Chapter 52: Ran! Listen! It's Me! I'm Shinichi Kudo!
Kogoro's Witch Labyrinth.
Ran took a single step inside.
The world spun around her.
She barely managed to steady herself, finding she was in an infinite corridor. On both sides were endless, identical wooden doors with faded "Mouri Detective Agency" plaques and blurred lettering. Dim yellow light seeped from the cracks, carrying the faint sounds of a typewriter, clacking mahjong tiles, and a man's drunken mumbling.
Beneath her feet, losing horse-racing tickets, empty cans, discarded case files, and torn evidence bags were piled into mountains of trash. A single careless step could send her plunging into the filth. Above, old case files cascaded down like a waterfall, the sloppy handwriting recording forgotten names and failed deductions.
So this is… Dad's… inner world?
Chaotic.
Oppressive.
Filled with the frustration of unfulfilled ambitions and… endless regret.
Ran's expression didn't change in the slightest. She ignored the chaos as if it didn't exist and walked straight ahead.
She had to get to the center.
She had to find the core that had become a Witch.
Just then, three battered figures stumbled out from behind a pile of files, blocking her path. They were Magical Girls from the Black Organization. Their outfits were torn and stained with blood and dust. Their magic was nearly depleted, and their bodies swayed on the verge of collapse, clear evidence of a brutal battle.
But their eyes burned with a flame that was both exhausted and unnaturally bright—the final, stubborn defiance of a defeated soldier.
"You dare come back!"
"Nothing you do will stop 'That Man's' advance!" the leader hissed through gritted teeth, her voice raspy. She forced herself to raise her weapon, half of which was broken off, and aimed it at Ran.
Another girl had a strange light in her eyes, a weak but satisfied smile on her lips.
Is this the end… Am I finally going to give my life for the ideal… It doesn't matter. Our sacrifice will become the cornerstone of peace… so that humanity can truly escape the cradle of this planet…
The third girl said nothing, silently gathering the last of her magic into the short blade in her hand.
Dad… Mom… wait for me… I'll be with you soon…
They seemed to know their deaths were imminent, but for the future they envisioned, for the grand design laid out by the Organization, they would not retreat. All for the sake of that distant utopia in their hearts.
Ran stopped.
She looked at them quietly. She saw the expressions on their faces—a mixture of exhaustion and pain, yet made extraordinarily firm by some belief she couldn't comprehend. A resolve to destroy everything for the sake of something intangible.
She couldn't understand it.
And she didn't want to.
What was their belief? Who was "That Man"?
Did… any of it matter?
Her father was dead. Sonoko was dead. Sera was dead. Countless people, both familiar and unknown, had been reduced to cold corpses and shattered families.
And it was all because of this… this nonsensical "belief" and "sacrifice"?
In that instant, her eyes became colder than the darkness at the heart of the Labyrinth.
There was no anger.
No questions.
Not even a hint of killing intent.
She simply lowered her stance slightly, a preparatory motion before a karate strike.
The next moment, a pink magical aura enveloped her, and she moved like a phantom afterimage. There were no wasted movements; it was impossible to even see how she struck. It was as if she had merely taken a single step forward.
When their eyes could track her again, Ran was already several meters behind the three Magical Girls, her back to them, continuing on her path.
The three Organization members were still frozen in their attack stances. The expressions on their faces, that mix of pain and conviction, were locked in place.
Then, they silently disintegrated, vanishing as if they had been instantly sliced into countless fragments by an invisible blade moving at extreme speed, then utterly annihilated by magic.
The sound of their Soul Gems shattering was as faint as dust settling in the chaotic space.
Ran's face remained blank. Her pace never faltered. It was as if she had just passed through a trivial obstacle. She didn't care what they fought for. She didn't care what their final thoughts were.
They were in her way.
So, they just had to disappear.
The Soul Gem on her chest seemed to dim a little more.
She continued deeper into the Labyrinth, passing through shifting corridors and over mountains of waste paper. She could vaguely see Gin, Vodka, and Vermouth in the distance, tangled up and struggling pathetically against the trench-coated Familiars and the Labyrinth's absurd traps.
