Chapter 1: Harsh Reality

…

"Don't turn your face away.
Once you've seen, you can no longer act like you don't know.
Open your eyes to the truth. It's all around you.
Don't deny what the eyes to your soul have revealed to you.

Now that you know, you cannot feign ignorance.
Now that you're aware of the problem, you cannot pretend you don't care.
To be concerned is to be human.
To act is to care."
― Vashti Quiroz-Vega

As a police officer, many of us have seen things we'd rather not see. As an Inspector, much is the same, except for that extra weight of responsibility that comes with it when something goes wrong.

Something that night had definitely gone wrong.

I started at the gunman, dressed head to toe in black, his hat hiding the top of his head but not as much of his face as Kid's top hat did, eyes, hair, and mustache just as black as his clothes.

Kid was a study in contrast compared to him, white hat and outfit accompanied by lighter skin, a white set of gloves where the other man had black, and eyes that had a lightness to them that the other man's did not possess.

That was something I had never noticed before, the darkness usually stealing any color from the scenery, a silent, useful servant to the thief in white. Maybe that was why he didn't wear color. It just didn't show up well in moonlight.

I was stuck in the hall, my lieutenant holding my arm to keep me back. I had already dragged him several feet from the other members, making one of the random new officers that had been added to my squad – which seemed to happen a lot, even if I argued against it – hold onto him as well to try and help keep me in place and out of danger.

Aside from me, we didn't have guns. We didn't have bulletproof vests. We didn't have riot shields or anything to help protect us against violence.

And why should we when the one we were after had nothing more than a few tricks up his sleeve and the clothes on his back?

We were so powerless, I realized in those few moments. Kid's fans we may have controlled in the past through sheer numbers and a title, but to those that didn't care about that type of thing, we were no more dangerous than a fly buzzing around a pile.

I watched then what happened when a real gun took on a fake – when a bullet went up against a card.

There was a cry and blood from both parties involved. The one who reacted more to it, to my surprise, was the black-clothed man. He clutched at his face and I watched as blood dripped between his fingers, falling from his hand too fast to be anything less than a deep cut to his eye.

The Kid quickly got my attention soon after. Instead of making pained noises and flailing around like the other, Kid almost silently fell to one knee, head down with his hat masking his face from whatever expression was on it. There were slow, seemingly involuntary movements, from the thief.

Then the dark man was on his feet, one eye opened while he tried to stem the bleeding with the other, his gun pointed at the crouched down body of the other. "You bastard!"

I had seconds to act. Calling out to the Kid seemed like it wouldn't do any more good than trying to fight off a hurricane with a stick, so I did the only thing I could do, no time to give the man the standard warning I would have to put the gun down.

I reached into my coat, drawing out my own firearm, and aimed it at the man's arm the best I could from the twenty meters that separated us. I knew I couldn't aim for something as small as his hand – I wasn't that good of a shot. I fired, twice, afraid that even a slightly larger target could be missed. I had never claimed to be a good marksman. I got this job because I was more stubborn and devoted than the others, not because I was better with a gun.

One of the shots I let off must have caught him, though where I couldn't tell. All I knew was his arm was pulled back quickly, and I watched the gun, hearing it clatter and fall across the floor.

"Don't move!" I shouted, easily shaking off my lieutenant, who had forgotten about keeping his grip when I had fired.

True to the nature of any criminal, the man didn't do as I said. He turned and ran, leaving his gun where it had fallen on the dark tile floor of the museum. Unarmed and with his back to me, my gun stayed silent in my hand. I could never shoot someone that was unarmed.

I could, however, take chase.

"After him!" I called out to the men behind me, scared into silence but quickly jumping into action the second I gave them a command. They ran past me in a rush, doing their best to give me berth so I wasn't plowed over in their advance.

Silence quickly filled the large room, the only thing breaking it being a harsh, gasping, pained sound from Kid.

I walked over, keeping the gun in my hand, though pointed at the floor. Normally, I would have put it away again and taken out my handcuffs. Something told me that I'd rather be armed though, and I didn't get where I was by ignoring my instincts.

"Hey," I spoke to the thief when I was ten or so paces from him. "What the hell was that?" It was the first question I was able to express, scared and angry that there had been bloodshed today. I was sure the negative emotions came from something deeper as well, but I didn't want to look into that right now.

The Kid, true to his nature as well, did not answer. He stood, his stance faltering once he was up, and I was able to get a view of the damage done.

