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"Um...Why are you wearing a baseball cap today, Saguru-kun?"

Aoko asked this in a sightly amazed tone after she and Akako had entered their classroom a few minutes before the start of class only to encounter the sight of Hakuba Saguru sitting at his desk and drinking his ritually prepared morning tea. Now this in and of itself was nothing out of the ordinary of course, but Saguru was also currently donning a deep blue, brand new-looking baseball cap that matched his three-piece suit as well as a facial expression that resided in some strange middle ground between severe annoyance and mild bemusement. His reply to Aoko's query consisted of giving her a somewhat dejected look followed by rather pointedly staring out the window closest to his desk and acting like he hadn't heard the question while he continued to drink his tea.

"Could you, uh, please not ask him about that particular subject, Aoko? Thanks."

Here was yet another strange event that made both girls turn to each other and raise their eyebrows in perfect unison before they walked to their respective desks and unloaded their schoolbags for the day's learning. Kuroba Kaito, the ultimate magician-slash-clown, the unrepentant, ebullient prankster and jester king of the class was currently squirming in his seat uncomfortably. He was also not only wearing a sheepish expression but actually appeared to be a little afraid as well, eying Saguru nervously out of the corner of his eye every once in a while in between halfhearted attempts at working on some homework that was due later in the day.

"Alright, what's going on here this morning?" Akako then quickly turned to Kaito, placed her hands on her hips and gave him an accusatory look. "Don't tell me that you covered his house with to-"

"No, it wasn't that again, Akako-san. Not this particular time at least." Saguru sighed lightly before he turned away from the window and faced the pair of girls. "All I'm going to say on the matter of my wearing a cap today, and probably for the next several days," he began evenly, "is that Kuroba is quite possibly the only person on the face of this entire planet that sleeppranks instead of sleepwalks. And a gallon of orange dye was involved. Let's leave it at that, please." He then reached up to itch his head where his hair was pressing against his scalp under said cap, unintentionally revealing a medium-sized shock of neon orange hair that shook itself loose in the process. Saguru quickly re-tucked the errant neon-colored hair under his cap while letting out a mild oath under his breath so quietly that neither girl actually heard what it was.

"Wait, wait, he was at your house last night? So that's where he was when I couldn't get a hold of him at his house to check on how his mom was do-" Aoko blinked twice and paused in mid-sentence, her brain having just processed Saguru's current, rather unusual hair color. "Is your hair...bright orange?" She had to try very hard to stifle the explosive bout of laughter that was threatening to surface at the mental image of what Saguru's hair must look like under the cap and Aoko barely succeeded in the task, mostly thanks to a rather uncharacteristically serious and pleading look from Kaito that he shot her over his textbook when she looked his way.

"Sleep...pranks?" Akako inquired in complete disbelief once Aoko had calmed herself down.

"I said let's leave it at that; I really don't feel like discussing it right now. Besides, class is starting very soon and I wouldn't have time to explain anyhow." He nodded slightly at someone over their shoulder in order to indicate their sensei, who had just entered the room.

Why did Mom never tell me that I set up pranks in my sleep? Ugh. I'm just glad that Hakuba seemed to realize that I really was telling the truth when that bucket of dye dropped on him and I told him I had no clue how it got up above his door. Gah, no time to think about that now! Kaito was also trying to calm himself down while his mind churned furiously with thoughts of missing magicians, pairs of black-outfitted men and a currently hospitalized parent. The homework that he was hurriedly trying to finish was helping him to refocus somewhat, along with the fact that Hakuba also didn't seem to be tossing him out as retaliation for making the other boy roughly resemble a tall, golden-eyed traffic cone- at least for the next week or so until the dye Kaito had somehow managed to procure in his sleep completely finished washing out.

My next step while I'm staying at his house is trying to figure out how I'm going to convince him to investigate what's going on with those magician disappearances. I also have to try and do that while making him think that it's his own idea to boot; since I know he strongly suspects that I'm Kaitou Kid, it would probably be a really bad idea to just flat out ask him for help. Maybe I can begin with a subtle hint or two, like leaving his paper open to the cases or something along those lines.

"Kuroba." This was said while Saguru was completely facing away from him while their other straggling classmates began to filter in, some of then barely beating the sound of the bell.

"Eh?"

"Meet me in the library at first break. We have some research to do and you're something of a subject matter expert on the topic, I expect." With that, both boys rose to greet thier teacher along with the rest of the class.

Kaito was most thoroughly confused. Well, I guess that I'll figure out what he's referring to when we get there.

I've created a pair of monsters.

This was the only possible, though frustrating because it was rather directly and undeniably his fault, explanation that Kudo Shinichi could come up with. He found his mind yet again wandering to a few days ago, when a certain pair of spotlight-hogging, ego-bloated idiots had made their horrible attempts at detection- namely the not-so-dynamic duo of Mouri Kogoro and Suzuki Sonoko. There was no way that I could knock both of them out at the same time- it would not only have looked way too suspicious, but I also couldn't have imitated both of their voices at once. Agasa-hakase really needs to put some sort of speed dial or memory setting on this stupid voice imitator in my tie. Then there was the fact that they both kept running all over the damn place so I couldn't nail either one with the dart...

