The Magicverse is the creation of Ellen Brand, the Amazing and Patient IdeasTaster, and is used with permission. It does not exist in written form elsewhere, but please enjoy this glimpse anyway. TWH is now also graciously beta'd by RandomImagination. Many thanks to both of them.

Black Ice Warning

Now, we come to discover that the moments of agony
(Whether, or not, due to misunderstanding,
Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,
Is not in question) are likewise permanent
With such permanence as time has.
- Dry Salvages (II.56-60)

The rip opened silently, heralded only by Kaito abruptly feeling like the past six hours of sleep had never happened, and had taken a fair chunk of what remained of his energy reserves with them. On the other side, however, was not the street between his and Aoko's houses that they were currently standing on, but an alleyway heavy with evening shadows.

"Come on," he sighed. "Let's go see if this worked."

"Weren't you aiming for home?" Hakuba inquired, though he followed Kaito through anyway.

Kaito shook his head. "The house could still be standing and look the same no matter what insanity was going on. I aimed for Aoko, out of sight. She's..." Mine. Home. "More unique, and not about to make us risk showing up in a hospital storage closet like mom would."

"Mmm. Sensible," Hakuba allowed, looking around.

"…I don't know. I think that's Haido Park over that way, across the street." Kaito padded towards the nearest intersection in the alleyway. "She likes the little one by our house better, not to mention she's usually home around sunset, and doesn't shop out this wa—"

He stopped abruptly, holding up a hand for silence, as a disturbingly familiar voice reached his ears.

"Aoko… You need to go."

Around the corner, Aoko's louder and fiercely determined voice countered, "I'm not leaving you here, Saguru. I'd never make it alone anyway, and we need to get you to Ran-san before…"

DAMN IT.

"Why didn't it work?" Kaito growled softly, half to himself and half to Méraud.

:I… I hesitate to speculate with so little information,: Méraud murmured, though she didn't sound happy.

"Speculate anyway, with Dark Sage and whoever else if you have to, while we figure out what's gone screwy with this place," Kaito half-asked, half-ordered under his breath, then beckoned to Hakuba, who nodded.

I might have my own problems—and we're not going there, thank you—but I'll be damned before I ignore Aoko and Hakuba in trouble.

Any Aoko and Hakuba.

The only complication is going to be how they react to us…

Rounding the corner into the other alley, Kaito immediately discovered that the reaction was 'Not well.'

Aoko whirled at the sound of their footsteps to face them, snatching up a long tube of cardboard from a trash pile and shifting into a very familiar mop-fu stance. Except that a moment later, the makeshift weapon's tip suddenly burst into long, flickering, blue-white flames.

Erk.

"Don't come any closer!" Aoko ordered, eyes flashing in a mixture of fear and danger and desperation, but not a significant level of surprise. Behind Aoko, the other Hakuba leaned heavily against the alley wall, sweating and pale, cradling his right arm with the other.

Didn't use my name, so apparently doesn't seem to think that I'm… me. Him.

…Dammit, we need a whole new set of pronouns. Him.

A distant, dispassionate part of Kaito's brain also helpfully pointed out that he was currently facing a pyrokinetic mop. There was no telling how far impersonation could be taken in such a world.

"I don't know who you really are or what you want," Aoko continued darkly, "but frankly, I don't have time for it. Stay away from us and you won't get burned."

"I want to go home," Kaito answered as calmly as he could, "but it's not working too well. I'm Kuroba Kaito, son of Touichi and Mizuki, best friends with Nakamori Aoko since I gave her a rose in front of the Clocktower when we were five. This is Hakuba Saguru, son of Seiichi and Elizabeth, and when he transferred into our class he prefaced his introduction with the time down to the millisecond."

"Which you promptly parodied every morning for the next three days," Kaito's Hakuba—screw it, his was Saguru and theirs was Hakuba, or this was going to be even more confusing than hell—added with wry amusement. "As I recall, it took a whispered threat from Aoko-kun to make you stop. Did she know you were ichthyphobic by then?"

"Yeah. She promised to bring another fish from the market to class unless I found something new to do."

"Of course." Saguru turned to their audience, who were watching them with a mixture of confusion and amusement. "Mad as it may sound, we seem to be traveling between realities alternate to our own."

