Again, standard legalities apply.

A/N:

This chapter (and the ones next to this) took (and will take) quite a while to be uploaded. Contrary to what I've written in the last chapter, I'm now writing everything down first before encoding it (before finally uploading it). Why? I've got no computer. Right now, I'm like a parasite, borrowing and freeloading until I get mine fixed. Oh, well…

This is the longest chapter thus far because I don't know how I would end it. And then I kept adding details while I was typing it…

To Bluedetective:

It's ok. =) Well, your suspicions would be confirmed or rejected as soon as you read this chapter.

Chapter 6:

Truth and Falsity

          Sonoko tapped her pencil thoughtfully as she quickly read the next question on the piece of paper. Beside her, Ran was scribbling something furiously. Their class was having a pop quiz in English, and for the first time in her life, she knew that she was actually going to pass.

          She hid a grin. It was quite ironic. She and Ran had been cutting so many classes lately, and yet, they never had so high grades in their entire school lives. She attributed it to the rather intense tutorial sessions they have with Ken-kun. He would quiz, question, and lecture them whenever they would have spare time, usually when they were traveling or during a lull in stakeouts. That man was a genius.

          And right now, that genius was right outside their window, trying to get their attention. Sonoko's mouth fell open. They were on the third floor!

          Ran, who was on the window seat gaped at Miyagi, who was clinging on the wall like Spiderman.

          "Mouri-san, anything wrong?" Their teacher, the stunning blond, Jodie Saintemillion, asked when she noticed that Ran had all of a sudden stopped answering and started to stare outside with a rather peculiar look on her face. Ever since the foreign professor had started to teach this particular English class, she had always paid particular attention to the class's karate champion. And more so now that the beautiful brunette started playing hooky (something she never did before) while pulling her grades up. Blue eyes followed the female student's range of vision. She thought she saw a blur of brown go by the window, but it was too fast, she couldn't be sure.

          Ran slowly tore her eyes away from the window.

          And that too. The teacher noted that Mouri-san had become sharp lately. Usually, when the young lady's attention would waver, it would take a few (loud) calls for her name before she could snap out of her reverie. But now…

          "Mouri-san, are you alright?" Miss Saintemillion asked.

          Ran blinked, then her face contorted in pain. "Not really," she gasped as she clutched her stomach. "I'm—"

          "Mouri-san!" The English professor gasped as she squatted down to meet Ran's face. "You're hurting!"

          The whole class turned to them in curiosity, but no one dared talk, lest they be accused of cheating.

          Ran, you're a genius! Sonoko thought to herself. "Miss Saintemillion!" Sonoko called as she stood up. "I'm done with my quiz now, I can escort Ran-chan to the nurse's office." She volunteered.

          The teacher turned from her brown-haired student to her blond one. She had no choice but to agree.

          After Sonoko and Ran left, no one in their class noticed their teacher's eyes gleam in suspicion as they were all engrossed in their work.

          "What were you thinking?" Sonoko demanded as she and Ran met Miyagi at the rooftop. Although the question she wanted to know was how on earth did he climb that wall. She kept herself from asking whether he, too, got bitten by a radioactive spider or something.

          "I'm sorry, but it was an emergency." Miyagi told them. "Ran, I need you to be in Osaka immediately." He faced his karate champion. She would need all her skills right now. He handed him a piece of paper. "Go to this address, it's not that far. A helicopter will take you to your destination immediately."

          Ran nodded as she took the paper and ran off with a wave to her two associates. They were taught to obey first and ask questions later.

          "And the two of us will have to cover for her absence," Miyagi told Sonoko. "She'll be gone at least two days."

          "A helicopter?" Sonoko was impressed.

          Miyagi nodded. "Our new client is sparing no expense for our assignment." Miyagi replied. "And our boss had left everything in our hands. He even offered that we take advantage of all our organization's…er… utilities."

          Sonoko's eyes grew big. This must be a very big, not to mention important, assignment indeed. Their first. And to think that they were in charge, though they weren't even in the organization for more than half a year. "When are we going to be briefed with our new assignment?"

          "Tonight," Miyagi replied. "Kazuha will be dragged by her boyfriend here to Tokyo this afternoon to avoid any more suspicion."

          Sonoko wrinkled her nose. Kazuha had told her how she saw Hattori-kun had followed her in the bar the night before, during her first solo assignment. Good thing he didn't do anything drastic or she would be forced to hurt him. And that pretty much told them that the Great Detective of the West knew something was up. But he was the least of their concern right now. But last night was of paramount importance that it was more logical to pretend that Hattori-kun wasn't there than to confront him.

Then, she grinned when she realized how Miyagi addressed Hattori-kun. Surely, if the girl from Osaka had heard that, she would kick Miyagi's butt, boss or not. "And how do you know that Hattori-kun would do just that?" Sonoko challenged him.

