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

Chapter 268 The Shadow of the Moon is the Heart of the Moon (The Third Pointer Case Completed, Requesting Monthly Tickets)
Upon hearing that "Asai Narumi is actually Asai Narumi," the last piece of the puzzle in Conan's mind was finally put to rest.

He finally understood what it was that had been bothering him the whole time.

—It is the motivation.

Ken Nishimoto's death seems to have brought the case to a close, but if you think about it carefully, you will find that the killer's logic for murder had already collapsed long ago.

The murderer sent a notice to the detective agency before the crime occurred.

Even during the crime, many suggestive details were left behind—

For example, the music playing next to Hideo Kawashima's body, the seawater on his body after his death, the sheet music tucked inside the piano...

Or perhaps, the musical score drawn in blood by Kuroiwa Tatsuji when he died, and the second movement of the Moonlight Sonata...

All signs indicate that the murderer was extremely calm and meticulous.

Each of his crimes was provocative (Conan believed), a "theatrical performance" deliberately left behind after careful consideration.

This contradicts the fact that Ken Nishimoto "committed suicide out of guilt" after completing his murder plan.

The murderer may commit suicide, but it should never be a "suicide out of guilt."

All the details of the case flashed through Conan's mind.

One last thing: the cause of Kuroiwa Tatsuji's death.

Conan remembered that not long ago, Inspector Megure had asked Shiraishi to develop the photos taken in the broadcasting studio.

He remembers clearly that there was a striking red light in one of the photos, but not in the others.

At that time, he was unable to immediately understand the meaning of that red light.

Now he knew—it wasn't light, nor was it a reflection; it was a rewind device.

Conan looked up at Dr. Narumi, who was still standing in the piano room, gently comforting Reiko Kuroiwa.

Her expression remained calm, gentle, and professional as she softly comforted the grieving Reiko—even though she had just killed her father.

Conan suddenly felt a little dizzy.

How could he not have seen this sooner?!
This doctor came to Moonshadow Island two years ago.

She didn't come here to heal her trauma.

She possessed all the clues and was the only one who knew the true secret of the "Crimson Fire Ritual".

That person could have exposed the lies of the past, revealed the truth, and brought the real culprit to justice.

Instead of letting the spiral of tragedy continue.

Conan looked at the sheet music in his hand, the sheet music that Keiji Aso left for Asami—it contained a father's confession.

"Sungmi, you must live well on your own."

——Aso Keiji.

"But it was all too late..."

Conan felt a bitter taste in his throat; the sheet music hadn't been delivered to the right person.

Now, Dr. Chengshi is the murderer who killed four people.

He gripped the sheet music tightly in his hand; that gentle figure looked full of hypocrisy and bloodshed.

Asagi Minami has become a person consumed by revenge and obsession.

“Since she can’t turn back,” Conan muttered to himself, “I have to make her stop.”

Yes, Conan did have a moment of doubt and regret, but the loss of four lives made his resolve stronger again.

Conan Edogawa is a detective.

Even though there are still some suspicious points, the evidence we have now is sufficient.

Now, he is going to expose the real murderer in front of everyone with solid evidence.

—And this was the decision he would later regret the most.

Amid Kogoro Mouri's shout of "Don't touch the important evidence!", Conan grabbed the stack of sheet music and ran toward the interrogation room.

He didn't even glance back at Chengshi, who was still standing in the room.

From this moment on, she was no longer someone he wanted to trust.

……

The village mansion, the recording room.

Conan stood in front of the table, skillfully picked up the file, and pulled out the stack of photos of Kuroiwa Tatsuji's crime scenes that had been developed earlier from a file folder.

He quickly spotted the striking, eerie red dot on one of the sheets.

Sure enough, it was exactly as he had thought.

The door to the interrogation room was suddenly pushed open.

"Seriously! What's going on?!"

Kogoro Mouri stormed into the interrogation room in a rage, and immediately saw Conan tear open the stack of photos he had just sealed.

"You despicable little detective..."

