A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I hope the action sequences and my attempts to build suspense were successful, I don't usually write detective fiction.

Face in the Photograph
Chapter 2

The Kaitou Kid fought hard to suppress his laughter and keep his voice level. He knew better than to tempt the fates but the opportunity to antagonize Inspector Nakamori was just too tempting to ignore. What was the fun of being on a heist with Nakamori as your audience if you couldn't have a little fun with him? There was a very good reason why the Kid, both his father and himself, went out of their way to deliver theft notices to Aoko's father whenever they could. It was surely a mutual love of parading the answer to Inspector Nakamori's problems in front of his blind eyes. This was just one more thing that the thieves had in common but Kaito wondered if his father had passed on the hobby of teasing the police or if it was simply something that ran in the family. Sort of a package deal that came with being a Kuroba and a phantom thief.

'Not that it matters,' Kaito thought with a mental shrug as he strolled up to Nakamori and tapped him on the shoulder. 'It's not like the genius detectives are going to be able to mess up tonight's performance, so I might as well enjoy myself!'

"Inspector! I'd like moment of your time, if you don't mind." Kaito said in the thin, watery tones of the museum director.

"What IS it?! The Kid could show up at any moment!" Nakamori snapped.

Kaito recoiled from the venom in the policeman's voice and choked down his laughter, concealing it as a nervous coughing fit. "Are you sure that you will be able to stop the Kaitou Kid? It seems like you've called an awful lot of men to handle a single thief."

"The Kid is no ordinary thief!" Nakamori snarled, "He's been the bane of my existence for over a decade!"

"My, it must be embarrassing to keep losing to one man..." He murmured and shuffled away from the fuming inspector. "In any case, the best of luck to you."

Inspector Nakamori decided at that moment that he should take the chance to fully articulate his opinions of the thief in white and nosey people that doubted his abilities. Both thieves and nosey directors should be wise enough to keep themselves as far from the police during an operation as humanly possible if they wanted to avoid some unpleasant consequences. Also, if said people could not keep themselves out of trouble then they had better make themselves useful because they would otherwise find themselves spending the rest of the evening at the police station.

Kaito decided that this was probably a very good time to get some distance between himself and Nakamori. This decision had nothing to do with fear of the inspector since Kaito could have spent all evening provoking him, but rather, there was a very important appointment that he could not be late for.

There was a certain professionalism involved with being a good phantom thief that he embraced for reasons that appealed to both his own personal pride as well as the yearning to live up to the legacy that his father had begun. The Kaitou Kid that the world knew was played by Kuroba Toichi; Kuroba Kaito was just an understudy filling the role in the lead actor's regrettable absence. The confusion didn't bother him, it certainly helped in his meetings with Kaitou hunters, but there were times that Kaito wished that there were people that could recognize the difference between the first and second phantom thief. He couldn't believe that out of all the people that hunted and studied the Kid, not one would notice the differences in their performances and draw attention to it. Kaito prided himself in his ability to mimic his father's methods and style when necessary but he also knew that many of the tricks that he used were new, original things invented by the second Kid that the first would never have used.

If Kaito knew what kind of tricks the first used.

There were only a handful of people that knew the Kaitou Kid's performances no longer starred Kuroba Toichi, but the son, Kaito. It was no great surprise to learn that these same people were the ones that Kaito respected and encouraged to participate in his other life... with the exception of Akako since she, quite frankly, scared the daylights out of him and liked to show up uninvited even when Kaito wanted to keep a nice safe distance between them at all times.

The hands of the aged bronze clock in the museum's main hall crept laboriously towards the promised hour, reminding Kaito that this was not the time to be worrying about the past when there were still many things in the present that needed to be taken care of.

It was a simple matter to exit from the hall, slipping past the patrolling officers and hired security guards, and walk towards the hidden inner rooms of the museum. Kaito walked with the purposeful stride of the museum director and firmly ignored any and all people that tried to engage him in conversation. The way you carried yourself when you moved made a world of difference in how people perceive you and he was one of the leading experts in the field of deception. It was as easy as acting like you knew where you were going and what you were doing to convince most people that it wasn't worth their time to bother you. Couple that with the disguise of a museum director with a hobby of engaging people in excruciatingly long, one-sided conversations about the past and it was like having a pass to explore any part of the museum without interruption.

This made the job of getting to the locked storage room where tonight's target was kept, much easier.

