Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito.
Oneshot Thirty-Four
Desperate Resolutions
The door had been pathetically easy to open.
Secreting his lock picking tools away, he tugged at the brim of his hat, checking to ensure that it still hung low over his face. Satisfied that his identity was safe, he stepped into the detective agency, and upon shutting the door behind him there was no light left to see by save for what little came through the windows.
Upon entering the agency though, it was the reek of smoke that first impressed itself upon him. The smell was stale, but had imbued itself into the very walls and furnishings. It clung unsavorily to the roof of his mouth, and his face twisted into a deeply displeased expression at the memories of the past few months that the odor stirred up.
He inhaled deeply to calm himself, but doing so only brought another lungful of the polluted air into himself. Head swimming – the shades of many voices indistinct from one another, all biting metal and scorched earth – the intruder stumbled forward and slumped against a wall.
As he composed himself, poker face, poker face, and breathed through his mouth, he could hear shuffling from further within. The footfalls were almost imperceptible, tiny tip-taps that were drawing nearer.
No doubt Tantei-kun, come to investigate whatever change in the environment clued him in to the presence of someone who should not be there.
To face the strange – uncanny – child now seemed impossible.
That was what poker face was for, though.
Straightening up, he settled his face into that of calm – pieces clicking into place like the meaningless parts of a puzzle forming a coherent picture – and waited for the one he had come to visit. The building was more tolerable now that he was no longer breathing through his nose, but the lingering taste in his mouth – real or imagined, it mattered not – still made him feel nauseous.
A restrained cough tickled his throat.
The footsteps had paused, and he frowned. Was Tantei-kun doubting his own sharp sense for anomalies?
Quickly coming to a decision and taking a risk, he strode over to the desk and – oh? He plucked a couple of objects up from it, raising an eyebrow as he saw that they were none other than the wristwatch and bowtie that were the little detective's own trade tools. Rather careless of him, someone might just come along and snatch them.
Despite himself, a wry smile quirked at the corners of his lips, and he stashed the two items into his pants pocket.
Still listening carefully, he shuffled some of the papers on the desk – let whoever found it think what they would – and was satisfied by the whisper of the loose leaves in the near-silence of the room.
Hearing the faint footsteps return, he stopped what he was doing and turned to face the door that was in the direction they were coming from.
He saw the small figure halt as he came into the room, hand still wrapped around the doorknob. Behind his glasses – and the home invader took a moment to wonder if Tantei-kun actually slept in them – eyes widened at the sight before him.
A thrill of trepidation shot through his body, was he seriously going to do this looped through his head like a mantra, but he only smiled crookedly at his tiniest rival and gave him a lazy wave.
Kaito reminded himself that there was no going back. There was too much at stake. It wasn't as if the boy was much of a child anyway, with the body count around him and those too-knowing eyes. And the deadly elements after Tantei-kun would be far less kind than himself.
He was too mired now. He had to become gritty from here on out, abrasive enough to shuck off their enemies.
Line Break
He had thought he had heard – or maybe felt – something. A dull vibration of sorts. It was enough to draw him out of sleep to investigate.
But no, it was probably nothing.
Until the sound of rustling papers had made his revise this opinion and lead him to his current position.
Conan gaped.
Burglar! He first jumped to, only for a second glance to pin the strange man as Kaitou KID. Sure, he wasn't wearing his trademark white suit, and the upper half of his face was mostly concealed by the hat he wore and the shadows pooled beneath it, but he the shrunken detective had been engaged in challenge with the thief enough times that slight details were enough to give him away. The shape of his jaw – eerily familiar for reasons he couldn't place – and the strands of disheveled hair spilling out from his cap were the main clues along with his height and body build.
Actually, he hadn't been far off with that initial assumption.
"Kaitou KID." His eyes narrowed at him. What kind of game was the criminal playing, disappearing without warning months ago only to show up here and now? Conan reached for his wrist, only to jerk back as his fingers met nothing but skin. Aghast, he looked and saw that his watch was missing from its usual place. He rigidly redirected his attention to KID.
"What are you doing here?"
