He had been resting in the firing range when the blond woman ran in with the news.
"You, get up," she ordered immediately. Well... okay, not the news exactly.
He simply blinked at her. "What's up?" he asked as nonchalantly as he possibly could, taking in her appearance. She was certainly very flustered-looking; he doubted he'd ever seen her sweat so much in the short time they had been acquainted. In one hand she clutched a newspaper, in the other was a suitcase that didn't seem to contain anything yet.
"The boss wants to talk to you," she said. "Get up and go to his office immediately."
He nodded. "Fine, fine, if ya insist, Sheila. But first, ya tell me what's goin' on 'fore ya order me around."
She crossed her arms. "My name is Rose," she corrected, before returning to the topic. "He's going to mention this anyway. They spotted the name of a certain young target of ours in the newspaper," she said.
He stared at her. She had the most serious expression on her face and, at the same, this couldn't be anything more than a joke. Nobody got themselves as worked up about a name in a newspaper article as this. "Yer kiddin' me, right?" he said, relaxing again. "Surely a name ain't gonna kill ya, is it? What's so special about this name?"
"It belongs to a dead man. One we ourselves killed two years ago."
He blinked again. She was glaring at him in the most intense fashion possible. "Ya really ain't kiddin', are ya?" he asked. She shook her head.
He had never run to any superior so fast in his life.
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When he finally reached the office, the only thing he could think to do was bend over by the door and clutch the back of his head as it suddenly erupted into pain for no reason at all.
He remembered running through corridors shooting away at large robots that were launching themselves at him, then walking with the lightest step through the very air as the people looked up from below, then holding somebody he didn't remember very clearly at gunpoint while reciting the best speech he had ever said, then standing on stage holding up a large green gem while he gestured to a timid young girl in the background, then the ugly face of a bald man bending over him and showing him a document on some kind of material that he couldn't remember, then the face of a small but beautiful child who looked up at him with alarm despite the bottle rocket he had behind his back.
He remembered the wind whipping his fur around as he ran at speeds that seemed impossible, the feeling of soaring through the air and being as light as a feather, the cameras all trying to train themselves upon him as he moved. It didn't matter what terrain he was crossing or where he was flying. He could remember himself moving through every place he'd ever been too, and not recognising a single one, and for the life of him couldn't understand how this was all possible when he was just standing there. He tried to fight back the wave of memories, but soon found himself losing and trying to discern whose life each short clip belonged to instead.
Whenever he tried to think, he found himself realising – in so many of those memories there were no people around for miles. Nobody he could recognise as sapient anywhere. And then he got to others, and there were people, humans. Sometimes hundreds, at points even thousands. And they were all staring at him. And then finally he saw the others who looked like he did, and he found himself feeling so comfortable there...
He dragged himself into that office.
"Ya wanted to see me?" he said, the pain dulling as fast as it had appeared.
"You may have heard, but-"
"This dead kid's name appeared in the paper?" he replied.
The boss smirked. "Why, yes indeed. She told you, then?"
"I demanded to know otherwise I wasn't comin'." He crossed his arms. "What's it to do with me?"
"The article his name appeared in... It detailed where you might find your target. Do you think you could..."
He grinned. "Think I could? Yuh're underestimatin' me again. Lemme remind ya not to do that."
"Confident, are we?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. My head's been killin' me these last few days an' I don't think anybody's really happy about me bein' here, but..." He shook his head. "Never mind any o' that. I'll get them both with the same shot. Though, just in case, what's the name?"
"He's Kudou Shin'ichi. Teenage detective. It would be helpful if you disposed of this little rat, especially for you."
"Why?"
"We may have found you a path home. Just take them out and all will be perfect."
Home... where was home? They told him the anomaly – the strange thing up in that place with the funny name ('She's-woke-a'? Weird thing to call a zone). He wasn't sure, but he thought they were right. This place didn't seem right at all. And yet... when he had gone to kill that traitor at the library, something had rung familiar with him. Coming back had felt very familiar, especially when they had passed the pool club, he thought it was. To be honest, he had no idea what was going on, and he needed to find out what.
So he agreed. The exchange of Kudou Shin'ichi's figurative head on a platter for a trip back inside the anomaly to figure out whether it really was home. It couldn't hurt to give it a try, could it?
And as he walked out of there, he could swear he heard somebody screaming.
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Lunchtime had not been the best time for Nakamori to sit down at his desk. About a dozen different phones had begun ringing as soon as he had done and, at the moment, one of his inferiors was currently panicking and trying to answer every single one of them at once. It looked and sounded exactly like chaos.
And, according to the young man, they were all calling to ask just how they had found Kudou Shin'ichi.
Right now, Nakamori was so ticked off at himself. How could he not remember? Kudou Shin'ichi had been missing for such a long time now that they were ready to pronounce him dead, except for the word from Division One that Megure and his gang had quite recently met up with the boy. Every time he had shown up, he had demanded his name not appear in the newspapers and disappeared just as suddenly as he had done that day.
