Disclaimer: I own the plot, the name and personality of Méraud, and co-own a lot of crazy synthesis theories. Anything you recognize as coming from someone else's brain is theirs. Many thanks to Snickerer for theory and general nitpicking, and Ellen for dialogue and general plotting assistance.

Chapter 16: A Moment's Rest

Kaito had to hand it to Kaiba. Not only did Kaiba Corp. have a private gym for employees to use on breaks or days off, said gym took up an entire subterranean floor, complete with locker rooms and showers. Mokuba and Joey rummaged up some new workout clothes from a spare locker for their visitors, and they met up with Alix at the edge of the large, matted sparring area.

"Ready, Riku-san?"

"If you are." The pair moved to the center of the mats, while the others sat down outside of range. "What are the rules?"

"Ten-count pin, no attempting to cause serious damage, and surrender is an option."

Rather than replying, Riku nodded shortly and dropped into a ready position. Alix quickly mirrored him, and Kaito settled down to watch.

Several minutes of nothing more than circling and looking for weaknesses passed, until Riku finally lost patience and made the first move. Alix ducked out of the way, staying just far enough out of reach to keep him from being able to grab her without overbalancing. It quickly became clear that the size discrepancy between the two made a decisive win virtually impossible. Alix lacked the mass to pin Riku for any length of time, and Riku couldn't keep hold of her smaller, more agile form.

The match eventually ended in a draw, which elicited complaints from Kaito and Joey for ruining the bets on the winner between them and the handful of employees who had been there when they'd arrived. From their position on the floor, the exhausted combatants rather ineloquently told their audience to shut up.

Afterwards, Alix gave Yugi his promised self-defense lesson, with Mokuba joining in while Joey got shanghaied into playing target for teacher and students. Kaiba had retrieved his briefcase after lunch, but oddly enough seemed content to watch from the sidelines for a while without simultaneously working on his laptop. He kept one eye on the lesson and the other on Kaito and Riku, who had both joined in on the warm-ups and stretching and then opted to observe once they realized Alix had barely moved beyond the basics of how to fall. Yugi hadn't been joking when he said he'd only just started learning.

Kaito watched Alix's teaching style for a little while before his attention started wandering again. Almost unconsciously, his gaze strayed to the area of floor covered by padded mats. He'd had no time to do anything physical during the week they'd spent at home, not counting his run through the alleys at the first heist. It hadn't mattered so much at the time, since all his energy had been dedicated elsewhere and then he'd been running on adrenaline. Now, however, he could feel the manic edge of energy he always got whenever he teetered between exhaustion and complete burnout, and he was itching to move.

Riku followed Kaito's gaze, and smirked when understanding dawned. "Even though neither Gaudet-san nor I could go all out against each other, it felt good to fight again," he murmured. "Yugi-kun asked what you could do this morning—here's your chance to show off to an audience."

Kaito gave him a sidelong glance. "What makes you think I want to do that?"

"I've seen you at your night job… and before you protest that being Kid is different, I have two words for you: Tropical Land."

I suppose arguing 'habit' is not going to help my case.

Still, audience or not, it felt like weeks since he'd last done a tumbling routine for a reason other than fighting for his life…

"Go burn off some energy before you explode," Riku commanded quietly, and Kaito realized he'd started bouncing on the balls of his feet while he'd been thinking.

"Fine, fine…" Glad that he'd chosen a workout outfit from Kaiba's locker room stockpile that promised a full range of movement, he padded over the edge of the mats.

Start out slow…

First a handstand, then hand-walking, a forward roll and handspring, a front-flip, some back-flips… Muscle memory and declarative memory rose up in his mind, and as half-forgotten music echoed in his ears, he closed his eyes and danced to the beat of his mental symphony.

Some things you never really forget. Some things, you choose not to. Kaito hadn't had a coach in years, not since he'd been eight and the collapse of his world had included a lack of finances to continue lessons with any sort of regularity. He'd managed, though—a wall became a balance beam, a grassy field served as a mat—and he'd had one more way to keep the memory of his father and the time when he'd still been alive, real.

The floor had always been his favorite, full of movement and energy, and he'd practiced old routines and invented new ones as the years went by. Not quite as impressive as it could have been if he'd had the extra give and spring of a real floor, but he'd learned to compensate for the lack years ago, albeit with plenty of bruises along the way.

Far too soon, he felt himself begin to waver. A single night's rest couldn't make up for several weeks of sleep deprivation. Reluctantly, he finished with the routine with a handstand, collapsing with a graceful roll to lie flat on his back, watching the ceiling. A moment later, he heard the sound of clapping. Raising his head, he realized about half of his spectators had decided to applaud his performance, including Mokuba, while the rest of the conspirators had settled for watching with amusement. Kaiba, unsurprisingly, still kept his impassive expression.

Kaito waved in acknowledgment, let his head briefly drop back to the floor, then hoisted himself upright and rejoined the others.

