Pokémon Detective Case Files.

Azure regained her composure. She made up her mind that no matter what the boy said, no matter how bizarre his story was, she would take it seriously as reference material for her investigation. She would never be like those other unsympathetic adults who would arbitrarily reject testimonies just because they sounded absurd.

Having made ample mental preparations, the female detective adopted a posture of listening attentively—

"Please tell me, in Sachiko's understanding, what is the truth about her constitution? And what kind of help do you need from me, a private investigator?"

In Pokémon battles, sometimes even if a Pokémon uses the "Protect" move to defend against the opponent's attack, its defense may still be broken by certain special moves.

For example, moves like "Feint" which Fighting-type Pokémon excel at, "Phantom Attack" which Ghost-type Pokémon excel at, or even time-traveling moves used by certain Psychic-type Pokémon, can easily penetrate "Protect" moves and cause unexpected damage to Pokémon behind the barrier.

At this moment, Azure experienced firsthand what it felt like to be hit by such a move.

The little boy said to her with a serious expression—

Have you ever heard of parallel universes?

Azure maintained a stiff smile, using all her facial muscles to conceal her wide eyes and furrowed brows, yet a hint of surprise still escaped from the detective's narrow throat.

"what?"

Chapter 197 Caught in the Cracks of the World

Sachiko first clearly felt the changes in the world when she was five years old.

Everything seemed to change shape in an instant, yet it also seemed to have been the same for a long time.

That day, she was watching TV. A talk show was on, and the host had invited a Pokémon professor and university scholars to argue endlessly about the topic of "time travel."

The professor tells the audience that there is a green Pokémon called Celebi that has the power to travel through time, and in a distant region, there is another mythical Pokémon with superpowers that can use rings to lead people through time and space.

On the other hand, the university professor looked down on him, shaking his head roughly and denying the Elf Doctor's statement, while repeatedly muttering complex and difficult terms such as "quantum physics," "wormhole travel," and "grandmother paradox."

Sachiko couldn't understand those things at the time, but that didn't stop her from watching the adults arguing on TV with great interest...

Just like when she used to watch her parents argue at home.

That day, something happened, and neither her father nor her mother came home. Sachiko watched TV for a very long time.

Late into the night, the TV station broadcast the time travel interview again. The girl had memorized almost all the strange terms the university professor used, and only then did she hear the familiar sound of a lock being opened at the entrance.

It was a rare occasion that Dad and Mom came home together today. They seemed to walk through the door at the same time, their steps heavy as they entered the house.

This is truly unusual, because although Mom and Dad work in the same place, they've been arguing a lot lately, and even when they get home from get off work, they try every possible way to avoid each other. It's as if the two adults are engaged in a silent, childish competition, doing their best to evade each other's lives.

Sachiko hadn't seen the two of them arrive home at the same time in a long time.

Dad changed his shoes, not releasing his Pokémon—he probably left it at his workspace as usual. He saw Sachiko still watching TV on the sofa, and a strange expression instantly crossed his face. Sachiko thought he was angry because she was eating snacks on the sofa, but that wasn't the case.

She saw her father approach her, half-squat down, pat her head, and then silently walk towards the balcony—where he used to smoke before he quit.

Throughout the entire process, he didn't even glance at his mother, who had entered the house at the same time as him.

“Mom, Dad has started smoking again…” Sachiko wanted to tell her mother this, as it was a pledge the whole family made together when Dad decided to quit smoking in the past. But she couldn’t say it because her mother looked strange too.

After entering the room, Mom didn't say a word. She sat down next to Sachiko and stared blankly at the TV with her.

When Dad approached her, blocked the TV with his body, and reached out to touch her head, Mom didn't react at all—it was as if her gaze could pass through Dad and directly see the TV program on the screen behind him.

"Sachiko," her mother said without warning, her expression incredibly serious, "from now on we'll be living on our own."

alone?

Sachiko remembered the meaning of the word in the picture book dictionary, but she didn't understand what her mother wanted to express with the word.

"What about Dad?"

She naturally pointed to her father smoking on the balcony—

"Don't you live with your father?"

"Sigh, he used to smoke there." The mother's face showed sadness that even a child could see.

Looking at her mother's face, Sachiko had a premonition that a great disaster was about to befall her.

“From now on, it will just be the two of us.” Mom gazed at Sachiko and said in a more serious tone, “Dad will never come back.”

"Dad...isn't he there?"

Sachiko pointed to the balcony again. Through the transparent glass door, her father turned around and looked at his daughter, who was pointing at him, with some confusion.

"What did you say?" Mom said, her gaze fixed on the balcony as if she were staring into empty air.

