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•You•
Your Name: Birdy
OOC LJ: shirhan_blade
Contact/AIM: shirhan blade
•Character•
Character Name: Kuroba Kaito/Kaitou Kid/Phantom Thief 1412
Canon: Magic Kaitou/DCMK…......Half-canon? Idefk, I'm not done with canon yet and my god the timeline and do I even have to pretend it always makes sense?
I'm pretty sure he's far enough in to've met The Puntable One in Puntable Size.
Age: 15
Background: Kaitou Kid's background goes back a good while before Kaito was born - the first Kaitou Kid being his father, the internationally famous magician, Kuroba Toichi. At first, the seemingly counterintuitive art-thief who stuck to archaic and romanticised rules was simply known as “Phantom Thief 1412”, up until a detective taking up pursuing him misread a smudged copy of the numbers as “Kid”, creating a name that stuck.
At one point, likely around or just after Kaito's birth, Kid was approached by members of a loose and shadowy organized-crime group that wanted to recruit him to find and acquire a legendary gem named Pandora - something where the appearance was completely unknown, save that the gem would glow red under moonlight, and under the light of certain stars would shed tears that gave immortality. Toichi-Kid refused; not long after, he settled down in Japan, the heists becoming fewer between as he went on a sort of hiatus to take care of his family.
This meant that Kaito's early childhood was fairly stable, with a very close and loving family; Toichi still did shows quite often, and Kaito was already growing to be precocious and -very- inquisitive, often slipping away from anyone Toichi had watching him to wander off. During this time, he met a girl his age at an event at a landmark clock tower - Aoko, who happened to be the daughter of the police detective in charge of the task force specially assembled to catch Kid. Kaito was raised unaware that his father was Kid.
When Kaito was seven, Toichi was murdered by the same organization, with the killing made to look like a stage accident during an escape-artist trick - something nobody would really question too hard, except the few that knew he was Kid, and should've been able to get out of it easily. Kaito and Aoko were in the audience, although Kaito didn't really see much; his mother, who served as one of Toichi's assistants on stage, had noticed something was wrong, and signalled to drop curtain, then after finding out what'd happened, calmly dismissed the audience and called Inspector Nakamori - Aoko's father - backstage from the audience, staying with the kids.
After this, Kaito was raised by his mother; despite the traumatic event, he stuck all the harder to the idea of following in his father's footsteps as a magician. By the time he entered high school, he'd already gotten quite skilled at it, although he didn't even really notice that some of his tricks worked on fridge logic and subconscious intuition rather than any real method, or that they didn't necessarily follow the laws of physics and reality. He was known throughout his school career as a prankster of the highest caliber, to the point that the various school headmasters gave up on calling him to the office or penalizing him for his many stunts, as long as they remained basically harmless ….
Although there was sometimes debate over his habit of turning up in the girl's locker room.
Granted, that particular stunt did tend to get punished by Aoko and her mop before any teacher got ahold of him.
During these seven years, there were a few Kid heists - albiet less flashily done than the previous heists.
When he turned 13, he stumbled into a time-release mechanism his father had set up, opening a secret door from his bedroom into his father's workshop, with a tape and things pre-pared for him; his father's posthumous way of revealing that he'd been Kid. Kaito found the old suit and garb, along with all of the tricks in the workshop, left to him. From the phrasing of the recording, it's entirely possible Toichi had meant it as a "you're old enough to understand without freaking out and deserve to know the truth" with "maybe following in his footsteps" coming later, but this is Kaito we're talking about.
With one of the Kid heists soon to happen, he went out as Kid himself to catch whoever was playing Kid - and ended up unmasking his father's other assistant, Jii, who'd been keeping up the heists after Toichi's death in the hopes of luring out his killers. Kaito covered Jii's escape before disappearing himself.
After that, Kaito took up the mantle of Kaitou Kid, continuing the heists as a way to figure out the mystery of his father's death; Jii stepped into being his accomplice, as he'd been Toichi's accomplice in the past. This led to his life becoming increasingly complicated, as he occasionally found himself stuck pulling stunts to fake alibis to keep the people around him from realizing he was Kid, nevermind the midnight heists on top of classwork; all in all, Kaito was probably lucky that he was basically an ADD ferret that didn't need much sleep and was very good at looking awake when he did doze off in class. It became even more complicated as Kaitou Kid's return to spotlight-stealing also made the Kid once again a prize trophy-case for detectives from all over, leading to close calls with one Kudo Shinichi, and attracting the personal rivalry of the half-Japanese, half-British Saguru. Saguru figured out his real identity, but lacked any evidence and was continually foiled by Kid's sheer dumb luck and ability to manufacture alibis, finally transferring into Kaito's high school to stalk his quarry in a situation that became occasionally reminiscent of older versions of Zim and Dib. Of course that wasn't making things complicated enough, as he also attracted the attention of a bored, semi-immortal witch named Akako that also decided to hang around his school as a student. Akako cemented being “Kind-of terrifying” after trapping him in a magic circle and attempting to force him into binding himself to her. He also managed to acquire the targetting of the assassin that killed his father, who, while quite dangerous, doesn't quite seem to be the worst the shadowy Black Organization can come up with.
His first year and a half as Kid was spent in a manic-obsessive haze; five heists in one month wasn't uncommon for him, and often his "breaks" were only determined by how much plotting he could fit in around schoolwork and maintaining a presence in daily normal life. About the longest break he had involved recovering from a collapsed lung after taking a bullet for Saguru shortly after attracting Snake's attention, as the detective had ended up running into the assassin unexpectedly on a heist - and as soon as he was vaguely up to physical exertion again, he was right back at it. Somewhere in between the high stress of the double life, the inherent risks of the Kid heists, and how much Kid had to be someone who was Not Kuroba Kaito, they ended up dissociating pretty spectacularly. They're a fairly functional pair, but it still was not hard to tell that dealing with Kid was Not Talking To Kaito and vice versa.
He didn't slow down his pace until he got entangled with a shadow figure known as Nightmare, who would partner with thieves to help them outwit the cops and then split the take - ...or blackmail and terrorize more uncooperative "partners" before killing them and keeping it all. Kid, naturally, was one of the later, coerced into playing along via Nightmare threatening the people close to Kaito. They only got out of it with their "secret identity" nominally intact thanks to sheer dumb luck and Nightmare accidentally dying...
By falling off a bridge in front of his seven-year old son after refusing Kid's attempts at catching him and saving him.
The aftermath of the Nightmare case had even Kid rattled, and Kaito shutting down for a week solid. After that, they hunted down the heist targets Nightmare had sold, and then gradually, things returned to normal - but never again did they quite hit the obsessively insane pace they'd kept at first.
Since managing to find out about Pandora and the syndicate, he's been trying to use the heists to drag the assassins into his own spotlight, all the while trying to find Pandora before they do - Pandora being the one heist target he plans on destroying, rather than returning. Because of that, his focus has narrowed from objects of art, to large gemstones, particularly ones with any history to them, as he runs a search pattern for the mysterious gem.
In the meantime, he's also an adrenaline junkie that manages to turn anything into “Did it for the lulz”.
Personality: Before I even start: As mentioned above, they're dissociative. Kid is stably a separate entity from Kaito, with completely different body language, mannerisms, speech patterns, basic habits, and instinctive reactions. In some respects, Kid is mentally and emotionally "older" than Kaito by a few years, probably reading more eighteen or so than fifteen. Even Kid's voice is different, starting from when Kaito'd half mimicked his father's voice on heists to help muddy the waters.
They don't generally lose time; one will remember what the other one did perfectly clearly, although taken-for-granted details, unconscious actions, and things that didn't seem important to remember will get lost in translation. They don't talk to each other directly very often on important things; the shared recall makes it a little redundant, and it's a rare occasion where they really need more than a subtle mental nudge to get a point across. They are, however, occasionally prone to internal sibling squabbles and editorial commentary. It is possible for some of the internal squabbles to end up causing a minute or so of a sort of "dazed" state where they're absorbed enough in the squabble that neither of them are paying attention to what's going on around them or really "front".
The secret identity juggle also means that in many cases, it's more to their advantage for one to avoid meddling too much when the other is front; the complete change in body language, behavior, mannerisms, and speech patterns is as good as a mask in many cases. They'll also lapse into using plural-first-person language if they're either massively agitated or around people they trust well enough; Kid is more prone to this than Kaito, especially since more of Kaito's social circle is "people he needs to know as little as possible for their own protection", while Kid is "social" with only a very few people, all of whom know who he is. (Note that if someone knows about the secret identity bit, and Kid has reasons to trust them enough to relax around them, he'll lapse into plural-pronouns whether they've shown any indication of having figured that part out or not, and doesn't elaborate unless prodded about it - and even that he's slightly cryptic about.)
