Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Akako was at his desk again.

Kaito did his best to ignore her, he really did. This worked for a good five seconds as Akako tried to get his attention like a normal person by saying his name. When that didn’t work, she grabbed his face and physically turned it in his direction, because apparently ‘personal space’ wasn’t a phrase in Akako’s vocabulary.

“Don’t go,” she said.

Kaito pulled away from her, then looked down at his half packed school bag, then looked back up. “It’s the end of the school day,” he said. “What do you want me to do, sit in an empty classroom for the rest of the day?”

Akako narrowed her eyes, leaning in even closer in response. “I am referring, of course, to your nightly activities. It would be in your best interest to skip this one.”

“You mean homework?” Kaito knew for a fact that she wasn’t referring to homework, but he wasn’t going to make this easy for her.

Akako didn’t even acknowledge that, by then well used to Kaito’s stubborn denial of his alter ego, and continued. “The gem you wish to go after is not an ordinary one. It is one of great power as well as great danger. Attempting to take it would be unwise and almost certainly cause you misfortune.”

Kaito heard the last part but didn’t process it completely. His brain was still stuck on the words that she said immediately before, words that caused his heart to beat just a little faster.

A gem of great power as well as great danger .

Could it be?

He shook off these thoughts for the moment, turning his attention back to Akako, who still had her face way too close to his own, frowning at him with seriousness as opposed to her usual attempt at flirtatious charm. He pulled back again and stood up, the legs of his chair squeaking as they slid across the floor. “Well, I appreciate your concern, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was just planning on sitting at my desk and doing homework tonight. If you’ve gone and mistaken me for Kaitou KID again , then, well…” Kaito shrugged with purposeful carelessness. “He probably knows what he’s doing, so I wouldn’t worry.”

As he left, he noted with slight satisfaction the frustration evident in Akako’s expression from being unable to get through to him. Maybe she thought he didn’t believe her. But she didn’t know that “powerful and dangerous” was exactly what he was looking for. She had only unintentionally strengthened his resolve.

He wouldn't get his hopes up too much, but... this could finally be it.

It was a clear night.

These were always Kaito’s favorite heist nights, for obvious reasons. When it was cloudy, trying to figure out if he had Pandora or not was an ordeal made far too difficult by the lack of moon in the sky. He usually tried to schedule his heists for when it would be clear but sometimes weather didn’t behave ideally and other times extenuating circumstances prevented him from having a choice in the matter.

Tonight was a good night, though. As Kaito peered through his binoculars at the window through which he would be entering, sitting cross legged on the roof of an adjacent building, ivory cape splayed behind him across the slightly grungy grey tiles, he grinned to himself in attempt to bury the nerves swirling in his gut.

Luck was on his side today. He wouldn’t allow anything to go wrong this time. Not when he could be so close to achieving his goal.

Five minutes passed, and it was showtime.

He glided over and pushed the window in, having already surreptitiously unlocked it beforehand, and perched himself on the window frame. “Yoo hoo!” he said cheerfully, waving at the three guards stationed in the room, who all startled and braced themselves at his sudden appearance.

“It’s KID!” one shouted.

“Get him!” yelled another simultaneously.

As the two officers rushed at him, the third one pulled out a walkie talkie. “Sir! Sir! KID has appeared on the fifth floor!” 

Upon this announcement, which Kaito had been waiting for, he smirked, and right before the two force members reached him, he tossed down one of his smoke bombs and filled the room with smoke. When the smoke cleared as more officers rushed into the room, including one head of the task force Nakamori Ginzo, Kaitou KID was gone, and only the three officers remained.

Ginzo let out a growl of frustration, clenching his fists. “KID! Where did he go?”

Right on cue, a flutter of white fabric could be seen passing by right outside the window. It disappeared quickly, but not quickly enough to escape the notice of Ginzo, who immediately drew the most reasonable conclusion.

“He’s heading for the jewel!” Ginzo roared. “Hurry!”

He immediately began to run out of the room. All the officers scurried out after him, including Kaito himself, who had taken up disguise as one of the three officers that had been stationed in the room while it was filled with smoke. The real officer had been safely parachuted to the ground below. Unfortunately, the police officers had kept a tight lid on the location of the jewel within the building, so he hadn’t been able to figure it out before the heist. It was no real issue tricking them into leading him to it themselves though. He had no doubt, however, that Ginzo wouldn’t fall for a trick like this next time. That was part of the fun of the job though; always coming up with new ideas.

