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

Chapter 257 Intense Tempo (Part 1)

It's not hard for everyone to see that Hattori Heiji has gone to the wrong island.

……

After about an hour's flight from Honshu Island, an island standing quietly in the azure sea comes into view.

That's Moonshadow Island.

In the distant outline of the land, the mountain ridges, in that vast azure blue, meander upwards toward the sky, the gray-white rocks and lush, continuous forests resembling the patterns on the back of a giant snake.

Anyone would have to admit that this is indeed a very beautiful island.

However, things started to go wrong one hour and thirty-three minutes after Hattori Heiji set off.

On the GSSRA ocean-going supply transport ship named "Seisho", Heiji Hattori stood in the captain's cabin, watching the sunset through the thick triple-layered explosion-proof glass porthole.

"We should be arriving in port in about thirty minutes!"

The broadcast sounded from the loudspeakers on the deck to the speakers in every room.

Night fell.

Inside the ship, there was a brief but complete silence for a few seconds because of this "night".

Then came the tidal wave of alarms, those piercing alarms echoing intensely throughout the ship's decks.

The red warning lights kept spinning, as if trying to pull the crew back to reality from their reverie.

But this scene is there.

The night sky caused the clear, bright seawater to emit a dreamy, faint glow, thanks to the efforts of seaweed and plankton.

Whenever the bow of the transport ship cuts through the waves, it's as if it's shattering the pure moonlight cast from the sky.

Heiji Hattori will always remember the shock he felt when he stood in the captain's cabin and looked out the glass porthole at the white expanse around him.

He never imagined that the night could be so terrifyingly bright.

The sheer shock made the ship's alarms sound incredibly unreal and ethereal.

The moon is out.

Moreover, it was a full moon.

It hung from the ceiling, enormous in size, yet its radiance was like the midday sun.

However, unlike the sun, Hattori Heiji could look directly at it; it was more like a cool, rational glow.

The transport ship seemed to be sailing on snow in broad daylight; the sunlight reflecting off the sea clearly illuminated the flag fluttering atop the island superstructure.

Heiji Hattori could even see everything happening on the deck clearly at night—

Many soldiers dropped their weapons and knelt devoutly on the deck, their lips trembling slightly as they softly chanted scriptures that welled up from their memories.

Some people pulled out the cross from their chests, while others silently knelt before the white night...

Even though some soldiers were still clutching their weapons tightly, most of them were pale-faced, having witnessed this inexplicable "miracle."

On the bridge, a religious lieutenant held up the small, silver-white cross with both hands, knelt down, and stretched the cross out towards the night sky, which seemed to be purified by the moonlight.

"God has sent us guidance..."

His murmurs inspired more soldiers to kneel as well.

At that moment, many soldiers, their hearts surrendered to the divine power because of the changes it brought to the entire world.

After all, except for God—

Who can say, "Let there be light," and who can make the moonlight turn the night into day?
Who can make the moonlight converge into a line and draw a course on the sea that ripples with the waves?

But this only makes the island seem to live up to its name.

Even though the full moon in the sky illuminated the whole world as white as snow.

But the island lay there, and the surrounding sea, the dark waters, swallowed up the forces that tried to whiten it.

Like ripples on water with indistinct boundaries, moonlight and shadow vie for dominance.

However, those clearly malevolent forces—the pitch-black seawater and the hazy sea fog—made the long "Moonlight Route" appear even brighter.

Because the moonlight did not diminish at all.

Just as the Spirit of God walks on the water, it floats warmly and brightly on the sea.

At that moment, Heiji Hattori, along with the hundreds of GSSRA members on the ship, could easily understand where the vanished soldiers had gone.

—They followed this moonlit path lit by the gods and entered into a darkness that even light could not penetrate.

……

Hattori Heiji reacted extremely quickly.

The alarm was still blaring sharply inside the ship, but it had been gradually cut off.

At his command, several mid-level officers, with trembling hands, switched off the warning frequency on the control panel.

Now, those alarms that were originally set up for combat are like ants waving their antennae at humans.

Everyone was worried that the "things in the fog" would be alerted.

Then, an emergency broadcast sounded, and Heiji Hattori's voice could be heard on every deck and in every cabin.

He repeatedly emphasized that this was merely "an illusion created by the enemy using possible weather weapons"—yes, an "illusion," a form of "psychological warfare."

However, everyone knows that it was just a meaningless excuse.

But this far-fetched reason was enough to bring some of the brave soldiers back to their senses.

Despite the reprimands from the officers who had regained their senses, the orders continued to be passed down through the ranks.

Under the influence of routine training, operations on the ship finally returned to order.

Even if it's just on the surface.

