"Say, Mouri-san."
Kogoro made eye contact with the barber standing behind him the mirror. He was using kind of a weird tone of voice, so Kogoro simply gave an interrogative noise as a reply.
"Pardon me if this comes across as rude, but where do all those red dots on the back of your neck come from?"
Kogoro furrowed his brow. "What?"
"You don't know?" asked Tanaka, his face donning a look of surprise. "Here, let me wheel the chair around and show you."
Kogoro stared at the hand mirror in front of him, not really sure what to think. Sure enough, a multitude of tiny red dots speckled the back of his neck. What on earth? How could those have possibly gotten there? And why had nobody mentioned this to him before now?
Tanaka cut into his thoughts. "You think they're rashes or something? Maybe you ought to get it checked out by a doctor." He paused, presumably trying to think of what he wanted to say next. He wound up returning the chair to its original position and just continuing to snip away at Kogoro's hair.
The second Kogoro was out of the humble little shop, his hand flew up to the back of his neck. Any bumps were so small Kogoro wouldn't have noticed-which obviously, he hadn't-if he hadn't already seen those red spots and known they were there. All those times on cases where he had felt that weird sting in the back of his neck came flooding back into his memory. Kogoro instantly decided that he did not want to deal with the implications of that at the moment and opted to push that aside and set a reminder on his phone to schedule a doctor's visit. There had to be a logical explanation for this; it was probably just as Tanaka had said. It was only rashes or an adult outbreak of acne or some similarly ordinary occurrence.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked home, distracting himself with the thought of what Ran might have cooked for dinner.
Five days later, Kogoro sat in Dr. Sugiyama's office, who was examining the mysterious spots with her face set in a grim expression that was making him massively uneasy. She finally pulled away and looked at him seriously.
"Mouri-san," she started, "I have no idea what you've been up to other than cases, but this is of some concern."
"Please just tell me, Doctor. What exactly are those spots?" asked Kogoro, his stomach twisting in knots. Her tone of voice combined with her expression couldn't mean anything good.
Dr. Sugiyama sighed. "Look, those are spots from an injection. The needle...needles caused a bit of skin irritation. Also, there were signs of scarring from previous injections. The fact that some healed means that you have a ridiculous amount of needles entering the back of your neck. Mouri-san, it may be a bizarre place to stick a syringe into, but are you addicted to some kind of recreational drug?"
Heavens no. Kogoro would admit that maybe he had a habit of drinking a little too much, but he drew the line at drugs. Honestly, he was insulted that she would even suggest it. He jumped up and shouted, "I never have and I never will!"
"Alright, fine, but those are injection sites no matter how you look at it. Don't hurt yourself, Mouri-san. You may go." Dr. Sugiyama said, shooting him a look that told Kogoro that she obviously didn't believe him. On the way out, she silently handed him a drug rehab registration form.
Kogoro promptly ripped it up and threw it away. His mind was racing with the knowledge that, apparently, some unknown party had been injecting him with God-knows-what for months. He had no idea who or why or how, and it was certainly worrying that a stalker of some kind had been following him to cases and doing this without being seen. Whoever it was, they were a real sicko.
He had no idea what to do about it either. So, he fished his phone out of his pocket and pushed a couple buttons, waiting for somebody to pick up (it was weird that he ran into enough cases to have the police headquarters on speed dial). Five rings in, a click sounded on the other end and a voice came through.
"This is Officer Takagi, and you have reached Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters. How may we help you?"
"You need to get caller ID sooner or later. Can I speak to Inspector Megure please, Takagi-san?"
Takagi's voice took a noticeably perkier tone. "Oh, Mouri-san! I'll put him through right away." Kogoro thought the tone rather odd since he normally called about somebody's murder or some other kind of bad news. Though, he supposed that he was simply excited to hear from a detective in a league of his own, such as himself…
"Whose body did you trip over this time, you god of death?" came the sarcastic voice on the other end. That was Megure, all right.
"It's just a coincidence! It's a good thing that the great Mouri Kogoro happens to be there to crack the case!" Kogoro cried indignantly. "Anyway, that's not why I called. I got some disturbing news just now-and no, it's not a murder-that I wanted to meet with you about. It's the kind of thing that calls for a face-to-face meeting."
