Teenage dreams in a teenage circus

Disclaimer: Nope, neither Magic Kaito nor Detective Conan belongs to me! *whistles innocently* Regardless, I'm playing around with them and hope you enjoy the first installment of my new ff!

AN: This is – very loosely – based on my first fan fiction which is called Roller Coaster Murder Case and which you can find here: http:(slash) (slash) www (dot) fanfiction (dot) net (slash) s/7400686/1/Roller_Coaster_Murder_Case , however the events in this fan fiction are only alluded to much later in this story. They are nevertheless important, so I'll let you know in an AN at the beginning of the chapter they're needed in so you can go back and (re-?)read it!

Translation: Keibu = Inspector. Nakamori-keibu: Inspector Nakamori.

TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus

Outsider POV

Having slowed his steps to a leisure walk, he reached tonight's heist location. He wasn't in a hurry at all any more: the heist was supposed to start in fifteen minutes. He could just make out the policemen running around and making last-minute adjustments to their plans. It was the usual, really.

He wasn't sure how some of the fans could run around in skirts and T-shirts, though he guessed it all depended on the focus of attention. Pulling his black coat closer to his body at the chill that permeated the air, he made his way over to a better viewpoint. He was already used to the fans that had gathered at the entrance of the small museum, after all.

Earlier he'd been able to make out the bright yellow sign of a small café almost opposite of the museum where he now intended to spend the evening and check up on his emails. Entering the building, going up the stairs to the café on the second floor, a delightfully refreshing breeze wafted over to him and he perked up immediately at the coffee residue he could smell in it.

He allowed a small smile to ghost over his face, there and then gone again. They had coffee. Sighing in anticipation of getting some very-much-needed caffeine into himself, he made his way to the booth at the window after having been pointed in that direction. He'd – officially – reserved it for himself earlier that week. It had been a sensible decision to do so right after the police had deciphered the heist location from the riddle Kid had sent them, he mused while sitting down, seeing how all the other booths were already been filled up with Kid-fans and (few though there were) commuters alike.

Used to the mayhem already, he let the excited atmosphere wash over him like a blanket, covering him with a certain sense of déjà-vu that he got every time he went to a Kid heist nowadays, and he quietly snorted to himself. Just what did they want? It wasn't as though Kid handed out autographs at his heist. Both he and the police usually were much too busy to be doing anything besides running.

For a short moment he allowed himself to imagine the confusion that would occur if Kid indeed did hand out autographs on his heists. The thief would of course wear his uniform, his hat and that famous monocle, lounging leisurely in a chair that had been provided for him and still making not one crinkle appear in his suit. He'd wear that annoying, self-righteous grin, too, naturally. You couldn't have one without the other, could you? That smirk didn't belong to anybody else. Maybe he should tell the thief that he ought to trademark it sometime?

Then there'd be the others: the police might assist him and keep his fans in a straight line behind a barrier, only letting through one at a time, so as not to crowd the thief too much. And at the very front of the line would be standing his very own Task Force, valiantly trying to get his autograph before anybody else. Right. And then cows would come flying by and cats and dogs would truly fall down from heaven.

His mind was going crazy, he thought to himself. Shaking his head bemusedly at the picture that had appeared in his head at what he'd imagined, he placed his order, an espresso and a glass of water, the same as every time he came to watch a heist.

By then he'd pretty much figured out the schedule that Kid usually worked with: he'd come in at the appointed time, do his show (took about an hour, two, tops), and then leave all the policemen stunned with whatever trick it was that he'd done to entertain them with this time and get out about two to three hours after the heist started. And then normally the gem, painting, statue or whatever else the pesky thief had chosen to steal at the heist would turn up about a week or two after it had been stolen.

It was good, the man mused, that he'd delegated the duty of watching said nuisance of a phantom thief (who was doing his job in white, just to throw everybody off!) to two of his "acquaintances" that still owed him some favors. It was a plus, he supposed, that one of them was a policeman and part of the very task force that was chasing the Kaitô. Wearily, he opened his laptop and checked his email account. No new emails.

