The establishment of the Time Travelers Alliance began in the first year of Conan

Chapter 211 The Locked Room! A Self-Moving Corpse! What is the Truth Behind It All—There is Only One Truth!
For Conan Edogawa, at this very moment, he was holding "Miss Maria's" hand, slowly walking towards the end of that long corridor—

That's the direction leading to the morgue.

There was no hint from Vermouth, nor any guidance from anyone.

He acted solely on his own judgment.

Those clues hidden in the invisible "air" became incredibly clear under his sweeping gaze and under his calm yet intense inner resolve.

Conan Edogawa is, in the end, Shinichi Kudo.

As for Shinichi Kudo, he has finally found the two pointers and reclaimed two of his six essential elements.

The pointer called the Judgment Pointer will help him guide him in the right direction—as long as Conan is determined.

At this moment, Conan's resolve remains unwavering.

He wants to reveal the truth—

Whether what lies before us is an illusion, a fog, or the heavy chains of fate.

He could not stand by and watch Miss Yami continue to suffer even in death.

He couldn't just turn away as if nothing had happened after learning that her body had been desecrated by that so-called black-clad organization.

This is not the silence a detective should have.

This is not the kind of justice that Shinichi Kudo allows.

Thus, all three effects of the decision take effect.

The effect of "always having a choice" will always allow this little detective searching for the truth to make the best judgment.

Even as its name suggests—there's always a choice.

Just like Vermouth accidentally learning the "truth," just like the inexplicable doubt that arose in Gin's heart, and even just like Ran Mouri's actions and Shiho Miyano's dream...

Whether all of this was the result of a three-way struggle or His decision, who can truly know?

After all, if Conan is determined, the pointer can even provide him with an option that suits his wishes, fulfilling one of his desires.

His judgments are so decisive that they never cease.

And "the manifestation of reasoning"—

That symbol of "detective," that sacred authority, will help Conan clear away the fog that obscures his mind, and will automatically summarize the threads of everything into his reasoning.

The so-called "fog" undoubtedly encompasses the obscuration of Him by the dual timelines, just as Conan "coincidentally" interrupted the text message from the [story timeline] that was trying to get Vermouth to leave.

That coincidence, that direction of the timeline, was exactly the same as what the Alliance had predicted.

However, does this prediction based on the "choose one of three" option contain some kind of subconscious tendency of Shinichi Kudo?
Nobody can say for sure, can they?

And then there's the last seemingly insignificant effect—"Ran's Blessing," which grants luck based on the holder's beliefs.

You can never have too much luck.

Inspiration, discovery, and timing are always associated with luck.

Even now, Conan hasn't made up his mind yet, and doesn't meet the three elements of "saving," "compassion," and "sacrifice."

But the pointer called "Pupil of Clarity" and the effect called "Insightful Pupil of Clarity" have no requirements.

Its ability to "see through fate" helped Conan regain his intuition.

Conan then discovered the inconsistencies in Maria's behavior.

Even now, he "sees" in his mind the disappearing footprints of Kogoro Mouri and Heiji Hattori...

It was like some kind of extrasensory image—

The faint footprints on the ground, the marks Heiji left for himself on the wall, even the direction the familiar smell of smoke in the air was heading...

It was like a fuse still warm with the lingering warmth of the truth.

Conan then "saw" it—

Soon after, a GSSRA soldier stopped Kogoro Mouri.
He "saw" Hattori Heiji arguing with the soldier;

I "saw" them linger at that fork in the road for three to five minutes, and then turn right...

Vermouth let Conan pull her in the right direction, her gaze fixed on Conan's back.

This cunning and elusive witch, skilled in disguise, even momentarily forgot that she was the one who should be leading Conan to find Heiji Hattori.

Now, she is the one who needs to be guided and led.

She walked along this unattended corridor with someone else.

Vermouth knew this must have been Hattori Heiji's deliberate instruction, but in her heart, it felt more like an inevitable avoidance of the presence before her.