And none of the soldiers, no, none of the mortals, needed to put themselves in that terrifying atmosphere—whether facing the moon or the shadow cast by the island.

Like startled rabbits, they retreated down the gangway into the ship, then hurriedly and shakily closed the hatches, bolted them shut, and piled up the items temporarily removed from various places, as well as the steel plates temporarily removed from the containers and equipment rooms, into the passageway, blocking the way.

In those narrow corridors, there were still courageous soldiers, holding those seemingly supple guns, vigilantly on guard.

It was as if some monster might run in from outside.

And that is indeed the case.

Hattori Heiji was almost pulled out of reality by that moment of "terrification".

He had even "seen" himself "standing" on that island, as if his soul had been instantly projected there.

The island is reaching out to him.

The moment Hattori Heiji saw the changing light and shadow on the sea, he immediately understood.

Those dark seas were not actually tainted by some evil force.

That was simply—

The shadow cast by that island.

The haunting darkness was simply because the island had blocked the white light that had been projected into the pupils.

The heart of a "detective" pounded wildly in his chest, and Hattori Heiji suddenly rushed to the helm, his intuition replacing his thoughts at that moment.

He roared, "Left rudder! Turn! Get back on that course!! Now!!"

A dark patch of sea in the distance suddenly became bright white, as the hand moved with the ship.

The darkness reached out to the ship carrying the "detective" from the sky, the sea, and the distant depths.

The sky suddenly returned to "normal," and the ships seemed to have returned to the sea shrouded in dark clouds. Night immediately followed, accompanied by a thin veil of sea fog.

Now, everyone on this lone boat is praying.

The ship's bow was the first to crash into the channel formed by moonlight.

The entire captain's cabin fell silent.

Outside the cabin, the things called "sea fog," or rather, the things that can only be called "sea fog," were crashing against the moonlight that enveloped the ship.

However, Hattori Heiji's expression became unusually serious.

Because the dark figure eventually caught up, some wisps of mist swept across the outer edge of the stern.

The row of screens on the main control panel went black instantly, and all signals related to the stern deck went offline immediately.

"The stern monitoring system has been lost," an adjutant reported in a low voice.

Hattori Heiji did not respond immediately. He pondered for a second, then quickly issued an order, instructing his adjutant to send a small team to see if they could block the passage leading to the stern.

"Tell them to leave in one minute."

Hattori Heiji looked at the "no power" signal reported on the screen, then looked up and estimated the distance between the wide "course" in front of him and the bow of the ship.

Now, the sky outside seems to have returned to reality.

The darkness receded, and the sea became bright again.

"We'll be off course in about five minutes. Let them take a team of engineers through the tail shaft tunnel. The monitoring signal in the tail tip compartment is still good."

"Although the signal from the steering gear compartment has been lost, fortunately we are now fully inside this moonlight, so it should be relatively safe to go over now."

In the pupil, this white line stretched into the distance.

At the end, a lighthouse-like device guides the moonlight, then cuts through the darkness near the island like a sword.

In that somewhat dazzling light, Hattori Heiji squinted, and he could vaguely see a huge and solid naval dock, shaped like a fortress.

A GSSRA flag fluttered slightly below another flag he didn't recognize.

Heiji Hattori put down his binoculars.

Now, everything can only be guessed.

"That must have been a guide left behind by our troops, otherwise we would be dead by now."

His tone became very flat, as if he were stating a fact.

"If you want to live, you need to get moving now."

The hardships and difficulties involved need not be elaborated upon.

The stern ballast tank, stern shaft, and hydraulic equipment controlling the steering gear all exploded shortly afterward, but thankfully the ship regained its course.

The seawater under the moonlight seemed to possess life as well.

In this windless waterway, the white stream flowing in the Black Sea gently propelled the steel warship toward the shore like a "paper boat."

That was Hattori Heiji's first contact with the scientific frontier, or more precisely, with the CYZ Alliance.

……

And so, the powerless ship, amidst the friction of floating ice and frozen waves, was slowly towed by a gravity launcher operated by several Alliance members, gliding into the deep blue naval port like a stranded whale parting the seawater.

"GSSRA soldiers, maintain order!"

On the dock, an Alliance officer wearing a gray-black combat uniform, with a GSSRA general's badge on his chest and a TDD identification device on his wrist, was giving orders loudly.

His voice pierced through the harbor, as if possessing some kind of magic, instantly quelling the chaos in the crowd.

"Disembark on the sampans and assemble at the outpost towards the lighthouse! Proceed to the reporting office and collect your identification tags—Fight for humanity!"

After a few simple "guided" instructions, the GSSRA soldiers no longer hesitated. They followed the guide vehicle in batches toward the silver-gray steel structure beneath the lighthouse.

