Detective Conan: Sending Messages
Kudo Shinichi’s unexpected return to Beika followed the tragic death of his young protégé, Edogawa Conan, who had been known by some as Shinichi’s successor. No one was surprised when Shinichi didn’t begin chasing murderers right away. It was only right, they said, to take some time to properly grieve. When he did go back to detecting, he primarily took on missing-person cases. People began to whisper, has he lost his nerve?
Then Kaitou Kid sent his first heist notice since Shinichi’s return, in which the tiny Kid caricature at the bottom displayed a watch with its face turned towards the viewer. Shinichi just smirked, deciphered the location and left, saying that he had to speak with Dr. Agasa and would meet the task force later.
That night, Shinichi turned up wearing his old dart watch, and larger versions of the soccer ball belt and kick-enhancing sneakers. (“It’s not as if I’m out of enemies, and it’s useful to be able to hit harder than my physical limits,” he told Dr. Agasa. “And anyway,” he continued, turning his head and hiding his eyes, “if anyone recognizes them, they’ll just think it’s a sort of remembrance for Conan.”)
He and the task force chased Kid all over the night’s museum. In the end, Kid was the sole witness to the first smile Shinichi’d worn in weeks. The detective suddenly realized that he hadn’t necessarily lost all that he’d gained as Conan; after all, he could still hear what Kaitou Kid didn’t say and, if the thief’s matching grin was any indication, his own silent messages were getting through just fine.
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That’s enough stalling, detective. It’s time to stop running.
I’ll show you running, thief.
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Shinichi went straight to the second heist from the Mouri Detective Agency. He didn’t look back as he walked quickly away, didn’t falter when he broke into a run. He didn’t want to know whether she cried or screamed.
During the heist, he was badly distracted and off his game. He misjudged the thief’s entry point by two whole floors. A dart that should have hit Kid ended up in Inspector Nakamori’s neck. Kid gassed him when he nearly stepped off a third floor balcony and gently deposited his slumbering form next to Nakamori’s.
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If you’re not going to pay attention, I’m not going to let you play.
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Shinichi felt eyes on him throughout the entirety of the third heist. He told himself to stop worrying, that it was probably just Kid. Even he didn’t believe it.
Especially not when he heard the gunshots.
After the heist was over and everyone (phantom thief included) had gone home, Shinichi searched every building nearby that offered a good vantage point. He found what he was looking for on the fourth try.
Footprints made by someone wearing boots. Three cigarette butts, two smoked down to the filter, one stubbed out. Paint transfer on the concrete ledge where something matte black in color had been pulled away quickly. And the most damning evidence of all, two bullet casings.
Shinichi stood in the center of that roof for a long time that night, holding those casings in his hand and remembering.
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Not again.
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Officially, Shinichi didn’t participate in the fourth heist at all. He hung back while the riddle was being deciphered, disappeared when the plans were being made and completely failed to show up at the location. (Nakamori dialed the Mouris’ number once and Hattori Heiji’s number twice, but he never actually made the call, either way.)
Unofficially, Shinichi was very present at the heist. He methodically searched all the likely buildings and systematically darted and contained all three snipers present. He looked up from cuffing the last one just in time to catch Kid’s sharp, assessing gaze as he glided past.
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I will not allow them to kill you.
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On the way home, Hattori fell into step beside Shinichi, but he didn’t speak, or touch, or even glance Shinichi’s way. For his part, Shinichi didn’t acknowledge his new companion, preferring to continue on his way while idly watching the passing traffic. They walked along in easy silence until Shinichi spoke.
“When I said I’d bury you, I didn’t mean it literally.”
Hattori nodded. “Understood,” he said in an uncharacteristically solemn voice.
Shinichi closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Kid was gone.
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I don’t want you to thank me for this.
I know.
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The fifth heist passed by in a blur for Shinichi. Earlier in the day, he’d caught a glimpse of Ran crossing the street while he was working another case, and he’d been…restless ever since. Suddenly, Kaitou Kid, soaring over Shinichi’s head on his glider, dropped down almost to street level and wheeled around the corner of a nearby building. Shinichi cursed and followed him…
…and came face to face with Ran.
She was the biggest mystery of Shinichi’s life, the one he’d never tired of investigating. Where was Ran? What was she thinking? What was she doing? What would she say/do/think if he said/did…? Then there was the most important question of all: how would she react if he told her how much he loved her? He stood there staring at her in the middle of a deserted street, and the last piece of his first, greatest and best-loved mystery slotted into place.
It was over. He wasn’t her life anymore, and she wasn’t his. There were no more words to say and nothing he could do would ever fix this.
Ran took one uncertain step backwards before she turned abruptly on her heel and started to walk away. The sight tore a small, broken noise from Shinichi’s throat, and she must have heard it because she started to run. Shinichi stared at the place where she’d stood long after she was gone. He heard the flutter of Kid’s cape in the wind as the thief walked up behind him, but Shinichi didn’t-couldn’t-acknowledge him.
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A scant ten feet away, at the corner of the building hiding them from the rest of the Task Force’s view, stood Inspector Nakamori. He’d noticed Shinichi’s odd behavior of late, and Kaitou Kid’s reaction to it, and followed the detective on a hunch. Now, though… He made no move to capture Kid. Just once, he gave Kid a grace period, for as long as Shinichi needed him. He was unsurprised when the slippery thief disappeared in a cloud of pink smoke just as Shinichi started to turn towards him. He may display an odd fondness for “his” detectives, but Kaitou Kid did not want to be caught. Through it all, neither Shinichi nor Kaitou Kid said a single word.