But he'd forgotten that. Well, it wasn't his fault – he didn't deal with Kudou Shin'ichi at all, so it would have slipped his mind. So he'd just blurted it out in front of that lady. Of course a random journalist had managed to pick up the name through an interview, and here the office was, the very next day, in anarchy while the assistant clumsily told everybody to hold on the three phones he was attempting to carry on his arm.
Another phone rang, and rather than have the poor man suffer, Nakamori himself picked it up.
"Nakamori-san, what were you thinking!?" yelled the familiar dulcet – but slightly accented – tones of a certain British detective.
"What the hell do you mean?" he replied.
"The name Kudou Shin'ichi." Nakamori rubbed his forehead. "There's a reason – and a ridiculous one at that – to why his name does not, under any circumstances, appear in the newspaper."
"Well, why don't you tell me what it is!?" the inspector yelled back.
Hakuba was silent for a second. "I'll just tell you this. The Beika police simply follow their orders from Kudou Shin'ichi-kun whenever he states that his name cannot be entered into any newspaper or official report, no matter what happens. You would do well to understand that."
"I only said the name because that lady would never have heard of you! I had no-"
"Joukaku-san is just like me. She's an ainoko - and half-English. You should have been able to tell that almost immediately from the fact that her eyes were green." Nakamori swore into the receiver, making the boy on the other end suddenly laugh. "Good to hear you're still swearing. You seem to have been trying to cut down on it. Speaking of cutting down, you may want to try and stop smoking out behind the police station when you absolutely have to remove yourself from the room. It's hardly doing well for your help."
Nakamori rolled his eyes. "As long as I'm stressed, no, I'm not quitting smoking just yet. I haven't been cutting down on my swearing, just finding much better times where I'm on my own to let out the verbal heavy artillery. And eye-colour's never helped me in any respect, especially going around here," he replied, taking a sip from the coffee cup on his desk. "Is there anything else you won't be refusing to tell me, Hakuba-kun, or should I just hang up on you right now? And if there is, make it useful. I don't need any more shit to try and work off here."
There was another pause on the other end. He drummed his fingers on the table as he waited.
After a bit, Hakuba finally spoke again. "I assume you mean... you need me to stop making excuses and tell you the information I am still withholding?"
"Yes, that's precisely what I'm telling you."
"I guess I have nothing else to do, then."
And he hung up.
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Kaito watched, gobsmacked, as Hakuba defied orders once again. "...You... You just did that, didn't you?" he said, struggling to get his bearings.
Hakuba merely placed his mobile phone into his pocket. "Stop staring at me," he said, brushing his hair back from over his eyes. Kaito nodded the absolute determination in them. "It's the only answer that I can give to him on that question."
"It's the withheld information that got you dismissed... as far as you can be?" the black-haired boy replied.
"That's correct." Hakuba started walking back to the fire escape doors. "It's something I really can't tell anybody, otherwise it might signal the end of the world as we know it."
"So it involves Kudou Shin'ichi-kun?"
Hakuba turned around. He wasn't exactly amazed at the words but, somehow, the fact that Kaito had managed to come to that conclusion so quickly had surprised him. "Clever little deduction there."
"Didn't think I had it in me, did you?" Kaito replied. "If it's to do with that guy, then I'm going to just ignore it."
"You're not interested?" Hakuba said, blinking. "I would've thought you were."
Kaito shook his head. "Of course I'm interested in what happened to him, but my focus isn't detectives, is it?" He sauntered over, looking at his feet, before coming to a stop right next to him and staring him straight in the eyes. "Sure, everybody who's ever heard of Kudou Shin'ichi-kun's amazing reputation wants to know – why did he disappear? He was so close to the top when it happened, so why would he want to fade away like that? But-" he shrugged, "-even if I'm taking on the role of your confidante, you don't want me to know, do you?"
Hakuba sighed. "A man of his word, through and through."
"To be as noble as a phantom thief, one must always be sincere and never lie," Kaito replied. "The only exception is when you make your escape – even if you're honest about where you're going, always confuse them about your exact exit point."
"Speaking from experience?" the blond remarked, and Kaito rolled his eyes.
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Conan found himself walking home with Ai that afternoon. The girl had demanded in class that she be the only one to go with him, and the rest of the Shounen Tantei had been unable to argue with her once Mitsuhiko had caved in. Conan didn't blame him for it, neither did he particularly mind that he was going home with her. She was a nice person despite her biting nature and he liked her when she was herself. Besides, Shin'ichi said it was alright, citing an earlier conversation where he had already mentioned it, and he was going to listen to Shin'ichi's words. So they began walking, uninterrupted, for quite the while.
It was then when Ai broke the silence, and the tension along with it. "Are you worried?" she asked.
"About what?" he asked.
She rolled her eyes. "About the name, Kudou-kun," she replied. The name took him by surprise, but Shin'ichi assured him that it was fine.
"Oh, well..." He fidgeted with the sleeve of his jacket. "A l-little, I suppose..."
