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Shinichi woke later in the day, feeling very refreshed and decidedly more clearheaded than he had been at the crime scene earlier. As he rubbed his eyes and put on his fake glasses, he decided that what he needed most at the moment was another fresh and (more importantly) unbiased point of view. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he wanted to believe that Kid hadn't killed, and that niggling feeling was not allowing itself to be completely set aside. This of course was a Very Bad Thing. It had to be set aside in order to achieve the proper neutrality that was absolutely essential for any investigation that would actually lead to the truth, no matter how ugly that truth might be.

He therefore felt that the best course of action would be bringing in a totally new third party who hadn't had much interaction with Kaitou Kid beyond what they'd read in the newspaper or heard on the radio or television. Someone Shinichi would make a careful point of not biasing before they had examined all the evidence he himself had examined. Someone whose opinion he respected and trusted, someone with whom he could truly help tell whether his gut instinct was right or wrong through them agreeing or disgreeing that the evidence backed his gut hunch. And he knew exactly the teenage Osakan detective to recruit for the purpose.

Well, if he would ever answer his damn phone, he grumbled mentally after trying Heiji's cell for the fourth time in a ten-minute span. Ran came walking into the room as he hurriedly closed and hid the cellphone that he'd used, which was supposed to be with Kudo Shinichi and not Edogawa Conan. Shinichi then hid his grimace of displeasure at being both interrupted and unable to contact Heiji beneath an artifically bright smile as he began to slip into the grade-school role he was currently playing. I guess I'm just going to have to try him again later, after Ran goes to the store. At least I know I'll have time then; she always goes grocery shopping when we don't have school since that idiot always buys the wrong stuff.

"Good morning, Ran-neechan," he chirped happily. "Is Kogoro-ojisan still sleeping?"

"Like a log. And I understand you dragged him out to that horrible murder scene last night very late, so he's very tired," she added in a chiding tone. "Why did you do that?"

"Well, I don't think Kaitou Kid is that mean. I told Kogoro-ojisan so and he agreed to drive down there to ask Megure-keibu what he thought because we saw on the TV that it was his case."

"Oh? And what did they say?"

"I can't remember everything but I know they said there was a tape of Mr. Kid shooting someone. And some window was open." Grr, Heiji! I wanted to really talk about this case, why didn't you pick up your phone, you idiot? Now I'm going to have to wait till we're done shopping before I can even try calling you again.

"Well, go ahead and get dressed, we're going to go food shopping after breakfast, OK?"

"OK!" Whee, food shopping. Not.

The nightmare was coming again.

He saw Aoko ahead of him, wordlesly pleading for help with her eyes as she was hustled into a black van while bound hand and foot in thick steel shackles. Her captors were six white-masked men dressed entirely in black, well-tailored three-piece suits. For some reason in the nightmare he was in his white Kaitou Kid uniform even though it was the middle of the day and they weren't in a museum or other place where large jewels might possibly be showcased, but rather the small, cramped back alley behind his house. He pulled out his multipurpose, multi-ammo gun and shot razor-tipped cards at the six, who just laughed it off.

Laughter that sounded curiously like 'glub, glub, glub.'

Kuroba Kaito began to break out in a sweat mentally as well as physically; he knew what was coming next but for some reason he could never wake up until the horrid thing had played out its full course.

He instantly sprang to action in the dream to save Aoko, tearing down the six adversaries with little difficulty using his various tricks after the cards had done no good. Finally after about ten minutes he managed to heap them all in an unconsious pile. He then decided to find the key to free Aoko from the shackles, and everything went smoothly until he went to tear off thier masks to expose thier identities-

OH GOD FISH.

Kaito was rendered totally immobile and helpless by the sight of the giant goldish face that had been revealed under the first mask, paralyzed with fear and disgust. Try as he might in the nightmare, he couldn't get himself to ever move after that horrible, giant fish face was revealed, whose effect was amplified once the strange fish-human regained consciousness, got up and began laughing at him in that strange, glubbing laugh. He tried to raise his fist to knock the fish-man out again, but he never could. His hand shook as he tried to pull out his trick gun while the other fish-humans tore off thier masks as they, too, regained consciousness...