Nakamori's police were set up in the main hall to protect the gem on display but that was not the one that the Kaitou Kid was after. It was a very beautiful stone that Kaito made a mental note to steal at some later date but the one he was after had just been rotated out of the show in preparation for an exhibition of several ancient European pieces. The exhibit was the commence in a week but the other pieces had yet to arrive so the gem had been locked away in the safest room in the museum.

'Not that it matters,' Kaito thought as he turned the last corner before the storage room. 'Nakamori-kun must have thought that increasing the amount of patrols would be able to make up for the lack of a real strategy created by someone that thinks like me.'

Kaito almost found it insulting how so many people kept on underestimating the Kaitou Kid's abilities and intelligence. They were dealing with the legendary International Criminal 1412, the Kuroba's, and not some average thief with average skill that could never attract the kind of infamy that they did.

'...that I do,' Kaito reminded himself.

It was amusing in a really cynical and non-daytime-Kaito sort of way. The police never seemed to learn from their frequent encounters with the phantom thief and persisted in using rehashed versions of the same old plans that might have worked on the previous Kid. While it probably seemed like a good idea, the only problem was it was that he wasn't the same Kaitou Kid. It had only taken Kudo a single meeting to understand Kaito's methods enough to seriously jeopardize an important heist and that was what drew Kaito's interest.

The magician passed an open invitation to Kudo's friends some time later in hopes of attracting his attention and was rewarded with a child's interference. Only, this child called himself Edogawa Conan even though he thought and acted like Kudo. Conan had even used knowledge of the Kid's tricks and methods gained from Kudo's first encounter at the clock tower. It didn't take Kaito too long to do some research and find out the truth behind Kudo's disappearance and Conan's appearance. The shrunken detective was very good at causing trouble during a heist but his lack of expertise in phantom thieves showed. Kaito wouldn't hesitate to use the same kind of trick in front of a critical audience if he was absolutely confidant of his ability to deceive them.

'Regularly butting heads with the so-called genius kaitou specialist really forces you to think on your feet. I suppose I should thank Hakuba for that, at least.' Kaito snickered as he knelt before the locked door. 'Although he won't appreciate being used as practice for other great detectives.'

Kaito admitted to himself that with a famous kaitou detective as your regular opponent, a famous murder detective paled slightly in comparison. The other detective would need to fine another edge to give him a notable advantage over either the thief or the kaitou detective, unless Kudo was withholding something during their battles. It was in that respect that Hakuba had proven himself as the most dangerous. But regardless of whoever was his opponent, Kaito knew he had to be careful. He was, after all, still dealing with geniuses in the art of making a thief's life that much more difficult.

'And speaking of being careful,' Kaito shook the thoughts from his head and rummaged in his pockets for the key-card he had prepared earlier. 'It's almost time for me to make my appearance. This isn't the time to go drifting off into space.'

He raised a white-gloved hand and swiped the card through the electronic key lock only to have the mechanism beep negatively at him. Kaito frowned and tried swiping the card slower, hope that was all it was going to take to get the lock to recognize his duplicate as the original and waited impatiently. If the system didn't hurry up and read the damn card and let him into the room to get to the gem, then somebody was going to see him and ask what he was doing. It was going to be very difficult to convince the police that the museum director was unable to get his own keys to work on this night.

A small thread of fear snuck into Kaito's mind with relative ease as the thief thought about the possibility that he made a mistake when creating the card. Kaito had performed as the Kid in this particular museum before but had failed to escape with the target due to a certain British detective's inference. Now, the owners had taken to making last minute changes and upgrades to the security systems before and after big exhibits to complicate the Kid's plans. These electronic locks were also new and Kaito did not have the chance to study them in detail before the heist.

Actually, Kaito had Inspector Nakamori himself to thank for passing on this vital piece of information.

Kaito was over at the Nakamori's house to return some books he had borrowed from Aoko for a school project when he overheard a conversation as he was passing the kitchen. It was Aoko's father and, as the lack of profanities in his language indicated, he was on the phone with someone important. Nakamori was confirming that the necessary changes to the museum's internal security system would not interfere with police operations. Luck must have been on Kaito's side that day because as skilled as the magician was at manufacturing and maintaining tools and gadgets for his work as the Kid, bypassing electronic key-locks on the spot was not one of Kaito's fortes.

A fact that was making itself painfully clear as the lock repeatedly informed him.

'I should have checked it before I left.' Kaito growled irritably.

