Hi everyone! Sorry it took so long for this update, things have been busy. Anyway, you guys are actually being rewarded this time with a little bit of a longer chapter! Also, it's kinda funny, my friend SailorRanger and I were talking about our respective anniversaries of when we first started publishing on here, and mine is actually today, January 19th /throws party/. Ahem…

Just for good measure, all standard disclaimers are still in effect, including the one about the riddles – I didn't write them, SailorRanger did /grins/.

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Chapter 4: Masters at Work

Conan woke up early on the morning of June 20th. His body felt like it could stay laying down for a much longer time, but his mind was wide awake with thoughts of what the day might bring. He looked over at the clock, to see that it was still only 7:45 am. He stood up, made sure his glasses were still on his face, and made his way down to the kitchen.

Ran turned away from the stove when she heard his small footsteps enter the room. "Ohayo, Conan-kun," she said in her best attempt at sounding cheerful.

Conan stretched, trying to get his body's level of wakefulness to match that of his brain. He yawned. "Ojisan isn't up yet, is he?"

She shook her head. "Nope. I wrote him a note, in case we leave before he gets up." Conan scowled at the differences in their temperaments, attributing it to the exercise the taller girl got every day from practicing karate. "It's actually good that you're up early, because now we don't have to rush to get out of here in time," she added.

Conan went out into the hallway to pick up the morning paper. When he brought it back, he opened it up to look for something very particular. Down at the bottom of the page of national news, he found the article. 'Good,' he thought. 'Nakamori is keeping up his end of the plan. No one except for the people involved will suspect that there's anything different about this heist.'

Ran came over with the food, and looked over his shoulder. "Hey, there's the article," she said.

"Yeah…"

"Do you think everyone will be ready?"

"We're as ready as we can be. He's tricky, remember? He once tried to impersonate you."

"I remember… Hey! Maybe I'll get to see his face this time! Then I can tell Sonoko about it…"

Conan sat back with an exasperated look on his face. He remembered the first time he met Kid after being shrunk. Kid was planning on stealing the Suzuki family's Black Star pearl. Ran's friend, Suzuki Sonoko, had come to her to see if her father, the great detective Mouri Kogoro could capture the phantom thief. She didn't want the police to take care of it, because she wanted to see Kid's face, imagining in her mind that he would be someone handsome like Harrison Ford.

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Nakamori-keibu met the pair inside the doors to the museum and gave them each an entrance pass. "You two are here on official business," he whispered. "So I asked them to just let you have these for today." He looked at his watch. "There's still some time before you need to get into position." They expressed their gratitude at his generosity, and walked off toward the armor room.

Not long after Ran and Conan had already gone into the next room, another man approached the inspector, who also gave him a day pass into the museum. "The other two are already here," Nakamori explained. "You may go join them."

"Nah, that can wait. It's been a while since I've been here, I think I'd like to look at some of the art before we have to start."

"Well, don't take too long. There's less than an hour left."

The other man held up one of his hands in a 'thumbs-up' gesture. "Gotcha."

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Conan and Ran sat on the same bench they had utilized the last time they were there. Everything around them looked normal, with visitors observing the different pieces of armor. They knew that every other person in the room was one of Nakmori's officers, though, and that comforted them a little bit.

Conan looked at his watch, and then up at Ran. It was getting close to the appointed time, and he could see the apprehension clearly on her face. He placed his hand on top of hers, which drew her attention down to him. "I'm fine, Conan-kun. I just get a little nervous every time I remember who it is we're dealing with." He nodded, even though he could tell she wasn't telling him the whole truth.

Suddenly, someone's entrance into the room drew her eyes back up, and over his head. Conan decided to wait to turn around until she identified him as friend of foe. She raised her hand and waved to the newcomer. "Hattori-kun, what brings you here?"

Conan stiffened momentarily in surprise at the introduction of the other high school detective.

