Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I Wanna Write!

A pass-it-on experiment where the story will be added onto by different authors each chapter and the plot changes as we go!

Couple rules before we get started:

1. If you want to call ‘dibs’ on writing the next chapter, be the first to write a comment with the words “I wanna write!” at the end of the chapter. Doing so will tell us that you want to join the experience. :)
   1. If you are the first to comment, we will notify you to make sure you know it’s your turn.
   2. Remember to make sure the “Reject Co-Creators” option is turned off in your settings, otherwise we won’t be able to add you to the fic.
      1. It should be noted that you do need an account in order to participate in this fic, but it’s super easy to set one up, so don’t let that stop you!
   3. Don’t want to write? That’s fine! You can still leave a comment!

2. Don’t call dibs on your own chapter. Let other people have a chance to join in too! :)
   1. You will have plenty of chances to add more to the story as time goes on.

3. If you do get dibs, you have a time limit of 2 weeks to add your chapter, so plan accordingly!
   1. If the deadline passes by, we will notify you and let the next person who commented “I wanna write” know that it’s their turn.
   2. It’s also okay to tell us ahead of time if something came up and you no longer wish to write or cannot at that time. We know life happens, so don’t feel bad about having to pass. :)

4. When you post your chapter, make sure to include your pseudonym in the Author’s note so that people can find your other works! :) Think of this as free advertising too!
   1. If you want your name linked, but don’t know the html for it, just let one of us know! We’ll be happy to help!

5. Remember to check your chapter for spelling and grammar mistakes.
   1. Or ask one of us to beta for you. :) We’d all like a sneak-peek at the next chapter.

With the technicalities out of the way, there are a few things to keep in mind, writing-wise. These will like be common sense for us, but it doesn’t hurt to put it down on record.

Original Characters (OCs) will likely not survive from chapter to chapter. If they do, they will likely go through a lot of personality changes, based on who is writing. As such, it might be a good idea to make them non-essential to the plot and don’t use a character that you feel strongly about.

Murder mysteries/ Heists will have to be completed in one chapter. The current author, who went through all the hard work of setting up the mystery and heist, should also be the one who gets to reap the comments about how amazing they are! (This is also because the next chapter’s author may not know the key to solving the mystery or the trick of pulling off the heist and might not pull the same conclusion as the previous author. Discussions can help, but also, spoilers!)

Pairings are as listed… which is really just KaiShin (ShinKai?). Any other pairing is fine, but once it is established (and in the tags) it’s there to stay. So choose wisely!

Trigger warnings are required for any explicit scenes. Smut is fine, so long as you warn the audience at the beginning of the chapter that those scenes are coming and who they are with. Same with Torture or Character Death or any other Triggering events that can occur. Be careful what you do to characters because other authors will have to deal with those consequences too. Know that if there is a Character Death, any author after you also reserves the right to un-Death them by any means they wish to use. Since there is magic/fantasy in this story, literally anything is possible.

Have fun! And remember that this is a writing experiment. We have no idea how this story will turn out or where this journey will take us. So encourage each other, be friendly, and have fun writing!

Okay, that’s enough of the guidelines, I think! I’m so excited! Everybody ready? Because, I WANNA WRITE!

Chapter Text

“Oi!” Shinichi called as he pushed opened the shop door. He had to throw his entire weight against it in order to get it to move, but he did manage to do it. The bell above the door tingled at his entry. “Anyone here?”

“I’ll be out in a minute!” A familiar voice called from the back. Shinichi’s cheeks took on a rosy hue. “Just need to take care of this potion!”

Shinichi shoved his hands into his pockets and took a moment to look around.

The shop was a standard magic shop. It had shelves of classic potions for those who were in need and racks of common ingredients for those who wished to brew their own. There were some curse-breaking tools on display at the discount table and little be-spelled pastries behind the glass near the cash register.

Behind the register was an open doorway that Shinichi knew led to a laboratory for potions making and testing out new creations for sale. Further beyond was a living area that saw much less use, if its owner’s words were true, given up for late night tampering with new spells or mediums. Honestly, Shinichi didn’t see the need to give up sleep in order to study magic, but what did he know?

He was more detective than magician and there was nothing he would give to change that.

Even if it meant he landed in precarious situations more often than not. Like the one he was in right now.

“Sorry about that!” the shop owner apologized gently. “I had a new shipment come in and I just had to see how the mermaid scales would mix with the dragon saliva. Anyway, what can I do for… oh?”

Shinichi watched as the dark-haired man’s gaze shifted from roughly adult-eye-height to Shinichi’s place much, much closer to the floor. Indigo eyes blinked once, twice, before a genial smile spread across his face. “Well, hello there, boy! What can I do for you, little man?”

Shinichi’s cheeks heated in embarrassment. “Kuroba, it’s me.”

There was a long moment of pause before those eyes went wide in surprise. “Kudou?! What—? You’re a kid! Like, not even up to my knee! What happened?!”

“A swarm of particularly mischievous pixies who didn’t like the fact that I had to take back the ring they stole.” Shinichi ran a hand through his head. “That is what happened.”

Kuroba’s eyebrows rose up his forehead. “Pixies?”

“Yes, I know. It was dumb.” Shinichi wrinkled his nose. “But it was Ran’s mom who had her ring stolen, so…”

“Of course you had to go fight a bunch of pixies in order to get it back.” Kuroba let out a long, gusty sigh. “And let me guess, you came to me, again, so that I can break your curse for you?”

“Well, that is what magicians are good for, isn’t it?” Shinichi taunted with a pointed grin.

“We are good for loads of things, I’ll have you know, Danger-Magnet-san!” Kuroba huffed as he drew a wand out of his sleeve. Well, Shinichi was pretty sure it was from his sleeve. He’d seen the trick enough times to take an educated guess. “Okay, you know the drill.”

And it was sad to say that Shinichi did know the drill.

Go into the Laboratory. Stand on the engraved circle. Don’t touch anything, it might leave magic residue and could disrupt whatever experiment Kuroba was running. Wait as Kuroba does his wavy-wand thing and chants a little. Close his eyes against the annoyingly bright light that always followed, and then listen to Kuroba’s verdict.

Honestly, Shinichi could recite it by heart by now. In fact, he could probably do the whole procedure on his own by now, despite his lack of magical prowess. That, more than anything, should tell Shinichi that he needed to be more careful and stop getting in the way of whatever magical issue he encountered that week.

And for the most part, he did. The dangerous ones anyways.

The not-so-dangerous ones? The ones that he knew, for a fact, wouldn’t result in death or serious maiming? The ones that might be a little bit inconvenient, but solvable by a certain curse-breaking magician?

Those, Shinichi might just let slide.

After all, he had to make sure Kuroba stayed in business, for times that the magical issue isn’t small and inconvenient. He’d rather have a good magician on hand than have to search for one when he needed them.

(That was the only reason these things continued to happen. Shinichi swore so.)

“Okay, it looks like a de-aging charm.” Kuroba drummed his fingers against his cheek as he processed the information from his magical scan. “Nothing terribly hard, but not anything with a counter spell. I can whip something up pretty easily, but some of the ingredients are currently out of stock. It’ll take some time to get them in and then another couple of days to brew the right potion to counteract the effects. You’re looking at a wait of about 13 days.”

So, at most, two weeks. Not the best, but then again, Shinichi had done this to himself. He wrinkled his nose. “You can’t get it done any sooner?”

“Unless shipping times change, that’s the best I can do you,” Kuroba said as he wrote down a note to himself on a piece of paper. Indigo eyes flicked to Shinichi along with a Cheshire grin. “Why? Got a hot date tonight?”

“No,” Shinichi grumbled solemnly. “But I saw on the news that KID sent out another heist notice. It’s going to be for this weekend.”

“Ah, right. The full moon.” Kuroba nodded, like that made any kind of sense to him. Must be a magician thing. Because despite how much Shinichi hated the fact, KID was a magician, just like Kuroba. Just… a much more frustrating one. “Should have thought of that before you messed with pixies.”

“Believe me, if I had known, I would have,” Shinichi muttered to himself. “Well, give me a call when you finish the potion, yeah? I’ll just… deal with being less than two foot tall until then.”

“Can do, Kudou-kun!” Kuroba gave a jaunty little salute before following Shinichi to the door. “And try to stay out of any more trouble before then, yeah? I’m not sure what will happen if you get another curse on top of a de-aging charm.”

“I got it, I got it.” Shinichi waved him off absently.

“Stay safe!” Kuroba called as he made his way out of the store. The bell echoed behind him. Shinichi paused for a second, just a second to wipe the red from his cheeks before starting off down the road.

He wondered if he could talk Ran into taking care of him for a few days. Being so short made it awfully hard to reach the top cabinets where he kept his stash of coffee and energy drinks. Having a tall person would be really beneficial.

If not… well, Shinichi could always climb the counter. He might have to anyway if Ran took the whole ‘de-aging’ thing seriously.

He had been drinking coffee since he was actually six and he turned out perfectly fine!

Plan in mind, he nodded to himself and went in search of his childhood friend.

*             *             *             *             *

Kaito watched as the tiny boy walked off down the street.

A part of him wanted to follow and make sure the child-sized man got to his destination safely, but another part knew that the safe-guard spell he’d snuck into the usual magical scan would ward off any predators, both magical and non. Once the boy was out of sight, Kaito turned back to the rest of his story and grinned to himself.

Lucky~!

He had heard that Hakuba was back in town for the heist this time. Between him, Kudou and the Inspector, Kaito wasn’t sure KID would have made it out without cuffs. But with Kudou slowed down, if not taken out of the game entirely, KID might just have a chance to escape.

Yes, Kaito was sad that his favorite detective wouldn’t be there to play with him, but a thief had to do what a thief had to do.

And if that meant he had to lie about the anti-de-aging potion sitting in the back of his cupboard, well, so be it.

It’s not like he was doing it maliciously. He wasn’t planning on keeping it from Kudou forever or even asking an exorbitant price for it (though he should, for how often Kudou got himself into a mess like this). He was just… making it a little easier for KID to pull off his heist come the next full moon.

And there may be a small, tiny part of him that wanted Kudou to come back and see him at a later date. Not a huge part, but still a part that had a little too much say when Kaito was weak. The potion was just a good excuse.

A good excuse and a good diversion.

After all, no matter how much Kaito liked to play with his detectives, he did have a reason for tap-dancing all over the national laws. It was the same reason that his father before him had been KID… and his father before him and his father before him. A dozen lifetimes of KIDs, all working towards one goal.

Pandora.

The stone said to grant eternal life, unending time. The life-long dream and sole wish for some people.

But oh, the price of that wish.

Kaito’s family had been seeking to destroy it, so that it could never fall into the hands of the wrong people. Instead, Kaito’s family had been the ones to be destroyed. Generation after generation, KID would fall and a new one would take his place.

Kaito had still been young when his father had been murdered. His mother had had to teach him in his place. It wasn’t the same as being taught by his Pops, but it would have to do.

After all, KID had to live on, no matter the cost.

(And his father’s murderers, well… they had to not.)

