Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The night is always colored grey. It is too poetic a thought for a gruff old policeman like Ginzo Nakamori, but it is what he thinks.

Moreso on nights like this, with all the lights out in his office and the soft glow of the moonlight filtering in through the blinds. It is too dark to read any of the files spread in front of him, but the department is short on money already. He doesn't want to switch on the lights. He doesn't want to go home yet either, smelling of alcohol with a five-o-clock shadow, to a daughter who will hide her heartbreak and disappointment behind a smile, an aspirin and a homecooked meal.

She shouldn't have to be looking out for herself alone, let alone him.

His awareness of the figure in his periphery comes in a quick burst, police instinct taking over. His gun is up before he can think, pointed squarely at the intruder's chest.

The white that fills his vision freezes him to the spot.

"You're dead," he says uselessly. 

The ghost straightens from his lounge by the window. When did he get in? Between one heartbeat and the next it seems, or maybe he has always been there. Ginzo's head swims, and his grip on the gun tightens when the ghost saunters closer.

Ginzo can't focus on the ghost's face, even when he stops less than a foot away and leans over the desk, white-gloved fingers spreading over the scattered files. (Is it even a he? Ten years on the job and he never knew for certain. This criminal who changed faces and voices like hats, who could have been a man, a woman, a demon sent to torment him. Who sent his heart beating, adrenaline rushing in the chase.) He sees the monocle, the damn clover leaf charm that's haunted his dreams for the last decade, washed grey in the moonlight.

"I never took you for a gin kind of man," the ghost says, plucking the bottle easily from its half-hidden spot under the desk. He - his voice is male and unfamiliar, but that means nothing, not if this is who he thinks it is - sounds disapproving.

That flips a switch. "And I never took you for a disappearing act, you @$&@%%^!"

His shout is like a bullet's crack, breaking the mystical spell over the night, and blood thunders into his brain. He might be drunk but this? This is real.

The intruder seems surprised, bottle held loosely in white-gloved hands. Ginzo thumbs the safety back and aims squarely between his eyes, above that damned monocle.

Kaitou Kid throws back his head and laughs, clover charm shaking, and suddenly Ginzo sees in color. The silver shine of the monocle, the green clover, the tie that looks almost black in the moonlight but that he knows is a deep, blood red. Then the thief leans in suddenly, eyes dancing, a feather light touch on Ginzo's chest. Ginzo curses, lifting his finger from the trigger before he accidentally shoots.

"Well, Inspector Nakamori," Kaitou Kid grins a Cheshire grin, Ginzo can see his face now, and it looks young and vaguely familiar, but that doesn't mean anything. "I'm back now."

He draws back, slipping into the shadows, and disappears even with Ginzo staring so hard his eyes are watering.

"Be a dear and spread the word, would you?"

A heartbeat after he leaves, Ginzo curses and switches on the light and all the news channels, banging drawers open to dig out dust-covered manila folders. Heart pounding, he pours through old files with more focus than he has in years.

It will be morning before he sees the ruby broach on his lapel, pointed out by a nervous rookie, and he swears up a blue storm to get the Kaitou Kid Taskforce back in business.

Conan Edogawa has been clashing with Phantom Thief 1412 for months.

He's already deduced that this is not the same thief his father went up against years ago. There are similarities, of course - the outfit, the magic, the flair for the dramatic. The chameleon-like ability to change identities in seconds and magpie's eye for shiny objects.

But then there are the undeniable differences. For one, this Kid doesn't return what he steals, except the first time with Inspector Nakamori to announce his debut. For another, the 'no one gets hurt' rule the original had does not seem to be in effect, as proven when Kid 2.0 shows no aversion to using the real bullets in his arsenal - sparingly, but he uses them, as relayed by a furious Nakamori.

It's hard to tell from a distance, but Conan has been close enough to see that the costume is also slightly different - the undershirt and the band around his top hat are black silk, instead of navy blue. The tie's red is closer to blood than the cherry color he's seen in older news clippings.

This is about all Conan has deduced, and that Kid is terribly good at what he does, which is pretty frustrating.