The bullet had hit him in the chest. That there made me curse in my head and my jaw clench. From the breathing, it was easy to tell it had hit a lung. The thief's iconic white suit was stained red from the coat down to the pant cuff.

I may have felt sorry for my quarry for a moment, the thief giving me a smile with bloodstained teeth and running off in the opposite direction from where my men had gone quickly turning it into hot anger.

I gave chase, easily able to follow the uneven clack of dress shoes across the floor when the darkness took him too far out of my sight when he turned a corner into another exhibit.

We ran through old jewels from lands I would never see, a room of quilts of equally interesting backgrounds, and a more historical presentation on Japan's land mass makeup before Kid found the emergency door, likely having known where it was, and pushing it open.

No alarm sounded, and I wondered if the thief had planned on exiting here from the start.

I stopped at the door instead of exiting, that same part of myself telling me that I should stagger my pace. Right now, Kid was as good as a wounded animal. The closer I got, the faster he would run, and the faster he would die. I was no fool. I knew what an injury like that could do to a man.

I watched out the door until he vanished from my sight, knowing I'd be out of his as well as I took off.

It was far too easy to follow his trail. Kid was fast for someone as injured as he was, but he wasn't invisible. The blood led me to him more than anything else, letting me catch sight of him every now and then as he ran between the sparse greenery around the property to the streets.

Shadowing him for a block or two, the Kid now walking, I grew worried. I don't know why but seeing Kid as himself, not trying to hide on what was a decently crowded street, a few passing by us and near us, made the world feel slightly out of whack.

Kid was a phantom. He only openly showed himself to us and his fans when he was putting on a show. Weak and wounded and still himself was so wrong. Seeing Kid bleeding was wrong. Seeing his cape just as stained as his front, was wrong. Everything was wrong. I didn't find my living in blood, and I never would, no matter whose it was.

Kid, surprisingly, stopped at an old car that I was sure I knew the name of somewhere in the back of my addled mind. When he tugged open the door I was running. I wasn't going to let him just get away. I wasn't sure what I would do, but getting a few answers and making sure that the Kid didn't wind up on the obituary page of the paper tomorrow seemed like good ideas.

I barley caught the door as the thief closed it. His movements had become rushed in the last second or two, likely having heard my footsteps.

I swung the door back open, the thief on the other side reaching into his coat and pulling out the same gun I had seen him holding earlier. A gun which, I knew, only contained playing cards as ammunition. At close range maybe it would hurt, but I'd put up with the paper cut.

"Nakamori-keibu," the other uttered so softly I wasn't sure I had heard him right. There was a relieved sigh and a lowering of the gun. Then the car lurched forward, stopping, and almost threw me off the door and onto the sidewalk.

"Let go." Kid's voice as he spoke was strong but it clearly took too much effort to have made it that way and he started coughing, sounding like he was choking on his own blood as some spilled into the gloved white hand.

"Bo-" There was another voice that was quickly cut off, either by the speaker or by Kid. I saw the thief move, though it was on the side of the car I couldn't see well into without crouching down. Right now I didn't know who Kid was with, though they sounded of the older persuasion with just that one syllable. Maybe I had purposely been trying not to look.

"You god damn stupid idiot!" I don't know why I said it or where it came from but the fear and anger from earlier returned and I found myself reaching into the car and pulling the thief out by his lapels, the man's feet unsteady as I was forced to hold him up when I pushed him against the car. Hopefully it would keep him in place along with stopping him from hurting himself anymore. "You just ran from me and you're going to die if you keep going like that! Lay down right now or I make you!"

The Kid, either too tired or too hurt, let what weight of his own he was holding up slacken, slowly falling to the side of the car and leaving an ugly smear of red, darkening the already dark vehicle and standing out starkly where it came in contact with the window.

His breathing was uneven, and I was half afraid that he hadn't complied but was passing out on me. His body swayed as if pushed by the tides of the ocean and I slowly helped him down onto the sidewalk.

The placement tipped his top hat up, showing his face, and I looked away. As I let go of his coat and let him rest there, I realized how freaking light he had been. Maybe it was because he'd been sitting up and all I had done was shift him. Maybe, but something told me the Kid simply didn't weigh that much. It explained why he was so good on that damned glider, considering how short the wingspan on it was.

I heard the other door open and close as I turned the Kid more, his face now away from me and my temptation. His hair, on the other hand, was just as visible. Even not looking, I could tell it was short. Not black but not light either. I cursed a bit, moving the cape back to see the exit wound.

"Oh no, Bo- Kid-sama." There were loud footsteps behind me, at least, loud compared to the Kid's. An old man walked around me, looking over the thief while I focused more on his shoes and the tires of the car. "What happened?"

