Originally this was going to be two chapters, but I decided that it worked better as one long one.
Squishing them together like this is a bit of a smack to any attempts at a slow mysterious pacing but… well you get some answers a bit sooner.
Review if you want to motivate me.

Chapter 7: Phantoms

It's been a month since I killed Conan, so far, I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that the organization still exists, but no conclusive evidence that it doesn't exist either. It's not quite Schrodinger's cat, but I won't be able to know which it is until I observe something that could only result from things being one way or the other.

I've been looking into it as best I can but being Kudo Shinichi in this time period again meant being reset back to those contacts, people I had learned to trust implicitly now had no idea who I was, they wouldn't trust some stranger they'd never worked with, even if I have some level of fame as Shinichi that doesn't mean that people who don't know me personally will be ready to give me top secret information much less risk their lives working with me.

Before killing Conan I'd looked into the situation in this world as well I could, but now that it's very history may have changed it's become necessary to check again and assess whether or not anything has actually changed.

Agasa-Hakase remains blissfully unaware of what I'm actually doing, but every now and then I have relied on him to make me some gadgets that I'd grown too accustomed to having and would prefer not to do without. In this world he was never told that Conan was Kudo Shinichi or that I was from the future, partly because we didn't want the harmless inventor to be in danger just by knowing the truth, but also because I didn't want to have to explain anything to him when Conan disappeared. It's better to have just one cover story.

The shonen tantei have been doing well, they visit me every now and then to see if I'll finally put them in contact with Conan… at the very least it's a sign that he hasn't been expunged from the timeline due to my actions. A confirmation that he existed in this world, but that's to be expected, it was always his world, I'm the one that doesn't belong here, but the existence of Conan does imply the existence of the organization... did I end up in the wrong timeline?

I'd traveled to Kyoto in disguise and watched Heiji and Kazuha bantering after school on their way to get something to eat- only to be interrupted when a case appeared out of nowhere. They seem to be doing well, living normal lives, no hint that Heiji has become in any way involved in some large conspiracy, of course they weren't, I hadn't told him anything either.

I had managed to find a way to call Shiho through a number she'd given me before I'd gone back in time, and contacted her a few times to ask her to delete files or send me what information she could about their plans. However ever since I killed him I haven't been able to get in contact with her, the number I was using seems to be out of service and according to a follow-up with the phone company that number hasn't been in use. I thought I had a lead when I'd stumbled upon the name Miyano on the staff list of a small clinic, but it seems like it was Shiho's mother there and that she'd left years ago with no notice of where she was going.

I picked up a burner phone and called some of my contacts in the FBI, but of course they wouldn't tell me anything even if I tried to use some coded language. Jodie hadn't come to Teitan high as an English teacher yet, but there was a chance that could just be chalked up to the butterfly effect altering events since I arrived here, it doesn't necessarily have to do with the organization- though if anything maybe their lack of notable activity lately could be why the FBI doesn't seem to have a special interest in Japan right now. Or maybe I'm just grasping at straws.

Sera and her mother were safe in England as far as I could tell with just the internet to go on. There wasn't much I could do to check on them beyond that while I still didn't have any solid contacts on this side.

Kaito…. Kaito was proving to be the most difficult to pin down. That's why I was tailing Kaito today to see if I could learn anything, maybe I could even find a moment to coincidentally bump into him…

Kaitou Kid had made several recent appearances, and I made sure to be in the crowd for them or occasionally on the task force in secret, but his history was notably different from the one that I knew. The Kaitou Kid I knew was of course Kuroba Kaito who had taken up the mantle after his father had been killed by an offshoot of the organization for acting as the thief 8 years ago, and was stealing to chase the only lead he had on what his father had been involved with before getting killed.

