Disclaimer: The heists in this chapter are taken from the DC/MK chapters The Scroll of the Dark Night, twisted slightly to account for events in Promenade. MK belongs to Gosho, KH2 to Square Enix, and the plot twists belong to me.

Dedication: To my amazing editors, Snickerer and Ellen, without whom Promenade would not exist the way it is now. You have pulled so much of the story's potential out for me, and given me more ideas than I know what to do with, crackbunnies not included.

Chapter warnings: All of the main characters have been under varying levels of stress, so beware the occasional swear word. There's also some violence and death in here, but if you read Detective Conan that should be pretty standard…

You will notice that a lack of Kaito's perspective for a while. This is intentional, because it's easier to watch a person from the outside. Hakuba is referred to by his first name, Saguru, in scenes from his perspective.

Unless otherwise stated, conversation is generally held in Japanese.

Chapter 9: Thieves' Spoils

Since Saguru had escorted her home from the amusement park, Aoko invited him to stay for dinner. That way, he could ride with Inspector Nakamori to the heist instead of relying on public transportation or his housekeeper's driving. To their mutual chagrin, a vein started to throb in the man's forehead when he realized that both of them were carrying Kid plushies. He calmed down marginally once Aoko explained Kuroba's role in their presence, but he still glared and muttered a few choice words not quite under his breath.

After Saguru borrowed the computer to confirm some rather disturbing information about Kuroba's new friend, he and Nakamori discussed (argued) last-minute strategy and tactics while Aoko made dinner. It was fish, which Saguru found oddly appropriate, and he silently toasted to Kuroba and Kid while Aoko told Nakamori all about their afternoon. Saguru cringed at the light pole and Ferris wheel incidents, but almost to his surprise Nakamori gave a gruff bark of laughter at Kuroba's antics. Hearing that he was alive and well enough to act outrageous was probably a relief to the old man, though. From everything Saguru had gathered, Nakamori treated Kuroba rather like a nephew in his somewhat absent-minded way.

Saguru also suspected that Nakamori was the closest thing Kuroba'd had to a father figure for a long time.

Dinner ended far too quickly, and Nakamori whisked him off to the museum display where Kid's target waited. Rather than wait with the congregating police, Saguru promised to stay in radio contact and wandered through the museum, enjoying the excellent art as time counted down to Kid's promised arrival. Looking at the displays was more pleasant than letting his thoughts wander, because on a heist (and more often lately, whenever he had a few moments to spare,) his mind inevitably turned to the Kid: both the unanswered questions burning in his mind, and the information he already had but would rather not contemplate too deeply.

He really was hopeless.

Things had been simple, once. Chase a thief, and bring him to justice. He hadn't expected the ensuing cat-and-mouse challenges to awaken his curiosity, nor the answers that his various avenues of research revealed. And it was impossible for him to fail to notice the shadows in the night that occasionally took potshots at the Kid, which hadn't helped his peace of mind much, either. It's hard to think of someone as a bad guy when even worse people try to kill him.

He'd tried to ignore the increasingly disturbing theories coalescing in his brain by obeying his mother's request to rejoin her England; tried to leave the fears and faintly growing sense of desperation safely buried half a world away. Throwing himself back into British culture, the British school system (where he could focus on Criminal Science), and British crimes, for a few months he'd thought he succeeded.

Then Nakamori had called with the news that the Kaitou Kid had vanished almost 48 hours ago, with the jewel.

Visions of the snipers that tended to follow Kid dancing in his head, Saguru caught the next flight to Japan. Arriving mid-morning the third day after Kid's disappearance, he spent the entire rest of the day with the Kid Task Force rehashing all known information about the Kid. Eight hours of fruitless searching later, Nakamori received a personally addressed letter from the Kid, and Hakuba got a phone call from his mother describing a similar notice that'd come for him in England. Nakamori had been so relieved, he didn't question it… but Hakuba felt slightly paranoid about the veracity of Kid's—Kuroba's—safety, and looked closer.

The caricature had been wrong.

He'd never have been able to convince Nakamori of anything, but the doodle wasn't properly hand-drawn, as it should have been. Almost perfect... but just that little bit off. Then Aoko had shown up at the precinct straight from school with the news of Kuroba's disappearance and telegram, and Hakuba's worry returned twofold.

Kuroba was gone.

No warning, no decent explanation, simply gone. He couldn't tell if Kuroba's telegram to the school was genuine, or from someone else allaying suspicion about the boy's unexpected disappearance. And Saguru couldn't get the image of black coats and bullets out of his head. The fact that there was no record of any traveling magician's troupe currently active in Japan did nothing to calm his quietly building panic. Digging further revealed that all forms of traveling entertainment, magical or otherwise, had no one of Kuroba's name or description even loosely attached to them. Hakuba's grandfather was a technical genius, and the miniature lab he'd given Hakuba as a birthday present a few years ago included a nest of supercomputers that put all but the most sophisticated of search engines and databases to shame. But even that couldn't find any trace of news of other boy. Kuroba Kaito had simply vanished off the face of the earth.

Not knowing if Kuroba was still alive or if the mysterious assassins after Kid had quietly taken him out of the equation, Hakuba had been unable to bring himself to go home.

And so he'd stayed, and waited, and worried. For six weeks.

Six. Damn. Weeks.

Until the Kid's note had arrived for the Kid Task Force, but even then he hadn't dared trust it. Until two days later, when Kuroba reappeared as if nothing had ever happened.

When he'd first seen Kuroba he'd been almost willing to punch him, just to be sure that the other boy was real. Mildly disturbed by the violence in the thought, he'd settled for handcuffs instead.

