022. Enemies

As Kaito flew away from the Kudo mansion after his talk with Conan, he was still extremely worried about the miniature detective. The child was far too serious for his own good. What could have possibly happened to make him so sad? Apparently, it was complicated, whatever it was, and knowing Tantei-kun, it couldn't be anything but.

Kaito wanted to do something for Conan, wanted to help him feel better, but he didn't know what to do. Obviously, he couldn't keep giving the kid real heist notices. Conan had to sleep some time, and Kaito only held heists at night. Not to mention, he couldn't suddenly focus all his heists in Beika. That would just be asking for trouble. Plus, there weren't that many jewels left that fit the vague yet specific description of gem he was looking for, and there weren't really any displayed in Beika at the moment, unless you counted the Shallow Shroud once it was returned.

But Conan had said that he liked deciphering the heist notes, and that was something Kaito could give the miniature detective on a regular basis. Well, they wouldn't really be heist notes, but they would be complicated riddles that Conan would have to work at puzzling out. And he would have to deliver the notes, which gave him an excuse to check on Tantei-kun more often, not that he really needed an excuse. Either way, the phantom thief had just thought up a way to maybe help Conan out of his depression. Because, if nothing else, it would give the small detective something different to focus on.

New plan in mind, Kaito began writing the riddle in his head as he flew the rest of the way home. Once he landed, he went straight to his secret room and jotted down the note on some paper (the fact that it wasn't actually a heist note hidden inside the riddle itself), complete with a Kaitou Kid doodle. Then, he got ready for and climbed into bed thinking of how glad he was that there was no school the next day and that he could deliver the note to Tantei-kun right away.

Assuming that Conan would still be at the Kudo mansion, or at the very least next door in the professor's house, Kaito disguised himself as a normal citizen and headed over to Beika. However, the situation he found upon arriving at the Kudo mansion was not what he expected. The whole mansion was completely empty, no signs of Conan having spent the night there (Shinichi Kudo obviously had, but the phantom thief still wasn't sure how he felt about the high school detective), no signs that he'd even spent any time there the night before (and Kudo, who was not known to be a morning person, probably wouldn't be awake enough to clean up after the boy yet), but that wasn't possible because he'd talked to the miniature detective on the roof last night. Well, maybe Conan had just been at the Kudo Mansion for that short amount of time he and Kaito had conversed on the roof. That would make sense.

Leaving the Kudo mansion, Kaito carefully and quietly made his way into Professor Agasa's and headed in the direction he heard voices, hoping Conan would be there. If not, well, it was highly unlikely that the house's occupants would notice him. If they did, he wouldn't be worthy of the name Kaitou Kid. And if the miniature detective was there, the phantom thief could just place the note nearby, somewhere Conan was sure to find it later. However, when he got to the place he heard the voices coming from, he saw a sight that enraged him. It was Conan's voice speaking, but the words were coming out of Shinichi Kudo's mouth.

"Hi Ran-nee-chan," Shinichi spoke in a brightly false voice that was actually Conan's. "I'm having a really fun time at Agasa-hakase's house right now. He made this really awesome new game. Can I stay another night? Please, please, please Ran-nee-chan."

The time it took for the miniature detective's guardian / adopted older sister to respond…agree was about three seconds. Apparently, Ran Mouri was as worried about Conan as Kaito was and agreed instantly to the kid staying over when it sounded like he was currently very happy and having a good time. Except, it wasn't Conan who was speaking, and Shinichi Kudo looked the world was coming to an end. What the hell was going on? What had happened to Conan Edogawa? Although unsure as he was about he personally felt about the high school detective, Kaito had always known that Kudo always had reasons for whatever he did.

So, that meant that something had to have happened to Conan, because there would be no other reason for Shinichi Kudo to lie to his childhood friend like that. The phantom thief had a sneaking suspicion that it was partially the high school detective's fault that the miniature detective was wherever he had gone, and that was not something Kaito would easily forgive. In fact, it was something that greatly pissed him off, because he cared about Tantei-kun, one of the best rivals Kid had ever had despite how young this particular critic was, and the high school detective had already put his young cousin through enough, and had involved him in a case that probably brought Conan more pain than was enough to last a lifetime, especially since he was so young when he was shown such a dark part of the world and had had his innocent ripped away from him.

Mentally growling in anger, Kaito left the professor's house as silently and inconspicuously as he had entered it and went back to the Kudo mansion to wait for Shinichi Kudo's return. He did not have to wait too long, about half an hour, before Kudo returned to find an angry phantom thief sitting on his bed in his bedroom. True to his name, the Great Detective of the East knew instantly who his uninvited visitor was despite the disguise and greeted the phantom thief a bit formally.

"Good morning Kaitou Kid-san," Shinichi Kudo had said with a slight bow of his head. "For what reason have you come to see me?"

"I didn't come to see you," Kaito replied in a voice that seemed calm but spoke all kinds of threats, a voice that was scarier than any taunting or shouting could have been. His expression was arranged in a perfect poker face, but the high school detective could see the raging anger alight in the thief's eyes. "I came to see Tantei-kun, Conan Edogawa, your cousin. What happened to him? What have you done this time?"

"Something of a rather personal nature happened," Shinichi Kudo replied slowly, as though he was unsure what to say. "It is not something I feel comfortable telling you. When Conan returns, he can decide for himself whether or not to tell you what happened."

"And I'm supposed to just blindly believe he's okay," the thief asked, still in that dangerously calm tone of voice. "That he will come back just because you say he will. Tantei-kun was depressed for some reason, and depressed people often take drastic measures. It's your fault that he was ever involved with the Black Organization. Don't you feel any responsibility? He told me it was going to get worse before it got better. What if he meant he was going to kill himself and…?"

"And what hope we eventually forget about him?" the detective asked with an incredulous voice. "Look, Conan would never think that. What he meant was that he would probably go through a period of deeper depression before he really healed."

"Even so," Kaito said through gritted teeth, forcing back a growl that was threatening to tear out of his throat. "It's still your fault he was involved. It's still your fault he's depressed."

"There never was, and still is, nothing I could ever do about that," Kudo replied calmly. "Now, if that's all, would you be so kind as to leave? I have things to take care of."

Turning his back so that the flippant high school detective wouldn't see the anger he could no longer keep from his expression, Kaito reached into his pocket, pulled out the not-heist note, and threw it on the bed next to him saying, "Make sure Tantei-kun gets that. It's the least you could do."

Then, he left just as the detective had requested, but the thief didn't leave empty handed. No, he had gained something before leaving that he hadn't had before. Kaito knew exactly how he felt about the famous Shinichi Kudo, and they weren't at all friendly feelings. He and the detective weren't enemies yet, but one more step in the wrong direction, and they definitely would be.