POV: Jay
The house was completely silent. I stood up from the living room sofa, gripping my phone, and walked quietly down the hall. I stopped in front of the guest room door and knocked softly.
"Mama? Are you awake?"
A moment later, the door slid open. Mamako stood there in her nightgown, looking tired but offering her usual, gentle smile.
"Jay-kun? Is everything alright? You should be resting."
I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. I didn't want to beat around the bush. I needed to tell her before she heard it from anyone else.
"Sit down for a second, Mama," I said gently, guiding her to the edge of the bed.
She looked at me, her maternal instincts immediately picking up on my serious tone.
"What happened?"
"I just got a message from Ran-Nee," I began, keeping my voice perfectly steady.
A/N: Ah you might be wondering yes shinhichi and ran is 2 year older than him. Rito lala and everyone in his highschool year 1 is 16 he is the only one who is 15. So year 1 is 16, year 2 students are 17, and year 3 is 18
"She just received a phone call from Yukiko. They... they said Shinichi-Nii were dead."
Mamako froze. All the color instantly drained from her face. Her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes widening in absolute horror.
Our families were incredibly close. Mamako had gone to high school with Yukiko Kudo, Eri Kisaki, Hana Kirisaki, and even the current head of the Yakuza faction, Raku's father. To Mamako, Yukiko and Eri were sisters. And Shinichi was practically a nephew.
Tears immediately welled up in her eyes. "No... S-Shinichi-kun? But how...? Yukiko... oh my god..."
"Mama, stop," I interjected immediately, placing my hands on her trembling shoulders. I looked her dead in the eyes.
"Listen to me. He isn't dead."
Mamako blinked, the tears stopping abruptly.
"W-What?"
"Shinichi-Nii not dead yet," I repeated clearly.
"He stumbled onto a highly dangerous, underground criminal syndicate tonight. They tried to kill him, but he survived. To protect Ran, his paretns, and everyone else, Yusaku and Yukiko stepped in. They helped him completely erase his identity. There is no body. But officially, as of tonight, Shinichi Kudo was listed dead."
Mamako stared at me, trying to process the whiplash of emotions.
"Erased his identity? Yusaku and Yukiko helped him? Jay-kun... how do you know all this?"
"Mama don't forget what i said earlier tonight? I simoly know many thing," I said softly, offering a reassuring smile. I wasn't going to burden her with the knowledge of NEXUS Corp or my multiversal authorities just yet.
"But I couldn't let you wake up tomorrow and cry over a lie. Your tears are too precious to waste on Shinichi-Nii dramatic detective games."
Mamako let out a shaky, overwhelming breath of relief. She pressed a hand to her chest, closing her eyes as the tension left her body.
"Thank goodness... oh, thank goodness he's alive."
She opened her eyes, looking at me with profound realization.
"but why they declared him dead... Yukiko is putting on an act?"
"She's an actress," I nodded. "And we need to act tomorrow at the memorial service. We need to be there for Ran and Eri, and we need to act like we believe it, or the syndicate might get suspicious."
Mamako nodded firmly, her resolve returning.
"I understand. I can do that."
I stood up, patting her shoulder.
"Get some sleep, Mama. Tomorrow is going to be a long day."
Tokyo, Kudo Family Memorial Service
The Next Afternoon
The rain poured down in a heavy, somber drizzle, painting the cemetery in shades of grey. Since there was no body, it was an empty-casket memorial service.
Dozens of people dressed in black stood around the site. Yukiko Kudo was weeping uncontrollably into her husband Yusaku's shoulder. Her performance was flawless—absolute, devastating grief that fooled everyone in attendance. Eri Kisaki stood nearby, her usually stern, a little shaken cause her daugther sobbing so hard.
Mamako stood with them, gently rubbing Ran's back and offering comforting words to Ran. Mamako was an incredible actress when she needed to be; her sorrow looked entirely genuine, even though she knew the truth.
I stood a few paces back, holding a black umbrella over myself. My eyes scanned the crowd of mourners, ignoring the crying classmates and solemn police officers.
My gaze finally locked onto a small boy wearing an oversized suit and thick glasses. He was standing near Kogoro Mouri, looking down at the memorial with a complex mixture of guilt and sharp determination.
Conan Edogawa.
I slowly closed the distance, stopping right behind the small boy. The rain pattered against my umbrella.
"Tragic, isn't it?" I murmured, keeping my voice low enough so only he could hear.
Conan flinched, turning around to look up at me. He adjusted his glasses, putting on his best innocent, childlike voice.
"Ah... yes. It's really sad Nii-Chan,"
I looked down at him. I look away every single layer of his disguise.
"Nice glasses, Kudo," I whispered, the words slicing through the rain like a scalpel. "Your mother deserves an Oscar for that crying performance."
Conan's entire body went completely rigid. The color drained from his face faster than if he had seen a ghost. His breath caught in his throat, and his pupils shrank to pinpricks. His hyper-rational, fiercely logical detective brain scrambled, utterly failing to comprehend how a fifteen-year-old high schooler had seen through a disguise that was currently fooling the entire Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
I know he is not normal but to think he know it was me in a single glance dammit!