But simple research told me that couldn't have been the case this time around… His father was still out of the picture but rather than a murder made to look like an accident he had instead simply disappeared one day and was presumed dead, Kaitou Kid's heists didn't completely stop at that point either but they certainly slowed down like they were now being done by someone who wasn't as confident in their ability to preform the dramatic feats of showmanship required to be Kid without more through practice and preparation- at least until about a year ago when they returned to the pace that Kaito had set in his early years.

Was Kaito's father still alive in this world but in hiding because of his powerful enemies? Where had he gone? Who was the person that acted as Kid in his absence? What led to this taking a different path than the one I expected, and what else was different?

Hopefully following Kaito would answer some of these questions for me, but at worst it would still give me the peace of mind of knowing that he's okay.

He's going into a craft store… well I suppose he needs to get all those paints and pigment powders he uses in his tricks somewhere, and it makes sense that some of his more unique tools are a bit DIY-ed. I follow him in, mindful of any security cameras and continue to casually stalk him as he picks up various things.

Spray paint... acrylic paint... silk flowers... wooden dowels... various kinds of string... cardstock... scrap fabric... What is he going to do with that feather boa? … and he's been staring at the glitter for 10 minutes now, I know he's a bit of a perfectionist but does colour and type really matter that much with glitter, it'll be flashy and get everywhere no matter what you do, that's just how glitter is.

There's an almost imperceptible clicking sound behind me. Oh.

"You've been following me around all day, who are you and what do you want?" He's putting on a voice, but it's unmistakably Kaito given the context.

That means that the one looking at glitter is either a high quality dummy or some unwitting bystander that was put in a somehow perfectly fitted mask without realizing it… I can't believe I lost sight of the real one at some point. I thought I knew his game better than that.

I raise my hands, admitting defeat without turning to face him.

"You wouldn't believe the truth." I mutter.

"Try me."

Well, I suppose it'll be easier to get answers from him if I give him some honest answers first, relationships are built on mutual trust and I need more people to talk to on an even level with Conan gone. Some cards should be kept close to my chest though, Kaitou Kid doesn't forgive murder in this world either.

"I'm an ally of yours, a time traveler from an alternate timeline, I was just trying to make sure you were the same Kuroba-kun I knew before I approached more tactfully, I suppose I was the one to be approached though."

"Oh?" Came a bemused snicker, delivering his last line in his Kid voice, "and your conclusion, Meitantei-san?"

Well it only stands to reason that he'd be able to recognize that I'm Shinichi Kudo if only from my voice and frame, I learned enough to pass as someone else, but I'm no match for a real master.

"My conclusion, is that if we want to have a proper discussion then you should steal me away to a more private location, somewhere we can speak more openly of things better kept in the shadows."

"Where did you have in mind?"

We've had no interaction in this world until now, he won't feel comfortable taking me to his base, but if I invite him to my place it'll look like a trap, better risk leaving it in his hands. "You can pick, wherever you're comfortable talking about things better kept to the shadows. You can even blindfold me if you'd like."

Why did I say that? Why did I say that?

Of course letting him blindfold me so I can't see where he's taking me would be a good way to build trust, but what if I'm wrong and he's not actually Kaito? What if this is someone from the organization? What if-

My frantic thoughts were cut off, "Fine… there's a bar downtown, go there tonight at 8, give the bartender this." A gloved hand reached forward with a business card.

Tentatively I took it, looking it over. It had the symbol Kid used on his calling cards on it, and on the back the an address that I recognize as the bar run by Kaito's ally who had been his father's assistant, Konosuke Jii. All handwritten, not Kaito's handwriting, but he could easily forge anyone's handwriting after seeing it a few times, it wasn't odd that he'd put some layer of anonymity here if he suspected that this was Kid business.

"Alright, I'll see you there then." I reply.

The 'Kaito' looking at the glitter seems to have decided which ones he wants and walks away without even looking my way. With similar timing there's a faint sound of footsteps behind me indicating that I was being left alone.

I don't let myself relax because chances are he's watching me now, I wouldn't want to risk losing any chance of him trusting me just because I quickly showed myself to be incompetent. I need him to see me as something other than one of the rotating door of detectives that come to watch him on heist nights. I need him to think I could be a real ally. I need…

I need someone I can talk to.

