Ladies and gentlemen! I humbly welcome you to the next chapter of this story.
This chapter I will present the unexpected encounter with the kaitou, who is getting rather impatient with his detectives…
And we're back in business~! Oh my, that took me so long! I'm terribly sorry guys... First there was that trip (and it's a horrible idea to try and write while traveling! I ended up re-writing the whole stuff so many times… and in the end I discard most of what I wrote then… ugh…) and after it I got terribly sick! I couldn't focus my mind on anything and had some crazy ideas going on (and made me end up with ANOTHER open story xD). And after I dealt with that slight depression came… Really – I thought the world hates this chapter xD I can only hope I won't disappoint you guys with it ;)
And now onto my favorite part~ Got so many reviews~ I'm so happy guys :D
PickleWitch – Glad you don't mind the wait and appreciate the story so much~
Boogum – Well, somebody has to be mature here (still funny that the one who has to do it is looking like a kid xD) Most of your questions will be answered here ;) Hope you will be still reading this after such a long break xD
Mists – KID wouldn't miss this opportunity for life xD I'm glad you think so~ It is sometimes hard to play them right ;) And I did have fun on the trip – thank you~
Yuzurie – I just thought it was too good for Kaito not to do it x) Despite all the problem it poses… It's just a must! xD
SilverSapphire34523 – He's just having the time of his life xD So much blackmail material~
Kensy Echo – I know right? xD Kaito is so annoying sometimes xD Well I guess all Hakuba could do is get used to it – either that or he would go crazy ;) Sorry to keep you waiting~
Costell – Well if you prefer, you can always write reviews in Polish~ Nie żeby to stanowiło jakikolwiek problem ;) Anyway – I'm very glad you like it and that you managed to write a review :D I always cherish those~! And you're so cruel to the poor little Kaito xD
Cerlinfia – Oh, worry not~ I have no intention of stopping writing~ Hopefully I'll be able to return to updating at least once a week~
So without further delay…
Please enjoy and review! :)
Chapter 20: Blending with the shadows
"KID! What are you doing here?!" Conan hissed, trying to cover the shelf behind him with his small body.
"Aw... we're not going to play chase then? And I was so looking forward to it... I even dressed up for the occasion~! You're no fun, Kaitou-kun..." The thief grumbled with an amused smirk.
Heiji stepped in front of his friend, blocking path for the newcomer. "Don't even think about interfering..." He growled warningly, wondering how he could stop the teen before him.
"Interfere~? Oh, I can assure you, Kaitou-han, that it was not my intention. As this little heist is not connected to me in any way, I came only to observe and have some fun~..." He finished, upholding his smirk, but leaving his voice hanging.
Shinichi returned to his search, as they didn't have a lot of time.
Saguru narrowed his eyes at the thief. "But..? And I must inform you this is not a heist so you could stop-"
KID rolled his eyes and waved off the matter "Yes, of course... Whatever makes you feel comfortable on your first... job, Kaitou-san~" He teased with a chuckle and turned his attention to his nails, continuing with a light tone. "Well, I didn't even intend to show myself, worried it might upset you boys, but two tiny details caught my attention and I couldn't refrain myself from wanting to ask about them..."
Both teens frowned at that, wondering if he was just messing with them, trying to distract them, or if they really did miss something.
Not wasting time Hattori voiced their thoughts. "What are you talking about?"
KID grinned cheerfully and spoke with light tone. "Oh nothing much, just details, Kaitou-han, really. Like the fact your features are so characteristic and yet you aren't wearing any masks, while being recorded~ Or the other tiny thing about the strolling guard... Just a side note – it seems that he is lazy and tends to cut his routes significantly~"
As he spoke, the color from the teens' faces faded. Hakuba turned his gaze to the monitors, while Heiji started looking around the room they were in.
"I don't see any-" The Osakan cut himself off, noticing a faint red blink in the cover of the ceiling.
Saguru didn't seem to notice it. "I don't see any monitor showing this room, but I can't find the other guard either." He turned to the thief, who was still leaning on the doorframe. "Do you know when he will be here?"
"I'd say he should be already here..." He made a slight pause to hold the tension. "And he probably would, if I hadn't intercepted him earlier. I hope you don't mind this interference~?"
The Brit closed his eyes briefly to exhale with relief. "No, we don't mind. Actually thank you." None of the detectives noticed a brief change in the thief's smile to a genuine one, before it turned back into his mocking smirk. "And as for the came-"
"Found it..." Hattori cut in grimly, pointing at the device in the corner with blinking LED light. "Seems it's turned on..." He turned his annoyed stare at KID. "And you, knowing that, came in with Kudo's face."
