Conan scrolled through the social media updates from the last several days and smirked. Not a single post from Kuroba about ladies' underwear since the letter had arrived! In fact, Kuroba had even posted a selfie with Aoko that had a lengthy caption ranting about how much he appreciated and respected her. Good! There also seemed to be a curious number of pranks directed at Hakuba recently, and the blond's own posts felt oddly strained, weary, almost a touch paranoid? Huh. Conan wondered what he'd done to get on the prankster's bad side like this. Poor guy.
Well, with Kuroba no flipping girl's skirts, Conan could now move on to other, no less important, matters.
Not arresting Kid was not the only thing he'd decided on. After all, his investigation had revealed much more than that Kuroba Kaito was a good person. Kuroba Kaito also needed help.
Frankly, as far as plans to defeat an evil organization went, Conan thought that dressing up as a giant white target and prancing around in front of their snipers with no backup whatsoever was, well, somewhat lacking, strategy-wise. Not that he necessarily had anything against someone acting as bait — it was sometimes the only or best option, and he'd participated in or even masterminded such plans often enough before. But the thing about sting operations was that they only worked if enough people participated. What was the point of acting as a diversion when there was nobody else around to make use of the diversion? Well, luckily for Kuroba, Conan was on his team now, whether he liked it or not.
And someday he would have a little heart-to-heart with Chikage-san about a few things regarding his character. But that could come later. First, he would help get Kuroba out of the hole he'd dug for himself.
The best way to start an investigation was to gather information, and the best place to start that was his family library. He wasted no time rushing over as soon as school let out.
Conan barely paused to greet his mother and Subaru-san as he passed the living room, and he didn't bother waiting for his father to look up from his writing when he entered the library. He pushed the ladder over to the correct bookshelf and scrambled up to start searching through the handwritten folders on the top shelf.
"Can I help you find something, Shinichi?" Yuusaku asked after a moment.
"Yes, because apparently you've hidden them somewhere, probably specifically to keep me away from them." Conan waved a single folder at him. "Where are the rest of your case files on Kaitou Kid? I know you have more than this."
He hesitated, then said in carefully neutral tone, "Shinichi, I'm not sure if I'm comfortable wi—"
"I'm not going to arrest him!" Conan huffed indignantly as he slid down the ladder. "I decided that it's not right to arrest him, don't worry. I'm going to help him."
"Hmm? Ok… and by 'help him' you mean…?"
"No no, not like that! I'm not going to help him steal or become an accomplice or anything, sheesh! I meant I'm going to help him accomplish his actual goal so that he can stop being Kid."
"His— you know what his goal is?" Yuusaku's eyebrows shot up nearly to his hair. Conan rarely ever saw him that excited. So his dad did have emotions after all, it seemed. He felt a flicker of totally unwarranted pride that it was Kaitou Kid who was able to elicit such a reaction.
"Don't you?" he replied innocently. It was so rare for him to get a step ahead of his dad that he really had to savor it when it happened.
"No, I don't," he admitted, a touch remorseful. "I did ask him a few times, but he wouldn't tell me."
"Oh, he didn't tell me either. I found out through my own investigation."
"And what investigation would that be?" Yuusaku was well aware that Conan was purposely dragging this out, but knew from experience that humoring him was much faster than revealing his own impatience.
"His mother told me!" Conan answered gleefully, flashing a mischievous smile.
"His— you spoke to Chikage-chan?! She asked for your help?"
Conan snickered. "No, she didn't! In fact, she was very adamant that he not ask me for help. Oh, I should clarify, I was disguised as her son at the time."
"Eh? Really? Wait, Shinichi, are you seriously telling me that you took a temporary antidote just to disguise yourself as Kaito-kun and break into the Kuroba household to go through their belongings looking for secrets?"
"Yup."
Yuusaku blinked at him a few times, then suddenly broke into a rolling laughter, head tossed back and hands over his stomach. "Well, then what are you waiting for? Tell me everything!"
—
Kudou Yuusaku listened to the full story with a thoughtful expression, not interrupting once.
"…so not only is being Kid illegal, it's also incredibly dangerous for him and his family. That's why I want to take these guys down, so he can finally retire," Conan finished.
"I see. And what about the gem? Pandora?"
