…

Kogoro was thankful to have caught the seatbelt before the car skidded out of the parking lot of the police headquarters at an impossible speed. He impromptu wrapped it around his arm, having no time to actually fasten it, entrusting the unorthodox way of use with preventing him from plummeting into the windshield whenever a sharp turn got in the way. While clutching on his failsafe like a child to a candy, his eyes wandered to his volunteer chauffeur in a position akin to a fighting stance in her effort to keep the vehicle and the extreme circumstances under control. He doubted that what was happening counted as such though.

He looked forwards to see a roundabout ahead. His life flashed before his eyes upon realising that the driver had no intention to slow down. He considered himself a person favoured up high but he knew better than taunting fate. He closed his eyes as the driver kept on focusing on the road and took the dreaded turn. He felt the car shifting off the usual balance and the side he was on lifting into the air by a few inches. His thoughts froze as hanging from the seatbelt, he was swinging to one side to another in what undermined the craziest of roller coaster rides. He never liked those for starters and this experience was not about to improve that opinion.

He cautiously peeled his eyes open once the tires found contact with the road again. He was too busy breathing to recognise the occasional flashes of lights in between they were slaloming as normal cars with normal people in them. He finally found his voice.

"I—I should have known there was a catch."

Sato deadpanned at him.

"You asked me to take you to the scene as fast as possible."

"And preferably alive!"

His comment was ignored as they drove up to a longer road leading towards another chunk of concrete desert. He was pleased to see that there would be no threatening obstacles in their way for the next minutes. He could relax his muscles and loosen his grip on the seatbelt to fasten it properly. He exhaled deeply as, while too fast for his liking nevertheless, but they were on track. He did not recognise the buildings ahead of them in the distance though.

"Here you go, that part is already Haido."

That was impossible. He needed over twenty minutes with his rental car.

"Fortunately, the headquarters are quite close to the sixth district. I need ten minutes to cut through the traffic in case of emergency in daytime, even less at night. However, we have to inform the police of our presence after arriving to the bank. You heard the alarms going off, that means that the patrolling officers positioned in the district have received a radio message. If we show up unexpectedly, they might mistake us for the robbers."

"I know. I used to be police too."

"Tell me, do you really think that the person you wanted to search for is involved?"

He remembered the meeting and his conversation with the professor revealing that the woman that had a search warrant was supposed to be involved in a bank robbery. However, not only he did not understand the details behind the exact course of actions taken in the background but was confused by the time of the future crime not matching up. Not once was the time traveller mistaken about that before but—he looked into the night looming over the city.

"I know nothing for sure. I just have a bad premonition."

"I act on that feeling often too."

His comfort that he had found in her understanding vanished once the road reached an intersection. He clutched on whatever his hands could find as her fingers curled around the wheel and the switch-peg in anticipation, her previous calm and thoughtfulness as if never existed. He braced himself as the car picked up even more speed, or at least he thought so upon reaching the turn, and the car was back in the role of a roller coaster.

He ripped the door open as soon as the car pulled up behind the building that, according to his best knowledge, housed the bank under the threat of robbery. He had never felt so thankful for a ground under his feet that was not about to slip from under him unlike the car. He vaguely wondered how she was driving like that and still have her license, in spite of or especially in the police. He stood up, supporting himself on the mowing and swallowed his latest near-death experience with a deep breath. He trusted her with notifying the other police on the scene, though he doubted any could make it there faster than they did, and he set his eyes on the bank.

He heard as the radio was put back to its place.

"I consulted with the local patrollers, some of them are a couple of streets away. They had us wait for them and arrange a plan to capture the robbers. I have to emphasize that we know next to nothing about the robbers—while their plan to break in during the night spared them from immediate response, it left them no hostages to use either. That plays on our hands but we are not about to assume that they are unarmed based on this modus operandi."

