Don't worry, I'm not going to let Hakuba and Shinichi off easy, they just get a late start is all. Oh and get ready for some theoretical body-soul connection logic... there's a lot of weird explanations in this chapter.

In this chapter; answers are given

Well here goes nothing, I hope you enjoy, please review.

I sat through the school day, bored as usual. Nothing had actually changed for me as I had neither been body-swapped nor was I near someone that had been swapped like Kudo was. At least nothing should have changed for me. In actuality, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

The prospect that body-swapping a second time was now confirmed as possible was exciting, I longed for it to happen so it would increase the chance of me being able to return to my original body. However instead of becoming Kuroba, Kudo, or myself I remained stuck going to school as Hattori Heiji -which quite frankly, sucked.

The schoolwork I was supposed to be doing wasn't even interesting, I had already covered this material both in England and in Ekoda so this was my third time having to learn this. I was kind of glad to have the recent body-swapping event to think about rather than class, not that thinking about it managed to change the fact that I still had no idea how it could have happened.

Why didn't Kudo and I change? Was there a reason that it had to be Kuroba and Hattori instead of us? Why not all four of us like it as the first time? Will Kudo and I eventually be affected or are we stuck like this forever like we originally thought we would? Is there some kind of condition behind the change? So many questions... I couldn't answer a single one.

...

It was strange to think that the 'Hakuba' sitting a few seats away from me was actually Hattori when I had grown so used to him being Kaito instead. Meanwhile Kaito's off doing who-knows-what with my body -sure, he's matured a lot from his time spent as Hakuba, but he's been wanting to pull pranks for a long time now and I know what he's capable of when he starts thinking... if he gets pranking my body might actually end up in jail, regardless of all the friends I have in the police department.

In the morning nothing seemed strange besides the fact that I had to tell Hattori which desk was his, a task which I carried out discreetly so that our classmates wouldn't notice that 'Hakuba' apparently didn't know which seat was his own despite being a genius.

When it came time for lunch Hattori and I, along with Aoko and Akako, went up to the roof to eat so that anything we talked about would not be overheard not that anyone would believe it if they were to overhear us anyway. Though lunch hour was significantly less fun when Kaito wasn't around to see that I was eating fish.

"Couldn't you guys have just stayed the way you were?" Aoko wondered aloud as Akako was looking at Hattori and I with a strange glare, "Now everyone's going to think I dumped Hakuba for Shinichi!"

I suppose that would be troublesome. As long as it doesn't keep happening over and over it shouldn't be a problem but if we really start switching more then that'll be a huge problem for the girls.

"It's not like we're doin' it 'cause we wanna, ya know?" Hattori replied, he'd already finished his lunch in the ten minutes we'd been on the roof and was now glancing at mine as if he was going to pounce on it any minute now and I wouldn't put it past him.

Aoko sighed, "I know that... but still..."

I could practically see the awkwardness floating in the air, with no desire for things to continue that way I figured I should just change the subject, "So, Akako-san, any idea what might have happened this time?"

The red witch hesitated a moment before responding, "As a matter of fact... I do."

Of course she doesn't, well at least we tried- wait... what? She knows? How on Earth does she know when we have nothing to go on at all? ! Right, I guess Kaito did say she's a 'witch' but still... there should be limits.

I kept myself calm despite the shocked monologue running through my mind, if there's one thing (besides tricks) that I've learned since becoming Kaito it's how to hide behind a poker face. Making sure to appear nonchalant I hesitantly asked, "Is that so? What do you think is happening to us?"

"At the moment, the four of you, your bodies are deteriorating due to friction between your bodies and souls," Adding an opportune hair flip she continued, "Basically, after the body and soul begin to reject each other they continue to do so until neither of them can take it much longer so the soul leave and finds somewhere else to go. Hakuba's body and your body -Kudo-kun- must just be weaker than Kaito's and Hattori-kun's."

Out of the corner of my eyes I could see Hattori smirking at me.

...

As I returned 'home' from a rather average school day of being Kudo Shinichi I found a rather scary woman waiting for me at the gates of the Kudo mansion. The woman I'm referring to is none other than Miyano Shiho, Hakuba's girlfriend.