"Really?" Behind Aoko, Hakuba spoke for the first time, sounding exhausted as he lapsed into English. "Where's... your TARDIS?"

Saguru jerked a thumb at Kaito and answered in the same language, "You're looking at him. Time, space, and relativity, too."

"And I even have a working chameleon circuit," Kaito deadpanned.

Hakuba chuckled, and Aoko lowered her makeshift weapon slightly in bemusement.

Saguru took a cautious step forward. "We only want to help. How badly are you hurt?"

Hakuba smiled tightly and replied with forced lightness, "Oh, the wound is only minor. It's the infection that you have to worry about."

He shifted, forcing himself to stand unaided, and Kaito caught a glimpse of ink-black streaks creeping beyond the cuff of Hakuba's sleeve across the back of his right hand, slowly but inexorably expanding across the skin.

Kaito hissed through his teeth at it. "Edogawa-kun can do something about that?"

Aoko shook her head. "Mouri Ran-san. She's a healer, the closest we know of…"

"We're running out… of time…" Hakuba broke in. "He's getting closer…"

Kaito's fists clenched, not even bothering to ask how Hakuba knew. "Your Kaito?"

It would just figure.

Hakuba gave him a bleak look. "Or Kid. I'm not sure… which it is now. Soon enough, it'll be… neither."

"So if you plan on borrowing a car or something, you'd better do it now," Aoko added, voice tight.

…Aoko knew. She didn't so much as twitch at Hakuba identifying Kaito as Kid, and apparently the other Kaito was neither dead or maimed. But there was no time to think about that, because she was also watching him now, expression twisting with impatience and the desperate need to be anywhere but here.

Kaito glanced down at his hands, then back up. "It's definitely an 'or something', and I don't know for sure how well it'll work, but…"

Saguru moved the sunglasses that had been hanging on their chain around his neck to perch atop his hair, then closed the distance to his doppelganger.

"Do it. This had bloody well better not short out the universe," he added under his breath, and pulled the uninjured arm over his shoulder, taking the other's weight.

Nothing happened.

Oh, goody. The universe still exists to mock us.

"Right." Kaito reached out towards the alley wall, and forDetective-Rival-Theirs-HERE-Now-Hiding-Hoping, , and –pulled–.

"Holy…" Aoko swore as the Shadowrift opened, while Kaito sagged, energy nearly sapped beyond his limit.

"Go," Hakuba ordered urgently, shepherding Aoko ahead of him and Saguru into the brightly lit main room of the Mouri's apartment.

Kaito turned to follow, and his blood suddenly froze as the flat, mocking laughter straight out of his nightmares reverberated down the alley and across his nerves. He darted through the rift more concerned with dropping the Shadows like they had fins and scales than curtailing his momentum, and he collided with the two blonds hard enough that they all dropped to the floor in a jumbled heap.

"Gah… You okay, Hakuba-kun?"

Saguru grunted, moving Hakuba's left hand from where it had narrowly missed bumping against his bare cheek. "Unscathed."

"What the hell?"

The outburst was ridiculously cheering.

Ah, tantei-kun. Freaked out, but properly little again.

Kaito forced himself up to his knees, but then promptly slumped sideways against the nearest wall in exhaustion while Saguru helped Hakuba sit up and Aoko explained, "Long story, Saguru-kun got tagged by a shard of black ice."

Conan cursed foully, and yelled at one of the closed doors, "RAN-NEECHAN!"

The door immediately burst open and Ran raced in, skidding to a halt as she caught sight of their faces.

"… Oh dear." Taking in the appearance of Hakuba's hand, which was entirely black now, and the dark streaks that were starting to creep up his neck, her expression hardened. "Conan-kun, go get the restraints. Then make a pot of coffee, the way you like it."

"Got it, Ran-neechan!"

Conan raced off, and Ran approached Hakuba, gesturing to Saguru. "Help me get his coat off."

"Thank… you…" Hakuba rasped as they wrestled with the jacket, which pulled away to reveal the sickeningly black sheen of the skin beneath his torn shirtsleeve.

"Don't thank me yet," Ran ordered, accepting a set of thick leather cuffs from Conan before he dashed off again. "This is going to hurt."

"…Worth it."

