At the end of his tale, the thief, as usual, was smirking. This smirk, however, seemed different than his normal smirk. His normal smirk claimed that he would always be able to get away from his pursuers because he knew everything that was going to happen. The smirk he wore now could not claim he could escape, not when he'd already been apprehended, but it did say that the thief was amused about something the Aurors didn't know.
"Didn't you know, Detective Granger?" Kaito asked. "Even Muggles believe in prophesies."
"Yeah," Harry interrupted, "I reckon you might if Koizumi let your class find out about magic. I mean, wasn't she claiming she warned you of something she saw earlier?"
Kaito shrugged. "Akako always sees some danger of me being caught at my heists. The danger always shows up, but I've never let it capture me. Not until you found me out. But that wasn't what I was talking about. Haven't you ever heard of the psychological idea of the 'self-fulfilling prophesy?' It states that something can happen to you solely because you believe it will happen to you."
"But you didn't show up to steal the Wizard's Coal just because we thought you would," Harry pointed out.
"No, but as I said about Akako's prophesies, the conditions where they might be fulfilled always show up, the warnings just rarely ever happen. My theft was the condition about Muggles showing themselves as a threat to the magical world. The warning was the threat itself, and it wouldn't have affected the magical world if they hadn't caught a glimpse of Akako using magic to counteract the measures you wizards took to prevent my theft and became curious about magic. I guess if they want immortality for themselves, them wanting magic for themselves wouldn't surprise me. If you hadn't tried to stop me from stealing the Wizard's Coal, Snake and his men wouldn't be looking for witches and wizards to find the secret of magic right now."
There was a moment's pause. "I finished telling you about Snake, about Kid, about Akako about my disguise as Itsudo Kakiudo, and about my theft of the Wizard's Coal. Was there anything else you wanted to know?"
"Yeah," said Harry, "er, if you wanted to destroy Pandora to stop Snake's group from getting it, then why didn't you destroy the Wizard's Coal?"
"Unlike Pandora, the Wizard's Coal doesn't have much of a history of people killing each other over it. To be honest, Snake and his men would kill for pretty much anything. It was more because I don't think it's a good idea to let them alter lifespans based on the Wizard's Coal's predictions that I went to such lengths to keep the thing out of their grasps. I didn't destroy the Wizard's Coal because I thought it was best to return it to the proper owner once the museum amped up its security."
Hermione started to open her mouth, but Ron jumped in. "No, that's all. We don't need to know what's going on between you and Aoko just because Hermione's taken a liking to her, seriously."
"I wouldn't ask about that in this setting, Ronald. I was going to bring up the Memory Charm we still need to perform on Kuroba."
"I still see it as harmful. It's the ultimate violation of self. Our memories are part of who we are." the thief grumbled. "What did you want to say about the charm?"
"I wanted to ask if there was anything else you needed to tell us before I perform it on you."
The thief thought for a moment. "Well," he said finally, "if you have to wipe Muggle's memories of magic, you're going to have to wipe more than just mine. I've been looking for Pandora for a little longer than the past year, but Snake and his men have been looking longer than that. I don't know who might have formerly worked with Snake in seeking Pandora, but I know at least Snake's employer knows about that gemstone as well."
Then the thief's eyes widened. "Oh! That reminds me. My experience with magic is not limited to Akako. I've come across many examples as Kid, and many of my motives are connected with real magic. How much do you expect that your charm will affect my life? If I'm going to go to jail for theft, I'd really like to remember not just why I confessed, but why I stole so much in the first place. It's not like I stole just when I thought the guys that murdered my father might be watching. I had to steal to look for that stupid jewel too."
"Just how much has magic been a part of your life, Kuroba?" Hermione asked, glancing at her friends.
"Well, it did affect some major decisions in my life. It was the primary reason for my decisions, sometimes. I've also been around it so often that encountering it is not shocking to me, just surprising at best." Kaito pouted. "The only way I can think of dismissing magic from my life is to write it off as a mental illness that I will doubtless be given dangerous medication for when I'm in jail. No, Miss Auror, modifying my memory in itself won't hurt me, but it will cause me to be hurt."
"Excuse me just a second," said Hermione, standing up. "I've got to look into something."
"Bet you anything she's off to the law library," Ron said to Harry.
"Probably," Harry agreed. "Don't blame her." He thought back to the serial homicide case in the fall. It had been about Muggle rights, after all.
The men sat in silence for a moment, interrupted only when Kid asked how long he had until the truth potion wore off. Harry and Ron had started discussing the Chudley Cannon's surprisingly not-completely-horrible performance in that year's Quidditch tournaments when Hermione came back with Kingsley Shacklebolt.
"So this is the young phantom thief who's been causing the Muggles so much trouble," Shacklebolt said.
Kaito stood up and gave the minister a brief bow. "The name is Kaito Kuroba," he introduced himself. "May I ask who you are?"
"Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic."
Kaito blinked. "I'm honored, but may I ask what your purpose for coming is?"
"Miss Granger informs me that you are a Muggle thief whose motive was based strongly in magic, in looking to destroy an immortality-granting jewel called Pandora."