The card was stuffed it into a pocket with one hand while a screwdriver was removed from another pocket with the other. He sucked in a deep breath, held it for a second, then released it while forcing calm onto his mind and purging the tension from his body. He couldn't afford to lose his concentration while he was working. Kaito noted that his hands shook slightly from nerves stretched taut with the irritation of having one of his tools fail him and took another breath. It took a third second before he was able to discard the concerns of Kaito and adopt the cold and analytical mind that was part and parcel of the Kaitou Kid's poker face.

'There.' Kaito opened his eyes and refocused on the electronic key-lock, quickly pushing away the annoyance of losing his concentration during the heist again. It was a good thing that he only had Nakamori and the police to worry about since the teen detectives would have capitalized on Kaito's distraction already. 'If the card isn't going to work, then I'll just have to rewire this thing and bypass the electronic lock.'

He froze. Down the hall came the echo of footsteps. One...two... four people. One the hired security guards' patrols. From the sound of the intervals, they should arrive at his location in less than a minute. Damn it. Kaito turned back to the door and removed the screws from the faceplate in quick movements that wasted no time.

Because it was almost eleven pm and Kaito was almost out of time.

Echoing down the hall came the first loud reverberating bong of the museum clock as it began to mark the countdown to the eleventh hour. Kaito ripped the face plate from the lock and hastily placed it and the screwdriver on the ground. Dexterous fingers pushed into the mass of wire and plastic, searching for and extracting the thin green board that controlled the electronics.

The clock struck a second time and Kaito examined the board, relieved to discover that he recognized the type. He stripped the colourful plastic casings from the wires, cut a couple and twisted the ends together before reconnecting one wire to the board with a piece of copper wire. The guards' footsteps were getting louder.

The clock struck a third time. The card was swiped through the mechanism once more and the door finally unlocked. Kaito stuffed the wire cutters, screwdriver and card away while hastily applying some adhesive tape to the sides of the face plate before jamming it back into position with his free hand.

The clock struck a fourth time and Kaito pushed open the door to the storage room to rush inside. He turned quickly and slid the door shut soundlessly as he heard the sound of the security patrol rounding the corner. He tried to lock the door but found that his tampering prevented the door from closing properly so he conjured up a small rose to wedge into the space between the lock and the door, temporarily holding it shut.

By the time the museum clock had struck a fifth time, the phantom thief already had goggles in place to examine the infrared laser trip-wires. There was no time to plan things out, Kaito had to trust his skill and instincts as he began to weave through the invisible net with heart pounding. This was going to be close.

The clock struck a sixth time and Kaito slipped, miscalculating the distance between the laser trip-wires. He caught his breath is an anxious hiss while his heart pounded in his chest, adrenaline chasing through his veins like a drug. The Kaitou Kid desperately fought to regain his balance. He grit his teeth and threw his weight backwards while leaping high enough to clear the wire at his ankles, the thief's mind frantically recalculating angles and positions.

Kaito landed in a crouch and waited.

The seventh chime of the museum's clock was drowned out by a deafening clamour of alarms. The Kaitou Kid swore internally at his slip but automatically buried his emotions deep inside. This wasn't the time to be worrying. Kaito allowed nothing to show on his face as he crossed the final metres and reached for the display case holding tonight's target.

'Nakamori-kun and the Kaitou Task Force will be here any moment.'

The clock struck an eighth time and the thief was twisting the thin metal picks in the depths of the single key lock. Kaito was almost disappointed that this was the last line of defence for the gem, even if he was currently appreciative of final obstacle's simplicity during this stage of the heist. It took another second and a quick twist of the wrist to release the internal mechanisms.

The Kaitou Kid was already reaching inside the case to retrieve the jewel when the clock struck for the ninth time. The sloppiness of the performance up to this point was a definite setback and Kaito knew that he only had himself to blame for getting lazy. However, the Kid had the target so he allowed himself the luxury of admiring the jewel before tucking it safely away into a hidden pocket in his vest.

'Now, it's time salvage this night by making a clean exit.' Kaito mused with a mocking grin. 'I can't let these mistakes shake me.'

The clock struck a tenth time and the Kaitou Kid was relocking the display case. A cheeky "thank you" note with the scribbled caricature of the Kid was left in the jewel's place on the velvet cushion. Kaito was in a hurry but that didn't mean that he was going to completely abandon his showmanship. And with that task completed, the Kaitou Kid hurried towards the only exit from the room.

The clock struck an eleventh time.

The museum was plunged into darkness.