He walked up to the door the closest to their parking spot. He appraised the condition of the lock, it looked surprisingly rusty and worn for a bank. It was perhaps a faculty door or one leading to a storage block. He grabbed the handle nevertheless and bumped himself against the door in hope of snapping the lock without keys. He had to realise that regardless its looks, the rusty and worn lock had the decency, or stubbornness from his perspective, to keep unwanted visitors outside. He stepped back after a couple of tries, deciding that wherever the robbers had entered was not this door. Nobody would be able to convince this rust to let them through.

"You were clearly not listening. I said to wait—"

"I have to make sure if—"

"You might run into several armed men there."

He stopped at that, leaning to the railing lapping the stairs leading up to the door to reconsider his wish to resolve this incident by himself. He knew about a robbery supposed to happen in about two weeks and its connection to the person discussed in the task force and the organisation itself. He had become positive about their early involvement as more data had surfaced and as he had decided, he dived headfirst into the freefall.

And as so many times before, reality hit the brakes.

He felt the initial excitement falter as he stood there, a door away from the low water he was about to step in. He grimly recognised it as the outrun of his daydreams and planning from the comfort of his office. He was there because he thought that he was important enough to be on the top with the information and involve himself in all of the incidents, that he could act on his accords without any consulting beforehand. It had been the reason he had agreed with his role so easily, despite it containing anything one could imagine from spying on police heads to dropping in the middle of an action. His mind tended to tone down the reality lying underneath.

He was chasing an organisation to stop which someone had warped time itself.

He heard police coming from the other end of the building.

"Hitoshi Aoki, at your service. You two must be from the headquarters."

"Sato Miwako, likewise. I suggest us to enter through the front door and take care of the culprits. I aim to catch them by surprise through breaking the door on them. We have to proceed with caution though, for we have no information on their number and weaponry. I think that the six patrolling officers that reported to be able to show up in time and me are going to be enough for that task. I take you know your way around a firearm should it be needed."

He noticed that he was excluded from the plan quite straightforwardly. He was wondering whether that meant that he was allowed to do as he pleased as long as he did not hinder their work or there was another task assigned to him. He was approached once the officer she had been conversing with had an incoming phone call that averted his attention. Her words were suppressed, as if she did not want the others to hear those, as she quietly spoke them into his ear.

"You can enter through the backdoor or one of the windows before us. I assume you have the required skills to separate the person you wanted to talk to from the others. We are to proceed as agreed in a couple of minutes, when everyone is here. I must insist that regardless their identity, the person should be taken in police custody and charged according to the crime they committed or assisted with. I believe that you have a good reason."

He glanced at his newfound accomplice with surprise.

"Naturally. You have my gratitude."

"In exchange, you have to explain everything after this."

He did not have the time to reply as the other officer ended the call. His mind had forgone the words exchanged between the two police members and took notice as soon as they headed for the front of the building. He had to utilize the chance that had fallen into his lap somehow, and fast.

He tried the door once again as soon as the duo rounded the corner, which did not budge to his disappointment. His mind was about to let go of the door and search for another gap in the security when it suddenly gave in under his weight. He almost stumbled in surprise but managed to catch himself before kissing the floor. Much for the better, he thought, at least his entrance emitted much less noise than it would have if he was to climb in through the window. He had no idea how he would have pulled that, not that it was a question anyways. He was inside with a handful of minutes for a lot of work with high stakes.

After he confirmed that his intrusion had gone unnoticed on the inside, he started to tread the corridors with great care and mobility, stopping at the corners to check the next part for potential danger. He got to a premise with lights on relatively fast, which was to be expected from the size of the building. These people of malicious intent, organisation agents as his mind supplied, had few options to choose from in the small place between the walls.

He tiptoed near and squatted down, perking up his ears to catch a word.

"—you get it, he wants to kill us."

He could discern that as a male voice.

"If we do that, then he'll definitely want to kill us."

He turned his head towards the door behind his back, towards the direction the feminine voice had come from. He was thinking on how to lure the woman out of the room. He had a vague idea that the group was not that large, for there were no additional sounds in the background.

"Gimme a break! You have nothing to back up your blasphemies."

"I thought you had more backbone than trusting that person—"

A hand was slammed to a desk inside.

