After a boring day at school and spending ten minutes of his precious time convincing the Detective Boys that no it was not a good idea to sneak into a heavily guarded stadium to see a soccer match that your parents refused to buy the $200 tickets for, he was forced to help solve another case. (They also had a heavy argument of whether the player Hide or Naoki was better, which he honestly couldn't bring himself to care about.. well, maybe he should. Shinichi, being the soccer fan that he is, may be interested in those kinds of things.)

Some high school girl, who introduced herself as Akagi Ryoko, had shown up at the detective agency, saying that she was dating Shinichi and was desperately looking for him. Conan thought she was obviously lying. He didn't think Shinichi would go off with some girl when he's supposed to be hiding from a huge criminal organization. But, it seemed Ran was convinced if her furious mood was anything to go by. She had demanded that they go over to her house and gave Conan a harsh glare, giving him no other option but to come along. Though, he didn't particularly mind; he was quite curious as to why she would lie about such a thing.

They had arrived at the apartment complex and Ryoko led them in. She kept looking at the room numbers trying to find her apartment, as if she didn't instinctively know where it was like someone who was living in it for a while would. This was getting more and more suspicious.

When she opened the door, Conan noticed scratch marks around the lock of the door, a clear sign of forced entry. When he got inside, there were many other suspicious things. The only shoes on the shoe rack were either too big or too small to be Ryoko's. They didn't seem to be women's shoes either. Ryoko also had no idea where anything was. She had to search through the cupboards when she was trying to make tea.

Conan decided he should investigate the rest of the apartment. He decided to start with a hallway by the living room and found a room with the nameplate Mamoru. He opened the door and was shocked.

The room was completely trashed, with its items scattered all around the floor. But, what was most surprising was the man stood in the middle of the room. He was wearing very dark jeans, a black hoodie and a hat that covered his eyes, as if he was trying not to be recognized.

The man startled and turned around to meet Conan. Conan backed away and started to run to the living room to warn the girls that the house was being robbed. But before he could, the man cried out, "Ah! Wait!" He grabbed Conan's arm and dragged him back into the room. When Conan tried to call out, he covered his mouth with his hand.

Conan struggled, trying to escape his grasp. The man kept shushing him and trying to keep him quiet, but Conan would not have any of that. Conan was eventually able to get a better look at the man through all his struggling, and...

"Shinichi!?" Conan cried out.

"Shhh!" He brought a finger up to his mouth.

"D-dont scare me like that." Conan sighed, bringing a hand up to calm his beating heart.

After getting a better look at Conan, Shinichi's face lit up with recognition. "Oh, you're that kid that's living with the Mouri's now. Conan, right?"

"Y-yeah. Why are you here?" He asked, still in disbelief.

"A-ah, well..." He stuttered nervously.

"Don't tell me," Conan interrupted, "You were actually going off with some girl instead of solving a case?"

"Of course not!" Shinichi yelped. "I just got a ton of texts from Ran and was curious."

Oh, right. He remembered Ran was furiously typing on her phone during the taxi ride over.

But, that was still suspicious; he didn't think Shinichi would come over and risk being seen just because of that.

"But, you got here awfully quick, huh?" Conan said, narrowing his eyes up at Shinichi.

"I-I was just close by, that's all!" He stammered. "Anyways, please don't tell Ran I'm here." He pleaded, bringing his hands together. "Or anyone else actually. If the police ask, can you please not mention that I was involved."

Oh yeah. Of course he wouldn't want the police to know.

"Hmm?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "But, wouldn't you want to clear up the misunderstanding with Ran?"

"But Ran would immediately karate chop me if she saw me here." Shinichi said with a shiver. "And besides, don't you think all this is suspicious." He said gesturing to the mess of a room.

"Well yeah, but that's beside the point-"

"I think that Mamoru kid was kidnapped." Shinichi interrupted, changing the subject.

"Huh?" Conan asked incredulously. "Why?"

"Here, look at this picture." He showed him a picture of a man and a child. "This is Mamoru and this is his brother, Akagi Hide." He pointed at the two people.