"You mean you don't know," the Osakan teen asked. He continued with a grin when he received responses in the negative. "Well, I knew you'd be here…see?" He held out his copy of Kid's riddle. "The only thing I couldn't seem to figure out was why he delivered it to me…" Ran and Conan noticed that the page had both parts on it – the part they were sent, and the part that had not been included.

Conan turned back to Ran. "Can I talk to Heiji-niichan for a minute or two?" She nodded and stood up to go look at one of the suits of armor.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Shinichi turned his wrath on the Great Detective of the West. "How is it that both you and Nakamori got a copy of the whole riddle, while mine had half of it missing!"

Heiji shrugged. "You should know that better than anyone, Kudo. Everyone knows you're a little reckless, especially when it comes to solving cases. You've already met Kid-san at least once, so he knows what you're like, too." Conan scowled, but the taller man continued anyway. "He probably wanted to make sure everyone gets included in his little farce. The more people, the more confusion, and the better chances of all three of us having a little fun."

"Don't you mean all four… no, all five of us having fun?"

"Nakamori would never admit that chasing that phantom thief is fun… and Ran-chan is usually happy as long as she knows that you're safe… I imagine that she would not consider chasing him to be a safe activity, so three is the right number."

Meanwhile, one of the museum's janitors pushed his cart through the next room. 'It's almost time. The actors are getting into their positions,' he thought with a smile.

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Clocks struck noon half a minute after Nakamori walked into the armor room, but nothing happened. The only person in the room that they knew wasn't on Nakamori's staff was on the museum's staff – one of the janitors. He stopped with a feather duster for a few seconds at each suit. They all watched him suspiciously out of the corners of their eyes, not quite understanding why he worried them so much.

Heiji nudged Conan. "There's something about that guy I don't like…" When the janitor made his last stop at Takamori Saigo's armor, they knew for certain.

"Don't say anything," Conan said so that only he, Heiji, and Ran could hear, "but I'm pretty sure that most museums don't have their maintenance people go around until after hours, once everyone has gone." The other two gave a slight nod, showing full comprehension of his unstated meaning.

Conan looked over to where the inspector was standing. Heiji wasn't kidding, the man was sweating bullets. It was almost comical to the point where he nearly burst out laughing, but he held himself back remembering the task at hand. Maybe there was more to this than just a few good heists. 'Duh,' he thought. 'This is Kid we're talking about here!' He started to walk towards the man he didn't recognize.

"Conan-kun!"

Heiji held his arm out in front of her. "Don't worry, he's not in any real danger yet. It's time to watch a master at work."

'A master,' Ran thought questioningly, turning back to the man beside her. 'You do know that Conan-kun is only seven years old, right?'

He felt her eyes on him, and turned his attention away from the action for a moment. He then realized he probably let something slip that he shouldn't have, and tried desperately to think of something to cover it up. "Do you disagree? I mean, he has dealt with this guy before…"

"I guess you may be right…"

Heiji nodded, and they both turned back to watch the action.

Conan walked right up to the janitor. In his best kiddy voice, he made sure he was speaking just loud enough for the entire room to hear. "Gee, mister, you're here early! I always thought most museums waited until all the visitors went home to start the real maintenance work…" In a much quieter voice, the level of which frustrated everyone else in the room, he explained, "There's no use hiding anymore, Kid-san."

Every pair of eyes turned when the man started laughing. "That's very good, little detective!" In an instant, he pulled up a large piece of cloth out of the pushcart and over his head. When it came back down, he was no longer wearing his slightly dusty jumpsuit, rather a top hat and a white suit with the cloth attached to it like a cape. He adjusted his monocle. "But tell me, where is Kudo Shinichi? I know who I invited, and it didn't include some snot-nosed brat."

Ran decided she'd had enough after that last comment. "Shinichi isn't coming. He's still too busy, so I asked him if Conan-kun and I could take this case. And anyway, Conan-kun isn't a snot-nosed brat, he's a genius!"

