A story of the Incident which prompted Nakamori-keibu to instate Heist Rule 62.
(Text of Rule 62 is as follows: ALL heist participants MUST wear body armor. Any persons with the intent of catching Kaitou KID refusing to abide by this rule will be forbidden to participate and barred from the heist premises.)
A/N: If the mention of blood bothers you, you may wish to skip the paragraph between the ~TW~ line breaks. (It's pretty brief and the actual injury isn't explicitly described, but y'all know your boundaries better than me.)
The ~K~ indicates a POV switch and scene change.
The instant the lights went out in the display room, Saguru knew there was something wrong: the heist had started a full minute and twenty-one seconds early. The only other times he could recall KID starting a heist anything other than precisely on time had been back when Saguru had tried to prove that Kuroba was KID and attempted to make him miss the heist entirely. But he had done no such thing tonight, so either Kudo had done something to throw the thief off his game, some unknown party (Kudo's theory of KID being targeted by someone was rather convincing) had spooked the thief into starting early, or—
The lights were restored, allowing Saguru to see a figure in white standing next to the case where the jewel had resided, apparently having cut through the glass during the blackout to reach the gem, now held in the thief's hand.
—an impostor. Noting absently that his fellow detective seemed to have come to the same conclusion, as Kudo was staring at the thief with disdain, Saguru rapidly sorted through possible motivations and potential methods to corner the impostor.
Unfortunately he was forced to discard his plans as the returned lighting abruptly flashed approximately five times brighter than should be possible before just as abruptly cutting out. The corresponding roar of indignation from the Taskforce drowned any sounds the impostor might have made. Still blinking away afterimages and attempting to reorient himself, Saguru yelped in surprise as Kudo grabbed his wrist and dragged him toward a side door, hissing angrily about sloppy impostors.
"Kudo-san, what—?"
"I saw him holding something and saw his hand move just before the lights started humming, he probably rigged the backups as well as shorting out the main lighting."
"You saw him leave?"
"Didn't even check to be sure the flash caught everyone before he left the room," Kudo responded scathingly.
"The disguise was off as well, his monocle was over the wrong eye, the cape was too short, and his shoes were tan, not white."
"Sloppy all around," Kudo commented in disgust.
Saguru frowned, recalling, "I saw the original copy of the notice, and there was nothing at all to indicate it wasn't legitimate."
"KID is here as well, then."
Ahead of them there was a loud crash, and Saguru breathed a sigh of relief when he realized his vision had fully cleared—he could see the door to the stairwell ahead of them swinging shut as it rebounded off the wall. Kudo glanced back at him and promptly picked up the pace, racing after the thief with Saguru trailing a few steps behind him.
Even with the stairs to deal with, the two of them rapidly gained on the impostor; Saguru could see him just one landing ahead of them.
Kudo materialized a soccer ball out of nowhere and sent it slamming upward into the wall just ahead of the thief, sending him diving out of the stairwell to avoid the violently ricocheting projectile.
Noting the floor number as he gained the landing (Kudo already through the door, having raced ahead as soon as the soccer ball left his foot) he followed them out of the stairwell. Saguru paused as he noted the impostor in the middle of the room and turning to face off with Kudo (who had already pulled even with the man, Kudo was startlingly fast), pulled out his radio and pressed the switch, stating firmly, "KID's been sighted on the third floor." Which wasn't strictly true, but previous patterns indicated KID would be appearing any moment to rain pranks and chaos on the unfortunate fool who'd made the mistake of impersonating him.
Saguru's thoughts were violently derailed as his radio shattered in his hand, suddenly extremely grateful for Nakamori-keibu's typical volume—if he hadn't been anticipating the bellowed response to his report by holding the radio at arm's length he'd have more than a burned hand. Kudo's next words had him wondering if his fellow detective had any self-preservation instincts whatsoever—he couldn't have heard correctly.
"Congratulations, you've conclusively proved that you aren't the real Kaitou KID."
The gunman turned sharply back towards Kudo, the gun moving with him, and Saguru took the distraction to duck behind a display case. He examined his hand, gingerly flexing his wrist and fingers, and concluded the injury was superficial. A moment of careful listening revealed that Kudo was now scathingly listing every mistake the impostor had made, but Saguru couldn't hear any sound that might be the Taskforce approaching. Thinking rapidly, he started to move, careful to keep display cases between himself and the impostor; if he could get behind the man without his notice, he might be able to distract him enough for Kudo to get the gun out of his hand.