          "If I'm reading everything correctly, then the two Osakan would come here ASAP." He told her confidently. "But first…"

          "Ran-neechan, I'm home!" Conan announced enthusiastically as he scurried in the house.

          As usual, the TV volume was on full-blast and Mouri could be heard laughing just as loud.

          "Ran-neechan?" Conan called louder. Ever since the mall incident, he felt this need to know exactly where and with whom Ran was.

          "Pipe down, boy!" Mouri shouted at him. "Ran is in her room." He grumbled, hoping that the boy would shut up so that he could watch his show in peace.

          True enough, Ran stepped out of her room with a duffel bag slung on her shoulders. "Oh, you've arrived. How was your day in school, Conan-kun?" She asked with a smile.

          "Where are you going, Ran-neechan?" Conan asked as innocently as he could. "Can I come too?"

          "I'll be staying at Sonoko's tonight. We have an important project to finish," she replied. She turned to her father. "I'm going now, dad." She called out. "There's chicken thawing in the ref, you and Conan-kun can manage to fry it or something, right?"

          Mouri grumbled something incoherently in reply.

          "Try and behave, Conan-kun," Ran told the small boy as she started to walk towards the door. "I'll be back tomorrow night,"

          Conan nodded. Moments later, he was watching Ran walk down the street from the window. Oh, Ran, what are you up to now? He had this feeling that something was off with Ran today. She doesn't seem like herself. For one thing, she didn't make a fuss over the mess her father was making in the living room. And then, there was something wrong with the way she talked and moved. He couldn't quite put a finger on it yet…

          Wait…

          She told them to cook!

          Before Conan could further ponder the implications of Ran's actions, the phone rang. With a sigh, Conan trudged towards the phone, knowing that he would earn another thump on the head from Mouri if he didn't answer fast enough.

          "I can't believe you masqueraded as Ran right under her father's nose!"

          It was almost sunset. Kazuha and Sonoko were seated cross-legged on the latter's bed, eating chips and gossiping. It's like the good old days when they were still normal teenagers. Well, they were far from normal now.

          "And how did your confrontation with Hattori-kun go?" Sonoko turned the tables.

          Kazuha giggled even harder. "You should have seen his face."

          'You've got mail.'

          "Ugh!" Kazuha shook her head at the computer screen.

          "What?" Hattori asked irritably as he glanced at his companion who was doing her homework on the couch behind him. He was sprawled at the floor, reading an Agatha Christie novel.

          "I am never going to meet guys on the net ever again!" Kazuha proclaimed.

          Now, that got Hattori's attention. "You're meeting guys on the net?" He asked incredulously.

          Kazuha nodded. "But I did it just once. He didn't even show up or anything. He just sent his friend to tell me that he won't be making it because he's sick."

          "You mean that's what you're doing in the bar last night?"

          Kazuha summoned all of her acting prowess to look surprised. "How did you know?" She asked suspiciously. She bit her tongue to keep herself from laughing. Darn, this was fun!

          Hattori turned red. "Well, uh, I—" he gulped. "Well, what are you doing in a bar in the middle of the night?" He demanded, changing the topic and turning the tables. "Didn't you know it's dangerous? Ahou!"

          "A—" Kazuha bit back her angry retort. She had a script to follow. "Well, I didn't really want to," she admitted. "But he said that he has something that might help the Great Detectives, both of the East and West."

          "What?"

          Kazuha shrugged. He handed Hattori a diskette. "His friend gave that to me. I have no idea what it's about. I tried opening it, but it needs a password or something." Kazuha tried not to smile smugly, knowing full well that it that was true, she would've crack the code in less that five minutes.

          Hattori went pale. "We have to go to Tokyo,"

          "Why?" She asked innocently.

          Hattori just gave her the look. They've gone to Tokyo immediately after Hattori made a phone call.

          "And then he dragged me here without even giving me the chance to tell my parents properly." Kazuha told the blond. "Good thing it's not a school day tomorrow so my dad didn't ask a lot of questions."

          "And that's why Hattori-kun made sure that you're safely in my hands before zooming off to find Mouri-san." Sonoko mused. "He's worried about you," she teased her friend. "He likes, no, he looooves you."

          Kazuha blushed. "He does not!" She denied hotly as she grabbed a pillow and started whacking Sonoko playfully.

          "Yeah, yeah, whatever." Sonoko tried to defend herself.

          "Good morning, angels," a voice from the window interrupted their horseplay.

          The two suddenly behaved themselves. "Good morning, Charlie," the two chorused like good little school children as they watched Charlie climb in Sonoko's window.

          "You really should do something about your house security, Sonoko-chan," Miyagi told her with a grin. He had finally resigned himself to the fact that the girls would never give up the nickname they gave him.

          Sonoko rolled her eyes. "Like that would do any good with Spiderman around," she grumbled.

