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

Pairing: KaitoxShinichi

Chapter Rating: T

Collection Summary: No matter where or what they are, their lives are always entwined. KaiShin stories in fantasy settings.

Chapter Summary: Knowing well the importance of teaching the next generation about the wonders of Clover Forest, Shinichi agrees to chaperon some children from the village school on their field trip. When they are joined by a certain mischievous guardian spirit, however, he realizes the trip may be more eventful than any of them had expected.

Spirits and Field Trips

[Spirit Verse]

"All right kids, do you all have your assignment books?" Suzuki Sonoko called out. She was answered by a chorus of yeses from the dozen or so children gathered before her. "Great. And you all looked at them, yeah?"

"Yes!"

"Well, you better look again now before we get started."

The children took out their assignment books as instructed and began to leaf through them, chattering amongst themselves.

Standing a little off to the side with Ran, Shinichi watched the proceedings with some amusement. He would never have guessed that the school would ask Sonoko of all people to lead this little expedition, but it seemed she was handling the children better than he had expected she would. Of course, he and Ran were here to help too—him because he was the one that everyone in the village agreed knew his way around the forest best and Ran because she was the only person who could talk sense into Sonoko when the other girl got carried away (although Ran had confided to him that she really would have preferred not to have to go. She was still terrified by any and all things supernatural and preferred to steer clear of Clover Forest when she could).

For his part, Shinichi was looking forward to the trip. He was grateful that the bookstore had given him the time off to help out with it. He always loved spending time in the living tranquility that was Clover Forest, and he was glad to be helping to share that wonder with the next generation. Everyone who lived in the auspices of the forest needed to learn to appreciate its splendor and its blessings. And it was the responsibility of each generation to pass on that appreciation to the ones who came after.

Clover Forest was sacred. Without its protection and the natural gifts it offered, Beika would never have been able to remain the peaceful, thriving little settlement it was.

Those natural gifts were a large part of this trip. There were many plants and animals in Clover Forest that didn't exist anywhere else in the world. Included in their number were a great many extremely potent medicinal herbs. The times and ways to find and harvest those herbs had been handed down through the generations in Beika. The herbs themselves were a cornerstone of the village's economy. Midsummer happened to be a time of year when several of those herbs could be harvested. And so here they were now. Sonoko, Ran, and Shinichi had been tasked with taking the village children who were old enough on their first herb-gathering expedition.

"All right, let's go!" Sonoko shouted, and they were off.

Shinichi jogged forward to take the lead. As the guide, it was his job to lead the children to areas of the forest where they might find what they were looking for, although he had been told not to offer any help beyond that. The children were supposed to work out how exactly to locate their quarry using the information they had been given on each plant in their assignment books. Thankfully, this being only a teaching expedition, they were required only to find one specimen of each listed plant. Even so, they only had three days to cover a lot of ground.

They were less than a dozen paces past the forest fringe when Shinichi spotted a familiar figure between the trees. It was a young man dressed in white with tousled brown hair and indigo eyes.

"Yo!" Kaito greeted him with a grin as he fell into step beside Shinichi. "You've brought company today, I see."

Shinichi smiled and nodded, well aware that he couldn't answer verbally since no one else in their traveling party could see or hear the new arrival (and he didn't need the children thinking he was crazy). Kuroba Kaito was, after all, the guardian spirit of Clover Forest. He also happened to be the person Shinichi had fallen in love with.

"I take it these are the brats you said you'd be showing around my forest." Kaito cast a critical eye over the lot of them. "I see the scaredy cat's with you too. I'm surprised."

Shinichi shot the spirit a disapproving look. Sure, Ran spooked rather easily, but that was no reason to go calling her names.

Kaito only grinned and leaned over to drop a kiss on Shinichi's cheek. Shinichi blushed and nearly tripped over a root as he stole a glance back at the group. Then he remembered that they couldn't see Kaito and therefore had no idea what had just happened.

"Is something wrong?"

Startled, Shinichi whipped his head around to look at Ran. He hadn't even noticed her coming up on his other side. "What do you mean?"

"It's just…you were kind of looking around a lot just now," she replied a bit uncertainly. "Did you hear something?"

"Oh, uh, no, I was just…making sure everyone was keeping up," he lied, though he could feel himself reddening more. Sometimes he really hated how easily he blushed.

"You're cute when you blush," Kaito said.