The Kaitou Kid swore and glared at the ceiling in a mixture of bewilderment and trepidation. Cutting the electricity was not something planned by him. In fact, Kaito thought he was using that trick too often lately and had decided to leave the electrical grid alone for a while to mix things up. This was certainly not his doing, so who was it? He doubted that a black out be so perfectly timed with his notice and getaway to be a mere coincidence.

Somebody must have shut off the power.

The possibility of Inspector Nakamori being behind the confusion was entertained briefly before being discarded. As much as Kaito liked to scoff at the police's intelligence, Nakamori learned from previous encounters with the Kaitou Kid that doing something as foolish as cutting the power during his operation could only assist the thief's efforts. It couldn't be Nakamori or one of his men. It had to be someone else.

'Could one of those detectives be here...?' Kaito shook his head and discarded the idea. That idea was as likely as Nakamori being behind the power outages, unless the inspector accidentally overloaded the power grid with too many search lights. The thief pulled his attention back to the matter at hand.

"What's going on here?" Kaito murmured. He knew that Kudo, or rather, Conan, wouldn't be allowed to come to the museum on his own and he heard nothing about the famous Sleeping Kogoro attending this performance. Kudo's rival, that Great Detective of the West was... well... in the West and nowhere near Ekoda. And Hakuba was still missing... but Kaito resolved to deal what that particular problem later.

'No doubt Nakamori-kun and his men think that this is all my fault.' Kaito smiled as he pulled out his third disguise of the evening. 'In any case, there's no reason why I shouldn't take advantage of this blackout. Hey, it saves me the trouble of coming up with my own way to escape from the Task Force.'

The easy grin never faded from Kaito's face as his hands moved quickly to replace the Kaitou Kid with an anonymous officer on loan from another department to take part in the latest Kid hunt. It was true that the power outage could prove to be very advantageous to the thief due to the coincidental timing and if Kaito didn't know better, he would have assumed that he was behind it as well. The museum lost power less than ten seconds after Kaito set off the alarms and so the police would either assume that the Kid made a mistake before he appeared, or not notice at all.

But in this chaos, it was more likely that the discrepancy in timing would be forgotten since the backup generators had not been activated yet. They were taking too long to restore the power and Nakamori would never allow such an elementary mistake to happen without outside interference. The generators were probably sabotaged.

"Damn it, who's interfering with my heist?"

All of the Kaitou's senses were on high alert as he crept towards the door and pressed his back against the cold cement wall. Worries about showmanship and putting on a good performance were laid aside as greater concerns made themselves known. He knew better than to draw unnecessary attention to himself when people dangerous enough to murder his father were around.

Gloved fingers lightly ran over the space between the door and the frame to examine the locking mechanism. It would appear that Kaito's previous modifications to the lock kept the safety mechanism from sealing the room when the power was cut.

This was very lucky for the thief for several reasons.

The storage room was too deep inside the museum complex for any artificial light from the streets to illuminate the inside of the halls. Everything was dark, so dark that it was hard to tell if it was caused by a problem with the lights or a problem with his eyesight. It would take another minute or two before his eyes would fully adjust to the difference in light and so he had to depend on his other senses until then.

Deep in the pit of his stomach, the thief knew that he was rapidly losing control over the situation, the night, the performance, everything. Everything was going wrong and now a third party entered the equation to further complicate things. Kaito feared the worst but he knew that he needed a lot more information before beginning to form a theory about what went wrong. All the same, while he trusted his abilities and was assured of his exceptional skills at improvisation, it was going to be difficult to maintain the illusion of control.

Kaito's fingers slid along the space in the doorframe while he thought, searching for the silk flower he used earlier to hold the door shut while he crossed the room.

Maintaining the illusion of control, Kaito remembered his father telling him once, was one of the most important and difficult things for a performer to learn. Even if you could keep any panic from showing on your face it would be worthless if your actions told a completely different story. It was like an advanced version of the Poker Face that Kaito had enough trouble mastering on its own, without anything extra to worry about. To be considered a truly skilled performer like his father, Kaito needed to be able to maintain the illusion of being in control in all situations, especially ones that created a lot of internal and external distractions.

The reason Toichi spent so much time teaching his son these lessons was because, sometimes, the illusion of being in control of a situation can be as powerful as actually having it. Magicians needed to be able to trick people into thinking that they the masters of the stage and their actions. If a person was able to radiate enough authority, the chance that somebody would find a reason to contradict you at that moment would be decreased.

Of course, the young Kaito didn't quite understand all of that so Toichi said to him: "In short, showing no uncertainty makes it easier to convince people to suspend their disbelief and get caught up in the magic woven by people like you and me. A good magician needs to be able to fool their audience in any situation."

