A/N: This is my first attempt at writing a story, so constructive criticism is much welcome.

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or Naruto.

"Talking"

'Thinking'

The Demon and the Detective

Chapter 1

A tall man with spiky blond hair, blue eyes, and three whisker-like marks on each of his cheeks sat at his desk in the office of his large western style mansion in Beika City. He stared at the newspaper with a frown on his face.

"I thought that my new playmate would amuse me," the man said, staring at the picture of a middle aged man with black hair and a small moustache, private detective Mouri Kogoro, as mentioned in the article's headline. "This man is a complete idiot," the blond continued ranting to himself. "How can I have fun with an opponent if he isn't able to provide a challenge to me? I'll have to locate that high school kid then. He seems to be a much more competent detective, even if he is related to HIM." The man smirked. "It also seems that Mouri knows this Kudo Shinichi quite well. What better way of locating a detective except by using a detective? This buffoon should at least be able to do that. I might also figure out how someone so stupid is able to solve cases as well as he has."

Mouri Detective Office

Mouri Kogoro sat sprawled on top of his office desk with a bored look on his face and a half spent cigarette lazily hanging from his mouth. On the couch in front of the desk sat a young woman with long brown hair and wearing a high school uniform. Across the coffee table sat a young, grade school boy with black hair and a pair of large glasses on his face. Both looked equally as bored as the detective.

"Otou-san, how long has it been since you've had a case?" the girl asked. "It's been so long that we are starting to fall behind in our bills."

"Don't worry, Ran-neechan," the little boy said, trying (and failing) to sound energetic. "We'll get a case soon. Then we won't have to worry about…"

"What do you mean, 'we' you little brat?" the detective asked, cutting the boy off. "I'm the one that is doing all of the work. Still, if we're going broke, we could always get rid of the brat. Fewer mouths to feed mean more money. Better yet, we could sell the brat. I bet smart ass brats like him will fetch for a pretty high price."

"Otou-san!" Ran exclaimed with a look that was combination of anger, horror, and surprise on her face as she looked towards her laughing father. "We are not selling or kicking Conan-kun out!"

"I was just kidding," Kogoro said, still laughing.

'Somehow I doubt that,' Conan thought.

"I know!" Kogoro exclaimed suddenly. "Why don't you ask that detective brat for some money? His parents are loaded and this brat here is related to him, right?"

"Shinichi?" Ran asked. "How could you even think of asking him for money?"

'Though I am living here,' Conan thought, his eye twitching in annoyance. "Oji-san might be right, Ran-neechan," he said aloud. "If I ask, I'm sure that I could get Shinichi-niichan to…"

"Oh? You have a way of getting into contact with Kudo Shinichi?" a voice said, coming from the entrance.

"Who are you?" Kogoro asked when the blond, whiskered man stepped into the office.

"A client," the man replied simply. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I have been looking for Kudo Shinichi for quite a while now."

"He wouldn't happen to be your long lost boyfriend, would he?" Kogoro asked, remembering the last time someone came to his office looking for the high school detective.

"What? Of course not!" Ran and Conan exclaimed in unison causing the blond to chuckle.

"Nothing of the sort," Naruto replied with an amused smile on his face. "Actually, I entrusted a valuable item to Kudo-kun for when I went overseas. However, when I returned so that I can retrieve the item, I found that no one was in his house except for someone that is being allowed to stay there temporarily. I heard from him that Kudo Shinichi himself has disappeared."

Conan's eyes narrowed at that. 'I don't remember this man or him giving me any item of value,' he thought to himself. 'What is he trying to accomplish by telling this lie? Why is he trying to find me?' "What was the item?" he asked aloud.

"A special katana that has been in my family for over 1500 years," Naruto replied, pulling out a picture of an extremely elegant Japanese sword. Engraved on the blade was a fox with nine tails with a red gem at the end of each tail. "It's been appraised at ¥4,000,000,000."

"¥4,000,000,000!" the other three in the room exclaimed.

"Yes," Naruto replied, simply. "Each of the gems on the tails of the fox is a 1.1 carat red diamond[1]. The fox itself was colored by using ruby powder."

"You said that you gave this sword to Shinichi-niichan to hold," Conan said, being the first to recover from the shock of the value of the sword. "Why is that?"

"As I said, I gave the sword to Kudo-kun to put in the special vault in the Kudo family home here in Beika since I was going to America and they don't allow weapons like that on planes and I don't trust anyone else to handle it," Naruto replied.

Conan's eyes narrowed once again. 'How can he know about the vault?' he asked himself. 'No one outside of my parents and me know about it. Not even Ran.' "Wow, Naruto-ojisan!" he exclaimed aloud in an innocent, child-like tone. "Your family's sword must be really special. It's been in your family before they started making katanas with a standardized curve like that during the Muromachi period that started only 600 years ago. It must be the first one ever made!"

'What!' Naruto turned to face Conan. 'Who is this kid to notice that? I slipped up a bit, but he caught on almost instantly!'

"Shut up you stupid brat!" Kogoro said, whacking Conan on the back of the head. "It's an item passed down in his family. Its history is obviously going to be exaggerated a bit."

"That's probably true," Naruto replied, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. "I don't remember exactly when it was forged, but the value is true. If you are able to either locate Kudo Shinichi or retrieve the sword for me, I am willing to pay you a third of the value of the sword."

"A third of the value?" Kogoro asked. "But that would be…"

"¥1.3 billion," Naruto replied casually.

The others' eyes went wide at hearing the amount that Naruto so casually offered in exchange for either the high school detective or the sword.

After a short moment, however, Kogoro frowned. "Wait a minute," he said.

"What do you mean, 'wait' Otou-san?" Ran demanded with an angry look on her face.

"It's just that whenever a client offers that kind of money to me for a job, they end up dying before I can get the money or even do the job," Kogoro replied, shrinking away in fear of his angry daughter.

Naruto just chuckled. "I assure you," he said, "I will not be dying anytime soon. If there were someone after my life, he would discover that I am not one that is easy to take down."

"I see," Kogoro said, still not entirely convinced. "Well, for now, let's head over to the detective brat's place and search for the vault or clues to his whereabouts. Hopefully he hasn't sold your katana off. Ran! You still have a key to his place, don't you?"

"Oh?" Naruto said, turning to Ran with a smirk on his face. "So Kudo Shinichi is your boyfriend?"

"No!" Ran exclaimed, blushing madly. "Well… We… He's a… We are…

"It's fine," Naruto said, chuckling. "You don't have to say anymore. Shall we be off?

[1]Each diamond is worth about $1,740,000 (¥163,594,800).