          "Spiderman?" Kazuha asked blankly.

          "Long story." Miyagi replied with a wave of his hand.

          "How's Ran?" Sonoko asked Miyagi.

          "Why don't you girls see for yourselves?" Miyagi asked as he tossed a chip (not the edible kind) towards Kazuha.

          Sonoko stood up and padded over to her closet where she kept her laptop. She handed the same to Kazuha.

          Kazuha fiddled around with the equipment and finally had it up and running with a few clicks of the mouse. "We're back in business." She announced.

          The three crowded at the monitor.

          "Agent number 1, this is Agent number 3, do you copy?" Kazuha spoke to the microphone attached to the portable computer.

          "Hey, guys, what took you?" Came Ran's voice over the monitor.

          They couldn't see Ran because the small camera she had was on a pendant around her neck. What they could see was a dark alley with a young man walking, his eyes and head darting over every which way. The camera bobbed up and down as Ran jogged to keep up with the man yet keep her presence hidden.

          "Traffic," Miyagi joked.

"Hey!" Kazuha's eyes widened. "He's the guy I met in the bar!" She exclaimed.

Miyagi nodded. "Remember what he told you?" He asked. When Kazuha nodded, he smiled grimly. "Our big boss got a little worried. Informers of our organization always stay alive. That's why Ran's new assignment is to keep him safe."

Sonoko nodded. It makes sense. When you have the reputation of protecting the people who talk to you, scared people who know too much will willingly volunteer information for themselves to stay alive.

"Anyway, did someone brief you on the way there?" Miyagi asked Ran.

          "Yes," Ran told him.

          "Then I guess we'll leave you to do your job so I can brief Agents numbers 2 and 3." Miyagi told her.

          "Alright."

          "Be careful, Ran!" Sonoko called out.

          Edogawa Conan reread the one page long file from the computer screen. He and Hattori rushed to Dr. Agasa's house right after Hattori told Conan the basics.

          In fact, he wasn't able to think about anything, let alone do something, after Hattori's frantic phone call that he thought that the Black Organization had made their move—in the Osakan's direction!

          And between the three of them, it took them half an hour to break the code (Dr. Agasa informed them that he would be in his workshop if they needed him after the two detectives argued for the nth time on how to unlock the password).

          Haibara refused to help the, claiming that she's a scientific genius, but hacking's just not her style.

          And now, reading the file, Conan was glad that Haibara was not there to read over their shoulders.

          The file was about her. Or rather, the file was about Sherry and her project with immortality. The pill. The drug that made Conan what he is today.

          "It's about her, isn't it?" Hattori asked quietly, his skin becoming a few shades lighter. "And I'm right, aren't I?"

          Conan nodded. "And the file was given to Kazuha?"

          "Yes." Hattori gulped. "Do you think they found you?"

          Conan shook his head. "But I think they're fishing for information."

          "That's what I thought too." Hattori agreed. "If they already knew who you were, they wouldn't have to send their message through me. They'd choose someone obvious…" Hattori's voice trailed off.

          Conan squeezed his eyes shut, his mind stubbornly completing Hattori's unspoken message. They would choose Ran

          "Are you sure that the girls are safe in the Suzuki Mansion?" Hattori asked.

          Conan nodded. "After their bout with the Kaitou Kid, their security increased ten-fold." He allowed himself a smirk that immediately disappeared. "They're probably safer there than here with us." Especially with me…I couldn't protect her, not like this…

          "Are you sure that they're safe?" Hattori asked. "Together? The three of them?"

          It had become the detectives' favorite topic of discussion lately. What were the girls really up to? It was like a frustrating puzzle. They can see bits and pieces that seemingly have no logical connection to each other, and yet, at the back of their mind, they know that they're just missing the big picture.

          What do they know?

          That the girls were busy the past six months, always running here and there, always disappearing for hours at a time, and then always coming back looking tired and haggard, like they'd been running around or something. But it wasn't always like that.

          Conan knew that Ran started disappearing when she signed up for an after-school karate class with a new teacher. She would always go home dead tired (at one time, she climbed the stairs and just collapsed at the front door and her dad had to carry her to her room). And then she started coming home later and later, but she claimed her body had adjusted to the physical strain of it all.

          Conan knew that her skills did sharpen. But not just that, she had learn to become aware. Before her trainings, he could easily startle her if he was careful with his actions. But now, she seemed to be sensitized that the simplest movements would not escape her attention. He suspected that she had been cutting school too, if the amount of notes she crams every night were of any indication. And she was sleeping less, if the dark circles forming under her eyes were of any sign.

          Plus, Conan doesn't see her pining for Shinichi's return anymore…

          And then, there was Sonoko.

