"Are you absolutely sure?" The voice was cold, flat, and sent the only other occupant of the room to his knees. It rumbled, much like the warning earthquake before an explosion of lethal gas and debris, and sent men of all sizes cowering for cover. One word could decide whether they lived or died, it all depended on the mood.

"Yes!" The room was brightly lit, but it felt as if it had been colored the deepest black. Countless invisible bloodstains littered the walls, remnants of the poor underlings who had delivered bad news, or agents who had failed on an important mission. They had all been carefully cleaned of course, but to those sent to die, their imagination had long since recreated the scenes. In reality, the office was quite comfortable, respectable, with all the appropriate shelving and appliances that could be found in the office of a CEO. "Our contact managed to get a copy of it—"

The new recruit—fearing for his life, and mentally cursing his superiors for sending him to inform the Leader of the possible disaster that seemed to be looming ahead—scrambled to his feet again, reaching into his suit jacket and pulling out a slightly crumbled, folded, sheet of paper. It was set lightly on the wooden desk before he retreated a good few steps, returning to, if not exactly the same spot, near where he had come from.

The hands that unfolded and smoothed out the purloined note were large, unadorned with any kind of finery despite the Leader's obvious wealth. There simply wasn't any need to burden his hands with such trifles. The photocopied words did not seem to hold the same mysterious quality as the originals, the ink didn't shine, nor was there depth where the careful hand had pressed the pen against the paper, but the message came across just fine.

'No heist, Nakamori, no riddle for you to figure out, just a friendly heads up. Play time is over, and the prize has been won. Maybe one day I'll step back into this game of cat and mouse, but for now, caio!

P.S. be sure to watch your blood pressure, Nakamori-keibu!'

After reading it silently, he gently placed the piece of stolen police property back on the desk. The underling was sent back a few steps when the baleful gaze returned to him, "Does he have it?"

"We don't know. The last real heist was returned without delay." The recruit managed to grate out, reciting the facts and statements that he'd memorized on the way over, "Snake thinks it is just a ploy to lure us ou—"

"Snake is a fool." The underling was cut off, "A blind man who believes he is chasing a ghost." The chair squeaked as it turned, allowing the nervous man some measure of relief now that the piercing gaze was no longer honed in on him. It was nerve-wracking enough being sent on a (usually) suicidal mission to report to the boss, especially since green rookies were dispensable—which was why the higher ups sent them in their place. Key tapping soon filled up the silence, and lasted until one of the appliances—the printer—started to hum, woken up by a single mouse-click from the computer.

"Get over here."

The order sent the black-clothed man scrambling to obey; ending up in front of the desk as a still warm bunch of newly printed papers were shoved into his hands. The chair still didn't turn around, nor did the rhythmic tapping slow, but instructions were given. "Kuroba Toiichi cannot be alive, but those three people are the most likely to be involved with the present phantom. Locate and bring in one of the indicated people. They are sorted in order of preference. Contact me again when you succeed."

Taking the dismissal as such, the man in black nodded and left the room, letting out a breath of relief when the door closed. He'd fully expected to be killed for delivering the news, as an example for Snake and Wolf should they screw up again and not keep a closer eye on the thief. Getting a new assignment was in some ways worse, because he WOULD be killed should he fail in some way; it was his responsibility alone now.

Fox, the newest recruit of the Pandora Project looked down at the clipped papers in his hands (when had the Leader clipped them? The typing hadn't stopped or slowed). Every two pages was a new profile, complete with picture, and every bit of information gathered on the subject (and considering there WAS two pages worth, it was quite a bit. These three had been under observation for quite a while now, a couple years at least.). He flipped through the pages, burning the names and pictures into his mind, which was just now settling down into 'hunting' mode.

'Kuroba Kaito'

'Kuroba Hiromi'

'Konosuke Jii'

There was no way he'd fail, not with his life on the line.

-

Kaito was really thankful that the drug had only taken off six years. If he'd looked any younger, no amount of posturing and articulation could make it seem ordinary for him to be out on the streets alone. Any younger and he'd draw more than a few odd looks, and odd looks were bad. Odd looks made people remember.

