Detective Conan and Magic Kaito characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō.

Gestures of Kindness

By Taliya

Omake

"Once more!"

Kuroba Kaito, with beads of sweat sliding down his temples and chin, slid into the familiar ready stance, empty-handed while his classmates circled him armed with an assortment of wooden practice weapons to practice the various skills of tai jutsu, kenjutsu, bo-jutsu, and naginata-jutsu. The class of four pupils comprised Kirigaya Kazuto's most advanced students of the Togakure-ryu, with each of the boys having studied ninjutsu under his tutelage since they were toddlers. The shinobi barked the command to start the spar, and the three boys silently lunged towards the one at the center, whose task was to defend himself from the circle of attacks with whatever he had at his disposal. Whoever was "hit" in a vital area was to lie on the floor, indicating they were incapacitated and/or dead. Part of the training included the use of the environment, so anything the student beginning in tai jutsu could get his hands on was fair game.

The magician ducked under the swing of the bo, dropping a smoke bomb as distraction. He swung around his classmate bearing the naginata, sweeping out his feet and following up with a mock strike to the throat. The smoke was by now beginning to dissipate, and the thief ducked another swing from the bo and blocked a strike from the shinai with a han kote-protected forearm. He countered, allowing the bamboo sword to slide by his side, and as his classmate stumbled past him he swung his elbow into the back of his head with a firm tap, felling the sword bearer. Hefting the shinai, Kaito faced off with the bo-wielder, circling carefully. The long, supple wood of the staff cut through the air, clashing with the shinai as the two fought to overpower the other. With a grunt Kaito pushed his opponent off balance, following through with a series of swift strikes that his off-kilter classmate was hard-pressed to counter. With a final strike he froze the blade a mere centimeter from his classmate's unprotected neck for several seconds before backing off. The match was over in under a minute. The other two boys clambered up from the floor and they returned to a square formation, first bowing to each other for a good spar before turning and bowing out of respect to their instructor. Once their master had dismissed them for the evening, the four of them chatted and laughed as they put away their weapons and cleaned themselves up.

The ninjutsu master had observed the movements of his students carefully, eyes trained to spot the slightest flaws in their technique. Of the four before him, Kuroba Kaito was his best student. A hard worker with a tremendous talent for the art, the shinobi suspected that the boy's success partially stemmed from the fact that he was also an extremely proficient magician—which went hand in hand with the teachings of the Togakure-ryuu, though Kuroba had been careful to never indicate that he was a magician to any of the other boys.

It was not difficult for him to see that his student masqueraded as the infamous Kaitou KID by night—he could identify his students by the way they walked, or even stood. It was all in their posture, their balance, the smallest motions bred by economy of movement and years upon years of practice. But considering exactly what he taught his students, he was somewhat surprised that the other boys had not picked up the fact that their fellow classmate and the internationally wanted jewel thief were one and the same.

Considering that KID never hurt anyone—ego aside—and he returned what he stole, Kirigaya had felt no compunction to turn his best student in. And really, Kaitou KID's reemergence on the world stage was, in its own way, flattering in that his tutelage was one of the reasons the thief had never been caught. Was that not the basis of ninjutsu? To blend in, to escape, and to be the ghost that could never be captured? In that regard, Kuroba's becoming Kaitou KID was the greatest tribute he could pay to the art Kirigaya had dedicated his life to—to know that the style he had learned from his master, Hatsumi Masaaki, honestly worked in the most practical sense.

Well, that and he derived immense entertainment watching his pupil run rings around the police—just as he was trained to do. He did, however, worry about the fact that there were gunmen after his student. Having attended a few heists himself, he had noticed the marksmen targeting the white-clad thief on a number of occasions, and had been hard pressed to restrain himself from intervening. And yet he had, for he knew that becoming Kaitou KID was personal for his student—knew, because Kirigaya understood that KID was Kuroba Touichi's final legacy. The original Kaitou KID had also studied under Hatsumi and alongside Kirigaya, learning the shinobi's craft and augmenting it with his studies as a magician. The two had been good friends, and though they had drifted apart and gone their separate ways as they had grown, they had, up until Touichi's death, remained in contact. And so for Kirigaya to be Kaito's instructor, it was a gift and a privilege he cherished and honored, though the young magician would never know.

Tomorrow was his private practice session with Kuroba, though training would not be in the dojo—it would be outdoors, where the teenager would be put through his paces on ba-jutsu and sui-ren. Kirigaya sighed. Now all he needed to do was train Kuroba out of his unreasonable fear of fish…

Bo – Staff

Naginata – Halbard

Shinai – Bamboo sword

Han kote – Armored half-sleeves that lace up along the inside of the arm and come with attached gauntlets

Author's Note: So… this is my rationale as to how and why Kaito is so good at the non-magical aspects of being a phantom thief and escape artist. Kirigaya Kazuto is the main protagonist from 2009's Sword Art Online. Togakure-ryuu can be roughly translated to "School of the Hidden Door", which is claimed to be the oldest school of ninjutsu still practiced today and contains the Eighteen Skills of Ninjutsu; Hatsumi Masaaki is the current head master. And for those of you who care, I'm in the process of plotting out a sequel. I've no idea how long it'll be, and it'll be slow writing since I will be following the anime timeline and its episodes very closely, so you probably won't see it for a long while. I hope you enjoyed it.

Completed: 27.06.2015