The past month had, quite frankly, been hell.

After almost dying three separate times (each by being stuck in a burning building, which just made things worse), having traumatic flashbacks of his parents' death and multiple existential crisis about his morality - that maybe he'd been far too apathetic about people dying in the past, coming to the crushing realization that, at this point, there was pretty much nothing he could about solving his parents' murder considering there's virtually no evidence anymore and that he's in a completely different country now (which, yes, he knew was entirely his fault), and, to top it all off, constantly hearing piano music and seeing the image of burnt mangled corpses in his dreams, Conan thought he deserved a break.

(Although, he is definitely not giving up on discovering his parents' murderer because, even though it's felt like he's lived through at least a lifetime of events already, he still had a good portion of his life left to live, and maybe get revenge or whatever people tend to do when their parents are murdered. Well, that's assuming his abhorrent luck doesn't get him killed soon, which, sadly, didn't seem too improbable. Really, all that was left was for him to get some sort of major injury and end up in the hospital.)

And a nice, relaxing camping trip seemed like the perfect chance to get a break. He just wanted to spend some time in nature with his friends and get away from it all, from all the heavy responsibilities that no seven year old should have.. and also, admittedly (albeit guiltily), Ran.

After the whole Moonlight Sonata incident, she had been understanding and thankfully hadn't asked about why he was so shaken about it, but recently, something just changed. She was treating him.. differently than usual, for instance, absolutely refusing to take a bath with him when she was perfectly fine with it before (although he wasn't complaining because he was pretending to be Kudo Shinichi, who he would assume wouldn't want to take advantage of his childhood friend like that) and continuously mentioning the school play that was coming up and how she would love if Shinichi could come.

In other words, she thought he was Shinichi again.

Conan sighed as he grabbed another stick off the ground to add to his pile of firewood, because this was, what, the third time she's done this? In six months?

He really hoped this wouldn't become a frequent occurrence because he was running out of ways to convince her he wasn't Shinichi. (Although he'd probably just do the same thing as last time considering it was working until Yukiko came and messed it up.)

But he didn't have to worry about that, at least for this weekend long camping trip. He was just going to relax and have a nice enjoyable time. No cases, no murder, and no Black Organization. (Well, that's assuming he doesn't coincidentally come across a dead body or something, but this time they chose a more secluded camping spot, so they shouldn't run into anyone else. And no people meant no murder. Hopefully.)

(He just wanted a break. Just this once. Please.)

He stood up, the pile of wood tucked under his arm. Him and the rest of the Detective Boys were sent out to get firewood, in preparation for tonight's barbeque dinner (which he was honestly quite excited for - well, not as much as Genta who was currently drooling at just the thought), while Agasa and Haibara were preparing the food back at the camp-site.

Conan gave a look around the area. Thankfully the others were still within his view and didn't seem to have run off somewhere or gotten lost. The amount of wood in each of their piles looked sufficient.

He was about to call out to them and say they should head back, before Mitsuhiko excitedly said up ahead, "Hey, you guys, come check this out!"

They came over to check it out, and Conan was honestly a bit disappointed.

"It's just a cave." He blankly said.

He really hoped they didn't plan on going inside of it, considering the large 'Danger! No Entrance!' sign and the small roped fence doing a horrible job of blocking it off.

"But look at this!" Mitsuhiko pointed at a rock to the side with some sort of phrase engraved on it, along with a much larger carving of the hiragana character 'to' in the background.

Conan leaned in and read, "'Trek on the dragon's road, then the light of bliss shall illuminate you'..." He trailed off, the rest being too worn out to read.

Cryptic, was the first thing Conan thought. But it seemed the others envisioned otherwise.

"Treasure!" The three said in near unison.

Conan sighed.

They really needed to learn that not every code was automatically referring to treasure.

He looked back down at the rock. "I'm more curious about the 'to' hiragana carved in the background..."

The Detective Boys all let out a collective hmm, before suggesting ideas (some of which were definitely not as plausible as the others - namely Genta's suggestion, tonkatsu ramen).

Conan decided to join in. "Tokugawa's buried gold..." He voiced absentmindedly, remembering something he once saw on TV. He chuckled to himself. "Just kidding..!" He turned around and said to the rest.. except he was met with nothing.

Instead he heard his friends' voices coming from inside the cave.

He heavily regretted his decision to join in.

"H-hey!" He shouted as he hurriedly rushed inside after them. "What're you guys doing!?"

"We're just gonna explore for a bit!" Ayumi cheerfully said.

"But it's dangerous!" He yelled. "We should head back."