It was as he was running that a sudden thought occurred to him, one that almost stopped him in his tracks.

If this really was Pandora… would this be his last heist?

Kaito shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was no use thinking about that right then. Anything that came afterwards he would concern himself with later - for now, he had a job to do. He couldn’t risk failing just because he couldn’t stay on task.

As it turned out, the jewel was only one floor below. Ginzo stopped in front of a door and pulled out a key, furiously unlocking it. Before he entered, though, he paused, and looked back at the group of officers following behind him.

“I’ll be the only one entering,” he announced. “Can’t be sure none of you are actually KID. Stay here.”

Kaito couldn’t have that. “But Inspector,” he called out, attracting everyone’s gazes, “how can we be sure you’re not KID yourself?”

Ginzo didn’t look very pleased at the accusation, his already prominent frown tightening. But he stormed over to Kaito and gestured at his cheek. “Here,” he said. “You can test it.”

Kaito grinned. 

A little sleight of hand and he was turning back to the other officers with a mask of Ginzo’s face in one hand, and the other hand behind Ginzo’s neck, who was now adorned with a Kaitou KID mask that he had placed over his head. “It’s KID!” Kaito yelled. “Don’t let him escape!”

“Wait- no-” Ginzo stammered, but not before he was dogpiled by the officers. Kaito quickly slipped into the room, knowing he didn’t have much time at all before his deception was uncovered.

His eyes wandered around the room only for a moment, noting its lack of windows and furniture, before locking onto the single item placed inside a glass box on a table in the middle of the room.

The Crystal Flame looked even more remarkable in person than it had in pictures. Though the outer edges were a deep blue, the inside seemed to almost glow a vibrant orange. According to what he read about it, this was the case no matter what angle it was looked at from. If there was any jewel that would be magical, it would be this one.

The real test would be whether it really would turn red in the moon’s glow.

Kaito stopped himself from running forward and just grabbing the jewel. The whole setup of the room screamed ‘trap,’ from the lack of windows to the obvious placement of the gem in the center of the room, and he’d had enough experience not to just run in blindly. A quick glance upwards revealed a small camera stationed in the corner of the room, but no obvious traps. But that didn’t mean there weren’t any.

He pulled out his card gun and shot it directly at the glass box the jewel was inside of.

The moment it hit, the whole room shook for a second as a large ‘CLANG’ sounded from behind him. Kaito spun around to see that a second set of metal doors besides the one Ginzo had unlocked had just closed behind him, trapping the corner of his cape between the two sides of the doors and locking him inside the room.

He tugged at his cape until it came free, silently cursing at himself for not noticing them in the wall when he walked through the doorway, or anywhere in the floorplan for that matter. Was this specifically set up to trap him, or had it existed before he announced his plans to stage a heist in this building? The reason for the lack of windows seemed obvious now too - they wanted to remove all possible escape routes. Kaito mentally berated himself for not being more careful. Maybe he was a bit more off focus than he thought.

Still… He glanced back up at the camera. It would be simple enough to convince whoever was watching him that he’d already escaped, and have them open the door back up for him. Worst come to worst, he could call Jii for some backup. For now, though, he’d have a look at that jewel.

Kaito carefully approached the center of the room and removed the glass box. Nothing else happened. Throwing it aside, he reached forward and grabbed the jewel.

At that very moment, in another room, an officer by the name of Matsura Taro was idly watching a screen on the wall in front of him, which showed live footage of the room Kaitou KID was currently trapped inside of. 

Well, as far as he knew, anyway. He’d been at this job long enough to know not to trust his eyes too much when it came to KID. But trying to figure out KID’s tricks was both too much of a headache and technically not his job. All he was told to do was make sure KID stayed in the room, and report if he somehow escaped.

And speaking of which, as if on cue, the image of Kaitou KID on the screen vanished as soon as he grabbed the gem placed in the center of the room. Matsura sighed, and picked up his walkie talkie.

“Kaitou KID has escaped with the jewel. I repeat, KID is not in the room.”

He pulled his walkie talkie away from his ear and winced as soon as the enraged yells of Inspector Nakamori came through the static, and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know, sir. He just vanished. It was like magic.”

More yelling.

“... Yes, I am aware that there is no such thing as magic, sir. My apologies.”

