Notes: This AU is a collab with the artist Bakathief on tumblr! She draws art for the AU and I write for it. Hopefully you'll enjoy this as much as we do.
Summary: Kuroba Kaito has a plan. Find the people responsible for his father's death, branded within the magic community as a traitor, and make them pay. There's just some things he needs to do first. Slowburn KaiShin.
The interrogation room is bland.
For a room filled with magic users, Kaito is almost insulted with how utterly mundane it is. There's a table, three chairs and four walls that have been painted grey. It feels almost like he's stepped into an old detective movie because everything is monochrome. One of the walls, he knows is charmed so that people can listen in to higher profile cases, but Kaito's doubtful it'll be used for him.
"You understand why you're here, right?" It's a younger man asking the questions – someone Kaito knows the name of, but can't quite recall. They've met somewhere, then, but it's practically impossible to drag the memory back quite so suddenly.
Two aurors – the magical equivalent of a detectives – sit opposite him on the desk, staring him down. They both wear white shirts and coloured ties. The younger has a red tie, a lower rank within the force, whereas the older man wears a blue tie. His superior then.
"Actually," Kaito says, leaning back in his chair, "I don't have the faintest clue."
The look he receives echoes the room. It's almost surprising how unruffled both men seem, how bored they seem by him. It bothers him, a little, mainly because people shouldn't be bored to see him. Kaito is nothing, if not an entertainer.
Kaito tears his gaze away from the aurors, surveys the room a second time. It's like the other interrogation rooms he's been in before. Except, well, he's not done anything worth being arrested, not in Japan, anyway.
"You were caught using a prohibited item," the younger auror says, and Kaito really is sure they've met somewhere before. They seem roughly the same age, so maybe... they both attended Japan's magic academy at roughly the same time? That must be it, the auror is from Tokyo. "This prohibited item, in fact."
He places a small cylinder onto the table between them. It's something Kaito's been working on for a while, in his attempt to blend magic and tools together. There's a button on the top that when pressed, releases a small spray from the middle, along with a small flash of light.
"I didn't know it was prohibited," Kaito says.
He's not lying – he's spent the past few years abroad, travelling between Europe and North America. Their rules, while strict hadn't included prohibition of any of the ingredients he'd used to create the spray. Or rather, he'd not been caught for them.
"We tested the spray," the younger auror continues – and, Kaito thinks it's strange that he's taking control, maybe he's being tested by his superior? "And it's got trace elements of veritaserum in it. Meaning this, is illegal in Japan."
Kaito leans back. Adding a truth serum into his tool, making it possible to compel people for a few seconds to speak the truth, without the common side effects had been a good idea. And well... he'd not thought it would be illegal after he'd altered it to have no risks at all.
Frankly, they should be thanking him for the practical applications, he reckons it's going to be a massive breakthrough within the magical community, whenever she gets there. Stretching one of his legs out from beneath the table though, Kaito decides that he should probably avoid any arrogant comments whilst in the room.
Modest then, he decides, trying to decide on the facade that will get him freed most quickly.
"I've not been in the country for a few years," truth, "I didn't know it was banned here." Eh – technically true.
The younger auror blinks, almost shocked at the honest tone Kaito seems to project. It's not alarming to see his reaction, most people tend to react to him with preconceived beliefs that he constantly has to change when they're fully introduced. It's the pain of having the Kuroba name, he supposes.
"You've been arrested in multiple countries across Europe and Northern America," the older auror cuts in. He's more experienced, sure, but he also seems to lack seriousness. Kaito remembers him at least, having memorised 'necessary' faces from social functions and the auror task force. Mouri Kogoro.
"You read my file?" Kaito asks. It's not shocking, although he's surprised they've gotten the files seeing as Japan holds very few extradition treaties, especially when it comes to European countries. He shakes his head, "Well, if you've read it, then you've seen that each arrest has been a big misunderstanding."
Mouri crosses his arms, stares down the bridge of his nose at him. There's gel in his hair, not a lot, but enough that it reflects the light – not blindingly so, but enough that it makes him look slightly ridiculous. He says, "that's seems like a lot of misunderstandings to have."
Kaito leans forward, clasps his hands together. He has to resist the urge to snap his fingers and say 'exactly, isn't it terrible being me?' and tries to look slightly helpless instead. Shrugging his shoulders, he lets out a sigh, exasperated.
"Most 'misunderstandings'," he uses his fingers to create air quotes, "only happen because people hear my surname and realise I'm from that bloodline."
The younger auror stiffens. Kaito supposes it's because he's grown up around the rumours of the Kuroba's and the way they'd proven their names correct by staining everything associated with them black. As the family name suggests, they really do have black feathers.
"Kuroba Kaito," the younger auror says, "son of the traitor Kuroba Toichi?"
