Kid landed swiftly on the building's roof. He was fairly sure everybody inside knew he was there. Through the large windows, he had seen policemen running around and shouting.
He had noticed Aoko, too. She had been on the terrace, while he approached the building. She had looked up when someone had yelled his name, and for a moment their eyes had met in the distance. Then she had run inside, shouting after her men.
He looked around. This was a roof like any other roof. Like the roof where they – Kaito Kid and Officer Nakamori Aoko – had met for the first time.
The moonlight was shimmering against the building windows. He liked the wind rushing through his face and his white cloak. He could have gone a long moment ago, gone flying away in the black sky, never caught up. The gem was in his hands, the police inside was still running for him, but he didn't go.
He waited.
Footsteps slammed in the staircase, and the roof's door was banged open. She stopped, breathlessly watching his back.
"What a pleasant evening, Nakamori-kebu," he said, perfectly measuring the note of irony in his voice.
She said nothing. He turned his head a little, in order to look at her over his shoulder. She was staring at him, glaring at him.
(It was the first time she was faced with him so closely, in full light, even if it was the moon's. For the first time, she felt she could see through him clearly. For the first time, there were no secrets between them, no mysteries, no lies.
There was just anger. And sorrow. And tiredness.
He was a thief, she was a police officer…
And that was it.
At this moment she understood that they weren't the teenagers they used to be when in high school, the ones that thought they had life before them and who seemed so far-away, lost behind a shade of lies, and tears, and work, and… time. Time that had elapsed, loosing them on the way. Yet it still was difficult to be sure of, to be persuaded it wasn't just a dream, even through the years.
A raw of violent feelings was bursting in her mind.
But this, of course, he couldn't know.)
He brought a sarcastic smile onto Poker Face, the smile he used to bestow at Ginzo Nakamori. For an obscure reason, it was much more difficult to maintain it now, facing with his daughter.
"I wonder whether you'll be as good an officer as your father," he said lightly.
She spoke then. It had been ages, it seemed, since he had last heard her voice, her voice now regretful, but steady. He had to swallow to keep Poker Face still.
'I deciphered your message. Besides, I'll be a better one."
He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "And why is that?"
"Because he never could catch you."
"And you will?" he smirked politely, doubtfully.
She answered with a look, and it was clear enough.
Loud footsteps echoed in the staircase. Neither of them moved. They both knew that over thirty policemen were running up to the roof, following Nakamori-kebu.
The door was slammed open once more. The task force, however, found the roof empty, but for their superior, standing alone on it, her eyes lifted up to the sky where a white handglider was fading out.
There was a red rose on the edge of the building.
Memories, memories, memories. It had happened six months before. And now, once again, he was waiting.
A trick. A very simple one, really. He had exploited it a hundred times over with the late Officer Nakamori and the Kid Force. The only one who ever worked it out was Kudo Shinichi, but back then their relationship wasn't quite the same than it was now. Even though they still were rivals (those things just never changed), in normal life – as far as it could be called normal – they were kinda friends… kinda… well… never mind.
Well, yes, a very simple trick.
He grinned at the thud of footsteps in the staircase.
The time seemed to slow down as he tasted the precious feeling of risk in this ephemeral instant.
The door was opened once again.
The curtain was opening once again.
His grin widened as over forty policemen invaded the roof where he was waiting once again.
He would always be waiting.
Over and over again.