"Be careful, Ran-san," Aoko interjected, taking the coat out of their way. "He's a Lightning-tosser…"

From his vantage point, Kaito saw Saguru pause and blink.

"He is?" Ran asked, surprised, then mused, "The thing you learn about people… All right, everyone stand back." She grabbed Saguru's arm as he started to move away. "Sorry, except for you. I need you to help me hold him if he starts thrashing."

…Good thing those gloves are leather.

Saguru simply nodded, repositioning himself by Hakuba's legs as Aoko moved a few steps back, biting her lip, and Ran helped Hakuba lie down on the floor.

Forcing himself to stay awake and upright, Kaito watched through half-lidded eyes as Ran began to glow with a soft green light, and carefully placed one hand just below the wound, and the other on top of Hakuba's heart.

Approximately 0.562 seconds later (British Detective Time), Hakuba screamed. Almost simultaneously, Aoko's arms crossed over her stomach, eyes shut tight in concentration with a hint of pain.

"Hold him!" Ran cried, grip tightening and hands glowing brighter as electricity danced up and down Hakuba's writhing frame. "If I can't purge it…"

Saguru said nothing, but he held on…

…And a short eternity later Hakuba went limp.

Ran removed her hands, slumping tiredly as Conan entered bearing a tray with three coffee mugs. "Someone else… is going to have to… treat that arm," she sighed, accepting the first mug from him.

"I can do that." Aoko knelt down, placing Hakuba's jacket beneath his head and gently squeezing his shoulder as he gave her a smile of bone-deep exhaustion. "I'm good at first aid."

"When you're done, that coffee is for him," Conan commented, waving at the mug resting on the table. He approached Kaito with the third mug and a sharp, probing look in his eyes. "Here you go. Like my dad says, black as sin and sweet as death."

And coffee first, interrogation later.

Kaito took it carefully with both hands, willing them to not shake. "Thanks."

"Just stay awake to explain what the hell is going on," Conan grumped, looking over his shoulder at Saguru and Hakuba. It had to be killing his curiosity as to why they looked nearly identical, except that Hakuba's hair was long enough to cover the tops of his ears and he lacked Saguru's new trio of accessories—sunglasses, gloves, and the staff still lying on the ground.

Kaito blew on the coffee and took a sip, savoring the boatload of sugar that cut through the coffee's bitter flavor. "I'm all for staying awake."

A short, wry chuff from Saguru acknowledged the blond's awareness of how big an understatement the sentiment was.

"First things first," Ran declared, sounding a bit more alert, as Aoko settled down with the first aid kit. "How did he get poisoned inside the city?"

"My apologies, Mouri-kun," Saguru interrupted before Aoko could answer, "but I'm afraid this is rather more basic. Kuroba-kun and I are from an alternate reality, drawn here during our attempt to reach home from… a place very nearly outside reality altogether. We're likely going to need more explanations than you would expect, to understand how this situation came about."

Saguru, Kaito decided, was teetering somewhere between tired, worried, and ticked off. He wouldn't be that verbose, otherwise.

"Hell," Conan muttered. "Do you even know what Darklings are?"

Kaito shook his head, pensive. "Our monsters from the Dark are black with gold eyes, but they aren't spread via infection like that. Even though they do attack people to make more of themselves. Heartless are… a fragment existence, created pretty much instantaneously when Darkness breaks a person apart."

The others, particularly Aoko and Hakuba, shuddered.

"Darklings are… twisted," Aoko explained as she painstakingly cleaned and bandaged Hakuba's arm. "Dark magic gets into your system and… changes you. Kaito was attacked by a Darkling… we didn't see it, but we both felt it. Then he attacked us, and Saguru got slashed while we were getting away."

Now Kaito shuddered, curling up further around his mug of coffee at the memory of the Darkness corridor pressing against him, and of Saguru's own reaction to feeling the Dark even more keenly than Kaito could.

"…Felt?" Saguru's voice was deceptively nonchalant as he eyed his other.

"It must be a very alternate reality indeed," Hakuba muttered thoughtfully.

"What kind of magic do you have, where you're from?" Conan prodded, glancing between them as he tried to deduce who had opened the Shadowrift, and how.

Kaito smiled tiredly. "Low-level psychic stuff. I'm a bit of an exception, as a reality-bender with actual training from a friendly pocket-dimension inhabitant. Long story. The hole in your living room was me opening a tesseract between an alley in Ekoda and you."

