Taliya

A resurrected phantom thief and a disillusioned biochemist meet on a rooftop one moonlit night just before a very permanent attempt at a defection in the ranks.  Rated for discussion of suicide and language.

Rules: Give a spoiler (in any form) about your fic/a fic you like, but don't provide any context in any way, shape, or form.

Tagged by @circumference-pie. I tag @artistfingers, @blenderfullasarcasm, @helloitstrash, @kuroko99, @schwarzkal, and @thrushsong-kvaris.

With that being said, an itty-bitty snippet from my unpublished DCMK fic Deadeye:

He ambled up to a worn but well-maintained grave, bearing a bouquet of chamomile, dianthus, ivy, ranunculus, chrysanthemum, plumeria, clover, and thyme—all white and green.  He had even gone searching for four-leaved clovers on his walks in the local parks to include them in his bouquet.  He used his free hand to brush off fallen leaves and dust from the stone monument bearing the names of those of the Kuroba family, eyes studying the names carved into the polished surface.  The latest to be added were “Kuroba Kaito,” and—it still weirded him out to see it—“Takagi Wataru.”

It was strange to see his own name inscribed into the tombstone, but during the time that Kaito had been alive, he had dedicated his life to teaching Wataru how to live unobtrusively, rebuilding Wataru’s life into something that could be indefinitely sustained now that Pandora had merged with his flesh.  Their marriage had been borne out of convenience rather than love, though with time they had grown inevitably fond of each other in a platonic sense.  Neither had felt the need to be intimate with each other, though they had taken comfort in the presence of the other in the bed through cuddles and hugs.

Wataru placed the bouquet in the space designated for flowers and stuck three sticks of incense into the small bowl of sand, lighting them and offering a prayer.  Being the older of the two, his funeral had occurred first since neither of them had wanted his lack of physical aging to be discovered.  Kaito had become a widower at fifty, while Wataru had apparently passed away in his sleep via stroke at fifty-nine.  Wataru had then been forced to live on his own, putting to use everything that Kaito had taught him in order to completely become someone else.

It had been terrifying, learning to live on his own as someone not himself.  But he had been beyond grateful that his new persona was able to become “friends” with Kaito so that the phantom thief could continue to help him with identity problems as they cropped up, and when he had to “leave” again after ten years, it was easier to restart his life a second time, then a third time.  It had been tremendously difficult when Kaito had passed at the ripe, old age of ninety-seven, decades after ensuring that the Syndicate after Pandora had been dismantled with the help of one Kudou Shinichi, decades after hanging up the hat and cape of Kaitou KID for good.

Today marked the tenth anniversary of Kuroba Kaito’s death, and Wataru without fail had made the pilgrimage every year to his husband’s final resting place in Nerima.  He currently lived in Kasugai, a city north of Nagoya.  Before that had been Maebashi, and before that, Utsunomiya, Chiba, Ibaraki, and Tochigi.  The moves had been strategic, chosen so that his chances of encountering his former coworkers with the police were slim, yet he was relatively close enough to Ekoda for Kaito to come by if he absolutely needed help.  Wataru knew that now, most of his colleagues had likely passed, and he could move back into his old neighborhood if he felt so inclined.  But being in his old stomping grounds was bound to bring up memories for him that he was even now not yet sure he could face, Satou Miwako being prominent among them.

Kaitou KID managed to steal an actual magical gem, though not the one he had been looking for. And he certainly had not expected to be caught—much less by a mythical demon lord, of all things. Rated for language and mild violence.

Reflexes were the only thing that saved Heiji from being sliced through the ribs as the guard lunged for his side with a powerful uppercut.  The contact of steel on steel rang through the courtyard, the harsh vibrations buzzing through his bones.  Heiji gritted his teeth and defended himself as his opponent pressed his lack of offense, sweat beading on his brow despite the fact that his breath fogged the air before his eyes.

“Attack, you bastard,” the guard growled quietly, trying to get a rise out of Heiji in order to get a better handle on his skills.

Heiji clenched his jaw and refused to take the bait, continuing to lose ground in keen awareness of the fact that if he attacked, he could seriously harm his opponent.  A flash of violent ki was the only warning he had before he ducked to the side of his opponent to counter the newcomer into their fight: the gold-eyed shadow he had not originally sensed in the room before.  Heiji gasped at the sheer power in the strike despite the deceptively lithe frame but managed to hang onto his sword as he engaged his newest opponent.  The guard he had originally been engaged with had stepped aside to watch, and Heiji felt he was barely managing to counter each strike, acutely aware that his reflexes were slowly but surely beginning to fail him as every parry grew increasingly sloppy.

