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The first thing Takagi Wataru noticed upon waking up was that his head ached something terrible. His very brain pounded loudly in his cranium, and he felt as though his right eyeball was about to pop out of his skull in time with his heartbeat. The second was that he was immobilized: wrists to each other behind him, upper arms pressed to his torso. The third was that he had no weapon. A small shrug of his left shoulder revealed the lack of a distinct and familiar weight in the holster under his work coat. The fourth was that whichever idiot had tied him up, they had tied his wrists tight enough that he was losing sensation in his fingertips.
The fifth was that he was attached to another person. As he had been sitting with one side leaning against a wall of deposit boxes in the vault of the bank he normally visited, it was not unusual to want to have that sturdy fixture behind him as opposed to beside him. A yelp and a sudden crash of weight against his back quickly disabused him of the idea, and fingers not his own gently patted against his.
“Quiet,” snapped a voice, and Wataru glanced up to find a man wearing a black ski mask and sunglasses staring at him. While disconcerting, what alarmed the policeman more was the shiny G36 he wielded. Wataru did not exactly cower in response, but he did somewhat hunch down where he sat in an effort to appear more disarming even as his woozy mind tried to think of ways to not only extract himself and his fellow hostage from this situation, but to also call for help.
“Awake, keiji-san?” asked a voice almost inaudibly from behind him. It was youngish, male—and familiar in a way that the officer could not pin down.
“I think so,” Wataru murmured, blinking to clear the slight swimming his vision was doing at the moment. “You okay?”
The man behind him shifted, and Wataru suddenly noticed how the cords that wrapped around his chest tied him directly to the man behind him, firmly pressing them back-to-back. “I’ve been better,” he admitted, and though there was a hint of a laugh somewhere in his voice, it quickly shifted into concern. “How’s your head? Looked like they whacked you pretty hard.”
The police officer sighed. “It hurts more on the right side, though I feel like my entire brain’s been rattled about.”
“Not surprising. They knocked you out because you flashed your badge at them.”
Right. Wataru vaguely remembered doing something idiotic like that—thus landing him in his current situation. Even though he was a plainclothes officer, he was not allowed to carry his gun on his person after work hours. So why he had done that, he had no idea. Wait… “How’d you end up here?”
The man shifted slightly, perhaps raised his shoulders in a shrug if the light upward tug of the rope around his chest was any indication. “I kicked up a fuss when they considered shooting you.”
Wataru felt a chill slide down his spine as he twisted enough to catch a glimpse of a head of messy espresso hair. Shooting me?
“I don’t think they actually intended to do so, keiji-san,” the man continued quietly, unaware of the detective’s thoughts. “I doubt they actually factored belligerent undercover policeman hostages into their planning.”
Glancing down at the ropes that bound him, he replied, “Even so, they came well prepared.”
The man snorted softly in amusement. “I’d imagine that if I was robbing a bank, I’d have a contingency plan for every outcome under the sun, but to each their own.” His voice soon lost all traces of laughter. “How well do you know the layout of this place? Think we can hinder them enough for the police to ensure they are caught?”
“How many are we dealing with?” Wataru asked with a frown.
“By my count, three,” his fellow hostage replied. “All of them are masked, all have guns. Despite all wearing the same clothing, the one with the skinniest frame is the brains of the operation, and that, our guard dog is not.”
The detective eyed the one man that stood guard over them—even with his back towards them, the man was stocky and had a decent amount of muscle on him. Facing away from them, it was a position that proclaimed that he felt he had nothing to fear from his tied-up captives, and Wataru certainly felt that there was no way he could threaten the man in his current circumstances.
The bank layout, at least from the lobby, was familiar to him. It was everything behind the service counter that worried him. They were currently inside the vault that housed safety deposit boxes, which was immediately behind the service counter; it was where Wataru had his own box that ironically faced him at eyelevel from where he sat. Not like anything in there will do me any good now, he internally snarked, thinking of the bundle of documents inside: birth certificate, passport, the title for his car, and the like. There were also several sealed, minted coins of gold, silver, and platinum—investment inheritances from his parents from when they passed away a year ago in a car accident. Maybe I can buy my way out? he thought with a sardonic snort.
“I can’t say I’m too familiar with the layout of the bank beyond the vault,” Wataru whispered. “This is about the extent of my knowledge.”
