For those who want to read the encrypted chapters without having to actually decode them themselves, or people who already decoded it but want to read it again in an easier to understand format.
Thank you to those of you who read this follow-up to a fanfic from ten years ago, I hope you've enjoyed it.


Prologue: Once upon a time

(Caesar cipher, shifted 10 letters so S becomes C)


Once upon a time there was a young Prince with a strong sense of justice, this Prince loved a compassionate Knight and she cared deeply for him in return.

But on the night that the Prince intended to tell the Knight his feelings for her the Prince witnessed a pair of Warlocks working for the dark Emperor committing a crime in his kingdom.

The Warlocks cursed the Prince so he would not be able to tell anyone what he saw that night.

The curse prevented the Prince from being recognized as himself and even though he remained by the Knight's side he could not tell her the truth.

So the Knight awaited the Prince's return unaware of the fate that had befallen him.

Unable to bear seeing the Knight saddened by his absence, the Prince vowed to defeat the Emperor and dismantle his evil empire, hoping that in the process he could find a way to return his cursed body back to its original state.

It was not a simple task, it would take quite a while to find a way to fight the empire, and many allies joined his cause along the way.

He befriended soldiers and knights who championed justice, commoners who were willing to help however they could, a rougish bard who had his own battle to fight, other princes who sympathized with his plight, and even a Witch who had betrayed the empire and promised to help him remove his curse if he could grant her a happy life in his kingdom.

He fought long and hard, and many of his new friends fell along the way.

Still the Prince pressed on.

And then his beloved Knight was drawn into the fray.

She was strong, and she did her best, but she was unprepared to face the underhanded methods of the Warlocks employed by the Emperor.

Then the Knight fell.

Having been left behind the Prince felt empty.

He no longer felt sure what he was fighting for, and for the first time in ages he began to cry.

Seeing this the Witch felt guilty. She had managed to find a place she could be happy, a place to belong- but the person that had granted it to her was suffering. It didn't feel right. It didn't feel fair.

She wracked her brain and devised a clever spell to send the Prince back in time. He would arrive in the past shortly after he had been cursed, and could use his knowledge of what happens to secure a happier future.

Perhaps this time would be different.

Once again he fought the Emperor and once again he failed to protect those he cared about.

The Witch continued to aid him and he kept trying over and over again.

He tried so many times.

At some point he had grown so attached to all of his allies that he could not bear a future where a single one of them had fallen in this battle, it was no longer just about the Knight. The Prince truly wanted to protect everyone.

He swore to himself that he would not stop until he was able to create a world where none of his friends and allies had to die.

Yet countless times he watched as friend after friend fell.

The Prince crafted plans, noted patterns he'd observed in the Warlocks actions and calculated routes to take that would not lead to another friend's demise.

But no matter how intelligent the Prince was the Emperor and his legion of Warlocks seemed to always be one step ahead.

Avoiding one ill fate would simply lead to another.

Another failure.

Another friend sacrificed.

Again and again and again.

More and more guilt stained the Prince's once pure soul.

If only he hadn't dragged this friend into this.

If only he had planned better…

If only he were a better leader he would be able to guide his friends to an outcome where no one dies.

The Prince's heart began to break under the weight of the lives he was trying to carry all on his own.

The fractures in his heart gave birth to the prince's Shadow. A dark reflection of the Prince.

This Shadow shared the Prince's face and spoke with a silver tongue, tricking all into believing that he was their ally, and even the usually wise Prince believed he was a friend.

Before long the Prince had failed again, but with his heart fractured by guilt and despair he could not bear the strain of turning back time and starting over once more.

And so instead this time the Prince and the Witch worked together and devised a new spell that would allow him to send warnings and instructions to a not yet broken version of himself.

Perhaps the Prince would be able to change the outcome by not interfering in a direct way. This was his hope.

However as the Prince corresponded with his younger self an unpleasant truth came to light; the prince's Shadow was the evil Emperor that they had been fighting all this time.

The Shadow was going to use time magic to go back beyond even the beginning of the Prince's story and obtain power once he knew everything about the plans of the Prince and his friends.

The Prince realized that he had already lost to the Shadow, but hope burned within him and he entrusted one final quest to his younger self.

"Please, travel through time and kill me before I become this shadow of myself."


Interlude: A Difficult Decision

(Caesar cipher shifted 16 so C turns into S)


The Prince was displeased with the mission that had been given to him by his elder counterpart. He didn't want to kill someone, least of all someone who had yet to commit any crimes.

