Except the fact that he can still feel this cold pursuit means that there's still a distance between him and death.
Shinichi Kudo slowly opens his eyes, only to discover that his arms and legs are completely locked down by rope and duct tape and just like what he experienced many times before in his dreams he cannot move. To be more exact, he can use some power but it always ends up as a waste of energy. Through the glass before his eyes, he sees a person wearing a large lab coat, protection mask, and a pair of gloves.
Kudo can't see that guy's face and he isn't clear of what that guy is doing, but he's sure that he knows who this person is and he's sure that he's in a laboratory now.
All of a sudden, Kudo feels that a strong electrical current travels through his whole body and he can't help but let out a scream. At that moment, there's just no excess time at all to think of what kind of experiment and what exactly does this maniac want to do with human bodies.
The only way he can see is by looking through the glass window installed before his eyes on this door, which doesn't give him a very wide range to see, yet the sound of his scream made its way throughout the whole lab accompanied by another person's scream.
Kaito Kuroba has no idea at all as to the reason why he got kidnapped to this place. Being constantly tortured by electrical currents, he feels as if he's dying when he's actually living in this moment.
That electrical current seems to be released endlessly. It could just result in their short sweet death, yet it tortures them infinitely.
Not getting to live, nor getting to die...this must be it.
The only thing they could do is just look through the window to see that devilish person handling the equipment in his hands, facing his back to him when he sits down to read over the blueprints in detail, and feel with their own bodies what's the next step with the change of the current flow over and over again with no way of fighting back.
Feeling and understanding the meaning of rather die than live, and rethinking why he didn't keep an eye out at the time of the interview...over and over again.
Understanding his weakness and incapability over and over again...
The professor stands up, walks towards them, and removes his protection mask. Kuroba and Kudo now can barely see as they're tired out and their vision blurs. With no idea of what he just did, the intensity of the electrical current seems to have increased. It's just so painful to the point that they don't even have the energy to scream anymore. Gradually, their consciousness becomes more blurry, the pain decreases, and their vision starts to overlap.
The professor quickly types away on the keyboard. One chain after another of mysterious combos of numbers, letters, and signs appear on the big screen. If he guesses correctly, those should be codes used to assign tasks to the machines.
After some long time of merging together, they finally become one body. Before them now is a door completely made from glass, yet this vast space for them to see doesn't bring him a view all that appealing.
All there is in this plain lab is just a bunch of experimental materials and electronic appliances; the atmosphere seems rather unlively. After the experiment is finished, the professor closes the computer connected to the human-fusing machine. And he who no longer gets electrical currents passing through him, he who is completely robbed of energy, and whose whole body happens to be numb falls asleep along with the shutdown of the computer.
A light electrical current circles around his fingertips. He awakes with a full head of sweat while breathing heavily and hurriedly to find himself in a seated position on The Dream Exploring Machine.
"You're awake."
It isn't long after he started breathing at a more normal pace when Tsukiya comes walking out of another room, and this is when he realizes there wasn't anyone else in the laboratory just then. Also, although it was a short period of time but when the doors parted he clearly saw there was a big screen on the wall of that room, so that must be the surveillance room.
"How do you feel?"
He doesn't respond. All he does is just take a look at the helmet of The Dream Exploring Machine that's already shut down but still not yet removed from his head. Seeing this, Tsukiya smiles a little and pushes down a button, then all parts of the machine return to their original location except for the seat.
"Thanks to you, the same torturing process that we went through is now clearly imprinted into our memory." With that being said, Kuroba gets up ready to leave.
"I feel really sorry for you two, but it had to be done in order to find Professor Suzukawa faster." She smiles again and catches up with him. "As long as I get notified beforehand, you're welcome to come again anytime you wish."
"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about this," says Kudo after they stepped on that tile and start to go back up, "there's two more scientists who'll join our party. I hope you won't mind."
"Why no, not at all. May you be so kind as to tell me their names?"
He purses the corner of his lips and then smiles to tell her: "We'll come tomorrow at the same time, that'll be when they get revealed."
Red firelight lights up the cold first underground floor, the long tunnel that they first took. The only sounds that echo throughout are the two different sounds made by a pair of leather shoes and a pair of high heels as they walk.
May it be that the path is too long, as he walks back he starts feeling a little bored, so he starts focusing on those torches on the walls. Within the fiery red lies sleeping creatures that move a little every second, changing constantly so that no man can possibly predict.
Or shall they be beasts ready and waiting for the prey to make that wrong move?
They were already foolish enough to fall right into that trap and become the prey on someone else's plate, now the role-play's gotta change and this time they're the ones plotting the game plan.
They return to that normal conference room which they first came to. Futoumiya happens to be turning some pages and looking over batches of some info that no one in the world knows where he could've gotten them from. Mai sees that they returned and pours two cups of coffee for him and Tsukiya. After taking the coffee, Tsukiya hands a batch of papers over to Mai and tells her to put them somewhere, and he thanks her. Under this serious speechless atmosphere, he feels a little cold so he attempts to warm him hands by placing them on the coffee mug while staring at the hardworking Futoumiya.
"Futoumiya-san, I have a suggestion about Suzukawa's search and investigation."
"Please, go ahead." With that, he places the info down on the table, and stares at Kudo's eyes like before.
"I don't know that he himself has any thought of establishing his hideout there, but I think that we should try to find Suzukawa's laboratory as soon as possible."