Is he reading my mind? Shinichi cast a wide-eyed look at Kaito, realized that the action would only make Ran worry even more, and tried to smile like he hadn't been making faces at thin air. Naturally, Kaito began to chortle.

"I'm not reading your mind, by the way," the spirit said with a cheeky grin. "I just knew what you were thinking. It was written all over your face."

"You're not helping," Shinichi grumbled out of the corner of his mouth before he returned his attention to Ran. "I was looking for that tree there." He stopped and turned to the group behind him. "Everyone, if you'll look over here to our left, you'll see one of the easier landmarks to find."

Everyone including Sonoko, Ran, and even Kaito turned to follow the direction of Shinichi's pointing finger.

There, about two dozen paces away, was a tree.

"Whoa, that's the biggest tree I've ever seen!" one of the boys, Mitsuhiko, if Shinichi remembered correctly, exclaimed.

Indeed, the tree was massive. Everyone in their little party could have held hands and been unable to reach all the way around its base. But it wasn't only the size of the tree that was incredible. There was the russet shade of its bark and the fact that there was no moss on it. And, when they looked further up, they could all see its orange and gold canopy. It was a bright, flame-colored beacon in the sea of green leaves around it.

"The leaves on this type of tree are yellow, orange, and red all year round," Shinichi explained. "And this particular tree is much taller than most of the trees in this area. That means that you should be able to see it easily enough if you get lost, just so long as you haven't strayed too far away. Remember that, if you do get separated from us, you just have to find this tree. Then walk south and east and you'll eventually get back to Beika."

"But does that mean there's only one of this type of tree nearby?" one of the girls, Ayumi, asked, looking up at Shinichi with wide, attentive eyes.

"Well…" He scratched his cheek as he thought. "There is one more, but it's not near here, so you shouldn't have any trouble getting them mixed up."

That particular Autumn Tree had been three times the size of this one, and, according to Kaito, it grew more in the spirit realm side of the forest than it did in the mundane side. There was a great clearing there where, Kaito had told him, spirits and people alike had once gathered together to celebrate life and the turning of the seasons. Now, with humans who could see and interact with the other realm so rare, such customs were long lost. But, deep down, Shinichi found he would have liked to see what those old parties had been like.

He and Kaito had had a picnic there under the gold and fire canopy. After that, Kaito had taught him some of the dances that the ancients had performed on those special occasions. Some of those dances had been quite complex, which had led to Kaito helping Shinichi learn the poses by positioning his limbs for him. A blush crept into Shinichi's cheeks at the memory. As they'd progressed, Kaito's hands had lingered longer and longer on his body, sometimes wandering to places that they didn't strictly need to be. That, in turn, had led to a whole other kind of dance.

"Yoohoo, Shinichi!"

Blue eyes blinked, and Shinichi found himself face to face with Sonoko.

"What?" he asked, taking a hasty step back.

"Who were you daydreaming about?" she asked slyly, leaning forward to peer into his face, eyes gleaming. "Come on, you can tell me. It was Ran, wasn't it? You were blushing when you were talking to her."

"No! No, it's not what you're thinking," he said hastily before Sonoko could start spinning wild tales about his nonexistent romance with Ran.

"Hey, isn't the Autumn Tree one of the plants in the book?" the largest kid, Genta, asked. He opened his book to a page about Clover Forest's Golden Acorns.

"Hey, look! These are supposed to be found under Ever Autumn Trees. That's what these are, right Shinichi-san?"

"That's right," Shinichi agreed. "You should go look for some."

With a cheer, the children were off. They could all hear Genta telling his two best friends about how delicious Clover's Golden Acorn tea was.

Sonoko and Ran trailed after them to supervise, leaving Shinichi alone for the moment with the amused forest guardian.

"This lot sure are enthusiastic," Kaito remarked, coming up behind Shinichi and wrapping his arms around the smaller man's waist. "You should tell them to try roasting the acorns over a fire. When they get hot enough, they explode like fireworks. They even got these gold flakes that fly out everywhere like fireworks too. Do it right, and the cores come out real tasty too—though catching them takes skill. They're a great cure for lethargy."

"Really? We'll have to try that later," Shinichi mused. "In the village, we grind whole acorns to brew a warming tea. It helps stave off hypothermia and is just overall helpful for staying warm in the winter."

"That is the traditional use, yes," Kaito agreed. "It's nice to know there are humans who still remember such things."

