Detective Conan and Magic Kaito characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō.

TMPD Antics

By Taliya

LXI: Kuroba and Hattori

The lights within the gallery blinked off for two seconds, then flickered back on. Heiji warily spun on his heel, the sleeves of his keikogi and legs of his hakama flaring around him, eyes searching for the figure in white. Heiji had decided to forgo the bogu, as the Osakan knew he would need maximum visual range and mobility when it came to dealing with the phantom thief.

"Looking for this?" Kaitou KID stood on nothing in the far corner of the room halfway between the floor and the ceiling, and with a snap, procured the daishou from whatever nebulous pockets he had hidden on his person. The katana spun on its midpoint in concert with the wakizashi, the former just high enough above the latter so as not to collide midair, slowing so that KID gracefully plucked the pair from where they eventually hovered lazily.

A quick glance at the display case revealed that the paired swords were, indeed, missing. "Get your ass down here, KID!" Heiji shouted, swinging his bokken into the ready position, weight balanced on the balls of his feet.

The phantom thief raised a brow in question as he nonchalantly tucked the wakizashi into his belt and proceeded to unsheathe and examine the blade of the katana after inspecting the topaz embedded in the kashira. "Why?" he asked tauntingly, amused laughter threading through his voice. "So you can beat me up with that little stick of yours?"

Off to the side, Heiji noticed in his peripheral vision both Shinichi and Saguru, as well as a few Task Force members, stifling sniggers at KID's remark. I'll show you "little stick," he mentally snarled. "I'll turn you black and blue," he claimed boastfully, "unless you're too much of a coward to come down and face me."

KID paused in his scrutiny of the blade's edge, eyes flicking up to regard the detective with a serious gaze despite the grin still frozen upon his lips. "You should not say such words to someone who holds a live blade when you are armed only with bamboo," he remonstrated, an odd tenseness to his voice. Sheathing the katana with what appeared to be a practiced, easy snap, he tied it with a traditional knot to his belt before repeating the exercise with the wakizashi and situating them so that he looked like some very eccentric and badly dressed samurai. "Do you really believe I am afraid of you?" There was amusement mixed with a hint of derision woven into his playful, lilting cadence.

"Is there a reason you're still up there and not down here?" was Heiji's mocking rejoinder.

The blur of white was the only means of marking the passing of Kaitou KID from his descent to the floor. The silver of the katana flashed in a single, smooth arc, slicing cleanly through the bamboo of Heiji's bokken. The Osakan had already leapt reflexively backwards and out of reach of the weapon, but KID was faster as he followed through with his first strike. The katana's blade whistled through the air to rest lightly against the homicide detective's throat, the honed edge scraping delicately against his skin even as the wakizashi's point nudged the small of his back.

There was a dangerous glint in the eye behind the monocle as the thief angled his head to gaze at him from under the shadowy brim of his hat. "You were saying, Tantei-han?" KID purred darkly.

Author's Note: And we now have an irritated KID. Good luck, Heiji. The kashira is the end pommel of the katana's hilt. But right now, Heiji versus KID: FIGHT! I hope you enjoyed it.

Completed: 01.02.2016