Letting out another sigh, he prepared himself for another long wait for the end of the heist. He'd come there, drink his coffee and leave again once the chaos was over. That was all that was expected from him, really. At the beginning, when Kaitô Kid had first reappeared, they hadn't been too concerned. He'd just do his thing and they did theirs – as long as the reappeared white circus clown didn't come close to any of their endeavors, they were happy.

When a year had passed, the Kaitô still hadn't been caught and was getting dangerously close, they'd slowly begun to take the white pest more seriously. They had wanted him to figure out just who Kid was, then. Seeing as that endeavor had ended in fruitless misguidance (planned and executed beautifully by the thief, he was sure) every time he'd tried to get any closer to that, they'd decided to simply set more people on that task, in the hopes of then being able to successfully attain said information.

Tsking in annoyance, he thought back to the very first attempt of having more people around the thief. It had been a disaster! They'd literally crowded him, making it impossible for anybody to see whether the thief had already taken the treasure or not and not to mention making it even easier than usual for the magician to get away afterwards. He himself had realized that early on, of course. However nobody had deemed it necessary to listen to him. Naturally, it had ended in yet another failure to obtain the wanted information. The thief had been dancing circles around all their heads from the beginning; he seemed to be the only one who had seen it from the start.

After that attempt, they'd employed several others while he'd been watching from the side lines, content to let them have as many goes at failure as they'd needed to figure out what they should do next. So long as that was not clear, they'd simply installed him again as a kind of guardian-watchdog. He was supposed to act as an information-gatherer and report back on the thief every few months. That was easy once he'd set in place his acquaintances and informants. They'd been invaluable in that aspect.

As apparently the thief kept to Japan as his main place of interest, they had stopped worrying as much after a few more months. They'd been afraid he'd go abroad, he mused, but why? What was so dangerous about the thief doing that that they'd been worrying like that? He was just an underling, waaaaay under the higher-ups, so he supposed it was just fair that he wasn't privy to all the important information. However he couldn't help but wonder.

What if the Kaitô decided it was time his heists were performed for a decidedly bigger – and at the same time more international – audience? Would they then scramble to keep up with the moonlighting magician? It would most certainly make for far more entertainment than he was having at the moment, that was for sure. Resigning himself to yet another long four-hour-wait until the first of his acquaintances could safely report back to him, he opened the internet browser and started looking for ads for jewels that could be of interest for the thief's next venture into the open. You could never plan too far ahead, after all.

TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus

FBI Agent POV

She'd been asked to "assist the police", but in reality she was wondering just why her friend had wanted her to come. It was a game, she thought for the nth time that day already. It was all a game, staged and played by the grand thief himself, with only him being privy to all the rules. Why would she, an FBI-agent, feel the need to be included in it?

She sighed wearily to herself. But her friend had asked – no, almost begged – her to come. So come, she did. However she'd return as soon as she thought tonight's heist was over, she had sworn that to herself quietly. She had a job to do, as well.

Thus, already feeling comfortable in the chaos of a pre-heist-preparation, the woman leaned against a pillar from where she could see pretty much every corner of the room where the gem had been stored. It was a beautiful stone, she had to admit grudgingly. And it wasn't as though she didn't enjoy a good show.

She had heard that the Kaitô was mainly a showman, always performing huge shows with unbelievable (or so they had told her) tricks that nobody could see through! Apparently. "Are the policemen chasing after Kid all such weaklings?" letting a dejected huff escape, she put more of her weight on the right foot, so that she could stand in a more comfortable position.

She'd crossed her arms long ago, when she'd first arrived only to catch a glimpse of unrestricted mayhem anywhere she looked. It was a wonder, really, how the task force members still seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing and where they were supposed to stand/go in spite of what was going on. Shaking her head in order to let any other derogatory thoughts and comments on her part disappear far into her mind again, she looked around.

And in the next moment wished she hadn't.

TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus

Kuroba Kaito POV

The night was clouded when the train he had taken reached the train station of Sagamihara. But it didn't matter. He'd just get the gem and look at it whenever the moon deigned to come out in the next few days. The heist location this time was this small town outside Tokyo. It actually consisted of four towns that had melted into one ages ago, but the city itself was nothing if not up-to-date. Its proximity to Tokyo made it very attractive for commuters to live in, so he could blend in quite well if he timed this right.

