Second Hostage

Edogawa Conan is the one receiving comforts it was him who watched Ran's parents break down, and it was him who decided to team up with the Kid. However, behind the glasses and child-like facade, it was Kudo Shinichi's heart that clenched and twisted.

Ran's horrified screams bounced across his head, the copper scent of blood filling his nostrils, the vivid image of dull eyes and cold skin under his own shaky hand tingling his spine. About a thousand horrific scenarios played in his mind, driving him into a hazy state of panic. The only thing that pulls him back to reality is the sound of his voice – a keening whine.

Conan sits up in one brisk motion. He grinds his fists hard against his eyes and comes to himself, shaking his head and blinking his eyes. Calm down, damn it, he thinks, even if he knows that he wouldn't be able to until he's sure Ran is safe. Speaking through facts, however, he knows that she should be safe because the success of the bastard's plan relies heavily on the treatment of the hostage.

Still, the imagination is a wild, powerful thing – all the more so for a mind as clever as his. It puts aside the facts and logic he has trained himself over the years never to overlook. It paints horrifying pictures in the theatre of his mind – pictures of Ran screaming, clothes violently ripped out of her. It paints pictures of Ran bleeding, of Ran cold...

Of Ran dead.

It is only when his jaw begins to hurt that he realizes he's been grinding his teeth very hard, so he shakes his head again and stands up. He then notices that his pajamas are wet with sweat, and that his limbs feel numb.

He's shivering, and he has never felt more like the sever year-old he poses as.

Slipping on his slippers, he walks to the bathroom with every intent of washing his face. The water should jerk him awake. Then maybe he could be himself again, thinking with the speed he should have.

Then surely, along with the regained sharpness and determination comes a greater chance of saving Ran...right?

Kaito knew that it was going to be a bad day the moment he woke up. School started at seven-thirty, and if he wanted to trick the inspector and Aoko into thinking that he wasn't cutting any class when he came to visit, he needed to be very early. But his alarm didn't go off, and he was up late last night researching about the officers who wrote the police reports. It was thanks to that he realized that there was nothing fishy about them.

Then on his way home, his hang glider caught a strong wind, looping him across the sky. He managed to land safely – but on an aquarium, of all things! It's been a long night.

So needless to say, despite his punctuality and sharpness, he didn't wake up until it was seven – a thin streak of drool adorning his right cheek. He still needed to visit Aoko since he promised to pick something up for her last night, and then meet the inspector right after to deliver whatever it was she wanted to give him.

He quickly sprinted to the restroom to splash water across his face. Then he tumbled down the staircase, stubbed his toe on the doorframe, banged his knee against the low glass living room table and tripped over air on his way to the sidewalk. He barely managed to catch the bus to Beika, but he's glad he did.

Aoko was already at the base of the steps of Detective Mouri's agency when he got there, body partly hidden by the walls as she stood there, narrowed eyes scanning through him.

"Kaito," she said simply, tone flat and cold as stood over him with crossed arms, staring down at him as he stopped to catch his breath. "What the heck did you leave me last night for?"

He tensed, easy smile frozen in his face. Then, "Ah, but it was for the best, wasn't it? The kid with glasses told me you'll stay here until the case was over anyway!"

She gave him a skeptical look. "But you only found out about that after you left! How could you have known?" Her eyes softened, gaze growing distant and scared. "Dad told me that the criminal might know about the hostage switch. If I went home alone last night, then maybe right now, I wouldn't be here."

She was too busy looking down, so she didn't notice Kaito stare up at her with a strange look in his eyes. And then, "I wasn't going to leave you, Aoko, so stop moping," he lied, playing up the light-hearted exasperation in his tone. "I went to get something from the convenience store, and then I got a call from the kid saying that I didn't have to come back."

She stared up at him. "You exchange numbers with children now? Since when?"

"Since yesterday. The kid was actually pretty cool, and it wouldn't hurt to give him my number." That was a lie. A horrible, horrible lie.

And Aoko must've seen the annoyed look in his face because a corner of her lip tugged up, letting him know that she knew. He was sure, however, that whatever theory she came up with regarding how Conan managed to get his number was far from true. He also realized that she's dropped the topic. He managed to paint a false scenario in her mind. He managed to trick her – smart as she may be. She was far from gullible, he knew that, but she also trusted him so much. That knowledge alone scared even him because he knew that he didn't deserve that trust.