The target of this heist was Saturn’s Rings, a tourmaline stone in a setting so large that it spanned two fingers in a strange, half-knuckle configuration. The multi-colored striations were reminiscent of the rings of the planet itself, a variation of tan and green and icy blue. Legend said that the stone was shaped by the god of time, Saturn himself, and still held some of his powers.

Were Kaito to believe in gods and other deities, he might have been impressed. As it was, the band-rings were just targets for him. Nothing more, nothing less.

He had scoped out the exhibit earlier that week and felt the pull of magic in the stone. It was faint and flickering, but there all the same. So his hopes for this one were higher than usual, but so was the danger involved.

Every magical artifact came with more magical protection and trying to deal with that on top of two detectives and the inspector was just too much for one KID to handle. So really, he had lucked out with Kudou’s little accident this week.

With Kudou tentatively out of the running, all he had to deal with was Hakuba and Nakamori-keibu, along with the rest of the Taskforce that had been set up solely to catch KID. That, and a temperamental magic gem that probably wouldn’t like being picked up and handled roughly.

Well, he’d figure that out in a minute.

“Now,” Kaito murmured to himself. His fingers walked across the blueprints spread out over the store’s counter, invisible to all but himself. “What trick should I use to impress my detectives this time?”

*             *             *             *             *

Run up, run down, little mouse,

But you can’t run away.

The daylight’s been saved,

It’s my time to play.

The stars are in Saturn’s House,

Which means it’s my win today.

Shinichi scanned over the heist notices again and again, looking for a clue that he had missed. It wasn’t a rule, per se, that KID had to leave hints to everything he was planning, but a little atypical that he didn’t. Sure, there were some heists where he only wrote the location and target and left any hints about the time or trick out, but it was more often he added those in just to mess with the Taskforce.

To prove that, even when they had all the information, they still couldn’t catch him.

But this note didn’t have that, or Shinichi didn’t think it did. He was having a hard time with this note, to be honest.

He knew the target. That was the Saturn’s Rings, part of the planetary themed exhibit at the Shashinjutsu Hikkomijian Estates. Shinichi would have thought it would be hard to have an exhibit made purely out of gems and jewels named after extra-terrestrial bodies, but apparently people were much more fascinated with space than he had given them credit for.

The time was sketchy. In recent years, KID had fallen into a habit of holding a heist every full moon. Before then, he had held heists in a random string, one after the other. Prior to that, it had been one every three to four months, right before a silent period of 9 years.

Whatever caused the change in scheduling, Shinichi didn’t know, but he had enough evidence pointing to the night of the full moon, backed somewhat by the line “The daylight’s been saved”. Exactly when during the night the thief would make his appearance, there was no indication.

So, out of the six-line poem, four-lines had been fitted to the target and timing. The last two made no sense though.

Run up, run down, little mouse, but you can’t run away… Shinichi frowned. Was KID posting a personal challenge to someone? ‘Little mouse’ kind of implied that he was, but there was no one Shinichi knew that fit that bill. Well, except himself, but KID shouldn’t know Shinichi’s current… situation, so that was right out.

And with the phrasing…

It didn’t sound like a challenge, but more like a warning. Someone was going to try to escape and KID wouldn’t let them.

A heist notice had never carried something like that before, not without a prior fake-warning or a challenge to KID himself. This was certainly strange…

A clock chimed overhead, a simple clang, no intricate song to indicate the hour. Shinichi pulled out of his musings, looking up to where a large clock was set high into the wall.

He had arrived at the half-hour mark, to the Shashinjutsu Hikkomijian exhibit in order to scout the area of KID’s next heist. He had had to turn off his phone at the entrance, due to the curator’s stern rules about picture-taking, so he’d written out the heist notice to take with him as he thought.

Saturn’s Rings already had guards around it, along with a few other exhibits, but the room itself was rather bare. There wasn’t a lot of decorations to hide behind, nor strange internal structure that would lend itself to any particular tricks. Two sets of stairs led to a pseudo-balcony that opened to another room, the doors to which were stationed below the clock that had chimed. The stairwells themselves were designed into the natural flow of the room. Nothing that would trip up the Taskforce for sure.

Other than that, there were skylights that KID might choose to drop in from, but that was less a ‘trick’ and more just blatant flair. It would also call unneeded attention to him and with the long-range mages Nakamori had, it would put him in too much danger from magical attacks as he made his way down.

Shinichi pursed his lips and scratched at his head.

It might be that, for once, the thief had stumped him.

“Hickory, dickory, dock!” a child sang as she skipped by. Her hand held firm to her mother, even as the girl’s pace quickened to keep up with the woman. “The squirrel ran up the clock! The clock struck three, the squirrel ran down, hickory, dickory, dock!”

Shinichi stared after her, wide-eyed, before turning his gaze towards the large clock seated over the doors to the next room.

His lips split in a feral grin.

“You haven’t out-tricked me yet, thief.”

*             *             *             *             *

The heist was going exactly according to plan.

The room was filled with the Taskforce and KID fans both. Everyone was packed in like sardines, much to Nakamori-keibu’s displeasure. But KID had made a point early on to refuse to perform without an audience, so he had to put up with the gathered fans. The curator looked worried, but certainly not displeased at the added income to the museum. One of the reasons KID had decided to wait until the gem was at this museum’s exhibit before pulling a heist.

Another reason being, well, less security overall, but that was neither here nor there.

Nakamori-keibu was getting antsy, eyes tracking the room before flicking up towards the clock. He couldn’t check his phone, since the curator had order everyone to turn them off before they were allowed into the museum. No photos allowed!

Another boon for KID, since it meant no clocks allowed either.

Well, most clocks weren’t allowed.

There were a few weirdos like Hakuba who had the classic pocket watches or wristwatches with which to check the time, but those were easy to pick out of the crowd. KID’s swift fingers were unnoticeable as he tampered with those time-keepers, their owners none-the-wiser. Hakuba did frown down at his, but a quick check with the large clock on the wall and his expression smoothed out.

Oh yes, this heist was going exactly according to plan.

So when the large wall clock struck midnight and every person in the room turned to look, KID took his cue.

He walked out onto the pseudo-balcony with little flair, hands tucked behind his head and pace slow, almost boringly so. Immediately, the crowd silenced itself. At the silence, KID looked up in mock-surprise and dropped his hands to his sides, palms out.

“You guys are still here?” he asked, voice projecting over the crowd. “Don’t you know? The show is over!”

“What are you talking about?” Nakamori demanded. “The rings are still here!”

KID tucked one hand into his pockets. With the other, he displayed Saturn’s Rings, fitted comfortably over his ring and pinky finger. “Are they? Are they really?”

Nakamori froze, then wrenched himself back towards the exhibit. “Fujikaiya!”

“It’s just an illusion sir!” the officer confirmed, waving his hand through the illusion KID had magicked up.

The Illusion spell was a simple one for any trained magician. As was the Notice-Me-Not spell and brief Permeability spell he’d cast on the glass of the exhibit.

Doing all of that and not tripping up the mages’ magic sense? Or leaving a trail for them to follow?

Now that required a true test of skill, one KID had yet to fail.

“Of course it’s an illusion.” KID sighed, very disappointed in the Inspector. “I stole the rings an hour ago, Keibu-dono!”

“An hour?!” the inspector shrieked.

“Yes, an hour ago.” KID huffed. “That’s what I said!”

“I don’t understand!” Hakuba argued. “The notice was for one o’clock! It’s only—!”

He cut himself off, having just noticed the large clock that hung above KID’s head. The clock that, despite having chimed midnight only minutes ago, now showed one o’clock exactly on its face.

KID grinned.

Gotta love auto-update atomic clocks.

“Hmm. It sounds like you guys need to get your watches checked.” KID’s grin grew wider as everyone with a watch suddenly bent to check it. Cries of surprise rang out around the room. “Unless… you’re trying out this thing called ‘Daylight savings’? I hear it’s a fad over in the US. Right around this time, they’d be losing an hour to it, you know. Kind of like you just did.”

“KAIIIIITOOOOOU KIIIIIID!” Nakamori screamed over the sudden applause of his audience. The non-magic Taskforce members started streaming up the stairs, but they were slow, cautious. They had fallen into his traps one too many times.

Good for them. They learned.

KID just laughed and pulled out his grappling gun, shooting it towards the sky lights up above. He grabbed hold of his hat to make sure he wouldn’t lose it and then shoom! He was airborne.

Although, not without a passenger, it seemed.

“What the—?” He glanced down at the sudden weight, only to see Kudou clinging to his leg, whole body just barely reaching past his knee. “Oi! What are you doing?!”

“Not letting you escape!” Kudou yelled back.

“You are… a very, very stubborn little gremlin!” KID argued as he continued his ascent. Down below, the long-range mages were chanting, palms following KID’s trail. “And you are not secured at all. A fall from this height could kill you, you know!”

“Don’t care!” Kudou hissed back as he proceeded to claw at KID’s pant legs, treating KID like nothing more than a rope-climb or a jungle gym.

“Are you—? Are you serious right now?!” KID tightened his grip on his gun and eyed the mages down below. It didn’t look like they cared that a small child was actively climbing KID like a tree. They were going to take him down, no matter what. Just what had Nakamori’s orders been tonight? “There are actual attack mages with long-range spells trained on us and you’re climbing me like I’m some kind of play thing?!”

“If you don’t like it, turn yourself in!” Kudou demanded.

“No, I will not turn myself—!” KID cut off with the first volley of spells from the mages down below. He cursed and threw out a hand, Shield spell at the ready. The spells aimed at him smashed into an invisible force, detonating on impact. Blowback from the explosion buffeted KID and strained his grip on the grappling gun. His free hand wound back to keep his hat firmly on his head.

The weight clinging to him lightened.

KID’s heart leapt into his throat when Kudou’s grip slipped. The recoil of the spells were too much for Kudou. The slick fabric of KID’s jacket had slipped right through his tiny fingers. The look on Kudou’s face, blue eyes wide with shock, was terrifying.

Instinctively, KID reached out to grasp the flailing hand, to stop Kudou from plummeting to his death.

He caught Kudou by the wrist… with the hand that still wore Saturn’s Rings.

Kudou made eye-contact with him. In that moment, KID knew exactly what Kudou planned to do.

“Wait! Don’t touch!”

The warning came too late.

The fingers of Kudou’s free hand wrapped around the stone and the world erupted into white light.

Frickin’ de-aging charms and stupid time stones. KID thought to himself before he felt gravity invert itself and the two disappeared.

Chapter Text

    Shinichi was honestly a little surprised to wake up. Despite what Kuroba clearly thought, there was a small part of him that could still register how phenomenally stupid some of his decisions were. Grabbing onto KID’s leg like that right before he was about to launch off into the air? Pretty stupid. He’d tried to mentally justify it with the need to stop KID from escaping with the jewel, but even in the moment he’d known the risks. He’d just chosen to ignore them. 

    And then everything had gotten exponentially worse when he started slipping. That was when stupid decision number two took place and he, likely the most magically inept person in the world, had grabbed at the extremely magical object while he himself was under a magical curse. In his defense, that had not been on purpose. KID probably thought so based on his panicked command of ‘Don’t touch!’ but Shinichi had really only been thinking about not falling to his death. If he did that, KID would definitely get away. 