I need a friend.

If I just keep bottling everything up inside like I have been so far I'm going to end up exploding between the guilt and paranoia.

Calmly I leave the store, and prepare to go to the meeting tonight without returning home. Though in honesty there's little that I can do to prepare.

I arrive at the bar easily enough, and after giving the old man tending the bar the card that I had received he guides me into a back room where I'm left alone to sit at a table for several minutes before the backdoor to the room opens and Kaito enters.

"I'll cut to the chase, how much do you know?"

Kaito's usual response to being accused of being Kid had always been to deny it until the bitter end even if his true face was seen or someone found his hair at a crime scene, he would keep claiming that he wasn't involved unless you caught him in the act or gained his trust. This was an unusual tactic coming from him, but then again this wasn't the same Kaito I had become friends with- maybe this Kaito was the type to respond to suspicion in a much more taciturn and serious manner.

Or maybe he was also feeling a bit alone in his fight against an enemy organization and was desperately hoping that I meant what I said when I claimed to be an ally. Yeah… that one probably isn't it, but I can hope.

He wasn't even particularly in disguise, perhaps he assumed if a stranger was tailing him in his civilian persona then they probably knew enough about him to drop the pretense.

He sat in a chair across from me.

"Like I said, I'm from the future of an alternate timeline… so keep in mind there's some margin for error between what I know and this timeline," I try to set the bar low hoping to convince him in one fell swoop, "In the timeline I'm from, your name is Kuroba Kaito, you're childhood friend's with Nakamori Aoko- the daughter of the inspector who's made it his life's mission to catch Kid and for the past year you've been moonlighting as that very thief ever since discovering that your father had been the original Kaitou Kid and was killed for refusing to steal a gem called Pandora for a certain organization. You wanted to know the truth of what happened to him so you took up the mantle and made yourself a flashy target to make them come to you whilst you gathered information and slowly picked them apart. Your mother, Kuroba Chikage, was also a phantom thief under the name Phantom Lady. When you need a second person for one of your illusions your father's old assistant Konosuke Jii is the one that typically fills that role, but you have occasionally tricked others into doing what you need done. Oh, and you have a completely irrational phobia of fish. That covers the basics, I believe."

Kaito paused for a moment, taking in my ramble of exposition.

Then slowly he spoke up, "Not to confirm or deny any of that, but if all of that were to be true… Why would you be an ally of the phantom thief Kid, you're a detective, your job is to make sure criminals such as myself are caught."

"Your crimes are flashy but ultimately harmless. You return what you steal to it's rightful owner, so if anything you're just highlighting flaws in their security system and helping them to improve to better protect against more dangerous thieves. Plus, you have a strict 'no one gets hurt' policy, and most of all are mainly doing your crimes to bait out a bigger criminal. I am also after the bigger criminal that killed your father so long ago."

"Why are you after them?"

A reasonable question, "They ruined my life."

"You're parent's are an award winning novelist and a famous actress, you've also amassed your own fair share of fame through your own merit. You're a good deal wealthier than most kids your age, and you have a wealth of talent as well considering that not only do you have your skills as a detective but also athleticism, first aid, mastery over a vast array of seemingly useless trivia, violin-"

As much I enjoy the praise, I cut him off, "I get it, you have a file on me after that one time at the clocktower…"

"Naturally," He smirks a bit proudly, "My point is, I'd say your life has hardly been ruined."

"I am from the future… and a lot has happened in the last ten years."

"You should keep your story straight, you still only look 16 or so, one or two years I could believe, but you haven't aged enough for me to believe 10 years."

"No, I have aged, I just spontaneously became 10 years younger, ten years ago thanks to that organization."

He paused for a moment, his usual poker face cracking slightly to reveal the tiniest sliver of emotion. Not disbelief or confusion but surprise.