Hattori Heiji was certainly not one of those soldiers.

At that moment, he was met with the stunned silence of his adjutant by the GSSRA soldiers who had completed their mission at the stern of the ship.

Or rather, the special forces members of [Eternal First Strike] escorted them away from the dock, down the gangway, and straight to the command building at the deepest part of the naval port.

——【Moon Shadow Island Case Operation Command Center】.

It was there that he met Masahiko Takeda, the vice-captain of [Eternal First Strike].

Standing on the steel corridor overlooking the entire dock from the outside of the command post, Masahiko Takeda turned his head and pointed to the busy figures in the distant port area.

"This dock was originally built by those three combined arms brigades. After we came here, we expanded it."

His tone was flat, but Hattori Heiji could detect a weariness that seemed to come from the passage of time.

"They went to the wrong island at first."

Takeda Masahiko looked down at the gleaming metal floor beneath his feet. "This is Tsukikage Island, the day Aso Keiji died."

He sighed, “Before we took over, they probably had a few thousand people left, relying on transporting seawater to extinguish the flames that were spreading outward.”

Hattori Heiji paused, his mind quickly recalling Aso Keiji's file—

He remembered the man, and he also remembered the bizarre and cruel arson case.

"So...it's actually 1982 now?"

"Ah."

Masahiko Takeda nodded. "We are now at the Tsukikage Island naval port from twelve years ago."

"To be precise, it was that day twelve years ago."

He shrugged. "I'm not a researcher, so I can't explain the spatiotemporal structure of 'this place' to you."

"But to put it simply—there are probably many 'Moonshadow Islands' here."

Hattori Heiji felt his throat was a little dry.

But that's not the most unbelievable part.

When Hattori Heiji asked about the shadowy figures that had attacked them not long ago, Takeda Masahiko denied his speculation that "Moon Shadow Island" was alive.

"Ghosts and monsters don't exist, just like those Cthulhu stories are actually science fiction."

Masahiko Takeda sighed, "What you're talking about is all the work of the [story timeline]."

Masahiko Takeda handed over a seemingly ordinary photograph of a mansion or villa that was burning.

“The ‘shadows’ you encountered were actually the shadows cast by the firelight from the house that was burned down by Keiji Aso back then.”

"Of course, the original fire wasn't this big."

Masahiko Takeda didn't say much about this matter; he paused, as if carefully choosing his words.

"As for Moonshadow Island itself, it is actually the real shadow left behind after the third pointer deflected the moonlight."

"These phenomena are actually because the [story timeline] from 12 years ago still exists, and there's a desire to change it—"

Takeda Masahiko stopped himself from saying anything, knowing that it wouldn't be of much use now.

"In short, the more details you know, the worse it will be. We'll probably send you back twelve years in a row soon."

He looked at Hattori, his tone suddenly softening:
"But don't worry, we'll arrange to send you back as soon as possible—after your memories have been erased, of course."

Hattori Heiji suddenly looked at him.

"That's standard procedure to avoid timeline errors."

Masahiko Takeda shrugged, a slightly playful smile appearing on his face, his tone suddenly taking on a teasing tone:

"Mr. Hattori, you're too early! This is twelve years ago."

"Luckily, we have a way to get you back—otherwise..."

He grinned and said, "When you see Conan again, you'll really be a middle-aged man!"

……

Lin Sheng's prediction, made a long, long time ago, has come true.

If Shinichi Kudo, or rather Conan Edogawa, knew that there was a problem with the "timeline".

The third pointer is very likely to involve the past.

“Those forgotten truths always return to Him at an even faster pace, not to mention that He had some doubts when He was in the funeral home.”

In the core layer, in Lin Sheng's office, the hamster explained to Shigenobu Hitomi how all of this had happened.

"More importantly, this is just 'a certain day,' there's no case to mark the end of a 'deduction,' and our timeline is just as it appears in the time display device—"

The hamster shook its head.

"That pale sun 'shattered' all the historical inertia that stood in its way. In other words, the fact that we still call the 'Moon Shadow Island Case' is just wishful thinking and habit."

"The future and the present are actually a blank!"

Beside Hitomi Shigenobu, the timeline structure that the Time Research Department had deduced floated out, telling her just how bad the situation was.

Aside from the island Conan landed on, Moonshadow Island is now terrifyingly large, containing all the "Moonshadow Islands" from the past twelve years.

Moreover, it carries with it the historical inertia shattered by Shinichi Kudo.

In a sense, this is Lin Sheng's office's fault.

The core layer exists to a certain extent independently of the entire timeline.

After all, due to the "constancy" of the CYZ effect, that Alliance Ark would theoretically be anchored at a specific point in time.