"What are you, scared?" Genta sneered. "We'll be fine."

Conan irritably groaned, reluctantly following after them. "Fine, then. Don't blame me if we get lost and starve to death." He grumbled.

Genta let out a 'tch'. "Scaredy-cat."

Conan sighed.

Seriously, it couldn't be that weird that he was apprehensive about this. Have they not heard those stories where people get stuck in caves and die a slow, excruciating and painful death?

So, yes Genta, with all things considered, he was a little scared.

Well actually, on second thought, it really wasn't that bad, and, like Genta said, they should be fine. If the cave was truly that dangerous, it probably would've been fully blocked off, instead of just having a measly fence that took zero effort to climb over. Besides, darkness shouldn't be an issue, thanks to their flashlight watches (courtesy of the Professor), and, even if they were just kids, they weren't stupid enough to try and go into any passages that looked too small to fit into.

Still, the second they run into a split path, Conan is forcing them to turn back no matter what. He is not taking any chances.

Eventually, the sunlight no longer reached far enough into the cave to be visible, making their flashlights absolutely crucial. (He hoped they wouldn't suddenly run out of power at a very inconvenient time like how it often happens in TV shows and manga. Yeah Conan knew he wasn't really a manga character but, with his luck, he might as well be.) Without them they'd be plunged into pitch darkness.

Or that was until Mitsuhiko spotted light further in the distance. "Ah, someone's here." He pointed out.

Conan narrowed his eyes, flicking off his flashlight

That was odd. The chances of running into someone else here were pretty slim.

"Maybe they already found the treasure..." Ayumi said sadly.

"Hey, for real!?" Genta said, disappointed. He angrily rolled up his sleeves and marched over to the source of the light.

"G-Genta!" Conan uselessly called after him.

Conan sighed, watching Genta disappear around the corner, but just a second later he came rushing back with a terrified expression on his face.

"C-corpse..!" He managed to spit out.

Coming across a dead body was alarming, of course, but not too surprising. This was a dangerous cave with presumably tons of twisting and turning passages, so coming across someone who got lost and died of starvation wasn't improbable (although this close to the entrance...). And, at this point, there was probably a statistically higher chance of finding a corpse when they were in the presence of Conan, so.

However, it seemed Genta forgot to mention the other people, who were in the process of buying said corpse. (Which shouldn't have been surprising really. The light up ahead was moving and it's not like a dead person could do that.)

One of them came out from around the corner, looking angry to see the four children. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.

Oh, lovely.

Without thinking, Conan immediately tackled the Detective Boys out of the way, right as the harsh sound of a gunshot boomed throughout the cave. Conan felt a sudden pain in his side, but ignored it in favor of getting the others to safety.

They landed next to a large stalagmite, which he quickly dragged them behind. He slapped a hand over Ayumi's mouth while trying to quiet his own heavy breathing, and quickly checked if everyone's flashlights were off (thankfully they were). He carefully peered out from behind the edge of the formation.

There were three men in total.

Unfortunately, the first guy wasn't the only one with a gun. Apparently, they were bank robbers, and the guy they were burying used to be their partner, but his face was seen and so they had to kill him. The guy that appeared to be their leader commanded the others to search for the kids and kill them on sight. They soon headed off, one of them going back towards the entrance, meaning that they now couldn't escape that way and instead had to go further into the large and dangerous cave.

It's safe to say this trip was ruined.

As soon as the robbers were out of earshot, Conan turned the flashlight back on, unpinned his detective badge from his jacket, and yelled into it, "Haibara! Hey, Haibara! Are you there!?"

Evidently she wasn't.

He dejectedly pinned his badge back, suddenly wincing as the motion caused a sharp pain to come from his side.

Huh. His stomach actually really hurt. Maybe the bullet grazed him?

The others each tried to contact Haibara with their own badges, but Conan tuned them out as he placed a hand onto his stomach.

It felt strangely wet.

He looked down to see a dark red splotch slowly spreading across his shirt.

That's.. definitely more blood than there should be for a graze.

He gingerly lifted up his shirt to assess the damage, and saw a fresh bullet wound actively spurting out blood.

...That is not good.

He decidedly placed his shirt back down.

Great.

Just his fucking luck.

All he wanted was one break. A nice and relaxing camping trip. And then he got shot.

He leaned further against the stalagmite, feeling faint. His breathing became heavier. Now that he was aware of the fact that he got shot, it really started to hurt.

Okay. Okay.

Calm down.

He's seen enough police dramas to know what to do in this situation.. maybe.