(In another world, Conan also knew that Kid was a teenager from their first meeting, and had a near perfect success rate at foiling heists. In another world, Kid is new to the game and mostly self-taught, staying a hair's breadth ahead of the gaggle of meitantei after him through a combination of skill, sheer luck, and begrudging camaraderie. In this one, he makes less mistakes, stays steps ahead. Deals with problems more permanently.)

All in all, though, chasing Kid is almost fun. Pitting his wits against someone outside of the murderer-of-the-week (or day) gives Conan an undeniable thrill. There is always an edge of danger to it, but the feel is removed enough from seeing corpses day and night that Conan ignores it and plays the game every time he's invited. 

Until the rules change.

Kid is hiding behind a mask, a young girl - and he really does like impersonating cute girls too much, but at least it's not Ran this time - and Conan, fed up and simmering with stress after a recent run-in with the Black Org, is about to launch a soccer ball at his smirking face, when Kid speaks. The words send ice shooting up Conan's veins.

"So you're her Silver Bullet."

Smoke fills the room and clears, taking Kid with it. Several minutes later, policeman storm in, shouting. Someone is saying his name, then a hand grips his shoulder.

Conan hasn't moved. His hands shake.

Aoko Nakamori hasn't really been paying attention to the news of a transfer student. Keiko and the others are in a tizzy, whispering theories around their desks. The boys have lost interest, since the transfer isn't going to be a girl.

Aoko thinks about what she's going to make for her dad's dinner. He spent the night at the office again. She caught him early in the morning, as she was leaving the house. He looked exhausted, but...excited, too. More than she'd seen him in years. He gave her a hug, then sent her off to school in a weirdly good mood. 

She should make something nice. She isn't sure what the good mood means, but there is probably no harm in preserving it. Her pen moves idly in her math notebook, listing down ingredients. It's such a housewifey thing to do, so much that she hears an echo of teasing laughter. Briefly, fiercely, she misses her childhood friend.

She notices when the classroom goes silent. The new student must have arrived. She glances up. 

Her pen clatters onto the desk.

"I'm Kaito Kuroba," says an unfamiliar voice from a familiar grin. It feels like he's only looking at her. "It's nice to meet all of you."

Three coffins are buried together, side-by-side in the rain. 

There are murmurs around the gathered. They blur together, a giant amorphous blob of mourners in uniformly dark clothing. Kaito once found a leech on the sidewalk, red-black and bloated and squirming, before another kid popped it with a stick. He wonders when the people-blob will pop, and if he can go home when they do.

Aoko is hugging his arm and crying, her body trembling with every heaving sob. She's trembling so much that he is too, pressed so closely to her as he is, and her tears are staining his cheeks even though her face is on his shoulder.

Ginzo-ojisan has planted himself in front of them like a guard dog, accepting the condolences in his stead. 

Kaito understands. He usually loves an audience, but he doesn't have any playing cards or roses with him. He probably can't put on a show right now, nothing that can come close to topping the last one.

It had been a spectacular show. So spectacular that Mom, Dad, and Jiisan never made it out of the explosive finale.

He looks up when he hears the raised voices. Mostly Ginzo-ojisan's, loud and angry, while the other person speaks calmly enough that they can barely be heard. Kaito watches, not really processing anything, until Ginzo-ojisan turns around. He deflates when their eyes meet, then makes his way over to Kaito and Aoko, the other person following a step behind.

"Kaito," Ginzo-ojisan says, then stops, like he doesn't know what to say.

The woman behind him steps up, crouching down to Kaito's level. That can't be easy to do in the shoes she's wearing. Aoko tenses next to him.

"Hello. I'm your new guardian. I was one of your father's students."

The woman's hair is cut short like his mother's was. She's pretty, he notes distantly. Like a movie star.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I can't answer all of them right now. After all," she holds a finger up to her lips. "A secret makes a woman, woman."

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The Clover Club: Named after a men's club in Philadelphia, this cocktail is traditionally made of gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup, and an egg white.

