AN:// You may notice I've edited the first part. Mostly for plot reasons. Small details, so don't fret.

~CHAPTER START~

Black attire. A secluded, silent, place—somewhere purposely chosen for not being the first place you'd go for a secret conversation, yet also being adequately suitable for such.

"Vodka—report."

The subordinate hesitated for a moment, but only for that moment. Any longer and he'd certainly face some horrible punishment. "The cameras we'd placed in Hakuba Saguru's household were disabled shortly after we left. We have no idea whether or not the target has survived."

There was a moment of terrifying silence.

"That the cameras were disabled after we left means that Hakuba was not alone—somebody was there helping him. Not only was he in the picture at the time of the stop, but there is no possibility that, with the pain caused by APTX 4869, he could possibly reach the cameras, much less be aware of their presence." The blonde paused in thought.

"But, Aniki, who would help Hakuba? His listed closest friends are mere aquaintances at most."

An aggravated expression crossed "Aniki"'s face. "Kaitou KID." It was stated simply, a fact, but the voice that said it was filled with none other than…rage. "That phantom thief that's managed to evade us for the past decade," he grumbled.

Vodka remained silent. He was sure if he said anything, then Gin would…

"At the announcement of KID's next heist, have at least half a dozen snipers on him." Judging by reports of previous attempts on KID's life, they would need that many or more for a successful assasination.

"Yes, Aniki." Vodka promptly left to carry out his instructions.

Gin remained for a few moments. An interesting, if irritating development. First, the disappearance of Kudo Shinichi—and around the same time, the reappearance of Kaitou KID. Then, Sherry's empty cell, after an attempt to betray the organization. They should have, in his opinion, simply executed her then and there. And now, this little mess with Hakuba Saguru, in need of cleaning.

Everything needed cleaning. And despite everything that they had done to accomplish just that, the status remained the same. It was truly frustrating.

He would have to go to his superiors about this. And once it was in their hands, it could possibly leave his.

Either way, in the end, he would have all the pests dead in front of him. Cold. Clean. Dead.

Morning. Hakuba woke up…strange, his alarm clock didn't ring. He got up from the guest room bed he'd slept in, pushed off the blankets, swung his feet to the side of the bed, and…

Fell face-flat on the floor.

Pulling himself up, he swore under his breath for forgetting that he was, for the moment, only a little taller than Conan—not even waist height in his old body. He dragged himself to the kitchen and started looking through the cabinets and fridge—he was starving, having had no dinner the previous night.

Hakuba groaned. This would be a long day—and what was he supposed to do with his time?

Conan yawned as he got out of bed. It was amazing, really, how it was even possible to sleep through Mouri-san's snoring. Adjusting his glasses and getting dressed, he was soon drowzily sitting at the table waiting for breakfast. Ran was already starting to prepare the meal.

"Morning, Conan-kun."

"Good morning, Ran-neechan."

And so normal morning rituals started. It was so normal, in fact, that Conan nearly forgot about Hakuba. Blinking in realization, he quickly finished his food, grabbed his backpack and skateboard, and rushed out the door with a fast "Ran-neechan, I forgot! I left something at Dr. Agasa's! I'll go right to school once I pick it up!" And he was out the door.

On his skateboard, it didn't take long. Hakuba was probably eating something by now. But he had to make sure that the shrunken detective was okay, at least. Perhaps he'd drag him to school—no, that would have to wait until Hakuba had some sort of disguise.

Halfway there, he almost ran over Ai, who looked hardly surprised that he was there.

"So, Edogawa-kun, are you now going to explain?"

He blinked first. "Ah, okay," he sighed in resignation. He very quickly recounted everything Hakuba had told him. He couldn't tell what the chemist was thinking from her expression.

"So, the Organization is now expanding their list." She closed her eyes and sighed. "This is bad. By now, I suppose they've learned not to leave a APTX victim unmonitored—thank goodness our friendly neighborhood phantom thief decided to pitch in and give Hakuba a little assistance—if not, they'd probably already be onto us by now." Looking back up, she chuckled. "It's lucky that you're not known to have much of a connection to him. If they haven't found out that another supposedly dead target had simply disappeared, they will soon. And they won't hesitate to search and destroy."

