As the stream of time began to clear and a familiar village came into view, all four of the Time Whale's passengers felt an amazing sense of relief as they noticed that it had been restored to its former glory. It was a warm and happy light on the horizon of the ocean. They all pretended that the rotting derelict version of Santa's workshop was just a dream as they gazed upon the Christmas trees towering over the buildings covered in shimmering tinsel.

Ran wiped a tear away. "It's more beautiful than I could have imagined."

"We can only stay here for a little while," said the Time Whale. "Afterwards, Shinichi still has a case to solve." He lowered his tail and the four of them got off and landed in the magic snow.

Everyone looked at Conan.

"What?" he said.

"Try turning back, stupid," said Ai.

Conan said his name once again three times. Nothing still happened.

"Frick," he said. "What got screwed up this time?"

"Well, let's ask the jolly old man ourselves," said Agasa.

They all walked at a leisurely pace back to the workshop town. No one complained about anything because the Christmas magic surrounding the village had given them a positive feeling. They didn't feel hungry or cold or wet, just left to their thoughts.

"I can't believe this," said Conan. "I can't believe that we go all this way to fix the timeline and I have to be stuck as Conan again."

"Don't lose hope just yet," said Agasa.

"But what if Santa's still got some sort of problem? What if I have to stay like this for another whole vague number of months?"

"It wouldn't be that bad any more," said Ran. "After all, now everybody kind of knows and the Organization has given up for good."

"But," said Ai, "Gin turned evil again."

"Oh, right," said Ran. "And if Gin's evil, then so is the rest of the Organization...and they know that Shinichi's not dead and that he was six..."

"In other words, while we're gallivanting around up here in the North Pole, there are probably several people back in Tokyo who are in imminent danger," said Ai.

"Otou-san..." said Ran.

"We still have the Time Whale, however. If he gives us permission, we can fix history and take back their lives."

"But is that fixing history or breaking it?" said Conan.

"You don't have room to talk, Kudo-kun," said Ai. "Considering that we may have to fix things that happened in terms of 'hours ago' instead of hundreds of years in the past, it won't be that big of an issue."

"Good to know," said Ran, "but we'll still have inadvertently caused the deaths of our family and friends."

"What?" said a passing elf.

"Oh, nothing," said Ran. "Where's Santa-sama?"

"You mean Santa," said the elf. "He's in the lobby like he always is."

"Thanks," said Ran.

As they walked away, the elf turned to Conan and glared. "I heard that."

Everyone looked at Conan.

"What did you think?" said Ai.

"Nothing, nothing," said Conan.

"Sure," said Ai. "You need to get better manners."

"Am I missing something here?" said Ran.

"Yeah, elves and Santa are telepathic," said Conan. "It's unfortunate."

"Only for rude people like you," said Ai.

They stepped into the foyer of the main workshop building. As he always did, Santa showed up and slid down the banister, laughing like it had been any other day.

"Santa, is the timeline normal and everything?" said Conan.

"Indeed it is now," said Santa. "It's unfortunate that you ran into my past self and caused a bit of an accident."

"Sorry about that," said Conan. He was trying to be polite about indirectly killing Santa.

"Don't worry about you indirectly killing me. It couldn't have been helped, you didn't know what was going on."

"Thanks, Santa."

"Now, about your Christmas present..."

"It stopped working."

"I'll fix that right away," said Santa. He snapped his fingers which were within a large oven mitt (he had been interrupted while baking cookies) and with a supernova of Christmassy star death and the faintest hue of holly green fading into everyone's vision, Shinichi was back.

"Oh, thank goodness," said Shinichi. "I was getting afraid that somehow you wouldn't be able to fix it for a second time."

"Same rules apply as before," said Santa. "And I can hear your thoughts, Ai. Yes, I will turn Gin and the rest of the Organization good aga-"

A blast of sparkles appeared out of nowhere and hit Santa in the back.

