Saguru was waiting at the café Kudo had suggested in Ekoda when it occurred to him that this would be the first time he'd properly met the detective. They'd nodded to each other in passing once or twice in the lead-up to last night's heist, of course, but Saguru had been too concentrated on KID to properly assess his fellow detective. It wasn't altogether surprising that they hadn't had a casual encounter, if the police gossip was anything close to accurate. According to the gossip from Division One, when Kudo wasn't busy solving murders, he was waist deep in missed schoolwork from the two years he'd spent doing undercover work for the FBI.

His musing was interrupted when the subject of his thoughts appeared next to the small table, a mug of coffee in hand, and Saguru greeted his fellow detective with a nod of acknowledgement, "Kudo-san."

"Hakuba-san," Kudo returned his greeting and took a seat. Saguru watched curiously as Kudo took a small device from his pocket, placed it on the table and switched it on. His eyes widened in the next instant as he recognized the white-noise generator. "Just a precaution," Kudo stated, calmly preempting Saguru's question as he leaned back and nonchalantly took a sip of coffee.

The implications of that were more than slightly concerning. Beginning with the possibility that Kudo was so paranoid he regularly carried a white-noise generator on his person (which was probably justified if even half the rumors surrounding Kudo's record with implausible cases were true). It might also be possible that Kudo had felt the need to use the white noise generator for a case he was working for Division One, but a case needing that level of secrecy was unlikely to give Kudo time to work on anything else. Alternately, Kudo had brought a white-noise generator with him specifically for this meeting, which had an entirely different slew of alarming implications about Kudo's expectations of the situation with KID. Saguru knew which option he preferred; excessive paranoia was something he'd been regularly exposed to thanks to working with the Taskforce, but even with KID's antics he was relatively harmless. The idea that Kudo brought a white-noise generator specifically to a discussion about overheard gunshots was chilling.

"Is this a regularly used precaution…?" Saguru trailed off, unwilling to voice the possible alternatives that had just raced through his mind.

Kudo's mouth twisted wryly, "I haven't used this regularly since I was working undercover with the FBI."

"That was the case in which you 'disappeared' and only returned years later, after taking down a crime syndicate?"

"Yes."

That…was not a promising statement. "May I ask what, in particular, prompted…this?" Saguru gestured to the white-noise generator.

"I managed to get a look at the Taskforce's files. There were absolutely no records, even with vague references, of gunshots being reported at a heist."

Saguru managed to force down his increasing dread enough to respond clearly, "That should be impossible. I know, because I've personally written statements which included hearing gunshots and finding bullets, bullet holes or both in the area of KID's exit point."

Kudo grimaced, "I had been hoping I was wrong. If the police records are being altered, this is more than just a shooter with a grudge against KID."

"You think this is some kind of criminal organization? Why would they be targeting KID?"

"You know as well as I do that our best bet to find out is from KID himself. It's useless to speculate when we have no information."

A grimace was Saguru's only response, knowing KID would sooner turn himself in than confide in him. "That aside, Kudo-san, what do you expect the two of us to be able to do against an unknown group of criminals?"

"I have a few contacts I could call in, but I need to get some kind of evidence of an armed presence at heists before they can get actively involved."

Saguru frowned in thought, "What kind of evidence are you hoping to acquire? And what kind of assistance were you hoping to get from your contacts?"

"Ideally, we would be able to get a recording of some sort; though I'm unsure how likely it is for any bugs I may try to set up to survive a heist without KID sabotaging them in some way. But theoretically the two of us should be able to pinpoint areas in a building that would be most likely to be used as KID's exit or entrance routes—if these people are targeting him, bugging those areas would be the most likely way to get evidence of that."

Saguru hummed, "If KID's interference makes that plan infeasible, what would happen?"

Kudo drummed his fingers on the table, "I'd ask if you think you could take pictures—perhaps with your phone?—of any evidence you come across during heists. Another possibility…make copies of your statements, I can send them a comparison of your original report with the altered versions, and that should be enough to get at least a more thorough investigation into the department and find whoever has been altering them."

"Investig—who exactly are your contacts, Kudo?!"

The blue eyed detective shrugged, "PSB and FBI mostly," he replied casually.

"Mostly," Saguru repeated faintly. Kudo could call on agents from intelligence agencies from multiple countries and that was only most of his contacts?

"Mmm. There are a few in the CIA, and a couple who aren't affiliated with any agency as well."

