The small ball wove through Kaito's fingers fluidly, though he wasn't really paying any attention to it at all. Even less was he paying attention to the teacher droning on about math.

All of Kaito's attention was on his meeting the previous night. On plans that had been formed. On the sudden fragile nature reality had taken.

But what disturbed him most wasn't the fact that he had been hired by cops, or that he was up against one of the greatest supernatural evils around. It was the fact that Kaitou Kid wouldn't be going through with the heist.

Kaito Kuroba was.

He wasn't going to send out a heist note and he wasn't going to be returning what he stole; it just didn't seem right to be using his father's persona that way. But there was no way he could back down from this either. This Plasmius guy had to go down!

And if he was caught, well, he had so much more to worry about than getting unmasked.

The bell rang and the students exited as quickly as they could. Introspective Kaito could only mean humiliation for someone.

Of course, that someone was never Koizumi, so she sashayed up to him fearlessly. "You know, you make the most interesting friends."

Kaito shrugged non-commitedly.

"I mean a detective, two cops and the halfa? You flirt with danger more than you do with Nakamori-chan."

Poker face "What the heck are you talking about now?" he asked, trying to appear annoyed

The class witch rolled her eyes. "Now's not the time for your little games. You're challenging something that has the entire mystical world in a tizzy. And made some powerful friends in the process." She slipped something into his hands. "It wouldn't do for someone else to take you out and possibly beat me to ruling the world."

"Um, thanks?" I hope this doesn't turn me into a toad or something.

"Oh no, thank you," she laughed in a rather Kodachi-esque fashion before leaving.

S$

At seven forty six pm a well dressed, if rather paunchy, American gentleman entered the main building of Dalv Inc. He smiled at the receptionist, showed her his pass, and went on into the bowels of the building. He stepped in to third elevator on the right and pressed the button for the sixth floor three times. The elevator began to move, not up but down several levels, passed the parking basement. Though the security camera showed the gentleman getting off the elevator, is was a teenager dressed in all black who stepped onto the shining steel floor. Black track shoes, skintight black shirt and pants, black gloves, and a black kerchief (hiding a gasmask) over his face.

Showtime.

S$

Not much of a show thought Kaito. There were doors, no locks, no security cameras, just seemingly unending steel tunnels that must have run under a good portion of the area. He must have never thought he'd need them, that no living human would ever come here, except…except I know I'm not the first thief to get this far. What happened to the others?

Kaito's internal monolgue was interrupted by him spotting an actual door, locked no less. One of the labs, finally! He opened the door and immediately regretted it.

Sure the mask filtered out the worst of the smell, as well as any type of mold or bacteria that could have been harmful to him, but it took more than he had to completely block out the smell of decomp. And the smell was especially strong due to the sheer number of bodies, some nearly skeletal others…fresher.

He slammed the door shut, taking deep breaths, trying to get the smell out of his nose and the image out of his mind.

Oh god oh GOD! That monster, all those people. There were more than just thieves in there, it must have been everyone who disappeared that the redhead was telling me about. I think I saw a child…gods

This is a warning, like when they hung pirate skeletons outside of ports. It's to scare me away. Well it's not working Vlad! No matter what you have planned, I'm going to stop you! No matter what…

S$

This is a pretty big what… thought the thief, looking at the guard…somethings…in front of the big double doors which Kaito was sure lead to one of the labs. It vaguely reminded Kaito of a mad scientist movie gone horribly wrong. Ghostly animals whose limbs looked like they had been mixed, matched, and mutated stood on guard, protecting the lab from all who would try to intrude.

PETA is soooo hearing about this!

Tentatively he took a step forward, and all hell broke loose. Beasts of varying shape and size screamed as they lunged towards him. Kaito dodged as best he could, but there were too many of them. Kaito prepared for the end, Aoko...

ZZZAP

The ghostly animals were flung aside, leaving a large radius separating thief from guards. Kaito blinked then pulled out the talisman Akako had given him early. It was glowing slightly orange and made the ghostly animals hiss.

Thank You Koizumi crowed Kaito mentally as he ran in the lab, not noticing the talisman had developed a tiny crack.

S$$S

Terra89: Yeah Danny always seemed to have a good rapport with the canine ghosts. Personally I'm surprised Wulf hasn't shown up again. And yes I've read the Zelda fic .

Kaida Hikari: Yeah, the LJ version isn't going to be changing. And I was extremely spoiled for fanart on MC1T #grins#

YumiTakato: Yah, I think Toichi had more of a sense of humor than Jii concerning detectives.

candidus-lupus-full Moon: Well wait no longer, Kaito is here. BTW where do you get you torrents from?

watashiwajerudesu:Unfortuantly Kid did not write a will. I bet he's kicking himself in the butt for that right about now. I'm currently working on a side story about what happened to Shiratori, but it's taking longer than i thought.