Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.

Warning: Supernatural AU

Oneshot One

Project Shinigami

"Director, we have found it." a man strode with a quick clip to his step into the office as the sliding door slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss, and the clacking of polished ebony shoes on sleek tile was muffled as foot met tasteful rug as he approached the wide desk set near the opposite wall of the room.

"Found what?" the Director said curtly, not even looking up as he skimmed through the ream of papers that he held, thick fingers flicking through the pages disinterestedly.

"The Shinigami." the visitor's pride was clear in his smug tone, like the cat that had caught the canary; and indeed, his only response was the sharp sound of a sudden intake of breath. Typically such a tone wouldn't sit well with the Director, but a subordinate's hubris was to be shunted to the side – not forgotten, but not bearing importance in the immediate moment – in favor of the news.

Slowly, deliberately, the Director lowered the papers he held onto the desk and swiveled his chair to face forward fully.

"The perfect result of Project Shinigami went missing years ago, and the project was suspended indefinitely. What makes you think that it would show up after over a decade after every trail we had went cold?" his voice was like steel: smooth and sharpened to a razor's edge, ready to strike the killing blow whenever ready.

"Because of this." the subordinate crowed, flaunting the papers he was carrying with a flourish of an arm before coming to the edge of the desk and slapping them down onto its lacquered surface. The Director glanced from the papers to the man, and back to the papers. Then he reached over and snagged them, his eyes flicking back and forth as he read their contents. He paused as he gazed over several photographs, taking note of the dates they were taken.

"And it looks exactly the same as it did back then?" he finally asked as he finished reading through the report.

"Yes. Save for the glasses, he's exactly the same right down to that stupid little cowlick of his. Subject also displays an exceedingly advanced intellect and mature emotional grasp for his apparent age. Any former aliases of his are unknown, but he currently goes by the name of Edogawa Conan, the ward of 'Sleeping Detective' Mouri Kogoro and his daughter, Mouri Ran. Neither of them had any connection with him until around a year past, suggesting that the subject is being aided by another party of sorts; one that could potentially know its true nature."

"It, Tsuneyoshi. The subject may be male genetically, but remember that this being is nothing more than a weapon. It would not do to humanize it any further than exposure to the outside world has surely corrupted its initial purpose." the Director chastised, and the subordinate – Tsuneyoshi – nodded.

"Sir, why does he, it, appear to be the same age as before?" Tsuneyoshi then ventured.

"Probably a side effect. Is it not ironic that the bringer of death be immortal in its own right? Of course, we won't know for sure until we reacquire it and perform an extensive series of tests . . ." the Director trailed off, lost in thought. Tsuneyoshi nodded once more and then retreated out of the office, bowing out as he left.

"Edogawa Conan . . . your past and future cannot remain hidden from us forever. We will have you yet, our Shinigami."

LINE BREAK

Shinichi sighed as he took his time with his test. You would think a high school student trapped in the body of a primary school student would be able to rush through something like this, but no. To keep up the façade of being the seven or eight year old (he wasn't actually sure as to his precise age) that he appeared to be, he had to take his time with something even like this, so as to not arouse suspicion. He used this time to check his handwriting, making sure that it was written in an unsteady hand and that no words slipped into his writing that a child his apparent age wouldn't know.

But actually, the last question of the test was stumping him, believe it or not.

Recall a happy memory from when you were younger and write about it.

Shinichi remembered having to answer this same question back when he was in grade one for the first time. At the time it had stumped him, and he had come to a realization that had rocked his world when even that young: he couldn't remember anything before shortly transferring into the elementary school when the school year had already been in session for a couple of months. Back then, it had frightened him, made him feel lost. As he had grown up he had come to accept that he had absolutely no memory of those missing childhood years, and had mostly pushed it out of mind.

He still didn't know anything that had gone on in those missing years, and his parents always refused to speak about it. The shrunken detective idly wondered if he was repressing a bad memory. Then a glance at the clock revealed that the class period was almost over. Right, he still had the test to complete, and even if it was just elementary school he wasn't going to fail some stupid test.