'There it is.' Kaito smiled, trailing his fingers over the small silk flower. 'Well dad, this situation is really going to test my skills.'

Kaito pulled the door open a couple centimetres to allow the first muffled pieces of information about the situation to enter the room.

There were the distant sounds of clattering footsteps, shouting from several people, replies hollered back and more running. The distinct and harsh crackle of white noise as a radio was activated and a voice, a young man trying to sound calm, demanding to be briefed on the current situation and to receive updated orders. A reply came but most of the words were drowned out in the distortion.

The more experienced officers were easily distinguished from the younger and hired security officers patrolling the halls due to the differences in the anxiety heard in their voices. Some voices remained calm and even as they radioed in their position and situation to Nakamori and whoever else was organizing the operation while others answered in short, anxious phrases. There were quite a few people in the museum that weren't regulars on the Kaitou Kid Task Force. This would make it much easier for Kaito to misdirect the police to slip outside. All it would take is a false identification of the Kid.

'Hmm? It sounds like the patrols are leaving in the area in a hurry...' Kaito waited for the footsteps and conversations to fully fade away. 'Nakamori-kun must have called them back.'

This was a good time for the Kid to make his escape, he just had to join the crowd of officers heading for Nakamori's position in the main hall before sneaking away to an exit. The roof would probably be the nearest exit from his current position but it would also be the exit that had the most surveillance so the front door would probably be best.

The feeling that something was not quite right prevented Kaito from rushing out of the room, even though he knew that staying put was just as dangerous. His instincts were screaming for caution, telling him to tread quickly but quietly here since he had just awoke from a pleasant dream to find himself in a den of sleeping lions. If he made a mistake now, all of the effort up to this point would be wasted.

He had to move.

Now.

Kaito reached into his vest under his jacket and removed the card gun from its holster before easing the door open, but only just enough for him to slip into the hall. Empty. The hall was completely empty. He ran soundlessly through the darkened halls and hesitated when the he reached the last turn before returning to the public areas of the museum. The gun was eased just far enough around the corner to allowed the thief to see down the adjoining hall in the reflection.

Nothing.

Kaito calmed his racing heart and focused his attention on the background sounds. He could hear the footsteps and voices and movements of the people that as they hurried away from Kaito's position. It would seem that some were trying to restore the power to the building while others were hurrying back to their positions to wait for the thief in white to appear.

'No, wait.' Deep blue eyes narrowed behind the Kid's monocle as he listened longer to the pieces of conversation.

The police weren't waiting for the Kid to appear during their patrols since they received a report that the someone had been spotted inside the newest wing of the museum. If Kaito had been unable to enter through the front door, he would have taken advantage security flaws in the new wing due to the construction to enter. Whoever it was, they were doing a good job of causing a commotion.

'Oh well,' Kaito shrugged and straightened the jacket of his police uniform. 'I guess the roof really is out of the question. I don't want to get mixed up in the mess if the other guy ends up being another international thief after the same thing I am.'

He turned away from his original route towards the roof to enter the main hall, if he had to leave through the front doors then he might as well find out what was going on from Inspector Nakamori. Kaito was determined to find out what Nakamori was planning to do to the Kid and the other intruder and if the inspector had any other unpleasant surprises waiting for the thief. If all of these events ended up being part of a very elaborate feint to catch the phantom thief's attention and lure him out so the police could finally catch him, Kaito would be happy to add Nakamori to his short list of "people I need to worry about making my life more difficult."

'After, of course, the Kaitou Kid escapes again with the jewel.' Kaito thought with an inward grin as he moved to join the small gathering of officers in front of Nakamori.

"Sir! The power has been cut from the all surrounding buildings in a one block radius, it's not just the museum that has been effected." An officer near the front saluted nervously.

"What could the Kid be thinking? This isn't like his usual style at all..."

Kaito recognized the voice of the speaker. It was a young man that possessed exceptionally sharp eyes and wits, enabling him to see through a couple of the Kid's disguises. Unfortunately for the kid, he was became the occupant of the desk in front of Inspector Nakamori's office when he proved to be a very useful member of the Task Force.

'Not bad.' Kaito thought to himself. 'Someone figured out that this isn't my doing.'

Another voice spoke up, one that Kaito didn't recognize. "But who else would have a reason to shut down the power on this block at exactly eleven pm?"

