His name was Sora, given by his master.
As someone living in an era devoid of magic, Sora had no flashy supernatural abilities or immortal techniques.
Aside from being a bit more handsome and a bit better at fighting than the average person, he was utterly ordinary—a background character in a spiritual resurgence novel who wouldn't even warrant a full name.
But thankfully, he had crossed over.
Now, he was wrapped in nothing but a coat, cradled in a man's arms.
He had clearly become a child—a possible side effect of crossing over. However, a set of memories that didn't belong to him suggested otherwise.
In those memories, he had followed two suspicious men in black to a secluded spot. While secretly photographing evidence of their crimes, one of them sneaked up behind him, knocked him out, and forced him to swallow a strange drug.
That was likely the reason the original owner of this body—a high school detective named Shinichi Kudo—had shrunk into a child.
Sora recognized the name.
As the memories gradually integrated, he began to understand the words of the police officers around him. Terms like "twins," "infirmary," and "little brother" flooded his ears, piecing together into coherent sentences.
Once he fully absorbed the memories, he mastered the language instantly. Opening his eyes, he looked at another child being held nearby.
The boy seemed to have just understood the officers' words and glanced over. Their eyes met, and Sora saw shock and confusion in the boy's gaze. A moment later, the officers carrying them shifted, breaking their line of sight.
Still, Sora stared in that direction, dazed. The boy's face was identical to the childhood face of Shinichi Kudo in his new memories.
And from the officers' conversations, it seemed his own appearance was the same.
Sora sighed inwardly, realizing his crossing might have gone slightly awry.
According to the memories, he had arrived in this world and taken on Shinichi Kudo's form and his complete, even sharper, memories… yet the original Shinichi Kudo still existed.
In other words, there were now two Shinichi Kudos.
…
The officers who found the two unconscious children performed a quick check and realized that if they didn't hurry to the infirmary, the boys' wounds would heal completely on their own. So, they rushed to a nearby medical facility.
One child was quiet—likely the older twin—while the other was noisy, spouting nonsensical words upon waking. But when he saw his "brother," he suddenly calmed down, much to the officers' relief.
They brought the boys to the infirmary, bandaged their already-healed wounds, and found a pair of old shoes for the child wrapped only in an adult's coat. Then, they began discussing how to get the boys home.
Sora sat quietly, watching the other Shinichi Kudo, wrapped in a shirt, sneak to a full-length mirror. The boy's face was filled with shock.
Shinichi's mind was on the verge of crashing.
He abruptly turned to look at the "well-behaved" boy sitting on a stool, who was thoughtfully staring back at him—an identical copy of himself, both as a child and now.
Then, glancing at the distracted officers, Shinichi quietly slipped to the infirmary door, pushed it open, and ran off, dragging oversized shoes and pants.
It was drizzling outside.
The moon had risen, streetlights glowed dimly, and puddles formed on the ground. The ill-fitting shoes made running difficult for Shinichi.
But the darkness helped him evade the pursuing officers, avoiding the fate of being sent to a daycare for convenience.
Shinichi's mind was a mess, struggling to accept the situation. Going home was instinctual, but he took a few detours and stopped under a dim streetlamp.
"Now you can talk," Shinichi said, turning with narrowed eyes. "Who are you?"
"…Shinichi Kudo."
"Tch, just as I thought." Despite the oversized pants, Shinichi shoved his hands in his pockets, his gaze sharpening.
Sora raised an eyebrow. This wasn't what he expected.
"You're with those guys, aren't you?" Shinichi continued. "At first, I wondered if you just happened to look like me as a kid. But when I saw the same wound on your head, I knew it wasn't that simple."
"So, I figure you're part of a plan to replace the shrunken me, using Shinichi Kudo's identity for some shady business."
This guy's exactly like me… Shinichi thought. It was all planned. Those men in black probably lured me there on purpose.
He felt a pang of regret for his recklessness but kept studying the other boy's expression, expecting a reaction to being exposed. There was none.
"Then…" Sora questioned, his voice nearly identical to the shrunken Shinichi's, though with a slightly different tone, "why pretend to be a shrunken Shinichi Kudo? Why not just pose as the original?"
"Because of you," Shinichi replied, deducing. "They probably noticed you looked like me as a kid after shrinking and came up with this plan."
"You might not have looked this much like me originally… and they probably don't know me that well. You'd claim to be the shrunken me, fooling those close to me into believing you."
Like Ran, Shinichi added mentally.
"Then you could use my identity without needing to act exactly like me, reducing the risk of being caught."
"But something went wrong."
Shinichi's head was still spinning. Becoming a child was a shock, making it hard to focus.
"They meant to kill me… but I didn't die. I turned into a kid like you, and the police showed up too fast for you to finish me off. You only had time to put my coat on."
In a typical case, the culprit would confess by now. But this guy wasn't ordinary.
Shinichi knew his words were more of a probe than a solid deduction. The night's events were too bizarre, almost shaking his worldview. But there was no time for a slow investigation—losing the officers but not this guy was proof.
"Sounds reasonable," Sora said, stepping forward. "But… if that's true, why confront me here? It's not too late to get rid of you, is it?"
"Heh, you forgot," Shinichi said with a confident smirk. "You're just a kid now… a kid…"
His face paled.
(End of Chapter)