His internal clock warned him of the impending time, interrupting his train of thought. After checking his pocket watch to confirm the hour, he sighed. He'd ended up thinking about Kid after all, rather than the stunning Rembrandt he'd been standing in front of for the last half-hour. He entered the nearby stairwell, climbed to the top landing, and settled against the wall by the door to the roof. Unless he was mistaken—an unlikely occurrence, even if Kid could usually outmaneuver him when it came to thinking on his feet—he wouldn't have to chase the Kid tonight. Kuroba would come to him.

Sure enough, distant shouts echoed from elsewhere in the museum, and soon running footsteps echoed lightly in the stairwell. Almost too soft—did the other boy ever walk anywhere, or did he really know how to fly?

He pushed himself off the wall and stood in the middle of the small landing at the top of the stairs, crossing his arms just as the white phantom came into view… and paused half-way up the last flight of steps.

"You're getting predictable, Kuroba-kun."

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, a feeling of distant anger boiling up through layers upon layers of tightly held control. Before Kuroba, he'd always skated on the surface of emotions, never feeling anything very deeply. Then the magician had pushed his way into Saguru's life, and words like concern, fear, anger... contentment… had taken on new meanings, new depth and clarity. He was still trying to figure out why.

"If I can anticipate your movements, who's to say no one else can? And if you're going to vanish, or someone else makes you vanish, cover your tracks better—there are no groups of traveling magicians in Japan right now, and do you know that Yuushi-san isn't who he says he is? If you brought him back from wherever knowing that, fine, but don't let him con you, all right? You're supposed to be the conman, not the other way around. And don't you dare disappear like that again! Either of you."

He glared down at Kid, who'd remained silent through his entire tirade, although it seemed like the shadows hiding his face in the brightly lit stairwell had inexplicably deepened. After several more moments of silence, a gloved hand tipped the hat brim down slightly in a type of salute.

"I'm afraid I've no idea what you're talking about, detective."

He might have been about to say more, but the sound of a door bursting open several flights below interrupted them. Immediately, Kid set off a sleeping gas minibomb. Hakuba stumbled forward, automatically trying to delay Kid, and miscalculated his position relative to the stairs. He recognized the presence of air under his foot just too late to do anything but twist his body to absorb the imminent impact. Desperately hoping he wouldn't reach the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck or a broken thief beneath him, he succumbed to darkness.

To his surprise, Saguru woke to a distinct lack of head injury, broken bones, or even any real bruises. Glancing around, he realized he was propped against the wall in a stable, fairly comfortable sitting position, positioned directly perpendicular to the door leading to the roof. In other words, safely out of danger from trampling feet or accidentally rolling down the stairs. Kuroba had cared enough to waste precious escape time looking after Saguru's wellbeing. Saguru wasn't sure which made him more uncomfortable: the fact that Kuroba cared, or the fact that he hadn't expected the thief to care.

Still slightly woozy from the sleeping gas, he wandered down the stairs in search of Nakamori. The Inspector turned up in the street outside the museum, ordering his men to regroup around a few particularly colorful curses. He hadn't even seemed to notice that his raincoat's hood had fallen back, and the slowly lightening rain had already soaked him. Saguru stayed beneath the covered part of the entrance, wishing he had bothered to borrow a hat. One of the unoccupied officers noticed him, and hurried over.

"Ah, Hakuba-kun, are you all right? We saw you while we were chasing Kid but couldn't stop to help, and then everything became rather hectic."

"I'm fine. What happened?"

"Well… the rain was too heavy for Kid to use his glider, but he escaped down the side of the building and into the alleyways, where we lost track of him." The man shrugged. "Inspector Nakamori isn't happy, but that's business as usual, really."

"Snipers?"

A wan smile. "Not this time, thank goodness."

Hakuba reciprocated the smile with a grim one of his own. Not this time. What kind of a sentiment was 'Not this time?' They were bloody snipers! They were supposed to exist under the category of 'Not now and not ever,' not 'We're relieved we caught a break on this one!'

He swallowed, letting the rage recede behind a wave of cool rationality. He couldn't really remember why anymore, but whispers of memory and instinct always brought him back under normal control before he could lose his temper.

"And the jewel?" he asked, voice betraying nothing.

The officer shook his head. "Hasn't turned up yet, as far as I know."

Saguru pinched the bridge of his nose. Even beyond the usual stress of a Kid heist, sleeping bombs tended to leave him with a headache afterwards. He could see the media swarming around out in the streets, seeking details about the outcome of the heist; while he usually gave an interview every few heists, this time he wanted nothing more than a cup of tea and a good night's sleep.

"Fine. Tell the Inspector I'm going home."

After Kaito left, Riku summoned his courage and asked Mizuki about Toichi, hoping he wasn't being too bold. To his relief, she smiled softly, reminiscently, and they spent the next several hours in pleasant conversation about the magician, husband, and father. Riku had to admit that there weren't very many adults that he respected—not many people, period—but he suspected that Kaito's father would have been one such man. Honor, duty, a love for life, and an intense protectiveness for his loved ones were prevalent in his character, all worthy qualities and ones he had managed to instill deeply in his son in only a few short years. Too few years.

The appointed hour drew near, and the two turned on the TV to watch the news channel's live broadcast of the heist. They worried over the rain together, breathed sighs of relief in tandem when he escaped into the alleyways, and then waited in tense silence for Kaito to come home.

Riku barely managed to restrain himself from wearing a hole in the plush, white carpet. He'd developed an even greater respect for Mizuki over the past few hours, now that he saw what she had gone through too many times to count between her husband and her son.

Several hours later, he had just reached his limit for sitting still and pretending to read when he heard the faint 'fwipfwip' of the portrait turning. Kaito stumbled into the room, sans hat and monocle, but white-faced to match his suit and absolutely soaking wet.

Without a word, he bore down on his mother's position on the couch and enveloped her in a hug, burying his face in her shoulder. She exchanged a surprised glance with Riku, then turned her concerned attention on Kaito.

"Kuroba Kaito, what is going on?"

Silence, broken only by Kaito's carefully controlled breathing.