    Okay, so maybe Ran and Kuroba were right about his lack of self-preservation. He ignored the little voice in his head reminding him that if he died, he wouldn’t get to talk to Kuroba again. That was irrelevant.

    But Shinichi could objectively see how several of his choices that night had been… less than wise. Which was why blinking awake on a soft bed came as a pleasant shock. 

    The bed felt familiar too and upon sitting up, Shinichi realized he was in his own room. But no, something wasn’t quite right. The comforter was the same and all the furniture was in the same places, but the details were different. The books lining the shelves were wrong, featuring titles Shinichi had never even heard of and his closet was closed tight in spite of how he always kept it open. The desk was completely empty, the curtains were a tad too thick, and, most obvious of all, everything was coated in a moderate layer of dust. No one had cleaned this odd, attempted replication of his room for at least a month. Based on the lack of any imprints in the carpet, it had been unoccupied even longer. 

    Well, there wasn’t much else to do except investigate. He could guess whatever was happening had been caused by Saturn’s Rings, the gem KID was presumably still in possession of. Shinichi thought it was a little odd that they’d been separated given how he’d been clinging to KID’s leg for dear life, but he also knew that he knew nothing about magic. All he could really do was hope they hadn’t been too far separated and could still get back home. To his real home, not this fake imitation of his bedroom. 

    Kicking his still-too-short legs over the side of the bed, he hopped down to the dusty floor and began to search the room. Pulling the end of his sleeve over his hand to avoid leaving fingerprints, Shinichi shuffled through the desk. It was completely empty. Not even a trace of pencil shavings left in any of the drawers. The closet was the same and the unsettling nature of the situation finally began to set in. Who would make an empty replica of his room?

    He quietly approached the door and pressed an ear against the oak. He was greeted with silence and slowly opened the door to peek into the empty second-floor hallway of his house. Creepy.

    The young detective walked down the hallway.

    You DO have a death wish!

    What? There was nothing else in the room and standing in the doorway wasn’t going to get him out of the creepy house! Shinichi would very much like if the tiny voice in his head that sounded like Kuroba and acknowledged his stupid decisions would be quiet. It wasn’t going to get him out of here.

    The doors that he knew should lead to his parent’s bedroom and the guest rooms were shut tight and he didn’t bother investigating. There wasn’t strictly any kind of case happening that he knew of, so it would be best to just leave as quick as he could. 

    Before you become the case.

    Shinichi did his best to hurry down the stairs. The second he hit the floor of the foyer, a strong, savory scent hit his nose and his stomach answered with a loud growl. He froze, glaring at the offending organ. It was technically his own fault for skipping dinner before the KID heist, but he hadn’t been able to reach anything in his kitchen except for a bag of chips! 

    Then a shadow appeared through the door he knew led to the kitchen. A tall, pitch-black shadow that slunk across the floor and filled Shinichi with instant dread. 

    Kuroba. Shinichi was going to be murdered by some sinister shadow in a creepy replica of his own house and he would never get to hear Kuroba tell him off for being reckless again. And it was all because of stupid Kaito KID.

    “Conan-kun?” the soft voice of a man with light brown hair who looked to be somewhere in his twenties asked from the doorway, his shadow now greyed out in the foyer’s light. 

    Shinichi swallowed and took the man in. He had small eyes hidden behind a thin pair of glasses and wore a turtleneck despite the May heat. His posture was relaxed, but he held himself loosely, like he could move very fast very suddenly if the need arose. The calm expression and hint of a smile he gave Shinichi implied that he recognized the detective somehow, despite calling him ‘Conan’. There was likely more to this man than could be seen with a simple glance. So not openly hostile, but not strictly safe either.

    “I’m making curry,” the man smiled and turned back into the kitchen. Shinichi took the cue to follow. The room looked almost exactly as he expected it, another mostly accurate replica of his home’s kitchen. Even his father’s collection of coffee mugs was the same. 

    But very unlike his own kitchen, this one was filled with steam carrying a heavenly scent out of a large pot on the stove. The stranger picked up a spoon and stirred it a few times.

    “It should be ready in a few more minutes,” he smirked. “Can’t give Haibara-san half-cooked vegetables again.”

    “Un,” Shinichi nodded carefully, hopping up onto one of the stools to wait. He didn’t know what this man was talking about, but it felt safer to play along for now. At his current size, he probably couldn’t fight the man off if he tried to prevent him from leaving. Besides, Shinichi really was hungry. 

    As the man promised, a few minutes of silence later he clicked the burner off and lidded the pot. Hoisting it with a pair of oven mitts he moved out to the front door. Shinichi followed, glad to see the open air when he held the door for the stranger. 

    He was even more relieved when the man headed out a familiar gate and went straight to the neighbor’s house. Shinichi knew Professor Agasa very well. His parents had periodically left him in the Professor’s care since he was little and even if most of the older man’s spell attempts resulted in minor explosions, evenings spent in his inviting presence were some of Shinichi’s favorite memories.

    Really, he should have taken the opportunity to run, escape around a corner while the stranger was occupied with the large pot, but for some reason; his hunger, his curiosity, his unconscious desire to talk to the friendly Professor; the detective hurried ahead and held open the Professor’s door. 

    A pair of voices echoed out from inside.

    “Oh! Who could that be?” a man asked. Almost certainly the Professor.

    Then a higher, but far more cynical voice spoke, “Probably just that Holmes fan next door, come to give us more uncooked food.”

    Shinichi felt it safe to assume that it was the aforementioned Haibara-san.

    He pressed forward into the house, curiosity burning even as an odd feeling of foreboding came over him. Just before he turned the corner into Agasa-hakase’s living room, he became certain that at the next step, everything he thought he knew was going to violently change. Then the stranger passed beside him and Shinichi felt some force of the universe shove him forward. 

    The living room looked similar to how he remembered it, though a lot of the magical artifacts and tools were gone, replaced with various machine parts. The Professor stood in front of one of the couches, the same friendly smile on his face as always, and behind him sat two children. One with sharp eyes and tea-blond hair, a little like Hakuba’s but cut off at the chin. The other, Shinichi knew immediately, was what caused the sudden gut-wrenching feeling from before.

    This child was a boy with cowlicked black hair, a little suit with a bright red bowtie, and massive glasses that covered half his face. A face that looked exactly like Shinichi’s had when he was child. A child’s face that he now wore as well.

    And everyone in the room froze.

* * * * *

    Kaito was very surprised to wake up and even more surprised to be doing it on a soft bed. After that little suicide attempt from his idiot of a meitantei, he wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Honestly, what was wrong with Shinchi? He knew how terrible he was around magic. Kaito reminded him at least once a week!

    But noooo, he just had to grab at the highly magical time gem while he, himself, was cursed. They would be lucky if they hadn’t ended up back in the stone age or something worse considering how finicky time magic could be. 

    Well, there was no use in thinking about how badly he was going to scold Shinichi when he could be taking active steps to make it a reality. Kaito pushed himself up, hand slipping a little on KID’s cape. It wasn’t unusual that his clothes didn’t change, but Kaito noted it anyway. It might help narrow down what kind of spell they’d triggered. 

    The second thing he noticed, with much regret, was that tiny Shinichi was no longer clinging to him and the gem was gone from his fingers. That meant the spell had separated them and he would almost certainly need both shrunken detective and magic rock to undo any part of the spell. They were the epicenter after all. 

    Then Kaito finally took in where he was. The room looked eerily similar to his old room in his mom’s house. The bed he sat on was identical and several of the knicknacks were ones he recognized as gifts from Aoko. A framed poster of his father hung on the wall, though the outfit was different from his usual performance one.

    The part of his mind permanently dedicated to thinking about magic whirred up to alertness. Saturn’s Rings was a stone associated with time magic, much like its godly namesake. Given the volatility of time spells, the stone hadn’t had a recorded use in living memory, but most hypotheses rested on it sending a spellcaster forward or backward in time. Simple enough, but with the addition of a de-aging spell into the casting, the effect was bound to be muddled. 

    Kaito lightly bounced on his old mattress. The de-aging spell could have focused the time travel to send him and Shinichi back to the places they were when they were children. Perhaps even to the time they were children. It wouldn’t be entirely far-fetched.

    Only one way to find out! Kaito sprang off the bed and crouched onto his old rug, pulling out pinches and handfuls of various spell components from his suit pockets to lay in a circle. A simple divination spell should tell him exactly where he was relative to his own concept of space and time. 

    A few quick flourishes of his white-gloved hands and the ingredients vanished in a puff of magic, speeding the spell off on its way. Kaito leaned back, waiting for the information to align itself in his head.

    But it didn’t come.

    He waited for over a minute, before giving up and blinking at the empty rug in confusion. The spell hadn’t misfired. All of his components had been properly consumed to provide the energy and his motions had been flawless. He’d been casting that spell since he was the age Shinichi now looked. And yet, he leaned back on his heels with nothing.

    “KUROBA!”

    A shout echoed up through the floor and startled Kaito from his thoughts. It took him a second to realize the shout had come from downstairs and not from somewhere inside the room. He crept over to the door and slipped it ajar, silently happy this version of his door was as well-oiled as he had kept it himself.

    “Please! Would you just listen?” The shouting came again from what Kaito could now pinpoint as the kitchen. The voice sounded familiar too, but it couldn’t be…

    “Do you think I haven’t seen the snipers? Or did you just expect me to ignore them?” the voice demanded, and Kaito couldn’t deny it any longer. That definitely sounded like Hakuba.

    Another voice, just too soft for Kaito to hear, replied. Hakuba didn’t seem satisfied with whatever was said as his voice grew louder again.

    “You know full-well why I’m talking to you about this! I know you’re not an idiot, Kuroba! You understand how dangerous this is, don’t you?”

    Kuroba? Did Hakuba think he was talking to Kaito? The magician couldn’t contain his curiosity and silently crept to the top of the stairs. They led straight down to the kitchen.

    “Please,” Hakuba spoke again, voice softening as he began to plead. “Please, can’t you just tell me why you’re doing this? What could possibly be worth your life? You return everything, I-,” his voice cracked, “I just don’t understand.”

    Was he about to start crying?

    All the detective’s conversation partner offered was a long stretch of silence. 

    “Damn it,” Hakuba nearly sobbed. “I’m not trying to arrest you, Kuroba. I’m trying to keep you alive.”

    That-

    Those were not words Kaito had ever expected to come out of his detective’s mouth. In any circumstance. Hakuba had always been as dogged as the rest of the officers in Division 2. He’d barely shown a care for him when they were in school together too. Although, to be fair, Kaito had put in a lot of work to push the other boy away. He’d pushed a lot of people away over the years. Getting too close to KID was dangerous. He really shouldn’t have let Shinichi get as close as he had. 

    But this Hakuba. This Hakuba actually cared for the Kaito he was talking to. The Moonlight Magician knew a lot about voices and he could easily tell if someone was faking the emotions they put behind their words. If Hakuba’s words weren’t genuine, then he must have surpassed even KID’s skills at deception.

    Kaito didn’t have very long to process that though as his skull was suddenly impaled by a mental rail spike. It caught him completely by surprise, throwing off his balance as information flooded his mind. The exact time as he would record it was the 27th of May, 12:34:26 sharp, the weather was clear and sunny, a state that would last all night and into tomorrow, and this world was not quite his own.

