Chapter 3: Elementary School is Easy for a High-Schooler
It took the Kudo family the remaining weekend to prepare the documents necessary for creating the fake Edogawa family. But soon, a new identity for the detective was ready. Conan Edogawa was now accompanied by his mom, Fumiyo Edogawa, as they made their way to school together. His dad had already left for work at his supposed new office.
They arrived at Teitan Elementary School. His mother was holding his hand as they stood in front of the school gate.
"Now, remember to listen to your teacher and make lots of new friends. It can feel scary at first, and if you feel like crying, remember mommy and daddy love you and want the best for you! Take care!" She proclaimed, genuinely hoping her son could make some young friends!
"Yeah, yeah. Sure! Maybe they'll teach me how to add and subtract as well! I can't wait." Conan spouted, clearly annoyed.
"What was that?" She asked. The furrowed brow on her face conveying her disapproval at his behavior.
"I mean, Yes!" he cheerfully admitted with a fake smile. Though inside he was still scowling.
Before he could evade her, she planted a kiss on his cheek, catching him off guard. With a teasing grin, she bid him farewell and turned to head back to their home, knowing he could handle the rest. Irritated, he quickly rubbed his cheek to erase any marks she may have left. Once he confirmed she was gone, he released an exasperated sigh.
"Am I really going to do this?" he muttered to himself.
He had already come this far, so with nothing better to do than to accept his fate, he started walking towards his new classroom.
Sounds of children playing filled the air with joy. He could hear the laughter as he strolled through the schoolyard. Kids in elementary schools didn't really have a lot of worries, he mused; like exams...or life in general. He entered his classroom feeling slightly uncomfortable being in the presence of his new peers. They were all little kids and he, a teenager. He quickly chose an empty desk and settled down, using his observational skills to figure out how to blend in amongst them.
"A transfer student?"
"Hey, hey, what's your name?"
"Where did you come from?"
His classmates surrounded Conan all at once, not giving him a chance to respond.
"Now now, everyone. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but let's give him a moment to adjust to our class," their teacher, Miss Kobayashi, said to the children.
"Yes!" They all quieted down after that.
Conan glanced at the teacher. She seemed a bit meek initially, but since she was able to manage a classroom full of rowdy kids, he deemed her capable enough.
"Would you like to introduce yourself?" She extended an invitation for him to speak.
Sure…
...
I am Kudo Shinichi, the greatest high school detective to ever exist. I was visiting an amusement park after a case with some of my classmates where I witnessed a man in black in the middle of a suspicious transaction. Caught up in watching the deal, I failed to notice his accomplice approaching me from behind. That man hit me on the head and force-fed me a strange pill. When I woke up…My body had shrunk! If those people were to find out that Kudo Shinichi is still alive, my life and the lives of those around me would be in danger. At my neighbor, Prof. Agasa's suggestion, I decided to conceal my identity and came up with the name Edogawa Conan. Although I've become smaller, my mind remains the same! The unbeaten great detective. There is always only one truth!
...
…As if I could say all that. He sighed inwardly.
"Edogawa Conan! My dream is to become a detective when I grow up!" He replied cheerfully.
"Conan? What a funny name!" The kids laughed at him. "Well, sorry about my naming sense," he thought, getting annoyed at the children.
Their teacher signaled for the class to quiet down before turning towards Conan—eager to welcome him to the class, "Oh! We've got another child aiming to be a detective! Then you'll get along well with these three", she said, motioning towards the three kids who were now staring at him. "They solve a bunch of cases like finding lost pets and items, and helping us teachers with some odd jobs."
"Well, my repertoire is a little bigger than that. I usually handle complicated murderers." He thought, knowing he shouldn't say this out loud.
He had to admit though, she was good. Introducing like-minded friends to the new student that shared similar interests was key to being a good educator. But he wasn't at school to make friends, really. So he initially had no intention to pay any mind to them.
Finally, the school bell rang. It was time to start the class.
Conan really wanted to focus but they were, in fact, learning about basic additions. Quite confident that he could handle the lecture material without paying any attention, he got bored rather quickly.
"What did I ever do to deserve this?" Feeling sorry for himself he just laid his head down on the table. "I swear I'm going to find out who you are, Sherry, wherever you may be hiding!"
"I know it's your first day here, and you might be feeling a bit nervous, but I can't have you resting in my class, Conan-kun!" Kobayashi-sensei scolded him.
"Sorry!" he apologized, straightening himself.
"My life sucks."
Despite not paying attention in class, he was able to answer every question his teacher asked him as punishment. Assuming that he might have learnt the material in his previous school, she decided to let him off the hook.
Soon, it was lunchtime. One of the three kids their teacher had introduced earlier invited him to be a part of their group.
"Hello, Conan-kun! We're the Detective boys' club!"
"Would you like to join and help us in our investigations?" The girl called Ayumi Yoshida asked with a friendly smile.
"The detective boys' club has a girl as their leader?" He thought to himself. But before he could even respond, he heard the two other members raise their disagreements.
"There's no need to invite him, Ayumi-chan! We don't even know if he's any good," said the kid with freckles.
"Yeah! We make a good team with just the three of us" the other one chimed in.
He surmised that they didn't want any additional competition in their pursuit of the young girl's affections. Kids these days, really…
"Come now! Genta-kun, Mitsuhiko-kun. We just got 2 cases this morning. If he can help us solve one of them, he'll be a good addition to the team."
"Uh, aren't you going to wait to hear if I even want to join?" Conan muttered. But realizing he had no choice, he begrudgingly accepted. "Well, we all have to start from somewhere," he thought.
"Sure, what's the case?" He asked, donning a fake smile.