Conan's hand, hidden under the table, twitched. With a "whoosh," Kogoro Mouri stumbled, then skillfully "walked" to the chair and sat down.

The "Sleeping Detective" has arrived.

When Inspector Megure arrived at the interrogation room, he saw the familiar man sitting in the soft chair with his head down.
"Inspector Megure," Conan said into the voice changer behind the chair.

"I think I understand the ins and outs of these cases now."

Everyone's spirits lifted.

"First of all, there's the person who knocked Mr. Murasawa unconscious tonight—Mr. Hirata."

All eyes turned to Hirata Kazuaki.

"The bandage on his left hand wasn't there this afternoon, which means it was caused when he broke the window not long ago."

“However,” Conan paused, “the more crucial point is—Nishimoto Ken is not the murderer in that case.”

“That’s Hirata—” Inspector Megure was about to speak.

"Not Kazuaki Hirata."

Kogoro Mouri's words made him feel dejected for a moment.

"In fact, Mr. Hirata was just using the hidden compartment under the piano to conduct drug deals with Mr. Kawashima."

"Drugs...drugs!" Inspector Megure and everyone else exclaimed in shock.

“Tonight, he just wanted to sneak off to get the rest of the drugs, but Mr. Murasawa caught him and that’s why he knocked him out.”

"The reason he attacked Mr. Murasawa was probably because he was accidentally seen by Mr. Murasawa when he went to get the remaining drugs."

No, there was one person who was neither shocked nor exclaimed.

—That was Dr. Chengshi, who always stood at the very back of the crowd.

Her expression darkened immediately upon hearing the word "drugs".

However, her eyes soon revealed a more complex expression.

None of that matters now.

Soon all of this will be unimportant.

She quietly walked to the front gate of the village mansion and glanced at the two GSSRA officers who were pretending to ignore her.

Her figure disappeared on the road leading to the beach below the sea cliff.

The path, where the "Aso House" sign had been cut off, hidden in the grass, was discovered "accidentally" by Masato Shimizu and led to the ruins of the old house below the sea cliff.

Inside the interrogation room, Conan, hiding behind a soft chair, did not notice her disappearance.

Even Inspector Megure, Ran Mouri, Kogoro Mouri, and others were not among them.

After all, it's "deduction time" now.

On the detective's stage, why would the spotlight shine elsewhere?

So the reasoning continues.

"However, Mr. Hirata has no connection with these three murder cases."

Excellent! Seizing the opportunity, Inspector Megure tried to identify the culprit again—now there's only one person left to identify!
"Then the murderer is Mr. Shimizu!"

"No, it's not Mr. Shimizu either."

Conan once again thwarted Inspector Megure's hopes.

"What can truly reveal the killer behind this series of murders is the cause of Mr. Kuroiwa's death."

"Inspector Megure, please take a look at the two photos I have on the table. One of them has a red glow, while the other one doesn't."

Inspector Megure then "sensibly" asked, "So this is..."

And Conan Edogawa then "just in time" replied:

"This is actually an automatic rewind function. Generally speaking, we have to wait until the front side of the tape finishes playing before switching to the other side to play the contents of the back side of the tape."

"However, if you use the automatic rewind function, you can directly play the other side by switching the read/write head."

"And the musical scores on the ground at that time can also prove this point."

"If Mr. Kuroiwa's death had occurred within minutes, the bloodstains wouldn't have dried so quickly, and Conan's fall on them didn't affect the content at all."

Kogoro Mouri paused for a moment, then said, "In other words, the time of death was actually thirty minutes before the body was discovered."

"Those two photos show that someone turned off the automatic rewind function when they approached Mr. Kuroiwa."

Inspector Megure and Kogoro Mouri reminisce about the people in the recording studio at that time.

The person who had the ability to approach Kuroiwa Tatsuji and use that information to lie about the time of the deceased's death was—

"At that time, apart from the police, the only person who could get close to the body was Dr. Sung-sil, who was in charge of the autopsy."

"Dr. Narumi's motive for planning these three cases was the death of Keiji Aso twelve years ago."