    That last part stuck out as the true answer he’d been looking for when he cast the divination spell over five minutes ago, but it quickly became unimportant as Kaito toppled head-first down the stairs. He tucked and rolled as much as he could but he still landed on the kitchen tile in a tangled white heap. 

    He tried to keep his poker face while pushing himself up, but his hat slipped off and drifted across the room to rest at the feet of one shocked Hakuba Saguru. The other man in the room looked just as shocked, but even more familiar. Kaito Kuroba locked eyes with himself and both of their poker faces shattered.

    The three of them stayed like that, unable to look away for a long moment, until a small chiming cut through the silence. The other Kaito limply pulled a cell phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen. He locked eyes with Hakuba.

    “Saguru?” he asked, voice calm.

    Hakuba was stunned for a moment before stammering back, “Kuro- Kaito?”

    “Did you mean it? What you said?”

    “Yes. On my honor,” he replied instantly.

    “Thank you,” the other Kaito whispered and clicked the button to accept the call. He raised it to an ear and slipped into KID’s smooth lilt as he said, “Hello there Meitantei. Is something wrong?”

Chapter Text

His voice didn’t shake as he smoothly answered Tantei-kun’s call. It was KID’s voice, and it sounded calm and collected, as KID should be at all times. It was comforting, a habit. Kaito was so far from KID’s persona right at this moment that he found it almost funny.

“What the heck, KID?! How on earth did you manage to convince that kid to disguise as me?! And where did you even find him?! He doesn’t wear a mask but he looks exactly like me, and even acts almost exactly like m-shut up Haibara, I don’t sound that conceited. Anyway, what did you do, you stupid thief?!”

The words took a while for his brain to process. However when they did, Kaito zeroed in on his yet-to-be-determined hidden twin/evil robot/doppelganger.

“You’re not the only one that appears to see double today, Meitantei. Tie him up, and keep a close eye on him. I don’t know what has happened yet, but I will find out. Wait for my next call.”

“What?! No, Wait, KI-”

Kaito hung up, and slowly removed his card gun from his jacket. Silently, he trained it on the KID/Kaito-lookalike.

“I think you have a lot of explaining to do, KID-san . I suggest you start now.” The threat was pretty clear.

The stranger quickly put his hands up and plastered a fake grin on his face. “Now let’s not be hasty there. I mean you no harm, so don’t look so trigger-happy, okay? I don’t know exactly what happened either, but you were talking to Kudou Shinichi on the phone, right?”

As Kaito’s eyes widened, the stranger quickly added. “Or, er, well, maybe his little counterpart?”

“Conan-kun?” Saguru finally spoke, his shock subsiding enough for his brain to catch up. He turned to Kaito.  “The KID Killer has your phone number?” He might as well have shouted how stupid he thought the idea was.

“Not the time, Hakuba-chan.” Kaito easily dismissed Saguru’s concern, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “What if it was?” He asked the other man.

The stranger slowly rose to his feet, hands still up. “He said something about having a double too, didn’t he? I couldn’t hear it well over his angry shouts, but he probably blamed it on you, or he wouldn’t have called you, right?”

Kaito frowned. How much did this stranger know about his and Tantei-kun’s relationship? And how come he knew about Kudou Shinichi?

“I’ll take that as a yes, then. Typical. Well, first thing you need to know, it was his fault to begin with. If he hadn’t touched the damn rings, this would have never happened in the first place.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” Kaito was losing patience, as this was getting more confusing by the second.

“Can you not point that… primitive thing at me while I try to explain? It kinda makes me want to bolt, and if you are who I think you are, I’m going to need your help to locate that little twerp. I swear the boy’s almost not worth all the troubles he’s causing me.”

The fondness in the stranger’s voice belied his words. It was that, more than the rest, that made Kaito lower his gun.

“You’re not an evil robot, are you?” He asked, just to get it out of his system. The nightmares from that particular event were not too far away. He stubbornly ignored Saguru’s inquisitive look.

The man laughed. “Not that I know of, no. I am you. Or, well, a version of you? We obviously haven’t lived the same life. Oh, by the way, you might want to close your eyes right about… now!”

Instinctively, Saguru closed his eyes, far too used to KID’s tricks to not listen to him when he said something like that.

Kaito, however, didn’t have that kind of reflex; he usually was the one playing tricks on people, not the other way around. He had seen absolutely no suspicious movement from the stranger, and was consequently blinded by the pure white light that suddenly erupted in the room.

“What the heck?” He yelled, the pain too strong for him to stand. He covered his eyes with his hands as he fell down, spluttering curses under his breath. 

An echoing curse came from in front of him, seemingly uttered by the stranger. “Damn it, it hurt more than the first time. You okay there?”

For a while, all he could see was black and white stars. He blinked the reflexive tears away, and forced his eyes to focus again. He barely distinguished the prostrated form of the man in front of him, and the standing silhouette of Saguru next to him.

He heard a sigh from above. “Well, at least, we have established that you are both complete morons.” A chuckle came from the stranger at this.

“Yeah, well, you’re quite chummy with your Kaito, Hakuba, so that’s a huge difference with mine.” 

“I am most certainly not ‘chummy’ with anyone! I was merely concerned about-”

“When you’re done exchanging pleasantries, can somebody tell me what the heck happened here?” Kaito huffed, his sight slowly getting better. He took Saguru’s offered hand.

The other man - Kaito? - got up too, a hand still clutching his head. “Sorry about that. When you pointed your strange gun at me, I launched a blinding spell out of habit. But it didn’t activate until five minutes later, just like with my previous spell. And it hurts like hell too, that’s what made me fall down the stairs earlier, by the way. So… It looks like my magic is out of order in this world, it could be due to a number of things, any ideas?”

Evidently, the fall had done more damage to the guy’s head than they had anticipated. Saguru was apparently on the same wavelength.

“Sir, maybe you should lie down. You appear to have received a rather strong hit to your head.”

Not-Kaito laughed. “I’ll never tire of hearing you say that. Except for the ‘sir’, of course. That level of respect is quite new, it makes me uncomfortable. How about you call me…”

“Bakaito, you forgot me again, didn’t you? We were supposed to meet...” Aoko erupted in the living room and froze at the scene. Kaito figured it was a pretty strange scene indeed.

Saguru was still holding his hand, Kaito was well aware of the visible track of tears on his face, and his double... His double had moved. He was now holding KID’s hat firmly on his head and was sitting on the windowsill. There was only one conclusion Aoko would reach.

“Kaitou KID… I’m going to kill you!” A mop appeared in her hands, and she brandished it high above her head as she charged at him. “What did you do to make Kaito cry?”

“It seems I have overstayed my welcome. Until next time, then, under the full moon!” And he vanished.

“Wait, KID, I’m going to arrest you!” Kaito swiftly evaded Aoko’s mop and gently stopped her by the arm. 

“It’s no use, Ahoko, he’s gone already. Calm down.”

She turned to him, still fuming. “What was he even doing here in the first place, Bakaito, you didn’t invite him over, did you?”

“Why does everyone always blame me first? Hakuba’s one of KID’s detectives, right? So it would be more logical to blame him than poor little old me.”

Aoko huffed, but she visibly relaxed. “Don’t play innocent, you’re always doing something or another that will enrage people. But seriously, what was KID doing in your house?”

“I think,” Saguru started, “that… KID… has decided to use your neighbor to return last night’s heist’s prize, Nakamori-san. Maybe he thought that the house would be empty, but we surprised him. He used a flash bomb to destabilize us, which caused Kuroba-kun to tear up, and you came in right after. We should probably look for the earrings now.”

Kaito rolled his eyes. Of course Saguru would force him to return the earrings as soon as possible. He slipped his hand in his pocket, and swore.

“What is it, Kaito? Did you find them?” Aoko was on him in an instant.

“Er, yeah, he slipped them in my pocket when I wasn’t looking.” He put out his other hand in front of them. Saint Catherine’s Tears were shining a deep red against his skin.

“You should get those back to your father immediately, Aoko.” He pushed them towards her. She reverently took the rubies and excused herself.

Once he heard the door shut, he let a sigh escape. “Is it just me, or was this last hour pretty surreal?”

Saguru chuckled. “I admit this was above your usual craziness.” He then added more seriously, “what happened earlier? I saw you touch your pocket, but you took out the earrings with your other hand.”

“That damn thief stole my phone. I think he’s going after Tantei-kun. Come on, let’s go.” He put his hands in his hair as he walked toward the door, and when he turned to Saguru, the detective let out a gasp.

“You’re going as Kudou Shinichi?”

Kaito smirked. “There’s already one KID out there, I wouldn’t want to be accused of being a copycat, now, would I?”

“About that…”

“Please, Saguru.” Kaito carefully avoided the other’s stare. He heard a sigh.

“Fine. But you can’t evade the subject forever. We will talk about this.”

Not if I can help it, Kaito thought. He could only deal with so many life-changing events in one day.

Shinichi was going to snap, he could feel it. And it would be ugly. Haibara would help him hide the body, if he didn’t kill her too. He slowly breathed through his nose, reminding himself why he was a detective, not a murderer. Find the truth, don’t give in to the temptation. Breathe. The truth.

“Let’s try this once again. You’re saying that you are me from another, what, dimension?”

He had felt bad about tying the child up, really he had. For about five minutes. Then he had felt it was the least he should have done to the kid. No one was allowed to be so infuriating while looking like a 6 years old. Haibara notwithstanding.

The child rolled his eyes. “For the sixth time, yes . Or at least, that’s my guess. I don’t know if it’s from a parallel universe, or another dimension, or something else entirely. The fact is, I’m here, and I’m not supposed to be. Now, can you please let me go so I can track down that idiot thief and strangle him?”

“See, that’s another thing I don’t get. You said that you touched these magical rings while under a…” He turned uncertain eyes towards Okiya-san, “de-aging curse, and that made you land here, in a world that isn’t yours.” The child nodded. “Suppose I believe you. I don’t, but hypothetically, if I did, that wouldn’t change the fact that KID has nothing to do with this. It’s your fault alone for grabbing for him without any regard for your own safety.” He superbly ignored Haibara’s derisive snort and focused on the pouting child.

“Like I said, what kind of idiot keeps their stolen properties on their fingers at a heist, where anyone can reach for them?” The Conan-lookalike sighed exasperatedly. “I was only trying  not to fall to my death.”

“Impressive lack of self-preservation, check”.

“Haibara…”

“I’m just saying, this looks more and more plausible by the minute. He is too much like you to be an actor, Edogawa-kun. You may have yelled at KID for nothing, afterall. Which reminds me… Irrepressible need to put all the blame of their own actions onto Kaitou KID, check.”

Shinichi groaned.

“Hey.”

Shinichi looked at his double. “What?”

“I think… I think I can prove it to you. That I’m you, I mean.” The strange kid looked slightly uncertain.

“Yeah? Then what are you waiting for?”

“If I’m right, you don’t want me to say it in front of everybody here, right, Conan-kun ?” The emphasis on this name made Shinichi shudder.

“Haibara.”

She looked at him, not a trace of amusement left on her face. She had caught the same implication he did. “If you’re sure…”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Hakase, Okiya-san, let’s leave them alone.”

