Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed.

Pairing: KaitoxShinichi

Chapter Rating: T

Collection Summary: In an infinite number of universes, they still always manage to find each other. A KaiShin supernatural and sci-fi collection. (This is the supernatural/science fiction counterpart to the Different Suns fantasy AU collection)

Chapter Summary: For agents Kaito and Shinichi of the Milky Way Agency of superpowered individuals, ghost ships and cursed treasure are nothing new. Or are they?

Heroes and Villains: Blue Moon Island

[Superpower Verse]

Part 1

Blue Moon Island was a very small island that had not warranted a spot on any maps until relatively recently when a particularly famous chef, having just finished winning a slew of cooking competitions around the world, had decided to set up her very own inn on the scenic little island where she'd been born. Her fame, her food, and her online cooking show had helped draw first attention then tourists to the hitherto unknown island. With them had come business and a sudden expansion of the island's economic prospects. The place was beautiful and, everyone agreed, a wonderfully relaxing place to spend a week or three.

The local businesses had been very careful about promoting both the beauty of their natural resources and the need to respect them, and, so far, most visitors had been thoughtful and cooperative. And so the place was still beautiful despite years of vastly increased traffic from all around the world.

Considering its size, the island didn't have its own airport, so tourists typically arrived by boat. Kaito and Shinichi were no exception.

Standing on deck and watching as the island drew near, Shinichi couldn't find it in himself to believe that there could be anything wrong happening here. The flawless blue sky all but glowed over head as turquoise waters glittered all about them, stretching off and away towards a distant horizon. The island itself was a growing jewel in shades of green over which seagulls wheeled and cried. The entire thing was the picture of serenity.

On the other hand, as a Milky Way Agent who often worked with the police to solve unusually complex homicides, Shinichi was all too familiar with the darkness that could lie beneath even the most pristine of surfaces.

That thought cast a pall over his formerly buoyant mood.

"What's the matter?" a voice asked from directly behind him.

Shinichi almost jumped at the sudden intrusion into his thoughts, not having heard anyone approaching him on deck, but he recognized that voice. He also knew that the owner of that voice enjoyed sneaking up on him, and he wasn't about to give the man the satisfaction of knowing that he had caught Shinichi completely off guard yet again.

So Shinichi hastily recollected his wits and turned to smile up at the tall, athletic young man who had just stepped up to stand at the rail beside him.

"I was just thinking," he said even as his thoughts took another turn again at the sight of Kaito's soft smile—so unlike his usual manic grin—and the warm light in his indigo eyes. Seeing them made Shinichi's stomach flutter and his insides turn to warm fluff. He smiled. It had been too long since they had had some real down time to themselves. Best to try and enjoy it. After all, it wasn't as though they actually knew there was anything untoward going on.

"So first you're frowning, but now you're happy," Kaito noted. "Care to share?"

Shinichi only flashed him a coy smile and shook his head before turning back to watching the approaching island and the sea. "Maybe later."

Kaito considered pressing, but, in the end, he decided not to. Instead, he settled for studying his beloved's serene face with its delicate features and the brilliant, sapphire eyes that had captured his attention the very instant they'd met back when Kaito had still been the infamous Kaitou KID. Eyes that had seen right through his masks from the very beginning.

Those eyes hadn't changed at all in the years since then. And Kaito hoped they never would.

The boat they were on pulled up to the docks, and a plank was lowered so that the passengers could disembark.

"I can have your luggage taken to your hotel, if you tell me where you'll be staying," the ship's captain told them as he helped them bring their luggage ashore. "Then you can go sightseeing right away."

"Thank you, but Shinichi and I had a long flight before we got here. So a little rest would be welcome," Kaito told the man with an apologetic smile. "So we'll just take the luggage ourselves. But we would appreciate directions. We're staying at the Blue Moon Rose."

"Ah." The captain flashed them a broad, knowing grin. "The wonder lady's place. That's not too far. Granted, nowhere is very far around here. Just follow the road that way. Keep the seashore on your right. You'll see it eventually. Can't miss it."

Thanking the man, the two off-duty agents collected their luggage and set off as directed.