"I hurt just from watching," Alix announced without preamble. "The human body was not made to bend like that."

"That was cool, though," Yugi added with a smile. "Where did you learn all of that?"

"A lot of different places, growing up. I tended to take the basics and improvise."

"Good thing, too," Joey commented. "You need that kind of flexibility for the stuff you do."

…And I can't tell if you're referring to my magic tricks, or my pickpocketing skills.

"Yeah, that's part of why I practice a lot. If you lose your edge in my profession, bad things happen." Any of my professions.

"Speaking of which," Kaiba interjected, standing up with briefcase in hand, "Some of us still have jobs to do."

"All right, Nii-sama," Mokuba sighed. "But I want you home by five tonight."

"Consider me ransomed," Kaiba replied dryly. "You can see our guests out. A… pleasure meeting you again, Kuroba-san, Riku-san." Inclining his head briefly, the CEO turned and headed for the elevators.

Once Kaiba had gone, Joey yawned and stretched expansively. "Well, that was fun. Alix-kun, you headed back to work, too?"

"That's what the boss pays me for. Yugi, I'll see you later this week for another lesson, all right?"

"Sure," Yugi agreed with a smile. "See you then." They exchanged goodbyes and parted ways to change in the locker room, and as the five boys headed back to the limousine Yugi asked, "Mokuba, did you want to come back to the shop for a while?"

"If it's okay with you. I'm ahead of schedule for my part in the R&D group I'm working with right now, so Joey doesn't want me hanging out in the labs."

"Damn right I don't," Joey retorted as they entered the limousine. "The last time that happened, you caused three explosions in one day."

"It wasn't my fault!" Mokuba protested. "The experimental equipment was faulty, and it took that long for me to find and fix the problem."

"My point still stands."

"Yeah, well… I guess at least this way, maybe we can meet Hakuba-san."

Kaito nodded. "If he has the shields for it, sure. He's a quick study, but I have no clue what kind of time frame to expect for this kind of thing."

And I'm really not happy about the whole not-knowing part, not for something so important.

Yugi looked thoughtful for a moment. "It's difficult for me to say either, since all I have to go on are some of Grandpa's stories, but… judging from what happened when Joey asked him for a crash course in Duel Monsters?"

Joey winced theatrically at that, though the crooked grin tugging at his mouth was not unfond. Yugi shot him an amused look before continuing.

"I'd say he's probably been through some very intense, practical training. He should be fine in a low-stress environment by now. If he can't handle at least the few of us when we're all pretty calm and friendly, I will be very surprised." Yugi smiled reassuringly.

"I hope you're right."

As it turned out, the Conspirators found Solomon and Hakuba in the Motou's living room, talking comfortably over what looked like a game, but unlike anything Kaito had ever seen before: A hexagonal honeycomb grid for a board, with a handful of plastic pyramids situated on or near the playing field. He wasn't sure, but it looked like Hakuba controlled the three sizes of translucent blue pyramids, while Solomon manipulated the red ones.

The game, however, was less important than Hakuba, and Kaito quickly refocused his attention on the blond. Despite the sudden appearance of five other people, Hakuba looked calm and self-controlled, having risen politely at the arrival of people he didn't know. He seemed the same as ever, until he put down the mug of whatever he'd been drinking and Kaito realized the other boy now wore a pair of pale leather gloves.

That's… different. I wonder if that's what Solomon-san asked his friend to send him. Overnight shipping, depending on where it was coming from…

"Saguru-kun," Solomon began with a smile, interrupting Kaito's musing, "allow me to introduce you to Yugi, Joey, and Mokuba-kun."

Wh—Saguru-kun?

Kaito managed to keep from staring, but only just. He could understand Hakuba letting Aoko call him that when they'd become closer friends after Kaito himself disappeared… but Hakuba had known Solomon for less than 12 hours, and he wasn't objecting to that level of familiarity. If anything, his smile seemed a shade self-conscious, but that was all. It was bizarre, to say the least.

But… not necessarily bad, either. He'd been working to get Hakuba to loosen up for the last year, after all, he shouldn't be so thrown off-balance when the blond seemed to have finally hit a breakthrough. Even if it wasn't because of him.

"It's nice to meet you." Hakuba bowed slightly. "Solomon-san has been telling me about you."

"Nothin' bad, I hope," Joey answered with a grin, taking over three-quarters the couch but leaving enough room for Mokuba to perch on one end. "I was innocent, I promise."

Solomon snorted. "Of which incident?"

"All of 'em, obviously."

"You're a lot of things, Joey," Yugi said absently, examining the ongoing game of pyramids on the coffee table with intense interest, "but innocent isn't one of them."

"Well…"

Smirking at the banter, Kaito stepped closer to the game board as Hakuba sat back down. Before he could start figuring out the game, however, the unexpected scent of coffee wafting from Hakuba's mug distracted him.