Art by Edorazzi (Tumblr)

Chapter Text

"Ms. Vineyard," he says. "I don't want to go to America."

"Sharon," he says. "Why are you teaching me these things?"

"Whoever you really are," he says. "This is insane. I'm not a murderer."

"Chris," he says. "I've been promoted. But you already knew."

"Vermouth," he says. "Tell me who really killed my parents."

Growing up, Shiho Miyano had a friend.

It was a generous use of the word, seeing as she didn't know their face or voice or even name, but one couldn't be too picky in the Organization.

She knew they were around her age, and she had heard rumors they was actually a he. He looked like a little girl when she first saw him, with long blond hair and such an exquisitely pretty face she would have stopped to stare regardless, but what really caught her attention was that the other girl was clinging to Gin. Shiho's parents always told her to stay away from the agents, the assassins, especially the top brass. But the pretty little girl, dressed in white from her fur-covered hat to her ankle-length boots, was latched onto Gin's hand and talking a mile a minute.

Their eyes locked. The next thing she knew, there was a strong chemical smell and her own hair was a bright pink. Her response was a rubber bullet embedded in the wall an inch from the other's head. It marked an inauspicious start to their relationship.

A couple years later, she met a boy with dark skin and sleepy eyes, who then greeted her with the little blond girl's smile and a white snapback, with white accents to the skater's ensemble he was wearing. He made a rose appear out of thin air, then squeezed it to squirt water in her face. He darted away, laughing, before she could hit him. She realized later she was laughing too.

She learned several things about him. He was fond of pranks, tricked everyone indiscriminately, even the agents. He was cheerful and mouthy, and cocky beyond belief.

"They don't trust me," he complained to her once, flopping bonelessly onto her lab desk. She'd jumped up the first few times he'd done that, heart leaping to her throat. She'd realized by then that as careless as he seemed, he wouldn't disturb any of the fragile equipment.

"I can do more," he pouted. "But no one will teach me anything."

He was brilliant, she knew by that point, and constantly underestimated for his age. She was viewed the same way, but it was something she relished rather than resented.

She kind of hated him sometimes. Why did he get to be carefree when she was constantly terrified?

Months later, she found herself talking to a sharp-faced redhead with a white beret. His normally impeccable mask was cracking, the smile less blinding, less genuine. She resisted the cruel desire to ask if he'd got what he wanted.

"Do I get a magic trick?" she asked instead.

"Not today," he said. By this time, she'd heard word of Vermouth having an apprentice. She'd heard about a recent mission that had gone sideways.

When Vodka came to check on them, Shiho reached over to cover his shaking hands with her own.

They would meet several more times throughout the years. He rarely reused faces, except for the blond girl she'd first seen him as. She'd suspected it to be his real face once, before he'd pulled at the fake skin enough for it to dangle grotesquely off his face one day. Surprisingly, she hadn't been the target of that prank. The way the stoic Rye jumped back and almost tripped over his own feet would always be one of her fondest memories. (Not because he wasn't good enough for her sister. Of course not.)

Their meetings were sporadic, but there was an unspoken camaraderie that grew out of it. She found him picking at a gunshot wound more than once and patched him up, no questions asked. He found her smashing beakers in frustration and stayed with her half the night to work through the block she'd been stuck on. She shouldn't have been surprised he was a good chemist too.

At one point she was backed into a corner, steeling herself for the unspeakable, when he found her and asked what she was doing. She told him. There was disgust, which she expected, and sympathy, which she didn't. Then before her eyes he transformed into Shiho herself, winked at her, and strode into Gin's room.

Gin was stormy faced the next day, but seemed embarrassed enough to leave her alone for the weeks after. She never found out what Vermouth's apprentice did. She figured it was about time she called him her friend.

She didn't see him again for a while. The name of a prodigious new agent made the rumor mill. Their reputation mirrored Vermouth's, but while anyone worth their salt in the Organization knew Vermouth's actress identity, no one knew anything about the new agent. They were young, old, masculine, feminine, androgynous, a sniper, a close-range fighter. A jack of all trades, with notoriety not due to a kill count but due to versatility.

