Chapter Text
Notes: I don’t know what I’m doing. DCMK is haaard. Well, actually, DC is impossible, so I’m going with MK. The 1412 anime, to be specific, but also with maybe some of the specials stuff.
Fun fact, in Japanese there’s no ambiguity between Kaito’s magician tricks (magic in katakana) and Akako’s real magic (mahou). It’s freaking annoying in English tho. The Crunchyroll subs try to work around this by calling real magic “sorcery,” but it’s awkward.
~.~.~
ARC 1: Kaito and the luck of Black
Chapter 1: You’re a wizard, Kaito
Conan’s lips thinned as he stared, squinting, at his vibrating cellphone. The incoming call was from an unknown number, which was enough to make him feel a twinge of paranoia already. But the real issue was the time. Why was an unknown number calling him in the middle of the night? It had to be past midnight already. They were lucky he’d turned the volume off, so it didn’t wake up Kogoro, who was still snoring up on his bed.
It was tempting to let it go to voicemail and deal with it in the morning, but Shinichi hadn’t gotten this far in life by avoiding confrontation (for better or for worse).
Conan accepted the call silently, intent on at least getting something to go off by letting the unknown caller speak first... Not that it mattered because he wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise even if he’d tried.
“Meitantei!” a familiar someone wailed on the other end.
‘Oh, it’s just him,’ Conan thought, his unacknowledged feelings of paranoia deflating completely.
He didn’t bother wondering how or why Kaitou KID had acquired his number. It was unfortunately all too possible that KID, criminal degenerate that he was, had just swiped his phone at a heist and returned it before Conan managed to notice. He wouldn’t pretend that KID’s sleight of hand wasn’t on that level.
“Meitantei, it’s terrible!” KID went on without pause, while Conan scrambled to lower the call volume. “I did magic! I’m a, a fraud!”
“...what,” Conan said blankly. They were ten words into this conversation, and his head already hurt. “Pretty sure that’s a requirement for being a magician, yeah.”
“No, that’s not it! I don’t mean illusions, not like... magic tricks. I mean real magic! Sorcery! All this time... what if everything wasn’t my skills, but actually—”
KID rambled on, almost as if he had forgotten that he had an audience — one that consisted of his rival who wanted to see him in handcuffs and would use any sign of weakness ruthlessly to get him there. ...That being said, Conan wasn’t sure whether this potential weakness was even worth it. He yawned, squinting at the shadowed walls of the bedroom unhappily. The urge to hang up was overpowering.
“Are you drunk?” Conan cut over KID’s babbling. “There’s no such thing as ‘real magic,’ and you’ve never done any.”
“But what if—”
“I know because I’ve seen through all your tricks,” Conan went on, ignoring all attempts to interrupt. “It was all completely logical, no unexplainable parts. It was all your showy tricks. So drink some water and go to sleep, you stupid criminal. You’re not old enough to have alcohol to begin with.”
Or so Conan assumed. He was fairly sure KID was younger than 20, but it wasn’t entirely certain.
The silence from the other end mostly confirmed his estimate. More troubling, there was also something that Conan dearly hoped wasn’t a sniffle. “Yeah,” KID agreed finally. “You did see through my best tricks... so far! I’ll show you something even more amazing next time — just for my favorite critic!”
His tone had evened out into the familiar teasing drawl. It was a shame he couldn't see his critic’s unimpressed face. Even Conan couldn’t make his silence convey the right level of judging.
“I hope you remember this in the morning, so I can mock you for it,” he said, and hung up unceremoniously.
Shuffling back over to his futon, Conan slipped under the unfortunately cooled blanket. ‘Unbelievable,’ he thought huffily. ‘The things I have to put up with...’
If KID was resorting to drunk dialing a gradeschooler, he really needed more friends.
~.~.~
The grin he had instinctively put up to go with his teasing slid off Kaito’s face as he lowered his cell phone. With the call disconnected, the screen automatically dimmed and shut off.
Still, at least his head was clearer now.
Clear enough for mortification to start edging out panic, somewhat. ‘I can’t believe I did that,’ he thought, burying his face in his hands with a heartfelt groan. ‘He thought I was drunk. Or insane. I can’t believe he didn’t hang up right away.’
Because, frankly, it wasn’t like he and Edogawa Conan were friends. At best, they were rivals, but even then, they only crossed paths rarely, each occupied in their own circles and stories, where the other did not belong. Kaito had only swiped his number on a whim a while back.
But maybe that was the reason Kaito had called him specifically. Because Conan wouldn’t be adding this to his mental tally of ‘why Kuroba Kaito is actually Kaitou KID’ like Hakuba. Because Kaito wouldn’t have to face him in the morning like Aoko. Because he didn’t know the significance of Kaito’s illusionist-magic like Jii... and what it meant if Kaito had been, all along—
Cheating. Not really a magician, not really using his skills, but rather some crazy sorcery that just made his will come true.