"Hey, shouldn't you be drinking tea?" He peered curiously at the mug, which bore the inscription: "There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."

"No, tea is soothing and I wish to be tense. It helps me concentrate." Hakuba gestured at the game on the table in explanation. "Solomon-san has been having me practice multitasking and focus."

"Okay, but you're destroying a long-held stereotype." Kaito leaned against the high arm of Hakuba's chair, noting Riku as he moved to hover unobtrusively behind them both.

"How will I ever survive?" Hakuba responded dryly, to snickering from his audience. He glanced at the board briefly, and moved one of the small pyramids to an adjacent hexagon.

"Oh, good move," Yugi interjected, still absorbed by the game. "Do you play strategy games a lot?"

Hakuba nodded. "I usually play chess, so this requires a bit more concentration from sheer oddness factor, but it's interesting."

…You know, if I hadn't seen you last night, I would never believe right now that you could have been in such bad shape. Solomon-san must have been able to really help you a lot.

"So, have you been playing games all day?" he asked with deliberately casual cheerfulness.

"No, in point of fact," Hakuba said mildly as Solomon studied the game. "Solomon-san first caught me up on what I missed last night while I was indisposed. We also spent quite some time establishing the basics of blocking things out, which is relatively simple, and then added games for complexity."

"The more pressure one's mind is under, the more difficult stability becomes," Solomon agreed, placing a small pyramid from his stash onto the board. "Pushing the limits in this manner is significantly easier and safer than the alternative."

"Right. And the gloves?"

Hakuba's gloved hand froze for a split-second above one of the pieces, before exchanging the places of two pyramids next to each other with deceptive nonchalance. Rather than look at his audience, he rested his chin on his hands and watched Solomon assess the board.

"Strong enough emotions leave a temporary imprint on objects, and I have the bad luck of… picking things up… far more strongly through touch. There's no real way to guard sufficiently against potential encounters without succumbing to mental exhaustion, at least for now, so…" he gestured eloquently with a hand. "Gloves."

If a fading imprint left behind on something can be that bad, I'm not even going to ask what running into a person unprepared would be like.

"Okay, gloves are good."

"But not as good as Inverness, I've heard," Joey interjected with a sly grin, diverting the conversation.

Hakuba turned to give Kaito a baleful look. "Kuroba-kun, what have you been telling them?"

"I don't care what your reasons were for wearing that costume when you first showed up in Japan, there were better ways to do it. The thing was ridiculous."

"That was rather the point," the blond countered, placing a final pyramid on the board to complete an unbroken five-piece line across the grid. This apparently won the game, because Solomon shook his head in resignation before clearing the board and placing the first piece for another round. Hakuba continued, "I thought it best to give a first impression which could be underestimated. People make more mistakes that way."

"How very… Poirot of you," Kaito responded after a moment's thought.

"Who?" Mokuba asked, confusion evident in his expression.

"A temperamental Belgian detective written by Agatha Christie, who sometimes played up his behavior quirks so that suspects would misjudge him," Kaito supplied.

"My stratagem worked a bit too well, I'm afraid. Inspector Nakamori and his subordinates failed to take me seriously until—" Hakuba paused for a split-second, recalibrating to hold a conversation in a world where the Kaitou Kid didn't exist and whose absence from common knowledge would blow the secret of other worlds wide open "—I managed to assist in solving several cases. Besides… you, of all people, should understand the various advantages of an outlandish outfit, because Kid can't claim to wear anything else."

"Um, not to sound like a broken record, but who?"

Hakuba glanced at Kaito again, raising an eyebrow. "You mean to say that you found the time to disparage my choice of attire during your little lunch-and-a-kidnapping excursion, but entirely neglected to mention your obsession with the Kaitou Kid?"

"There were other stories." Kaito shrugged, then grinned. "It's far more entertaining to rag on your fashion sense."

"Oh, obviously. Why did I ever doubt?" Hakuba turned back to Mokuba, who had been watching their exchange. "The Kid is a somewhat mad Arséne Lupin analogue: a gentleman phantom thief, who sends riddle-notes to the police predicting his next target, turns a theft into an amalgam of game, public performance, and challenge, and returns what he steals after getting away. His trademark apparel is a white suit, top hat and monocle, with a cape that can be turned into a hang-glider at need — his favorite method of escape. Although impostors occasionally subvert his identity and property destruction appears to be fair game, the Kid has never killed, or even injured, a person. No one chasing him is quite sure exactly what his motives are, or even if he has one."

Despite Hakuba's deliberate mention of Kid's official track record, Kaito couldn't entirely suppress the creeping memory that arose in his mind of silk sliding against skin, when Nightmare's weight pulled his glove off his hand. Having ordered the stress of the last week to take a hike for a while, he had hoped it would work for more than a few hours' peace of mind. Being told that it wasn't his fault didn't help much, so he pulled out a tried-and-true coping mechanism: a Cheshire-cat grin and a blithe comment.