"Good question," Nakamori said. "When we get find the Kid, I'll get him to tell us what he thinks he's doing."

'Ha. Like you could keep me around long enough to interrogate.' Kaito smirked.

"Now listen up and don't even think of talking back to me about this." Nakamori barked at the men. "You two there are going to take your teams to join the others at the new wing and find out what the hell is going on. I'll stay here with the teams from outside our jurisdiction just in case the Kaitou Kid decides to come in through the front door. Everyone else, return to your posts and keep an eye out for anything unusual, Kid related or not. Dismissed!"

"Yes sir!"

The officers that Nakamori singled out turned to their men and raised their voices to issue some further instructions that Kaito only half listened. Some teams were heading to a section that he wasn't going to be anywhere near if possible while others were heading to new positions to wait for the Kid's arrival. Briefly, the hall was filled with chaos as teams tried to sort themselves out and leave through the right doors.

Kaito reached up and pulled the cap low over his eyes and ducked his head down to conceal the Kaitou Kid's dark smirk.

'Unfortunately, I've already finished tonight's performance and must take my leave.' He bowed mentally in Nakamori's direction. 'Thank you for being such a wonderfully oblivious audience, until next time, Nakamori-kun.'

An exceptionally young officer waited for the patrols to sort themselves out before sneaking into the room to join one of the teams on loan from another district. He easily blended in with the nervous officers milling around at the rear of the group as they waited for further instructions from Nakamori. Kaito took this chance to examine the room and was not surprised to see that it was the usual organized chaos of a Kaitou Kid hunt headed by Nakamori. Everyone seemed to have a good idea of where they should be and what they should be doing but milled around uncertainly, as if they weren't sure if it was safe to stay in one place too long. Really, it was as if they thought that the Kaitou Kid was a monster that operated against common sense; people would get be the target of a prank if they stayed still too long.

'Well, sure, there's quite a bit of truth in that belief... but still! It's as if they're afraid of me!' Kaito grinned like a shark. 'Which they should be.'

Nakamori was suffering greatly from the loss of the British detective's strategies and, although he would loathe to admit that fact to any that could leak the information to Hakuba, was trying to make up for the lack of a Kaitou Kid level strategy with numbers. If the police were up against a lesser thief then that probably would have worked in their favour but they were being challenged by the infamous Criminal 1412. Kaito had no doubt that Nakamori could have stopped any thief that didn't operate on an international level. After all, Nakamori was trained to react faster and smarter by an international criminal like the Kid.

"Listen up!" Nakamori shouted, "as you know, the Kid hasn't shown up yet so that means one of two things." He paused for the full attention of the remaining officers to be focused on him. "One, we could have misunderstood the riddle left by the Kid and have been guarding the wrong gem..."

It took all of Kaito's willpower to keep himself from laughing.

"Or, two, the Kaitou Kid snatched the gem when the lights went out and this thing..." Nakamori made a dismissive gesture over his shoulder in the general direction of the display case. "Is a fake. Frankly, I don't care if we're wrong and the gem is gone or if the Kid's just really late. For something as major as the block-wide power outage, the Kid would definitely mention something about it in the notice and there was nothing there."

The man paused with a troubled look on his face. "The Kid had a lot of enemies and if some of them are here, then we're going to stop them. But it's not just because it's the right thing to do but because catching the Kid is our responsibility."

The phantom thief stared at the gruff man in slack-jawed shock.

It was true that Kaito was pleasantly surprised that the Inspector proved that he was consistently able to unravel enough of the Kid's riddles to know where, when, and although his assumptions were usually incorrect, how the Kid was going to steal that night's target. However, that wasn't what caused Kaito to forget about maintaining his mask (and it was at this point that Kaito belatedly remembered to resume his impassive expression). What shocked him was that Nakamori understood the Kid's style, Kaito's style, well enough to know that something wasn't right.

Kaito felt absurdly touched that Aoko's dad, who was not on the great teen detectives' level by any stretch of imagination, wanted to keep the Kaitou Kid safe in his own way. It was possible that the Inspector knew that the Kid he chased throughout his youth was gone and knew that the current Kid was someone else. Maybe he wanted to keep the Kid safe because of some sense of responsibility to stop outsider that didn't understand the rules of the game from interfering. Maybe he just wanted to keep the illusion of the laughing thief in white from disappearing like it did over eight years ago.

The second Kaitou Kid shook his head firmly. 'I should expect something like that from Aoko's dad. He's devoted the most time studying and trying to understand us.'