They've become pretty aware of the dissociation, and it never occured to either of them to think of it as a “disorder”, since it goes a long way toward keeping them sane, out of prison, and in one piece. There are occasions where one of them will shut down for a while, but it's a rare occurrence - so far an outright shutdown has only happened as a result of the Nightmare case. (Kaito's memories of the week after that are hazy, full of gaps and holes, and -very- secondhand; Kid was stuck sole front during that time.) On a less cataclysmic scale, Kid will often avoid front if they're laid up for too long, since he's not quite as good at coping with it without ending up brooding and getting moody. Higher stress situations and actual life-at-risk things will typically lead to Kid taking front to make sure they get out of it OK; things extremely relevant to Kid's interests, like clues to Pandora or information on the Black Org will draw him out and lead to a muddled co-front or him taking front outright, while conversely, Kid avoids Aoko, and is uncomfortable and awkward if forced to handle classes or more normal day to day affairs, mostly leaving those to Kaito. They've hashed out a high level of cooperation, and are good at passing off front without it being too jarring. (For them, at least; for other people it might be a little disorienting, although they'll often blur during the transition and intentionally try to hold the other's mannerisms long enough for the shift to not be too horrifically obvious and sudden.)
In common on both sides, they are very intelligent, with a borderline photographic memory - Kaito's managed to coast through high school in spite of skipping studying for things like heists or pranks. This doesn't mean they always have common sense, or think things through entirely; they're both prone to tripping into “so smart he's stupid” traps, mentally skipping steps enough to occasionally miss things, although Kaito's more likely to have "lack of forethought" fails than Kid. they're adrenaline junkies and curiosity junkies, with no sense of the word fear, and an ego the size of a gas giant. (If it says anything, Kaito is a member of the Kaitou Kid fan club.) In spite of this, and even though Kid is DEFINITELY the pointier one, they're both giant fluffmonsters at heart. They gets very attached to people, including ones that by all rights he should be fleeing - or IS fleeing (see also Akako, see also Kid's relationship with Saguru). “Their” people might be occasionally a little sanity-frayed from their attention, but they're both protective of “their” people, and Kaito especially would break if he were ever left in a vacuum without anyone around. They're also stubborn and allergic to admitting defeat. Kid is slightly less dependent on having people around, since basically the list of people he can associate with outside of baiting on heists and the like is small enough to count on one hand and includes Chat Noir - who's rarely in his area - and Akako, who he's still incredibly wary of. However, just the backlash of Kaito breaking would be enough to push Kid over his own edge, and if the people they care about were removed VIOLENTLY...
He has a very nasty phobia of fish, stemming from his violent and deathly allergy; the smell of fish makes him sick, and actually trying to eat even a small amount or anything that's come in contact with fish sends him into anaphylactic shock. The sight of fish will make him uneasy and uncomfortable, even if they're living and out of reach; Kid tends to mask any reaction under his usual Poker Face, while Kaito will actually intentionally play it up, going into histrionics and over-the-top panic attacks. It's not entirely faked, but he does it consistently enough that most people assume he's not capable of remaining coherent and staying put when faced with fish.
They're not crazy about centipedes either. Spiders they're strangely OK with.
They both have the tendency, with ideas and trains of thought, of mentally ticking through details and every little possibility; and have a -VERY- vivid imagination. Ironically, some of their ADD tendencies are intentional; they're scarily aware of their own psychology and know their own break points, and that some trains of thought, if entertained, can make them very miserable very fast. Hence, some of their random outbursts of chaos are calculated stunts pulled to distract them from ending up dwelling on something in a more unhealthy direction. They've also pored over their own weak points enough to know what they'd be like if they snapped, and that it would be a very, very nasty picture, particularly on Kid's end. Kaito, when agitated enough and not presented with a better outlet, is prone to either large grandiose pranks or rooftop parkour marathons; Kid will actually arrange heists outside of his search pattern, for prank value or just sheer confusion - and there have been times Kid has insisted on a heist to hijack -Kaito- away from a destructive train of thought.
Kaito is erratic, chaotic, and unless given something worth focusing on, is a human perpetual motion machine. He -CAN- sit still and focus, but if he doesn't -have- to, he'll be taking things apart to put them back together, going over to investigate that over there, flipping Aoko's skirt, rigging Saguru's suitcase to rickroll everyone when it's opened next, and generally being a pain in the ass. He's a bit high strung, often sarcastic, and can have sharp, unpredictable mood swings. He also manages to come across as a bit thoughtless; it's not that he's unaware of people's feelings, it's just that unless he's stopping to seriously think about it and act on it, his attention span's already moved on to something else and he likely hasn't noticed until after there's been a visible reaction. He's incredibly sharp about people! ...When he's paying attention. He habitually uses language that's just informal enough to be "obnoxious adolescent/punk kid", although this is more noticeable in his native Japanese than in English, where it's a major grammatical change. (This is particularly noticeable in how he references his father - one of the people he has the most respect for gets a mildly disrespectful tag.) He's not really good with authority; he's prone to "respect for person and not office", being quick to question anything that doesn't make sense, and being quick to ignore rules he doesn't think serve any purpose, and sometimes will test boundaries and challenge authority figures just for doing so. He also plays things up for dramatics, so that some of his mood shifts seem far more erratic than they actually are. He can have quieter moods when he's more focused on something or, for some reason, doesn't feel like going into the usual antics. He's something of a paradoxically introverted extrovert; he continually does things that put him at the center of attention, goes for center-stage limelight in impromptu performances, and will play-flirt and poke into everything so that everyone around his classes knows his name, but he's only actually comfortable being social at length with a very small circle of people. His grades are excellent, but he aims a bit lower than he's capable of, a mix of distractions, occasional apathy for coursework, and manipulating people's perceptions of him to be not the perfect genius, but the overly bright slacker.
There's actually quite a bit they'll worry about and be afraid of in their situation since they've taken up their father's mantle as Kid - after all, they're in the middle of what amounts to a tightrope walk over a pit of spikes, where anything going wrong means horrible ends for them and everyone they care about. They has occasional moments where he'll entertain the possibilities just enough to plan around them, but for Kaito, if anything, the tense and stressful nature of his situation has made him even more of a lunatic ball of chaos, as he seeks to keep even more busy to avoid dwelling on worries. This is one reason the dissociation strikes him as “sanity” - if something hits the wrong nerves and he starts approaching panic, Kid takes over fast and makes sure it gets channeled somewhere else until Kaito's stable again.
While it's something he dwells on rarely and talks about even less often, he does miss his father greatly - they both do, really, even though the background emotions are a little different between Kaito and Kid. There's an inherent wibble on Kaito's end at the absence that will occasionally sneak up on him if he's reminded in the right way, and both of them have special nerves and complexes about parents, including less patience and being easily irritated by parents that're neglectful or absent (god help abusive), and being somewhat more forgiving of things done in the name of one's child. (For those familiar with canon, see also trying to avoid Nightmare's son realizing his father WAS the dangerous criminal he'd been pursuing, who'd been murdering his partners and getting the money for the kid's medical bills via high-stakes robberies.)
Kid is every bit as inquisitive and unpredictable, but far more focused and far less high-strung. Where Kaito might flail and go off-balance, Kid has iron control over his own reactions, a near-perfect poker face, and manages to be decent at figuring people out and predicting them - or knowing how to push buttons to manipulate them. The stubborn streak is honed into an iron will; Kid does not leave until he's achieved what he's after, nor does Kid allow any interference or changes in plans to set him back. He's quite cunning, and it's probably very lucky that he's still incredibly soft-hearted and clings very hard to his “rules”, refusing to allow anyone to come to serious harm on a heist, since he could be a complete nightmare if his principles were ever to slip. He has thought this over and realized just how ruthless and dangerous he -could- be - and he takes Nightmare's memory as a personal “There But For The Grace Of God Go I”.
The adrenaline junkie streak is also honed to a razor's edge for Kid. Kid will practically bullfight-toy with the assassins after him, all the better to trick them out of thinking and into the spotlight and waiting arms of the police; and will bait and toy with the sharper detectives that've pursued him. As much as said detectives are one of the greatest dangers to his plans, he counts them among the aforementioned Possessive; after all, being chased by someone sharp enough to maybe catch the Black Organization is a cornerstone of his plan, and less pragmatically, he misses the challenge on the heists when one of them isn't there. The more serious the threat against him and more fervent the attempts at stopping him, the more entertained and intrigued he is. It's very likely that he couldn't entirely retire from the heists without finding some other line of work that's just as much of a rush.
For all that he refuses to allow people to come to harm, he is an incredibly predatory trickster. He also enjoys messing with people's minds on quite a few levels; while he doesn't really push this to causing actual psychological damage, giving his pursuers a few good scares and a nice case of confusion and disorientation is his main modus operandi, and the more high-profile and hard to rattle someone is, the more he'll want to throw them for a loop. He can also be quite vicious if the right nerves are hit or lines are crossed.
Of course, if someone puts up with his antics with relatively good humor and continues to play along without crossing certain lines like trying to seriously threaten his life, they're liable to end up with the affectionate possessive.
Also to whit, where Kaito is often brash, friendly in a mildly obnoxious way, Kid is somewhat formal and charming in a gracious, distant, “stage persona playing to the audience” way; even his insults and jabs are backhandedly polite, and he's a reflexive, often subtle flirt.