"Do you ever do anything small?" Conan demanded, a shade irritably.

Kaito considered this. "…No?"

"And the terminology is a bugger," Saguru volunteered. "I'm not certain I entirely understand it, and I was given a summary by someone who did."

Hakuba sighed as Aoko finished and helped him sit up. "As for here, there's… we'll say six natural elements, thought it's a little more complicated. People can be born with one, two, or very rarely, three of those elements. Kaito has Air and Water, the Yin and Yang Mind types. I have Lightning and Wood, respectively the Yang and Yin of Spirit. Aoko has Fire, the Yang to Earth's Yin for Body, and Ran-san has Wood. One of Wood's talents is to purify, as you saw. My primary is Lightning, however, so it does little more than boost my own ability to resist infection."

"Except once," Aoko added, handing Hakuba his coffee mug, "when Kaito, Saguru and I were attacked by a low-level feral Darkling on the way to the movies, and it slashed me before it died. I'm not as strong as Saguru, so it went faster, and he needed help from Kaito to stop it… so we all pushed, together. And bonded. We can sense each other, now…"

"But all we sense from Kaito is cold and Darkness. We're keeping him human, and what he's becoming will track us down to turn or kill us for just that reason."

Kaito's grip on his coffee mug tightened enough to almost crack ceramic, and he ignored Conan's curious look as he shoved the memory of Saguru's dead eyes as deep into the back of his mind as possible. Saguru wasn't dead, dammit, and Kaito would bend reality to the breaking point and beyond before he let that happen.

Saguru also glanced back over his shoulder at Kaito, but then refocused on the more important conversation. "How long until he arrives here, then?"

"Not long," Aoko offered quietly. "He'll have to take rooftops, but he's so fast across those…"

Hakuba nodded in agreement. "Perhaps thirty minutes, if we're lucky."

Ran yawned. "It will probably knock me out afterwards, but if someone can restrain him, I should be able to purify him when he arrives."

Saguru picked up the restraints that had held Hakuba. "…I'm afraid we may have a problem doing that."

Aoko dropped her head in her hands. "Oh, kami. Kaito and handcuffs. Bad mix."

"Yes, he has a distressing tendency to take them apart and occasionally try to improve them." The glance Saguru gave Kaito was rueful, but not annoyed.

Hakuba swore. "Yes, I'm aware of that. We'll need something else."

"Is there any way to restrain him magically, that he couldn't easily break?" Saguru suggested.

"Hold on." Conan disappeared briefly into his room, then returned with a pair of metal handcuffs that glinted a bit, but otherwise seemed normal. "Here… they're mine. Technically, there's a seventh element. Metal. Only accessible to bloodlines that have someone who made a contract with a Metal Dragon, and other magic can't affect it. Hard to manipulate at my age, but... I've got a lot of practice. These are metal-element forged. The ghost of Houdini couldn't get out."

Saguru raised an eyebrow. "Impressive."

"Gotta have some leverage," Conan admitted with a little grin.

"Mmm, quite. … If the impossibility of Hakuba-san and I together gave him a moments pause, a soccer ball to the head might be sufficient chance to get him down and cuffed."

Conan smiled, only a little bit wryly. "I'm guessing your world has a version of me, too?"

"In a rather similar situation to yourself. Edogawa Conan, now age 8, ward of the recently famous Mouri Kogoro-san. Tends to chase Kid when I'm not in Japan."

Conan nodded. "Nakamori-keibu lets me come to heists here because I'm the only one who can see through Kid's glamours without trying. Illusion is an Air discipline," he added. "Kid's really, really good at it, and tends to use it in combination with Water's Protean—shape-shifting, basically, which I can't see through but it's a lot harder to keep up."

Kaito couldn't help but grin a little as Saguru raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Bloody hell. As if his traditional disguises weren't bad enough. You're generally at heists because Mouri-san has been invited to attend by the police, or Suzuki Jiroichi-san."

"Huh. Weird…"

Saguru was eyeing Conan thoughtfully now. "…You're finally going to catch him. Congratulations."