Still, Kaito was relieved to know that someone as wonderfully average in intelligence as the Inspector would be able to understand some of the Kid's ways. Normal people could begin see that there were reasons for the Kid's actions and he didn't just strike randomly. Maybe, if normal people couldn't fully understand Kaito and the Kid, then soon, one of the detectives would finally figure see that the Kaitou Kid was motivated by reasons greater than to seek the thrill of a good chase.

'It'd be nice to have an ally outside of the world of Phantom Thieves.' Kaito thought with a wistful smile.

Kaito's smile froze as he felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. A cold prickling sense of dread crept up the thief's spine as his whole body tensed reflexively. He jolted from his thoughts to full awareness and cursed himself for losing focus on a heist again. If there was something that Kaito absolutely trusted, it was his instincts. His instincts said that someone hostile was looking at him.

By then, the police had managed to set up several portable generators to illuminate the main room and Kaito decided to take advantage of this. The thief casually turned his head from side to side as if he needed to stretch out the muscles in his neck after listening to Nakamori's speech. Dark blue eyes darted over the reflections of the room in the glass that protected many of the art pieces in the hall. His mind had already summoned the floor plan and images of the room when he first entered the museum to compare them to the sight in the glass. He knew he had to find what was out of place.

There.

In the glass of a display case containing replicas of ancient manuscripts, there was the reflection of a statue on the balcony of the second floor whose shape did not match with his memory. The statue there was of a female figure while the silhouette was of figure with wider shoulders and a longer torso, male in other words.

A glimmer of light.

Metal.

The silhouette moved.

Kaito's hand flickered into his pocket and threw down a set of four grey orbs that exploded into billowing clouds of multi-coloured smoke upon contact. The assembled group was concealed in smoke. He could hear the coughs of the assembled officers before they were promptly ordered from the room by Nakamori's voice.

'It's them.' Kaito thought frantically. 'Dad's killers must've come to stop me, permanently. Damn it, I must be getting close... or they think I'm getting close. Either way, there are too many people here. I can't let them get hurt, so that means I've got to lure them away.'

Kaito spared the police no further attention as he stripped away the policeman's disguise in favour of his white suit.

His mind blurred thorough distance and angle calculations as he reached inside the vest of his suit jacket to extract the card gun. Kaito knew that it wouldn't hold up against a real gun but if he could knock the gun from that guy's hands then the chances of everyone else escaping without injury would be very much in his favour. He aimed his gun and fired his card gun at the silhouette's previous position in one motion before rolling from the smoke cover.

The modified cards quivered in the wall around the statue. The Kaitou Kid's gun was aimed at the balcony but the guy already moved. He was somewhere else in the room.

Instincts honed from the experience screamed at Kaito to move and his body unquestionably obeyed, long before the mind was able to complete the order. Kaito was shown once again that he was not mistaken when he decided to place absolute trust in his intuition and the survival skills taught by his father. He moved just in time.

Fragments of tile exploded into a shower of ceramic shrapnel, angling away from the shattered impact hole by Kaito's feet. It had to be a silencer. He hurled forwards into a somersault as another tile was reduced to shards. The room was silent except for the sound of the Kaitou Kid's movements, the bullets striking the room around him, and the steady whispered warning of wind as it blasted from the chamber of the gun.

Kaito knew the position of the gunman angle from the angle of the bullets as they struck the ground with enough force to spray tile fragments into the air but couldn't afford to stop moving long enough to get off a good shot. He had to wait for the guy to reload so the Kid desperately kept moving to avoid the shots.

The hall was too open, there were no columns to hide behind and he couldn't run from the room if the gunman was going to follow. No, he knew he had to stay in the room and hope for a good shot. The hall was too open, with the exception of the glass-covered displays of art pieces that Kaito couldn't bring himself to use as a shield. This wasn't because Kaito thought he didn't need the protection or felt that he was invincible but rather, it was because he doubted that whoever was shooting at him would respect the historical significance of the objects the Kaitou Kid was using as a shield.

There was a pause, followed by the sound of a clip being ejected.

Kaito steadied his arm and fired, twice, into the darkness of the balcony above.

There was the sound of something hitting flesh.

He held his breath, muscles tensed for flight if he detected the slightest hint of movement, but it remained silent. Distantly, past the pounding of his heart, Kaito noticed that there were police officers still in the room as they began to collect themselves and move. Nakamori's voice could be heard as the man began imposing order on the remaining officers. He called for a team to immediately head to the second floor to find the shooter and being him to the Inspector so he could extract some answers from the intruder's hide.

