Ugh, finally got this up. Sorry if everything's happening a bit too fast... and some things seem a bit strange, but I thought this would be most interesting, it's no fun if you just get answers without getting any new questions. Also as you may be able to see I have began listing the current status of the swaps(it's their initials) at the beginning and end of each chapter (because there will be the occasional mid chapter swap from this point on), I hope you find it helpful.
In this chapter: They finally get some answers, Ran has an unsettling feeling, Edogawa Conan returns, Shiho is concerned
Well here goes nothing, I hope you enjoy, please review it doesn't matter if it's short or long or if you like the story or not (though I can't imagine anyone getting this far without liking it).
KS=MR, HS=MS, KK=NA, HH=TK
There was honestly nothing else I could do about the situation so -much to my dismay- I called Akako, hoping that there would be something she could do about this despite her earlier uselessness.
She was busy –something about gathering potion ingredients before the coming full moon- and couldn't come but she at least had the time to talk so I put her on speaker phone after explaining that we'd all switched bodies with our respective girlfriends after having gone on dates with them.
"I see…" She said afterward, from her tone I could tell that she understood something about this that we hadn't and that something annoyed her a little bit... or maybe I was just reading too much into it.
"Is there anything you can do about this, Akako-san?" Shinichi asked, I think he must've picked up on the same subtle hint in her tone that I had.
"I don't know that there's anything that can be done… but the eight of you should stay pretty stable for a while now" She replied, "It should be a few days at the least, maybe a month at the most before you start changing again."
"Eh? Why's dat?" Hattori asked, sounding glad that for the time being we would at least have some consistency in our lives.
I guess I was glad too, but the fact that there was still no way to fix this still bothered me. I'd have preferred the girls staying uninvolved to us suddenly having a few days without worrying that we might suddenly be someone else… after all this was slowly wearing us down physically and mentally, our days were numbered, and now the same could be said for the girls.
"I'm sure you've heard of the idea of 'soul mates' before?" She said in faintly bitter tone, we all gave some confirmation and she continued, "The term comes from the idea that souls can have various shapes, people whose souls are similar shapes tend to get along very well so it's become romanticized over the years… the four of you each have souls approximately the same shape as those of your girlfriend's."
"So, our souls will fit in de gaps in their bodies an` vice versa?" Hakuba asked, she confirmed and he continued, "But this isn't a permanent fix, `cause fer de four a' us our bodies and souls have already been damaged. Our souls can't completely fill each other's gaps… isn't that right?"
If you're confused then I'll just try to explain with the example that Shiho had given us all a while back using that toy with the pegs and the holes. Our pegs had splintered because they kept getting forced into holes they didn't fit in and the holes were breaking around the edges because of the forced entry. But even though the girls had just swapped they weren't damaged yet. Aoko had just put her star shaped peg into my broken star hole, and I'd put my broken star peg into her star hole.
Wow that came out sounded a bit more awkward than intended. Point is, the girls are fine, if we can find some way to get them to swap back to their correct bodies first then nothing should have happened to them.
"Exactly."
"But why are they swapping with us now when they hadn't before?" I asked.
"I'm not entirely sure but over the course of each of your dates your souls must have 'cried out' so to speak, and the girl's souls each moved to help you in any way that they could," She stated. I got the feeling that she was just making that explanation up because it sounded pretty ridiculous, but I didn't say anything because she was the closest thing we had to an expert on how supernatural stuff works.
...
"-and den when I looked in da mirror I realized dat I wasn't myself but Heiji!" Kazuha-chan said in an excited tone, "I was so freaked out dat I jus' kinda stood dere in fron' a' de mirror and stared at my own reflection fer at least ten minutes a'fore I understood what must'a happened an' called Heiji."
Shiho-chan replied with what could only be described as a chuckle, "Sounds like you've had quite the morning."
"What about you Ran-chan? How did you realize that you'd turned into Shinichi-kun?" Aoko-chan asked, I think just trying to make sure that Kazuha-chan didn't wind up trying to pick a fight with Shiho-chan by averting the subject to me.
I don't think I should have to say that I was uncomfortable, having found myself suddenly in Shinichi's body. Any normal person wouldn't be comfortable in such a situation, as it is I'm surprised that the guys have come to accept it as just another part of their lives.
I was glad that I at least wasn't alone in this. Kazuha-chan, Aoko-chan, and Shiho-chan were all in the same boat as I was for this. But the small comfort that knowing I wasn't the only one gave me wasn't enough to ease the growing feeling that this was just the beginning of something terrible.
I'd had feelings like this before, like on the day that Shinichi first became Conan when I felt like I would never see him again. I guess I should be glad that my feeling at that time was mistaken, but what if I wasn't wrong this time? What if this body swapping thing was just the beginning of something even worse?
"Ran-chan, are you alright?" Kazuha-chan asked, her tone was worried, "Yer lookin' a bit pale."
I felt fine, I told them as much but Shiho-chan suddenly looked more worried than I'd ever seen her and put her hand to my forehead.
"You're burning up!" She exclaimed, "Tell me, have you felt strange at all since you woke up in that body?!"
What a stupid question! Of course I felt strange! I suddenly woke up as my boyfriend, that's not normal! I managed to not shout at her as I replied, "Yeah… a bit."
"In what ways?"
I started to tell her that very few things that morning hadn't been strange for me, but then it happened.
I can't even begin to accurately explain how it felt… but I'll try. There was enough pain that I doubled over before I even realized that what I was feeling was pain. I felt hot, like I was standing in the middle of a volcano, seconds away from going up in flames. Everything I saw in front of me was overcome by bright flashes of colors.
Then it stopped, I still felt terrible but it had dissipated.
