A.N: Thank you all for your reviews, follows and favs! :D
Um... Hello? *peeks out from an enormous shield* So sorry about not updating sooner! I'll try to write more quickly :0
Disclaimer: me no own DC... Nuuuuuu D:
Now on with the story!
It was pitch black outside. The guards tensed as the hours passed: while they did not know exactly when KID would be arriving, they knew by now that KID almost always appeared late at night. However, some of them were starting to droop, tired from lack of sleep.
"Hey, stop stalling and tell us how you figured out KID-sama's trick!"
Sonoko snapped at Conan. Conan looked disgruntled, but after recieving a sharp cuff on the head, reluctantly began to speak. Akai was content to simply listen. Conan was already famous for his rivalry with the white theif. He was not. It would be better for him to stay quiet and not bring attention to himself.
"'A quarter of the moon and sun
After the red-crowned first cries,
When the dog has had its turn
And the mice is soon to squeak.'
"That was the riddle, right? Now, the animals from the riddle comes from the chinese zodiac. There are twelve animals that represent which year a person was born in, and tells us what the time is."
"Go on," Sonoko urged. She didn't want to admit it, but the kid was smart. Conan acted as though he hadn't heard her and went on.
"The 'red-crowned' is the rooster, which is the tenth animal of the zodiac. 7 O'Clock to 9 O'clock is called the time of the rooster. 'The moon and sun' equals one day, which is 24 hours, therefore 'a quarter of the moon and sun' means 6 hours. The riddle said 'after the red-crowned first cries', so the time of the heist will be 1 O'clock, six hours after 7. Since the 1 o'clock to 3 o'clock at night is the time of the mouse, KID wrote that 'the mouse is soon to squeak'. The part about the dog was just there to help us figure it out."
"Well then, it's due pretty soon!" Sonoko squealed. "I wonder how KID-sama is going to make his majestic appearance!"
Conan shot an annoyed axe-eyed look up at the over-excited girl.
'Snap out of it, barou. You already have a boyfriend.'
He glanced at Akai, who simply gave him a raised eyebrow and a slight shrug. How he could not be affected by behavior like that was beyond him. Maybe because he was not very aquainted with Sonoko? Or was he used to it because of the usually enthusiastic Jodie-sensei...?
The clock was now pointing to 5 minutes before 1. Conan's thoughts trailed back to the end of the riddle.
The riddle's fairly simple, and you know where and when.
The important thing is:
?
The moment he saw the single question mark he had known the answer. He had seen the exact same message when he was telling the story ten years ago, when he and Ran had gone on a 'detective's adventure'.
"I know you're in here somewhere, and I know you're watching, KID." Conan called out.
"My answer is, of course," he grinned as he pulled out a piece of folded paper, unfolded it, and held it up confidently to show-
"-this."
!
Somewhere among the police officers, KID grinned, a complete copy of the detective's.
The clock struck once.
And everything went black.
The police squad panted as they followed a white figure through staircases and hallways with no avail. Turning round the corner and reaching a dead end, they saw that the thief had vanished yet again. Then, the wall in front of them shimmered slightly.
"He's hiding over there! Get him!"
"YAAAAAHHHH!"
With a war cry that could put armies to shame, the police squad launched themselves right at the wall only to find... nothing. They landed in a heap and, wrongly assuming that the person next to him was actually KID in disguise, started to tackle each other. They were only briefly quieted when a net swooshed over, catching them quite perfectly.
"Come on, people! How many times does it take for you guys to learn?"
Kaitou KID swooped down from his hidden hiding place in the ceiling. Grinning and heaving a sigh that sounded much too sad to be real, he leisurely landed in front of the inraged police squad.
"I have to say, you look better captured than when you're rampaging around like drunk boars. Less dangerous too. Hmmm.. I should use this net more often- eeek!"
The wriggling-monster-that-was-actually-people lunged at him. Kaito quickly dodged out of the way and sent them crashing with the wall. He jumped out of range and grinned at them again.
"Just a little bit faster and you might actually be able catch me. Well, good luck on that next time!"
He gave the seething policemen a mocking bow and sprinted up the stairs leading to the rooftop. However, as he neared his destination his expression turned serious. Today, he came for more than just a jewel. Tantei-kun seemed to have noticed it as well. Tantei-kun... He hoped he wasn't pulling the detective into more trouble than necessary. Heaven knew the detective already had enough trouble revolving around him.
He let out another sigh, this time a real one. Stepping onto the rooftop, he jumped up and balanced himself on the railing. He had sent the note, carried out the heist. There was no backing out now.
All he could do now was wait.
.
"Just-one-floor-more-!"
Conan panted as he charged up the staircase leading to the rooftop. Akai followed silentely behind him, but he too was breathing heavily. He really had to get used to his kid-body soon...
"There!"
Conan wrenched open the door. Akain blinked at the sudden fresh gust of the night breeze brushing against his skin. He breathed in deeply as his eyes swept through the rooftop. There, standing in stark white contrast against the black sky, was Kaitou Kid. He had turned on the railing when Conan opened the door, and now hopped down.
"What took you so long?"
In the darkness, Akai could just see the outline of a teasing grin.
"If you didn't make us run up stairs we would have arrived sooner!"
Was Conan's irritated reply. KID chuckled, still grinning. However, as he came closer, Akai could see that there was something off about the grin. He was experienced enough about poker faces to know that it was a fake. Something was bothering the thief. He narrowed his eyes, wondering what it was.
"So, why exactly did you call us?" Conan asked, his expression showing that he was still annoyed. "If it's something like 'please help me steal some other jewel'..."
