Detective Conan, Magic Kaito, and Ansatsu Kyushitsu characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō and Matsui Yūsei, respectively.

Warnings: Mild language and violence

Faith and Trust

By Taliya

I: Desperation

Nakamori Ginzo, an inspector within Division Two, Criminal Affairs, was currently sitting at home with his hair more unkempt than usual and his expression quite distraught. It was a Tuesday afternoon, a little before twelve hundred hours, as he had returned home during his lunch break—but today was of particular significance. Sitting innocently on the dining table before him was a brief note:

Kaitou KID,

We have you daughter and her boyfriend.
If you want to see them alive, then here
is the proposition:

A trade: Your daughter and her boyfriend
in exchange for you, along with Pandora.
We know you found it, since you never
returned the Dream of Hera.

5 Choume, 5 Higashishinagawa in
Shinegawa. Come alone, no police.

You have until midnight tonight to make
your decision.

There had been no name to go off of, no handwriting as it had been typed, no nothing. Ginzo had found the note on his front doorstep when he had been on his way into his house. The slip of paper had been wedged partway under the door, and the crisp material had audibly crinkled when he had opened the portal, thereby notifying him of a foreign object on his doorstep. Dusting for fingerprints had yielded nothing. Multiple dials to his seventeen-year-old daughter Aoko's number—and a few times to her friend's as well—had resulted in the automated reply of a line not in service, and a phone call to Ekoda High School had confirmed the neither she nor her childhood friend, Kuroba Kaito, had made it to class that morning.

Despite the fact that Ginzo knew he should take the note to the office and allow the SAT to handle it—they were trained to handle hostile hostage situations, after all—he could not, for the life of him, convince himself to move from the couch or pick up his phone to dial headquarters. The simple slip of paper stared damningly at him from the surface of the table as he scrolled in his mind through every criminal he had put behind bars—along with anyone associated with those he had incarcerated.

He ruffled his hair once more in agitation before firming his resolve. The policeman snatched the note from the table, marched to his car, and drove to police headquarters in Chiyoda, all the while glaring at the slip of paper sitting in his passenger seat at every stoplight he encountered. By the time he made the thirty-minute drive, the seasoned officer had needed to wipe off the sweat from his hands several times on his handkerchief. By the time he stood before Fujita Gorou, the Chief Superintendent of the Security Bureau, Ginzo had irreparably crumpled the note, which he had possessed the foresight to bag before he had left his home.

"Please," he begged, offering the protected paper with a deep bow, "Please save my daughter!" The chief superintendent's administrative assistant had photocopied the note, and a small stack of the copies rested on the visitor's chair.

The chief superintendent took the note as he gestured for Ginzo to sit in the visitor's seat and read it once, twice, his amber-colored eyes narrowing in thought. "They believe you to be Kaitou KID?" the tall, slender man asked with more than a hint of incredulity.

Ginzo sighed heavily, fidgeting with the stack of photocopies. "Don't ask me how they figured that," he replied. "I have no idea how they came to that conclusion."

"Your daughter and her friend are verified missing?" Fujita asked.

"Yes. I called both their phones and the school, and they were not in attendance," the distraught father answered.

The head of the bureau hummed and tapped a button on his desk phone, requesting that his assistant page Assistant Inspector Karasuma Tadaomi. Within a minute, a broad-shouldered, stern man entered Fujita's office. "Fujita-buchou," he greeted, saluting.

"At ease, Karasuma-keibuho," the chief superintendent said immediately. When the assistant inspector relaxed from his salute, he continued. "We have a hostage situation with a time limit."

Ginzo handed the SAT member a replica of the note, and they waited for Karasuma to read through it. "We'll need to case the area before our time is up."

"And what of KID?" Ginzo asked, unable to completely forget the phantom thief despite his anxiety for his daughter's safety.

Karasuma's eyes sharpened. "We've no way to contact him, correct?"

At Fujita's expectant stare, the Task Force head answered, "Yes, he doesn't show unless he announces it."

"Very well," the team captain said. He held out a hand for the rest of the photocopies, which he promptly received. "I'll assemble a team to extract the hostages and return to include you in the planning," he said, directing the last part to Ginzo.