As Nakamori decided he was done shouting at him and began barking orders at the other officers to search the building, Matsura peered back at the screen, hoping to catch some clue as to how KID had escaped. But as much as he searched, he couldn’t figure it out.

“Magic indeed,” he muttered to himself.

Well, as previously established, this wasn’t his job. He leaned back in his chair again and just listened to the noise coming through his walkie talkie. He hadn’t really believed that they’d catch KID this time, not after all their failed attempts before. But he supposed there was a chance still. After all, like he’d said, there was no such thing as magic. As much as it looked like KID had teleported away, this was likely all just another trick of his.

Wherever KID had disappeared to, he couldn’t have gone too far.

Chapter Text

The moment his hand wrapped around the jewel, Kaito knew something was wrong.

For one, he suddenly felt his stomach churn and his head spin, as if the world had suddenly turned upside down and right back up again all in the span of a second. He took a moment to collect himself as the muffled sound of police officers yelling about something or other grew clearer in his ringing ears.

That was another thing that wasn’t right. There were no officers in the room that he was in, and he hadn’t heard the door open. Unless he had passed out and missed something, there was no way he could be hearing them right then.

The last thing that was wrong was the fact that there was another hand in a white glove clutching the jewel he had just grabbed, one that wasn’t his.

His eyes followed the hand up to the arm and body attached to it - one wearing a very familiar looking white suit - before reaching the face, where he found himself staring into a pair of dark blue eyes that were wide with surprise, one of which was hidden behind a round monocle just like his own.

“What the hell?” Kaito yelped, losing his composure for a moment. “Who are you?”

“I should be asking you the same thing,” his imposter said significantly more calmly, his eyes narrowing and tracing over Kaito’s face. His voice was familiar, familiar in a way that sent a jolt down his spine and caused his brain to stutter for a moment because there was no way. No way in hell. This had to be some sort of trick.

Meanwhile, while Kaito only stared like an idiot, the officers that had been yelling in the background about two Kaitou KID’s! had gathered their wits and were now rushing towards them. Kaito quickly broke out of his stupor, but not quickly enough to prevent the other KID from yanking the jewel out of his grasp and throwing a smoke bomb to the ground.

Kaito took a brief second while the officers were scrambling in the sudden onslaught of smoke to quickly figure out what to do. One option was to just run. Obviously this heist had gone sideways in so many ways, and he was tempted to just book it and try again some other time. But no, he couldn’t. There was some... imposter... out there with the jewel, and until he knew for certain that it wasn’t Pandora, he couldn’t let them get away.

But chasing after the imposter would be difficult too. Escaping the police through the cover of the smoke bomb would be child’s play for Kaito; tracking someone else whose motivations and abilities were unknown would be a bit more complicated. But at the very least, he knew they’d have to leave the building sometime, so getting to the roof and keeping an eye out seemed like his best bet at the moment to find and catch them.

There wasn’t much time left before the smoke would clear though, so for now, Kaito would hide from the police, then find the imposter, figure out what was going on, and hopefully get the jewel back.

He found someplace to hide at the side of the room just as the smoke began to clear, and watched the police begin looking around the room wildly. The room that… wasn’t the one he had been in before.

This wasn’t something Kaito had only just noticed, but in the rush of everything else, he hadn’t been able to process what it meant until now. Upon closer investigation, was he even in the same building? He had to be, but a quick look around the room only made him more convinced that this room really didn’t fit with the layout of the building that he’d studied before his heist. It was much too large. The elevator was on the wrong side.

A myriad of possible explanations flitted through his head at once. Maybe he had studied the wrong blueprints; but that didn’t explain how he somehow seemed to have teleported somewhere else in the building. Maybe this was another trap; but no, why would the police resort to something as convoluted and confusing as this? It seemed much too counterintuitive to be purposeful. Or maybe…

His thoughts flashed back to his conversation with Akako earlier that day. She had said that the Crystal Flame had some sort of power. And all this had only happened once he’d grabbed the jewel. Maybe this jewel was the cause of… whatever was going on.

Or maybe this was just another Kaitou Corbeau incident.

Regardless, he’d only find answers by finding the imposter, so he slipped on a quick police officer disguise and made his way innocuously across the room to the door marked ‘stairs.’ He hurriedly took them all the way to the top, exiting out to the cold night air on the roof of the building.