"Something high profile?" Megure guessed.
"Not quite. Think we can get together soon?"
"Come to my office tomorrow at, say, four o'clock."
"I'll be there."
Inspector Megure hung up and Kogoro found himself already in front of the agency. Good. He felt like he really needed a beer or two. Or three.
"Welcome home!" shouted Ran over the TV, which was playing some episode of Detective Samonji. The smell of omurice wafted through the cozy little apartment.
Kogoro immediately grabbed a can of his favorite brand and plopped down on the sofa, chugging it down unceremoniously. It was only Ran and the brat home anyway so he figured it was all right to let his manners loose for a bit.
Conan sat perched on the arm of the couch, his eyes glued to the TV screen. That kid really liked his mystery dramas.
Ran came in a moment later with the omurice and they all moved to the low table to eat. She said something to him about not drinking before dinner but Kogoro may have tuned her out a bit to admire her otherworldly cooking skills. He decided he really needed to compliment her more on that.
"Thank you for the meal," they all said in unison.
"Did you figure out who the culprit was, Conan-kun? I heard you watching Detective Samonji," Ran said to Conan, who nodded and opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "No spoilers!"
It was true-Kogoro didn't watch that show all that much since he had real detective work to attend to, but he had noticed that the brat correctly identified the culprit without fail. Kogoro's best guess was that he'd watched so many police and detective dramas that he'd picked up on patterns that tended to show up in those kinds of shows. Then again, wasn't it kind of weird that a six-year-old would notice that? But Edogawa Conan was abnormal in a lot of ways that Kogoro didn't always read into too much.
He thought about telling Ran about the spots, but...he really didn't want to worry her, not when she had so many other things on her plate to worry about. Take the MIA detective brat for instance. But that was a whole other can of worms that he could get angry over after Okino Yoko's show.
The next day, Kogoro stood outside Megure's door at exactly four o'clock as agreed. He took a breath and walked in, a somber-looking inspector sitting at the desk doing some kind of paperwork. He looked up and put his pen down.
"Ah, Mouri-kun. Please, sit down." He gestured to the worn leather seat in front of the desk. He waited for Kogoro to get situated and added, "So what is this that's eating at you?"
He had gotten this far; what to say now? "Well," he started, "I was at the barber last week and he asked me where all the red spots on the back of my neck were coming from. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he whirled around the seat and let me see through a hand mirror." Kogoro shifted and sat backwards in the chair for a moment to let Megure see the spots.
"What do skin rashes have to do-"
"Let me finish," Kogoro interrupted. "Tanaka-san-that's my barber-suggested the same thing. Rashes. I thought, 'Okay, I'll see a doctor about that.' But when I got there, you know what the doctor told me it was? Irritation from a needle. One spot is one needle entry.I'm absolutely not on drugs, and I don't know why I'd pick such a difficult and open spot if I were, but you can see why I'm a little concerned."
Megure frowned. "From a needle? But if not you...then who? And how?"
"I think...I think that somebody may be stalking me and shooting the needles at me. Maybe they're using one of those things you blow darts out of. However it goes, I don't like the idea of someone following me around and injecting something into me all the time. I'll tell you something, Inspector. The Sleeping Kogoro thing? I always feel a little sting in the back of my neck before making the deduction and then next thing I know, everyone's congratulating me on solving the case. But I don't remember a thing," Kogoro explained, running a hand through his hair. "I supposedly call you places to see evidence or call all the suspects to start a deduction show, but I don't do any of that! Call me crazy, but I just can't understand it. This could be the answer to that."
Megure looked up at the ceiling and propped up his chin in his palm. "You do always seem to be confused when you snap out of your...trance. And you told me you didn't remember anything after solving that case at the Blue Parrot," he murmured.
"You see!"
"But surely whatever this person is shooting into you doesn't give you the ability to magically solve crimes," the inspector pointed out, quick to poke holes in any theory.
"Listen, I think that I'm still the one doing the solving but the blackouts of memory are caused by this substance. Maybe looking asleep is a side effect?"
