Prometheus felt sorry for man, languishing in the dark and cold, and so he stole fire from the Gods and gifted it to mortals. Zeus was angered by this, and condemned him to be chained to a boulder until the end of time, his liver torn out by a great eagle each day and regrown each night. On men he visited a different punishment.
He ordered Hephaestus to mould her of the earth, and all of the Gods combined to grant her seductive gifts, and they named her Pandora, giving her to men as the first woman. The greatest gifts and curses were her insatiable curiosity and a box, which she was warned never to open. However, open it she did, and when she did all the evils of the world were unleashed. Pandora panicked and attempted to close the box, but all she trapped within was Hope, which to this day remains locked from humanity.
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No body was ever found.
That's what confuses Hakuba Saguru, what keeps him up worriedly at nights, thinking about the case. Thousands of people saw him fall. Dozens of cops saw the sniper bullet strike through his chest, flinging him from the roof. Thousands saw that no hanglider was deployed, even a floor before the ground, when doing so would have been too late.
Thousands saw the flash of red light and then… nothing.
No shards of jewel, no body, no nothing. Nothing has been seen of him since, either. Kuroba Kaito never went home that night and still hasn't reappeared, to his mother's grief. The connection was undeniable after that, to the anger and shock of Nakamori-keibu and his daughter.
It's been six months now and they're somewhat over the shock, enough that Aoko now just wants him to come back, if only to yell at him. But he hasn't reappeared. Everything that Saguru knows, everything within logic and reason, tells him that it was impossible for him to vanish.
But he has. Jewel and all. Saguru doesn't know what that jewel was, what that red flash was, but some instinct tells him that it can be nothing good. He can only hope that wherever Kuroba is now, whatever has become of him, he is alright. But he feels that worse is to come. The men on the rooftop were arrested, but something is not over yet.
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The last thing Kaito remembers is red light. And a voice.
Free!
Then darkness. He thought he was going to die. He thinks he must be dead. Is this what there is after death? Just darkness and nothing? He hopes not. It's kind of boring.
Still, he gets a sense of something happen. The faintest echoes of light and colour, of sound and sensation begin to penetrate the shadows around him. He follows them, slowly and carefully, not wanting to lose the tentative trail. There's something there, whether Heaven or Hell he doesn't care. He figures it could only be Heaven, since the darkness and boredom feels like Hell to him.
But what he finds is neither. He has been drifting formlessly, but now he feels a tingling sensation, as if he is holding something in his hands. He can smell something sweet, something vaguely familiar. There's a sweet taste too, a bit tart. And then, as if through a screen, he can see.
His hands. He can see his hands. One is holding something round and reddish-green. An apple. It brings the apple closer and he gets the sensation of crunching and tarty sweetness. He's eating an apple? Is he alive? What has he been doing?
The apple comes near again and he tries to still his hand, to pause for a moment to think, but he can't. He can't control his own body. He can feel it but he cannot control it, cannot steer or affect it. He can only feel, experience, while something else drives.
Heh. So you have awakened after all. I thought perhaps your spirit might have passed.
It's a woman's voice, and faintly familiar. It takes him a moment to realize that it makes his last memory before the red light. No, just after the red light. Something had come out of the light and into him, something with a woman's voice…
"Who are you?" he asks. The sound does not leave his body, but surely this hijacker can hear it within. The apple core is dropped and he can feel concrete pounding under his feet. Cloth is moving around his body, changing clothes. It's very dark, but in flashes of streetlamp-light he can see black clothing. Black trousers and shoes. He can even see himself donning black gloves.
I am that whom you set free. I used the outpouring of power from my crystal prison to teleport and heal your body, to augment it and improve it. Now, in exchange, it is mine. I have a purpose to fulfil with it. Go back to sleep. Soon it shall all be over.
"Soon what shall all be over?" He asks, realizing what he's wearing. It's his Kid outfit, but it's wrong. All black and red.
Like him.
"Soon what shall all be over?" he demands upon receiving no answer. "Who are you? Hey, answer me!"
Sleep. You shall want no part in this.
"No part in what?"