The man behind him sighed, and for a moment the detective could have sworn he had heard him mutter under his breath, “The one time I don’t memorize the goddamn blueprints…” It was a remark that certainly left him both concerned and puzzled. “So no weapons on your end,” he stated a little louder, just enough for him to clearly hear but not their watcher, “and I have only what I have on me…”
Wataru frowned. “Which would be…?” he prodded, mildly miffed that he was being written off as casually as he was. He could definitely contribute!
… somehow.
“Stuff that makes for really good distractions,” his co-conspirator replied with mischief lacing his voice. “Smoke bombs and confetti, for the most part.” He surreptitiously wiggled a bit, and Wataru felt him doing something with his hands.
“What are you doing?” he asked, curious.
The other man hissed quietly. “Dislocating my thumb,” he grunted, twisting the hand closer to the wall of safety deposit boxes somewhat roughly against his own.
Wataru winced at the very thought, though one of the man’s hands disappeared from his touch after a few seconds. It reappeared after several moments, and the policeman heard a faint but nauseating pop of cartilage against bone and a corresponding gasp.
“One hand free,” he muttered, flexing and unflexing his fingers to test their dexterity. “If I get us out of these ropes, do you think we can take these guys out?”
“Maybe. We’d have to be really quiet if we want to get this guy here, and I don’t know where the other two are,” Wataru admitted uneasily.
There was a strange confidence in the man’s voice as he answered, “Leave guard dog to me.” More surreptitious wiggling, and the tension around his wrists suddenly disappeared. “Keep your hands hidden where they are,” the man instructed as Wataru worked his fingers open and closed in relief, encouraging circulation to his numbed hands. “No need to tip them off that we are officially loose.”
The detective huffed at the irony. “Loose? We cannot fully untie ourselves without them blatantly noticing.”
The man hummed. “Ah, but you’ve never worked in tandem with a magician who specializes in escape now, have you?”
I’ve worked alongside the Kaitou KID once, Wataru mentally retorted, and while it was not a moment he considered shameful, it was also not one of his proudest—rather, it had been one of his most confusing. Seriously, what on earth had possessed him to not only join in the wild chase, but to help capture several men that had wanted the phantom thief dead? He sighed in dismay at himself as he also thought, And I also illegally harbored him in my home and patched up his injuries in my house. Hell, I even know what his actual face looks like!
“Ah ha ha…” he weakly laughed, unable to really say much else without implicitly incriminating himself. He froze as the ropes around his chest loosened, though they somehow managed to remain in place. “Did you…?”
“Untie the knot binding us together? Why yes, I did, keiji-san,” the man hummed with cocksure cheeriness. “It took some effort, but I managed to rig it so that it stays in place. A modest shove of your arms outwards will make them slip away entirely, so try not to move too much, yeah?” The man squirmed some more, his back rubbing minutely against Wataru’s. “Once I get my legs free—they really didn’t like me kicking at them, you know—it’ll be showtime!”
Wataru felt a bubble of panic balloon in his chest. “Wait, what are we going to do?”
“Improv,” was the easy reply, “it’s a skill all great magicians possess.”
“But not against live weapons!” the detective sputtered in protest.
The grin in the other man’s voice was almost palpable. “You need to put a little more faith in us magicians, keiji-san. Now. When the countdown drops to zero, just get out of the room, okay? Three.”
But I’m terrible at improv! he wanted to wail.
“Two.”
Forcing himself to focus, he exhaled, taking the moment to center and calm himself as best he could.
“One.”
The officer tensed, ready to scramble to his feet as he sucked in a deep breath.
“Zero.” The safety deposit vault disappeared in a dense cloud of white haze.
Wataru broke out of the light restraint of the loosely retied ropes, rolling to his feet and blindly making his way towards the direction he thought the door was. Because the security deposit vault was small, the smoke was thick enough that he could only see a few tens of centimeters ahead of him. Therefore it did not particularly surprise him when he ran headlong into a wall of deposit boxes.
The policeman barely avoided braining himself on the unforgiving metal façade, hands pressing against the cool steel as he steadied himself with said wall. Somewhere in the haze he heard the distinctive thump of a body dropping to the floor and, recalling that their guard had stood near the entry point, Wataru made his way towards that direction while keeping a hand on the wall for reference. At length the columns of boxes gave way to the door, and the officer gratefully tumbled out into the hallway. He tore away from the billowing smoke curling out of the vault, clearing the cloud slowly creeping along the floor. He absently noted that he faced away from the lobby, and that the hallway beyond appeared to end in a room with several cubicle partitions.