Furthermore, it also "fixed" that point in time.

And that's where the problem lies.

The timeline of the original Conan universe-001, which was node-like due to the "loop," has now become a linear "loop."

The timeline moves both forward and backward.

At the same time, it stops on the day Conan landed on the island, remaining in the final [historical inertia] of the "Moonlight Murder Case".

Then, the "moon" currently overhead tells the universe through the CYZ effect that it doesn't care about the past or the present.

The CYZ effect ignores the logic of all these contradictions.

The result is that every second involved in the "Moon Shadow Island Case" is an infinitely divisible "memory".

They were "dragged" to the same day by the moon of the alliance, but they showed up as different days.

In fact, the results of the discussions between the execution and research levels were as follows:
"This should be the outcome of His Excellency ZC-01's plan."

"Currently, the war zone is divided into three parts, which do not interfere with each other, giving us a significant advantage."

"Although the two timelines are active in the first two war zones due to the forward shift of the time nodes, they cannot interfere with the time nodes at the end."

"The historical process that has already been completed has been frozen in time with the new timeline replacing everything."

"The new timeline was created by Shinichi Kudo after he dismantled the old time structure. Therefore, the solidified facts themselves cannot be changed in theory."

"But now we have new opportunities."

In fact, this bizarre spacetime structure did more than just create an opportunity to truly alter certain facts of the "past".

"More importantly—!"

The director of the CYZ Alliance Concept Armament Manufacturing Plant, his projection became excited, and with a trembling voice, he described a beautiful picture to the executive level.

"For the first time, we have the ability to truly influence Shinichi Kudo himself and participate in the shaping of the third pointer!"

"The council chairperson (Shigenobu Hitomi) has sent over the blueprints for the device utilizing the CYZ effect. We can try to actively anchor the effect of a possible third pointer!"

Given ZC-01's past predictions about the outcome of the "third pointer," the Alliance cannot afford to miss this opportunity.

Of course, the dual timelines, or more accurately, the "story timelines," will not miss this opportunity to return to the "chessboard."

To be honest, the first one to be eliminated was the [real-world timeline].

After all, whether it was twelve years ago or two years ago.

[Real-world timeline] It is nowhere near as powerful as it was after the Alliance intervened; in fact, it's barely worth mentioning.

The operational-level strategic command reports to the executive level on the offensive situation "today" in terms of its historical trajectory.

"We have already conducted a search at the 'present' time point on Moonshadow Island, based on the record data obtained by Professor Agasa from the [Loop Computer]."

"Compared to the last attack in the [story timeline], the history of the harbor has changed to 'this used to be a military dock' and 'military equipment was once stranded here'."

Looking at the progress reports compiled by the executive level, Shigenobu Hitomi nodded slightly. Her face now carried a touch of divinity—because the history of Moonshadow Island, which overlapped in every moment, was reflected in her crimson-gold pupils.

"Notify the Moonshadow Island Port Command Center to send a small team to take Hattori Heiji through the 'gate.' He has a greater advantage in the future, where he has little influence over the story's timeline, than in the past of Moonshadow Island."

She paused and added.

"Let the action layer use the [Eternal First Strike] feature to devise a plan. Now their 'magical timeline' feature is usable."

However, everyone now knows that Hattori Heiji ultimately had to stay twelve years ago and participate in the campaign against the "Burning Mansion".

The reason is actually quite simple—

A squad led by the most experienced leader, the vice-captain of "Eternal First Strike," Masahiko Takeda, traversed the forest on the island toward the castle location that could open the "door."

The sky suddenly trembled.

【Karasuma Renya】, or rather, 【the story timeline】, directly brought a "case" to the center of the forest.

……

The impact of this event is undoubtedly far-reaching.

First, the front lines of war began to burn in every corner of time and space, and it burned farther than anyone imagined.

Secondly, regarding that day twelve years ago.

The fire burned even more fiercely, allowing the [story timeline] to invest more resources.

But this also shows that there are more opportunities.

As the old saying goes, even in crisis there is a glimmer of hope.

It was the anomaly caused by this "case falling" that allowed the Narrative Studies Department to successfully capture a large amount of valuable data and, for the first time, provide a positive analysis of the shaping mechanism of the "pointer".

Those previously vague theoretical components now have clear pathways.

This concerns the possibility of completely reversing the "tragedy" of the "Tsukikage Island Case" by utilizing Hattori Heiji, who remained behind.

Just like the slogan shouted by the CYZ Alliance in the past.

"We have fought in the past, we are fighting now, and we will fight in the future."

Now it has shown its true meaning.

The war of timelines has no beginning and no end.

Once it starts, it's already happening simultaneously at all points in time.

(End of this chapter)