Detective Conan and Magic Kaito characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō.

Warnings: Violence, language, major Mystery Train arc and beyond spoilers, minor Movie 20 spoilers

Search and Recovery

By Taliya

I: Search

His head snapped to the side from the blow and he coughed, droplets of crimson spattering the concrete before his face. The strike jarred his entire body, scraping his knees and shins against the rough surface as his body jerked to one side. The right side of his head throbbed, his right ear rang, and his right shoulder in particular ached from the stretching strain from the momentum of the impact to his head combined with the restraint on his wrists that kept his arms suspended and apart. Yet he refused to scream, to give in to his pain and give them satisfaction—or more specifically, to give him satisfaction. He hacked more blood out and worked his jaw, gingerly checking to see if it had been dislocated. Luckily for him, all of his teeth remained attached to his skull.

"What do you know of your cousin Kudou Shinichi?" his tormentor demanded coolly, as though torturing nine-year-old boys was an everyday occurrence for him. It quite possibly was.

"I—I don't know," he rasped, his throat dry from the minimal amount of water he was given daily. His head woozily sagged towards the ground in disorientation and exhaustion. It hurt to even try to think, and his body shuddered from both exhaustion and exposure—they had stripped him down to his underwear, rendering him unable to hide anything that might have been used to escape with. He was pathetically grateful that his captors seemed to have absolutely no pedophilic tendencies, merely lethal practicality. "I haven't heard—from him in a while."

A pair of black-clad feet stepped into his line of sight, which was followed by the creak of leather and locks of silver hair coiling on the floor around the feet. A large hand roughly grabbed his hair and wrenched his head up, and he winced at the treatment. His glasses lay off to the side, broken and no doubt with dead batteries, and they had confiscated all of his equipment when he had initially been grabbed and sedated. There was no way of knowing if his friends would be able to track him down. Bloodshot eyes blearily yet stubbornly focused on the face before him, furiously glaring into the merciless green that gazed back. Gin. For a fleeting moment he wished he had the strength to lunge forwards and bite the man on the nose. His eyes flicked to the two other people present in the warehouse. The stocky, backlit silhouette of Vodka was easily distinguishable, but the slender female form beside him was not Vermouth, Kir, Chianti, Riesling, or Curaçao. The brightness of the sunlight streaming in from the open garage door of the warehouse prevented him from seeing her facial features.

"Don't lie," the man purred, drawing his attention away from the mystery figure. A dark grin curled the man's lips, and internally he shuddered in trepidation. "Didn't your parents ever teach you not to lie to your elders, Edogawa Conan?" The young detective grimaced, his eyes involuntarily squeezing shut as the man tightened his grip on his hair. "So I repeat: what do you know about Kudou Shinichi?"

Blue eyes cracked open, and with a defiant snarl he answered icily through clenched teeth, "I know nothing."

The last thing he registered was the pain that blossomed in his gut before he gratefully blacked out.

The Kudou Manor was silent, as was to be expected of an apparently abandoned home. Silence for him was normally a good thing. It meant that he had seamlessly managed to bypass security; that he was free to do as he pleased without anyone the wiser. And yet this silence unnerved him.

This silence was too still, too tense despite the emptiness of the house. The undercover FBI agent who had once stayed in the house had moved out after having been found out, and so the western-style home stood silently, watching stoically as its sole owner still in Japan grew through his second childhood. The quiet now loomed dark and dangerous, almost a living entity as it breathed down his neck and sent chills down his spine.

He crept noiselessly through the rooms, searching for the young owner: one Edogawa Conan, formerly known as Kudou Shinichi.

The taps he had placed on the Mouri phone lines had first alerted him to the situation, though in the beginning he figured that the detective had gotten into another one of his misadventures and would return relatively safe and sound. Yet when three days had passed with nary a sign of life from him, unease stirred in his mind. Had something happened to the crafty little sleuth? Was he injured somewhere, trapped and incapacitated? And so he had taken it upon himself to conduct a search, beginning with his childhood home.

The interior was gloomy and dusty from disuse, and with the weak light of the moon, he supposed the place could pass for haunted as well. He ghosted through the hallway, a specter in white, carefully alert for any sign of life, be they benevolent or malevolent. He had begun his search in the bedrooms, knowing that closets were stereotypically the inferred "best" hiding spots in a house. When the rooms failed to reveal his search objective, he turned his gaze to the public spaces of the home: the library, the dining room, the family room, the kitchen.