Fujita nodded. "Dismissed, both of you."

As Karasuma saluted perfunctorily swept out of the room, Ginzo followed with salute of his own and left, hoping with all of his heart that his daughter and her friend made it out safely while also praying that they would all have Kaitou KID's uncanny luck tonight.

Kuroba Kaito had come to lying on a dusty warehouse floor, bound tightly in rope at the chest, wrists, and ankles, and taped at the mouth. He blinked slowly, his vision swimming in time with his stomach as he muzzily wondered which sedative they had used on him and—

"Aoho?" he mumbled through the tape, twisting his head as quickly as he dared. He found his friend a meter away, similarly bound and still apparently out cold.

Kaito closed his eyes, understanding that his current state of wooziness was due to the sedative, though that did not mean he liked it at all. Considering how quickly the sedative had worked, he had to guess either desflurane or sevoflurane—perhaps even isoflurane. But considering how there was no aftertaste—so to speak—as well as a higher than usual amount of salivation along with his drowsiness, lightheadedness, queasiness, and subtle headache, Kaito deduced that they had been dosed with sevoflurane: his work creating his own sedative cocktails had ensured that he had a rather thorough knowledge of the various types of vaporized anesthesia available. That he had also inadvertently raised his tolerance to the various sedatives meant that he had undoubtedly woken up much earlier than his captors had anticipated—hence the lack of a guard anywhere in immediate sight.

He wondered what time it was, because despite the sunlight that glowed through the windows, he had no means of orienting which direction the sun was. Only time would give him that particular answer. His eyes roved his surroundings: a vast, abandoned warehouse with several windows too high to reach without help, a regular person-sized door, and a padlocked garage door. Dilapidated shipping crates, along with one corroding shipping container, were haphazardly piled in the corners of the cavernous space, and the tang of salt in the air told him that he was likely somewhere along the fringes of Tokyo Bay.

His school bag was nowhere in sight, and neither was Aoko's. The magician heaved a mental sigh of relief that he had not stowed the Dream of Hera inside it—instead, it was stashed on his person. He wondered if his abductors had frisked him, and a little bit of rolling proved that his wallet was missing. The green sapphire, however, was in hidden pocket, and therefore remained undiscovered. The gem had glowed a bloody red the night he had retrieved it, and he had yet to figure out a way to destroy it that did not yet involve C4 or a volcano. He was grateful that he had not otherwise been touched, and hoped to high heaven that the same held true for his friend—especially since she was female.

He glanced at Aoko once more. She still showed no signs of waking any time soon, though every now and then shivers wracked her body. With some wiggling and rolling that made him feel like vomiting, he managed to scoot himself closer to her. He shuddered despite the fact that it was still August, knowing that it was again a side effect of the sevoflurane, and pressed his front as close to flush against her back as he could to keep her warm on the cold concrete flooring.

Kaito wiggled the fingers of his hands, which were bound behind his back. He knew he could easily escape, had he been by himself. But with an unconscious Aoko, who he could never abandon in her current helpless state—or any state, for that matter—fleeing was simply not an option. Add in his still rather disoriented status along with his lack of desire to tip his hand so early in the game without having useful information of any kind, and so Kaito forced himself to be content with his decision to remain bound, though he definitely loosened his bonds enough to easily slip free if the need arose.

Time passed with all the excitement of spilled natto. The changing angle of the shadows told Kaito that the place they were in faced roughly south, as the light shining through the windows skipped from one side of the building to the other. Kaito had calculated that he had woken up perhaps an hour before noon, and was beginning to wonder by late afternoon if they had overdosed his friend when the sound of a key scraping against tumblers in the exit door alerted him to the fact that they had visitors. He quickly rolled away from Aoko, ruthlessly tamping down on the urge to throw up as he flung himself into some semblance of the same position he had woken up in. He shut his eyes and pretended to be unconscious, ears intently listening as five—no, six pairs of footsteps entered.

"How long have they been out?" asked a voice, male. Kaito did not recognize it.

"Don't think they've stirred since we brought them here. The brats should be waking up soon, Sable," muttered a second voice.

