PHANTOM SHADOWS
Chapter 3: Entangled Lives - In which
Kaito learns that time cannot be changed.
A KaitouKid/Shadow of Destiny
Crossover
By
Deborah J. Brown.
Kaitou Kid is Copyright Aoyama Gosho. Shadow of Destiny and all concepts relating to it is Copyright Konami.
"Perhaps I was a bit overenthusiastic with that spell," Homunculus muttered as he moved Kaito's body out of the shadows to where Kuroba Toshi and his other self were standing, stunned by the light.
"You think?" Kaito asked, wryly, waving his hand in front of Homunculus' real face. The creature was standing, hands over his eyes, whimpering. So was his father, the stone that had contained the other Kuroba Toshi's memories clutched in one hand. "Did it work, though?"
This Kuroba Toshi was opening his eyes, blinking, as was the real Homunculus. "Y... you... What is going on here?" he gasped.
"Time," the real Homunculus said softly, a terrible sadness in it. "...is..."
"Time was..." Kaito's voice answered. "The path breaks here. Your choice, Phantom Thief. Will you continue on that ill-fated course? Or will you accept that what you have been shown is truth?"
Kuroba gazed at Kaito, who realized that Homunculus had included everything about the last hour in those transferred memories. Included the knowledge that the body Homunculus shared was Kaito's, brought back from the future where he was not killed, where Kuroba had sacrificed his own life in order to allow his family to live.
"Son..." This Kuroba knew from those memories how hard this was for Kaito. How little he wanted to choose this path.
"I follow in your footsteps, Dad. I become the Kaito Kid," Kaito couldn't help saying. "I just wish you were there to see it. Wish we could work together. There's so much I still have to learn. So much you could have shown me." He bit at his lip, ignoring the way Homunculus protested the gesture within his mind. "I'm... sorry it has to be this way."
There was a long silence. When Kuroba spoke, it was with a voice that was infinitely sad. "I as well, son." He pocketed the false gem. "Because I believe you'd have made me proud. No. I don't need to believe that. You already have." He turned away, glanced angrily at the real Homunculus, who was watching everything with the strangest expression on his face. "Take better care of what's yours. That stone brings only trouble." Then he was gone.
Kaito's body turned to face that other Homunculus, who sighed. "I take it this is the only way?"
"The only one I've found, certainly," Homunculus answered. "Do I need to repeat myself about how Eike would feel?"
A soft, tired laugh. "No. Your spell was quite enough to show me that. The other line is too disastrous to follow. It cannot be set right."
Kaito's head nodded. "Then you know what you have to do?"
"Quite so. You'll handle the other side of things? I don't know that the boy and his mother are truly safe, and since he seems to be required..." The real Homunculus' eyes gazed at Kaito and his lips quirked slightly. "Not to mention we owe him."
"My... mother? Me... But..."
It was the Homunculus who shared his body that answered. "Your father stole the gem in the other line. He will not, this time, hand it over and escape, as he did then, but that does not change the nature of those who stole it... We can prevent that. If we hurry."
oOo
He can feel the circling of the boy's thoughts in their shared mind. Can tell how Kaito is trying to work things out so that maybe, just maybe, everything could be made okay again. :I don't become the Kaito Kid if my father lives, do I? That's why I can't do it: The sadness in Kaito's heart is terrible, almost more than Homunculus can bear.
They are flying through town as the boy thinks, the glider carrying them back to the Kaitou Kid's home. At least this time, early in the morning hours, it is easier for him to handle the speed, the feeling of motion, the fear that all of this instills. I will be so very glad when this is over.
Realizing he hasn't answered the boy's question, he sighs. :Time is what it is. Its course can be molded but it cannot be created wholesale. Creating gold is far easier, really. Even immortality...:
:In other words; No. I can't.: Kaito's sigh is as tired as Homunculus feels. :Never mind. I should have known better than to ask. You've been telling me all this time.: The boy is not - yet - willing to give up his hopes. Not - yet - willing to stop dreaming. Which is well enough. We all need to dream, after all.
Kneeling on the rooftop of his neighbor's house, Kaito peered through the living room window. I don't remember this, he thought, then understood why. He... his earlier self... was asleep, curled up in his own bed, blissfully unaware of the fact that his mother was being held hostage by a black clad man holding a semi-automatic. Hell, no one would know that unless they were, like him, seated on a roof, able to see the man hiding in the corner, forcing his mother to behave as if everything was perfectly normal.
