Summary: A year after the reappearance of Kudo Shinichi who married his sweet heart, Kogoro Mouri is left scratching his head about why he never correctly solved a case ever since Conan left.
I do not own Detective Conan.
Enjoy.
"SHIT!" yelled an aged Kogoro Mouri, throwing his morning newspaper at the cream wall opposite him, where it joined the clustered mess down below.
What had angered him was the headline 'Shinichi Kudo once again proves that the sleeping sloth should retire'.
What was once, a office that had a steady stream of rich clients, was now painfully avoided by even the most normal of civilians.
He once was somebody great.
His mare name struck fear into the hearts of would be murders and his face was on tv and the newspaper every week.
He was making serious bank.
So how did it all go so wrong?
If he thought back to it, it was the day that brat, Conan Edogawa finally said goodbye as his parents took him away and out of his hair.
Of course he was happy, no more nosey brat that was always in his way and he could finally enjoy his first case without the kid and announced it was a Suicide.
The media printed it and he went on with his life until Kudou Shinichi pop up and took another look at his case and gave undeniable proof that it was in fact a murder and pointed accurately to the murderer.
That was a giant slap to his face and everybody just thought he had an off day, even his daughter told him it was okay to get one case wrong.
However, it kept happening.
Kudou Shinichi kept taking a look at his cases and proving him wrong at every turn, his reputation went down and people began to think his age had finally caught up with him no matter how many times he said he was healthy and sharp.
However, eventually even his daughter Ran Mouri, gradually started doing less ego boosting and more going out with her boyfriend Shinichi.
There relationship progressed rapidly along with his decline from the lime light.
Before he knew it, his daughter was married to the guy who was putting him out of business and she was barely coming over any more.
He was getting so little work that the bank was using his bank account to supplement his failing business.
To think at this age, he would never fantastically retire like he thought he would but if he wanted to keep his doors open, thousands from his bank would be taken out.
"DAMN IT! HOW DID IT BECOME LIKE THIS!" he yelled.
What was he missing?
Why were his cases suddenly all wrong?
He was hearing people, they thought he had turned into a mourn.
Where did that spark go?
What happened!?
He was alone and everybody around him was successful but him.
As he put his head in his heads, his eyes wondered to his computer on the same desk.
Without his mind registering it, he slide over to it and turned it on, for the first time in years, he found himself truly looking into the cases that gained his clients and fame.
With nothing to do and desperate, his mind was working over time.
He began to truly look at his amnesia in those cases.
Why did he have amnesia?
All he remembered was suddenly feeling sleepily and than he woke up to find that he had suddenly solved the case and was made to pose for cameras.
There was hardly any time to truly breath and think about his wave of sleepiness.
And ever since Conan left, he hadn't been feeling that kind of sleepiness.
A part of him relied on that sleepiness because that was when he was at his very best.
Kogoro didn't know what he expected to find but he decided to type in one of his cases when he was at his peak.
He decided to search for the case where a photographer who had a flare for burning people and taking pictures had been caught on live tv by him.
There was plenty of his genius on video.
However, when he played it back, something stuck out to him, that only he would notice or if you were extremely close to see.
His lips weren't moving.
He had been looking at his face for decades to know even when he sleep talked, his lips would at least twitch.
But than it got stranger.
Why would he call on Doctor Agasa when he barely knew the man?
Seriously, he didn't think he had ever exchanged a full on conversation with that old quack.
And why would he ask Conan of all people for the photo of a crime scene and to clean it up?
He was pretty sure he never asked the brat to do that.
He continued looking into his past cases and he found that more and more red flags kept coming up whenever he stumbled onto video footage.
What he noticed the most was Conan.
He may have a stupid nature but he wasn't complete oblivious.
Sometimes Conan would come up from behind him and help out.
For some reason.
The more he looked, the most an idea he didn't like began to form.
It began to form because he realised that whenever he felt extreme sleepiness, he was either alone with Conan or Conan was in the room.
It was the unmistakable truth that he somehow managed to ignore for years.
And as soon as the brat left, the feeling went with him.
Calm down, Kogoro. He thought, there was no way that path was correct right?
Right?
He had solved cases without feeling sleepy at all, which made him breath a sigh of relief, only for him to be taken back when it suddenly hit him like a trunk.
What did all his none sleepy cases have in common?