"How much of the shit did you dose them with?" asked another male.

"What does it matter?" snapped the aforementioned 'Sable'. "KID should have received the note by now." There was gleeful anticipation in the voice that made Kaito's stomach feel rather leaden. "He'll bring Pandora to us—and even if he doesn't, it's game over for these two."

Kaito replayed the man's words in his head, and he felt his blood freeze in his veins once he fully comprehended what had been said.

A ransom note had been sent to Kaitou KID.

He and Nakamori Aoko were the hostages.

That meant—

Sable's assumed that Nakamori-keibu is Kaitou KID, the same way Gozu did in Touto Tower—and I have the Dream of Hera with me.

Kaito had no phone with him and thus had no way of contacting anyone, let alone Jii for help regarding his alter ego—but he had faith in his assistant finding a way to him, as the both of them routinely tapped into the police signal to remain updated on the goings on at headquarters. He had been stripped of all of his usual prank supplies as well, and hoped with some viciousness that someone had been colored a bright orange by one of his temporarily staining smoke bombs. Its original use had been aimed at turning all of the classroom furniture the color of the citrus fruit by the same name, but if he ended up painting one of the Syndicate's men tangerine, then Kaito felt it was more than worth the change of intended purpose.

A weak moan alerted everyone present to the fact that Aoko had begun to stir. Kaito tensed, wondering how the men—he did not think there was a woman in the group, judging by the heaviness of their footfalls—would react to the now-awake female—a female who happened to be young, gorgeous, dressed in a school uniform, and completely incapacitated. He heard Aoko's surprised inhale upon seeing her captors, and the answering chuckle had him gnashing his teeth despite his instincts telling him to continue playing the metaphorically drooling idiot.

"Hello, sweetheart," one of the men crooned mockingly, and his friend shouted something muffled—and likely insulting—from her taped up mouth.

Kaito chose that moment to groan as well, feigning waking up. He blinked several times, pretending to allow his eyes to adjust to the level of light within the warehouse. He shifted, as though just realizing his limited mobility, and began to "struggle" in earnest, yelling as best he could as he "panicked". He received a swift kick to the jaw for his troubles that left his jaw throbbing and his head swimming, and distantly he heard Aoko shriek in stifled outrage.

"Let's not injure them too badly," Sable rumbled, "and no touching the girl. KID has a penchant for not coming for broken goods."

"Ruin my fun," the man that Kaito assumed had kicked him sulked. "How much longer until the thief shows?"

Kaito rolled over, bringing the members of the Syndicate into full view. There were six men, all dressed in dark clothing and trench coats despite the warmth of the late afternoon. "He has until midnight tonight," Sable answered. "We set up a perimeter. Shoot him once he sees these two, and then we frisk him for Pandora and dispose of the bodies."

The bound magician glanced at his friend, and Aoko's eyes were wide and worried as she returned his gaze. Kaito tried to send her an encouraging smile, but the tape on his mouth ruined the intended effect. Instead, he began to roll and scoot himself towards her only to be kicked away by one of the men.

"You'll untie each other if we let you sit next to each other," he snarled, and Kaito recognized the voice as the same one that had struck him earlier. The man stepped between them, announcing to the group at large, "I'll stay here and keep an eye on them."

Kaito thought furiously. If he knew Aoko's father as well as he thought he did, then the inspector would have taken the ransom note to the police department. The SAT would be involved. There would be negotiations, though Kaito was sure they would fail: neither the inspector nor the SAT had what Sable wanted.

The magician knew that he was disposable in their eyes; it was Aoko who was very much the man's ticket to staying out of prison should his gamble fail to materialize both KID and Pandora. Think! he snapped at himself, turning idea after idea over in his mind in rapid succession as he weighed various methods of escape. More ideas were discarded as they resulted in some combination of Aoko, her father, and himself being killed, and Kaito began to grow increasingly desperate. Thus far, the ones that were the most viable were the ones that involved revealing himself as Kaitou KID to Aoko, even if Jii was able to get him the necessary supplies that would allow everyone to escape unscathed.

Do I dare risk it?