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Don’t do anything. Don’t say anything. Don’t make it worse.
I’m not trying to make it worse, detective.
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Shinichi woke up in the hospital after the sixth heist. There were holes in his memory-he remembered falling, the ground rushing up to meet him, but…why? He didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud-or that there was even anyone else in the room-until Takagi answered him.
“A deranged fan-yours or Kid’s, we haven’t been able to ascertain-showed up at the heist. She screamed ‘You won’t take him from me,’ over and over again while firing at any and all police officers present. You were half out of a fifth story window when she started shooting, and you fell when you caught a ricochet in the arm. You’re lucky it’s only a graze, and that it was only your arm. It could have been much worse.”
“How did I hit my head?”
Takagi swallowed before answering-an understandable reaction if he’d been there, and actually seen Shinichi nearly fall to his death. “You cleared the window sill,” he said, “but not the decorative statue beneath it, which jutted out a bit farther.”
“I see.”
Shinichi looked closely at the detective standing by his bed. The face was right, and the voice, but… Takagi didn’t always stutter, but he didn’t have that underlying tone of quiet confidence, either, and his eyes weren’t that color. His hands, which Shinichi had gotten more than one good look at when they were at Conan’s eye level, were also subtly different.
Shinichi turned his face toward the wall, away from this man with Takagi’s face and voice but Kaitou Kid’s eyes and hands and fears. “You caught me,” he said softly.
“I’m not with the Kaitou Kid Task Force,” Takagi replied. “I wasn’t there.”
Shinichi closed his eyes. “Of course,” he said, smiling. He kept his eyes closed in implicit permission. Sure enough, he sensed Kid come closer. Shinichi relaxed and waited. His first instinct when he felt Kid’s fingers ghost across the bandage on his temple was to turn into the touch, but he resisted. No need to scare his thief off this time. The feather-light touch drifted to the side of his nose-where he’d only recently lost the imprint of his glasses-then softly traced the shape of the lenses around his eyes. Shinichi felt Kid’s fingers slowly curl inward against his skin, felt the thief draw the backs of his fingers down Shinichi’s cheek. Kid carefully, almost hesitantly drew his thumb underneath Shinichi’s lower lip, never once applying any real pressure.
“Shinichi…” Kid whispered, so softly that the injured detective barely heard him.
Shinichi’s smile stayed on his face, even when Kid drew away and stepped back. He pretended not to hear Kid’s shaky exhale once they were no longer touching. He listened to Kid’s nearly-silent footsteps moving away from the bed. He spoke up right as they reached the window.
“Kid?”
Silence. Kid went perfectly still at the sound of Shinichi’s voice. “Yes?” he responded.
“Don’t have your next heist without me, okay?”
“As you wish,” Kid replied, then left out of the window.
Shinichi’s eyes remained closed, but he clearly heard the smile in Kaitou Kid’s voice.
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You caught me. Next time, I’ll catch you.
It’s a date.
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The seventh heist was uneventful, as heists go. Shinichi and Kid were both in rare form (the Task Force was just trying to stay out of the line of fire). True to his unspoken promise, Shinichi managed to close one hand around Kid’s wrist. He was reaching for his handcuffs when the double Kid had somehow substituted at the last minute exploded in a cloud of pink sleeping gas.
Ran wasn’t waiting for him when he woke up, but he was ready to accept that, now.
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It’s almost time, detective.
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The eighth heist wasn’t a heist at all. The note Kid sent to the police was complete gibberish, and chock full of red herrings. As the sun was setting, Shinichi left them to it and took a walk.
He headed away from the police station, away from the Mouri Detective Agency. He skirted the hotel where Conan had started his Kid-chasing career, and avoided all the rest of Kid’s past targets. Finally, he found a building he liked and climbed to the roof. Kid landed just as he opened the roof access door.
“I see you got my invitation,” Kid called out to him.
Shinichi couldn’t help but laugh. “I’d have come for anything you sent to the police, you know,” he said, enjoying Kid’s sudden grin at his confession. “But it’s just as well that you did call me out,” he continued, “because I have something to tell you.”
“Oh?” Kid questioned lightly, moving closer.
“Yes,” Shinichi replied, breaking his stillness to circle around Kid as he usually did a particularly interesting piece of evidence at a crime scene. Kid, of course, responded by moving in a similar circle, keeping himself directly across from Shinichi but moving in the opposite direction.
“Do tell,” Kid prompted with a knife-edged grin and wild, anticipatory look in his eyes.
“You’re going to be on your own for a while,” Shinichi said. He tightened his circuit to bring them closer together and stopped when they were face-to-face and only a few feet apart. For the first time since before he’d taken a small, innocuous-looking pill from Ai’s hand-before he left Ran in an amusement park to change their destinies forever-he allowed the detective within himself to come forward completely without restraint. He felt the familiar need to balance the scales surge through him and this time, he didn’t fight it. He let the world around him filter through him, let it tell him everything that everyone else missed. A ready, waiting tension flowed into his body, the look in his eyes sharpened, and his lips twisted into a knowing smirk.
His gaze left Kid to sweep across the city laid bare before them. It was time. This was his city, and he would protect it. He looked back at Kid to find the thief staring at him with a fierce, triumphant look on his face and Shinichi knew he’d seen the change and knew what it meant.
Kid’s cape snapped up into the glider and, without another word, he turned and caught the wind. As he flew away, Shinichi stood under the light of the moon and felt a new mystery unfold in his mind.
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Thank you, Kid.
Well done, detective.
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The next day, a man was murdered in Beika. The suspects were non-existent, the crime scene was baffling, and the police were stumped. Kudo Shinichi solved the case.