A grim frown passed over Conan's face for a moment. But it couldn't last long—both of them would have to be at school in—oh, shit, hardly two minutes—or they'd be late. And he never checked up on Hakuba—well, he hoped the shrunken detective could cope for the day.

Haibara, too, checked her watch. A silent message of Oh no! We're SCREWED if we're late! passed between them, and both started sprinting in the general direction of Teitan Elementary, at least until Conan remembered he still had his solar-powered skateboard.

Kuroba Kaito swung his backpack down by his desk. Newspaper in hand, he flipped through the numerous articles. "Good, no sign of anything concerning a certain detective having disappeared…that means nobody's found out. Yet," he muttered to himself.

"Hey, Kaito-kun! What are you muttering about?" Aoko's curiosity caught him by surprise.

"WAH! Aoko, don't do that! Anyhow, have you seen Hakuba-san?" He couldn't show any sign of knowing that Hakuba-san was currently a little kid. Or that anything was out of the ordinary. For now, only Kaitou KID knew (as well as anyone little Tantei-kun decided to tell)—Kuroba Kaito did not.

He let out a huge sigh. "Ah well, I guess he must be sick or on vacation or something."

"But, Kaito!" Aoko protested, "Most of the students aren't even at school yet!"

Kaito nearly choked on his slip. Whoops. He never let the thought past his poker face, though, and quickly made up a (valid) excuse. "Baro! The guy's usually here the instant we're allowed in. It's strange if he's even a minute late!" He congratulated himself silently for his very fast excuse that might actually work.

"But still, you can't say that just because he's not here right now means tha--"

Kaito had chosen the moment to begin his normal skirt-flipping routine. "Plain white? How boring, Aoko!" And thus the mop-chase ensued. He really wished that in light of the situation, someone up there making decisions on how the world would turn would cut him some slack. Even as he "gleefully" dodged the terrifying mop and pulled pranks on random members of the class (and almost accidentally tossing something at Hakuba's empty desk), he groaned inwardly. The things he did to make the situation look normal…

What he needed was a decent, difficult heist. It'd help him clear his head to pull a few pranks on Nakamori, stump a troop of police officers here, pluck the target there. But, for the moment at least, he had to make sure that Hakuba-kun's situation was somewhat secure…

His distraction earned him a good whack. It reminded him that he needed to keep running, or else he'd have a mop impaled on his head and Aoko standing over him victoriously. He wasn't sure which scared him more.

The school day passed by horribly slowly. Like dragging a truck through syrup, thought Conan absentmindedly as the class went over the multiples for the nine millionth time. At least he wasn't the only one in the class bored to death—there was Haibara, obviously, a prodigy even at her natural age. But even Ayumi and Mitsuhiko were somewhat above-average, for seven-year-olds, that is. He was sure that, even though they didn't mind the repetitive chanting over and over and over again, they probably weren't having any trouble memorizing the facts either. Genta, on the other hand…

And when he thought that he couldn't stand another second of it, the bell finally rang. He hurried home, not wanting to get caught up in the Shonen Tantei-dan's antics now, of all times. He still had to check in with Hakuba.

He told Ran he was going to Agasa-hakase's—his general excuse for everything (and not quite a lie, he was right next door)—and she readily accepted it.

Agasa's turbo skateboard really came in handy.

Hakuba had decided to spend the day looking around Kudo's house. There was the library (mostly mystery books, to his joy), the kitchen (hopelessly empty—it didn't show many signs of having a chef around for most of the time), and more bedrooms than one person living along would ever need. His polite upbringing restrained him from looking through any of Kudo's files or personal belongings, but he did read a few of the books in the time spent waiting around.

After half the day had passed, he decided to go see this Agasa-hakase. He knocked on the door, partly because it was how he'd been taught, mostly because he could hardly reach the doorknob even if he tried. Then again, he wasn't nearly as short as Conan, and the little boy seemed to have few problems.

Edogawa Conan: What time he hadn't spent reading and looking around, he'd spent thinking about his "host." The young boy was horribly, almost disturbingly mature for his age. And no kid that age would be immune to the sights of dead bodies, even if he'd been toted around by a careless detective (even if it was the meitantei Mouri Kogoro). Heck, most kids his own age would still cringe. He supposed it was simply a trait common to detectives in general. But for now, he could only observe the other boy and gather data. Data to show him who exactly Edogawa Conan was.