Thanks to his being forced to waste the better part of his energy that night just chasing the pair around and trying to keep them on the right path (or any sort of path at all- just thinking about that night was enough to make his eye twitch in unpleasant recall,) Shinichi felt like the trip the the crime scene that he'd so desperately wanted had been...well, rather unproductive and very wasted. I barely got to actually look at anything, I was so busy trying to make sure that Kogoro-ojisan and Sonoko didn't run off on some random tangent...Geh, that trip became so pointless! About the only solid lead (well, more of a gut feeling really if he was being totally honest with himself) that he'd developed so far was a theory he'd developed after the second of the kidnappings: Whoever was doing these kidnappings- or vanishings, or whatever they would turn out to be- was ultimately after the very slippery and equally charismatic master thief Kaitou Kid.

Now I need to figure out how they've managed to execute these kidnappings so perfectly and so quickly, especially right in the middle of the magician's shows, Shinichi thought darkly. He pretended to do the currently assigned classwork of copying some basic kanji symbols while really sketching out rough diagrams of the four stages and arenas the magicians had been operating in when they suddenly vanished. Let's see if I can draw this out from memory...the first one disappeared right about here in this arena...the second magician at about this spot here in that arena...The meitantei was too engrossed in his reflections to notice a freckle-faced, brown-haired boy sneak up behind his desk with an inquisitive expression on his face after his own kanji work had been half-completed, deciding that his friend Conan looked very intent on something that wasn't their boring assignment and wanting to know what that something was.

"What are you working on over here Conan?" Mitsuhiko asked in a stage whisper with a roguish grin as he peered over Shinichi's shoulder, gently tugging at the paper the other boy was sketching on after deciding that it looked more interesting than their current work. Mitsuhiko then succeeded in getting to hold it in his hands for further inspection after winning a few moments of struggling tug-of-war with his now angry friend. "This isn't kanji, that's for sure," he remarked a bit more loudly as he studied Shinichi's crude diagrams. "Is that supposed to be the kanji for bird?" This was followed by a barking laugh as the other boy indicated the first of Shinichi's drawings. "That one there looks more like a zero!"

"I'm trying to work on a case right now, please give me that back to me" Shinichi hissed quietly before he realized what he had just done. Me and my big mouth...This was followed by him burying his face in his hands and letting out a disgusted 'Ugh' after looking over to Shiho for sympathy and merely getting a rather amused, knowing smirk from the tiny scientist; the chain reaction to that particular word from the Shonen Tanteidan had already begun.

"A CASE?" cried Genta from his seat two desks down and to the left, causing the sensei to look up from her work of grading papers and place her finger to her lips in a stern 'shush' motion before she refocused on her work. Genta bowed deeply in apology before sneaking up to Shinichi's desk. "A mystery? Where? What? Who?"

"C'mon, tell us all about it Conan!" demanded Mitsuhiko as he rapped his fist lightly on Conan's desk in a display of mock anger. "Spill it, all of it! You were working on a top secret case without telling the rest of us about it?"

"A mystery you're working on? What is it about, Conan? Did it come in our mystery box?" asked Ayumi brightly as she hurriedly finished her assignment and slid over to Shinichi's desk as well.

Aww, man. I didn't want to bring them into this but I knowthey won't leave me alone until I tell them what I'm working on. "Well, have you guys seen those magician disappearances that are all over the news?" This was answered by three eager, enthusiastic nods and one slightly less enthused one. "I was thinking it might be a good idea for us to try and figure them out. I think we can solve them." Shinichi displayed the other three diagrams he'd sketched. "I was just trying to figure out how they vanished in the middle of their acts since I got the assignment done early."

"Well, whoever kidnapped them must have figured out how their tricks worked so that they would know the best time to kidnap them at, right? But aren't those top-secret magician secrets that they don't ever tell to anyone but their assistants if they have one?" Mitsuhiko rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling as he spoke.

"Alright, children. Time for recess." The cheerful voice of their sensei caused the students to quickly file out of the room and onto the school's playground.

"Let's play Hide and Go Seek!" cried Ayumi as they entered the area where the monkey bars and sandbox were. "And no cheating this time, Genta!" she added in a teasing tone as she and the other three prepared to go find various places on the playground to hide.

"Just because I'm tall enough to see over the hedge doesn't mean I cheat when you guys hide, Ayumi!" Genta yelled in an equally teasing tone before placing his hands over his eyes. "But fine, I'll go first. I'm only counting to twenty."

After he rapidly counted to twenty, Genta began his search. Knowing that Mitsuhiko usually liked to hide under piles of leaves if there were any available, Genta was delighted when he discovered a particularly large pile of leaves in the far left corner of the school's boundaries that was nearly lined up against the fence. "Alright Mitsuhiko, I'm finding you first this time!" he cried as he raced through the rest of the kids on the playground and over to the pile before kneeling down and having something that was moving catch his eye- a hand that was moving back and forth rapidly to his right. But it was an awfully large, adult hand that looked nothing like his friend's.

"M-Mitsuhiko, is that you?" Genta began spreading the leaves around in order to find whoever or whatever was attached to that hand.

"N-no...my name is..." Genta panicked at the unfamiliar male voice until he realized that it was probably the person who the hand belonged to. He walked towards the sound of the voice to find an adult's face sticking out from under the edge of the leaves; he realized that this weird adult was using the leaves like a sleeping bag or blanket for some reason before Genta's eyes grew huge as he placed where he had seen that face before.

"M-mister, stay awake okay? I'm going to get you help!" Genta wheeled around and began bellowing "GUYS, COME OUT! HURRY! I JUST FOUND KOBIYASHI AKASHI-OJISAN!" as he ran wildly around the commons area. He repeated this three times more as the Shonen Tanteidan quickly emerged from their hiding places and assembled.

The playground erupted into panic and chaos as the other kids began to realize that there was a person buried under the leaves.