"...Kaito." Her voice was gentle, but still managed to leave no room for argument. "Tell me."

"Another heist. Friday," was all the response they got, in a surprisingly hoarse voice.

"Well, that's an awful lot you're not telling me," she said after a pause.

"No good if I did. Has to be done."

Riku really, really didn't like the sound of that. He'd never imagined anyone capable of coercing the magician into anything he didn't want to do.

"Stubborn boy." She didn't press, however, merely leaned her cheek against the top of his head and absently smoothed the spikes of hair sticking every which way.

Riku wasn't sure he'd ever seen anyone so scared, not even Sora when the brown-haired boy had been preparing to face down Riku's possessed self with nothing but guts and a wooden toy sword. He had little to no skills at giving comfort, but Kaito's mother seemed to be handling herself admirably. Realizing there was nothing for him to do at the moment but give them privacy, he quietly stood and went to bed.

The next morning after breakfast Kaito still looked subdued and slightly on edge, so while Riku asked about the heist he didn't press for details.

"Pretty standard. Inspector Nakamori still hasn't found a security design I can't bypass, and the task force alone is too small to be able to cover all angles. Hakuba-kun…" Kaito trailed off. "Hakuba-kun was waiting for me near the roof. I honestly expected him to pull a fish on me. I'm still not sure why he didn't."

Riku smiled slightly at Kaito's confusion. The thief seemed to have expected that nothing would have changed in his absence, and hadn't adjusted yet to the subtle differences in those around him, particularly Hakuba.

"Hakuba-san has an interesting sense of honor," he settled on saying. "If his victory over you is to have any meaning, that means no cheating when it comes to information. No using accidental revelations outside of your little game against you."

"Game?" Kaito's expression didn't change much, but his tone held underlying currents of amusement, incredulity, and outrage.

"Competition, if you like." Riku sighed internally, resigning himself to fact that if he actually wanted to befriend Kaito, then that meant revealing pieces of his past and character. "Sora and I had an ongoing contest back home, practice bouts with wooden swords. I usually beat him, but he improved a lot right before everything went crazy." He shook his head, turning back to the topic at hand. "I've seen the way you treat your night job. The deeper issues aren't anything to mess about with, but the heist itself is like a game. Maybe Hakuba-san took a few rules out of your book, and only wants to catch you if he can do it under his own power, fair and square."

Kaito laughed noncommittally. "Maybe."

At that point Aoko knocked on the front door, and the discussion effectively ended.

Nothing more was said on the subject until later that evening, when details about the heist were leaked to the press. Specifically, about the thief-ally named Nightmare, who claimed responsibility for the Kid's last escape and had sent the police a heist notice for the following Friday in both of their names.

Riku turned to Kaito, who'd been practicing his card tricks but had frozen at the special news bulletin on the TV.

"Care to tell me why the Kid, who has always worked alone, suddenly has a partner? Especially considering the fact that you wouldn't let me help out with your last heist, even with transportation?"

Kaito smiled bitterly. "I missed having a darkness corridor last night. It might have saved me some trouble, or it might have made things worse."

"Kaito-kun. Why are you doing this heist?"

Kaito sighed, looking away as he internally debated something.

"All right. It's not like knowing will endanger you more than you already are."

He started describing what had happened after the previous heist, as he eluded the task force in the alleyways. How, nearly trapped, he'd been addressed by a radio planted on the ground nearby. The caller gave him a name, 'Nightmare', an escape route to a safe place to wait out the rain, and then a job offer, which had swiftly turned into threats when Kaito tried to decline.

Riku's lips thinned. "What kind of threats?"

"Against my dad's old assistant, who's always been the assistant for the Kid, too, when necessary," Kaito admitted somewhat grudgingly. "Nightmare figured out my dad was the Kid when they both disappeared at the same time, and while he doesn't know who I am, he figured Jii-chan out as the Kid's assistant. He'll expose him to the police if I don't do this. I can escape offworld myself, but that leaves Jii-chan exposed. I have to play along until I can find a way to get him out of this. These opal earrings can't even be Pandora," he added, somewhat bitterly. "Too small, and there are two of them, anyway."

"This is blackmail."

"Do you think I don't know that?" Kaito stood and started pacing, voice rising slightly as he lost another layer of calm to being over-stressed. "D'you think I'd let someone use the Kid—and you can be damn well sure that's what he's doing—if I could see any way around it? It's not good enough to warn Jii-chan, because he'd either have to go into hiding or else do something stupid like turn himself in to protect me."

"And there's no one you can tell?"

Kaito glared at him, startling Riku slightly. He hadn't realized the older boy had been this affected, but perhaps he should have. Someone had struck right to the heart of what Kaito held most dear, and the magician was effectively helpless in facing it. Riku realized that if someone had threatened Mickey, Sora, or Kairi, he'd probably be reacting in a similar fashion.

"I took it on faith two days ago that you can't tell anyone in your immediate circle of acquaintances. Enlighten me again as to why."

Several moments went by as Kaito's face blanked into a mask that would have made a mannequin proud. When he spoke next, it was in a flat, mechanical tone of voice, as if reciting from memory information he'd examined forwards, backwards, upside down, sideways, skewed, and at right angles. Which, given the situation, he probably had.

"Nakamori would arrest me if I told him, not to mention I'd destroy the poor man's entire worldview. He's built the Kid into the last 20 years of his life. Even if, by some obscure chance he decided to let me go, he'd want to know about why I'm occasionally shot at—"

Kaito broke off, obviously not having meant to reveal that little tidbit of information. Riku's eyes narrowed.

"I'll come back to that wonderfully informative bit of news some other time. Go on."

