"I hope you know what you're doing, Kaito-kun," Kônosuke Jii said as he was preparing the hang-glider rig. Kaito was sat atop one of the pool tables. The two were in the Blue Parrot, the pool club that Jii owned. Ever since the truth about his father's life and death had been revealed to him just less than two years ago, the KID had decided to make it a home base away from his home base. The spontaneous closing of the shop some days before a heist was seen by the patrons of the club as a bit too coincidental, but since it didn't happen too often, with Kaito working at home more often than not, nobody minded. To hide it, as well, Jii sometimes took false sick days. At his age, he was able to without much question.
"I hope I know what I'm doing too," the boy replied. "That footage could have been fake and only put there to throw hackers off the scent of what's really in that thing." He straightened his black tie. Blue Parrot had a dress code, and he was not one to disappoint. He had dressed in his white tuxedo from his costume to go into the club, swapping his blue dress shirt for a black one.
He pushed himself off the table. "Ah, who knows?" he said loudly, though it was mostly him comforting himself. "Those things on the tape were talking about emeralds of extreme power. Even if it's those guys in black trying to kill me, I'm not about to let a good opportunity go to waste."
"That's exactly it, Kaito-kun." Jii's expression was the epitome of the word 'pathetic'. Kaito glared at him for several moments. "What if this was concocted as a way to capture you? We don't know to what bounds those men will go to to capture you."
"Now, now, Jii-chan! Would they really try to catch me through a rip in time and space?" He adjusted jacket. "It's an alternate world through that tear. Those guys probably won't exist on the other side. Or, if they do, then they'll never see it coming, will they?"
Jii rubbed his forehead in exasperation. Kaito, just like his father before him, was a surprisingly eccentric thinker. The whole of the Monty Python group combined with the writers of BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo couldn't possibly come up with anything to equal, much less surpass, the many twisted and... imaginative concepts that came out of the boy's imagination. And that was just his ideas for magic tricks. Kaito was also one of the most reckless people in the world, something which set him apart from his father, and some of his plans had nearly sent him hurtling down to his death. He supposed, though, that anybody would really have to be insane to go after their father's killers in such an open and, dare he say it, flamboyant way.
"Kaito-kun..." He sat down. "I don't think your father would have let you do this. There's a chance that the men in black are tricking you into thinking there's some kind of strange new world out off the coast when there's actually an ambush waiting for you to walk in. I can't let you go."
The black-haired teenager huffed, and began pacing. "Alright."
Jii stared at him. "What?"
"I put up my hands. Wave a little white flag. The works." The boy turned to look at him, eyes blazing with the kind of fire that hadn't been seen in Ekoda for over nine years. Then he quickly returned to his previous action. "But – and here's where it gets really interesting – what if the black-coats are in the system? Hmm? They... I dunno; they find this video somehow. They listen... and they hear about these stones of unlimited power. These things that have already shown their potential to flood an entire planet. And they know this video's genuine. What do they do then?"
The old man was silent.
"They could build their own ship. Or bi-plane. I don't care which at the moment. And they go into this place and they take these stones and bring them back here." Kaito stopped. "Picture Tokyo in ten years if this happens. Picture the entire world, in fact. If those guys got hold of these things, I don't see the Tokyo Tower surviving much longer. Think a nuclear bomb where the cities don't exist and countryside's been burnt and there are very few survivors. The great artworks in the Louvre? Gone. Sold away to the highest bidder. Forget the Iraqi conflict; the world's at war with itself. Kaitou KID's been lost in the struggle. And I definitely do not see tantei-kun in safe hands either."
Kaito seated himself. "I'm fine with Pandora. Nobody knows where Pandora is. Everyone in that other world knows where these gems are. They're easy to find. The one guy on the tape said that he'd tripped over one in the street once. So the guys in black could easily find those and cause the world I just described to you."
Jii gave up. Once Kaito had his mind set on something, the boy deliberately made it impossible to change his mind. Sighing, he ducked under the bar to retrieve some items and came back up with a number of odd gadgets, causing the teenage boy to turn around and lean over the bar with a greedy smile.
"Take this," he said, holding up what closely resembled a gaudy clip-on earring with several flat panels on one side. "I received it from an acquaintance of your parents a few months ago. It's a mobile telephone device, and I'd like you to use it to stay in contact with me if you're going to go running off like this. It's been known to transmit through thick snowstorms."
Kaito took it in his hand, throwing it up in the air, weighing it and looking over every single nook and cranny of the small device. "I've seen this before," he concluded. "But from where...?" He pressed an inset on the trinket, which made a rather audible beeping noise. He hesitated, then clipped the item onto his ear and admired himself through the shiny surface of the bar top.
"And also," Jii continued, "take along one of these. "He passed to the boy a few small orbs and some tiny little things that looked like the spiked balls from maces without the handles and chains... and with thin spines rather than thick spikes. "The round ones are a few untested smoke-bombs. They're filled with laughing gas." Nitrous oxide. A common gas used for anaesthetic purposes, usually found in a dentist's office or in a surgery. Also used in vehicles for booster fuel, and as a recreational drug. "And the spine-covered ones are... well, they're hard to explain in just a word."