Kid exists by one of the “rules” Toichi'd taught Kaito as a child, with “Poker Face” being almost a mantra; he's very good at not betraying reactions and controlling his own expressions and inflections. It takes a good shock or a very sharp nerve-hit to get him to slip up and react in more than small degrees. He's often called arrogant partly because of this; he behaves as if the situation is completely under his control and going exactly to his plan, even if it's going a bit FUBAR. While he has a large ego, he's perfectly cognizant of his own weaknesses, blinds spots, and potential for failure; however, he will never admit to these, as it would be giving someone else a potentially fatal tactical advantage over him, and even if someone does get him cornered or figure out a weakness, if he can bluff past it well enough, he may be able to regain control of the situation or even get them to think they failed to outmaneuver him or figure him out.
One thing that is a definite weakness - they're both VERY committed to the idea of nobody getting hurt. In some of the headcanon filling in blanks, he's already had a near death experience due to taking a bullet for Hakuba once; they'll throw themselves into danger on someone else's behalf in a heartbeat, no matter who it is, and this likely even extends to people they dislike and active enemies. For all the trouble they get into, they aren't exactly around death as much as say, Shinichi yet, and aren't comfortable with it; Kaito especially may end up a bit queasy around corpses, especially if it's messy. If anyone does end up hurt or dead around them, they do take it somewhat personally - while they haven't lapsed into blaming themselves for things, they do end up all the more driven to make sure it doesn't happen “next time”, and consider that a non-negotiable even while realizing it is one of their potential breaking points. They're nonviolent to a fault, facing any confrontations with a lot of dodging and attempts at either defusing the situation, escaping, or restraining/knocking out whoever's attacking them. They've also got a pathology about challenges, and will never walk away from one; Kaito's ended up in more strange places because of dares, jabs, and bets than even what's normal for an egotistical teenager, while Kid would never even think of walking away from someone setting an obvious trap for him and daring him to walk into it.
Powers: They -are- stupidly intelligent, in both senses of the phrase. They're also very quick; while they has no combat skills besides being a dead-shot with a cardgun or bowgun (which'd be dangerous if they actually allowed using it for harm), they're good enough at dodging that anyone would be hard-pressed to lay a hand on them. (They're not nearly as good at dodging bullets, and have been shot a few times, although they're still fast enough to've mostly avoided anything too lethal.) They're They won't win any strength contests and they can be somewhat fragile if hit solid and hard, but the gymastics Kid goes through on some of his heists would be enough to compete with as a sport. Kid particularly is also used to ignoring and bluffing through pain, and will continue on with whatever he's doing until either he keels over or is safely out of the line of fire - considering how often he's aggravated injuries, this may not always be a benefit. They've spent their entire life honing skills in gymnastics, dodging, sprinting (especially when chased), and especially misdirection and stage magic.
On the less natural end, they can get simple locks open with little to no effort - something intricate and booby trapped will take some work, but simple door locks and the like tend to just come open for them. They haven't owned a key to their own home in years. They can do a LOT of hammerspacing, pulling entire costumes out of thin air; it seems to be somewhat limited to what they, and others, would generally expect them to be pulling out of their sleeve, even if they logically had no way to prepare it or any place to keep it. (The hang-glider assembly is an excellent example of this, and a lot of Kid's costumes.) This also tends to work for small trick things - flowers, playing cards, and the like. They're capable of occasional feats of minor teleportation; it's usually restricted to, if they're sorely pressed and seriously focused on Hauling Ass, cases of “blink and they're a bit further ahead than they should be/have just gotten somewhere they probably shouldn't have been able to reach”. Also the speed with which Kid can switch costumes is complete fridge-logic reality-breaking, since he can pull out a disguise to perfectly and spot-on match someone else that seems to work under perfectly normal and reasonable methods of costuming and makeup … in the span of time it takes a smoke-bomb or flashbang to go off.
Keep in mind that all of this is still basically semi-conscious! He tends to distract himself from thinking about it too hard when one of the detectives is twitching about the fridge-logic inherent in “Just where does he keep his costumes and how does he look EXACTLY like someone else in half a second?”, although they're starting to get to him and he's starting to ponder that maaaaybe not everything he does makes sense after all. He still insists that most of it is just trickery and being a Good Magician, and really, 99% of Kid's antics are just that, and it's likely that if he were to seriously think about any of it, it'd probably stop working as he flounders through trying to make something subconscious and instinctive work on conscious focus when he doesn't actually KNOW how any of it works to actually ponder things like “Where that silk rose was before he handed it to the girl” or “How the glider can be hidden under his coat in a police uniform without being noticeable”. On some level he's a little aware of this and knows better than to ask too many questions.
They're also excellent vocal mimics, and can match any voice after hearing someone speak for a while; they can mimic accents, and can technically parrot off things in languages they doesn't know with perfect accuracy - although for the most part, they're limited to languages they know, which's a fairly short list.
They luck is arguably mildly unnatural, although it's as much “Whatever will keep the gods laughing” as “good luck”, and their “powers” tend to function under the same rules - neither are very reliable, although they tend to function just well enough for them to scrape through and survive, albeit with a growing list of scars, close scrapes, and strange bruises.
Kid especially is also a good actor; while he probably couldn't pull it off long-term and are restricted by how much they know about someone, he can pose as someone else well enough to fool even close friends and relations. (Checks for makeup and costuming - aka the infamous “everyone on the task force has a sore face from being pinched/pulled” - are effective to ID him in disguise, as is “information he wouldn't know” usually, and occasional other slips … he doesn't take up smoking or drinking just because he's impersonating a chain-smoker, and he does have a hard time with people who're perfectly intelligent but don't use it very often. How he got away with Mouri Kogorou as long as he did is amazing, and definitely one where probably even Ran had to've been noticing that her father was a little too consistently on the ball compared to normal - while others had to be just humoring him in that case. Also ironically, Kaito is one of the harder people for Kid to impersonate, since there's a ton of little mannerisms, bits of body language, and speech patterns that Kaito doesn't consciously think about and therefore Kid doesn't remember, nevermind that Kid is more predatory and Kaito is generally floofier.)
Appearance: You know what? I'm gonna be lazy because God knows you've been reading enough. (Besides. Seriously. Does anyone currently in Blip NOT know at least what he looks like?) Kaito, and Kid.
•Samples•
Third Person Sample: (Kaito)
He'd been meaning to figure out what kind of unfamiliar territory he'd ended up in. The place was big, sprawling, empty, and utterly unfamiliar. At first there'd been a little twinge of disorientation edging into something panicky; had he been kidnapped? Had Akako pulled something and had it get out of hand (again)?
When the theories started including aliens, ghosts, and horror-movie plots, he decided that looking around in that spot trying to figure things out wouldn't get him anywhere, and had started walking to investigate.
Which he was going to do until he got an answer damnit!
Really.
Seriously.
It just …
Was so empty and quiet.
And a good two hours of walking had basically just been finding empty city.
And it's not like there was any signs of anything dangerous, or any answers he was having any luck with; just more empty streets sprawling further and further, without any clues, or anybody around that might know something. At this point, he'd even consider walking up and asking Snake for directions and clues, it was getting on his nerves enough.
And then he'd found a big toy store...
Which is why there is now a very thin, very carefully laid and barely perceptible tripwire across the street. The tripwire pulls a lever that sets off a model catapult that throws a ball into a cup with a railing that rolls down to a scale that continues a chain reaction across most of the rather large two-story store, culminating in nice pops of smoke-bombs and rigs to bury the street in confetti, well after a bunch of bright blue paint has been sprayed across the street and whatever poor sod hit the tripwire.
With the machine built, Kaito then set to rattling around the area, investigating buildings, and looking for ANY sign of ANYONE that might accidentally trip over his handiwork - because he's starting to be tempted to set it off himself.
(Kid)
Kid was a little strapped for explanations for the cityscape he'd wandered into. Logically, it was maybe possible that the burned, twisted, rust covered wreckage of a town was some kind of natural abandoned ruin …
Except, well, you didn't just cross an imaginary line and run into ruins like that, and while it hadn't done anything freakish YET, something about it just set all his nerves on edge and screamed UNNATURAL.
When/if he got back home, he might actually have to bring this one up to Akako - it didn't feel like her handiwork at all, but if she knew something about it, it'd be useful. Honestly, it was almost too bad she wasn't here now; he wasn't afraid of the supernatural, but it wasn't really his area of expertise.
The sense that it was unnatural got validated when he glanced up, and found the sky between the buildings covered over with a narrow-mesh barbed wire net that hadn't been there before; here and there, hooked in it, were bits of flesh and feathers.
That, combined with glancing down side alleys and finding heavy bars and grating that rose up to meet the barbed-wire netting cutting off exits, nudged it from “strange”, to “a little unsettling”.
He kept walking; nothing overtly hostile had happened -yet-, and he wasn't about to lose his head just because his surroundings were getting a touch creepy, even if it did seem like it was aiming on a very specific and personal level.
It was the double-take at his reflection in a cracked store-window that got him to pause; he'd noticed it was off because it was a bit taller than he was - and on second look, it wasn't even his face under the monocle, it was his father's.