It was as he slid past the island in the kitchen that he noticed a small square of paper on the otherwise empty surface: a sticky note. He immediately ducked behind a wall, anticipating a sniper bullet through the curtained window. His heart pounded in his ears and his chest heaved, but he forcefully slowed his breaths as he waited for any signs of a trap. Erring on the side of caution, he flicked a single yen coin at the paper. The flash of dull silver in the moonlight would be enough to trigger a reaction in a sniper, but there was nothing.

He emerged from around his corner, body tense and ready to react at the slightest provocation. He reached the island once more, and with cautious, gloved hands, he plucked the note from its spot on the tabletop with tremulous fingers.

Kudou Shinichi,
If you wish to see that your cousin remains
among the living, be at Five Choume, Five
Higashishinagawa in Shinegawa by Friday,
midnight. Alone. Fail to show and the boy
dies.

Today was Friday, and a glance at his pocket watch revealed the time to be ten thirty-two in the evening. "Fuck," he swore with feeling as he fled up the stairs to ransack the detective's closet. "Damn it, Meitantei, what have you gotten yourself into this time?!" Even with a bike, it would take thirty minutes to get to the docks, and he still had to return to his home first to retrieve supplies and weapons, which added another forty minutes to the journey alone. As it was, he would be cutting the meeting time close. He found a suitable change of clothes and stowed it, performing a quick change into his own civilian clothing and fleeing the house. He sped down the highways towards his own home, bolting into the hidden storeroom in the basement for supplies before a worried Kudou Shinichi emerged from the home of Kuroba Kaito.

His ribs were cracked, if not outright broken. He knew that as surely as he felt that fiery agony in his left side with every rattling breath he took as he slowly regained consciousness. His knees complained from bearing his weight, as he had been shackled high enough to where he could not properly sit on the floor. His arms were numb from being suspended by the manacles that held his wrists at ear level had he the strength to keep his head held high. As it was, he knelt slumped forward, shoulders aching from bearing the weight of his exhausted body. He no longer smelled the metallic scent of iron nor did he taste it on his tongue, so at least the cut on the inside of his cheek from the earlier blow to his head had stopped bleeding.

Still, he remained limp in his bonds, having picked up the murmur of conversation somewhere nearby despite the constant high-pitched buzz in his ears.

"That is Kudou Shinichi?" Gin's voice practically dripped with incredulous derision.

"I'm positive," replied the unknown female confidently. Her voice was smooth and crisp, with an ever-so-faint accent to her Japanese, marking her as a foreigner. Unfortunately for him, his skull still pounded and his thoughts were still scattered and flighty. He suspected he suffered from a rather severe concussion. He could not corral his thoughts long enough to identify the accent, though he had definitely heard it before. "That boy there is Kudou Shinichi."

"He's listed as dead in our records," the man remarked.

"And Sherry was the one who marked him dead," she countered.

Gin literally growled at the mere mention of the dead traitor. "Then why is he so tiny?"

The woman scoffed. "You knew the drug was experimental," she rebuked sharply. "We both told you it wasn't one-hundred percent certain that the victim would die." Gin's answering growl of displeasure rumbled through the air. "You wanted proof, right?" she continued, her tone self-assured and lazily condescending. "Your proof will be the no show of Kudou in his teenager form by the deadline in three hours' time. He cannot, after all, be in two places at once."

Gin's voice was quiet, and all the more deadly for it. "You better be right, Bordeaux. Or you will be shot in his stead."

"Oh don't be such a stick in the mud," Bordeaux retorted. "If I got the wrong kid, I have something that'll wipe his memory, clean as a slate. The body of a child is bound to attract more attention than a missing child, don't you think? And besides," she added with a pout, "I could probably use him as a test subject." His blood ran cold at her statement.

"Scientists," the man sneered. "All you want is your damned data."

Bordeaux hummed dismissively. "I did the analysis carefully, and I collected the DNA without contaminating it. Edogawa Conan is Kudou Shinichi," she stated with smug satisfaction, and he felt terror and hatred coil in his gut.

