#kinda bounced around a lot in this respsonse

[kawarikisaki]

The only real problem I have with your theory is while we don’t know much about Toichi’s Kid him being responsible for a gang that does so much evil does seem a bit out of character but then again if Night Baron is based on his Kid and he’s also a murderer maybe he was a far darker version of Kid than his son. But he couldn’t have been too dark as Kid. But then a lot can change in 8 years. There’s another meaning to the string of numbers name he had before Yusaku gave him the name Kid. 1412. Since he refers to himself as his original title in the wallet. That and I’m pretty confident Chikage knows about at least Corbeau can’t see her being okay with her husband being the head of the most evil criminal group in the canon. (Though Toichi was totally taking a page from her book with his interaction with Shinichi and Ran.)Though he could be keeping that from her too. I really hate this. Because for a crack theory it’s pretty solid. He might already know his “older brother is alive” though wouldn’t he be upset that his subordinates almost murdered his son?

Alrighty, hope you're ready for a long one, because it's time to discuss what we know about Toichi/Kid the first, and just how easy it is to twist some of it into a sinister light. And also a few other marginally connected thoughts, because I may as well keep this mostly consolidated.

We'll start with Kid. You're right that we don’t have much on him, because we only have two direct examples of Toichi as Kid, one being the Phantom Lady flashback, and the other being the encounter with his 'older brother'.

The Shinichi encounter isn't particularly helpful for this, as he was very much putting on a character for a child, and even if Shinichi has a idetic memory we're getting a recounted version of the child's perspective ten years after the fact.

But Phantom Lady? Helpful, we have Toichi claiming to prefer more elegant methodology than those employed by Phantom Lady. And he also states that he didn’t initially intend for the white suit to be his crime outfit, it was meant to be a stage costume (though he may be lying here, why would he need a hanglider in his stage costume?), but knowing that it was meant to be for his 'civilian identity' and assuming that he's also Corbeau then we can assume that the black suit he'd have been able to fully plan matches his true tastes more.

But we can also make a few assumptions based on the fact that Nakamori-keibu, the closest thing to a Kaitou Kid expert that we can use for this (Yusaku isn't helpful he’s a gremlin, he would gladly confuse the situation for fun) and the fact that he was under the impression that new Kid and Old Kid were the same person means that Kaitou Kid’s MO didn't change considerably enough for Nakamori-keibu to question them being the same Kid. Which means that if Toichi was doing any murders as Kid then he wasn’t getting caught, since Nakamori-keibu is confident Kid wouldn’t murder to the point that if a death happens at a heist he just hands off the crime scene to the homicide detectives as "nope not Kid."

That said, I think that if Toichi is secretly Karasuma Renya then its likely that he wasn’t doing murders as Kid, but rather just playing around and taking the chance to lead a fun and fulfilling life. Karasuma Renya is supposedly greedy beyond compare, why not be a jewel thief, get a wife to place in his 'jewelry box', a humble home considering his fame as a performer (a sign that he's stockpiling his real wealth elsewhere?), and hey lets toss in a child too- people enjoy raising children. That is to say it was possibly just something being done on a whim.

And since you brought up the names... I've always thought of the "Kaitou 1412" number as like a police assigned case number or something, rather than a meaningful name that Toichi came up with himself. And, as such, i tend to view him signing with it as something akin to a formal signature. Though as for why he would use a formal signature on what was essentially meant to be a correspondence between friends... I don't really have an answer; perhaps the name 'Kid' was only recently established at that point and part of the purpose of this whole communication was too accept the new name (but I doubt that because i feel like if the name Kid didn't come up till that late in his carrer as a thief then it probably wouldn’t have stuck for long enough to be the primary name in use when Kid returned.) In any case here, I'm meaning to point out that he didn't get to name himself as Kid, so much like how the costume supposedly wasn't initially intended for crimes and therefore the black one is probably more planned and in line with his actual tastes- the name Corbeau was likely the same.