"That's for making me sick," said Gin.

"What did you do to him!?" said Ran.

"Let's just say that 'magic sparkle dust' makes for an excellent tool when placed in the wrong hands."

Gin aimed the makeshift sparkle gun at Shinichi and shot him as well. Suddenly there was a blast of darkness like a Christmas tree in a power outage and the feeling that you had just treaded on a broken ornament. Then Shinichi was Conan again.

"What the frick did you do that for," said Conan.

"I think the gun reverses any magic effects," said Ai. "We need to leave."

"Hold on," said Santa. He barely could speak. "There's a way to stop him."

"Gin walked up and stepped on Santa's back, aiming the gun right at Santa's heart (the processing station for his magic). "And what would that be, old man?"

"Frosty...Frosty the Snowman."

"Where can we find him?" said Conan, who was genuinely worried.

Gin shot Santa in his magic-motherboard.

"What the heck, man," said Conan. "Have some Christmas spirit."

"Christmas ended three days ago," said Gin.

"He has a point," said Ai.

"No he doesn't," said Ran. "In Mexico, Christmas goes until January 6th."

"This isn't fricking Mexico," said Gin. "Now, if you don't mind, I'll be leaving all of you to rot in this desolate wasteland while I go home and do some proper illegal activities."

"He got away," said Agasa.

"Just when we were about to fix at least half of the problem," said Conan. "This sucks. Do we have to time travel again?"

"No, we need to find Frosty," said Ran. "He's that snowman that comes alive when you put the hat on his head, right?"

"Yes," said Agasa. "So we need the hat, and decent snowman-building skills."

"Any magical item of clothing will do," said a nearby elf. "But most of the stuff here runs on Santa's magic, and since that's out of the question, you're stuck looking for Frosty's original hat."

"Is it here?" asked Conan.

"Actually, it's likely that Frosty's using it right now. It's after Christmas Day and he's probably frolicking with the children down south as promised."

"How are we going to get there?" asked Agasa.

"I'm pretty sure the Time Whale can cover spacial distance as well as time," said Ran. "Where exactly is 'down south'?"

"America," said the elf. "I don't know whether he'll like his magical activities being interrupted, though. If you tell him Santa's in trouble, he'll probably take on some concern, so be sure to mention that right away."

"Okay, but America is still pretty vague," said Conan. "Like where in America? Texas? California? The huge void that people pretend exists called Wyoming?"

"Look, Christmas magic makes things pretty vague but you'll find it sure enough if you put one foot in front of the other," said the elf. "That's a philosophy that most of us have adopted, and strangely it works in a lot of circumstances."

"I can't argue with that," said Ai.

Gin sat in his black helicopter, having just taken off after loading several sacks of magic sparkle dust into the back seats. He turned on his phone and dialed Vodka's number.

"Aniki?" said Vodka.

"How are things going down there?" asked Gin.

"Well, we just loaded another five hundred trucks full of misfit toys to go to the needy, and-"

"No, we're done with that. I've had enough of this goody behavior. Get rid of those trucks, throw them in the sea, I don't care. We need to get back on track. I think I've found the proper ingredient to make APTX-4869 complete."

"You have?"

"I most definitely have."

He hung up. There was nothing else to discuss.

"Okay, we need to go to America and find Frosty," said Conan. "Can you do that?"

"Where exactly in America?" asked the Time Whale.

"We don't know, the elves told us just to do some musical number involving an awkward walking dance."

"Oh, I see. I know how to get there."

"Really? How?" said Ran.

"Most locations in the North Pole can be walked to on foot because they use cheesy cel animation transitions or just fade-ins in between. We're just going to sail off in some direction and after a matter of seconds and a 1960's level screen wipe, we'll be in this vague American village."

"Is that really how it works?" said Agasa.

"Travel has never been simpler."