"Hey, you forgot the fangirls."

Mokuba smiled as the older boys snickered. "I can see why you'd like him, Kaito-kun. Is he a story character too?"

Offered the easy way out on a silver platter, and realizing that Hakuba seemed to have purposefully introduced Kid into the conversation at a point where a glaringly large portion of Kaito's life could be discussed in a self-contained context, Kaito decided to take advantage of it and nodded. "My dad came up with the Kid before I was born, and wrote a bunch of capers before eventually putting them in storage. I found the archive a while back, and decided to try my own hand at it. Since Hakuba's a detective back home, he's had to put up with me running ideas by him for plausibility."

"More like implausibility," Hakuba muttered. "No one should be able to flat-out break the laws of physics in a halfway-believable manner."

Kaito blinked. Bend, he had become aware of, particularly when it came to playing the odds. But break?

Hakuba always tended to be keenly precise when it came to using words…

"You'd be surprised what the Shadow Realm can pull off," Joey countered, sitting up on the couch with an intrigued expression. "What kinds of things has he done?"

It's probably bad when I want to know that too, and I'm the one who's been living these so-called fictional events.

Kaito wasn't sure, but he thought he heard a faint ::Oh dear:: whispered in the back of his mind.

"Well," Hakuba said slowly, as Joey's gaze came to rest on him, "let me think. Despite all claims that the Kid is simply a sleight-of-hand magician, there was one heist where a gun-fired suction cup managed to support all of Kid's weight long enough to climb two stories up an attached rope. In another, he appeared out of nowhere atop a flagpole at a baseball game. Multiple cases of changing clothes too fast for the eye to follow, both of himself and of other people. And the first… scenario I proofread… the Kid not only went from full disguise to his trademark suit in the time it took a smoke bomb to dissipate, but he jumped up an entire floor as well."

Joey gave a low whistle. "No wonder you need Hakuba-kun as a proofreader, if you're trying to write this guy as a character without connections to the Shadow Realm."

Yugi nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Your own connection, no matter how faint until just recently, has probably made your idea of 'normal' different from most people's definitions. And if you're not even aware enough of it to compare…"

"You end up with a phantom thief who can do things that the average person simply can't do."

Listening to Hakuba's list and the ensuing commentary, Kaito realized that he wasn't sure how to react. The news that all the things he'd grown up thinking were normal, that anyone could do if they tried, might not be… he settled on feeling numb and buried it behind another smile.

"Well, I hate to leave the party, but I have an appointment with a dragon… Why don't you tell them about the Holmes fanatic that started showing up to chase the Kid, Hakuba-kun?"

Hakuba gave Kaito a look that plainly asked, Why do I put up with you?

Kaito simply grinned back and made a graceful exit to the study, discovering when he went to shut the door that Riku had silently followed him. The younger boy seemed determined to keep him company, so Kaito shrugged and sat in the nearest chair instead, slouching to let his head rest against the top.

I'm still not big on having voices in my head. Is there any way to get you out here without crushing furniture?

::Yes. Our manifestations can be tempered by our summoner's will easily enough.::

Which implied that if he thought small… he pulled Méraud's card from where he'd returned it to the top of his deck, and concentrated.

"Luster Dragon." He wasn't sure if a matter-of-fact tone would make a difference, but apparently it worked well enough. Méraud still seemed to dominate the room, but rather than towering over even Riku's height, she appeared closer to the size of a very large dog, sitting on her haunches with her tail curved around her feet. Kaito noted with interest that while he felt a bit more tired, it was nowhere near the level he had experienced on Himura's world or in the corridor. Not that he had energy to spare…

"So. Care to explain your earlier comment?"

Méraud ducked her head slightly, looking faintly apologetic. ::I'm afraid I simply assumed that you had some idea of what you could do. Being what I am, with the connection to the Shadows that I hold, I failed to realize that someone could use them so naturally and yet be entirely unaware of their presence.:: While the words still seemed to be entering his mind without much input from his ears, the physical presence of the dragon helped make the conversation feel marginally more normal. As normal as a conversation about magic with a mythical creature could be, at any rate.

"How much of what I do is actually sleight-of-hand?"

::From what I have seen, watching you these last few weeks? A great deal of what you consider ordinary sleight-of-hand incorporates Shadow manipulation to some degree, certain tricks more so than others.::

"…Oh." There wasn't really much else to say.

"Is that really so bad?" Riku asked quietly. "Your abilities haven't changed, only your awareness of them."

"I just…" Kaito shook his head. "I always thought I was doing dad's magic."

