Lots and lots of credit goes to hallow777 for her invaluable suggestions on this chapter. By the way, everyone, she is an incredible person to bounce ideas off!

Disclaimer: Detective Conan, Magic Kaito. Gosho Aoyama pwnz dem.

Chapter quote: "The day the elusive Kaitou Kid is speaks a lie will be the same day the famous Shinichi Kudo fails to find the One Truth." – Saguru Hakuba

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-The Last Night-

hattergems

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you hold within you the past, and, quite possibly, the future of our organisation

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"... My name is Saguru Hakuba," the blond detective stated, not giving the riled nurse another iota of notice. If his heart was battering his broken ribcage in anxiety, there was no trace of it over the payphone. "There are some urgent matters I must discuss with you. Some of them involving Conan Edogawa ... or should I say, Shinichi Kudo?"

Something muttered sharply on the other line, that something most likely an expletive. Saguru smirked tightly, darkly; the Detective of the West was hooked.

"K-Ku – What the hell are you on about?!" Heiji cried, sounding even more flustered than Saguru had expected, but then nothing could be unexpected of a detective so unpredictable and rash."Explain yourself now!"

"No," the Brit replied shortly. Yes, he could do Bastard as well as the Kaitou Kid could pull a Saguru Hakuba – maddeningly well. Anything to get the Osakan's attention fast. When there might still be something left to save from this insidious disaster. "For now, Hattori-kun, you listen to me. However, it may already be too late ..."

"Late?! What's –"

"Is the public announcement system on?" the injured blond brusquely bit out, sounding exceptionally normal even though he had spoken through clenched teeth. His ribs were in no shape for this at all, much less his skull. If only he hadn't been comatose for so long! If only that darn nurse had gotten off his tail a little earlier! And those men in black that started it all ...

"PA? No …"

Click.

"'Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Kaitou Kid speaking.'" That crisp tone and timbre, even through the poor quality phone, could only be one person, but it had an uncharacteristic undercurrent that made Saguru frown.

"Kid?" Heiji said incredulously. "What is going on already?!"

"Too late," Saguru muttered, low enough to hide the heaviness that had suddenly set upon him like a saturated cloak. Now it was going to be a long few weeks … or months. Probably years, actually. Damn it. "There is nothing I can do now. I'll be hanging up Hattori-kun –"

"No, you British bastard!" Heiji yelled, beyond enraged at being one step behind, at having Saguru swing bait bare centimetres out of Heiji's grasp. "Don't you bloody dare hang up until you tell me what the –"

Thankfully the Osakan shut his mouth to listen to Kid's voice booming over the speakers in the background. It was actually hard to ignore the mesmeric thief. Especially when he wanted to be heard. "'Tonight, one person will disappear forever if –'"

As Kid had interrupted Heiji, an unexpected voice cut short the kaitou's words. "'Kid! Have you considered your sources to be erroneous?'"

"Kudo!" Heiji inhaled. Saguru did not, stress did not, roll his eyes childishly at Heiji's surprise and careless slip up. Which did not mean the blond detective did not roll his eyes. The blond decided to answer the Western Detective's question before either of them ground their teeth to dust.

"Hattori-san, believe me when I say that there is no longer anything that can be done now to alter what is going to happen," Saguru said, deathly sombrely. "This was a trap all of us have fallen into, realizing only too late ... And two people will suffer for it ..."

"'Tantei-kun ...'" Kid trailed off absently.

"'I'm not in danger! The only one in danger tonight is Kaito Kuroba. And I have already taken the measures to make sure nothing happens to him! ... Kid?'"

"Two people?!" Heiji repeated Saguru's statement severely. "Didn't you just hear him? The only one –"

Saguru scowled. "The day the elusive Kaitou Kid is speaks a lie will be the same day the famous Shinichi Kudo fails to find the One Truth," said the British detective cuttingly. Heiji hissed. "Conan Edogawa is in danger."

"Then you are an idiot! By what you just said, that means Kudo is right as well!" snarled Heiji, at his rope's end.

"Must I repeat myself? 'The day the elusive Kaitou Kid is speaks a lie will be the same day the famous Shinichi Kudo fails to find the One Truth.'" With such a sense of finality in his stomach, Saguru felt that he could be patient with the Osakan. Since it no longer mattered.

"Shit," Heiji breathed. "They're bothright."

"Thank you," Saguru said, before adding quietly, "Any moment now …"

"Any moment …? What'd –"

Saguru Hakuba set the payphone back down in its cradle on the odd electrical crackling of the EMP obliterating all electrical devices in its vicinity to a point beyond repair and tugged on his Inverness, walking out of the hospital without anyone stopping him. The staff was a bit too tied up for anything more than a few muffled growls. What? It was hard not to learn a few tricks from that class magician that played prank after prank on him at every opportunity.