"Nakamori'd go after Jackal, but he can barely handle my heists, he'd have no chance against them," Kaito practically spat the word. "He'd get himself killed. He's safest being loudly and publicly opposed to Kid. The sense of honor you said Hakuba-kun has wouldn't outweigh his sense of duty towards turning me in if he ever got tangible proof. At the very least, he'd have no qualms revealing my identity, and that would put everyone around me in danger. And in the million-to-one-chance that he doesn't," Kaito continued, appearing to anticipate Riku's question, "he'd get himself killed even faster than Nakamori, the way he pokes around. Mom could do nothing besides worry herself sick, and Akako-san has the distressing tendency to alternately stalk me or try and hurt me. Aoko…" Kaito swallowed. Hard. "She'd be forced to choose between me and her dad, and she couldn't do anything to help, anyway. She'd be worse off than mom, with loyalties torn like that, especially since she's so close to the Inspector. I won't do that to her. I won't," he repeated fiercely.

Riku took some time to put his thoughts in order.

"Kaito-kun, you've just effectively admitted that there is no one in your life you feel even mostly capable of trusting. Given how you went after me about acting similarly, I can't tell if I should be surprised at your own blind spots. Right now, however, I'm more worried about how if Nightmare could discover Jii-san's identity, and the mysterious organization could discover and kill your father, then your own hidden identity is much less secure than you'd probably like. And if they somehow happen to find your identity, then hiding who you are from your friends and family becomes at best, moot, and at worst, more dangerous than telling them the truth."

He received only stubborn silence in return.

"I handled it…" Riku needled, trying for some kind of reaction. By this point, he didn't even care if it was a punch in the stomach. Anything was better than the blankness growing in Kaito's expression.

"You have sparkly magic powers. Ergo, a better handle on weird and better ability to defend against it. They aren't you. You also have the ability to leave this entire world to escape them, if you have to. They can't."

Riku realized he was probably pushing his luck, and decided to let the matter drop for the time being. He still wasn't happy with the situation, however. After all, Kaito seemed as determined to think the worst of his acquaintances as Riku had, if he was honest with himself, previously done with Sora.

Kaito probably wouldn't take being told that very well, though, given his current state of mind.

The next morning Kaito left for school with shadows under his eyes, and a grin too bright to be genuine. He did, however, tell Riku to relax, under the threat of Kaito getting creative once he got back home.

Since Mizuki had the day shift, Riku spent most of the morning quietly worrying alone. Not only did Kaito have Nightmare's threats on his mind, but they'd had the questionably good luck of coming home just in time for Kaito to take his school's May mid-term tests. Given that he'd left a week into the school year, Kaito'd been forced to stay up all night studying for the first day of tests, and looked to be doing similar every night until Friday.

Trying to distract himself, Riku pulled out the laptop Kaito had been using and started fiddling. DiZ's computer setup had been more sophisticated in some ways—Riku still wasn't sure exactly how you could deconstruct people and things into pieces of data or reform them into the real world, and he'd had it happen to him—but that technology was strictly one of a kind. Kaito's computer was significantly smaller for the amount of power it held, and in the midst of his explorations Riku discovered the wonders of the Internet.

"Yo, Riku-kun!"

Startled, Riku looked up, clamping down firmly on the instincts screaming to materialize his sword. Kaito stood on the other side of the coffee table where Riku had set the laptop, looking at him curiously.

"Find something interesting?" Kaito set his school bag down on the table and peered over the top of the screen, reading the open webpage upside down.

"Your world's electronic network of information. We didn't have technology this complicated at home, and I never stayed in worlds like yours long enough to find things like this. DiZ-san's cache of computers are more powerful, but don't have anything like this."

"Well, you learn something new every day. What've you discovered?"

"That one of the Kaitou Kid's many targets was a baseball. What's the story behind that one?"

Kaito laughed, with more real humor than Riku'd heard in a while. "One of my many impostors. This one wasn't so bad, though—a little kid idolized a baseball player and the Kid at the same time, wanted to 'steal' a homerun ball. I gave him a little help, and everyone went home happy."

Riku smiled. "Well, what do you know? The Kid's nothing but a big softie."

"I deny everything." Kaito's grin abruptly faded a little. "Ne, Riku-kun… can I ask you for a favor?"

"Anything," Riku responded instantly. "Anything, if it'll help keep you in one piece." He still hadn't forgotten Kaito's slip about being shot at, but he didn't want to go too in depth with that one for the time being.

"It's more for Hakuba-kun. I don't want him anywhere near Friday's heist, not with what's riding on success. Especially when I can't afford the distraction of his possibly bringing fish into it when he's had more time to prepare."

"And, presumably, because you don't want him around the threat of Nightmare, either."

Kaito sighed. "No. Idiot detective's luck would lead him right to Nightmare, and Nightmare would hurt him to get away, if my information is correct."

"All right." Since Riku wasn't coming up with much on his own, he'd take what Kaito was willing to give him as a way to help. The stubborn thief would likely have to come to terms with the rest of his predicament in his own time. "What do you want me to do?"

"Do you know how to drive?"

Riku paused. "No, but I suspect I'll be learning in the very near future…"

"Maybe I can get mom to teach you, then… and talk her into letting me get a driver's license, since now I wouldn't have to explain away how I learned in the first place… " he trailed off into scheming silence.

"Why will I need to drive?" Riku asked, returning the dark-haired boy's attention to the present.

"I don't want Jii-chan involved in this heist for obvious reasons, but I need to delay Hakuba-kun's arrival. On Friday, I'd like you to take my mom's car and go to Hakuba-kun's house. He lives just outside the city, on the other side of town from the Shuuhou Museum. If you offer to drive him as a favor from me, he'll suspect I'm trying to trick him but he can't say no politely unless he explains why he doesn't trust you to drive him. He doesn't think you know I'm Kid, does he?"

"No. He tried to ferret it out of me at the amusement park, but no." Along with a few other things, but Riku had quite a lot of practice keeping information to himself.

"Good. So if you can drive him and get stuck in traffic, he won't be able to show up until it's too late—even if he gets out and runs, which I wouldn't put past him." Kaito made a face at that to convey his annoyed disdain.