::The simpler tricks, certainly. As for why you augment your more complicated feats with the Shadows… this is merely conjecture, but did you teach yourself from some sort of notes?::

"…Yeah. My dad's old notebooks." His mother had almost put them away, probably into Kid's secret room, but Kaito had fought to keep them. He'd spent hours in his room, poring over each description, each precious piece of his father's legacy. And he'd stubbornly learned them, one by one, practicing and failing over and over, until something suddenly fell into place…

::From what I know of magicians… most leave out a vital component in their illusions — if they ever write them down at all — so that no one can learn them without their consent.::

…and he figured out how to make the trick actually work. Never exactly the way the instructions seemed to direct, but always close enough, and he'd assumed he'd misread them, or that it was some sort of test. Not that it mattered any more by that point, because he'd figured it out and could move on to the next illusion. It had eventually become almost a game to try to tease out the real meaning from in between the lines, and he could almost see his father's teasing grin when he was stuck and smile of paternal pride when he figured out the trick.

He'd always been so proud when he succeeded, he'd never thought to question the click of something indefinable sliding into place in the back of his mind right before each triumph. And it only made sense that he could always do the tricks perfectly once he'd figured them out. Always, unless he was too tired, but he'd figured that it was because it was harder to concentrate properly then, and it hadn't happened to him since he was fourteen anyway. It was true that that had never really happened with the tricks his father had taught him himself, but that was only to be expected, since he'd known them for longer and had the best teacher in the world for them, right?

And… even if his father had left something out, because now that he thought about it of course he would, he was the best and craftiest of magicians and wouldn't neglect something so basic… Kaito had been the closest to his father out of anyone in the world, right? He'd even been learning some magic from him already. Surely he would have the best chance of knowing him well enough to figure out what he'd left unwritten. His father had probably planned to teach him out of those notebooks himself someday, right? Hadn't he spent enough time scrutinizing every line for hidden clues left for him to figure out what he was really supposed to do? It couldn't have been just because of the Shadows that he had been able to learn what his father left behind, it couldn't possibly be that he would have failed utterly without them to break the rules for him, it couldn't…

It wasn't until he felt Meraud's even, sympathetic gaze and Riku's hand tight on his shoulder that he realized he'd been speaking aloud.

::I cannot say how much of that is true, and what you might have been able to learn without the Shadows. But I can tell you that they are there now.:: She was silent for a moment, allowing him to regain some composure. ::It seems most likely that you unconsciously accessed them to replace or compensate for whatever was missing or altered. If you began very simply and worked up to the more difficult tricks, your subconscious control would have also developed along the way while you remained unaware of the difference. I can imagine no other way to explain how you managed to successfully bend the shadows on your first visit here to reach Mokuba in time without being aware of what, exactly, you were doing.::

"Wait — you're saying even that was the Shadows?" It was nothing more than an edge of extra speed, a twist of will to push himself just enough to stay one step ahead of his pursuers if they got too close for comfort, always there to reach for whenever he needed to get from here to there right away… Oh.

::You wear the Shadows like a second skin, Kaito-kun. The faint blurring of the world as you change clothes in a mere moment, the extra push to make it to that handhold that mundane momentum would have left just beyond reach, the added impetus to grab a second-floor balustrade and the leverage to flip into a sitting position atop it… When you need them, you call, and they come, though they are subtle enough that I suppose it's understandable you haven't noticed their presence before. There's never been a reason for it to occur to you to look.

::So far you've had the good luck of never trying to do something beyond their capacity when your life hinges on the outcome,:: Méraud added, and something in her tone as she finished speaking caught Kaito's attention. He wasn't entirely sure he hadn't imagined it, but he could have sworn her voice had changed subtly as she'd said 'your life'.

Apparently he'd managed to use the Shadows to do anything he'd needed to do… until it wasn't a matter of his life or death anymore.

Horrible suspicion arose to meet with the guilt he'd been trying to suppress and ignore for the past two days, and all other thought processes temporarily ceased as Kaito's mind filled with the memory of Connery's fingers slipping through his grasp filled Kaito's mind. He felt Nightmare's inexorable fall as it pulled his glove off, relentless despite the way he attempted to reach for Connery the way he reached for anything else just beyond his fingertips… The muted thud of flesh and bone against concrete sounded in Kaito's mental landscape just before the scene reset abruptly and then Connery was falling again… and again… and again…

Kaito abruptly came back to awareness with a slightly strangled sound, more than a gasp but not quite a sob, and found himself being shaken.

"Kaito-kun! Snap out of it!" Riku's voice, sounding quite worried, and oddly echoed by Méraud saying the same thing, half a word behind.

"I… I could have… If I'd…" All attempts at coherency were swamped by the giant bubble of riotous emotion welling up in Kaito's chest, but when he reached out and helplessly curled his fingers around thin air in echo of the grip they had been locked into in his memory, Riku seemed to somehow understand, judging by the quiet, heartfelt curse that reached Kaito's ears.

"It's NOT your fault." A firm hand grasped Kaito jaw and forced him to look up, meeting Riku's penetrating gaze. "Everything we've learned about these Shadows indicates that they're for little manipulations of stuff that's around you, not reversing the laws of physics when it comes to another person."

