Conan: Science Cartoonist Kudo Yuji

"Conan? Conan!"

The call woke Conan from his unconsciousness again. He raised his head and looked around. He found himself lying in the shade on the deck. The elementary school student helped himself to his seat and patted his dizzy head.

"Ms. Nohara...and Sayoko?"

The two people sitting next to him who woke him up were Ms. Nohara and Sayoko. Old Kudo was not with him at the moment, nor was Higashino. Looking from his position towards the bow of the ship, he could see many people wearing swimsuits playing in the deck pool, and there was no indication that there had been an explosion not long ago.

"How did I get here? There were definitely... an evil scientist and a cyborg just now!"

Is this child still half asleep?

Noticing Conan's confident assertion that the villain only exists in tokusatsu dramas, Ms. Nohara glanced at Ms. Kudo beside her and noticed an unnatural smile on her lips, tinged with a hint of disdain.

"Alright, alright, an evil monster, right? Now the ship is in danger. Will Kamen Rider come to our rescue?" Sayoko moved closer to Conan, put her arm around his shoulder, and whispered with her face close to his, "Dad, Miss Nohara is very capable, but don't treat her like an idiot."

It seems these two don't believe the truth at all. To better express his point of view, Conan subtly summarized what he had seen and learned earlier.

"The killer wasn't backed by police officers; he was a spy from the United States, or rather, he was a double agent!"

"Is that so?!" Miss Nohara was stunned for a moment. Thinking of her superiors and his superiors, she felt a little uneasy. If the current top leader had sided with foreign forces, then who were they doing all this for?

“After you caught up, Dad sent both me and San to the restaurant. He asked me and Miss Nohara to look for you, while he and San waited for the power to be restored before looking for Mr. Segawa Shoichi, hoping to get his help on this ship.”

"It seems he hasn't replied to your message yet?"

Conan picked up his phone, looked at the no signal message, and said matter-of-factly, "Sagawa Shoichi is in danger right now."

No one knows who on board is from the American faction, who is from the Eastern Capital faction, and who is from the Northern faction. Of these three groups, the American faction is madly eager to kill him, the Northern faction is being used as a tool, and the Eastern Capital faction has so far taken no action.

“We need to go to the morgue to examine Segawa Taikei’s body again. Now is not the time to wait for the police to arrive.”

"That's impossible, because the explosion just now... destroyed those floors. The isolation doors around the hospital on the ship are already locked. They're waiting to enter port for repairs after Osaka, so they can't be opened at all." "Segawa Taikei's body has either turned into mincemeat or drifted into the sea..."

Conan looked up. Having lost the clues, he naturally thought that Old Kudo would immediately go looking for Segawa Shoichi. With his memories intact, he must know that Segawa Shoichi was about to get into trouble, and he was not just going to seek help.

As the sun rose higher, a dark spot moved back and forth on the surface of the pool, until everyone became impatient with the shaking, and only then did people start to look up.

"Dad?! You're here. Where's the Third Generation?"

Sayoko noticed her father coming out of the stairwell and saw that the old Kudo was staring at the sky with a grim expression. Then she suddenly walked up to the three of them, grabbed Conan by the collar, and dragged him toward the diving platform.

"Hey, what are you doing!" Conan shook his body.

"This is all your fault!"

"What did you say!" Conan stared blankly at old Kudo, only to find that he had led him to the highest diving platform. Looking up, he saw Segawa Shoichi swinging on a swing below the deck observation deck, suspended by something like spider silk.

"He shouldn't have died! But it's all because you went after that person that he died!"

Old Kudo punched the steel plate beside him, ignoring the pain in his hand: "It's a certainty that you've come to this era. Whatever you do will affect history. And when I came to the future, Segawa Shoichi didn't die here. A series of historical consequences are about to erupt! Do you even know that?"

It's not just a question of where Sagawa Shoichi died, but rather the changes in history that have led to a discrepancy between Conan's future and Kudo's past, and these discrepancies are only getting bigger.

"I know, you said it before, I... I didn't expect it to be this serious..." Conan slumped down, "Damn it, what am I supposed to do to make amends..."

"We can only take one step at a time."

Old Kudo looked at the top of the elementary school student's head.

[So the two of you had talked about this kind of thing before...?] (End of Chapter)