"This is not the time to argue. Kenzo, get the money."

He heard scruffling inside, like someone packing something in haste. His eyes widened when he realised that they planned to leave and he had no idea whether they would use the door he was squatting by. He did not know what the police was doing outside but he decided to entrust them with stopping this crime and he prioritized the woman, momentarily forgetting his cluelessness about how to establish contact with her without lethal trouble.

He waited for the moment when the two accomplices, the existence of whose he could confirm, exited the premise. He was producing what-if scenarios in his mind for the unlikely occasion that the woman in question was actually not his intended person and this was all in vain.

And the floor creaked under his uneasy feet.

He froze, both physically and mentally. His hopes that the faint sound was left unheard in the vast building vanished when he heard footsteps approaching. Fortunately, it seemed that only one of the culprits happened to catch the sign of his presence. He listened to the light footsteps of a woman and took a deep breath. For this was the chance he had been waiting for, a second worth of time separately with her. He moved from the door, not bothering to hide his obvious presence that had its result in form of the door flinging open a split second later. Not even an immediate reaction could have saved him from what came upon him.

He found himself with face to the door, his arm held backwards in an uncomfortable fashion. A grunt escaped his mouth to which the answer was a click behind his head. He turned back even though he recognised the immediate threat posed to his life from the sound only. He did not regret the unnecessary and potentially dangerous movement though, as he had gotten a view on her face. A young woman with a conflicted expression on her face and an index finger on the trigger. Her determination was as slippery as shaky her grip on her weapon was. He could not view her as a maniac that man from the island had been.

Her rational mind was befitting a criminal working for the organisation.

Her emotions were the odd one out.

"Hirota Masami, it is."

A statement, not a question.

"Indeed. I must admit, I was surprised. You would be—"

"A detective who wants to talk with you."

Her eyebrows raised at the unexpected exclamation before her lips curved into a small, sad smile. "I see nothing a detective would want to talk about other than trying to convince me to turn myself in. I have no idea where have you gotten even an inkling about me and it is not my field to interfere with. I hate to turn your invitation down but this assignment is very important to that person and without that person, her position and safety would not be guaranteed."

"Your actions are wrong and so is that person. You hope help from the wrong side."

"I know, I can see through their empty promises. I have tried to reach out and that taught me that our ears and eyes are everywhere. You have done a good job finding out about me but you should draw the line here. I might be the last one to let you go."

He unstiffened at the confirmation that he would be spared.

"I was told that we could go free if the money is delivered. I know better, I know that that person needs both us and the money. I just simply want her to forget about the miseries our family has suffered through regardless the cost. I will see the world burn for that and you will too, detective."

"I know someone who might want to help you."

"I stopped believing in miracles."

He almost felt for her hearing her detached voice.

"I investigated you on his behalf. A person whose trademark is peaking into the future."

He watched her eyes gradually widen with the realisation. He knew that revealing that detail would prove decisive in convincing her to part from the world of evildoers, which had clicked as the true intention. It looked like the prophet was an infamous phenomenon in underground circles as well, even more so considering the threat he posed to their livelihood. He hoped that she would choose a person with good intentions known to worth his salt over her organisation.

He felt triumph rise in his chest as she slowly lowered the gun.

He felt despair claim him when the door was ripped open again in the very moment.

His efforts were ruined by one of the accomplices coming back, looking in rush. He was a man of short stature and conventional appearance, gun in his hands similar to his woman partner. He caught a glimpse of a panicked and disturbed expression that shifted into frightened surprise when he noticed him. As soon as that happened, he took aim and fired a round to get rid of the witness in an automatic manner. His mind trying to keep up with the rapid events ordered his body to duck, however, he had known that he was slow when acted on that impulse. He was honestly surprised that the bullet only skimmed his forearm.

He saw blood on the floor and a gun clattering near it afterwards. His assailant was clutching on his shoulder feverishly, a stain of red tainting his suit making its way down his arm and to the floor beneath him. He had missed the second shot, making him think that he had probably been hit at the same time he had pulled the trigger himself. He heard people approaching, he realised that he dearly welcomed the sound of the police finally making their move.