Well, if he'd been unsure that he'd walked into a horror movie, that probably confirmed it.
Right about when echoes of the fatal injuries he'd never actually seen started appearing on his reflection, he decided it was time to stop indulging the nice little freak-out attempt of messing with his reflection, adjusted his hat by the brim, and continued down the street; more warily, but not about to let on to that (and especially not to let on that it was beginning to get a little … unnerving).
When there was a noise out of sight around a corner behind him - something scraping on the pavement and the muffled rattle of old chain - he turned to face it neatly, card gun in hand, shifting occasionally to keep an eye on the rest of his surroundings in case it was some kind of trick to draw his attention there.
He spoke calmly but clearly, loudly, projecting out to echo off the streets.“Alright, who or whatever you are, you have my attention. I'd guess you want something, so why don't we skip some of the haunting theatrics? I'd much prefer to talk to you reasonably, if you're interested in a reasonable conversation at all.” Odds were good whatever was going on -wasn't- interested in being reasonable, but at least he could say he'd made the effort, and if it did get a favorable response, so much the better.
First Person Sample:
(Kaito)
I didn't MEAN to flood the girl's locker rooms.
The confetti and all? I didn't think it'd settle in the drains like that, and is it my fault some of the girls dashed out and left the showers running? It's not like I was setting off bombs or anything. (I still say flash paper and poppers don't count.) And I wasn't even IN there when any of the girls were, so it's not like I was trying to sneak looks or anything! (That was last week. ...You never heard that.) And it's REALLY not my fault that in the panic, a lot of them didn't remember to grab towels or you know, their clothes on the way out.
Buuut since it looks like Aoko doesn't believe me:
I'm sure Mom can continue taking care of the doves; she's dealt with them plenty.
Although I'd like to leave Byron and Crowley to Hakuba, to keep him on his toes for me.
I'd like my computer to have a very large weight dropped on it, then the hard drive melted down, before anyone gets their hands on it.
There are packages in my room with directions on them who to give them to; that's for the important things. The people who get them can decide what to do from there. If one of them takes up the gig, I want photos and video left at my shrine so I can maybe get my hands on them from the afterlife.
ESPECIALLY if it's Hakuba.
The rest of my estate, Mom can handle; I'm sure she can figure out what to do with it and who to give what to better than I can manage on such short notice while in the top of a tree with my impending death currently working on a way to get to me.
On that note, I leave .. I don't know, ten percent of my inheritance to start a fund for charity, for victims of mop-related assault.
(Kid)
To my Dear Detective:
Welcome to my hideout!
...is what I'm sure you'd love to hear right now.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid this room has nothing to do with anything; it's simply an old, unused apartment I'd happened across while flying home from a heist a while ago that I'd rested in while doing some emergency repairs on the hang glider.
Since you and yours put it under surveillance after I was seen leaving in the morning, I thought it would be disappointing to have you simply watching an empty room all this time, so I've been using it as a stopping point to prepare for heists and slip off afterwards, and for some other excursions. The excuse for extra practice with the hang glider is most appreciated!
Sadly, if you're reading this you've probably just missed me, and have brought enough police into this place to make it not very good for future use. -very small, sad Kid doodle goes here-
I regret that I cannot take my leave in person, as I've already left; in apology, please enjoy the small show I've prepared for you.
Don't worry, it'll all wash out.
Eventually.
-And normal Kid doodle goes here-
Alternate Samples:
By the time Conan woke up, not only had Kid managed to smuggle him into the nice soundproofed Room That Did Not Exist in his home, he'd thoroughly disarmed the Puntable One of everything that could vaguely be a weapon (which left the kid in basically in shirt, underwear, shorts, and socks … with what he'd pulled out of nowhere that'd proven to be a weapon before, Kid wasn't taking any chances), and was sitting on a chair facing the small thing, beginning to get bored. Maybe he'd overdone the dose on the sleeping gas?
...Well, for Conan. For -RAN- who had been attempting to murder him with her bare hands, it was probably just the right amount to've dropped. He never wanted to be in a small space with that woman gone that homicidally pissed ever again.
After a while, finally, the “kid” stirred, made that special little unhappy grumble that came with a post-gassing headache...
Blinked blearily a few times with another little half-vocal grumble...
And then sat up fast with eyes wide, twisting to glance around and take in the entire room while the little wheels put together just where he was and just how many visible exits there were (none).
And then that gaze settled on the very smug magician-thief lounging in the plain chair in front of him.
Kid allowed the smirking grin to widen just a little as the little detective's first reflexive action was to move as if aiming the watch that wasn't there at him, doing a comedically impressive job of trying to look intimidating while at it.
“Good morning, tantei~kun~”, Kid sing-songed.
There was a beat, and then it sank in that the watch was missing; the boy's eyes widened, there was a small eep, and then a very amusing flail as he patted himself down and found out just how thoroughly he'd been stripped.
Kid, through this, stayed perfectly still, just bemusedly watching the progression as “Conan” tallied out that he was disarmed, in Kid's lair, and that Kid was right in front of him.
It was even more amusing when the moment of “Oh dear god I'm screwed” panic was very visibly grabbed, throttled, and shoved in a box, as “Conan” sat down facing him in a huff.
“So. What do you want?”
It was so adorable, how he was trying to act like he still had an illusion of control over the situation. “Well, from that letter of yours, I gathered that you wanted to talk, Shi-ni-chi-kun....” He took his time emphasizing the syllables of the name, just driving home the point. “So I thought I'd arrange for a meeting somewhere that would be assuredly away from prying eyes. Unfortunately, there's a sad lack of neutral ground to meet on.”
“And you couldn't give me input on where I'd like to meet you?” It was snipped with a sullen glare.
He leaned forward, resting his chin on one hand, the hat brim dipping down to add shadows in the dim lighting. “Well, it's not my fault I'm so far ahead in this game.”
That got some small choked noise and the special half-disbelieving look that meant Shinichi had just estimated his opponent somewhere far behind. It got swept back into - he almost said something in the “cute little Conan” demeanor, which got an ever-so-slight warning hunch to the thief's shoulders. Instead, he got sarcastic Shinichi, whose gestures lost a lot of ground on an eight year old frame. “Ahead. Right.” The boy thought, adjusted the glasses, and tilted his head up. “The bugs we'd been panicking about were yours, weren't they? That's how you found out where I was so fast.”
“Bingo.” Kid grinned. Of course it'd been a little alarmingly suspicious, getting the note about being 'borrowed' the morning after his little letter had arrived. “You might want to be a little more humble when you ask for help, Tantei~kun. Especially when you've lost every match we've had so far.”
“Conan” gave that a snort, glowering up at Kid as imperiously as he could in a small child's body. “I didn't lose. You never got away with your target.”
Kid paused, inclining his head to one side, and favored Shinichi with one of his best, more predatory grins, stifling a snicker -
And then broke out laughing, a lunatic hyena cackle suggesting a distinct and potentially hazardous lack of sanity. The laughter choked out slowly into a reply. “feheh - I don't know. Every time, I've gotten in...” He rose to his feet, one hand on the brim of his hat long enough to adjust it so it'd continue shading his face. “Gotten my hands on the target...” He walked forward slowly, and looked just a little more feral as Shinichi's eyes flickered to the other hand behind his back suspiciously. “...And kept it long enough to tell it wasn't the one I'm looking for.” He paused, standing over one small detective that was having a lot of small twitches of wanting to reach for weapons that he already knew weren't there. “Besides, Tantei~kun~” He stalked closer as he spoke, with a nice, measured pace that gave just enough time for “Conan” to edge away and keep some sense of a personal space bubble, his voice dropping into a smooth, predatory purr. “Do you think you could have stopped me if the target ~had~ been the one I'm after?”
And timed perfectly, he dropped down to one knee to put the maniac grin on Shinichi's eye level just as the detective backed into the Iron Maiden, flinched at the sudden feeling of a solid object cutting off his escape, and glanced up to see a tall, imposing heavy metal shape with empty restraints dangling from it. For a couple seconds, “Conan” looked torn between being slightly tweaked by the object he'd run into, and keeping his eyes on the crazy person that'd just backed him into the wall.
“Oooh.” The grin lit up a little crazier. Under different circumstances, the device would be something of the utmost respect and gravity - but right now, it was far, far too tempting to use it as leverage against someone who seriously needed a lesson in how small he was and how bad he was at thinking about his situation before speaking and acting. “I'm sure you know what -that- is, right, Tantei-kun? After all that research you did on me...”
The panicked gawk back and forth got throttled back under control, and Kid could almost hear the little internal cartoonish struggle to stomp it back into its box while Shinichi forcibly drug his composure back. “That's the trick your predecessor - your father - died on.” He glared back at the thief, the statement his own little dig at “I know who you are”.
There was another small, unhinged chuckle. “You mean the thing Our Mutual Friends used to murder him.”
Also worth noting:
He has three of his doves with him, Byron, Scherezade, and Kaguya - Byron being the smallest, and least “normal” (Kid as an little affection-attention whore white dove, basically), Scherezade being the largest and calmest, Kaguya being middle and somewhat high-strung.
