taliya-writes

[taliya-writes]

Reblogging it now that any meager influence I could possibly exert is no longer an issue. But never in my wildest dreams did I expect to get a random poll on a fic of mine. A million thanks to @blenderfullasarcasm for such an amazing fic prompt. This wouldn't have happened without you, and you deserve all the credit.

Summary: Edogawa Conan’s departure and Kudou Shinichi’s return through the eyes of Takagi Wataru. Rated for language.

Author: @taliya-writes

Note from submitter: Perhaps my favorite take on a Kudou Shinichi return to real life fic ever. Takagi is a personal favorite character of mine, and after what happens in the Trembling Police Headquarters arc, it really should be Takagi that Shinichi confides in first when he returns to normal. A really heartfelt story that gives us a glimpse of closure that we've yet to receive from the very long-running series.

[taliya-writes]

In Blade and Blood snippet - DC x RK

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.

… well, shit.

[taliya-writes]

Darkness Hunting snippet - DCMK

“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.

The silver-haired man grinned maliciously and raised his gun to Shinichi's face.  “Check mate, Meitantei,” he rumbled.

[taliya-writes]

Between Duty and Love - DCMK

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.

[taliya-writes]

Becoming a Legend snippet - DCMK x Not-Quite SH???

“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.

I’m hallucinating, the blond thought, staring in obvious shock at the famous writer.  It’s not possible that I’m meeting the Sir Arthur Conan bleeding Doyle…!  “… am I… in London…?” he whispered.  “I’m not going mad, am I?”

[taliya-writes]

Untitled snippet - DCMK

“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—”

Before he could move, Kuroba grabbed his arm again, this time with both hands and a tighter grip.  “Whoa, no, no, no.  You look like you’re about to go into shock, and I’d rather not hear about how you passed out somewhere on the streets between my place and yours.”  And with that declaration, Saguru was unceremoniously chivvied into Kuroba’s house.

[taliya-writes]

Counting Future Eons - DCMK

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.

[taliya-writes]

Nonconformity - DCMK

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.

[taliya-writes]

Nonconformity snippet - DCMK

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!

Super late teenaged rebellion stage? he absently pondered as he began the mindless process of making himself a breakfast of toast with butter after starting up the coffeemaker.

[taliya-writes]

MURDEROUS Angry Baby Ball of Silver Fluff - DC

I'm not quite dead yet.

Most days, Haibara Ai was grateful for Kudou Shinichi’s people-saving ways.  Right now, though, she rather wished his people-saving penchant was nonexistent, considering he had waltzed into her apartment cradling a child-sized Gin.  Spoilers for Gin’s identity.  Rated for language.

[taliya-writes]

Untitled snippet - DCMK

The detective’s mind raced, more pieces of the puzzle falling into place as he recalled bits and pieces of information he had researched in preparation for his admittedly scattered attendance to KID’s heists.  Kaitou KID—the first one—had begun his thievery three decades ago and had been active for a total of twelve years before going silent.  Eight years later—four years ago now—the phantom thief returned and had been active ever since.  Another thought struck the detective, and his stomach clenched somewhat nauseously.  “How—” he began, and had to wet his suddenly dry mouth in order to force the words out.  “How old are you now?”  The question was barely louder than a whisper, and Wataru prayed that his mental math was wrong.

Kuroba sighed as he slumped ever so slightly, as though his spine was bending beneath a weight he was no longer able to shoulder.  “I’m twenty.”

Horror swept through him, chilling him in a way that was different to cold, different from the terror he had felt while hiding in the park.  “So, you were sixteen,” he croaked with a sickened sensation roiling in his gut, “when you became the second Kaitou KID…”

Wataru was not a frequent participant of KID heists—in fact, he could count on two hands the number of times he had attended one.  But even so, the detective had friends in Division Two, and KID was a frequent topic of conversation whenever he met up with them.  It meant that in addition to his own research, Wataru had a decent understanding of how KID heists generally operated.  He also knew about the erased evidence in the post-mortem reports describing and cataloguing gunshot holes in walls and windows, bullet shells, reported muzzle flashes and muzzle blasts that his friends whispered about.  It chilled the detective to know that there was a mole in the force, one who did not value life for what it was if they were eradicating traces of attempts on KID’s life, and that Kuroba had been squaring off with them on his own while he had still been a minor.

“And you couldn’t go the police…” he continued, gaze vacantly dipping to the blanket covering his legs before rising upwards to catch Kuroba’s, “… because you yourself are a wanted felon.”

Kuroba gave him a crooked, tired, wry smile.  “Bingo,” he murmured.

Wataru scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling the headache he had awoken with ratchet up several notches.  “What a mess,” he mumbled.

The phantom thief snorted.  “Welcome to the clusterfuck that is my life,” he said with sardonic grandiosity, sweeping his arms wide open before ducking into a small bow.  “I hope you enjoy your stay.”

