A/N: Late update today because I was too tired to get this done before work. I'm still possibly too tired but I want to try to do it anyhow. So, this is a favorite chapter, and has some plotty bits and a few characters I'm fond of. So, I hope you all enjoy it.

Warnings in the end-note, as always!

Chapter 15

More than a month and a half on from his disappearance, Hakuba's desk at school still sat empty. Kaito felt a little guilty every time he looked at it.

I should have him back by now.

"The police will find him soon, Aoko is sure of it," Aoko said, as if reading his thoughts.

Kaito looked over at her. "'The police'?" he echoed. "Not your dad?"

"He had to hand the case off to an inspector in Nagano after they traced Hakuba-san there," Aoko said, gesturing vaguely with the chopsticks she was using to eat her lunch. "Dad wasn't too happy about it. But—at least they have a lead."

"I would offer my assistance, but not even my considerable powers can give me a clue as to his location," Akako said, taking a seat uninvited on the corner of Kaito's desk.

"You've been looking for him with your magic?" Aoko asked.

"Yes," Akako said, with a small flip of her hair, "but I haven't found a trace of him. I did locate Kaito on two different continents, however. I'm beginning to wonder if my spell book is misprinted."

She did find him, she just doesn't know… "Which two continents?" Kaito asked, feigning casual interest.

"Asia, of course, where you actually are, and North America, but that has to have been a flaw in the spell," Akako answered. "Not even my magic can allow one person to be in two places at—" She broke off, expression suddenly blank. "At the very same time," she finished slowly.

In one smooth motion, she dismounted Kaito's desk and turned to face him, her eyes intense in a way that Kaito hadn't seen since Valentine's Day and didn't really want to see again.

"With me," she said, her tone brooking no argument. "Now."

Baffled, but wary of ending up cursed, Kaito stood and followed her out of the room and into the hallway, until they reached the storage closet Kaito usually stored materials for the flashier pranks in. Akako flicked a wrist, and the tumblers inside the lock rotated and then clicked open. She twisted the doorknob, opened the closet, and gestured to it.

"We need to speak privately," she said.

"In a storage closet?" Kaito asked, trying to keep his voice level as he slowly backed away. "Um, no, I don't think so." No way am I going in a small enclosed space with a girl who wants to take away my free will and force me to fall in love with her. Not happening. Nope.

Akako flinched. "I'm not planning anything," she said, frowning. "I still want your heart, but I intend to have it with your full knowledge and consent." She grinned at Kaito like she was a cat and he was a cornered canary. "I was a fool to think I needed to resort to coercion with all my natural," she paused meaningfully, sweeping a hand across her body to flip her hair over her shoulder, "charms. You didn't fall for me immediately, but you will."

Poker Face, Poker Face, Poker Face, Kaito reminded himself as he replied, "But no funny business while we're in the closet."

"Very well," Akako sighed. "No 'funny business.'"

Kaito eyed her carefully, then stepped into the closet. Akako followed him in, flicking on the overhead light as she closed the door behind her.

The closet was just big enough for the two of them to fit without touching, and Kaito suspected that was only because the janitor had most of the cleaning supplies out at the moment. Kaito liked nothing about this situation, but at least he had the comfort of knowing that Harada-san came back to the closet to put away the cleaning supplies before his break in roughly twenty minutes, so someone would eventually find them.

"So, time travel," Akako said casually.

Poker Face failed utterly, and Kaito all but had to pick his jaw up off of the floor.

"Ah, I thought so!" Akako crowed softly. "So, you can be in two places at once, if you aren't both the same 'you.'"

"Good job figuring out your puzzle, Koizumi-san," Kaito said. "Can I go now?"

"Not so fast," Akako said. "Don't you want to know where Hakuba-san is?"

"You said you didn't know," Kaito said carefully.

"I didn't, because I didn't know who he was," Akako replied. "He's the 'you' from the other timeline, isn't he?"

This time, Kaito managed not to react.

"Now I know I'm right," Akako said. "If I were off the mark, you'd be sputtering with laughter at the very idea."

Kaito gulped.

"It wasn't hard to figure out," Akako said conversationally. "I thought the two of you were destined rivals, so earlier in the semester, I tried to do a test, and it failed, because Hakuba-san didn't even show up in the results."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Kaito asked, curious despite himself.

"All of the results were about you," Akako explained.