Your Name: Birdy
OOC LJ: shirhan_blade
Contact/AIM: shirhan blade
•Character•
Character Name: Kuroba Kaito/Kaitou Kid/Phantom Thief 1412
Canon: Magic Kaitou/DCMK…......Half-canon? Idefk, I'm not done with canon yet and my god the timeline and do I even have to pretend it always makes sense?
I'm pretty sure he's far enough in to've met The Puntable One in Puntable Size.
Age: 15
Background: Kaitou Kid's background goes back a good while before Kaito was born - the first Kaitou Kid being his father, the internationally famous magician, Kuroba Toichi. At first, the seemingly counterintuitive art-thief who stuck to archaic and romanticised rules was simply known as “Phantom Thief 1412”, up until a detective taking up pursuing him misread a smudged copy of the numbers as “Kid”, creating a name that stuck.
At one point, likely around or just after Kaito's birth, Kid was approached by members of a loose and shadowy organized-crime group that wanted to recruit him to find and acquire a legendary gem named Pandora - something where the appearance was completely unknown, save that the gem would glow red under moonlight, and under the light of certain stars would shed tears that gave immortality. Toichi-Kid refused; not long after, he settled down in Japan, the heists becoming fewer between as he went on a sort of hiatus to take care of his family.
This meant that Kaito's early childhood was fairly stable, with a very close and loving family; Toichi still did shows quite often, and Kaito was already growing to be precocious and -very- inquisitive, often slipping away from anyone Toichi had watching him to wander off. During this time, he met a girl his age at an event at a landmark clock tower - Aoko, who happened to be the daughter of the police detective in charge of the task force specially assembled to catch Kid. Kaito was raised unaware that his father was Kid.
When Kaito was seven, Toichi was murdered by the same organization, with the killing made to look like a stage accident during an escape-artist trick - something nobody would really question too hard, except the few that knew he was Kid, and should've been able to get out of it easily. Kaito and Aoko were in the audience, although Kaito didn't really see much; his mother, who served as one of Toichi's assistants on stage, had noticed something was wrong, and signalled to drop curtain, then after finding out what'd happened, calmly dismissed the audience and called Inspector Nakamori - Aoko's father - backstage from the audience, staying with the kids.
After this, Kaito was raised by his mother; despite the traumatic event, he stuck all the harder to the idea of following in his father's footsteps as a magician. By the time he entered high school, he'd already gotten quite skilled at it, although he didn't even really notice that some of his tricks worked on fridge logic and subconscious intuition rather than any real method, or that they didn't necessarily follow the laws of physics and reality. He was known throughout his school career as a prankster of the highest caliber, to the point that the various school headmasters gave up on calling him to the office or penalizing him for his many stunts, as long as they remained basically harmless ….
Although there was sometimes debate over his habit of turning up in the girl's locker room.
Granted, that particular stunt did tend to get punished by Aoko and her mop before any teacher got ahold of him.
During these seven years, there were a few Kid heists - albiet less flashily done than the previous heists.
When he turned 13, he stumbled into a time-release mechanism his father had set up, opening a secret door from his bedroom into his father's workshop, with a tape and things pre-pared for him; his father's posthumous way of revealing that he'd been Kid. Kaito found the old suit and garb, along with all of the tricks in the workshop, left to him. From the phrasing of the recording, it's entirely possible Toichi had meant it as a "you're old enough to understand without freaking out and deserve to know the truth" with "maybe following in his footsteps" coming later, but this is Kaito we're talking about.
With one of the Kid heists soon to happen, he went out as Kid himself to catch whoever was playing Kid - and ended up unmasking his father's other assistant, Jii, who'd been keeping up the heists after Toichi's death in the hopes of luring out his killers. Kaito covered Jii's escape before disappearing himself.
After that, Kaito took up the mantle of Kaitou Kid, continuing the heists as a way to figure out the mystery of his father's death; Jii stepped into being his accomplice, as he'd been Toichi's accomplice in the past. This led to his life becoming increasingly complicated, as he occasionally found himself stuck pulling stunts to fake alibis to keep the people around him from realizing he was Kid, nevermind the midnight heists on top of classwork; all in all, Kaito was probably lucky that he was basically an ADD ferret that didn't need much sleep and was very good at looking awake when he did doze off in class. It became even more complicated as Kaitou Kid's return to spotlight-stealing also made the Kid once again a prize trophy-case for detectives from all over, leading to close calls with one Kudo Shinichi, and attracting the personal rivalry of the half-Japanese, half-British Saguru. Saguru figured out his real identity, but lacked any evidence and was continually foiled by Kid's sheer dumb luck and ability to manufacture alibis, finally transferring into Kaito's high school to stalk his quarry in a situation that became occasionally reminiscent of older versions of Zim and Dib. Of course that wasn't making things complicated enough, as he also attracted the attention of a bored, semi-immortal witch named Akako that also decided to hang around his school as a student. Akako cemented being “Kind-of terrifying” after trapping him in a magic circle and attempting to force him into binding himself to her. He also managed to acquire the targetting of the assassin that killed his father, who, while quite dangerous, doesn't quite seem to be the worst the shadowy Black Organization can come up with.
His first year and a half as Kid was spent in a manic-obsessive haze; five heists in one month wasn't uncommon for him, and often his "breaks" were only determined by how much plotting he could fit in around schoolwork and maintaining a presence in daily normal life. About the longest break he had involved recovering from a collapsed lung after taking a bullet for Saguru shortly after attracting Snake's attention, as the detective had ended up running into the assassin unexpectedly on a heist - and as soon as he was vaguely up to physical exertion again, he was right back at it. Somewhere in between the high stress of the double life, the inherent risks of the Kid heists, and how much Kid had to be someone who was Not Kuroba Kaito, they ended up dissociating pretty spectacularly. They're a fairly functional pair, but it still was not hard to tell that dealing with Kid was Not Talking To Kaito and vice versa.
He didn't slow down his pace until he got entangled with a shadow figure known as Nightmare, who would partner with thieves to help them outwit the cops and then split the take - ...or blackmail and terrorize more uncooperative "partners" before killing them and keeping it all. Kid, naturally, was one of the later, coerced into playing along via Nightmare threatening the people close to Kaito. They only got out of it with their "secret identity" nominally intact thanks to sheer dumb luck and Nightmare accidentally dying...
By falling off a bridge in front of his seven-year old son after refusing Kid's attempts at catching him and saving him.
The aftermath of the Nightmare case had even Kid rattled, and Kaito shutting down for a week solid. After that, they hunted down the heist targets Nightmare had sold, and then gradually, things returned to normal - but never again did they quite hit the obsessively insane pace they'd kept at first.
Since managing to find out about Pandora and the syndicate, he's been trying to use the heists to drag the assassins into his own spotlight, all the while trying to find Pandora before they do - Pandora being the one heist target he plans on destroying, rather than returning. Because of that, his focus has narrowed from objects of art, to large gemstones, particularly ones with any history to them, as he runs a search pattern for the mysterious gem.
In the meantime, he's also an adrenaline junkie that manages to turn anything into “Did it for the lulz”.
Personality: Before I even start: As mentioned above, they're dissociative. Kid is stably a separate entity from Kaito, with completely different body language, mannerisms, speech patterns, basic habits, and instinctive reactions. In some respects, Kid is mentally and emotionally "older" than Kaito by a few years, probably reading more eighteen or so than fifteen. Even Kid's voice is different, starting from when Kaito'd half mimicked his father's voice on heists to help muddy the waters.
They don't generally lose time; one will remember what the other one did perfectly clearly, although taken-for-granted details, unconscious actions, and things that didn't seem important to remember will get lost in translation. They don't talk to each other directly very often on important things; the shared recall makes it a little redundant, and it's a rare occasion where they really need more than a subtle mental nudge to get a point across. They are, however, occasionally prone to internal sibling squabbles and editorial commentary. It is possible for some of the internal squabbles to end up causing a minute or so of a sort of "dazed" state where they're absorbed enough in the squabble that neither of them are paying attention to what's going on around them or really "front".
The secret identity juggle also means that in many cases, it's more to their advantage for one to avoid meddling too much when the other is front; the complete change in body language, behavior, mannerisms, and speech patterns is as good as a mask in many cases. They'll also lapse into using plural-first-person language if they're either massively agitated or around people they trust well enough; Kid is more prone to this than Kaito, especially since more of Kaito's social circle is "people he needs to know as little as possible for their own protection", while Kid is "social" with only a very few people, all of whom know who he is. (Note that if someone knows about the secret identity bit, and Kid has reasons to trust them enough to relax around them, he'll lapse into plural-pronouns whether they've shown any indication of having figured that part out or not, and doesn't elaborate unless prodded about it - and even that he's slightly cryptic about.)
