Before Class at G.U

"Hey, did you guys hear about what happened the other??"

　　 "What happened?"

　　 "Oh! You're talking about that thief that did magic"

　　 "That's right, thief No. 1412 sooo handsome…"

　　 "I heard that he could change into someone else's appearance at will and that he can also do real magic!"

　　 "That's right, I heard that he could fly."

"Really?! So cool!"

　　 In a classroom in Gotham University, three young students were discussing the trendiest criminal right now, Thief No. 1412. The name has spread because Gordon's wanted order code for the thief was called No. 1412.

　　 The heist of Adam's Star in Gotham was a citywide sensation. Overnight, talks of the mysterious thief who plucked a national treasure right from the GCPD's grasp swept throughout the streets of Gotham. The thief, "Kaito Kid" became one of the most talked-about subjects among Gotham citizens.

　　 "You all got it wrong!"

　　 However, just as these students were talking about it, a divergent voice emerged from a girl with brown-red hair.

　　 "It's not "thief 1412," his actual name is Kid. Kaito Kid!"

　　The girl snorted coldly and swept the classmates and sat in the last row of the classroom. She took out a laptop from her bag and then started quickly typing on the keyboard apparently seeing her one-line argument has won and moving on to who knows what.

　　 "She's such a loser. She just sits there, all by herself, in the last row in every class. She never participates in any parties, and all she does is only work with her computer all day long. I bet she doesn't even know what the word fun means"

　　 "C'mon don't be like that, Barbara's by far the best computer genius in the school. It's not surprising that she has a few… quirks. Also, she is not alone really alone."

　　"Still a loser though, just a nerdy one."

　　 After Barbara walked away, once several people began to whisper again.

　　 "Hey guys! You reeeally shouldn't speak about someone behind their backs like that. A passing magician might put a hex on you, you know"

　　 "What the-, where the hell did you come from!! Crap, you nearly gave me a heart attack"

　　 Suddenly Mathison appeared just behind the people gossiping about his friend with an unnaturally large smile on his face.

　　 "Oh, Hey there Mathison, we were just talking about-about that thief, No. 1412 from last night. Wasn't he cool?"

　　 The boy who said had just Barbara was a loser greeted normally, if anything a little higher pitch than normal. He wasn't really afraid of Mathison putting an actual hex on him or anything like that. He was just disorientated after Mathison's sudden arrival. He also didn't really have anything against Mathison or Barbara (personally he felt the magic Mathison sometimes did was really cool) so he tried to soften the blow.

　　 "I'll admit that I was wrong before, Barbara isn't alone. After all, she still has you, a knight, to accompany her in the back of the class."

　　 "Enough, Genta, I'm not a knight… I'm merely a humble magician."

　　 "Yeah right. You're definitely a magician; not so much the humble part though."

　　 Mathison stared deeply into Genta's eyes for while.

　　 "Okay, man, I give don't stare at me like that, I apologize alright, I shouldn't have said that Barbara is a loser. Anything else you want?"

　　 "Yes, actually."

　　 Genta was confused, "Wait really, what else?"

　　 "Remember this, it's 'Kaito Kid,' not 'thief 1412'. It just sounds better."

　　 After saying that, Mathison decided to leave and sit next to Barbara.

　　 "Do you think there is something wrong with the two of them? Why are they so obsessed over the name? It is clearly written in the newspaper that the thief is No. 1412."

　　 "Who knows…"

"Thanks but I didn't really mine so you didn't have to step in" Barbara said when Mathison sat down.

"I know but you got to stop these thing early" Mathison replied smoothly.

Mathison knew that if she got really serious she could just hack onto their computers and spill their secrets on the internet when they got to that level of annoying. Not that that means it would be her first option but it's definitely within her skill set.

"So do you think that Kaito Kid is cool as well?"

　　 After a bit, he heard Barbara's voice again.

　　 "From all the video data, we can see that the Kaito Kid looks to be very prominent at magic, as a fellow magician you probably like him a lot."

Barbara looked like she pegged him as a fan of Kid already. At this moment, Mathison noticed that a video of the "Phantom" stealing the Adam's Star was playing on Barbara's computer on a loop.

There were a lot of reporters there in the exhibition hall, they were all enticed by the prospect of a good story and were present to film Kaito Kid's first ever show. Even so, after the whole fiasco, almost all of these videos were confiscated and blocked by the police. Only two or three low quality videos were circulating at this point .

"I didn't really pay much attention to Kaito Kid, so I didn't know that he was a master magician."

　　"Well he is. And I guess that makes sense, after all, you aren't able to hack into the GCPD's database to get the footage like me."

　　Mathison wiped the non-existent sweat from his forehead and said, "Is it really a good idea that you keep hacking into the police database? What if your dad finds out about this, isn't he legally obliged to arrest you and put you in jail when he finds out?"

　　"If, Mathison, if he finds out, not when. And he won't find out, right Mathison Fang?" Barbara suddenly paused the video and turned to face her childhood friend.

