Masked Thief

by Dagron

Crossover challenge from mc1t. One shot. Sometimes Kaito, it's best not to ask. Magic Kaito meets SM.

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Title: Masked Thief (and Secret Identity)
Challenge: #28 Crossover. (For the manycases1truth Live journal community.)
Word Count: Around 3 700+ words.
Rating: G/eneral public.
Disclaimer: (disclaims like a disclaiming thing)
Spoilers: None. 8cD
Warnings: Er. Plot? What plot? I'm sure there's one somewhere. (Frowns.)
Characters: Magic Kaito starring Kaito, and crossover series.
Notes: Just... Enjoy.

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Masked Thief.

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Kaito Kuroba lounged around the classroom as he usually did during break.

Conversation among students was going pretty strong, and for some reason Kaito found himself drawn away from his usual mates (who were talking about sport) to the clique of the Kid fanatic girls. Said clique was squealing about the upcoming Kid heist. A more and more regular occurrence, as the heap of bleary-eyed British detective near the back of the room could testify.

Kaito grinned at them, sat on a desk near the edge of the group and pretty much eavesdropped.

He never really had much to say in these conversations, but he thoroughly enjoyed listening to them. Most of the comments were amusing in their flattery or unlikelihood. Sure, sometimes they would say things that annoyed him, and often things he couldn't disagree openly about, but those things were quickly forgotten whenever one of the girls actually said something accurate, only to be waved off as mad by the others.

Today the theme seemed to be how Kid was the hero all teenage girls dreamed about, and how all the previous ones, real or fictional, paled in comparison. And while he did get the Robin Hood, Ghost Rat Chirokichi, Peter Pan, or Jack Sparrow, Zorro and other references, he did note a couple that evaded his knowledge.

Like who the devil was "Tuxedo Kamen"?
Masked Tuxedo? A tuxedo is an evening suit, right? How can it be masked?

Since the girls seemed intent on discussing the many ways in which Kid was better than this Tuxedo mask, Kaito decided, after puzzling over the random comments the girls made about sailors, pink sugar kisses and telepaths, that he needed some concrete information.

With a slight twinge of apprehension, (he hadn't just heard the name Fisheye pop up just now, had he?) he pulled on Keiko's sleeve and asked.
"Hey, who's this Tuxedo Mask dude you're talking about?"

The pig-tailed girl turned to face him, eyes wide in surprise.
"What, you don't know?"

He shook his head, indicating that indeed, he did not know.
"Is it from some old film or something?"

Keiko laughed.
"Aoko told me you could be clueless sometimes, but I never knew it was this much."
She turned to ferret in her school satchel, muttering something along the lines of 'which reminds me.'

Puzzled, Kaito watched as Aoko's best female friend waved at the other end of the classroom with a book in her hand.

"Oye! Koizumi!"

The class princess (or witch, as he preferred to refer to her as,) noticed the girl's call, smiled at her male comrades (or victims) and, picking out a book from her own satchel, made her way gracefully across the classroom.

What's this? he thought. Some secret voodoo ritual I hadn't noticed before?

"Here Momoi, thank you. It was interesting to say the least. I believe you have volume two in hand?"
The pigtailed girl nodded, exchanging over the sombre artefacts of voodoo thingamajig... which were oddly pink.

"What's this got to do with the Tuxedo Mask?" Kaito decided to say, annoyed at the answer still evading him.
It looked to him on second thought as if they were exchanging shoujo manga.

Keiko and Koizumi. Exchanging. Shoujo. Manga.
Mind backtrack, repeat that?

"... And you read those, Koizumi?" he added as an afterthought.

The long haired beauty merely smirked at him.

"'Those' as you call them, Kaito, are volumes of a very famous shoujo manga series by Naoko Takeuchi.
I can't believe you've never heard of it, even my five year old cousin has, and the series finished before he was born!"
Keiko shook her head in disappointment.
"Tuxedo mask is the male hero, who comes and saves his true love with a rose and wise words every time she's in a pinch."
Her eyes sparkled at this, the girl obviously imagining herself as the damsel in distress being rescued.

Oh, it's a girls' series, right.

"Magical girl series?" He said, something in his memory twitching. "What's the story about?"

"Well you see, it's about this girl called Bun-"
Keiko was interrupted by Koizumi as she tapped the girl on the shoulder with her newly acquired read.

"I think the simplest way to explain it to him is to lend him the first book, don't you?"
Kaito could have sworn the witch was looking at him with an evil glint in her eye. The big smirk on her face didn't help to reassure him any...

Keiko seemed to like the suggestion, and smiled saying it was 'a great idea!' and handing over the book she'd just recovered from Koizumi to the class magician.

He hesitated a moment, but when you spend your nights prancing around in a white suit taunting police officers, nine times out of ten you could be certain that curiosity would overcome survival instinct.