"Hiro—shit. Kenzo, that bastard, left by himself and the police is here."

"He took the money, you want to say."

"He did. He left us to die."

He was turning his head between the two criminals.

"Akira, help me get shut of the police. I can take one of their cars and make a break for it together. We have to find that idiot and retrieve the money because as much as we might dislike, our life and death is one of the leverages at stake on these assignments."

He felt that the last part was told especially to him.

He snapped out of his thoughts when the accomplice picked up his gun.

"I will finish this guy, you can go ahead."

"Not important, leave him."

He watched in stunned silence as the woman and her accomplice vanished in the corridor, leaving him there with a scratch. His hand subconsciously found its way to the sore part as he welled in his conflicted ideas about the criminals he had seen. Even though he had contact with similar organisations in the beginning of his police career, he had a distinctive picture in his head about criminals and there he was, learning that one of them committed crimes to protect another. He felt silly for considering that a contradiction, as criminals were supposed to be humans too. He was not used to the overlapping area of black and white.

Her words resounded in his ears, reflecting a search for compromise and attachment to a familiar wrong at the same time. A good number of decisions from the teen flew over his head but he could state with confidence to have understood this one.

Kudo wanted to save his enemies too.

Shinichi was numbly staring at the ceiling from his bed. He decided that if he found out the secret of his ability, he would either preserve his physical condition or make sure to die. He felt useless confined to a bed even though not even the cold grasp of death could leave a lasting effect on him. He accepted that his existence was not of a normal human with relative ease despite his mind trained to operate with inflexible logic. His mind newfound entwined by abnormal memories.

And when the night fell, when the visiting hours were over and the regular staff retreated to their comfortable homes, when the buzz of the machinery and the noise of the people reduced to an unnoticeable level and the shadows grew longer and longer until they enveloped the corners and edges, when comprehension slipped and let space to the undefined irregularity underneath as he was lying in the bedsheets numbly staring at the ceiling, he tended to entertain himself with his grimmest thoughts as lights coming from the window provided solace in his insomniac nights. He kept his eyes open to hang onto the transiency he could feel in the air.

He bit back a laugh at his latest passing thought.

His mind wandered towards her, wondering how she would react to this. He was curious about her most likely stuck in a laboratory brewing poisonous cocktails of chemicals after another on order in this timeline. He recalled all the memories connected to the shrunken scientist, put them in a mental box, and locked them into the depth of his mind in order to separate them from her counterpart, a result of constant observation and correction like her poisons. He knew that without the death of her sister, she would have no motive to rebel against the wrong and that death would not happen as long as he was around.

Haibara would be his enemy.

He tossed and turned in his bed. He could not think of her as an enemy even though he was aware that she stemmed from the wrong side. He remembered their first encounter in the classroom when he had thought nothing about her until she had revealed her former codename. He had been suspicious towards her and she had been stern towards him too. He thought of her dropped pieces of intent carefully hidden under a stoic guise, the progress of leaving behind her emotionless mentality and how she had opened up to the person she had feared the most to on that beach girdled by foamy waves. He had seen her form as a person.

He knew the person she could become in the right environment, which is why he could not bring himself to dismiss her as another enemy. He did not have to, he decided. He would save her as her sister from the claws of death, even if it would take more time.

He would bring back his sassy scientist sidekick friend.

His mind found rest in that thought, as if he knew that everything was on the right track again. He had initiated the investigation after the sister in question, sending the police in frenzy that hopefully recovered her contact data. He would have a hard time finding an organisation member like the younger sibling without the personal connection he could call himself lucky to have. His paranoic mind thought of the latest incident where the control had slipped from his hands.

He would not let that repeat. He had already let down people and endangered his loved ones. He determined himself to put his efforts into clipping the wings of the butterfly and wrap the strings of control around his fingers again. His use was for that anyways.

His mind went blank as he continued to numbly stare at the ceiling.

Ran was probably sleeping.

He should be too, he thought.