All around them, other tourists dressed in brightly colored shirts laughed and chattered about the lovely ambience, the amazing food and the gorgeous coral reefs on the other side of the island that you simply had to go snorkeling in.

"If we go tonight, we might even see the ghost ship," one tourist said, voice dropping into an excited whisper. "How about it?"

Shinichi turned, but the speakers had already disappeared into the crowds.

He turned around to ask if Kaito had heard what he had only to find that the older agent was no longer by his side. He felt a momentary panic before he spotted Kaito's mess of brown hair over at a shop display window.

It was a shop selling accessories. A lot of it was costume jewelry, judging from what Shinichi could see through the windows, but there were bags, scarves, keychains, and a variety of other miscellaneous trinkets and souvenirs. Kaito's attention, however, was focused on the rather gaudy selection of jewelry in the display next to a sign announcing "Life-like Replicas of the Treasure of Half Moon Cove". Said replicas included a heavy, gold necklace with an enormous, jewel-encrusted pendant, a similarly glittery brooch the size of Shinichi's palm, half a dozen rings of varying sizes, a belt buckle styled after a dragon, and a pair of earrings that looked like anyone who wanted to wear them had better have ears of steel if they didn't want their ear lobes tearing right off because of too much weight.

"It says the genuine articles are at the island's museum," Kaito said before Shinichi could comment. "Could be worth checking out."

"Do you think they could be…?" Shinichi left the question hanging, knowing that Kaito would know what he meant. After all, Kaito had spent his entire criminal career and still spent a large portion of his time now as a Milky Way agent hunting down the fragments of an ancient jewel of incredible—and unpredictable—power rumored to have been the destruction of an Atlantian-esque civilization. Though there were only pieces of that jewel left, each piece was said to hold unimaginable powers that had to be dealt with properly lest they cause irreparable damage to the universe. It was, in fact, one such jewel fragment that had been the catalyst to the sudden appearance of superpowers some half a century ago.

Kaito gave the display of replicas another speculative look then shrugged. "Who knows? Even if these are accurate, you can't identify them by just looking. The fragments can adapt to their surroundings to protect themselves. They'll always be jewels, but type, shape and all that are all up for grabs. I'll need to touch the originals to be sure."

"We can head over right after we check into the inn," Shinichi offered. To his surprise though, Kaito shook his head.

"Nah. Tomorrow maybe. Or the day after. It's not like we're in a rush," Kaito said then laughed at the startled expression on his partner's face. "We're on vacation, remember?"

"But those articles Shiho showed us…"

"Just said people have been seeing and hearing strange things. It's not like that time at Way Village with all those people getting killed. We can afford to take our time this time. Besides, we don't even know if there's anything actually happening. It would be silly to waste our vacation fretting. Let's just enjoy ourselves and see what we can learn along the way."

"And if it turns out there really is something happening?" asked Shinichi.

Kaito shrugged. "Then we deal with it like we always do. Now come on. I'm starving. We can drop off our luggage and see about getting lunch."

-0-

The Blue Moon Rose was a beautiful little inn situated on a bluff overlooking a pristine stretch of beach. It had a large, open patio with places set up for outdoor dining. The front doors were propped wide open, and the furnishings were simple but tasteful.

But what really got Shinichi was the sense of warmth and happiness that he could feel from every piece of furniture and even the building itself. Each piece of furniture and every floorboard had had a lifetime of being treated with love and appreciation by the woman whose house they now served. And they returned their mistresses love in so far as any inanimate thing could love.

Shinichi smiled, closing his eyes and letting the place's positive atmosphere wash over him.

He would enjoy staying here.

The bubbly young receptionist at the front desk welcomed them with a smile so bright that the boys couldn't help but return it.

"Is this your first time on the island?" she asked as she checked them in.

"It is," Kaito replied. "Is there anywhere you'd recommend that we go?"

"Oh, plenty," the receptionist said brightly. "Our food's awesome, but you should also try Marina's. And the ice cream at Lottie's Lounge is to die for. They have a weekly special sundae that I always have to try."

"Ooh. Sounds tasty."

"It is," the girl assured him. "There's also this Fresh Catch place down by the bay. They only serve one type of fish a day, but they offer it in a variety of styles."