Riku considered him for a minute. "...You're scary when you start playing mind games."

His only response was a sharp grin.

When Kaito's mother heard their intention and reasons, she acquiesced to teaching Riku on the condition that she approve their progress before they tried anything without her around. If she seemed surprised that someone Riku's apparent age hadn't yet learned to drive, she didn't say anything. She did comment, however, once Riku had settled behind the driver's seat and Kaito in the back to be amused, that Riku was quite lucky Toichi had preferred cars with automatic transmission. Learning to drive a stick shift would inevitably have taken more than a week, but an automatic transmission made it at least possible.

Riku felt he did passably well in the mostly deserted streets of Kaito's neighborhood that evening, His assigned homework consisted of researching the different rules of the road, so that, as Mizuki put it, "You don't cause as much havoc on the streets as Kaito does at school."

The expression on Kaito's face was priceless.

Watching Kuroba's behavior at school over the next few days, Saguru came to the disheartening conclusion that something was very wrong. No matter how much he tried to fish—no pun intended—for information, Kuroba was being even more obfuscatory than usual about Kid and his unsolicited partner. Saguru'd heard the police report from Nakamori, of course, including the unwelcome promise of being joined by representatives of Interpol. All of the official information, however, brought him no closer to answering why the Kid, a lone wolf for over 20 years, would team up with a calculating, double-crossing bastard like Nightmare.

Saguru couldn't decide whether Kuroba was trying to protect someone else—Yuushi, maybe?—or himself. Either way, the magician's smile had an extra edge to it. Saguru'd been watching his rival too closely and for too long not to notice the subtle changes. Kuroba either didn't realize, or didn't care.

And that was even more worrying.

Nightmare had something that worked as leverage against the Kid. Saguru really didn't like having to think about the Kid as vulnerable.

After the first two days, Saguru spent some quality time considering the problem, absently staring at the Kid doll sitting on his bookshelf. He hadn't been able to bring himself to get rid of it, not when it held so much potential teasing fodder against the magician.

That thought led to another, and another, and slowly he smiled. Perhaps a return to the status quo was in order… He strolled out to the slightly smaller building behind the Hakuba family manor, which housed the private lab his grandfather had given him, and spent some quality time with some scrap metal and a blowtorch.

He'd probably deny it if anyone asked, but he much preferred electronics and other mechanically-minded devices to people. At least they did what you expected them to do. No surprises, no chaos. Just simplicity and order.

With the physical and mental therapy of melting, pounding, and shaping bits of metal for the purpose of That Greatest of All Causes—getting a good dig in at Kuroba—Saguru showed up early at homeroom in an unusually smug mood, even for him. He earned a raised eyebrow from Kuroba, despite the teen's current attempts to ignore him, and that caused the self-satisfied smirk to widen further.

Kuroba seemed about to break in spite of his best efforts and ask what was going on when Aoko beat him to it.

"What is it, Saguru-kun?"

"Oh, I have something for you."

"For… me?" Despite herself, Aoko flushed prettily, looking down at her clasped hands.

"Yes, I'm sure you'll appreciate it. But first—" he reached into his briefcase and withdrew the Kid doll, setting it on his desk. Bemused, Aoko leaned over to look at it more closely, along with their other classmates present crowding around for a better view, and Saguru caught Kuroba trying to watch surreptitiously as well. When she saw the personal touch added to the plushie, Aoko immediately burst out laughing.

"It's perfect!" She picked up the doll with care and showed it to Kuroba. "See, Kaito? Handcuffs for the Kid!"

Saguru smirked proudly at the miniature cuffs capturing Kuroba's gift. "I made a set for yours as well, Aoko-kun." He held them out to her, and she relinquished his doll to Kuroba to take them.

"They're amazing!" Aoko said admiringly, running her fingers along the metal. They worked almost exactly like the standard police issue, enclosing cloth hands too tightly to be simply slipped off without pushing a pin-triggered catch. She smiled.

"At least this one will actually stay in them," he replied.

A mischievous grin tugged at Kaito's mouth, to Saguru's faint satisfaction and simultaneous dread. "That's what you think."

Hardly a moment later the doll reappeared on Saguru's desk with the handcuffs jauntily looped around its hat brim. Kuroba appeared not have moved at all from his desk a few feet away.

"What… how… you didn't even…" he sputtered. No matter how many times he saw it, Kaito's conquest of the 'impossible' always left him nearly speechless for a few seconds.

Kuroba grinned. And grinned some more. Aoko glowered at him, clutching her handcuffs protectively. Saguru looked faintly hapless for a moment, then resigned.

"I give up. Just don't look under the hat, Kuroba-kun."

5…4…3…2… Saguru was willing to swear that Kuroba had some cat-blood in him. The Kid was flexible to the point of contortionism, and Kuroba had more curiosity than a kitten. Saguru could almost hear a 'Mao?' in the faint tilt of his head, eyes narrowing consideringly. The magician seemed just as likely to bat the top hat aside with a paw as to carefully lift it up with a hand. Regardless of the other boy's suspicion, Saguru received the intended response when Kuroba's curiosity got the better of him and he couldn't help himself.

"Augh!" Kuroba jumped away from the doll as if it were a hot coal, crouching on his desk and glaring at Saguru. "Hate you," he muttered sulkily, almost drowned out by the laughter of his classmates.

Aoko picked up the offending object, which had slid out from under the hat and onto the floor. "Saguru-kun, where did you find a fiberglass fish?"

Saguru smiled as the teacher arrived and tried to restore order. "Trade secret, Aoko-kun."

When school ended that afternoon the three of them left the building together. Aoko and Kuroba usually walked together anyway, and his own presence wasn't terribly odd, even if it hadn't exactly been a regular occurrence before the magician's temporary disappearance. The next heist was only two days away, and Kuroba seemed to be winding up tighter as the week passed.