“Kill me now,” he muttered, locking eyes with Kuroba for a moment before the two of them broke into quiet, if slightly hysterical, ironic giggles.

[taliya-writes]

Untitled snippet - DCMK

It was cold.

Frigid, even, and dark.  Very dark.

A low groan escaped numb lips as eyes fluttered sightlessly in the near-pitch blackness.  Where am I?  And why is it so cold?  And also, ow.

Pain radiated from the center of his chest, where his heart lay ensconced within his ribcage.  His entire upper torso felt like one gigantic bruise, and every shaky, slow breath was a fight not to asphyxiate from the agony the slight movement generated.  Mobility was slow in coming as muscles and tendons, tense and contracted from the cold, were forced to relax and stretch.  Fingers blindly groped around, searching for something, anything, to give an indication of where he was, though a faint red tint allowed him to see the barest outlines of the extent of his confinement.

The walls that contained him were smooth, icy to the touch and faintly textured in the satiny way stainless steel was, with all rounded corners that seamlessly merged walls and ceiling.  The barest hint of crimson illuminated the interior, which stretched no more than two wide hand spans’ widths to either side of him, and one wide hand span from his nose to the ceiling.  Minor contortion revealed that he had a hand’s length of space above his head, and oh—there was a hard edge that ran the perimeter of the surface laid upon, complete with the barest gap between that wall and the surface that ensconced him.

Pressing his hands flat against that different surface, he pushed against it, arms straining as he used muscles that protested violently at their abuse.  There was a lurch beneath him before a sliver of light somewhere below him broke through the darkness.  More pressure—ignore the quivering of his arms—and that pale illumination brightened.  At length, he felt something give via vibrations through the surface upon which he lay, and suddenly he was sliding out into light bright enough to temporarily blind him. He yelped as he covered his eyes, taking a long moment to allow his sight to acclimate before he lowered his hands and carefully sat up.

A dimly lit room greeted him with several clean and empty surgical tables arrayed in the center of the room.  Tables of surgical equipment were neatly lined up on two sides of the room.  The wall opposite him had windows that were covered by blinds and a closed door.  Behind him were row upon row of square steel doors.  The container that he had been lying in was open and the platform that he now sat upon extended from that opening.

It took several long seconds for Takagi Wataru to comprehend the fact that he had, after he recalled being shot through the chest, woken up in a morgue.

[taliya-writes]

Nonconformity snippet - DCMK

The chime of the doorbell was unexpected, particularly since it was nearing eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night, and no visitors of any kind were anticipated.  Twenty-seven-year-old Kaito frowned as he set his laptop aside and heaved himself off his squashy old couch.  The small LCD screen off to the side of the front door revealed none other than Hakuba Saguru—who, oddly enough, was partly hiding his face from the doorbell’s camera.  He opened the door somewhat warily, greeting his longtime acquaintance with a questioning, “Hakuba?”

Hakuba’s bespoke suit was rumpled, his hair disheveled, and his face positively ashen under the loggia’s fluorescent lighting.  The blond slowly turned to face him, and around the hand pressed to his left cheek, Kaito could see the beginnings of flushed, elongated welts on his skin.  Hakuba’s blue eyes gleamed with unshed tears even as he pursed slightly bloodstained lips to keep them from trembling.  “Kuroba-kun,” he answered shakily, a visible shiver rattling his frame in the chilly October air.  He opened his mouth to say something more, froze, then sighed, seeming to physically deflate even more than his slouched posture suggested he was capable of.  “I’m sorry for interrupting your evening,” he apologized and spun on his heel.  “Have a good—”

“Wait,” Kaito said even as he reached out to grab Hakuba’s free hand by the wrist.  The blond froze.  Kaito’s grasp was firm but not restricting; a good shake from Hakuba would easily dislodge his hand.  The brunet briefly warred with himself over allowing Hakuba inside.  There was nothing in his apartment that would suggest that he was Kaitou KID, considering he had retired from life as the phantom thief two years ago, but he was still loathe to bring a detective—any detective—into his abode.  They were barely friends in any sense of the word, realistically speaking.  But Hakuba was clearly injured in both a physical and emotional way, and Kaito, in good conscience, could not let him walk off after he had been specifically sought out.  He silently sighed.  “Come inside and let’s see what we can do about that cheek of yours,” he invited.

Hakuba turned, eyes cautious, before he seemed to find something that deemed the brunet sincere in his offer.  “Thank you,” he breathed, gaze dropping as he docilely followed Kaito inside the cramped single unit.  He murmured his apologies for his intrusion as he toed his shoes off.

