The breeze stirred the leaves, casting dancing shadows across the ground.
A handsome young man sat on a park bench beneath the trees. A young girl stood behind the iron gate nearby. Their eyes met. The sun was bright, the wind carried the scent of cut grass, and for a fleeting moment, time seemed to stand still.
Then, the tranquility was shattered.
"The God of War shall descend upon the night of the full moon to punish you ignorant fools!" a man in slippers and a hospital gown shouted, sprinting past them.
A frantic swarm of nurses and doctors trailed behind him. "Quick! Quick!" "Cut him off!"
To the side, a gaunt, lethargic teenager sat huddled on the ground, his arms wrapped around his knees, staring blankly at nothing.
Steve Smith looked down at a small rubber ball that had rolled to his feet. He bent over, picked it up, and walked toward the iron gate. The nurse standing by his bench followed closely, her eyes filled with a mix of caution and suppressed dread.
Reaching the gate, Steve crouched down and slid the ball through the bars. "Here."
Outside the gate, the little girl seemed dazed—perhaps startled by the commotion, or perhaps unsettled by Steve's entirely expressionless face. She took the ball mechanically.
Steve stood up to leave.
"Wait—wait a minute!" the girl called out. "Thank you, mister! My name is Amy, Amy Young. What's yours?"
Steve paused and turned to look at her. She was about six or seven, with a neat bob, a yellow headband, and a pink sweater. Her large eyes looked up at him with genuine expectation. In this "two-dimensional" world, she was objectively adorable.
The catch was... Amy Young?
That name, combined with the fractured logic of the timeline, left Steve feeling a bitter sense of irony. He had been reborn into the world of Detective Conan?
A month ago, he had discovered that despite having died in his previous life, he had "woken up" in the body of a university student. Same name: Steve Smith. Same age: twenty. If it wasn't for the unfamiliar face and the strange family history, he would have thought he'd simply been resurrected.
He'd heard in his past life that the surname "Smith" was the most common in the English-speaking world. This life was certainly a cross-border reunion... though he would have preferred to skip it.
When he arrived, the original consciousness of this body hadn't vanished. For the first few weeks, the two personalities traded control every three or four hours; while one moved, the other slept. By the second day of this "transmigration," he had been committed to the psychiatric ward.
The primary diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Furthermore, in his eyes, time was broken. Yesterday was Saturday. Today was somehow Saturday again. But to the doctors, he was the one with the problem—a complication of his disorder called "Time Perception Distortion."
He had almost started to believe them. Now, realizing he was in the world of Conan with its infamously mangled timeline... he had a few choice words for the universe.
To make matters worse, since arriving, he could occasionally hear animals and plants talking. Combined with his lack of inherited memories and his cold detachment from his new "family," his psych evaluation results—judging by the doctor's grim face—had been catastrophic.
Add to that the fact that the original host suffered from clinical depression and had attempted suicide twice, and the result was mandatory inpatient treatment. Level One Care.
Level One meant a private observation room. It meant never leaving a nurse's sight. It meant a week of restricted movement, supervised outings, and daily behavioral charting. Every pill, every wake-up call, and every breath was monitored. It was enough to make a sane man go mad.
"Mister?" Amy asked, a slight, curious blush on her face. He really was a very handsome older brother...
The nurse knelt down, carefully choosing her words. "Sweetie, he's..."
Steve snapped back to the present. He looked at Amy. "Steve Smith. That's my name."
Amy nodded, flashing a sweet smile. "I'll remember that! Can I come play with you again?"
"Oh, no, that's not..." the nurse began quickly. Though Steve hadn't been violent, children were impressionable, and she couldn't risk him saying something "eccentric" to a local child.
"Why not?"
Amy's confused voice faded behind him. Steve had already turned away, walking back toward the ward with a cold, indifferent gait.
On the way, a man intercepted him, glancing nervously over his shoulders. "I'm telling you," the man whispered, "your existence is just a trick of your perception. Perception can be lied to. This world was made by Someone. Whenever He wants, He can just erase us. Do you believe me?"
Steve stared at the man for a moment. "Perhaps."