Shinichi scrawled out a couple of generic sentences about a trip to Hawaii with his parents and turned the test in to the teacher at the front, returning to and seating himself at his desk once more.

Bored, he traced the grain of the wood for a few moments, and then had to stifle a yawn. He had been up most of the night, aiding the police and Kogoro with the poisonings at a restaurant they had gone out to dinner at. It had been a particularly tricky case, but the culprit had been found in the end and the status quo returned to normal, as always.

There was still some time left, resting his eyes wouldn't hurt . . .

The fun-sized detective soon found himself asleep.

LINE BREAK

He was floating, and the world all around him was blurry. Despite his impediment in seeing though, he could still make out the forms of people, some of which were only vaguely humanoid. One of them was sitting at a nearby desk, writing and pausing to talk to the person with hair reminiscent to a pineapple's leaves that sat beside him. He seemed to be listening and taking notes to what he had to say.

It did not take long before one by one everybody shuffled out, save for the writer. He eventually left his workplace also, but did not vacate the room. Rather, he approached Shinichi, a toothy smile bared on his face.

"You have no idea, but you're going to make this world better for all the people of Japan. The Otherfolk community may get their feathers – or fur, whatever – all ruffled about this, but they don't realize that this benefits them as much as us." he said in a monologue, not seeming to actually speak to Shinichi. This left him confused; what did he mean?

The man left after that and the room went dark. Shinichi remained suspended where he was, and for some reason he had no inclination to leave. Even he thought this odd, considering how usually he would be inspecting every nook and cranny.

He wasn't alone for long, though. A lone figure slunk into the room, glancing about his furtively before finding seemingly nothing to be worried about. His walk became more confident, and he neared Shinichi. Although difficult to tell with everything being blurry, while he wore almost all white like the people in the room before had, the cut of his wardrobe was different: sleeker, pinched and sharp.

"Don't worry; I'm getting you out of here. You will be a person, a son with a mother and father. Even though this is our first meeting, I can see something of my own son in you." the man smiled warmly, at Shinichi, and he couldn't help but feel soothed by his presence. The man reached down, somewhere in front and below where Shinichi floated and . . .

Suddenly the world started shaking, and the word 'Conan' blared from nowhere. Startled, Shinichi jolted up, yelping as the back of his head collided with someone else's.

"Ouch!" Ayumi cried, stumbling back away from Shinichi.

"Finally!" Genta shouted.

"We've been trying to wake you up for minutes!" Mitsuhiko chimed in.

"Ah, wha?" Shinichi asked intelligently.

"It's lunchtime!" Genta explain with enthusiasm, attention now focused on his bento box.

"Right . . ." Shinichi slowly returned to reality, frowning as he tried to grasp at the vestiges of the dream that he'd had, only for it to slip through his metaphorical fingers like smoke. After a moment of trying to recollect it he decided that it wasn't important, and instead reached for the bento that Ran had made him inside of his backpack.

Somehow though, he had the feeling that it was important, and it was frustrating him. It wasn't the first time he'd had the notion, either. But he could never figure out what it was, and since it didn't seem to have any bearing on anything he eventually let it be, as he did his forgotten childhood.

LINE BREAK

Author's Note:

Right, so this is actually the first thing that I have ever written for Detective Conan, and it's honestly intimidating writing for a new fandom like this. Anyway, the basic idea of this story is that there exists a supernatural community right under the nose of the human one (how original *sarcasm*) and not many humans know that it exists. As it so happens, an organization was working on a joint project with the Otherfolk (the politically correct term that the supernatural beings are known as collectively) to create the ultimate weapon: Shinigami, a being who would bring death through its mere presence. However, Shinigami was kidnapped right out of the facility and they lost all track of it. Only ten years later have they rediscovered their lost project in the form of Edogawa Conan, who they don't know is actually Kudo Shinichi, and believe is at the very least unaging because of the fact that he still appears to be around seven years old as he did roughly a decade ago. Wow, sorry for the long author's note; these story beginnings tend to allude to a lot of information that, since the story is likely never to be fully developed, I have to explain in an author's note.