There were small pubs and cafés all over the place – he'd sat down in one of them, ordered a coke and regarded the scene of police cars driving by every few minutes. The pre-heist preparation the police and his fans went through every time was crazy and continued to amaze – and at the same time amuse – him every single time he saw them do it.

It was almost like a ritual: After the police had done everything in their power to persuade them not to and had utterly failed at it, the gem owners would give out information about the heist location a few days before or right on the day just before the heist itself (quite some of his fans had missed the last one, he grumbled to himself good-naturedly) and few fans would be prone to come and watch the show. It didn't keep the most-devoted ones from coming, nevertheless; Kaito thought to himself with a mischievous smile. Still, the police tried to convince the owners every single time not to give out any information at all, even though they rarely ever succeeded.

And he didn't know who was more fun to watch: the police scrambling to get the fans out of some more "sensitive" areas or the fans already used to the police's antics and coming back in again silently when no one was looking in their direction during a moment of inattention. Some of his more determined fans had even entered the building– successfully and multiple times – shortly before the heist was supposed to start. It goes to show just how well the police really keep guard, doesn't it?

Amused, he thought that it was most probably due to the non-violent rules he had applied from the beginning that his fans even thought of doing those things. But he supposed it was good that the police kept an eye out for those people and stopped them from entering as much as they could. It wasn't his responsibility to keep them safe, though Kaito honestly tried to ensure that nobody ever got hurt. Although it truly shouldn't be his responsibility in the first place, he thought with a small shake of the head.

With a frown he remembered the danger they'd put themselves up for if they managed to come as close to him as the Crows did. That was his term for the police. They were like crows, running around and trying to keep from hurting one another with the large beaks they had. And really, what else were their pistols, if not extended beaks? They could snap at him all they wanted, he'd never fall down from the sky.

Snorting to himself, he started thinking about the idea he'd gotten on his last heist. Kaito had felt watched then. He didn't know where it came from, nor why, but somehow he'd simply known that it was the same person that had been watching him multiple times, on various heists, before. He was 99% sure of this. Maybe it wasn't even just one person but more, only acting for the same organization? He couldn't be sure of that. It was, after all, only a feeling he had. And it really wouldn't do for him not to feel when he was being watched if he wanted to keep clear of the bullets the men-in-brown kept shooting at him.

It hadn't been as much as before, though.

On the last heist (attended only by the police, because they'd successfully managed to convince the owner of the gem out of publicizing the heist right in time) he'd felt his neck prickle and his awareness of his surroundings increase tenfold.

He was sure by now that his watcher was a policeman. How he'd infiltrated the police force was for another time to find out, but the why had been pretty obvious to him, previously. Until nothing out of the ordinary happened. Then it had thrown him off kilter.

Why would someone watch Kid unless they wanted to kill him? Was his watcher waiting for him to make a mistake again? (At the start of his career, he'd made loads of them… fortunately for the young thief, the police hadn't been as competent as to pick up on them, then. As for nowadays… well, he avoided making mistakes in general and hoped for the best while preparing for the worst anyways.)? What was he waiting for?

There were too many possible outcomes for him to simply discard the watcher as harmless. He'd be on his guard around the police even more than usual, he decided.

Letting himself drift towards happier thoughts, he smirked. He was going through all the things he'd prepared for tonight's heist in his mind. Already getting giddy with excitement, he let the good mood take him over all at once. He'd leave the gloomy thoughts for afterwards, when he would hold up the heist gem to the moon and it would turn out to be yet another failure at obtaining Pandora.

For now, he'd happily fall into his role as Kid and revel in the anticipation of yet another show that he'd present to his fans. Grinning to himself, he wondered what kinds of faces would greet him once it came to the main attraction of his show for tonight.

TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus

Grinning evilly, the teenager-turned-thief made his way to the place where he and Jii had decided to meet up after yet another accomplished job. Mentally, he proudly gave himself a pat on his back. Tonight's heist had worked out just beautifully! The treasure he'd been after this time had been carefully wrapped in a black cloth and tucked into his messenger bag so as to avoid breaking it on his journey back.