"Oh... I get it now." The thoughts clicked into place for me.

It's not that he's behaving out of character because this wasn't the Kuroba Kaito I knew, this just wasn't Kuroba Kaito at all.

I find myself grinning a little at having figured it out before they could get to the reveal.

"So in this world... you've already found Pandora haven't you? In fact, you found it eight years ago and it's made you younger, and that was why you had to disappear publicly. Right, Kuroba Toichi?" I smirk a little, "But you're still acting as Kaitou Kid, so either it's just become a hobby at this point or you're still looking for something, but seeing as you have your son involved it's unlikely you're doing it just for fun even if thievery is the family business. Are you looking for a cure? Or are you perhaps looking for a way to dismantle the organization?"

He's not failing to keep a poker face, he's using a more advanced version, bluffing emotions at key moments to bait a reaction. His face reads like a stone now though.

"Not going to answer? That's fine, I'm good at finding information people don't want to give away, it's my job after all…"

I barely have anything that's not circumstantial but this is too fun too pass up. A real chance to flex my skills. Most of the cases I've been dealing with lately have been reruns as far as I'm concerned a remastered version at best- but this?

This is new.

This is exciting.

This is absolutely terrifying.

Why is this so far outside of the realm of my expectations? I knew the last 50 years would be affected and especially things related to the crows, but to think that the ripple effects of Conan's death would reach this far, at least not so strongly.

I try to remain calm on the surface as I continue into a deduction, "I know that Kaito is involved with the current showmanship of Kid because the most recent heists have occurred in ways consistent with my memories, so at the very least he's involved in the planning stage, but knowing what I do of him he would want to take part in the actual heist as well. And with you there as back up it would be pretty much impossible for him to ever actually get caught, he would just have to play dumb about how he was put into the costume- then suddenly Kaitou Kid appears and runs off in the opposite direction revealing Kaito to be a fake after all. And if anyone got suspicious with the two of you looking the same it would be very easy to establish an alibi for Kaito, and even under scrutiny it would hold up quite well because at least on the surface Kid has always been a solo act with no accomplices.

"Moreover, because Kid's activity slowed after Toichi supposedly disappeared -rather than dying like in my timeline- that means that if Toichi were still alive something had happened that prevented him from returning to either his public face as a magician or his night job as a thief. You seemed surprised when I said I'd suddenly lost ten years off my age, but you didn't show any signs of disbelief, perhaps that's your famed poker face at work, or perhaps the idea of someone becoming younger isn't a foreign concept to you. I think you couldn't show yourself publicly because you had very suddenly found yourself a few decades younger, approximately the same age as your son. I can assume that Pandora had something to do with it because the method that made me younger wouldn't have been available at the time. You would still be able to be on the planning side, but even as a master of magic and illusions a mere child wouldn't be able to perform the feats expected of Kaitou Kid, you would be easily caught by the police- if not by the organization that had tried to kill you in the first place- so the person in the main role as Kid these past eight years would have to be either Chikage-san or Jii-san following plans laid out by you. But once you and Kaito reached an age where you would be able to handle the physical demands of the job you began working with him on it."

"You're making an awful lot of assumptions, meitantei-san." He chuckled. A mask of amusement hiding some other emotion.

"I'm just getting to get good part~" I muse, "So, as I said earlier, if this was just a fun project for you then you wouldn't have gotten your son involved. You're looking for something- the more trustworthy help you have the better. I mentioned two options earlier but- it's both isn't it? You want a cure for your potential immortality, and you want to take down the organization that tried to kill you. If you can recover your adulthood without taking them down then you'll have to live the rest of your life in hiding, but even if you're in your prime now you don't want to have to deal with the implications that immortality may have for your future. So…"

I pause for dramatic effect.

"I'm listening…" He says somewhat impatiently.

I roll my eyes. If anyone was going to appreciate some dramatic timing and showmanship you'd think it'd be the magician…. Maybe the deduction is a bit too personal. Or maybe I'm wrong and he's waiting till I'm done to rake me across the coals with corrections.

