Chapter One: A Bad Beginning Makes a Bad Ending

September

"Ladies and gentlemen!"

Shinichi.

"This… is my last show."

For the first time in Kaitou KID's long, long career, his screaming fans fall quiet with something other than awe. Not deterred in the slightest, the gentleman thief simply smiles his usual, mysterious smirk, and tugs the brim of his hat lower.

Then chaos erupts.

He listens as the crowd gathered and packed so tightly in the middle of Shibuya square begins to boo. A few people break into tearful sobs, which cause those nearby to realize this is no prank. Journalists frantically repeat the sudden news into their microphones, staring wide-eyed into their cameras. Meanwhile, KID briefly turns his gaze to the police helicopters above. Surely, his faithful taskforce is just as surprised. Perhaps even saddened. Nevertheless…

Bodies pressed to a shadowed wall, frantic breaths, messy clothes, swollen lips.

"All shows," KID's voice rolls over the quieting public, his melancholy, yet somehow still grandiose, figure glimmering under the lights of the city, cameras, and helicopters. "Must eventually come to an end. All magicians," he says, trailing his gaze seriously over them. "Must eventually retire, and at the end of the night, the audience will always go home."

"KID," comes the whimper, fingers digging into his arms. "Don't go yet."

The chivalrous thief's smile, uncharacteristically, is not dangerous, nor is it mocking, nor is it confident, nor even flirtatious.

"Meitantei…"

"Kaitou KID has fulfilled his promise, and a magician becomes truly successful… when the audience goes home with a little tiny secret in their hearts." He crouches on the glass box which stores tonight's bounty to be level with his front-row audience members. He puts a finger to his lips.

"That maybe, magic exists after all."

With a beautiful, iridescent smoke bomb, and shiny confetti that rains down over the entirety of the square, Kaitou KID retires from the world stage.

Two Years Later

April

Kuroba Kaito blinks lazily as a lecturer in the front of the auditorium drones on about the speed of light. It's the beginning of his first semester as a second-year student at university, and for the first week, his professors will do nothing but discuss the class structure and run through a basic review of the prerequisite material - To put it simply, he's bored.

The university is only a few stops on the train away from his childhood home in Ekoda, but he'd moved away a year ago anyways. With his mother living mostly overseas and the KID Lair no longer in use… he'd felt there was nothing there for him anymore.

He blinks away the somber feeling in his chest.

Aoko is, believe it or not, seriously attending a police academy and following in her father's footsteps (the traitor). Even more unbelievable, Kaito mentally hurls into a trashcan, she's been dating Hakuba Saguru for the past eight months (again, trai-tor). Hakuba himself also intends to enter the police force, most likely in order to succeed his father as chief, the damn nepotists.

But he won't think about those two for longer than three minutes, as a personal rule.

And then there's Akako. After graduation, she'd disappeared from their lives just as mysteriously as she came. Kaito is pretty sure she doesn't need to go to a public university in order to study witchcraft… or maybe she's in a witch school or something…?

He shivers.

What really matters is that everyone has already moved on with their lives. Gone are those days of being beaten by a mop and having to see Hakuba's face first thing in the morning, or avoiding the occasional hex. Kaito smiles to himself in satisfaction. Yes, that's how it should be. For the past two years, they've had peace. He is no longer plagued by flocks of crows and dark, stormy clouds over his head. When Kaitou KID disappeared, everything else that had been connected to him had too, as if he'd finally managed to throw away the clutter in his life.

Though…

The lecturer changes the slide on screen.

He'd be lying if he said he didn't miss any of it.

Whether he'd intended for it or not, Kaitou KID became a part of him. When something already complete is given another half, changes and sacrifices must be made. They'd combined. There was a little bit of Kuroba Kaito in KID, and a little bit of KID in Kuroba Kaito. Obviously that meant "Kuroba Kaito" was no longer "just Kuroba Kaito."

Kaito drops head onto his desk, startling his neighboring classmates as he musses up his hair with a groan. He can be philosophical sometimes, poetic even, when he's in KID's persona and confronting his adversaries or dazzling his audience, but…

"And finally, we'll wrap up today's lecture with a short presentation on the applications of physics in conjunction with other sciences. Please give a warm welcome to our guest!"

He won't think about difficult things like that. There isn't a point anymore in the first place. Everything has already been said and done. He, Kuroba Kaito, will earn his degree, then use his talents to quickly rise to the top as a magician and finally achieve his dream.

He claps politely as the auditorium buzzes with excitement at the lecturer's surprise.

Let Aoko and Hakuba get married and have little police babies if that's what they want, hmph, he huffs to himself. I'll be over here getting rich and famous, thank you very much.

His father would be proud of his focus, he thinks.

Sitting back in his seat with an air of self-satisfaction, Kaito watches as a young man in the front of the auditorium makes his way towards the stage to stand next to the professor. Recognition hits him like the side of a building during a badly aimed swing with his grappling hook.

"Hello," the guest says, politely bowing.

When Kaitou KID disappeared, everything connected to him had too.

Or so he'd thought.

"My name is Kudou Shinichi, a detective, and today I'll be talking about how physics can be used both to commit and to solve crimes."