Would that not make him just as bad as the Emperor and his Warlocks?

Surely no one deserves to die just because they have a high potential of being the person to commit a heinous crime in the future. What if it can be avoided?

So the Prince tried to do things his own way, he spent years trying to face the Emperor as the older Prince had.

Until he met the Emperor himself.

That was when he finally was forced to see just how bad the situation was.

The Emperor was just too powerful and far too corrupt to be reasoned with, and his empire had grown so vast that simply arresting the leader for his crimes would not be nearly enough to put an end to this mess.

The empire was not a beast that would die simply from having it's head cut off.

The young Prince found himself admitting that it would be impossible to dismantle the Emperor's criminal empire without getting his own hands dirty. He hated to admit it but it seemed to be the only way to lead them to an outcome where the people he cared about wouldn't be harmed, he would be the only one to pay the price.

If the emperor could be removed from the equation before the empire was founded then it would never be able to be founded in the first place.

He decided that he would do it. He would do as the Prince had asked him all those years ago, he would use the Witch's magic to turn back time and kill the Prince.

And so, he turned back time.

Before him lay the unconscious form of the just-cursed Prince. Small. Weak. Unable to resist. It wouldn't have been difficult to do the job then.

But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

He knew the danger, the consequences, but when push came to shove he wasn't able to kill an innocent.

So he took him in. He even made arrangements to enable the new young Prince to live out his cursed life with relative ease.

And he gave him a warning.

The Prince told the young Prince that it would be for the best if he stayed out of it all, if he ignored the instincts telling him that the Warlocks that cursed him should be brought to justice, if he could leave the empire alone.

The Prince made the claim, "I'll do something about it, and I will see to it that you are uncursed, so please stay away from the battle I'm fighting. Please, stay out of my way."

And the young Prince seemed to have begrudgingly accepted that.

All the while the Prince tried his best to do things that the Emperor would never expect the Prince to do.

He took risks. He let crimes go unsolved and made his moves from the shadows.

But he tried to keep the young Prince close, just in case he needed plan b.

Just in case he could ever steel his resolve to do the deed.

And often as the young Prince slept he would enter the room and stand over him.

Silently telling himself, "If I kill him the curse won't matter anymore, I can go back to being me, and none of my friends will ever be drawn into this. All I have to do is kill a child, and get away with it. I can do this... "

After all, this one crime was all that was keeping him from being able to go back to an uncursed life without having to worry about the looming threat of the Emperor and his Warlocks invading his peaceful kingdom.

A single life would be a small price to pay.

And the Prince was nearly ready to pay it.


Interlude: Record Of The Truth

(mentions of 'Conan' have been corrupted)


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.

The poison makes me appear younger than my real age, currently I look the same as I did when I was a teen. It can be temporarily reversed thanks to a special drug made by one of my allies, Miyano Shiho who is also under the effects of the same poison and now living a new life under a different name.

In my timeline I failed to protect many of the people I care about. With Shiho's help I've been traveling through time to try to create a world where all of my friends are safe.

During my travels it eventually came to my attention that the person pulling the strings behind all the suffering that I've endured is an alternate version of me that is also making use of time travel. He has a similar goal but somewhere along the way he broke and lost sight of what he was fighting for.

I tried my best to go against him head on, but I couldn't win. No matter how I tried to plan it would never work. I became desperate and concluded that the only way would be to kill that version of me before he became involved with anything.

To do that I had to kill the me from the world I'm currently in. I killed him, and now I've stolen his identity.

I'm guilty of murder.

But at least I've managed to change history.

Check regularly, if anything written here doesn't match your memory, remind yourself which one is real. Don't forget the truth. Remember what you've done.


Epilogue: The End of The Prince's Story

(Ceaser cipher shifted 8 so S becomes A)


The Prince had finally completed his mission, but the guilt stayed with him and years at war left him unable to relax.

He would jump at every shadow, but he tried his best to live a normal life…

He tried to watch over those who he'd managed to keep away from the fight, those whom he may now never have a reason to become acquainted with.

Before long he realised that even though his mission had successfully broken him away from the sequences of events he'd come to know and dread- the Empire was not entirely gone.

They now existed in a new form under new leadership.

He sought to bring them to justice even in this new form but before he could his crime caught up to him.

He was locked away for killing the younger Prince that would have undoubtedly become an evil Emperor.

And in that place the Witch appeared before him again.

She had prepared the time repeating spell once more and made a proposition to him.

"I shall go back this time, lend me your knowledge. Let us atone for our sins together."