The thief was suddenly all ears, swinging his legs over the top of the counter and resting firmly on it. "I may not have much time, but I could spare some for your extended explanation, my dear Jii-chan," he said, winking.
"They're small devices that emit tracking signals," he said, "but only when the touch sensors on the spines detect fabric. They should be able to send messages to that earring telephone of yours giving you direction and distance. When not embedded in clothing, however, you can use them to amplify your own voice, once again through the earring telephone."
Kaito took, and pocketed, everything in the man's hands. "Interesting," he said. "And stop worrying about me, Jii-chan. I'll come back alright. I can always promise you that."
MKMKMKMKMK
From personal experience, Hakuba Saguru, successful teenage detective in a thriving market of adolescent intelligence, could tell you that Kaitou KID was possibly one of the most insane people in the world. And, if not the world, then he had to be the craziest person in the northern hemisphere. After all, he did everything that a world-class thief shouldn't have been able to get away with if he didn't want to wear iron bracelets by the end of the night. KID antagonised the police with jokes. He was always found with his hand in the biscuit tin. He found it funny to throw around flash grenades like toys and shoot cards like bullets. He jumped from the tops of tall buildings in freefall.
Of course, he did get out his glider eventually, but he still jumped. What scared the ainoko, however, was the fact that he did everything that could land him in jail with a smirk. Like he enjoyed it all.
This reminded Hakuba of a certain classmate of his, Kuroba Kaito. Heck, if it weren't for that one time that KID flew in on a broomstick while Hakuba had the kid in cuffs next to him, he'd be sure that Kuroba was the KID. He had the DNA evidence to back him up; the only failure being that a single hair from KID's costume wasn't really enough to convict somebody who repeatedly stole people's outfits for the sake of dressing up as them and fooling everybody.
Kuroba seemed just as insane as KID, if not more. His chief mission was to flip his childhood friend's skirt and find out what colour underwear she was wearing that day... or was it to dye the hair of every class member all colours of the rainbow without moving from his seat? Or maybe it was just to keep Hakuba on his toes. He was spry, intelligent and tricky with his fingers to the point of ridiculousness. He always performed an impressive sleight-of-hand trick no matter what he was concentrating on, whether it be reproducing a newspaper he had only just ripped up or absent-mindedly making roses appear from nowhere while searching his backpack for his pencils.
KID was not too different, Hakuba quite proudly noticed. Although KID did steal jewels for a living, he mainly used it just to call over the police, and then the fun began. KID made jokes like an old friend, and gave the officers a lot of mental and physical torture (Hakuba remembered one time that KID had dressed every male human-being present in a skirt. The only survivors had been KID and the seven-year-old boy who had run after him through the pink smoke). His notes were full of cultural, historical, superstitious and religious references. And to say that the Kaitou KID was not a master magician was an insult to fans worldwide. Several impromptu street performances had left true professionals on their knees trying to work out exactly how he'd done this and that.
Hakuba was proud to chase him, unlike the others. Hakuba didn't ever find Kaitou KID as annoying as he should do. Quite the opposite, in fact. The blond detective was intrigued by the man. KID was a challenge. He was intelligent. He had his own sense of humour. And he took risks.
His risks, however, were a little over-the-top. Hakuba would never understand exactly how he found tumbling to his death so exhilarating. Or being shot at, for that matter.
But Hakuba didn't mind. KID was a great challenge and a great mystery, one he knew he would solve. A person didn't just disappear for eight years without a good enough reason, you know. Hakuba would face him with his eternal question (why did you do that?) and one day he would receive his answer.
But it wasn't really helpful when his father pushed him to analyse the note received by Nakamori and the Task Force. A good mind, Hakuba might be, but he wasn't a superman, and it seemed everybody in the station thought he could crack the code.
He turned the note over in his fingers. "If he's referring to anything," he said, mostly to himself, "it's pretty much an inside joke. Would you have any idea what he's talking about, keibu?"
Nakamori sighed. "That's why you were called over, to infer what you could," he replied. "Are you sure you haven't got anything?"
"Well, actually, I have plenty," Hakuba answered. "Just not enough. What I do know is that he's targeting one of a collection of seven emeralds at the next full moon. That's what he means from 'marking the teacher's steps'; the teacher refers to Buddha, who took seven steps directly after birth. Plus, Kaitou KID always performs his heists within the week of the full moon. He's going to steal them from some high-up place that is hard to reach on foot – 'up where only the birds may fly' – maybe a plane, or just the roof of a tall skyscraper. The owner's name could probably contain the kanji 'red' and they are obviously male. Clearly, that is a lot of information that I'm able to guess at for one of KID's most recent letters." Not to mention how you've so subtly put your own name in it, Kuroba-kun, without anybody noticing.