"You should be more worried," she replied. "I can only imagine what Gin and Vodka are saying to each other."
A quick search of his memory yielded some results: Gin, a man in his later twenties or thirties with long silvery-white hair and a slightly skeletal face; and Vodka, a shorter and stockier man with a strong jaw, hat and sunglasses. They were the men who had unknowingly dragged Shin'ichi into hiding. "What's the likelihood they don't read that particular paper?" he asked.
She grimaced. Oh, dear, it was a bad answer. "The last I saw of Gin," she said, "and bearing in mind that was a long time ago, he was carrying that particular newspaper in his hand. Though I imagine it got into the national paper as well. Kaitou KID is an internationally-famous phantom thief, and Kudou Shin'ichi a nationally-famous high school detective. I highly doubt that your name didn't get thrown into the latest copy of the Yomiuri Shinbun." That didn't sound very good. "I just wish to know who the journalist was that managed to get that interview."
"Yeah," he replied blankly. Many newspapers didn't have their reporters' names next to the articles they had written. It was just a fact of life, but a frustrating one.
"You know something?" she suddenly said, and he jumped. She wasn't looking at him, but her confident stride told him enough. "You've definitely changed."
He tried to make himself look smaller, but it wasn't really working, seeing he was pretty small anyway, even compared to Ai. "I... have?"
"Yes." She took a look at him, and the only thing he thought he saw was the sparkle of awareness. They both slowed down to a halt on the busy street. "You're not Kudou Shin'ichi-kun anymore, are you?" she asked him, shifting her body slightly so that she appeared more demanding.
Conan bowed his head low and placed his hands in his pockets, and wasn't surprised at all when she pulled them back out, turning them over to check for whatever she thought she could see. Of course she'd have figured it out by now. She wasn't an idiot – no, she certainly, definitely was no idiot and would never be one at all; that was physically impossible – and this had been disturbing her for a while now. Knowing her, she'd have pursued every other possibility known to mankind and plenty more besides.
She continued to stare him down. "Well?" she said. "Am I correct in thinking that you're not Kudou-kun?"
He knotted his fingers together and suddenly realised he needed his pencil-case from his bag. He had to hold something, to grip it and know he was still there. "...I..." He had messed up on his personal pronouns again, calling himself 'boku', and this time he had no intention of correcting himself.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"...Conan," he said. "My name is Edogawa Conan." He put out a hand, slowly, but surely. "It's nice to meet you."
"Are you even aware of how serious this is?" she hissed. "You are not supposed to be Edogawa-kun... and by that, I mean that you're not meant to have his mentality. You're meant to be Kudou-kun pretending to be Edogawa-kun, do you understand?"
He nodded quickly. She was up in his face now, and it just didn't feel... nice. At all.
She seemed to notice her mistake, though. "What has happened to Kudou-kun?" she enquired, backing off a little. "What exactly is going on in there?"
"Well..." He looked around. There were a lot of people. It had shocked him already that he'd managed to come so far already without panicking... And he'd still had the problem just ten days ago. He'd really recovered, it seemed. "Me and Shin'ichi-nii-chan... I think it's been happening since that first day. When he was attacked and he made up my name. I don't really remember what happened at all... but he and I have been splitting apart. Shin'ichi-nii-chan thought that..." He paused, and she made a gesture for him to keep talking. "He thought that if we split apart, he might never be able to return to normal. But Kaitou KID's message gave us hope."
"His message?"
"He told us that he was going to find us a cure... but since the night of that heist, things have just been getting worse. Shin'ichi-nii-chan says he's going to be alright, though, because Kaitou KID will save us and make us better..." He wrapped his arms around himself. "He's been looking really sick. His arms don't move anymore. And his legs..."
"What about his legs?"
"They're not there anymore." He grabbed out at the nearest thing he could find, which happened to be the girl's jacket. She didn't move or berate him, and he did care. "He doesn't move from his chair. But he still smiles despite everything that's happening, because Kaitou KID will save us and make us better, and that's what he says. He's still so calm..." Conan sighed. "I don't understand how Shin'ichi-nii-chan can be so calm about it."
Ai looked at the floor. "That doesn't sound anything like him."
Conan nodded. "I just want Shin'ichi-nii-chan to be okay," he said. "He seemed so…"
"Grim."
"Hmm?"
Ai offered her hand. "Edogawa-kun… Kudou-kun may have resigned himself to his fate. But you're worried about him and so is everybody else who has ever known him. And to find out just now what's really happening to him…" She gripped his shoulders, watching how he didn't flinch. When it had been Shin'ichi, he had always done so every single time. Maybe Conan just wasn't scared of her, or maybe he was too used to being grabbed like this… she'd find out the answer sooner or later. "I promise you that I will try whatever works to help you… both of you."
The next thing she knew, the little guy had bowed as deeply as possible, coming back up with a red face and his eyes scrunched shut. "Th-thank you, Haibara-chan!" he replied. She didn't mind it.
A/N: The last of alliances before the big day...