She paid them no mind.
She had only one target.
The blurry, indistinct Witch, huddled behind a warped desk, buried under countless failed reports and empty bottles. The being that radiated anxiety, paranoia, and a will born of despair.
"Dad!" she called out, her voice trying to pierce through the layers of chaos. "It's me! It's Ran! Can you hear me? Answer me!"
She reached out a hand, her pink magic trying to touch the distant Witch, trying to awaken a single shred of Kogoro Mouri's consciousness. A daughter calling to her lost father.
Hope. If only there was a sliver of it.
The only response was an even more violent distortion of space and the chattering of the Familiars, growing louder, almost mocking. The Witch remained huddled in the shadows, lost in its endless, chaotic, internal struggle, completely unresponsive to her calls.
Ran's outstretched hand slowly fell to her side.
The last trace of hope in her eyes shattered.
With it, the last bit of pink in her Soul Gem flickered like a candle in the wind, threatening to go out at any second. Darkness was closing in on it.
Just then, a figure burst through the distorted light and stumbled to her side.
"Ran-neechan!"
It was Conan. He had finally caught up.
His heart sank when he saw her condition and thought of the residual magical traces left behind by the Organization members he'd passed on his way here. Ran just stood there, her face emotionless, marked only by two long-dried tear tracks.
The Soul Gem on her chest was about to turn completely, bottomlessly black.
It was the final stage before Witchification.
Conan's heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an icy claw, the pain making it impossible to breathe. He knew he was running out of time. He had to do something. He had to give her hope. Any hope at all.
He rushed in front of her and screamed with everything he had.
"Ran!"
Her vacant eyes seemed to flicker almost imperceptibly, slowly focusing on his face.
Conan took a deep breath and, with all his might, yelled out the secret he had hidden for so long, the secret that carried all his hopes.
"Ran! Listen! It's me!"
"I'm Shinichi Kudo!"
He stared desperately into her eyes, praying to see that familiar light rekindle in the darkness, even for a moment.
Ran's body jolted. Her pupils seemed to contract for the briefest of moments.
Shinichi… Kudo?
Her empty eyes looked at Conan, at this small figure who was both familiar and a stranger. A probing wisp of her magic reached out to him.
Then… in the instant she confirmed his words were true, her eyes seemed to flash with disbelief, shock, and a faint… familiar warmth.
"Shin… ichi…?" she whispered, her lips barely moving.
Conan's heart hammered in his chest. It worked! She heard him! She recognized him! Maybe… maybe she could still be saved!
"Yes! It's me!" Conan was so激动 that he could barely form a coherent sentence. "I've been by your side the whole time! I'm sorry, Ran! I'm so sorry for hiding it from you! I…"
However, his words died in his throat.
That faint spark of light, flickering like a dying candle… lasted for only an instant.
Then it was swallowed by a deeper, colder darkness.
Shinichi. Shinichi Kudo.
So what?
What meaning does any of this have now?
Dad isn't coming back. Sonoko isn't coming back. Sera isn't coming back. All the lives that were lost, the homes that were destroyed… none of it is coming back.
You were by my side the whole time? As Conan? Watching all of this happen? Watching me wait like a fool for someone who was never going to return the way he promised? Watching my world… fall apart, piece by piece?
This truth… why now? Why did you have to tell me now? After I've already lost everything?
Is this… one final comfort?
Or is it… the ultimate mockery?
The despair was too deep. The pain was too heavy.
Shinichi Kudo. That name, that truth… it came too late.
After everything that had happened, it was no longer a beacon of hope.
Instead… it was the final confirmation that everything she had fought to protect was shattered, that even her last glimmer of hope was built on a lie.
It was… the last straw.
"Heh…"
A low, broken laugh escaped from deep in Ran's throat.
There was no anger in that laugh, no resentment. Not even sadness.
There was only… an empty, cold… endless desolation and self-mockery.
As if she were laughing at this absurd world.
Laughing at this pathetic fate.
And laughing, most of all… at the stupid girl she used to be…
…the one who once believed in love and waiting.