Have to hurry. It's getting close to the time when they kill mom and me. The sense was Homunculus' but Kaito was beginning to get a feel for time himself, one he wasn't sure he liked anymore than Homunculus liked being in a human body. It felt like a raging river was trying to pick him up and sweep him away. I wonder how he stands it?
Very cautiously, Kaito slid down the drainpipe and made his way to the back door. He didn't even have to pick this lock, he carried the key in his pocket, and it was easy to make his way into the house. :One man upstairs,: Homunculus warned him. :Guarding your room. Another in the bathroom... on personal business. The third is with your mother.:
:Can you do that trick with time that you did when Dad tried to hit you? Keep me from getting shot?:
A soft laugh in Kaito's mind. :Keep us from getting shot, you mean. I would not enjoy the experience, I assure you. Yes. I can and I will.: As Kaito made his way upstairs to find the man guarding his room, he started to draw his card gun, then wondered if it could be made to work while Homunculus was defending them. :Uhm...:
:Don't bother with that. Once time pauses you'll be able to do what must be done, boy. We don't have time to make elaborate plans or play.:
Kaito rolled his eyes. :Backseat driver.: The insult elicited another of those small chuckles, and he returned his weapon to its hiding place. All right, Kaitou Kid. It's showtime! He flung himself forward, rolling across the hall, even as the man he was attacking fired his weapon. The noise ought to have been deafening, but time was slowing down around Kaito. He could see the bullet slowly exiting the muzzle, could see the cloud of gun smoke that began to billow after it. Something made him reach out, grasp the bullet lightly between his fingers and turn it upwards.
:I can't change the laws of physics, Kaito. Inertia is still going to send that bullet in the direction it was headed. Try this.: The image came to Kaito of moving the bullet to a position outside the window. :It will hit the telephone post outside your house from there. Hurry.:
Following directions wasn't Kaito's strong suit, but he obeyed this time, shrugging. "You can change time to suit yourself but you can't do a thing about inertia? What use are you?" He ignored the snort at the back of his mind and returned his attention to the man in front of him. "Don't suppose you could leave me this trick when we get separated? We are going to separate, aren't we?"
:Believe me. I want it as badly as you. And no. I can not give you the skill. You're quite good enough already without cheating, boy. Now, would you mind hurrying?: Time was about to shift back into gear again, Kaito could feel it. He moved quickly, grasping the man's weapon and tearing it from his hands. Then he pulled out his can of anesthetic gas and sprayed it in the man's face, just as time returned entirely. Inside he felt a hollowness, a shuddering exhaustion that he knew was Homunculus'. :I will be all right. Keep moving. Try to take the next one without my help. The one on your mother is the most dangerous.:
oOo
He would dearly love to just faint, then and there. It might even prove interesting, considering that he probably could at this point. However, doing so would not be a good idea. Not when there are still two killers ready and willing to do what they do best.
Kaito moves quickly but with that quiet that is the better part of his skill as a thief. Within a few seconds he is at the door to the bathroom. Rather to Homunculus' surprise, the boy simply taps on it. "Hurry!" he growls, muffling his voice.
"Gimmee a break. I'm almost done!"
Another tap, eliciting another grumble, then a third. By this time the man on the other side of the bathroom door is out of patience. He flings the door open, just in time to receive a face full of Kaito's special concoction. "Nighty night, little boy," he murmurs as the man drops to the floor.
Inwardly, Homunculus smiles.
oOo
:All right. Can you hold time again?: Kaito paused in the hallway outside the living room, listening to the sound of his mother's frightened breathing. Beneath that sound is silence. The killer was experienced and calm. Entirely unworried and entirely unconcerned by his hostage's terror. Bastard. Kaito would have liked to run in, then and there, but knew he needed every advantage he could get.
:For a very short time. Hurry.: Kaito felt time begin to slow and it occurred to him that he might have longer if Homunculus didn't stop it entirely. The thought elicited a sense of agreement and the response::At this speed, then. MOVE!:
Homunculus didn't really have to yell to get his point across. Kaito was already moving, rolling across the floor and coming up with his card gun in hand. He fired, his card flying through the air at 'normal' speed while the bullets slowly emerged from the muzzle of his enemy's weapon and moved past him. Then the card had buried itself in the barrel and the next shot began to explode in the man's face.
Kaito hurried. Not in all his family's history had one of them allowed a man to die if they could help it. He didn't plan on being the first. Using a nearby chair he knocked the gun free of the man's hand, then shoved the man himself backwards, into the wall. Time was beginning to speed again as he sprayed a final dose of his 'medicine' in the killer's face.