"I'm sure it doesn't exist, or if it does, it's not magical. Obviously," Conan scoffed.
"Says the sixteen year old in a six year old's body," he replied, and Conan had no answer to that except a grumpy pout. "Well, I agree that it probably isn't exactly as the legends claim, but as long as there's anyone who believes it, such a gem would still be dangerous. I agree with Kaito-kun's desire to destroy it."
"Yeah, I understand it too, but I also really hate the idea of Kid stealing a gem and not returning it. So far his crimes have been limited to… relatively smaller things like identity theft and trespassing and… stuff. But he's never actually stolen anything before."
"True. What do you have in mind then?"
"I don't know. We still don't even know if the gem exists, and even if it did, it would be basically impossible to find it. Even with a full time team of researchers with unlimited resources, finding something that's been passed around undocumented for who knows how many centuries would ultimately just come down to dumb luck, so it's—" a bright idea popped into Conan's mind with enough force that it cut off his sentence midway.
His father noticed the bright gleam in his son's eyes and smiled at him. "You have an idea?"
"Just an idea. I'll look into it. In the meantime, we need to focus on the syndicate. So far all I know about them is that they have a member named Snake, they send snipers after Kid, and they killed Toichi-san."
A heavy expression settled on Yuusaku's face. "I knew Toichi. Both in and out of costume. I considered him a good friend. I had no idea he was in danger until it was too late. If there's anything I can do now, to protect his son, I certainly will." As he spoke, he walked over to the bookshelf, selected a dusty outdated atlas of the cities of Gunma, and unlocked it to reveal the significant pile of case files in the hollowed out compartment inside it.
"Here are the files I kept on his heists. This one," he lifted the thickest folder, "is from my investigation into Toichi's death. It always felt suspicious to me; he wasn't the kind to make mistakes like that. I never found anything conclusive, but perhaps this new lead will help."
They spent the rest of the afternoon pouring over the case files together and researching articles online. Unsurprisingly, they found very little useful knowledge in the publicly available information, beyond several other mysterious "accidents" that might potentially be related.
So they began the next phase of their research: phone calls. Yuusaku contacted his connections in the government and international law enforcement, and Conan (using his bowtie and the more authoritative voice of Kudou Shinichi) reached out to several officers throughout the various precincts in Japan.
They limited themselves to select individuals whom they trusted completely. They kept their explanations brief and vague, omitting most of the details, and instructed everyone to watch for incidents matching certain patterns that they'd noticed in the possible syndicate's hits so far. They also requested access to more information regarding Kid and several other suspicious cases they'd uncovered. A few people cordially agreed to file their requests as a form of polite dismissal, but most seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation and readily agreed to help and to send as much information as they could.
"Do you have Kaito-kun's number?" Yuusaku asked Conan after they'd both finished their other calls.
"Yes, but I don't think we should tell him anything yet."
"Why is that?"
Conan opened his mouth to answer, but hesitated. That was a good question. Why didn't he want Kid to know anything yet? Sure, it would definitely be a little awkward to admit to Kid exactly how he'd gotten all this information. Additionally, there was a little part of him that felt… almost nervous for some reason about how Kid would respond to all this. Would he appreciate it or would he be upset with Conan? Conan tried to push those thoughts back to the depths of his mind where they belonged. Surely there had to be some non-emotional reasons he could use.
"Well," he said finally, "I have two reasons. First, we don't know for sure how he'd respond to our help, especially since Jii-san and his mom don't trust us. He might try to interfere and make things more difficult for us, or he might become more reckless if he tries to do more on his own before we can catch up. Second, we're involving the police a lot on our side. If they suspect that we know Kid personally and are in contact with him, they'll insist that we turn him in, and we could face charges as well."
"I see. We'll definitely need his cooperation at some point, but that can come later. I might have an idea about the second issue, but I'll need to make some more calls. Oh, and I'll also talk to Subaru-san tonight to see if he has any information on this syndicate."
"Perfect. I'm going to go talk to the Professor to see about using his stealth drones to search for snipers at the next heist. Getting one of these guys into custody would be ideal."
"Oh? And what would you do if you did find a sniper? The police won't set up a stake-out based on the little information we have right now. Do you intend to go after these people alone?"