"Sachiko, what's wrong with you? There's nothing there."

Perhaps because her face showed too much fear, her mother immediately hugged Sachiko: "I know you're scared and don't want to accept this reality, but I'll always be by your side."

Sachiko stood frozen, unable to move, unable to believe what was happening before her eyes.

When she came to her senses, her father was already standing in front of her—he had finished his cigarette.

"Have you been watching TV alone all day?" Dad asked expressionlessly.

Sachiko's mother was sitting right next to her, so no matter how you looked at it, she couldn't really be considered "alone," which is why Sachiko shook her head heavily.

"Oh, I see. You did other things too."

As before, Dad didn't notice Mom's presence at all. He ignored Sachiko's denial of being "alone," looked at the somewhat messy comic books in Sachiko's room, and nodded understandingly.

"You must be a little hungry too, let's go out and get some late-night snacks together."

"Should we call Mom?" Sachiko asked, looking at her father in front of her, then at her mother who was watching TV beside her.

Dad didn't answer, but just sighed silently, patted Sachiko's head, and took her hand to leave the sofa.

The mother looked at Sachiko, who had stood up, with a puzzled expression, as if asking, "Where are you going?" but she didn't say it out loud.

Dad turned off the TV and the lights, leaving Mom in the dark. He slammed the door shut and walked with Sachiko to their usual restaurant.

Before eating at the restaurant downstairs, Dad said something similar to Mom's—

"From now on, it will just be the two of us."

The next day, Sachiko saw the news about the accident on television, and she began to understand the reason for this strange phenomenon.

Just yesterday, a serious accident occurred at my parents' workplace. A huge Pokémon suddenly went berserk, causing injuries and deaths to several staff members.

The television did not broadcast the names of the dead and injured, but both my father and mother looked very serious while watching it.

The three of them were sitting side by side, but they looked incredibly lonely and sorrowful.

"Even though Dad is gone, we must live well."

"I need to work harder from now on, and do it for my mom too."

Listening to her parents' words, Sachiko finally understood her current situation.

The father cannot see the mother, and the mother cannot see the father; their conversations cannot be conveyed, and their actions are ignored. Most importantly, they both believe the other has died in a work accident.

Only Sachiko herself can see both of them at the same time.

I remember that arrogant university professor on a TV interview once said—if you put a cheetah in a magic box, with a 50% chance of it dying and a 50% chance of it surviving, the moment the box is opened, two different worlds will appear. In one world, the cheetah can stand up and meow cutely at us, while in the other world, the cheetah will die a tragic death.

Dad and Mom live in two completely different worlds.

In one world, the mother survived and prepared breakfast for Sachiko; in another world, the father was the one who survived and bought her a sandwich from the convenience store downstairs.

Sachiko didn't know which one to eat, so she ate half of each. Her mother asked her, puzzled, why she ate so little, while her father didn't ask any further questions and helped Sachiko finish the rest of the sandwich.

The girl travels between two worlds, able to see both her living father and her living mother. She doesn't know how she manages to do it, but she is incredibly grateful that she hasn't lost either of her parents.

This is the truth behind Sachiko's time travel.

.

"We are in the parallel universe where Sachiko's mother lived."

The little boy, who was in preschool, tried his best to explain the principle of parallel universes to the agent detective, making Bilan feel as if she were in a dream.

"However, Sachiko's ability to travel between parallel universes is not permanent. According to her, the two parallel worlds are like two intersecting straight lines. The further along you go, the farther apart the worlds become, and the more difficult it is to travel between them. And recently, Sachiko can no longer see both her father and mother at the same time—she is very worried and afraid that one day in the future she might lose either her father or her mother."

The little boy looked at the kind detective with utmost sincerity and pleading.

"Is there any way to keep Sachiko's parents by her side forever?"

That concludes the contents of this commission.

Chapter 198 The Ghost Behind the Telephone

This is a tricky case.

In the detective agency late at night, Bilan pressed her forehead with her interlaced fingers, her heart heavier than ever before.

The reason this case is considered difficult is neither because the information in the case is confusing and hard to understand, nor because the mystery is deep and dark and untouchable.

In fact, after leaving the client's house, the female detective launched an investigation with lightning speed, achieving a breakthrough within an hour.

No matter what kind of world we live in, the relationships between people are always closer than most people imagine—Victor Hugo once said when showing off his useless miscellaneous knowledge that a sociologist had proposed a theory called "six degrees of separation".

The theory states that even the most reclusive person can still find at least twenty-five acquaintances they can reach. If these acquaintances introduce even more people, twenty-five to the power of seven equals a staggering sixty-one billion, which could barely cover most of the Earth's population.