Conan snorted. "This doesn't count. It's outside the game, and it's to get him back. Kid's a pain in the butt, but he's not a monster. He sure as hell doesn't deserve this, and we need to catch him before he can do something he'll never be able to live with. After that…" He shrugged. "Well, I won't go to the cops. Anything else, we'll wait and see."

… Really?

Outside the conversation, brain still in a mental fog despite the empty coffee mug, Kaito watched Saguru give Conan a smile with a few more teeth than strictly necessary. "Good. It's not my place to speculate, but if the reasons driving this one are what I suspect… they're very good reasons indeed."

Conan glanced at Kaito, then back. "You'd know, huh?" He gave Hakuba and Aoko similarly considering looks. "You, too?"

"Not our place to say," Hakuba demurred, taking another long sip of coffee.

"And there's more pressing concerns," Saguru added. "You said Kuroba-san has Water and Air, but only mentioned—"

He broke off abruptly with a curse, grabbing his staff and scrambling to his feet. Dark fog had begun to creep past the door into the apartment.

"He's here…" Aoko helped Hakuba get to his feet, before he squeezed her hand.

"Stay behind us." She nodded, moving to stand beside where Kaito had shifted into a crouch but was saving his energy to stay awake rather than stand. Then Hakuba added to Saguru, "Don't look him in the eyes."

Saguru tightened his grip on his staff. "Something you neglected to mention?"

"Darklings have tainted abilities. Mind types like Kaito have Fascination."

"Bloody hell."

"Could be worse, he could have Body-type magic. They can Shadowwalk."

Ooh, now there's a thought…

Without taking his eyes from the door, Saguru declared, "I can hear you scheming from over here, Kuroba-kun."

Kaito mustered his best innocent look, but there was no time to reply because Kid's laughter finally breached the door to echo through the room.

He shuddered again, hand straying to his card case.

Kami help me, I hate that laugh.

Across the room, the lock turned with a sharp little 'snik', and the door opened to frame the other Kaito in the doorway.

Kaito froze, staring.

… Hello, new nightmares.

Some bastard with a sense of humor had run Kid through a dark mirror. White and red silk had inverted to purest black, with the blue shirt darkening to match, and the now-black monocle and charm had flipped sides to cover the left eye—the 'sinister' eye, for anyone who knew their Latin. The top hat had vanished altogether, giving unhindered view to a pair of slit-pupil golden eyes with black streaks curving out and down from the corners across Kid's cheeks.

Like crow wings, Kaito's mind supplied before he could stop it.

The golden eyes swept the room, catching for just a moment on Kaito before continuing to settle on Hakuba and Saguru. Then Kid grinned, and redefined the term 'fanged smile'.

"Hello, double images. Raising the dead now, Saguru?"

"Oh, God," Saguru whispered, face turning pale.

Still grinning, Kid took a step towards them and continued, "Or did you have a third locked away in an attic that you never told the world about?"

Tight-lipped, Hakuba replied, "Family are not possessions."

Unconcerned, Kid took another step, raising a hand to turn a tendril of dark fog into a handful of black ice shards floating in mid-air. "No, but you're mine. Aoko…"

Aoko looked up reflexively at the call that had too many harmonics to be normal, and met his eyes.

"Come here." The other hand extended, giving them a glimpse of the same crow-wing pattern streaked across its back from the webbing of the thumb.

"…Yes…" She walked forward.

"No," Saguru interrupted coldly as she passed him, one arm wrapping around her shoulders and gloved hand covering her eyes. The blond's eyes were firmly fixed at a point on Kid's torso. "She's not yours to have."

Kid's smile disappeared, eyes narrowing. "Let her go. They're mine. They're both mine, imposter-san."

Hakuba spoke up, voice quiet and just a little bit too even. "Not like this."

"Always so bound to rules, Saguru… We're going to have to change that."

"Rules can bend," Kaito's Saguru admitted with a wry smile. "But you want to shatter them. Without the rules, how do you hold yourself together?" He raised an eyebrow. "You're starting to shatter… Kaito."

Kid growled. "You be quiet. You don't get to call me that." The small shards of ice merged together into a single, wickedly sharp icicle.

In a display of the least common sense Saguru had shown since he'd followed Riku and Kaito into a Darkness corridor, the detective snorted.

"Why? I know you, Kaito." He favored Kid with a mirthless little smirk. "And since you've never been any good at following the rules… why are you following the standard Darkling transformation process? I thought you were stronger than that."