The last time she saw him, he was a blue-eyed boy with messy black hair.

"What's your name?" She'd known him for almost a decade, but she'd never claimed to be good at socializing.

He raised an eyebrow and smirked, but this time the teasing mischief looked clearly performative. There wasn't a hint of the genuine brightness he'd had when they first met, but she thought most people who didn't know him wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Mostly, he looked tired. "Well, what've you been calling me?"

"Vermouth's apprentice," she admitted, and didn't blame him for the wince.

"If you'd asked me before, I could've given you a different one." He twirled the full glass in his hand without spilling a single drop. He wore black from head to toe, not a hint of white in sight. Still exquisitely pretty, like the first time she saw him.

"You still could." A denial in three words, some of the most honest she'd spoken in the presence of an Organization member that wasn't her family.

He grinned sharply and gave her the name of a drink she'd always been partial to, the same one he was nursing now. She'd never order it again.

She swallowed thickly. Her parents always told her to stay away from the agents. But they were gone, and she was far from the ideal daughter they would have wanted. "Congratulations."

He knocked his glass against her own Sherry in mock celebration. "To us."

Months later, knowing she was going to die, she swallowed the pill she'd created. She thought of her family, her parents, her poor sister, and of her one friend, and knew she would never see any of them again.

Then she didn't die.

She changed her name and made more friends. Most days, she could forget her past.

Now, Ai Haibara holds a newspaper carefully in her small hands, Kudo's agitated voice a distant buzz in the background. Her friend is dressed head to toe in white again, like the first time she saw him.

It suits him, she thinks.

The pair of sneakers has become a staple in Ginzo's foyer.

They may be dating, or close to it. The overprotective father in him wants to protest, but he hasn't been there for Aoko enough to have that right. And there is always laughter in his house now.

Kaito is a good kid, and Aoko is happy. They grew up together, and Ginzo considered the boy practically a son before the Kurobas' accident, before the American woman had taken him away. (They'd stayed in touch for a while, even, but calls and letters had grown sporadic over the years before they stopped altogether.) Kaito doesn't seem to have changed too much - the second thing he did after coming back to the Nakamori household for the first time in years was to let a bunch of doves with stink pellets loose. Granted, the majority of the damage ended up on the Tanakas' lawn next door, and they'd always annoyed Ginzo on account of the constant loud, messy parties.

He's grown up a little, flirts openly with Aoko - much to Ginzo's consternation - but he's still the cheerful prankster kid who grew up next door, which is a miracle considering what happened to him. Still, something in Ginzo is uneasy. He can't put his finger on it, but something about the way the childishness seems strained sometimes (Toichi was always childish even in adulthood), the way Kaito's reflexes are too good (but he's always been athletic, and so were his parents), how he knows his way around a gun too well (Toichi used a lot of card guns, it's not unexpected), something about the look in his eyes sometimes, that reminds Ginzo of dangerous people he'd put behind bars. It's like he's hiding something, pretending a bit too hard to be something he's not, and his only frame of reference is long outdated.

He wonders if Toichi would have approved of this, of his son trying hard not to mature past childhood in order to keep the memories of his parents alive. Then the guilt eats at him, coz that's a terrible thing to think, and that's probably not why the kid makes him wary.

If he's honest, the real reason he's uneasy is probably - most likely -  because the Kaitou Kid had been wearing Kaito Kuroba's face that first night. Ginzo hadn't realized this until the kid came to his house wearing the boys' version of Aoko's school uniform. He'd almost punched the kid, which made Aoko look like she wanted to punch him.

He's been turning it over in his head ever since - because why Kaito?

Was it just to piss off Ginzo? Maybe the thief somehow knew that Kaito had been... what? His daughter's elementary school classmate? He had been close to the Kurobas, but his neighbor's kid who moved away ten years ago would not have been anything of note in any official documentation. Despite Kid's tendency to project the image that he was eerily omniscient, all of his information would be gained from either efficient hacking or tricking it out of unsuspecting people. Neither of which could have given Kid much information about Kaito.