Apply pressure. Right?

He pressed down slightly harder on his wound, but immediately pulled his hand back, hissing at the sudden jolt of pain.

Okay.. maybe don't do that then.

Should he wrap it up in something? Probably. But does he have anything to do that with?

Conan reached into his pockets, gritting his teeth at the movement, and catalogued his belongings.

He didn't have much (because he was planning on heading back soon after gathering the firewood). He only had a handkerchief, a couple of loose coins, a pencil, and his makeshift first aid kit that he quickly made up before leaving for this trip (thank god he brought it), which just included some gauze, a few bandages that were far to small to be effective against a gun wound, and an EpiPen, all stuffed into a Ziploc back. So again, not much.

The gauze should work, and the handkerchief should be good enough for a substitute bandage. Wasn't even close to being sterile or clean enough (how many dead bodies has his handkerchief touched?), but he figured that the possibility of getting an infection was the price he'd have to pay to not bleed out in the next 30 minutes or so.

So, he folded up the handkerchief, unwrapped some of the gauze, and placed the handkerchief on his wound. It immediately soaked up the blood (his handkerchief is definitely ruined now - he'll need to ask Ran for a new one if he lives through this), nearly all the way through in just a few seconds (which was a very unpleasant reminder of how bad his situation was). Then, all he needed to do was wrap the gauze around his stomach, tight enough to hopefully stop the bleeding (at least a little) but not too much that he couldn't handle.

He rested his weight back on the stalagmite, completely exhausted at just the small amount of movement, his breathing coming in laboured heavy gasps.

After a few seconds, Conan suddenly noticed that something was off. He couldn't hear the Detective Boys anymore. He forced himself to look up.

Ah, it was probably because they stopped talking, to instead stare at Conan with very worried gazes.

"C-Conan?" Mitsuhiko said. "Are you okay?"

Clearly not, he wanted to say, but didn't, trying to save his dwindling energy.

"Did the bullet that guy shot hit you?" Genta asked.

Clearly it did, he, again, wanted to say.

"C-Conan-kun!" Ayumi said with urgency. "We have to leave before those bad people come back!"

"W-wait..." Conan managed to get out. "The Professor and Haibara will come looking for us eventually. If those guys find them.. they'll kill them. So we have to let them know..."

"But how!?" Mitsuhiko asked. "We can't leave a note! They'll destroy it!"

Conan unclipped and reached into his front jacket pocket and brought out his transceivers. "I.. I have an idea..."


Conan really wanted to be optimistic, but he truly didn't think they were going to get out of this alive.

His injury has clouded his mind so much that he didn't remember much of what had happened since they left. He only had vague memories - a split path (not good - they had to be lost now), one of their flashlights, and.. fish? He had no idea how much time had passed or how far they were into the cave. But, to be fair, he was more focused on trying not to pass out than what was happening, so.

And really, his plan of leaving his glasses behind in hopes of Agasa or Haibara finding the secret message saying to call the police, probably wasn't even going to work.

That was basically their only saving grace, so, needless to say, he was feeling pretty hopeless.

And not to mention, getting shot really fucking sucked. Like, majorly. It was definitely one of the top ten worst things that have happened to him, he would say, probably even top three.

Every slight jostle shot pain up his side and it took nearly every ounce of his remaining energy to just stay awake. He felt both cold and hot; he was shivering but also sweating. Every time he moved or spoke, even just a little, it left him completely exhausted. It was horrible.

He really didn't know how much longer he could stay conscious. He would guess he's lost a ton of blood by now. He couldn't exactly see either the entrance or exit wounds, because the one that was on his stomach was pressed up against Genta's back (because he was carrying him considering Conan didn't think he could even walk one step without blacking out) and the other was on his back. But, he didn't need to see them to know that he had and was still currently losing a lot of blood. He could feel it trickling out and dripping down his back. (He hoped Genta wasn't too fond of the shirt he was wearing because Conan was pretty certain his blood had already soaked through onto it, a lot - sorry.)

But he didn't dare let his hopelessness show to the Detective Boys. If they were pessimistic too, then there's absolutely no way they were making it out of this. Besides, he wanted what could be their last moments to be at least somewhat happy.

Suddenly, Conan felt Genta stop, and he heard the sound of water splashing, jolting him back into the present.

He slowly forced his eyes open and saw a waterfall - that each of his friends were looking very dejectedly at - leading into the river they were following.

Wait, why did they seem so sad over a waterfall..?