"Of course not!" KID exclamed. "You know I'm too skilled to ask a detective for things like that!"
Conan raised an eyebrow. KID sighed in an overly-exasperated way.
"I swear in Arsen Lupin's name that I'm not asking for stuff related to stealing glittering objects."
"Ah, swearing in a thief's name, so very trustworthy."
"Are you insulting the Arsen Lupin?!"
Akai decided to step in before the conversation completely lost its point.
"So, the reason you came here is...?" he asked.
Conan broke off from his banter sheepishly. KID looked at him quizzically, probably wondering who he was, but answered anyway.
"Well, I don't know if you'll believe me, but there's a gem called Pandora which can give a person immortality." he paused for a moment.
"And?" Conan pressed impatiently.
"And... There's a person... Who always seems to be wearing the same black coat..." he trailed off. Akai could see KID was stalling, weighing the possibilities, still unsure if he should tell them or decide to stay silent at the last moment. Conan's eyebrow twitched.
"Just get to the point."
After a moment, KID finally gave in.
"..There's a person codenamed 'Snake' who's out to get the gem and kill me."
Conan's irritated expression disappeared instantly from his face. Akai's eyes narrowed. A want for immortality. Black clothes. Snake.. Snake wine... Maybe he was jumping to conclusions, but it was too much of a coincidence.
"Is it.. Them?" Conan gasped out.
"It seems to be so." he replied quietly.
Kaito was confused. Very confused. He had expected Mr. Detective to be surprised that somebody was targeting him, but he hadn't been expecting this kind of reaction. The detective looked genuinely shocked, and was that... horror?
His mind whirled as he tried to figure out what was going on. The kid wearing the black beanie had shown nearly no reaction, but Kaito was sure he knew why Conan was so surprised. His eyes turned to the black kid, looking for more hints to the situation.
Sharp green eyes stared right back at him.
He broke out of his mind jumble with a start. Poker face, Kaito! Focus! He berated himself. Wiping off his confused expression, he asked nonchalantly:
"You know Snake?"
Conan glanced worriedly at the black kid - Kaito was sure he was no ordinary kid by now; a shrunken teen like tantei-kun, maybe? - who was looking calculatingly up at him.
"He is already in danger. It will be better if he knew."
Know what? Kaito restrained himself from shouting the question. Their reluctance was starting to unnerve him. He willed his body to casually stand there, waiting for tantei-kun to speak up.
Conan took a deep breath.
"We think.. That Snake is from the Black Organization."
"The Black Organization?"
"It's the Organization that turned me into a kid, and the one we're trying to bring down."
It was Kaito's turn to reel in shock. Tantei-kun was shrunk because of an organization, and this organization was also the one which had killed his father and was now targeting him? His mind went spinning as he tried to process all of it. Snake belonged to a much bigger and stronger group than what he'd thought.
"I see this is... complicated." he slowly spoke, relieved that his voice stayed steady. Inside, his heart was thumping wildly as if it wanted to escape from his ribcage.
"More than complicated." Conan replied. Sighing, he closed his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed into a frown. Then, his eyes flew open again as he suddenly asked, "Can you help?"
His thumping heart skipped a beat.
"Help?" he asked. He had a bad feeling where this conversation was headed. "Help what?"
Conan looked at him squarely in the eye.
"Can you help us destroy the Black Organization?"
Bring down the Black Organization? Were they kidding him? He knew from his tone of voice that the detective was serious. How, though? How could he have a chance against a whole enourmous syndicate? There was just no way. He was only a high schooler!
But tantei-kun was, too...
Conan seemed to have taken his silence for a no.
"If you don't want to-"
"Nonono," Kaito cut in quickly. "I can. I can help."
Conan raised his eyebrows. He probably had been half expecting him to decline. No. For tantei-kun and his dead father, he will never decline.
He knew, however, that he had put himself on very dangerous grounds. Not to mention the risk of getting killed by the syndicate, his real identity was also on the line. Should he tell those two, or should he help them only as Kaitou KID? He gave a low whistle as he contemplated about the matter.
At his whistle, a pure white dove flew out from under his cape and perched on his shoulder. He stroked its feathers for comfort.
"..The policemen will catch up soon, we can't keep up this talk for long." he said with false cheerfulness. Whatever decision he was going to end up with, he knew he wasn't going to have one now. He was not ready, not yet. "Let's meet again some other time."
He moved the dove from his shoulder to his wrist.
"His name is Raphael. He'll tell you when and where we should meet." Raphael looked at them sideways with an eye and cooed softly. Conan glanced at him for a moment and nodded.
He put Raphael back in and jumped on the railing. At the last moment, he remembered the jewel and tossed it to the detective. He caught it and looked at him questioningly.
"It's not Pandora." Kaito answered to his look. "I checked."
"How-"
"I'll tell you about it later, okay?"
And if he had the courage, probably a lot more... He hoped they couldn't sense his nervousness underneath his pokerface.
"For now, ja ne!"
Flashing them a weak, faked grin, he took off into the night sky.
I know the organization that fights with KID in 'Magic Kaitou' is not the BO, but to weave KID in the story I had to make some tweaks. ;)
For some reason I said 'mice' instead of 'mouse' in the previous chapter... Dunno why :P To prevent confusion I said 'mice' here as well. I'll fix them later on, I think.
I also found that I switch povs around a little more than I feel comfortable about in some parts. I noticed this about halfway through so there are less pov changes later on. Is it good the way it is, or should I fix the pov on a single person until a line break or at some other kind of interval?
Reviews always help! :D