Kyouson
Chapter one – Warning about Desire
AN: Beware in some places for mind breakage. I will use both manga and anime as canon. At times this may clash, but make your own timelines for it all – I count it all as canon, and there are some bits I'll use and others I won't. I hope that's about as confusing as it's gonna get.
---
The weather was good, wind blowing just hard enough for flight yet not so strong as to make the air currents too much to bear.
Every so often the moon would come into view, but it wasn't coming out from behind the clouds – there weren't really enough, and it would have been a clear night if it hadn't been for everything going on. Instead, it was the helicopters – both of the press and the police – that hid the moon and blotted out the stars.
Just in front of the Azumano art museum and outside of the cordoned-off police area around the building, was a group of people.
"Alright – sound?"
"Sound's fine."
"Time?"
There was a rustle as the nearby crowd all checked their watches and timepieces.
"Still five minutes."
"Cameras?"
"Five, four, three, two. . . one – cameras rolling! We're on air!"
And suddenly, the chaos turned glamorous.
"Hello and good evening with CBS News, and it's less than five minutes until the time written on Kaitou Dark's warning note, which was found by the police just yesterday! Now, as I'm sure you all know by now, Dark's target tonight is the only just donate statue made of marble and silver, named 'The Desire of Janus'. Like nearly all of the artworks that Dark steals, the Desire of Janus, or Yanae as it is also known in the art world, has a long history behind her, as a great many tales have spread from the legend that this beautiful dancing girl can grant one's heart's desire. Yes, you heard me right! Unfortunately, no actual proof of this miraculous legend being true has ever been verified."
The news reporter made a show of looking at her watch, excitement evident on her face, despite what was supposed to be a professional outlook. Unsurprisingly, no one seemed to mind.
"It's not very long at all now until Dark should be appearing, and have no fear; we at CBS News will be recording it all, doing our absolute best to catch the Kaitou Dark – on film!"
The cameras kept rolling.
---
Hey, there! Niwa Daisuke here.
Now, I'd like to be able to say that I'm just your average eighth grader – fourteen, red hair, really cute girlfriend, just managing to get passing grades in all the right subjects. . .
. . . but that'd be a lie.
You only really have to look at me right now to tell. Go on. It isn't that hard. Yes, that's me, and no, this time it wouldn't be a lie. Tallish, dark purple hair, same colour eyes, outfit in varying shades of black (as chosen by my mom, so don't blame me or him) and . . . er, yeah. The one with wings.
It's simple, really. But at the same time, I suppose you could call it complicated, too.
You see, that guy you're seeing – Kaitou Dark – is me. But I'm Daisuke.
I transform into Dark whenever the love genes in my DNA are activated. The same principle applies to him, turning him back into me.
There's more, but I don't think you need to hear all that to know that what I said before is true.
Sometimes, I wish things were simple. That I really was just a normal eighth grader kid going through the motions of life as everyone else knows it.
Then I remember everything else about my life, the quirks of having Dark around that, even if he is an annoying idiot, I would miss greatly.
So I just get on with life, with being Niwa Daisuke (and Dark). After all, it's not as if I could actually do something about all this, right?
---
Running. Running was good. So was disabling traps he was pretty sure his mother hadn't helped to set up – at least, he was pretty sure that she wasn't advising Hiwatari-kun in her spare time.
Deep in the back of dark's mind, Daisuke cringed at the unwanted image even as it formed.
"Daisuke – you're distracting me."
Oops. Not the best thing to do.
Looking out of Dark's eyes, he started. It wouldn't be too long until they were there.
Through the laser maze, over the pit trap wires and trapdoor – that must have come with the building, Hiwatari knew that such things were useless against them – around the corner, through the door (being careful about the handle, remembering one of his mom's favourite tricks) and they were there.
Dark went into the room with easy strides, belying the fact that he had just been through an assault course of criminal-catching traps set up by the police and –
A flash of blue vanished around a corner, light glinting off of glasses hidden by wall and shadow.
The corridor that Dark had just come down was blocked of with the hit of what was presumably a button on a remote or the activation of a booby trap meant to delay or catch the thief.
Dark laughed.
"You really think that that's going to slow me down? My, commander – you must be getting rusty."
Hiwatari just walked calmly out from his hiding place, pushing his glasses up with one finger. His other hand was in his pocket. Where they couldn't see what he was doing with it.
"I won't let you take the Yanae, Dark."
The thief leaned casually back against the wall.
"You've told me that you wouldn't let me take an awful lot of things, commander. For some reason, you've never been able to see that through. I wonder why that is?"
He smirked and glanced – just glanced – at the life-sized statue of a girl holding what appeared to be a silver plate in her hand.
"That's a fake."
Hiwatari didn't even blink.
"I know." He started to walk away, disappearing behind the pillars holding up the high ceiling at regular intervals. "I told you," he said coldly, "I don't –" he cut himself off. "I won't let you."
Dark went after him, but even as he did so taking a different route than the exact steps Daisuke's classmate had taken. Hiwatari-kun could be a very tricky person to deal with, at times. It just so happened that this was turning out to be one of those times.