"Ehehehe, of course not!" He flashed his best innocent smile at his dad, but unfortunately, since it was a smile he used exclusively for lying, it had the opposite of its intended effect. Yuusaku was not impressed.
"Ehhh… oh, I know! What if I invite Hattori to come with me? Is that better?"
"Slightly, yes."
So, with the beginnings of a plan and plenty of work cut out for both of them, they each set out on their respective tasks.
—
After Conan brought Haibara and Agasa-hakase up to speed, they both enthusiastically agreed to help (one significantly more enthusiastic than the other).
Then he lingered in the relative privacy of their home to make one last call for the evening. Pulling up the contact happened on autopilot, but he hesitated a long time with his finger over the call button.
Was it really ok to ask her for help? It certainly wasn't something he typically did. In fact, if he had his way, nobody else would ever be aware that he even had problems. Sure, there were a few little details about this particular request that made it easier — other people were already involved, he wasn't asking for himself, and it was in fact utterly impossible without help.
Still, he hesitated. Was it dangerous to get her involved? On the one hand, he tried to keep her far away from cases under the guise of "protecting" her, and on the other hand, he always failed miserably. She was always involved and besides, it's not like she was defenseless. Actually, half the time, she was the one saving him with her formidable karate skills. An argument could even be made that she should be involved in cases because they were dangerous. But he refused to acknowledge that argument.
Well, he supposed it depended on exactly how dangerous this job was. He considered it a moment. With a decent cover story and vague details, combined with the fact that he would be nearby in case anything happened, he concluded that the risk would be very low, and therefore he should have no qualms about asking for her help.
He mentally congratulated himself on finding a justification that didn't involve any feelings at all, then, conflicted emotions still echoing in his mind, he tapped the call button. This was the right choice, wasn't it?
Before he could change his mind, she answered with an eager "Shinichi! Are you coming back?"
"Hey, Ran! And no, not right now," he answered through his bowtie, suppressing a wince. Did she really have to start every single conversation this way? No wonder he'd become so reluctant to call her, when it always felt like he was dialing 1-800-GUILT-TRIP.
"Then when?" she pressed. She wasn't angry, but the touch of desperation in her voice felt like a knife in Conan's heart when he knew he could do nothing about it. He knew it was hard for her, but he'd appreciate some consideration for how hard it was for him as well.
"I still don't know, sorry." He thought he heard a faint sigh on the other end of the line, so he changed the subject before she could come up with more ways to pester him about it. "Ran, I'm actually calling because I'd like your help on something for a case I'm working on."
"…really?" she asked, surprised and slightly hopeful. "You've never asked me to help on your investigations before. There's really something I can do?"
"Yeah, there's an item that I'd like you to look for," he told her, carefully leaving out every actual detail about it. "Could you subtly ask about it, whenever you happen to be near a jewelry store? You don't have to go out of your way, just when you have time as you're traveling around with your dad for cases and whatnot, ask if anyone has heard of any gem with some special connection to moonlight. Tell them that it's meant as a gift for a friend with 'moon' in her name. And then just let me know if you ever hear anything."
"Ok, I can do that!" Ran proclaimed eagerly. "But why me?"
"Because of your superpower!" he replied, beaming.
"My superpower?"
"Your luck!"
—
Hattori was a really strange guy, Conan mused. He had been so excited to get the call from Conan, greeting him joyfully as he always did. He was overly proud about being invited to a case, made a big deal about Conan "needing his help," and enthusiastically agreed to come before being told anything about the actual investigation. He had shown up unannounced, two days early, with Kazuha in tow, and they'd invited themselves right into the detective agency where they'd immediately started making plans for how everyone would be spending the weekend together. Even Conan's trademark deadpan expression was powerless to dull the onslaught of friendliness.
On the other hand, Hattori nearly blew a fuse when Conan told him that they would be working during Kid heist. Apparently, the Osakan still had some lingering bad feelings about his previous encounter with Kid. Conan had even stronger lingering bad feelings about it, he was sure. But even after he'd explained to Hattori that they wouldn't be going anywhere near Kid or even the heist location, he still continued to pout all evening for no good reason.
So did he want to be there or not? His reactions could really be all over the place sometimes. Hattori just had so many emotions all the time and did not hold back from expressing them, and Conan was not good with emotions. It often made it difficult for him to understand his friend.