Kaito's arm slowly dropped to his side and released a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"You! What is the meaning of all this?" Nakamori hollered.

"My apologies for the tardiness, Nakamori-kun." He turned to greet the glowering face of Inspector Nakamori with the Kid's trademark grin. 'The less they know, the better.'

The Kid's attention was occupied with distracting the Inspector from the situation that had just passed. A few well placed barbs in the conversation and Nakamori was fuming mad and convinced that the thief in white had been executing an elaborate and very successful attempt to terrorize the police.

However, Kaito forgot that he still 'on stage' and paid for his distraction.

The boy's jerked backwards violently. Deep blossoms of red flowered and spread quickly on the white plains of the Kaitou Kid's suit. Shaking gloved fingers brushed the tear in his shoulder, and came away with sticky with blood. Dark blue eyes focused on the crimson staining his hands with confusion. A strangled cry that he wasn't quite able to choke back escaped from the Kaitou Kid's throat as he crumpled to his knees.

Pain.

Pain, white and blinding, threatened to flood his senses. Overwhelming. It hurt to move, but he had to move. Agony.

But it couldn't show on his face. That thought pulled Kaito's consciousness away from the pain as he remembered all the lessons he was given as a child. His posture straightened.

'Nothing to see here, move along now. Don't worry, it's all part of the act.'

He tried to smile but the agony pulsing though his body was stronger than his willpower and all he could manage was a grimace. Pain stabbed though his shoulder with a ragged blade with every heartbeat as Kaito felt his hands grow colder. There as nothing more he wanted to do than to stop moving and rest but knew that it was too dangerous to stop.

More tile was falling and Kaito stared at the hole in the ground with a bewildered expression before realizing that he didn't manage to hit the gunman. He stumbled and attempted to regain his balance but, instead, had his legs buckle beneath him. Kaito desperately threw out his arms to steady himself, but failed.

'There can't be casualties on a Kid heist, damn it!'

Darkness was gathering around his vision and around his mind. Kaito grit his teeth and tried to ignore his body's demands for rest since he knew what would happen if he stopped. There wasn't much that he could do now, his limbs felt almost too heavy to move, but if there were going to be casualties then Kaito was determined to do everything in his power to keep it at one.

Kaito lurched to his feet and staggered backwards another tile shattered at his feet. The noise was deafening. Shockwaves as sharp as the broken tile drove mercilessly into his body, hammering his brain with the reverberations. It was too much. Too much noise. It weakened his resolve and the deadening pain returned. He wanted to run from it.

'N...no.' He shook his headand was instantly attacked by vertigo but refused to fall. 'I can't run, not yet. Dad... dad's killers are still... here.'

A powerful arm wrapped itself around the thief's shoulders from behind to trap the smaller boy in place. The thief was standing, but not on his own power. For a second, Kaito was he overcome with panic and he summoned all of his fading strength, braced an arm against the person to push away, but was unable to free himself. He was only pulled closer as the other person's grip tightened.

Cold and unyielding metal dug into Kaito's back.

Kaito renewed his efforts to escape and jammed his elbow into his assailant's ribs while pulling to the arm around his shoulders enough to slip free. His efforts were rewarded with a grunt of pain and a loosened arm around his shoulders. But Kaito was already exhausted and there was only so much power that could be summoned willpower alone.

The thief fell, but his descent was halted.

Kaito was hauled back to his feet and had the arm tighten around him with a grunt of annoyance. The thief hissed in pain as the other man's arm pressed to close to his wounded shoulder and fully expected to feel the gun digging into the injury but instead, his weight was shifted as the man adjusted his grip.

"Still getting involved in things you can't handle, I see." A smug tenor voice murmured into the thief's ear. "I can't say that I'm surprised."

Kaito froze. He struggled to catch a glimpse of the other man's face but instead caught the glint of a gun from the corner of his eyes.

"Do anything stupid and I'll make sure you'll regret it." The man growled.

Kaito desperately tried to get his voice to work. He need to know who that guy was. But if it was who he suspected, it would only further complicate things and Kaito couldn't stay awake long enough to ask all the question he needed to. He tried to twist around to get a look at the man's face but all Kaito could see a smirk directed at him. It was as if the guy knew Kaito confused and wanted answers but found watching Kaito's feeble efforts at speech amusing. The man refused to explain anything and raised his gun silently to take aim.

There was only one thought in Kaito's mind before the darkness claimed him.

'I know you.'