"But…" As much as Kaito desperately wanted to believe that was true, he still found himself wavering.

"Méraud-san, how much weight could the Shadows support?"

::Not much on it's own, perhaps five Newtons—that is, about twenty pounds,:: she amended hastily::if that. They're suited to more subtle adjustments, not tangible force. And in worlds where it's harder to draw on the Shadows at all…::

A sigh. "Get Hakuba-san. Please," Riku added as an afterthought to the command, still not looking away from Kaito.

Kaito immediately ducked his head and curled around bent knees, unable to suppress a shudder. "Don't want him to… not if I could have held him, and didn't… I don't want Hakuba-kun to know I killed Nightmare."

"…I'm going to blame that entirely illogical statement on sleep deprivation and possibly an overactive guilt complex — heaven knows we're too much alike," Riku replied as in the background Méraud's claws fumbled with the doorknob. "Kaito-kun. In the entire time you've known Hakuba-san, has he ever lied to you?"

It took Kaito a moment to think, but then slowly, reluctantly, he shook his head.

"He's not about to lie to you for your peace of mind, then. Furthermore, he's a detective. Death scenes are his specialty. If anyone could give cause of death it would be him, and if he says it wasn't your fault you have to believe him, right? Not to mention he'd be familiar with your native laws of physics, and would be able to determine whether or not anything you could have done would have made a difference."

The litany of words was oddly reassuring, and Kaito felt somewhat calmer when Hakuba followed Méraud into the room. Somewhat. The fading panic had left behind a frozen, dead weight that seemed to constrict his ribcage. Rather than meet the blond's eyes, he stayed curled up in his chair for what little feeling of comfort existed in presenting the world with a smaller target.

Riku turned on Hakuba as soon as the detective had shut the door behind him. "Would twenty pounds of force have been enough to hold up a fully-grown man?"

Hakuba paused and blinked at the apparently random question. "Eh… no. Not by a fair bit, in fact. Why the sudden interest in physics?" Taking in the scene, he approached Kaito's chair with a concerned expression. Funny, that. Hakuba didn't usually show much emotion. He stopped slightly more than an arm's length away, though, so that was normal.

The other objection to Riku's attempt to exonerate him forced its way past Kaito's lips. "But I was anchored. If I wasn't about to go over the edge, why couldn't I hold onto him?"

Despite the personal upheavals of the past few days, Hakuba's impeccable detective skills remained intact. Combining Kaito's behavior, Riku's question, and Méraud's presence with the implications of Kaito's last statement, he came up with an answer that prompted a low growl from his throat.

"What brought this up?" he snapped at Méraud. She mantled slightly in response, but answered calmly.

::Kaito-kun subconsciously manipulates the Shadows. When I told him that their help is what allows him to safely do what he does, he apparently came to the conclusion that because he could use the shadows to protect himself… he should have been able to do the same for Nightmare."

"He seems to have equated the fact that he failed with the idea that he didn't try," Riku added, speaking over Kaito's head.

Hakuba shook his head in exasperation. "Idiot magician. With twenty pounds of force — maximum," he added, glancing at Riku for confirmation, "at your disposal, even flat against the catwalk it's a miracle that you didn't dislocate your shoulder or get pulled over the edge entirely. You would have had no way to brace yourself, and Connery weighed at least half as much again as you do. And…"

He paused for a moment, regarding Kaito thoughtfully with the expression that Kaito absently recognized as the one he wore when some new piece of information had just solved a puzzle for him.

"…That reminds me. I noticed something rather unusual that night, after Riku left." He glanced over at Méraud. "Though the way Connery was holding the glove showed that he'd fallen from a grip on his hand… his shirt cuff was rumpled and stretched, as though he had slipped through a grip on his sleeve"

Méraud nodded solemnly. ::If the Shadows were trying to help him hang on…::

"Which means, if you hadn't noticed, that you did try to save him with everything you had," Hakuba continued, crossing his arms. "Made a damn good effort at it, but there wasn't anything that could be done, even with you being you."

The cold pressure in his chest loosened slightly, and Kaito took a deep, shuddering breath.

"By the time you faced Connery in that warehouse, other factors beyond your control had taken him beyond your reach."

One of Riku's hands gripped Kaito's shoulder almost tight enough to bruise. "You did more than most people could have done. Let it go."

There was a long frozen moment in which Kaito couldn't seem to think properly.

He'd failed. But he had tried, he had done all he could.

And then memory welled up, unbidden, of the moment before the repeating loop that had played behind his eyes of when Nightmare had fallen.

That one moment when he'd had the man in his grip, long enough to tell him to grab on with his other hand. Long enough for him to refuse, clinging blindly to the jewel instead.

If what they were telling him was true, and it was improbable that he'd been able to hold on at all.. perhaps the Shadows hadn't failed him completely. Maybe they'd held just long enough for him to wrest the time for that abbreviated conversation from the laws of physics, to make the offer he might otherwise not have been able to.

