It's about time I make something happen to our scrambled meitantei (+magician) after all I'm sure you're all getting tired of them just lying to each other's not-girlfriends, so I'm just wondering who's situation do you guys want to see get even weirder? I've got some ideas for each of them but if everything happens at once it'll just be confusing.

In this chapter: Shinichi goes back to Kaito duty, Heiji is annoyed by eternal youth, Hakuba begins to drive himself insane, and Kaito is impatient

Please review or else~ ~

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Ran would probably be suspicious from now on because of the existence of 'Kuroba Kaito' that meant that because of stupid Hattori I no longer had the option of taking advantage of Kaito's body to pretend to be myself. Let me say, sometimes I really hate Hattori; just for doing this he deserves the pain that comes with my body transforming, and the headache that comes with the shonen tantei dan.

I sent a quick text message to the phone that Kaito had told me to use to get in contact with him: I'll be back tomorrow.

So of course the next day I went to Ekoda high even though I'd have much rather kept going to Teitan.

Kaito seemed to have decided that I should meet this 'someone that might be able to help' that he'd talked about before, but I didn't expect it to be the redheaded girl that I'd seen him talking to at lunch on the other days that I was pretending to be him. I had actually assumed that she was Hakuba's crush or something like that because he always seemed to act strange when he was talking to her, but I suppose I of all people should know that appearances can be deceiving.

As it turns out the redheaded girl was a self-proclaimed witch by the name Koizumi Akako. I could feel the hair on the back of my -no Kuroba's- neck standing up straight being near her, so I suppose despite being a magician that utilizes tricks himself he actually believed her to be a witch and was at least a little bit afraid of her (not that he showed it at all).

I felt wary of her and couldn't help wondering if it was truly my own wariness or if Kaito's body was trying to react from previous experience, I decided it was best to be careful just in case.

He introduced me as Edogawa Conan, much to my displeasure but because I knew it would help with my secret I didn't argue, but pointed out that I was at an intellectual level above most collage students or adults.

"Oh, the so called 'rival of Kaitou Kid' that's always besting Kid?" she'd laughed (though halfway through it seemed to turn into a cough) making me think she knew more than she let on.

"That's right. It's nice to meet you onee-san ," I replied in attempt to fit whatever image she had of Conan. I decided it'd be best to just go with a polite childish image, hoping she wouldn't make an attempt to poke holes in the story as I was tired enough of lying as it was.

"Well, Edogawa-kun *cough* I'm sure it's been quite a hassle for you being stuck as... Kuroba," She said, her tone sounded cold despite her sympathetic seeming words. Somehow she reminded me of Haibara, the strange association only made me feel even more wary of her.

Kaito (Hakuba) broke the momentary silence whispering to me, "She says she can't fix us because she has a cold... I'm not really sure what to do about a cold because I'm almost never sick, but you get colds all the time right? Any chance you can fix it?"

I couldn't keep myself from looking at him with an annoyed expression, "Oi, is that the only reason you wanted me to meet her?"

"Maybe..."

...

It hurt even worse returning to chibi form than it did transforming into Kudo.

Everything was the same; same feeling of being on fire though the fire felt hotter, same weird distortions of color though the flashes were more disorienting than before, same strangely familiar sense of vertigo though it had been coupled with an intense nausea. The blinding pain that had been insufferable before however was not the same and the difference wasn't slight, it was the absolute worst thing I'd ever felt in my life.

I'm just glad that Neechan hadn't been around to hear my pained scream, she would have definitely would up worrying about Kudo more than she already is and it would have been my fault.

When I got back to the Mouri Detective Agency -for now 'home sweet home'- I was still weak from my cold and in pain (thankfully it had lessened but it was still there) from changing back into Conan so I plopped onto the bed and fell asleep.

I was woken up in the morning (it wasn't a school day so Neechan didn't wake me up) when the shonen tantei dan came to visit me because I hadn't been at school the day before. I told them that I had a cold and that it had disappeared over night (thank you alcohol!) which was a bad move on my part because them thinking I was well only made them want to play with me.

"Why don't we go hunt for treasure in the city!" Genta suggested. The remaining normal kids seemed excited by the notion.