They all got on the Time Whale and waited ever so patiently for the camera to pan away. They stared at the camera that watched them above the mountains, its gigantic lens staring back at them, reflecting the whole North-Pole-o-sphere.

"Is it working?" said Ran.

"If it was working, we'd be in the vague American village by now," said Ai.

"We should act like we're going on a journey that we think will take several days," said the Time Whale.

They all attempted this and the camera finally complied. After a snowflake-filled cel transition, they swam into the tiny pond of a vague northern American town covered in post-Christmas snow.

"I'm claustrophobic," said the Time Whale. "Please hurry up with this."

"Sure," said Ran, who glared at Conan, who was about to ask the Time Whale if he was afraid of Santa Claus. "We'll find him as soon as possible."

They saw in the distance a group of children dancing in unison around a snowman in a black top hat as if they were performing some sort of arcane ritual. The movements felt... flat. It was like they had lost their depth in return for an eternal blessing from the snow clouds above. Their faces were simple, a single shade that light could not play around. They were covered in garish winter garbs, similarly unaffected by the sun's rays.

Conan wondered how these people lived on such a low budget sort of basis. Their eyes didn't shine with at least three highlights; they were as dark as the inside of Santa's boots. Their character models were extremely simple, they seemed to have little consistency in their movements. How did they live like this? It was as if all artistic meaning had been washed away in return for some desperate animators to make a wadful of money very quickly.

"That's him, definitely," said Agasa. "Let's catch us a snowman."

The four huddled together like they were about to play a serious game of basketball against the Lakers. Their biggest threat, their own personal Shaq towering over them, was that Frosty was being worshipped by a cult of grade schoolers who would probably not let him go easily.

"I vote that Shinichi and Ai go in and pretend that they're in with this crowd," said Ran.

"I concur," said Agasa.

"You guys are horrible," said Conan.

Ai just shrugged. They broke from the huddle and walked over to the dancing kids.

"Hi, can we play with Frosty?" said Conan in English.

"Okay," said the girl who was probably in charge. They opened the circle of wildly dancing elementary schoolers. Conan went up to Frosty.

"Santa needs your help," said Conan.

"Sure he does, like every other time he needs me," said Frosty. "He doesn't appreciate what I do. I make these kids happy every year just like what he does with the presents, and what does he do? Tell me to stop making their days and go back to the cold desolate Pole where nothing makes sense at all. I tell you, this society is a place for a snowman with rights like me."

"Santa's lost his magic in an accident and if we don't act soon we won't be able to recover him," said Ai. "Since it's worn off, his immortality is starting to wane. He's going to age. He's going to get whatever was coming to him from eating a diet consisting entirely of cookies and milk. And you're the only one with a separate, powerful source of magic that can help restore the magical balance to the world."

"And if I don't?"

"The guilt is on you for making even more millions of children suffer for your own petty needs."

"I don't need the other children," said Frosty. "Even without a magical Christmas I'll still be there for the kids. I'm all they need. I'm the only thing that matters in their lives. In summer when they sit boredly in the hot sun, they think about me and my love for the cold. They miss me. And you can't take their happiness away just because an old timer might finally be meeting the death that should have come to pass a long, long while ago."

"You really don't have Christmas spirit, do you," said Conan.

"I don't need it, I'm there when Christmas isn't," said Frosty.

The other kids had stopped their rhythmic tap dance and were staring at the snowman.

"You should help Santa," said one. "If Santa dies, no one gets presents."

"Yeah," said another.

"See, now you have to do it," said Conan. "Now it's obligatory that you not disappoint your audience."

"Fricking dang it," said Frosty. "Here, take my hat and make a snowman of me at the North Pole. I'll do what I can." He took off the hat and instantly he was a regular snowman again, looking slightly lopsided.

"I'd like to stay and teach you better snowman-making skills, but we've got places to be," said Conan. He gave Agasa and Ran a thumbs-up and they returned to the Time Whale.

"I'm glad you followed through with your promise," said the Time Whale.