Concussive noise erupted scant centimeters from his face, and Wataru yelped and ducked as the continued gunfire sailed overhead. I wish I had my sidearm… The policeman rolled back into the thinning fog, recalling how one phantom thief had squared off against assassins at least two times, to his knowledge. How does Kaitou KID deal with this shit?!
Gritting his teeth, he fought to clear his head of the welling panic. He squinted around him, taking in his hazy surroundings. What do I have at my disposal? What can I use to fight back with?
“Keiji-san! Ground to your four!” the man whose face he never quite caught called out from somewhere in the thicker part of the smoke towards the safety deposit vault. A scraping sound approached from behind him, and Wataru glanced over his shoulder to find the now drugged guard’s G36 sliding across the tile towards him. He snatched it up, very much uncomfortable with the assault rifle he now had in his hands. It was more powerful than anything he had handled as a policeman, and he was honestly terrified by how an easy push of the trigger released so much death and destruction in the right—or was it wrong?—hands.
Nonlethal hits only, Wataru decided as he hefted the rifle and maneuvered himself into a crouch. His heart, already pounding furiously from the adrenaline, lurched uncomfortably in his chest. He clenched his jaw as he dutifully tried to ignore the sensation. Time to prove why I’m a member of law enforcement. Mentally triangulating where the shots had come from, Wataru pointed the nose of the rifle decidedly lower to decrease chances of a hit to the torso in case he accidentally fired.
Several muffled shots echoed in the narrow space that was the hallway; there was a pained, choked-off grunt and a clatter of metal ahead of him. From somewhere above and behind him, Wataru could hear the other man whoop with enthusiasm, “Two down, one to go!” A hand pressed onto a shoulder, and Wataru whirled on it, half-ready to press the trigger.
“Easy there, keiji-san!” the man said, and the hand on his shoulder had disappeared in order to halt his spin by blocking against the length of the rifle. “It’s only me, the magician. You can stand up now.”
Wataru gratefully stood up from his crouch. The smoke continued to roll down the hallway, an intangible but solid wall that crept silently forwards. “Where’s the last one?” he asked as he finally caught a glimpse of his co-conspirator’s face.
The man was young—perhaps late teens to early twenties, with wide green eyes, neatly combed hair, and sharp cheekbones. He looked like any other passerby Wataru could have encountered on the street aside from the fact that on the bridge of his nose and over his right eye was Kaitou KID’s monocle.
The officer could feel his jaw literally drop. “K—KID?” he breathed.
KID winked and pressed a finger to his lips in a nonverbal request for silence. “We’ve got one more, and this one is the other guard dog in the lobby,” the thief said, brisk and business-like as he checked the magazine of the Five-seven to see how many rounds he had left. “He’s covering all the tellers and customers out there, so spraying bullets everywhere is out.”
Wataru nodded. Now that they were out of the safety deposit vault and not under immediate threat of gunfire, he could hear the muffled wail of sirens through the walls. So they had backup outside, though no one out there knew what the exact situation was like inside. “Would you happen to know where my phone is?”
The magician led the officer into the back room with cubicles. The skinny leader was hunched over on the ground nursing two wounds: one in his right hand, and one on his left arm. A small spray from a canister KID procured from somewhere had the man flat on his back and out like a light. Not too far from him was a black duffle that was quickly discovered to contain all of the building occupants’ valuables.
The policeman rummaged through it for his wallet and phone. Dialing Megure, he was quickly transferred to SAT communications in order to explain the situation. He was also given instructions on what to do when they finally stormed the bank building. When Wataru finally disconnected the call, he found Kaitou KID watching him from where he sat on one of the desks with the duffle bag of possessions, his gaze speculative.
“What?” he blurted out, nervous beneath those sharp eyes.
KID shook his head. “Nothing, Takagi-keiji,” he said, an easy grin curving his lips. “Just that you’re a lot of fun to work with—that’s all.”
Filing away that enigmatic statement for later dissection, Wataru explained what was about to happen with regards to the SAT. KID docilely listened, nodding his head in agreement.
“I’m fine with all that,” he said with a relieved sigh as they seated themselves in the middle of the room with clear line of sight down the hallway. “Having someone rescuing me beats me rescuing me any day,” he hummed as he vanished his monocle.
Wataru eyed the thief beside him. “Do you get shot at often?”
KID eyed him back. “Do you really want to involve yourself with getting shot at often?”
The policeman had no response to that, and so they sat in somewhat stilted silence as they waited for the SAT to take out the last guard. Shouting echoed down the hallway. There were shots fired, loud screams, shattering glass, then—the tromp of booted feet as the SAT swept into the bank. Both Wataru and KID had their empty hands in the air as the armored officers approached them and, after some back-and-forth on their comm units, were escorted out of the building.