A particularly strong hit had his sword flying and the air whistled as the next strike came straight for his neck, and Heiji slammed his eyes shut in preparation for the killing blow.

“Stop.”

Heiji carefully peeled one eye open to find the edge of the katana a hair’s breadth away from his neck, those merciless gold eyes gazing intently at him.  His opponent abruptly pulled back and sheathed his blade as a round of impressed murmurs sprang up from the observers.

“Himura-san,” Katsura said, “your assessment?”

The gold-eyed man, Himura, sheathed his sword.  “Well trained in Maniwa Nen-ryuu to have lasted as long as he had against me,” was the blunt reply.

Heiji was too out of sorts to take offense at the slight to his kendo skills, his body shaking with adrenaline and stress to really absorb Katsura and Himura’s conversation.

“Then he shall be paired with you, Himura-san,” Katsura deemed.  At Himura’s surprised spluttering, Katsura continued, “Hattori-san has enough skill to take on the others if he so desires, and so you shall be the one to supervise him.”

At the pronouncement, a low rumble of jeers went up.

“He’s going to die hanging around him.”

“Bet he will last a month.”

“At least it’s not me rooming with the mankiller.”

“Battousai’s got a new walking corpse to practice on.”

As the men’s comments filtered into his ears as they dispersed, Heiji felt his blood freeze at their words.

Mankiller.

Battousai.

Post-heist on All Hallows’ Eve, Kaitou KID contemplates the masks both he and other people wear, and how it changes the person wearing them.  An unexpected but not unwelcome companion finds him, and the two deliberate over just how damaging masks can be.  Rated for language.

“What are they holding over you?”

Kuroba had started to drop by Shinichi’s house with alarming frequency after that first afternoon.  He would show up at all hours of the day, wandering in and out of his house.  Thankfully, he did not seem to have any kleptomaniac tendencies.

The assassin snorted at Shinichi’s question from where he lounged on a couch in his study, staring up at the ceiling.  “They’ve made it so that I primarily get dopamine rushes during my jobs, ergo, I’ve come to crave them like an addict to cocaine.”

Shinichi scratched his head, pausing in his work to give his attention to his unexpected houseguest.  “How is that possible?”

“That chip I mentioned?” Kuroba answered, tapping his temple, “It has wires that reach into my hypothalamus and pituitary gland, so they can control my hormones to a certain extent as well.”  He smiled nastily.  “Imagine having a raging boner for hours in which nothing you do will relieve it just because some douche canoe decided it’d be funny to watch you squirm in discomfort, or said twat decided to repeatedly trigger your fight or flight instincts to the point you pass out from hyperventilation because dickface’s scientist buddies wanted to collect data on what human hormone tolerances were.”  His eyes glittered with unrestrained malice as he twisted to level a look at the detective.  “Tell me that it’s a sin to murder those fuckers after all the shit they’ve put me through,” he said in both challenge and threat.

.

.

.

Saguru found himself ensconced on Kuroba’s living room sofa and wrapped in a soft throw blanket before he could blink.  “Kuroba-kun, I—”

“If you say, ‘I’m fine,’ one more time, I’m going to tie you to that sofa so that you don’t do anything stupid,” was the magician’s retort from the kitchen, where he was clattering away doing something.  He returned bearing a tray of tea, which he poured for the both of them.  Peppermint.

The “Thank you,” Saguru gave to Kuroba was very subdued as he accepted his cup and took a sip while hunching into himself.  He studiously avoided the magician’s gaze, unsure if there was a way to explain, or even put his jumbled thoughts into coherent phrases.

His great uncle had all but ordered at hit, and if the unapologetic way he had demanded it was proof, then it was a command he had requested multiple times.  And what gem had he been talking about?  The blood drained from his face as his eyes went from staring at his socked, slipper-clad feet to Kuroba in mounting horror.  Was what Renya-ji after the same thing Kaitou KID was searching for?  And did that mean…

… did that mean that Renya-ji was the one after KID’s life?

“Hakuba, you’re scaring me.”

