"How many of these damn places are there?" Shinichi complained, climbing out of the mud and sludge. Kid, who'd managed to spring out of the mess before he'd landed on Shinichi, offered him a hand to get up on the ledge.

"They're like little death islands," Kid said, looking at his soiled gloves with a moue of distaste. Shinichi wasn't feeling very sympathetic. He was sure he had mud in his socks. "My question is, how do you keep finding them all?"

"Really bad luck." Shinichi wiped off as much of the mud as he could, taking the pristine rope of colorful, knotted scarves from Kid to clean his face and glasses. Kid stripped off his gloves and ruined suit jacket, bundling them up and making them disappear. There wasn't a lot of light in the little cave, some pockets from above letting in the afternoon light, but there was enough that he could see the unmasked lines of Kid's face as he took off the monocle and hat.

"We're at a disadvantage," Kid admitted, rolling up the sleeves of his button-up and undoing the red tie. Shinichi turned his head away, unnerved that Kid wasn't even bothering to hide his face as well as he should have, considering that Shinichi hadn't made any promises or offers of a truce.

Kid paused and reached out, unerringly finding Shinichi's hair and mussing it. There wasn't much he could do to fend off Kid, at the large height and weight disadvantage being a child left him with. He batted at the hand, even though it was already halfway back to Kid's own hair before he even got his hand up.

"They won't actually do anything to the kids. And Haibara's there. She can keep them distracted in a pinch. Long enough for the two of us to work some way out of here." Shinichi cleaned off his watch next, turning on the flashlight.

The cave they'd been dropped into wasn't very large. The mudpit right under the trapdoor lead out to a ledge and then ten meters out to a bend. Kid snapped something in his hand and a soft blue glow lit his side of the cave. Kid waved a glow stick near the ceiling, the blue light making his eyes dark and empty in his face, and he was scowling at the lip of the trapdoor.

"What?" Shinichi asked, angling his watch light up to see what upset Kid.

"Kichiemon loves his themes, that's for sure," Kid said, pointing at some script Shinichi was struggling to read. "At least we don't need to climb up through the nine levels of hell."

"We don't have five hundred years to wait for someone on a pilgrimage west." Shinichi scowled at the mocking rendering of Buddha's palm as the center of the trapdoor and five fingers spread out around it.

"Hopefully, there's some way out we can use ourselves." Kid nodded towards the yawning exit before them. "Only one way to go."

Shinichi led the way, holding his arm higher to catch sight of anything that might have been set out of the way from the casual observer. Kid swept the glow stick as high up as he could reach overhead, following Shinichi's lead.

"What were you doing out here? No notices, no challenges, no police within ten kilometers." Shinichi glanced over his shoulder at Kid, who'd pulled on a baseball cap, a dark hoodie, and a pair of black gloves. It made him look infinitely more suspicious than the Kid suit ever had.

Kid hummed, tossing the glow stick in one hand. "I know some of those men holding your friends hostage. Those snipers that had been after me, these men are some of the juniors to those snipers."

"Affiliation to the Black Org?" Shinichi whispered, nearly sub-vocalizing the last two words. Even underground where no one could hear them, it was best to be as cautious as possible.

"None that I can tell. My playmates seem to enjoy the zoo instead of the bar scene. Less cool, really, but you do what you can. Anyone who thinks they can challenge the Kid in style will always come up short." Kid laughed at Shinichi's expression. "Except Mr. Cool Guy, here."

Shinichi stumbled as Vermouth's favored nickname came spilling out of Kid's lips, and there was a moment where he considered Kid's earlier blasé attitude about his disguise was because it was only one disguise, that at the core of it, Vermouth was laughing at him and his relaxation with the thief. "What-"

"Easy there, bouzu. I'm genuine," Kid did a magician's pass as Shinichi watched, trading the glow stick for a handful of roses and a flash of confetti, and then was waving the glow stick again. "But I've been running into quite a few shady characters on my own dealings. Apparently, when you're after what my group are after, there's some brotherly supervision from the same group that brought you childhood 2.0"

"You've seen them." Shinichi breathed hard, panic and fear grabbing his nerves and shredding them. Kid's hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed.

"International thief. I've got friends in all places, and I get quite a few post-heist offers from all types. I nearly took a sight-seeing job for your liquor cabinet before I caught sight of some familiar faces and had to bow out." Kid poked him in the forehead. "Deep breath and focus on the current problem. I'll tell you more when there aren't children in danger."