Was this world created by an author? Was it "real"? Even Steve wasn't sure anymore.
The man let out a long breath of relief, his eyes shining with sudden kinship. He grabbed Steve's arm as he tried to walk away. "You're the first one who believes me! I can't leave you here. There's something wrong with this world—an Eye is watching us. I have a way out..."
Steve looked at the rambling man and felt a wave of exhaustion. He stepped forward, grabbed the man's arm, and executed a perfect shoulder throw. As the man hit the floor, Steve delivered a precise strike to the carotid artery.
The man went limp, unconscious.
Finally, the world was quiet.
No, it wasn't.
"What are you doing?!" "Over here! Quickly!"
Steve didn't wait for the guards to reach him; he simply let go of the man and stood there, waiting.
One hour later.
The middle-aged doctor was balding, slightly stout, and had a cheerful round face that projected maximum friendliness. "Mr. Smith," Dr. Miller said with a smile, "I'd like to understand. Why did you strike his neck?"
Steve looked at his attending physician. His face remained a mask of apathy. "He was too loud."
Miller chuckled. "Just because of that?"
"I used controlled force." Steve didn't bother explaining further. In this place, the more you denied being sick, the more "unstable" they labeled you.
Miller nodded noncommittally, his voice softening into a lecture. "Try not to do that again. The human neck is fragile. Striking the artery can cause a blackout, but it can also be fatal. It's a dangerous behavior."
Steve could practically see Miller adding another black mark to his file. "I understand."
Miller watched him closely, sighing inwardly. He could tell Steve didn't care. He needed to monitor the boy for violent tendencies. "You've been recovering well lately," the doctor lied smoothly. "The shifts between personalities aren't as frequent. With more communication, you'll be home soon... By the way, do you know what day tomorrow is?"
Steve remembered seeing the newspaper in the ward. Today was Tuesday. "Tomorrow is Wednesday."
Miller corrected him gently. "Actually... tomorrow is Friday."
Steve remained silent, fighting a powerful urge to flip the desk.
Today is Tuesday, and tomorrow is Friday?
Fine. He knew this was a trap. At this rate, he was never getting out. If he thought the time was abnormal while everyone else thought it was fine, then in this world, he was the freak. He was the patient.
It was likely how many "real" insane people felt.
To make it worse, a succulent plant on the desk started acting up, emitting a whiny, disgruntled voice: "So thirsty... so thirsty... want water... it hurts..."
"Friday. Got it," Steve said, staring straight ahead, ignoring the plant.
Last time, he had let his eyes wander toward a talking plant, and Miller had grilled him for an hour on what he was "seeing" or "hearing." Psychiatrists were a massive headache.
The session ended thirty minutes later.
The doctor's assistant, a young woman, smiled as she walked out with the files. "Mr. Smith seems to be one of our best-recovering patients. He's been cooperative, the two personalities are leaving notes for each other in a journal, and the auditory hallucinations seem to have stopped. Everything is looking up."
Miller's expression was grim. "Hard to say. He's very intelligent..."
"Oh?"
"Did you read his full diagnostic report?" Miller opened a folder. "Dissociative Identity Disorder. Both personalities suffer from Emotional Detachment Disorder. One is severely depressed with suicidal ideation; the other—the one we just saw—has hallucinations, delusions, and Time Perception Distortion."
The assistant nodded. "Textbook DID."
"DID is tricky. Right now, it looks like both personalities are acknowledging each other, which is good. But look at his behavior. He is extremely cold, showing zero emotional connection to his environment," Miller noted. "He isn't 'cured.' The 'Delusional' personality has been dominant lately. He's smart—he's realized what we want to hear, so he's faking it. He's masking. And he's shown physical reflexes and combat skills that aren't in his medical history."
"So... that personality is a 'protector' he hallucinated?" the assistant mused.
"We need to determine if that persona is truly aggressive," Miller said. "Though, for now, at least this persona isn't trying to kill itself... Have we reached his family?"
"Yes," the assistant whispered. "But both parents said they were too busy to visit. They hung up after a few seconds."
Miller frowned. "They really aren't helping his case, are they?"