Saguru could do nothing more than stare sightlessly past the phantom thief, his mind locked in shocked horror.  Distantly he heard a thin whimper as his vision blurred and darkened, and suddenly Kuroba’s face was all he could see, concern writ on his face as warm hands braced both sides of his head.  It took him several belated moments to realize the sound was coming from him.

“Hakuba, relax, you’re hyperventilating!”   Kuroba leaned his forehead against his own and closed his eyes, warm breath fanning over his face in slow, steady waves, and it was only then that Saguru realized how fast his shallow panting was in comparison.  “Come on, Hakuba, follow me, breathe.”

He forced himself to focus on the controlled rush of the phantom thief’s breaths, closing his eyes and copying him shakily, tears squeezing out of his shut eyelids.  His exhales still contained wobbly whimpers, an audible reminder of how deeply shaken he was as he gripped Kuroba’s wrists to ground himself.

“That’s it,” Kuroba sighed, “You’re doing fine.  Just keep following.”

Sometime later, Saguru felt a little more grounded, if no less unmoored by his personal revelations.  He finally came back to himself only to find Kuroba knelt before him, hands grasping his own with a searching look on his face.  “Back with me?”

The headache he had when consciousness returned to him was exponentially worse than the one he originally had post-KID heist.  He hissed, wrinkling his nose in discomfort and moved a hand to press against his temple—

—or would have, had his hands not been bound behind his back.  Heiji sharply sucked in a breath as he snapped to full awareness.  Itchy tatami fibers pressed against his cheek, his left shoulder and neck ached from lying on his side with no support whatsoever, and a twitch of his legs revealed that his ankles had been similarly bound.

The room he came to in him was… rustic in design and execution.  By his estimation, the space was approximately three meters by two and a half, and the four and a half tatami mats spread across the floor confirmed his guestimate.  The walls were made of fusuma panels save one side comprised instead of shoji panels, all of which were unadorned, and the interior was marginally warmed by a single hibachi.  An unused futon lay folded in a corner, and a wide table held several candles bright enough to illuminate the room, his cell phone, and the Violet Winter—the amethyst comb that had been KID’s objective.  Heiji had, after one of the first heists he had attended, gotten into the habit of not keeping his housekeys or wallet on him, as KID had pickpocketed him while he had been knocked out by gas and had shipped the two items back to him via Cheetah Delivery Service using a post office box number.  The box had included a giant KID signature on it.

There were three men scattered about the room, one seated at the table, the other two leaned against the walls, all of whom he could sense by ki.  “I see you have awoken, Hattori Heiji-san.”  The sitting man wearing a haori, kosode, jūban, hakama, and tabi in monochrome black and white.  His face was familiar, and yet Heiji knew with absolute certainty that he had never met this man before in his life.  The man calmly took a sip of his tea, delicately picking up the Violet Winter and studying it.  “This was found tangled in your hair, though I must say that this particular woman’s hair accessory does not quite match your clothing…”  The man’s eyes swiveled from the comb to Heiji himself.  “May I ask where your attire came from, Hattori-san?”

Heiji debated whether or not to tell the truth as he glanced down at his rumpled shirt clothing.  The fabrics used to make his clothing were modern blends of polyester, nylon, and cotton; none of that existed here.  Nowhere in his Japanese history classes had there ever been any mention of someone going back in time—which meant he had to lie about his origins—and yet he knew how terrible of a liar he was.  This was going to go over badly.  He already knew that.  However, he sidestepped the question by cautiously asking, “Where am I?  And what is the date?”

“You are in Kyōto, and it is the first month of the Japanese imperial year 2523,” the man answered.

Japanese imperial year…?  His history lessons from primary school drifted through his mind, where one of the lesson activities had been to convert Common Era year of birth into Japanese imperial years.  659 was added to the Common Era year of birth, resulting in a year of birth in the Common Era.  So, subtracting 659 from 2523 means the year is… 1864.  And if I am in Kyōto in 1864, that means…  Heiji blanched.  Bakumatsu.

The violent, bloody final years before the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

The time when the leaders of both the shogunate and nationalist forces were routinely assassinated.

Which then begged the question of who the man sipping tea before him was.  He recalled someone mentioning a “Katsura-san” and racked his brain for important historical figures.  There was only one man in the history books mentioned during that time period with that surname.  Add in the style and color of his clothing, as well as the fact that he suddenly recalled seeing this man’s face in his textbooks in fuzzy black and white photographs, Heiji could only conclude with no small amount of horror that he was rather disgracefully hogtied in front of the legendary Chōshū Ishin-Shishi leader, Katsura Kogorō.

