#Akako is at a similar level

[kawarikisaki]

I hope you’re including Aoko because I really like their interactions would really if the admiration wasn’t just one sided.

Okay So this one is gonna get weird. And there's going to be a lot more stuff that feels like guesswork here. Even though Aoko and Hakuba are native to the same story, we don't really see them interact much, at least not in super meaningful ways.

Anyway, I'm going to start by saying Aoko is smart. She's often put into a position where she's the butt of a joke or playing the fool, but she is established from the beginning to be very intelligent, at the very least she's shown to be able to keep up with Kaito academically.

So time for another headcanon with barely any substantiation- their class is an advanced class. After all we already know that Aoko and Kaito are both very smart, and Hakuba is also smart and was very intentionally transferred into their class.

But more on the relationship between Aoko and Hakuba.

To begin with Aoko is a fan of Hakuba, but mostly just on a shallow level, she doesn't give off the impression of having been a fan for a long time, but she is interested enough after seeing him on tv to start quoting his catch phrases (which changes a bit depending on what we're taking as canon, with it being "Why did you do it?" in the original manga, and "the truth has come to light" in the 1412 anime).

Despite this in their first actual interaction she's not all that excited when he flirts with her- talking with her friend later she doesn't even really acknowledge that she was asked on a date, just that if Hakuba wins the bet she'd be going to a concert with him. And I'd like to think that her reaction is that way because she saw the original offer for what it was- not a legitimate attempt to woo her but rather just a move to rile up Kaito.

Every move that Hakuba makes in that introductory chapter is directed at Kaito, but that doesn't mean he's just ignoring Aoko. Perhaps this is me having an idyllic view of him, but I think he's very empathetic; he sees Aoko and he sees that she's like him in that she's kind of forced into the shadow of her father, he sees her interaction with Kaito and is able to understand that she wants to go with Kaito but with the way things were playing out Kaito was going to get away with acting like he didn't care... and that would have only hurt Aoko. So what does he do? He interferes; he puts himself in the villain role and shows Kaito 'if you don't care about her then sooner or later someone will come along that does', and he does it this way for the dual purpose of antagonizing Kaito (who he already suspects may be Kid) and also trying to help Aoko. And during the heist he takes it very seriously, commiting to the bit as it were. Did I explain that last point well? I don't think so. Is it a bit of a stretch? Absolutely. Do I care? Not really. This is how I see it.

The next time Hakuba is taking the stage (A Gift from Akako) he's also very much focused on Kaito not Aoko, which makes sense, Magic Kaito is Kaito's story after all so of course we really only ever see Hakuba and Aoko interact when it's serving Kaito's narrative.

But what we do start to see is Aoko and Hakuba seeming to get along well in just a casual way. Additionally in that case there's a clear change in Aoko, previously she's always stayed on the sidelines just waiting to hear the news of results, but this time she actually requests to come along to help catch Kid- and I would like to claim that the one responsible for this change in her is Hakuba. Perhaps she sees that Hakuba is inviting Kaito and opens up the idea that she can be there too, or maybe she thinks that if the son of a police superintendent can be there then the daughter of the inspector on site can be there, or maybe she has an inkling of Kaito's identity and is coming along to help... whatever it is the one that gave her the push is Hakuba, and after that heist she starts showing up at them more regularly.

The two are both present again for the Dark Knight heist, but unfortunately they don't even so much as look at each other, so no notable interactions there... Which brings us to Midnight Crow.

When Akako and Hakuba are both approaching Kaito with their own thinly veiled 'hey I know you're Kid, good luck, I'm actually rooting for you here' bits, Aoko comes up and once again plays the fool changing the flow of the conversation and- doing almost the exact same thing they were by giving Kaito the exact information that he needed through a barely connected anecdote. (Yes I think that at this point Aoko also knows, and just is fully acting oblivious.) And that's all she does in Midnight Crow in the manga, however, in the 1412 anime there's a bit more; she also forms a detective team "to catch Kid", that motive ringing somewhat hollow when she herself said that she was on neither side, and Hakuba admits that he's relieved that Kid didn't lose. The purpose of this team doesn't really seem like it's genuinely to catch Kid but rather Aoko making an excuse for the four of them to be able to talk directly about Kid without there being any suspicions. Then once again they're both present in Sun Halo but don't interact with each other at all.