"How exactly are ya' gunna know if there's a sniper anyhow?" Hattori complained skeptically, shortly before the heist began. The two of them were in an alley two blocks away, Hattori slouching on his motorcycle and Conan leaning against the wall with his skateboard propped up by his side. Conan held his phone in front of him where he watched the feed from the drones that were hovering noiselessly about the area.
"There have only been a few recorded instances of possible gunshot sounds at Kid heists, so it's very likely these people use silencers. That means we won't be able to track them by sound, but the flash of light from firing the guns will be nearly impossible to hide from the 360° infrared cameras on the drones. We should be able to get an exact position from that."
"How many drones ya' got then?"
"Three. The kids are flying them. Apparently Agasa-hakase's video games use all the same controls, so the kids accidentally became experts at it. Now they're all better at flying the drones than I am."
"Sure, ok." A brief silence. Then, "An' why're ya' helping Kaitou Kid, Kudou?"
"I would help anyone who had professional assassins after them, Hattori," he replied, which was both entirely true and also completely irrelevant. A very effective dodge. He kept his eyes glued to the screen and mentally begged Hattori not to pry any further.
"An' how come Kid's got sniper's after 'im?"
"I don't know," he lied. Well, at least Hattori was not a mind-reader. That was probably better in the long run.
"How'd ya' find out then?"
"…from a case I was investigating." Close enough.
Hattori hummed in suspicion and gave Conan a strange scrutinizing look for several minutes, before he sighed and resumed pouting about "that no good thief" and how he wished he were inside putting handcuffs on him instead of outside in the "cold dirty Tokyo air" with a "stupid overly-secretive best friend."
These days, it was not unusual for Conan to feel strangely protective of the thief whenever anyone mentioned arresting him, so he shot Hattori a dirty look, reminded him that he'd agreed to help, and then tried to ignore the complaints.
About twelve minutes after the heist commenced, Kid leapt out of a window near the top floor to make his escape and immediately Conan and Hattori received an address through their earpieces. As planned, they both hopped on their vehicles and sped off in opposite directions.
Haibara continued to direct them as they raced toward the building, which was an office building an impressive four blocks away. The children had positioned the drones to get views of both exits, but so far no-one had moved to leave.
"The building is actively used as an office but has been closed for the day since 6pm, so it should be empty," she recited calmly, as she directed the kids where to place the drones, monitored the camera feeds, passed directions to the two detectives, and researched the office at the same time. "They likely chose the location for its height, as they fired from the roof."
"And Kid?" Conan demanded. "Was he hit?"
"No injuries. Focus. There's some movement at the back door."
"We'll be there to get them, dontcha worry!" Hattori yelled, all smiles again now that there was a bad guy for him to chase.
Hattori arrived first, skidding into the alley behind the office right as a figure dressed in black with a long case slung over his shoulder was mounting his own motorcycle. The man glanced back at Hattori then revved his bike and shot off in the opposite direction. Thankfully he didn't have enough time to pick up any real speed by the time he rounded the corner, because otherwise the soccer ball could've caused some serious damage when it burst under the front tire, exploding into thin rubber fragments that jammed the wheel and caused the bike to topple over.
Conan pulled out his cellphone while Hattori casually parked his bike and walked over to tie the hands and feet of the man who was quietly groaning on the ground.
"Nice shot Ku– eh, Conan-kun!"
"Yeah, good job chasing him out here."
"We make a pretty good team, eh?" Hattori grinned broadly, even as he patted the man's pockets and removed a few weapons.
"Yeah, sure," Conan agreed absently. He was confirming that the large bag did indeed hold a sniper rifle while he waited for Megure-keibu to pick up his phone. He and Hattori did make a good team. This particular arrest was simple but only because they had both been there. Who knows how crazy the chase could've become if Conan had attempted it alone again? He found himself wondering what it would've been like if Kid were here with him instead of Hattori? Kid probably would've swooped in on his glider, stood on whatever platform would maximize his charm, maybe even delivered a cheesy line or two…
How had Kid's heist gone? Obviously he'd gotten the gem and escaped, that went without saying, but what sort of tricks had he used this time? Had he come up with a clever new way of stealing the jewel, or used an old classic? Did he look for Conan at the heist, maybe even ask about him again? Or—
"Moshi mosh!" Megure-keibu finally answered Conan's call.