[taliya-writes]

Across Universes, Ch. 2 - ORV x DCMK

What is one to do when they find themselves bodyswapped into a universe not their own, forced to complete a scenario in order to return to their rightful body and universe, and have a telepathic connection to the one they’ve switched bodies with? The answer may or may not be: A.) Kill everyone around you except your teammates; or B.) Save everyone around you except for the already-dead guy. Rated for language and violence.

[taliya-writes]

Crossing Universes, Ch. 1 - ORV x DCMK

What is one to do when they find themselves bodyswapped into a universe not their own, forced to complete a scenario in order to return to their rightful body and universe, and have a telepathic connection to the one they’ve switched bodies with?  The answer may or may not be: A.) Kill everyone around you except your teammates; or B.) Save everyone around you except for the already-dead guy.  Rated for language and violence.

[taliya-writes]

Tag Game: First Ten Lines

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

@deducingcircumference tagged me on this, so here I am. Uh, honestly, lately my top first line would be my thesis, but that's boring and no one wants to read that, so I needed to do a bit of dumpster diving into my folders to see what were my latest WIPs since everyone knows I have a figurative billion of them.

Crossing Universes - ORV x DCMK, posted

[The time limit for the first game is over.]

Untitled - FKBU x DCMK, WIP

Inspector Kanbe Daisuke glanced around at the somewhat-organized chaos that was happening all around him with a furrowed brow.

Insider - DCMK, WIP

Finding out had been a complete accident.

Refusal to Kneel - DCMK, WIP

His perp was someone with a narcissistic personality. 

Commanding Officer - FMA, WIP

“Edward Elric.”

Stealing and Healing Hearts - DCMK, WIP

The headline on the newspaper that morning was different from any other headline ever written.

Here Be Dragons - DCMK, WIP

There had been whispers, rumors, of the National Police Agency obtaining some sort of “secret weapon.”

Wraith - DCMK, WIP

Twenty-one-year-old Kudou Shinichi had never seen eyes so dead in the face of a living person.

Untitled - MDZS, WIP

Fuck, I knew it’d be bad, but I didn’t think it’d be this bad… though in all honestly, I wish I was dead.

Untitled - SVSSS x MDZS, WIP

The arid heat and sulfurous scent of magma and the shrill, breathy notes of a dizi greeted his return to consciousness. 

As far as who to tag going forwards, @thrushsong-kvaris, @villklovn, @ota-chan, @tangentiallly, @artistfingers, and @privateeye-cj, any one of you want to give this a shot? No pressure to do it, though! :)

[taliya-writes]

Stealing and Healing Hearts snippet - DCMK

The headline on the newspaper that morning was different from any other headline ever written.  Having "Kaitou KID" mentioned in the title was not unusual; the phantom thief regularly headlined the front page whenever a heist was announced.  Rather, the fact that a well-known children's wish-granting foundation was associated with the magician's name made it something of a rarity:

MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION PUBLISHES EXCERPTS OF PATIENT WISHES FROM TOKYO METROPOLITAN CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL TO KAITOU KID Dear Kaitoh KID, My name is Haru. I am six and I have lookeemeea. [...] I wish you can steal my ilnis so that I can go owt side and play with my dog. Thankx, Haru

Dear Kaitou KID, I’ve been a fan of yours ever since you made your return three years ago.  I was twelve then.  I’m fifteen now and was diagnosed with a brain tumor three months ago.  I’ve had surgery, but it was malignant […] and now I have seven months to live […].  I’d like to see you perform live at least once before I leave. Sincerely, Sanosuke

Dear Kaitou KID, I’m Suki and I’m eight and was born with AIDS…

---

Reading the excerpts from some of the children’s letters had given Inspector Nakamori Ginzou the oddest mixture of heartache and heartburn.  On the one hand, terminally ill children.  But on the other, Kaitou KID…

“What are these children thinking, idolizing a thief…?” he muttered as he ruffled his hair.

In his mind, he could already hear his daughter’s childhood friend, Kuroba Kaito, arguing for the blasted thief.  “His magic performances are second to none, and the shows he puts on are spectacular!”

Ginzo sighed and picked up his phone.  He needed to have a chat with Tokyo Metropolitan Children’s Hospital’s director about this development.

---

KAITOU KID REPLIES TO PATIENT WISHES FROM TOKYO METROPOLITAN CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

To the Make-A-Wish children of Tokyo Metropolitan Children’s Hospital,

I have read all of your wishes, some of which were published in the national newspapers, and I would like to cordially invite you to a private meet and greet inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Children’s Hospital.  I have already made arrangements with the hospital’s director for a visit.  I have also been granted permission to extend my invitation for up to two additional companions of the patient’s choice each.

I would dearly love to meet my most special little fans and host a performance especially for you, to thank you for your love and support.  In return, I will always love and support you with the deepest hopes that you all live long, happy, and fulfilling lives.

I look forwards to seeing all of your bright faces,

Kaitou KID

P.S. – Please note: this is not a heist notice, merely a courtesy letter of reply.