So what does all of this tell us? They're friends. In a very normal way.

Aoko seems to respect Hakuba's skill. Early on she bonds with him over their mutual distaste for Kid, but overtime that changes and they still care a lot about each other without needing there to be an undercurrent of aggression directed at Kid in order for them to see eye to eye. And Hakuba for his part clearly enjoys spending time with her. And absolutely cares about her feelings given that even though he knows Kaito is Kid he never tries to tell Aoko that, not wanting to to potentially hurt her.

And that's about the gist of it. This one kinda feels like I'm saying a lot of words but not really expressing much... a lot less focused than the other rambles I've done so far but eh.... it's a less focused topic. When I try to simplify things down to the facts of what we see- well these two barely even interact with one another, but even so the vibe is that they're friends, which is good because I get the feeling that Hakuba doesn't really have many of those. Anyway.

There is one more thing that I want to bring up about the connections between Aoko and Hakuba, and for that I'm going to talk about Nonchalant Lupin.

Nonchalant Lupin being the sort of one-shot/prototype that got polished and eventually evolved into Magic Kaito. I'd recommend reading it if you haven't but for now I'm gonna give the cliff notes version just in case.

The one shot stars Lupin Kaito a young magician that steals for monetary gain, Holmes Aoko the kind hearted and self sacrificing detective love interest, and the antagonist Gurikouji Ken who is the son of a mob family who blackmails Aoko into marrying him using pictures taken of Kaito in the act of stealing.

Now obviously Lupin Kaito became Kuroba Kaito, and Holmes Aoko became Nakamori Aoko. And a lot of people would say that Ken is the prototype Hakuba, which I think there is some truth to that, but not the whole story- because I instead propose that both Holmes Aoko and Gurikouji Ken were the bases for Hakuba.

Nakamori Aoko got Holmes's role as childhood friend and love interest, and Hakuba actually got the role of detective and the morality from Holmes while taking an aggressive approach and cocky confidence from Ken. Not that Holmes is cleanly split up between the two of them, but even so I like to think that the Aoko and Hakuba we know were at least in part cut from the same cloth, and that's why even though we barely ever see them interact they do genuinely fit well together in a way that just feels correct.

Does that make sense to anyone but me? Who knows.

[leonawriter]

Okay so I saw this:

"You say I made fun of your childish trick, but did you forget I'm Kaitou Kid? There's nothing wrong with a Kid laughing at child's play, right?"

And immediately got reminded of MK ch10, "Would You Grow Up?" because he uses almost exactly the same line.

In a heist where Akako has been trying to use an ensorcelled Nakamori to not just catch him but kill him, she ends up nearly falling from the Touto Tower, and he has to save her.

The following then happens-

Kaito "You really are a child, huh..." Akako "Y-you're wrong!!" Kaito: "No, I'm not... (ow, ow, ow... grazed it pretty good...) [licks the wound] You're trying to be an adult by standing on your toes, so you end up looking only at the sky and going too far." Akako "W-well, what about you, then!"

Kaito "I'm Kid!! Isn't it alright for Kid to act like a child?" Akako "Ah, wait!! [noise of frustration]"

So - the two cases are even, to a point, similar... if you consider that both Amuro and Akako have tried to kill him at least once (with Akako here having seen through him instantly through the use of her real magic, and Amuro having first met Kid when he was disguised). Akako is infuriated because of Kid refusing to be "caught" by her and Amuro is angered by things said when Kid took umbrage against his "child's play" card trick.

In Akako's case, he saves her and reminds her that she's trying so hard to be an adult that she's forgetting to look at where she currently is, and what's in front of her face.