"Oh," Kaito said, drawing out the syllable. He considered, for a moment, then decided he had little to lose. "Hakuba talked to Mom a little, before he ran. He said you—well, the you from his future—did this. Do you know how?"

Akako touched a finger to her chin. "There is a spell…if Hakuba hadn't interfered with my attack on KID as he did, I might well have cast it on you." She crossed her arms, looking thoughtful. "Yes, that one is the most likely. Which means there are two things you ought to know."

She looked him in the eye, then held up a finger. "First, the spell is designed to allow one to travel back in time as many times as is necessary to accomplish a certain goal. It's a modification of a certain curse, which simply trapped the target in a time loop. If you're certain I was the caster, then the goal in question was likely set to 'whatever KID is trying to accomplish.'"

Kaito blinked.

"Oh, don't look surprised, you showed quite a bit of willpower in your struggle against me," Akako said with a sharp grin. "Capricious thieves who steal for fun don't have that sort of willpower. I won't ask what it is, but don't ask me to believe that you don't have a goal."

Kaito sighed. "So, what, he needs to accomplish KID's goal?"

"No, he merely needs to see it accomplished," Akako said. "But if he doesn't—he'll be sent back in time again."

"You're kidding," Kaito said.

"It's the only way the spell works," Akako said. "The person's will to accomplish their goals and avoid further loops becomes their anchor in the new timeline. The metaphysics are all very complex; I won't try to explain it to you."

"What's the second thing?" Kaito asked, annoyed.

"In order for the spell to take effect, the person it was cast on has to have failed wholly in achieving their goals once before," Akako said. She paused, suddenly hesitant. "The only failure case the spell recognizes is death."

"So you're saying he died before he came here?" Kaito asked carefully. Mom said he told her that we'd already passed the point he travelled back from…but he knew about Corbeau. So he was probably eighteen…but not by that much. D***.

So Kudou Shinichi wasn't the only one who'd died young in that timeline. Kaito had nearly turned green in front of the critics when he'd worked that little tidbit out, and this was possibly worse, because that timeline's poor Kudou wasn't here now, and Hakuba was.

"Correct," Akako said. "You may want to take that into account in your search for him. We have no way of knowing what his timeline was like—" She broke off, looking troubled. "No, you know something, don't you?"

Kaito grimaced. "He was younger than I am now," Kaito said. "When he…"

Akako blinked, then frowned. "I suppose it's to be expected. The spell wouldn't have changed his physical age, and we know for certain that he was sent back to a few years before we met him. If he was more than a teenager when he arrived in this time, he would've had difficulty passing as a high school student when he came to Japan."

"So he's definitely older than us," Kaito said. "Mom thought so, but—"

"He'll age normally through the time loops," Akako said. "The spell is…inelegant, that way."

Kaito cocked his head to the side.

"If he's still making attempts when he's fifty years old…" Akako trailed off. "As I said, it was originally a curse."

"Do you think he knows?" Kaito asked.

"You would've figured it out, soon enough," Akako said. "I'm sure he already has."

An awkward silence fell.

"You're safe," Akako said softly. "I decided not to use the spell on you after what Hakuba-san did at the Valentine's Day Heist."

Kaito looked at her carefully. "He really made an impact, didn't he?"

"More so, now that I know who he actually is," Akako said. "If he's here and I'm unable to control him, that means I failed in his timeline as well—the spell on that chocolate would've recognized me as his mistress in the moment he travelled here. The fact that he still felt it necessary to interfere is—well, I believe I need to think about it."

"I'll leave you to it," Kaito said, uncomfortable again, reaching for the doorknob.

Surprisingly, Akako made no motion to stop him.

When he got back to the classroom, Aoko and Keiko took one look at him and burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" Kaito asked, confused. I don't remember doing any pranks that could've backfired on me…

"Sorry, sorry," Keiko gasped between helpless chuckles. "Aoko was just telling me about this nightmare her dad had, and—"

Okay, now Kaito was really confused.

"Dad dreamed there were two of you, making chaos everywhere," Aoko said. "He yelled so loud when he woke up that he woke Aoko up. And then Aoko laughed at him for being scared of such a silly thing."

"I dunno," Kaito said slowly. "Having two of me around might actually suck."