“Five Choume, Five Higashishinagawa in Shinagawa.  Two o’clock today.  Be there or your bitch of a wife earns two new holes in her skull.”

“Gin,” Shinichi had snarled, instantly recognizing the voice of the speaker on the other end of the line.  He had immediately had the line traced, but Gin hung up before the trace could be completed.  Swearing, Shinichi had torn out of the building with his entire unit on his heels, desperate to reach the mentioned location before the appointed time as he threw himself into his car, slapped a siren light on his ceiling, and burned rubber tearing out of the parking lot.

It was 1:51.  He would not make it.  It would take a minimum of twelve minutes to get there, not including traffic and Shinichi was not going make it.

“Ran,” he whimpered, her name a plea and a prayer.  “Please don’t leave me…”

He had needed to illegally cut through traffic, run a few red and yellow lights, and speed well over the specified speed limit, but he had made it.  His team was far behind him, though he had faith they were not too far behind.  But he made it to the dockyard in record time, his watch reading 1:59.

“RAN!” he screamed, throwing himself out of his car.  “GIN, WHERE ARE YOU?”  His phone rang, and he picked up with a snarled, “Where’s my wife?!”

“Warehouse to your left,” replied Gin coolly.

Shinichi sprinted towards the indicated warehouse, uncaring of how Gin knew his location.  He slammed the heavy metal door open, eyes taking a moment to adjust from the bright sunniness of the outside to the dim warehouse interior right as a church bell tower chimed the hour in the distance.  In conjunction with the bells’ chimes came the echoing cacophony of a firearm discharge and a truncated, muffled shriek.

The detective’s eyes adjusted to the darkness just in time to see Ran’s bound form jerk and keel over.  “No…” he mumbled in denial, eyes wide and unable to process what he was seeing.  “No…  Ran…”  He staggered forwards, compelled towards her despite his suddenly unsteady balance, uncaring of the fact that Gin stood not half a meter from his wife’s still form, lowing a gun from where Ran’s head had been.  A slowly widening halo of blood, flecked with bits of bone and brain matter, pooled about her head, soaking Ran’s hair and clothing.

Shinichi broke into an off kilter run, skidding on his knees on the concrete and uncaring if his shins now bore similarities to grated cheese.  “Ran!” he cried, violently shaking hands carefully turning her head to face him.  Ran’s eyes were half-lidded with dilated pupils.  Her mouth had been taped shut with duct tape, and she had been bound hand and foot by sturdy nylon rope to ensure she had no way of protecting herself.

The bullet had entered the right side of her skull above her ear.  The exit wound had destroyed the area around her left ear entirely, leaving her jaw awkwardly misaligned.

“Ran…” Shinichi choked, sitting her prone form up and tenderly embracing her still body.  He rocked with her for a moment before his furious, vengeful gaze narrowed on her killer.  “Gin,” he hissed.

Gin had remained silent throughout the one-sided exchange, calmly smoking his cigarette.  “What a touching reunion, don’t you think, Kudou Shinichi?” he mocked as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.

Shinichi laid Ran carefully on the ground and stood, his gaze sharp enough to kill.  He made to grab his police-issued firearm but froze.  He realized at that exact moment that he had no weapon: in his mad rush to find Ran, he had forgotten to snag it from where it was currently locked in a drawer in his desk.

Kuroba Kaito had long known that something had changed about his childhood friend Nakamori Aoko ever since she had woken up from a coma when they were young—though he had never been able to pinpoint what exactly had changed.  But one moonlit night transforms everything about their relationship and how they see each other. Rated for death and explicit language.

“Sherlock Holmes was largely based off a young man whom I met by chance.  The gentleman fascinated me, and I wanted to at least attempt capturing his abilities both intellectually and physically.  He had requested from the beginning that I not reveal his name, but had I not ever met the lad, Sherlock Holmes might have never come to be.”

-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, from How Skeletons Tell Stories: A Biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

---

Hakuba Saguru groaned, his head pulsing in time with his heartbeat.  The last thing he remembered before the eyeball-searing light and the concussive wave of sound was Kaitou KID’s frightened yell as he shielded himself as best as he could from the impending explosion.  Saguru had not expected a sniper’s bullet to shatter the Anesidorian Hope, which was a large, raw amethyst spear that was, coincidentally, the target of the phantom thief’s heist that night.  The violet gemstone point had still been in its stand, though KID had removed the protective case.  Saguru had been in the process of attempting to grab the thief, who had hopped nimbly out of reach, when the amethyst had been struck.  He had backpedaled as fast as he could, somehow instinctively aware that the gem was somehow going to detonate.