In Amuro's case... I'd hazard a guess to say that it's him telling Amuro to not take everything so seriously all of the time. "You're a PSB agent? Then why are you so offended at something so small?"

Interestingly, even though I don't see him as specifically saying this to Amuro here, there's something else that ties the two together, which is...

She'd been trying to kill Kid, and when he gets to her she says "You're just like a child! Believing that you can do anything! But I am an adult... that means I am capable of killing you..."

He goads her on, saying "You're an adult, right? Let's see you prove it!"

"You can't do it! People's lives are too important to you!"

Which is when things start to go wrong, and he has to catch her.

Thing is?

Amuro, being in the PSB and the Black Organisation is... drenched in this sense of "I am in an adult's world, a territory that light-hearted pranksters like that can't come near." He is dangerous. He's outright nearly killed Kid once, purely because he'd disguised as someone the Organisation wanted him to kill.

But at the same time, he practices child's play card tricks and gets offended when they're criticised. He's on the side of the law. He wanted to show off that his version of the card trick - one he clearly understands at far more than a basic level - is far superior to what he'd shown before.

It really does remind me of Akako saying that since she's an adult already, she can kill, whereas Kid, who thinks he can do anything, is still a child. Amuro can kill - but he's... lost sight of some of that joy of living. Amuro focuses so much on his goals, his mission, his pride... that perhaps he, too, needs to be reminded by someone that "Peoples' lives are important to you" as well, and that it's not a bad thing to care so much.

[nightfoliage]

Fandom: DCMK - Detective Conan and Magic Kaito

Title: Moonlight Drive

Pairing: Kuroba Kaito/Kudo Shinichi - KaiShin

Side Pairing: Akako/Aoko/Saguru 

For: @bakathief

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary: 

Conan has been waiting for this day since he first de-aged all those years ago. (Almost five years!) It’s time to put the Black Organization behind bars once and for all. He may look like a kid, but he isn’t going to let that stop him from taking part in such a momentous event. However, complications arise when he turns into Shinichi during the raid. He runs, coincidentally meeting a handsome samaritan along the way. 

Kaito picks up some local chatter suggesting a lead to the men in black. The operation looks serious and it doesn’t look like Kid’s usual tricks will help him here, so Kaito decides reconnaissance as himself. Unfortunately, the operation is so serious Kaito is forced to leave empty-handed. On his way home, he meets a mysterious stranger.

Tags/Warnings: not movie compliant, mostly based on the manga, Post-Canon, aged up characters, they don’t know who the other is, identity porn, meet-cute, get together, mutual pining, emotions, canon levels of violence to the series, written around chapter 1030 

Word Count: ~39.2k

Beta: @wannabeagrunklefan

Author’s Note:

Haha, so backstory about this fic, I was a pinch hitter for the KaiShin Reverse Big Bang. Now I’m a pretty slow writer so I started pre-write some fic ideas. This was one of the ones that I continued to write for even after the event. It was inspired by @bakathief ‘s wip claims piece, so this fic will have some similarities to kittebasu’s fic (I was actually very careful not to read it, just so I wouldn’t be influenced.) Here's a tumblr link to bakathief's final art piece for that fic. And here's the link to kittebasu's fic. Please enjoy~!

Thanks again to @wannabeagrunklefan for being such a great beta!

[clairekatswritingcorner]

A Valentine’s Surprise

Word Count: 2,080

Summary: Claire decides to put on a special Valentine’s show for Kaito that he won’t soon forget.

*Author’s Note*: That summary is probably not a very accurate summary but don’t let your minds go to the gutter it isn’t anything like that. I didn’t think I was going to have time to do a Valentine’s Day one shot but I procrastinated on homework and did this anyway. For anyone that doesn’t know (and because I haven’t posted a character sheet for her yet) my OC/Self Insert is a witch who practices blue magic, hence why what you read involves water and not some other element like air. I feel bad that a lot of the scenarios I come up with for me and Kaito are of him as Kid, so I wanted to do a one shot where me/my self insert could do something extravagant for normal old Kaito (because he is also amazing and great and I love him just as much). I hope you enjoy!

