Moonlight Magician

Chapter 37

"And he got injured in the process?"

He got shot. But he was alright afterwords.

"I don't remember that", KID said.

He wouldn't have told you. Toichi didn't want you to know. He wanted you to have a halfway normal life, as normal a life as a kid could have with two world-famous thieves as parents.

KID hesitated before asking the next question. "Do you know... why my father knew about you and Snake in the first place? I know he was trying to find you... I just don't know why."

He was paid, Pandora said bluntly. Snake was being paid too. They were both working for a very rich man hell-bent on finding the secret to immortality.

KID coloured angrily. "My father would never-"

Pandora shot the thief an amused glance. He wasn't a saint, you know. Even Toichi was capable of feeling the lure of money. But you're right, Toichi wouldn't have willingly worked with such people, had he known that they were like that. But he didn't know.

Toichi was offered money, enough money that he would no longer have to work for a living. He could send you to the best schools where you would receive the greatest education. You would live in a big house. His wife would be able to buy anything she wanted. You would never want for money again. Even your children, and their children, would be rich. And all that just to find one pretty little jewel hidden inside a bigger one. It was more than a bargain, it was a deal of a lifetime.

"So... what happened?", KID asked slowly.

Pandora sighed heavily as it remembered the past events. I wasn't hidden inside a bigger jewel. It was just a little detail to confuse people enough that they wouldn't find me. My guardian at the time, a young girl, was the next in line to protect me. I had been passed down her family for generations, and now it was her turn.
Toichi was smart enough to- eventually- figure out that I wasn't hidden inside another jewel. How would I get in there anyways? You can't put a jewel into another jewel, that's impossible. So, after a lot of hard work and research, Toichi tracked me down. My guardian refused to give me away. Toichi gave up for that night, deciding to appeal to her again tomorrow, urging her to think about it overnight. But Snake, who had been employed as a back up plan, followed Toichi. He was ordered to take me from the girl. She fought back and was killed.

When Toichi heard about it, he was horrified. He said it was his own fault she was dead. He stole me from Snake, who was on his way to give me to his master, and that's when we... linked, I guess. I explained that I could think and feel, and that I should be kept away from Snake and the people who employed him. So he passed me on to the people he thought could best help him- the Kudo family.

"And then Snake killed him", KID finished, his voice hollow.

Yeah. Snake was angry at having been bested. He sabotaged Toichi's magic trick and killed him. He was an idiot in my opinion- shouldn't he have left Toichi alive to find the whereabouts of me? In my opinion, he didn't make a good assassin- too impulsive.

"I often think it was a pity he fell and died", KID said quietly. "I wanted to see him behind bars. I wanted to see him pay for what he did."

Pandora bit its lip. ... Yeah. Me too. But it must have been painful to fall from that height, so it's not all that bad, right? He got what he deserved.

KID shrugged."I guess."

Pandora searched around desperately for another topic, but KID beat it to it.