"Do you hear yourself right now?" said Megure incredulously. "But the question is why. For the sake of argument, let's say that this memory loss drug really did exist. It's not like they're stopping you from taking the credit. What's even the point of this? And isn't it risky to be following around a detective-a famous one who gets a lot of media attention-and shooting needles into him all the time?"
Why was it that the man never seemed to respect him if he wasn't blacking out or whatever was happening? Jumping out of his seat, Kogoro slammed his hands down on the desk. "Inspector, a trained doctor determined those to be injection sites. You don't think that's at least a little odd? And I hope you don't buy that crap about me doing drugs, somehow handling syringes from behind my head."
"No, no, Mouri-kun, I didn't mean to imply…" Megure coughed and cleared his throat. "I think it extremely improbable that you're on something while doing it from behind. And, you're famous, so I suppose somebody could be out to get you. While we figure out what's going on, I'll have a police escort for you to watch out for this. It deeply concerns me not only that you could have a stalker but that they could really be putting something in you, so this is how we'll proceed until we're sure you're safe. And before you ask, I'll make the police escort discreet. Sound good?"
Kogoro stood up and bowed. "Sounds good. Thank you for listening, Inspector Megure."
So, the great Mouri Kogoro left headquarters with a couple officers tailing him from a distance and watching out for the potential stalker. He was just passing the park and had barely even walked five minutes when he heard a scream and then a commotion going on (sometimes, he wondered if Megure's assessment of "death god" was accurate, but he was not the kind of man to dwell on something like that for too long). Kogoro almost groaned before getting his bearings and running down to see who had probably been murdered. The hushed conversations of various people standing around in a mass confirmed the worst.
"Call the police! Nobody touch the body! Nobody touch anything at the scene!" shouted Kogoro, wading through the crowd of morbidly curious onlookers. He was entirely unsurprised to find one dead man and one nosy brat at the center.
"Oi, what are you doing here?" he demanded, picking Conan up off the ground by the back of his shirt. "How many times have I told you not to mess around in crime scenes?"
"I was about to go home, Oji-san. Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko already got picked up by their parents, but then this nice man screamed and when I got here he was dead." Conan had said it with a straight face, Kogoro couldn't help but note. Jeez, shouldn't kids be playing with toys and not corpses? Conan had grown on Kogoro during his stay at their apartment, yes, but sometimes he was honestly kind of creepy. It was why he wanted to get him away from crime scenes as much as possible. It couldn't be good for him.
Conan aside, the man certainly was very...dead. The shirt fabric over his chest had a large red stain where he had most likely been stabbed. His legs were sprawled out but his arms were above his head, leading Kogoro to believe that somebody had attacked him and pinned him down, and his bruised (red bruises, which meant they were new) face and limbs combined with bloody knuckles showed every sign of a struggle. But if he had been pinned down, then the killer wouldn't have had any hand free to shove the knife in.
The police arrived a few minutes later, and Megure's expression soured at the sight of Kogoro and Conan. Kogoro decided to ignore it.
Apparently, the victim, Sasagawa Akira, had been at the park with his girlfriend, Watanabe Kuriko, when she'd gone to the vending machine to get them both drinks and come back to find Sasagawa dead. However, that did leave open a window of time for the murder to occur. However, someone had seen Watanabe at the vending machine around the estimated time of death.
"Did anybody else know the victim?" shouted an officer. Nobody stepped forward.
Watanabe Kuriko pointed her finger at a rather out-of-shape woman with her brown hair in a bun wearing a pale blue sundress. "She was his ex."
The woman was called forward as a suspect and identified as Dobashi Manami.
"Nobody saw this fight?" asked Megure, kneeling down to inspect the body. "It looks like it would have been loud and garnered attention."
That was the question, wasn't it? There certainly hadn't been enough time to take the fight elsewhere and drag the corpse back.
"Say, Oji-san…" Ah, there was that squeaky voice that always insisted on giving his own two cents. "I wonder how the killer made Sasagawa-san stay quiet?"
"That's what we're working on," Kogoro curtly answered. By all accounts, the murder didn't make sense since neither suspect really had the muscle to pull it off when it came down to pinning a struggling Sasagawa to the ground.