Shiho-chan's eyes widened with understanding, she knew what was happening to Shinichi's body and that made me think that maybe I knew too, she helped me to the couch.
Bewildered Kazuha-chan and Aoko-chan both stuttered out something along the lines of 'are you okay', which I replied to with a shaking, "I think I'm alright now..."
...
So now we at least knew why the girls had become involved, but we were no closer now to being able to fix any of this than we had been the first time that any of this had happened. We were still completely stuck.
Our only illusion of hope seemed to be to rely on the chance that in a few days we might swap with the girls again and all wind up in the correct bodies, but even if that happened by some miracle we didn't even know if we would remain stable after that. As far as we knew we might wind up like this for the rest of our lives however long that might be.
The four of us understood that much without even a word about it passing between us. We've actually gotten to the point where we understand each other pretty well, I guess that's one of the only good things that's come out of all this body swapping nonsense.
The unspoken truth that the four of us -and if nothing was done eight of us- likely wouldn't live much longer, originally we'd had no intention of telling the girls but the way things were going it didn't seem like we were going to have much of a choice. If they were going to be involved from now on then they needed to know exactly what the situation truly is... but none of us wanted to tell them.
After a few moments of actual talk it was decided that we would definitely tell them if any of them switched into a body besides one that their soul would theoretically fit into. Somewhere in the back of our minds we probably all knew that it was to much to hope for them to stay safe, with eight bodies and two being 'safe' for each of their souls that would only be a one in four chance of winding up with a match... the odds were not in their favor -or ours for that matter.
"Meitantei-kun, is something wrong?" Kaito spoke up suddenly.
"That came out of nowhere," I reply, "there's nothing wrong."
He leans in really close to me, his face locked in a very serious expression, "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, of course I'm sure," I say, feeling a bit uncomfortable with his face only inches from mine, "er... why do you ask?"
He pulls away, "Because you look like you're about to cry."
Hattori and Hakuba were also looking but didn't dare mention it, I suppose they must've been worried that I might get over emotional with my new found female hormones and flip out on them if they said anything that might imply that I was acting strange. I guess that's a pretty good reason to keep quiet, I probably would have done the same if I were in their positions.
I reached up to touch my face, it felt cold and I could feel a tear threatening to fall from my eye… but why? What was this feeling? Why did I feel so sad all of a sudden? It felt like it must have been really important but I just couldn't understand.
"I'm fine… I think," I say, but it's a lie, something's wrong I just don't know what it is.
Hesitantly the others went along with it but I could still feel their watchful gazes on me, they didn't believe for a moment that I was really fine.
There wasn't anything left for the four of us to talk about by that point but we repeated some of what we'd said before anyway as if to give ourselves the illusion that we were actually doing something about this situation and not just sitting around doing nothing.
That's when we heard it, Ran's scream.
I could feel my eyes widen with understanding as everything went black.
...
Edogawa Conan was back.
The very thought sent a shiver down my spine.
Shinichi's body shrank again, that means that my body will invariably also shrink again (maybe in months, maybe in days, but it was definitely going to happen). My antidote wasn't permanent. Body swapping isn't the only thing we were going to have to worry about at the moment. We needed to find a pretext for Conan to start going to school again (and later one for 'Haibara Ai' as well), luckily Ran (or Shinichi at the moment) knows who Conan really is so that'll make most of the back story nonsense unnecessary but we'll still need to come up with an excuse for her father's sake, and for the school.
It also worried me that at the same time that Shinichi's body reverted back to being Conan again Shinichi (in Ran's body) fell unconscious. Ran had also fallen unconscious but that was perfectly understandable, after all she was probably shocked by how painful the transformation from teen to child is, but there didn't seem to be any reason for Shinichi to have fainted. I couldn't help but wonder if there was some kind of connection between them that'd caused it.
If there was some kind of connection between the two of them was it because they were in each other's bodies, or did such a connection exist between the two of them to begin with? Maybe an empathy link or something… I suppose it wouldn't be impossible, given the circumstances.
I could practically feel my brain cells dying at the thought of something so far beyond the normal bounds of reason, but I couldn't reject the possibility when I was already experiencing a strange phenomenon being inside by boyfriend's body.
Then again, who am I to say that it's impossible for Shinichi and Ran to have some sort of empathy link, I'm just a scientist, not a sorceress or witch by any stretch of the imagination, and certainly not an expert on supernatural happenings.
That should be more than enough rambling about things that probably don't even matter for the time being. I'm sure you would appreciate it greatly if we moved along with the plot.
I had been thinking the things above as I waited for Shinichi and Ran to return to consciousness. The small boy on the couch shifted a bit before sitting up.
"Are you okay?" I asked, mostly because it was normal to ask such a thing under the circumstances rather than out of genuine curiosity regarding his/her (?) well being.
"... Eh Haibara?" Was the immediate response.
I admit, I was a bit surprised by it, after all the only person that still called me 'Haibara' even after I'd returned to my adult body was Shinichi. I'm not sure if he simply called me that out of habit or if it was supposed to be symbolic that he didn't acknowledge that I was 'Miyano Shiho' who created APOTOXIN4869, but this confirmed that the person now in that body was Shinichi. That means Ran must've returned to her own body while they were unconscious. Interesting.
"Eh?" He said again, this time seeming more surprised, "My voice is... No, it can't be..."
I didn't say anything, it was amusing enough just watching him.
After a moment he seemed to have finally come to terms with the fact that he'd returned to being Conan... again. He sighed, talking more to himself than to me, "I finally get back to my body, only to be stuck as Conan again."
KS=EC, MR, HS=MS, KK=NA, HH=TK