Whoever she is, she does not answer. She just keeps walking, turning off the road and up a driveway. It must be very late, there's not a single light on in any of the houses. He catches sight of the moon and it is low in the sky, perhaps three or four in the morning.
She disarms the house alarms, sneaking in through a window. She's using his skills, skills he honed for breaking into heavily-guarded museums and mansions, to get into some small house! What's in there?
The first thing she does is slip silently into a master bedroom. There's a couple sleeping on the bed, not noticing their approach.
"What's going on?" he asks again, some terrible feeling overtaking him as his body approaches the bed. "What are you here for? Hey, hey!"
A hand is reaching out towards the man, towards his throat.
I am taking responsibility.
The black-clad hand wraps around his throat, the other spritzing some pink gas- sleeping gas- over the two to prevent them waking up. His body begins to thrash and shake as he resists, as his lungs fight for air, but thanks to the gas he does not awake.
"NO!" Kaito yells in horror. "What are you doing? You're killing him!"
That's the idea.
The man's struggles are going weaker; Kaito fights to regain control of his body but he can't, he can't stop it, and soon the man lies still, sleeping forever.
Kaito fights but he can't do a thing. Whoever- whatever- has his body has complete control; he can only watch as his hands kill this person. Then, when the man is dead, ignoring his wife, the thing moves his body down the hall, into a child's bedroom.
"NO! NO!"
But again, he is powerless.
Some time later, the hijacker moves back out into the dark of the night, moving away, leaving only death and darkness in its wake to be discovered by the poor wife come morning. Why she alone has been spared, Kaito does not know. No more does he know why the others have died.
But given that he doesn't know how long he's been out, he fears it hasn't been the first, and won't be the last.
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Curiouser and curiouser.
Saguru might not have noticed it were it not for the fact that he imported English newspapers, but now he's seen it and the curious case won't leave his mind. It's happened in dozens of countries now, the same MO every time and no culprit.
Entire families, from grandparents to babies, wiped out. Suffocated in the night, no sign of struggle or any trace of the murderer. Only handprints around the mouths and necks, matching every time, but the culprit still hasn't been identified. No motive has been located, no traces or suspects. It hasn't come to Japan yet but the latest case was in China. It seems to be sweeping the globe.
And it's been sweeping it for six months now.
He didn't notice at first. He's been very wrapped up in the case resulting of the Kid's final heist, absorbed in the prosecution of the men who were caught, and their capture lead to an even bigger organization, something he found himself working with Kudo Shinichi on. "So this guy does exist," was his first thought on the case, but the young man had quickly turned out be to a genius and easy to work with. The case went in no time.
But now, with the case over and his mind hungry for more mystery, he had come across this.
It's more than a bit disturbing. What have any of these people done to warrant cold-blooded murder? Even young children? The case sticks out in his mind all the more because Koizumi commented of it that "something has been unleashed, a guilt from the beginning of humanity". That the timing coincides with Kuroba's odd disappearance, with that odd red light and the strange jewel…
Something is very, very wrong.
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Part of Kaito wants to flee. He thought the darkness was Hell. It's nothing compared to this.
Sometimes it hasn't even put them to sleep before it kills them. Some try to run or fight. All of them die.
And Kaito can't stop it.
Part of him wants to vanish back into the darkness and hide, to let go and pretend that it isn't happening, but he knows that that's childish and pointless. He has to find some way to stop this shadow using his body. If only he knew just what it was….
I am that whom you set free.
Free!
Free… from the jewel…?
"Speak to me, damn you!" He calls. "Tell me why! Why are you killing these people? What have they done? Speak to me, Pandora!"
An instant later and he is back in the darkness, but he is not alone. A woman is with him, somewhat beautiful but a cold, dead beauty, like a statue or ice. Or crystal.
Her hair is dark black, piled up on her head by golden ribbon but spilling out in places and down her back, haphazardly but elegantly. Her skin is smooth and olive-toned, and perfectly complemented by her white-gold toga. "That is Lady Pandora Anesidora to you, Kaito Kuroba." She glares at him and he notices something unsettling; her eyes are red, vibrant, burning red. It's not the colour in and of itself that worries him- he's used to Koizumi's eyes- no, there's something in those eyes, something cold and angry and resentful. "You demand answers."