Conan tilted his head and ran off, no doubt to pester anybody who would listen to him. He was being so reckless that he even banged his arm against a tree and proclaimed at the top of his lungs what had happened and how much it hurt.
He continued his investigation without giving too much thought to it (although he did notice that Conan seemed to be getting increasingly irritated). It was about half an hour later that he heard that soft, very familiar thwip sound behind him and he felt that Godforsaken sting in the back of his neck. He whipped around to see Conan with his watch face flipped up and pointing towards him, the lines on which clearly made a target. And boy, he did not look happy. What in the…?
Before he had the time to think about it too hard, he began to stumble around, his vision hazy and going darker. But he did not go down before feeling around wildly on his neck and grasping a small needle, yanking it out of his skin and leaving it in his outstretched palm for Megure to find, proving that something seriously weird was going on.
Kogoro opened his bleary eyes and blinked to see Megure standing over him. He was pushing a small bag with the needle inside into Takagi's hands and instructing him to take it to forensics to see what substance was in it. He looked down at Kogoro, who was still lying on his back.
"You were right, Mouri-kun," he said with a sigh. "We have your escorts searching for the culprit-for shooting you with needles I mean, not for Sasagawa-san-but now I'm definitely concerned. We didn't rush over immediately since you went on with your deduction show like you normally would. I thought to myself, 'There's no way some weird drug could do this.' But about halfway through, after naming Dobashi-san the culprit, I saw the needle in your palm and came over to see if you were all right. You stopped responding to me, and when I shook you, you fell over. You don't remember anything?"
"I had not worked out the case yet, Inspector. I heard that odd sound again. You've mentioned it before right? The…" Kogoro sat up and interlocked his fingers in thought. "The thwip sound. You think that's the sound of the needle being launched?"
"Perhaps," Megure replied, his mouth turning downward slightly. "We'll turn up the security around you."
That made Kogoro feel considerably better, but the feeling of unease hadn't completely disappeared. He still had one piece of the equation to deal with. He got up and brushed himself off, pausing when he caught Conan's expression. The color had drained from his face and he looked, quite frankly, terrified. He had a theory as to why, though he knew he wouldn't like the answer if he was right, which he was beginning to suspect he was.
"Conan?" Kogoro called. The boy in question visibly stiffened, cautiously coming up to him. "Did you see somebody around? Who was shooting something?"
Anybody other than you, maybe?
Kogoro dared to hope.
"No," Conan replied rigidly, looking around at anything that would keep him from making eye contact.
Kogoro maybe wasn't the best lie detector in the world, but that one was at blatantly obvious as it gets. But, he shoved that all down and put on his best smile, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, didn't expect much from you anyway!"
Conan looked mildly relieved as he turned away and made a show of badgering some poor officer about a new video game or something like that.
Kogoro narrowed his eyes but didn't take it further. It was like the kid was making sure he saw him actually acting his age. Frankly, it smelled like a diversion. But the great Mouri Kogoro was not fooled!
"What are you hiding, brat?" Kogoro muttered as he was led away by the police. Megure insisted on handling the rest of the case now that they knew something was up with the needles and shoved him and Conan into the nearest available cop car.
In the car, Kogoro watched Conan like a hawk. The brat didn't look at him once, eyes glued to the window. It was probably the stillest Kogoro had ever seen him-if there was one thing Conan was rubbish at, it was staying put.
They arrived back at the detective agency to a ticked off Ran since neither he nor Conan had called to tell her a case came up and it was already going on eight-thirty. They both apologized profusely enough to avoid her wrath and settled down on the couch.
Ran declared that she was going to call Shinichi since the moron hadn't bothered to call her in almost a month (whenever that detective brat came back, Kogoro was going to be giving him the lecture from Hell) and retired to her room. Conan was out of his seat in a second, rushing to the bathroom at the speed of light.
Man, that kid was highly suspicious. When Kogoro really thought about it, Conan's constant need to go to the bathroom was another mystery he needed to add to the list, which was getting longer by the minute.