(Read on Ao3)

The weather was pleasant and the city buzzed with an air of anticipation that was to be expected on this annual holiday. Claire tried not to let the weight of the atmosphere affect her, although her own distractions and anxieties were enough to put her on edge. The colorfully decorated gift bag she held behind her bounced against her legs as she rocked back and forth, listening to the hum of the city and waiting for Kaito to answer the door.

Half of her was glad for the extra time to compose herself, while the other half just took the time to worry and whine about all of the worry that’d been building since she’d settled on this idea. It was a little intimidating to do anything for Kaito, at least if it was along the lines of impressing him, mostly because he was already such an impressing person himself. Claire knew that it was irrational to discount herself before she’d even gotten started, especially when Kaito was such an uplifting and genuinely supportive person, but she couldn't wholly dissolve the knot in her stomach as she repeated the steps of the plan to herself for the umpteenth time.

“Hello?” Kaito greeted with distracted hesitation, and Claire hoped that she hadn’t caught him in the middle of something. It was rare for her to stop by unannounced but she knew, thanks to her source on all things Kaito related, he didn’t have any work or heist engagements that might interfere with her spontaneous plans. She smiled and greeted him with a tiny wave, caught off guard by his enthusiastic reaction once he registered who she was.

“Claire!” She was surprised at how soothing her name could sound when he spoke it, and realizing that this simple expression arose any kind of feeling in her made her blush. Her preoccupied thoughts were swept away for a moment as Kaito swung the door open and tackled her with a hug. She did what she could to keep the bag behind her concealed, letting her purse slip down a bit in the hopes that it would serve as a plausible distraction. “What are you doing here? You should have texted me or something, let me know you were coming over. I would have been more presentable…”

“You’re not not presentable,” she replied, observing his casual attire alongside knowing that he wasn’t the kind of person to leave his home a mess. “And I don’t want you to feel like you have to put on a face when I come over. You never have to put on any faces with me; you know that.”

“Yeah but I would have prepared something or--”

“No, nope, that’s alright. I don’t need some fantastic display exploding in my face every time I come to visit either. Besides, today isn’t your day to impress me.”

He examined her with an increasingly curious, perplexed gaze. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

A self-satisfied smile spread across her face as she slipped a blindfold out of her sleeve and deftly secured it to his face. Kaito remained still, not fighting her unexpected gesture, and she hoped that was as much a testament to how much he trusted her as it was to his familiarity with this kind of scenario. Well, at least in the context of his work as a magician.

“So, am I allowed to ask any questions, or will all be revealed to me in due time?” he asked, the teasing edge in his voice making Claire hope he hadn’t already figured her out. She didn’t know how he would even begin to predict exactly what she had in store, but then again, there were a lot of mysteries about Kaito that she was sure she would never solve.

“Don’t ruin the surprise. I’m going to make sure you don’t run into anything, and if you peek, I promise you’ll be cursed with misfortune for the rest of your life.”

“I thought Akako was the one who specialized in stuff like curses,” he mused, following her instructions as she led him back into the house.

“Well, I can’t give you the specifics, but if I said she’s been teaching me some of her techniques, would you be scared?”

“I don’t know if I’m more scared of that kind of power in your or Akako’s hands,” he continued. “Maybe the most terrifying thing would be you two as a team. I can only imagine the kind of havoc you would wreak together.”

The thought made Claire laugh as they entered the living room, and she got him seated on the couch she considered how grateful she was for this small talk. Even with her heart pounding a mile a minute, her head racing with the terrified possibilities that something might go wrong, or all her efforts would turn out to be subpar, he still had a way of making her feel at ease. His personality was charming and adaptable, at least he always seemed that way with her, and his mood shifting influence was just what she needed to calm her nerves. All of the stress and expectations she battled were obstacles that she had placed in her own path. Kaito would never expect anything more from her than he knew she could do, and she also knew he cherished every part of her anyway.