A magician that they now had to get back at all costs.

Time for the counterattack.

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His face was covered in small cuts. He was bleeding from a small gash above his left eye and he had to constantly brush the blood away as he shouted at the prone figure beside him, stormy cerulean eyes blazing.

"… YOU STUPID BASTARD, I HAD TWO DOZEN OF THE FINEST OFFICERS THE JAPANESE POLICE FORCE COULD OFFER GLUED TO YOUR BACK! HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET AWAY?! ALL MY EFFORT …!" Conan yelled, letting all his hot frustration out. Because, chances were, they had finally been captured by the Black Organisation, without an inkling of what was to come. Screw it all to hell. Why wasn't it over yet?! He was supposed to be dead! That was how it went! What did the BO want with him now? This weird collar – dog leash, his mind threw up unhelpfully –around his neck meant that he'd still be around a little while more – a collar that most likely contained a tracker and some kind of procedure that would prevent escape, maybe even cause immobilization.

"ARGH!" Conan smashed a fist to the hard ground. Now would be the perfect time to finally test out how hard one had to kick a soccer ball to decapitate a person.

The magician on the receiving end of this furious rant murmured a soft retort that didn't mean anything. Twisting himself to 'face' the taller – he couldn't see a thing – Conan felt a flutter of worry rise within him at this unusually quiet and obliging reaction. From studying the Ekoda High student, Conan could easily declare that Kuroba was anything but quiet and obliging. Was there something really wrong with the wild-haired teen? It was too dark to truly see anything though, or it could by this bump on his head. Did mild concussion affect night vision? He gingerly touched the swollen spot on his skull. Couldn't remember. Conan squinted at his surroundings again – and having somehow lost his glasses during his transit from the Birdcage to wherever 'here' was, he looked just like any other short-sighted child nerd.

However, as disconcerting as Conan found the lack of information he had on his immediate environs, he didn't try to move around to discover more. His right leg was horribly stiff from what must be a beauty of a bruise if he could see. He wasn't that sure about his ankle either. And the shrunken Great Detective of the East wasn't quite prepared to drag himself by the fingers just to find out the length of the walls and the like for himself.

Not when Kuroba already seemed to know.

"This is a perfect cube," the magician said hoarsely, with an edge of wonder and a touch of unease. He coughed to clear his throat, but to no avail. He didn't sound good. "This should be a generic prisoner containment cell, considering this damn scratchy –" – Kuroba was panting for breath – "– straw mat here, so why is it so big?"

Conan winced as he jerked the back of his head sharply away from the stone wall he had been endeavouring to lean against, having forgotten his head injury before snapping at the magician he couldn't see. "How are you feeling today, Kuroba-nii-san?" the detective asked stonily. "Dry throat? Weakness? Increased respiration is a definite. And by the way you've been referring to me like someone from the same age group as yourself: confusion? Symptoms of dehydration."

The magician lashed back at once, never one to pass up a challenge. "How about you, little tantei? You've been straining to see the mat not thirty centimetres from your face. Even without glasses, your vision can't, in all probability, be that bad, in view of your age. And, of course, it's perfect light in here."

Conan felt the blood being sucked from his cheeks, but his vision didn't swirl before his eyes. "What," the detective managed to clip out.

Silence. Then a deadpan realisation from Kuroba.

"You're blind."

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Kaito took a few deeper breaths, trying to placate the rising nausea before opening his eyes. He shivered. He really needed something to drink and soon. He felt awful. The magician blinked stars from his vision to check on the cell's smaller occupant. Tantei-kun was still lying dishevelled where he had slumped defeated, arms wrapped protectively around his small frame, facing away from the magician, facing a shining granite wall. There was not much else to do.

The cell was stern solid stone on three sides; the fourth of metals bars set so closely that even a child smaller than scrawny Conan wouldn't be able to slip through at all. Outside ... Kaito didn't know. There was one long skylight in the hallway outside their cell and after that another line of cells, wreathed in darkness by the angle of the sun. Every now and then though, Kaito would hear inhuman bone-chilling screams and shrieks from the other cells, which would awaken an entire cacophony through the block. At least it didn't outright stink, but it was terrifyingly animalistic all the same. It gave Kaito an atrocious headache.

The magician's lips tightened a fraction. What were they going to do now? Their captors had obviously not thought an x-ray scan necessary, so Kaito still had a few key instruments on his self, but on the most part he had been stripped clean. Oh well, he would rely on his abundant natural talent, as usual. And tantei-kun still had his killer modified shoes, but no soccer ball shooting belt, bow-tie or glasses. Or stun-gun watch. Damn it – that could have been their ace in the hole. They'd just have to make do then. Kaito glanced over at the shrunken Shinichi Kudo again. They always did. Both of them. The magician's blue-purple eyes quickly flicked back to their prison entrance even before the clacking footsteps of high-heels roused the captives into a symphony of howls. Someone was coming.

