Chapter 205, Seventy-Threeth Cycle (35)
Conan Edogawa suddenly woke up from his dream.
"—" He opened his mouth, panting, as if to call someone's name, but suddenly forgot what he wanted to say.
The child, whose pupils trembled slightly, lifted the thin blanket, got up, sat cross-legged on the sofa, raised his hand to press his head, and earnestly recalled and thought.
It seems he... had a dream.
It seemed like a very happy dream, yet it also seemed like a very sad dream.
The memory of dreams was originally very clear, but as time goes by, now only a few things are vaguely remembered.
The only emotion I felt was so intense that it made my heart pound.
Ai Haibara sat down in the chair next to him with a pen and paper, writing furiously: "Hmm, the antidote still didn't work. Although you held on for five hours, you remained unconscious... How are you feeling now?"
Conan Edogawa looked at her, his eyes still glazed over: "I feel like... I've gone back ten years?"
Ai Haibara paused, looking up at him, and teased, "What? Dreaming again that your Ran-neechan is marrying someone else ten years from now? Who is it this time? Amuro Tooru? They do seem to have a good relationship..."
"No, no, it's me who will marry Ran ten years from now." Conan Edogawa instinctively retorted, then his brows furrowed slightly as he struggled to piece together the blurry, fragmented memories. "And Amuro Tooru... Amuro Tooru seems to be... Anyway, this time is different from the last. This time I dreamt of a future where the organization has already been destroyed. And then, and then you and I both seem to have returned to normal. You seem to be doing some very important research... What kind of research? Hmm, I can't remember at all..."
Ai Haibara put away her notebook, not taking it seriously, and casually said, "Well, now that the organization has been destroyed, your body has returned to normal, and you've married your beloved Ran, why did you have that expression when you woke up?"
Upon hearing this, Conan Edogawa couldn't help but raise his hand and press it to his chest.
Even now, his heartbeat has not returned to normal, and sadness still fills his heart, making it hard for him to breathe.
“Because…” Conan Edogawa’s expression was unusually sad and distressed, “because someone died.”
Ai Haibara paused in her movements.
Conan Edogawa gripped his clothes tightly: "I saw many people going to his grave to sweep the tomb and bring him flowers, cherry blossoms."
"Who is it?" Ai Haibara asked.
The person who could make him so upset must be someone very important, right?
"Yes, he is..." Conan Edogawa's eyes were confused.
The name on the tombstone, surrounded by cherry blossoms, was illegible.
But as he stood before the grave, a familiar face flashed through his mind.
“Mr. Amuro…?” he murmured.
Ai Haibara's body stiffened, and her pupils contracted sharply.
"But why?" Conan Edogawa's thoughts were still caught in the vortex of memories. "He's Bourbon, after all. Why are we so regretful and sorrowful, visiting Bourbon's grave? Could it be..."
"It's just a dream, don't overthink it." Ai Haibara frowned.
"..." Conan Edogawa came back to his senses, his expression somewhat complicated. "Was that really just a dream? Although I can't remember it now, it felt so real to me at the time."
"Dreams are all like that; it's just your imagination." Ai Haibara said expressionlessly. "If it were real, why can't you remember?"
Conan Edogawa was speechless. All his symptoms were like a dream, and there was really nothing to say. He just subconsciously felt that it was too real.
In reality, this was even more like a simple dream than the last time he clearly remembered Xiaolan almost marrying Dr. Shinichi ten years later.
Ai Haibara feigned interest and sat back down beside him, asking him for details about his dream.
However, Conan Edogawa didn't remember much either; most of it was already blurry. The usually logical detective was unusually incoherent, his face full of confusion and doubt, his expression etched with incomprehension and bewilderment.
"Alright, it's getting dark, and you're all sweaty. Go take a shower and go home." Ai Haibara casually packed up her things, clearly heading back to the lab to continue recording and organizing data.
However, when she turned around, her expression instantly darkened.
Was this just an ominous dream, or a warning and prophecy from the future?
Ai Haibara originally believed in science completely, but after experiencing Bourbon's experiment, after her drug actually succeeded in making living things younger, after learning about the existence of Pandora's Gem and magic from Kaito Kid, and after her sister gave her several fantasy novels, she gradually began to have doubts.
After returning to the underground laboratory, the brown-haired girl in the white lab coat threw the data on the table and ignored it, then sat down and raised her hand to cover her eyes.
She pursed her lips, leaned back in her chair, and fell into deep thought.
There has long been a saying in the scientific community that the ultimate goal of science is theology.
Although it was just a joke, who knows for sure?
After all, it wasn't just one or two great scientists who began to study theology in their later years... Although it wasn't the kind of theology that involved religious brainwashing, they believed in the existence of a creator and that the wondrous rules that constitute the world were not accidental.
It is indeed possible that higher-dimensional beings exist in this world, wielding power that is beyond human comprehension.
She meant that it's better to believe it exists than not to believe it doesn't.
Ai Haibara suddenly stood up, took off her white coat, ran out and knocked on the door of the Matsuda residence next door.
*
A time-traveling mobile phone connects two people separated by ten years.
Ten years ago, Morofushi Kagemitsu asked: "[Let me confirm one more time, you didn't actually find Zero's body, right?]"
Ten years later, Morofushi Kagemitsu replied: "Yes, I still go there often now. I even searched the place thoroughly, digging every inch of the ground, but we didn't find any trace of Zero's body at the explosion site."
The two remained silent for a while, both fully aware of what the other was thinking.
[Zero (Hiro): If no body was found, that means Zero might still be alive, right?]
[Hiro: Yes, we all think so. Even Zero's funeral wasn't officially held until a year later.]
[Sakura (hiro): But ten years have passed, and he still hasn't returned.]
[Zero (Hiro): So it's also possible that Zero was taken away by the system, right? As long as he's still alive, we might be able to bring him back.]
[Hiro: Yes, but we haven't successfully captured the system yet, nor can we send humans through time to other worlds. For now, we can only hope to change the future by altering the past of this world.]
[zero (hiro): How can I capture the system?]
[Sakura (hiro): I don't know. We'll continue our research, and we might need your help too.]
[Sakura (Hiro): Even if the system really did take Zero away, it's bound by the world's rules and causality; it couldn't just take Zero away arbitrarily. Therefore, something must have happened that caused the world line to successfully converge, resulting in Zero's "death," which allowed the system to take him.]
[Hiro: You must find out the details of that incident before you can change this cause-and-effect relationship.]
[Zero (Hiro): But what if Zero deliberately chooses not to reload a save file in the face of death? For example, what if the system uses our safety to threaten him, or what if reloading a save file has created some causal relationship between him and this world that we don't know about, so only his death can restore the world to normal, complete the finale, and continue operating? These possibilities are all very high.]
[Sakura (hiro): Zero won't.]
[Sakura (hiro): If that's the reason, Zero would definitely have been prepared. He wouldn't have let the system succeed so easily, and he would never have abandoned everyone and left this world without saying a word.]
[Hiro: There must be some special reason behind this that we don't know yet. If we don't know this reason, it's useless for us to jump through billions of world lines. We are currently unable to escape the convergence range of the "Furuya Zero Death" world line.]
[Hiro: You still have a chance. You still have time. Before Zero's accident, you must find out the real cause of Zero's death.]
[Sakura (hiro): Morofushi Kagemitsu, you absolutely must save Zero this time.]
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