Ahou, I doubt dere's ne' treasure ta find in Tokyo, Osaka on de otha' hand... I knew better than to voice what I was thinking so I asked, "An' what kinda treasure are ya 'spectin' ta find?"

The three of them all shouted at once hurting my ears with a multitude of unrealistic answers; 'gold', 'yaiba snacks', 'world peace', 'fried eel', 'a million yen', 'smoked cheese', and any number of other strange things.

I sighed, Why couldn't I 'ave stayed a teenager a l'il bit longer?

...

It seems that Kudo-kun decided to go back to pretending to be Kuroba so I had no other option than to return to acting as Hattori, which was significantly harder and much more annoying.

As Kuroba no one had questioned my accent or lack thereof, as Kuroba no one asked why I was acting strange, as Kuroba... at least I knew what I was doing when I was pretending to be Kuroba. By comparison being Hattori was maddening.

I cursed the current situation while I lay sprawled on the bed in Hattori's room -or perhaps at this point I should be calling it my room, we've been like this for a full week already. I hoped that whatever had happened to get us stuck like this could be resolved as soon as possible, but something in the back of my mind kept telling me that the four of us would be stuck in each other's bodies like this forever.

I laughed. I'm not sure if I was simply beginning to go insane or if I was just trying to make light of my own internal turmoil, but despite my own hopeless feelings I was laughing.

"Heh, Edogawa-kun -no Kudo-kun got pretty lucky..." I started to say out loud, "If we really are stuck like this for good then he can just tell the sleeping Kogoro's daughter that he was body swapped and continue on being himself instead of being Edogawa-kun..."

I'm not really sure who I was talking to, myself probably.

"'E wouldn't tell 'er, dat'd make it difficult ta avoid havin' ta tell 'er 'bout bein' Edogawa-kun," I added, not really paying much attention as I spoke, "Cause she'd wonder 'bout who else was involved, an' she'd wind up wonderin' where Edogawa-kun went."

"He might just go ahead and tell her everything anyway. He could easily break the news about the body-swapping and his having been previously shrunk at the same time."

"Nah that'd be stupid, why on Earth would 'e tell 'er two really big secrets dat'd only make 'er worry 'bout 'im at de same time?"

It was at that point that I realized that I'd been talking to myself and responding in Osaka-ben, which absolutely horrified me to no end so I promptly shut my -Hattori's- mouth and simply stared at the ceiling.

I'm sure you can imagine that I didn't get much sleep that night.

...

I had really been hoping that Shinichi would have known some kind of weird trick for curing colds, but thinking back on it if he knew such a trick he wouldn't have colds so often, so it was a pretty stupid idea to begin with. I guess the only things that ever go through his head are probably crime, murder, and Ran Mouri... now that's a rather disturbed notion, he needs therapy when this is all over.

Now with nothing better to do I was left pacing in Hakuba's room -well my room for the time being.

I'd gotten so used to playing his role that even when I was alone I found myself habitually checking the golden pocket watch that was always on my person. As you can see I'd ever begun using British-y phrases like 'a rather disturbed notion' or 'on my person' even in my narration!

You get the point.

I didn't like it. Not one bit.

It made me worry that I was becoming more and more like Hakuba, and worrying made me obsess over trying to fix the situation in much the same way Hakuba always obsessed over catching me -well Kid- and quite frankly that made me worry even more. The cycle of worrying and obsessing would probably go on without ending until it was either too late and my personality was completely turned into Hakuba's or the situation was finally resolved.

I'd give anything for it to be the later.

"It's only been a seven days since this began," I said, by habit using his accent as I checked the pocket watch, "Eight days tomorrow..."

Ugh... why did I just say something so obvious out loud? Of course if it's a week today it'll have been eight days tomorrow. I thought to myself in the most sarcastic tone I think I've ever thought in.

For a brief moment I was calm. I stood in near silence, the only sounds in the room being my own breathing, the beating of my own heart, and the hushed 'tick, tick, tick'ing sound of the pocket watch.

'tick'

'tick'

I took a moment to look at the watch before throwing it at Hakuba's bed.

"I DON'T WANT TO BE BRITISH!"