The light in the corridor gradually dimmed, and a heavy silence enveloped them like a tide.

The light filtering in from the entrance seemed to grow ever more distant, transforming the entire corridor into a tunnel leading to the underworld.

A silent tomb.

Vermouth felt that the person holding her hand was not a child.

The sound of her and Conan's footsteps made the silence in the funeral home seem even more deafening, and made the dust dancing in the air and dim light seem to be tangible on the child.

In the ever-deepening shadows, the figure of a young boy vaguely emerged—

No longer Conan Edogawa.

Rather, it is the long-lost, real shadow of [Shinichi Kudo].

Then, with a "whoosh," the lights in the corridor came on.

The sudden illumination of the lights caused Conan, who was subconsciously thinking about everything, to pause for a moment, allowing Vermouth, who was still walking forward unconsciously, to take the lead and move ahead of Conan again.

It was as if she had been leading Conan forward all along.

Immediately afterwards, Conan heard several hurried footsteps coming from the corridor behind him. He turned around and exclaimed in surprise.

"Officer Megure!"

"Conan! What are you doing here? Shouldn't this place be sealed off by now...?"

Inspector Megure stopped mid-sentence as he noticed Maria Shiraha standing to the side, especially the badge pinned to her chest.

He and the police officers behind him saluted in unison.

"Reporting, sir! We should be among the first to arrive to provide support. After receiving your instructions, headquarters immediately dispatched several professional criminal investigators."

A "detective" entering a scene requires no explanation.

In fact, for both timelines, at the end of the dispute, they both unanimously thought of someone who could definitely break through the blockade of this terrible storm and intervene at the funeral home—

That's Inspector Megure.

[Story Timeline] Megure's appearance is needed to help Vermouth cover up the truth.

The [real-world timeline], on the other hand, requires someone with a publicly known GSSRA identity to join the operation, so that Vermouth's plan to "try to hint at Conan" would naturally fail.

"Miss Maria's orders?" Inspector Megure's words made Conan turn his gaze to Vermouth.

"My instructions?"

A thoughtful look flashed in her eyes, and then, to Conan's somewhat surprised look, Vermouth took out the second phone.

Because of Conan's height, she opened it right in front of him, glanced at the message from the Boss, and then closed it.

—The Boss asked him to imply to Conan that GSSRA was not worthy of his trust and cooperation.

This is a great opportunity to take advantage of the Boss program.

Ignoring Conan, who was looking down and starting to recall and think, she looked at Inspector Megure: "How's the situation outside?"

At this moment, the identity of a police officer is far more useful than that of a GSSRA.

According to Megure, he and several police officers arrived at the funeral home without incident. The journey was uneventful, and nothing happened except for the overcast sky.

"Report sir!"

Megure Juzo saluted again and then began to report on the current situation, "The wind is very strong outside, and the higher-ups believe that there is a high probability of a heavy rain next."

Is a heavy rain coming?!

This made Conan's heart tighten. He immediately put aside the few doubts he still had about Maria and then asked leading questions:

"Maria-neechan, if it rains, won't all the traces of bad guys be washed away?"

Conan never forgot that his most important goal on this trip was to find traces of the Black Organization's operations and the truth behind their actions.

Conan's words made Maria's expression turn serious—now she finally had a reason to take Conan to the morgue.

A look of anxiety flashed across Vermouth's face, and her feigned "misbehaving" personality came into play again.

She immediately forgot that she had a child with her.

"Hirota Masami's body is in morgue number 33. Inspector Megure, and the rest of the officers, follow me immediately!"

"More people means more strength! We need to act quickly!"

"Yes!"

Everyone responded in unison, and then the group hurriedly ran towards the morgue.

……

As Conan, Inspector Megure, and Vermouth crossed the police tape placed across the doorway, Kogoro Mouri, who had come to the door because of the sound of running coming from the corridor, saw them at first glance.

"Inspector Megure? What are you doing here?!"

"Brother Mori? What are you doing here?!"

"I am an outside helper who came here on the orders of Director Heiji."