The girls just giggled, as Kaito shook his head and wondered when his life had gotten so messy.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Hattori picked his way through the bustling Osaka Metropolitan Police Station, dodging on-duty officers left and right and wincing at the sheer volume of dozens of conversations overlapping one another. If he had his way, he'd be spending the afternoon here, either working whatever investigation caught his interest or digging through the archives for a cold case. But he had cram school to go to, and his parents were threatening to stop paying for kendo if he kept cutting class for non-urgent cases. So, he just had time to drop off the case file he'd borrowed from Otaki-han yesterday and then leave.

Except, then, when Heiji was too busy thinking about how much he didn't want to go to cram school, a rookie practically slammed him and some other guy into a wall.

Said other guy cursed in a low, rough voice, then demanded, with a noticeable Nagano accent, "Watch where you're goin'!"[CW1]

Heiji knew that voice. He looked up, and sure enough, there was Yamato Kansuke of the Nagano police, brushing off his unbuttoned suit jacket with one hand and gripping his cane, white-knuckled, with the other.

Was he gripping it harder because he'd actually been hurt by that collision, or because he was pissed off? No use checking his facial expression—Yamato was almost always frowning, just to different extents, the scar over his eye meant that only one of his eyebrows had a full range of movement, and Heiji had never been good at the whole subtle-expressions thing. Posture, though—posture was useful, and Yamato would probably be bending over a little more if it was pain, so—pissed off it was.

And I've been staring at the pissed off guy for at least five seconds, whoops, Heiji thought.

"At least apologize!" Yamato practically thundered.

Heiji threw his hands up. "Sorry, sorry, I was just surprised ta see ya, is all," he said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"I can think of a couple of ways to tell a person you're surprised to see 'em that aren't runnin' into 'em," Yamato muttered.

Heiji ignored the probably-deliberate misunderstanding and asked, "What're ya doin in Osaka?"

Yamato's frown shrank a little. "Got a lead on that high school detective from Tokyo, the Superintendent-General's kid."

"Here?" Heiji asked, confused. "But…we know he's not in the countr—"

He broke off as Yamato grabbed him by the collar of his school uniform and slammed him into the wall, just hard enough that he wouldn't quite bruise. He had Heiji a few inches off the ground, but he was also leaning into his grip on Heiji's neck in a way that was both uncomfortable for Heiji and indicative of the fact that maintaining this position was no cakewalk for Yamato either.

"How do you know that?" Yamato demanded, loud enough to catch the attention of more than a few passing groups of officers. "And who's 'we'?"

They were attracting stares and the seams of his uniform were starting to dig into Heiji's skin. "Ya really think the police are the only ones investigatin'?" he asked, and the second Yamato's eyes widened, he ripped the older man's fingers off of his collar, sending him staggering backward.

He stumbled when his feet hit solid ground again, but muscle memory brought him back to a kendo stance before he really had time to think about it. Meanwhile, Yamato steadied himself as well, leaning a bit heavily on his cane as he glared pure murder at Heiji.

Heiji was used enough to getting that look from actual murderers to be unfazed.

"What the h*** are you talkin' about, kid?" Yamato demanded.

"This ain't a conversation for the middle of headquarters, you get me?" Heiji said.

"No, I don't 'get you,'" Yamato echoed mockingly.

"I'm workin' with some people on it but not all of 'em are people who want their name all over the case," Heiji said. "So can we take this outside?"

Yamato scowled. "If the people you're workin' with are trustworthy, then we can discuss it right here."

"Fine," Heiji said. "First, though, ya gotta tell me all about the last classified case ya closed."

Yamato scowled.

"There are things that're secret for a reason," Heiji said. "Outside or nothing, which'll it be?"

Yamato sighed. "Outside," he said.

Heiji led the way to one of the trees planted between the sidewalk and the road outside of the station, then stood opposite it, giving Yamato the option of leaning against the tree. Naturally, he didn't take it, but stood straight and glared at Heiji.

"I'm waitin' on that explanation," he said.

I'm not Kudou, and I'm not KID, Heiji thought, steeling himself. I can't pull lies from thin air or say them as easy as the truth. But maybe, if I don't tell all of the truth, Yamato won't go poking his nose anywhere that'll get him killed and Kudou won't murder me next time we see each other.

"So, it's like this," Heiji said. "You remember hearing about Kudou, from Conan's neechan? I'm workin' with him, but ya can't mention that ta anybody. It's a long story, but he's attracted some attention he doesn't want and he's been lyin' low 'til we can catch the people who wanna see him lying about six feet lower, if ya catch my drift."

