4: Emergence

Building an identity was easy for Kaito, he had long since learned what details were most important in a person. Generally, these characteristics and idiosyncrasies fell into two categories: conscious and unconscious. So then, he needed an identity or two that were similar enough to him that he could pull them off nearly 24-7, but different enough that nobody would see the similarities to the deceased Kuroba Kaito. Naturally, the easiest characteristics to change are physical ones… he had some ideas already.

Hirofumi Kiyo was a twenty-year-old woman with mischievous violet eyes, shoulder-length, wavy, brown hair with bangs that would shadow her eyes if she tilted her head just right. Her figure was slim and her dress modest. She could never be mistaken for being wealthy, but she was pretty, even dressed in her worn jeans, tennis shoes, and grey-blue hoody. She grinned at the sun as she slung a cranberry-red and black backpack off her shoulders.

"Gather round if you please!" Kiyo called as she set a hat on the ground, her French accent bleeding into her words in contrast to the English accents of everyone around her. A few people paused to watch and Kiyo started her show. The items in her tricks were generally cheap or reusable, but Kiyo used them with skill beyond most masters. A crystal ball danced across her slender fingers as she manipulated it flawlessly. With an effortless flick of her fingers she tossed the clear orb into the air and began juggling it when two other balls, a red and a blue one, appeared from nowhere. Kiyo's growing audience gasped in awe and a green ball joined in. Kiyo smiled in appreciation as many came forth to drop change and small bills in her hat.

With a flourish, Kiyo caught the four crystalline balls, though to the audience it looked as though they had simply vanished again. "Thank you very much!" Kiyo exclaimed gratefully, "I believe I have enough for breakfast now. If you want to see more of my tricks, I'll be doing an impromptu magic show here at seven in the evening before I continue in my travels." Kiyo picked up her hat as a few more people stepped forward to drop some money in it. "Au revoir!" Kiyo gave a bow and vanished in a flash of smoke.

Nobody noticed a man in a cheap grey suit disappear into the crowds with a red and black backpack. With violet eyes hidden behind large glasses, a strong jaw, and brown hair held in a small tail at the nape of his neck, Suzaku Raimu would never be seen in the same room as Hirofumi Kiyo. The two were in entirely different circles. While Hirofumi Kiyo was excitable and childish, Raimu was far more composed and serious. Kiyo was dramatic, an aspiring actress who was horrible at acting, while Raimu was reserved and polite. The only things the two shared, were their violet eyes and inability to get close to other people; Kiyo because she was too sporadic and unpredictable, and Raimu because he was so aloof and cold.

Raimu entered a café, somehow opening the door without the bell above ringing, and sat at a table where his back was to a corner. His smile didn't reach his eyes as he ordered a coffee and a sandwich. Keeping to character, Raimu opened a newspaper and looked through it with a bored expression. He barely spared the waitress a glance as she delivered his meal. The sandwich was consumed in quick, efficient bites. Nursing his hot beverage, Raimu covered a smirk with a quick sip.

The last page of the paper mentioned the arrival of a new phantom thief. Starting out in Germany and gaining the name 'Schatten' or 'Shadow'. The thief had sent a note to the police, merely stating 'Dunkelheit absteigt' or 'darkness descends' followed by a series of numbers (that they had failed to identify to be the coordinates of the theft site, the date, and the time). The next morning the only sign of the thief's passing was a note, in the same rapid script as the notice, bearing the message, "im Licht, ich spiele; im Nacht, ich verblasse." (In light, I play; at night I fade.) The thief had quickly gone international, with a second and third theft in America. Only similar seemingly random couplets left at the scene of the crime were proof of the thief's success and the items taken were returned soon after. Never seen, by camera or witness, nothing was known about Shadow, whether the thief was male or female, how the thefts were committed, etc.

Closing his newspaper, Raimu set down his empty mug and dropped an amount of change on the table to pay. With gloved fingers, he pulled a pen and card from his backpack and scribbled two lines on it. "In a world of only grey, neither light nor dark"; he signed it. Tucking the card into a pocket, Raimu exited the café and wasn't seen there again.

~o0o~

International thief 5420 or phantom thief Shadow (though she preferred to think of herself as Kaitou Kage) landed silently on the museum roof. Her black para-glider collapsed smoothly back into a backpack. It would be simple, in and out, in all black it was pathetically easy and the police still hadn't figured out what the numbers written after 'darkness descends' on her notice meant, so no police either. Perhaps that's a good thing, Kage told herself, this persona is supposed to be more discrete.

Whereas Kaitou KID had been the greatest thief despite challenging all preconceptions on what thieves should be like, Kaitou Kage was the perfect cat burglar. Never seen, thus never to be recognized, nothing more than a shadow and a couple of lines written on a note card.

In the brightest of lights

I stand to attention,

In the darkest of nights

I deepen and hide.

Reign complete beneath the moon,

But follower under the sun.

Twilight may be my ruin,

I fear the dreary storm;

In a world of only grey,

Neither light nor dark-

Neither night nor day,

My fearsome presence fades.

I am that, behind and under,

Of day – night – and yet of neither;

A source of endless wonder,

Seen and yet invisible.

-Kaitou Kage

(Tch… I suck at writing poetry, oh well, you're not reading this to hear me complain. Hirofumi means handsome little white dove, while Kiyo means pure ghost, vitality, or skilled in Japanese. Suzaku means phoenix and Raimu means dream or illusion, also in Japanese. I was thinking along the lines of: an illusion of rebirth, cause he never actually died. I made Kaitou Kage's international number 5420 because, like 1412 can be twisted to KID, 5420 could be twisted to SADO or shadow.)