It's like a shard of glass is being pierced into his abdomen, plunging deeper into his flesh, setting every one of his synapses on fire. Every time someone talks about his father like they know, like they have some sort of understanding of what happened fifteen years ago, it drives him insane.
His responding smile is sardonic – self-deprecating.
"That's me," he says. Then, after a pause - "I know you from somewhere... Did you attend Mahoutokoro? I think I remember seeing you in the halls."
He responds with a sharp nod, "I was part of the 1913 class. Kudo Shinichi."
Ah. That's where Kaito knows him from. He'd been a year below Kaito in school – he can still remember the rumours when seven-year old Kudo had enrolled with the other first years, easily raising to the top of the class despite not having a drop of magical purity in his veins.
The rumours about him had faded months later however, when they'd turned on Kaito and the fact that his father had 'turned white', the cuffs indicating that he'd committed treason against Japan.
"Let's get back to business," Mouri huffs, tapping his fingers against the table. He's been tapping the entire time, against his trouser pockets – that combined with the slight yellowing of his skin around his finger nails shows that he's a chain smoker. "Most of the charges were minute things, but this one."
Mouri withdraws his wand, flicking his wrist. A file appears on the table, summoned from what Kaito can only assume is a file room within the ministry building.
"You were arrested in England under the suspicion that you'd stolen the Chalmer's Topaz." Mouri says, as Kaito opens the file, glancing over a case he'd already been a part of once, months ago. "The arrest was made by a Hakuba Saguru?"
Kaito crosses his arms. "I worked with Hakuba, rather unwillingly, to help him find that stone. And when it was found, I was acquitted."
Kudo shrugs his shoulders, as if the acquittal isn't the main thing here. Maybe it's not, maybe there's some other link that Kaito doesn't know about. There's no point worrying about it now.
"The Chalmer's Topaz was stolen shortly after it was received by you and Auror Hakuba." Kudo says – which, duh, anyone who was in England at the time would have known that. It's hardly surprising, even if Kaito was readying to board a boat into mainland Europe. "The gemstone was stolen by a thief naming himself as KID. It was then returned roughly three days later."
"I'm sorry," Kaito says, "but I don't see what this has to do with my bringing a prohibited item into Japan. Shouldn't I just receive a fine and have it confiscated?"
A sigh – there's nothing they can do to link him with the KID case, Kaito knows. He's read up on enough law to have a basic understanding of how interrogations and arrests can work. Plus, he's pretty certain he can't be tried for the same crime twice – and even if it were possible, the Japanese ministry can't charge him for it.
"I suppose you're right," Mouri says, standing. "We'll check out that fine, and then you'll be able to go. You can come with us."
Kaito follows them from the interrogation room, up some stairs to the main offices. Inside, Aurors move fluidly, connecting incidents and researching cases. One of them looks up as they walk in, raises a hand in a wave. Kudo in response waves back, although it's a smaller movement, more confined.
"While you were in the interrogation room," Kudo says, "we verified the spells you've used on your wand. Basic protocol, to make sure no illegal spells have been used within your time in Japan."
Or in general, Kaito thinks. He supposes he should be angry about the invasion of his privacy, but frankly, it's not like they'll find that he's used any suspicious spells. Even if they do suspect him of doing something illegal – a likely cognition, seeing as people always suspect the Kuroba's these days – they won't be able to prove it.
It's simpler to own two wands, than to try and mask the spells he uses on a single wand. It's why when they'd confiscated his Kaito wand he hadn't been worried about the aurors analysing it. If they'd taken his KID wand though...
Luckily, they'd not retrieved it from his person. And as such, he's not got to worry about.
Minutes later, he leaves the ministry building behind, skipping down steps without much of a care for anything. It'll cost him, trying to replace the main ingredient in the spray, but he's certain that he'll figure out a way to invent his way around the prohibited items.
In fact – now that Kaito knows the spray works, there's no need to continue working on it. The thieves he'd used it on before he'd been arrested, forcing them to tell the truth to the shop keeper hadn't shown any negative effects at all. Adding that to his previous subjects abroad...
Kaito nods his head. It's one project that's completed then.
That's one down at least – he can move on to other pressing inventions.
Like finding a way to infuse dragon blood into healing potions, and avoiding the scalding heat that comes with it, killing people from the inside. The healing properties of dragons mixed into a herbal potion would heal wounds from curses and dark magic much quicker than the standard spells he'd been taught in school...
(It's not like he can go to hospitals following his plights as KID... So Kaito knows he needs to figure out something else.)
Like figuring out the wavelength that ghosts are on, so he can imitate it with a spell and get in and out of buildings without having to worry about locked rooms.
Projects that will lead him closer to avenging his fathers death, to figuring the real traitor within the ministry.
"I need to find some dragons."