He willed himself to close his eyes, to believe that his existence would not disappear in the moment he disconnected from the visual reality. He was listening to his calm breaths as a lullaby when out of blue, an uncomfortable sensation encircled his entirety.

His eyes snapped open as he shot upwards, the discomfort in the sudden motion paling in comparison to the newfound pain coursing through his body. He sucked in a breath when it loosened its hold on him on a short notice and used that to weight his options. He was positive that this was not normal, that he had never experienced anything like this before. He had dealt with passing nauseas but this, this was engrossing his whole body and crawling under his skin uncomfortably—

He stumbled when the pain reappeared once he slid his feet from under the sheets and down to the ground in a haste attempt at reaching out for help. His vision hazily picked up the sight of his clawing nails on the floor supplementing his efforts put into biting down his lips to keep the noise inside. He started to become seriously concerned about his seizure capable of frying his nerves used to an unreasonable amount of pain. He clutched onto the stand and forced his feet to support him. He locked his eyes on the door as through his protesting body and cold sweat drenching his face, he pushed himself further and towards the entrance.

He collapsed halfway. He curled on himself on the cold floor, a miserable wince escaping his tightly pressed lips as the painful sensation from before clutched on his heart. His eyes drew wide as it clawed into it, akin to what he had used to feel—back then when—he—

He was—lose—his consciousness—

…

1.02

…

She breathed again.

She did not expect to breathe again.

Her mind could not decode the information her senses were sending to it. Her eyes saw the picture of laboratory equipment laying all around her, more both in quantity and quality than she had used to have in the basement of the professor. Her ears picked up the eery noises of machines ventilating in the underground premise and illuminating the interior in dim fluorescent light. Her fingers brushed against the desks in haze, flipping through a documentation paper she had not seen in a good while—decades even. Her glance fell onto the glass cages nearby, the surface reflecting her features as the lab rats ran to the opposite side in pure terror.

Her eyes grew wide beneath her auburn locks shadowing them over, a whirlpool of memories flashing in front of them over the static background stimuli. A siren slamming against her eardrums and the characteristic scent of explosion and the panicked rush of people and the orders flying around and them running, running down the corridors without an idea where to go and the blood splattering on the wall and him holding her hand and dragging her along nevertheless and—and—and

She remembered her own death.

She laughed faintly as she supported herself on the desk.

Her surroundings brought up a myriad of unpleasant memories of her time in the organisation. Her laboratory, documentation papers and rats supplemented her arms clad in a lab coat that had used to belong to her casual outfit. Her lips pressed into a thin line when she thought about her research and its outrun, wondering if this apparent afterlife counted as a reminder of the mistakes marring her entire life. For this was her own, personal hell.

An unfitting piece of paper caught her slippery attention. As she unfolded the newspaper forgotten in the laboratory, it confirmed that there was an outside world, a world without the organisation that brought peace to her mind. Her eyes looking through the articles found a strange tendency. A person called the prophet predicting crimes to happen all over the country, not to mention his numerous interferences with a crime organisation that brought an unorthodox thrill into the mundane everydays while his identity stayed confidential. Her mouth curved into a smile at the similarities between this person and her detective friend.

A photo of the latter stared at her from the next page.

Even though his famous phase had slipped into oblivion, she could tell his photo was odd. A tilt in his posture, a glint in his eyes, a mind weighted by memories of loss and remorse that would slip behind his show averting the attention. A shudder crawled up her at the detail that photo represented the version of him she knew. Her hands placed the papers to the desk in a slow motion and folded it to confirm a ridiculous idea that she felt ashamed to even consider.

…

Until she checked the date.

Kogoro regretted to have put on a tough act and refused the hospital for the wound on his arm in the moment he found himself in for another ride. He futilely tried to keep an eye on the police car flashing from one side to another of his vision ahead them due to the crazy manner both drivers were steering the wheel. A police car chasing another police car was rather curious setup without the necessary context, according to which the ones in the car ahead belonged to the other side of the law marking their, mainly his, incompetence to have let their impromptu plan come into fruition without a hitch.