Nightmare hadn't taken it, but Kaito had been able to give him the chance, at least.

Something eased, a phantom hand in his mind that even now had still been locked into an empty grip finally relaxing.

…All right.

Kaito nodded, exhaling slowly and consciously letting the guilt in his mind dissipate with it. "I did try."

::And he made his own choices that led him to his fate.::

Kaito nodded again, eyes slipping closed as a tension that had been in his muscles for the past two days finally drained away. He massaged his eye sockets briefly and then forced his eyes open again, not wanting to succumb to sleep just yet.

Not when my current track record for highly disturbing nightmares is two nights out of two.

::I believe it would be best to resume this discussion of the Shadows at a later time. You're exhausted, Kaito-kun.::

"Unsurprisingly, sleeping in a chair is not conducive to rest." Hakuba added dryly before Kaito could respond.

"Kaito-kun…" Riku drew out the name, eyes narrowing in annoyance. "How much did you actually sleep last night?"

"Um…" Kaito ducked his head guiltily. Staying up until the only option left was to pass out from exhaustion only sounded like a good idea when he didn't have to tell anyone else about it.

Risking a quick glance upward, he found himself facing disapproving glares in triplicate from the dragon, detective, and islander.

…They look waaaay too much alike considering Méraud isn't even the same species.

"I was in bed until after you fell asleep…" he answered Riku, but the other boy looked decidedly unimpressed.

"And apparently left it as soon as I was unable to notice."

Hakuba sat down in the study's other chair and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. "I wasn't particularly in a position to think about it this morning, and Riku obviously didn't know, but you seemed to think it advantageous to sleep just outside the study, in a chair of all things. Why?"

"I…"

Kaito couldn't think of a good comeback, which was bizarre. He usually had a blithe response for everything. The lack of a satisfactory answer to two questions in as many minutes was probably part of why, after a few moments, Hakuba's level stare intensified.

"Kuroba-kun…" Hakuba's brow abruptly furrowed, gaze raking Kaito's face. Kaito couldn't entirely suppress a flinch — the blond's expression mirrored Kaito's memory of the dream-Hakuba's searching look from just before he'd died. "How much sleep have you had recently?"

Kaito looked down, deliberately keeping his hands from self-consciously covering his face or rubbing at his eyes again. He'd hidden the dark rings revealing his semi-chronic sleep deprivation from the past few weeks before his mom had woken up yesterday by making strategic use of his disguise kit, but there was no telling how much his face had smudged in the intervening day and a half. And now that Hakuba was actually looking…

"You don't want to know."

"I do, actually, or I wouldn't be asking." Calm, collected, and utterly unyielding as he waited for an answer. "Now that you've stopped being your infuriatingly charismatic self, I can actually see how terrible you look. "

Blasted detectives.

After another few moments of silence, Kaito mentally threw his hands in the air. He'd already been ganged up on once, no one looked willing to give him a break, and he was too exhausted to try bluffing his way out of the situation. "All right." He sighed and looked up at the ceiling to perform some mental calculations. "In the last week and a half… fifty-two hours?"

"You actually took mid-terms on no sleep?" Hakuba demanded, sounding appalled. "And then a heist?"

"Mid-terms and the heist was why I couldn't sleep," Kaito muttered, looking at the floor. "Not if I wanted decent grades this term, and then trying to figure out how to deal with Nightmare…"

"And then Friday night you had your own nightmare to deal with," Riku added, frowning.

"…Quite. But that only gives you more reason to have tried to sleep last night, which brings us back to the matter of the chair."

Kaito met the blond's gaze wearily. What was that English idiom? 'In for a penny, in for a pound'? "It was better to watch you be alive than risk seeing you dead."

Hakuba paused. "The nightmare still bothered you that much?"

"It felt more like a memory than a dream." Kaito grimaced. It still did. Even his nightmares usually faded after a day or so, but he could still recall everything his dream-self had experienced in this one with perfect clarity.

Hakuba rested his chin in one hand, thinking. "Have you ever had a nightmare like this before?"

Kaito shook his head. "Not before Friday."

"Very odd…" Hakuba gave Kaito another scrutinizing look. "Did your strategy work?"

"…Partly. You woke me up out of the beginning, this morning." With some effort, Kaito dredged up a smile for his audience. "It's just a nightmare. While I don't usually have ones that seem this real, it's not like I've never had them before. I'll get over it." If he said it aloud, maybe he could convince his own subconscious of the idea.

"And if I believe that, you'll sell me Cleopatra's Needle, cheap," Hakuba retorted wryly.

Kaito couldn't stop a faint snort of disdain. "I can sell most people the same one three times, and convince them that they've got the complete set."

"Then it's just as well you're dealing with us, then, isn't it? Kuroba-kun…" Hakuba sighed, shook his head. "You need to sleep. You can't function on fumes."