He'd had great fun letting the police gape at the fake Kaitô Kid this time – the inflatable puppet-Kaitô-Kid-balloon had been more than four times bigger than him and had taken over most of the roofed inner atrium of the museum. It was good, he supposed, that the museum's atrium was as big as going all the four floors up. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to include the balloon in the show. It had also been a good idea to lead all the policemen out of the inner atrium before inflating his puppet. Like this, no one had been buried underneath the massive balloon.

Fortunately, he'd been able to get and use second-hand things in creating the super-big-Kaitô-Kid-doppelganger-balloon; otherwise he'd be broke by now. Smirking at the memory of how all the policemen could do once he'd disappeared and left the still-growing balloon in his place was stop chasing him and openly gape at it, he walked down the sideway that led directly towards the station.

They must have thought it was him who was growing like that in the first few moments! "And what a scary thought that must have been," he quietly chuckled to himself. That had been all the distraction he'd needed to make a clean getaway via a bridge on the third floor of the building to the next building over.

Of course, then there had been that pesky Snake issue that just had to appear right in his path as he had been on his way over to the adjacent building. The light from the alley right behind him when he'd been crossing the "bridge" had been exactly the thing the sniper had needed to make him out. He'd been balancing precariously on the ladder that he'd put down for the purpose of creating a bridge in-between the two buildings when he'd heard the gunshot and felt a sharp wind go by close to his neck.

Kaito had dodged the bullets, no problem, but it still had made for quite a bit of danger. To think, the sniper could have hit an innocent bystander just because he'd missed and shot down into the alleyway underneath Kid by chance.

He swiftly got out of the way of some drunken business men. It wasn't even midnight yet, so commuters, Kaitô Kid fans and intoxicated men alike were on the streets, going home or making their way into one of the local pubs. Kaito had made sure that his costume didn't stick out of the crowd much before, having dressed himself as a nondescript business man in a dark blue suit, with a blue-white striped tie adorning a white chemise that he wore underneath. It was one of his fancier suits, one of his favorites that he didn't get to wear every day. He looked good in it, and he knew it.

With the lazy air of a business man coming back from a long day that had been spent doing a successful job even mauger all the hindrances that had come his way, he leisurely walked into the Domadoma, a small pub/café/restaurant close to the station, sat down at the bar and ordered an apple juice in a beer glass and an additional glass of water. He liked going to these small pubs that were a little hidden. They were strewn all over the place and pretty much only frequented by local people, seeing as you had to know your way there. As a plus, you could even eat there, too.

Letting a smile graze his lips, he said, "Thanks.", once the aforementioned items were placed in front of him. "I'm not allowed to drink, order from my wife. Sometimes you just have to swindle your way through with your colleagues that you decided to meet with in the pub, don't you?" Kaito told the barkeeper with a wink. It was explanation enough and had obviously satisfied the overly curious barkeeper that had been staring at him strangely because what he'd ordered and the image of who he was pretending to be didn't seem to match up at all in the other's mind. Having gotten the information, the barkeeper turned towards the other customers to tend to their wishes.

That left him to ponder his own thoughts again. What he'd seen and heard after that… shooting? Murder attempt? Whatever you wanted to call it – his blood had run cold. He'd been able to pick up the thread of a rather worrying conversation. Two men had talked about the possibilities of the police finding something (someone?) and, after checking the contents of a certain brown bag that now had the pleasure of residing at Kaito's side on another bar stool of the Domadoma, they had left the house via the front entrance.

The five-story building that they'd had their conversation in was one that was located a few blocks over from the museum, one that he'd specifically chosen the roof of when he escaped. He'd gone from rooftop to rooftop to reach it, because it simply fit his plans. For the locks on that particular building were not all that hard to pick – both the lock on the door that led to the roof and the most important ones on all the doors on the way to the exit.

It was a perfect place for the passage from Kid the phantom thief to "business man who's minding his own business" and he'd been able to easily place his messenger bag (along with the necessary costume and a few spares – you could never know what might happen, right?) in that building before the heist.

When he'd heard them talking this carelessly about the police and he realized they'd apparently had an trade of some sort going on there, he'd hidden instead of going on with his escape. He hadn't really needed to hear much more in order to know that it was a shady type of exchange. And that there was money involved… a lot of money, apparently. Kaito had then proceeded to follow them out of the building and onto the lively streets of Sagamihara.