"We don't have time to waste," said Ai. Because she said this, the camera watching omnipresently above accepted this form of saying they were in a hurry, and the film did a screenwipe. They had returned to the sea right outside the village.

"I like snowflake transitions better," said Ai. "Less whiplash."

They noticed that there was a second Time Whale anchored next to them.

"Oh no, not this again," said the Time Whale. "The New Year screwed up. They didn't get rid of our time clones."

"I'll say," said the Past Time Whale.

"That means we're going to find Past Me and Past Ran in the village?" said Conan.

"Right," said Past Time Whale. "By the way, what's up with that hat?"

"We're using it to re-assemble Frosty," said Ran.

The four of them worked together to assemble Frosty as they watched the village began to deteriorate again, having been separated from Santa's magic source once more. Ran placed the top hat with a stupid looking flower on Frosty's head, and suddenly the snow moved as if it was alive.

"Happy birthday," said Frosty.

"It's no one's birthday," said Ran.

"I have to say that every time, it's scripted," said Frosty. "Give me a break. Where's Santa?"

"The elves probably took him to an infirmary," said Ai. "We'll have to ask around. Let's go."

They walked through the town square, thankfully unpaved, which allowed Frosty to not lose any snow. Things were starting to look droll again, quicker this time, as if the last time anomaly had weakened the magic's ability to stand up on its own.

"This is a bad case," said Frosty.

They happened upon an elf.

"You got any idea where Santa's being kept?" said Conan.

The elf looked blankly at the four, hissed at them, and ran away awkwardly.

"That's not a good sign," said Ran.

"I figure that without Santa's magic, they've become sub-elf," said Ai. "Almost like the vicious fairy folk people used to write about. Ghastly stuff."

"I hope nothing's happened to Santa's body."

They turned another corner through an alleyway that vaguely smelled like rotten gingerbread, and saw an unfortunate sight, which was Past Ran and Past Conan trying to defend themselves from a horde of sub-elves.

"I'm going to go help them," said Ran. She approached and then karate kicked several of the elves away. Past Ran looked at Present Ran with some shock.

Once the sub-elves were cleared away, scampering into dark corners with imaginary tails between their legs, they finally had a chance to talk.

"How did you guys get here?" said Conan.

"We came back to Santa's village to check on it," said Past Conan. "Why are you guys here?"

"We came back to Santa's village with Frosty so we could save the world, and Christmas," said Ran.

"Shoot," said Past Ran. "We aren't getting in your way, are we?"

"Not at all," said Conan. "It's nice to have more of us, especially more of me."

Past Conan nodded in agreement. Everyone else glared at Conan.

They entered the main hall. Santa was still laying there, looking much older.

"What can you do to help?" asked Ran.

"It's a simple matter," said Frosty. He took the garish purple flower from his top hat and placed it on Santa.

"What's that going to do, make him smell nice as he decomposes?" asked Past Conan.

"Give it a moment," said Frosty.

They watched as Santa was enshrouded in a bizarrely low-quality light. As it faded, the flower disappeared. Santa awoke, stood up, and shook off the dust.

"Thanks, Frosty," said Santa. "And all of you. Christmas has been saved."

"You're welcome," said Ran.

"Can I go home now?" asked Frosty.

"Sure you can, and allow me to fix a couple other things," said Santa. He snapped his fingers which were pretty numb because of how cold the floor was, and with multiple long descriptions of what sensory feelings you could get from watching Christmas magic do its work, Conan was Shinichi, Frosty and his hat were gone, Past Conan, Past Time Whale, and Past Ran disappeared, and miles away, Gin briefly lost control of his helicopter having had an epiphany that being evil was just not worth it in the long run.

"That takes care of everything in that regard," said Santa. "But if I recall correctly, you still have to solve the case of the Heat Miser's death."

"I kind of figured it out on the way here," said Shinichi.

"Did you really?"

"It was a suicide."