"And, Hide's playing a soccer match right now." He pulled out his phone, showing Conan live footage of the match. "He's doing far worse than usual, and making all sorts of amateur mistakes. So, the culprit probably kidnapped Mamoru and told Hide to lose the match or else his little brother will be killed. They also probably said not to call the police, which is why that girl lied to get my attention instead." He finished.

"Well, shouldn't you confirm that with her?" Conan asked.

"Huh? And how would I do that?" Shinichi asked.

"Maybe call her." Conan said.

"I don't have her number!"

"I do. You can ask her to fax you any more information." He said, pulling out his new invention from the Professor, the bento fax machine. (And, okay, he could admit this wasn't one of his best inventions.)

"But.. that's a-"

"Agasa made it for me." He interrupted, opening it up.

"Oh."

Shinichi brought his hand to his chin and considered his options.

He sighed. "Okay, fine." He decided. "Just.. give me her number." He put his hand out towards Conan.

Conan pulled out his phone and handed it over to Shinichi. He plugged the number in and brought the phone to his ear. (Conan vaguely wondered where Shinichi even got a phone. Did he manage to sneak into his house and get it? Well, he probably just had it with him at Tropical Land.) When Ryoko picked up, he told her the deduction he gave Conan earlier. When she asked how he knew, since he wasn't supposed to be here yet, he gave the poor excuse that he was a great detective and could figure it out easily. Her voice wavered in relief, profusely thanking Shinichi.

Then suddenly a loud shout came from the other side of the phone.

"Where are you, Shinichi!?" Ran shouted. "Come here now and explain yourself!"

Shinichi quickly brought the phone away from him and covered his ear with a wince.

"Shinichi!?... Shinichi!" He realized Ran could hear her own yelling from the other end phone and immediately hung up.

Shinichi looked over at Conan with fear in his eyes, and was met with a blank stare. Conan shrugged, offering no help.

Then suddenly, the machine in Conan's hand beeped and a fax started to come through. Shinichi crouched down next to him to get a better look.

He ripped out the paper, and Shinichi quietly read its contents out loud, "Brother, resurrect me."

"Hmm... That's a weird help letter" Shinichi quietly pondered to himself.

"Look at this." Conan said, holding out the paper and pointing at the beginning of the massage. "There are strange dots here."

"Hmm..." Conan could almost see the gears turning in Shinichi's mind, with his hand on his chin again.

Shinichi stood up and was about to head out of the room, but he heard the enraged shouting of Ran from across the hall.

"Shinichi! Where are you? Come out, Shinichi!"

Shinichi quickly ducked back into the room and quietly closed the door. He sighed, deciding to go back to just searching the room.

Conan decided to go back to the living room and leave the searching to Shinichi. He made sure to stay out of the path of Ran, not wanting Shinichi to get caught. When he got there, Ryoko was intently watching the soccer match on the TV. He stood beside her and started watching too.

Hide seemed to be doing pretty bad, which was good in this case. He pulled off another bad play, kicking the ball way off from the goal. But, Conan and Ryoko both watched with widening eyes as one of his teammates was in just the right place and was able to pull a maneuver, putting the ball straight in the goal. They fearfully watched the screen as the team was celebrating and cheering together over the supposed master move that Hide played.

Then, a couple of beeps rang in the room along with the sound of paper being printed out. They rushed over to the fax machine and Ryoko immediately tore out the sheet. After reading it, she gasped and collapsed to the ground.

Conan looked over her shoulder and read the note. 'You broke the agreement. You will never see your little brother again.'

Ryoko broke down into tears and clutched the paper in her hands.

Conan rushed back to Shinichi (while avoiding Ran of course) and slammed open the door.

"Sh-Shinichi-niichan!" He yelled as he closed the door.

"What is it Conan?" Shinichi turned around surprised.

"Hide messed up and scored a goal. The kidnapper said he's going to kill Mamoru soon!"

"Eh!?" Shinichi cried out.

"We have to find out who the kidnapper is!" Conan shouted.

"Yeah... The room shouldn't be this messed up even if Mamoru struggled a lot..." Shinichi said deep in thought. "Hand me the note."

Conan grabbed it from his pocket and handed it over.