"Oh... my... god..."
The voice was Kaito's mother, the sound so terrified that Kaito longed to rush to her, to hold onto her and comfort her. This night was almost over but the worst of it was yet to come, when news of his father's death came to them. He did nothing but rise to his feet, keeping his face turned away. "I'm sorry all of this had to happen, Mrs. Kuroba. You have no idea how sorry." An idea hit him. "Call Nakamori. Tell him the Phantom Kid is about to be murdered at the Tokyo Tower."
"My... my husband... Murdered?" He could hear her grabbing at the phone, even as the shock of realization came to him. She knew his father was the Kid. Which meant she probably knew, later, that he was as well. And throughout all of it, she had never said a word. Oh mom. I must worry you terribly.
:It won't be in time, child.: Homunculus' voice was exhausted, tired beyond measure. :I'm sorry.:
:We can try. We have to try!: Even now Kaito harbored hope, even now he dared believe that everything would be all right. His father would live, would let him start early. He could still go through this song and dance, save everyone and everything would be okay. Right?
"He's not there... At a murder scene? At the Tokyo Tower?" His mother's voice trailed away. "I... see. I'll talk to him later, then. Thank you, lieutenant."
Before Kaito could so much as scream denial, Homunculus had pulled out the digipad and twisted them back out of time.
oOo
They stand at the center of everything, at the heart of time itself, the flow going past. A stream of endless light, as beautiful a sight as any a human could see. Kaito does not care, however and he is raging silently within their shared body. "It is not what I want. It is not what I desire. But it is what must be," he tells the boy. His companion in this is not listening, nor can Homunculus blame him. Quietly he waits, listening to the flow of time, the slow sweet song that is his mistress' lullaby. Things are not quite finished, there is still the gem to dispose of. But first, there is a heart to be soothed.
At last the boy quiets. "I hate you."
"I understand." Another boy had hated him once, hated him so much that he turned time upside down and inside out to destroy him, never realizing that he was Homunculus' ultimate creator. That same boy was, somewhere back in time, now among the few true friends Homunculus could claim. For him, for the family that had become his, for this unexpected descendant of a child born only because time had been repaired, he had no choice but to do what he could to soothe what he could not repair.
Kaito's hand holds the gem, clenched so tightly in his fist that were it as fragile as Homunculus it would shatter. "I could destroy this. Mess up all your plans, all your grand scheme. It would be the last thing I'd do, I know that much, but I could do it!"
"I know."
"Where does it go now?" Kaito's voice is tired, exhausted beyond all measure, nor can Homunculus blame him. "Take me there. Before I change my mind. Before I destroy it for you."
Once more to a library, but not the one that Kaito was beginning to think was the only one he'd ever see. This one was more European in structure, the books all in German or French. Even a few in English. At a computer behind one desk an awkwardly tall blonde man was peering nearsightedly at the monitor. "It ate my file."
"I keep telling you those things are the work of the devil," Homunculus moved their body forward and Kaito stared around, puzzled. This place had nothing whatsoever to do with his home, with his father. "We're in Lebensbaum, Germany, Kaito-kun. This is Eike Kusche."
Green eyes gave them a puzzled look. "Eh? What are you up to, Homunculus? Has there been a problem with the plan? Have you been causing trouble again? Who were you talking to? And what did you do to your face? You seem different."
"Where the gem is, trouble follows, Eike. You know that. Not even the wards Hugo and I placed on the statue were enough to protect it entirely." Homunculus sighed. "I have caused much pain, Eike. Yet I cannot find another way to resolve the problem that does not destroy everything else." He continued the explanation, even as Kaito's gaze drifted through the room, eying the books curiously, appraising the paintings hanging from various walls. Then Homunculus was done and Eike was sighing. Kaito returned his attention to them, waiting.
"I... have no idea what to do, Kaito. In a lot of ways, this is my fault." Eike faltered at the expression on Kaito's face.
"You would take that approach," Homunculus sighed. "This is many people's fault, mine included. Nor can we do anything about it at this late date. Kuroba Toshi is no longer a part of this world. He cannot be restored to it without changing whom this Kaito is. A fact the boy understands only too well."
"'The boy' is perfectly able to speak for himself," Kaito growled, taking over again. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gem. "It's for you, isn't it? Why wait until now to take it?"