Surprisingly, he didn’t have to do any more searching than that, because the other KID was there on the roof as well. He was standing on the edge of the building, his back to Kaito, holding the Crystal Flame up to the moon in the sky. The jewel glowed the same orange that it had before, perhaps a little brighter against the light of the moon. Not Pandora. 

Before Kaito could do anything, the other man spoke. “I must say,” he said, without turning to look at Kaito, “I was impressed by your little ‘appearing-out-of-nowhere’ trick earlier. Very well done.”

Kaito stayed silent for a moment, anything he had planned to say thrown to the wind at the sound of the imposter’s voice. “Who are you?” was what ended up coming out of his mouth, because it couldn’t be his father, so it had to be either his mother again or someone more sinister.

The figure turned around at this question. Kaito tried to get a closer look at his face, but since his back was illuminated by the moon, his face was cloaked in shadows. Kaito pulled the brim of his borrowed police hat lower on his head, aware that the opposite was true for him.

Through the darkness disguising his features, Kaito could see the faintest of smiles on the imposter’s face, though he couldn’t discern what sort of emotion it was supposed to be conveying. “That should be my question. You come to my heist, dressed in my clothes, and yet you claim not to know who I am? I’m unsure whether to find this amusing or concerning.”

Before Kaito could reply, a bright light shone upon the roof from above, and he suddenly became aware that the sound of helicopter blades, which he had somehow managed to tune out before, was now growing louder as it approached. They had been spotted. The other KID glanced up, then back at Kaito, and smiled again. The expression was more clear now that there was more light to see it with, and Kaito could tell that if there had been any emotion there when he’d been trying to discern it before, it wasn’t there now, because this smile was carefully blank.

“Here.” The man tossed a small object at Kaito, glinting orange under the light of the helicopter. Kaito deftly snatched the Crystal Flame out of the air. “It’s not what I’m looking for anyway.”

And with that, the man leaped off the edge of the building. 

Kaito took a moment to watch him glide away, until he decided that he should probably take his leave too, before his somewhat flimsy improvised disguise was seen through and he got himself arrested. He jumped off the building in the opposite direction of the other man and released his hang glider, his thoughts in disarray. 

He was tempted to chalk this down to another Kaitou Corbeau incident and be done with it, but… there was a lot that still didn’t make sense, if that was the case. For one, the other man wasn’t claiming to be another thief. He was wearing an exact replica of Kaito’s suit and claimed it to be his own. This was someone pretending to be Kaitou KID himself. 

For another, the other incident was his mother’s doing, or at least he’d assumed so after she’d hinted as such afterwards. And while he was still confused as to why exactly his mother would do that, he felt pretty certain she wasn’t behind it this time. She wouldn’t just do the same trick twice; she would know that he’d see through it if she tried. At least, he didn’t think she would. Which begged the question: who was this, and why were they doing it?

He couldn’t ignore the possibility that this was the organization after Pandora, as much as he’d have liked to. The man had held the jewel up to the moon, so it was pretty obvious to Kaito that he was looking for Pandora. But he didn’t understand their motivations behind planting someone dressed as Kaitou KID. To confuse the cops? To confuse Kaito? Well, if that was their goal, they’d succeeded perfectly. 

And none of these explanations explained his sudden change in location. There was really only one explanation that could make that make any sense, and as much as he was trying not to think of the possibility, it was seeming more and more likely that this was the fault of the jewel.

He glanced back at the jewel in his hand. He’d only briefly considered it before, but if this was because of the Crystal Flame, and there was something more… magical behind all this, then that would explain the teleportation at least. And Akako had straight up told him that it was magical, so that was one strong piece of evidence supporting this theory. If that was the case… that left two blaring questions.

What exactly did the jewel do, and if it had been activated by his grabbing it, why wasn’t it doing anything now?

Kaito landed in a relatively secluded alleyway, folded up his hang glider, and changed back into street clothes. He peered again at the jewel, but still unable to see anything blatantly magical, he sighed and placed it in his pocket. He’d call his mother, he decided. Even if this wasn’t her, maybe she’d have some information that could help him.

Kaito pulled out his phone and pressed his mother’s contact to call her, but instead of the usual ringing, a voice came out of the phone’s speakers.

“We’re sorry, the number you have dialed does not exist.”

 What?

Kaito frowned down at his phone which was still spouting the automated message. This… didn’t make sense. The number should have been correct, since he went straight from his contacts. And if his mother had changed her number, she would have told him. 

