Chapter 38: Interested in Moonlighting as a Savior?
"What exactly are you saying?" Conan pushed himself up, finally meeting the other boy's gaze at eye level.
Renji Miyauchi shrugged, calm as ever. "So you still haven't answered me, former Kudo Shinichi."
Conan gritted his teeth and prepared to assert the most plausible explanation — then waited for the other to reveal the "truth."
Renji tilted his head. "You think this world should be purely scientific, right? That's why you bent your ideas when I offered a more logical possibility." He smiled, watching Conan's confusion deepen.
Something about the moment felt off. Renji raised a hand and pointed at the ropes binding Conan.
"But this world isn't as 'scientific' as you believe."
At his words, the ropes around Conan slackened. They fell away and landed in a heap. Conan stared at the frayed ends, bewildered — they looked corroded from the inside. How and when had the ropes been weakened? There was no visible mechanism in the room; Renji had been sitting motionless the whole time.
Conan reached instinctively for his tranquilizer watch; if Renji made a dangerous move, he'd use it. But Renji's voice stopped him. "Your watch? It was handled already." Conan's hand froze.
Renji continued, softer now. "Have you ever wondered why Mihana Town's crime rate has been so high for years?"
Conan, ready to argue with data, found no opening — and just then Renji called, "Jerry."
A palm-sized brown mouse scuttled out of Renji's coat pocket. Conan stared. This mouse — Jerry — didn't behave like any ordinary animal; it studied Conan with an almost human focus. Jerry extended a tiny paw in greeting.
For a second Conan thought he was hallucinating: a mouse that greeted him, a man who looked like his older self smiling at him. Renji's next words deepened the dissonance.
"This is Jerry. Scientifically, is it more likely to be a genetically modified ultra-intelligent mouse, or… a shikigami, a legendary servant from old tales?"
Neither option sounded strictly scientific. Then Renji produced a lens from his pocket and held it out. "Want to see what this world really looks like? Put this on and go out with Jerry."
Conan hesitated, then Jerry impatiently nudged his shoe as if to say, Hurry up. The mouse's energy made it clear: the Breath of the Mouse had succeeded, and Jerry wanted to test it on the blind spirits.
Conan swallowed and took the lens. He had been raised to be a great detective; no trick would drive him from his resolve. If Renji wanted to play games, he would meet them head-on.
Renji warned, "One rule — no matter what you see, don't reveal it."
Jerry tugged at Conan's shoe again, and the two left down the deserted street together. Even passing the sleeping Black Organization members didn't tempt Conan to act; the larger puzzle — this world's truth — occupied him more.
It was almost midnight. They'd walked only a couple of hundred meters when Conan wondered whether he could slip away; the men were asleep, Renji sat still, and only a mouse walked beside him. It seemed a perfect chance. Before he could decide, Jerry cried out in excitement and froze, fixated on the air ahead.
Conan gripped the lens and put it to his left eye.
Through the glass a twisted, hunched figure materialized: an emaciated shape in tattered clothes, black energy rippling from its form. Conan's heart hammered. He'd been told about ghosts — but seeing one like that collapsed his calm for a heartbeat. He blinked, took the lens off, and the alley was empty again; Jerry waved cheerfully at the empty space.
Could the lens be some augmented-reality device? Conan inspected the rim and found unfamiliar characters engraved there — Sanskrit, of all things. His rational mind raced, then lightning arcs suddenly danced along Jerry's body without the lens. Jerry transformed, an electric blur, and struck at the air. Conan's carefully constructed world wavered.
He pressed the lens back to his eye. The ghastly figure reappeared — now reeling from Jerry's crackling strikes. Each time the figure touched Jerry's arcs it shrieked as if salt burned it, retreating in agony. Then the figure noticed Conan watching and, with a horrifying cry that scraped at the back of the boy's mind, kept repeating, "You can see it, right? You can see it, right!?"
Conan remembered Renji's rule — don't show you can see them. He ripped the lens off again and for a moment forced himself to see only an ordinary mouse playing in the dark. Jerry, satisfied, waved him over and resumed its onslaught. Soon the black energy dissipated entirely; Jerry burrowed into the vanquished spirit and consumed the remnants, its small body glowing with life energy. It wiped an invisible brow and turned to Conan with the same proud look a tutor might give a student.
Conan steadied himself. He'd witnessed enough to understand: this was a group with real supernatural power. He returned the lens to Renji, cautious but composed.
Renji smiled. "Have you heard of the spiritual energy resurgence?"
Conan had been through enough to steel himself. "Besides dealing with the Black Organization, I don't have many other tasks," he answered.
Renji leaned back, hands folded. "Want to moonlight as a savior?"
Conan felt the night's shocks settle into a strange, cold calm. Kidnapped, shaken, shown the hidden world — now offered a role as its defender? The sequence made his head swim and then clear.
He asked, voice steady, "Who would the savior fight?"
Renji listed casually: "Evil spirits, cursed beings, vampires, aliens, psychics, or Kages from other worlds. Among them some will want to rewrite or destroy the world to suit their whims. Do you consider that an enemy?"
Conan remembered every strange thing he'd just seen and, for the first time, felt the weight of the question. Renji's tone was revealing: he wasn't threatening. "Don't stare at me like that. I haven't forced you yet. Even if you refuse, I won't harm you. Want to know why?"
Renji pointed at Conan. "Because when a mystery lies before you, no matter how dangerous, you rush to solve it. That's who you are. You can be the kind of savior who solves mysteries — if you accept."
Conan considered the question. He'd chosen to stay in Japan for Ran and for justice. He had always felt a pull to right wrongs. The offer to fight on a larger stage — to face forces he'd never imagined — tugged at the part of him that could not turn away from a riddle.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead he looked at the sleeping figures outside, at Jerry's expectant face, and at the man who wore his older self's likeness like a mask of mischief and challenge. Renji had not only shown him the hidden truth — he had given Conan time to think about what he stood for.
Finally, Conan spoke. "If I'm going to do anything, I do it to protect people — to protect Ran, to protect those who can't protect themselves. If there's a way to stop those things from harming others, I'll hear you out."
Renji's smile deepened. "Good. You already gave the right answer."
Silence settled between them for a moment, charged rather than empty. Moonlight slanted into the alley. Conan felt the world expand in a way that both frightened and fascinated him.
Renji tapped the side of the lens as if to seal the agreement. "Tomorrow, then. We'll start small."
Conan nodded. He was still a boy trapped in a child's body, but tonight he had seen beyond the page. That knowledge — and the choice that followed — would change the path ahead.