So there's a piece of new canon in the last 9 years that breaks this story, it was revealed a few years ago what the name of 'anokata' the leader of the organization was, and it was in fact not Conan from the future. Big shocker right? So… welcome to my attempt to reconcile my own crazy plot with the canon of the original story. Now, I know I don't have to purely stick to cannon this is fanfiction after all, but I like to, that's just the kind of fanfic I like to write- something that would never happen in cannon but is difficult to refute because it's following all the right rules.

Chapter 10: Truth

Now that I know what I'm looking for it's surprisingly easy to track them down. It's as Shiho said, it's not a criminal organization but rather a small company.

Because there's a surface level to it there's also a paper trail that comes with that. A company has a CEO, it has employee records, publicly available operation reports. Numbers may be fudged and certain things may be hidden but in order to operate in the gray area of legality they have to follow the law to a minimum degree. Thanks to that I was able to obtain some useful information that I'd already suspected but didn't want to accept.

I look at the files again and sigh.

CEO Agasa Hiroshi

A harmless old man that I've known my whole life.

What do I really know about him?

He's able to create ridiculous things that function outside the realms of what's normal, yet somehow he doesn't seem to be profiting much off of them. He has a wide enough network of connections that no one is particularly surprised when he claims to have taken in a relative or acquaintance's kid out of nowhere. He talks about his family often, and apparently they're quite wealthy, yet I've never actually met anyone he's related to. He also hasn't visibly aged at all in the time I've known him.

I've been doing it myself lately, but he was also originally the one that handled the fake paperwork for Edogawa Conan and Haibara Ai. Not to mention being responsible for most of the tools I had at my disposal in the time I was Conan.

All that putting aside the fact that he never once mentioned being part of a company, I always thought he was a freelance inventor.

Maybe the one I knew was just a freelance inventor, but the one in this world is clearly different.

Perhaps it's just the same name by coincidence but a completely different person, or perhaps, they knew I was after them so they put the name of someone close to me in their public records to sow discord between me and my comrades? I know that's unlikely but I can't help wanting to trust my oldest ally.

There's no such coincidence I know that. And I've been far too careful for them to be aware I'm after them at this stage, so there should be no reason for them to be resorting to heavy handed tactics just to make me uneasy.

It's undeniable, this is real. The only question left is what do I do about it?

I could confront him but without more information that could be dangerous. I don't know enough about his true personality, I only know the front he's been putting up around me so far. I can't predict what kind of actions he'll take if I reveal that I know that he's involved with criminal activity.

Thankfully I kept him in the dark about the Conan situation, but he does know that I'm still around, and as a higher up of the organization he must know that I'm on the list of people given his experimental drug.

He has more cards in his hand than I do right now.

It can't be helped that he knows I survived the poison, but thanks to my current appearance he has no reason to believe that apotoxin can make people younger.

I introduced him to Haibara, neither showed any signs of recognizing the other. They must have had no direct contact while she was working for him. That'll work in our favor, the less he understands what I'm doing and who I'm connected with the better.

For now I just need to not look suspicious while gathering more information.

The organization I know was founded fifty years ago, so the fifty-three year old Agasa-hakase couldn't have been their leader with that in mind but- I can't even be sure that Agasa Hiroshi is his real identity.

I don't know enough about his history to be certain of anything, almost everything I have is anecdotes from the man himself and my parents. For all I know he could be much older than he claims to be. After all, I've only ever met one person that even claimed to have known him as a child. One person can easily be faked, especially in a timeline with a certain woman that can disguise as anyone perfectly.

In fact he could have used the same trick she did, growing old with makeup then after a while pretend you're dead and come to the funeral without the makeup as a family member. With Vermouth it was a daughter, but if I'm not mistaken Agasa-hakase had mentioned before that he had an uncle that liked making gadgets as well so perhaps that would be his previous identity.

But if he did use that trick then it brings up a rather important question; why isn't he aging?

Vermouth had taken a incomplete form of Apotoxin made by Shiho's parents which was likely the cause of her unaging condition, but I can't imagine the same would be true of Agasa-hakase. Apotoxin wouldn't have been available yet but I don't know of any other…

Ah.

I need to ask Toichi for more information on Pandora.

I'll get in contact with him later.

Putting aside the how of it, if we assume that he's been living for much longer than initially expected then who is he really? In my original timeline there was tell of a high ranking member of the organization that was supposed to have died more than a century ago, a man of legendary greed by the name Karasuma Renya… could that be Agasa-hakase's true identity?

It's certainly possible, but that's all it is, a possibility. I don't have any evidence that actually proves or denies it as a theory. This has all really been a thought experiment.