Oh, he still grinned like a maniac, played tricks on anyone who got in range, and teased Aoko until she was forced to resort to her personal mop-fu… but the grin froze occasionally, and Saguru thought he had seen a flash of relief in Kuroba's eyes when Aoko had pursued him yesterday. The normality of it was probably soothing.

The human mind operated much like a machine, and Saguru knew quite well how devices worked.

If you wound them up too much, put them under too much pressure… eventually they would break.

Just as he had yesterday, Yuushi sat on the bench near the bus stop, completely engrossed in a book as he waited for Kuroba to get out of school. The man seemed to have nothing better to do than spend his time with Kaito and his friends, and apparently felt perfectly comfortable in company over a decade younger than he was. Saguru still wasn't happy that Yuushi didn't seem to exist on record anywhere, but he had no other grounds to doubt Kuroba's trust in the man. Especially since Kuroba seemed to relax in Yuushi's company more than he did anywhere else. Saguru still suspected that Yuushi knew more about Kuroba's nightlife than he admitted to, as well. It was all immensely frustrating. Saguru hated mysteries.

"Riku-kun!" Kuroba practically bounced over, the same bundle of never-ending energy he had been at school, dragging Saguru and Aoko in tow. Saguru flinched slightly at being grabbed without warning. "Hakuba-kun decided that his doll is the only Kid he'll ever catch!"

Yuushi looked up from his book with an amused expression, eyeing them through his amber-tinted sunglasses. As Saguru approached, he realized that the man was reading an English translation of Arséne Lupin short stories. The knowledge of English was unexpected, but he honestly couldn't bring himself to be surprised that a guest of Kuroba's was reading about the epitome of the gentleman thief.

"Did he now?" Yuushi looked past Kuroba at Saguru, pushing his hat brim up. He also seemed to have a strange affinity for his newsboy cap, because he'd worn it every time he'd been in their company. "What brought this on?"

Saguru obliged by displaying his Kid plushie for a second time. Yuushi's lips curved upwards slightly at the doll, then further upon hearing about Kuroba's mischief and deserved comeuppance.

"Somehow, I can't bring myself to be surprised."

They engaged in general chatter for a while before a bus for Kaito and Aoko's neighborhood came into view. Aoko announced that she needed to go home and study for the history midterm the next day.

"But there're still hours before tomorrow!" Kaito protested cheekily. Aoko rolled her eyes in response.

"Unlike some people, I have to study a lot in order to remember everything on a test. See you tomorrow morning, Kaito, Saguru-kun. Take care, Riku-san."

"I should probably study some more, myself," Saguru admitted. The unexpected heists had eaten significantly into his time for schoolwork.

"History, or ineffectual preparation for Friday's heist?" Kuroba inquired teasingly.

Saguru looked straight at Kuroba. "If I were going to study for Friday, why would I bother to go home?"

Riku chuckled before he could help himself, even though before he'd neatly evaded Saguru's probing into whether he knew about the Kid. Saguru didn't move his gaze, but mentally added the response to his list of 'Suspicious Things about Yuushi.'

Kuroba's easy laughter had joined in as well. "Now, Hakuba-kun, I thought we'd agreed I'm not Kid."

"You're the one who says it. I merely haven't contradicted it yet."

"Lost cause, that one," Kuroba said in a false aside to Yuushi. "Sees a thief in every honest, teenage magician." Yuushi smiled.

Saguru suddenly felt tired at the prospect of trying to catch Kuroba again. "Go home and prepare, Kuroba-kun." He turned and left, letting the dual meaning hang in the widening gap between them.

What would happen if Kuroba missed something? If a heist went wrong? What would Kuroba do?

…What would he do?

As soon as Hakuba was out of sight, Riku watched Kaito slump faintly, manic energy evaporating into an alert calm underlaid by exhaustion. The same thing had happened every time they'd left Aoko and Hakuba's company in the past week. Once or twice he might have brushed off as coincidence, but this many indicated some sort of habit. A habit Riku didn't much care for.

He sat back down on the bench, gesturing for Kaito to do the same. The only people around were ignoring them, and he didn't want to wait until they finally made it home.

"You don't do that just for Hakuba, do you," he began in English.

"Do what?" Kaito blinked at him, and the difference between this unfeigned confusion and the false innocence he'd just dropped only strengthened Riku's resolve.

"Put up all the masks like that and play the fool. Why is it that when we're not alone, you tend to lose a hundred IQ points?"

"What makes you think that?" Kaito sounded casual, but wouldn't meet his eyes.

"What I've heard from your classmates certainly makes it look that way. Does the phrase 'caffeinated hummingbird with ADD' ring any bells?"

Kaito glanced down at the bench, then at Riku, then down again. He sat, expression distant, as if he were watching a memory. "Always leave others free to underestimate you."

Except, of course, when you're in life and death situations, the wry part of Riku's mind added.

"…Kaito." The other boy turned his head and met Riku's gaze. "You do it to Hakuba and Aoko, too. You shouldn't need to have the people you're close to underestimate you."

Kaito blinked, as if Riku'd spoken in Portuguese rather than in English.

"Friends know who you are and like you anyway, and aren't about to become your enemies. Shouldn't, anyway," Riku added in response to his own memories, and sighed. "For someone who lectured me about being isolationist, you do a good impression of it yourself."

"Hey! I don't stay as far away as possible while still… helping…" Kaito trailed off into silence.

"I grant you that Aoko is your friend. But she's a friend of the Kaito who existed before you became Kid," Riku said quietly, trying in vain to soften his argument. "She doesn't know the Kaito who became Kid, because you've changed since then and you don't let those changes show. Hakuba is a classmate and acquaintance, but more a friend of Aoko's—or even the Kid, as a rival—than you as Kaito. You spend your time insulting, evading, and joking with him, usually only when Aoko drags the both of you into something. Those two and Akako are the closest thing you have to friends on your world, and you don't let them know you."