He applauded himself for making contact and living to tell the tale, however, it did little to improve the situation. He recalled the woman who had allowed him a glimpse on her life, who had decided to share the load with a person she could have and was supposed to silence without a question. He recalled that woman continue her way down with any specks of hope stifled into nothingness. He was sure that a kind person laid behind the crafted cover of a criminal.

He had that feeling time to time. He would look at a person obviously in the wrong and have the impression that they were different at the core, that they had redeemable qualities. Not even his bad experiences had been able to prevent him from ever acting on that impulse.

And this one was no exception.

So, he braced himself and stared into the speed, consenting to his current situation if that stopped her. His cheek slammed into the window once the car under him took the turn to the ramp as fast as the one in front of him did. He heard the engine roaring as they accelerated up the road. As the lights of the other car disappeared, his driver stopped abusing the accelerator and let the speed carry them for the next second until—for his eyes unable to see beyond the dark, the slope ended abruptly. Before he had the chance to freak out for feeling weightless for a moment, they were back on the road again and after their objective.

"MPD, MPD. Sato Miwako speaking. A break in happened in Haido Bank, Haido city sixth district. I, together with several other patrollers on the spot confirmed the group consisting of three people, one of which took their escape vehicle and left behind his partners. According to a witness who happened to overhear a conversation between the culprits, a dispute between the group members is highly likely. A pair of officers waiting outside the bank went after the single person leaving earlier but that enabled the other two to steal another, unsupervised patrol car and make a break for themselves. Ah—yes, unfortunately."

A short silence on the connection.

"Yes, we are currently in pursuit, heading toward the seventh district."

He found a clue sticking the pieces of information together. He hoped his idea would accurately predict the movement of the car the driver of which was likely a racer to maintain, let alone increase, the distance from the craziest driver he had ever seen behind the wheel.

"Does this seventh district have a shore?"

"I think so."

"They might plan to leave the prefecture on a ship or through the tunnel. Police officers have to notify the concerned police department and request collaboration to continue pursuit across prefectural borders. I know the drill, it helps with putting up checkpoints effectively and all, but it takes a considerable amount of time. I think they play on that timeframe to reach a prearranged location without much of a hassle and drop off the map."

"Hm, it sounds possible. Hold on—"

He watched as she entrusted one hand to keep the wheel in check.

"MPD, yes. I need you to put up cordons in the seventh district." He became slightly concerned when the straight line she had been driving in became not so straight. He gradually turned to her expressing the problem wordlessly to which she placed the radio between her shoulder and face, enabling both of her hands to keep the car under control. "Yes, they might plan to leave the prefecture, hence it would prevent complication to get them in there, over."

He let loose a small sigh of relief that did not last long.

In the last moment, when they were about to pass an unrelated exit lane, the car in front of them took a turn sharp enough to make him question the laws of nature that it did not flip. He witnessed the manoeuvre in complete awe and a tint of irritation as their reaction time did not allow to follow the suit and led them to another, apparently wrong direction. His mind flushed his previous deduction down the drain and was about to come up with another, so little attention remained for the details of the chase itself. He was convinced of its importance when the world started spinning around him as soon as he bothered to snap his head forwards.

He realised that they were taking a turn to continue the case but that did not stop the seatbelt from strangling his unprepared self. He took a breath once in straight again as much as he could while pressed to the seat in acceleration. He looked at the driver as irritated as he was.

"Correction, the suspects are heading towards the fourth district by taking the exit lane in the last second. I lost sight of them when that happened but will follow the direction they went to. I request you to redirect the cordons to the fourth district, over."

He felt a little deflated at that.

"I was mistaken then."

"No, their actions are the odd one out. Any reasonable criminal would try to leave the city as fast as possible, more so when the police found them, not going into the heart of the city where they would be most likely welcomed by police cordons. They were heading in a favourable direction for them, gaining distance on us and then, they decided on the worst possible route from their perspective. Well, it only makes our job easier but—"

"I thought they were smarter than that too."