"Twelve years ago?" Inspector Megure asked again.

"The death of Keiji Aso?" Masato Shimizu and the others also "played" the role of questioners.

Conan then puts a final conclusion on Asai Narumi's motive for murder.

"Twelve years ago, Keiji Aso committed suicide by setting fire to his home, but in reality, he was murdered by others. The murderers were the victims of these three cases, as well as Mr. Kameyama, who died two years ago."

"Mr. Aso's mansion was located below the sea cliff, and the lighthouse and abandoned dock next to it were enough for them to transport drugs."

“By taking advantage of Mr. Aso’s identity as a pianist and his opportunities to perform overseas, they were able to trade drugs hidden in a secret compartment of the piano in the rarely visited piano room of the village mansion.”

"But after Mr. Aso announced his intention to withdraw, they set fire to his house and killed him on that very day."

Kogoro Mouri's voice deepened.

"All of these things were written on the sheet music in that safe, and that was also his will to his son, Chengshi."

Inspector Megure also felt somewhat heavy-hearted for a moment.

"So, he did this to avenge his father?"

But before he could even process the sheer volume of information...

"Officer Megure!"

A sharp voice interrupted his thoughts. It was Officer Shiraishi, who had run to the corridor to check after Detective Mouri revealed the real culprit.

"Dr. Narumi has disappeared!"

"Hurry up and find it!"

The atmosphere suddenly became heavy.

For Inspector Megure, while he sympathized with Asano Minami, his duty as a police officer was to apprehend the culprit after the detective pointed out the real killer.

Conan, who had been hiding behind the soft chair, suddenly stood up.

He glanced at Kogoro Mouri, who was still fast asleep, and then ran into the corridor at Ran's worried shouts.

He pushed open the door at the end of the corridor—it was empty except for a piano.

Conan paused for a few seconds, then the words of the Long Island police officer suddenly came to mind.

"...The Aso residence that was burned down was rebuilt by him later at his own expense."

There's no mistake!

Dr. Narumi is currently at Keiji Aso's residence!

……

When everyone arrived at the beach next to the abandoned port, the mansion was engulfed in flames.

Just like twelve years ago, flames burst wildly from every window and every wall of the mansion.

It even made the nearby sea appear white—as white as the moonlight Hattori Heiji saw on the sea.

And in the piano room of the mansion.

That piano is exactly the same as the one Keiji Aso donated in the past.

It's exactly the same as the piano that turned to ashes in the mansion twelve years ago.

Dr. Chengshi leaned over the piano, tilting his head to the side as he quietly watched the flames gradually enveloping him.

In the surging heat, he slowly raised his hand and pressed the last note of the piece of music.

"Boom-"

This is the final movement of the Moonlight Sonata.

He closed his eyes and felt an unprecedented warmth envelop him, as if he were being embraced by his father's gentle arms.

"It's over, Dad."

"It's all... finally over."

however--

"It's not over yet!"

A small, thin figure rushed in from the piano room door.

It was a figure that neither smoke nor flame could reach. Flames swirled behind him, smoke naturally avoided his sight, and even the air was no longer scorching.

Conan Edogawa is clutching a piece of paper tightly in his hand—the sheet music that Keiji Aso left for Dr. Narumi.

The sheet music looked perfectly intact; not even the edges were curled or scorched by the hot air.

He shouted, "You can't die!"

Looking at Dr. Narumi slumped over the piano, a trace of sadness flashed in Conan's eyes—no matter what, he had to save the last person in this spiral of tragedy.

No more people can be killed.

Looking at that all-too-familiar figure, Asai Narumi asked with a hint of surprise, "Conan?"

"Dr. Chengshi, didn't your father make it very clear in his suicide note?"

Conan held the sheet music up in front of him.

He looked up into Dr. Narumi's eyes and said the sentence earnestly: "Naruma, you must live well on your own!"

The firelight illuminated Conan's eyes, and Asai Narumi could see the sorrow and determination in the child's eyes.

He paused for a moment, his lips twitched slightly as if he were about to smile, but in the end he only let out a faint sigh.