Kaito crossed his arms. "I can't let them know me. Look at my options: Policeman's daughter, high-school detective, and girl obsessed with making me her minion. This does not inspire confidence in me at the possibility of revealing myself."

Riku thought back to Hakuba's behavior of the past week, especially the detective's attempt at the amusement park to discreetly ascertain Riku's motives while Kaito had been on the roller coaster with Aoko. "You know, Hakuba might surprise you."

For a split second Kaito's expression froze like a deer in the headlights, then turned into a picture of disbelief.

"I doubt it, but it doesn't matter. Can't take that chance."

Riku eyed him. Kaito was going back to less-than-grammatical sentences, which he did in English only when he was feeling defensive, stressed, or exhausted. Persevering, Riku continued: "I thought you knew odds, and how and when to play them. Risk-benefit, isn't it? You've said it yourself, Hakuba's been surprising you since you came back. Your expectations of his behavior are built off of out-of-date information. Stop, step back from all your assumptions about who he's been, and look at who he's being."

Kaito had half-turned away from Riku, staring in moody silence down the street. Riku couldn't decide if Kaito's reticence on this particular subject was due to fear for himself, or fear for Hakuba, or both. Probably both.

"Look, I won't force you into anything. But I think Hakuba just might be worth gambling on."

"Then what? Instead of arresting me, he gets himself killed trying to help me?"

Ah.

"On the whole, he seems capable of taking care of himself. Didn't you say he practices martial arts?"

"…Some form of aiki-jujutsu he picked up before he came to Japan."

"And when you told me about the Kid's antagonists I seem to recall you saying he was good enough at it that you take extra care during heists never to get within arm's reach. He's not helpless. He's also not an idiot. You can't seriously think that if you told him about Jackal and company he'd immediately run off and get killed."

"No. I think he'd meticulously research himself into their notice, and then get himself killed."

"As opposed to you, whose entire nighttime persona is designed to attract the attention of the same people you're afraid will kill Hakuba." Riku glared at Kaito. "You're asking for them to try and kill you, and there's no one to watch your back."

"I have Jii-chan already, and look how well that's going right now. I can't put any more people at risk," Kaito retorted.

"Dammit, Kaito, can't you see that I don't want you to get yourself killed! If something doesn't change, it's going to happen! You're running yourself into the ground, Jii-san has his own life he's trying to live around helping you heist nights, and when he does he's as much in the thick of things as you are. You can't look over your own shoulder all the time! If you want to make sure you live to the end of this, you need someone to watch your blind spots. You can't catch everything."

"You seem quite happy with taking the job." Kaito crossed his arms.

"Because I'm your friend. I care about what happens to you. But this isn't my world, and I can't stay forever to be here to help you." He sighed again. "Just… think about it, will you?"

Kaito was silent for a minute, then nodded. "All right. I'm going to go for a walk. I'll meet you at home for dinner."

He stood and walked away in silence. Riku watched him go, then wandered in search of an empty alley. He didn't feel like spending another hour alone on a bus in order to get back home.

Riku allayed Mizuki's concern at Kaito's absence by saying that Kaito had some things he had to do, and allowing her to assume they were related to the heist. Since she was in the middle of cleaning various parts of the house, Riku settled in the den with the Lupin short stories, Kaito's computer, and the TV remote, hoping to find something that could distract him for a while. As luck would have it, one of the TV channels had replaced its regular programming with a special on the Kaitou Kid in honor of two heists in close succession after such a long absence. Riku watched the statistics, interviews, old recorded footage, pictures of previous targets and rampant speculation with a kind of morbid fascination. Most of his information about the Kid (some internet research notwithstanding) had come straight from Kaito; this was the Kid viewed from the other side.

Hakuba had apparently been unavailable for comment at the time of the documentary's production, and an old interview had been included among more recent ones conducted with the Kid Task Force and random heist bystanders.

Riku's jaw dropped at the sight. According to the accompanying narration, the video had been recorded almost a year ago, just after Hakuba's first Kid heist. The blond boy wore an absurd overcoat and hat, purportedly in honor of his favorite detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his Japanese still held a British undertone. As the interview went on, Hakuba talked about his disdain for criminals and his determination to capture the Kid despite the thief's poor attempts at trickery. The overconfident arrogance and stubborn inflexibility behind the boy's every word stunned Riku. If something like this detective was what Kaito still saw every time he looked at Hakuba, then Riku couldn't blame the magician's adamant resistance to letting anything slip. The blond boy who'd accompanied them to the amusement park felt like a different person altogether.

The documentary continued, but Riku couldn't focus on it any longer. Instead, he pulled out Kaito's laptop and searched for every scrap of video footage he could find about Hakuba Saguru. It was amazing, the amount of information archived on the internet. With a bit of finagling he managed to order them in a semblance of chronological progression, and began watching.

The first few interviews all seemed to uncomfortably echo the first one, although Hakuba soon stopped wearing the odd costume. Riku suspected that Kaito had been referring to the blond when he'd said his friends possessed a distressing lack of fashion sense. Soon, however, Riku watched as little by little, Hakuba seemed to relax and lose several degrees of hostility towards the Kid. Instead, his comments seemed driven by a need to understand the Kid, even more so than the other criminals whose confessions were always greeted with the question, "Why did you do it?"

Then, suddenly, Hakuba's presence in the Japanese news disappeared. The only evidence of his existence came from a few interviews in England, where it seemed he had returned for a while and simply stopped chasing Kid altogether.

The last clip was dated several weeks ago, and turned out to have been conducted just after Kid vanished with the jewel, an unheard of event since the thief's return from apparent retirement. Hakuba looked exhausted, standing silently behind Inspector Nakamori as the older man described the notes Kid had sent his usual pursuers. At the end, when asked if he had any comment, he ignored the newscaster and looked directly at the camera.

