Jiangxia Tongzhi as Xiaobai raised his hand, revealing a dull black pearl in his palm. "A big sister passed by and gave it to me. Told me to return it to the owner of this ship."
Inspector Nakamori whipped around, stunned. "Dark Star?!"
He lunged toward Jiangxia, all but bouncing on his toes. "Where is he?! Which way did he go? How did you run into him?… Wait, this pearl's color looks off. Also—why are you out here on deck alone? Where are your parents? Who brought you today?"
Faced with the flurry of questions, the scarf-wrapped child said nothing, simply ducking behind a nearby female officer.
"Inspector!" one of Nakamori's subordinates blocked him, sighing and pressing their forehead. "You're scaring him! He just ran into Kaito Kidd and got used by the thief. Of course he's frightened—don't interrogate him like a criminal."
…Frightened?
Conan eyed the kid who looked to be around his own age. The scarf was pulled up so far it covered half the kid's face—hard to read his expression.
Still… the officer had a point. Even if this kid wasn't scared of Kidd, he probably got spooked by Nakamori's intense face charging in like a bull.
But he was also the last one to make contact with Kidd. Conan couldn't just ignore him.
Thinking that his childlike appearance might work in his favor, Conan crouched and asked in a friendly tone, "Do you remember where the big sister went? I mean… why did she give you the pearl?"
Jiangxia was delighted. This tiny detective had asked even more questions than Nakamori—and neatly sidestepped all the ones Jiangxia didn't want to answer.
As a reward, he tossed the dull pearl into Conan's hand. "She said to pick her up in the lifeboat later. This was her reward. But I think the color's ugly… so, here. You can have it."
"Lifeboat?" Conan's face changed. He bolted, legs pumping toward the boat deck. Several officers followed in a scramble.
In the chaos, the female officer turned to guard the "poor child manipulated by Kidd," keeping him safely behind her.
When the noise died down, she let out a breath of relief and turned to guide the cute kid back to the cabin, maybe give him a pat on the head while she was at it. But when she looked behind her—
Nobody.
She stared at the empty deck.
Then at the rail with a suspiciously wide gap.
"…"
…Did the kid just get shoved into the ocean by those clumsy colleagues?!?!
…
Jiangxia had pointed the police to the lifeboat because the real Ran Mouri was stashed there by Kidd.
While the cops and Conan ran off to play hero, Jiangxia took advantage of the chaos. He dismissed the puppet and returned to his body. The energy core extracted from the pearl was sucked up by the ghosts and reabsorbed into the tattoo on his chest.
Energy cores give all his contracted ghosts a universal upgrade. Once slotted into the spiritual seal, it refreshes all their souls—shikigami included—so there's no need to argue about which ghost gets leveled first.
Just one core, and you could see slight stat boosts: their "art style" sharpened up. They looked more polished, you know? More high-res.
Going forward, even puppets crafted from them would get beefier. For example, Xiaobai might not need to gnaw tires with his molars anymore—just a little flick of the claw could do the trick.
Also, once a ghost gets strong enough, it can start controlling the puppet on its own instead of needing to just keep it upright like a background extra.
But this core? Only enough to help a puppet raise its arms and walk a couple steps. Still a long way from the dream of "one puppet equals one underling"…
…
The yacht trip wrapped up quickly.
When Jiangxia stepped off at the port, he noticed a bunch of search-and-rescue boats zooming out into the bay.
Rumor had it a kid fell into the sea and disappeared.
Jiangxia froze for half a second—then briskly walked away like nothing happened.
What missing child? Had nothing to do with him. He was a reserve adult now, 18 years old and counting…
…
During the second half of the Kidd incident, Jiangxia stayed out of the media's spotlight.
But thanks to opening that invitation earlier, he'd gotten a slight bump in popularity. Specifically—more people than usual were coming to him for "mistress-catching" missions.
Still, no bump in murders.
Jiangxia's luck stayed average. Xiaobai, though, seemed to be on a hot streak. Fresh off the upgrade, he landed tickets to a concert by Yoko Kinoshita.
Yoko used to tour all around constantly, but Jiangxia refused to leave Tokyo while Conan was still around—so Xiaobai had missed a bunch of shows.
This time, though, the concert was local. Tokyo venue.
Jiangxia calculated the distance—if something blew up around the main cast, he could rush back in time. So, confidently, he took Xiaobai along.
…
They left a little early.
As they neared the stadium, the ghosts around Jiangxia started whispering.
He paused, startled. At the next intersection, he spun on his heel and ducked into a restaurant.
Apparently… a shikigami was inside.
That was rare. You don't run into shikigami every day.
The restaurant had a glass front. Jiangxia peered in to check things out.
It wasn't very busy. What caught him off guard was the trio at one table—Ran Mouri, Kogoro Mouri, and Conan.
Kogoro's face had gone blue as he frantically patted his pockets, clearly missing something. Not far from the public phone, a short-haired woman was making a call with visible anxiety.
The moment Jiangxia saw her, he felt it in his bones—this woman was destined for him.
She was wearing cropped pants, revealing a pair of slim ankles… and a shikigami swirling faintly around them like a breeze.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 30 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 14/50(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:1/10*
Glossary:
Reserve adult – A running joke implying someone is technically still a teen but mentally filing for adulthood.