He'd been able to successfully pursue one of the two men after they'd parted ways (the one who'd gotten the bag) and then steal that self-same bag from him when the other had sat down at a bar. (he'd originally only wanted to borrow and return it. Curiosity killed the cat, right? Well, for him, as a thief, curiosity was just one more healthy and vital characteristic. But when he'd seen the contents, he'd quite literally been stopped in his tracks.) They finally ended up close to the heist location, which struck the teenager-turned-thief as quite ironic. It just figured that he'd return to the place he'd tried to flee from in the first place.

Nevertheless, when he'd taken another look at the content to make absolutely sure he had seen what he believed he had seen, his hands were shaking from the realization that somewhere out there, that kind of crime was committed. He'd known, of course, that all kinds of crimes existed in the world, it just never had really hit home for him that it could be happening this close to where he lived. When it came down to it, Kaito knew he'd been pretty sheltered while growing up.

The only people he'd had to worry about up until now had been those men-in-brown-trench-coats. And he hadn't even taken them too seriously at all, excepting those times when bullets were flying around like mad. At that moment it felt as though he'd gotten out of the frying pan and been thrown into the blazing hot fire. A cold shiver ran down his back.

The picture of that in that unassuming, brown bag together with all the sobering data and the information… that had been a bit too much to stomach. Kaito would go through all that once he was home again, he had decided. Not letting anything show on his face, he internally frowned. It had seemed like an international crime at first glance, judging from the places he'd read the names of shortly in his brief glimpse of that bag's content. He would need outside help for clearing that up, then.

Getting his mind onto a completely different track, he thought that Jii shouldn't take too long now. The teenager was in a bit of a mischievous mood right now, also to get rid of any lingering dark thoughts, and he wanted to prank the old man a bit. After drinking the apple juice down a bit, he carefully added the water, measuring it out. There. Now all he had to do was wait for the old family friend to come.

TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus

FBI Agent POV

She was flabbergasted. How could they not have seen? How could they have missed what had been going on? How? And why the hell were there snipers shooting at the thief in the middle of a Kid heist?

Dutifully, she'd kept out of the heist and all that cat-mouse-chase from the very start. Internally rolling her eyes, she'd promised the Keibu that was the appointed head of the Kaitô Kid Task Force not to butt in. It had sounded so ridiculous then. Still did. Why would she butt in if all she wanted to do was lean against some wall somewhere and safely stay away from most of the ruckus anyways?

So she hadn't barged in on it. But she couldn't help herself once she'd seen that shadow cross in front of a window on the second floor. She had looked out and seen – Kid, barely hanging onto a makeshift-bridge between the heist building and the neighboring one.

What had come next had baffled her endlessly. A gunshot had rung out and then Kid had been in a different position – as though that had still been part of the show that the magician had put on inside the building. The motion had been over so fast that she hadn't even realized he'd moved. When another gunshot had rung out, she had found the thief in a different position. It had gone on like that for a few more breathtaking moments. Yet all the time the thief had been getting closer to the edge of the other building's roof, despite the bullets whizzing past him.

In fascination – or horror, it was hard to decide – and with mounting agitation, she had watched the thief move onto the other building, after having dodged yet two more bullets – or was it three more? She couldn't tell any more, seeing as all she was focusing on was the white shape and its movements. It had been a terrifying spectacle to watch. Moreover, she realized belatedly, she had rooted for the thief-in-white during all that time.

It just didn't do for people to get hurt, or worse: killed, on her watch. Especially considering the fact that this was a Kid heist (everybody knew about the No-one-gets-hurt-principle the elusive thief was employing!) and that he was (mostly) harmless, anyways. He was a thief, for god's sake! Not some murderer that had to be executed on the spot! And it left her wondering. What had that one thief done to warrant such a treatment? Just what had he stolen that the other party wouldn't care to kill him?

And wouldn't it be much more sensible to leave him alive in order to find that out? So it might not be about something that he'd stolen already. But maybe this was all about something the thief was going to steal in the near future? And the other party – the one that had employed that sniper to kill him – didn't want the magician to steal it? But why? Doesn't that thief return everything he stole? At least that was what she'd heard.