No, no, Shinichi, don't doubt yourself now. Be confident.

"So… you need someone that can help besides just with thievery. You have connections with Nakamori-keibu but as he seems to have made it his life's work to put your alter ego behind bars he may not be the best legal contact to start with. I may not be an actual member of the force, but I am a detective so I have connections within the police that I can trust and more importantly- police connections that trust me implicitly. I can help you. I can be Kaitou Kid's line of contact with the police."

I can get access to case files and other useful research documents without having to resort to hacking or stealing. There will be less risk and I also will have a different perspective on the contents of any such files than the thieves would.

I can turn in any criminals caught by Kid without potentially invalidating evidence. You can only trust the testimony of an anonymous criminal so far, but if trusted high school detective Kudo Shinichi claims to be a witness, and also finds evidence then it will go over much better.

And If I'm right about this Kid being Kaito and Toichi working together I can be a third person with the same face to increase plausible deniability in the event that someone from the Kid taskforce sees one of their faces on a heist night and recognizes it as Kaito's face.

It could be fun.

"An interesting offer, and you seem to have me pretty well read..." He sighs and begins to spin me a story, a story about a man that became a thief.

He told me about how one night Kuroba Toichi, the world famous magician, had been feeling a bit bored and decided to spice things up on a different stage, the criminal stage. He planned out the costume, then planned the heist, and executed it perfectly. It was thrilling, a performance that felt so different from his normal day to day routine, and he had no intention of going back to life without the rush that his new night job brought him. Eventually he even met the woman he'd one day marry whilst out flashily plundering riches in the dark of night.

And at some point he'd heard it through the grapevine that someone was paying various professional thieves to find and steal a certain jewel said to grant immortality- Pandora. Toichi wasn't particularly interested in the money or even the chance's of living forever but he was curious about this supposedly magic jewel and he decided that he was going to get it before any of these other thieves for hire could- after all, he was the best, if his skills were being challenged he had no intention of losing.

Then eight years ago he found it. It wasn't at all like the legends, once he'd held it up to the light of a full moon it glowed brightly and suddenly his whole body felt warm. Quickly, he tucked it in his pocket ran away as fast as he could. But on his way home it had rapidly become apparent that his costume was no longer a proper fit, and his stride had become shorter, and when he finally saw his reflection in a window there was no denying that his body was becoming younger by the moment. By the time he'd arrived home he'd had to abandon all but his shirt as he'd shrunk all the way down to the size of a primary schooler.

His family was aware of his new physical state but with this younger body he couldn't keep being Toichi in public so he went into hiding, living out of his hideout and occasionally borrowing his son's name in order to go out. He settled into this new lifestyle fairly easily and kept the magical jewel hidden with him.

Then he heard rumors of another magical jewel, Lethe, which was said to be able to wash away any curse. Toichi wasn't sure if the magic affecting him was considered a curse, but it was magical so it had caught his interest, he decided he'd make that jewel his as well. And with his son having recently reached an age where it wouldn't be too dangerous to learn about the family business it seemed to be an excellent time for some father-son bonding as he learned the tricks of the trade.

It went something like that. And once he was done with his story, he gave me a little grin, "So, if I were to team up with you what exactly do you get out of it? Surely a great detective like yourself wouldn't possibly want something stolen, would they?~"

Cheeky bastard.

"Admittedly, if you'd be willing there is something I'd like your help locating and stealing, but mainly I just want all the information you have on the movements of the organization in this timeline." I answer, "I know quite a bit about them, but that's all information from my timeline, and their leader is another time traveler, I'm trying to alter events so he's never able to found the organization in the first place."

All the truth, with a few tactful omissions.

I'd rather not spoil my current best chance at an ally by mentioning that my attempts thus far to change the past have included murder.

He looked at me almost appraisingly for a moment then calmly gave a response I hadn't expected.

"And what if there is no such organization?"