'Thanks…I think…' Conan thought, without letting it show on his face.

Kid shrugged. "That's a shame… well, to each his own, I guess. In the mean time, I fear I must make my exit."

Conan could see Nakamori out of his peripheral vision. When the inspector started to move towards them, he shot the man an almost-death glare, which didn't go unnoticed by Kid. Without words it said, "That wasn't part of the plan. Stay back, I can handle this myself."

The magician-thief couldn't help but show his amusement at the whole situation. "Oh, my. You two are actually trying to work together? Well, I do hate to break this up, but I really should be going."

"But he didn't take the sword yet…" Ran whispered to Heiji.

Heiji shook his head. "The artifact is important, but it's not as important to Nakamori as catching Kid is. Kid knows this, so we'll see if he actually does take it or not."

Kid exploded one of his smoke bombs, and in the same moment Nakamori shouted out an order to his officers to try to catch him. Conan put a hand up to his head in a sign of frustration, and went back over to where Ran and Heiji were still sitting. "It's not worth planning anything if he's not gonna follow it," he sighed. As the smoke cleared, they could see the pile of plainclothes officers. Kid was probably in there somewhere, but Shinichi didn't have the patience to even try figuring out which one he was. It would be better to wait until things calmed down, and then see who took the janitor's cart out of the room. It didn't matter to him if the inspector left before that happened. Who would care, except Nakamori himself?

Shinichi had just made an executive decision, and Heiji fully intended to find out what was going through the Great Detective of the East's mind. "What's the deal," he asked.

"It's no wonder Nakamori's always so frustrated with this guy. To Kid, this is all a game. He works hard to keep himself interested."

"Keeping himself interested… gee, that personality trait sounds familiar…"

Conan just glared, while Ran looked on in amusement. 'The two of them are always at it,' she thought. 'I bet this is the way Heiji would act around Shinichi, too.' She started chuckling softly, which caused the pair's discussion to stop.

"What's so funny," they asked in unison.

"I was just thinking about how Hattori-kun would probably act like this around Shinichi, too…"

As if they were one person, Heiji and Conan's eyes went wide, and then they quickly changed the expressions into smiles. "Around Kudo? Heh, heh… yeah, you're probably right…" Heiji replied. Conan simply nodded in agreement.

After another minute or two, things started quieting back down in the room. Most of the smoke was gone, and Nakamori sent his officers home. The three teenagers (although one didn't look it) approached his distraught form.

The inspector was mumbling angrily to himself, but stopped when he noticed their proximity. Instead, he raised his voice, using more polite language. "He got away again! And he took the sword with him!"

Conan looked around while the other two attempted to comfort the older man. The janitor's bin was still there, next to the targeted suit of armor. His eyes traced over to where the swords hung at the side of the suit. In the place of the wakizashi, there was now a flower with a note attached to it. He unfolded the page and read it. "Hey, guys… Would anyone like to confirm some suspicions?" He held up the note so that they could all read it.

Ladies of green passion, set in a golden prison. In the Forbidden City shall an idol be blinded, loosing the storm waters. When the music surges and the stars shine brightest, in the deepest shadows will I strike next.

Signed, Kaito Kid

"Let's go back to my office and make photocopies of this," Nakamori reluctantly suggested.

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End Chapter 4

A/N: So, that's it for now. If you hadn't noticed, the third man to walk in and talk to Nakamori was in fact Heiji… and the heist was short on purpose – I can't take up all the interesting action sequences so close to the beginning, after all!

PS. You guys are too smart for me! When SailorRanger sent me the first riddle, I just copied and pasted it into the document without thinking much about what it actually said… I knew what it was about because we had talked about it, and that seemed to be enough for me. Several days later, the "east meets west" parallel dawned on me, whereas a number of you had caught it right off the bat. He wrote it that way on purpose, so that I would have to include Heiji (I had been hesitating), and I didn't realize it until right before posting/hangs head/ Well, at least I got it in time for this chapter, ne?