They've become pretty aware of the dissociation, and it never occured to either of them to think of it as a “disorder”, since it goes a long way toward keeping them sane, out of prison, and in one piece. There are occasions where one of them will shut down for a while, but it's a rare occurrence - so far an outright shutdown has only happened as a result of the Nightmare case. (Kaito's memories of the week after that are hazy, full of gaps and holes, and -very- secondhand; Kid was stuck sole front during that time.) On a less cataclysmic scale, Kid will often avoid front if they're laid up for too long, since he's not quite as good at coping with it without ending up brooding and getting moody. Higher stress situations and actual life-at-risk things will typically lead to Kid taking front to make sure they get out of it OK; things extremely relevant to Kid's interests, like clues to Pandora or information on the Black Org will draw him out and lead to a muddled co-front or him taking front outright, while conversely, Kid avoids Aoko, and is uncomfortable and awkward if forced to handle classes or more normal day to day affairs, mostly leaving those to Kaito. They've hashed out a high level of cooperation, and are good at passing off front without it being too jarring. (For them, at least; for other people it might be a little disorienting, although they'll often blur during the transition and intentionally try to hold the other's mannerisms long enough for the shift to not be too horrifically obvious and sudden.)
In common on both sides, they are very intelligent, with a borderline photographic memory - Kaito's managed to coast through high school in spite of skipping studying for things like heists or pranks. This doesn't mean they always have common sense, or think things through entirely; they're both prone to tripping into “so smart he's stupid” traps, mentally skipping steps enough to occasionally miss things, although Kaito's more likely to have "lack of forethought" fails than Kid. they're adrenaline junkies and curiosity junkies, with no sense of the word fear, and an ego the size of a gas giant. (If it says anything, Kaito is a member of the Kaitou Kid fan club.) In spite of this, and even though Kid is DEFINITELY the pointier one, they're both giant fluffmonsters at heart. They gets very attached to people, including ones that by all rights he should be fleeing - or IS fleeing (see also Akako, see also Kid's relationship with Saguru). “Their” people might be occasionally a little sanity-frayed from their attention, but they're both protective of “their” people, and Kaito especially would break if he were ever left in a vacuum without anyone around. They're also stubborn and allergic to admitting defeat. Kid is slightly less dependent on having people around, since basically the list of people he can associate with outside of baiting on heists and the like is small enough to count on one hand and includes Chat Noir - who's rarely in his area - and Akako, who he's still incredibly wary of. However, just the backlash of Kaito breaking would be enough to push Kid over his own edge, and if the people they care about were removed VIOLENTLY...
He has a very nasty phobia of fish, stemming from his violent and deathly allergy; the smell of fish makes him sick, and actually trying to eat even a small amount or anything that's come in contact with fish sends him into anaphylactic shock. The sight of fish will make him uneasy and uncomfortable, even if they're living and out of reach; Kid tends to mask any reaction under his usual Poker Face, while Kaito will actually intentionally play it up, going into histrionics and over-the-top panic attacks. It's not entirely faked, but he does it consistently enough that most people assume he's not capable of remaining coherent and staying put when faced with fish.
They're not crazy about centipedes either. Spiders they're strangely OK with.
They both have the tendency, with ideas and trains of thought, of mentally ticking through details and every little possibility; and have a -VERY- vivid imagination. Ironically, some of their ADD tendencies are intentional; they're scarily aware of their own psychology and know their own break points, and that some trains of thought, if entertained, can make them very miserable very fast. Hence, some of their random outbursts of chaos are calculated stunts pulled to distract them from ending up dwelling on something in a more unhealthy direction. They've also pored over their own weak points enough to know what they'd be like if they snapped, and that it would be a very, very nasty picture, particularly on Kid's end. Kaito, when agitated enough and not presented with a better outlet, is prone to either large grandiose pranks or rooftop parkour marathons; Kid will actually arrange heists outside of his search pattern, for prank value or just sheer confusion - and there have been times Kid has insisted on a heist to hijack -Kaito- away from a destructive train of thought.
Kaito is erratic, chaotic, and unless given something worth focusing on, is a human perpetual motion machine. He -CAN- sit still and focus, but if he doesn't -have- to, he'll be taking things apart to put them back together, going over to investigate that over there, flipping Aoko's skirt, rigging Saguru's suitcase to rickroll everyone when it's opened next, and generally being a pain in the ass. He's a bit high strung, often sarcastic, and can have sharp, unpredictable mood swings. He also manages to come across as a bit thoughtless; it's not that he's unaware of people's feelings, it's just that unless he's stopping to seriously think about it and act on it, his attention span's already moved on to something else and he likely hasn't noticed until after there's been a visible reaction. He's incredibly sharp about people! ...When he's paying attention. He habitually uses language that's just informal enough to be "obnoxious adolescent/punk kid", although this is more noticeable in his native Japanese than in English, where it's a major grammatical change. (This is particularly noticeable in how he references his father - one of the people he has the most respect for gets a mildly disrespectful tag.) He's not really good with authority; he's prone to "respect for person and not office", being quick to question anything that doesn't make sense, and being quick to ignore rules he doesn't think serve any purpose, and sometimes will test boundaries and challenge authority figures just for doing so. He also plays things up for dramatics, so that some of his mood shifts seem far more erratic than they actually are. He can have quieter moods when he's more focused on something or, for some reason, doesn't feel like going into the usual antics. He's something of a paradoxically introverted extrovert; he continually does things that put him at the center of attention, goes for center-stage limelight in impromptu performances, and will play-flirt and poke into everything so that everyone around his classes knows his name, but he's only actually comfortable being social at length with a very small circle of people. His grades are excellent, but he aims a bit lower than he's capable of, a mix of distractions, occasional apathy for coursework, and manipulating people's perceptions of him to be not the perfect genius, but the overly bright slacker.
There's actually quite a bit they'll worry about and be afraid of in their situation since they've taken up their father's mantle as Kid - after all, they're in the middle of what amounts to a tightrope walk over a pit of spikes, where anything going wrong means horrible ends for them and everyone they care about. They has occasional moments where he'll entertain the possibilities just enough to plan around them, but for Kaito, if anything, the tense and stressful nature of his situation has made him even more of a lunatic ball of chaos, as he seeks to keep even more busy to avoid dwelling on worries. This is one reason the dissociation strikes him as “sanity” - if something hits the wrong nerves and he starts approaching panic, Kid takes over fast and makes sure it gets channeled somewhere else until Kaito's stable again.
While it's something he dwells on rarely and talks about even less often, he does miss his father greatly - they both do, really, even though the background emotions are a little different between Kaito and Kid. There's an inherent wibble on Kaito's end at the absence that will occasionally sneak up on him if he's reminded in the right way, and both of them have special nerves and complexes about parents, including less patience and being easily irritated by parents that're neglectful or absent (god help abusive), and being somewhat more forgiving of things done in the name of one's child. (For those familiar with canon, see also trying to avoid Nightmare's son realizing his father WAS the dangerous criminal he'd been pursuing, who'd been murdering his partners and getting the money for the kid's medical bills via high-stakes robberies.)
Kid is every bit as inquisitive and unpredictable, but far more focused and far less high-strung. Where Kaito might flail and go off-balance, Kid has iron control over his own reactions, a near-perfect poker face, and manages to be decent at figuring people out and predicting them - or knowing how to push buttons to manipulate them. The stubborn streak is honed into an iron will; Kid does not leave until he's achieved what he's after, nor does Kid allow any interference or changes in plans to set him back. He's quite cunning, and it's probably very lucky that he's still incredibly soft-hearted and clings very hard to his “rules”, refusing to allow anyone to come to serious harm on a heist, since he could be a complete nightmare if his principles were ever to slip. He has thought this over and realized just how ruthless and dangerous he -could- be - and he takes Nightmare's memory as a personal “There But For The Grace Of God Go I”.
The adrenaline junkie streak is also honed to a razor's edge for Kid. Kid will practically bullfight-toy with the assassins after him, all the better to trick them out of thinking and into the spotlight and waiting arms of the police; and will bait and toy with the sharper detectives that've pursued him. As much as said detectives are one of the greatest dangers to his plans, he counts them among the aforementioned Possessive; after all, being chased by someone sharp enough to maybe catch the Black Organization is a cornerstone of his plan, and less pragmatically, he misses the challenge on the heists when one of them isn't there. The more serious the threat against him and more fervent the attempts at stopping him, the more entertained and intrigued he is. It's very likely that he couldn't entirely retire from the heists without finding some other line of work that's just as much of a rush.
For all that he refuses to allow people to come to harm, he is an incredibly predatory trickster. He also enjoys messing with people's minds on quite a few levels; while he doesn't really push this to causing actual psychological damage, giving his pursuers a few good scares and a nice case of confusion and disorientation is his main modus operandi, and the more high-profile and hard to rattle someone is, the more he'll want to throw them for a loop. He can also be quite vicious if the right nerves are hit or lines are crossed.
Of course, if someone puts up with his antics with relatively good humor and continues to play along without crossing certain lines like trying to seriously threaten his life, they're liable to end up with the affectionate possessive.
Also to whit, where Kaito is often brash, friendly in a mildly obnoxious way, Kid is somewhat formal and charming in a gracious, distant, “stage persona playing to the audience” way; even his insults and jabs are backhandedly polite, and he's a reflexive, often subtle flirt.