His phone rang and he fished it out his pocket to see Inspector Megure's picture on the screen.
"Mouri Kogoro speaking," Kogoro greeted, bringing the phone up to his ear.
"Mouri-kun, I have some...unsettling news," came Megure's reply on the other end. Well, the man certainly had his attention now.
He sat up straight. "And what's that?"
"Well, forensics examined that needle and found traces of some sort of sedative in it. We're looking into it further, but I thought you would want to know."
"Thank you, Inspector." Kogoro hung up and leaned back into the sofa. So Sleeping Kogoro was literally sleeping? But then how was he giving deductions in his sleep…?
To Hell with subtlety. Kogoro wanted answers, and he wanted them now. He marched down the hallway and was about to bang on the door when he heard who was other side.
"Ran, I'm sorry, but the case is confidential. I'll let you know when I can come back," said the voice of the detective brat who had been gone for ages.
Stopping in his tracks, Kogoro pressed his ear to the door to listen. There was no way that guy was hiding out in his bathroom. That made zero sense, and he knew for a fact that Conan was currently occupying the room. So he was somehow imitating the Kudo brat's voice? And why was he doing so?
It didn't take long for the gears to start turning. Watch target. Needles. Sedatives. Flawless voice imitation. Oddly developed deductive powers. Could Conan really be the real Sleeping Kogoro? It seemed impossible, but so did everything else when it came to that kid.
But no doubt the kid would vehemently deny it if he tried to confront him without it. Like any other case, Kogoro needed proof. He needed to catch him in the act. He turned away from the door, resolving to keep up appearances.
A few cases passed where Kogoro did not do the whole "Sleeping Kogoro" thing, but Conan's contributions became increasingly apparent to him. He always asked the right questions. He just so happened to stumble across key evidence. He was always gently nudging the police in the right direction. This? This was no accident. Conan wasn't playing detective; he was a detective.
More importantly, he was a detective who had seemingly decided that Kogoro had forgotten about the watch target thing. Somebody named Aki-san had gotten murdered in a sushi restaurant, and Conan's caution had fallen away. He wasn't using his sugary kiddie voice that Kogoro was astonished he hadn't recognized as fake earlier.
"Yes, Aki-san had a really bad fear of dogs," Kogoro heard one of the suspects say. He turned to see her talking to none other than Conan. "How did you know?"
Conan smiled and put his hands behind his head casually. "Lucky guess! Thanks, Fujino-san!"
Kogoro did not miss the fact that his smile was gone as soon as he turned around and he had that eerily mature expression on his face.
"Say, Oji-san!" Conan said when he noticed Kogoro. He waved him over to another room. "Can you come here for a second?"
As Kogoro approached the open door, he heard a distinct click.
Now's my chance to find out what the devil has been going on with that kid. And if that watch is actually the source of the needle firing. If it isn't, boy am I going to owe him a whopping apology.
Kogoro sprinted around the door and kicked it closed, grabbing Conan's arm before he could put him to sleep. Conan's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to say something, but Kogoro cut him off.
"Explain," he demanded.
Conan's kiddie voice came in full force. "What do you-what do you mean, Oji-san?"
"Oh, don't you play dumb. You're the one behind the mysterious needles, aren't you?" Kogoro lightly shook Conan's wrist to indicate he was talking about the watch. "It wouldn't take much to see if there really is a needle in there or not, you know."
By now, Conan's face was deathly pale and he had started nervously. "It's just a toy watch!" he stuttered.
"Is it?" Kogoro quirked an eyebrow and knelt down to Conan's level. "Maybe you can fool everyone else, but I've noticed. You're not just running around crime scenes because you think of them as a playground or something ridiculous like that. You're investigating, and you're doing it well. You keep calm in every situation. You kept your cool when you were kidnapped, for Christ's sake! You can imitate voices-I heard you pretending to be that Kudo kid in the bathroom. So, do you care to explain, Sleeping Kogoro-san?"
"Uh…"
"I can have the police come here right now and check out that little watch of yours. Cough it up."