Rising to his feet, Eike sighed. "Because time demanded that we wait until this day, until this hour, for me to do so. When I place my hand on it, everything I have experienced in the last few years will be - temporarily - blocked from my memories, to be replaced by another older pattern." Eike moved slowly forward, expression worried, clearly afraid a false move would cause Kaito to shatter the gem on the floor, or take some other disastrous action. Kaito wanted to, but he also understood just how disastrous doing so would be. How little it would really solve. "A pattern that will cause me to take it backwards through time to the place where it will be used to do what must be done."
Kaito sighed. "Take it, then. And good luck to you." Eike's hand closed on the gem and he jerked sharply, made a soft keening noise. He stumbled backwards, eyes blank and confused, and left the room, walking like a man in a dream.
"And now," Homunculus said softly, "It is time to make an end to all this." One more time the world twisted on itself as the digipad operated.
The witch is gone now, fled from the scene of her disastrous attempt to steal knowledge not meant for her. Now the room is empty except for Kaito and Homunculus, separate once again.
"Then it's over?"
"For you, yes. Your part is completed and - though you will not have me say it - completed admirably." Homunculus drifts through the room, touches the chamber in which he was born. Strokes the cool glass, remembering that long ago day. Remembering pain and fear, turned to joy and relief.
Kaito's voice cuts through the air like a diamond blade. "You're right. I don't want you to say it." His voice broke. "I lost my father because of this. Not just once, but twice. No. Three times. For a few moments there I spoke with him, I was able to tell him how much I loved him. But I was unable to save him!"
He cannot answer. He gazes at the chamber instead, hearing another voice crying for his father, crying for his mother. In another time and place he hated that voice. Now he can only grieve for it, for all the foolish messed up humans that simply cannot accept and move on. For himself, unable to do anything but cause pain and trouble in the lives of those who need him. He has been human for a brief agonizing moment and the experience has shaken him entirely. Shaken him to the core.
Silently, unable to do anything else, he weeps. Weeps tears of blood.
oOo
Kaito could see Homunculus' face reflected in the glass of the birthing chamber. Could see the slow stream of bloody tears that trickled down his cheeks. "The stone that weeps tears of blood," he whispered. "You... that gem... YOU'RE..."
Homunculus turned, lifting his head in that odd proud way of his. "The Pandora Gem. The Frozen Flame. The Philosopher's Stone. The changer of lives, the transformer of time, the ultimate expression of the alchemist's art. It has had other names in other places and other times but in the end, in the very end, it is my life, solidified and carried backwards thru time in a form that can survive the rigors of such travel. Only joined with you was I able to take a hand. Only joined with you could I re-sort time to something that could hold steady once more. And now, it is, as you say, all over."
The slender small form moved awkwardly forward, giving the appearance of a puppet on strings commanded by an inexperienced puppeteer. Ruby eyes gazed into Kaito's, aching sadness in them. "All is over," he repeated. "Over and done to the point that, if you chose to complete the oath that you have made, to destroy the Pandora gem, you could do so right now. Without your flesh to protect me, I am as easily shattered as the doll I appear to be. If you so desire."
Kaito stepped back. It would have been one thing to destroy the Pandora Gem. To shatter it to tiny little pieces and scatter its remains upon his father's grave as he had sworn. But that was when it was a stone. Not a living being, not a person. Not someone with whom he had shared a life and mind for a brief time. He might hate everything that had happened, but he couldn't just kill someone simply because their existence had caused him pain. "I don't." he gasped. He couldn't. "Why are you crying?" he demanded. "Everything you wanted has happened."
There is a moment of silence as Homunculus seemed to try and find the right words. "No. Not everything. In the past few hours I have lived as part of you. I have felt your pain. My entire body still rings with the force of your sorrow, with the knowledge that we could do nothing to change your father's fate."
"I don't want your tears!"
"You want your father. And of all the people in the world, there is only one to whom I owe more. Only one other for whom I would gladly give the gift that others would take uncaring. Yet I cannot return your childhood to you. Cannot restore your family to what it once was. You may not want my tears, child, but you have them none the less."
Somehow that only angered Kaito more. He could sense that his feelings had helped change a creature that had little experience with feelings, that Homunculus had been transformed in a way that even he didn't fully comprehend. And I don't want sympathy. I want to have a reason to be angry, a legitimate target for my anger. "Just... go away and leave me alone. I never want to see you again."
A small bow was the response. "If that is your desire. Just remember, I do owe you and I do pay my debts where I am able."
Debts. The way Kaito saw it, there was only one debt owed and it wasn't one that could ever be repaid. He turned away, glared at the birthing chamber, watching Homunculus' reflection in the polished glass. "I want my father back. And that is something you cannot do."