"Despite all of this, though..." and he almost visibly wilted in front of the inspector, "...KID hasn't told us an actual location, name or time. We have no idea what we're actually looking for, just a collection of seven emeralds on guard at a high place, and since there's no specifics, it's going to be hard to search for our target, especially if it's moving out of the country on a plane. There's another problem, too: the part at the bottom talking about this army commander. If we have to talk to him, it's possible that KID ran into something that's supposed to be classified."
Nakamori growled. "Well, I can tell you one thing," he said.
Hakuba hesitated. So Nakamori had discovered something from the note that he hadn't? "What is it?"
"Don't go looking for any guy with a kanji 'red' in his name," Nakamori said. "This note's in English."
Hakuba frowned. He spoke, read and wrote English fluently, on the same level as Japanese due to his dual heritage status, and he was so used to it that he hadn't noticed what he was reading was any different from Japanese. Such a fact would have hit him instantly, though, if it hadn't been for thinking everything else through. "True. Unfortunately, this also widens our list of possible targets. The English colonists in America referred to the native people collectively as the 'red man'. That means that there's also a chance our target's owner is the descendant of or is a Native American."
Nakamori pounded the table. "The full moon's in two days. We have no real idea of what he's targeting or who it belongs to, only that it has something to do with the English language," he said, plunging into a commendable silence.
"Call in that military commander."
MKMKMKMKMK
"Conan?"
The small boy in question snored in response, the contents of the pencil case he was resting his head on scattered about the desk around him. As soon as he'd walked into the room he'd walked to his seat, pulled said holder of stationary from his bag and immediately shut his eyes, settling after two or three minutes. Ms Kobayashi, the teacher, could only stare at his odd actions; Conan did often doze off during class, mostly during some of the more boring subjects, but it was not in any of the student's behavioural patterns to deliberately fall asleep in the classroom, and Conan was no exception to this.
Edogawa Conan was a nice enough boy, although very short for his age (and months of physical tests revealed that the poor child was not growing at the speed he should have been). He was good at football, most of the students wanting him to join the elementary school's team. He was intelligent, easily the top in the class at most subjects – although he did rather badly at music – and he often did take a nap in class whenever a subject was being retouched upon for the other students, or when he simply couldn't be bothered to look like the other kids. From what Ms Kobayashi had heard, this was apparently because he'd already learned enough of it from his current carer Mouri Kogorou, but she suspected it was actually because of the late nights spent by the carer solving murders, all this being a result of his incredibly unlucky streak.
He attracted dead bodies.
Well, it was more that Conan attracted dead bodies, but we won't tell Ms Kobayashi that, will we? We also won't tell anyone that it was Conan who solved the murders, either, since that was the whole point of him being Conan.
For, you see, Edogawa Conan solved murders and used Mouri Kogorou as a puppet to inform the guests who the real culprit was. And he did it so well that nobody realised that Mouri Kogorou wasn't actually moving his lips when he was talking them through the whole thing. That was just how good he was at speaking. The gadgets did factor into it too, of course: a bow-tie that changed your voice and wristwatch that concealed a one-shot-only tranquiliser gun. The tranquiliser itself was so useful that Conan had now been seen in school to collect buttons – actually, they were cartridges. Just set one into the top of the watch and bam! instant Sleeping Kogorou.
However, today at school, Conan had not brought any of his gadgets. He had certainly not been solving a case last night. In reality last night had been one of the few respites he had ever had since coming to live with the Mouri family. So what on earth had caused our wonderful little detective to flop over in the middle of the classroom and snore like there was no tomorrow? Nobody knew.
Conan had not done anything to cause his slumber, nothing at all. Nobody else had caused it upon him, not even the girl sitting next to him, the incredibly tricky Haibara Ai. The drug that had poisoned him and reduced him to his small size hadn't done this either. And they hadn't even started the lesson yet, and Conan was already knocked out in his seat.
The answer? Well, what was the only thing wrong with the universe at the moment?
MKMKMKMKMK
"Shin'ichi-nii-chan?" he asked the shadow of his former self, who was sprawled over the green leather armchair. "Please tell me... how is it that we're both here?"
The elder smirked, standing up out of his chair. "I don't know... Conan-kun. But I definitely know one thing."
"Un." Conan nodded. "We don't have much time left, and little to no hope. We have no cure. We're nearly separate people now..." He sat cross-legged on the floor. "It's over for us."
"No cure..." Shin'ichi brandished a piece of card in his hand. "In this world, maybe."
Conan blinked. "The note from this morning?" he enquired, although he already knew the answer. Shin'ichi had already told him before he ever opened his mouth.
"KID's going after the Shizuoka anomaly, and whatever's inside that anomaly, KID promises will return us back to normal. But... we're going to have to fight for it."
MKMKMKMKMK
The forsaken child looks to the horizon
And sees a land beyond the abyss
Upon it, a glow promises dawn's return
Who shall claim that sunrise first?
A/N: No, each chapter isn't going to end in a heist note, but I thought this punctuated the moment pretty well. And if you've haven't guessed the crossover already, get researching.