While he'd always looked a bit small for his age, Kaito knew exactly how to move and hold his body to look older and more mature. It was a perk of being able to completely change his body language with minor concentration. Many years of practice had spawned that particular skill (plus a good amount of natural talent, of course) and he had never been so glad for it as he was now—the fact that it saved his hide on more than one heist came in a close second.

However, saving sanity was far more important than hide, and there was only so much Kaito could take of staying in one place (even a place as large and as interesting as Kudou's place. He REALLY liked the library there) and being stuck there because it was too conspicuous would have killed him. There were many different things he did on these little outings—sometimes he wandered over to the Mouri's to visit Ran or prank her father. Other times he ventured to the park to put on a magic show for a group of local kids who hung around there. The girl and two boys—a few years younger than his physical age—were, ironically enough, crazy about detective work. He meant it when he called them crazy, it really was a pity that their thinking was waaay too straightforward to be any challenge for his little tricks—maybe in a few years.

They often badgered him about cases, and joining their little group. Kaito always declined—now if it were a magic club he might have consented, but detective work wasn't really his cup of tea—and sent them off to bother Shinichi. The resulting meeting had been quite hilarious, sending Kaito into fits of uncontrollable laughter when the threesome nearly bowled down the door when Shinichi answered--way too excited to be meeting a real, live, detective.

But today, today he didn't feel like doing either of those. In truth he wanted to check out his own—no, old school, see how everyone was doing. Of course, such a venture was undeniably foolish—many of the kids at school had known him since childhood, although Aoko had been his longest friend, so some sort of disguise was in order.

It was with that thought that he was headed toward his old house—his mother had work today so getting in and out would be easy. Besides, it might be worth his time to grab some of his supplies, just in case. It wasn't like he could just burglarize his home every time he needed to retrieve something, so it would be prudent to find a way to store them at his current place of residence. It wouldn't be too hard; Shinichi wasn't the kind to snoop through someone's belongings. Well, okay, he wouldn't snoop unless that person was a suspect in some sort of case, and as far as Kaito knew, he wasn't.

Kaito paused when he neared the entry to the neighborhood, deciding to head around the back way in case one of the neighbors was home. A small path ran down the back of the row of houses, acting as a border between the fenced in yards and the neighboring row of homes. At the right gate he stopped, digging into his pocket to remove a thin piece of wire, not for the first time thanking his habit of being prepared. He'd had a set of lock picks on him that day at the amusement park—they were one of his tools that he carried around every day; he usually had his card gun too, but had left it behind. He realized that he was lucky Kudou didn't find them yet, but quite glad that he hadn't. Trying to explain a set of lock picks to a detective would not be very fun. Not that he couldn't, of course. He just didn't want to.

The lock on the gate popped open with ease, and the pint-sized thief slipped through the gate with a flash of pride at his skills. Sure it wasn't a world class security system like he was used to, but he hadn't had much practice. It was kinda hard to practice with someone who knew and noticed the telltale scratches made by even the best of lock-pick-ers. The lock on the back door followed the example, giving him free-reign to enter the house. The moment he stepped foot inside a wave of nostalgia and homesickness hit, sending his heart plummeting in his chest as he looked around the empty kitchen. He'd grown up here, and he'd missed it over the last few months. He tried not to dwell on it too much, reminding himself of the reason he'd left. Being home for the first time in a few months…was a mixture of both relief and unending sadness. In a way everything felt right, he was back where he was supposed to be, but in other ways it was all wrong. Everything seemed taller, larger, and it was the unnerving proof he no longer belonged there.

It was with a heavy heart, yet a smiling face that Kaito continued on his way.

-

Kaito never came back out, but about an hour later the door eased open, and what seemed to be a young pre-teen girl closed it gently, making sure the house was locked before setting off back down the path. She muttered to herself as she walked, tugging to free the long blonde hair that had gotten caught beneath the straps of the over-large backpack she was carrying. Surprisingly enough the girl was wearing the exact same clothes that Kaito had been wearing. It was not the most complete of disguises, but the cross-dressing girl didn't have any other clothes that would fit in the Kid's closet of disguises.

Other than the outfit, there wasn't much to link her to the boy that had so recently walked the same path. Small dabs of make-up did wonders to change the features just enough so that they would not immediately draw thoughts of likeness, and managed to keep them from looking obviously disguised. All in all she was pleased with the disguise, the best she could do with the tools available, and decided to put it to the test.

