Disclaimer: I own nothing and no one

This drabble may seem familiar to those of you who read my plunnies over in S&S

I have done some editing and decided to move it out of the main storyline

For the rest of you, enjoy

Puzzle

Kaito choked as another wave washed over him. This sucked. Determinedly, he kicked his way back to the surface, spitting out the mouthful of salt water he had nearly swallowed. Kami that tasted nasty. Plus, the water wasn't exactly what the young raven hanyou would call pristine. Getting this stuff in his system could not be good for him.

Curse his morals anyway. Would it have really hurt to use his true magic, just this once? Why oh why hadn't he just called out his wings and flown back to shore, or better yet teleported? Kaito wondered once again. The water was cold, and who knew what was lurking beneath the ocean's surface. In all honestly, the kaitou was trying not to think about it. The point remained though; that he was a creature of the air, not the sea.

As he swam, the magician thief's thoughts strayed to the one who had gotten him into this situation. Conan Edogawa, detective, the tantei wasn't normal, not by a long shot. Even a kid prodigy was still a child. However, Conan didn't act like a child, not unless someone was looking. Then, he tended to overdo it. It wasn't natural for a kid's voice to raise an octave and a half when he got nervous.

Then there was tantei-kun's aura, a column of blue/white light that reminded Kaito of nothing so much as the gleam of polished steel. It was the aura of an adult, or perhaps just a mature teenager. More than that, it was one he had encountered before.

A person's aura wasn't completely static. But once they reached a certain age it tended to change extremely slowly, baring an extremely traumatic event. They could be as unique as any fingerprint, provided one had the skill to read them. The teenager remembered where he had encountered this one.

It was right after the clock tower heist. He had been curious about the detective who had nearly caught him. Kudo Shinichi, the meitantei of the east. The teenager had disappeared several months ago. Though he didn't seem to be missing now, not technically anyway.

Kaito paused, mentally connecting points a to b, forwards and backwards. All right, he thought to himself. This is what I know; now extrapolate. So, Kudo had somehow lost about a decades worth of age. That was weird, even by his standards.

Even more odd was that there wasn't a trace of magic anywhere around the seemingly young boy. Whatever had happened to the other, it hadn't been supernatural in nature. The hybrid would have been able to tell if it was.

So what had happened? After a moment of contemplation Kaito shrugged. Oh well, he could find out easily enough, and he had been a bit bored anyways. Thief he may be, but that didn't mean the teenager didn't adore a good puzzle.

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Hope you liked it

And as for the next chapter of PoaT

December has definitely arrived

Have come to doubt it will be up before the weekend