"We do what we can to maintain the knowledge," Shinichi replied with a sigh. "I'm helping Agasa compile an updated version of the Clover Forest Botanist's Guide right now. But most people who don't actually live near the forest have a hard time believing that all the strange plants we say we find here are real—or, if they're real, that they really do what we say they do. I heard some professor guy they had over in Ozu called our herbs and lore something like old wives tales and home remedies that only work because your mind tricks you into thinking they do."

"Well that was rather rude of him," Kaito mused. "I have half a mind to pay this moron a visit one of these days."

"It wouldn't help. There are a lot of people these days who are all about hard science. Like chemicals and that sort of thing. Of course those are important, and they've taught people a lot about how the world works and how to survive that more people need to learn, but they don't leave much room for the intangible. The things that can't be proven one way or another. They examined a Golden Acorn and concluded it's just a bigger acorn with a different color. They just can't believe that crushing it and brewing tea with it can create anything medicinal."

"But it does. That's part of its magic."

"I know. But magic isn't something that can be seen or quantified. So they don't trust it. Last I checked, most of the scholarly community was saying that any effects the tea had was purely in our heads."

"I guess it all goes back to the declining number of humans who can walk on both sides. It's easy to dismiss the idea that a plant might have supernatural properties if you don't even believe that there is a spiritual realm and magic," Kaito mused with a sigh. "Well, it's their loss."

"Look! We got some!" Genta cried out, showing off the twelve large acorns he and his friends had gathered.

"Each of you can keep one," Sonoko instructed. "Any extra will have to be turned over to the apothecary when we get back to the village, got it?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Right then. On to the next place. Shinichi?"

"I was thinking we'd go to the river," Shinichi suggested, already beginning to walk. "The Water Skippers should be easy to find, and there should be a few more herbs in that area too."

Once again, the kids fell into line behind him with Ran bringing up the rear and Sonoko somewhere in the middle, telling them stories about the herbs they were looking for.

"Did your teacher tell you why they're called Water Skippers?" she asked with a sly grin that told Shinichi the story was not going to be the one the kids were told.

"It's because they grow along riverbanks, and their leaves tend to dip down to just above the water," Ayumi said, reading the passage out of her assignment book. "The leaves are so close to the water that, when the river rises at all, it brushes the leaves and makes them look like they're dancing on the current."

"That is one reason they got their name," Sonoko agreed. "But the real reason they're called Water Skippers is because, every once in a while, someone finds a Water Skipper leaf that's shaped a bit differently. They say it's a different color from the others too. And if you find and eat that leaf, they say you can skip right across the water with your own two feet for the next few minutes or so."

"Really?"

All the kids were excited by this piece of news, and the moment they arrived at the river bank, all of them were off searching for unusual Water Skippers. Since none of them had even seen a regular Water Skipper before, Shinichi suspected they would be here a while.

"Whew!" Sonoko stretched her arms out as high as they would go then let them drop and laughed. "This should be a good place to take a break. Let's get out some of that picnic food."

"So she told them that story so they would wish to stay longer," Kaito mused. "Quite a cunning ploy."

Shinichi snorted. "More like being lazy. Hey Sonoko, where did you hear that story? About skipping over the water? I haven't read that one before."

The girl laughed and gave him a sly wink. "I made it up."

"I should've known," he sighed. He just hoped the kids weren't too disappointed.

Ran passed around wrapped sandwiches, and Shinichi handed half of his to Kaito when the girls turned to check on the children and tell them that they could come get some food. And for a few minutes, everything was normal.

Those few minutes ended with a scream.

All the adults in the group leapt to their feet, but then they froze as they stared in open disbelief as three children came crashing through the underbrush on the opposite bank of the river and promptly ran right across the flowing currents before tumbling into camp.

"We found it! We found it!" they cheered, oblivious to their chaperons' dropped jaws. "It's so cool!"

"B—but that's not possible," Sonoko gasped. "I mean…I just… It wasn't… How?"

"Maybe you really did hear or read that story in one of the old records and just forgot?" Ran suggested uncertainly. "So you only think you came up with it…"

Sonoko shook her head, but it was more in befuddlement than denial. After all, what other explanation could there be?

Behind the two girls, Shinichi turned to stare at Kaito. The spirit was grinning fit to split his face in two. Catching Shinichi's look, he winked.

"Just a little harmless fun," he said. "I'll bet they never forget this day or the wonders of my forest for as long as they live."