Yamato did, if his flinch was anything to go by. "He's your age, how the h*** did he get mixed up in somethin' like that?"

"Kudou's luck runs…interesting," Heiji said, in complete honesty. "Good enough to keep him alive, but bad enough for a lot of close calls. H*** if I know how it works."

"So, 'we' is you and Kudou?" Yamato pressed.

"Well, we got other guys," Heiji said. "There's a guy named Hondou Eisuke, really smart, never met Hakuba, only agreed to this as a favor to Conan-kun. Since he's, uh, never met Kudou."

"Conan-kun's involved too?" Yamato asked.

Heiji, not sure how to dodge the question, settled on nodding.

"So Hondou's the adult?"

Heiji blinked. "Nah, he's our age," he said. Oh, wait, shoulda lied there. Too late.

"Tell me there's an adult involved in this somewhere," Yamato said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Of course," Heiji said obediently. All three of us are legal adults. Heck, I'm the only one living with my parents. And the only reason Kudou's not living completely alone is because he's physically tiny.

"I was expectin' you to tell me the name of the adult so I could get in contact with 'em," Yamato half-growled.

"Yeah, that ain't happening," Heiji said. "We have this under control, but it's gotta be us, it's—look, we got a witness who will not go to the police. No use trying to make him, he's stubborn as hell and his reasons make sense. So we know more'n you do."

"You know I can charge you with obstruction of justice and take the evidence and whatever witness statements you've recorded so far," Yamato said in a dangerous tone.

"Sure, an' then nobody ever sees Hakuba again," Heiji replied. "I told ya, he ain't in Japan anymore. You don't got jurisdiction, and in the time it takes you to find him and get permission to go after him, he'll already be gone. We're not police-affiliated, so if we go overseas looking for him we ain't stepping on anybody's toes."

"And what do you plan on doing once you find him?" Yamato asked. "You don't have authority, either."

"We got plans for that," Heiji said. "We know why he left, we know why he should stay, if we get 'im to siddown and listen, his own logic'll keep 'im from boltin' again."

"You're pretty certain of that," Yamato said appraisingly.

"Whatever else I've learned about 'im, he's still a detective," Heiji said. "An' that still means somethin', ya know?"

Yamato raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of that, you've got you and the Great Detective of the East working together with another genius high-schooler on this one. From what I know, that doesn't happen ev'ry day. Do all you high-school detectives have some sort of agreement to come to each other's aid or somethin'?"

Heiji barked out a laugh. "Yeah, right. First case I worked with Hakuba, the victim was a high school detective—but so was the murderer."

Nice. He'd gotten Yamato's eyes to widen again.

"It ain't just that he's a high-school detective," Heiji said. "He's a guy I've worked with. There's a…responsibility ta that." He paused, then, figuring it couldn't make Yamato any more suspicious, added, "Ta be fair, Kudou called me in half for my skills and half because I'd been saying since I met the guy that there was somethin' off about 'im."

"Really?" Yamato asked, squinting at Heiji. "How's it feel to be right?"

Heiji grimaced. "Wouldn't really know. I was right that somethin' was off, but I was miles off about what, an' I'm happier that way, trust me."

Yamato cocked his head to the side, just a touch. "Don't think I've ever heard a teenager say they were happy to be wrong."

Heiji shoved his hands into the pockets of his school uniform's pants, uncomfortable at the scrutiny. "Thought he was gonna snap and kill someone someday, so I'd like ta keep bein' wrong, thanks."

Yamato rocked back onto his heels, shifting most of his weight onto his cane. "Superintendent-Gen'ral Hakuba has better judgement than takin' in a kid like that."

"Didn't know you knew him," Heiji said. "You guys friends?"

"Ehh, he kept bugging me at the national police convention the year after I came off leave—you know, from all this," Yamato gestured to his scar and his cane. "Guess he thought I was spending too much time by myself. He was a little overbearing, but he kinda grew on me after a while. Once Saguru-kun gets his a** back home I'm gonna shout at him for a while for worrying his old man."

"Well, then, we'll try an' get him back as soon as possible," Heiji said. "Wouldn't wanna make ya wait."