This means that any two strangers on Earth, regardless of their physical distance or social status, can be connected through a maximum of six introductions. Moreover, for most people in the world, the number of relevant contacts they can reach is far more than twenty-five.

This is completely useless knowledge, and there is no loss in not knowing it in your entire life.

However, as Azure was conducting her investigation, the boring knowledge imparted by the detective in the white coat would inexplicably pop into her mind, giving her a sense of "oh, that makes sense".

The investigation of a detective is basically this: through acquaintances, find key witnesses, ask them reasonable questions, and then judge whether their statements are false based on the known information.

If a detective goes through the entire process of this operation, he can basically see the true nature of most cases.

Azur Lane used the same approach in this commissioned investigation.

Before leaving the apartment on the thirtieth floor, she obtained the preschool teacher's phone number from the boy's parents. After getting the number, she pretended to be a relative of the boy and made up a reason to get Sachiko's mother's contact information from the teacher—in this way, through only two layers of introductions, Azure got the opportunity to speak directly with a key witness.

Despite the approaching night, the detective, who had accepted the case without authorization, made the call without the slightest hesitation.

Women receiving unknown phone calls late at night would instinctively feel wary and feel compelled to identify themselves immediately. The close relationship between the little boy and Sachiko in preschool could be used as a starting point for further questioning.

Just as Azure was weaving lies in her mind, a voice came from the other end of the receiver...

A man's voice.

"Hello, may I ask who you are?"

Sometimes things like that happen. Azure wasn't surprised at all.

.

As Detective Hugo once said in the power plant incident, it would be unwise to confront the parties involved before gathering most of the information.

The saying goes, "Those involved are often confused." If you only approach a case from a single perspective, even the most skilled investigator can easily be led astray by the information that first surfaces.

Although Azure accepted the request from the boy without hesitation, it didn't mean she fully accepted Sachiko's speculation about her current situation.

Sachiko disappears from school from time to time. She used to be able to see both of her parents at the same time at home, but now she can only contact one of them. Can this strange reality really be explained by time travel?

Does parallel universe really exist? Leaving aside such profound questions, the little girl's ability to repeatedly jump between two universes is truly perplexing.

Based on what the girl observed at home, it can be seen that, due to that magical constitution, Sachiko can freely switch between two time-spaces depending on her interactions with her parents.

However, if we accept this setting entirely, an obvious contradiction arises—when Sachiko was in preschool, she didn't have her parents by her side, so what caused her to disappear from time to time and travel to another dimension?

Even if we use the excuse that Sachiko's body cannot be completely controlled to explain this contradiction, the same contradiction will emerge as the reasoning progresses—if she can uncontrollably disappear at school, then why can she freely jump between two time periods at home without missing a single word of her parents' conversation?

Even assuming Sachiko's physical condition is sometimes stable and sometimes uncontrollable, why did she only experience the unusual feeling of not being able to see both her parents at the same time at home when the two worlds began to gradually separate, instead of showing signs of prolonged disappearances at school? If such a serious disappearance had occurred, no matter how bad Sachiko's reputation was at school, the school and teachers would not have ignored it.

The intricate world the little girl constructed for herself was delicate and crystalline, like mist rising from ice, but it didn't make sense logically.

.

The phone was answered by someone who wasn't the owner, but this level of change wasn't enough to shake the agent detective's composure.

“Aren’t you Mrs. Kuribayashi? Ah, I see. You must be her husband, Mr. Kuribayashi, the lead performer of supernatural acts at the White Tree Hole Circus.”

After a moment's hesitation, Azure asked the man directly.

Before making the call, she had already contacted Ms. Officer Jenny in Feiyun City and learned the most important information about the whole incident.

Sachiko discovered her condition a year ago, when Officer Jenny was a key member of the Flying Cloud City Police Department's Security Division—she couldn't possibly be unaware of the massive Pokémon rampage that resulted in the death of one of Sachiko's parents.

"Oh, it's that incident at the circus, isn't it?"

Officer Jenny, who was working late at the police station, had a chance to take a break and chat on the phone. She was very happy and started talking to Azure. Azure heard her apologizing to her colleagues and then walking briskly away from the office.

"I have a very strong impression of that super circus called 'White Tree Hole,' right? They brought in a giant Alolan Exeggutor for their show, but something went wrong midway through. The flames spewed by the Fire-type Pokémon startled Exeggutor, which was backstage preparing to go on stage. It panicked and ran around wildly, its long neck waving and injuring nearby performers. The audience panicked too. Oh dear, if we hadn't arrived in time to evacuate the crowd, there would have been a stampede... Sigh, I really miss my job in the security department."