In hindsight it'd probably have worked better to give you guys forgetful Shinichi before letting you know that he's the actually culprit of all this but... *shrug* not planning ahead is kind of my modus operandi.
Anyway this whole chapter is basically the opposite of how Detective Conan normally works because instead of the character explaining something to the audience it's a character realizing something that the audience is fully aware of. That's not really that important or anything, but it amuses me so I hope anyone reading this finds it interesting to see the character go through this kind of thought process.

Sorry for the time gap between this chapter and the previous one, but it's a lot better than the gap between this story and the previous one, right?

Chapter 14: Realization

The room I'm staying in in the detention center is far from comfortable. The bed is thin and it's lumpy in odd places. There's a bit of a draft leaving the room colder than a comfortable temperature, and there's just enough moisture in the air that I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bit of mold hiding in one of the corners. I suppose I should be thankful for the privacy, but the utter lack of entertainment or decor leaves me wishing I had a cellmate so I'd at least have something to occupy myself with besides my own thoughts.

Thoughts I really wish I didn't need to dwell on.

Perhaps you're wondering how I ended up here? It simply couldn't be helped, no matter how much they investigated they couldn't find any evidence that didn't point directly to me. Even if I'm a minor I am the primary suspect- no, the only suspect, in the murder of a child.

Of course it's suspicious in it's own way that the evidence was pointing so clearly to me. If someone had left the evidence like that to frame me then why did they go through the efforts of hiding the body?

Hiding the body well runs the risk that the body won't be found and the person that was framed won't be convicted. Normally when someone is trying to specifically frame someone for a crime they're doing so to get revenge on the person they're framing, as such they usually make sure that the body is discovered fairly early so that not only will their framing efforts pay off but also they can establish that they have an alibi and the framed person doesn't.

I sigh, laying back onto the hard bed.

It doesn't match up, if they were going to do such a good job framing me then there should be no reason to hide the body so well… but what if there was?

Did whatever trick they used to hide Conan's and their dna on the scene require some span of time to pass before the body could be discovered? It's not entirely impossible, though I don't know of any specific way to do such a thing. It still can't be discounted as a possibility.

Were they unsure that they had actually done a good job hiding traces of themselves so they hid it anyway to minimize risks? That level of caution doesn't seem to fit with what I've seen from the company's mercenaries thus far since they tend to indiscriminately kill any potential witnesses, but it's not as if every mercenary would have the same modus operandi.

Or did they know that by hiding the corpse it would only make the evidence against me more convincing?

At this rate, I'm very likely to actually end up getting prosecuted for this.

Even if I am innocent it's going to be impossible for a defense attorney to prove that with the evidence the prosecution will have on their side. This isn't an Ace Attorney game; this is Japan, the conviction rate is 99%. They don't care if you're guilty or innocent, the court will find you guilty if you don't settle it with a plea deal.

"What kind of plea deal will I be offered?" I mutter to myself, "probably something like 'admit your guilt and pay and we'll lighten your sentence.' That's probably the best I can hope for, but even then it's not like I could keep being a detective if I become a convicted criminal..."

Even if by some miracle I do get declared innocent of all this I'll still live with the stigma of having been suspected of a crime. To make matters worse, the real culprit would likely never be brought to justice.

This is awful. I feel awful.

What am I even going to do now?

I roll over to face the wall, maybe I can at least get some sleep and think about it more in the morning.

What if I did do it?

As I try to clear my head to sleep I can't stop the thought I'd been trying my best to not acknowledge from passing through my mind.

I didn't do it. I've kept telling myself that but…

All the evidence points to me.

The dna evidence.

The fact I don't have an alibi.

The likelihood that the real scene of the crime was my bedroom.

The odds that a knife from my kitchen that had been disposed of with the body is the murder weapon.

The fogginess in my memory from around the suspected time of the crime.

And most telling of all, the nightmares that have been haunting me for the past few months.

Visions from my subconscious of a dark bedroom, the sensation of a knife in my hand, a child's desperate shout for help, the feeling of the knife piercing flesh, the scent of blood hanging in the air… the sting of guilt still lingering at the very back of my mind when I awaken.

It sickens me just thinking about it but it does make the pieces start to fall into place.

But why would I do it? That fleeting ray of hope remains, my lack of any kind of motive or desire to kill.