"Ah, Megure-keibu! It's me, Conan! There's been a case and—" well, at least Megure's lungs were in good health, if the force of his exasperated sigh was anything to go by.
—
The sniper was not particularly forthcoming in the interrogations. He was either very stubborn or actually as ignorant of the syndicate as he claimed. He insisted that he'd been hired anonymously by some guy called Snake but had never even met him. Well, that was more or less expected. No criminal organization could grow very large by sharing crucial identification and structural information with contract workers, after all.
On the plus side, they'd managed to keep the incident pretty quiet, even limiting who in the police force knew about the arrest or the investigation itself. Those who did know were only told the very basics, that a criminal organization was targeting Kid.
Capturing the sniper effectively served to open the investigation, and both Kudou Yuusaku and, by unofficial extension, his "distant relative" Edogawa Conan, become advisors to the case. They were able to identify several other possible sniper locations from the drone footage (Haibara had only sent them after the one, being the ever-practical kill-joy that she was), so they arranged to have a larger police presence set up for the next heist.
Though glad about their progress, Conan honestly still couldn't believe that there were snipers at all. How could anyone shoot at a person like Kuroba Kaito?! He felt his face contort in anger whenever he thought about it or remembered that Kid had to wear a bulletproof vest under that innocent white suit. He vowed to arrest every single one of those monsters.
They were in fact able to arrest more snipers the next time, which was encouraging. However, he also knew that wouldn't be enough. The organization consisted of more than just foot soldiers, and they needed a way to track down the rest of them. He really understood the appeal of finding Pandora to use as bait. Too bad it was impossible.
—
They were making better progress on the investigation that Conan had imagined possible. Yes, it certainly helped that this organization was significantly sloppier than the Black Organization. But he knew that what was really making the difference this time was the network of support they were now leaning on. The various law enforcement and government connections that the Kudou family had between all three of them turned out to be very powerful indeed. Conan couldn't believe he hadn't made use of these resources sooner.
Shinichi had grown up enamored of his own intelligence and desperate to prove it to the rest of the world too. He was arrogant and selfish and fiercely independent, actively rejecting help from others sometimes even before it was offered (and then wondered why he had so few friends). The media impression of him as capable but stand-offish and full of himself was honestly not far off the mark.
Becoming Conan had forced him to start relying on others for the first time. Even that very first day of being shrunk, he couldn't reach the gate handle to get into his own home and had needed to rely on the Professor believing him. Now, for the first time in his life, he was making a few real friends and learning to trust others even as he worked to gain their trust.
He'd still been reluctant to involve anyone else in anything potentially dangerous, but some, like his parents and Haibara and Agasa-hakase, refused to be dissuaded. Now, with how easy it had been to arrest the snipers so far, Conan had been forced to admit that having a team of capable people working with you was not only more effective but actually significantly safer as well.
They'd accomplished a lot already. He and his dad had assembled a lengthy list of cold cases that they suspected were linked to the syndicate and were steadily assembling evidence for each one. Jodie-sensei had sent over a profile of Snake and some of his accomplices from the FBI databases. Haibara was working with the traffic department (indirectly, through Shinichi) to scan security footage of public areas for any of the faces from their ever growing list of suspected members. Several officers from other districts had alerted them of suspicious activities that they'd been able to investigate for more leads. Several members of Division One worked with them and the drones to find and arrest snipers during Kid heists.
They'd narrowed down the list of locations where the organization might be meeting, discovered new members by tracking the ones they'd already found, and were even piecing together an understanding of what the syndicate wanted and how they operated. It was more than Conan had dared hope for in just a few weeks, and they weren't slowing down either. It was not unusual for Conan to race home after school to immediately resume his research until late in the evening when his phone would be yanked out of his hands by an overly responsible big sister.
Even then, he would continue to think about the organization and Kid until he fell asleep. It was only natural, after all, that his mind was constantly on the friend he was working so hard to protect. He wondered what Kid would say, when he found out what Conan was doing for him. Maybe he'd be happy, and smile at him?
Next Up: Back to Kaito's perspective for a chapter as he gains a new ally to hear him out about his (lack of a) love life.