“Alright, now remember what I said about the peeking,” she reminded him as she stepped back to examine the room. “I’ll tell you when you can remove the blindfold, but you better not move a muscle until I say so. And I’ll know, don’t try to trick me.”

“Magician’s honor,” Kaito replied, and although she felt like that was quite a flimsy oath to pledge, he always kept his word.

Relieved that he would do as she requested, Claire turned her attention to the real reason she had come here. Concentrating her training and her power, she went to work conjuring various forms, shapes, and moving creations, filling the room with them from one end to the other. She couldn’t remember the last time she had ever stretched her creativity or her conjuring abilities in such a way, but aside from being good practice, she just wanted to be able to give back even an inkling of the wonder that Kaito had brought into her life. He was always performing some sort of amazing feat or elaborate trick to impress and inspire audiences and individuals from all over; she wanted to bring a similar spark to his life.  At least she hoped she could repay at least some of his kindness and generosity this way.

“Okay. Here we go,” she muttered a bit nervously as she took a seat next to him, leaning over and undoing his blindfold. “Three…two…one.”

She slid the blindfold off and slipped her hand into his as his eyes opened to the dazzling display before him. Streams and pools and bubbles of water all danced and twirled through the air, shapes of various animals bouncing around alongside numerous kinds of flowers. Claire examined the integrity of her work, the centerpiece of which culminated in tiers of fountain like streams surrounding the words “Happy Valentine’s Day” at the center.

She had committed the stories Aoko had told her about Kaito’s bad experiences with the holiday to memory, kind of glad that he had such a lack of consideration for the holiday itself. This attitude provided Claire with the perfect opportunity to make this day her day, or at least the day she could give him a surprise unlike any trick he had performed. Knowing the level of finesse and showmanship she had to live up to, she had designed and practiced conjuring this present of a magic show for at least a month. She still felt a bit too embarrassed to examine the look he had on his face, and instead removed a couple packages of chocolate from her bag, slipping them into his hand as she pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” She hoped that her words reflected the love and adoration she had put into every piece of magic for him. She might not have been a gifted magician, but she was a hard working witch, and every miracle of magic he had shown her made her want to return such feelings to him tenfold. She leaned her head against his shoulder, content to let him process what was going on as she steeled herself for whatever reaction might be awaiting her. Was he confused, elated, disappointed, annoyed? Though some people might find such waiting agony, she took comfort in her own feelings, more worried about how she might react if his reaction turned out to be bad.

She watched as one of the enchanted animals approached his face, her own gaze focused more on the creature than him, both of them caught off guard as it playfully squirted a small stream right between his eyes. Claire hadn’t remembered designing them to do that, and she quickly looked around for something he could use to dry off. She wasn’t able to move in the next second, though, because Kaito simply wiped his face with his sleeve, let out a burst of laughter that almost sent her jumping off of the couch, and tackled her to said couch before she could fall off.

“You did all this for me?”

“There’s few people in the world I would do something like this for. You’re pretty much at the top of the list.” She paused, squeezing him in a hug that communicated her feelings better than tangled words. “So, do you like it?”

“I don’t think I could ever find the words to tell you just how much I do,” he replied, shifting so she could get a full view of his beaming face. “So, how about I do this instead?”

He leaned down to kiss her in a calm, serene manner, although she still found herself dizzied by the combination of her intense emotions and the energy she had expelled using so much magic. She hugged him tighter, pressing a few kisses to his cheeks as her face was engulfed by a blush of embarrassment and elation. He helped her sit up again as they nestled against each other, their attention returning to the magic display that had a life of its own.

“I know here it’s traditional here for the girl to give chocolate to the guy, so I got a couple kinds. I wasn’t sure exactly which kind you liked…I’m sorry I forgot to ask,” she explained as he looked over the chocolate and other small various gifts she brought.