The cave ended in stalagmites and stalactites, reaching towards each other until it was more like pillars with the thinnest space between them, enough for maybe a sheet of paper but nothing else. Shinichi waved a hand between two of the near-pillars, judging the space and his own size.

"You could fit through. It might be a good idea to go ahead with that. It's likely that any way out of here will be located on the opposite side of the cage." Kid came up beside him and scouted out an opening. "Go through this one. There's less of a drop down."

Shinichi tightened his lips but nodded, letting Kid help lever him upright and turn sideways to pass through the gap between the pillars. His feet touched uneven ground and he tripped as he landed on the opposite side of the cage. "There are words etched across the top of the cave on this side. It doesn't appear to be carved out of natural stone, like the bars have been."

"A clue then." Kid leaned forward, but not even he could slither between bars that barely fit Shinichi's own child body. "What's it say?"

"On mani hatsu mei un." He scanned the rest of the cave, but those were the only words.

Kid groaned. "Do you think if I make a vow of service to you, the bars will just disappear? I might not have a magic size-changing staff, but I do come with plenty of other neat tricks."

"If handcuffs can be substituted for a magic headband," Shinichi shot back, reaching the edges of the wall and frowning at the series of levers he found. "I found something. There's nine levers on the wall, in rows of three. The look like they're made of different materials..."

"Good luck. Chinese dragon bearing nine forms and nine attributes. The Emperor. Kowloon." Kid listed off on his fingers. "But considering the trap, it should have a more direct link to our monkey king."

"There are symbols etched on the handles. I... I've seen this language, but I don't know it. I don't know what they mean, but I think if we move them in the right sequence, we should be able to open the cage." Shinichi scrambled for anything he had, but the slips of paper in his pocket were ruined by the mud from earlier and he'd left his cell phone with Agasa-hakase to call for help.

"I've got my monocle upgraded to see in the dark, but I hadn't telescoped the lens. I have paint? It could wipe off." Kid offered a handful of tubes, which Shinichi took with a contemplative frown.

"I'll put some on the mark and make an impression on something." Shinichi opened one of the tubes, a familiar water soluble paint that was safe for children, and covered the upper most lever handle. He used his other hand and made an impression on his palm in paint. He peeled his hand away carefully and walked over to Kid with his palm extended in offering. "Here."

Kid's hand slipped through the bars and caught his wrist. Shinichi shined his flashlight overhead, studying what he could see of Kid's expression instead of the unusual symbol.

"Never saw the mantra in Tibetan?" Kid asked, lightly tracing the symbol with a gloved fingertip. "There are six symbols that form the on mani hatsu mei un in Tibetan. If you activate the levers marked in the correct sequence, you can let me out. This symbol is the fourth in the sequence."

Shinichi nodded, eyes widening as he met Kid's, completely bare. "What is wrong with you?!" He jerked his chin down, heart beating fast in panic even as Kid laughed.

"It's not my real face. Calm down, tantei-kun." Kid touched his nose. "This is your face. I'm just borrowing it."

Shinichi felt his temper flare, but swallowed down his protest. It could be feasible that Kudou Shinichi went to his cousin's rescue if he was in the area, and it wasn't like he was leading a public life where his movements were announced. Kid had less business in the area. He might have recognized some of the kidnappers but to be able to recognize them in the first place meant that Kid was already in the area, his purpose unknown.

Shinichi let this turn in his mind as he went back and forth between Kid and the levers. Once he had the sequence, he pulled down the levers and held onto the wall to keep his balance as the pillars moved apart and Kid jumped through.

"Why were you here?" Shinichi asked, stepping closer to Kid as soon as the ground stopped moving. "You recognized the men, but that doesn't answer what you were doing out here in the first place."

Kid stilled, smoothly adjusting himself and striding forward. "There's supposedly a treasure here. One of Xi Wangmu's peaches of immortality. Whether it's a true peach or a jewel of some type, those men came to this area to find it. I had been trying to divert them when they stumbled on your friends."

Shinichi stared at Kid's back, not sure he could trust himself to read Kid accurately. But the story rang true, and it certainly reflected what he thought he knew about the thief.

"To get around, we likely just need to choose one direction," Kid said, turning at seemingly arbitrary points when the cave branched. As they turned the last curve, they found stairs leading upwards. "Keep the sun at your back and head west."