He gets ready in the same way that he always had. The only difference from before is that he just calmly looks at himself in front of the mirror this time, with no denial and with no screaming.
After driving on many perfect roads and many curvy roads, he finally arrives at the psychological consultation clinic. Unlike what he had imagined, this area isn't all that much of a busy market street or anything, in fact it's just a regular residential area.
And this psychological consultation clinic appears to be no different from the other buildings here; it's just a plain and simple building with no eye-catching sign or any elaborate and fine decoration.
He knocks on the door and a short-haired woman comes out making some hand gestures which seem to be sign language, so he responds in the same way. She smiles and then welcomes him in.
Except there seems to be no one else's existence when he walks in. She tells him to wait a moment, and then walks into another room. In exchange with her, a skinny and somewhat delicate-looking man dressed in all black walks out. Yet Kudo has a deep understanding inside, of the fact that this man is a scary figure who has experienced the cruelest training. This man walks unhesitantly to the black office chair across from him and sits down in it. The whole time that look in the man's eyes gives him a somewhat unpleasant feeling.
The black-clothed man rests his elbow on the desk, folds his hands with his fingers loosely interlocked, and then lays his chin on top of his folded hands while continuing to stare at him with great interest.
That look in those eyes somehow seem to pass through him like sharp daggers. Also, the weird thing is that they're facing each other, yet he feels a chill from behind. He thinks more in detail and finally figures out that it's just the air conditioning.
"That girl,"
"Mai, she's a mute who works here. On top of that, she was born with terrible hearing."
Although it's a very normal sentence which probably should have made him feel sort of sad, instead he's more focused on avoiding those eyes. His eyes then finally settles on a tank with just plants and no fish or any other animals.
"So, let us get right to the subject,"
Hearing that, he turns his head back to see that same man who made him felt constrained smiling. This makes him feel as if either it was a psychological thing by which he had fear of the unknown, or it was just the environment which gave him a wrong impression.
"Inspector Kudo and I happen to be old friends. Since I'm taking this offer personally, money will not be part of our discussion."
This should be a message that makes him somewhat happier, except Kudo doesn't seem to be affected at all.
"Futoumiya-san, there's something that I want to clarify. This time, I'm not the only client."
Futoumiya tilts his head slightly while still staring at him with much interest, and unhesitantly says: "Well then, when will the other client arrive?"
"Actually, he..." Kudo starts it off and lifts his head up. "Already here," Kuroba finishes it off.
The change in the tone of the person in front of Futoumiya's eyes has his smile slightly fade a little, but what takes the place of the fading smile still ends up being a smile. In fact, this time the angle of that arc of the smile seems to have widened though he still maintains a pose of laying his chin on his folded hands.
"Oh—" Unlike what they had in mind, he doesn't seem to be all that surprised. In fact, the pitch of his voice seems to have risen a little. "My bad, please pardon me."
"Kaito Kuroba, a jewelry appraiser." He takes a business card out of his pocket and hands it to Futoumiya.
Futoumiya takes the card with his left hand while still his right hand still supports his chin. He takes a glance of the card and puts it in his pocket. Then he brings his left hand back to continues to have his hands loosely folded. Futoumiya stares at Kuroba's face while saying: "And also a fabulous magician."
Kuroba doesn't answer. He manages to maintain a poker face.
"As you can see, thanks to Professor Suzukawa, this is what we've ended up becoming," says Kudo in an attempt to bring back the main point, "and now the only things that we can recall from that day are just random blurry short moments."
"Oh? Are you referring to Shinsanrou Suzukawa from the University of Tokyo?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, that professor..." As Futoumiya says so, he finally sits up straight in a normal position with his hands placed on the table. "He most definitely is into studying and analyzing DNA...genomics, that kind of stuff."
"Please help me find him, and if possible we want to recover our original bodies as soon as possible."
"Of course," Futoumiya says and then stands up to clap his hands together two times.
They hear a sound coming from the room that Futoumiya came out of. With a push of the door, a fair-looking lady wearing a white lab coat and glasses comes walking out; she has long hair with a light brown hue. She sits down in the chair that Futoumiya sat in, and Futoumiya takes a seat in another chair on the side.
"This is my friend, also the owner of the clinic, Tsukiya."
"What a pleasure to meet the legendary *Heisei* Holmes," she says so as she reaches her hand out.
"No no," Kudo responds very calmly when shaking hands with her, "I'm just an unfortunate client." He manages to let out a smile, and then like what's he used to saying, he says: "No need to be so polite."
"Please contact me when you are in need of my assistance." Tsukiya hands a business card to Kudo, strokes her light brown hair for a few seconds, and then hands him a clipboard and a pen.
"If I'm not mistaken, the other client, Kuroba-san right?...please sign here."
"Thank you," says Kuroba while he takes the clipboard with his right hand, and the pen with his left hand.
"Would Kudo-san please sign here." She points to the box next to Kuroba's signature.
Kudo moves the clipboard to his right and starts writing with his right hand. When he's finished, he hands it to Tsukiya who turns the page and writes a couple of strokes with the pen. It ultimately ends up in the hands of Futoumiya.
"This is a three-party contract which agrees to keep this matter between no one but us. Kudo-san and Kuroba-san are one party. Tsukiya and I each belong to two separate parties. My party is responsible for keeping the contract." As Futoumiya says so, he takes out a folder. "I believe that Kudo-san clearly remembers the specific terms and conditions of the contract."
"Wait," Kuroba stops Futoumiya just in time, "may I take a look?"