Kaito knew for a fact that Aoko hated KID with a passion—she had made no secret of it for years, particularly when he had taken up the top hat and monocle. That she had steadfastly defended accusations of being Kaitou KID from their foreign classmate Hakuba Saguru meant her finding out would be betrayal of the worst kind in her eyes. Kaito had no illusions when it came to how he felt for his best friend—he had, over the last year or so, developed feelings that went beyond platonic, and he was deeply afraid of ruining any chance he had of eventually dating Aoko.

But with all of the options that he thought up, his chances of dating Aoko dropped to nothing if neither of them failed to survive this. He closed his eyes in resignation at what would be required of him to ensure that the both of them survived.

I'll get us out of this alive first and worry about Aoko hating me later—if there is a later, he thought, eyeing the localized bulkiness of the Syndicate member's firearms stowed beneath their coats.

Hakuba Saguru had thought it odd that when, by the time the first class of the day began, neither Kuroba Kaito nor Nakamori Aoko were present. He had thought nothing of it initially, believing the pair to be late due to traffic or some other occurrence that usually happened in Ekoda. Yet when they failed to arrive by the second class, Saguru had seriously begun to feel uneasy, with a vague but worrisome "bad feeling" in his gut. Ekoda was a comparatively safe place—it was a suburb of fairly affluent families, and the crime rate was comparatively low to other parts of Tokyo. Yet as the day rolled on, his worry only grew.

By the time they broke for lunch, the duo continued to maintain their statuses of absent. Saguru forced himself to eat his lunch first before he made his way to the roof for a bit of privacy and called his father. The phone rang once before his father's administrative assistant, Saitou Tokio, answered. Saguru politely asked to be forwarded to his father, and waited two rings before his father, the Superintendent General, answered.

"Saguru?"

"Chichi-ue," the blond greeted, "I have a question for you."

"What is it, my son?" the superintendent general asked curiously.

Now that he was on the phone with his father regarding an official matter, the half-Briton felt a little tongue-tied. "It's just a feeling," he said slowly, hating the fact that he had nothing but a hunch to go on, "but have you heard of anything regarding either Kuroba Kaito or Nakamori Aoko?"

There was silence before Saguru's father replied cautiously, "I have."

"They were not in class today," Saguru rushed to explain, feeling a curious mixture of relief at the fact that his father knew where they were, and dread at the fact that his father knew where they were. "Where are they? What happened?"

"I'd rather you not spread this around—I do not want to create a panic," he murmured, and the utter seriousness of the man's tone had Saguru's stomach plummeting to the vicinity of his feet. "Your two classmates have been abducted and are currently being held as hostages."

"I—what?!" The last sentence his father uttered had failed to compute in Saguru's brain. Pairing "hostage" and "Kuroba Kaito" in the same sentence was impossible simply because Kuroba was the practically incorporeal Kaitou KID, who managed to escape every type of trap thrown his way. So why was he still… Aoko-san, he abruptly realized, Kuroba-kun would not leave Aoko-san by herself—so even though he is more than capable of escaping by himself, he chose not to for her sake.

"The abductors seem to be under the rather odd impression that Nakamori Ginzo-keiji is actually Kaitou KID, and they are demanding an exchange—whatever 'Pandora' is and Nakamori-keiji for Kuroba Kaito and Nakamori Aoko." The superintendent general sounded rather confused as to how and why the perpetrators had come to such a conclusion.

Saguru blinked, blindsided by that particular rationale as well, but decided that was food for later thought. "Did they say where they would be waiting?"

"You're not going to go, are you?" His father's voice was wary, yet resigned.

"Are you going to prevent me?" the blond challenged.

The policeman answered with exasperated patience that he had rarely, if ever, directed towards his only child. "This is a task better reserved for the SAT, Saguru."

"But they are my friends, Chichi-ue…" Saguru implored, needing his father to understand his urgency. Saguru was somewhat taken aback by his own vehemence as well, though on some level he was not surprised.

"I realize that, Saguru," the superintendent general said, trying his best to console his son, "but they are involved in an official operation…"

"But—I—" Saguru floundered for something to counter with. "Couldn't I just—wait on the sidelines or something?"