"Sure, why not?" He said, taking the book.
A glance at the front cover showed him a teenage girl with yellow hair in an unrealistic hairstyle, wearing a white uniform with a short skirt, and many, many pink hearts and ribbons.

He quickly hid the book in his own bag before resuming eavesdropping on the kid fan club, the conversation having now turned to bets on what kind of heist it would be tonight. Keiko was back in the throng, and Koizumi had returned to her seat, with the look of a smug cat.

Feeling slightly bored, Kaito decided he might take the chance to see whether or not he had the time to tease Aoko a bit before the end of break.

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Later that evening, Kid the phantom thief leapt into the air and fled the scene of the heist, propelled by the wind and his hang glider.

The heist had been relatively easy, a certain detective in tweed having been postponed, for once, from attending by a murder case.
It hadn't been without hiccups though, like that freak in the weird plant get up who'd decided to randomly throw sleep gas bombs at people in the street. A couple of well aimed cards had knocked him out. There'd also been that incident with the squealing clerk inside the museum. If he hadn't known any better, he'd have sworn it sounded like a teenage girl.

He shrugged, shaking his head in an effort to clear his mind.
That manga of Keiko's was making him imagine things. Maybe he shouldn't have read it before the heist... Although it had helped pass time while waiting for everyone to get in place.

He sighed, as he landed on a roof top and folded away his 'wings'.

Oh well, time to get home, forget about magical girls, hide the stone while figuring out a good way to return it during a nice soak in the tub.
He grinned, flipping the stolen gem in the air. Yup, not a bad night, weirdness put aside.

It's then he noticed he wasn't alone on the rooftop.

He swore and jumped back, staring at the man who'd just mirrored his very actions.

The man was in a black tuxedo, with cape, top hat and decorative mask, handling a cane that looked somewhat more than decorative. Kid pulled his card gun out, just in case.

A high pitched voice coming from somewhere not far distracted them before anything stupid could take place. The tuxedoed man seemed to recognize the voice, as he pulled a face (quite a feat in the dark, mind you) and ran into the shadows. Not long after, a girl in what looked like a white swimsuit, a blue miniskirt and very pink ribbons ran through the spot of moonlight on the roof straight at 'him', shouting something along the lines of "Tuxedo mask!"

Insert here stunned warbling.

"What on earth, miss?"
He stopped a second to stare at the girl's hair. It was golden with silver white streaks, and was held up in two buns by what he could only describe as a pair of Rudolph's shiny red noses. The fact that there was a really long pigtail streaming out of each one stunned him some more, (surely the girl wasn't even old enough to have hair that long!) before he decided enough was enough, and he dropped a flash bomb to escape the hysterical girl's clutches.

"What the hell was all that!" he wondered, jumping down from a wall and running down a deserted street.

It was then he heard a strange noise, and found himself forced to screech to a halt when faced with a fireball crossing his path.

Said fireball was heading straight at a pot-plant disguised geek, who shrieked like a badly tuned mouse...

" ... Okay. I did most positively not just see a cosplayer be burnt to a crisp." He muttered to himself, his eyes boggling at the fact that not only weird cosplayer had indeed near instantaneously turned into a pile of ash, but that an incongruous and most importantly burn mark-free pot-plant had magically found it's way into the middle of said pile.

Either he was having weird dreams again, or someone was pulling a very, very bad trick on him.

"Stop right there, Tuxedo mask!" cried a voice.

"Okay wonder boy, time for a good Poker face."
Kid the phantom thief turned slowly to face where the sharp and angry young voice had come from, his heist grin glued on tight.

Another magical girl costumed teenager. In fact there were two of them. One with red and black touches, the other green and pink (yet again.)

"Hey wait a minute..." Said the tall one in green. "That's not Tuxedo mask, his suit's white, not black."

"Indeed." Said the thief. "And I've had enough of being mistaken for another, thank you very much. Good night, ladies."

This time he dropped a smoke bomb to make his getaway, and took the opportunity to change out of his heist clothes. Apparently this wasn't the night to wear a cape and a top hat.

Now as Kaito, he quickly ran home, blatantly ignoring a talking cat and the fourth sailor moon look alike (this time in blues... Where the girl had gotten a wig that made blue hair look natural, he sure wanted to know) as he went around the corner.

When in front of his house, he stopped to think for a moment.
"Wait a minute..." He rubbed his eyes, and pinched his arm for good measure...
"Ouch! Right... It's as I feared." Damn.

"Excuse me, young man?"
Eep!

Since when were black capes sneak wear!
Kaito glared at the sudden apparition of the Masked Tuxedo.

The other man merely lifted the edge of his hat in a polite gesture, before continuing, as if he wasn't hiding in the shadow of a bus shelter to talk to him.
"Sorry about earlier. I'm afraid I'm still rather new to the business and have attracted quite some unwanted attention."