Well that was most certainly true, Shinichi mused. Looking at the kids and their excited faces as they babbled on and on about the unusual purple Water Skippers they'd found and how incredible it had been to run over the river, he decided the trick might even have been a good deed in its own way. These children would carry away from this day a sense of wonder for this magical place that was so very important for them all to keep alive. That wonder and respect were essential for anyone who wished to live in the auspices of Clover Forest. And he hoped too that it would teach them to begin to love this place that both protected and provided for them.

Still bubbling with the excitement of their latest experience, the kids inhaled their lunches then immediately pulled out their books to check what the next plant they had to find was.

"It says it's a fruit from a Solstice Shrub," Mitsuhiko read out loud. "You find Solstice Shrubs by looking for shrubs that have round leaves where the outer rim is pale gold or orange in color but the inner ring is a dark green bordering on black. The fruit itself should be perfectly round and look like a translucent, ivory egg with light emanating from the inside."

"What's translucent?" Genta asked.

"It means, uh, it means it's kind of…" his friend stuttered.

"It means it's kind of see-through," Shinichi explained. "But there's still color so it's not actually clear like water."

Mitsuhiko looked relieved. "Yeah, that."

"What's it supposed to do?" Ayumi asked eagerly.

"Maybe it's a firebird egg," Genta butted in. "That's why there's light inside."

"It's a fruit, not an egg, Idiot," Mitsuhiko sniffed. He looked at the book again. "And the fruit is supposed to contain a really vitamin rich oil or something like that. I think the grownups cook with it. This says it can also be used on the skin or mixed with other herbs for soothing and healing ointments."

"That's boring. It'd be cooler if they were firebird eggs," Genta grunted. But the gang was off again, and Shinichi jogged after them.

In their enthusiasm, the children were no longer waiting for the adults to give them directions. Instead, they followed whatever trails they saw, pointing and shouting when they thought they saw one of the plants they were looking for.

It was Ayumi who spotted the dense growth of Solstice Shrubs and cried out for the others to come see. But just as they had all come to stand around the striking, black and gold shrubbery, one of the large, egg-shaped fruits suddenly dropped off its branch. Shinichi reacted first, knowing how delicate the fruits were. He dove forward to catch it. But the instant his hands closed around the soft shell of the fruit, it cracked open, spilling luminous and sweetly scented oil all over his hands. But what actually shocked him was the bird that rose from the half shell still cradled in his hands. It looked at him with beautiful green eyes then chirruped a trill so sweet that it made his heart ache just to hear it. Then it spread glistening, golden wings and leapt into the sky followed by rapidly dissipating wisps of sweet scented flame.

"Was that a firebird?" Ayumi breathed, eyes wide.

"It must have been," Mitsuhiko whispered, awed. "So…that means these really are firebird eggs."

"I told you so!" Genta said smugly.

Still holding the eggshell with hands covered in scented oil, Shinichi turned to level Kaito with a questioning look.

"No, it wasn't a real firebird," the spirit said at once. "And fruits never hatch birds. I just thought it might be fun to see it happen once. There are a few firebirds living in my forest though. I'll take you to see them when we have more time."

Shaking herself out of her daze, Sonoko clapped her hands together. "Well, hurry up you lot. We still have other plants to find."

But as Genta reached for one of the spherical fruits, Ayumi cried out and grabbed his hands. "You can't! You'll be killing firebirds!"

The look Shinichi shot Kaito this time clearly said, "You see what you've done?"

The spirit rubbed the back of his neck and offered him a sheepish grin. "Oops. Guess I should've thought of that. This is good though," he added, turning approving eyes on the kids. "They respect life. Let's see… Tell them there's a really old legend that says that a firebird emerges from a Solstice fruit once every five thousand years. Say it's supposedly the soul of a firebird who was unable to be reborn in the usual way because of unfortunate circumstances surrounding its death, and therefore it is reborn through the Solstice Shrub, which is supposedly a plant that first came from a drop of crystallized sunlight falling to earth. Therefore, it carries within it the fierce flames and life energy of the sun, allowing it to be the catalyst for the firebird's rebirth. Oh, and say you've only ever seen the story once so you didn't believe it before," he added, seeing Shinichi's disbelieving face.

Seeing no other way around the situation, Shinichi repeated the story Kaito had just made up. The kids listened with rapt attention, making him feel guilty. He promised himself he'd buy them dessert sometime to make up for lying to them.

"So you don't have to worry about accidentally killing firebirds by picking the other fruits," he concluded. "Since it should only happen once every five thousand years, and we just saw that one bird, we won't encounter another actual egg fruit within our lifetimes."