The older man sighed, and Saguru felt his heart leap as his father finally caved. "I suppose I could arrange that," he conceded after several long moments of thought.

"Thank you!" the blond breathed, tension he had not realized he held in his frame draining from him and leaving him feeling boneless and weak-kneed.

"But you are not to impede or participate in the operation in any way, do you understand?" his father sternly commanded, sounding every inch his title.

Saguru nodded, though the man on the other end of the line could not see it. "Yes, sir."

The superintendent general snorted sardonically, both at his son and at himself. "Good. I'll have someone pick you up in thirty minutes, and I'll call the headmaster to excuse your absence."

"Thank you, Chichi-ue," the blond repeated, his sincerity clear in his voice.

"Don't thank me before we get them safely back," he murmured, and the solemnity with which he spoke made Saguru wonder exactly how serious the situation truly was.

The blond ended the call, frowning pensively as he slipped his phone into his pocket and returned to his classroom right as the bell rung to signal the start of afternoon classes. Within a few minutes, his Japanese literature teacher was notified of his leave for the rest of the day, and Saguru hastily packed his belongings, choosing instead to wait for the patrol car at the school's entrance gate. While he waited beneath the somewhat cooler shade of the trees, he wondered if these men were the same ones that had targeted KID previously.

Of course they are, you moron, he mentally chided himself. Who would be crazy enough to repeatedly attempt to corner Kaitou KID…?

… aside from Nakamori-keiji, that is.

Saguru grimaced, feeling ashamed for thinking ill of the admittedly hardworking and devoted inspector—especially now, when his daughter's life seemed to be on the line.

After a while a patrol car arrived, and Saguru gratefully ensconced himself in the coolness of the air conditioning of the cabin. As the vehicle traversed back towards police headquarters, he prayed to any deity who would listen.

Please, let the two of them make it out safely.

The clock ticked paradoxically much too slowly, and yet much too quickly for Ginzo's liking. He was almost constantly anxious to the point of nausea, and, as the members of Karasuma's team prepped, impatient for the operation to begin. It was now nearing nineteen thirty, and it had been decided early on that they would wait until at least dusk before commencing the operation—the reason being the distinct possibility that the infamous phantom thief himself might make an appearance, particularly with at least two lives hanging in the balance. Nobody had any idea exactly how KID would learn of the situation, as they had immediately assumed full confidentiality until the operation was over. But even so, and despite the fact that most of the assistant inspector's men had never once attended a KID heist, a good number of them had faith that the nonviolent criminal would somehow learn of the current state of affairs and act or react accordingly.

Ginzo had been decked out in standard SAT gear, which was a much more fortified version of the Kaitou KID Task Force's usual riot gear—only sans the Howa Type 89 assault rifle, as it had been years since he had last fired one. He felt rather uncomfortable wearing the armor, as it would be a clear and plain signal to his daughter's captors that he had been in communication with law enforcement personnel, and had expressed his unease with the team captain.

Karasuma regarded him with immense sympathy in his eyes. "I understand your concern, Nakamori-keibu," he answered solemnly. "But we cannot afford the risk that you not wearing protection provides." And Ginzo could not dispute the man's rationale.

The SAT's plan was to begin their extraction operation precisely at twenty-two hundred. Having cased the location with the use of drones and existing satellite imagery, they were to strategically locate their members around the warehouse to cover all entry points and potential pathways of escape via both assault and sniper teams—though considering that the doors faced east and the few windows were on the east end of the northern and southern walls, only two sniper teams would be required.

The inspector was introduced to Sergeants Shiota Nagisa, Akabane Karma, Isogai Yuuma, and Kayano Kaede, who were the squad captains for this operation, along with their negotiator, Nakamura Rio, before being introduced to the rest of the squads. He had been surprised when Aoko's classmate, Hakuba Saguru, showed up at headquarters fairly early in the afternoon. The teen's face was drawn with worry, and Ginzo did not have the heart to turn the boy away—though intellectually he knew that despite the Superintendent General's son's rather prodigious intellect, he could only be considered a liability if he tagged along.