Shinichi studied the paper, and Conan went to look around the room (which he hadn't actually done yet), hoping to find a clue. He found a video game case and crouched down to get a better look. It was called Onimaru Quest. It sounded kind of familiar... Oh. Mitsuhiko and Genta wouldn't shut up about it at school. He remembered them complaining about how the main hero dies in the middle of the game and that you have to resurrect him or you can't continue. Wait.. resurrect. Didn't the note say that?

Conan looked inside the case but the disk was gone. He wondered why? It's not like he would take it with him...

Conan checked the game console and it also wasn't inside. Although he did find a copy of the game already saved on it. He booted it up.

Shinichi looked over at him, confused. "Hmm?" He crouched down next to him. "What are you doing?" He asked, giving him a dry glare.

"It's a game that everyone's playing at school. You have to resurrect the hero in the middle of the game." Conan gave him a knowing look.

"R-resurrect..!" Shinichi realized, bringing out the note again.

"Look!" Conan pointed at the screen. "He named the main character after himself. And, the other characters are named after Hide and.. Naoki? Who's that?" He wondered aloud.

"That's one of Hide's soccer friends." Shinichi said with a smirk. "Hide accidentally kicked Noaki and broke his leg during practice."

"Ah!" Conan realized.

"And, we can assume the rest of the note said he was going over to Naomi's to get resurrected." Shinichi finished.

Shinichi stood up and brought out his phone. Conan turned off the console while Shinichi dialed up Ryoko. When she answered, he told her what had actually happened to Mamoru.

They were interrupted by a faint voice coming from just outside the room.

"I finally found you Shinichi." Ran's quieter voice then turned into furious yelling. "Come out now, Shinichi!"

Shinichi frantically tried to stop Ran with various excuses, but nothing worked. He looked over at Conan, silently pleading for his help, while Ran was fiercely trying to open the door. Conan calmly leaned against the wall, and gave him a look as if saying 'This is your problem, you deal with it'.

"I know you're in there!" Ran shouted.

"Y-you can't come in here! I, uh.. I'm not dressed?" Shinichi pitifully tried.

"Oh, suuure you are." A second passed before they heard Ran prepare to kick down the door. "Haaaaaaah..."

Shinichi panicked, backing away from the door.

But before she had the chance, a shout came from the end of the hallway.

"Wait, Ran-san!" Ryoko yelled. "Shinichi has something to tell you on the phone."

"Huh!? Just tell me right here!"

"I-it's something I only want you to hear." Shinichi went along with the lie.

"Ugh! Fine!" Ran went to grab the phone.

Shinichi creeped closer to the door and placed his hand on the doorknob, listening intently through the phone. Conan looked at him curiously.

Right as Ran picked up the phone, Shinichi immediately opened the door and bolted. Conan startled and rushed to the door. He looked down the hall but Shinichi was already long gone. He could almost feel the anger coming off of Ran as she whipped around in surprise to glare down the hallway.

"Conan-kun?" She asked, noticing the boy.

"Sh-Shinichi-niichan went that way!" He immediately said, pointing in the direction he saw him run, wanting to try and avoid Ran's wrath.

Then, clambering sounded from within the house and they heard a door being loudly shut.

"Shinichi...!" Ran growled and took off down the hallway after the detective, with Ryoko and Conan soon following.

They rushed out the door and ran towards Naoki's house after Ryoko suggested it.

When they had gotten there, after making sure Mamoru was safe, Conan also went off to look for Shinichi. He, somehow, didn't come across Ran who was also searching for him, but he assumed that was for the best.

He was heading back towards the entrance, when he heard a loud ringtone sound through the house. He saw Shinichi run past and rush out of the house, trying desperately to silence his phone with a panicked look on his face. Ran soon followed, angrily shouting after the boy.

Conan wondered why Shinichi didn't think to put his phone on silent or something, or at least turn the ringtone down. But he decided to head back to the detective agency for now; it was pretty late and he was hungry.

It seemed Ran had made up with Shinichi during the short time she was out. She was currently making dinner with a satisfied yet bittersweet smile.

When she finished she brought it out for the other two ravenous members of the household, who both immediately started to chow down.

After Conan had satiated his hunger a bit, he asked, "Hey, Ran?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you see Shinichi-niichan?"