It could be nothing. The Kid now wears a different face every heist, as near as he can figure out. Not drastically different - same dark hair, same skin tone, just enough to look similar from a distance - from the cameras swarming all heists. But not the same nose, not the same eyes. Half the time he wears an actual person's face. Ginzo has seen Aoko, Megure's detective brat, some of his junior Task Force members. Even that upstart Hakuba, once, but with darker hair than the brat's actual blond.

It is another difference from the thief's modus operandi eight years ago, where he always seemed to have the same face under the white top hat, even if no one had been able to make out the details.

Mood soured by the unwanted train of thought, he grabs a beer from the fridge and follows the sound of laughter up the stairs, socks padding softly on the hardwood. He's sure he doesn't make much sound, but somehow the laughter grows more subdued as he nears Aoko's door. It's halfway open, at least. When he glances in, both teenagers are an adequate distance apart, his daughter cross-legged on the bed and Kaito on the floor, leaning against the desk leg as he taps away at his phone. An empty pizza box sits between them on Aoko's night table. They both look up when he pushes the door open wider.

He squints suspiciously as they greet him. There's nothing to indicate that they'd been on the bed together, but Ginzo's nearly sure they were.

"It's getting late. Shouldn't you be headed home?"

"Dad," Aoko protests.

Ginzo grunts. They've already eaten, the homework's done, there's no reason for the kid to stay.

Besides, it's hard to look at him and see Toichi staring back. "I can drive you. It's getting dark out."

Kaito looks at him for just a bit too long, and his smile seems to have too many teeth. ( - be a dear and - ) Then he gets to his feet, breaking the gaze as he bends to pick up his bag, and the moment's broken.

"Ah, no need, Ginzo-oji-san. My ride's here anyway."

Ginzo sips his beer and leans his head against the cool porch window until the car turns the corner. That black Porsche is definitely something Toichi wouldn't have approved of.

"Aniki, is that...?"

"No."

"--heard he came to --- recently."

Shinichi feels the cold barrel of a gun on his temple. His mind is screaming for him to get away, but his body lays there uncooperative.

"No--n't be--- sed--n Japan."

"---sure...?"

The voices drift in and out. Shinichi's head throbs, feeling like jagged glass is pressed into his skull with every heartbeat. His thoughts are sluggish.

Suddenly his head is wrenched upwards. He winces against the light that sears into his eyes.

"It's not him." The voice is closer and clearer now, hot breath against his ear. It sends a spike of fear down his spine. Something prods against his lips, and he tries to keep his mouth shut, but his jaw is pried open. "But if you're so worried, this poison is untraceable."

He swallows reflexively.

And then everything is on fire. He opens his mouth to scream and all that comes out is a raspy gasp, and he can't get air in his lungs. The last thing he hears before he passes out is the cold voice above him.

"She never needs to find out."

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The Adonis: Made in the late 1800s, this drink contains one part Sherry, one part Vermouth, and a dash of bitters.

Chapter Text

Saguru’s defense, if asked later, would be that he was seventeen. Young and arrogant and susceptible to attention. Running off the high of solving a serial killer case, he'd tricked his way into a bar and some sweet drink he forgot the name of, and planned to treat himself to a second, when the woman slid into the seat next to him with a drink in her hand.

“You looked a little lonely,” she said. “So I thought I’d invite myself over and buy you a drink.”

Saguru was seventeen, and he saw long legs and sparkling eyes through a filter of alcohol.

“Saguru,” he said, leaning in a bit too close for an appropriate handshake. “Detective.”

“Haven’t heard a name like that around these parts,” she said, in lieu of giving her own. Her grip was firm.

“My father is Japanese,” he explained, scanning her as she hummed and looked at the menu displayed on the wall.

She was perhaps his age - the bar really wasn’t known for being good with ID. Her blond curls pinned in an artfully messy bun, loose strands caressing her slender neck and generous cleavage. She looked vaguely like a younger version of that American actress who was growing in popularity, the one whose name reminded Saguru of wine.

"Your poison?"

"Whatever you're having."

She nodded, waving the bartender over. "A vermouth for the gentleman here."