By twenty hundred, the three squads were ensconced in various vehicles and on the way to the meeting location. Ginzo sat in a car with the blond teen, who had been given permission by his father to observe only.

"They'll be fine," Hakuba murmured, and Ginzo glanced at the younger man. His comment had disrupted his furious ruminating regarding who, out of his rather long record of arrests, had enough of a grudge to resort to kidnapping.

"I hope so," he whispered, his stomach churning relentlessly.

Hakuba flashed him a tense smile. "They have Kuroba-kun. If I know him as well as I think I do, then I believe Aoko-san will be safe."

The inspector frowned. "How can you be so sure?"

The young detective huffed sardonically. "I'm sure you've heard at some point my accusations regarding Kuroba-kun being KID?"

"I have," answered Ginzo, recalling Kaito's regular rants to his daughter about the boy that currently sat next to him.

"Then if my deduction is correct, Aoko-san as safe as she can possibly be, given the current circumstances," Hakuba reassured with conviction. "But even if I'm wrong, Kuroba-kun's more than resourceful enough to protect her."

Ginzo sighed. "I hope you are right, Hakuba-kun," he said, agreeing with the idea that Aoko was safe but not necessarily with the idea that Kaito was KID.

The rest of the ride was silent, the two males too deep in their own thoughts to make any meaningful conversation. They were both roused from their contemplation when they felt the vehicle begin to slow, which was soon followed by a dimming of the exterior lights. Ginzo leaned forwards to ask Karasuma, who sat in the passenger seat, if they were nearing the rendezvous point.

"Yes, Nakamori-keibu," the assistant inspector dutifully answered. They rolled at a slow pace for several more minutes before coming to a stop, and their driver, Shiota, quickly killed the engine. Karasuma handed out earpieces to the two of them, requesting that they set the radio frequency to the one he provided. He then left for the mobile command unit, his voice crackling across the headpiece as he checked with every member of the three squads via their codenames and ensuring that there was full communication between everyone.

"Who picked the names for everyone?" Ginzo wondered as names such as "Ponytail and Breasts", "Flouncy Stag-Beetle", and "Mushroom Director" drifted through the roll call.

Hakuba shrugged helplessly, equally at a loss for the naming scheme.

Ginzo watched anxiously under the unusually bright light of the nearly full gibbous moon as the three teams readied themselves for the operation. His eyes easily picked out the two sniper teams solely by the fact that two members had assembled and now carried sniper rifles; the male wielded a Remington 700, and the female a Heckler & Koch PSG1. Their rearguards stood by them, conversing quietly with their partners as they disappeared into the warehouse district along with the other geared up members of the SAT.

Nakamura, the negotiator, approached the increasingly nervous Division Two inspector and noticed his gaze. "Those are our two snipers, Chiba Ryuunosuke and Hayami Rinka; their handles are 'Adult Game Protagonist' and 'Tsundere Sniper', respectively. Their rear guards are Okajima Taiga, also known as 'End of Perversion', and Fuwa Yuzuki, or 'This Manga is Awesome'."

"How on earth did these names come about?" the blond asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

The blonde woman grinned mischievously. "We came up with them during training, as most of us here were in the same class. So… yeah… I'm fluent in English, so mine's 'Gal English'. Karasuma-keibuho is 'Straight Lace' for obvious reasons," she added with a smirk. Her amusement faded away almost immediately after. "Remember, Nakamo—Mace Fuller, I should now say—I'll be listening and will be there to help you talk through everything. Any questions before Straight Lace kicks this thing off?" she asked while quickly consulting her watch.

The inspector licked his suddenly dry lips. "I'll see my daughter again, right, Naka—I mean, Gal English?"

The young woman's grin softened in sympathy and yet paradoxically hardened with confidence. "We were all coached by Koro-sensei, minus Straight Lace," she replied with calm reassurance as she gestured vaguely to everyone gathered, "We'll get them out."

Ginzo had very much heard of Koyama Rokurou, the SAT's notorious head instructor, who had jokingly been dubbed "Koro-sensei" by his trainees. It was an interesting—if morbid—play on both the man's real and code names, but as the man had a flawless record, there was little wonder why prior to becoming an instructor his handle had been "Shinagami".

