Disclaimer: All Detective Conan characters belong to Gosho Aoyama.

Author's note: whaps hand...I know I posted the prolouge a while back, promising that the first chapter would soon follow...but...umm... ;; blame school as well as some issues with making sure Shinichi was as IC as possible. Thankfully being forced to play him in an rpg with Fyl solved that...I hope...anyhow, I'm hoping updates won't take as long as this one did, and enjoy!

Chapter One

Kudo Shinichi was having a very bad day. Passersby could tell by the fact he was currently picking himself out of the mud.

But that was only a small portion of the past several hours.

He had decided to stay at Agasa's place since it would be closer than if he had stayed in one of the small farms outside the city. Unfortunately, that meant three, usually pestering, guests: Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko. They had kept Shinichi up almost to the wee hours of the morning, not to mention Mitsuhiko and Genta had finally managed to sneak off with his katana. Shinichi didn't notice until he woke up the next morning and had to waste precious time tracking them down (it was easy, but there wasn't much time to spare) to retrieve it.

Luck did happen to be with him in that he made it to the training grounds with seconds to spare, but it disappeared soon after that.

"Pft…a bunch of lazy slobs showing up this year it seems," a loud voice called out from the front of the small group of hopeful recruits.

Shinichi cringed. Why today? Of all days, it just had to be today that Mouri is in charge of recruiting…

Mouri Kogoro was the guard's second-in-command, directly under the commander, Megure Jyuzou. Normally he would be in charge of the recruiting, but he was a busy man and the job sometimes fell to Kogoro. Unfortunately, he had a bit of a grudge against Shinichi since, truthfully, the young man's skills were much better than his own, especially when it came to solving crimes the lower-ranking soldiers couldn't resolve.

Scanning the group, Kogoro's eyes narrowed as they landed on the youth. "What are you doing here?"

Shinichi twitched slightly at the man's tone, but he forced himself to be respectful. "I'm here for the same reason as everyone else, Mouri-san. To try and get recruited into the guard."

Kogoro snorted. "And you know you're wasting your time as well as mine. You know the rules. If your parents hadn't abandoned you…"

"They didn't abandon me!"

Kogoro smirked. "Then where are they? And why didn't they wait two more years so their son could keep their lands?"

Shinichi scowled and looked down at his feet. He had no answer to those questions. Four years ago, his parents had suddenly left, saying they were going on a quick trip to one of the islands. However, after they should have reached their destination, Yusaku and Yukiko seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Fourteen year old Shinichi waited for several months, but never heard of or from them after that. After sending a few spies to all the cities on the island, the shogun determined that they had been killed, most likely by bandits en route. Since the youngest a son could inherit his parent's property was 16, the land became the shogun's, which ended up splitting it between the two families on either side. Because of this, Shinichi was left alone and had to depend on himself for survival among the other unfortunates of the city.

When he turned 16, Shinichi decided the best way to turn his life around would be to continue with his dream of being in the guard. Many of the soldiers, who knew him from hanging around the training grounds or randomly showing up to see if he could help with anything, thought he would have been immediately accepted. But they had forgotten about the law that someone without a rank in society couldn't join. Shinichi, family-less, landless, and almost always moneyless, didn't fit that requirement anymore.

Although Commander Megure couldn't rewrite or get rid of the rule, he would still allow Shinichi to go through the tests twice a year to help keep his skills up, or as some would say, show off. Mouri Kogoro on the other hand…

"You also shouldn't yell at your seniors, both in age and rank," the second in command continued. Turning to two of the soldiers that had accompanied him, he instructed, "Show this disrespectful time-wasting idiot to the gate."

The two moved to either side of Shinichi and gave him a little nudge to start moving.

"I'm really sorry about this, Kudo," one of them said. Shinichi recognized him to be Hattori Heiji, a childhood rival.

Shinichi forced a care-free smile onto his face as they headed towards the gate. "Eh, don't worry about it, Hattori. You're just following orders."

When they reached the gate, Shinichi gave them both a nod of farewell. Heiji returned it, but the other simply slammed the gate shut in his face, causing him to topple backwards.

This brings us back to the mud.

"Must be a relative of Mouri's…" he muttered, trying to wipe the muck off his clothes.

A hand suddenly appeared in front of him, offering to help him up. "No…he just figures if he acts like my father, he'll rise up a few ranks," a voice said.

Shinichi slowly looked up at the person in front of him. Oh gods…I wanted to talk to her again, but not after being humiliated like this… He quickly scrambled to his feet and gave a quick, respectful bow. "Good morning, Mouri-san."

Mouri Ran, Kogoro's daughter, dropped her hand when Shinichi didn't use its assistance. She then looked at him curiously. "Have we met before?" she asked.

He felt his shoulders slump slightly. She doesn't remember? Well…it was a long time ago… "I once-" he started, but Ran interrupted him

"You must have shown up at other recruitments," she decided, "That would also explain my father being annoyed at you…he thinks people are wasting time if they don't give up right away."

Shinichi couldn't help but blink at her curiously. "You've been at the recruitments? How come I don't remember seeing you? And when I last checked, women weren't' allowed inside the training grounds."

Ran gave him a cunning grin. "Something tells me you won't go running off to report anything to my father, so I think I'll be safe telling you." She pointed down the wall a little ways to an old, gnarled tree that grew against and somewhat over the top of the wall. "There's a very nice view up there."

Clever as well as beautiful, Shinichi found himself thinking as he stared at her in admiration. He might have expected this from a poor girl with street smarts, but a noble lady?

She gave him an odd, almost curious look. "Are you alright? You haven't blinked once since we met."

"Oh…I…" he was spared the need to come up with an excuse as a young man bumped into Ran. The stranger mumbled a quick apology and started to hurry off.

However, eyes that were now used to the everyday commoner life saw what had really happened, and Shinichi was about to grab the man and demand Ran's money bag back. But before he could even take a step forward, one of Ran's fists flashed out and hit the man dead center in the back. He fell face forward into the dirt, the small bag dropping from his hand.

"And that's why it's nice to hang around the guard," Ran said calmly, picking her money back up and retying it to her belt.

Shinichi was simply staring at her, frozen to where he stood and slack-jawed. She's probably better at that than at least half, wait…maybe more than half of the guard…

Ran was able to figure out why he was starring this time. "I'm sorry…I know women aren't supposed to act like that…you must think I'm unnatural…" Without waiting for an answer, she glanced at the sky and then gave a quick bow, "My mother should be expecting me home soon...I should be going." Before Shinichi could stop her, she disappeared into the crowd.

He sighed, staring after the direction she'd run off in. "I'm going to remember that moment forever.." He told himself, knowing how unlikely it was that he would be able to talk to her again.