Kaito rose to his feet. The head rush was instantaneous and ruthless.

The cell was a block of blinding white that Kaito couldn't blink away for once, and he vaguely felt his left hand scraping lightly against the cold stone wall to find a grip as he went down. Then just calm nothing. Next thing he knew, he was pushing itchy straw mat away from his face with tantei-kun calling his name. And now the silhouette of someone in a lab coat was standing before their jail unit.

"Hello, subjects 8A27, 8A48."

She wore square rimless spectacles that matched the certain set of her jaw. Her steady grey eyes shone with cool merriment that seemed ever so out of place in their immediate surroundings. She looked in her early thirties. A palatable green turtleneck protruded from her white lapels. A high orange-red ponytail brushed the collar.

"You may call me May," she introduced nonchalantly. She then tapped her clipboard, frowning at Kaito, murmuring absently to herself. "It seems the drug we used on 8A48 didn't work the way it was supposed to. The effects have not worn off. It has been much too long. Unconsciousness, skin flushing, probably a migraine telling from all that wincing ... The concentration of the dose surely couldn't have ..."

Kaito blinked. He had been fed a defective substance. Maybe he should just be grateful he wasn't tantei-kun's size. The shadows sure had a thing for faulty drugs.

"And 8A27 seems to be suffering from transient cortical blindness due to mild head trauma during transportation. Will probably be able to see again in a few hours ... Must check on that though ..."

Conan frowned. Still not dead yet, what the hell.

She tapped her teeth with the pen once before stopping herself. "There is some information I have been instructed to convey to you, pertaining to..." She took a look at her notes, flipped a few pages. Then some more. "Ah, 'pertaining to their heritage and the bloodline. Let the subjects know that cooperation with the Project will be duly rewarded and no disobedience will be tolerated.'"

She stopped reading from her papers and looked up at them. "Cooperation, huh? For some reason, I don't think we'll get that out of the pair of you. However, there will be other things ... Now, stand up when I talk to you!" she barked almost angrily. "Do you know what you are ...?! ...No, I guess you don't ... I'm here to tell you that..."

Strange woman. Conan raised an eyebrow. Kaito rolled his eyes. Neither of them rose to their feet. She glared at them in the face coldly.

"So it's true. Your progenitors really were worthless good-for-nothings. They taught you nothing."

Kaito got through half a fiercely outraged yell before he gasped harshly, painfully, falling back on his heels, clutching his neck – or rather, what was around his neck. Conan, however, had made to jump at their cell's metal bars but immediately drew back as if slapped by an invisible hand. The detective writhed on the mat, mouthing agonising ghost screams. The plastic collars pulsed blue once before returning to its usual white.

May's lips were pulled back in a sneer. "Either you do as you are told or you both get electrocuted again. Both of you. Now, stand," she commanded.

Slowly – Kaito much too unsteadily – the boys obeyed.

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The door to the laboratory banged open loudly. The Hakubas never abused doors like that, so it must be an intruder. Saguru lifted his eyes from a beaker slowly, in absolutely no rush. After all, deducing from how idiotically loud that entrance had been, there was no way that those men in black from before were back.

Barely had the echoes of the door faded away when an unceremonious voice announced, "Okay, English asshole, how did you know what was about to happen at that heist? Before even the Kid?"

The blond detective removed his protective eyewear, placing it orderly on a bench. Still not speaking, he pulled a set of keys from his pocket and proceeded to unlock a hefty looking filing cabinet.

"Watcha up to now?" Heiji asked suspiciously, as if he wasn't the one who had just barged uninvited into the house.

Once the drawer was open, Saguru pulled out a nondescript folder. He threw it with a thwack! down on the bench that separated them. Heiji read the label and his heart seized. Their eyes met – burnt sienna against sea-green.

The English detective finally spoke, tone starkly contrasting how Heiji's had been earlier. Polar opposites, both of them. However, there was strength in that. Great strength.

"I shall share all I know with you, Hattori-kun," Saguru avowed ascetically, "once you tell me why Conan Edogawa has all the characteristics of a particular seventeen-year old except the physical appearance. Tell me that, Hattori-kun, and I shall tell you all."

Saguru watched him keenly. Heiji swallowed and wetted his lips. And began a tale that wasn't his to tell. The tale of the Great Detective of the East.

Things were about to spiral dangerously out of control.

Elsewhere, another story was unfolding, this one delving into an even more startling past.

"The Aryan Project. One of the longest-running scientific endeavours in the Black Organisation's history," May began. "And you two are the last remnants of this ambitious Project. You hold within you the past, and – quite possibly – the future of our Organisation. Because the Aryan Project revolves around a single gene. A gene that both of you carry."

What is this?! Conan thought, heart pounding.

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