Worst case scenario he's some criminal mastermind from a bygone age that's lived for centuries, best case scenario he really is 53 year old eccentric Agasa Hiroshi he just happens to also be running a company with questionable ethics. Honestly, I'm not sure which I'd prefer.

The idea that someone you thought was a friend may actually be an enemy is never easy, but it's made easier if they show that they were never really your friend and it was simply always an act to them.

I find myself sighing.

"Having trouble with something?" Haibara asks out of nowhere. I really wish she wouldn't sneak up on me like that.

It's been a little less than a month since she showed up, but already she and I have settled into being comfortable around each other.

"Ah yeah…. But it's nothing, I just need to look into some things later. How's your research going?"

Two weeks ago I managed to get her into a professional grade lab to take a look at the antidote, and apparently it got her a bit fired up wanting to improve it. I think she feels like if she can't make it better then she's losing somehow, a surprisingly cute side of her. The result has been that she's urged me to buy her several pieces of equipment, and now the basement has become her personal lab.

"It's going well, I'd say I think I've managed to mostly pin down it's chemical makeup, now I just need to figure out how it interacts with Apotoxin."

"I'm not going to take it just to show you how it works." I chime in.

"Hmph… well I can't exactly test it on myself if you're right about how quickly immunity is developed…." She mutters.

"Too bad."

I'm not going to increase my immunity to the antidote just so she can research it, I need to save it for more serious circumstances.

What if I suddenly need to convince someone that the person they saw wasn't Kudo Shinichi but instead someone a little older that happens to look similar? What if I decide to go do a heist with Kid and I need to add some 'magic' to the mix? What if I need a boost in strength to deal with some criminal mercenary trying to kill me? What if…. What if I just need to go to a bar and drink away my feelings for a night?

"Whatever happened to the other you, you said he died?" She asks, not seeming conscious of how much of a landmine that question is.

God, this is exactly why I could use a drink.

"... Yes, he died."

What else am I supposed to say about it? She's still curious after this long? Give up already… The truth isn't pretty.

"How did he die?" She asks, twisting the metaphorical knife.

"I told you I didn't want to talk about it…"

"You're normally so comfortable talking about death and the circumstances leading to it. Just the other day you were calmly eating ramen in a place where someone got poisoned next to you…"

It was good ramen, okay? I sigh, "It's different, he's me… I'm not some psychopath that's totally comfortable around death, even I have a breaking point. It was a bit…. traumatic… for me, when he died."

That should be a sufficient answer for her to stop prying. It's not even completely a lie. I can still feel the sensation of-

I shake my head, trying to clear away the guilty thoughts if only for a moment.

She grabs a clipboard off a nearby table, sits down and kicks up her feet.

Her pen clicks, "Tell me about it. I'll play therapist for you."

Why you little… I know I was considering that myself for a while, but it's definitely a bad idea!

After all this Haibara doesn't hate the organization, she doesn't know what they were like before, she doesn't remember the same crimes I do. She certainly dislikes them, but they didn't kill her sister, and that had really been the tipping point for my Haibara. This Haibara doesn't tense up randomly in the middle of the street because she senses uncomfortable presences nearby, she doesn't flinch when she hears someone mention the name of an alcoholic beverage… She's not the kindred spirit I so desperately needed.

She's not someone I can fully open up to, I can't tell her the truth, at least… not yet.

"I can't, I forgot." I lie almost as easily as breathing.

"You have an eidetic memory, Kudo-kun, you can't have simply forgotten."

Tch.

"Time travel muddles it… tries to repair history to fix the inconsistent bits. Conan died, history changed, and the organization became the company. The details don't matter. I don't remember, I can't remember…my memories are slowly changing to fit the new narrative…"

That… is a lie at the moment but theoretically it could become the truth.

In fact I don't have a way to prove that my memory hasn't already started to be rewritten to correct the flow of time. Everything I remember currently feels correct, it's a flow of events that makes sense to me, but that doesn't mean that it's actually what happened- it does however mean that it may as well be.

"What's the old 'narrative'? Let's write it down?" She suggests.

Maybe she's right.

Maybe if I write it down the words on the paper won't change like my memories may. Or maybe it'll change but because I'm aware it may change I'll be able to observe the changes. I don't think I can place any real hope on this, but it's better to have some countermeasure in place instead of just doing nothing.

I hesitate a moment then gesture for her to hand me the clipboard. "I'll… write it myself."

"Let me read it later," She says as she hands it to me, seeming little bit disappointed she won't be hearing the full story now.

"... maybe," I concede.

I start writing.

'I am Kudo Shinichi, 27 year old detective from the future. 10 years ago I was poisoned by a criminal organization, and ever since then I've done everything in my power to bring them to justice.-

End of Part 2