"I take it I will stay here?" Hakuba chimed in, gesturing to the mobile unit that contained all of the computers and electronics used to coordinate the squads.

Nakamura nodded. "Yes, Sherlock Holmes. Straight Lace will remain here with you to direct us. Half of Middle 2, Gender, Poor Committee Member, and Forever 0 will be leading the individual squads," she answered, referring to Akabane, Shiota, Isogai, and Kayano, respectively. She returned her attention to Ginzo. "I will be in the mobile command post as well."

The inspector nodded. They had gone over the plan multiple times before, but with how tense he was, Nakamura's calm demeanor helped tremendously in calming his frazzled nerves.

As Ginzo steadiied his breathing in preparation for his meeting with his daughter's abductors, Karasuma's voice crackled over the headset, "Relax, Mace Fuller, we have you covered. Good luck."

"Thanks," he replied stiffly.

"Half of Middle 2, Gender, Forever 0, Adult Game Protagonist, Poor Committee Member, and Tsundere Sniper, are you in place?" Karasuma's voice asked over the communication frequency.

"Ready," Shiota replied, and a chorus of others from Akabane, Kayano, Chiba, Isogai, and Hayami followed his answer.

Nakamura nodded once, the Division Two inspector began to make his way towards the rendezvous point. The warehouses he passed were dark and eerily silent, and beyond the distant sound of Tokyo's usual vehicular traffic was the occasional blast of a shipping barge's horn or the faint rhythmicity of lapping water. It was disconcerting to know that despite the apparent lack of life within the structures there were a good number of eyes following his movement. It made him feel simultaneously safer and more aware of his vulnerabilities even as he listened to the various members' status updates.

"Forever 0, one suspect incapacitated."

"Gender here, incapacitated one suspect."

"Half of Middle 2, suspect incapacitated."

"Poor Committee Member, incapacitated one suspect."

"Continue to sweep the premises and be on the lookout for the hostages," Karasuma ordered, and the chorused, "Yes sir!" lessened Ginzo's nerves with their show of competence. As he approached the specified warehouse on the end of the pathway, he resisted the urge to duck behind something when he spotted another person standing in the open and wearing solid black.

"Nakamori Ginzo," the man stated, and there was more than a hint of smugness in his voice, "or should I say Kaitou KID?" He paused as he took in what Ginzo was wearing. "You went to the police, didn't you?"

The inspector felt his mouth dry up. "I'm head of the Kaitou KID Task Force," he argued before Nakamura could offer a response, despite having evidently spotted the stranger via the concealed camera he wore attached to his Kevlar jacket. "I have my own set that I keep with me."

The man lifted a lip in a snarl of suspicion.

"You have the wrong person," Ginzo insisted even as he heard Nakamura give reassurances in his ear that he was saying the right things. "I'm not KID."

The black-coated stranger guffawed. "I doubt it. The fact that you are here means you must have what I want."

"Kids. 'course you'd go," Nakamura muttered.

Ginzo gritted his teeth as he snapped back somewhat hysterically, "You have my daughter and a boy who I've practically raised as my own. Why would I not show up?!"

"Since you're supposed to have come alone, it's fine if you demand where the kids are, Mace Fuller," Nakamura said.

"Wh—Where are Aoko and Kaito-kun?" Ginzo shouted, his voice trembling more than he could ever recall hearing himself. His insides felt as though every organ had been lined with needles. "Let me see them!"

"Do you have Pandora?" the man countered gruffly, completely ignoring Ginzo's demand.

"No showing anything until you confirm their existences," Nakamura spoke quickly.

Gathering his courage and praying he would not be shot before he confirmed the continued existence of the two teenagers, the inspector bluffed, "I won't show you anything until I see them!"

The item that had been referred to as "Pandora" in the note was something that everyone knew was the Dream of Hera. Why specifically they wanted that gem was something of a mystery, since as far as their research was concerned, there was nothing particularly special about the stone other than the fact that Kaitou KID had yet to return it. True, the thief had kept this one gem longer than in the past, but it was not yet a true cause of concern since he always returned his thefts.

