A/N: Kid's texts are to the left this time
Hakuba is a ruthless bastard, can confirm.
Conan blinked at the message from Kid. Well, that was…random. He didn't think Kid had mentioned the other detective since they'd talked about Hakuba discovering the thief's ichthyophobia…
…He didn't
Did too.
My assistant saw the stuff getting set up
And the bastard's been smugging at me all week (ー、ー)
Seriously?
Here I was thinking he was better than that.
HA
This is the guy who handcuffed his prime suspect to himself out of spite
After trying to force 'me' to miss my own heist didn't work
I doubt he cares that this would only give him circumstantial evidence at best
Unless he's expecting you to panic enough that he can reveal you himself
( ; ̄ー ̄)
You're probably right, that sounds like him
You're going for the Suzuki display at their new museum, right?
Got it in one, chibi
Wait, were you serious about the sabotage thing?
You thought I was joking?
That I'd just let you force yourself to function through a panic attack
When I could do something to help?
Did we stop being friends when I wasn't paying attention?
No, that's not what I meant, I just—
You're a detective
It's still kind of a shock that you'd help during a heist
Hmm
Send me what you can about the trap
The more I can plan for this the better
Will do Tantei-kun~(^v^)
Looking at the information Kid's assistant had sent him, Conan could see why Hakuba had chosen this heist to set a trap for the magician. Suzuki Jirokichi was probably the only person who would be willing to go along with a setup like this in order to catch Kid—it had to have been ridiculously expensive.
According to the assistant, the museum display had been remodeled into a domed underwater display room, accessed by a curved tunnel so that visitors would have the sense of being suspended in the middle of the ocean. The tank had been decorated with underwater plants and rock formations so that the outside world couldn't be seen from inside the room. According to the assistant, even the floor of the room was transparent, allowing visitors to see into the sand-covered bottom of the tank as well. They had managed to overhear Adviser Suzuki reassure the Taskforce that the necessary structural supports were present, and had merely been artfully disguised. Knowing Adviser Suzuki, the fish (likely a ridiculously large number of them) would be added at the latest possible moment in an attempt to keep Kid from discovering and avoiding the trap. Kid's assistant had checked the outer walls of the tank and there were no hatches in the roof or walls, so there had to be a hidden connection to some location within the building that was either currently housing the fish or would be soon.
If Conan could locate that area and determine a way to keep the fish from actually reaching the display room, it would be the simplest solution. He didn't think Hakuba would be likely to insist on guarding the location as that would only point a target on the room being guarded, practically a dare for Kid to investigate—although, considering the nature of the trap, the detective might not care about the thief's investigations.
Hakuba was probably planning to either personally set off the trap or have it activate on some sort of automation that he didn't believe Kid would be able to mess with. Conan didn't think the other detective would try to keep him from figuring out how it worked, but Hakuba also wasn't likely to trust Conan with setting it off. Whatever Conan did it would have to look like an accident—he might be able to swing whatever he did as being caused by Kid, but that would be a stretch and it would mostly depend on what the actual mechanism was.
If he could examine the setup, he could probably figure out a simple way to interfere with whatever was keeping the fish out of sight, and if he did it right no one would know he'd done it. If the mechanism was enclosed by something he could probably still sabotage it, but it would be obvious he'd done something and he'd be more likely to get in trouble for whatever 'accident' he staged.
(Alternately, Conan could to buy a bunch of fish food and dump it in right before the heist started. He'd almost certainly get in trouble for it, but the fish probably wouldn't swim into the display room if he was actively feeding them, Kid would avoid having a delayed panic attack, and Hakuba would be stuck with inconclusive evidence.)
A/N: PROTECTIVE CONAN HAS ARRIVED!