The school day was winding to an end, the courtyard empty and silent—the entire place waiting for the bell to signal the start of the rest of the day. Kaito, or Amaya as (s)he considered him(her)self right now, remembered exactly how hated this part of the school-day was. Time seemed to drag as eyes flickered to the clock, urging the minute hand to go faster to announce the end.

The first sign of the ending tone was the opening of the school doors, the earliest students pushing out of the doors with exuberant enthusiasm and nearly running across the courtyard to freedom. Amaya recognized one or two of them, drawing the conclusion that they had been skipping class, skulking around near the entry waiting for the bell to ring. A glance at her watch confirmed that the bell had only just rung—most teachers held the class a little longer to make a clean break within a minute of the bell's chime to be impossible.

Eventually the more respectable students began to trickle out, the stream growing as more time elapsed and students managed to go to their lockers. Everywhere she saw people she knew, and it hurt just as much, if not more, than visiting the house had been. For the first time she questioned just why she bothered to come, she was just torturing herself. Of course everyone would be doing fine; they weren't the ones who had poison introduced to their system a few months back.

Amaya was jostled out of her thoughts by nearly being shoved out of the way, prompting her to creep out of the increasing stream and toward the edge of the gate. One or two of the students had noticed her, and asked who she was waiting for. She'd given a vague answer, dodging the attention while waiting for her friends to come out. Since she was here, she might as well wait and see them.

The first to emerge was Akako. Amaya had already noticed her coming; the fact that nothing but stupefied looking boys proceeded her was a real obvious warning. She just didn't get it, never had and probably never would, why did Akako even bother with the love compulsion? Drooling love-sick mind-slaves weren't much fun—she'd tried talking to them on a couple occasions and the conversation was horrible. It was always 'Akako this', 'Akako that' and she couldn't see how Akako didn't get bored of hearing about herself all the time.

As the mass of mindless drones passed by, Amaya became aware of movement on Akako's part. The tall, shapely girl was looking in her direction, motioning to her fan-club to continue on as she broke from the crowd. The boy in disguise was starting to get nervous, remembering that Akako had an uncanny perception of things—and because of her background in magic she wouldn't be so adverse to the idea of shrinking thieves.

The thought of magic ground 'her' thoughts to a halt, bringing forward a possible solution to 'her' little problem. If Akako did recognize her, then it would mean that shrinking people was possible within the realm of magic, and maybe she would have a cure to it. If not, then it was just as impossible to the black-witch.

Amaya never did find out, the tall beauty was intercepted by a sharp, achingly familiar "Koizumi!"

Amaya backed away, as Akako turned in a fluid motion, responding with a smooth, "Nakamori…"

The shorter haired girl pushed her way through the crowd, taking a deep breath, her face set in a firm, no nonsense expression that she had inherited from her father, "Don't forget to do your part of the project tonight."

Akako rolled her eyes, tilting her nose up a bit, "Do not worry about it Nakamori. I have no desire to fail."

Aoko nodded, "Good. We're in agreement." she looked around, curious as to what Akako had been heading towards, "Were you talking to someone?"

The taller girl glanced back to where she'd seen the child, but shook her head upon finding the spot empty, "No, I just saw something curious."

-

Shinichi was regretting having gone to the station earlier in the day—walking directly into Nakamori raising a merry hell over the news of Kid's hiatus wasn't quite what he'd signed up for. The rampaging Inspector wasn't quieted until one of the higher ups (from another department, in fact) was called in and threatened disciplinary action should he not quiet down. It worked—kinda, but even then it was only a temporary reprieve much like when a student is reprimanded by the principal. Nakamori had ended up finding other ways to show his displeasure, among which was to pester the daylights out of the unlucky detective (AKA one Kudou Shinichi) to investigate into the matter, and prove to the world that it was indeed a forgery, and that Kaitou Kid would show up sooner or later. Megure had finally rescued the harassed detective (while his last Kid case had been fun, he had no desire to work with the Kaitou-crazed Inspector. It was scary how obsessed the man was.) but then the resulting casework had kept him working far later than he'd planned on.