Conan would open his mouth and say something that would lead him to a big revelation.
Lead?
"Wait, a minute..." he said, he remembered all those times the kid acted stupid but in reality he had said a very smart thing.
In that magician case, he wasn't the one who solved that code, it had been Conan.
His daughter had been acting weird in that case but thinking back now, she most likely know Conan wasn't who he appeared to be and was very persistent in having him there.
And than there was the case where the kid was out of commission and instead Shinishi Kudo showed up, he had been called a mourn by a random high schooler who was later proven wrong and had become a mere spectator in his own case.
After that when that high school showed up, he was either shown up or he was asleep.
And not only that.
Did Ran own friend solve a few cases just like he did?
Cases he wasn't present for.
There was also the case where his old master showed up and fell asleep and solved the case.
All of them had Conan involved.
And a mentally shattering revelation was knocking on the door to his brain.
But it couldn't be.
However it was.
The truth that he was too stubborn and ego bloated to see had been staring at him this whole time.
It was no coincidence that as soon Conan arrived he suddenly became a big shot detective.
"I didn't solve any of these cases. That kid did" he said, his voice breaking.
As soon as Conan left he was reduced to a nobody again.
That kid, Conan had most likely had been laughing at him this whole entire time knowing the truth.
He didn't know how the kid was making him sleep but unconscious, he was the perfect puppet.
Adults don't listen to kids, Adults listen to Adults and Conan knew that all too well.
He was nothing more than a mere puppet, none of that success was his own, some people would have told him he should be grateful that Conan had turned the worst detective into the best detective for a short time.
Instead he felt rage and sadness like he never felt before.
Being a detective was all he had.
And now a good portion of it was spent being a puppet to a child.
How could he feel grateful for this?
He opened a fresh beer and chugged it down.
Depression settled into him as he was faced with the brutal reality that he was a joke of a detective, who was only useful as a puppet.
He stopped showering, he hardly slept, he hardly ate.
His daughter wasn't here to inflate his ego back up again, he had to face this depression on his own.
Would it swallow him and make him give up being a detective?
The sleeping sloth had to step in.
One day, he woke up to the sound of a woman humming and somebody caressing his cheek.
He opened his eyes slowly only for them to snap wide open when he got a good view of the biggest chest he had ever seen.
"Holy, cow. Wow!" he said.
He looked up to see an even prettier face in a bunny costume.
He had woke up to every man's dream.
"Who are you, my goodness?" he said, how could somebody come in here with that suit on in broad daylight?
Well, not that he was complaining.
However she said. "Kogoro, you know me. I'm the Sleeping Sleuth"
And than her face transformed into his face and he screamed.
But than her face changed back.
He was on his feet, him with big boobs in a bunny suit was the stuff of nightmares.
"Come on. Why else would a woman as attractive as me be here?" she said. "I'm the part of your brain that Conan unknowingly created. You were forced to sleep so much, that it started something in your mind. To protect your mind from the excess amount of the drug another personality within you was created, so every time Conan did a dedication I was there to absorbed it. If you want proof of another you, go to the drawer on the left"
He blinked before doing so because it couldn't hurt, however when he opened it, he found lots of big books he had never seen before.
She was suddenly behind him.
"A few months back I started coming out while you slept." she said. "I've been going out and experiencing the world. Sometimes our daughter or the brat would wake up as I want out but your addiction saves you every time. It never even crossed their mind that you were doing something else. I hid those books I gained in that draw because I know you wouldI'mever look into it. After all you were a naturally messy person."
He stared.
"Still need proof? Go to the nearest library" she said, now floating along. "The librarian Grachen knows us pretty well. We often get into physiological debates. Your even seen on the camera between the hours of 3 and 5. Kogoro, we stopped needing Conan a long time ago"
He stared before he said. "Im going insane. You're not real. I'm being Haunted"
"Not really," she said, as she came out of his bookcase. "Honestly, we were never supposed to meet. However, when you realised the truth of your cases, it brought down the barrier between us. You want to be a good detective, and inside you, is the voice of a good detective"
She transformed into Conan.
"And that voice has become your voice," said mental Conan who transformed into a clone of him.
"Kogoro Moore." Said the clone. "Are you ready to finally listen to yourself and become the true Sleeping Sleuth?"
And scene!
I've been promising my P.A.T.R.E.O.N users this one for a while now and I finally know which direction to take it.