This is another idea that, again, came from AkemiXchan.

Chapter 1: The Wrong Reflection

When it came, death was not pretty or pleasant. Death could be quiet but even then, it could cut deeper into the heart than waking death. Death was not something that Saguru wanted to experience for some time to come.

And yet death had found its way to him.

Saguru struggled desperately against his captor and his confusion alike. Had he known what was going on, he would have tried to talk his way out of it. As it was, Saguru couldn't even see the person behind. All he knew was that his arm was twisted painfully and their hold on his hair didn't lessen for all his attempts at escape.

"What should we do? Did he see us?"

Saguru could tell it was a man's voice but nothing more than that. It's flat and even tones spoke of years of callousness.

"How the hell should I know? I thought he said it would be safe here."

"It was," the man behind Saguru told his female accomplice. "I don't think the boy even knows what we're doing."

"We have to finish the job!" the woman stressed. "If we kill him now then we'll give our position away!"

Saguru swallowed, afraid that he could die in an instant and never see it coming.

The man behind him reached for something and Saguru could feel fear race through his mind. If he was going to pull a gun on him, Saguru wouldn't make it easy.

"Sit still." With a sharp twist the detective found himself being forced to the ground and the man who'd been holding him kept a lock on his arm and a knee in his back. Saguru could hear the static of a radio.

"We have a problem. There's someone up here."

Saguru cursed himself for being so stupid. They were on the roof at the hotel he'd been staying at. His room was just a few floors down but the building itself soared above the surrounding structures. No one would see him or hear him. Why the hell had he decided to come up onto the roof?

There was a large press conference across the street. He remembered that. Many politicians from around the world were gathered to speak about military defense. With a sickening feeling, Saguru realized what he'd just walked in on.

The static of the radio that came back was indistinct.

"I got it."

The man dug his knee further into Saguru's back as he placed the radio at his side and drew something out of his pocket. The detective let out a breath when his captor took his weight back off and he was able to breathe correctly.

"So what does he want us to do?"

The man didn't say anything and Saguru looked around desperately for something that he could use against them. They had guns, he knew that. The long riffles had caught his attention before the faces of the people holding him had, and they'd quickly made sure that he didn't know what was going on after that.

He found himself praying that he wouldn't be killed. There was so much he still had to do and, though he could examine it, Saguru was afraid of death.

There was a snick as something closed.

"What's that?" the woman asked. Saguru shared her interest.

"I don't know. Gin gave it to me incase anything happened."

The man turned him over and Saguru took the time to observe everything he could. The man was older than he thought, hair hidden under a dark hat and eyes hidden behind sunglasses even though it was night. His cautiousness was demonstrated by the fact that he was wearing a bullet proof vest.

The woman Saguru couldn't see as his hair was yanked backwards again and something was put in his mouth follow by a rush of water that had him choking with no option but to swallow whatever that had given him.

"We've got ten minutes still. This should take care of him."

The man actually let him go and Saguru wondered if they were done with him. He wanted to get out of there badly.

The next instant he was doubled over in pain and felt like he was going to throw up. Even the screams he wanted to let out were stolen away by the intensity of the torment. Saguru stayed huddled over where he was while the man who had been holding him down walked away.

Any rational thoughts were gone and all he was aware of was wave after wave of pain afflicting his body.

Through shaking and shallow breaths, Saguru saw when the two left him. The woman had come over to laugh at him and stoke his arm before departing and Saguru could do nothing but let them go. Everything hurt.

The pain was too much. Saguru had never felt anything like it before in his life and it wasn't directed at just one spot, it was atomically widespread.

He wasn't aware of when he passed out. Saguru could feel as his body continued to shake while the pain started to fade. The world went with it and he was afraid he would never open his eyes again, even as they closed of their own free will.

I'm going to die, he thought.

…

The sun reached high enough by ten to alight the top of the building in its brilliant glare. Saguru blinked his eyes open as the light started to give him a headache from his stationary position.

It took him a minute to realize that he wasn't in his bed.

"What happened?" he asked out loud to make some sense of his situation. The detective looked around and saw the stairway that lead back inside along with an air conditioning duct and a satellite dish.

"Why am I outside?" Saguru put a hand to his face and noticed that something was terribly wrong. Not only did his face feel different, softer, but the sleeve of his shirt was completely gone.

The detective looked down at his clothes which were hanging off of him, his arm having escaped through the collar of his shirt. He studied his hand and its small size for a minute before getting up.

"I must be dreaming. There is now way that I've… what, shrunk?" he asked himself. "Yes, that would be physically impossible. Must be dreaming. I guess whatever they gave me last night is making me hallucinate."

Saguru's eyes widened. "Those guys last night!"