Then that would mean… that the sniper party knew exactly what the thief was after and didn't want him to steal it? Wasn't the Kaitô the good one then? If that equation was right, then that would mean that Kaitô Kid rather belonged on the police's side than to that of the criminals.

Grimacing, she realized that that would throw up a whole bunch of questions that she just didn't want to answer right then. At that moment, however, everything that counted was that the police obviously hadn't seen nor heard the gunfire that had been going on between the thief and the sniper.

The only question to be answered then was the following: Had that been going on for longer than expected? Had that possibly even happened from the very start of the thieving career of the moonlighting magician? What she needed right then was to look into this. Bad guys, beware. She was on their trail now!

TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus

Kuroba Kaito POV

About a month later brought the next Kid heist. And with it came the sneaking, the hiding and stealing, along with the dressing up, the colorful swearing and the mysterious magic that he was rumored to be able to work. It wasn't for naught, after all, that more than half of the Task Force members took all-protective charms and talismans along to their various operations and to their beds the nights after one of the scarier ones. You didn't stay on this special Task Force for long if you didn't. And if you did, well… then there was no help for you any more except for regular communication and story-swapping with your fellow sufferers and a protective item to take with you in order to stay sane.

Because sane most certainly was something that thief by far couldn't be described as. If this … "condition", for lack of a better word, had come to exist by definition (along with the job description: Wanted! One mad individual for moonlighting: thieving operations and circus shows at night included) or by natural inclination, outsiders couldn't tell, but it was somewhat frightening to work to arrest someone who was crazy nonetheless. And they'd been at it for longer than a year by then, too, some of them more than twenty (including Nakamori-keibu).

All the more ironic was the fact that with all their experience, not even the most devoted Task Force members could guess at the true age of their quarry. For seventeen simply wasn't the right age for that kind of profession, now was it? Youth brought agility with it however, and he desperately needed that to stay one (even better: several) steps ahead of his enemies. And that was something he'd been using a lot that night.

Grinning to himself, he slowly snuck along the wall that led away from the old lighthouse. He'd switched to a less conspicuous outfit as soon as he vacated the premises of that building, fortunately, seeing as he now didn't want to be noticed any more. The main show was over, after all.

Chancing a glance back, he saw the colorful lights streaming out of the topmost windows of the shut-down building and smirked to himself. Everything had worked out even better than he had anticipated. He allowed a grin to quickly ghost over his lips. His plans had gone off without a hitch, too. Reflecting, he thought back to the moment his plans had come into motion.

He'd baited the owner of that pretty jewel into letting it be kept safe by Nakamori-keibu and his men. They, of course, then had had a huge debate about where to hide it which he just had to butt in on. He smirked as he remembered what havoc he'd caused during that particular discussion…

He'd disguised himself as one of the temporary members of Nakamori-keibu's task force – he knew he'd immediately be found out should he even try to use the identity of one of the senior membersand made sure to be present during the discussion about potential hiding places of the precious stone, all the while having to keep a telling smirk off of his face.

They'd of course already suggested warded places. They had several locations that were difficult for the above-average civilian (read: him) to enter. Just as he'd predicted. In this case, though, these could only be found somewhere where there'd be a lot of people around: the bank being quite literally situated in the middle of a shopping mall, the local museum being surrounded by a rather lively shopping district (especially during the night) etc.

"People" for Kaitô Kid meant the following: perfect camouflage, along with a quick and safe get-away. To Nakamori-keibu and his men "people" meant chaos, unpredictability and a possible way for their quarry to get away unseen. "People" also implied more variables – variables that they had no possible way to predict the movements of, could not control and simply could not afford to risk chancing. So, all of the policemen rather liked steering clear of those.

This was also the reason why Nakamori-keibu had decided against the other task-force-members' ideas and chose the lighthouse as a hide-out for the stone – an idea that had been thrown into the round by none other than Kaito himself. Silently, he congratulated himself on a job well-done.

And that was not to say that the location had been badly-chosen. In general, the old lighthouse was a good place to hide something in. It was a three stories high house towering on top of a cliff. Being maintained by an old lighthouse enthusiast, it had seen its last use as a proper lighthouse more than a year ago. Nevertheless it was still in prime condition, conveniently located just outside the hometown of the gem's owner.