The professor protested. “But, Ai-kun…" 

“He said he was certain.” 

All three of them left the living room.

“Happy?”

“Well, not exactly, but it’ll do.” The child took a big inspiration. “We haven’t introduced ourselves properly yet. My name is Kudou Shinichi.”

Shinichi twitched, but said nothing.

“I believe it is your name as well. Allow me to prove why. I woke up on your bed, in your room, which looks eerily like mine. It hasn’t been cleaned in about a month, but the person living there hasn’t gone on a vacation nor moved out.”

Shinichi lifted an eyebrow, urging the other to continue.

“A person going on vacation wouldn’t have cleared their desk, you don’t take that kind of thing with you on a vacation.”

That seemed logical. Shinichi waited for the rest of the deduction.

“Similarly, if you had moved out, all the bookshelves would have been empty, and there would be less furniture in the room. Yes, I know,” he added before Shinichi could counter him, “it’s a weak argument on itself, but if you take into account the rest, it makes sense.”

“The rest?”

 “The kitchen had a picture of us with our parents when we were around 15, right next to one of us when we were… about 8, I’d say, and as soon as this Okiya person saw me, he called me Conan-kun, and didn’t seem phased to see you in the house.”

“That proves nothing,” Shinichi crossed his arms.

“Add it to the fact that you are here in front of me and look remarkably like myself at age 6, things start to make sense. Not to mention your strange behavior when I mentioned the de-aging curse, or the way you reacted when I called you Conan-kun.”

“Yeah, well…”

“And let’s not forget the best,” the other interrupted, “for some reason, you thought it was acceptable to tie me up and threaten me, although I have the appearance of a child. One can only draw one kind of conclusion based on these facts.”

“Which is?”

“That you are currently into hiding and under a false identity, and you think people that look like children are not necessarily to be trusted. Since I am too Kudou Shinichi but also look like a 6 years old, I’m assuming you got hit by a de-aging spell too.”

Shinichi let out a nervous chuckle. “Well, the deduction in itself would have convinced me, if nothing else… That’s how I proved to Hakase I was Kudou Shinichi when I first shrank, after all. One thing, though.” 

“Yes?”

“Who is the best detective in the world?”

The other guy - Shinichi? - huffed, as if affronted by the question. “Sherlock Holmes, of course!”

That pretty much did it. No one that liked Holmes could be truly evil, after all. He untied his double. “Sorry about that, but KID seemed to think you could be dangerous.”

The other Shinichi rolled his eyes. “I’m a danger to him, that’s for sure. I’m surprised you trust him to the point of blindingly following his advice, though.”

Shinichi spluttered. “It’s not blind trust! It’s just… He’s not your usual thief, you know? When lives are at stake, he has proven time and again that he was a trustworthy ally. Even if he is a royal pain in my butt most of the time.” 

The other chuckled. “Yeah, mine is, too. Which reminds me… What did your KID say when you told him about me?”

Shinichi frowned. “He said I wasn’t the only one seeing double today… I think he meant that he met your KID. You did say you were glued to him when the rings… activated, right? Then your KID might be in this world too. It’s a lot to take in, and I’m still not too sure about believing you, but at least I don’t think you’re lying.”

The second Shinichi put on a wry smile. “Thank you, I guess. I don’t know why you’re having such a hard time believing me though. It’s not like there’s no magic in your world, or else you wouldn’t have been shrunk to this size.”

Shinichi frowned. “I was made to swallow a deadly poison that sometimes has the effect of turning back time on a person’s body. The poison was scientifically created, there is no magic in this world.”

His counterpart looked at him, dumbfounded. “What? No magic? No pixies, no desperate witches, no love potions, no deadly invisible beasts?”

“That sounded rather scary…” 

“It was. The pixies are actually responsible for my current size.” The other Shinichi acknowledged. “I’m not too fond of magic. And apparently, magic isn’t too fond of me either. I often find myself into one kind of magical disaster or another. Ran even thought I was cursed at one point. Then she thought I was doing it on purpose, just so I could get help from my magician. Which is completely ridiculous, I tell you. It’s all pure coincidences.”

Shinichi respectfully ignored the other’s blush and asked, “you have magicians too? What are they like? Here what we call magic is mostly sleight of hand, I suppose it’s pretty different on your side.”

The other Shinichi nodded. “Yes. For example, Kuroba, the guy I go to when I need to get a spell lifted off me or something else, has his own shop. You can buy spells, potions, services of any kind.” He frowned. “Though I think not many are as versatile as Kuroba. Usually a magician specializes in one field only, but I’m not an expert. You’d have to ask Kuroba for more details.”

He continued, in a much softer voice. “That guy is always experimenting with one thing or another, it’s a mystery how he hasn’t blown up his laboratory yet. Last time, while I was in for some voice potion - I had mine stolen by a criminal who stupidly thought it’d be enough to silence me - he was tinkering with a color spell. It reacted badly with my curse, and we both spat colorful words for a week before he found a counterspell. I think my words are still painted on his ceiling,” he chuckled.

Shinichi thought it wise not to comment on the absolutely smitten look the other was sporting. It was… disconcerting to see himself so open like this. It kind of reminded him of how he himself… No, better to not finish that thought. 

He cleared his throat. “What about KID? Here he’s a magician thief; he tricks his audience by diverting their attention, use incredibly stupid stunts to amaze his crowd of fans, and steals jewels he gives back later, while almost always announcing his heists with a coded notice.”

Shinichi let out a frustrated sigh. “Honestly, I don’t know what he’s looking for, but he has to be in it for more than petty thieving. He sometimes steals something just to get the police’s attention on bad guys. He also never hesitates to put his life on the line to save another’s, and he really…” Shinichi blushed. “Erm, well, is he anything like the KID of your world?”

His double gazed thoughtfully at him, before nodding. “Yes, pretty much. He also has very impressive magic, which makes it so much harder to catch him…” He stopped, glanced at Shinichi again, then seemed to reach a conclusion. “As a matter of fact, catching him hasn’t really been…”

“Edogawa-kun?” Both Shinichis jumped. Haibara passed her head through the door. She frowned as she took their embarrassed faces in, and the ropes on the floor. “If I didn’t remember what you were wearing earlier, it would be impossible for me to distinguish the two of you, it’s uncanny. Anyway, your knight in shining armor has arrived, but he’s not alone, so I suggest only one of you show up for now.”

Without waiting for an answer, she left. The other Shinichi lifted an eyebrow. “Your knight in shining armor?”

Shinichi sighed. “Of course he would show up instead of calling back.” Turning to his double, he added, “Haibara has a weird sense of humor. It takes a while to get used to it. She means KID, although I have no idea who he came with. It’s not his style to expose his assistant like this. Please wait here while I sort it out.”

Shinichi left the room hurriedly, not listening to his double’s protests. He was almost regretting his impulsive call to the thief earlier.

He definitely regretted it a few seconds later, when he came face-to-face with Kudou Shinichi, looking way too innocent to be credible. He felt a vein pulse dangerously on his temple. He opened his mouth to yell at the stupid thief, when KID moved, revealing Hakuba Saguru behind him.

Shinichi clamped his mouth shut. He didn’t miss the smirk on the idiot’s face that told him the thief just knew what he had been about to say, and that he also knew he couldn’t say it in front of Hakuba. He felt a headache coming.

“Shinichi-niisan? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be on a long vacation?” He said with the most annoying voice he could muster. KID cringed a bit. Serves him right.

“Conan-kun, I’m really happy to see you! The vacation was canceled at the last minute, so I took the chance to see my favorite cousin!” Apparently, KID was also trying to be as annoying as possible. This fight wasn’t going to end well.

Hakuba looked at them both, then sighed. “I really think we should skip the part where you piss each other off to the point of madness. I expected it of you,” he said, nodding toward the thief, “but really Conan-kun, I thought you were more mature than this.”

I’m supposed to be 6 years old, and I can’t even act like it? Shinichi thought. Life sometimes wasn’t fair.

“Tantei-san, you really know how to take the fun out of things.” The voice coming out of ‘Kudou Shinichi’ morphed into KID’s.

“Wait, what?” Things were starting to click in the small detective’s head. “You know he’s not m-Kudou Shinichi, but Kaitou KID?” He asked Hakuba, floored. The Brit detective nodded.

“But… How? I mean, to me it’s obvious Shinichi-niisan doesn’t really act like that, but how would you know?”

Hakuba avoided his gaze, visibly embarrassed by the question. KID stepped in, to Shinichi’s growing astonishment, to save the blond detective.

“Let’s leave that very interesting question for later, shall we? You said something about having a living mirror, Tantei-kun?” The thief’s voice had dropped to almost a murmur, in case someone was listening in. He shouldn’t have bothered, though, Haibara had made sure they were alone in the living room.

Shinichi nodded. “I think you suggested there was another KID hanging around, too right? Is he… Oh. Is he actually disguised as Hakuba?” He asked, which would actually make a lot of sense.

The Brit detective looked affronted at the idea, while KID snickered. “I can assure you, he is the real Hakuba Saguru. This level of prickliness can’t be reproduced, and believe me, I’ve tried.”

Hakuba spluttered. “I most certainly am not a ‘prick’! And please do not use my appearance to get away with your petty crimes, I don’t want to have to explain it to my father.”

As amusing as this little bickering was to watch, they had other important things to discuss. Shinichi gently cleared his throat. “Alright. I’m a bit surprised you didn’t jump at the opportunity to use the other KID to wreak havoc, but that works better for me. Where is he, then?”

The two teens looked at each other.

“Actually, we were kind of hoping we’d find him here, Meitantei. He had expressed the desire to get to your double before he gave us the slip, so we rushed here as soon as we could.”

An uneasy feeling made its way to Shinichi’s guts. He yelled as he started to run toward the basement, where he had left his double. “You couldn’t have started with this?! If that guy is anything like you he might already have…”

He stopped short at the entrance of the basement. The only thing that met his gaze in the room was a little piece of paper with a strangely KID-like doodle on it, and a few words.

‘Thank you for finding my wayward trouble-magnet! We’ll get out of your hair, hopefully forever. Enjoy my little gift!’

As soon as Shinichi finished reading the words, the world erupted in colors, and he quickly closed his eyes. 

When they could finally blink without risking an epileptic episode, all three of them stared in bewilderment at the wall, where the most visually offensive glittering fuschia painted the words ‘And now, do you believe in magic?’ 

Chapter Text

“You really couldn’t have chosen a better way of getting me out?” Kudou asked from under KID’s arm. “You just kidnapped me like some sort of criminal!”

KID paused from where he was nonsensically scaling a building. “But I am a criminal?”

“Without a doubt,” Kudou agreed bluntly. “But now I also look suspicious! And I have just gotten my double here to maybe, possibly trust me and you made me disappear on him! Now he’ll suspect I’m in league with you!”

“Well, you kind of are?” KID said as he hoisted Kudou up and over the lip of the building. Kudou just gave him an unimpressed look. KID sighed. “So just tell him you’re not.”

“You obviously don’t know me,” Kudou said, which ouch! That kind of stung.

It’s not like KID was the one to help him when his skin turned green thanks to the dryads or when the mers cursed him with gills on dry land or anything. (Which he didn’t. That was Kaito, not KID.)