“Yes…” he sighed.

He stared at the piano in front of him, a piano he knew all too well.

An endless sadness enveloped Asai Narumi's heart, even bringing a tear to his eye.

That glimmer of light quickly disappeared into the increasingly scorching air.

Asai Narumi just looked at this child who knew nothing.

"If we had discovered it sooner, none of this would have happened."

He spoke softly to Conan, but his eyes had already softened.

“I have never believed that my father would do such a thing. He would never kill my mother and sister and then commit suicide.”

"So after graduating from medical school, I stayed on the medical ship that was supporting Moonshadow Island, hoping to find out the truth."

At this point, he smiled at Conan, his eyes showing no resentment, only relief.

"To avoid being recognized, I disguised myself as a female doctor, and the inspection on that ship was very perfunctory, so even the name on my medical license was fake."

The flames slowly gathered, and he paused, looking down into Conan's eyes. "I didn't kill Kameyama Isamu."

“Two years ago, he called me to the village mansion, and after I told him that I was Keiji Aso’s son, he suddenly became frightened and hurriedly told me everything.”

"Then he collapsed on the piano and died—the cause of death was cardiac arrest."

“I didn’t do anything,” he sighed.

The truth that Kameyama Yu had told him two years ago, his repentance, and... the Moonlight Sonata that played in the room just as he was about to press the first note came to mind.

The pauses in the playing, the familiar melody, even every single detail—he knew the person playing the instrument all too well.

At that moment, he listened to the moonlight and the music that came from the other side of the castle.

"At that time, I was sitting next to his body, playing my father's favorite Moonlight Sonata, cough cough—"

As he spoke, he suddenly began to cough violently.

—The smoke is getting thicker.

Conan immediately ran over and grabbed his arm. "Let's leave first, Dr. Narumi!"

"Your father said—you must live well!! Not that you should die in the fire!!"

Asai Narumi paused for a moment, then stood up from his chair, and to Conan's surprise, grabbed Conan's collar, his eyes flashing.

"It's too late..."

Conan heard Dr. Narumi say this, and he saw him take off the sapphire from his collar and put it in his hand.

Everything seems to be the same.

With the sound of shattering window glass, Conan was thrown out of the window by Asai Narumi.

Amid Conan's unwilling and angry roar, he ran towards the burning sea of ​​fire for the second time.

Ran Mouri grabbed his arm. "Conan, it's too dangerous inside!"

"Let me go! I need to save them—"

Just then, a sudden voice startled the two arguing people.

It's the sound of a piano being played.

A man is playing his final words amidst the flames.

Conan recognized the information implied in the tone.

"Thank you, little detective. I'll leave that moonlight to you."

……

The fire burned all night.

The flames tore through the night, and the billowing smoke almost obscured the sky, until the full moon disappeared into the sea and the glorious sun shone on the beach.

According to the will found in Dr. Narumi's clinic, he was buried in the cemetery in the middle of the forest.

At Conan's request, Kogoro Mouri and the others decided to wait until after Dr. Narumi's funeral before leaving.

The funeral was held on a Saturday.

It was also the "third day" since Conan arrived at Moonshadow Island.

Because it all started with the song "Moonlight Sonata," the funeral didn't begin until the moon rose.

The forest and the sea breeze witnessed the end of this tragedy.

Professor Agasa, Ai Haibara, and the Detective Boys are also there—they arrived at Tsukikage Island this morning.

They also attended the funeral.

Unlike the other children's grief over the tragedy, and Ayumi's weeping—

Ai Haibara simply stood in the corner, listening quietly to Conan's account of the case without uttering a single word.

She just kept looking at Conan with an extremely complicated expression.

"So..." she finally spoke, "what do you plan to do with the pointer?"

"Heiji is already here."

Conan turned his head and glanced at Heiji Hattori, who was whispering to Inspector Megure not far away.

"He will stay here to continue the search."

Conan then took out the black pocket watch from his pocket; only two hands on the dial shimmered quietly in the pale blue moonlight.

The position of the third pointer is an empty groove.