The street in front of the bank was abuzz with activity. By the time they exited the bank, paramedics were already tending to the two men that he and KID had taken down, along with the third that they had not. Wataru was bullied into being checked over at KID’s insistence, though the magician himself had declined an examination. KID had then been led away to get his statement taken, and the moment it was over Wataru made a beeline in his direction.
“You’re not Kudou-kun, are you?” he asked as he approached. It was a question that had been on his mind for a long while. The phantom thief had, at some point—Wataru was unclear if it had been before or during the attempted robbery—changed his appearance so that he did not much resemble Kudou Shinichi at this moment. It was a look that was quite different from what he had seen when the phantom thief had lain injured in his apartment all those months ago.
KID huffed, shaking his head in amusement. “No, I’m not, Takagi-keiji—I’m definitely no detective. In fact, I’m not even a customer of this bank.”
That caused Wataru’s brow to wrinkle in confusion. “Then why were you here in the first place?”
The phantom thief shrugged. “I happened to spot those three walking in and… well, something about them didn’t sit right with me, so I followed them.” He then smirked. “Aren’t you glad I did?”
Wataru flat-out stared, mouth slightly agape. “You—seriously?”
“Think about it this way, Takagi-keiji,” KID said, his voice sliding into what Wataru could only describe as “lecture mode”. “It takes one to know one. I’m sure you’d be able to pinpoint a plainclothes officer in a crowd with some relative ease, right?” Wataru nodded cautiously. “Well, it’s the same way for me. I know my trade well, so I know the tells. And if you ask me to point them out to you, please note that I specifically trained myself to not give away those tells myself.”
“I…” The thought had not even occurred to him to test if he would be able to pick KID out from anyone else in a crowd.
KID patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a good man, Takagi-keiji. One of my favorite officers, in fact.”
Wataru eyed the hand on his shoulder. “Ah… that’s a good thing, right?”
His uncertain question pulled out a laugh from the phantom thief. “Of course!" He leaned closer to whisper into his ear, "It means you are afforded a few special privileges during heists should you ever decide to come.” He immediately released him and stepped back to a more comfortable distance, grinning widely at him.
Wataru slapped a hand to his face as he muttered, “You’re definitely insane—and I must also be insane to accept your invitation to a heist.”
KID’s eyes positively gleamed with anticipation. “You’ll come to one?”
“Provided I’m not on a case, yes… I’ll see if I can make one. But don’t expect me to be a regular.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Takagi-keiji,” KID answered with a candor that was unusual for a criminal. “I would much rather you chase down murderers than waste your good time playing tag with me.” He paused, a thought crossing his mind with an echoing expression lightly scrunching up his face. “Speaking of… why aren’t you trying to turn me in?”
Here, Wataru uncomfortably scratched the back of his head. “I can’t—not without incriminating myself in the process,” he answered with an embarrassed flush of his cheeks.
The magician erupted in delighted guffaws that had him bent in half and clutching his stomach. “Oh gods, this is too good!”
“Yes, yes, laugh it up,” the policeman grumbled, half-sour and half-amused at both his own plight and KID’s very apparent pleasure. KID smiled good-naturedly up at him, and Wataru found it difficult to remain upset with the upbeat thief. “Get out of here,” he huffed. “You gave your statement under a pseudonym, I’m guessing?” The phantom thief cheekily winked at him in reply, and the officer merely rolled his eyes at the nonverbal confirmation. He flapped a hand at the other man, waving him off. “Then go cause trouble somewhere else before I make an attempt to arrest you here and now.”
KID grinned with enough teeth to slide the expression from friendly to challenging. “That’s the spirit, Takagi-keiji,” he hissed, fiercely excited as he slapped Wataru on the back with friendly vigor. He turned with the motion and began nonchalantly ambling away, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I’ll keep an eye out for you!” he called from over his shoulder as he drifted further away.
“Keep an eye on yourself!” Wataru retorted back, unable to help himself from get in a parting shot that was meant as both a continuation of their lighthearted banter and a serious warning to watch his back.
The phantom thief disappeared into the crowd with a farewell wave while never once glancing back, and Wataru sighed at himself. I can’t believe—no, I think I can safely say that I am certifiably insane if I consider KID saying I am one of his favorite officers an honor.
Wataru grimaced at himself.
Seriously, insane.