“I’ll just… deal with it later, I guess. If it comes to it anyway.” Kudou looked around at the building with an appraising eye. “Now, any reason you decided to scale a random building in the middle of Tokyo?”

“We need to get Saturn’s Rings back. I can feel its location due to its magical aura and scoped out the museum they appeared in. But stuck in another universe, I don’t have any of my normal supplies,” KID said as he climbed over the building ledge and detached his grapple gun from the brick. “I think there’s a place I can go for some, but it’s not exactly within walking range.”

KID knew his unspoken message was heard by Kudou’s despondent expression. “Really?”

“Get ready to fly, Tantei-kun!” KID replied cheekily as he scooped up the detective for a second time that day, much to the other’s offense which he promptly ignored. “Don’t throw up on my suit.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Good. Just checking. After all, this is Armani.”

“… And just because you said that, now I have to.”

*             *             *             *             *

“He took Conan’s double and ran off,” Haibara said, as if anyone needed a recap of what had just happened.  “Are they working together?”

“No way!” KID-as-Shinichi said. “I —KID would never work with a detective!”

Conan frowned at him. “You mean Conan would never work with KID, right Shinichi-nii?”

“Work together? No. Take advantage of?” KID-as-Shinichi gave a waggle of his fingers.

“Wait, what?” Hakuba straightened at that.

“Nothing important.” KID waved him off.

“He owed me,” Conan said.

“I did not!” KID hissed. “Not enough to deal with an explosion!”

“Wait, what!?” Hakuba demanded, increasingly concerned.

“Not important!” Both KID and Conan said.

“Anyway!” KID huffed. “I don’t think I —KID would work with some child, no matter how smart, so it’s more likely that KID is just keeping track of him to take him back to wherever they came from.”

“Which would be…?” Conan pressed.

KID gave a shrug. “Parallel universe? The future? A robotics lab? Spaceship of a race of shape-shifting aliens?”

“I don’t think it’s —wait, robotics lab?” Conan looked over, confused.

“Yeah, you know. Robotic doubles with all your memories that are bent on replacing you and taking over your life,” KID said.

“That’s not a thing.”

“Eh.” KID shrugged. “It’s happened before.”

Everyone in the room turned to stare at him.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Can you please stop making references to concerning things if you aren’t going to expand upon them?” Hakuba asked with a pinch to the bridge of his nose.

“No promises.”

“That aside…” Conan said slowly, his brain still recalibrating with the facts KID was spouting. “I don’t believe these are manufactured copies of us. They know too much to be fakes, but they also alluded to things that are impossible in this world. At least, mine did…?”

Conan looked to KID, just to check that he hadn’t missed anything.

At KID’s nod, Conan continued. “So, if the memories overlap, but are separate, I believe we are looking at doubles of some sort. The question is how?”

“Parallel world,” Haibara decided. “Probably. But the science of that is simply fiction. No one has ever been able to prove it, only hypothesize on the existence of parallel worlds. The idea of travelling to them hasn’t even been breached yet. “

“Which still begs the question: ‘How?’” Conan said. “And I’m not sure we’ll get an answer until we track down KID and other me. If they can be tracked down.”

“Oh, they can,” KID said cheerfully.

“How are you so sure?” Hakuba asked.

“Because I know my—KID. And I know that he can’t help but draw attention,” KID said with a sly grin. “I’m sure he’ll put on a performance soon. All we have to do is wait.”

*             *             *             *             *

“So, your supplier is in some mansion out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a forest on all sides,” Shinichi noted. “Are we here for drugs?”

“Tantei-kun!” KID hissed in outrage, then paused, thoughtful. “Well, technically…”

“KID, I was joking.”

“They are herbs that can be used to cure magical ailments if used correctly. In that sense, they are ‘drugs’ used to take care of the human body.”

Shinichi scowled. “And how are we using them?”

“Why, to turn invisible of course!” KID grinned.

Shinichi stared at him for a long moment. “… That’s it?”

“Look, I know it’s not the best heist I’ve done, but I don’t exactly have my usual tools on hand,” KID groused.

“I’m not mad. Just disappointed.”

“If you want to stick around for a year or two, I can gather recourses for something better.”

“Ah, no thanks. I’m good.”

Staying tiny for years on end? Yeah, no thanks. A couple weeks was good enough for him.

“Well, I say that, but the timeline is entirely dependent on what our friend here decides on,” KID said as he knocked on the door to the mansion.

“And who are we here for?”

KID grinned. “A witch.”

The door creaked open to reveal an old, hunch-backed butler with a face not unlike that of a yakuza —a well defined jaw line, with a few obvious scars. The most daunting things about him were his teeth. Were those… fangs?

“Good evening my good man!” KID greeted cheerfully. “My companion and I are—!”

“The lady awaits.” The man gave a respectful bow of his head before shuffling to the side to allow the two to pass.

The inside was dark and gloomy, with most windows sealed shut. A chill sent goosebumps up Kudou’s arms. He did not like this place.

“Dark witch,” KID mused. “Most likely of the Red variant. Not my first pick, but certainly not the worst choice.”

If the butler took offense, he didn’t show it. Instead, he simply led the two further into the mansion. They were showed to a lounge room deep in the mansion’s depths where a young woman awaited them. Shinichi thought she looked familiar, but he wasn’t sure where from.

“Kaitou KID,” the woman greeted him with a sly grin. “The stars said you would come to me.”

“And as we know, the stars never lie,” KID replied in the tone of a ritual greeting. Shinichi knew well enough to keep his mouth shut during such greetings, lest he get cursed. Again.

KID’s response threw off the woman though, as if she were expecting a different reply. Her eyes narrowed as she looked KID over again. “… and yet, for all they say, somethings still remain a mystery.”

KID’s grin grew.

“… You are not the Kaitou KID of this world,” she determined. “There is too much magic to you. Actual magic, not sleight of hand.”

“One could argue that sleight of hand is magic, just a different kind.” KID leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. “But you are correct, I am not the KID of this world. My partner and I” —Shinichi’s eye twitched— “have found ourselves sent to another world due to the effects of a magical artifact.”

“You wish me to send you back,” the woman presumed.

“Unnecessary,” KID said. “We can find our own way back. Fortunately for us, the magical artifact travelled with us to this world. It’s simply a matter of retrieving it.”

“If you are anything like the KID of my world, obtaining things that are not yours should be something you are familiar with.”

“You assume the magical artifact isn’t mine to begin with?”

“Are you telling me it is?”

KID just grinned.

The woman crossed her arms. “I rest my case. So, if you know of the artifact and where it is, why have you come to me?”

“Being in another world as left me without my usual tools.” KID gave a sheepish tip of his hat. “I was hoping I could borrow some of yours.”

“Interesting.” The woman’s eyebrows rose in polite curiosity. “Has your world found a way to complete rituals without burning up the ingredients?”

Shinichi was no magician, but the silence was telling.

The woman scoffed.  “So by ‘borrow’, you mean to use without compensation.”

“I would never be so bold as to ask for a favor without offering one in return,” KID assured her. “Though I do not have much on me with which to pay. I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement?”

The woman decided after a moment of thought. “I want you to be mine.”

Shinichi’s eyes went wide. “No way!”

KID hummed. “In what way?”

“KID!” He couldn’t seriously be thinking of—!

“I would prefer a servant, but I suppose a love interest will do as well.” The young woman tossed a lock of hair over her shoulder.

“Ah, in that case, I’m afraid I will have to decline,” KID said without hesitation.

“Then why did you ask her to elaborate?!” Shinichi hissed as the woman glared.

“I have a cat’s curiosity.” KID shrugged. “Sue me.”

“May I ask why you have rejected my request?”

“Well, I do intend to get my companion and myself home,” KID explained. “I can’t do that if I trade servitude for herbs.”

“Hm, quite true.” The lady pondered quietly. “And your reason for rejecting the love interest position? The same I imagine?”

“Oh, I’m cursed.” KID gave a gleeful grin.

Wait, what? Since when did KID get cursed?!

“Pardon?” the lady asked, equally disbelieving.

“It’s a love curse. Hereditary. On my mom’s side,” KID elaborated as he flexed a gloved hand in front of his face, checking for lint. “I forget the exact wording of the whole deal, but I can only love one person and it has something to do with the curse. I can fancy people, think they look cute or sexy or hot, but that’s as far as it goes. I believe you are asking for more than that?”

The woman gave an uncertain nod.

“Then I’m afraid I cannot satisfy either of your two requests.” KID thought for a moment, then leaned forward, legs uncrossing to set both feet on the floor. “How about this? A trade, ingredients for ingredients.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “But you said you had none.”

“Ah! I do not have the ones I need.” KID held up a finger and let a tiny flame flicker to life. “However, I am not entirely without.”

Shinichi’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t possibly mean—?

“Pure magic is the greatest ingredient.” The woman tilted her head. “Often, spells can succeed or fail simply on the amount a caster has on hand. An extra vial of that would go a long way.”

“And!” KID reached over to plant a hand on Kudou’s head.  “A little something from my companion.”

“… I do not sense magic in him. A curse, but nothing more.”

“No, from him, I can procure Magnetism.” KID grinned. “Of the Danger kind.”

Shinichi felt like he should be insulted, but the woman’s eyes lit up. “Pure Essence of Danger Magnet… I don’t have any recipes on hand that use it…”

“But I’m sure someone as clever as you would find a use,” KID praised, causing her face to redden.

That pretty much sealed the deal.

As the woman went to fetch the ingredients on KID’s list, KID took Shinichi’s hand in his in order to distill some Essence of Danger Magnet.

“You know that was a bad idea,” Shinichi hissed. “Giving magic to someone you don’t know!”

“By the time she uses it, we’ll be long gone,” KID assured him. “So even if anyone is able to trace my magical signature, they won’t have a means of finding me. Those who can travel worlds without artifacts to support them are rare and unique cases. Chasing one lone magician across the universe is a waste of resources.”

That, and it was a huge ‘if’ on the trackability of KID. He was notorious for using anti-track magic potions —made by an anti-track magicked potioneer, so they couldn’t even find his supplier. And anti-track potions relied on null-elements like air and earth and normal water, so there was no way to track purchases of ingredients either.

Trying to track KID from a completely different world? Good luck.

“Okay, but what about me?” Shinichi asked.

“What about you?” KID asked with a derisive snort. “You have no magic, Tantei-kun. There’s nothing to track.”

Oh, right. Shinichi had kind of forgotten about that. It didn’t play a big role in his life.

Distillation done and trade made, KID was looking a little pale as the two were ushered to the door, when Shinichi remembered. “Oh, right! You said I was cursed right?”

The woman paused to look down at him. “I… did. Yes.”

“Can you break it?” Shinichi asked with hope in his chest. He would still pay Kuroba for his troubles, but if he could not be a six-year-old any sooner, he would appreciate it greatly. How else was he supposed to capture KID when they got back?

“While I can break curses I have set, I cannot break ones that have been set by others,” the lady said. “It is only a great and powerful wizard that can break a curse another has placed.”

Huh. Weird.

“Kuroba seemed to take care of it just fine,” Shinichi muttered to himself. Maybe it was some rule only this world had? Could magic be different between worlds?