The thief chuckled. "Well, I figured it would be only natural to add another detective to your bunch~ But I don't think you boys need to worry about the record too much~ I believe you can figure out a lie that would be good enough, or, if that failed, use your connections to get away with it, without damaging your reputations... much~"
Hakuba clenched his teeth, grimacing. What KID just said was probably partially truth, but still, any rumor of an act like that would hurt their future careers. Also, they did this to avoid attention and working to clear themselves wouldn't help that…
Hattori winced and spoke with an abashed tone. "Could you... You know, take care of it for us?"
KID crooked his head, raising an eyebrow. "Are you asking your senpai to lend you a hand and clean up after you?" He sighed theatrically, inwardly enjoying the mixture of annoyance and abashment in gazes from both teens "Well, that is a problem... you see, kaitous are terribly territorial creatures and by nature I dislike helping other thieves with their... events. But on other hand I do like you guys, so I probably could make this one exception..." He pat his chin with a finger in theatric reflection, noticing Conan was only looking through the shelf, probably double checking. 'And not a moment too soon', he thought to himself and stopped his act. "You finished Kaitou-kun?" He pushed himself from the doorframe as he received a reluctant nod in return "Good. I will lend you a hand this time... Since you asked me so nicely~" He winked at Hattori and turned back his serious attention to the not-child "Show me the disks."
The boy shot him a wary look "I'm not giving you those."
This time none of the detectives missed the glint of anger and hurt in his eyes "Then you want me to leave? If I had any intention to take them, I wouldn't have asked. But if you want my help, I don't not settle with anything less than covering the whole fact that anybody was here, so I need to see what you're taking. We have little time, so either do as I ask, or deal with it yourself." He stated hastily with a firm voice, lacking the previous signs of amusement.
Conan grimaced with displeasure, but unable to argue with it. With only a slight hesitation, he decided to comply with the order. The two teens let the thief pass. KID spared only a glance at the CDs before handing them and the paper envelops back.
"You wouldn't want them more damaged." He murmured to the boy, taking out blank disks from an inner pocket and opening a drawer in search of a pen.
The boy narrowed his eyes at the offered CDs. "I hope they are the ones we came-"
KID grimaced with annoyance, already busy with signing the blank discs and cut in harshly, without pausing with his work. "That I do not know, but if they aren't, it is not by my fault." He shot them a look after a few seconds "You can leave now. Go right and take the second turn to the left. I'll be right behind you to let you out."
Hakuba narrowed his eyes and spoke with firm voice "We're not-"
"Yes you are." He cut in hastily, turning to Saguru and meeting his gaze with a strong look. "Despite this little event now, you are still detectives and I have no intention of showing you how I work in the background. So go before those two wake up."
Hattori and Kudo were already at the door, as the Brit lowered his gaze. "You're right. I'm sorry and thank you..." He said and followed his fellow detectives.
They left the room with KID placing the discs back on the shelf. They noticed a sleeping guard in the corridor, not that far from the room they were in. Soon they reached a door secured with a chain and padlock. When they reached that place, Shinichi took out the envelopes given to him and looked through them. As he didn't find anything suspicious about them, he started putting the precious CDs inside.
Before he finished, the kaitou, now dressed in black clothes, with a cap shading his face, caught up with them. His Poker Face was back firmly, not letting out anything besides his smirk. He opened the door so fast, like they weren't locked at all, letting the detectives out and followed them, closing behind him. They heard a quiet cling of a chain inside and were sure that it was back in its place, securing the door. Curious, they wanted to investigate how he did it, but KID didn't let them, rushing to leave. When they reached the street, his posture turned into more relaxed, indicating he was just out on a stroll. After a short while, when there was nobody else in sight he stopped and turned to them.
"Well then gentlemen..." KID stepped in an entrance of an alley, touching the peak of his cap. "It's been a lovely evening, but now I'll be taking my leave~"
Hakuba cleared his throat and bowed his head, speaking with abashed voice. "Thank you for helping us out. This could have turned out unpleasant..."
"My pleasure, Tantei-san." He chuckled and grinned. "Although I would advise you to leave kaitou business to professionals in the future~"
Conan narrowed his eyes in annoyance, but smirked at those words. "Can't say you've done an amazing job acting as a detective either."
The thief snorted with slight amusement. "Well excuse me. But I do believe I did manage to find the culprit before you, Meitantei~"
Shinichi grinned. "Doesn't matter if you can't prove it."