He glanced at his empty glass, uncertainty flickering at the edges of his hazy mind. That was a stronger drink. His mother was meant to be home tonight.

The woman leaned into his space, arm brushing against his as she reached for the napkin pile across him. Her hair brushed his cheek. She smelled like roses and something metallic.

(Gunpowder, he'd remember when he was sober, combing through the interaction with a fine-toothed comb and cursing his inebriation.)

His mother's flight didn't come in for another few hours, anyway.

"Half-Japanese hm? That'd make you a tantei." She pronounced the word flawlessly, and he barely resisted pointing it out. She seemed to read the question on his face anyway.

"I spent some time in Japan.” She dabbed her lips and sipped from her half-full glass. He looked at the smear of red for a bit too long. "A fine place for learning."

"What did you study?"

“Magic."

His skepticism must have shown on his face because she grinned and suddenly there was a tickling sensation just behind his right ear. He frowned at the five-petaled flower he extracted from his hair. He hadn't even seen her move.

"Cute," he contemplated the coin-sized plant. “Can I take this to mean you’ve taken a shine to me, or am I to understand you’re wishing for my swift demise?”

Petunias were one of those flowers with highly contradictory meanings, from passion to resentment, depending on color and relationship. This one was black, which typically meant death, but modern interpretations had the more friendly association with uniqueness. 

She laughed, waving him off in a don't-be-silly manner. “I wouldn’t tell you, if I wanted you dead. You seem sharp - one of those - give you an inch and you’ll take a mile types. No, I don’t think I’d get close to killing you at all, if I warned you first.”

The woman was certainly unique.

"And what brings you into this - fine establishment, if not to kill me, then?"

Did this count as flirting? If so it was the most macabre kind Saguru had participated in. It seemed to still be working, because the woman laughed again.

"I'm running away."

"Ah. Drowning your sorrows?"

"In a fashion," she said, and something about the way she said it, the way she was holding herself, clued him in.

"I'm...sorry for your loss." If he were more sober, he would've phrased it differently, or not let on at all. Most weren't comfortable with observations about themselves that they hadn't offered.

Her smile was small and sad. He hadn't noticed how false her previous faces were, until he had a genuine one to compare. "It happened a long time ago. I've only just stopped being too blind to see it, is all."

"Do you have plans to do anything about it?" He asked as carefully as his drunkenness could manage.

There was a sharpness to her gaze that he associated with danger. His instincts rarely steered him wrong. 

"I'll put on a show."

The bartender came with his drink, and he nursed it silently as she turned away to regain her composure.

He almost choked on a sip when she suddenly slid closer with a bright grin, manicured fingers spread on his bicep. "Enough about me! Tell me about Japan. What part is your father from?"

The earlier intensity was gone, or had been redirected to a determined effort to invade Saguru's space. (Not that he minded.)

The evening progressed rather fluidly from that point, shedding the sombre note to more friendly waters, then beyond.

"Not thinking of returning at any point?" Her hand was on his knee, rather distractingly, and Saguru's brain-to-mouth filter was shot.

"There's nothing much on that side of the world. London has all the best serial killers."

"And are serial killers the only thing that catch your eye?"

"Well, no - " he hiccuped. "Anything challenging, a puzzle, I enjoy - I like those. But my father is a supertent - superintendent, and he won't let me near anything too dangerous, under his watch."

She hummed, leaning closer. "Is that right? And what does a superintendent do?"

Her grin seemed to be mismatched with her face, too Cheshire-like for her elegant get-up. Saguru was finding he liked it.

The remainder of the night was a blur. Things had gotten…handsy, in the back corner of the bar. Saguru was long past the point of self-consciousness. But when he tried to tug her long coat off, slip his fingers below her collarbone, she backed off with another too-wide smile.

"Keep an eye on Japan, tantei," she said against his ear, leaving a parting kiss just under his jaw. "I have a feeling there'll be something interesting enough for even you there."

Six months later, Saguru was on a plane to Tokyo, a well-worn newspaper folded into his inner blazer pocket.

Phantom Thief 1412 Returns.