“Kuroba?” the woman turned to KID sharply, a strange gleam in her eyes.

“Well, we really must be off!” KID said, a little hurriedly as he pushed Shinichi out the door ahead of him. “Places to be, people to see! You know how it is! And that spell isn’t going to cast itself!”

Not that KID would be casting it either. Not for a few days at least, until he managed to build up the magic he had traded again.

Shinichi idly wondered how long it would take his Danger Magnetism to build up again. Was it like magic? Or was it just gone for good?

(It would be really nice if he didn’t get cursed again, but also, he would lose his reasons for going and visiting Kuroba. He wasn’t sure he wanted that.)

*             *             *             *             *

Hakuba wasn’t sure how long they had to wait, to be honest. With his universe’s KID, he knew that there would be a new heist every full moon. But this KID had dropped in a week after the full moon and had no place to stay but with Kuroba. And, according to his classmate, he had seen neither hide nor hair of the other KID.

So Hakuba tried to keep his eyes peeled for every small thing that could lead them to their mysterious visitors… only to completely miss their chance.

“And in the news this morning, a notice from Kaitou KID, which is unlike any of his other notices!” the reporter relayed from the news station. “Rather than a warning of a heist yet to come, it is, instead, an apology for not giving notice and for ‘cancelling’ the show that was supposed to go with his robbery. Due to the strange contents of the note and the off-schedule timing of the incident, experts in the police force are speculating that this is a fake KID heist notice. We will be hearing more from these experts right after some commercials…”

“Did he seriously just nab and grab?!” Kuroba exploded in his seat where he had been hunched over his phone screen. “Where’s the spirit?! The finesse! The performance!”

“Looks like you were wrong,” Hakuba said as he leaned over from his seat.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kuroba insisted as he thumbed through several more sites, seemingly at random.

“Perhaps, he really wasn’t KID, if that was his idea of a ‘performance’?” Hakuba continued, attempting to peer over Kuroba’s shoulder. “Now how are we supposed to find him?”

“You’re the detective, aren’t you?” Kuroba hissed. “You should know how to track someone down!”

His phone dinged with a notification. Kuroba immediately clicked on it, then froze.

A Chesire grin spread across his face.

“Well, it looks like we won’t need to track down anyone.” Kuroba turned his phone to Hakuba, face dark with the back-lit sun. “He’ll be coming to us.”

*             *             *             *             *

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GOT THE WRONG ONE?!”

Chapter Text

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GOT THE WRONG JEWEL?!" The horror on Kudo's face was understandable, and Kaito felt a little bad about it. He should’ve been more aware of how different magic was used in this world.

Of course, he got a magic jewel, but it wasn't the one they needed.

Even though Kudo kept yelling at him in the background for that mistake, Kaito was more focused on observing the jewel he had stolen. He contemplated it, analyzed it, every piece, every line, every cut.

Would it have the same appearance in our world?

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't even notice that Kudo had stopped yelling at him and was now watching him with concern.

A whole lifetime searching, several generations dying for this... and now that it's in my hands... not even like this... it’s mine.

It was a cruel joke of fate, a spit in the face. Such mockery wasn't fair at all. He would laugh if he didn't feel so much like crying.

"KID...? What's wrong?" He saw the thief's lips tremble, he thought it was weird, he thought he would downplay it and then give him some other solution, but he didn't.

Kaito was so annoyed by this.

"I was just thinking how to use this jewel to our benefit, but it's worse than useless, it's like a dumb painted-colored rock, it's good for nothing." 

Shinichi thought it was weird how upset the thief seemed. Although from what he could gather, he was trying to hide his displeasure.

Now that I think about it, actually, I shouldn't be so hard on him. Maybe he's also frustrated with all this.

Of course, you could never be sure how much the thief was thinking, but this time, Shinichi could deduce the emotion he glimpsed was real.

When KID asked to meet him on the outskirts of the city, at the entrance to the forest, at night, all Shinichi could say was "don't be late," and he hung up. Now he thinks he should’ve asked for more details.

He's been waiting for about 10 minutes, readjusting his hair and the way he holds his skateboard. It's not like he's trying to impress KID, not at all.

"We apologize for the delay! Someone felt the need to do some last-minute shopping!"

Why was Saguru Hakuba still accompanying KID at every meeting they had? Shinichi felt a twinge of annoyance in his chest. Ever since they saw each other at the professor's house, he thought that pair was strangely close.

He just shook his head. That was impossible.

KID is distant with everyone and has no favorites.

The thought reassured him.

Conan pointed at the cake in the London detective's hands "Are you going to a meeting after we finish here, Hakuba-nii-san?".

Before Hakuba could answer, KID stepped forward "Think of it as offering a tribute to a demon." Shinichi thought it was strange, it wasn't as formal as the usual Kid.

That made him look at the pair strangely. He saw Hakuba frown and scolded the thief "KID, don't call her that, she's a lady."

“Ah, right. I’m the only one immune to her spell. How could I forget?” KID's words confused him even more.

"Who are you talking about?" Shinichi finally questioned. He thought the weirdness of the situation was enough for Hakuba to ignore Conan's lack of manners.

"A witch," KID exclaimed with a smile.

"KID, I ask you not to be rude." Hakuba thought Kuroba was being disrespectful to Koizumi.

"No, no, she is a witch, flies on a broomstick and all that."

"WHAT?!" Hakuba's surprised expression made Shinichi feel better, who was getting more and more annoyed by the informality between KID and Hakuba. It was so strange. As if they knew each other outside of the thief and detective routine.

"How is it possible that Koizumi-san is a witch?" Shinichi didn't care much about who the witch was, just the information she could give them. Although he would appreciate if Hakuba stopped acting as if he knew Kid personally.

He got another twinge in his chest when he noticed something in their conversation.

Hakuba knows Koizumi-san, but not as a witch, and KID knows her as a witch. Well, they have an acquaintance in common… Does it really matter? They don't have a closer relationship than the one I have with KID.

He didn't express his thoughts; he just walked behind them in silence. They seemed too engrossed in their conversation to interrupt them.

"Well, we better start walking, you don't want to make that lady angry."

"Despite your humorous tone, I notice slight concern, which dismays me, since Koizumi-san has been nothing but kind to everyone." 

Hakuba walked beside KID, along the poorly lit path. Shinichi noticed how the leaves on the ground were red, and found it curious the way they seemed to form a path of red color.

Shinichi forced himself not to think that Hakuba's words sounded as if both of them spent a lot of time together.

"You and I know very different versions of that... pleasant young lady." Kaito noticed that lately he's been feeling somewhat comfortable around Hakuba, he must be more careful with his vocabulary, besides, he can't afford to look bad in front of his dear detective. "You could say I've seen a much less graceful side of her."

"Oh, please, I don't think she's that bad, what's the worst she's done to you?"

Kaito remained silent, at first he didn't want to answer, but Hakuba gave him a nudge, it was a sign that he wanted to know.

“She tried to kill me a couple of times, nothing serious.”

Hakuba looked at Kaito out of the corner of his eye, analyzing his reaction.

“You're laughing, I don't believe you.”

“You asked.” Kaito shrugged without giving it much importance.

Conan couldn't help but laugh, thinking that maybe KID was exaggerating.

“Given your track record, you probably brought it on yourself anyway.”

Kaito considered it better not to continue that conversation, he could talk about how she not only tried to kill him, but also drugged and hypnotized him, but it's just as he says, Akako has changed and it's unnecessary to complicate this situation more than it already is.

He trusts her and is sure she has gotten over her meaningless obsession with him!

“I want your soul in exchange for helping you.”

The three of them were sitting on one of the Victorian-looking sofas in the living room of Akako's mansion, KID was in the middle of Hakuba and Conan 

Both Shinichi and Hakuba slowly turned their heads to look at KID, who was just smiling. They looked at each other, as if doubting what they had just heard, because it couldn't be true, right?

“She's just playing.” Kaito clarified, amused. The witch also laughed. “Akako, stop scaring them.”

“Alright, I guess it's better to leave the jokes for later anyway.”

“Well, why did you call for me and the detective?”

Akako looks at the vanilla cake Hakuba brought her, she thinks it's too simple and not to her liking; she prefers chocolate with strawberries, however, she doesn't comment.

Akako taps the arm of her chair with her nails, the tapping is rhythmic and constant.

"The longer they stay, the more harmful it will be."

“Huh?”

"What do you mean?" Kid inquires for a clearer answer.

“Your counterparts and you are in danger with them staying in this universe.”

“Can you explain it more clearly, please?”

The witch sighs wearily at the magician's request, and with a snap of her fingers the table that was between them disappears, freeing her from Saguru's unpleasant cake.

“You're taking me to dinner when you finish this, Kuroba.” Her voice sounds slightly annoyed, but she doesn't seem unwilling to offer explanations.

Hakuba is dismayed by the disappearance of the table, although he had his doubts about the information that Koizumi was a witch, being faced with the evidence doesn't completely convince him either, he thinks there's a logical reason for it, or he tries to find one.

He also feels strange… 

Why I don't feel anything for her anymore?

He thinks it's weird, Saguru thought he had a strong crush on the young lady in front of him, but since he entered the mansion, instead of feeling affection, he feels a little inhibited and scared of her presence. He's not sure why, but there's something… that feels wrong around her, maybe it was the abnormal movement of her shadow that seemed to wander for its own amusement around the mansion or the crows with their creepy red eyes watching him from the top of Koizumi-san's shelves.

Kuroba? 

Shinichi thinks it's weird, there's no one called that in the room. 

But now that I think about it, it rings a bell.

He doesn't remember where, so he decides to leave the matter for later.

“Well then? Why don't you answer me?” Shinichi felt KID tense up beside him, he looked uncomfortable even though he was trying to hide it. He wondered why 

Was it because of the question…? But what does he have to do with this Kuroba guy?

Kaito felt his heart pounding in his chest, the words got stuck in his throat from the anxiety that hearing Akako say that caused him.

“Ah, whatever, after all, it's not like you can keep hiding your name any longer, KID.”

Shinichi couldn't believe what he was hearing 

“That's your name?” He couldn't hide his excited tone. However, KID doesn't answer him and just remains silent. Something tells him that KID isn't comfortable with him finding out his name like that.

He tries to distract his mind from all the combinations that could go with the surname ‘Kuroba’, he mustn't know KID's full name, it was already rude enough of him to find out like that, although it wasn't his fault.

Kuroba means black feathers… but I know it's also a way of writing clover, if that's the case it would make more sense, the word clover fits better with KID than black feathers. That makes me think of crows.

His thoughts are interrupted by a tired exhale from Akako, she doesn't seem to like KID's silence very much.

"There cannot be two Shinichi Kudo in this universe, nor two Kaito Kuroba, the world will try to erase one of you once it realizes this mistake.” 

The three young men silently admire the woman, but without receiving more information, it is KID who dares to ask “What do you mean by erase?”

“Eliminate, discard, destroy, choose the synonym you prefer, they all mean the same thing.” Akako makes a gesture of disinterest and continues “The moment the universe realizes there is a mistake, it will take care of fixing it, the longer those two spend in our world, the harder it will become to tell them apart and they might start to replace you.”