Most of the town's people had neglected it and allowed it to fall to ruin or survive the test of time on its own, so not many even cared to remember it was there. All in all, it would have been pretty much the perfect choice. Had the potential thief not known about it, too, that was.

As soon as they had realized that the member who'd suggested the lighthouse had been impersonated by Kid (which was about 10 minutes before the appointed heist-time), they had, of course, tried to relocate it immediately. The attempt, though, had proved quite pointless, seeing as the thief already had been in the lighthouse, and had noticed just what the commotion was about. He had then dutifully followed the team that had been appointed for relocation.

Cheekily, he had appeared right in front of them on the second floor of the lighthouse, them not having gotten all too far when he deemed it time to "appear", grinned in the usual arrogant-bordering-on-crazy manner and proceeded to steal the gem right out from under their very noses shortly before disappearing in a royally pink cloud of smoke. Getting out again honestly had seemed far too easy once he'd disguised himself as a policeman and set off the smoke bombs on the second and on the topmost floor of the lighthouse.

Slipping through a hole in the wall that he'd found earlier in the week, he came to a narrow pathway leading down through the cliffs, towards a small bay where he'd stashed his things earlier that day. The thief hadn't moved more than a few steps away from the hole and was still in sight of the lighthouse.

It was highly inconvenient, the overall appearance of the landscape around the lighthouse: flat, with no real things to hide behind, except if you were standing pressed closely against the wall that led away from the lighthouse. And the brightly-shining moon didn't help much, either. Would any of the police officers in there bother to take a look out of the window, he'd be spotted easily, despite the black top and trousers he was wearing.

He froze, though, when he caught sight of someone standing in front of him in the middle of the path. He easily recognized the person standing in front of him: Snake, his father's murderer. Both stood stock-still for a few moments, appraising each other.

"You have done well for yourself, Toichi." A shiver ran down Kaito's spine at being addressed as such again.

"And now, hand over the jewel!" The killer demanded of him, with one hand outstretched invitingly towards him. Kid was sure there was some kind of gun in his other hand that was concealed behind the black cloth his adversary was wearing. The boy-turned-phantom-thief let a smile graze his mouth. He held his hands out in front of him, juggling the precious stone around and further taunting his enemy.

"You do realize the ease with which the police could bear down on the two of us, don't you?" Kid couldn't help but throw in. "Besides, this isn't the gem you're looking for, either. What use would it be for me to hand this little sparkling beauty over to you?" It wasn't what he'd been looking for, as well, but then again, he'd rather give it to the police than to Snake. And it was fun, getting on his opponent's nerves and seeing him visibly pull himself together before speaking. He had to hand it to Snake, though; the man had a particularly long fuse regarding him.

"Your life expectancy is getting shorter and shorter, Toichi. Or should I say the life expectancy of your family members? I know your name, Kuroba Toichi. Don't you forget that! I only spare your life so you can look for Pandora for us. But your time's running out soon! Don't waste it!" Having spoken those barely-reassuring words, he quickly moved his other arm and shot two bullets at the thief.

Fortunately, they missed as Kaito ducked behind the opening in the wall. The missing light and the black clothes made it difficult for Snake to see his target, much less shoot someone successfully. When Kaito chanced a glance back at the spot Snake had been standing at, the older man had disappeared.

The teenager pulled his black clothes closer around his face and waited for about two minutes more before he risked going down the path. He didn't know where Snake had disappeared to, but he strongly suspected that the trigger-happy man-in-black had gone down the normal pathway, there being pretty much only one way to go if you weren't the adventurous sort. Naturally, the thief-magician was of that sort. However, he didn't want to risk getting shot at once more, or worse: injured, while going down his way to the small, hidden bay.

But the things Snake had said… had made him pause. They were true, after all. Snake did know his name. And that was one truth that – all of a sudden – started bothering the young man greatly. It should have been obvious to him from their very first meeting. Snake knew his father's name. If that had happened by will, chance, or force, had nothing to do with the fact that the previous Kaitô Kid's son now had to live with the consequences. Snake knew where to find Kaitô Kid's family.

And he had the power to seriously threaten the thief with that small detail and corner him. If Snake was aware of it or not, just by knowing his father's name, he had something to hold above Kaito's head should he ever need to. He could make Kaito do what he wanted – and the thief would be at his mercy completely, with only one move. That was a situation that required some careful planning to avoid.