His magic, the magic Kaito had learned from his father, was his pride. It was his life. Just the thought that maybe it had never been real made his heart start pounding fearfully again.
‘Calm down, stupid,’ Kaito scolded himself. ‘Tantei-kun was right. He saw through all my illusions and that means they were just that. There wasn’t any sorcery there.’
And maybe Conan hadn’t been at most of Kaito’s heists, but he had been at some of his biggest and the ones he was most proud of. Who would have thought he’d be glad to have such a picky, cynical critic?
But.
Conan was wrong, too. Magic — sorcery — did exist. There were things that couldn’t be explained by logic or waves away as chance. And no matter how much Kaito wanted to dismiss it as Akako messing with him, he knew...
That scene...
It had been just a small heist, and Kaito hadn’t even bothered planning anything special, since the jewel owner had kept the notice private and decided to rely on their personal security — while out of the country themselves, no less. Honestly, it had been kind of insulting how little the businessman who owned the ruby Heavenly Camelia cared about Kaitou KID’s warning.
So Kaito had lacked the motivation for more than sneaking in, putting the guards to sleep, and cracking the locked display case. He had been on his way out, ruby in hand, when it happened.
Akako appeared, in her full witch regalia.
That was never a good sign, in Kaito’s experience. In fact, it was a very bad sign, and the roulette of “date or kill” that Akako was always spinning seemed to be stuck very firmly on “kill.”
Kaito hadn’t even had the breath to spare on pithy remarks as he dodged crows and the fistfuls of violet flame that AKako hurled at him. The fire had been painfully eal and hot where it managed to wing him. Silhouetted be the moon through the wide skylight that made up most of the display room’s ceiling, Akako had smiled in triumph and anticipation.
Typical witch stuff, but Kaito had never quite managed to adjust to it, at least not as much as to being shot at.
“There’s nowhere to run this time!” she called out, the ever shifting platform of crows at her feet cawing like a Greek chorus. “Lucifer told me — here, your tricks won’t help you. You will show me your true power!”
‘Again with Lucifer?’ Kaito thought.
But he didn’t let his annoyance show. Poker face, poker face...
“I’m always happy to put on a special show for such a beautiful lady,” he said instead, smirking.
“A show? As if I care about tricks like that,” Akako sneered. “I always knew that the paltry games of magicians couldn’t have matched the power of my sorcery, so I couldn’t understand... how were you able to escape me time and time again?”
‘Escape? I totally won all those times,’ Kaito sulked. Outwardly, he smirked and bowed. If he could keep her monologuing just a bit longer, he might be able to find some way out... This is what he got for taking it easy and not preparing properly even for a simple heist. He could already feel the lecture from Jii and his mom looming over him.
“But Lucifer finally revealed to me the reason!” Akako declared. “It’s because you wield the power of sorcery as well!”
Kaito choked. ‘Like hell! Learn to handle losing!!’
He didn’t say that. Poker face... but also Akako really would kill him if he did.
“I’m flattered,” — he was not, actually he was kind of insulted — “but everything has been just the humble skill of a great magician,” Kaito said. And to illustrate his point, he slipped out a red rose and held it out toward Akako.
But for once, the witch didn’t seem annoyed by his disagreement or his “tricks.”
She chuckled. “Maybe you’re not aware of it yourself, but it’s true. That’s why I will draw out that power here and now!”
Her laughter rang out, too loud and ominous for a sound Kaito generally mocked in his mind, as she thrust one arm up toward the skylight overhead. She said something else too — an incantation? — but he voice was drowned out by the sudden boom of thunder. Glass shattered as lightning crashed down from the clear night sky and through the skylight to strike in several bolts around the perimeter of the display room.
Kaito had jumped away instinctively, toward the center, but that was a mistake. The lightning had never been the real danger.
No, the danger was the mass of thick glass and metal beams of the skylight, broken loose by Akako’s magic and now plummeting down onto his head. It twisted, breaking as it fell — passing Akako harmlessly as her crows surged up to shield her from the shards that would have struck her. But Kaito...
There was no time to run. In the blank half-second he had, his mind flipped frantically through his arsenal, but nothing would be enough. There was nothing, and then it was too late. The only thing he could do was throw his arms over his head and pray desperately for a miracle.
Glass and steel crashed to the floor with a deafening clamor, followed by a silence that left Kaito’s ears ringing.
‘...Huh?’
Something was strange. Where was the impact? Nothing hurt.
Hesitantly, he opened one eye and peered around. The display room had become a disaster zone, the cases and stands all broken, the floor covered in debris, some of the glass shards even stabbed into the carpet. It made a shudder go down Kaito’s spine imagining what it would have been like to get hit by that.