It was with a sort of guilty pleasure that he placed his hand—at last!—on the door to the house, fumbling in his pockets for the keys. His fingers found the cool metal of the keying, but also bumped into something else—paper. Forgoing the key for the moment, he pulled out the folded note that Megure had managed to give him.

-

Once the office door shut, Shinichi let out a sigh of relief, rubbing his ears gingerly to clear the ringing from them. He could hear Nakamori though the door—he was really loud—but he seemed to be moving away, so Shinichi hoped that the Inspector had found someone else to harass (he pitied the poor soul, but better someone he didn't know than him). A chuckle sounded from his companion, the orange coated Inspector flicking on the light, "He just can't accept it. He'd devoted most of his life to catching that thief."

Shinichi shrugged, looking around the rather large room—it didn't look like anything more than a small office, but the lights had illuminated a couple dozen shelving units throughout the room, stacked with boxes upon boxes filled with paperwork, "That's no reason to make everyone else's life miserable."

Megure made a noncommittal grunting noise, having moved towards one of the shelves and removing one of the cardboard boxes. He managed to drop it in front of the detective, opening it and rooting through it, "He most likely won't give up, so you should probably stay a while. Willing to help me look over a couple cases?"

"Sure." the detective sat down on the carpeted floor, crossing his long legs into a more comfortable position. There was a couple chairs on the other side of the room, but he preferred being able to spread things out. Because of the lack of tables, his only option was the floor. At long last Megure pulled out a couple smaller boxes, filled with papers and photos and handed them to the detective, "This is all the information compiled on Case #32034, remember? The one you and your friends stumbled on."

"Inspector, I stumble on them all the time," blue eyes rolled, and then came the flipping of pages "But I remember this one. Where the poison was on the ice-cream cone?"

Megure nodded, tugging at his mustache, "We jailed the girlfriend for it, but I want you to look through it again. Something didn't sit right with me then, and it doesn't now. I'm considering reopening it."

The detective nodded, "'kay. It'll give me something to do."

As Shinichi settled in for what seemed to be a nice long few hours of deductive thinking, Megure started to head out of the office. He stopped right before leaving, reaching into his coat jacket and pulling out a folded piece of paper, "Take this too. I probably shouldn't be giving you evidence, but it was addressed to you. It was only luck that I was the only one to notice."

Shinichi looked up and took the note, stowing it away in his own pocket. If it really was evidence, then having it out in the station would get both himself and Megure in trouble, "I'll look at it later."

-

It was later now, and now was as good a time as any.

Shinichi unfolded the paper, scanning the carefully sculpted script:

I really wanted to dance again, meitantei-san. I hope there is a chance in the future.

And be sure to tell your friend Suzuki-chan that she'd come this close insert little caricature of a mini-Kid holding his fingers about a couple centimeters apart to having her mom's jewel swiped.

Ja Holmes-san.

Shinichi snorted in amusement, folding the letter up and returning it to his pocket. In truth he was a little disappointed with the Kid's hiatus, he still itched to know just who exactly had been behind the white-clad figure that he'd seen standing on the clock's hands. He'd only run up against the Kid once, and he'd almost cornered the slippery thief. The fact that he'd managed to escape had intrigued the detective, as well as the…well, eccentric flavor to the thief's methods. It had been quite a welcome chase.

Shinichi turned the knob, pushing open the door with an overall feeling of exhausted relief. It was closed quickly behind him, an attempt to keep the cooling autumn air out. The faint thud of the door closing appeared to be some sort of signal, causing a brown-haired head to poke out of one of the rooms, a teasing light dancing in his eyes, "Didja have a good day at work, Mom?"

The detective just waved his hand vaguely at the kid's teasing, too tired to really resist against Kaito's game, "If you call disordered chaos nice, I suppose so."

Kaito laughed, not a chuckle or a giggle, but a full laugh before disappearing back into the room—the kitchen if Shinichi was correct, and he should be since it was his house. A minute or so of rummaging sounds, with Shinichi taking advantage of the time to slip off his shoes, Kaito reappeared with a glass of water in hand and a couple tablets, "Headache?"

The detective nodded, the faint pain had been growing all day and was only now blossoming in the relative calm to something mildly irritating. He gulped down the offered medicine without a second thought, not finding a need to check the dosage—he was pretty sure Kaito had figured out how to count and read directions during his 17-18 years of life, "Thanks."