"You make a good point, that's exactly what we're planning on doing." Futoumiya pluckers the corner of his lips and then says: "Well then, would you happen to have any extra info to give?"
He tries recalling, but all that appears in his mind are just a few short moments here and there. After a few seconds of silence, he finally replies: "Sorry, all that I remember is somehow falling unconscious during the interview, and then I was dragged somewhere."
"When consciousness was regained, it was just like what happened in the dream that Tsukiya-san observed, we were fused into one body through the use of electrical currents."
"Is that so?" Futoumiya didn't say anything more.
"Sorry to trouble you," he says when they're about to leave.
"It's fine, really. Oh and also, please let me come with you guys."
He doesn 't know how to respond all of a sudden. "Ummm...about that, we drove here ourselves so..."
So he decides to just speak his confusion out loud to remind Futoumiya of the fact.
"Assuring the client's safety is also part of the contract." It makes much better sense with that being said. "At least, please let me follow behind you guys."
"Sure," says Kudo who's used to all of this, and with that he gets into his car and makes his way back by starting out driving on the curvy road.
Just like Futoumiya suggested, he does follow behind them quite closely in fact.
"Hey Kudo," Kuroba thinks to Kudo as he takes a look at that black car behind them from the rearview mirror, "who in the world is that guy?"
It may be because they slept for too long, or it may be because there's quite a distance before they get back, the speed that the summer weather enters into the night at this time is definitely quicker than he expected. Along with this dark black color of the night, there's the camouflage of that car of Futoumiya's, especially on a street where there's no street light.
When there's only that light on the front of the car that's left, that car's close to a perfect camouflage in the dark night, which sorts of bothers Kudo. Although many years has passed since then, when he sees that black car it still reminds him of Gin's Porsche 356A.
"I'll tell you in detail when we get back," and that's all Kudo decides to respond with for the time being.
If may be because the time has really gotten pretty late by now, without air conditioning being turned on, the summer night along with a slight breeze still lets him feel a little cold.
Despite the fact that when he takes a look, it reads twenty-four degrees Celsius on the screen, which is a pretty comfortable temperature.
Or who knows, it might be because there's two people in this body so it's twice as sensitive compared to when they were just individuals.
He sees that the light is on and so he heads towards the Kudo Residence. Futoumiya rolls down his car window and tells him: "Please say hello to them for me," then he approaches the darkness of the night and disappears from sight.
When he enters, he sees that Hakase seems to be playing around with some new invention while Haibara is typing on a laptop as she's drinking coffee,
"You guys have finally returned," says Haibara coldly after she yawns.
He takes a look from left to right and from top to bottom, without knowing what to say.
"Ran requested it. After all there has been some dust that has accumulated over the days so the house needs to be cleaned." As Hakase says so, he continues to play around with the thing.
"You guys have been waiting for quite a while, haven't you?"
"And where did you go?" Her words are short but sharp.
He doesn't say anything, all he does is take out the business card in his pocket.
She takes a glance at it and reads: "Saiesu Tsukiya."
"What is it?"
"Nothing," she says and then takes a sip of coffee, "I just thought that the name's a little familiar." Then she lifts her head to look at him and continues to say: "A member of Tahou, I see."
"Yep. Oh and also, Futoumiya told me to say hi for him."
Upon hearing this name, Haibara turns back to the screen of her laptop. On the screen there's too many combinations of numbers and words that normal people don't understand, which happens to also be the DNA report of him now.
"By looking at the blood sample of you guys now and Kudo's individual sample, it seems like a plausible possibility that you guys may truly be one person right now." She then looks towards him again, "so, what did you go to a psychological consultation clinic for?"
"It was the meeting location that Futoumiya sent me, by the way..."
"..." As if she listened to another series of Mr. Detective's nonsense talk, Haibara thinks for a moment and figures that since that's a Tahou member, then that means that it's definitely possible for something like The Dream Exploring Machine to be invented. And so she decides to just swallow down what she wanted to say.
"Also, Haibara and Hakase, please come with us tomorrow during noon to the psychological consultation clinic."
"...Gotcha," says Haibara as she takes a look at the time and gets ready to go home with Hakase, but as she's about to leave she stops at the door.
Seeing this, Kudo decides to say something but then gets cut off by Haibara. "You guys be careful, also," she says and then looks towards the telephone, "don't forget to listen to her message."
Kaito Kuroba presses down the button to play the message despite the fact that he feels a little nervous, yet unlike the series of threats and insults and temper tantrums that he thought he was gonna get, the message actually started off with a few seconds of silence. "...Baka you better remember to come home early." After that there was no complaining like he was used to hearing, and there was no questioning either. It was just a simple sentence that sounded so powerless.
May it be something he imagined hearing or not, no matter how many times he listens to the message, it always seems as if there was a nasal sound to her voice when she spoke.
This whole day was just tiring altogether, and now somehow he feels even more down.
He leans his back towards the desk and sits on the ground with no intention of talking or getting up at the moment. All he does is just sit there, and do nothing.
"By the way Kudo," Kuroba finally sends out a signal that he wants to communicate, "that guy..."
Kudo doesn't respond, he just picks out the memory related to that person from his memory banks.
Ou Futoumiya, thirty years old, got promoted to the highest ranking position in Tahou ten years ago and became one of T20(Top 20), which is a group of twenty people that serve as the head of Tahou.
At the time, this man and another guy made history as the youngest members to ever get into T20 of Tahou.