Ladies and gentlemen! I humbly welcome you to the twelfth chapter of this story!
Please enjoy and review!


The last two days of the school week turned out to be less productive on Kaito's part than he hoped for. As it turned out, there was a staggering number of ancient legends that spoke of eastern dragons and Kaito was determined to go through all of them. He wanted to do so during class hours but sadly was unable to because Saguru apparently decided to act like a decent student and not miss any more school that week. Then again, his newfound diligence allowed Kaito's doves to scout Hakuba's manor and its security systems without the threat of the detective noticing. What's more, Saguru also kept his promise to keep his distance which not only made it easy for Kaito to stage his accident without him around but also gave him the opportunity to watch him from a distance.

Observing him made Kaito realize that he wasn't actually scared of Saguru. Well sure, he was wary of him but that was nothing in comparison to the full blown panic during their mid-air encounter. At the same time however, recalling the sight of the golden dragon still sent a chill down his spine. This observation led him to believe that this fear was indeed some sort of phobia but where he got it from was still a mystery.

Since he was unable to continue his research into the legends during class hours, Kaito was forced to limit it to when he was at home. That's how on Friday evening he ended up sitting in the KID room with a narrator describing yet another story through a speaker. Kaito was only half listening to it by this point, sitting there with his face illuminated by the blueish light from the monitor, as he was more focused on reviewing the footage gathered by his tiny spies.

Feeling his stomach rebel quietly against his negligence, Kaito reached for a cup of already lukewarm instant noodles waiting patiently beside the monitor when he suddenly stopped. With a frown on his face he grabbed the mouse and switched to his browser to rewind the story a little bit and listened again to the fragment with full focus.

The narrator spoke again about how the protagonist of the current story swallowed a pearl, which when put in a jar multiplied rice and started writhing in pain. Soon after, he emerged from his hut, where he previously hid, as a dragon and scared off the bad guys of the story.

Kaito's frown deepened, as he skimmed through the description of the legend to confirm that the pearl had belonged to a dragon and was given to the protagonist's family ages ago as a gift. It wasn't the first time that he heard about such a gem, as it was mentioned, at least in passing in several other stories. As he recalled, the pearl was used by people to perform minor miracles like multiplying food or curing various alignments. He made a quick search about it and found out on some wikipedia that it was a source of a dragon's power and was usually embedded inside of their skulls but could be summoned freely by its owner into their hand.

Kaito turned the story back on and took the cup of noodles, as he leaned back in his chair slowly while the narrator finished telling the tale. This was a lot to take in and he wanted a moment to think of the possible implications of this discovery. The motive of the pearl was too common for him to disregard it, so at least for now, he would treat it as a fact. And that meant two things, he figured as he slowly slurped on the noodles. First, was that he wasn't necessarily a naturally born dragon and thus had even less reason to consider speaking with his mother about it. Although he had no idea how or when that could have happened, as he didn't remember ever swallowing a pearl. And two… he was screwed even more than he thought.

He raised his free hand and started staring at it. He imagined a perfectly round, pristine white pearl resting in his cupped palm. It would gleam gently, reflecting the poor lighting, just like his scales did in the early morning. The surface would be smooth and warm, having absorbed the heat from his body. He could nearly see it as if it was real and wished with all his focus for it to actually be.

But nothing happened.

The story in the background ended and the player started another one, spoken by a different narrator when Kaito finally decided to end the staring contest with his hand.

This was troublesome, he figured with a grimace and tilted his cup to finish his noodles. He was in possession of a magical pearl, which considering the alleged lifespan of dragons could grant near immortality to a person but had no access to it. He was pretty sure that the organization he was fighting would be very keen on obtaining it… Even if it meant cracking open his skull to get it out.

And if that wasn't enough, one of the distinctive features of winged dragons was that they loved nothing more than to hoard treasures. He could only imagine that a magical pearl would be quite the catch for them. It easily could have been the reason why Saguru was after him, or even the reason why he was deathly afraid of his kind in the first place. It was entirely possible that the western dragons once hunted their eastern counterparts for them so much that the latter developed a sort of racial phobia.

What worried Kaito the most was that he didn't really know what happened to a dragon after he lost his pearl. In the stories they weren't very keen on lending it for even a little bit, unless the human did something great, nearly life changing for them first. What's more, Kaito assumed that if swallowing a pearl by a human resulted in there being one more dragon, there would have been a lot of them roaming the Earth by now. And if what Saguru implied before was true, it was the opposite actually and was extremely hard to find any at all. In that case it was safe to assume that devouring a pearl meant the demise of its previous owner.

He tapped his fingers over the cup, letting that thought sink in. Maybe it was actually a good thing that he was unable to summon his pearl?

He clicked his tongue and clapped his free hand over his knee, getting up from his seat. There was nothing he could do about it right now, so he figured that he should leave it for now. What he needed was to unwind and distract himself, and his doves needed praise for all the hard work they did. Humming a cherry tune, he leaned over the keyboard, setting his computer to sleep mode and turned around to leave the KID room with the now empty cup in hand.


