Another three or so days passed, and Conan seemed to improve. Ran was very impressed with his progress; he especially perked up when Ayumi called that Tuesday and asked him if he could come to meet them that afternoon, since one of the students had lost a pet and there had been signs of a particularly rough struggle. After listening to a few of the points of interest, the boy had sat up in his seat, clutching the phone slightly more weakly than he would have done for the last week, and asked calmly where they would like to meet. From then he had started going back to school. Ran had been ecstatic, and although Conan wasn't exactly back to normal (he still stuttered a bit, and he seemed a bit distant) things were slowly going back to the way they should be.

Then again, that was exactly what Ran was supposed to think.

"Ran-nee-chan?" Conan said, peering over the work-surface. The kitchen had become their standard area of conversation over the last few days. Conan had become more than willing to assist in cooking the dinner for them. The results when he tried on his own, Ran had to admit, were so eerily similar to many of Shin'ichi's old cooking disasters when he was a kid.

She looked down from the curry she was making. Conan's favourite. Shin'ichi's too. They were so alike it had taken her by surprise many times before. "Yes, what it is, Conan-kun?"

"Can I take a nap, please?" he asked. "Ayumi-chan, Genta-kun and Mitsuhiko-kun ran me ragged today now that I'm back at school."

She ruffled his hair. "Of course, you can," she replied. "You don't have to ask."

Nodding, the little boy ran off to his room. He closed the door, before reaching up and securing the lock. He turned around, slumping against the wood.

And once again Kudou Shin'ichi met with Edogawa Conan in the library of his old home.

"It's good to see you, Conan-kun," Shin'ichi muttered. Whereas before he would have the freedom of movement, now he was stuck permanently in his chair, and for good reason. A few nights ago, Shin'ichi's legs had practically dissolved. Conan had cried when he saw it. "I mean, properly."

"Uh, huh. Same to you too, Shin'ichi-nii-chan." Conan climbed up into his lap and crossed his arms, leaning back on the other's chest. Shin'ichi bent over him slightly, his best attempt at a hug since his arms had stopped working properly. "Why are you still smiling?"

The elder raised an eyebrow. "Smiling?" he repeated. "I didn't believe I was."

Conan poked his face, prompting a slow and stifled reaction from Shin'ichi. "You are. It's worrying me."

"Well, I know that things are going to turn out alright," Shin'ichi replied.

"And how do you know that, Shin'ichi-nii-chan?"

"Simple," he answered. "Kaitou KID has the answer to our plight."

The boy, of course, was less than impressed with his answer. Well, they thought the same thing, so the elder one himself did wince slightly at his own words. "Shin'ichi-nii-chan, I don't think that he's going to do it..." He sighed, rolled over and rested his head on Shin'ichi's chest. After all, how could KID do it? He shouldn't even understand the situation, since they'd only met so very few times.

Shin'ichi jumped, causing the little boy to glare at him, but settled down in his position. "Remember the note?" he asked.

Conan looked up. "The note?"

"The one he sent us." Shin'ichi nodded over to a shelf. "Third shelf up, so you can reach it. The blue one with the dark stripes. Should be on page twenty-seven."

Conan pushed himself off Shin'ichi and walked over to the shelf hurriedly. From what Shin'ichi could see, he was trying hard to keep a red face under control. It was quickly betraying him, along with the faint heartbeat that echoed through the room hauntingly. That had sped up. If Conan were going to admit it someday, it would be much too early - and much too frightening. Edogawa Conan was definitely hiding something emotional, and this was completely impossible. Conan was a separate personality only created by years of adapting to him, and as they shared the same headspace then they shouldn't have been able to hide anything at all from each other. If it was possible, that meant that the split was becoming a lot more serious.

Conan pulled the book out – yes, this one was the right one, good – and thumbed through the pages, finally reaching the note. "I don't see what this had got to do with it all."

"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?" Shin'ichi recited. "Doesn't it seem odd that he'd send us a heist message such as this?"

Conan's eyes widened. "This is a heist message!?" he exclaimed.

