Then I'm counting on it

When the two towers collide,

I shall take the prized Alexandria

(doodle)

When the Detective Boys asked Conan to play soccer with them that morning, he didn't accept it. Rather, he couldn't. Because his thoughts were swirling quickly. Violently.

Ran still hasn't come home.

No phone calls, no witnesses, no leads to her whereabouts. She isn't like that. She isn't the type to make people worry. She can't be easily hurt or abducted because she's strong and smart. But she's also brave, Conan thought, heart freezing. It wouldn't be difficult to imagine her getting hurt in someone else's place. Hurt or worse.

Out of nowhere, he felt something warm nudge his cheek. Swirling, he found Ayumi smiling at him, holding out some melon pan with her right hand, since the left was occupied with a paper bag stuffed with more food. "You should eat something, Conan-kun," she said with a hint of concern. "You'll be able to think more clearly with a full stomach!"

"Ah, thanks," he replied, forcing a smile before taking the snack from her. He took a bite, and drew a circle at the map laid down before him – hoping that he could find some clue, any clue, by figuring which route Ran may have taken.

Then, realizing that this was getting him nowhere, sugar-coated fingers froze, and he shook his head – eyes thinning. He needs to think! Where could she be? There has to be a hint there somewhere. He just needs to identify it, and then piece it all together!

He backtracked to the events before her disappearance. Ran left the house – there was nothing unusual about her attire and behavior. She claimed to be meeting up with Sonoko to try out this new café just around the corner of Ekoda. When Kogoro asked Sonoko later, she confirmed that indeed, Ran was with her 'til five in the afternoon. There was apparently nothing off about her that day.

Ran was simply being Ran.

This led Conan to believe in the horrible possibility that she had been attacked. But by who? And how? Person must've been insanely strong if they managed to take her. Or maybe they were…armed.

"Crap," he muttered, crumpling the edge of the map. Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta took a step back, while Ai sent him a dark look.

They were bundled beneath a tree at the local park. It was a good day. However, the harmonious and chirpy Sunday afternoon didn't seem to fit well with Conan's edgy, jittery mood. Still, his foul temper having a negative effect on the children's pleasant dispositions lunged at the bottom of his mental list of priorities.

"Alright," Ai sighed, facing the three kids. "Let's play by the swing set."

"But Conan—"

"—will be fine," she assured Genta. Standing up, she ushered the children away from the moping detective. "Now go play. I'll follow."

She shot them a steady look before they could protest, and in a second, the children were scuttling away from the two shrunken teenagers. Ai sat herself next to Conan, who was slouching over – face empty as he stared long and hard at the crinkly map of Beika and Ekoda.

"I take it that it's not going so well?" she inquired. There was a pause, and that's all she needed see in order to know. Silence prolonged, but their minds were loud.

Finally, Conan whispered, "You don't think that it's them, do you?"

Ai blinked, and then drew a deep breath. "No. They'd have no reason to take her. And I doubt that they know about who we are. Otherwise, we'd all be cold, bleeding corpses by now."

A cold chuckle emitted from the shrunken detective's lips. "Way to sugar-coat it, Haibara," he murmured. However, despite the ice that was his voice, Ai still managed to perceive a tint of relief in his tone. She also noticed, from the far corner of her eye, a man slowly and tensely approach the Detective Boys.

He was around Kogoro's age, but clothed in laid-back, loose garments. He also had a long, stern-looking face. However, judging by the vibrant, clownish suitcase he held in one hand, and the way that the children immediately warmed up to him just by the few sentences he spoke, she assumed that his personality deviated far from his looks.

"An aspiring street magician," Ai hummed in disinterest as she watched him flash some predictable magic trick to the kids. They were impressed, no doubt, but even from afar, she could already tell the trick behind the vanishing cards. She turned to Conan, who had averted his eyes back to the map, clearly not interested in anything that had nothing to do with Ran.

"Conan-kun! Haibara-san!" Mitsuhiko yelled, bolting towards the two – Ayumi and Genta right beside him. "Look at this! It's so cool!"

Conan's head slowly shot up from the map. He took one look at the group, and saw that behind the children, the man was directing a hard, serious look towards him. He might've eyed the man back in wary if he hadn't remembered to put up his childish mask.

"Eh? What is?"

The children stopped in front of him, excited smiles splayed across their faces. Then the man let out a nervous chuckle. "Ahaha, it's a magic trick. A magic trick!"

Conan raised his brows at the man's sudden shyness. Had he been imagining that look?

"I'm an aspiring magician, you see, and I wanted to see how children would react to my tricks before I try out for something big!"