I know what you're thinking 'Kaito, Shiho-san isn't actually scary' but I assure you she is second only to Akako -who is second only to fish (that's right I said it). Now that she's no longer a little kid and doesn't have to suppress her science-y urges for the sake of normalcy she is positively frightening. Which means I naturally found the fact that she was waiting on me extremely disconcerting.

She was apparently able to pick up on my unease, she rolled her eyes at me, "It's not as if I'm going to dissect you, I've just got to run some tests on your body to make sure that the antidote hasn't had any ill effects."

"Can't you just test yourself?" I asked. It was a legitimate question, she'd taken the same antidote that this body had, wouldn't it be convenient to just run tests on herself and do check ups on Shinichi's body if any weird health problems started showing up? Sure I guess that argument could be rendered invalid by this body-swap basically being a weird health problem that might have an effect on the body but do I really have to be tested? I don't like doctors, why do you think I try to stay healthy all the time?

"Some medical tests are hard to preform on oneself, besides your current body is a better test subject anyway since it took the antidote before I did," She replied dryly, rolling her eyes as though it should have been obvious, "And I need to see if there are any physical reactions to the body-swap."

I sighed, unable to find a reasonable argument, and agreed to let her do the tests -wouldn't want Shinichi's body to go and die off just because I refused to let a mad scientist take a look at whatever it is she needs to look at. She led me to the downstairs lab in the professor's house where she promptly asked me various questions about how I was feeling then told me to lay down as she began to take a blood sample.

"Shinichi sent me a text earlier," Shiho-san suddenly said, tapping away at the keys of a nearby laptop, "your 'witch' friend apparently was able to understand what's caused this second swap."

The way she said 'witch' made it clear she didn't believe in magic -not that I would have expected her to- but I didn't care enough to point out that Akako really was a creepy witch with real magic, instead I cut to the chase, "and what did she say?"

"Ever since the first swap the connection between your bodies have been breaking down because of dissonance between the body and soul, because the two aren't compatible," She explained, "After a while the body wasn't able to take it so it rejected your soul in order to preserve itself, for whatever reason it's happened in Shinichi's body and Hakuba's bodies first but it should be happening to Hattori's and yours soon enough."

I took a moment to let the explanation sink in, body and soul not compatible, bodies breaking down, souls getting rejected... it actually made sense in a twisted kind of way. I swallowed as the complete understanding hit me, "It's going to happen again then isn't it?"

"Naturally, I hardly expect that your soul is any more compatible with Shinichi's body than it was with Hakuba's."

"So... We'll just keep swapping around until we coincidentally end up back in our original bodies then we'll stop?" I asked, hoping she would have an answer.

"No," She replied, sounding slightly more serious than usual, "If I'm right... you'll keep swapping indefinitely."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The four of you are like... um... one of those stupid toys with four different shaped holes and corresponding pegs," Shiho-san said with a sigh as if using such an elementary illustration was annoying her, "You've somehow managed to get a diamond-shaped peg into a circular hole but both the peg and the hole are damaged because of it..."

I interrupted her, feeling that the air was getting just a bit to tense for my tastes, "Can I be a star instead? Diamonds are just fancy sideways squares. And why is Shinichi a circle?"

"That's not the point," She groaned, pausing just a minute before she continued her illustration, "Anyway, your star-shaped peg isn't the same as it was before -it's changed- and the star-shaped hole is bound to be a little different too. The peg won't be a perfect fit for the hole anymore."

"Crap."

...

"In other words well probably keep switching between the four of us because our bodies are trying to fill a gap that we no longer fit in for the rest of our lives," Kudo asked, looking way to serious for Kuroba's face, but not serious enough for his own.

"An' our bodies are deterioatin' because a' this," I added, probably looking a bit grim, "Dere's no tellin' how long our bodies'll be able ta hold out, but we'll prolly die young."

"Exactly," The supposed witch replied, "There's nothing I can do."

"At least we know the situation though..." Kudo said optimistically, "It'll be troublesome... but at least we know it's coming."

"Yeah... at least," I muttered in agreement, not sure whether or not I actually agreed. It's not as if knowing all of this was going to do us any good, sure, maybe we can prepare some countermeasures for when we switch but otherwise there's really nothing we can do.

It's hopeless.

I checked Hakuba's pocket watch on habit, to see what time it was. Twenty minutes, five seconds, and thirty-nine milliseconds had passed since the beginning of lunch... but it felt like it had been longer.

We sat there for the rest of lunch period in awkward silence.