"Isn't it obvious?" Shin'ichi mumbled. "KID does like sending weird messages, but this matches the pattern of a heist note. If he were just trying to alert us to what he was doing, don't you think he'd send something like, 'Keep your eyes peeled'? The fact that he decided to word it in such a longwinded but technically correct fashion, and then included the challenge, 'Who shall claim that sunrise first?', makes it obvious he'd actually telling us his next heist."

"Then..." Conan fell down onto his rear and crossed his arms. "That's unfair. I have no idea what he's talking about."

"Think it through," Shin'ichi said, leaning back in the chair. "We already know the 'forsaken child' is KID. The animal forsaken by God, the goat, has a child known as a 'kid' in English, something we learned back at the Sunset Mansion. So let's start with the 'horizon'. What do you think that means?"

Conan licked his lips. "Isn't that easy?" he replied. "'Horizon' means the point where the earth meets the sky, doesn't it?"

"Exactly. The horizon is a boundary."

"You don't think he's talking about the district boundary, do you?" Conan asked.

"KID doesn't think that small. If anything, he's more likely to think of something like the prefectural boundary," Shin'ichi corrected. "So we're likely to be anywhere on the edge of the Tokyo Prefecture."

"And 'to see the land beyond the abyss' is to...?" Conan scratched his head. "Not too sure if we can find an equivalent for that..."

"Think poetically." Shin'ichi shifted in his seat. "If the 'forsaken child' is a biblical reference, then there's a chance that this is also a reference to a Christian concept. What would be beyond the abyss in Christianity?"

The boy stood up, rifling through the books. Finally he took one and opened it, his back to the practically-dismembered teenage boy sitting in the armchair. "The abyss is death. People will tell you that death is like blacking out, or going to sleep for a long time when you're a child. That's if they're non-religious. If somebody is Christian, then they'll instead tell you that... you'll join God in heaven and watch down upon those you love."

"Exactly, so we're looking for something named after heaven. Now. Next part is the 'glow' that 'promises dawn's return'. As usual, any mention of something that shines is a gemstone according to Kaitou KID. So if something promises the return of dawn, what could that something be? Again, we're looking at the sky here, but we're not going to think about Christianity this time. So let's take the basic meaning." Shin'ichi looked over at him. "What precedes dawn?"

The hairs stuck up on the back of his neck as Conan scurried over to a step-ladder, dragged it behind the chair and climbed, pulling other books out. The kid knew he was looking at him. "Lots of people mistake dawn for the time the sun rises. That's just a misconception. Dawn actually marks the beginning of the twilight before sunrise." He switched books. "The time before that is the darkest night, usually called solar midnight. Solar midnight lasts for a few hours, and shouldn't be confused with twelve o' clock midnight. We're likely looking for a stone with a name that relates to solar midnight, or that resembles it. Or, he could even just be telling us to be open about the time."

Shin'ichi nodded. Good, the boy was getting there. "Now take into a different context. What does midnight mean outside of the literal translation?"

"Everything shutting off, total darkness, the end of the day... twelve o' clock midnight itself?" Conan suggested. "Midnight's a pretty broad term. It encompasses a lot."

"In popular culture, midnight also means the end of the world as represented on Doomsday Clock in Chicago, America," Shin'ichi replied. "The time of midnight on said clock represents the point at which civilisation – and usually, the human species as a result – comes to an end. In Christianity, this event is called the Rapture."

"So it could be referring to a ridiculous amount of things, couldn't it?" Conan groaned. He slid down the ladder smoothly, landing on the floor, and lowered his head. "This is hopeless. I don't get it."

"It's not hopeless, Conan-kun. Because it's just a double meaning." Shin'ichi grinned. "Because that clock currently reads seven minutes to midnight."

"Oh. Oh." Conan raised his head. "So we have a time, we have a decent idea of what kind of place to go to, and little clue as to the name of the target. Excellent. I think our original reading made much more sense."

"So do I," Shin'ichi admitted, "but this is Kaitou KID and that's exactly the way he thinks. It is a little awkward, but he doesn't act symbolic without a reason. Oh, and Conan-kun?" The boy froze and looked up. "You know it's not nice to hide something from me."