Kid exists by one of the “rules” Toichi'd taught Kaito as a child, with “Poker Face” being almost a mantra; he's very good at not betraying reactions and controlling his own expressions and inflections. It takes a good shock or a very sharp nerve-hit to get him to slip up and react in more than small degrees. He's often called arrogant partly because of this; he behaves as if the situation is completely under his control and going exactly to his plan, even if it's going a bit FUBAR. While he has a large ego, he's perfectly cognizant of his own weaknesses, blinds spots, and potential for failure; however, he will never admit to these, as it would be giving someone else a potentially fatal tactical advantage over him, and even if someone does get him cornered or figure out a weakness, if he can bluff past it well enough, he may be able to regain control of the situation or even get them to think they failed to outmaneuver him or figure him out.
One thing that is a definite weakness - they're both VERY committed to the idea of nobody getting hurt. In some of the headcanon filling in blanks, he's already had a near death experience due to taking a bullet for Hakuba once; they'll throw themselves into danger on someone else's behalf in a heartbeat, no matter who it is, and this likely even extends to people they dislike and active enemies. For all the trouble they get into, they aren't exactly around death as much as say, Shinichi yet, and aren't comfortable with it; Kaito especially may end up a bit queasy around corpses, especially if it's messy. If anyone does end up hurt or dead around them, they do take it somewhat personally - while they haven't lapsed into blaming themselves for things, they do end up all the more driven to make sure it doesn't happen “next time”, and consider that a non-negotiable even while realizing it is one of their potential breaking points. They're nonviolent to a fault, facing any confrontations with a lot of dodging and attempts at either defusing the situation, escaping, or restraining/knocking out whoever's attacking them. They've also got a pathology about challenges, and will never walk away from one; Kaito's ended up in more strange places because of dares, jabs, and bets than even what's normal for an egotistical teenager, while Kid would never even think of walking away from someone setting an obvious trap for him and daring him to walk into it.
Powers: They -are- stupidly intelligent, in both senses of the phrase. They're also very quick; while they has no combat skills besides being a dead-shot with a cardgun or bowgun (which'd be dangerous if they actually allowed using it for harm), they're good enough at dodging that anyone would be hard-pressed to lay a hand on them. (They're not nearly as good at dodging bullets, and have been shot a few times, although they're still fast enough to've mostly avoided anything too lethal.) They're They won't win any strength contests and they can be somewhat fragile if hit solid and hard, but the gymastics Kid goes through on some of his heists would be enough to compete with as a sport. Kid particularly is also used to ignoring and bluffing through pain, and will continue on with whatever he's doing until either he keels over or is safely out of the line of fire - considering how often he's aggravated injuries, this may not always be a benefit. They've spent their entire life honing skills in gymnastics, dodging, sprinting (especially when chased), and especially misdirection and stage magic.
On the less natural end, they can get simple locks open with little to no effort - something intricate and booby trapped will take some work, but simple door locks and the like tend to just come open for them. They haven't owned a key to their own home in years. They can do a LOT of hammerspacing, pulling entire costumes out of thin air; it seems to be somewhat limited to what they, and others, would generally expect them to be pulling out of their sleeve, even if they logically had no way to prepare it or any place to keep it. (The hang-glider assembly is an excellent example of this, and a lot of Kid's costumes.) This also tends to work for small trick things - flowers, playing cards, and the like. They're capable of occasional feats of minor teleportation; it's usually restricted to, if they're sorely pressed and seriously focused on Hauling Ass, cases of “blink and they're a bit further ahead than they should be/have just gotten somewhere they probably shouldn't have been able to reach”. Also the speed with which Kid can switch costumes is complete fridge-logic reality-breaking, since he can pull out a disguise to perfectly and spot-on match someone else that seems to work under perfectly normal and reasonable methods of costuming and makeup … in the span of time it takes a smoke-bomb or flashbang to go off.
Keep in mind that all of this is still basically semi-conscious! He tends to distract himself from thinking about it too hard when one of the detectives is twitching about the fridge-logic inherent in “Just where does he keep his costumes and how does he look EXACTLY like someone else in half a second?”, although they're starting to get to him and he's starting to ponder that maaaaybe not everything he does makes sense after all. He still insists that most of it is just trickery and being a Good Magician, and really, 99% of Kid's antics are just that, and it's likely that if he were to seriously think about any of it, it'd probably stop working as he flounders through trying to make something subconscious and instinctive work on conscious focus when he doesn't actually KNOW how any of it works to actually ponder things like “Where that silk rose was before he handed it to the girl” or “How the glider can be hidden under his coat in a police uniform without being noticeable”. On some level he's a little aware of this and knows better than to ask too many questions.
They're also excellent vocal mimics, and can match any voice after hearing someone speak for a while; they can mimic accents, and can technically parrot off things in languages they doesn't know with perfect accuracy - although for the most part, they're limited to languages they know, which's a fairly short list.
They luck is arguably mildly unnatural, although it's as much “Whatever will keep the gods laughing” as “good luck”, and their “powers” tend to function under the same rules - neither are very reliable, although they tend to function just well enough for them to scrape through and survive, albeit with a growing list of scars, close scrapes, and strange bruises.
Kid especially is also a good actor; while he probably couldn't pull it off long-term and are restricted by how much they know about someone, he can pose as someone else well enough to fool even close friends and relations. (Checks for makeup and costuming - aka the infamous “everyone on the task force has a sore face from being pinched/pulled” - are effective to ID him in disguise, as is “information he wouldn't know” usually, and occasional other slips … he doesn't take up smoking or drinking just because he's impersonating a chain-smoker, and he does have a hard time with people who're perfectly intelligent but don't use it very often. How he got away with Mouri Kogorou as long as he did is amazing, and definitely one where probably even Ran had to've been noticing that her father was a little too consistently on the ball compared to normal - while others had to be just humoring him in that case. Also ironically, Kaito is one of the harder people for Kid to impersonate, since there's a ton of little mannerisms, bits of body language, and speech patterns that Kaito doesn't consciously think about and therefore Kid doesn't remember, nevermind that Kid is more predatory and Kaito is generally floofier.)
Appearance: You know what? I'm gonna be lazy because God knows you've been reading enough. (Besides. Seriously. Does anyone currently in Blip NOT know at least what he looks like?) Kaito, and Kid.
•Samples•
Third Person Sample: (Kaito)
He'd been meaning to figure out what kind of unfamiliar territory he'd ended up in. The place was big, sprawling, empty, and utterly unfamiliar. At first there'd been a little twinge of disorientation edging into something panicky; had he been kidnapped? Had Akako pulled something and had it get out of hand (again)?
When the theories started including aliens, ghosts, and horror-movie plots, he decided that looking around in that spot trying to figure things out wouldn't get him anywhere, and had started walking to investigate.
Which he was going to do until he got an answer damnit!
Really.
Seriously.
It just …
Was so empty and quiet.
And a good two hours of walking had basically just been finding empty city.
And it's not like there was any signs of anything dangerous, or any answers he was having any luck with; just more empty streets sprawling further and further, without any clues, or anybody around that might know something. At this point, he'd even consider walking up and asking Snake for directions and clues, it was getting on his nerves enough.
And then he'd found a big toy store...
Which is why there is now a very thin, very carefully laid and barely perceptible tripwire across the street. The tripwire pulls a lever that sets off a model catapult that throws a ball into a cup with a railing that rolls down to a scale that continues a chain reaction across most of the rather large two-story store, culminating in nice pops of smoke-bombs and rigs to bury the street in confetti, well after a bunch of bright blue paint has been sprayed across the street and whatever poor sod hit the tripwire.
With the machine built, Kaito then set to rattling around the area, investigating buildings, and looking for ANY sign of ANYONE that might accidentally trip over his handiwork - because he's starting to be tempted to set it off himself.
(Kid)
Kid was a little strapped for explanations for the cityscape he'd wandered into. Logically, it was maybe possible that the burned, twisted, rust covered wreckage of a town was some kind of natural abandoned ruin …
Except, well, you didn't just cross an imaginary line and run into ruins like that, and while it hadn't done anything freakish YET, something about it just set all his nerves on edge and screamed UNNATURAL.
When/if he got back home, he might actually have to bring this one up to Akako - it didn't feel like her handiwork at all, but if she knew something about it, it'd be useful. Honestly, it was almost too bad she wasn't here now; he wasn't afraid of the supernatural, but it wasn't really his area of expertise.
The sense that it was unnatural got validated when he glanced up, and found the sky between the buildings covered over with a narrow-mesh barbed wire net that hadn't been there before; here and there, hooked in it, were bits of flesh and feathers.
That, combined with glancing down side alleys and finding heavy bars and grating that rose up to meet the barbed-wire netting cutting off exits, nudged it from “strange”, to “a little unsettling”.
He kept walking; nothing overtly hostile had happened -yet-, and he wasn't about to lose his head just because his surroundings were getting a touch creepy, even if it did seem like it was aiming on a very specific and personal level.
It was the double-take at his reflection in a cracked store-window that got him to pause; he'd noticed it was off because it was a bit taller than he was - and on second look, it wasn't even his face under the monocle, it was his father's.