The kaitou smirked in return, not showing the raising irritation he was feeling. "Details." He spread his arms in a helpless gesture. "There are too many critics in the world anyway, and it would be a waste if an artist like me turned into one."
"Well, at least you are better than Kogoro-ojisan." The boy chuckled, admitting.
Kaito twitched inwardly. "I find it insulting to compare me to Baka-Tantei... Chibi-Tantei~"
Heiji laughed hearing KID's annoyed tone. "Now no need to get offended, Kuroba-kun~"
The thief crooked his head, turning his attention to Hattori. "I understand I should now expect this to become my new, permanent nickname from you Tantei-han?"
The Osakan shot him a deadpan expression. "Oh come on, this is getting so old now. Plus this time you disappeared from us as Kuroba, right before you showed up before Kudo as KID, so cut the crap already..."
Hakuba just rolled his eyes hearing that. He had more than enough of his share of having his deductions disproved to know what was going to happen now.
The kaitou sighed. "As I previously said, you may believe what you wish, as the only way of proving you're wrong would be to unmask myself, which I do not intend to do. But do please keep in mind that your friend was most probably not the only person who disappeared from his or her acquaintances' sight right before I came with a visit~ This is hardly any evidence~"
Hattori growled at him, feeling more and more annoyed "So what? You're saying you're not admitting anything, no matter what we do until we catch you and rip off all your masks?"
KID flashed a wicked grin, picking up the challenge. "That would be precise~"
The Osakan tightened his fists and looked like he wanted to tackle the other teen right now, but Conan stepped in between them "Please stop, Hattori." He asked, looking at his friend and turned his attention to the kaitou. "Mind telling us why you were there to help us this time? Not that we didn't appreciate it, but I doubt it was a coincidence this time. Unless you spend your nights seeking out thieves to laugh at?" He added with a tease.
KID chuckled at it, flashing his teeth briefly again. "An amusing idea Tantei-kun~ I might consider it~ But do you really need me to tell you the reason~?" He asked with a mocking tone.
Hakuba raised an eyebrow at that. "You want us to make assumptions?"
He chuckled grimly. "You do that all the time anyway Tantei-san, doesn't matter what I do or say. So don't mind me and feel free~" Fortunately he managed to keep the sad tone out and fully cover it with a mock.
Shinichi hummed and crossed his arms over his chest, eyeing the teen carefully as he started laying out his deductions. "You know enough about those guys to be wary of them, that's why you tried to protect us from being spotted and crossing our paths with theirs. For that reason you wanted to get to the discs before us, but we beat you to it. In return for my help with your disguise and not selling you out earlier today, you decided to lend us a hand and not steal the CDs from us. Am I right?"
KID smirked, not showing any emotions, keeping up his mocking tone. "See~? I knew you already had your opinion on the matter Tantei-kun~"
Conan winced at how the thief dodged the answer. "Am I at least right to assume that you won't be getting in our way regarding this case?"
The thief's expression turned serious. "It is never my intention to hinder the law enforces in their pursuit after other criminals. I'd say it's rather the opposite, if I do decide to get involved. But heed my warning and forget about this case. I enjoy seeing you boys at my events and would miss you if something happened to you. It is not something you can solve with just your wits. Many better equipped tried and failed, permanently." He tipped his cap and turned around, shooting a glance at the detectives behind him. "Oh and by the way... Remember to count the cameras next time to know how many discs you're looking for. You missed one. But I wouldn't recommend returning for it~" He grinned and vanished in a puff of smoke.
Hearing his words made Shinichi gasp and now he was coughing because of the inhaled smoke.
"What's wrong with this bastard?!" Heiji growled, looking around and not seeing the thief anymore. "That's it! I'm going to give him a piece of my mind!"
Hakuba huffed, stepping in front of the Osakan. "And what do you expect to achieve doing that Hattori-kun?"
"Shouldn't it be obvious?" The Osakan hissed. "I'm gonna end this stupid charade and get the missing disc in the process."
The Brit sighed and spoke calmly. "How? You should know better than that, he won't admit anything no matter what you say or do. If you lose it, you'll just be playing into his hand. All you can achieve is prove that he should avoid you."
"In case you haven't noticed, being understanding doesn't work with him!"
Conan grimaced. "He's right, Hattori… And you have to admit that Kuroba-kun did help us today twice. " He sighed "Also… Even if he didn't appear, we still wouldn't have that CD and we probably wouldn't even know it. It was my bad anyway to not add to the pool the camera from the security room… Best if we just go and see what we have on the discs we have. Who knows, we might not even need the one we're missing."