"Oh I see!" Conan mused childishly. "So you wanted to show me?"

"Y-yes!" The man spluttered as he clumsily reached for his suitcase. Conan decided that this man was not going to make it big anytime soon, because he clearly wasn't very good at lying. He opened the suitcase far too wide, enough to let the detective see the glint of thin strings used for hovering cards. Conan also got a glimpse of a deck of playing cards arranged in a way that suggested tricks and traps. The poker face was also practically nonexistent. He was sweating and shrieking while he dropped some cards in the middle of pulling them out, Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko chuckling at his antics.

Suspicions dead, Conan watched the middle-aged man stare at him with a nervous, lopsided grin – seven cards spread out strategically right in front of his face. "Pick a card, little boy!" he said, voice wobbly and high-pitched as he attempted to pull off a confident tone.

What, he mentally drawled, lazily picking one up from the middle. This is the oldest trick in the book!

"Don't look at it yet." The man beamed before wiggling his fingers around the card, pretending to cast a spell of some sort. Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko fell silent as they leaned their necks forward in eager anticipation. Ai glanced at her nails in mild interest. Conan mentally rolled his eyes.

"Are you going to guess which card I got?" he asked, trying to inject some childlike wonder in his tone – and failing. Really, the Great Detective of the East had no time for silly little magic tricks. All he really wanted to do was find Ran and worry about Ran and kick the bastard who dared to take Ran.

The tips of the man's sharp teeth glinted beneath up-twisted lips. "Not quite," he whispered, soft enough for only Conan to hear. Wary suddenly rising again, he turned the card over and felt his fingers freeze. Attached to it was a note.

I need to talk to you.

Then, just like that, the card disappeared in a puff of pink smoke. Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko cheered in the background while Conan merely stared at his empty hand in disbelief. Ai, noticing the look on the detective's face, raised her brows.

"Oh my," she murmured, a snicker slowly forming in her face. "Has the Great Detective of the East really been defeated by a silly little magic trick?"

"Of course not, Haibara," Conan replied, composure flooding back. He stared up at the stranger, who was by then 'fretfully' declining the children's requests to be taught the trick. "I'm just amazed. Kaitou Kid's got guts to come all the way here to see me."

Ai's eyes went wide, and she stared at the allegedly middle-aged man in shock and wonder. "K-Kaitou Kid?" she gasped beneath her breath. Her statement was left hanging in the air, however, as the small detective jumped off the bench and went towards the man, bouncing on his heels to feign childish excitement.

"Mister!" he beamed, "Teach me how to do that! Please!"

The man turned away from the three children and cocked his head to the side. "Sure!"

The children, in response, gaped up at the man in utter disbelief.

"What?" Genta bellowed, "But we saw it first! It's not fair that only Conan gets to learn all those neat tricks!"

"That's true," Ayumi concurred, tone quiet and disappointed unlike Genta's wild cry or rage. "It's not like we're any more difficult to teach that Conan-kun."

"We won't be a burden!" Mitsuhiko added.

That's when Ai took a step forward to glare at the two boys, a lively, terrifying memory at the Bell Tree Express suddenly bursting all over her head. "Let these two otakus herd together," she spat, voice dripping with venom. "I mean it's not like they tell us anything, even if it clearly involves us. Right?"

Suddenly, the temperature in the park seemed to drop. Lips caught in between his teeth, Conan glanced up at the man. At Kid. Who had decided to drop his jittery façade and stand with that composed, confident composure. Darting his gaze to anywhere but the angry scientist before him, he briskly wondered how Kid could pull off being so unfazed.

"Well?" Ai snapped, causing Conan to jerk out of his daze and the Kid to mentally yelp in surprise. A beat of silence passed, and Kid turned to the children standing horribly still behind Ai.

"Oh, I am so sorry I couldn't teach you today!" he said in that panicky magician persona, bowing lowly to the three kids before giving a small, playful wave. He and Conan turned on their heels and walked down the steps towards the cemented road.

"I take it that you didn't come all the way here to irritate me," Conan said as they rounded a corner. "Shouldn't you be doing whatever it is you do before a heist, Kaitou Kid?"

"I'm afraid that tonight's theft is merely a prop," the thief replied, dropping the middle-aged man's silly voice. "There's something that I need to do, and I can only accomplish it under the guise of a heist."

"And that is..."

"I can't say," he replied, playful tone hiding steel underneath. Conan felt his eye twitch in annoyance.

"I didn't get pulled out in the middle of an important business to keep guessing your antics."