His mental eyes could see the form of the woman who was trying to shake them off and recall her words. Her objective extended beyond simply escaping the police to finding the third accomplice. He saw no other reason that she would make an illogical decision other than receiving information on that person through some method. After all, the completement of her assignment had high stakes, assumedly high enough to take such risks.

"Here they are!"

His attention returned to reality when the lights of the other police car appeared within their horizon again. He felt both hope and an impending sense of doom rising in his chest at the train of thoughts from before. He noticed that in their blind chase, they reached into an eery part of the city. He took a second break to look at the driver before looking back at the car, not wanting to lose track of them again. His suspicion was confirmed.

"You look unfamiliar with this part too."

"Haido city fourth district, industrial area. You are right, this is neither my jurisdiction nor appeared in any of the investigations correlated to me. I have never been here and these rundown warehouses look like an evil lair despite that a number of them are in the hands of industrial companies. Haido Construction is in charge of that road expansion in the fifth district, though their work is behind schedule because of the new owner. Suzuki, Hatsume—those are big names too."

"A knack for burglary is needed to borrow them after work hours."

"They might even have a small hideout around here."

"Well, time will tell."

He watched the buildings flashing past them at a speed reflecting theirs for a moment before focusing his attention back to the car in the front. He was curious what the treacherous third member of their group had to do with their choice of route. He wanted to know if he should prepare for encountering that person too.

He was surprised at the sudden turn after the next warehouse. He felt them slipping into the maze of industrial monotony as if they were familiar with the area. That alone did not call for that much attention, however, the fact that they were heading down a slope shallow enough to melt into the surroundings as the buildings disappeared to a massive tunnel take their place did. He was looking around, bothered by the inexplainable change of environment as his driver took the slope in question without a blink of eye. He was concerned enough about themselves to pay attention to more than the obvious objective in front of them.

Soon enough, their headlights were the only source of proper illumination. He became worried as the outside world slipped away to be replaced by that weird new space. He could not discern in the darkness whether it was a tunnel according to his original thoughts or something else, something more sinister in nature intended to creep out the unfortunate individual that happened to wander close at night. He could sense an uncomfortable tension as they chased the car—

He checked the road and it was nowhere in sight.

Sato stepped on the brakes.

"What happened? Where did they disappear to?"

He followed her as she stepped out of the car with leaving the headlights on. He stood in the silence that reigned in the area, panging off the walls that looked like to attempt to suffocate them through their intimidating weight. He subconsciously pulled closer to the light as he stared into the darkness in the distance, the darkness that the car from before had disappeared to. He shuddered at the malice that darkness was conveying. He felt a thought probing at his mind, telling him that he would take a knock if he went further. He would have liked to throw his experience as a former police detective out the window because right then, he was terrified.

"How strange. A car at top speed was trying to shake us off and then bam—not even a sound in the distance." Sato looked confused too as she stepped closer to the walls around them to inspect them. "Made of metal, quite a quality work. What is this place even?"

A short silence.

"I report our location then we leave."

He looked in through the window as she was reaching for the radio.

"I take they know about every nook and cranny in this city." He swallowed his instinctual disturbance at the ambiance to acquire more information. "You can ask them about where we are currently. No matter how you look at it, this is definitely not a run off the mill street. I think it might be—well, the culprits apparently used it to vanish without a trace so it might as well as belong to them. I mean the organisation these people work for."

"Wait what—"

Her curiosity had to be put aside as the radio connected in that moment.

"Sato here. We unfortunately lost track of the suspects and are at an unknown street, more like tunnel, in the fourth district. You can reach there by one turn to the right after two minutes and another to the left soon afterwards. Neither of us know about this location and the suspects have disappeared into thin air. No, I mean like their backlight vanished in a second and we never saw them afterwards." Sato observed the walls and the ceiling above their heads melting into obscurity with anxiety. "I understand, it is a complete mystery for us too, especially as there were no sideroads to turn into as far as we can tell."