"Professor Agasa brought his watch with him."

He showed the watch face to Ai Haibara and explained.

"The third pointer should be shaped like an '8' or an '∞'. Hattori said he would search the entire island."

"That's it..."

Ai Haibara looked up at the full moon in the sky.

She was now unusually calm.

It was as if all that deep-seated hatred had completely vanished, purified without a trace by the moonlight.

She turned her head slightly to look into Conan's eyes—to look into the eyes of the person she should perhaps hate the most.

but……

There was no anger or accusation in his eyes.

There is only one kind of complexity that is difficult to describe.

Perhaps it was doubt, perhaps it was relief, perhaps it was... pity.

Ai Haibara buried her face in her hands.

“The famous detective…” he said softly, his voice seemingly bathed in moonlight, “maybe I know a clue.”

Conan suddenly looked up and saw Ai Haibara reaching out her hand to him.

"What about the gem that Dr. Chengshi gave you? Didn't he give you that 'moonlight' as well?"

"Just now at the funeral, I saw the reflection of the gemstone and it looked like there was something inside."

Her tone was calm, but it made Conan's heart skip a beat.

He rushed into the house and quickly returned with the clear, ocean-blue gemstone.

He then held the gem high, letting it bask in the light of the full moon.

The gem immediately shone as brightly as the full moon!
Then, Conan saw a faint glimmer of light and shadow projected from the bottom of the gem under the dazzling refraction.

“This is——!”

In the center of that extremely subtle projection, a faint symbol quietly emerged:

“∞”

Ai leaned closer and handed her a small screwdriver: "Give it a try."

Conan gently pried open the silver casing of the pendant, and the clasp popped open in the gap between the silver casing and the gemstone—

It is an exquisitely crafted, infinity-shaped gemstone pointer with eight mirrored surfaces.

The back of the silver casing was engraved with a line of extremely small text:
"The shadow of the moon is the heart of the moon."

The moment Conan softly uttered those words.

Standing beside him was Ai Haibara, while in the distance were Heiji Hattori, Professor Agasa, GSSRA officer Shinichi Shiraishi, and Daisuke Yokoyama…

They all "heard" it.

That incredibly heavy heart finally felt relieved.

【The Shadow of the Full Moon】 is also known as 【The Heart of Moonlight】.

Between Conan's slightly trembling fingers—

The pointer, which had been successfully completed under the influence of the Alliance and within the Alliance's "Pointer Shaping Project," and had two names, was embedded into that TDD.

An unprecedented cheer erupted from inside the moon.

Even many people at the executive level are like this.

Many people shouted excitedly.

"Success!!"

"The path to the end has finally been determined!!"

"Conan... Conan succeeded!!"

As for Conan, he was now staring blankly at the hand that was actually embedded in the watch face.

His pupils began to tremble.

An indescribable shock, an unbelievable fact, caused Conan's face to turn pale in an instant.

in case……

in case……

He stood frozen in place, a voice echoing in his heart, growing ever more deafening.

If the Crimson Fire Festival really existed...

If the treasure of the Crimson Fire Festival is real...

……

Yes, now—

The path to the end has finally been truly determined by Conan Edogawa himself.

Everyone in the league was cheering.

However... very few people can understand what Lin Sheng meant by "the end of everything".

……

On Sunday morning, the day after Asagi's funeral.

Conan, with his thoughts swirling in his mind, boarded the small boat and left with the others.

And it was shortly after he left.

Sunday.

Chiba Wakako, Miss Wakako committed suicide.

She was buried that night, also under that full moon, in the cemetery in the center of the Moonshadow Island forest.

And a figure appeared there that night.

Kazuta Akimoto, the archaeologist who should have died 12 years ago, who should have been admitted to the University of Tokyo, and who actually was.

He stood beneath the banyan tree where Ken Nishimoto had died, guided by the moonlight still hanging above, like a silver ribbon—

Dig out that safe that's exactly the same as the one in the village mansion.