He had arrived with fifty-two minutes to spare, and had used a portion of that time to scout out the warehouse. It was an empty space—one single room sectioned off by broken and rotting crates and leftover pieces of machinery. He could work with that. Within were four people: three adults, one child; three males, one female. The youngest was restrained and practically naked, his pale skin exposed to the balmy summer breeze, but his lack of clothing made it all too easy to spot the trails of blood that painted his chest and legs. The child's head was ducked, and he harbored a sneaking suspicion that the majority of the blood had come from a head wound, though there were a collection of dried droplets around his mouth and chin as well. His belongings were actually set on a chair in a dusty corner behind him and out of his sight, though the glasses had been smashed beyond repair a few feet away from the detective.

The other three occupants of the warehouse waited silently. The female, Bordeaux, leaned against an old conveyor belt, flicking a flip-style knife opened and shut. Moonlight illuminated her features, and from the curvature of her facial features and the build of her frame, he identified her as European in origin. Her russet brown hair fell in straight lines to her shoulders, which had been tied into a neat ponytail at the base of her neck. The thickset male simply stood at the front of the warehouse with his arms across his chest, face hidden by sunglasses and a fedora. His position allowed him to oversee anyone who passed by the entrance while at the same time keeping an eye on their captive. The last man also wore a fedora, but possessed a distinctive head of silver-blond hair that cascaded beyond his hips. He was sequestered in the shadows at the back of the warehouse next to the child, and smoked a cigarette with apparent calm. His left hand hung next to his side, comfortably clutching a semi-automatic.

The three were dangerous; their auras alone told him they were experienced killers. His eyes wandered back to the chained boy. Meitantei. A quick glance at teenaged-Kudou's watch on his wrist told him he had seven minutes to make an appearance, and his mind formulated countless methods of rescue, rapidly forming and discarding ideas as quickly as he evaluated them. Any surprise entrance would startle these assassins, which would lead to a swift and immediate death sentence for the immobilized shrunken detective given the proximity of the blond man to his rescue target.

He gritted his teeth in frustration. The forward approach it was. His gut churned in anxiety at the idea of confronting them head on, but he could not, in good conscience, stand by and allow his favorite critic to die like a defenseless lamb in an abattoir. He was used to working from the shadows, exposing himself only when he was fully prepared—and this time, he was not. Not mentally, certainly not emotionally, and he had no idea what sort of assumptions these people had made regarding the sleuth. It chaffed that there were so many unknown variables in this situation—too many to account for and too little time to plan for every eventuality… though with Kudou in the mix, any and all of his preparations were likely moot anyway. Kudou was a wildcard like that, was what made his participation at heists so exhilarating.

Focus! he berated himself, and he ran a final check on his meager preparations for the night.

Six minutes.

He closed his eyes and consciously regulated his breaths, hearing the pounding of his heart slow in his ears as he centered himself.

He could do this.

He was Kaitou KID, the world's foremost phantom thief. And tonight, he would perform his most daring and dangerous theft yet.

"Five minutes," Vodka grunted as he checked his watch, and he weakly lifted his head a small amount at the announcement.

His brain still pounded and his vision blurred before him as he struggled to recall why they were calling out a time limit of some sort. Between that hushed conversation between Gin and Bordeaux and now, at some point he had passed out. It had been daytime when they had talked, and now it was dark. Something about Kudou Shinichi appearing…? He stirred, eyes roving slowly, taking in the details of the darkened space as moving his head sent excruciating pain down his neck and shoulders. Bordeaux was in his plain sight, as was Vodka. Gin was nowhere to be seen.