Kaito didn't follow the obvious pathway, but – after walking along that one for about five minutes, changed to a different way of getting down towards the sea. He'd stashed his lifeboat in a small lagoon just beneath the rock that the lighthouse was standing on. It couldn't be seen from the sea or from the lighthouse, and couldn't be found unless you knew where to find it.

The teenager supposed he was fortunate that his father's assistant had known about it. Having arrived at the lagoon after about an hour of hiking along a seemingly arbitrary route, the thief finally made his way towards the spot where he'd put the small lifeboat. Deep in thought, Kaito mechanically put away his white tuxedo and the hat that he'd stuffed into his messenger bag and opened the emergency lifeboat. The weather was just fine for getting the boat out of the bay and back to the grand beach closer to the town.

Slowly he submerged himself into the water until it reached above his knees. It was a good thing that he'd researched the richness of fish in that area and come up with the comforting words "almost zero". Apparently those fish that lived in that little bay were too shy to even dare swim close enough to the shore to bother humans. That was one good thing for him.

With these thoughts in mind and having reached a sufficient level of water depth, he got into the boat and started paddling. Once he was satisfied with how far he'd come, he looked back towards the lighthouse. Smiling lightly, he regarded the scene safely from the distance. It seemed that the policemen still hadn't been able to completely clear out the pink smoke and were getting frantic trying to find him and the jewel.

Smirking at the mayhem he'd been able to cause, he pulled the paddles towards him and started rowing alongside the cliff. The light current helped greatly in that venture. The plotting and planning could come later; for now he had to concentrate on steering the small boat safely back towards solid ground.

The waxing moon was his only companion and appeared to be cheering him on in this endeavor.

TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus

A few hours later found the young thief finally reaching his house. Of course he'd had problems folding the lifeboat. Naturally, Jii had waited with the car at the place which had been the farthest away from his landing point at the beach. And he hadn't minded carrying the still-open lifeboat, the messenger bag with the jewel in it, and the paddles back to the car at all, trying with all his might not to look too conspicuous and out-of place on the otherwise absolutely deserted beach.

All in all, it had ended up in a rather frustrating walk, which had not helped dispel his exhaustion at all. Weary and strung-out, he had then proceeded to lean back in his car seat and try to relax while he had let Jii drive them back home. The land of nod had claimed him not long after.

Having arrived at his final destination for that day, he left the things in the car with Jii – the old man had offered to get everything back to him the day after which he'd more than gratefully accepted – and went to the door. Getting the keys out he barely had the strength to turn the knob. Bleary-eyed he entered the utterly silent house. He felt so exhausted that all he wanted to do was fall into bed.

Slowly he dragged himself into the warm, welcoming kitchen. The light was on – his mother had probably forgotten to switch it off the evening before. He hadn't eaten anything since lunch, and his stomach strongly rebelled against the thought of going to bed without food, despite it being after two o'clock in the morning already. He was on the verge of getting milk out of the fridge, he had the fridge wide open and a hand already stuck into the cold abyss of the food-collector, when he chanced a curious glance into the general direction of the living room (She left the light there on, as well? That was strange.) and saw it. He promptly froze.

There was a foot lying in the entrance of the living room. Even before he had gotten his brain to start working again, his feet had brought him over to the threshold of the living room door where he got his second shock of that day. For lying there, for all intents and purposes looking dead, was his mother.

TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus

AN: TWO Kid Heists in ONE single chapter! Rejoice, dear readers, I think I can only hope to manage that again…! (It only came about once I separated the whole story into chapters. Yes, this is my very first Nanowrimo-Novel!) And yes, I am evil. Cliffhangers ARE my forte; my friends have already established that. They are not all too happy about it, either. :_P oh well. Whatever.

THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE POSTED ON THE 23.3.2012!

I'm sorry for making you wait that long, but editing IS taking its merry time and I still need to finish writing the bloody story, too… even though I've successfully done Nanowrimo with it. So you can at least expect the story to be 50 k long. That's something, right?

Btw: apple juice plus water equals beer-like appearance. Kaito isn't off age yet, thus he wants to (even if only shortly) fool the older man a bit.