Kogoro Mouri pulled out the "confession" he had just rehearsed with Heiji Hattori, and then, with his sharp eyes, he scooped up the little detective hiding behind Inspector Megure.

"Didn't I tell you and Ms. Maria to stay in the car obediently?"

“Mr. Mori, it’s very likely to rain outside. I’m worried that the heavy rain will wash away the traces of the criminal’s escape, so I thought that having more people investigate might lead to a faster discovery…”

Maria's words immediately made Kogoro Mouri's expression turn serious. He stroked his chin and looked Conan up and down several times with his suspicious eyes.

Even Hattori Heiji and Conan, who were standing to the side, subconsciously dared not breathe.

"Hmm... okay!"

"Whoosh—" A sigh echoed in the morgue.

For some reason, everyone breathed a sigh of relief because Kogoro Mouri had dispelled their suspicions.

"To be honest, neither I nor Heiji have found any very important clues so far."

Kogoro Mouri scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly and pointed to the screens behind him.

"Judging from the video footage, this should be a locked-room mystery. Miss Yami's body actually moved on its own in the empty morgue!"

(Background music should be played here, along with a sound of a door closing and opening.)
A locked room! An empty morgue! A corpse moving on its own!
Kogoro Mouri's words immediately sharpened Conan's gaze.

At the same time, an irrepressible curiosity about the case welled up in Conan's heart.

At the heart of the Conan universe, that pale sun made a demand of the cosmos—

This must be a locked-room mystery.

The expanding fireball and endless radiance shone down on the dual timelines and the Conan universe itself in that instant.

Just as the story's timeline has always "rationalized" everyone around it, due to the lack of a "loop" mechanism, at this moment, Shinichi Kudo must "rationalize" the dual timelines! A major crisis for the dual timelines!
This, in a sense, is the "advantage" of "having a personality"—

In the past, the story timeline would not have reacted to this at all; in fact, the real timeline would have welcomed the pale sun making some changes to itself.

After all, in the past, they were just a pure mechanism, a mechanism that served [Shinichi Kudo].

But the situation is different now.

Whether it's concerns about another timeline, the alliance, or the desire for dominance...

All of these things immediately drew the full attention of both timelines to this matter.

after all--

If both sides are "rationalized" to the same degree, then it's fine.

But what if one side has planted a trap beforehand, or what if the side whose legitimacy is less "justified" tries to use this opportunity to make more indirect moves?
Thus, the two timelines, fueled by Shinichi Kudo's desire, began to alter their own history almost instantly.

In this "non-ritual, non-cyclical case," everything illogical is subconsciously ignored by everyone except Conan.

With the reset of the story timeline, Gin and Vodka immediately forgot about the heist they had just experienced.

Now, all they remember is that their sole mission for the day is to assist Vermouth in her evacuation.

Even GSSRA's report, that video of optical cloaking failure...

They were left there "reasonably".

Heiji Hattori temporarily "became" a real "detective" instead of a member of GSSRA, and Inspector Megure temporarily "became" Inspector Megure.

In the end, the two timelines managed to bring together three suspects for Shinichi Kudo.

After all, Conan still remembers GSSRA and the suspicious points surrounding Vermouth.

The last three options given by the dual timelines are:
The monitoring personnel who rushed to the monitoring room at the end of the corridor after discovering something was wrong were actually played by a member of "Science Frontier" who had infiltrated the funeral home—namely, Jin Chuanqiaomu.

His "background" was undoubtedly changed directly.

After all, this is a good opportunity to smear the league.

Maria Shiraha is "played" by Vermouth from the Black Organization.

She hasn't been identified yet, but the "real-world timeline," which holds half the control of the case, has already pinpointed a conclusion for her based on Conan's suspicions.

After all, she was the one who initiated this case in theory, so this was undoubtedly a good opportunity to thwart the [Story Timeline] plan.

And then there's Taizo Ueda, a real GSSRA security personnel, whose schedule should include guarding this morgue.