It was always at that exact moment that Kaito woke up in a full, cold sweat, shivering and with the sound of the evil fishy laughter ringing in his ears. He was just thankful that his mom had never asked him what his nightmare was about, as it was far too embarrassing and ridiculous to ever publicly admit. As more of his consciousness began to filter in, he realized that he didn't smell his mom's cooking-but she always cooked breakfast on his day off from school! Wondering if he had perhaps woken up in the middle of night or something because it was so dim, he looked with bleary eyes over towards his alarm clock.

Wait...where was his alarm clock?

Deciding that this was a case of mental cobwebs not clearing yet, Kaito rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the sleep from both his eyes and his brain. He blinked twice and looked over at his nightstand again, which his small alarm clock was neatly perched on.

OK...wait...his nightstand was missing along with his alarm clock?

Kaito now forced himself to sit up fully and to try and fully take in his surroundings, the first trickles of fear making themselves at home in his spine. Weird comforter with a design he didn't recognize...Weird bed that he didn't recognize as well, both barely lit by a single, small low-wattage lamp over in the far corner. A lamp that he also had never seen before.

This was most definitely NOT his room.

The trikle of fear became a full-current blast as he realized that not only did he not know where he was, he also had absolutely no idea how he had gotten here.

What the hell? Why aren't you picking up your damn phone? demanded Shinichi internally after he tried Heiji's cell for the sixth time in total that morning. They had finally gotten back from shopping after what had felt like roughly an eternity and a half to Shinichi, especially because he had to walk so many more steps in his small body. Ran was the model of speed and efficiency when she was in 'shopping mode' and it just plain wore him out after about the first hour and a half of keeping up with her frantic pace. He had finally managed to seclude himself temporarily in the living room while Ran began to prepare lunch and Kogoro was out at a pachinko parlor nearby. It was nearly noon- and every moment in the first seventy-two hours of a crime investigation was critical, particularly when a murder was involved, and because a certain someone wouldn't pick up his phone precious minutes were being wasted.

Just then there was a knock on the door. Realizing that Ran probably couldn't hear the door over the cacophony she was creating in the kitchen, Shinichi reluctantly repocketed his phone, made his way over to the door and opened it.

"Heya, Squirt! Surprise!"

Shinichi wasn't sure whether he wanted to be deeply thankful or really, really irritated at the sight of Hattori Heiji on the other side of the door. His ever-present Yankees hat was resting on his head and he was wearing a silly grin on his face, along with a slightly dirty pair of jeans and an old black T-shirt that was just slightly soiled as well. Shinichi decided to settle for irritated after realizing that Heiji had just called him 'squirt.'

"Why didn't you return my calls? I've been trying to call you off and on all-"

"I was too busy dealing with the train to get up here, and I figured you were trying to call me up here for that guard's murder that happened this morning." A brief pause while Heiji crossed his arms and assumed a mock put-out tone. "Hey, I actually hauled myself out of bed before eight A.M. on my day off to try and catch the first train here. Be grateful, Kudo." The whole time both detectives kept an eagle eye on the kitchen; the topic would have to rather abrubtly change if Ran came out of the kitchen.

"I might be more grateful if you didn't call me squirt!" Shinichi retorted as he stepped aside to let Heiji in, offering him the guest slippers before closing the door. He accompanied the statement with a death glare at the back of Heiji's head that...well...wasn't so much a death glare coming from a seven year old- a seven year old physically, at least. "But yeah, I called you up because I want to see what you think after looking at the evidence, seeing as how you've already been to the crime scene at a bare minimum." The trademark Kudo smirk showed itself as Heiji whipped around and faced him after he had finished putting on the slippers.

"How did you know? But yeah, that's part of the reason I left so early- I spent about an hour and a half there poking around."

"Easy. Your hat is forward instead of backwards, which means you're either investigating or thinking heavily about something. You dressed in clothes that you don't care about messing up-and those clothes are messy, which means work was done. You also said you came up assuming I would want to work with you on the case. I would hope that at a minimum after making such an assumption you'd decide to check out the crime scene before showing up here."

"Yeah, I did. Some interesting stuff there, but we'll need to discuss it after we eat." Heiji gave a pointed look at the kitchen, which Ran was emerging out of.

"Oh, Heiji-kun! I didn't realize you'd be coming; guess it's lucky I made a big batch of curry. I'll fix you a plate, if you haven't eaten lunch yet." After Heiji indicated that no, he hadn't eaten, Ran hustled back into the kitchen and fixed a third plate for thier visitor.