Finally reaching the display case he'd been aiming for, Saguru cautiously peered out, noting that his position put him just to the left of the gunman—which meant he could see that the man still had his gun pointed directly at Kudo. Pulling back behind the case, he grimaced; he needed a distraction that would get the gun pointed away from Kudo without—
BANG!
A glance to ensure the gunman facing away from him and Saguru darts forward—low kick to the back of the leg as the man steps toward Kudo's downed form and sweep the foot out—the gunman drops down to one knee, gun held one-handed now as he starts to turn toward Saguru—settle stance and a fast kick to the side of the head—the gunman collapses and Saguru grabs the gun—remove the magazine, send it skating across the floor out of reach and double check the gun is empty—twist the gunman's arms behind his back to cuff him before he can regain consciousness.
~TW~
Saguru doesn't bother standing as he lunges across the floor to check on his fellow detective. Kudo's right hand is pressed weakly to his chest in what was probably an attempt to stem the blood-flow, though the (alarmingly large) dark stain on the detective's chest shows it to be ineffective, and Saguru finds it impossible to tell whether or not Kudo is breathing (the perception of movement could equally be Kudo's chest rising or the bloodstain expanding it's so slight). He fumbles for Kudo's wrist and the feel of the faint, rapid pulse under his fingers sends relief crashing through him. He quickly moves to Kudo's right side, which incidentally puts the handcuffed criminal in his line of sight as he pulls off his jacket and presses it firmly to Kudo's chest to stem the bleeding, determinedly not thinking about the way he can feel Kudo's blood seeping through the fabric.
~TW~
A thud reached his ears and Saguru snapped his head up to see the Taskforce bursting in from the stairwell, and grimaced at the realization that his ears were still ringing from the gunshot. "Call the ambulance!" he shouted, seeing the leading officers stumble to a halt as they took in the scene in front of them. Saguru only watched long enough to see one of them speaking into a radio before returning his attention to Kudo, silently demanding the detective to stay alive.
Twenty-three seconds later, his focus was interrupted by a hand waving in front of his face, and Saguru looked up to see Nakamori-keibu looking at him in poorly-hidden concern. The inspector's mouth was moving but Saguru was in no state of mind to attempt to read the man's lips. He settled for giving the man a brief report of what had happened, finishing with the fact that his hearing was still affected. Nakamori-keibu barked a response that Saguru couldn't quite make out before the man turned to give orders to the Taskforce.
One minute and eighteen seconds later, the ringing had faded enough that Nakamori-keibu's bellowed "Hakuba!" was understandable. He looked up to see the man point towards the approaching paramedics. Saguru allowed himself to be firmly shoved out of the way as the paramedics took over and moved Kudo onto a stretcher.
"Tanaka!" Nakamori-keibu barked as the paramedics moved Kudo out of the room, "Follow the ambulance and bring Hakuba to the hospital!" Saguru didn't protest as Tanaka-keiji saluted Nakamori-keibu and ushered the detective out of the room. As they were exiting, he heard the inspector continue, "New Rule! ALL heist participants MUST wear body armor!"
~K~
It was ridiculously easy to 'stumble' into the impostor's path and pickpocket the gem. Seeing both his detectives chasing the fake was annoying, but he could still put on a show for his lovely Taskforce! Shedding his police disguise, KID hopped onto a convenient display case, giving the officers a few more moments to recover before announcing his presence.
"Tsk, tsk, Keibu-san, allowing amateurs to get by you?" He paused to give the gem an eye-catching toss, "You're lucky I was here to help."
"GET HIM!" the inspector roared, and the chase was on. A few acrobatic leaps between display cases and KID landed near the door, grinning madly as the Taskforce lunged for him as one. Throwing down a smoke bomb, he quick-changed back to the Taskforce uniform and dove into the dog-pile. He energetically joined in as the Taskforce split to search the ground floor; his disguise was one of the officers Nakamori-keibu ordered to remain with him, so he would need to wait for an opportune moment to slip away.