His attention was averted by a sudden, deep sound resonating from the dark hole—a quiet sound, the kind that one would miss to hear but could feel it in their bones. He cautiously looked towards the source, hand about to reach—oh, that was the role of the police officer on the radio next to him—

"What do you mean it—" Sato frowned in irritation. "I said the fourth district, you have to be mistaken. Yes, one turn to the right after about two minutes and then another to the left soon afterwards. Look at the map more carefully, a tunnel like this has to exist!"

He could not take the ominous sound anymore.

"Sato-keiji, there—a sound!"

Sato snapped out of the conversation at his words and listened to her surroundings. He could see the alarmed look that took her over as the sound resonated once more, this time with more power than before. He had a passing thought whether it was some mechanic noise empowered and distorted by the corridor who knows how long before his instincts made him rip open the door and scurry into the car. He saw that the detective was not much braver than he was. They looked at each other, in an attempt to deny that they had gone bonkers only to reach the conclusion that the sound was very real and both of them were earwitnesses to that.

A crackling sound scared them shitless in the next moment—the radio.

"Sato-keiji, we are still unable to locate the tunnel. We—"

"Okay. We will retreat for a while."

Agasa started to feel the drag merely a month into the madness that a single speck in the laws of nature had brought along. He was not annoyed or even irritated per se, this was for a liveable future after all, but the constant trouble that had become common took a lot of a person over their fifties. He was worried, worried about the kids and everyone else involved as much as he was tired from his role in an initiation that would have needed an army of agents to be run effectively.

He had been, to put it simply, not pleased when he woke up to a phone call and learnt that his self-appointed ward who had been injured to the point of death—several times, of which none of them remembered any—and had been hospitalized ever since had a seizure in the middle of the night that none of the available medical personnel could do anything other than requesting the closest acquaintance, which would be him, to come over.

He would have mused on the weirdness of visiting a hospital in night-time had he not been too preoccupied with concern. He was on autopilot when he drove into the next district, parked the yellow Beetle in the parking lot in front of the white complex that had some lights on here and there, strode into the building and headed towards the room where the teen detective was resting without stopping to the questions the nurses asked him. He was busy thinking about the troubling news, whether the seizure or whatnot was a result of his medical condition or that other—the time travel ability. He was still digesting its true nature.

He did not miss a beat when it came to opening the door.

Asou Seiji was the only one in the room.

"Shinichi—is he okay—"

"He will be." Asou turned to him. "A nurse found him lying in the floor, likely collapsed in his try to reach the door, and alarmed us right away. He was unconscious but his cardiac system was working just well. To this point, we have to idea exactly what happened to him but based on his condition, we suspect it was a seizure of some sort—we need to conduct several tests to determine the exact cause. Hikawa-sensei took the initiative and went on with the tests—but, good news, his life is not in danger. He might have to stay in longer than planned, depending on the cause of his seizure. I will talk with the police regarding that."

He nodded in relief while catching his breath.

"Thank you for coming all the way here, we will need someone to consult after the results are out." Asou smiled at him sympathetically. "I know that we are to contact you in case of complications but the exact relation was not specified. Are you his grandfather or some kind of relative—"

"Ah, no family relationship. I live in his neighbourhood and his parents are good friends of mine. They spend a lot of time abroad due to their occupations and therefore entrusted me with looking after him whenever they are not available."

A short silence.

"That sounds tough."

…

He watched as the doctor left from a seat in the corridor. He tried to rest, knowing that he could do nothing for the teen. He watched the shadows dancing on the wall and listened to the faint sounds of outside traffic until his eyes threatened to close. He was about to—and then, his phone buzzed.

He hung up immediately, hoping not to have disturbed any equipment. He had no idea who could have called him at two in the morning—then, he realised that it was not his phone, but rather Shinichi's—which made this even stranger. He hated that the person who had the most experience with this was unconscious. He did not want to create unneeded trouble but he did not want to dismiss a distress call either. He promised himself to call back the individual when he left the hospital.

…

His attempts to reach out for the initial caller was as fruitless as the medical tests had been.

He only got a voice message, and a rather strange one at that.

…

"The evil-eyed yawny girl wants to talk."

Published: 31/12/2022

More explanations in next chapter.