When Pandora bleeds... (Shinkai)

Reflections

Kaito stared at his own reflection inside the mirror of his backstage area, patiently applying a latex patch onto his face, one among many others. He was getting ready for another show and tried to cover up his red skin as best as he could.

Kaito was tense, so tense.

Neither the forecasted applause nor the huge audience which had gathered for him did any remotely good job of cheering him up. The young magician had become jumpy... not only because of the incredible amount of energy he had been feeling since the incident, but because of the strange moments which had begun to appear more and more frequent. Kaito expected any second another episode of darkness washing over him and burying him within the sound- and visionless nightmare he had to endure.

I don't get it. I don't get it at all.

For a moment, the magician paused and stared at himself inside the mirror, fingers finished smoothing out the last patch to cover his face.

Is that actually me? Is that still Kuroba Kaito?

Kaito had to turn away from his image after the necessary last check of his disguise. Disguising as himself was another level of weird for him, he had never before sat down in front of a mirror and worked on a mask of Kuroba Kaito. He had never even considered that this could happen to him. His thoughts began to swirl while the magician began to put on his suit.

What if I would have gotten seriously injured in my Kaitou KID years? While I was in school? What if I would have lost an eye? A limb? I can't believe I used to be so naive, so inconsiderate. One single bad injury would have been enough to tarnish KID's cape and set a good trail for Hakuba to follow. What if I would have died? Nothing would have been able to stop the Crows from obtaining Pandora and robbing more and more children of their parents.

Kaito slammed his fist against the wall, next to a poster of himself on stage. He used to be so damn naive.

Not anymore. Never again.

Sweat began to trickle down his nape and the magician fell exhaustedly down onto the cushioned couch brought just for him., raking a hand through his messy brown hair. He would never be naive again, for the sake of Pandora.
"Pandora..." he whispered, freezing and slowly retracting his hand. Would he need to find a heir? Someone to continue protecting Pandora? Kaito's stomach churned at the imagination of having another person burned with the heritage of his family.

I don't even know anymore what I actually want. I don't even know if I should pray for my immortality to be real, or if I should pray for a relieving death to see Tou-san again.

If he was actually immortal now thanks to his half of Pandora, how long was he going to live on this godforsaken planet? Kaito was going to witness future wars, his loved ones dying all around him, making friends was going to become a hassle to him because he couldn't keep them anyway. Decades would go by without any physical change on him, he would have to take on identity after identity and live a full life before he had to create a new one.
A tiny sob escaped Kaito's mouth and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to panic. This was a lot for someone his age. Kaito was in his midtwenties... Others his age thought about founding a family and he was driving himself insane because of immortality.

...Am I still able to reproduce? Can immortality be passed on?

Kaito pursed his lips and shook his head, wanting to cut his thoughts short. Brooding about this wasn't going to make it better either. With a last glance around his room to analyze its set up, Kaito trotted out of the entrance and towards the stage he was going to perform on. It had become a habit to him, occasionally a fan would manage to sneak into his backstage area and go through his things to find anything personal of him to either keep or sell. The first time that had happened to him, a near heart attack struck him while he searched for Pandora, only to find it where it had been the entire time.

On stage, Kaito set up his mischievous grin and welcomed the audience with a flashy entrance yet that smile quickly vanished. Pandora began to pulse in his pocket, more and more, Kaito was grimacing as he felt blood running down his leg. Pandora was bleeding again.

Pokerface. It's over soon.

Kaito did feel that small beam of pride at his showman expression slammed onto his face, ridding it of all evidence that anything could have been wrong. But his heartbeat began to increase, his hands startled to tremble and in the same second, the young magician realized what was about to happen, what was going on.
A vision. Another vision, right here, right now.
Kaito wanted to scream in frustration as he felt a large shiver running down his spine. He hated Pandora for this, he hated it with all his power for causing this to him.

Kaito tried to proceed as his eyesight turned pitch black, dying out together with any kind of sound. Silence, eery silence, and the calm breath of a person just so close to him. Trembling like a leaf, Kaito tried to move and suppress the loss of control, but it was no use. He couldn't move nor scream for help, and it felt like hours trapped in this nightmare. Kaito didn't even know how long he had been enduring this, but it was way longer than usual.

Stop... Make it stop... Make it stop...

The silence finally moved for a tiny voice, far away, and the feeling of floating made place for a soft and cushioned surface underneath him.
"He seems stable."
"Panic attack?"
"Likely."
Kaito pried his eyes open to be greeted by paramedics, laying inside an ambulance transport. Before Kaito even opened his mouth, the male in front of him gasped and looked deep into his eyes.
"Sir? Stay with me! You'll be at the hospital soon. You need to stay with me now."

A deep frown covered Kaito's face while he tried to sit up and explain it had been only a major panic attack, yet was pushed back down without mercy. His facial expression switched into fear as he caught a glympse of his arms he had had covered beforehand.

Deep crimson red.

...did they... did they remove the latex disguise...?