Shinichi disguised a laugh as a cough. "Sounds interesting."

Kaito's eye twitched, but his smile never faltered. "What about the museum? We heard something about sunken treasure."

"Oh that. I was going to suggest that too. I'm not really a museum person myself, but my cousin goes every time they have an event or a new exhibit. We also have some excellent trails for hiking, especially around Half Moon Cove. That place is really beautiful."

She rattled off several more island highlights and specialties before handing them a pair of key cards and an island map.

"By the way," Shinichi said. "On our way here, I heard some people talking about a ghost ship. Is that like a local legend or something?"

"Well, I wouldn't call it a legend really," she said with a laugh. "It's too recent to be a legend. It's really just a rumor that got started a few months ago around the time two students from one of the diving classes got swept away from the rest of their class and found an underwater cave. They decided to explore it—which they really shouldn't have. It's dangerous. But anyway, they did and actually found what turned out to be parts of a sunken ship inside along with some honest to goodness treasure. You can see that up at the museum. But anyway, the ghost ship rumor started just after they fished all that up. The two diving students who found the caves insist they saw a ship sailing into Half Moon Cove while they were night hiking. But when they looked into the cove, there was nothing there. A few nights later, some other people claimed they saw the same thing. Then suddenly it's like everyone and their grandparents have seen it. Personally, I think they were probably just seeing things because they wanted to. It's like everyone wants to believe the treasure is haunted. I wouldn't be surprised if someone was staging all the weird stuff to hype it up."

"All?" Kaito repeated, raising an eyebrow. "You mean there's more than just the ship?"

The receptionist blinked then snorted, waving them away. "Really, it's nothing. Like I said, it's just people looking for something to go crazy over. You shouldn't pay any attention to it.

-0-

"So what do you think?" Kaito asked as they made their way upstairs to their new quarters.

"About the ghost ship?" Shinichi asked.

"Yeah. That."

"I don't know. We haven't heard enough to say one way or the other. I guess the receptionist thinks it's just people being people trying to hype up the story for promotional reasons or just for fun. But I think it still might be worth checking out. We should at least visit the museum."

"This brochure says they have a story hour every morning at the sunken treasure exhibit where they share the stories of the haunting and what it's brought upon the island. We can start there. That also gives us the rest of today to just hang out and get a feel for this place. That's important too, in this kind of investigation."

"I know," Shinichi replied because he too knew it was true. When you were dealing with the potentially supernatural, the first things you needed to do was to get a sense for the place and the people who might be involved. To find the pulse of life in the area and understand the underlying flow of the stories that shaped all things. Or so Kaito had once told him, and Shinichi had come to agree.

"So I…guess we could go shopping," he suggested after he'd finished hanging his clothes up in the closet and stowing the suitcases away. "Talk to more people, try some of the specialty foods, and get the souvenir buying out of the way so we don't have to hunt for them last minute before we head home."

Shinichi wandered over to their room's one large, king-sized bed and sat down—and leapt back to his feet like he'd sat down on hot coals.

"What?" Kaito demanded, every muscle going tense as he scanned the room for enemies.

Shinichi blushed bright red. "It—it's just the bed," he stammered, blush darkening with every word. "The, uh, people who had this room before us were, uh, here for their honeymoon."

Kaito stared at him for a moment then doubled over laughing.

"It's not funny," Shinichi huffed, still blushing. He stalked over to one of the chairs by the hotel room's round table then hesitated, eyeing it with trepidation. Eventually, he decided to risk it and sat. When his hand brushed the side of the chair, he got a fleeting impression of contentment and laughter, but that was all. Relieved, he relaxed.

"I'll fix it," Kaito promised. Moving to the bed, he placed his hand on the covers. There was a shimmer as the atoms of the bed and all its trappings came apart then reassembled themselves again in the same order. Shinichi had told him that strong emotions left stronger imprints on objects that took longer to fade, but disassembling and reassembling said object made it, technically, a new object and wiped all traces of whatever it was exactly that Shinichi's powers picked up on. "There."

"…Thanks."

"No problem. Now what would you like for lunch?"

-To Be Continued-