A New Beginning?

Chapter 7

Saguru Hakuba promptly arrived at the agreed time of 6 o'clock with his predicted guest, Conan and an unexpected one. She was a girl with short light reddish brown hair that looked to be the same age as Conan and also looked like she had been dragged through a hedge backwards as her face was deathly pale, there were a few scratches on her neck and her eyes were rimmed black from lack of sleep. Her bedraggled appearance instantly reminded Kaito of when he met Aoko a month ago. He could guess the reason for the haunted appearance of the girl from that memory. It would also explain why she was with Hakuba. She was hiding from the Organisation.

The three of them stood in the entry way dripping rain looking like the world's strangest family: a beaming blonde English detective, a small smiling Japanese boy and a scowling half Japanese girl.

"I'm sorry for the unexpected guest Aoko-chan," Hakuba apologised. "It was just going to be Conan-kun and I, but she… turned up unexpectedly. She's a distant relation."

Ignoring the stony look the girl was giving her Aoko bent down and smiled at her. "Hello. What's your name?"

"Ai Haibara," she said quietly.

"That's a pretty name," Aoko straightened up and sniffed the air. "I think I'd better return to the kitchen. Something is burning."

She dashed out the room, leaving Kaito to lead the guests into the dining room and entertain them. Kaito had something planned to confirm his suspicions about Conan Edogawa.

"Kuroba," Hakuba began. "I need to tell you-"

Kaito cut him off hurriedly, afraid he was going to make him pay for the bed that he broke. "Dinner will be ready soon so I'll entertain you with some of my magic tricks in the meantime."

Hakuba closed his mouth. He had been about to tell him something that he couldn't say in front of Aoko and pertained to forthcoming events that had moved in an unpredicted directions and were going to happen sooner than expected.

Kaito leaned over Conan. "Can I borrow your glasses for a magic trick?" He had a plan to find out who Conan really was and he thought the key was in removing the glasses. It was obvious that the glasses were fake as they didn't magnify his eyes or reflect light in the same way as a real pair of glasses did.

Conan's eyes widened momentarily. He decided it would be more suspicious if he refused to take them off so he reluctantly handed them over. Kaito laid them carefully on the table, then seemed to remember something and drew out a small digital camera from his pocket.

"Aoko wanted a photo of you- she said you were cute," he said snapping a photo quickly before Conan could even blink or hide his face.

In the kitchen Aoko rescued the chicken which had been singed in the oven and tried to work out how she was going to cover it up. Her cooking and cleaning ministrations distracted her from her underlying agitated thoughts about Gin and the Organisation, or they normally did, but tonight they were bubbling at the front of her mind. She had a niggling feeling that Hakuba was going to drop a bombshell on them and the girl he had brought with him gave off a distinct aura of evil that she had always got from her ex-boyfriend.

She had a bad feeling about tonight. Her hand shook as she dished out the vegetables onto the plates.

When she entered the dining room balancing the plates on her arms she found Ai Haibara glaring at the wall and Conan and Hakuba deep in a quiet and serious looking conversation. Hakuba broke off her conversation before she could get close enough to hear anything.

"Where's Kaito?" she asked, laying the plates down on the table. "Please start before it gets cold."

"He said he was going to the toilet, but he had been gone far too long and I distinctly heard him go upstairs," Hakuba shrugged, with a strange look in his eyes. "Aoko-san, whatever happens next, please promise me that you will trust me."

Aoko replied after a few seconds, "Of course." Then she left the room to find Kaito.

In his bedroom Kaito was running a facial recognition on the photo he had taken of Conan and comparing the features to ones he had downloaded off the internet of Shinichi Kudo. He had even found a childhood photo of him which looked identical to Conan. The results had been an exact match. Now he was working out how to confront Hakuba and Conan Edogawa/Shinichi Kudo without Aoko finding out.

He turned round after hearing the creak of a floorboard behind him, to find Aoko standing behind him.

"What are you doing Kaito? Your dinner is getting cold."

"Nothing interesting," he answered quickly, getting up to follow her downstairs whilst snagging a printout on the way.

Throughout the meal Kaito kept glancing at Conan to check that he really was right about a 19 year old shrinking to the size of a child whilst Hakuba kept stealing looks at Aoko for signs of a positive change. When everyone had finished Aoko cleared up the plates and announced she was going to do the washing up and that she didn't require anyone's help.

As soon as she left the room Kaito spoke to Conan to ask, "How did you do it?"

Conan and Hakuba exchanged significant looks, knowing exactly what he was talking about.

"What do you mean?"

In response Kaito pulled out a printout of the photo he had taken earlier of Conan and a child hood photo of Shinichi Kudo.

"I'm talking about this, Kudo."

Ai yawned tiredly and re-crossed her arms. Hakuba glared at her before turning to Conan.

"Considering what I'm going to say after this you might as well come clean Kudo-kun."

"Conan" took off his glasses.

"You're right, I am Shinichi Kudo. The Organisation caught up with me one night and forced an experimental drug on me to kill me. Instead of killing me it shrank my body down to the size of a child."

Kaito leaned back in his chair thoughtfully. "I wouldn't normally think that was possible for that to actually happen, but since the evidence is right in front of me, I believe you."

Shinichi nodded. "I still haven't got my head around it. Luckily I was able to get in contact with Hakuba-kun and I've been staying with him ever since."

"I hope you two don't mind stopping your chit-chat. I need to tell Kuroba something before Nakamori-san returns," Hakuba said urgently, throwing glances at the door. "I would be telling you this later and under different circumstances, but a new factor has complicated matters."

"What is it?"

"Gin had been assigned to your case, the one to kill both of you and he should be arriving in England tomorrow night," he leaned closer to Kaito. "We have an informer in the Organisation. We didn't expect Them to make a move so quickly, but-" he threw a glance at Haibara who stiffened. "Something, someone upset our plans."

Kaito caught the glance and took a closer look at the girl. She did look haunted and fearful, but she seemed to have a more mature air about her and although she hadn't opened her mouth much he could infer that she was intelligent from the analytical glances he had glimpsed her making all evening at people and surroundings. She gave the same impression that Conan did- someone who was trapped in the wrong body, but there was something different about her that separated her from Conan. An aura of menace, he decided.

"You're really an adult, aren't you?" Kaito voiced his thoughts out loud. "And… you're a member of the Organisation!" he worked out where he had sensed that aura before. The night his mother had been killed.

Ai Haibara looked at him straight in the eye, unflinchingly, unsurprised by his revelation. "Yes, I'm Sherry. I made that drug that shrank myself and Shinichi Kudo. I'm a scientist and I've upset their precious plans." She gestured to Hakuba and Conan who were scowling.

"Sherry… Wait a minute, aren't you the one that Gin dated after Aoko?"

He recalled Hakuba's words from the flight. "Apparently he is after a young female scientist who works in the Organisation." The conversation that Aoko had overheard and got upset about. It was a god things that she was in the kitchen washing the dishes so there was no chance that she would overhear and get upset again.

Then it hit him like a lightning bolt striking him- Aoko never washed he dishes by hand, they had never brought any washing up liquid and she always used the dishwasher.

He realised that there was a high chance that Aoko had heard everything. The door opened and Aoko entered the room with a tearful face. Everyone in the room jumped apart from Kaito.

Aoko had definitely heard everything.