And if she found out the truth about him, she was going to hate him even more than she already hated the Kid.

Her gaze dropped to his form, and once again, her sharp eyes ran over him in critical appraisal. "Your uniform's crumpled," she pointed out, wiggling a finger at his untidy attire.

Kaito blinked out of his daze and looked down at his clothes. He forgot to change.

A bundle of giggling school girls walked past them as Kaito attempted to straighten up the cloth.

"And your hair is messier than normal," she added. He reached for his head, feeling the thick, wayward locks tangle around his fingers. He was too busy prying off his fingers to see her glance at her watch and widen her eyes. "You need to hurry or you'll be late! But give this to dad first. I doubt that he's taking good care of himself now."

She shoved something into his arms, and Kaito used that split second of close proximity to slip a small chip into the pocket of her shorts. She pushed him into the sidewalk, the box she gave him nestled tight in his arms. It was her father's lunch, wrapped in its usual handkerchief.

"Hey, stop pushing!"

"And start walking faster!"

He caught a glimpse of the pint-sized detective watching them from Mouri's office, just before Aoko all but hurled him into the bus stop.

In retrospect, it's amazing he didn't plough into the sign.

Nakamori's back was hunched tiredly over his desk, a pair of dark rims circling his eyes as he fumbled with the wires of his office landline. Beside him stood a pile of paperworks – possibly reports on the Kid, Kaito's trained eyes told him. Nakamori was still analyzing them, doing what he can to save the young girl even if all he really could do was wait for Kid. Oh, the irony. But what Kaito takes note of the most was the man's condition.

Aoko was right.

He was barely taking care of himself, and he felt irritation nibbling at him, underneath the stab of guilt when he realized that the only way Aoko could know about his condition at work is if she's actually seen him like that before.

How many draining nights has the inspector spent in pursuit of Kid, and how many nights has Aoko spent worrying about him? For all he knew, he could be turning into what the organization was to her – taking her father away, even while he's still alive.

Kaito needed to remind himself – not for the first time – about the Kid's purpose. And he needed to be Kid again later to save that blasted detective's girlfriend.

So he strolled into the office, a bright smile on his face. "Hi, inspector!"

Nakamori jumped in his seat before turning to him. "Kaito-kun? Shouldn't you be on your way to class?"

"Yeah, but Aoko asked me to give this to you." He put the bento on the table, and Nakamori stared at it for a moment – an array of emotions running across his face – before he glanced up to look at the young boy.

"You shouldn't have."

"I really don't mind," he said, smiling cheekily. "We weren't going to do a lot this morning, and Aoko was really worried about you."

"Well don't make it a habit, I hope," he replied, a slight smile lighting up his tired face. "You're a good kid. I wouldn't want you to start having problems in school."

"No worries there," Kaito beamed. "You should take better care of yourself, uncle."

He's glad that Nakamori at least managed a small smile before he left the room. However, that gladness quickly dissipated minutes later in a men's room cubicle, just as he was getting ready to don a mask of Aoko's face on his own.

Kaito has experienced putting on a disguise several times with someone else in the room, and it has never been a problem before. Thus, when the bathroom door swung open, he was unfazed. It was the occupant's next words that made him pause – a wig similar to Aoko's hair frozen between his fingers – before he dug for his phone to record the remnants of the one-sided conversation.

"–and you don't need to worry about the Kid...yeah...he'll take us to him...yes...I know what the hostage said. I know that she isn't Nakamori's daughter but...yes...he's working on it...yes, sir...okay, sir," and the man hung up.

The voice was a screechy soprano. But it was also smooth, with a certain edge that demanded utmost respect and poise. And Kaito knew that voice. Has heard it several times, in fact, as Kid and as Kaito.

He was smiling like a cat. They've got a lead.

That man standing out there was definitely involved. And he knew about Aoko. They knew about Aoko. Thus, the plan he made with the Inspector – which was to go out there as Aoko and reveal himself as Kid, hence making the infiltrators in the police think that the one who came earlier wasn't really her – wouldn't really work. It'd be pointless. He needed to make do with what he had.