Kaitou KID reached into a pocket of his cargo pants with a hand, which he then withdrew and held up. Conan could just barely make out his tranquilizer wristwatch and voice-changing bowtie dangling from his clutch.
"Give those back!" The not-child slapped his hands to his mouth as he realized he had spoken louder than intended, not wanting the other two inhabitants of the detective agency to awake and find him confronted by the missing gentleman thief, disguised in dark but nondescript clothes though he was.
Waving the inventions by their bands before tucking them away once more, a mirthless smirk was the only answer.
A shudder skulked its way down Conan's back as a sense of wrongness struck him at the gesture. Taking a step backwards, his gaze roamed the phantom criminal, noting the changes wrought upon him. He opened his mouth to speak, only to find that words abandoned him as he truly saw KID.
He had a too-lean, hungry look to him, the gaunt hallows of his cheeks making him seem far older than he had been before his disappearance from the public view, and his shoulders hunched slightly forwards like a stalking big cat. When he spoke, his voice sounded raw as if by sickness.
"Shut up."
The thief moved too quickly, a single bound enough to cross the distance between the two.
Lithe fingers clasped Conan's jaw with painful force, palm coming to rest over the boy's mouth.
Conan stilled. This was not the Kaitou KID he recalled.
His mouth worked against the gloves, useless in making a sound but enough to discover a few more details. Gasoline saturated the leather, slicking his lips and making his head spin with its noxious odor. There was a coarser patch of texture. Attempting to gasp in protest as the other hand came to grip a sizeable tuft of hair and yank his head back, knees nearly buckling under the surprise, he could just barely taste fresh blood mixed with the fuel.
"I said, shut up. I swear on my father's grave, I will put you to sleep if you don't stop it this instant, which will be very inconvenient for the both of us." KID's voice was almost sibilant in its hushed tones, ghosting across the top of Conan's head. The young detective dared to open his eyes and glare up at his captor. The yellow-orange glow of the city lights filtering as thin bars through the window blinds limned the unnaturally sharp features and cast a strange tint to what sallow skin they touched upon. The result was grotesque, like a wicked storybook goblin come to life.
For a moment, Conan almost felt like the child that he appeared to be.
Tongue stinging painfully, he wondered if he bit it. He tore his gaze away, attempting to direct it around the room in a bid for an idea to come to mind, but was distracted as the fingers exerted more pressure and forced him to keep his attention on the hounded magician.
He was definitely feeling a headache from the overpowering reek of gasoline.
Warily, he nodded, and felt the harsh hold release. Opening his mouth and spitting out a glob of fluid (too dark in the night gloom, could have been gasoline or blood, just saliva, or even all of them) he then found a chain of handkerchiefs gagging him, followed by more of them trussing up his limbs.
"Too familiar with your antics to risk it," KID explained in response to the muffled indignant sound he received for this, and Conan thought he might have detected an apology beneath the gruffness that the thief spoke with. Then an arm wrapped around his midsection, hoisting him up and belly facing down to the floor.
Kaitou KID wasted no time. Not a moment later he was taking long strides out, and Conan could feel his kidnapper's frame quivering ever so slightly with what was obviously a barely suppressed urge to break out into a sprint. As they were leaving the agency, a thought struck the boy and he wriggled frantically in KID's clutch to grab his attention, canting his head at the shoes near the door. Understanding his intent, the thief stooped down and snatched up Conan's power-shoes.
The winter air nipping his feet and the skin clad only in pajamas, the reality of his kidnapping set in for the first time. Giving the thief a querying stare – was he actually serious about this, though there was no doubt in Conan's mind that he was – only for KID to seemingly sense it, he was subject to a smile that was small and grim.
"Just like old times, isn't it, Tantei-kun?"
Incapable of replying, Conan merely continued to stare, observing the taut lines on the visible lower half of the thief's face.
"But nothing will ever be the same again," said Kaitou KID softly to himself.
A/N: Was in a dramatic mood when I wrote this. But I do have a plot bunny for this installment. (Just probably won't write it – which is a shame, since I especially like the backstory.)