"I didn't call you out to waste your time either," the thief muttered, dull and distant – all hints of playfulness suddenly wiped clean off his face. This, at least, made Conan pause and prepare for a serious talk. They stopped in adarkened alley and rested their backs on opposite ends of each other. Then, Kid held out a black recording device between two masked fingers. "I think that you might recognize this voice."

There was a moment of whirring on the other end before the sound came. "Dad? Dad, don't do anything he tells you to! Don't–" A shuffle and a click as Kid put an end to it before stuffing it back into his pocket.

For a minute, it was silent. Conan's thoughts seemed to stop all of a sudden, brain refusing to circulate and analyze anything. Then the voice that he heard repeated itself in his mind, successfully piercing through his heart like a spear. That was Ran's voice. Holy crap! That was Ran whimpering and keening right there! This is bad!

This. Is. So. Bad. This cannot be happening.

"So it is her," Kid sighed, knowing perfectly well what the silence meant. Instead of answering, though, Conan snapped his gaze at the thief – eyes wild and dangerously cold.

"Why do you have that?"

"I just do."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know."

"What do they want?"

"Me."

Conan's mouth froze, and he cast his gaze downwards, face paling even further. "Crap," he hissed.

The street suddenly felt very quiet. It wasn't a place people liked to pass by often, and besides the constant ruffle of the trees, nothing but the distant traffic was really perceptible. "So why come here?" Conan finally asked.

Kaitou Kid straightened his back against the wall and stared tiredly at the wall right above Conan's head. "It could only go two ways, Detective," he mused. "You could capture me now and save her, or you could figure out all that we need to save her. Either way, with you on the case, the chances of success are high."

Conan slouched against the wall, arms falling limply at his sides. So it all comes down to me, he thought, eyes darkening. Sure, he's thrilled to have full access to the clues. He's glad that he's not being kept in the dark regarding his childhood friend, of all people. Still, there's that pressure of weight.

Ran's life was basically in his hands, so he absolutely must not fail because goddamn it! He can't afford to let her die! This is Ran! Stubborn, beautiful, smart, irreplaceable Ran!

"Why would they even take her to get to you? Sure, I'm the 'Kid Killer,' but I'm physically just a seven year old with an eight p.m. bedtime. And the kidnapper didn't even call us."

"I'm afraid that there was a mistake in the kidnapper's part," Kid muttered, "Their true target was actually the Inspector's daughter, who happens to look a lot like Mouri-san."

Conan's eyes were suddenly wide, and his face had gone very pale. "No," he rasped. "No, no, no, no, no! If they find out – if they –"

"They don't know it yet," Kid cut him off. "The person who answered the phone call didn't let them know about their slip-up. I don't think that Mouri-san is going to let them know either."

Conan visibly calmed. He took a small breath before asking, "How do you know all this?"

"I listened to the call," Kid drawled with a lighthearted grin. "Overheard the commotion in the Inspector's house while I was preparing myself for the next heist."

"And you stole the recording device," Conan slapped his hand against his face. Kid smirked.

"I wanted to help," he said. "Besides, they have two copies."

"Anyway, how much time do we have?"

"Six days,"

The smallest hint of a leer tinted Conan's face. "That's more than enough time to catch these bastards. Kid, I won't capture you. You shouldn't let yourself get captured either, otherwise, we'll lose all leads with no assurance of Ran's life. I'll be doing my own research about everyone you stole from. If I could narrow down the list of suspects by tonight, that'd be great."

"I'll do my own research about that. But you need anything else?" Kid asked, all shadows and charm. There was a pause in which Conan tried to process the fact that the Kid was willing to help him out in the case. Still, he supposed that it really wasn't that big of a shock. He knew from experience that the thief's sense of justice was high (and that was very strange considering his line of work).

"Police reports about cases that have you involved. Think you could get that?"

A chuckle. "Of course."

Conan sighed. "We'll pick up something from it. We'll find leads. Definitely."

A small smile ghosted over the thief's face – so quick that Conan isn't even sure if it had been there.

"Then I'm counting on it, detective."

Author's Note

My GOD! I think that this is even longer than the last one!

And thank you all so much for leaving a review (for reading this in general, actually!) You're all so wonderful. I don't deserve you. Haha!

Anyway, if you do catch some spelling or grammar mistakes, don't hesitate to point it out to me. I've been working on this through my tablet 'cause my laptop decided to make my life more difficult by breaking down. So yeah, no autocorrect, boohoo.

I hope that you liked this! It'll probably be one of the longer chapters. I'm sorry, I must've broken some of your eyes.