That plan was abandoned the second KID heard the ominous static emerging from the police radios after Nakamori-keibu demanded clarification on Tantei-san's reported 'KID' sighting. He'd thought Tantei-san and Meitantei would have been more than enough to deal with the abysmal impostor, detective genii that they were. They had to know the fake they were chasing wasn't really KID, which could have meant that his detectives were trying to lure KID to them—but Tantei-san had never failed to respond over the police radio like this. Contrary to Meitantei's usual mode of operation (discarding any rules that wouldn't actively endanger lives or evidence if not followed), Tantei-san only discarded procedure when he felt it was a life-or-death situation. The lack of response from Tantei-san was an almost certain indicator that the detective had encountered some sort of danger necessitating turning his radio off, and KID was not about to leave the building when his detectives might be in danger.
The Inspector's bellowed orders for all Taskforce units to head to the third floor made it simple for KID to stay unnoticed amidst the herd of officers, but it also meant that he couldn't afford to use any of his tricks to hurry ahead of them. Distracting the officers by revealing himself could make them think the sighting on the third floor was fake (which it was, technically, but it hadn't been faked by KID) and he wasn't willing to potentially waste time dodging arrest attempts when his detectives probably needed backup now. However, if they reached the third floor and his detectives were no longer present, KID was going to disappear and hack the security system.
KID would have very much preferred needing to hack the security system. Reaching the third floor and seeing Meitantei on the ground, unconscious and with Tantei-san pressing a very bloody piece of clothing to his chest was horrifying. He'd never been so grateful that the Inspector had made it a rule to have fire trucks and an ambulance on standby during each heist. (He'd been offended when he first found out about it—they thought he would break his non-violence policy and hurt them?!—until Jii had reminded him Tantei-san had found bullet casings from Snake's murder attempts.) According to Tantei-san, Meitantei had been shot by the impostor thief.
He was incandescently furious. Someone had dared to grievously harm one of his detectives, during a heist, and had the audacity to impersonate him while doing so! The only thing keeping KID from extracting immediate and humiliating vengeance was his need to ensure his detectives would recover. Lady Luck smiled on him as Nakamori-keibu ordered him (or rather, the officer whose face he'd borrowed) to escort Tantei-san to the hospital.
The doctors proclaimed (relatively swiftly) that Tantei-san had been lucky and escaped permanent hearing damage from hearing the gun going off at close range. Tantei-san reemerged from the depths of the hospital with a bandaged hand and a prescription for painkillers. Meitantei, on the other hand, was in surgery to have the bullet removed from his chest. Nakamori-keibu as well as a few of Meitantei's friends had arrived to wait for news, but KID stubbornly refused to be dismissed from the hospital. (It was out of character, yes, but the Taskforce had almost certainly found Tanaka-san already, and Nakamori-keibu hadn't exposed him, so as long as he didn't blatantly out himself it seemed he'd be allowed to stay.) Every hour that they were sat in the waiting room with no news, KID's plans for revenge on the impostor grew increasingly vicious.
By the time they received word that Meitantei's condition was stable (surgery successful and no sign of further complications, but Kudo would likely be in the hospital for a week recovering), KID's planned 'pranks' had progressed from viciously humiliating to a style reminiscent of the Phantom Lady—after this the man would never dare breathe harm in the direction of KID's detectives, or his Taskforce. KID had obviously been far too forgiving of previous impostors. Ensuring his vengeance this time was public and publicized should deter any future attempts. If not, well, they were warned; any so foolish as to ignore it would receive immediate reprisal, well before they could encounter his detectives or his Taskforce.
(He probably shouldn't have been surprised by the way the Taskforce as a whole blatantly ignored his presence in the police station as he went about his vengeance. They might be unwelcoming towards outsiders, but his Taskforce were almost as fiercely protective as he was—and they'd become quite fond of his detectives. KID would have to think of a proper gift to leave to thank them for their cooperation.)
A/N: This is the Incident referred to in drabble 62 of my Daily DCMK fic (in which Nakmori-keibu mentions the detectives wearing body armor).
I'm considering writing more of these. As in, one-shot stories about what prompted the Taskforce to add a new 'Heist Rule'. (Mostly because the idea of the Taskforce having a bulletin board full of heist rules entertains me.) If y'all have ideas for rules, I'd love to hear them!