Saguru spluttered for a moment as this new information clashed violently with Saguru's image of Kudo, "What are you doing with TMPD still?" He regretted his rudeness the instant the sentence emerged from his mouth, but thankfully Kudo seemed more amused than offended.

"Honestly, Hakuba-san? I've had more than enough of undercover infiltrations and criminal organizations for a lifetime. The only reason I'm getting involved in this is because I can't just watch that idiot continually put himself at risk when I could potentially prevent his death."

Saguru inhaled harshly at the statement and Kudo's eyes sharpened, "I was lucky, Hakuba-san. If I hadn't stumbled across those contacts I mentioned I would have gotten myself killed trying to bring down a crime syndicate I couldn't hope to fight on my own. If that thief's situation is even remotely similar to what I went through, he can't just report these people to the police. It would be far too dangerous to reveal their existence to someone—especially if he doesn't believe he'll be taken seriously."

His head dropped into his hands at a sudden realization, "Bloody hell," Saguru hissed. "He's the second KID; of course he wouldn't believe the police could help him if they couldn't help his predecessor. How could I miss that?!"

"He's not exactly open with his motivations," Kudo said dryly.

"Of course he isn't," Saguru scoffed, lifting his head, "That would involve putting other people in potential danger, the self-sacrificing idiot can't let anyone help him."

"Hm. On that note, how much of this are we trying to hide from KID?"

Saguru didn't need to think for more than a moment before replying to Kudo, "As much as possible. If he thinks we're trying to catch the ones targeting him, he will almost certainly try to interfere to prevent us from potentially being targeted as well."

"What would you suggest?"

He took a breath, "Let him think we're teaming up to catch him. We might be able to delay him from noticing we're working together, but as long as he thinks we're after him he'll see it as a challenge and leave us to it. Well, he'll likely target more of his tricks at us, but he won't do much more…unless he tries to impersonate one or the other of us during or before his heists."

Kudo smirked, "I have an idea of how to counter that, but it can wait until we're being more blatant about working together. It should be easy to disguise our efforts to get the evidence we need as methods to improve our chances to catch him. You've been to heists more often, how likely do you think he is to sabotage our bugs?"

Saguru hummed, "I would say it depends on whose bugs he thinks they are."

Kudo blinked, "Really?"

"Yes. If he thinks they were set by the owner or the Taskforce he'll almost certainly sabotage them in some way that makes them utterly useless. If he thinks I set them…he's more likely to leave a taunt than sabotage everything—he'll mess with just enough that I wouldn't be able to interfere with his planned tricks. You…I've honestly no idea, but he's possibly more likely to leave taunts for you as well."

"Hmm," Kudo considered that as he sipped from his coffee. "Alright, why don't we try a mixture of both for his next heist? If you and I both set our own bugs? That way we can get a measure of what his reaction will be and how much information we might be able to get."

"That may also keep him from realizing we're working together, depending on our actions during the heist."

Kudo nodded, "True. I think we should try to keep to our usual patterns for heists—with the addition of our attempts to collect evidence—until we have something we can use to call in a few of my contacts."

"That is another thing I wanted to ask, what are you expecting them to help with?"

"One of them in particular is experienced with long-range weaponry, and can predict where someone trying to target KID would set up. It's also better for them to be the ones keeping watch on the surroundings outside the heist building; they have more people to work with and more experience working undercover. I'm hoping that we can get them to coordinate with us and feed us information during heists so that we can keep KID occupied and hopefully out of range of any shooters."

"So essentially, we'd be the distraction while your contacts make the arrest."

Kudo smiled wryly, "We're corralling the distraction, you mean."

Saguru huffed in amusement, "Yes, that. So we'll essentially be working separately next heist?"

"Yes. I'm sure we can manage to 'coincidentally' run into each other a few days later to compare results and plan further."

"Until then, Kudo-san," Saguru stood and nodded his farewell, leaving Kudo to finish the remaining dregs of his coffee, pleased at the thought that he'd found a fellow detective of his own age with whom he could work well and even converse amiably.

A/N: The plotting begins!

This chapter was almost entirely written during NaNoWriMo, before that I'd only had about the first 100 words written out (in multiple different versions because I'd gotten stuck). Basically, I am a child at heart and can be motivated by stickers :D

(Next chapter will be a time skip to their next planning session, but it's not completely written yet.)

I hope y'all are enjoying this story!