Kogoro looked up from his meal to pay some attention to the conversation.

"A-ah, well.. sorta." Ran answered. "I didn't exactly see him, but we still talked."

Well that's convenient.

"About what?"

"Nothing important." She said with a slight blush on her face.

Conan and Kogoro both looked at her quizzically, but didn't decide to bother her anymore; she looked quite happy and they wanted her to stay that way.

Eventually, they finished their dinner and went to bed for the day.

The next day, Conan went over to Agasa's to explain what Shinichi had done yesterday, along with the phone call he had with Ran a few days ago. Agasa had given him a lecture about how dangerous it was to tell Ran he was still alive, which he didn't really listen to. He already knew and wholeheartedly agreed with him, but that decision was for the real Shinichi to make.

Agasa had left around halfway through the day to go to some inventors convention, and would be gone for the evening. So, Conan had free reign to finally finish searching Shinichi's house. Agasa had been trying to prevent him from doing so for the past few days, so Conan had to sneak in when Agasa was distracted, but that was exhausting to do all the time and seriously hindered his progress.

But, with the few visits he had, he managed to finish the library, and look through the rest of the attic and a few other rooms. He found.. surprisingly little. It seemed that the rest of the house was filled mostly with junk that didn't really give him any new information. Although, in the attic, he managed to find a few more child sized clothes so he wouldn't be stuck with just the stupid looking suit and bow tie. (However, after the first week, it seemed the outfit had stuck, becoming his "main" outfit. Agasa did make him a gadget that was an integral part of it. Conan thought he would never wear a bow tie for more than two days in a row, but he guessed he was going to have to if he wanted to solve murders.)

In the rest of the library, he also didn't find much. There were a few picture books but those were mostly filled with unimportant things. They did, however, strengthen Conan's lie because he really looked like Shinichi when he was seven. They were not lying when they said there was at least someone out there who looked exactly like you. He also found out Shinichi's birthday, May 4th, and was able to add more evidence to the Kudo-family-is-insane theory. There were photos titled along the lines of 'Shinichi's first crime scene!' or 'First bomb defused!' He also found many notebooks with various things written in them. They ranged from notes on piloting planes to how to shoot a gun. And, from the sticker on the back of it, they were all bought in Hawaii. Conan hoped he didn't have to know how to do all of this.

On the bright side, Conan only had a few more rooms to look for, and, from what he found in some other various rooms, it was probably just filled with junk. Well, it shouldn't take too long to look through anyway. And, Agasa would probably stop giving him concerned looks every time he was with him, when he finally finished.

When Conan left Agasa's house to head over to Shinichi's, he noticed a peculiar car on the opposite side of the road. He wasn't too much of a car guy, but he could recognize such a foreign and rare model as that. It was pitch black and (he wasn't exactly sure) but it seemed to be a Porsche. He took note of it, you don't see that type of car everyday.

Conan had finished the short walk and was stood in front of the gate. He was about to open it up, but he noticed that the lock was on the inside of the gate, closer to the house, rather than on the outside like he last left it.

He had a bad feeling about this.

He quickly walked back to Agasa's and let himself in. He went up to the second floor and found a room that had a window with a perfect view of Shinichi's house. (Unfortunately the blinds were drawn so he couldn't see if anything was happening on the inside of the house.) He sat down and waited.

After around five minutes, Conan realized this might take a while, so he decided to finally start reading Sherlock and picked out A Study in Scarlet from his backpack.

And.. it was quite good. Shinichi was onto something. He had gotten through a fair bit of it, at least a few chapters, when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.

The front door of Shinichi's house opened and two very familiar figures came out. Conan immediately recognized them as Gin and Vodka, with wide eyes. There was also a third person. She wore a long lab coat with a blood red turtleneck underneath and had short strawberry-blond hair.

Conan didn't have much time to ponder her when Gin suddenly perked up and started nervously looking around. He looked over to Agasa's house and nearly locked eyes with Conan. Conan immediately ducked behind the wall. His heart was beating rapidly in his chest. He sat in silence, with only the sound of his own uneven panicked breathing to accompany him.

When Conan mustered enough courage to take a peek out out the window, all he saw was the black Porsche from before driving off into the distance.