He released a shuddering breath as realization settled and coughed at the scent of smoke. They were waiting for his adult form to show, and had some time limit on his apparent appearance. He clenched his teeth despite the fact that it made his skull ache, but all he could think about was how he was going to die here in this warehouse with no way of contacting anyone. No hope of rescue. No chance of saying goodbye. No possibility of exposing the very men who held him prisoner. Ran… he thought with a deep pang of regret. I'm so sorry… His mind brought forth the smiling faces of his best friend, of his parents, Agasa, Haibara, the kids, even Ran's parents and the officers of Division One's Homicide Unit. I'm sorry…

The click of footsteps brought him out of his reverie, and his chin was roughly tilted up. He grimaced in pain, prying his eyes open to find Bordeaux staring down at him, her face centimeters away from his as she knelt before him. Up close and despite the dark, he could see that her eyes were a beautiful hazel and that her face was attractive for a Westerner. "So, Kudou," she purred, and he once again felt hatred boil in his stomach, "Any last words before you join the great majority?" As she spoke, her other hand discretely slipped something flat and angular past the waistband of his underwear, her fingers dipping down just enough to ensure that whatever it was she wanted to give him was held securely by the waistband, yet hidden from plain sight. Her eyes flicked twice off to his right, quickly glancing at something behind him.

He registered the odd emphasis in her words, and his brain sluggishly processed the sentence and her actions. Why the looks behind him, why the something slid into his underwear, why the emphasis on majority? Why emphasize the greater half… greater half of what? Apparently he had been too slow with his response, for she huffed and straightened, dropping his head as she resumed her station along the end of the conveyor belt. His neck viciously rebelled at the treatment, and he stifled a whimper as his chin knocked the top of his chest.

"Conan-kun? Conan-kun!"

The voice—the inflection, the tone, the cadence—despite being panic-ridden, was without a doubt his own had he been his actual age. His head snapped up in reflex, and he hissed viciously as his neck and upper back flared in response to the movement. It can't be… He can't have been stupid enough to…!

Feet pattered and slowed as they approached the warehouse entrance, and Vodka chuckled darkly as a new figure entered his field of view, shoulders rising and falling with his harsh breathing. Despite being silhouetted against the moonlight, there was no mistaking the slender, masculine figure and the cowlick in his hair. "Well," greeted Vodka as he shoved himself off the wall. "If it isn't Kudou Shinichi in the flesh."

He sucked in a breath, bruised eyes wide in alarm as a disguised Kaitou KID stared into the warehouse, his very presence radiating an aura of cool fury.

The brutish build alone of the man that guarded the warehouse entrance suggested that thinking was not quite his forte, though he was not nearly naïve enough to believe in first appearances. In that regard he was as far from naïve as one could get, considering he was a true master of disguise himself. He panted heavily, having faked a panicked run as he bent over to brace himself on his knees while discretely taking in the situation from beneath his bangs. The sturdy man stood at the front; Bordeaux had placed herself between him and his objective, and the last man had positioned himself almost directly behind the bound, bare, and bloodied detective. He felt his stomach churn once more at the sight, and he wondered how badly Kudou was injured.

Movement caught his eye as the woman sprang away from her recumbent position, eyes flashing dangerously as she pointed a snub-nosed revolver at him and hissed, "You can't be Kudou Shinichi!" He was pleased to hear a thread of well-disguised disbelief in her voice, and he mentally grinned a menacing, teeth-baring grin.

Outwardly, he simply wiped the non-existent sweat from his forehead and straightened with a final, audible gasp of air. He scoffed, shoving his hands in his pockets as he eyed the occupants of the warehouse with a blank expression. "You requested a meeting with me, so here I am. Release Conan-kun."

"So you weren't dead after all," the silver-haired man rumbled contemplatively, his form barely discernable in the gloom save for the orange glow of the tip of the cigarette hanging from his mouth. The man ignored the demand to release the detective, choosing instead to remain where he stood against the back wall.

His eyes zeroed in on that man in the back, both instinct and observation screaming that this was the most dangerous of the trio. His focus wavered momentarily to drop down to the captive Kudou, who stared at him with a wide, stricken gaze. He read the barely-hidden terror in the detective's cerulean eyes—fear not for himself but for him. He slowly blinked once, wordlessly trying to convey his confidence in his ability to handle the situation—which was a lie. But even despite his nerves, he still had an ace up his sleeve, and tonight he planned on using it.

"I'm a little more difficult to get rid of," he answered with a hint of derision in his voice. His eyes locked with Bordeaux's hazel as he added, "I've never claimed to be a gentleman, but even I know it is rude to keep a host waiting." He smiled, though it was a smile that bared his metaphorical fangs as he entered the warehouse, senses fully alert for the smallest of movements. The stocky man circled around behind him, roughly grabbing his hands and binding them with handcuffs, and he allowed it. He was forced to his knees, the man's hand grasped painfully on his shoulder as the woman approached from her position by the conveyor belt.

