Chapter Text
"I can tell you," the taunted voice said, amused in the sudden request. "But what will you give in exchange?"
Pandora could only be perceived under specific circumstances. It was a jewel concealed inside a large jewel that would glow red under the moonlight.
It made sense now. It made sense all along. He just couldn’t wrap his head around it to understand. Though, he couldn’t bring himself to understand it.
How every single time he hold a type of extravagant jewel in his hand, bought it under the moonlight only to see the gem shining there, transparent and bare with nothing to hide (except maybe signal chip, from time to time).
How a glimpse of the ruby color could easily be passed as a trick of his eyes due to disappointment. At those time his mind was filled with the police officers’ relentlessness and even Snake to notice, trying to escape their unforgiving grasp. He ran and hopped past all the obstacles, ignoring the strain in his legs, the panted breath of his, sometimes the unbearable injuries. Because as nonviolent as he could be, he didn't expect that they would return the favor.
It wasn’t possible.
"Do you ever wonder why you are so lucky?"
Akako’s solemn words ran through his head when he stood in the empty room. The girl somehow had found out before him, warning him about the unexpectedness on their school rooftop that particular morning, in their peculiar meetup spot. A heavy atmosphere clouded her face.
"How you always make it out alive despite all the odds against you?"
He saw the truth now, bare and ugly. The distorted red reflected back to him.
“Pandora?” He gazed into the mirror. Illuminated by the silver moonlight from the windows, his reflection gazed back at him, eyes widened in shock. In recognition.
His monocle laid on the floor, forgotten. As its owner's lilac eyes glued on the polished glass. His right eye glowing red. Like a gem had been uncovered.
He was....?
No no no no no
Kuroba backed away from the mirror, as if its mere presence just punched him in the face.
It couldn't be.
It wasn't.. shouldn't.. even possible.
He couldn't be Pandora. Pandora was a gem. A jewel. An old ancient gem that supposed to grant people immortality.
He was seventeen years old for God's sake. No myth sprouted from something came into being only seventeen years ago. And he was certain he wasn't immortal. Being a phantom thief as the public claimed, for all its worth, he was just a human. He bled, he suffered, like a human would.
Was this even logical anymore?
But then, he had survived even the most ridiculous situations like Akako said. His memory flickered about how his wounds always recovered smoother and better than Jii-san's expectation. How there were snipers and detectives and a bloody shady organization followed his tails yet he could avoid them all. How his body had suffered from falling, from vigorous force in the form of footballs, from piercing glass, from gunshots, from explosion, and it would had no lasting physical effect on him. Considering Kaitou Kid required agility and swiftness, the mere fact that his body could miraculous heal was a blessing to him.
Now it was like a slap in the face. Kaito stumbled back, his hands roamed around in panic to find something to hold on to. His thoughts were in jumbled as they processing the information and jumped between theories and thoughts in seconds. He flinched when his back come in contacted with the wall. Right. He needed- need to sit down- remain calm. Yeah. That sounded good.
It was in his right eye all along? In the heists it was always been hidden by his monocle. And there wasn't much time to ponder in the mirror all night. He wasn't a narcissist like Hakuba.
It was surreal. Too surreal to be true. He was immortal? He wasn't immortal? How could he bloody prove that if the only way he could was killing himself? He wasn't suicidal.
Was he?
No.
Yes?
In his seventeenth birthday, Kaito Kuroba accepted the fate of Kaitou Kid, thus the responsibility that undoubted it would bring. He hadn’t except it to go this far. He maintained two lives, and lied to the face of those he respected most. The more Kuroba distant himself from his friends, the brighter Kaitou Kid could perform in front of his audiences. He felt his mere existence became a façade of something that better off buried in the past. An empty shell.
He remembered Aoko’s crestfallen face countless time when her father so worked up against Kid, left her alone in her birthday to chase after a phantom thief, remembered Inspector Nakamori stood still, ignoring the whispers, the voices from the crowd or other departments questioned his team's competency. His heists started at night, stealing people’s time to be at home, to be near their family, with their children.
He remembered the hand grappling him, desperation to be saved visible in the man's eyes, only to be disappointed, because of him. He remembered the innocent child’s voice, how the little boy sobbed while hugging his motionless father. It gave him Nightmare for months.
No. He- he don't- he- No. It was wrong. It must be some kind of tricks. The stress must be getting to him. The chase, the exhaustion, the sleepless nights he pulled to prepare for the heists.
Kaito curled up, for once let himself be swallowed by the darkness. The mirror bathed in the moonlight slimmering through the window, its ugly reflection laid bare before his eyes.
Hollow. Blank. Darkness. Void.
“You knew,” he stated the following day, finding himself on the rooftop again. “How?”
A single question didn’t sufficient. But it would be a start.
“I got my way,” Akako replied. Her eyes were reading him in a different way. Granted, they had been following him since the time she was aware of the thief, but now with less calculating, and more sympathy. They stood in silence for awhile before the witch sighed.
“You have opened something you shouldn’t, Pandora.”
Kuroba visibly flinched when she addressed the name out loud. Both of them knew there was no need to dance around the topic like they used to, at least this time. He tried to keep his emotions in check as he dreaded the confirmation.
"Why am I-" He struggled to said the word, refused to believe in the... truth. "How can that happened?"
"You're its vessel." She was quiet at first, then said. "Right from your birth."
“I have to keep going,” he said. Akako's explanations were beyond his stretched imagination “The heists. They cannot know.”
If he stopped sending out notices all of a sudden, people would suspect. Snake would be suspicious that he already obtained the gem and they would hunt down the people around him. They knew his father, so if they made the connection...
And Inspector Nakamori. The man would be shocked to know Kid vanished again... But he couldn't just inform him, if the organization had infiltrated the Task Force... The Inspector would be in danger.
"Kid..." The name seemed hesitant as it dropped from her lips, her wistful eyes glued on him, yet even she was unsure of her intention.
"Just you see. I'd destroy the gem," Kaito smiled, his confident Poker Face was back in place. Ending a conversation with a careless wave, he turned his back to Akako and going back to class. Cause he was the infamous Kaitou Kid. So he wouldn't let anything stop him from smashing Pandora into pieces, even himself.
The question was... how?
On the next week, the Task Force received the notice for the upcoming heist from Kid.
Pandora is, to put it in better word, ethereal magic."
It was slightly different this time. How Kid seems deliberate to be more reckless. Even with his two detectives joined into the chase, the traps they encountered was still not up to the thief's standard. He must had distracted, both detectives noticed, since he took a wrong direction.
In normal circumstances, it won't interfere with its vessel's wish if its well-being isn't at stake."
He jumped through the window, the glass shattering. As the others reached the door, the thief had disappeared.
"If it is, it won't only make the vessel immortal. It can manipulate the possibilities."
"Impossible. We're on the 8th floor!" The police cops gnawed in shock, before Inspector Nakamori shook his head.
"You idiots. He just tricked us. Look." An angry inspector pointed his finger up, and there was a small, while spot flying on the sky. With a determined roar, he commanded his team to have a grip and ran out to chase after the thief.
"You have played a rigged game from the start, Pandora."
Hakuba Saguru raised his eyebrow, his posture bend down to study the window. It was too narrow to allow Kid to open his glider. The police were chasing after a dummy, an effective distraction.
He looked back at the detective boy with the round glasses. As their eyes met, he knew that they both reached the same conclusion.