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[modernholmes]

Conan didn't know how, but somehow he had arrived in a village that could only be described as quaint and European. He privately wondered if this was part of one of his mother's elaborate pranks.

But regardless of how he had arrived here and where he was, there was still a crime to solve. It had been tricky gathering the evidence, but nothing beyond his skills. Now there was only the deduction show to finish. He turns and points at one of the suspects.

"The murderer is you! You betrayed and killed your brother here in order to take his place as heir to the kingdom! But you made a mistake! You failed to realize that there was a witness to your crime!"

He ignores the shocked whispers of the onlookers around them.

"Yes! The golden goose saw everything!"

Comments

[theycallhersunshine]

Alice tilted her head to the side and gave Conan an inquisitive look, a loose piece of hair falling into her eyes as she did. "No?" She said. "How so?"

[modernholmes]

"For one thing, you were not a girl then." He chooses his words very carefully.

[theycallhersunshine]

"Are you certain that it was me then, Conan-kun?" She asked with the light sort of bemusement one might direct at a confused child. "I have been a girl all my life, after all. Something your hot-blooded friend seemed loathe to let me forget." Alice added irritably.

[modernholmes]

"Quite certain, unless you have been lying to the press and the police these past few years. And I see no reason for that."

[theycallhersunshine]

"Lying?" Alice asked. She attempted to infuse the sort of tone into the word that suggested that the very idea was absurd. "Do you mean lying about being a girl, or lying about who I am? And are you suggesting that it is myself who is lying, or this other individual who seems to claim my name?"

[modernholmes]

"Merely that the Hakuba Saguru I have met before was male. Was known to be male by both his reputation in the press and by the people who have worked with him." He attempts to hide the mild irritation in his voice. None of this was making sense. "But there is no reason for such a charade."

[theycallhersunshine]

"How odd." Alice said, tapping one finger against her bottom lip and turning to look about their blurred and indistinct surroundings. She made a curious sound in the back of her throat. "Perhaps you are dreaming. Or perhaps I am. If we wake up, do you suppose one of the both of us will cease to exist?"

[modernholmes]

He shrugs. "We'll find out then, I suppose."

[theycallhersunshine]

"Unless of course we cease to exist, in which case, we won't know anything at all." Alice felt it necessary to point out.

[modernholmes]

"That's a possibility, isn't it? But if it is the case, we won't know until it happens."

[theycallhersunshine]

Alice hummed thoughtfully. "What a strangely resigned attitude for you, Conan-kun. I thought you were supposed to be a detective."

[modernholmes]

"That moment is the test." He crosses his arms behind his head. "If this is a dream we will wake up. Until that time we have only observation. And the possibility that anything we can observe here is unreliable."

[theycallhersunshine]

"And you can think of no other possible tests to run before that pivotal moment, Conan-kun?" Alice asked, straightening one of the sleeves of her blouses with a detatched air. "Have you never had a dream in which you knew were dreaming and were thus able to manipulate the variables of said dream?"

[modernholmes]

"I don't have much interest in dreams," he tells her bluntly. "And I don't remember them very often."

Not entirely true, but close enough. The last thing he wanted was to have another detective inquiring into the subjects of his dreams. And he preferred to keep his plans for investigation concealed as well. Heiji had once recognized him merely from his deductive style. It might be possible for this Hakuba to do the same.

[theycallhersunshine]

Alice smiled and leaned forward to address Conan directly, bent in a neat ninety degree angle. "Dreams can be a fascinating exploration into the psyche, if you approach them from the right angle, Conan-kun." She told him.