Then Vermouth saw that everyone around her naturally and familiarly began to act like a real "police officer," "detective," or even a "murderer" or "suspect."

The driver who had brought his group to the funeral home now very naturally took the mouse from Kogoro Mouri and explained to everyone:

"At first I didn't think there was anything wrong, until the screen flickered and I suddenly noticed that Ueda seemed to have been leaning against the wall in the corridor for a while with his head down."

"I thought he was asleep and wanted to wake him, so I ran out of the monitoring room and found that there was no one in the corridor!"

There was a hint of fear in Imagawa Yoshimi's voice.

"At first, I just thought the surveillance system was experiencing another looping or freezing issue, but I never expected that when I returned to the monitoring room—"

"Miss Yami's body! The morgue door has been opened!"

……

Honestly, the dual timeline has been a huge help to the league.

Although the CYZ effect redundancy of the alliance is now reduced to only 9 strings, it is undoubtedly worthwhile.

Because this is a real-life case.

In other words, the cause, process, and outcome of this case are all so consistent with the logic of reality.

Lin Sheng presents the still unresolved "past" of this case, and then deduces the three possible outcomes—

The Science Frontier organization attempted to exploit delays or tampering with surveillance systems to create the illusion that "no one was there" and cover up their "experiments" with corpses.

The Black Organization is attempting to use Vermouth to retrieve crucial evidence from Hirota Masami, since this Thousand-Faced Witch can impersonate anyone—

Who can say that the real Maria wasn't secretly replaced when Conan went into the restroom?
And that GSSRA security personnel, who was sent by the faction that was trying to prevent Heiji Hattori from taking over the Bureau of Investigation and Defense of Unconventional Threats.

Every "murderer's" reason is so normal...so reasonable.

"Both timelines are worried that when they try to confirm a truth, the other side will come out and deny the fact, which will put them directly in confrontation with [Shinichi Kudo]."

"Therefore, they chose to present three plausible possibilities, and the compromise between the two timelines even resulted in an attempt to make the Alliance itself the perpetrator..."

"Ah--"

Lin Sheng let out a soft, ambiguous chuckle, for he had already foreseen the final outcome of this development—

The timestamps in the surveillance footage were inconsistent, there were extremely fine water stains on the floor of the morgue, and Taizo Ueda's schedule had been altered...

The culprit is obvious. Who else but Imagawa Takame, the monitor, could do that?

Lin Sheng suddenly remembered the phone call he made to the Mori Agency on the plane.

Because the Alliance was indeed the one who stole the corpse.

This small association sparked a wider range of possibilities in his mind.

But that's not the key point right now. The most important thing right now is—

How can a powerful story timeline be allowed to fall behind or compromise?

This is incredibly disrespectful to the storyline.

Therefore, Lin Sheng chose to "help" the storyline by deliberately preserving some of the "unexpectedness" in the story's timeline.

This consumes 33 of the remaining 42 strings in the CYZ effect.

Lin Sheng used the 3rd string to remind Vermouth, who had temporarily forgotten due to "rationalization," and told her that she didn't need to do anything now.

Then, without hesitation, the remaining 30 strings were added during the dual timeline history revision.

With the help of Conan's suspicions and the double timeline's sabotage of the Alliance, Lin Sheng made the Alliance's plan seem more complete.

Since both timelines want Conan to believe that the Alliance stole "Akami Miyano's" body, then let Conan believe that.

This was originally intended as a move by the alliance to make Shiho Miyano realize that Akemi Miyano was dead, but the plan failed due to the dual timelines.

After all, the plan has been completely changed now, and there's no longer any need to mislead Vermouth into personally impersonating Akemi Miyano.

But... besides Shiho Miyano, there seems to be someone else who has seen Akemi Miyano's face, right?

The body of Akemi Miyano that is now in existence was replaced by the League on the very first day!

On the first day, neither of the two timelines knew that they had been rewound.

Moreover, because they deliberately erased the history about Akemi Miyano, they also did not know the true details of Akemi Miyano's face.