"Damn straight I do," Kaito replies angrily. Poker Face is no good here, they're within his own mind. "Why? Why do you want all of these people dead?"
"I am merely taking responsibility," she says, regarding him coldly. "Responsibility for my mistake, my sin."
"You said that before," Kaito says. "Responsibility? What, did they come out of the box or something?"
"Pretty much." At his confusion, she smiles thinly. "Silly child. Did you take the legend literally? Did you really think that I was given some jewelled casket by the Gods from which dark shadows flew? I know what you thought, boy. I have been living in your mind for six months. There's so much here, not least languages. You know so many, but you think in this one. Interesting."
"Wait, what?" Kaito says, confused by her digression on languages. "So… what, the tale is a metaphor?"
"Precisely," Pandora says softly. "It is a euphemism for what really transpired. You know how I came to be, I assume. Man was once immortal and without weakness, but they dared defy the gods and for that woman was created- me. I was created to tempt men to ruin, not with a box, but with a secret that only I knew and was instructed not to get curious about, not to investigate. Before women, there had been no procreation, and no knowledge of sexual pleasure. Only I was given to know its existence… but I grew curious, as you know, and my curiosity got the better of me. I chose a man and we… opened the box."
Kaito gapes as the implications of this spread across his mind. "And that… unleashed evil and stole life from mankind?"
"Just look at the evil crimes committed for it," Pandora says, twirling one finger seductively in her dark locks. "And it creates sources of evil… people. To create life we must share it, and in doing so we lost immortality… and made humanity self-propagating. Without this ability, the single most evil species on earth, immortal or no, would have eventually died out through accidents or what have you. I have seen your knowledge of this time, what you have done to the world! You have poisoned the earth and the waters and the air! You have wiped out whole species! I would that you'd wipe out each other, though it's clearly not for lack of trying. Humans are the evils of the world- you will consume and destroy the earth. I was born of the earth, child, I feel its pain and suffering, and it is all my fault!"
"So… for your guilt, to "take responsibility"… you want to wipe out mankind, one family at a time?" Kaito says angrily. "You perceive us all as evil and so you want to kill us all?"
"Oh, not all of humanity," she says, waving a hand dismissively. Rather than calming Kaito, it makes his blood boil. "Just my descendants. I was the first woman, but not the only. I simply wish to rectify my own mistakes, my own failure. Then I can go. My resentment and guilt sealed me into that jewel, and the Gods, fearing I would become a vengeful spirit, created that crystal prison around me. But those Gods are dead! They have become fairy tales and myth and so they are dead! That allowed my prison to be broken and for me to be freed from my blood cell! Thank you for that," she adds sweetly.
"B… blood cell?" Kaito asks in shock, his brain attempting to marshal some argument, some sense for this insane woman.
"That jewel was my virginal blood crystallized," Pandora says distantly. "There was more magic around back then, that kind of thing happened a lot."
"Never mind," Kaito says, shaking himself. "Look, I know there are bastards in the world, all right? I know that better than anybody! But I also know better than anyone that there are good people out there. There's hate and death, yeah, but there's also kindness and love. You can't make the many pay for the transgressions of the few, and there are much better ways to do it than by killing everybody! Stop, dammit! Let it go, go away, let me go! Stop using me to kill! Why me? If you were so powerful, why not just make your own body?"
"Because I like using you to kill," she says maliciously, stopping Kaito dead in his tracks in shock. "It's easy to bend this body to my will, there's so much hate and anger that you bottled up and never used. You hate it so. Don't you realize, boy? I despise thieves like you. It was a sneaky thief that caused my existence, caused the Gods to give me knowledge and make me curious, caused me to make my mistakes! I would that I had never existed, but thanks to a filthy sneak-thief I do! Given the chance, would you deny yourself the opportunity to steal fire from the Gods?"
"I give it all back!" Kaito snaps, and then curses himself for saying it. Within his own mind, though, he can't lie, and unfortunately his joking nature has chosen this moment to make a comeback.
