly caught the thief was some other new detective from another prefecture." The half-Brit pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off a stress headache before continuing.
"Considering the KID's uncanny luck and obvious reality bending personality, this just might be the key to his capture."
The inspector scowled and glared at Hakuba, muttering curses.
"Do as you like, but the Task Force will not participate in that ludicrous plot of yours." Nakamori jabbed his finger threateningly at the young detective's face. "And you'll regret it when Kaitou KID is arrested by me!"
The keibu accented his empty statement with a glower and stormed away.
Hakuba stared questioningly after the irritable inspector.
"Uh... yeah. Good luck with that."
The keibu abruptly turned around and, for a second, Hakuba was worried that the man had actually heard his sarcastic statement. He wasn't particularly looking forward to having his eardrums hammered by another rant about capturing KID.
"Oh... and keep your damnable cat away from the Task Force!" Nakamori stomped back into the surveillance room.
Russell, almost about leap onto one of the chairs in the room, froze halfway through his jump and crashed solidly on to the ground. He hopped up, seemingly unhurt in any way by the fall and angelically trotted back to Hakuba as if he hadn't been trying to interfere with the heist.
He snorted. And everyone apparently thought Russell was a completely normal cat.
The detective stooped and picked up Russell to head back towards the heist location. He confidently strode through the looming hallways and entered into a spacious room. In the center, set on a velvet pillow and sealed in a glass display case, was the Moonlight's Angel.
According to legend, the jewel was supposedly magic and could bring countless power and fortune to its wielder. Also, the jewel had been reported to actually contain an angel, which was only visible in the moonlight, thus the name Moonlight's Angel.
The half-Brit shook his head. It was just a silly superstition. There was absolutely no way that could be true. However, the important thing was that it was Kaitou KID's heist target and it was necessary to protect it from the thief.
"Are you ready then, Russell?"
The kitten's unblinking blue stare held his gaze in response. After countless seconds, Hakuba was the first to break the staring contest to scan over the room. It was almost time.
Hakuba glanced at his watch.
Only seven more seconds until heist started.
Six more seconds...
Five seconds...
Four...
Three...
Two...
One...
An explosion of smoke and the unmistakable confident voice echoing through the room and that fathomless smirk.
"Ladies and Gentlemen!"
And so, the heist began, as did the unraveling of a concealed engima.
A/N
Sorry for the late update! It appears that I won't have as much free time to write and update chapters, so the next chapter will most likely be submitted later on. I hope that I've improved a bit, as I have a habit of switching scenes too quickly at times. Did I manage to fix that problem?
Also, I would like to see if anyone has anything they would like to see in this story. Ideas are appreciated!