Oh, that's right, the river - that they were following in hopes of finding a way out. (How did he forget about that?) And there's no way they can escape through such a small opening.

So that's why they were so gloomy. That made sense. (That also must've been the reason why he vaguely remembered talking about fish, then.)

"We can't get out through that..." Mitsuhiko said, shining his flashlight at the waterfall's opening, then moving it down to the river. "And the fish do come from here..." He sighed.

"S-so.. we can't make it out of here..?" Ayumi said, her voice wavering.

Oh no. This isn't good. He can't let them get sad or else there is an almost near certain chance they will die here.

"N-no..." Conan said. "Look at the ceiling." Mitsuhiko shined his light upwards. "S-see..? There are roots. That means we're close to the surface. There might be an exit nearby..."

"Ah! He's right!" Ayumi cheerfully shouted. "There's a path over here!" She ran over with her watch light, which happened to shine on a weird looking formation with what looked like an egg on it.

It seemed Genta saw the rock as well, considering he immediately yelled, "An egg!?" And excitedly ran over (which was not kind on his wound, but Conan didn't say anything and just silently dealt with it).

But he soon discovered otherwise. "Tch.. it's just a rock. How boring."

Conan shifted his gaze over to the stone.

That's weird... A rock like that wouldn't form there naturally. So, someone must've intentionally put it there. But why?

"Hey, look at this!" Mitsuhiko suddenly said, looking down at the base of the formation holding the egg-shaped stone. "There's something written here. 'One lost in the darkness, trek on the dragon's road, then the light of bliss shall illuminate you'..."

One lost in the darkness..? Dragon's road..? Light of bliss..?

Wait, was that saying.. that there's a way out!?

Conan's eyes widened as much as they physically could (basically, not much) and his lips twitched upwards minutely.

He was nearly certain they were either going to get lost and die of starvation (well, for Conan it'd be blood loss) or get found by those guys and be killed, but if they've actually found the exit, then they might just make it out of this alive!

Conan looked up ahead. There were five separate paths to choose from, which was definitely a lot worse than just one split path from earlier, but just the idea that one of these passages led to an exit, filled him with hope.

Then, according to the code, they had to determine which one of these paths was the dragon's road...

However, Conan didn't get much time to think about that, when Ayumi let out a piercing shriek and they were soon engulfed by a swarm of bats.

Naturally, they all started to freak out and try to get away from the bats, which included Genta. Conan's injury protested with every movement. All he could do was grip onto Genta's shirt and grit his teeth, trying desperately not to cry out in pain while his wound was screaming at him.

With his little remaining strength, Conan yelled, "Stop moving-!" And grabbed his detective badge off his jacket and threw it.

The bats immediately swarmed over to the small object and away from the Detective Boys. (Conan was very thankful his past self happened to remember that small fact about cave bats.)

Conan slumped back down onto Genta, breathing heavy, his exhaustion coming back in full force. He forced his eyes to stay open, but everything was starting to get blurry and little black dots were fading in around the edges of his vision. He could still hear his friends, but their voices were getting faint. He felt light-headed.

This isn't good. He can't pass out just yet, not now. He still needs to find which path is the dragon's road.

Conan thought back onto the first code.

That 'to' hiragana must be important. And the terms egg and dragon... There's probably some sort of word play...

He inaudibly gasped as the answer suddenly came to him (remembering the mini Shogi lesson Kogoro had given him a while ago).

"Well, why don't we check each oath in order?" He struggled to hear Mitsuhiko say. He sounded so far off and distant...

"N-no..." He forced himself to say. He hoped it was loud enough to hear. "Only one..." He lifted his hand to point. His head immediately swam, but he kept going. "Th-the dragon's path is..." But he couldn't finish.

The back dots further encroached into his vision as he no longer has enough strength to keep his eyes open.

This was it. He was going to die.

His arm fell limply back onto Genta, as Conan finally let himself drift away into unconsciousness.


Well, good news. He didn't die.

Conan had a very excruciating and slow awakening. The first thing he registered was how incredibly painful his wound felt. He wanted to writhe or cry out in agony but he didn't feel he had the energy to do so.

He felt someone pick him up; he let them, falling limp in their grasp. But, he soon realized he probably shouldn't have, because he then felt the cold metallic barrel of a gun harshly press into his head.

Conan used the small amount of energy he had to crack open his eyes, only to immediately shut them a moment later. The only thing he saw was a bright, blinding light that only proved to make the headache he didn't even know he had, ten times worse.

He focused on his sense of hearing instead, to try and gauge the situation.