"You were wrong," the long-haired man growled, directing his biting commentary to the female. The man's left hand holding the weapon twitched.

Bordeaux glared back. "My analysis is correct," she hissed. Pointing to him, the woman snarled, "He's an imposter!"

"Oh?" he smirked. "Check then," he challenged, "I'm not wearing a mask."

He was insane.

KID was utterly insane. If they survived this—if KID managed to get the both of them out of this situation alive—he promised afterwards he would strangle the damn thief himself for his recklessness. He ruthlessly quashed the voice in the back of head that accused him of being a hypocrite.

What was he trying to prove? That he was Kudou Shinichi, and that Kudou Shinichi was an entirely separate entity from Edogawa Conan? The Organization, he was sure, would take him and use him as guinea pig in order to determine why he had managed to survive an experimental poison—except that it was not actually him. But he was helpless to intervene and warn the thief: he was bound and on his knees with his throat so parched he could barely speak, let alone yell a warning. And with the fact that Gin was apparently stationed closely behind him, there was no way to indicate to the magician that he should abort his idiotically altruistic rescue mission.

So instead, he stared as hard as he could at the disguised KID, hoping beyond hope that the criminal genius would read in his eyes the desire that he leave. This was neither the phantom thief's battle nor war; there was no need for the magician to get himself involved. Please, KID! he mentally pleaded, Get the fuck out and leave before they kill you! But the thief purposely evaded his gaze, instead choosing to continue the charade with cocky confidence.

He watched with growing horror as Bordeaux stepped forwards and roughly tugged the flesh of the magician's cheek. KID stifled a yowl of pain, and the female scientist backed off after several seconds, displeasure writ clear on her face.

"Happy now?" the thief retorted cheekily as Gin rumbled from somewhere behind him, "So is he the real one?" He heard the chilling sound of the flick of the gun's safety switch, the noise itself quiet but deafening in his ears.

Vodka stood just off to the thief's side, a meaty hand on the magician's shoulder to keep him on his knees. Based on the location of Gin's voice, the man stood behind him to his right, and he wished more than anything he could do something to help out his disguised rescuer. But he was chained, almost naked, and weak from lack of food and water—there was practically nothing he could do to help. His shoes and watch were gone, he was still in a skinny nine-year-old body, and his only asset—his mind—was useless if he could not carry out any plan of action he thought up. At least, not without tipping off the members of the Organization if he were to attempt any communication with the magician.

Maybe nonverbal cues…? He wracked his brain furiously, struggling to figure out a way to help the phantom thief get the both of them out of their predicament. He would not be dead weight—either literally or figuratively—he was determined to help somehow.

He would not allow the onus of their safety fall solely on KID's shoulders.

He watched with wary eyes as the silver-blond man detached himself from the wall, all the while keeping track of the man's left hand. A rustle of chains pulled his attention to the bound detective, and bloodshot, blue eyes stared determinedly back, the shrunken teenager's gaze filled with worry. His eyelids fluttered slowly closed once more, and he hoped that the small gesture conveyed to his target that he had the situation under control. If only he could believe that. His eyes flicked to the female, who stared at him with a snarl of hatred curling her lips. He smirked back at her, and Bordeaux narrowed her eyes in response.

His attention snapped back to the tall, slender man, who by now had stopped before him. The man squatted, his hair brushing the dusty warehouse floor as he painfully pressed the barrel of the gun into the soft flesh beneath his chin, forcing his head back. "So," he began, his deep voice carrying in the space despite the lack of volume, "We meet once again, Kudou Shinichi."

There was a chuckle from the man behind him. "He's broken your perfect record, Aniki," he teased.

The man before him growled, muttering darkly, "Not if I can help it," as the gun's muzzle pressed harder against the flesh of his neck. He barely refrained from wincing; there was definitely going to be a bruise later.

"You can't, Gin," the female interrupted sharply. "He's a valuable data point. We take him with us."

Gin's green eyes narrowed at her interjection, and the stocky man behind him snorted. "He's just a disposable brat," he countered, squeezing his shoulder with unsurprising strength. Again, he withheld a wince.