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The White Knight: a cocktail made of Scotch, honey, and a smidge of coffee.

Chapter Text

The barrel of the gun gleams like glass, pointed squarely between Heiji's eyes.

There is a bullet embedded in the wall behind him, and his wooden sword is on the ground, out of reach.

He follows the gun's sleek black body to the white glove wrapped around its handle, up the long white sleeve, to Kazuha's face under the silver monocle.

The open wound on his temple throbs where the warning shot grazed him, leaking into the corner of his eye. He fights to keep his eyes open, ignoring the burn.

"Let's try this again, Detective," says Kaito Kid, no longer grinning.

Kaito Kid is a puzzle to Heiji.

As a snot-nosed elementary schooler, the Kid case was one of the very few his father was willing to speak with him about in any detail. Even at that age, he recognized the well-intentioned patronization in giving him a light case, but he did want to spend time with his father.

Heiji cracked all the coded messages shared in headlines and the ones his father surreptitiously slipped to him. But Kid never came to Osaka, and by the time he got anyone onsite to take him seriously enough the heist would have already taken place.

Still, it was a case his father encouraged him to pursue for once, and Heiji was not going to give it up easily.

He cobbled together dazed second-hand reports, sensationalist newspaper headlines, effusive fan reactions. The image he drew was of a chaotic, mischievous force, determined to wreak havoc and yet return everything stolen, seemingly running laps around the world's upper class and finest security to prove a point. Something almost fae-like in their ability to shapeshift into kindly grandmothers and charming young men, with an arsenal of roses, gases, and a knack for soaring through the sky. 

And then Kid disappeared, and there were less age-appropriate cases Heizo Hattori was willing to share with his son as the badges on his chest grew and his hours at home dwindled.

Kid's re-emergence gave him a pang of nostalgia initially, and Kudo's annoyed calls after each clash of wills had Heiji refining the years-old image he had built. Instantaneous shapeshifting was instead the work of likely hours of time scoping out the right target, learning their minute habits, and finally crafting a flesh-mask to copy them. The flight was, of course, hang-glider assisted. The arsenal of tricks were magician's parlor tricks, though masterfully done. And if the reports are accurate, a hint more lethal than the previous edition. 

Altogether, the Kid now, whether by benefit of Heji's maturity or the thief's own evolved modus operandi, seems altogether more human than the image Heiji grew up with.

Heiji is initially content with leaving it at that; Kid could stay a mystery of the past. He handles with murders and high profile cases these days. (His list of accomplishments grow, the time spent with loved ones dwindle, and on maudlin days he develops an appreciation for the things his father did to keep him away from these cases. But only occasionally.) There is no need to go out of his way to catch a non-violent criminal who rarely steps onto his home turf.

And then Kudo calls, sounding more haunted than that Halloween night, and throws a wrench in Heiji's contentment.

(Heiji mourns that another part of his childhood that is now tainted by murder.)

Kudo's message is clear. Dangerous. Steer clear. And if he absolutely has to, do not appoach without the FBI or Kudo as back-up.

Naturally, Heiji goes alone to the next heist.

It's far from Tokyo this time, and Kudo isn't so willing to go guns blazing to a Kid case anymore, so Heiji knows he'll be uninterrupted by judgmental knee-height glares until it's too late to do anything about.

Nakamori isn't too happy, but caves sooner than expected to Heiji's presence when he hears his last name, muttering invectives against police higher-ups that Heiji probably isn't meant to hear. A twitchy, nervous-looking man identifies himself as the owner of the night's target - a ruby broach the size of Heiji's fist.

Heiji decodes the notice in quick order. He doesn't share his observations, and gives only slight nudges to the Taskforce, letting them take the lead. (Oddly, this seems to gain him grudging respect from Nakamori.) They catch on quicker than expected, but not quick enough.

Heiji grins when the lights cut off, tightens his grip on the strap of the wooden sword on his back.

It's time he has a talk with Kid.

.

.

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Death in the Afternoon: A cocktail made of absinthe and champagne, invented by Ernst Hemmingway