"Not as such, no." The voice came from an unexpected direction. A man walking out of the shadows. Distorted by the glass through which Kaito saw him, he seemed taller, trimmer, than Kaito knew him to be. Jiichan? He glanced over his shoulder, saw surprise and - oddly enough - relief on the pale face. Jiichan continued to move closer, held out a handkerchief to Homunculus, who took it after a moment of hesitation. "Kuroba Toshi cannot live again. Cannot return to his family. Not as Kuroba Toshi."
Kaito remembered suddenly. Two voices, speaking together in perfect understanding. 'Then you know what you have to do?' 'Quite so.' His eyes widened. "FATHER?"
oOo
Memories. His past self colliding with his future. Comprehension of what must be done. It is not the first time he has transformed a human from one age to another. Not the first time he has shifted time within a single body. The other time was actually harder, transforming Wolfgang Wagner into the man who would be Eike Kusche in another, now defunct, timeline. That had been an act of petty vengeance, an effort to change what could not be changed. This transformation had been simpler and proved the right one by virtue of the fact that the real Jiichan had been an old man, too near the end of his life to aid Kuroba Kaito on his path to becoming the Kaitou Kid.
Kuroba Toshi had not been pleased. But then, Homunculus hadn't done it for him.
oOo
"I... did not think you would come here," Homunculus said, wiping the last of the bloody tears from his face and gazing levelly at Kuroba...Kaito shook himself. No. I'd best not start thinking of him as father... Gazing levelly at Jiichan. "You were rather out of sorts with me, when we parted last."
Jiichan shrugged, ruffling Kaito's hair. "Son. I'm an old man and I'm having a bit of trouble breathing right now. I'd appreciate... yes, thanks." Kaito grinned up at his father from his position under the man's arm, his own arms wrapped around Jiichan's waist, relaxing his grip but not releasing it. With a shrug, the man who'd guided Kaito through the early days of his existence as the Kaitou Kid answered Homunculus' unspoken question, "Well, I was. I did a lot of research though. Found out a lot about my family history in the process."
Homunculus shrugged in turn. "And?"
"And I realized why you did it. Kuroba Toshi would always be a target. Even if the members of the organization who came after me, and my family, were silenced there'd always be a chance another would find out. Another would come after me. We had to wait until Kaito was old enough. And someone would have to be there to help him when he was. Someone who knew exactly how to be a Kaitou. Someone who knew exactly what the dangers were he'd face. Someone who was once Kuroba Toshi and was now transformed into someone several decades older."
A soft laugh. "Do you think that was all?"
"I did. Until I heard you just now, I hadn't really forgiven you for doing... this... to me." Jiichan eyed Homunculus, who gazed back with a nearly seraphic smile on his lips. "Now... I think I understand. Doesn't mean I have to like it, but I think I understand."
Kaito nodded. He didn't entirely like it either, but he had to appreciate the elegant simplicity. The thing he wanted most was his father alive and well. Yet Kuroba Toshi could not live past the day he was supposed to die without changing Kaito's path. This was the only way Homunculus could give Kaito the thing he most desired. "Does... mom know?"
"No, son. I don't believe so. She never knew about my other business. I was careful not to let her realize. It's better that way. I hate like anything to make her grieve for me but if she knew... she'd be in danger."
Kaito blinked. It seemed it was a family habit, this keeping secrets from loved ones. His father, himself, hiding their game from his mother. And his mother hiding the fact that she'd known, all along, just what they were up to. He grinned at Homunculus, who grinned back knowingly. "Guess that's true, Jiichan," he agreed.
With a bow, Homunculus turned to go. "You'd best get home, Kaito. You have a test tomorrow and I expect you to at least pass." His tone shifted as he moved away and Kaito recognized it. Kataichi. "You did remember to study, didn't you, boy?"
"Ohmigod. The test. I forgot all about... Can't you give me a break, teach?"
Homunculus chuckled, pausing to look over his shoulder. "I can give you all the time in the world to study, instead."
Kaito shook his head. "I'll do a crash course tomorrow morning. Just like always. No more time travel. Nada! Zip! Zilch! From here on I do things the old fashioned way. One second following the next."
The slender body was beginning to fade, shifting from feet up to small bubbles bursting and disappearing into nothingness. "How very human of you, boy. How very human." Then Homunculus was gone.
With a grin, Kaito turned to Jiichan. "Let's go home."
To Be Continued...