The alarms in his head blaring that something was wrong, the ones that had been going off ever since he grabbed that jewel, started getting louder as he called Jii. Hopefully he would be able to help figure out what was going on.

“We’re sorry, the number you have dialed does not exist.”

Panic was beginning to settle in now. With fumbling fingers, he scrolled up until he found Aoko’s contact information and pressed call, waiting with dread for that same automated message. 

Instead, he heard the ringing sound, and then the sound stopped as someone picked up on the other side. Kaito waited with bated breath.

“Hello?” Aoko’s voice came through the speaker on his phone.

Kaito let out the air he’d been holding slowly. “Hey, Aoko,” he said cheerfully, making sure to let none of the nerves he was feeling leak into his voice. “Sorry for calling so late. You weren’t asleep, were you?”

A brief silence following his question made him think that she had been, and still must be half-asleep. “I’m sorry,” she said eventually, “Who is this?”

“It’s Kaito. Come on, you didn’t fall out of bed and hit your head, did you?”

More silence, and then: “I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong number.” And then a beep sounded in his ear, notifying him that she had just hung up.

The panic that had ebbed slightly at the sound of her voice came back tenfold. Something was wrong. Even if Aoko was half-asleep, she wouldn’t just pretend she didn’t know him. At worst she would yell at him a bit. But she didn’t even do that. Something was wrong.

He ran out of the alley, stumbling a bit as he turned the corner, and quickly headed in the direction he knew his house to be. As he ran, his mind spiraled with possible scenarios. This was the organization. They discovered his identity, and had already gotten to his mother and Jii, and they were now after Aoko. Or Aoko finally discovered his identity, and wanted nothing to do with him now. Or maybe she really did fall out of bed and hit her head, and was seriously concussed and needed to go to the hospital immediately, and he should call an ambulance now-

Or maybe he was just panicking, and needed to calm down before he did something stupid.

He reached his street and stopped in front of the Nakamori house, then took a moment to catch his breath and assess the situation. From the outside, it didn’t seem like anything was wrong. A couple windows were lit, but the curtains were drawn so he couldn’t see inside.

Kaito didn’t bother to knock on the door. He grabbed the key the Nakamoris always kept under a plant and let himself in, making sure to be as quiet as possible. If there was someone else there, he didn’t want to alert them to his presence, and if everything really was okay, well, he’d let himself into her house loads of times. It would be fine. 

Immediately he noticed quiet noises that sounded like the clanking of dishes coming from the kitchen. He wandered over silently, and peeked in. 

Only Aoko was in there, dressed in pajamas, her hair an even bigger mess than usual. She was pouring some hot water into a mug. Kaito watched and relaxed a little as she paused once to yawn. At least she didn’t appear to be in any danger, her demeanor showing no signs of fear or stress.

He might have spent a little too long standing there watching, though, because she then grabbed her mug and turned right towards where he was standing. 

The mug slipped from her hands and crashed into the kitchen floor, shattering and sending a dark liquid everywhere. Some of it landed on her pajamas, and a couple drops made it to Kaito’s pants. He winced. 

“Sorry, Aoko, I didn’t mean to-” he said, but he didn’t get any further than that before he had to quickly dodge as Aoko grabbed a pan off the stove and swung it at his head. 

“Get out of my house!” she screeched, swinging it at him again. “Creep!”

Kaito continued to dodge her barrage, an annoyed frown spreading across his face. “What are you getting so mad about, Ahoko?” he yelled back. A sinking feeling began to form in his gut. “It’s just me!”

Aoko paused for a moment in her attack, breathing heavily as she held out the pan in a threatening manner. “I don’t know who you are,” she ground out, “but my dad is a police officer, so you’d better get out now or he’ll find you and arrest you. I mean it!”

Kaito stared at her for a couple seconds, not wanting to believe her but seeing no deception in her face. “You really don’t know who I am?” he asked, a little numbly. 

She took another step forward, tightening her grip on the pan. “No! Now get out or I’ll hit you with this!”

Kaito put his hands up. “Alright, alright,” he said. “I… sorry.” He began walking backwards back towards the door, keeping his eyes on Aoko the whole time. She kept her own eyes locked on his in a sharp glare. 

Not an ounce of familiarity was in that stare. 

Kaito felt acutely aware of the weight of the Crystal Flame in his pocket as he backed out of the house, Aoko’s gaze trained on him the entire time. The moment he stepped outside, the front door slammed shut in front of him.