"I'm not..." The boy slumped. "I'm not hiding..."

"Conan-kun..." Shin'ichi sighed. "Come over here." The boy did, taking a few short, hurried steps. "Would you tell me what's on your mind?"

"I… I really can't," he mumbled. "But it's not very important, Shin'ichi-nii-chan."

Shin'ichi probably would have crossed his arms had he been able to. "I'll be the judge of that."

"I think that Haibara-chan knows that something is going on with us," he blurted. "We have to be very worried; Haibara-chan is ever so smart and she'll figure us out really quickly!"

The elder paused. "That's not worth hiding from me, Conan-kun," he replied. "Besides, if Kaitou KID has found the solution to our dilemma, all we have to do is meet him at this next heist. Hakuba-kun will hand over the message to the police and they will probably get a time out of it. We just wait until then."

"You really trust him, don't you?"

"I would trust him with my life, Conan-kun. Because the one consistency about his heists is that if anybody is hurt, it was never him."

MKMKMKMKMK

"Alright, what have you got?" Nakamori asked as Hakuba handed the note over.

"A personal, first-class delivery from KID from four days ago," he replied. (Ah, so it was four days ago. Thank you, Hakuba.) "I'm sorry; I've only just been allowed to do any investigation this morning. The thief seemed very adamant about that. I decided giving this to you would be the first step."

Nakamori took the card, flipping it over in his hand. "It's double-sided. The message on the blue side is related to the delivery, no doubt." The junior detective nodded. Nakamori seemed to understand. After all, Kaitou KID had played many tricks on him before. A quick mockery was exactly in his style. The inspector turned the card back to the white side. "... ? 'Please let tantei-kun join you. If he hides away again then I will not fulfil my mission. Hakuba-kun, do you have an explanation for that?"

Hakuba paused. Should he...? Yes. This was the Task Force. They needed as much information as was required when it came to understanding KID's message. He needed to edit out the conspiracy theory, but it should be safe for their ears. "I do. Do you know that little boy who shows up sometimes at heists?" he asked. "He usually is escorted by Mouri Kogorou-san and his daughter Ran-chan. He often ends up in the newspapers because he tends to reach the man before we do."

"Hmm... Oh, right." Nakamori snapped his fingers. "That kid with the awkward name. What was it? Konata... Conner..."

"His name is Conan-kun, Nakamori-keibu. Edogawa Conan-kun."

"Yes, that's right." The man crossed his arms. "But what on Earth does that have to do with the name 'tantei-kun'?"

Hakuba smirked. It seemed so refreshing to explain things to someone else for a change. "Well, Conan-kun has had such a large number of confrontations with KID that the criminal noticed something was up. It turns out that Conan-kun is actually ridiculously intelligent... possibly influenced by his current carer Mouri-san, and for the most part has actually been figuring out KID's tricks by himself. That would be the very reason that KID finds it difficult to evade him. The thief was so impressed that he gave him the codename of 'tantei-kun', similar to how he calls me tantei-san during our own encounters."

Nakamori blinked. Many of the men also in the room looked up in surprise, and Hakuba was suddenly aware of the eyes on him. Then again, he understood perfectly why they were doing so. This information was nothing that they'd ever heard before, and suddenly this eighteen-year-old boy had just come out with it. Sure, Hakuba was meant to be a prodigy, but this information was more private than anything else. Since most of the Task Force, who spent every single heist with Kaitou KID, had no clue what he was talking about, it was obvious that he had done his own investigation into the matter before handing the note to the police.

Although... That had to be a very well-performed investigation. They probably wouldn't have figured it out in such a small space of time. Hakuba had to have had a hunch.

The inspector shrugged nonchalantly. "Alright. What do you make of it?" he asked. He sounded uneasy.

"What do I make of it?" Hakuba repeated. "Well... unfortunately, not a lot. During those last few days I haven't been able to do as much research as I would like to. However, I can guess...