Bordeaux's glare was positively scorching. "He is not disposable, Vodka," she snarled. "If he holds the key to eternal life… don't you think Ano Kata would want him alive?"

Vodka made a noise of disgust and Gin snorted at her question as he dropped the gun away from his chin, and he mentally filed away the men's codenames and the apparent significance of this "Ano Kata" person who was likely their boss. Too bad they had referred to him by yet another codename.

In a way, this group of people was like Snake and Spider—part of some larger organization searching for immortality. Were syndicated crime rings in search of eternity all full of crazy codenamed killers? At least his organization was a zoo—Kudou's was just a bunch of alcoholics.

But back to a more pressing matter… "Are you going to let Conan-kun go now?" he choked somewhat testily past the dryness of his throat, conveying by choice of words his irritation with both his and his cousin's current situation. "I came like you asked, so release him. He doesn't know anything."

There was another rustle of the chains, and from the corner of his eye he detected movement from the shrunken teenager: a stilted but frantic twisting of his torso in lieu of shaking his head, and his expression was scrunched up in unmistakable terror. His eyes narrowed as he focused on Kudou's movements, the manner of his actions strongly indicating an injury to the spine—and likely the neck.

Well, shit. That complicates matters by a lot.

No no no NO NO! He was going to do more than strangle KID when this was over. He was going to strangle him and then hide the body so that it would never be found. And he could do that fairly easily, considering how he routinely backed out how murders happened by using the evidence.

He watched with no small amount of trepidation as Gin straightened from his crouch before the thief. Then without warning, the silver-blond man took aim and shot the magician in the right thigh. He gasped as KID unsuccessfully muffled a scream of pain, the phantom thief's breath hissing through clenched teeth as he struggled to control himself. The thief's body had instinctively bowed forwards, though Vodka's firm grip on his shoulder kept him from bending completely over. The tendons of KID's neck stood at sharp lines against the moonlight, but even despite the immense pain he was in, the thief's eyes were as hard as he had ever seen them.

"Why did you do that?!" snarled Bordeaux as Gin smirked at his handiwork.

"So he cannot run," Gin answered frostily as the man turned to face him. He felt the blood drain from his face and he froze in helpless terror as Gin aimed the gun directly at him. "Nor can he stop me from doing this."

"NO!" KID shrieked, and there was real fear in his voice. "You promised a trade!"

Vodka chuckled at the thief's naïveté, and Gin scoffed. "Did you honestly think I would leave witnesses alive?" the slender male rumbled derisively.

There was a sudden shattering of glass from above that had everyone ducking for cover. "No, which is why I felt the need to step in."

Everyone's attention snapped from the tableau between Gin and himself to a white-clad figure standing in the rafters of the warehouse by a broken skylight, and he stared in utter confusion at the sight as his brain tried and failed to comprehend the scenario before him. Kaitou KID was currently disguised as his older self and bleeding from a shot in the leg, and yet far above his head was the phantom thief, dressed impeccably in his distinctive white attire. A dummy, he thought, rationalizing the scene, It has to be a dummy…

In the space of a breath from the time the window shattered, Gin had taken aim and had shot at the intruder. But KID had reacted and leapt to the next strut, dodging bullets as he cackled overhead. His laughter echoed in the warehouse as both Bordeaux and Vodka joined in the firing.

I don't… he thought faintly as he watched, dumbstruck. How…?

Eventually KID—the one in the rafters—dropped a smoke bomb, and the world went white.

A twitch of his finger was all he needed to set off the small bomb that broke the skylight window. Another twitch, and the dummy he had rigged by propping the skylight open dropped into view. Yet another twitch, and the pulley began reeling in the dummy, following the course of the steel thread that had been woven by one of his brightest doves. A final finger twitch triggered the release of the smoke bomb that doused the warehouse microcosm in a blanket of milkiness. He instantly freed himself of the handcuffs, rolling to the side and away from the three alcohols while biting down hard on his lip to keep from yelping in pain. He slid a gas mask on and tossed out another smoke bomb, this time filled with sleeping gas.