This request enhances Futoumiya's smile. "Of course, my fault for taking assumptions."
Afterwards, Mai opens the door and tells them that everything is set up and ready. She leads everyone in, and that's when they realize that this isn't a room but instead it's an entrance to a stairway.
When everyone passes through the door, Mai turns the lock on the door.
With every single step that they take, they're deeper into the undergrounds. That is, until they cannot see anything in the dark underground passageway, and until only sounds of them walking resound and travel into their ears. And now with every stepping sound that they make do the lights, no...do the torches light up and warm the place a little.
Kudo Kuroba felt no fear as they told their experience and what remains of their vague memories, except they still have to constantly keep an eye out and be cautious of what happens next. After all, the fact that a psychological consultant clinic has an underground passage built to it is by itself a weird enough thing. That is to say, the fact that Futoumiya invited them here and accepted the deal under his private name and got a psychological consultant involved in the first place is no less of a strange case.
They walk some more until they finally seem to have almost reached the end, yet there's no exit. He didn't really expect this, but Mai, Tsukiya, and Futoumiya stops at a distance about three meters away from the dead end. When he sees this, he also stops. Suddenly, all flames go out, and the platform underneath starts lowering and bringing him, in the dark, to that unknown place.
A bright white light flashes. He looks up, with no idea of how far underground they've gotten. And now before their eyes is a path which he has no idea where it'll lead them to. He observes that the material of the tiles beneath them and the walls isn't stone, but is instead steel.
A chill accompanies them as they arrive before the doors. Tsukiya enters a long chain of passwords, the system verifies the fingerprints of her left hand and then her right hand, and finally the system verifies the iris of her left eye and then her right eye.
It's a completely different world behind the two doors. All that they see are machines and equipments which seem very high-tech, and very much unlike what a normal psychological consultant clinic would have. But it's likely that Tsukiya's a member of Tahou, so Kudo's not surprised at all.
Mai turns on a piece of equipment in her hand, takes a few swipes on the screen, passes it to him and tells him to put all five fingers of his left hand on it.
Although he's suspicious of it, he listens and does as told. The screen under his fingers light up with aquamarine light currents. A few seconds later, the words "data log in complete" show up. Then Mai has him repeat the process with his right hand, and despite Kuroba's reluctance and their suspicion, Kudo still chooses to follow instructions.
"This is the remote control of The Dream Exploring Machine, and everything here." As Tsukiya says so, she swipes a few times on the screen. "My precious inventions are very sensitive. Even if it's just a hair of a stranger that lands on them, they'll take that as there's an intruder; not to mention, what could possibly happen when a stranger's full body comes into contact with them." Her hand gently goes over the very top part of the Dream Explorer which seems to be a helmet. So when there's a new friend, there's the need of collecting some data. I hope you don't mind.
He doesn't say anything until Futoumiya, who was just wandering around, comes walking towards them. "Your friend, I don't think she's a regular psychological consultant. Is she?"
Somehow, Futoumiya's smile makes him feel slighty irritated. "She was one of our brilliant research scientists. After she had worked for us for more than a decade, she switched to being a psychological consultant.""
I'm flattered. In reality, I'm just a science lover."
"Well then, I'm interested in knowing," Kuroba lets out a sort of mischievous smile, "how come Tsukiya-san became interested in psychology?"
"Well..." She lays her chin on the back of her right hand, and continues speaking: "A lot of times, from a psychological standpoint and the subconsciousness, there's a lot of answers which we can get which may not necessary be possible with other fields."
After Mai has him situated on the seat of The Dream Exploring Machine, Tsukiya tells her to have Futoumiya step out for now.
"No need to worry, all this machine does is use a tiny amount of electrical current to relax your body's muscles, which will then bring you into dreamland; it'll explore and record your dream. I already had Mai set it to match your condition. After you fall asleep, The Dream Exploring Machine will use a small amount of electrical current to stimulate your cerebral cortex, and hopefully achieve the result of helping you to regain your recent forgotten memories."
The top part of the seat gradually lowers in elevation, until his body lays flat on it as if laying on bed in a pose to sleep. Sleepiness eventually gets him. His vision blurs up. For a short moment they have the thought that privacy of thoughts really couldn't exist within this period of time. Not long after, there's aquamarine light currents circling him. They pass through his body, which he cannot freely move, nonstop in an instant; that's a true human body and not just a black shadow.
As if he's brought back to the dream that he had before he woke up in the morning, this time the ocean doesn't bring breathing difficulty nor any sharp pain. Except, the fact that it's summer and he still felt cold the whole day through didn't change a bit in his dream. This slight feeling of the cold continuously torments and suppresses him like a killer addicted to a game in which people get hunted down, never sparing him any chance to rest and breath.
This sort of chasing makes him feel as if he's someone who should have given up in the beginning and should have taken onto an early fated death date.
In the cold ocean, he feels that his eyelid are becoming heavier and heavier, until they completely close.
With no idea if it's because he's very used to these occurrences in his dream, or is it because there's no pain which accompanies, him now seems to be able to face this sort of unstoppable end and his lack of power to change it.
Death, it's really as cold as imagined.
Well, now it's no longer The Heisei Holmes since the Heisei era already ended and got replaced by the Reiwa era; By the way, I heard that Aoyama does plan on just simply changing that detail.
However, I won't change that until I finally finish the epilogue(I should be able to finish with one last part), which will enable me to actually look over everything and actually revise someday in the future(which I may actually end up doing years later).