Traveling back thirty years to Conan, intercepting Princess Eri

Oh no! How did he know?
Shinzo Mito kept his eyes tightly shut, but his eyelids trembled slightly uncontrollably.

His fingers were curled into fists under the blanket, his nails digging deep into his palms, leaving several crescent-shaped red marks.

"Stop pretending, I know you're awake."

Director Shinkawa's voice broke the silence in the ward. Gone was his usual gentle and refined voice; instead, it was chillingly cold and undisguisedly sarcastic.

He sat on a chair beside the hospital bed, leaning on his exquisite cane. The metal tip of the cane tapped lightly on the floor, making a "tap, tap" sound, as if tapping on Mito Shinzo's tense nerves.

"I really didn't expect that the person who stole the katana would be you..."

Director Shinkawa slowly raised his head, his gaze falling on Shinzo Mito's stiff face, a cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

These words were like a key, suddenly prying open Mito Shinzo's carefully constructed facade of composure.

He couldn't hold back any longer and suddenly opened his eyes.

The afternoon sun slanted in through the glass window, illuminating the disappointment and anger in his eyes, and making the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes appear particularly deep.

That face, familiar for thirty years, now seemed terrifyingly unfamiliar, as if covered by a layer of cold frost.

"You...what are you talking about?"

Shinzo Mito's throat was terribly dry. He tried to remain calm, but his voice trembled involuntarily, the last syllable carrying an undisguised panic, "What katana? I don't understand... Are you misunderstanding something?"

He tried to appear bewildered, but his slightly trembling lips and evasive eyes betrayed his guilty conscience.

"Misunderstand?"

Director Shinkawa seemed to have heard the biggest joke in the world. He sneered, his voice suddenly rising, filled with deep disappointment, "Now that things have come to this, are you still denying it? Shinzo Mito, how long are you going to keep up this act?"

He leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees, his eyes fixed on Mito Shinzo.

"Ten years ago, you came to me and said that as a descendant of the Tokugawa family, your lifelong wish was to study the samurai sword passed down in the Tokugawa family up close. I remember very clearly that you held my hand then, your eyes were red, and you said, 'This is my greatest wish in this life, please grant it to me.'"

Shinzo Mito's lips trembled as he tried to say something, but his throat seemed to be blocked by something, and he could only make soft "gurgling" sounds.

Those long-forgotten memories were suddenly dredged up by Director Shinkawa's words, as clear as if they had happened just yesterday.

“I believed you back then,” Director Shinkawa’s voice was filled with the pain of betrayal. “Thinking of our thirty-year friendship, I gave you the idea to pretend to be a photographer and help the museum make promotional brochures.”

“You spent a whole week coming to the museum every day to take pictures of the knife, measure it, and record every detail. You remember every scratch and every pattern on the knife clearly.”

He paused, his disappointment deepening, "I thought you were genuinely researching the history of the Tokugawa family. I thought we were best friends..."

Director Shinkawa's voice grew increasingly cold as he stared intently at Shinzo Mito, speaking each word with deliberate emphasis.

"It was around that time that you obtained the complete data of that samurai sword under the guise of research, and then used highly ductile tin to forge a counterfeit that looked exactly the same, right?"

Shinzo Mito's body trembled violently. He instinctively wanted to back away, but because he was lying on the hospital bed, he could only tense his body in vain. His breathing became more and more rapid, his chest heaving violently, and sweat slid down his cheeks, dripping onto the white sheets and spreading into a small dark stain.

"Then, when there were fewer people in the museum, you used that fake tin samurai sword to replace the real samurai sword in the display case!"

Director Shinkawa's voice was filled with suppressed anger.
"You did it flawlessly. That tin fake knife is exactly the same as the real one in both weight and shape. Even I, who deals with cultural relics every day, couldn't find any flaws!"

"Then, with the museum's regular maintenance of the exhibits approaching, you came to the museum again, and when no one was looking, you crumpled the tin fake knife into a ball and threw it into a nearby trash can!"

Director Shinkawa's tone was filled with disbelief.
"Tin is soft and can be easily deformed at room temperature. You used this to make that fake sword disappear into thin air, making us all think that the katana was stolen by a thief and hidden somewhere!"

"Ten years!"

Director Shinkawa suddenly raised his voice, slamming his cane against the floor with a dull thud.
"For the past ten years, I've thought about it every day: how did that thief manage to do it?"

"How on earth did he make a samurai sword disappear without a trace?"

"I've doubted every single staff member at the museum, but I've never doubted you, my best friend!"

"It wasn't until yesterday, when those children came to the museum and shared their guesses about the tin fake, that I finally realized what had happened!"

"So, you've been keeping me in the dark all this time! That's why I came to the hospital today; I want to hear your answer for myself—is all of this true?"

Shinzo Mito's breathing became increasingly rapid, as if someone were choking him, his chest heaving violently.

He opened his mouth, wanting to explain, to deny, to beg for mercy, but all the words were stuck in his throat, turning into broken breaths, unable to utter a single complete sentence.

The air in the ward seemed to have solidified, so oppressive that it was hard to breathe.

Only the regular beeping of the medical equipment echoed in the quiet ward, like a countdown to death, each beep striking the heart of everyone present.

"why?"

Director Shinkawa finally asked the question; his voice was terribly hoarse.

"Our friendship spans thirty years, dating back to our university days. We skipped classes together, spent time in the library together, stayed up all night working on our graduation theses together, and witnessed each other's most embarrassing and glorious moments."

"Thirty years of friendship... Why would you do this? Was that knife really that important to you?"

silence.

A long, suffocating silence.

Shinzo Mito lowered his head, his shoulders trembling slightly.

A moment later, he slowly raised his head, his eyes filled with a fanatical madness.

"...I am a descendant of the Tokugawa family, and that katana should rightfully be kept by us, the descendants of the Tokugawa family! It is the glory of the Tokugawa family, the symbol of the Tokugawa family!" (End of this chapter)