Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed.

Pairings: eventually Kaito x Shinichi

WARNINGS: Eventual shounan ai (boy/boy pairing), you have been warned

Dark Side Chances

By V. Shalyr

File 10

Illusionist

Kaito got back from his last university class for the week to find Conan watching the television intently.

"Something interesting on?" he asked, dropping his school bag on the floor by the couch and taking a seat beside the detective.

Conan's brow was furrowed and it took him a moment to reply. "It's a magic show."

"Really?"

The boy nodded slowly. "The magician seems a bit strange though."

Glancing at the TV screen, Kaito did a double take, the grin fading from his face into a much more grim and serious look. "So he's back in town, is he?"

Conan blinked and turned to look up at him. "You know him?"

The magician nodded, his indigo eyes fixed upon the blond performer's face. He wondered how the laughing audience could fail to see how cold the man's smile really was. "You could say that we've run into each other a couple times. His name's Gunter Von Goldberg II, but I know him better as Spider. He likes to use illusions—make people hallucinate and that sort of thing."

Conan had stiffened at the mention of a codename. "So he's..."

"He's an assassin," Kaito said in reply to the half asked question. "Guess we'll have to keep an eye out for him too, especially at my next heist."

"Spider," Conan repeated, frowning, "seems oddly suitable for one of Them."

Kaito chuckled darkly. "I'll say, with all the webs they've built. Unfortunately for them, we're weaving some pretty sticky webs of our own."

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Goal

"Do you ever wonder what it is exactly they want in the end?"

"Who?"

"They. You know, Them."

Kaito glanced away from his newspaper towards the boy seated on the floor with his homework spread out across the living room table. The teacher at Conan's new school seemed quite fond of giving large amounts of homework. It was easy homework, but still.

"If I were to guess, I'd put my bets on immortality."

Conan frowned a little, fiddling with his pencil but not really paying attention to his worksheets. He knew all this stuff already anyway. It didn't matter if his grades were perfect. "That makes sense with Pandora and everything, but I still find it hard to understand why someone would want to be immortal."

"Maybe it's not about being immortal."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, technically, being immortal is about living forever. But maybe it's more about not dying."

"And yet they go around killing so many people."

"Valuing your own life isn't the same as valuing someone else's. You know that."

"Yes, I know." The detective sighed and returned to his homework. He knew that all too well.

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Priorities

"It seems that this is checkmate." KID grinned a shark's grin that only emphasized the ice in his one visible eye.

Snake glared, one arm poised to cover his mouth and nose if the thief tried to gas him. Blood tricked down his cheek and into the black collar of his coat from a cut left by KID's card gun, but that didn't stop an equally cold smile from twisting his lips. "Are you sure?"

Indigo eyes narrowed. Before Kaito could speak, a surprised cry rang out over the noise of police sirens and confused crowds. KID's expression didn't change, but Snake knew he knew what had happened. The thief was too good an actor to scowl or clench his fists, but he shot the other man a venomous glare before vanishing in a flash of light. Despite being temporarily blinded, Snake laughed. Moments later, the rooftop was deserted.

Later, when the stranger who had attacked Conan had been arrested and the crowds had cleared, thief and detective sat in the window of a hotel room four blocks away, watching the lights of cars passing on the street below. For this heist, home was more than two cities away.

"He got away."

"He did." Kaito sighed, propping an elbow on one knee.

"I'm sorry. I should have been more careful."

Kaito snorted and reached out to ruffle the mini detective's hair. "Yes, you should have. But don't worry about it and don't apologize. It wasn't your fault. Besides, the man who got arrested—I'd say we can count that as a victory. I doubt They were counting on him being caught."

"Maybe."

"Keeping you alive is more important. That slimy bastard can wait."

Kaito had his priorities after all. He'd seen too much—done too much—not to realize that there were more important things than revenge.

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Tracks

"You know, Tantei-kun," Kaito said slowly, setting down the newspapers he'd been reading with articles on the latest KID heist. "It occurs to me that we're going to have a bit of trouble when this whole charade is over."

"What do you mean?" Conan asked, glancing up from his homework. He had moved on to college courses online and it was so much more interesting than elementary school work it wasn't even funny.

"Well," the magician drawled, "think about it. We've made up these whole alternate personas. And we still don't really want anyone to find out about us—including the good guys here. I mean, I am still a thief and you… Well, I guess it's up to you though your situation's rather complicated enough as it is. So what's going to happen to Keigo and Erika? We aren't just going to keep on living their lives."

Conan frowned, setting down his pen. "I guess not."

Silence fell as they both considered this dilemma. For all intents and purposes, Keigo and his ward really existed now. They had the proper documents and even some real history to go on. They had friends and acquaintances, people all around the world who would notice if they just suddenly up and disappeared. It wasn't like they could just wipe away their tracks. Which meant, Conan supposed, that they really only had one solid, clean option…

Kaito cleared his throat and he could tell from the look in the magician's eyes that he had probably just arrived at the same conclusion.

"So… Up for a good pretend death, anyone?"

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Cruelty

It was a cold, windy autumn afternoon when Yamada Keigo and Hikari Erika disappeared. Several witnesses could attest to a tragic accident involving what appeared to be several men dressed all in black.