"You say..." Crumbs. That meant Tuxedo shorts knew he was Kid the phantom Thief.
"May I inquire as to what it is you want?"

"That gem you stole this evening." He replied curtly.

Kid's best poker face slid unto Kaito's features as he felt his skin tingle. This guy wasn't working for those guys in grey, was he? A sharp look at his surroundings didn't show any lackeys but that didn't prove anything.

"Why? Are you after a stone that supposedly grants eternal life with a teardrop, and reveals it's true nature under moonlight?" Kaito tightened his grip on the card-gun in his pocket.

Tuxedo Mask started at the question.
"You know of the Silver crystal!"

Silver what...? Not Pandora?
After his initial surprised passed, Kaito let out a burst of laughter.
"No, sorry. Am afraid I don't. Was thinking of some other legendary stone."

In front of the other's puzzled expression, (which he managed to convey despite the mask hiding his features,) the young magician pulled tonight's heist, the silver diamond, out of his pocket and tossed it in the air. He held it up for a millisecond under the full moon before clasping it in his palm.
"You haven't heard of a gem named Pandora, I gather?"

Tuxedo shook his head.
"I'd gathered as much." Said Kaito.
"Here." He held out the stone towards the midnight clad man. "I don't know if it's the stone you're after, but I know it isn't the one I'm hunting."
He wasn't quite sure why he was passing the gem to the man. Maybe the fact that he didn't seem to be after this 'silver crystal' for selfish reasons was enough for him to sympathise... Who knows?

"You generosity is most appreciated." The thief stood forth and, black cape twirling slightly behind him, he approached enough to take the Silver diamond from Kaito's hand.

Kaito hid something white in his pocket, as he watched the man twirl the stone in his own white-gloved hands.
Seeing him shake his head, the young magician guessed it wasn't the gem he was after either.
Kaito waved off tuxedo's offer to return the gem to him.
"You can return it to the rightful owners for me if you wish."

Tuxedo nodded. "I shall then. And now, I should be taking my leave. Au revoir!"

"One last thing!" Tuxedo Mask stopped in a crouch on the wall he'd just leapt onto.

"Yes?"

"Good luck with those girls who seem to be after you. They look quite the handful!"
The black clad thief smirked at this.
"Indeed, but they are such charming young fighters."
And with that, Tuxedo mask disappeared in a swish of his cape.

After a few minutes of pondering outside while scratching one of his pet pigeons' head, Kaito decided it was time to go in and get ready for bed.
His parting words to the moonlit night being a muttered 'If I end up dreaming of pink ribbons tonight, then I am going mad.'

He didn't notice the fog surrounding him, hiding him, as suddenly one realizes it was all nought but a crystal ball.

Koizumi Akako, dressed in a comfortable dress and arms covered by a rather fancy cardigan, smiled at her magic spying tool.

"Fascinating." She said to the world at large.
So that's what the Kid was after... Or at least an indication of what he was hunting for.

"Indeed." Said another female voice in the room.
"A gem named Pandora with similar properties to the Silver Cyrstal? I must admit I never thought Kid the Phantom Thief had such an ambitious target in mind."

The woman who had just spoken was stirring herself a cup of tea. She was tall and had an ageless quality about her, although her age was probably around the same as the red witch's. Her own clothes where in greens and mauves, which seemed to complement her tanned complexion.

Akako grinned at her friend.
"My, my. You really should meet him, Setsuna. Kid has a habit of making the impossible possible."

Setsuna pulled a strand of her long hair away from her face as she pondered this.
"I concede I never thought it possible for a layman to immobilise one of Beryl's monsters with an ace and two kings."

Akako laughed at this, covering up her crystal ball, in which she had spied upon this evening's heist with her companion, using a red cloth that matched the furniture of the room they were in. She didn't usually use the crystal ball outside the cellars, but for a guest like Meioh Setsuna, exceptions could be made.

"Tell me again Setsuna... How is it that Takeuchi has published in manga format the adventures of you and your companions even before you had awaken?"

"Now, now, Akako. You know I'm still puzzling over that." The young woman, who had a distinctive bun holding back a portion of her hair to the left of her head, passed over a cup of tea to her host, before sipping from her own.
"All I know is that once I really awaken as Sailor Pluto, all the jumbled visions I have in my head will make sense... Among them will be the reason why Usagi's aunt Naoko happens to hit so close to the mark in her story."

The red witch grinned.
"So..." She moved next to her tanned friend on the couch, waving away her man servant who'd just brought in some cakes. "Fancy reading volume two of the adventures of one Bunny Tsukino?"

Setsuna stared at the pink book, boasting it's team of five sailor suited heroines. She blushed a bit. She'd never hear the end of this from her classmates if they found out... Although from what Akako had said, such worries could be easily brushed aside.