"The idiot got shot. I'm calling an ambulance."

"Please don't."

I felt a hand on my shoulder, turning to look at Hakuba-kun. I had no idea where he had come from. I hadn't seen him today and, in hindsight, been grateful he was out of town.

"Please stand back, Nakamori-keibu. Sir, do you have a medical kit on you by chance?"

I saw the old man nod and go back to the car, frowning and looking at Hakuba-kun as I stood, towering over the teen by all of an inch. "What the hell do you think you're doing?! He needs to go to a hospital! I don't want a dead thief on my watch."

"Which is precisely why you should move out of my way. I have more than enough medical knowledge to get him stable, and if we don't do something soon he will simply drown in his own blood. He's already been unconscious for too long. I'd say we have minutes."

That I could understand. Immediate care came first and I got out of Hakuba-kun's way. I was as sure the teen had the same motivations as I did as I was that the sun would rise come morning. It was why I didn't really mind him sticking his nose in heists. He could see things that I could not some of the time, and I was grateful for him.

I had my phone out as I turned but the blond teen reached out and took it before sliding it somewhere in his own coat and kneeling next to the thief, away from me.

"I said no to the ambulance. While I'd hate for you to make assumptions, you'll have to give me a moment to explain myself." There was a ripping sound and I had a feeling he was checking out the wound better. I knew he needed real medical attention soon, I wasn't an idiot, but I wasn't about to fight Hakuba-kun for my phone when it would just distract him and maybe cost the thief his life.

The old man came back, something that looked like a toolbox in his hand. He knelt and set it down over somewhere by Kid and Hakuba-kun, out of my sight. I knew if I turned and watched them I'd see more than I wanted, and right now I wasn't sure of anything. All I knew was I needed time to think, and I had it now.

There were more ripping noises and then Hakuba-kun's quiet instructions to the older man on what to do and how to do it. It took me a while to notice when Hakuba addressed me instead of the old man.

"He can't go to the hospital. Those men that were shooting him, I followed them. I was late, I'm afraid, due to having a previous appointment to get to. All I noticed were the men running out of the museum, armed, and heading to a set of cars. They've been near the stationed police vehicles, out of sight, for a while now. While I would normally advise any victim to get treatment immediately, protecting any hospital that took him in from all those gunmen is irrational."

"Then we can-"

"I've already told officers standing guard out front to get in contact with the station and tell them about my observations, along with the possible shooting inside as I approached just in time to hear gunshots."

"Hm." I relaxed my shoulders, not noticing how tense I was. The officers I brought with me honestly couldn't take on these men by themselves. For once, I was glad that division one was going to get involved.

"This isn't good. He's lost a lot of blood and I obviously can't do surgery myself. Even I'm not that good. Sir, can you do something about…"

I couldn't guess what Hakuba-kun was referencing but I'd let him handle this a bit longer. I'd almost gotten myself calm and back together again. To really settle, I'd need a cigarette and a half an hour or more of quiet.

"I can, but with surgery he- it won't make much difference."

There were a few dozen seconds of silence and I turned partially to the side to try and catch sight of Hakuba-kun and what they were doing.

"Damn it."

Now I was sure I heard the words, though knowing they came from Hakuba-kun was more of a surprise. The boy never swore.

I saw him stand out of the corner of my eye, getting up and walking around to face me. His hands and shirtsleeves were covered in blood and he had a dead-set expression. "Keibu, I need you to listen to me and I need you to do what I say. If you're not going to, I need you to leave and let me lie. Which will you do?"

I frowned a moment, uncertain of what he was talking about. I was pretty sure it had something to do with Kid though. I had the impression he was giving me a way out of this situation and it made me really freaking angry.

"I'm confused," I admitted. "I don't know what to do here. I know I have gunmen, again, and don't know why! I know the reason for it is laying right there and can tell me but I know I can't ask him because the damn fool would never answer me and the second he gets a chance to run he's going to take it. I know that right now I should be getting him into a hospital, under a false name if I have to – or his real one – and that fucking around here asking me stupid questions is getting us nowhere."

"I understand." Hakuba-kun nodded to me slowly, keeping his eyes locked on mine as he did. "Both your viewpoint and a bit more of the situation than you are aware of. Please, will you hear me out? He doesn't have this kind of time. I'm afraid even now we're running on borrowed that he's somehow pulling out of thin air."

Kid stealing time. That wasn't anything I couldn't believe. "Fine. Explain to me whatever it is that you want to explain."