"You are no different to that fool," Pandora spits acidly. "Well, if you refuse to vanish, then you can watch and enjoy, Prometheus." With that, she vanishes, and Kaito feels a cold fear. What does she mean by that?
"Hey!" he yells angrily into the nothingness. "Come back, dammit! I'm not done and you're still in my body! Hey! Hey!"
But there is no more response. Kaito peeks out through his eyes, and sees himself getting off of a plane. He can hear tannoy announcement and see signs.
He's in Japan. Tokyo. Home.
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It can't be.
He got decommissioned from the Kid case four months ago, when it was closed again. And the stupid boy that is the undeniable suspect vanished six months ago. The Kid is gone.
But here he is, right in front of him, alone with him in the cold night. Nakamori Ginzo feels his jaw drop.
Only… is it the Kid? There's something wrong about him. The outfit is right, but the colours are all wrong. Normally the white suit and hat glow in the night. Now they're black, almost indiscernible from the shadows, and the only dash of colour is not elegant blue but harsh, blood red. What's going on? Why is he dressed so strange, so dark, so…
… evil…
"Kid?" he asks gruffly. "Hell, Kuroba. Is that you, boy?"
Kid just walks slowly towards him. There's something odd about it, some air of a predator stalking the prey.
"Oi, Kuroba," he demands, unsettled. "Talk to me, boy!"
"Kuroba is not here," Kid says softly, and a chill runs down Ginzo's spine. "But he's watching. Are you watching this, Prometheus?"
"Wh-?" Ginzo asks, before a black-gloved hand whips out at snakespeed, wrapping around his throat. Gasping in shock as his lungs are blocked, Ginzo reaches for his gun, but the other hand smacks it away from him. It feels like an iron bar. What is this thing?
"K…" he gasps as the other hand wraps around his throat, pressing down on his windpipe. They're close now, so close that Ginzo can see under the hat brim and right into the Kid's face. It is Kuroba, but there's something off about the boy's face, something malicious and twisted and… wrong…
The eyes are red. Glowing, burning red. But in the very depths of him, even as his vision fades and his limbs grow weak, Ginzo can see two tiny, tiny points of blue.
Nakamori-keibu! NO!
"Kuroba…" he thinks, dizzily recognizing that voice. "What… has happened to you…?"
Then thought fades, and there is nothing.
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Kaito is screaming in horror and anger, but nothing he can do can reach. He's watching a man as dear to him as his own father die and he can do nothing, not as he watches colour drain from his face and his eyes close and his struggles stop…
Pandora drops him. There's no longer anything to be done.
"Kami, no," Kaito sobs. "Why? He was a good man!"
He was human.
"N-Nakamori-keibu!"
Pandora turns and Kaito can see a couple of cops. "Good!" he yells. "They've seen you! I hope they shoot you, dammit! I hope they kill you!"
Not today.
One of the horrified-looking cops has raised a gun, aiming it at him, but Pandora dodges the bullet easily and runs. Within seconds, she is far from the scene of her crime.
"Damn you," Kaito growls in grief and anger. "Damn you to Hell!"
We shall see. Perhaps Hades is waiting for me. But for now, I have work to complete. There is much more to do this night.
"Who else?" Kaito asks, suddenly afraid. "Who else are you going to murder-" then he gasps sharply as he realizes.
If Nakamori-keibu wasn't just a choice of target to punish Kaito- Kami knew killing anybody was torture to him- if he was on her list of descendants…
Then there was one more. One person who would also be grief-stricken by his death, one person descended from him…
His daughter. Aoko.
Kami, no!
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Aoko's head is spinning from hours of crying. She's sitting on her bedroom floor now, right where she's been since receiving that terrible phone call. Her arms are crossed on her bed, her head resting on them, staring unseeingly at the pattern of moonlight on her bed. She can barely process what she heard. They said that her father was dead- not only that, but Kid had killed him.
She had only just come to terms with Kaito being Kid. She can't believe that he'd murdered her father. He couldn't have…
It takes her, in her grief-muddled state, a long time to realize that the moonlight falling onto her bed has been blocked. Through sore and red-rimmed eyes, she looks up to her window.