Reassured and even more thrilled by the latest miracle they'd witnessed, the children set about harvesting Solstice fruits.

Ran handed Shinichi a handkerchief so he could clean his hands. "You know, I didn't used to believe firebirds really existed," she told him. "Where did you see that particular legend anyway? It's pretty different from any of the other firebird stories."

Shinichi ducked his head to hide a guilty flush. "I don't remember," he said. "It was a long time ago, and I dismissed it because it was so, well, out there, I guess. It just sounded ridiculous."

Ran laughed. Kaito laughed too, earning himself a flat look from Shinichi.

Since he knew they had gone rather deeper into the forest than he had originally planned to lead them, Shinichi took the rest of the time the children spent gathering Solstice fruits planning their route. He was immensely grateful that Kaito had taught him so much about how to find his way around or he would never have managed it. As it was, it only took him forty five minutes to get them to their next destination, a grove of Many Faced Trees.

"They really do have faces!" the children gasped, running up to examine the many contortions in the bark of the incredibly gnarly trees. Every tree trunk appeared to sport at least three human faces.

Ran hung back, shuddering. "Oh my god, that's so creepy."

Sonoko snickered. "You know, they say the expressions of the Many Faced Trees change, and sometimes they even speak."

Ran shrieked. "Don't say things like that!"

Her friend burst into laughter.

In the grove, where they were collecting nuts, Mitsuhiko froze, staring at the tree beside him.

"Um, you guys," he said. "Wasn't that a sleeping face earlier?"

The other kids gathered around to look. The face Mitsuhiko was pointing to was grinning broadly. None of the others remembered if it had been a sleeping face before though.

"It's probably your imagination," one of the others told him.

"Yeah…" Mitsuhiko went back to gathering nuts, but the thought that the face had changed wouldn't leave him alone. So he looked back at it again—and stared. The grinning face was now a frowning one.

"It did change!" he cried out, backing away from the tree hastily as he jabbed his finger at it. "It's frowning!"

"This one changed too!" Ayumi cried over by another tree. "It went from crying to laughing!"

That started a growing outcry as all the children began to notice faces that had changed. Grabbing their half filled nut gathering sacks, he fled the grove, shouting about the faces and the trees being haunted.

Shinichi groaned and smacked himself on the forehead. "It's okay," he shouted over the din. "They're harmless. If you've all got some nuts, we can get going."

Deciding it was time for a break, Shinichi led them all to a clearing a good half mile from the grove of Many Faced Trees (because no one wanted to rest anywhere near them). Ran passed out some snacks, and everyone fell to chattering, no longer scared now that they were a good distance from the grove. What had been frightening had already, it seemed, become a source of fun and an inspiration for new homemade myths. Soon the children were all sharing stories about other mysterious and astounding things they had heard about the forest and speculating about if they might actually be true.

"Hey, do you think we might see a dragon too?" Genta asked excitedly, and Shinichi's heart nearly stopped. "That would be so cool!"

Without thinking, Shinichi grabbed Kaito's arm and dragged him away through the shrubbery and around a large tree.

"Don't you dare," he hissed the moment they were safely out of earshot. "If they go back and say they saw a dragon, their parents are never going to let them into the forest again!"

"Aww, but didn't you hear?" Kaito replied with a wicked smirk. "They think it would be cool."

"No," Shinichi insisted, crossing his arms and glowering up into the taller man's face. "We don't need people coming around to hunt for dragons."

"Well that's true," Kaito conceded. He heaved a melodramatic sigh. "It's difficult to do justice to dragons with mere illusions anyway."

Shinichi blinked. "You…mean there really are dragons?"

"In the spirit world, yes. I'll introduce you to a few if you'd like."

"Oh. Well, I…guess that might be interesting." Shinichi blushed at Kaito's knowing look. "Anyway," he continued hastily. "No making dragons for the kids, alright?"

"Fine, fine, no dragons for the kids," Kaito agreed. Then he swooped down to plant a firm kiss square on Shinichi's lips. "I'll save the dragons for you."

Just because he'd promised not to create dragons to wow the children with, however, didn't mean that Kaito wasn't going to create other things for the same purpose. On the bright side, the children were more awed than frightened by the thirty-foot jeweled python, and even Ran enjoyed seeing a unicorn, so Shinichi decided it didn't matter.

-End of Chapter-