"Very well." Hakuba-kun turned a bit, looking around me to check on either Kid or the old man who had yet to come back into my line of view. He faced me again a second later. "Kid is complicated. I learned that the hard way. I like knowing why criminals act they way they do. It helps me understand the way people think better. I'm very poor at putting feelings into real life situations on my own. As Kid has never answered my question, I've had to do my own research and insinuations."

"You'd better hurry," I heard from behind me, the older man's wisp of a voice making the fear return. I noticed that I was afraid the Kid was really going to die. I never wanted anyone to die on my watch ever again, not since I joined second division and Kid had first called me away from the blood and gore that had scared me more than I liked to show. Human hatred was so bitter and twisted and…. And I was getting distracted.

Hakuba-kun was still staring at me and he must have noticed when my eyes cleared, free of my memories. "Kid has shown that he does steal for fun, but always returns what it is. I believe he does this purely for the fact to make himself a criminal. He cuts down on crime just as much as the police do, and always strives for non-violence. He has led many other criminals to follow in his path, along with making him a part of their ranks and keeping any terms such as 'hero' of 'vigilante' out of adjective words that describe him. I'm sure you've noticed this trend too, if not the reasons for it."

I hadn't. I wasn't part of the other division and I had never really looked into the specifics of how high the violent crime rates were compared to the non-violent. I nodded anyway, trusting Hakuba-kun and his research.

"There have been gunmen after him before. I know you know this too. Yet division one never gets called in and we treat it as a random occurrence. At first, I thought that was normal. As it has stretched on, I started to wonder how many strings Kid was pulling to keep you in charge."

I snorted. I couldn't help it. "He wants to keep me in charge? Why?"

"I wondered that too, at first. For reasons I can't go into this second, I know he would hate to see you harmed. Keeping you in the line of danger then would be contradictory to this want. I figured then that there had to be another reason. Keep in mind, this is just an assumption, but I believe he was doing it to make sure that no one died."

I shook my head. I didn't understand the kid at all but we needed to hurry and I had promised I'd listen.

"You are a known to him, and strive for non-violence as much as he does. I've heard reports more than witnessed any shooting at Kid, but it's my train of thought that leads me to believe that replacing you would put another, possibly more violent person, in your place. Keeping a known pacifist then, when there are armed men about every blue moon, keeps there being any exchange of fire. It keeps people alive. I think that's why all the documents of any shootings mysteriously find their way into the files without division one being called in."

Now that made too much damned sense to me. The only times there were other officers it was when Kid himself was marked as the culprit in a killing. I knew that would never be true, the thief really was the world's biggest softhearted criminal, so I had never cared about those cases. Those where Kid were shot at had never come up and I'd never been questioned about them. I really should have been.

"So… the Kid keeps the bad guys from going to jail because he's afraid that someone will get killed. That's stupid."

"I know. I can't say I wholeheartedly disagree with his logic though, or I would have said something about it before now. What I do disagree with is the fact that he goes on stealing, and I have to wonder why. Stopping other criminals while making yourself out to be one seems rather 'martyr' like, and I don't believe it suits his personality."

"We really must hurry. His pulse is getting very weak and he's still bleeding."

My attention once again turned to the Kid, but I didn't follow it with any action. I was confused more than anything now, unsure as Hakuba-kun seemed to be as to why a thief would be acting that way, and why I should care about any of this right now.

"Right. Forgive me. Nakamori-keibu, he needs medical attention. Right now, you and I can lie about him being at the scene as himself and not Kaitou Kid. I know that's asking a lot from you, but I don't have all my answers yet, and considering he's saved lives I can't sit back and simply watch him lose his own – not this way. I believe letting him fall into police custody will only gain us more victims."

I knew Hakuba-kun had a point. I knew just a few weeks after chasing Kid for the first time that there was something more going on, that I watched to catch the bastard and lock him away, see if he could escape like the miracle worker he was. I don't know why I'd always assumed he'd get away if I ever caught him – not from me but from another officer or a jail cell – but I had.

Kid's condition, injured and bleeding out on the pavement as the very blood that gave him life was choking him of it, told me he wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.

"Right. And that means knowing who he is and lying to everyone I know and respect, giving a thief a free pass and forever aware that I could just pick him up and put him in jail and that would be that. That's asking a lot."

"I know, but he's never asked for anything before, and I'm sure we owe him enough." Hakuba-kun shrugged slowly. "I already know who he is, so I'm not at the same moral crossroads that you are. I made my decision months ago."