“Awake yet, lad?” asked a voice in, to his addled mind, very oddly accented English in response to Saguru’s rasping groan as he woke up.  “I wagered you’d be up half an hour ago.”

I’m getting there, hold your bloody horses! was what he snippily wanted to say.  However, all that Saguru was able to manage was a muffled, “Ngh…”  Saguru pried his eyelids open, squinting at the warm sunlight that lit the room he was in with a warm, amber glow.  A dimly lit plasterwork ceiling detailed in gold greeted him, followed by the face of a portly, late-twenties man with sandy brown hair and the thickest mustache that he had seen in a while.

His style of dress was reminiscent of the turn of England’s twentieth century.  He wore a white button up with a four-in-hand knotted tie in black.  White waistcoat and black trousers completed the look, from what he could see from his vantage point on the bed he was lying on.  “Who are you?  And where am I?”

The mustached man huffed.  “Arthur Doyle.  You’re currently in my house in South Norwood.  How’re you feeling?”

“Like my head’s about to explo—”  Saguru froze mid-sentence and reached up a hand to press it against his face, struggling to reconstruct a coherent sequence of events.  Perhaps the explosion had rattled his brain more than he had initially believed if the first thing his mind had latched onto was the fact that this man’s name was the same as that of his favorite author.  “… Arthur Conan Doyle…?”

The man stared askance at him.  “By Jove, how in the world did you guess my middle name, boy?” he asked in surprise.

“Hakuba?”  Saguru froze, fervently wishing Kuroba would ignore him and feeling his stomach turn to lead as he heard footsteps approaching from behind.  “What are you doing here?”

“I—” he began and then stopped, brain unable to come up with a decent excuse on the fly.  “It’s nothing.  I—I got lost.  Goodbye,” he mumbled, and began a very brisk, very nervous walk away.

Kuroba’s footsteps followed him.  “Got lost?” the magician echoed with doubt oozing from his voice, “How the hell did you get lost at eight in the evening and end up in front of my door?”

Saguru sped up his pace.  “An error in judgment,” he forced out, struggling to control his mounting panic, “I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking.”  His mental commentary muttered, Or not thinking at all.

“Hakuba,” Kuroba called again, and this time his classmate hooked a hand around his elbow, forcing Saguru to about-face.  Kuroba’s eyes studied his, a frown wrinkling his brow as he asked, “Are you really okay?”  There was not a single trace of his usual mischief in those eyes.  “You’re shaking.”

Saguru’s eyes darted down to where Kuroba’s hand lay on his arm.  With excessive care, he gently pried the phantom thief’s hand off.  “I’m—fine,” he squeezed out, pushing down the rising tide of anxiety within his chest.  He needed to leave now.  “Have a good eve—”

Pandora’s gift of eternity was an accident.  Wataru discovers this little tidbit after he had been pronounced dead.  And KID helps a new immortal with the aftermath.  Rated for character death and language. Loose sequel to Insanity Welcomes Everybody, Apparently.

Happy Pride Month, everyone. :)

Kuroba Kaito never imagined in his wildest dreams that a shaken and frazzled Hakuba Saguru would somehow end up on his doorstep because, somehow, he had been the only one the blond had felt he could turn to in his time of need.

Dawn found Kaito sleepily shutting off the vibrating alarm on his phone and stretching himself while half tangled in his duvet, groaning out a yawn as he mumbled, “I really don’t want to go to work...”  He blinked muzzy eyes open and spotted a blanketed lump on his floor with tufts of gold strands sticking out from one end.  Hakuba, his brain sluggishly informed him, is sleeping on my floor.  Deciding that unpacking that statement was too much work for his brain at five-thirty in the morning, the brunet slid out of the warmth of his bed and silently slumped into his bathroom.

As Kaito washed his face, the lukewarm water that had not quite fully warmed up woke him up more.   Hakuba came to me last night after being slapped in the face by his father for refusing an arranged marriage.  Even having had all night to chew over the blond’s situation, Kaito still found it difficult to believe that stuffy, proper Hakuba had been ousted from his father’s house—for rebelling, no less!