...
It only took him a minute to figure out where their classmate had lost her ribbon and a few more seconds to find the other kid's soccer ball. Since they had physical-ed that day, both items were in the playground. The ball had been mistakenly handed in as school property and was placed inside the rack with the rest of the balls. The ribbon was on top of the outdoor sinks. The girl probably didn't want it to get wet when she washed her face, he deduced.
The 2 boys of the club had to accept him as a member and their supposed club leader was amazed at the speed at which he'd solved those cases.
Well, the mysteries elementary kids faced were relatively simple and straightforward, he figured.
They returned the items to their clients, once school was over. Conan had just started walking back to his home when he heard a familiar voice call out to him. Again.
"Hey, Conan-kun, where do you live? Let's walk home together." Ayumi suggested, her face beaming with a smile.
Home...he wondered.
While his parents had put in Prof. Agasa's place as his address to enroll him in school, he wasn't sure how long this would entail. Obviously, he had his own house, but it belonged to the Kudo family. He couldn't exactly bring the kids there either.
"Sorry! We just moved recently so my parents told me not to bring anyone home. We're still in the middle of unpacking." He quickly came up with an excuse.
...
"I'll let you know once we're done tomorrow. Bye!" Saying that Conan quickly ran off before the other 3 could interject.
"What's his problem? Why did he run off like that?" Genta asked the other 2.
"Maybe he had an upset stomach and needed to find a toilet?" Mitsuhiko guessed, while Ayumi simply sighed watching his retreating figure.
"Ahh! He's so mysterious and cool!"
"Eh?!" The two boys gasped.
Back at the professor's house, his parents were waiting for him there. Their bags, packed for their trip back to America.
"How was school Shin-chan? Did you make any friends?" his mother asked eagerly.
"What do you even want me to say?" he replied wearily, tired from the long day.
"Alright then, our flight's in 3 hours, so we'll be leaving now. Don't bother Agasa-san too much, okay?" His father said, giving Conan a reassuring pat on his back. They had to return to the States for their work.
"Take care! And call us once a week!" His mom added, giving him a hug.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll be more careful from now on." he replied, his cheeks flushed with a faint hue of red.
Even though he didn't show it, Shinichi appreciated the fact that they had dropped everything to check up on him as soon as they could. Despite being adorned by the populace as a brilliant detective, he was still a 17 year-old teenager who had come dangerously close to death. Knowing that his parents still trusted him to take care of things was a boost to his slightly shaken confidence.
After bidding their goodbyes, his parents headed for their flight. Conan reassured them that he would inform them of any important developments. While he didn't want them to worry, knowing that his parents were looking out for him gave him a sense of reassurance as well.
"Well, looks like it's going to be just you and me again, Professor." he glanced at the other parental figure in his life, as the professor fondly looked back too.
And so, Conan started his career again from scratch. He attended elementary school. And slowly learnt to act inconspicuously, like any other child.
The Detective boys' club also made a name for themselves by swiftly tracking down many lost items, mostly with Conan's help.
He made sure that the other kids wouldn't get involved in the more dangerous crimes, reserving that responsibility for Prof. Agasa alone. But since it was getting harder to let the professor memorize or read his deductions off of a piece of paper, they had to come up with new ways that would help him solve cases.
For that reason, the professor invented a wide array of gadgets that would help Conan in his crime-solving endeavors. Like the voice-changing bowtie, or the badge that worked as a communication device, etc.
Also during this time, Conan encountered many familiar faces, like Inspector Megure, the person he had worked with the most in his previous form. Along with the detectives, Takagi and Sato who used to seek him for his insights previously. The news of Kudo Shinichi's disappearance had certainly made its way to his former allies who had promised the nation they would try to uncover whatever happened to him. He didn't want to reveal the truth to them, since he was unsure of the extent of power his current opponents had under the police department.
After a few days, his rival, Hattori Heiji, unexpectedly showed up at his real house, looking for the missing detective. While Conan didn't want to let him know that he had turned into a child, Hattori managed to figure it out, thanks to his own deductive skills. He promised to keep this a secret from the world. Also, thanks to the detective from the west, he stumbled upon a method that offered a temporary return to his original body. Hattori had brought a wine called Paikaru as a gift and playfully convinced the young detective to give it a try, claiming it might cure his cold. Though the wine failed to touch his cold symptoms, it unexpectedly triggered the transformation back to his true form, if only for a fleeting moment.
Another individual who discovered his secret was Kaito Kid, an enigmatic thief with a knack for stealing jewelry right under the noses of the police forces along with an exceptional disguising ability rivaling, no, surpassing his mother's. Unexpectedly, they both unraveled each other's true identities and reached a compromise to keep each other's secret hidden from the world.
Gradually, Conan started getting used to being in this form. He had still planned on taking that group down, but since he had yet to find any trace of them, he was slowly taking his time, coming up with strategies on how he'd find them or what he could do when he encountered them.
Little did he know, he'd soon be facing multiple members of that dreaded organization head-on.
A/N:
Finally, the setup of Conan arc is over, so this was a shorter chapter. The next 2 chapters will introduce our lovable scientist...or at least her details from Episode 129 / Special episode 1.
Moving forward, a few things I'd like to say/ask: I am not planning on adding any Original Characters relevant to the BO plot, since that can change the scope of any story drastically. But like Chapter 1 (Heisei Holmes Shrinks) there are arcs where I feel like I haven't made enough changes.
So...my question is, would you rather I come up with something original (there will be plenty of that...I promise this won't just be a copy of my favorite CoAi moments!) or should I keep the main BO arcs same as the original?
Feel free to let me know what you think!