Setting everything up had been easy and the incident was staged with the help of some of KID's assistants. And blaming it on the Black Organization couldn't really make the organization's record any blacker. Anything else they might have needed to do to help close the Black Organization case could be carried out by Kaitou KID.

Yet though the entire performance had gone off without a hitch, Conan couldn't help feeling more than a little guilty. They watched the funeral that their new friends and acquaintances held for them from a distance, and he found himself wishing that there had been some other way. It seemed so selfish of them to just leave these people like this, yet at the same time, was it selfish to want to be able to live safely and freely at last after all this time? He'd been pretending to be someone else for so many years already, and even though this last stretch of pretense had been more bearable because he could drop it when he got to the security of the apartment he was rapidly coming to think of as home, it still wasn't the same. You couldn't really call that living, and they'd made so many sacrifices already.

"Something on your mind?" Kaito leaned back on the bench beside him.

"This feels kind of cruel," Conan admitted, finally voicing his thoughts aloud.

Kaito made a noncommittal sound in his throat.

Conan had learned to read the magician fairly well with how much time they spent together, but at times like these, he wasn't sure anyone in the world could tell what Kaito was thinking. There was something dark behind those indigo eyes, but that was all—the rest of his features so carefully, painstakingly blank that it made the detective shiver unconsciously.

Finally, Kaito shrugged, though the gesture seemed more tired than anything. "They believe we—they—were killed by the Black Organization. You could make a pretty good argument that that's true."

Because they weren't the same people that they had been. Maybe they weren't even the same people that they would have been. But then no one could ever know that for sure.

Still, when they left the cemetery, they left with heavy hearts and more than a few words they wished that they could have said to those people, all dressed in black for an entirely different reason from the people that had so drastically altered the course of their lives.

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Closure

There was no celebration the day after they finally managed to engineer the capture of the leading members of the Black Organization. If Conan had stopped to think about it, he might have expected one—might have expected to feel happy or triumphant even. But really, all he felt was numb. Perhaps his mind was in shock after having had the giant crime syndicate at the heart of his life for so long. Even after he'd decided not to let what they had done control his actions, even after moving in with Kaito and recreating his life with what he had, the Organization had still held so much of his attention.

Still, that didn't mean he wasn't relieved. He was relieved, immensely so. He just didn't feel like celebrating. Granted, his companion's mood may have had something to do with that too.

After all their business had been wrapped up and final reports had been given, Kaito had smiled a grimly satisfied smile and then left the house without a word. Conan had been worried but hadn't followed him, sensing somehow that the magician needed to be alone. He wondered what it felt like for his friend to have finally caught his father's murderers, what it felt like to know at last that they were safely behind bars and would pay for their crimes with the rest of their lives. However it felt, it probably wasn't as satisfying as one would like. Certainly Conan couldn't seem to find any contentment in the knowledge. He was glad that the criminals had been caught, but none of that—none of their hard work, none of their effort or victories—could ever bring back what had been taken away. At the end of the day, the dead were still gone and all they had—all Kaito had—were the memories and the regrets of times he would never share with the father he had so admired.

When Kaito still hadn't come home by the following morning, however, Conan found himself pulling on a coat and heading out in search of him. He didn't really like to be alone these days and really, people could only stand so much by themselves. Humans were social creatures after all and the magician was a very social person even if he tended to keep everyone at a distance.

Conan found him at last on the rooftop of a skyscraper that overlooked a district of the city where he knew a lot of museums were located. He was leaning against the railing staring at the horizon and Conan wondered if he'd moved at all since he got there.

"You know," Kaito started as he approached, though he didn't turn to look at him, "I must have done more than a dozen heists in this area and I still remember every single one."

"Are you going to continue with them?" Conan asked bluntly. He'd been rather curious about the answer for awhile now.

Kaito just shrugged. "Pandora still hasn't been found."

Conan knew that was as close to a "yes" as he was going to get, but that was all right. He'd already made up his mind long ago that it wouldn't matter either way. Whatever Kaito chose to do, he would stand by his decision and help him as best he could. It was the least he could do. Aside from the fact that he'd come to respect him greatly as an adversary and trust him as a partner, he was also the closest friend he'd ever had. If he had learned anything from being Conan, it was just how valuable these relationships really were. Justice was all well and good, but it could only mean so much in a world with so much twilight. And at the end of the day, your heart was the only thing that could tell you what was right and what was wrong.

"Are you…going to be all right?" he asked finally, a little hesitant but determined to ask nonetheless.

For a long moment, Kaito didn't speak. To most people, his face would probably have looked blank. But Conan had come to know him too well for that. Kaito could still fool him, but only if he tried real hard and put more effort into it. And right now, to him, the magician's indigo eyes seemed just a touch sad and just a bit more tired than usual.

Then at last the magician shook his head as though to rid himself of those unwanted regrets and smiled—just a little. "It's enough."

Pandora had still not been found and so KID would live on, a legend of his own and a lasting testament to two extraordinary men and incredible magicians. In the end, that would have to be enough.

TBC...

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