So he hovered his phone over the cubicle door and clicked, the camera phone making no sound as he took a picture of the culprit's face. He easily confirmed his identity before the man left – the plastic door banging loudly in his wake.

It was the current Superintendent, Inoue Hideki, who wasn't exactly prominent, but wasn't typical either. Aside from being the only Superintendent to permit shooting at the Kid months ago – a permission that was instantly dismissed due to public safety shortly after – he was a very cold man with a cynical, cruel sense of humor.

Half a minute passed before Kaito decided it was safe to come out. He packed the disguises in his satchel and was about to sling them over his shoulders, when instinct suddenly told him not to bring it, just to be safe. He hid it all in one of the cabinets underneath the sink.

Then he left the restroom, eyes boring into the culprit's face in his phone, when he suddenly heard a clank. There's no mistaking that metallic sound.

"Get back in," says Inoue's voice. Kaito would usually find a way to slip out of the situation – drop a pellet of sleeping gas; throw a smoke bomb and run in a moment of distraction; imitate other voices to lure the man away – but he does not get to.

He does not get to because cold metal is suddenly pressed against his temple, right before he is hurled back inside the bathroom by the collar, and dropped down to his knees – firm, steady hands gripping his thick hair.

The first thing Kaito was really aware of when Inoue clicked the door locked behind them was the sound of the vent positioned at a high corner of the bathroom. The more obvious sounds, such as the eventual footsteps of officers outside and the dripping water from a nearby sink, he was aware of, but didn't exactly notice.

Years ago, his father taught him to take note of subtle noises – those that didn't want to be noticed – and the tip has helped him immensely when he donned the monocle and the cape.

"Your phone." Kaito paused, momentarily, and the barrel to his head nudged. Eyes narrowing, he gave his phone, knowing very well what that meant. The whooshing sound of a finger swiping his phone open sliced through the silence, and then there was an unaccounted pause.

Inoue was looking at the picture. And as the silence prolonged, the grip on his hair tightened; the gun pressed hard and cold against his temple, grazing violently at his skin, making him hiss beneath his breath.

After awhile, the voice came – harsher than it had been earlier. "Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you, kid."

Silence is suspicious, but so is confidence. Kaito gulped audibly, fighting for time with nervousness, which was honestly barely feigned. "I-I didn't know what I was doing!" he said, playing up the youthfulness in his tone; the stark fear. "I only know that someone's after Aoko! I wanted to help the inspector find the culprit!"

"Do you know where she is?"

"NO," he replied. "Uncle told me not to get involved. He said that it isn't safe." He decided that it was best to emphasize his close relationship with the inspector; make the superintendent realize that if they didn't have Nakamori's daughter, the next best option would be the boy next door.

"How do you know about this?" came the harsh reply.

The man was showing more brains than he'd wanted. Makes sense, though. He doubted that a grunt could infiltrate the Task Force and come out as its superintendent. Inoue was smart and cold – he knew that. If Kaito showed that he was a threat in any way, he wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

"I'm the one who answered the ransom call." It's the only answer he can give that wouldn't give away his capabilities.

There was an unaccounted pause, and Kaito realized that if he was going to make a decision, he was going to make it now.

He was right. He heard a rustle, and the very next second, something soft – like cloth – was pressed into his face, the vice-like grip on his thick hair tightening and twisting violently as he struggled.

The cloth contained chloroform, he thought, and he held his breath. But there was a reason Kid is slippery with his escapes. He's a magician – and a very young one at that – not a fighter. He was never any good at close combats. So needless to say, it wasn't any difficult for Inoue to pin him down.

It wasn't long before Kaito needed to take a gasp of breath – the sweet scent entering his system and numbing him.

Even if he's trained himself before to be immune to all kinds of sleeping agents, his body could really only take so much.

So against his will, he went limp; a still body hanging under the superintendent's hand.

Author's Note:

I never got to greet all you wonderful people, but better late than never, right? I know this chapter doesn't fit the merry vibes this season (what, with our beloved thief getting kidnapped and all) but MERRY CHRISTMAS! And a HAPPY, HAPPY NEW YEAR!