Well, if he'd been unsure that he'd walked into a horror movie, that probably confirmed it.
Right about when echoes of the fatal injuries he'd never actually seen started appearing on his reflection, he decided it was time to stop indulging the nice little freak-out attempt of messing with his reflection, adjusted his hat by the brim, and continued down the street; more warily, but not about to let on to that (and especially not to let on that it was beginning to get a little … unnerving).
When there was a noise out of sight around a corner behind him - something scraping on the pavement and the muffled rattle of old chain - he turned to face it neatly, card gun in hand, shifting occasionally to keep an eye on the rest of his surroundings in case it was some kind of trick to draw his attention there.
He spoke calmly but clearly, loudly, projecting out to echo off the streets.“Alright, who or whatever you are, you have my attention. I'd guess you want something, so why don't we skip some of the haunting theatrics? I'd much prefer to talk to you reasonably, if you're interested in a reasonable conversation at all.” Odds were good whatever was going on -wasn't- interested in being reasonable, but at least he could say he'd made the effort, and if it did get a favorable response, so much the better.
First Person Sample:
(Kaito)
I didn't MEAN to flood the girl's locker rooms.
The confetti and all? I didn't think it'd settle in the drains like that, and is it my fault some of the girls dashed out and left the showers running? It's not like I was setting off bombs or anything. (I still say flash paper and poppers don't count.) And I wasn't even IN there when any of the girls were, so it's not like I was trying to sneak looks or anything! (That was last week. ...You never heard that.) And it's REALLY not my fault that in the panic, a lot of them didn't remember to grab towels or you know, their clothes on the way out.
Buuut since it looks like Aoko doesn't believe me:
I'm sure Mom can continue taking care of the doves; she's dealt with them plenty.
Although I'd like to leave Byron and Crowley to Hakuba, to keep him on his toes for me.
I'd like my computer to have a very large weight dropped on it, then the hard drive melted down, before anyone gets their hands on it.
There are packages in my room with directions on them who to give them to; that's for the important things. The people who get them can decide what to do from there. If one of them takes up the gig, I want photos and video left at my shrine so I can maybe get my hands on them from the afterlife.
ESPECIALLY if it's Hakuba.
The rest of my estate, Mom can handle; I'm sure she can figure out what to do with it and who to give what to better than I can manage on such short notice while in the top of a tree with my impending death currently working on a way to get to me.
On that note, I leave .. I don't know, ten percent of my inheritance to start a fund for charity, for victims of mop-related assault.
(Kid)
To my Dear Detective:
Welcome to my hideout!
...is what I'm sure you'd love to hear right now.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid this room has nothing to do with anything; it's simply an old, unused apartment I'd happened across while flying home from a heist a while ago that I'd rested in while doing some emergency repairs on the hang glider.
Since you and yours put it under surveillance after I was seen leaving in the morning, I thought it would be disappointing to have you simply watching an empty room all this time, so I've been using it as a stopping point to prepare for heists and slip off afterwards, and for some other excursions. The excuse for extra practice with the hang glider is most appreciated!
Sadly, if you're reading this you've probably just missed me, and have brought enough police into this place to make it not very good for future use. -very small, sad Kid doodle goes here-
I regret that I cannot take my leave in person, as I've already left; in apology, please enjoy the small show I've prepared for you.
Don't worry, it'll all wash out.
Eventually.
-And normal Kid doodle goes here-
Alternate Samples:
By the time Conan woke up, not only had Kid managed to smuggle him into the nice soundproofed Room That Did Not Exist in his home, he'd thoroughly disarmed the Puntable One of everything that could vaguely be a weapon (which left the kid in basically in shirt, underwear, shorts, and socks … with what he'd pulled out of nowhere that'd proven to be a weapon before, Kid wasn't taking any chances), and was sitting on a chair facing the small thing, beginning to get bored. Maybe he'd overdone the dose on the sleeping gas?
...Well, for Conan. For -RAN- who had been attempting to murder him with her bare hands, it was probably just the right amount to've dropped. He never wanted to be in a small space with that woman gone that homicidally pissed ever again.
After a while, finally, the “kid” stirred, made that special little unhappy grumble that came with a post-gassing headache...
Blinked blearily a few times with another little half-vocal grumble...
And then sat up fast with eyes wide, twisting to glance around and take in the entire room while the little wheels put together just where he was and just how many visible exits there were (none).
And then that gaze settled on the very smug magician-thief lounging in the plain chair in front of him.
Kid allowed the smirking grin to widen just a little as the little detective's first reflexive action was to move as if aiming the watch that wasn't there at him, doing a comedically impressive job of trying to look intimidating while at it.
“Good morning, tantei~kun~”, Kid sing-songed.
There was a beat, and then it sank in that the watch was missing; the boy's eyes widened, there was a small eep, and then a very amusing flail as he patted himself down and found out just how thoroughly he'd been stripped.
Kid, through this, stayed perfectly still, just bemusedly watching the progression as “Conan” tallied out that he was disarmed, in Kid's lair, and that Kid was right in front of him.
It was even more amusing when the moment of “Oh dear god I'm screwed” panic was very visibly grabbed, throttled, and shoved in a box, as “Conan” sat down facing him in a huff.
“So. What do you want?”
It was so adorable, how he was trying to act like he still had an illusion of control over the situation. “Well, from that letter of yours, I gathered that you wanted to talk, Shi-ni-chi-kun....” He took his time emphasizing the syllables of the name, just driving home the point. “So I thought I'd arrange for a meeting somewhere that would be assuredly away from prying eyes. Unfortunately, there's a sad lack of neutral ground to meet on.”
“And you couldn't give me input on where I'd like to meet you?” It was snipped with a sullen glare.
He leaned forward, resting his chin on one hand, the hat brim dipping down to add shadows in the dim lighting. “Well, it's not my fault I'm so far ahead in this game.”
That got some small choked noise and the special half-disbelieving look that meant Shinichi had just estimated his opponent somewhere far behind. It got swept back into - he almost said something in the “cute little Conan” demeanor, which got an ever-so-slight warning hunch to the thief's shoulders. Instead, he got sarcastic Shinichi, whose gestures lost a lot of ground on an eight year old frame. “Ahead. Right.” The boy thought, adjusted the glasses, and tilted his head up. “The bugs we'd been panicking about were yours, weren't they? That's how you found out where I was so fast.”
“Bingo.” Kid grinned. Of course it'd been a little alarmingly suspicious, getting the note about being 'borrowed' the morning after his little letter had arrived. “You might want to be a little more humble when you ask for help, Tantei~kun. Especially when you've lost every match we've had so far.”
“Conan” gave that a snort, glowering up at Kid as imperiously as he could in a small child's body. “I didn't lose. You never got away with your target.”
Kid paused, inclining his head to one side, and favored Shinichi with one of his best, more predatory grins, stifling a snicker -
And then broke out laughing, a lunatic hyena cackle suggesting a distinct and potentially hazardous lack of sanity. The laughter choked out slowly into a reply. “feheh - I don't know. Every time, I've gotten in...” He rose to his feet, one hand on the brim of his hat long enough to adjust it so it'd continue shading his face. “Gotten my hands on the target...” He walked forward slowly, and looked just a little more feral as Shinichi's eyes flickered to the other hand behind his back suspiciously. “...And kept it long enough to tell it wasn't the one I'm looking for.” He paused, standing over one small detective that was having a lot of small twitches of wanting to reach for weapons that he already knew weren't there. “Besides, Tantei~kun~” He stalked closer as he spoke, with a nice, measured pace that gave just enough time for “Conan” to edge away and keep some sense of a personal space bubble, his voice dropping into a smooth, predatory purr. “Do you think you could have stopped me if the target ~had~ been the one I'm after?”
And timed perfectly, he dropped down to one knee to put the maniac grin on Shinichi's eye level just as the detective backed into the Iron Maiden, flinched at the sudden feeling of a solid object cutting off his escape, and glanced up to see a tall, imposing heavy metal shape with empty restraints dangling from it. For a couple seconds, “Conan” looked torn between being slightly tweaked by the object he'd run into, and keeping his eyes on the crazy person that'd just backed him into the wall.
“Oooh.” The grin lit up a little crazier. Under different circumstances, the device would be something of the utmost respect and gravity - but right now, it was far, far too tempting to use it as leverage against someone who seriously needed a lesson in how small he was and how bad he was at thinking about his situation before speaking and acting. “I'm sure you know what -that- is, right, Tantei-kun? After all that research you did on me...”
The panicked gawk back and forth got throttled back under control, and Kid could almost hear the little internal cartoonish struggle to stomp it back into its box while Shinichi forcibly drug his composure back. “That's the trick your predecessor - your father - died on.” He glared back at the thief, the statement his own little dig at “I know who you are”.
There was another small, unhinged chuckle. “You mean the thing Our Mutual Friends used to murder him.”
Also worth noting:
He has three of his doves with him, Byron, Scherezade, and Kaguya - Byron being the smallest, and least “normal” (Kid as an little affection-attention whore white dove, basically), Scherezade being the largest and calmest, Kaguya being middle and somewhat high-strung.