---
Satoshi ran. Hopefully, running far enough away from the Yanae that Dark would be far away from it, perhaps be caught out by a trap of some kind, before remembering what it as that the thief was even there for.
He had been serious, about the Desire of Janus. Some things didn't have to have weapons to be dangerous, and the Yanae was a prime example of that.
A man's desires could get him killed – or worse.
It had, after all, been the desire of one of his ancestors that had created the thief that was currently pursuing him – and the monster inside of him, Satoshi, that lived off of the Hikari line, and was now trying to get out.
He stumbled and almost tripped as another lance of pain shot through him. Gasping, he launched himself back to his feet and forced his legs to work, but only made it as far as the ornate doorway between the two galleries before collapsing to his knees and clutching at his heart.
His glasses fell to the cold stone floor with a clatter of glass and metal.
For a few precious moments, there was only blessed darkness.
Then, the would turned white and gold.
---
Dark froze still at the clear sound of the commander's glasses clattering to the floor.
Not good. Very not good. In fact, very bad. Very, very bad.
Seconds later, his suspicions were confirmed when a telling light shone forth, originating from the direction the Hiwatari boy had gone, feathers exploding into the air as white wings burst forth, blowing gusts of air into both halls and knocking over several priceless yet powerless artefacts.
Dark ignored them. None had been what he had been after, and there were more important things vying for his attention.
'Dark!'
He scowled as he launched himself to one side to avoid the glowing white feather that had been sent his way.
'Thank you, Captain Obvious! I can see the luminous white projectiles coming towards me pefec-'
He was cut off when another luminous white projectile almost gave him a haircut.
"Don't be so bitter, Satoshi-sama!" Krad was saying as he straightened up to face Dark. "This is what you want. To catch the infamous Dark Mousy, make him pay." With each step, the manic look in the deranged angel's eyes grew. Long legs started to run, powerful wings beating a tempo of wind that blew up the dust that had settled there undisturbed for decades, or even centuries.
With a disquieting grin on his face, the devilish angel shot forward like a bullet out of a gun in the direction from which they had come from.
Not having to think, knowing all too well what flip side of his self could do if left unsupervised and unwatched, Dark summoned Wiz to him and followed after.
"You know what she can do too, don't you, Dark? She was lost and now she is found once more, but you never truly lost sight of her history, what she meant, did you? Did any of us?"
'Dark? Dark, what did he mean by that?'
Daisuke's only reply was the clenching of Dark's fists in frustration.
'Dark?'
Dark grimaced.
'You know of the Yanae, right?'
'Well, yeah. We're supposed to be stealing it right now, aren't we?'
Dark rolled his eyes. Sometimes, other self or not, Daisuke could be. . . slow.
"More than that. Emiko didn't tell you much, did she?" Giving most of his attention to flying, following and not knocking over too many things in the rooms and halls, he didn't wait for Daisuke's reply. "The Yanae is old – not as old as me, but – you get the picture. She- "
A sharp swerve from the other angel almost left Dark as a smear of feathers on the doorframe.
'I thought he wanted us to be following him!' Daisuke squeaked.
'Yeah, but it wouldn't be much like him to pass up on an opportunity, would it?'
"Think about it, Satoshi-sama. All of your desires, possible. We could have him chained, bound, imprisoned, sealed. Whatever you want."
This time, Daisuke was quiet.
"She can do that," Dark said, answering the silent question. With a beat of Wiz's wings, he straightened and touched down, still light on his feet as a feather floating slowly to the ground. Each step carefully taken into a seemingly empty room. Not even Krad remained within their sights.
But the room that they had stumbled into wasn't empty. The moment he had crossed the threshold and stepped inside, the spirit of the artwork called out to him, singing and alive.
Well, at lest he and Daisuke were still alive. That had to be a good thing.
A rush of wind from the downbeat of a wing caused him to cover his eyes to shield them from the dust. Squinting up, he could see the cause – the fallen angel, more so than he, held aloft at the top of the roof, a slight blur of blue, gold and white as he made one sharp and swift movement.
Without needing to see it clearly, Dark could tell that it was the Yanae that was supposed to be falling to earth after Krad's enraged fit of far-off anger. Supposed to be, but wasn't, falling. Not the way that a piece of art made out of marble and silver was supposed to fall.
With every slow meter that she descended, she seemed a little more real. It could have been the pale rays of the full moon that made her dress flutter, the harsh police floodlights around the museum that made her hair stream out behind her. But it couldn't have been either that made her eyes open slowly, just enough, and blink.
She smiled.
"You called me. You called me."
Dark took a step backwards, waving his hands about in refusal. "Wha- ? What?!"
It was a rule of thumb. He – and Phantom Thieves in general – protect the art, collect the art, but they weren't ever supposed to activate the art.
So if Krad, by his earlier show of temper, hadn't been able to and Dark himself wouldn't have done it even if he had wanted to, then who had?
---
An enraged shout from the other end of the room jerked Daisuke back to full awareness, making him remember where he was and what he was doing there.