“How do you know all this?” Hakuba questions, feeling like his head is about to explode from the stress of the situation.

“Lucifer told me.”

“Hey, wait… this is too much to process.” Hakuba held his forehead with one of his hands. “Is Kaito going to be erased from existence…? You talk to demons? I think the least strange thing is that you mention Shinichi Kudo in this, although I don't fully understand what he has to…” His head slowly turned towards the small boy sitting on the opposite side of KID. “That's Shinichi Kudo?”

“Well, it took you long enough to guess.” KID's joking tone feels forced, and both detectives notice it almost immediately, although it doesn't surprise them, the situation has just taken a more serious tone, the idea of being erased from existence didn't sound very pleasant.

Hakuba looks at KID with a complicated expression on his face.

“You know what? I'm not going to ask how it happened, or how you found out, it's not relevant now.” Hakuba rubs his temples in frustration, he doesn't want to know if it was magic or some mad scientist, he has enough with starting to accept that witches and demons are real. “Koizumi-san, is there a way to prevent this idiot from dying?” Although he was primarily talking about KID, he was also referring to Kudo, he didn't want a fellow detective to die.

“Yes” That relieves a bit of the tension among the three present, but that hope dies too quickly. “The other two have to leave or die, choose your favorite.”

“We're not going to kill them!” Shinichi opposes almost immediately.

“She's just joking, it's just that her sense of humor is a bit… ill-timed.” KID's clarification doesn't improve Shinichi's mood, but Akako doesn't pay any attention.

“Relax, it's not too late yet.” Akako gets up from her seat and walks until she ends up in front of her three guests, the smile on her face is too sinister and that doesn't generate much confidence in Shinichi.

“What can we do then?” Asks the shorter detective, feeling uncomfortable because of the woman's shadow, which shows him a fanged smile. Beside him, KID doesn't seem impressed by that, although he can't tell if he's just feigning indifference or not.

“We can buy time.” Akako seems very sure of what she's saying.

“How? Please, don't joke about tearing off their limbs.” Akako laughs at Kaito's comment and shakes her head.

"Conan Edogawa can exist as long as Kudo Shinichi exists and Kaitou KID can live as an entity separate from Kaito Kuroba." The moment she says that, she gets closer to them and takes KID's hat, sending it flying, Akako ruffles his hair “I like it better this way.”

The wink Akako gives KID doesn't escape Shinichi's sight, who frowns at that, besides, he's annoyed with the thief 

How does he let that woman get so close to him?

“Oh, come on, don't be so upset, your cute face will be ruined by that ugly frown.”

Kaito just let out a sigh, he knows that despite the witch's personality, she doesn't do things for nothing.

“So, back to the important thing…” Shinichi tried to pretend he wasn't looking at KID's profile but he was very bad at it, although he thought the neutral expression on his face was a way to hide his annoyance at what Koizumi had done.

“Do you mean that as long as we only use one of our identities we'll be fine?” Kaito ignores with false indifference Kudo's fixed gaze, he's starting to feel nervous, he knows it's normal for him to be curious, but there's no need for him to stare that much.

“Yes, you won't be able to be KID for a while and Kudo-san will have to stop being Conan, at least that way we'll buy some time.”

“My head hurts.” Saguru's comment is ignored by the rest. He ends up burying his head in his hands.

To Shinichi, Akako's casual tone feels like a mockery, it's almost as if she were saying that he's Conan by choice.

“No offense, Koizumi-san, but how do you expect me to return to normal?” 

Not even Haibara, the creator of the poison, has found a cure, and no matter how much he heard about demons, witches, angels, and inter-dimensional travel… It didn't make any sense!

Although he doesn't think KID is playing an elaborate prank on him, he doubts this is a way to confess his true identity to him, and Shinichi doesn't doubt that that is his face, he knows they look alike, although the level of similarity still surprises him a bit.

“I will fix it.” Akako's words bring him back to reality, but the surprise in KID's voice confuses him.

“For free?” There is doubt in his tone, which Shinichi noticed, although Koizumi and KID seem friendly, there is a certain tension between them that bothers him, but he's not sure how to explain why.

“Oh, no, you'll pay for that, he has nothing I want and the little interesting thing he has I'm sure he won't give me.”

“What are you interested in?” Shinichi asks with a slightly aggressive tone.

“Examining some of the hundreds of corpses you come across, I'd like to collect a few organs and since I know you won't give me that…”

Her gaze focused on Kaito, her bored expression changed to a mischievous smile.

“Well” without much choice, or desire, KID asked “What do you want?”

“One of your eyes wouldn't be bad.”

Akako even reached out intending to take it, KID didn't move and Shinichi hurried to stand up on the sofa and climbed onto the magician's lap, stretching out his arms to prevent the witch from getting close to him.

“No, I don't need to go back to normal if you're going to take something from him!”

“Oh, come on, don't exaggerate, it was just a joke.” Akako downplays it with a gesture and moves her hand away.

“Your sense of humor isn't funny.” The annoyance in the detective's eyes isn't disguised, nor is the angry tone.

“Whatever.” Akako shrugs.

Kaito feels strange about Kudo's attempt to protect him, he didn't need it, he was sure it was just another of Akako's jokes, so he didn't pay it any mind. The reaction provokes a warm feeling in his chest, he's almost sure he could hug him right now, but if he did, he would be teased forever by the witch.

“Actually, I'd like you to steal something for me, but we can go over those details another time when you're not so… accompanied.” When he heard the real request, Kaito thought it was reasonable.

“Ah, if it's just stealing something, then I wouldn't mind doing it.”

Shinichi would say something like KID shouldn't steal anything in the first place, but he's more focused on observing the red-haired woman and her actions. He won't allow her to get too close to him! There's something about her that makes him not fully trust her.

“Very well, then, follow me, Kudo-san.” Akako turns to leave, but upon seeing Shinichi jump down from KID's lap and the thief stands up to follow them, she stops “You two stay here, it will be problematic if more people get involved.”

Kaito returns to his seat, and with that, Akako guides Conan down a hallway until both of them end up vanishing.

In the midst of the silence, Hakuba takes a deep breath, which catches his attention, but he's even more surprised by the question he asks him “Kaito, do you think God exists?”

Akako talks about demons, witches and other entities, he has never asked him about other things and to be fair, he doesn't want to know; he doesn't need to get into a philosophical debate about heaven, hell, nirvana, reincarnation…no, he just doesn't.

“Hakuba, why don't you take a nap while they come back?”

Shinichi followed Akako closely so as not to get lost, his gaze drifted to the walls of the hallway which had some landscape paintings interspersed with portraits of women, he had a feeling they all belonged to the Koizumi family.

Once they reached the end of the corridor, Akako stopped and opened a door.

“We're going down, be careful on the stairs” She raised her hand a little and a small fireball appeared above it.

He didn't know where they were going, nor could he see the bottom. Outside of the illuminated stone stairs, everything else was dark. It gave him the impression that it would take them some time to go down, so he had the option of staying silent or starting to ask questions about the curious relationship between the thief, the London detective and the witch.

“How long have you known Kid?”

“Longer than you, and even longer than Hakuba, we have a very close relationship” Shinichi doesn't like the boastful tone she uses.

“Even so, you don't seem that close” Shinichi sees the woman shrug, she doesn't seem to care much what he might think.

“Why does it seem relevant to you? Are you afraid I might take him from you?”

Shinichi feels his face burn and steps back, the woman's shadow mocks him from the illuminated wall of the staircase.

“It's not like he's an object you could steal from me! Besides, I'm not interested in him that way!” The detective's confession makes the witch stop walking, then she turns her head a little and gives him a smile.

“Oh, that's great then” she returns her gaze to the path and continues walking.

“Why?” He felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach, it was uncomfortable, the way that woman behaved and spoke.

“Because it means he'll be completely mine, why wouldn't I be happy?”.

Shinichi felt his teeth hurt from the way he was clenching his jaw, he held back the urge to complain about it, he didn't even understand why the woman's comment bothered him so much.

“Can you stop pacing back and forth?” Kaito put aside the deck of cards he was entertaining himself with to pay attention to Hakuba.

“I'm sorry, but it helps me make sense of this whole mess.”

“You don't have to worry so much, it will turn out fine.”

“I must admit, I'm a little surprised by the calmness you're taking this with.”

Kaito shrugged “Well, look at it this way, if I'm eliminated, I won't even remember having existed and if I'm not eliminated, that would be great, there's a movie I want to see this weekend.”

“That's… a rather peculiar way of seeing it.”

“It's not the first time someone has tried to erase me from existence, just never in such a metaphysical way.”

“Are you talking about the killer robot you mentioned last time?”

“There was a detective before you, a pirate, a mad scientist, Akako, an evil organization, the list is very long.”

Hakuba let out a heavy sigh, for a moment he considered that Kaito might be a vampire who fed on others' energy, given that demons were real, it wouldn't surprise him anymore, maybe secretly the Nakamori family were a family of werewolves, anything could happen.

The London detective pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled again, his head really hurt a lot “Wait, wait, I can believe you about the others, but although Koizumi-san is a little…” Hakuba took a moment to analyze his words, he didn't want to offend the lady “eccentric, I must say I don't feel like she wants to kill you, although she has a peculiar sense of humor”

“Well, now she doesn't want to kill me, she changed her mind and now she just likes to bother me from time to time.”

“It's funny you put it that way.”

“Why?”

“It sounds like she likes you.”

Kaito decided not to comment further and tried not to show how disturbed he was by the shiver that ran down his back upon hearing that.

“Stand in the middle of that circle.” Shinichi looked distrustfully at the pentagram drawn on the floor.

“Which religion did you say you were associated with again…?”

“That's irrelevant, just shut up and stand there.”

With some distrust, he did so. He couldn't help but question whether he could really become Shinichi again this way. These last few weeks had felt like a dream he couldn't quite believe.

“Is there anything else I need to do or…?” His words were left hanging in the air as he saw the pentagram on the floor burst into flames, Shinichi quickly removed his foot from the chalk, he was almost burned.

The fire had startled him because of the sudden way it appeared, he noticed that the fire around him changed from an orange hue to purple, it certainly looked more mystical that way, but it still seemed totally crazy to him.

“Touch it, but I warn you right now, the change will hurt.”

Despite being faced with the solution to his shrinking problem, Shinichi could only think of one thing “Is she saying I should set myself on fire? That sounded more like a threat than wanting to help me recover my real age… Will it really work?” He looked at the fire with distrust.

“What are you checking?” Hakuba comments, leaning over Kaito's shoulder to also look at the screen of Kaito's phone.

“This morning Akako sent me a message telling me that the parallel world versions of the detective and me had come to see her a couple of days ago, originally she wasn't going to get much more involved in this problem, but she said she discovered information I needed to know, plus a way to attract them…”

“Oh, that's why you seemed so happy back then”

Kaito nodded, “Yes, with the whole thing about Akako returning Kudo to normal… I forgot to ask her about that.”

Hakuba didn't mention anything else, and that made the thief look at him with doubt.

“Aren't you even a little curious?”

“To be honest, no, I think Kudo being Conan has a certain logic, and I even find it more disturbing that Koizumi-san has tea dates with the devil.”

“Actually, you're right, that's much weirder.”