Yamato snorted. "Hang on now, don't get ahead of yourself, kid. You said you knew he wasn't in the country, but do you know where he is?"

Heiji slumped a little. "We did, but he slipped us," he said. "We nearly had him in Omsk, but he caught on to Kudou's strategy. We think he's in North America now, but we're still narrowin' down the region."

"His dad's got his passport," Yamato said flatly.

"Yeah," Heiji said. "He ain't usin' his real one."

"You're accusin' him of carrying forged documents," Yamato said. "And either theft or stowing away, dependin' on whether he bought the tickets."

"We don't know about the theft," Heiji said. "Eisuke's got a theory that he had money—clean money—hidden somewhere in case something like this happened. I think he stole it, yeah, either recently or maybe before he got adopted, an' he couldn't quite bring himself ta get rid o' his safety net. Kudou isn't sure which o' us is right."

"Still, you're accusin' someone you said you knew for sure was still a detective of some pretty serious s***," Yamato said.

Heiji was at a loss for words for a few seconds. Finally, he said. "It's like…bein' a detective is a way of thinkin', an' a code of ethics. An' even if he's not following the law sometimes, Hakuba-han's still thinkin' that way and following the most important parts o' that code o' ethics. So even if I don't like 'im, he's still a detective."

"What's he still followin'?" Yamato asked, confused.

"Can't tell ya that part," Heiji said automatically. Yeah, if I tell Yamato about the Black Org he'll die chasing them and probably expose Kudou in the process, and then Kudou will kill me, so, nope.

"The h*** you can't," Yamato spat.

"Kudou will actually murder me, okay?" Heiji said. "Jus'—know we're doing ev'rythin' we can to get Hakuba-han home. We understand what's at stake, we are doin' everythin' we can, and our chances are a lot better'n yours, so leave it ta us."

Yamato scowled. "Like h***. What'll I tell the Superintendent-General?"

"He knows one of the people I'm working with is on this case," Heiji said. "Doesn't know I'm workin' with 'im, but—he knows."

"An' he didn't mention this to me because?" Yamato asked.

"Like I said, not everyone involved wants their involvement public," Heiji said. "Now, can I trust ya or not?"

Yamato rolled his eyes. "I'm not gonna go shoutin' about Kudou's involvement."

"You'd better not," Heiji half-spat.

"Look, kid, I wasn't tryin' to make fun of you, I just…this isn't my first undercover operation," Yamato said, a little more softly. "Guess I kinda forgot it was yours. Is Kudou…dealin' with this whole thing okay?"

"The h*** do you think?" Heiji asked, not quite able to keep a rein on his tongue. "He's been lyin' to his girlfriend about the whole thing for better'n a year, it'll take a minor miracle for 'im to graduate on time, an' he's gotten paranoid enough ta give some o' Osaka PD's retirees runs for their money."

"Keep an eye on him, then," Yamato said, frowning a little more than usual. "And be careful, all of you. Even if you're just tracking Hakuba-kun, if Kudou-kun's got a target on him, your operation could get real complicated real fast if you draw attention. Last thing we need is you in trouble, too."

"Right," Heiji said. "Good talk, Inspector Yamato."

"Don't think I forgot about you pulling my case out from under me! If you lot need any help from the Japanese police, I expect to be the one you contact—but I'd better get some information about my own d*** case in return."

"I thought it was technically the Tokyo cops' case?" Heiji ventured.

"That's only because they're the Superintendent-Gen'ral's people," Yamato said dismissively. "It's not like he was still gonna be in Tokyo."

Heiji was still pretty suspicious of Yamato's claim to the case, but he decided to drop the matter.

"If we need help, we'll let ya know," he said, with a wave. "I gotta go, you made me late for—oh, hey!" He dug through his bag, and pulled out the case filed he'd meant to give to Otaki-han. "Find a guy named Otaki-han and give 'im this for me, would ya?"

He had the folder in Yamato's hand before the man could sputter out a protest.

"Thanks!" he called as he ran off. I really am gonna be late, though. Ugh, Dad ain't gonna be happy…

A/N: Warnings for major character death, albeit in another timeline, and Yamato Kansuke's rough treatment of anyone he thinks might have information.

I got to write Kan-chan and Heiji in the same scene; I am so pleased.

Finally, for any of you who were wondering, yes, Kaito is correct, and Shinichi did die in the other timeline. What exactly happened will be expanded upon later on.