The door opened, interrupting his thoughts. "Ah, Ha—Hirai-kun! Conan-kun just called and told me you'd be coming." In other words, Conan just recently informed you of what to tell and what to keep secret. He was sure that the other child was hiding something.

"Ai-chan will be home soon, and Conan-kun will probably be coming too." Hakuba nodded politely.

It was only a few minutes before Ai arrived, shortly followed by Conan, who simply tossed his things onto the floor as the place was a second thing. He placed his skateboard on one of the tables. Hakuba noticed some scorched looking wiring. What the…now what was that doing on a skateboard?!

"Sorry, Hakuba-kun, I couldn't come by this morning," apologized Conan. He could hear him muttering "stupid school…" over and over again as Conan walked off to get something to drink. It was getting close to the end of the school year, and the weather was very nearly boiling.

"Hakase!" Conan yelled from the kitchen. The fridge could be heard as he pushed it shut. "I need you to repair my skateboard, something exploded on my way here." The seven-year-old walked back into the main room, a glass of water in hand. "And I wasn't even doing anything—I was hardly even using the turbo feature!" Ah, so that was the function of that mess under the board…

As Conan went about his own things, turning on the TV so that he could watch something other than Yoko Okino, Haibara left for what Hakuba assumed was her own personal lab—after all, she was a chemist and she was staying with Agasa-hakase, an inventor of his own. But he was surprised when she came back out after only a few seconds.

She approached him, holding out a small pill. "Go find some clothes in your normal size, take this. It's a temporary cure for APTX 4869, the poison they gave you; you'll return to your normal form and remain so for approximately 24 hours, depending. Use that time to tie up any loose ends and make sure the people you care about are okay. The organization doesn't leave things open for speculation."

"A cure? If there is one, then why are you…?"

"Eight years old?" she sighed, sadly smiling the very slightest bit. "The cure lasts progressively less time for each time you take it. Besides, I have nothing to go back to now."

He nodded numbly, accepting the pill. He wasn't sure when he'd be able to take it—going to his own house would be going straight to where they expected him to be. And it wasn't as if he could contact Kaitou KID (or Kuroba for that matter) and ask the thief to steal some of his own clothes. But it would be helpful if he ever needed to escape the short, limited body.

Agasa coughed politely, clearing his throat. "It'd look suspicious if a little kid was looking for clothes by himself. I'll go with you if you need clothes in either size. You can't go around wearing that all the time," he said pointedly.

Hakuba quickly agreed, recent memories of sleeping in his current clothes all night. Uncomfortable, to say the least.

"Well, then, it's settled. How about we just go now?" suggested the professor.

Hakuba felt a hat getting gently shoved into his chest. A blue baseball cap. In their conversation, nobody had noticed Conan turning off the TV to join them. "Here, you still need to hid somehow." The kid was so cheerful when he said it. So matter-of-fact. He simply nodded and put it on, covering quite a bit of his hair and his eyes, at least from anyone of normal height.

Agasa opened the door, and they started to walk out…

~CHAPTER END~

AN://

XD Next chapter will be FUN. At least the beginning. :DD Some veeeery…sinister characters will be making their first appearance of the story. HAVE FUN GUESSING.

Pretztailfan—Hah! Glad I could (almost) convert you! I must admit, Hakuba never was my favorite either. His character's just so damn annoying, he's hard to like. Gosho Aoyama's Hakuba hardly has any appearances, and it's pretty hard to build a character from just that. But then again, he's a meitantei equal or nearly equal our two friends Kudo and Hattori. Plus he's got to deal with Kuroba—but he manages to stay completely aloof of what's actually going on. Involved but not involved. And his character produces some very, very entertaining fanfics. XD

BTW, is this long enough? 8D?

Mel72000—Hm…maybe, but he strikes me as the type who will say nothing and just observe for the loooooooongest time, and not do anything until he is completely 100% sure that he is correct. Or at least from what he can see.

ALSO, to everyone who's paying attention and reading this:

The next chapter may take some time before I put it up. Now that the basic problem's been laid down, I want to solidify my (nearly nonexistent for the moment) plot and ensure that there's an actual story going on here.

DISCLAIMER://

I do not own Detective Conan, Magic Kaito, or anything else related to said…things…in any way. If I did, I wouldn't be loafing around trying to decide when I should start my first ever comic. And what it should be. Note the first ever.