Someone opened the door behind him and Saguru tensed, expecting those people to have returned. His eyebrows rose when he was looking up at an Inspector, and a fat on at that, who was looking down at him with equal confusion.

"Hey, there's a kid up here!" He yelled to someone behind him, who his large girth kept Saguru from seeing.

Kid? Hardly. Saguru was trying to get people to stop treating him like a child. He didn't appreciate when his youth was broadcasted.

A woman with short hair came around the Inspector and bent down to face him with a smile. Saguru frowned at how much taller she seemed than he.

"Hello little boy. You're father's going to be mad when he finds out you've been playing around in his clothes."

"My father?" Saguru stopped speaking and his eyes widened as he looked down again at his hands. His voice had come out so high. He knew that wasn't right. Nothing was right. Something was definably not right!

"Come here." The female officer freed his black overcoat from the jumbled mess of clothes around him. She then lifted him as his pants and – Saguru had to blush and look away – boxers fell at his feet. She wrapped the coat around him, tying it around his waist where Saguru could see his white, button-up shirt reached passed his knees. "Get back in before you get into any more trouble."

Saguru nodded numbly, collecting the rest of his clothes before walking back into the apartment complex.

When he got down to his floor he fumbled with his coat before finding the card key for the room. It was a stretch but he was just able to insert it into the lock and push the door open.

"What in the world happened to me?" Saguru asked himself, walking into the bathroom. The mirror was too high for him to see anything so he went further into the apartment to find the full length mirror that was next to the television.

He couldn't understand what he was seeing.

"I must still be dreaming," Saguru chided himself, smiling and putting a hand to his forehead. He felt it shake. He knew real contact when he felt it but there must be some other explanation than what he was faced with.

"I couldn't have turned back into a kid again- it's not possible. If it was possible then the whole world would be doing it. This isn't science fiction."

Saguru looked at his childhood self who was smiling, fear playing around his eyes. He hadn't seen his reflection looks so scared in years.

"Damn it!" he swore, falling onto the carpet and staring at his younger self. "This is real."

What am I supposed to do? What happened? Those people last night must have done something but it just wasn't possible. I can't even call the police!

The police were here, Saguru reminded himself. That meant the people last night may have killed someone right in front of him and he hadn't been able to stop them.

The detective swallowed, turning to his mirrored self as he got up and sat on the bed, looking very small. "What am I supposed to do? No one will believe me."

I have no one to call.

It scared him, having to sit there alone and try to figure out what he was supposed to do. They had been trying to kill him, that man and woman. He couldn't tell the police what he knew because they would never believe him. It wasn't as if he would have believed himself if the situation were reversed, so expecting others to believe him was foolish.

That left him the option of calling his father. He didn't live with the man but he knew his father had been taking good care of him since he'd come back to Japan. With his grandfather's research lab, Saguru would be able to prove who he was.

But what if they went looking for him? What if they thought they hadn't killed him? The police were up there now and it would be obvious when no body was found.

He couldn't go home.

Saguru took out his phone and scrolled through the numbers to find someone he could call. He needed someone who could keep secrets, someone who wouldn't turn him into the police, lest the people from last night find him.

One name kept coming to mind but Saguru tried to ignore it. When his phone showed no better results he went back through the list to find the number he needed.

This is going to be the strangest phone call of my life.

He hit the call button.

The phone rang but no one picked up. Saguru frowned at it and tried again with the same results. He closed the phone and laid it on the bed with a downcast look.

"The one time I actually want you to pick up is the one time you can't."

Saguru thought. If there was one thing he was good at it was thinking. He had no one else to rely on but the stupid magician and that was only one person... and only if he believed his story. Saguru didn't even believe it.

His phone rang.

"Hello?" he answered.

"What the hell do you want? You do know I'm in the middle of class don't you? Come to think of it, you should be here too!"

"Kuroba-kun," Saguru smiled. Someone was there. He had someone to talk to. He didn't have to be confused and alone anymore. "Help me."

Kaito's yelling all but stopped. "What's the matter with your voice?"

Saguru laughed and was surprised when a choked sob came out. "I don't know. Please, I need your help."

"Where are you?"

There wasn't any hesitation and Saguru was grateful that Kaito wasn't using anything against him. He was almost afraid the magician would ignore him simply because they never seemed to get along. And, Saguru had to admit, he'd made things that way.

"I'm at the Park Hotel in Higashi Shimbashi Minato Ku. I'm in room 168 on the thirty first floor."

"Ah, fine. Give me a second though. I have to give Aoko some reason that I'm ditching school. This better be important!"

"It is."

"Okay then. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

The line clicked into silence and Saguru had never been so happy at the prospect of seeing the magician in his entire life. He had a feeling he would never feel that contented with him ever again but that didn't matter at the moment.

He wasn't alone.