Even that is dashed when I remember that my memory has been a bit foggy these past few months. Perhaps I do have a motive and simply can't remember it. I have an eidetic memory so it's already strange that I have foggy spots in my memory at all, it wouldn't be strange to think it could be related to this incident, stress is known to have negative impacts on the formation of memories after all.

Maybe I'll be able to remember something important if I try thinking about everything from the beginning?

Let's see…

I had promised Ran that if she won the karate championship I'd pay for her ticket to go to Tropical Land.

While we were there a murder case popped up but I was able to solve it quickly and just as we were about to leave I caught sight of a suspicious man in black clothing running behind a building. I followed the man in black and witnessed him blackmailing the president of a company over some kind of weapons smuggling, then suddenly his partner snuck up behind me and he hit me over the head, then while I was barely conscious they forced me to take an experimental drug that…

No. No, that doesn't make sense, the one that got poisoned wasn't me, it was Conan.

That's right… I had been watching from the bushes and I saw him attempting to sneak up on them then get hit over the head and given a drug. Then those men in black left, and before my eyes someone that had previously been a teenager had been reverted to the body of a child. I never really got a clear look at him before he'd been forced to take the drug, but it was beyond doubt that he'd completely changed in physique after.

I'd witnessed something impossible, an unbelievable occurrence.

For some reason though, I don't think I was surprised by it at all.

I waited for him to wake up and then- no…

I didn't think that it wouldn't be safe to leave him there, if those men came back they could resort to other methods to kill him. And people so willing to kill without concern for the consequences may have a connection to the to mention that it would be difficult to explain if any of the park's security came by. I couldn't risk contacting anyone so I hid him in the trunk of my car and…

Wait, that can't be right.

I do know how to drive but that's just because mom and dad let me go for a drive in one of their cars in a parking lot in America, I'm not old enough to have a license, so of course I didn't drive to Tropical land, Ran and I had taken the bullet train then walked the rest of the way, so even if I could drive I wouldn't have a car there to drive back with.

I definitely hid him though… How did I hide him again…? Ah, that's right, I ran to one of the gift shops in Tropical Land and bought a suitcase. I put him in the suitcase and left that way. That's right, even though he was unconscious I remember apologizing because it probably wouldn't be a comfortable trip.

He didn't regain consciousness until we got all the way back to my house.

It took a while to convince him that I wasn't working with the people that drugged him.

That I was who I claimed to be.

That I was just trying to make sure no one died.

… That's strange, why did I think that anyone else was at risk? In that situation it should have just been Conan, but I was considering those men in black to be a serious threat from the very beginning.

More importantly, why are there so many inconsistencies in my memories of what happened that night? I've managed to piece what must have really happened together with logic, but it's unusual that there are so many places where what I initially remembered differs from the truth.

Is this why I made that note to be wary of anything that didn't match with my memory?

It's almost as if the events occurred more than once and I experienced them differently each time.

That would be impossible under normal circumstances but I couldn't help but recall that one of my theories for how only my dna was found at the crime scene involved time travel. Could I be from the future and simply forget, is so then I wonder why I can't remember and why I don't appear any older-

"Ah."

All at once everything clicks into place.

I was given the drug that night. I became a child and naturally grew over time before returning to that fateful day.

'Conan' was Kudo Shinichi, so it's only natural that he has the same dna as me. The company never tried to frame me.

Thinking about it that way makes everything make sense. In fact it's quite simple, I'd been over complicating things all this time.

I'd really rather not think about it, but I continue to lay on the lumpy detention center bed and try to sort out my memories, this time without dismissing any of the first impressions I have as being impossible. The details remain muddy as similar memories overlap one another

I still don't know my motive but there's one thing I can't deny, Kudo Shinichi is both the culprit and the victim of this case.

I don't want to accept this as the truth, but as I examine the facts as they exist before me there's little else that can be concluded.

Why did I do it?

Did I just need to get him out of the way? No doubt he would have wanted to return to being himself, I'm sure he must have been quite frustrated with me taking his place out of nowhere.

I can't imagine myself killing someone for any reason, but this is already a very unconventional scenario. Moreover, accepting my deduction so far would mean that there's a gap in my memories of nine or ten years at minimum that I at best have vague recollection from, there could be any number of extenuating circumstances at play that may have forced my hand.

That's most likely the truth. Even if I don't want to accept it.

I deserve to be here.

That's the last thought that goes through my mind as I drift off to sleep.