"Taking things as references to Christianity, one can read the note as this: The forsaken child is one I've already run into once before. It means the child of the goat, which in English is named a kid. KID is looking to the horizon. If it were related to the original heist, then I'd originally have guessed that horizon to be the edge of reality – in other words, the anomaly. However, we can take into a more literal sense now and consider the horizon just to be the edge of something. Since this is Kaitou KID, we can rule anything ridiculously small, but it still has to be somewhere he can reach easily without anybody noticing his civilian persona's absence." Some common sense, though Hakuba, which he was surprisingly quick to abandon before. "So it could be anything from the edge of a city to the edge of a prefecture.

"Next we take the 'land beyond the abyss' part. Now that one's confusing, since there's no real corresponding part of the mythology ... but it may have something to do with the plane of God. After all, what divides us from God is the endless black abyss of outer space. It's not actually a completely empty area, of course, since there are the different artefacts of the universe lying around: stars, planets, asteroids, black holes, each and everyone hovering left, right, up and down and every other random direction you can think of. Still," Hakuba mumbled, sitting down on top of one of the desks, "I think it's a good way to code the name for a location.

"Now, to zoom in on that location, we merely look to the east."

"What!?" Nakamori exclaimed.

"It's not the most sensible hunch, I know," Hakuba apologised, "but the note is written in English – and the abyss is also a word that is used to refer to the bottom of the ocean. Beyond the ocean to the east is the edge of North America. American English is the version taught over here. I believe he's telling us to look east."

Nakamori sent a few men to work at the computers at their desks and put his hands in his desks. "Go on."

"Right. The next part happens to be about something that precedes dawn. The light he's talking about would be the jewel. I assume this part would be telling us the name of his target. Therefore, whatever precedes dawn – which is night – is the name or related to the name of our heist. Of course, the phrasing is telling us that without this key item, we wouldn't have a dawn to wake up to." He crossed his arms, bowing his head. "That piece of subtext, though, isn't anything I understand too easily..."

There was a silence, punctuated only by the loud clacking of the keyboards of the men doing the internet searches.

Nakamori glanced over the troubled-looking teenager sitting on top of the desk with much suspicion, and for very good reason. Hakuba was hiding something. Keeping information from the police was not what they needed right now. And the worst part of it was that Hakuba didn't even know how obvious he was making himself. That earlier little mystery, about the identity of 'tantei-kun', for instance – Hakuba should not and would not have been able to investigate that one successfully in such a small amount of time without having the whole police force accompany him to check out the entire prefecture of Tokyo. And even then he would have needed an incredible amount of information beforehand.

"Hakuba-kun," he began, "how long did it really take you to find out who 'tantei-kun' is?"

He looked up, eyes wide.

"I order you to tell me how you actually found out," Nakamori commanded. "Right now."

Hakuba looked around. Once again everybody was staring blankly at him, and the typing had come to a complete halt.

"Err... come with me," he conceded, and led Nakamori to the interrogation room that they had spoken to Commander Stonewall a short time ago. He closed the door as tightly as possible.

"...KID dropped the name a little while back," he replied, listening to how his voice reverberated around him. "Well... the day after the last heist, actually, when he appeared. KID wanted him to know about the alien creatures. I decided it was in my best interests to tell him."

"Now why would he want you to do that…?" Nakamori pondered.

Hakuba ran a few fingers through his hair. "I believe that Conan-kun would be the crux of the entire problem. After talking to him, I… noticed a few interesting things."

"What are they?" the inspector demanded. "If they're so important that Kaitou KID would travel through a special anomaly, why don't you tell us?"

"Because it is Conan-kun's secret to tell, not mine," Hakuba retorted. "If he sees fit to inform you, then that's his choice. I cannot make his decisions for him. Now let's get back there and see the possible targets and venues that your men have tracked down."

A/N: It's been a long time since we've seen Nakamori, and even longer since we've seen his daughter. Then again, Jii-san as well... There are many characters to keep up with; I hope I'm doing well.

Apologies for any delays; my father purchased a new keyboard for me to use, which is incredibly hard to work with. It's one of those flexible keyboards made out of rubber. It's also one that doesn't type properly. I can only use that keyboard on the main computer in front of him, which makes writing difficult, as he is near me most of the time I have for writing. Don't be alarmed if next week is a little late also; at least now you know the reason why.