"Why not?" After all, it wasn't as if she wasn't already getting glimpses of the story in her dreams.

It wasn't long before both teenagers dropped any pretences of pride and superior distance to turn into two common girls, sharing fits of giggles, twisted comments and gasps of horror (mock or not) in front of their common read.

And for no reason at all, each time one of them mentioned the name "Kid", Kaito, despite not being any where near them, would twist, shiver and sneeze. It didn't help that he'd now remembered the "Fish Eye" episode that had been the reason he'd blocked out the shoujo series from his mind in the first place.

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FIN (?)

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Well no, see... Some random idea wanted to be added... Here it follows.

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Secret Identity

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Chiba Mamoru stretched out, yawned, then woke up with a start when he heard something fall to the floor with a tingle and crack.
He still had that voice in his head, that voice from his dream, calling out for the Silver Crystal. For a moment he was afraid that that was what had fallen to the ground, that he'd found it and just broke it.
He sighed with relief when he realized it was only his pocket watch. Hakuba Saguru could mock it's ornate decorations all he wanted, it was his watch.
He frowned, noticing a crack in the glass, but was relieved to find it still working. He could always get the glass fixed some afternoon at the jeweller's.

He looked up at his bedside table. The silver diamond was still there. It wasn't the silver crystal.
He plucked it up, looking at it with disappointment in his eyes.

"I promised I'd return you to your owner today. I usually wouldn't bother to, you'd better appreciate it." He grinned sarcastically.

No, he hadn't bothered with the others. He only just started hunting for the Silver Crystal, breaking into jewellers at night, swiping stones from museums when no one was looking, hiding himself behind the mask, hat and cape of Arsène Lupin. Most often he'd just deposit the stolen gems in front of the police station or some other public place. He didn't care what happened to those stones. They weren't what he was after. They were such transient and futile things to fight over. Not worth his getting arrested, his mission being impended.

He put the stone back down and went to get dressed. It wasn't long before he got to sit down with a slice of toast and tea in front of his books. He still had half an hour before he needed to go to school. He hadn't had time last night to look up this "Pandora" Kid the phantom Thief had talked about. If there was any chance Pandora was another name for the Silver Crystal, it was highly likely they'd have to come face to face again, most likely as opponents.
He'd only found one tiny mention of the silver crystal in these books, and they were the best he could find. They'd given him enough information to want to find and check the Silver Diamond after all. Hopefully they'd be more on this "Pandora."

And indeed there was.

'Lucky! 'he thought.

It wasn't much, but there was a whole paragraph on the legend behind it. A stone that cried tears of blood whenever some comet came past. Not much on the origins, something about a stone hidden in a stone.

Well, that settled it. It wasn't the stone he was after.
The silver Crystal was a thing of purity. It wouldn't be crying tears of blood. Nor would it be inside another stone.
He was glad. Kid did not seem that easy an opponent to fight, and he'd seen just how good a thief he was.

That done, he went to get his coat, school satchel, and started hunting around for his school identity card.

He couldn't find it.

"Damn... Maybe I left it in the Tux'..." He muttered out loud.
He pulled the suit out from the secret pocket in his bag, searched around in the pockets a bit.

Nothing. Nada. Rien.

Strange...

He definitely remembered having it there last night.
Maybe... Oh god, no.

He rushed to the door, his anguish seeping through his usually cold features.

Wait. Stop. Close the door again and look at the ground.

There it was!

He sighed. He must have dropped it on his way in.
He picked up his ID, a smile of relief on his face.
Then he noticed the post-it stuck on the back.
He barely needed to look at the smiley face signature to know who'd written it.

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"Now that I now what you know about me,
I guess we're square.
Do us a favour, and don't go blabbing.
I know I won't.
Kaitou Kid."

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Chiba stared at the text for a moment. Then laughed. As if Kid had needed to worry about that. But now that he thought about it, he himself had worried about it too.

"I guess even professionals need a secret identity." He grinned, pocketing his ID and hiding the note with his tuxedo suit.

As a small check, he looked out his balcony window, noticing the messy haired high school student rushing away in the street below. Kuroba, that was his name, wasn't it? The one on the name plate by the house he'd finally caught up with him at yesterday.
Mamoru was ready to bet the poor guy had no idea how much he looked like a certain teenage detective called Shinichi Kudo. A brilliant detective, as Mamoru had witnessed after that murder case during the interschool sports exchange with Teitan high.

He secretly hoped Kid would never have to face Kudo.
...After all, phantom thieves had to stick together, had they not?

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FIN

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So yeah. Magic Kaito and Sailor Moon Classic crossover, with one big giant plot hole staring at me, (aka How did Usagi's aunt write about them before and why don't they know about it,) but I'm gonna ignore it, because Sailor Moon logic.

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