"I've been doing it so far," Kaito objected. "I'm sitting here talking to you, aren't I?"

"You've been managing, barely. Your mental equilibrium is shot and you're in no shape to face surprises of any sort. And even if you can function now, raw as you are, eventually the sleep debt is going to catch up to you."

…I'm good at running.

He looked down, hands curling in the chair cushion. "I don't want to see it again."

"Staying awake until you pass out won't prevent that, as you seem to have proved last night. You need to sleep. And I think I know something that might help…"

Kaito glanced back up, raising an eyebrow. "Dreamless sleep potion?"

Hakuba snickered, while Riku looked vaguely confused. "Something like that, actually. Solomon-san has a vast and varied amount of interesting recipes… several of which came up in his stories this afternoon."

"Given what I know of him, I'm not surprised." It fit the mental picture of Solomon that he'd created almost too well.

"You do like green tea, don't you?"

Kaito smirked faintly. "Not as much as you do, but yeah."

"Good. I'll be back in a bit." Hakuba stood and left the room, closing the door behind him, for which Kaito was grateful. Even natural performers eventually reached their limit for dealing with people, and for the moment Riku and Méraud's unobtrusive silence was about the limit of what he could tolerate. Hakuba had been right when he'd used the term "raw".

Kaito let his head fall against bent knees and closed his eyes, waiting for Hakuba to come back. Trusting Hakuba to help was a new but not entirely unwelcome experience; Kaito just desperately hoped that whatever idea Hakuba had would work.

After a while Hakuba returned bearing a bowl of tea. "Drink."

Kaito flashed a wry smile. "Yes, sensei." Taking a deep breath, he downed the entire thing in one go, ignoring the way it burned faintly at the back of his throat. He could feel himself begin to relax almost immediately and yawned, blinking. "How long till I'm out?"

"I estimate you'll have just enough time to make it upstairs and into bed," Hakuba responded, retrieving the bowl from Kaito's unresisting fingers.

"…Right." Kaito uncurled and pushed himself upright, then promptly staggered into Hakuba as exhaustion and whatever had been in that drink ganged up on his equilibrium with a lead pipe.

Hakuba caught him and slung Kaito's arm over his shoulders, shaking his head. "On second thought, given your current condition… Yuushi-san, could you get his other side?"

::I believe my size may be better suited for that,:: Méraud interjected, snaking gracefully beneath Kaito's other arm before Riku could move. ::Riku-kun is rather taller than both of you.::

"Right. My apologies, I'm still adjusting to the idea that you're solid enough to help get him into bed."

Kaito could feel himself fading fast as they helped support him out the door, navigating the living room furniture and a round of 'good nights' from the others until they reached the bottom of the stairs. Stairs, when he was currently reduced to a groggy shuffle. Kaito glared at the offending incline. "As of this moment, I loathe steps," he declared.

"Would you rather I carry you?" Riku asked from just behind them, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Gah! No." Kaito forced his legs to work through sheer force of will. "Shoulda told me to drink after you got me upstairs," he groused as they ascended, Riku following behind.

"I didn't think it would hit you this hard," Hakuba admitted. "Of course, I should have guessed you'd have no tolerance in this state…"

"What was it?"

"Solomon-san's special tea."

"…Special. Do I even want to know what's in it?"

Hakuba grinned, the first real amusement Kaito'd seen from him since they'd left home. "The pot contains a quarter of a bottle of brandy."

Kaito blinked owlishly, half in disbelief and half to stay awake a bit longer. "An' what else? This isn't drunk." He'd been six when he'd accidentally found his dad's stash of sake, and being insatiably curious, he'd investigated without knowing any better. His parents had agreed that an untreated hangover would be consequence enough. They'd been right.

"The rest of it, I don't know. Some herbal additives. It's supposed to suppress nightmares without suppressing dream sleep."

Kaito considered that. "I didn't know that was possible."

"Yes, well, I rather think it's probably not entirely a scientific method, if you get my drift," Saguru replied, nodding towards Méraud as they finally reached the guest room.

::That is likely,:: she agreed.

"Oh. Cool…" Despite his best efforts, Kaito couldn't fight the effects of the tea any longer. He slumped sideways, Méraud's presence vanishing from beneath his arm as the darkness pulled him under.

My version of Kaito does know how to perform on balance beam, despite that being equipment used for girls' routines. It's easier to pretend a wall is a balance beam than a pommel horse, and when you're the one watching competitions and mimicking performances to make up your routines… Kaito's built for agility and grace rather than strength, anyway. He'd look better on beam than rings or the single bar. As an additional note, gymnastics is part of why Kaito is relatively short and slender, and able to pull off crossdressing disguises.

The game Saguru and Solomon are playing is called Hextris and is played with Icehouse pieces, made by LooneyLabs.

The mug-quote comes from Oscar Levant, while the tea-stereotype quip is mangled from Buffy. Cookies if you can pinpoint the episode and/or the characters speaking.

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