I took in and let out a breath. Kid needed a doctor and he needed it twenty minutes ago now. I had to make my own decision and fast. "Damn it," I said, not noticing that I was using the same curse to describe the situation that Hakuba-kun had earlier. "Fine. He gets a freaking free pass in my book. If I ever catch him though, I'm not letting him go simply because he decided to be a good guy for a few days."

"I think that's more than fair, and I've decided on a similar solution as well. Please do not overreact then. Any questions you'll have to save for him, as will I, for when he recovers." Hakuba walked past me and back over to the Kid.

I'd made my decision so I turned, no longer half questioning myself on whether I should look at the thief while he was in such a vulnerable position or not.

Of course, it would have been better if he'd still had his hat on. I wasn't as ready as I thought for what I saw.

"Kami," I breathed under my breath, walking over to the other two.

Kaito-kun was taking small little gasps of breath in, as if he was hyperventilating. His eyes were closed tight with unconsciousness and pain and there was a thick trail of blood leading from the corners of his lips to dribble onto the ground where they'd stained the concrete in a puddle too wide for me to think anything other than a curse.

"It's not looking good." Hakuba-kun closed his eyes a moment, his fingers on Kaito-kun's wrist. I could see where his shirt and coat had been torn open in the front now, revealing bandages that were hiding the hideous wound. Even now they were stained through. "Nakamori-keibu, I know you don't have your own squad car. We'll take this one. Help me get him In the back seat. Sir, please get in and start the car again."

The old man, who I saw had dark rimmed glasses and looked older than he sounded, stood up and went back over to the car, nodding, and carrying splotches of blood on himself as well, similar to Hakuba-kun's.

"Open the back door."

I followed Hakuba-kun's instructions, slightly too dazed to take charge myself as I normally would have. 'I was right. I was right. I was right' kept playing through my head on repeat and I wanted that little voice to shut up. I had more important things to deal with right now.

Carefully, I moved to pick the boy up myself and nodded my head towards the car. "Get in the other side and help me get him in that way. Neither of us will be able to fit while holding him."

Hakuba-kun went over and did as I said, going around to the other side of the car and waiting for me.

Bracing him as much as I could, I stood with Kaito-kun, hearing a gasp and a few quick intakes of breath that sounded painful. A few seconds later he was coughing. The blood quickly stained more of the white as it ran over the boy's lips and into his collar. I moved as fast as I could while making sure not to cause any more damage. Half standing, as Hakuba-kun was in the back seat, I told the old man to drive. There wasn't time for this.

Trying to hold myself up and off the boy while the car lurched forward at speeds I'd normally be driving only when in a car chase, I stared down at Kaito-kun, finding the passing of the street not nearly as interesting.

The blood was still pouring slowly out of his mouth as he lay on his side, struggling to breathe. He was far too damn pale in the once white outfit, his chest staggering up and down unevenly under the trials his body was undergoing. I took my handkerchief out of my pocket, careful over bumps as I wiped the blood from his face, only to have it reappear a second later. At least this time the trail was thinner, and I could see the loss of blood clearly.

"Nakamori-keibu, can you please tell me what happened? Being late only afforded me the information on the outside."

I nodded, telling him in a monotone voice what had happened. The gunman, injured, should be easy enough to find as long as he put out a description fast enough. Someone would find him. It would have to go with a warning of how extremely dangerous the man was.

"I see," Hakuba-kun said quietly once I finished. "Considering I believe he aimed for the man's eye, I have to wonder if he knew just how dangerous the man was. Maybe he even has a name. I'm sure he had no way of telling us it before and getting us to believe him – or at least, not a court system."

"I have a lot more questions before that that he needs to answer to." I looked down at the boy. So many lies, so many questions, so much confusion. I couldn't understand it. I had been sure it was Kaito-kun before, because when Kid first showed up, there weren't many that I could guess at that could pull of what the Kid I had been chasing the years prior could. I was equally sure that it had been a fake, trying to aim for glory that didn't belong to him. If the first had been true, blaming a boy for a few minor acts of destruction after I had seen his face had felt like nothing. Kid was too good though, both when it came to his maneuvering and his magic. Showing me another face, I had believed more that it couldn't possibly be just a teenager.

Whether or not Hakuba-kun nodded or it was just the car's movement, I couldn't be sure. All I knew was, damn it, there was a kid bleeding to death in front of me, killers out there – maybe having it in with some of my men, and a daughter at home that would be getting no phone calls from me or her best friend that weren't filled with lies.