"No ma'am, my lips are sealed. Jim Gordon won't hear anything from me. Absolutely nothing, nada, zip, zilch." He reassured her while making a zipping motion with his mouth.

　　Barbara rolled her eyes and went back to her video. While she did that, Mathison went over in his head what her future holds according to her character.

Barbara's full name is Barbara Gordon and Jim Gordon is her father. According to the plot, in the near future, Barbara will go to New York to study for a while, and then return to Gotham to become Batwoman and finally Oracle.

　　 Coincidentally, Mathison's home happened to be on the same street as Gordon's home. They often played together when they were young and so Barbara and Mathison became childhood friends.

Just after Mathison had transmigrated, his parents died prematurely. He hadn't even seen them, and he still needed a normal school life. He could only do his magic tricks openly. His ability to disguise and practice other of Kaito Kid's skills had to be kept a secret.

　　 Thanks to this anyone who knows Mathison just thinks that he is a magic enthusiast.

　　 Barbara has a phenomenal talent for hacking, one that she didn't keep try to keep a secret from Mathison which was covenant. She had been extremely good at computers ever since she was a child, and has now long since surpassed her computer professor in terms of computer mastery. Her skill has gotten to the point that not even the GCPD's web security was enough to stop her from hacking into the database.

'I don't think the battle of New York should affect her becoming Batwoman and even if it did it's not like I can stop it from happening', Mathison mused 'What I should worry about now is whether the existence of Kaito Kid would affect her views justice since mindset is still an important part of being a hero. I doubt it's going to matter though considering her personality. Also Kaito Kid is just a magic thief right now, anyways. Still doesn't hurt to check.'

　"You seem to care a lot about this Kaito Kid, I've never seen you this attached to a criminal before, don't tell me… you've been affected by a certain thief's charm, haven't you?" Mathison asked with a smug look on his face.

　　At that Barbara immediately twisted her head to gaze at Mathison and said, "No, that not it, Mathison. If you must know… it's that I feel like there's something off about the Kaito Kid."

　　"Something's off? Off in what way?"

　　"It just that … he gives me a very weird feeling, almost as if I've seen him somewhere before… but I'm pretty sure I don't remember anyone like him."

　　At these words, Mathison's heart skipped a beat, in fact make that several beats.

After learning how to obtain system rewards, he felt like he was invincible, he was no longer afraid that his identity might be exposed.

But not right now, okay!

He meant a more of a few months to years down the line exposed, not the next day. Right now his power is way too weak, not that much stronger than an ordinary person, he would quite like his identity to remain a secret at this point.

Such situations can wait at least until he became skilled enough in Red Magic that he could start to ignore ordinary police and military. It wouldn't matter if he would be recognized then. But until then…

　　"You're probably overthinking it."

　　Despite the emotional roller coaster he just went through, Mathison still kept up his poker face, his expression hasn't changed much since before his brush with reality.

　　"Your right, I just being stubborn," suddenly Barbara laughed in a goofy manner, as if she has just remembered something funny, "In fact, you wouldn't believe it, there were times where I even thought for a second that Kaito Kid could be you."

"Then, I when I tried to compare you two; you who often enjoying peeking at girls in the shower and stuffing women's lockers with toy snakes to a GENTLEMAN'S thief , I realized there no chance of that even beginning to be true."

　　Barbara suddenly covered her mouth but her muffled laughter could still be heard, as she started remembering all the times Mathison had caused similar trouble.

　　"Barbara! That was years ago, don't have to go that far. I've change a lot since then. Stop laughing, it's not that ridiculous!"

　　Mathison couldn't help but feel embarrassed, especially as he felt eyes in the classroom staring at him.

　　As for these accusations? Totally true but he had good reasons for them!

Peeking at a girl's locker room? That was to calmly, observe the details of females' physiology for possible cross-dressing disguises later. He doesn't discriminate at all when disguising so this research was obviously necessary. This was cold, calculated research, nothing else!

　　As for stuffing the toy snakes? It was to exercise his lock-picking skills. If he hadn't put anything in there, it would have been way creepier and he would have been treated like a pervert. But since he did it like that, people just thought he was playing pranks!

　　He had to do many many other things to hone his thief skills! His only regret is the fact that Barbara still remembered all that.

　　Mathison was incapable of saying anything.

　　Before he met Barbara, his impression of the Oracle from the comics was that she was very knowledgeable and pretty cool. In reality, she is knowledgeable, but only when in front of her computer, Most of the time, she is a rebellious and sarcastic person. The sort of person that would saaay… sneak out of bed to beat up some bad guys against her father's wishes. Okay, she was always like this but still!

　　The worse part was that just as Mathison had put together a solid defense to divert these claims, the lecturer entered the room and everyone stopped talking.

Younger him may have protected his life, but at what cost...

Shaking his head Mathison's cleared his thoughts of his past antics, and decided to focus on more pressing matters. While spending the minimum required attention to his classes, finalized his plan's for Adam's star and reviewed his new letter which he had made using a more mysterious riddle than before now that the police now knew that he was a threat.

'Waves, that was a good call, definitely waves...' he thought cryptically