As for Chikage.... whether she and Toichi are acting as Corbeau together or Toichi is doing it alone there’s no getting around the fact that she definitely knows about it, and most likely she’d have to be in on it. Though whether that means she's also aware that he's a crimelord on an international scale on the side (which would be pretty hard to hide) isn't necessarily connected, after all the Boss and Corbeau could be two entirely separate crime-sonas he's got going on. For the sake of the theory it makes more sense if she's helping him; in the DCMK world people that are presumed dead can get away with a lot, but it'd definitely be easier with someone aside from just his underlings helping to make moves for him. Though don't know if he'd have told her that Kuroba Toichi is an alias and he's old enough that he should be long dead...

In any case, it's bad news for Kaito in so many ways. Not only is his dad alive, regularly in Japan, and not contacting him; as it turns out, he's also very much a worse criminal than Kaito originally thought. Kaito had already been somewhat shaken when he found out his dad was Kid. He hadn’t wanted it to be true and even resolved himself to follow the same path to understand. So what happens if he finds out his dad is murdering people- or at the very least ordering others to murder on his behalf so he doesn’t dirty his own hands? What happens if he finds out that when he almost blew up on a train doing a favor for his little detective that the people behind were acting on his dad's orders? What happens if he finds out that it was probably part of the plan for him to be brought into the 'family business'? I'd like to think he'd be disgusted... but there are darker paths that could be taken given what Toichi's skill set likely includes and especially considering how much Kaito loves and respects his dad.

As for what Evil Toichi would think about his underlings almost killing his son... well again the MK organization and the black organization are two different groups, but it is true that the crows have tried to kill Kid- even if by accident. I don't think that he'd be particularly upset about it, every time that Kaito has been involved with anything related to the BO he's gotten involved with of his own volition, and besides Kaito is plenty skilled enough to survive just about anything. Everything we know about Toichi from canon just leads me to think he's the kind of person who has immense confidence in his own skills, so if I'm gonna twist him into a villain I've just gotta push that a little farther, maybe he's holding Kaito to the same standard he holds himself and thinks that a 'little assassination attempt' would never be enough to even touch someone that he trained... And maybe if Kaito did die to such a thing he wasn't a worthy heir to begin with. Or maybe it's not quite that sinister and he sees Kaito almost dying as something like a training exercise. But whatever the case he must not be too concerned about it, given that as far as we're aware those responsible haven't really received any punishment.

Yeah, it's ridiculously solid, the fact that there's not really anything concrete that can be used to refute it is kinda wild to me even now. But I still consider it a crack theory because even if it's plausible it's not good if Kaito's story and Shinichi's story need to be two separate things. It's wonderful for the purposes of fanfiction because it very cleanly connects their stories, depending on how Kaito takes the news he can be disgusted with his dad's actions and join Conan to stop him or he can join his dad and become a villain.

But like I mentioned in one of my previous posts this would be messy for the narrative on a meta level if it turned out to be correct, and that's why I consider it a crack theory and not just a theory. If it's true then it's fine for Magic Kaito to become required reading for Detective Conan- it's a very different kind of story but it's short and it'd give important backstory, but conversely it's kinda unfair for Detective Conan to become required reading for Magic Kaito. Sure most people that are interested in one are probably already reading the other... but imagine a fictional scenario where someone is reading Magic Kaito after it's finished; it's around 50 chapters give or take, and the ending feels kinda hollow because even though Kaito found out his dad was a villain and resolved to bring him to justice but then the story just ended there... , then this person goes onto tumblr or reddit or some other fandom space and finds out that the real ending is locked behind reading 1752 chapters of a completely separate manga where Kid was a cameo character early on then eventually joined the main cast to take on the final threat. Plus it'd make things weird because it would feel like Yusaku should have a bigger role than he currently does if his old friend/rival is the villain...... unless Yusaku dies.