"Kid-san, if you can see this, then get back here."

That wasn't the same boy who'd been at the first heist. That wasn't even the boy who'd left for England.

Hakuba hadn't appeared in the news since.

"Riku-kun?" Mizuki's concerned voice interrupted Riku's thoughts. He glanced up. "Did Kaito say whether he would be home for dinner?"

Surprised, Riku glanced at the wall clock to see several hours had passed while he hadn't been paying attention. "He said he would. I'll try calling his cell phone to see where he is, all right?"

She nodded, looking faintly relieved, and entered the kitchen. Riku tried to reach Kaito, growing concerned when the call rang through to Kaito's voicemail. The phone was obviously on, but Kaito wasn't answering. Reminding himself not to panic, he poked his head into the kitchen, and decided against worrying Kaito's mother needlessly.

"Kaito-kun's on his way home, and shouldn't be too much longer." She smiled at him, and he left her to cooking while he went to find out why Kaito seemed to have gone temporarily missing.

Closing his eyes, Riku reached out in his mind towards the familiar presence of Kaito's heart, then opened a dark corridor and stepped through. After a few steps, he exited in the general vicinity of where he sensed Kaito to be.

"Kaito-kun?" No answer. He looked around. The room he stood in was obviously under construction: spare drywall materials littered the bare, concrete floor; plaster and half-empty paint cans were scattered here and there; and the windows were covered with plastic sheeting to protect them from paint splashes. Exploring around, Riku found more rooms just like it, until in the corner room across the building from where he'd appeared he found Kaito.

Kaito lay sprawled on the concrete like a ragdoll, breathing in the steady, even rhythm that indicated sleep. On his right side, in easy reach if he were sitting up, sat his deck of Duel Cards. A handful of cards were scattered as if dropped, which they likely were.

A half-smile appeared on Riku's face. The elder boy always wanted to have an edge over the enemy, and he seemed to have been exploring the possibility of the Shadow Realm a bit too eagerly. Nothing appeared to have been summoned, and Kaito had worked himself into exhaustion.

"Are you trying to prove me right?" Riku groused. He shook Kaito's shoulder. "Hey, wake up."

Kaito groaned, but didn't open his eyes. Riku tried again, and again, and again, until on about the fourth or fifth shake, Kaito batted irritably at his arm.

"Go 'way."

"Time to get up, Kaito-kun, or else you'll miss dinner. Your mom is worried."

Kaito woke up a bit more at the statement.

"Again? Damn. Hate worrying her."

Riku raised an eyebrow. Kaito only looked about halfway coherent, not in any shape to go through a corridor or talk to his mother. Hoping to wake the other boy up, he asked, "Why did you come up here?"

"I fought myself here. Big ol' robot with missiles and my own face," Kaito rambled, not quite recovered from the energy loss. "Tore up the upper floors of this building like it was paper, trying to hit me. Reconstruction recently finished, so it seemed like a safe enough place to practice without getting seen or damaging anything."

Riku had to pause at that. "You have the best and worst luck of anyone I've ever met."

Kaito snorted, levering himself into a sitting position. "Tell me about it. Tends to put me in the worst possible situations, and then get me out again." He pulled his deck back together, scowling at the cards in frustration. "I can't summon anything. Not even the card I could summon on Himura-san's world."

Riku considered the phenomenon. "Well, ignoring the fact that you're probably worn out from your workload this past week… Compared to Himura-san's world, this place has only a handful of outlets that express the Light and Dark, and most of those aren't overtly supernatural. That probably makes it harder to pull the shadows into your world, too—like trying to drink with a very small straw." At Kaito's grin, he added, "I never claimed to make good analogies."

"A good thing, too." Kaito looked much more alert, thankfully. He sighed. "I guess I'll have to wait until later to try this again."

"Given how complicated this kind of conscious summoning is compared to little things like your card-gun, I'd recommend it."

"A pity, that. Didn't you say my mom was getting worried?"

Nodding, Riku opened a portal. "You're running late, although that's not surprising when you practically knock yourself unconscious. She thinks you're on your way home, walking but close."

"Good. I'm starved."

"Energy drain tends to do that," Riku replied. He wanted to bring up Hakuba again, but it didn't seem like the right time. To his disappointment, no better opportunity presented itself afterward, either.

After dinner Kaito's mother gave Riku his nightly driving lesson. Kaito seemed satisfied to lounge in the backseat with a book and a flashlight while Riku navigated through the heavier traffic of Tokyo proper. He did, however, turn off the light to listen when Mizuki gave advice about which streets tended to be empty and which attracted traffic jams. He'd probably already begun planning the best route for Riku to take when delaying Hakuba.

Once they returned home Kaito dove back into his homework, still stuck with make-up work as well as studying for the next day's midterm. Despite joking with Aoko, Kaito had so much more material to review for their tests that he would be going to bed late… again. Riku watched him for a while, impressed by how quickly Kaito still managed to work despite his exhaustion. Riku doubted Kaito had gone to bed before 3am all week.

Kaito glanced up, catching Riku's gaze. He flashed a quick grin.

"Want to give me a hand? A lot of this is your fault, after all."

Riku chuckled. "I doubt I'm in your grade. And you seem to be handling it perfectly well."

"The benefits of a photographic memory and a high IQ," Kaito admitted. Which explained how the magician managed to have any sort of confidence in decent grades, given his circumstances. "Still, you're probably even further behind in school than I am. You've been gone over a year, haven't you?"

Riku stiffened. He usually tried to not think about things like that. It always seemed so unreal compared to everything else he'd been going through. With a groan, he sank down on the floor next to Kaito and held out a hand imperiously.

"Math book. Give."

Kaito snickered and passed the textbook.

Unless people really want longer chapters, I'm going to be capping lengths at approximately 10,000 words. These are long chapters, people. If you're reading, please be kind enough to review.

5/07