Detective Conan - Magic Kaito oneshots

The last flight

The whistle of the wind and the sound of traffic around them mixed with shaky breathing. The whole world reduced to a red Cabrio racing down the highway at night, way over the speed limit, for a moment in time that only the two eerily similar looking men in the car would remember. The ground fell away beneath the car as it sped onto a long bridge across water twinkling in the moonlight.

Shinichi's knuckles were white from how tightly he held onto the wheel, flooring it over the asphalt at a speed that made his sight blur at times, despite the glasses he'd eventually had to concede to needing. Once more he was racing against time to save a life, somehow it never got any easier.

Kaito allowed his gaze to wander. Slumped on his side in the passenger seat, he could see the lighting of the bridge reflecting in Shinichi's glasses like the moon reflecting on the water below, the wind pulling at his hair from the speed they were traveling at, just as Kaito could feel it pulling on his own. The detective's face was stony, his jaw clenched, every line of his body screamed tension and anxiety, and Kaito felt a bit bad for causing it.

It was hard to feel anything at this point but the odd featherlight kind of pain in every cell of his body, despite his body itself being heavy like lead and utterly motionless, with the exception of his little old heart sluggishly thumping on and his chest struggling to continue his raspy breathing.

He knew what he had to look like right then and there, he'd been forced to see it before on others. His skin was clammy and pale, had a bluish green tint to it, his eyes were slightly glazed over and bloodshot, his lips chapped.

Shinichi could feel his companion's feverish gaze on him. It burned a hole into the part of his heart that remembered every victim, every single person he hadn't been able to save. If he hadn't already been going as fast as he could, he would've sped up.

He couldn't let the forcefully retired phantom thief become another name on the long list of people he'd tried to save in vain. Not when Kuroba had saved his own life more times than Shinichi could care to count and helped him out of one or the other tight spot with his miraculous disguise skills. He had to save him in return this time, he had to.

Kaito observed the determination in Shinichi's features with a detached fondness. He didn't need the detective to pay him back, truly, but it was sweet that he tried so hard all the same. They were both aware that the chances of him making it to their destination were very slim, if not impossible.

It was kind of funny, Kaito thought, he'd always thought if he was going to die prematurely it'd be at the hands of Snake and his men. Instead he'd been able to witness their defeat and by now very few of them were left rotting in a cell somewhere, none of them granted the knowledge of when he'd take his last breath.

Kuroba's breathing stuttered. Shinichi cursed. He cursed the fatal drug that had been administered to the ex-thief, that brought death faster in withdrawal than in continued consumption, but left no other outcome for its victim, he cursed the ones who'd given it to the person who'd jumped off of buildings and zeppelins to save him.

He cursed the FBI who'd put Kuroba on the undercover mission in the first place, who had a habit of handing him the short end of the stick, who'd only gotten him to work for them because they made it his only way to avoid prison.

Kaito watched the upset, the anger, the despair, lining the face of the detective he'd known for a decade, his ally, his colleague on occasion, but most importantly, his friend, even though they'd never said it out loud. Had never needed to, really. After all they'd been through.

Shinichi glanced at him from the corner of his eye and in their brief moment of eye contact he knew the other understood what he didn't have the strength to actually tell him anymore. Shinichi hadn't been the one to leak his identity to the FBI, fating him a special undercover agent for them til, apparently, the end of his life. None of his detectives had betrayed the glorious Kaitou KID. Not even after he'd hung up his cape for the final time.

Shinichi knew Kuroba was prepared to die, wasn't really expecting him to save him this time, they both knew the odds. Yet it only fueled his desperate need to succeed.

He hated seeing the man who could be his twin this fragile, this broken, even if the hazy gaze locked on him was calm, collected, and at peace with all to come. He didn't deserve this. He deserved so much more for all the things he'd done, all the lives he'd saved and changed for the better.

Shinichi's included, obviously, amongst so many others, people Shinichi loved, people he knew, people he'd never even heard of. Kuroba deserved to say goodbye to those he'd want to see, those who would want to say goodbye to him. And yet. Life had rarely shown so clearly that it wasn't fair. Kaito's breathing slowed, quieted.

Kaito was vaguely aware that his heartbeat slowed down, there was only rushing in his ears anyway, if it was his blood or the traffic noise, he couldn't tell, he didn't care. He felt like he was floating, only aware of the barest hints of pain skirting the edges of his mind anymore. Like he was flying one last time.

And at least one of his detectives was right next to him until the end. He had gotten his victory.

He'd avenged his father's murder, he'd destroyed Pandora and the ones after it, had made sure no other child would lose a parent at their hands, he'd given KID a glamorous last hurrah for the world to remember, he'd broken the circle of heartbroken children chasing the legacy of their parents, having no children of his own, and he'd never been abandoned again after his parents.

There were things he'd still wanted to do, sure, but it was alright like this. He'd done it. He could rest now.

Almost on instinct Shinichi glanced to the side when the moment arrived. They looked into each other's eyes when it was time for the first of them to go. There was a fragile but genuine smile on Kuroba's- no, Kaito's face as his heart beat its final beat and he exhaled for the last time.

And then he lay still. A sickly limp figure in the passenger seat, indigo eyes still looking at him, empty, void of the spark that brought them to live.

Shinichi tore his eyes away, back to the road, as he struggled to inhale and not swerve the car out of lane. "Travel safely on your last flight, old friend.", he whispered his parting words into the night with a tear-choked voice.

The winds carried them away just like the sobs he only halfway managed to stifle and the tears that poured down his face. The moon shone above, its reflection twinkled in the water below the bridge as the red Cabrio flew across it.