“I really think you don’t understand how fully you outdid yourself and pretty much anyone else who did something for their special someone today,” Kaito replied. Her blush deepened and she tried to remember to keep breathing, taking the small distraction Kaito provided her by asking about her magic array to gather her thoughts.

“I feel kind of bad though,” he admitted as he held his hand out to catch one of the water flowers as it drifted by, “how am I ever going to top sentient water that flies around and splashes people?”

“I’m sure, even if you meant that statement, you could still find a way to top all of this by tomorrow.”

“Wow, that’s giving me a lot of credit.”

“Well, I’d hate to bruise your ego after I went through all the trouble to impress you.”

Kaito grinned and flicked his wrist, summoning a flower that he twirled idly between his fingers before handing it to her. “Please, it takes more than that to knock the illustrious Kaito Kid from his pedestal.”

“Would something like this work then?”

Taking the initiative to tackle him this time, Claire pinned him to the couch and set about pulling flower after flower from the many pockets, sleeves, and other various folds of Kaito’s clothing that she could reach. The two of them rolled and laughed and eventually came to a stop snuggled together in a pile of the innumerable flowers he had stashed away. Claire dissolved her illusory display, closing her eyes as she focused on just how nice it felt to lay here with him. Both of them were safe, both of them were happy, and that was all she really wanted. As long as they were together, everything would be okay.

[moonlightmajutsushi]

Tbh I have always assumed that if DC and MK exist in the same universe then that means magic/supernatural stuff exists in DC it's just not relevant to the plot and Conan and other logic-driven characters just don't know about it and don't think it exists. I mean in a way MK and Akako existing in the same 'verse helps explain some things - Kazuha charms actually seeming to have protective power on some level and Heiji's premonitions. They are both magical but don't know it makes sense.

I feel like they could exist in the same universe, if magic is kept lowkey, but word of Gosho is apparently that the world in Magic Kaito and the one for Detective Conan are supposed to be parallel worlds, and that the Kid you see in DC technically isn’t the one from MK.

...Which I find most of what Gosho says during Q&As to be full of a ton of BS, so it’s still technically up for interpretation. He can’t actually keep his stories straight and I feel like he just makes things up when he needs a safe response. Kid is still clearly looking for something specific, and while it might not be an immortality granting stone, there’s... zero indication of what else it might be.

Magic in the DC universe would explain more than just the charms and premonitions, though. Haibara’s ‘BO sense’ is too convenient to brush off as normal, Conan has a similar ‘Kid sense’, and then there’s an apparent telepathic connection characters have that lets them know when something’s wrong with someone they care about. (See: Shinichi and Ran in general, Shinichi and Heiji like when Heiji was shoved off a ship into the ocean. It happens in canon, but the movies especially are bad about it.)

Not to mention that Gosho had a literal psychic tell Conan a big secret would be found out during the Holmes Freak murder case, and sure enough Heiji learned the truth.

Early DC did have a more fun, silly feel that a lot of older Gosho works had, even if it was in a more serious genre. A lot of the instances of things that can’t be explained have died down as the series goes on, which could be why there’s more of a push for a separation of magic from the logic. But people aren’t actually capable of separating the two in their mind, they just want to get rid of all the magic entirely, which is what annoys me. No hate on Magic Kaito for having magic. The MK fans don’t go hating on Detective Conan for not showing magic, they know Akako would probably break the DC world, so it’s just. Disheartening. When the opinion comes up that MK is at fault and ruining the DC experience because of the possibility of magic comes up.

Besides, the whole ‘took something that was supposed to be a poison but it changed me into a kid’ idea borders on the disbelieving side anyway, and yet it’s accepted without much fuss. Yes, it has some form of explanation later, but you had to have already invested time into accepting it without putting the series aside by the time you get that explanation. Magic shouldn’t be an experience killer compared to the very first time you read the series.