He then took out one of them, something that had withstood the test of time, something that truly could not be destroyed in the fire—

The Seven Secret Chapters of Conan the True Man

The second secret manual: the art of riding the white horse through time.

The second secret technique: the art of string manipulation and puppetry.

Unstable form, prone to rising up every three...

The sun and moon alternate, yet this is not in accordance with reason...

It is not just the shadow of the moon, but also the heart of the moon.

Akimoto Kazuta is also known as Ōi Kento.

He didn't know how much longer he would be trapped in this terrible cycle.

Even the same predetermined ending would fill him with the same fear, terror, and pain as the first time.
—But he will not give up on bringing Chiba Wakako back from the brink of death.

……

Meanwhile, in the director's office at BIDUT, Hattori Heiji was looking at the TDD on his wrist.

His gaze lingered on it for a long time—

He eventually managed to extinguish the fire, but found it was all in vain.

"[Loop] Ah..."

A sigh echoed in the office.

He picked up the phone.

“Maria, tell the Metropolitan Police Department to hand over the evidence left over from the suicide case of Keiji Aso twelve years ago and the related case just now.”

Finally, Hattori Heiji carefully used tweezers to remove the tooth remnant left by Asai Narumi from the evidence bag.

Then, it was placed into the evidence bag from 12 years ago.

The crimes of drug trafficking that were once committed vanished as those who suffered from them returned to normal, as the musicians playing music in the burning mansion disappeared in the flames.

Keiji Aso has atoned for his sins.

After doing all this, Hattori Heiji looked down at the TDD on his wrist again, the interface of which was flashing a faint green light.

He gazed at the green light in silence for a long time, then took it off.

……

Meanwhile, in a distant, bright, and tranquil country, in a comfortable and beautiful place.

"Brother! Are we going to live here from now on?"

"Yes, we'll live here from now on."

There was a hint of relief in that voice.

Asai Narumi, no, it should be said that he is Asai Narumi.

He took his mother's and sister's hands and stepped off the plane that Hattori Heiji had arranged.

After descending the last step, he looked up at the bright, full moon in the sky—

The moonlight seemed brighter and gentler than he remembered.

"Moonlight, how about I play a piano piece with your name on it for you later?" he asked his sister in a low voice.

"Okay, okay!" the little girl replied excitedly, her smile as pure as snow.

That clear, childlike voice finally brought a gentle smile to Asai Narumi's lips.

He picked up his mother's luggage, whom he hadn't seen in a long time, and walked towards a car that was already parked by the roadside, amidst the lively laughter of the little girl who was cheering and running around them.

—Perhaps there are some things that cannot be changed, so let's change everything that can be changed.
-
Equipment Name: Full Moon Shadow/Moonlight Heart
Equipment Category: Accessories

Equipment effect:

There are three points, as follows; please refer to the relevant section of the work, "Equipment Name: 'Conan's Six Elements'," for details.

1. The Echoes of Crime and Punishment: See related information in the work.

2. The Afterglow of the Trial: See related information in the work.
3. The gift of "Moonlight": See details in the work's related information.

Equipment requirements:

There are four points in total; please refer to the relevant section of the work, "Equipment Name: 'Conan's Six Elements'," for details.

Usage environment:

There are four points in total; please refer to the relevant section of the work, "Equipment Name: 'Conan's Six Elements'," for details.

"Justice is not heartless; darkness will eventually be illuminated by the light of the full moon." — CYZ Alliance Concept Weapon Manufacturing Plant
P.S.: To be honest, I'm quite satisfied with the structure of the third case.

After all, foreshadowing began after the Hoshimi Tower case.

The comparisons between the two names and the Harbor Case, the Red Fire Festival and the Harbor Case, the Hattori Heiji route, the Aso Keiji route, the Castle Case and Ai Haibara's route, the Gin route, and the Narumi route...

There are many, many more foreshadowing elements and details.

(To prove this isn't just speculation, the images are below; this doesn't even include those from WPS.)

Although it's a bit of a shame, I'll leave it to all the attentive readers to discover before I have the chance to write a side story (●''●).

(End of this chapter)