Kazawa bent down, crouching to meet the eyes of the elementary schooler drenched in cold sweat.
Kazawa thought to himself that Conan's current expression was pretty funny—mouth open, eyes wide, completely frozen like a scared little hamster.
Of course, getting hit by that tranquilizer needle wasn't an accident. He deliberately took the fall, making use of how close Sonoko was to him.
According to his earlier speculation, the main characters on the red side could all trigger coop events. With Conan being such a major protagonist, Kazawa had no reason not to try. Unfortunately, the identity of Kazawa Akira made that a bit awkward.
The day he transferred schools just so happened to be the same day Kudo Shinichi went missing. The two of them never crossed paths as classmates, and now that Kazawa was surrounded by the Organization, he wasn't in a position to slowly build a connection with Conan. Right now, Conan was the kind of reckless guy who'd climb into Gin's Porsche just to plant a bug—far too prone to causing trouble.
Kazawa figured: since the condition for triggering coop involved keywords like agreement, deal, or contract, then catching someone's weakness should also count as a kind of transaction, right?
And Conan's biggest weakness was that very obvious alias problem that everyone on the red side knew about.
Today was a sunny day—a great day for unmasking someone. The murder case had come right on time, not too early, not too late. So Kazawa seized the opportunity to play the victim.
"Looks like you're a little kid with some secrets, huh, Conan-kun." Kazawa had his back to the others as he made a not-so-kind sneaky expression. He stared at Conan until another bead of cold sweat trickled down his forehead, then finally stood up straight with a smile.
"Mōri-san!" Kazawa suddenly raised his voice and called out.
"No, wait—!" Conan lunged forward in panic, trying to stop Kazawa from saying anything more, but since he only reached Kazawa's waist, all he could grab was his elbow.
"What is it?" Ran looked over with confusion.
No! Conan clung desperately to Kazawa's arm, kicking his legs in vain. His heart screamed with dread.
"Can I borrow this kid for a bit?" Kazawa lifted the clinging Conan up to his chest with both hands supporting his cheeks. "He was a huge help in solving the case today. Really capable. I promised to take him out for cake."
"Did this child cause you trouble? You don't need to be so polite." Ran looked between the frozen Conan and Kazawa, feeling a little awkward.
"No, not at all. He found some critical evidence today—major contributions. He's quite the little detective, isn't that right?" Kazawa set down the emotionally crashed Conan and gave the round little head a pat with a smile.
The pat seemed to reboot Conan's brain. He blinked a few times and quickly shouted in a childish voice, "That's right! I want cake! Big brother's taking me to eat cake!"
Conan secretly let out a breath of relief. As long as Ran didn't find out, anything was fine.
Kazawa didn't personally know Kudo Shinichi, so even if he thought something was strange, he probably wouldn't link it to the truth… right?
After all, a grown-up turning into a kid was too absurd to believe...
Clinging to a tiny shred of hope, Conan silently considered.
——
To Ran, Kazawa seemed like a considerate, well-mannered new neighbor, so she didn't have much suspicion toward him. Instead, she was more worried that the mischievous child might cause trouble.
After giving Conan a few warnings, she let Kazawa take the fake elementary schooler away.
The front entrance of the art museum was already swarming with reporters. Inspector Megure was surrounded at the doors, trying to answer a barrage of questions. Seeing the situation from a distance, Kazawa decided to avoid the main exit and pulled Conan along to leave through a side door.
True to his word, Kazawa did take him to a dessert shop in the shopping district.
"You don't seem very eager to talk to me, so I'll start." Kazawa stirred his warm coffee and rested his chin on one hand, watching Conan, who sat across from him glaring holes into his cake plate. "Since there's a 'Sleeping Kazawa Akira,' then the whole 'Sleeping Mōri Kogorō' nickname—wasn't that your doing too? I hardly ever saw Mōri-san mentioned in the news before, but ever since you started staying at their place, he suddenly exploded in popularity..."
"!" Conan's hands clenched on his lap. He looked up and met Kazawa's eyes.
"Seems I hit the mark, huh, little guy?" Kazawa picked up a sugar cube between his index and middle fingers and made a peace sign. "Next question—are you really 'Edogawa Conan,' a first grader? Has no one ever told you your acting is terrible?"
Conan's alias issue had always been one of the more baffling plot holes in the series.
His behavior was too ridiculous—a first-grade elementary student waltzing into crime scenes, landing planes, kicking soccer balls into satellites. Almost every remotely smart character on the red side eventually realized he was Kudo Shinichi.
Even Mōri Kogorō, who got stabbed in the neck with tranquilizers like a pincushion, caught on eventually. That alias only fooled the truly oblivious.
Conan was basically surfing the web under his real name on the red side. And with how often he used the temporary antidote and paraded around in his original body, things got so out of hand they had to give Gin a weird memory defect just to keep things vaguely consistent. It was practically a giant plot-wide mindwipe spell.
Conan watched that sugar cube sink into the coffee and, unable to hold back, muttered, "That's a bit harsh…"
"You can only fool people who don't pay attention," Kazawa replied plainly. "You're also going to school now... Take a good look at your classmates—real kids your age—and then look at yourself. A smart child, a smart teen, and a smart adult all act very differently. Let me guess..."
Kazawa picked up another sugar cube and slowly waved it in front of Conan's face. "You're definitely not an adult, but you're not super young either… High school?"
Conan's wide-eyed gaze followed the cube's motion. It was kind of fun—like a cat following a toy.
Kazawa dropped the cube into the coffee, and it hit with a small splash. Conan stared at the white sugar slowly dissolving and sinking, feeling like it symbolized his own fragile disguise falling apart.
"High school student… a detective… a Tokyo high school detective…" Kazawa held yet another sugar cube over the cup, tilting his head thoughtfully as he spoke slowly, "Even if I don't know how you pulled it off… there's been a certain Tokyo high school detective who recently vanished—"
Plop—a soft sound. Kazawa let go, and the cube dropped in.
Conan leaned back until his back hit the chair. He didn't know whether he was trying to get away from Kazawa's terrifying monologue or just needed some physical support.
Kazawa stopped there. He swallowed back the name that was already on the tip of his tongue and didn't continue explaining the logic.
He winked his right eye, took a sip of the sugar-packed coffee, and set the porcelain cup back on the saucer with a crisp clink—like a chess piece being slammed down hard on a board.
"Checkmate," Kazawa concluded.