Kaito shrugged, taking back the glass and returning it to the kitchen, "My own head hurts whenever I even think about Nakamori's yelling."

Shinichi followed the shrunken magician thoughtfully, watching with puzzled eyes as he made quick work of the glass. Just how did Kaito know about Nakamori, anyway? The small boy beat him to the question, however, explaining conversationally that he'd gone to the station a few hours ago, right in the midst of the inspector's violent rampage.

"I could hear him even from the reception area—his voice really carries." Kaito commented with a reminiscent smile, "I figured you were probably busy with whatever had him yelling, so I just came home."

Shinichi flinched a little at his recollection of that noise filled time, sinking into one of the wooden seats at the kitchen table with a sigh, "Busy, yes. But I would have welcomed any escape at that point."

Kaito grinned, padding up beside the detective and poking him in the arm, his voice taking on a slightly taken-aback, slightly incredulous tone, "Kudou Shinichi, slacking off from work?" he tutt-ed, poking him again, "Shame on you Kudou. What had him all riled up, anyway?"

"Kid announced his hiatus." Shinichi responded with very little enthusiasm, show just how much he cared about the news. His eyes were closed, otherwise he would have been able to see the odd expression on his housemate's face, and would have wondered just what the sad, almost pained expression was doing there. As it was, he didn't see it, and Kaito had long since resumed his cheerful air, shrugging dismissively at the news, "So? He'd disappeared before. He'll be back."

The pint-sized magician puttered around the kitchen, throwing together various foodstuffs while humming an upbeat tune to himself. Eventually he returned to the table with a mug of coffee for the detective and a bowl of chocolate ice-cream for himself. Shinichi accepted the coffee gratefully, nursing the hot beverage for a few moments before commenting, "You're quite the little house-wife aren't ya?"

"Don't get used to it. I'm just being nice since you had to deal with Nakamori all day," Kaito gave him a defiant look, muttering around his spoon and letting his ice-cream melt on his tongue, "In anycase, people believed the Kid to be gone last time—I can vaguely remember our dear Inspector throwing a fit around that time as well, although I can't be sure since I had to deal with my father's death."

The magician wilted a little at remembering the time, before shaking his head and taking another spoonful of ice-cream, "Did the notice say anything about leaving for good?"

After thinking about it, the detective shook his head, "No. If anything he was talking about coming back—he just didn't say when."

"My point." Kaito pushed the half-empty, half-full bowl of ice-cream in Shinichi's direction, producing a new spoon out of thin air, "Want some?"

-

Fox hung up the phone, a frown tugging at his lips as he looked down at the papers. The first and primary target wasn't anywhere to be found, and he wasn't very happy about that. He'd staked out the listed address for the boy, but had only seen the mother—the secondary target—come in and leave the house in the two days he'd been watching. The first day he'd reasoned that the boy was sick, but after the second he'd made some discrete inquiries around the school, and had learned that the boy had been withdrawn from Ekota High School about a couple months back.

His records had been transferred to another school, one in another part of the district, practically straddling the Ekota, Beika border. That school had labeled him as doing correspondence, and Fox had been unable to get an address out of them. With an irritated sigh he palmed his face, looking up from his position near the Kuroba residence. The lights in a couple rooms were still on, the night was still young, but once again only the mother resided in the house. He made a resolution to sneak into the house tomorrow after the mother had gone to work and do a preliminary search, perhaps install phone taps while he was at it. It really shouldn't be this hard to track down one teenage kid, especially when the target shouldn't know he was being tracked.

Fox had just gotten off the phone with one of his superiors about the manner, and his current orders were as followed:

Keep posted for another week. If the primary target isn't located, collect the secondary.

Meanwhile, the target's information and picture would be circulated among the other local agents of the Organization, no matter what divisions. Fox hated asking for help, but at this point his status among the living was more important than his pride. Besides, the bosses didn't care so long as the job got done.

A/N: I see trouble brewing for little Kai-chan…and I hope people can see where things are going…Anyone wanna drop a review with their guesses? (insert semi-subtle review pleading) Please? I hope ya'll like where it's going. Masq got such a good response last chapter so I was still in a DC writing mood, thus this monster (4.6k at last count) chappie was spawned.

Until next chapter!

(R&R Please!)