On Saturday Kaito allowed himself to spend a little more time with his birds, attending to them and rehearsing their training through playtime. At the same time, he exercised his own body and was glad to see that it was healing well. Around noon he took his motorcycle and left his house.

Kaito would have liked to continue with his preparations for his meeting with Saguru as KID but he had other things to do. He didn't want Jii to discover that something happened during his absence, so since he returned, Kaito decided to drop by and pay him a friendly visit at the Blue Parrot.

At this hour there were rarely any customers at the bar and today wasn't any different. When Kaito opened the door he was greeted by a ring of the doorbell and the sight of Jii who was busying himself with taking stock of the bottles on the shelves. The old man turned around with a formal smile which quickly morphed into a more sincere one when he noticed who walked in.

"Kaito-botchama! It's so nice to see you!"

Kaito smiled softly back at him. "You too, Jii-chan. How did your family reunion go?" he asked with genuine curiosity, as he sat on the other side of the bar.

Jii leaned under the worktop to take out a few ingredients and started preparing a shake for Kaito while he answered. "It was very fun. My grandnephews have grown so much that I could barely recognize them, not to mention it was hard to keep up with them!" he chuckled wholeheartedly and pushed the finished drink to Kaito, looking at him with laughing eyes, "And it seems that they have developed a liking for magic tricks. If you don't mind, I would like to introduce them to you, so you could show them some of your skills, Botchama."

Kaito's smile morphed into a wide grin. "You don't have to ask twice, just tell me when they will be in the area~"

Jii took a glass that seemed perfectly clean and started polishing it with a rag, avoiding eye contact in the process. "Actually… I was thinking about taking you with me for the next family reunion…" he clarified with what was probably meant to be a casual tone but was obviously lined with worry. "My family asked a lot about you, so I told them bits and pieces and they would love to see you someday."

Kaito kept his face perfectly calm, dropping his grin into a softer smile while idly playing with a straw in his drink as he hummed thoughtfully. He wasn't exactly against it but he knew that it would feel awkward if he decided to go through with it. It not only wasn't his family, even if Jii felt like an uncle or maybe a grandfather to him, but he never even attended a family reunion. Come to think of it, he didn't remember ever meeting anyone from his family aside from his parents. Maybe some of the people who came to his father's funeral were his family but at the time it was the last thing Kaito was worried about.

"I'll think about it," he promised in a cherry tone, hiding his thoughts.

Jii's smile faded a little, as if he treated it like a denial. "Alright, Botchama," he replied and instantly changed the topic, "And how was it at your end? I hope you didn't have any trouble?"

Kaito grinned at him. "Nah~ The props you left me worked like a charm, so everything went smoothly. Although the gems did turn out to be duds like usual," he shrugged and paused to slurp on his drink. "But at least I'm done with time sensitive heists for now, unless Suzuki-no-jiisan(1) comes up with something, so that's a plus~" he added cheerfully, really hoping that it was true. With recent developments he definitely wanted to hang the mantle for a few weeks and give himself time to sort out the whole dragon-thing.

"Actually, next week there is going to be a short exposition of the King's Sky sapphire," Jii said while taking out some papers about it and setting them before Kaito, "Didn't you hear about it?" he asked suspiciously.

"I had a few tests that I had to put my mind into," Kaito explained, taking the papers to skim through them and continued, "I'm more surprised that you found out about it. Weren't you supposed to be taking a vacation?" he asked with a teasing smirk.

Jii shook his head, "I wasn't really looking. I just happened to read about it in a morning newspaper a few days ago."

Kaito simply shrugged it off and set the papers down. "Lucky for us I guess~ Can you fill me in with the details?"

Jii didn't seem completely convinced but thankfully decided to let it go. "It's a 38 carat sapphire which is usually kept in a vault in Luxemburg but was recently loaned out to the Hakone Open-Air Museum(2) for their anniversary and to promote a new exhibition. Allegedly the gem's owner's son fell in love with the place while he was on vacation in Japan," he paused, apparently noticing Kaito's scowl and asked with worry, " Is something the matter, Botchama?"

"Nah, not really. So it's a big gem, eh? We should probably expect to have some company."

"Indeed… And there is little time to prepare. Do you think we should skip this one?"

Kaito grinned at him. "Has something like lack of time ever stopped Kaitou KID~? Added company only makes it more worthwhile~ Don't worry too much, Jii-chan~"

The old man pursed his lips for a moment of silence but eventually sighed. "If you say so, Botchama…"

Kaito hummed happily. "I think I'll go check the place out tomorrow, but what can you tell me about it in the meantime?"

At that Jii pulled out his laptop and found a satellite image of the museum. They started talking about possible security measures of the place and Jii's contacts he could get in touch with to get more reliable information.


(1) Suzuki-no-jiisan - translates to "old man Suzuki" and it is a reference to Suzuki Jirokichi.

(2) The Hakone Open-Air Museum - is actually a real place, feel free to look it up :D


Sad to say, I will have to start posting once a week, as life has caught up with me and I have less time for writing - so expect a new chapter next Wednesday!

Hope to see you next chapter *bows*