"A-Ai-chan!" she stuttered as she recognised who'd stopped her from getting a cold, wet death. However, this wasn't really Ai-chan – she was older, and had a distant look in her eye, as if she didn't want to look at herself. This was Shiho…but Ran didn't know that. "What are you-" she then spotted the silver wings – which almost looked like they would belong on a butterfly newly out of a chrysalis – that protruded from her back.

"I think it's time you knew the truth. Everything and nothing but the truth, neechan." Ran was confused as to why Ai had started calling her this, but nonetheless decided to listen to what she had to say…once they got back on land.

/

It turned out that Shiho had actually been aware of the force tugging at her mind and used it to blackmail Ladrafiefr at an earlier date. In exchange for her not telling the world about the metal – which still had no name – she would become an agent for converting humans, just to make Ladrafiefr's job easier. However, she'd noted that the alien liked lying every now and then so Shinichi – or anyone else who'd heard from him – may not have gotten the right story. Even she couldn't trust her own story due to that, but she was…pretty sure…that alien wasn't lying when she'd made that deal with him.

Also when she'd made the deal, she had also submitted to having a partial transformation which would probably consume her more slowly than Shinichi's would. In the end, there was nothing better than to get away from the Black Organisation – she'd been that desperate – so she went ahead with it. But she knew that someday, she'd get consumed by the metal just like everyone else.

/

Ran had way too much to take in so she ended up running off after Shiho finished talking. As she did, a tear trickled down her face, and then a stream plummeted down. "I didn't know what was happening...all this time…" she sobbed.

/

Meanwhile, Shiho itched her left arm. By using APTX, she'd exposed herself to the transformation once again.

After the end-of-day preparations, she slid into bed, knowing that Ran would be returning to the detective agency once she finished facing facts, and tried sleeping off her time as her older self. When she was asleep, a forked tongue poked out of her mouth, and scales, now exposed to the moonlight after her itching, shimmered like the stars in the sky.

Agasa, peering in on her, couldn't help but think about how odd she looked.

Ai called Ran 'neechan' because she'd suddenly been reminded of Akemi.

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