"That's correct."
"We've dealt with Muggles who would otherwise have their memories modified but were too involved in magic to viably modify their memories, Mister Kuroba. We make strong confidentiality agreements with Muggles in that situation."
"What is in these agreements, Minister?" Kaito asked.
"We make these agreements on a one-on-one basis because the situations these Muggles find themselves in are out of the ordinary. However, we normally offer them special protection from the magical world as an incentive to make the agreement. But you don't really need our protection, do you? You were capable of physically escaping from our best Aurors."
Kaito's smirk grew a smidgen larger at Shacklebolt's mention of his achievement. "What do you propose to offer instead?"
"You aren't a bad person, Kid. We'd have to work out the details of an agreement, but I think we can neglect to turn you over to the Muggle authorities in exchange for your silence. I don't think the Japanese Ministry would mind either if you kept helping them dispose of magic artifacts that have found their way into Muggle hands."
"Now that's the sort of agreement I'd gladly accept," the thief declared. "We could both keep on doing what we were doing, and it would just be my word against Hakuba's out in the Muggle world."
"What happened to Pandora might be destroyed?" Ron grumbled.
Kaito turned to answer Ron's question. "Pandora is just the stupid rock I'm using to make myself bait for Snake's group. Because I threatened to destroy it, they come after me to get me out of the way, sometimes risking someone finding out about them to do so. I've got to keep stealing until the police get them, even if I do find Pandora in the process."
Hermione cut in, "Kuroba, the whole point of your heists was to call law enforcement's attention to Snake's group without actually just going and telling law enforcement what you'd learned about your dad, wasn't it? I'd tell you how very wrong that was of you, but I don't think you'd listen, and anyway, my point is that you have drawn our attention to Snake's group – do you really think we'd let them keep kidnapping and killing to obtain a magical objective? - so you had better retire!"
Kaito blinked. "Well, um..."
"Besides," Hermione continued, "how do you think Aoko would feel about dating the Phantom Thief Kid?"
Kaito hung his head, Hermione's words clearly not completely wasted on him. But after a moment, he turned back to Shacklebolt. "How soon do you think we can work out the details of that agreement, Minister?"
Kaito returned to the exchange students' dorms the next day with mixed emotions. He was a free man, and not only that, but there was a type of law enforcement in the know about Snake too. However, Hermione's words stung because she had been right – he really hadn't had a compelling reason not to go to the police with what he'd suspected about Kid the day he learned his father's secret. Sure, it might have cast his dad in a bad light, but Inspector Nakamori, despite his fixation on Kid, had the honor not to drag a dead man's name through the mud without good reason.
The thief supposed he would retire, at least for Aoko's sake. He'd done what he'd wanted to, and he'd been very lucky that nothing too serious had happened to him while he was breaking the law.
Fixing a more acceptable expression on his face, Kaito entered the lounge, where his classmates were passing the time. "Kaito!" Aoko greeted. She was playing card game with Hakuba. "You took a while to talk to those police officers about Akako-chan's kidnapping."
"They found her," the thief explained. "I don't know if she'll be coming back."
Hakuba regarded the magician with a slightly concerned expression. "Is there a reason for that?"
"It's not my place to say. She's fine, but she might be out of our lives from now on."
Aoko was worried too. "She is fine, right?"
"Well, there was nothing she needed to go to the ER for, and she was acting like her usual self afterward. She just ... we might not be seeing her again. But then again, who knows?"
Hakuba then picked up a copy of the morning's newspaper from an empty chair at the card table he and Aoko were sitting at. Maneuvering it so Kaito could see the front page he said, "It seems Kid is back to his usual self too." On the front page of the morning paper, a headline announced Kid's return of the Wizard's Coal. The detective snorted. "That guy must be feeling pretty cocky right now; those police officers who worked on Koizumi-chan's kidnapping had evidence of Kid's identity, and all Kid gets is a spot on the front page for something not nearly as hyped up as his heists."
Hakuba slowly smirked. "But that lousy thief won't be cocky for long. I haven't forgotten what I heard when those officers picked us up when we went after Koizumi-chan, and my witness won't be dismissed forever. If those three police detectives can find evidence against Kid, I certainly can, and I will put Kid behind bars myself. It's a promise."
Underneath his poker face, Kaito was annoyed at his classmate's usual attitude. Well, Hakuba would be Hakuba. The magician turned his attention to Aoko. "The two of us were in the middle of something before the police came to ask me about the kidnapping."
His words were the formula for an instant blush. "Kaito, did you really mean it?"
Fear bubbled inside the teenage boy, but he buried it. "Of course I did, Ahoko. Why did you think I told you something like that?"
Aoko sat in silence for a moment, and in that moment, Kaito feared he'd said something wrong, but Aoko jumped on him to embrace him in the next instant. "I feel the same way about you, Bakaito," she whispered.
Briefly telling Hakuba that she was forfeiting their game, Aoko felt sparks as Kaito slid his hand past the silver bracelet he'd given her to grip her hand in his.