The lights of New York reflected on Shinichi Kudo's phone screen as he sat with Ran Mori in Central Park. He was not browsing the news. His eyes were tracking a stream of encrypted data on a secret cryptocurrency trading platform.
Suddenly, his expression froze. "A 500 million dollar transaction… from an unknown wallet to a server in Switzerland? This is not trading, this is money laundering," Shinichi whispered to himself, his fingers moving rapidly as he traced the source of the signal using a custom hacking protocol he had developed himself.
He turned to Ran with a forced smile. "Ran, could you bring two drinks? A childhood friend is calling me about an urgent case. I need to respond immediately." The moment Ran disappeared from sight, Shinichi immersed himself in his phone, unaware that behind the dense trees, a man in a black coat was watching a Bio Scanner screen.
"Sir, we have a digital intruder in sector A-12," the man said coldly before moving like a ghost.
Shinichi only noticed a long shadow covering his screen, and before he could turn around, a heavy metallic object struck the back of his head. The phone fell, and the lights faded. As he lost consciousness, he felt a strange cold liquid being poured down his throat. APTX-4869, an experimental drug that had not yet been tested on humans.
Shinichi woke up to the sound of New York rain, but his clothes looked like they belonged to a giant. "What happened? Why do the skyscrapers look taller than before?" he shouted, but his voice came out high and childlike. He had shrunk.
Meanwhile, Ran returned to the place where she had left Shinichi, holding the drinks with a smile that vanished the moment she saw the broken phone on the ground. She called his name repeatedly, but her voice was swallowed by the noise of speeding New York cars. Her heart tightened with fear, and she found herself with only one destination: the house of their neighbor, Dr. Agasa, the genius who might know where Shinichi had disappeared.
Shinichi, or what remained of him, arrived at Agasa's house with difficulty, stumbling over his long pants. He slipped inside, and after desperate attempts and childish shouting, he managed to convince the stunned old man of his true identity by revealing secrets only the two of them knew. While Agasa was still trying to process the shock, the door suddenly burst open.
It was Ran, her eyes red from worry. "Dr. Agasa! Shinichi disappeared in the park, and his phone…" Her words stopped when she noticed a strange child wearing Shinichi's oversized clothes and spare glasses. She approached him cautiously and asked in a gentle tone despite her sadness, "Little one, what is your name, and where did you come from?"
Shinichi froze in place, cold sweat running down his body. His feet stepped backward until he hit Agasa's bookshelf, where his eyes fell on the covers of two novels in the corner: Arthur Conan Doyle and Edogawa Ranpo. He spoke the first thing that came to his confused mind. "My name… my name is Conan… Edogawa Conan."
Ran exchanged a glance with Agasa, who quickly intervened to cover the situation. "Oh, this boy is a relative of mine, but his parents were involved in a minor accident and will stay in the hospital for a few days. I was wondering how I would take care of him while being busy with my inventions."
Ran looked at the child deeply and felt a strange connection she could not explain. "Do not worry, Doctor. He will come with me. My father's house is spacious, and it would be better for him to stay there until his parents return."
Ran held Shinichi's small hand and began walking him outside under the cold lights of Manhattan. As he walked beside her, Shinichi realized that his life as the most famous detective in America had ended, and that his journey as Conan to regain his body and hunt down the Black Syndicate had just begun.
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