"Okay, okay! But can you release my arm, please?" Kogoro let go and Conan surrendered, releasing the tension from his muscles. He looked down. "Yeah, I'm the one doing the Sleeping Kogoro thing. I have a tranq dart in my watch and then I use my bowtie-" He paused to show the back of it, which was covered in dials and other bits of machinery. "-to imitate your voice so the case gets solved."
"I knew it!" Kogoro shouted, quickly slapping his hand over his mouth. "Okay, first of all, that's all kinds of illegal. Second of all, how does a first-grader have these things?"
"They're from-"
Kogoro held up a hand. "No, don't tell me. You got them from that professor of yours?"
Nodding, Conan confirmed his line of thought.
"Okay," Kogoro continued. "Tell me this: how does someone your age have the brains for this? The real culprit had been caught on every single case where you've been using me to voice your deductions. And beyond that, why have me get the credit?"
"Well," Conan started, taking a deep breath, "You know how Kudo Shinichi disappeared a few months back at Tropical Land?"
Kogoro did not at all like where this was going. His stomach dropped. "Yeah?"
He was wringing his hands now. "Uh? How do I put this? These guys in black gave him an experimental poison-"
"He's dead?"
"No, no, let me finish," Conan said, a weak glare on his face. "The poison had an unexpected side effect and well...it had some sort of cell destructing quality in it...and shrunk me down into a grade schooler. I'm Kudo Shinichi."
"That's ridiculous!" Kogoro retorted, throwing his hands up in the air. "That's physically impossible! And even it were true, why haven't you gone to the police about it?"
Conan looked at him with that gaze far too old for his face. "Absolutely not! I have no idea whether the police have been infiltrated or not, and you know what's going to happen if they find out I'm still alive? They're going to come and finish the job. But not just me-Ran too. And Sonoko. And Eri-san. And Inspector Megure. And you. They would kill everyone I've come into contact with, Mouri-san, just in case I leaked any information."
Oh, lord. There was no way Kogoro was going to let that happen under his watch.
"Let's say that I believe you," said Kogoro. Although honestly, he believed him. It made way too much sense when he put all the pieces of the puzzle together. He did look an awful lot like Shinichi had at that age, and his personality was largely the same when kiddie mode wasn't on. Plus, that Hattori kid did, in fact, have a tendency to call him Kudo. "Does Ran know about this?"
Conan winced. "No. It'll put her in too much danger if I tell her. I didn't want to admit it to you either, Mouri-san. You can't tell anyone."
An ugly feeling bubbled up in Kogoro's chest and he snapped, "Oh, don't even talk to me about danger. If you wanted to keep her out of danger, then why are you living with us?"
To his credit, Conan had the decency to look away. "It all happened so fast, and I mean, you're a detective. I figured I might be able to get some information on those guys and get my life back."
Kogoro sighed. He had a point. Even if he didn't appreciate being used as a sleuth rag doll. He was not an overly emotional man, but it made him sick to his stomach to see somebody so young go through so much. And, though Kogoro would never admit it, he had become fond of "Edogawa Conan" during his stay at the agency. He supposed that extended to Shinichi too.
"Okay," said Kogoro, standing up and brushing off his pants. "You're going to tell Ran the minute we get home. That is non-negotiable. We won't go to the police, as you requested, to keep you and others from getting killed. I am not going to stand by and let you handle this alone, all right? Let us help you."
Conan-or rather, Kudo, flashed him a genuine smile. "Thanks."
Kogoro smiled, but let it drop and held up a finger. "But that doesn't mean you're off the hook. No more tranq darts. Seriously. You're going to shave twenty years off my life at this rate. Tell me about the case, and I'll explain it the normal way."
Megure called from the other room, wondering where they'd gone. Kogoro looked down at Kudo, promising himself to never again let the ones he loved carry their burdens alone.
"We're over here, Inspector! I, the great Mouri Kogoro, have solved yet another case with my brilliance…"
To be honest, I should really be working on other things, but I hope you enjoyed this! I'm amazed that Kogoro has never followed up on any suspicions about Conan, even if he does usually do something dumb afterwards to throw people off his scent. Also, all those needles have got to leave scarring or something. I mean, really.
I do not own Detective Conan, nor do I own any of the characters affiliated with it.