...So why hadn’t he been hit? Tilting his head down, he looked around himself, at his feet.
There was glass and rubble there too, same as everywhere else — until it stopped. Abruptly, in a perfect circle around him, the floor was completely clear. As if it had been covered or protected by something. But— Kaito looked up. Overhead, there was nothing but the empty night sky, nothing that could have shielded him.
Coincidences existed. Sometimes, you just got lucky. He’d had his share of close misses. But.
Swallowing heavily, Kaito took a step back, and another. Glass crunched underfoot, making him freeze. Sitting overhead on a throne of birds, the witch began to laugh again.
“S-shut up!” Kaito snapped, too off balance to project his usual unconcerned manner. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but this doesn’t prove anything! I don’t have any creepy powers like you — and I don’t need them!”
Akako’s laughter cut off sharply, but the narrowed gaze she leveled at him wasn’t angry. If anything, she looked mockingly amused — sure of her victory, whatever it entailed.
“Is that so?” she asked without expecting an answer. “Even though those creepy powers saved you just now, and on Valentine’s, and doubtlessly many other times as well?”
“And I’m telling you,” Kaito interrupted, shaking his head and trying to force back on at least a shadow of his usual smirk, “I don’t have any powers like that. I would have noticed if something like that happened at my heists. But there wasn’t anything. No purple fire, no crazy lightning, no magic birds. No witchy stuff at all. Just admit you lost to a magician, Koizumi. It’s okay, I’m not an ordinary guy, even without any powers...”
Akako was still smiling. “Black magic,” she said, non sequitur. “It’s different from my Red magic. Instead of binding spirits to a crimson contract, Black magic alters fate to the most auspicious path.” She tilted her head, her gaze boring into him. “In other words, creating uck. You’ve always been very lucky, haven’t you? Kuroba-kun.”
‘This is stupid! You’re just making up whatever you want!’ Kaito thought a little hysterically.
The witch didn’t wait for him to protest again. With a wave of her hand, several crows separated from her flock and — twisted, changing shape into something sharp and sword-like.
Cursing under his breath, Kaito jumped back, into the clearer space by the wall. He only just managed to avoid the black crow-blades shooting at him — the last one only by sheer luck when his foot slipped a little and he stumbled just in time.
Luck...
Akako wasn’t holding back. Each attack had gouged deep into the thick wall, sending rubble flying. ‘I need to get out of here before she kills me for real,’ Kaito thought. ‘An exit, an exit...’
If only it was that simple. The only door was on the other side of the display room. That was hardly an insurmountable distance, but Kaito could feel himself slipping into panic, little by little. He needed a way out and quickly.
An ominous cracking sound made him tense and spin around just in time to see a thick fissure creep up the damaged wall behind him. He quickly pulled back the hand he had rested on it, as spider webs of cracks spread from the deep holes Akako had drilled into it. The wall groaned and, in the next moment, collapsed. Cool air breezed through the gap left behind, just large enough for Kaito to slip through.
He thought he heard Akako start to laugh again behind him, but he didn’t let himself hesitate. Leaping through into the night air outside and snapping open his glider, he fled.
The gem was still in his pocket, but it hadn't felt much like a victory at all.
~.~.~
Once safely alone in his hidden workshop, Kaito had managed to spiral himself into a full panic. Because... what if she was right? There was a limit to luck and coincidence, and standing in the single spot that remained clear of the glass and rubble? Having an escape route open up just as he needed it? And for that matter, snow just in time to put out Akako’s magic circle back when they first faced each other...
Akako might have been a witch, but she was too straightforward — too narrow minded — to try some kind of mindgame on him. She hadn't caused those things herself to unsettle him, and she genuinely believe what she had said.
And Kaito... couldn’t quite deny it, even though he wanted to. At the very least, it felt entirely too possible.
Hence the panicked midnight call to a (fake) six year old. Embarrassing as it was, looking back at it, it had calmed him enough to at least think, which might have been what Kaito had been hoping for to begin with. Conan had also been entirely sure in what he said, rejecting the very idea of Kaito doing anything that wasn’t the skilled trick of a magician, enough that Kaito couldn’t disbelieve him either.
He’d have to do something nice for the tiniest detective later. (Although wasn’t it interesting that ‘Conan’ denied the existence of magic altogether, so categorically, implying that whatever had put him in that state had been... not.)
Realizing he was just distracting himself, Kaito heaved a sigh.
He needed to decide what he would do. What would be his next step? Confront Akako again to get some answers? Kaito winced. Answers from her? Unlikely. But he couldn’t just pretend nothing had happened either. And that left only one option. There was, after all, only one other person who was aware of magic in Kaito’s (limited) social circle.
No matter how much he didn’t want to, Kaito was going to have to ask Jii.
~.~.~