"...see this you idiots!?" He recognized the voice of one of the robbers shouting. "If you don't want me to blow this kid's brains out then you better get outta my way!"

It seemed Conan still had enough mental energy to piece together that the criminal holding him was using him as a hostage against the police, and that this situation was very bad.

Great.

Conan started to open his eyes again, this time, making sure to do it very slowly and carefully, as to not blind himself. Thankfully, he managed to get a look at his kidnapper, and it was just his luck that he happened to be the one who was the 'leader' guy of the group, and therefore probably the smartest.

Welp, no matter how smart he is, he probably wouldn't expect that the cute little unassuming and injured kid he was holding had a tranquilizer gun on his person, so that's at least one point in his favor.

Conan drowned out whatever bullshit the guy was saying, to instead focus his energy on flipping up the lid of his watch and lifting his arm to aim at him. His watch ended up having to be upside down which wasn't ideal, but oh well. He double checked if he had a clear shot at the man, and fired.

He only kept his eyes open long enough to see the robber fall out of consciousness.

Conan passed out before he even reached the ground.


The next time Conan awoke he was in a hospital, which was definitely better than last time.

Well, he couldn't be exactly sure he was in a hospital - he could be in an ambulance or being moved into or out of one - but he was fairly sure he was getting adequate medical attention considering the breathing mask he could feel on his mouth and what was most likely a gurney he was laying on.

So, in other words, he was safe now and could relax (well as much as one can relax with a relatively fresh bullet wound).

Conan kept his eyes closed and just listened as the jumbled buzz around him started to become clearer.

He could hear Ran and Ayumi next to him, both worriedly calling out his name, and there were some unrecognized voices, probably doctors, calling out weird medical terms he didn't know. The gurney he was one was being pushed quite fast, so yeah probably a hospital.

He wasn't processing whatever the people were saying, until the gurney suddenly stopped and one of the nurses said, "Doctor, this is bad! We don't have any of his blood type left!"

Conan would've sighed or rolled his eyes at how bad his luck was if he had the energy to do so. So he just laid there as motionless as before and revelled in his misfortune.

"Uh, excuse me..." He heard Ran pipe up next to him. "D-do you think my blood could work? I have the same blood type as him."

All commotion in the hallway seemed to halt.

Conan cracked his eyes open just to incredulously stare at the girl, because since when did they have the same blood type!?

He didn't ever recall telling Ran his blood type. Hell, he didn't know what his blood type was.

So why on earth did she think..?

Wait, just think through this for a second. There must be a reason she thought so.

Actually, he vaguely remembered hearing from Ran or Sonoko - he didn't really remember - that Ran and Shinichi had the same blood type and that it was fairly rare... So, yeah, that checks out, with Ran thinking he was Shinichi.

So then, did he know Shinichi's blood type? He must've seen it somewhere in that excessive library of his...

Type AB was the one coming to mind. And it was the rarest of the four.

Now, Conan didn't exactly know his blood type, but he knew what his parents' were: A and O. And, he also knew that it's 100 percent impossible for type A and O parents to birth a type AB child.

So, Ran had type AB and Conan had either type A or O, and, despite his young age, he knew enough about genetics to know that neither of those types could receive from AB. Meaning that, under no circumstances, could he receive blood from Ran.

Fantastic.

Ran suspecting he was Shinichi was always inconvenient, but never lethal.

How much worse could this day possibly get.

"Ah, but please check, to be safe." Ran continued.

Well, at least they were doing that, but would they get it done in time, before he died?

"Let's hurry then!" The nurse said as she hurried off down a hallway with Ran.

Conan's eyes widened as his hand slightly lifted in a pitiful attempt to reach out and stop them. His mouth opened, trying to say something, because if he could just tell them now instead..! But it wasn't working. They just continued heading down the hallway without a second glance back.

It seemed one of the doctors noticed his worry, as he came over to him and put a comforting hand on his head. "Don't worry. You'll be alright."

He knew it was supposed to be calming, but it honestly just had the opposite effect, because no he was not going to be alright and he wasn't worried about what the doctor probably thought he was.

Conan shook his head, but a wave of dizziness suddenly overcame him.

The doctor misinterpreted his weariness as calmness and soon left.

Next Kogoro came over. Conan noticed him in his peripheral vision. It seemed he was speaking and also trying to comfort him, but he couldn't make out anything he was saying. Everything was all.. fuzzy again.

Conan blinked. His eyelids were heavy, far heavier than he would like. Eventually, he could keep them open any longer.

For the second time that day, Conan passed out thinking,

I'm going to die.