"They're safe enough for now," the man answered testily. He produced a handgun from his coat, chambering a bullet with an echoing ratchet of the slide before aiming it at Ginzo. "Now," he growled, his voice serious. "Where is Pandora?"

Cold sweat dripped down the side of his face despite the warmth of the evening, and Ginzo reflexively held his hands up. I've SAT snipers backing me up, he thought, trying to bolster his courage. They won't let me die.

"Easy now, Mace Fuller," Nakamura soothed. "We've got you covered. Go ahead and ask for confirmation once more."

Aloud, the inspector once again demanded, "Where is my daughter?"

The man sneered as he made a noise of annoyance. "You'll see her soon enough."

"I somehow doubt that 'soon enough' means in this world when you probably mean the next," a voice said, inserting itself into the conversation.

Both men whirled in the direction of the newcomer, only to find a white-clad Kaitou KID perched easily on the roof of one of the warehouses, grinning rakishly. "KID!" the two of them chorused, and the phantom thief only grinned wider.

He twitched a hand only to display the green sapphire in question: the Dream of Hera. "Looking for this, Sable?" he asked rhetorically as he twisted it this way and that, the facets reflecting moonlight.

The newly-named Sable snarled and set his sights on the thief, squeezing off two shots before he shouted in pain and surprise as twin reports echoed, and the man crumpled to the round clutching his hand. Ginzo reacted and hid, unsure of whether or not the man was capable of wielding a gun with his other non-injured hand. KID, meanwhile, had reflexively ducked for cover while tossing a smoke bomb for additional coverage.

"End of Perversion here, Adult Game Protagonist has taken out the target's leg," came in one report in Ginzo's ear, which was swiftly followed by, "This Manga is Awesome reporting, Tsundere Sniper has disarmed the target."

"KID!" Sable roared from his crouched position, and he yanked out another gun, aiming at the thief's general direction with his non-dominant hand. "Come out here, you fucking coward!"

"I highly doubt hiding when a gun is pointed your direction is considered cowardice," the magician answered, clearly affronted.

Don't die, KID, Ginzo thought desperately from his own hiding place as he watched with his heart pounding in his throat.

"Adult Game Protagonist, I have a mark on Kaitou KID," Chiba said across the frequency.

Ginzo felt his blood freeze even as he snarled, "Don't you dare shoot him!"

"But if you insist…" KID sighed at Sable, seeming to acquiesce. A surge of pink smoke erupted from Sable's feet, and the man shot once at KID before crumpling to the ground, asleep. KID approached and efficiently bound the man with a string of handkerchiefs.

"This one's all yours, Keibu," he announced as he turned to regard Ginzo. "I'll send up a flare if I find the kids."

"K—KID!" Ginzo sputtered, but the thief disappeared in another burst of smoke. Akabane's team arrived soon after to take possession of the incapacitated Sable, and a minute later, a red flare lit the sky. Ginzo raced towards the light with nary a thought to his own safety, praying with all his heart that Aoko and Kaito were alive and unharmed.

Author's Note: Um, this sort of sprouted legs and ran away from me… What started as a relatively simple idea in my head ballooned into this monstrosity, which I've split into two parts for easier readability. It comes across to me as similar in idea to Search and Recovery, though the cast is mostly different and there's a different kind of ending for Kaito that I have in store. SAT is the Japanese Special Assault Team, which is the equivalent of America's SWAT team—Special Weapons And Tactics team. Midori means "green", which is in keeping with Sensei's color-themed names for Magic Kaito. A sable is a small, ferret-like carnivore that is hunted for their fur. The compounds are various vaporized general sedatives used in surgeries. Fujita Gorou, also known as Saitou Hajime, and Saitou Tokio are characters in Rurouni Kenshin and coincidently husband and wife, and there are gratuitous character references to Ansatsu Kyoushitsu, though I had to make up an actual name for Koro-sensei, since he technically never knew what his real name was. "Mace Fuller" is Nakamori's Anglicized name. I hope you enjoyed it.

Completed: 11.12.2016