Chapter 8: Lost

Toichi heaved a silent sigh of relief when he saw the girl re-join the other children. He'd had nothing to worry about tonight after all... His eyes scanned the room.

They scanned again.

He stiffened and hastily searched the room a third time, with no sign of the distinguished messy brown hair of his child in the crowd.

"Kaito?" He whispered quietly before breaking into a brisk, fast-paced, long-stridden walk around the room. When he searched the place once again and found no sign of his son backstage, under the tables, behind the bar, or hanging from the chandelier, he quickly approached one of the magician's assistants.

"Excuse me, Aki-chan," he said, going straight for the one he knew best, a young girl of only twenty-five who had, for a time, served as an assistant under him. "Have you seen Kaito-kun around? He appears to have wondered off again, the little rascal." Toichi said this with a calm and gentlemanly smile, but for once, he couldn't stop his heart from racing.

Aki returned the smile and nodded. "Yes, he went with Master Minamoto after the show to see his private fish collection. He should be back by now though; Minamoto-sama already left in his RV, so Kaito-botchama is probably around here somewhere." She turned to look around the room, glancing about for the young boy. When she turned back to look at him, her smile instantly fell. "K-Kuroba-sama? Are you okay? Did something happen?!" She sounded slightly panicked herself at this point.

Toichi hadn't realized it, but at some point his ever-present smirk had fallen into a look of barely-suppressed terror. In all the years that Aki had known him, she had never seen Toichi look anything less than perfectly charming and in-control. To see his calm demeanor slip now, she knew, must mean something truly horrible, beyond comprehension, was happening.

Toichi forced a smile back onto his face, and it was the most difficult smile he'd ever forced out of himself. "Excuse me," he said with a slight bow, walking as calmly and quickly as he could manage, trying not to draw more attention to himself, Aki watching him as he went with a deeply worried expression on her face.

As soon as Toichi made it into the service hallway he bolted, first to the valet room to nab his keys so that he wouldn't have to wait for the valet driver to ever-so-slowly bring his car around, and then to the parking lot, easily spotting his stark white 1969 Alfa Romeo Spider amongst the other cars. The keys were in the ignition before he'd even settled into the seat, the engine roaring to life. He let up on the clutch hard and fast, the car shooting off as he swerved it onto the streets, not bothering with his seat-belt.

He pulled out his monocle and adjusted some settings, making visuals appear on his eye-piece. Thank God he'd thought to put a tracker on Kaito's clothing; a habit he'd formed some time ago after losing Kaito in a crowd one-too-many times.

As soon as a direction was shown and his course was set he sped up, flipping a switch to exchange the license plates on the car, which now read simply "Kaitou 1412" so that he wouldn't have to worry about police or cameras trying to catch a glimpse of his license plate and track him down as he drove far-too-fast and yet not nearly fast enough down the highways. And of course, to ensure that no camera nor witness saw the famed magician Kuroba Toichi streaking through the night with a monocle on in a white car brandishing license plates of "Kaitou 1412," he pulled at his clothes, moments later through a flurry of fabric revealing himself in a white attire, his milky cape flowing out behind him as it was caught in the swift-moving winds which shifted over the roof and into the exposed cabin of the convertible. There was no time to stop and close the roof; there was no time for anything. All he could do was drive and pray to every deity he'd ever heard of that his son would be alright.

His speed hit 160km/hr. He pushed faster.

A/N: 160km/hr roughly equates to 100mph.