He released a relieved sigh as he heard the telltale thumps of two bodies, but froze when he heard the lack of a third. He immediately ducked into a low crouch on all fours, listening intently for that third body fall while being reminded rather viciously that he was injured. A glance at his right leg revealed that he was still bleeding and leaving a very visible trail of where he had been. With a quiet, "God-fucking-damnit," he cast about for something to dress his wound. A quick inventory of his belongings revealed a spare tee shirt for a quick change, which he appropriated as a bandage and tourniquet by tearing the clothing item into strips with his teeth after he had flung another sleeping gas pellet into the cloudy void. He had angled the pellet away from the back of the warehouse, as he had no desire to overdose Kudou on the aerosol sedative, but he had to keep it far enough inside to ensure that he got the last person. He kept his ears open for the sound of that third person that refused to succumb to his sleeping gas as he worked on his bandaging.

Finally he heard that third person fall to the floor, as evidenced by the characteristic flop of a fairly heavy mass. This was accompanied by a final but weak, "Fucking shit," and only then did he breathe a little easier. He finished binding his leg before straightening and limping along, using his memory of the warehouse's interior to find his prize. Slowly, the still, sagging form of the shrunken Kudou Shinichi materialized from the mist, his body stretched in a macabre imitation of a biblical sacrifice.

He began by first securing the detective's torso to a plank from a crate, immobilizing his spine before he carefully slid a mask over Kudou's face and restrained his head to the board as well. He then released the detective's wrists, hugging the limp body to his as he freed both of Kudou's hands and tenderly massaged the appendages around the areas where the manacles had rubbed the skin raw. He gritted his teeth as he stood, cradling the comatose sleuth in his arms. He shuffled to the conveyor belt, gently setting the child on top before returning to grab the shrunken Kudou's belongings. He draped the clothing over the practically naked boy and stripped himself of most of his own clothing as well to cover the detective, unwilling to risk further damage to Kudou's spine as well as trying to prevent the onset of shock before pulling out Edogawa Conan's phone. He mentally flipped through all of his observations of the shrunken detective's interactions with various people to determine who would be the best point of contact and comparing them to his own dirt digging as he collected his dummy and dressed himself in his more usual costume of white. He dialed, set the call on speakerphone, and placed the device next to the sleeping detective as he began the tedious process of tying up his… opponents. By now, the mist from his smoke bombs was beginning to clear, and he could make out three still forms on the dusty floor.

After several rings, a sleepy voice answered, "Okiya speaking," and he silently sighed in weariness at the prospect of the amount of forced buoyancy he was about to perform.

"Okiya-san, it's Kaitou KID," he spoke as Poker Face dropped seamlessly into place and masked his physical and mental discomfort. "I've managed to steal a rather rare gem this evening: the brilliant Edogawa Conan!"

"Conan-kun?" The man on the other end of the line was instantly alert. "Is he all right?"

He finished securely tying up Gin with a length of steel thread from a spare pulley, clipping the line with a small cable cutter. He repeated the action with Vodka as he spoke. "He's severely injured. He's likely to have suffered a spinal injury along with a concussion, so I've gone ahead and immobilized him. He's been dosed with a sedative, so that should keep him still for a while."

"And his kidnappers?" Okiya asked briskly, and he could hear over the line the man preparing himself for… something. Probably a meeting with his other fellow undercover Americans.

"Tied up like chimaki," he boasted proudly as he tied the final knot to secure Vodka.

The man's voice was steady but eager. "Where are you?"

"Five Choume, Five Higashishinagawa in Shinegawa," he burbled cheerily, then chirped, "Ta!" before hanging up with a grimace. He really had been hanging around Hakuba too much as of late.

Author's Note: I decided to try something a little different and write this story in snippets that swapped POVs. It's a bit experimental on my part, as I wanted to portray KID's insecurity with his actions to save Conan, as well as Conan's panic at KID's involvement while the scene was unraveling. This'll be a two-parter, so expect one more update for this fic. I've mentioned some of the characters from Movie 20 despite not having watched it, but I also do not describe nor spoil anything else about them. And I just realized, after writing this, that every single person in this fic has an alternate name for themselves. Chimaki is a flavored glutinous rice dumpling that is wrapped in a leaf (banana, bamboo, or reed), tied in twine or string, and steamed. "Ta" is British slang for "Thanks." I hope you enjoyed it.

Completed: 28.06.2016