—And all of this will constitute a real case, a case made purely of truth.

Now, the dual timelines have accomplished the two most troublesome tasks originally planned for the Alliance.

The first thing is to figure out how to tell Conan the truth while ensuring that Vermouth still knows the "truth" and subtly hinting to Conan that he should go to the Star Viewing Tower tomorrow.

Now, this matter can be "handed over" to Imagawa Yoshime.

It just so happens that the "victim" in this case is already dead, so he won't be labeled as a "murderer".

When the time comes, we can have the people at "Scientific Frontiers" in GSSRA bail him out.

The second key point is how to subtly suggest that Shiho Miyano swallow the APTX-4869 and escape to the western outskirts of Beika Town, heading towards the Star Viewing Tower.

Lin Sheng originally planned to create some "movement" to attract the "attention" of both timelines.

That's no longer necessary.

[Story Timeline] After confirming that Shiho Miyano's [historical inertia] was still proceeding as usual, all "attention" was shifted to the funeral home—

Logically, this is impossible, because unless there is interference from the alliance or the CYZ effect, the attention given to the timeline is, in a sense, infinite.

Unfortunately, the current adversary of the story timeline is the real timeline, both of which possess equal power to interfere.

Even the [story timeline] is completely reliable, because, as mentioned earlier, Lin Sheng kindly used the CYZ effect to reinforce this historical inertia.

Shiho Miyano turned on her flashlight alone and climbed the dusty wooden stairs of the Kudo residence, heading straight for Shinichi Kudo's room.

As Yamazaki whisky hinted, as the [story timeline] hoped—

Shiho Miyano entered Shinichi Kudo's bedroom.

Then she saw the postcard that Ran Mouri had initially placed on Shinichi's desk—
"Shinichi, please contact me! (Contact me now!)"

Shiho Miyano only glanced at the contents of the postcard, but her gaze unconsciously fell on the wardrobe.

So, following the path set by fate, Shiho Miyano walked to the wardrobe containing Shinichi's clothes from when he was a child, and she opened the wardrobe door.

The empty box made her pupils shrink sharply, especially when she opened the side of the box—

"Shin-chan children's clothing"

Silently, she reached into her coat pocket and took out the transparent box that Yamazaki had given her.

She had already taken the opportunity to look inside the car.

In the center of the box, the red and white pill emitted a strange luster under the light.

On the lid of the box, there was a sentence written:

"Find an opportunity to open it and go to the Star Viewing Tower—Akemi."

After a moment of silence, Shiho Miyano took out several smaller-sized pieces of clothing from the surrounding cardboard boxes, carefully folded them, and placed them into the empty box.

It's as if they're covering up or disguising something for someone.

Quietly locking the door, Shiho Miyano opened the window; the overcast sky outside now provided the best cover.

Below the window was a lawn that had grown rather lush from not being mowed for months.

Shiho Miyano wisely didn't open the box immediately.

She found a set of clothes that were probably just a little oversized, likely clothes that Shinichi Kudo wore when he was in his second year of high school, and put them aside.

Then--

Upon opening the box, Shiho Miyano took out the pill without hesitation and swallowed it in one gulp.

At the same time, she bit down hard on the corner of her clothes that she had taken off, suppressing the impending intense pain and not letting herself make even the slightest sound.

A few minutes later, a child dressed in children's clothes, carrying a small schoolbag, jumped out of a second-floor window.

The clothes in the backpack behind me and the bushes acted as a perfect buffer—almost no sound was made.

She stood up—

Soon, Shiho Miyano, no, I should say Ai Haibara.

Ai Haibara hesitated for a moment, her gaze lingering on the small characters "engraved" on the transparent box she was clutching at Professor Agasa's doorstep.

Then, the child resolutely ran towards the western outskirts of Beika Town.

[Story Timeline] This was immediately noticed, but at the same time, Conan announced the answer to the "Hirota Masami corpse theft case"—

The inertia of history has now led it onto a new track.

(End of this chapter)