Heiji tightened his fists, slowly dropping his anger. "But he…"
"He said that just to anger us. You know he's been trying to make us give up on him for this whole time, so it's not really that surprising." Saguru explained calmly with a sympathetic smile, as they started walking in the direction of his mansion. "But he didn't do anything to hinder Kudo-kun's search back there. Despite that he seemed upset from the start, possibly more than you are now. It became obvious when Kudo-kun didn't want to show him the CDs."
Walking in silence Hattori huffed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Shinichi spared his friend a glance and decided to leave him be for now, wondering about the situation himself. After a while Hakuba sighed in frustration.
"Too bad we still can't count on any information from him. He made it obvious that he won't be saying anything about these people, even as KID. Makes me wonder if he figured that they are the ones after him. Would definitely explain a lot. If only I knew the connection…" He grimaced in annoyance. "I still don't understand why anybody wants him to keep on stealing…"
"For this we probably need to figure out what he is searching for and how to identify it." Conan replied rubbing his chin "At the moment I have only two assumptions. Most probably it's hard to recognize the correct gem and Kuroba-kun is one of few people actually able to do it on spot. He did already show his remarkable ability to distinguish fakes from originals with just a glance, when Jirokichi-ojisan tried to trick him with a fake 'Purple Nail', so it's probable. The other possibility that I came up with is that somebody wants him to polish his skills and make him use it later." He said grimly.
The Brit frowned "But Kuroba wouldn't willingly…" He cut himself off, coming to frightening realization.
"That's right." Shinichi agreed and sighed. "Anyway, no point in dwelling on it without more information. For all we know, there might be a simpler explanation. Let's focus now on what we have at hand." He said with a small smile.
Hakuba gave a nod, although he was visibly still worrying about his classmate. "I'll stay at home tomorrow to help you with the records. Will be easier to acquire the copy of the disc from the police faster this way."
"Thanks." Shinichi replied, briefly turning to the Brit and taking out one disc "I do hope we'll find something..."
They walked quietly the rest of the way. All three stayed for the night at Hakuba's. Officially Conan was staying with Agasa and Hattori left for Osaka, silently praying that Kazuha wouldn't call Ran anytime soon.
This time Kaito didn't hang around to eavesdrop on his detectives. After the whole day of keeping his guard up and enduring everything what she came up with, he just wanted to go to sleep. With a flick of his wrist he took out the missing CD. He idly wondered about what was on it. There was 1/13 chance that this one contained some valuable information and considering his luck, the odds were good. He wanted to investigate those guys himself. He wasn't sure how secretive his detectives were and the more Kaito knew about the Organization the more overwhelmed he felt about them. It was like a maze of connections and even an attempt to place a hook in it was dangerous. That's why he did not want the trio to sniff around them.
Kaito sighed and with another flick of his wrist, he hid the disc. He would probably need to see the other twelve records, but he could get to that later, especially since he had other matters to deal with. And considering Hakuba's habit of collecting everything, he didn't expect a lot of trouble with that.
He did consider interfering and not letting them get the records at all - he could have dressed as the other guard and scare the crap out of them (and it would be a wonderful payback for all the times they messed up his plans~). But he really wasn't in the mood to fool around and he would have a lot more cleaning up afterwards to conceal their presence there, and he would risk getting detected by the shrimp... Seriously Meitantei sometimes acted like a freaky radar. Of course he could have just taken the discs from them and with a bit of luck, he could achieve it without even being spotted, but... It seemed that they knew what they were dealing with. And that meant, that as much as he wanted to protect them, it wasn't Kaito's place to prohibit it to them. That's why he decided to leave it to luck and the truth was that they did beat him to the security room…
So why not just give them the last disc also? Because if he gave them this, then not only he would probably give them a valuable lead, he would also make them feel more grateful and attached to him. Just like he needed them to be hanging around him any more... It was frustrating how attached he grew to those danger magnets. Truth was that he cared for them, more than he was willing to admit. He didn't want to lose them and for that he decided that he needed to keep their distance.
He returned home through a secret passage and left the CD in the KID room, before heading up the stairs. He didn't want to act before anyone else today, so he just slipped into his bed without seeing his mother, turning away from Hattori's cap laying on his desk, which he was going to pass to Hakuba on the next day.
Now… Is the thing going on in Kaito's head a good or a bad sign..? What do you think? ;)
Whew! Maybe not the longest chapter, but definitely the most time-consuming till now! I have started already working on the next chapter and hopefully I'll manage to return to updating once a week~
See you next chapter *wicked grin*