"Nice time to come back to us, Daisuke. Now, if we had the time, I'd ask if you had any idea what the hell just happened there. But since we don't- "
Dark ducked and rolled as something hard and fast connected with the air where his head had been a moment previously.
Hiwatari-kun!
A glance back. Krad's face was a mask of desperation, anger and . . . was that. . . pain?
'Good. . .'
'But Dark, what about the-' he was cut off by a vision, a memory of a girl. It wasn't the kind of sight that would get his heart thumping and make him (dangerously, at this point in time) turn back into himself again. It was just a strange, mysterious kind of smile. . . and he was seeing it again. Not right in front of him this time, but a little further away. Moving – or was it just him (Dark)? – in a blur of grey and brown and white and blue and gold and silver and black, all with the ever-present purple at the edges of his vision.
He wished. . . he wished that this didn't have to be happening. He and Hiwatari-kun were friends, even if he and dark were almost the opposite of that, and even then they respected each other. Dark, at least, did not hate Hiwatari-kun, and he was pretty sure that he didn't always mean all... all right, some of the things he said about Hiwatari. None of them should have to go through this. Especially not Satoshi.
But this was how it was. There wasn't anything he could do about it.
It saddened him. It made him frustrated. Maybe even a bit angry. He let out a long breath.
'Dark. . . Dark, come on. Let's go.'
'Now isn't the best time to be talking, Daisuke.'
'Hiwatari-kun can't take much more of this, Dark!'
'Good!'
Krad's face contorted in pain once again from a blow not dealt by Dark. In a last fit of fury, he sent a wave of power out in the direction of the artwork, presumably to knock her over, to break and shatter. One of his eyes flickered blue.
'NOT good!'
The Yanae fell, turning back to her usual marble and silver only once she was on the floor, laying there as if in sleep, smile still on her face as if carved there. Dark grinned.
"Who would've guessed – smart art."
He captured the frozen dancing girl at a run, the bend down to pick it up not breaking his stride at all.
Trusting that Wiz would be able to find and get to them once they were outside and in the free air once more, Dark slid carefully and quietly back into the shadows.
---
Satoshi came back to awareness slowly, all too aware of the heavy exhaustion that was already falling onto him due to Krad's liberal and uncaring use of power. He was careful not to give in to the feeling, though. He had not become the commander over all investigations pertaining to the Phantom Thief Dark by being an idiot – he knew that to sleep in this state would be the next best thing to suicide. Various aches form the transformation, possibly internal bleeding due to the fight. His shoulders and back were sore with a familiar yet still brutal pain.
That would be yet another shirt ruined, then. He really should start to learn to take older and baggier clothing to heists where he knew there was less chance of being able to stay as himself. It usually ended up stretching his clothes in strange places even if said clothing wasn't ripped.
He made an attempt at standing up and succeeded, albeit unsteadily and inwardly grateful that there wasn't anyone around to be watching him. . . expecting. . . worrying.
Looking around him, he recognised the wreckage that the two winged beings had wrought, and flinched. It might have been his other self, the monster he became, but somehow, it still seemed like his responsibility more than not.
He should have. . . he should have. . . he didn't know what he should have done. Not within plausibility and probability of whatever plan he might have come up with having worked.
Willing his legs to let him walk, he headed over to the doorway between the galleries, back where it had all begun. His glasses had fallen off there, and there was the slim chance that they hadn't been trodden on underfoot.
He had failed. Yet again, he had failed.
He thought of the events of earlier – seen through another's eyes, but remembered vaguely all the same – and grimaced, putting a hand to his forehead. Who knew what chaos the activated work of art would wreak before it was done?
And this time, the thief couldn't even be useful for once by sealing the thing.
He sighed, looking down at the floor. His glasses were broken.
---
"Dai-chan!"
"Oof. . ."
"Ne, Dai-chan, let me see, let me see! Oh, she's beautiful, isn't she, Kosuke-kun? Tou-san? Isn't she pretty?"
"Hmm.... Although I was sure that the Yanae was always pictured as a dancer, Emiko-chan."
Emiko waved a hand unconcernedly about in the air.
"Oh, who worries about these small details? One of the most famous- "
"- and notorious- "
"- pieces of Hikari art! This is so wonderful!"
Daisuke yawned. The moment Dark had set them down at a good place to let Daisuke take over, he had withdrawn and fallen asleep within the redhead's mind.
Exhausted and swaying on his feet himself, Daisuke snuck past them, catching and returning his father's understanding smile as he did so. At least he didn't have to worry about his mom's traps – the short time after he got home from a heist was one of those few precious moments of his life that he ever had to walk about his own home without having to keep his wits about him.
Only just remembering that he was still fully dressed in Dark's clothes, he changed lethargically back into his pyjamas, leaving the rest in a heap on his bedroom floor for one of the others to deal with later. All he could think of now was sleep.
With a concerned 'kyuu', Wiz jumped up onto Daisuke's bed and curled up by his pillow, keeping his friend company while he slept.
Hidden from the moonlight, a silent clock began to tick. At a time when all were asleep and no one heard, a soft laugh permeated through the house and into the world beyond.