Kaito winced slightly at the faintest of edges in Saguru's voice hinting that he wasn't only trying to distract Kid. Though it was working.

"Shut up!" The icicle flew forward, just clipping Saguru's coat sleeve as he dropped to the ground, pulling Aoko with him.

NOW!

Conan jumped up, activating his ridiculous-but-useful inflatable soccer ball and sending the projectile straight for Kid's head. Impossibly, Kid managed to dodge before it could impact… but it didn't really matter.

Kaito drew on one last adrenaline surge and launched in the soccer ball's wake, hitting Kid from the side before he could recover his balance. Pivoting as they fell so that he landed sitting on Kid's stomach, Kaito pulled at every Shadow he could reach to –wrap– and –bind– and –hold– as he glared down at the other's golden eyes.

You do not get to hurt my detective.

"You've twisted so far you don't get it any more, do you?" he growled. "She's not your possession. She's a gift. He's a gift. And you're going to destroy them if you don't stop."

"What the… Who the hell are you?"

Kaito bared his teeth. "I'm the you that you couldn't get rid of, no matter how hard you try."

For the briefest of moments, a strip of blue ringed Kid's pupils. "Can't… my head…"

"Fight," Kaito ordered, beckoning to the others. "They're waiting for you."

A moment later, Saguru was there, turning Kid to handcuff his wrists behind his back, and Conan brushed a hand over the lock to make them solid circles of metal. On his other side, Ran knelt down with Aoko and Hakuba in tow, Hakuba leaning on Aoko as the only thing letting him move.

"Do it, Mouri-kun," Kaito hissed, feeling the Shadows beginning to slip through his grasp. Kid's eyes were pure gold again, and he smiled unpleasantly.

"You have to move," she responded, hands beginning to glow. "Your aura will interfere."

Kaito blinked. "…Oh. …Catch him…"

He let himself roll away towards Saguru, too exhausted to do anything but collapse against the carpet after one turn. Ran pounced before Kid could try escaping, and Kaito nearly had his hip broken by a black leather shoe as Kid let out an inhuman howl, before Saguru hooked an arm around his torso and pulled him well out of appendage range.

"Idiot."

"You're one to talk," Kaito mumbled, head lolling.

Saguru caught Kaito's head with his free hand and turned it so Kaito was looking up at him. "I'm not the one who is as limp as a wet noodle."

"Noodle incident… wasn't my fault."

Wait… He wasn't talking about that, Kaito realized belatedly as Saguru gave him a concerned look. Oops?

"Aoko-san, Hakuba-kun…" Kaito opened eyelids he hadn't realized had closed to see Ran with sweat running down her face. "I need you here… help me!"

Dark. Open eyes again. Command them to stay open.

"We're here." Hakuba gave Aoko a wry smile as he placed his hands lower than Ran's, on Kid's neck. "Just like last time."

"Right." Aoko placed her hands over his, and together they began to glow as well. Slowly, the black streaks on Kid's skin faded away, and even the suit somehow shifted into a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

Dark again. Eyes only make it halfway open. Silently plead to not close, because closed is sleep and sleep is full of Darkness…

"A…Aoko?" Kaito's voice rasped, except it was the other Kaito, not him. At least, he didn't feel his mouth moving, and his doppelganger's eyes looked blue again. "Saguru?"

Hey, he looks like how I feel…

Dark.

… Eyes don't open.

No energy to panic.

Eyes don't open.

Darkness...

Author's notes:

Promenade and The Way Home operate under a timeline that assumes the following:

1. Kaito became Kid during the summer of High School year one.
2. Saguru transferred six months later into a grade lower than his age would suggest, since February is almost the end of the school year and Japanese curriculum is rigorous. This leaves him ten months older than Kaito and thirteen months older than Aoko.
3. Shini'chi shrank into Conan a month and change after Saguru's transfer, during the first week of HS year two in April. He turned seven(teen) a month later.
4. Promenade began approximately the first week of HS year three, encompassing about two months time, and The Way Home picked up the narrative immediately after Promenade's ending—in other words, about late May. Conan is now eight(teen), Saguru is eighteen, and Kaito turns eighteen in about a month.

Don't forget to review!

Ocianne

12/09