          She became, well, less irritating. She no longer calls Ran everyday just to talk about guys. She no longer insists on dragging Ran along in her shopping escapades (not that Ran needed a lot of dragging). And on the walk to school together, she would no longer gossip about who's dating whom in class. And lately, she wasn't even arguing with Chibi-kun. And she, too, seemed to be not getting enough sleep.

          She, too, was now different. Up to what extent, Conan doesn't know. He only associates himself with her because he had to, because she was Ran's female best friend, and they couldn't make her choose.

          Hattori frowned, thinking about the day Kazuha started acting weird. That day she declared she was signing up for a computer class outside school. That didn't surprise him. He knew that she was enjoyed messing around with computer programs. So she now had an extra-curricular activity. At first, he was glad that she had something to occupy herself with, that way she wouldn't have to tag along his cases and put herself in unnecessary risk…but now…much as he hated to admit it…but he missed her… Now she was acting like her laptop was her best friend instead of him, she was spending more time with the computer than with him. No wonder, she was meeting guys on the web. Doesn't she know that what she's doing is dangerous? Even if she's a self-proclaimed computer whiz, and she could trace whomever she's talking with if she has to, doesn't mean…

          Wait. Something's wrong. Rewind…

          "His friend gave that to me. I have no idea what it's about. I tried opening it, but it needs a password or something."

          Kazuha, the computer child prodigy, not being able to open a file that it took him and Kudo a mere thirty minutes to open.

          Kazuha, the computer teacher's brightest student, threw in a towel for not being able to crack open a simple code.

          Kazuha, the only person in their class who was able to beat Hattori in opening their teacher's secret diary, was unable to hack into a simple program in a diskette.

          "Wait, Kudo," Hattori said through gritted teeth. "I don't think there's any need to blame the Black Organization just yet. I think that we're being set up."

          "If you're sixty, have billions at your disposal than you could probably spend in ten lifetimes, had traveled the world, and have all gadgets and people you want under your control, what more could you possibly want?"

          Sonoko and Kazuha settled themselves comfortably on the bed, but their eyes never left Miyagi who had taken to pacing about the large bedroom. He had gotten their attention, no doubt about that.

          "To be young again, I guess," Kazuha shrugged.

          Miyagi nodded at her answer. "Immortality." He said dramatically. "So if you have billions in your bank account and someone comes over offering you a chance to become young again in exchange for a few million, what would you do?"

          "Donate a few million," Sonoko replied. "That would seem like a drop in the bucket if you have billions. Actually, it sounds like a bargain." She grinned. "And I should know. I mean, most people would empty their lifesavings at the chance to become young again,"

          "So you mean, that's what our client want?" Kazuha asked. "To discover the Fountain of Youth?"

          "No," Miyagi replied. "Quite the opposite. Our client wants us to stop them from discovering the Fountain of Youth."

          "What? Who's them?" Sonoko protested. "And who's our client?"

          "Our client, who's shall remain unknown (SOP, you know. Only the Big Boss knows their real identity), is after the largest crime syndicate in the world." He paused for dramatic effect. "The Black Organization."

          He sweat-dropped when he noticed that his audience was no longer paying him attention.

          "I thought spies were supposed to stop someone from taking over the world, or something like that," Sonoko grumbled as she wrinkled her nose.

          Kazuha nodded. "Aren't syndicates the duty of policemen or something? I mean, if I wanted to be a person who catches crooks, them I would've just stayed by Heiji's side."

          "It's much more romantic that way," Sonoko agreed.

          "Will the two of you pay attention?" Miyagi shouted, his head growing to comical proportions before Kazuha could deny everything. "Thank you," he said as the girls quieted down. "Anyway, you'd be glad to know that we're not just dealing with an ordinary syndicate. It's the syndicate. Up to now, the police hadn't confirmed their existence. Some think that they're just an urban legend. But they exist all right. And that man in the bar whose life is right now in Ran's hand is proof that they do exist."

          "You mean, they're out to kill him?" Kazuha asked.

          Miyagi nodded. "He knew too much and his conscience kicked in. He wanted to talk and come clean."

          "B-but, Ran's with him. If she get involved…" Sonoko's voiced trailed off in panic.

          Miyagi nodded. "Ran knew the risks. That's why she was briefed before she was asked to accept the assignment. It was her decision to go on."

          But the worried look on the two's faces weren't wiped out.

          "And now, I'm asking the two of you to make a decision too before you hear too much." Miyagi told them seriously. "Would you accept the assignment and the rest of the story, or should I stop right now and ask the Big Boss to re-assign this case to someone else?"

          Kazuha and Sonoko looked at each other. Yeah, right. As if they're going to give up their part-time jobs, especially now.

-tbc

P.S.

Please, please review. If only to say hi. So that I would know that someone is actually reading this and inspire me to write better next time.

Alright! Next chapter, the assignment.

P.P.S.

Hmp! This version and the one I've written long-hand are waaay different. I wonder why that is?