He's standing there on the windowsill, black cape floating softly in a slight breeze. The description was true. It's Kid in colour-negative, all shadow-black and blood-red. Colours of death and darkness, colours Kid should never wear. It's not who he is- who he was. She doesn't know who or what he is now, but he's moved beyond all redemption. He crossed the line and didn't stop.
He's watching her silently. She holds his gaze, but soon she can feel fresh tears welling up.
"So?" she says bitterly, injecting as much anger and hate as possible into her voice. "Are you here to take me too?"
In an instant he's kneeling next to her, one black-gloved hand softly caressing her cheek. "Oh, yes," he says quietly. So close, she can see Kaito's face under the hat, the red eyes glowing out from the shadows. Red? "Relax, sweet lady. It will all be over soon."
"Wait-" Aoko begins to say. Something's wrong. The face and voice are both Kaito, but the eyes… they're… wrong. He's not Kaito. She can't ask, though, because silken gloves have closed around her throat, smooth but firm pressure blocking her windpipe. Involuntarily, she gasps, fighting for air, but she no longer really wants to. Her father is gone, and whatever is before her is no longer Kaito. It's all over…
No! NO!
Her eyes snap open at that voice, the sound echoing at the edge of her hearing. In the very depths of the red eyes, now she can see two points of tortured-looking blue. A familiar blue.
"Ka…" she gasps, but she no longer has the air to speak. She tries to raise her arms to fight back but she doesn't have the strength, the pressure on her neck is painful, she can't breathe, she just can't…
Aoko! No! No!
"Kaito," she thinks faintly. "Where I'm going… can I… see you again…?"
NO!
The hands tighten sharply around her neck before suddenly releasing. No longer being held up, she collapses to the floor, gasping for air. After a few moments, as strength returns to her, she forces herself to look up.
The black Kid is clutching his head in his hands, flinging himself from side to side, into her walls, her desk, his hat knocked off, all the time howling and arguing with himself.
"Get back, boy! No! You can't have her! I gave you life, child, how dare you defy me! I don't care! You're not killing anyone else, and you're not using me!"
With that, he bangs his head repeatedly into the wall, almost snarling.
"Kaito!" Aoko shrieks, fearing he'll kill himself. Suddenly he stills, shaking violently, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Damn you, boy!" he snarls for a moment in a woman's voice, before reverting. "No, you bitch! It's over! Let me go!"
He screams again, a bizarre scream seemingly made up of two voices, a scream of terrible agony as he rips; one second, he's screaming, and the next two of him are flung apart in a flash of red light, hitting opposite walls. Aoko crawls backwards in fear, feeling that whatever had been in Kaito has been unleashed, and she doesn't know which…
They both rise to their feet at almost exactly the same moment, facing off against each other across her room. One glares with vibrant red eyes, the other with angry blue.
"Kaito-" she cries, making towards the blue one, but the red one shoots towards her, grabbing her in the neck and slamming her into the wall. Her head smacks hard against the wall, and she is enveloped in black again…
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It takes Kaito a moment to realize that he's back in control of his own body. He slowly pushes himself to his feet, and looks into Pandora's red eyes.
She's still wearing the form of the Kage Kid, but the eyes are unmistakeable. They glare at each other for a long moment, gazes locked, before someone calls his name.
"Kaito-"
"Aoko!" Kaito screams, trying to tell her to get back, but at the sound Pandora has cleared the room and planted her hands back around Aoko's throat, slamming her to the wall and pinning her there as she begin to strangle her again. Kaito cries out in anger and launches himself over, swinging Aoko's desk chair at Pandora's head. It makes contact with a resounding crack, causing Pandora's head to whip to the side as she drops Aoko, who slumps limply to the floor. Kaito launches himself at Pandora, determined not to let her touch Aoko again. She punches him hard in the gut, causing him to double over, but he recovers quickly and uses the movement to throw Pandora over his shoulder and out of Aoko's window.
He spins around and leans out of the window to look out, but Pandora is gone, vanished into the darkness.
But she'll be back. She's held onto a grudge for millennia. It's not over.
She'll be back.
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Thus concludes the second movement. But as all DC fans should recall, there are three movements to the Moonlight Sonata…