Before he could stammer out a denial, I leaned down slightly.
"I don't care about your little game of with the them," I said, my voice cold and uncompromising.
"Do not let this mess spill over into my family, Shinichi-Nii san. Because if that Black Organization even looks in our direction..."
I paused, letting the silence hang for a terrifying second.
"...i'll do it my own way, i kill them all... all of them"
I stood back up, my expression returning to a polite, solemn neutrality. I walked past the paralyzed, sweating detective to join Mamako.
Once the service ended, Mamako and I received the traditional Kiyome-shio—purifying salt—from the attendants. We stepped outside the cemetery gates, and I gently sprinkled the salt over my shoulders and chest, adhering to the Shinto tradition of cleansing the negative energy of death before moving on.
"I'll take a taxi home, Jay-kun," Mamako said softly, wiping her eyes.
"Are you going back to Rito's house?"
"I have some urgent matters to attend to," I said.
"I'll be back by dinner. Stay safe."
NEXUS Corp Headquarters, Tokyo
The towering, sleek obsidian-glass skyscraper of NEXUS Corp stood dominantly in the center of Tokyo's commercial district. To the public, it was the zenith of modern technological advancement. To me, it was my fortress.
I bypassed the crowded lobby, taking a private, biometric-locked elevator straight to the underground command center.
The doors slid open to reveal a massive, dimly lit room filled with holographic interfaces and hundreds of server banks. Standing at the central tactical table was my clone, wearing a sharp, tailored black suit, tapping rapidly on a holographic keyboard.
Standing across from him was a handsome, twenty-year-old young man with striking silver hair and an aura of absolute, unshakable political authority. Tsukasa Mikogami, the youngest Prime Minister in human history.
"You're fucking late," my clone 'ignorance' deadpanned without looking up.
I named it like that
"I had a funeral to attend," I replied dryly, walking up to the table.
"Tsukasa. Good to see you."
Tsukasa offered a brief, polite smile, sliding a manila folder across the glowing table.
"Jay. Good to see you as well. Here are the documents you requested. Birth certificate, passport, and residential registration for one 'Lala Satalin Deviluke.' Completely untraceable, integrated flawlessly into the national database."
"Appreciate it," I said, tucking the folder into my coat.
"Now, why do you both look like someone just declared World War III?"
Tsukasa's smile vanished, replaced by the grim seriousness of a world leader.
"Because we might be facing something worse. Last night, Nexus Corp satellite network picked up localized, highly unstable spatial distortions across Tokyo. I thought they were just magnetic anomalies."
"Until this morning," Ignorance interrupted, pulling up a series of classified police photographs on the main holographic display.
I looked at the holograms. They were crime scene photos from dark, secluded alleyways. The bodies were completely mutilated, torn apart with savage, animalistic brutality. But it wasn't just murder.
They had been eaten.
"The police think it's a new breed of serial killer or a wild animal attack," Tsukasa said, crossing his arms.
"But your Ignkrance ran the forensic data through the lab. The bite marks and saliva residue don't match any known animals or human."
Ignorance swiped his hand, bringing up a blurry, pixelated security camera footage from a nearby ATM. The footage showed a figure hunched over a body in the dark. Suddenly, a massive, glowing, blood-red appendage—like a cross between a tentacle and a scythe—erupted from the figure's lower back, shattering a nearby streetlamp before the feed cut to static.
"A Kagune," I whispered, my eyes narrowing.
"You know what this is?" Tsukasa asked sharply.
"They aren't from this world," I said, the realization settling heavily in my chest. The Outer Gods weren't wasting any time. They had fractured the boundary, and anomalies were alreafy here... fuck it.
"They are called Ghouls. Entities from another reality that sustain themselves exclusively on human flesh and coffee."
Tsukasa's eyes widened in horror.
"A localized invasion of man-eating anomalies right in my capital? If this gets out, there will be mass panic."
"It won't get out," I said coldly. "We're going to contain it before the public even realizes they exist."
"Boss," Ignorance said, his tone urgent. He zoomed in on a specific blip on the holographic map of Tokyo.
"I've been tracking a specific, highly concentrated RC-cell signature—the energy these anomalies emit. It's currently moving aggressively through Ward 20. And it looks like it's tailing a civilian."
Ignorance tapped the console, overriding a nearby street camera to display a live feed.
Walking down a dark, empty street was a beautiful high school girl with long, dark hair, wearing a white headband. She was muttering to herself, holding a notebook and a pen, completely absorbed in whatever she was writing.
Tsukasa narrowed his eyes. "What is she doing walking alone in Ward 20 at this hour?"
"Probably looking for inspiration maybe?," I sighed, recognizing her instantly.
Behind Kasumigaoka Utaha, lurking in the shadows of the alleyway, was a woman with purple hair and glasses. Rize Kamishiro. The Binge Eater.
Normally, the Ghouls from that universe preyed on their own world's inhabitants. But this was my city. Utaha was just an innocent girl trying to write a book. And I wasn't going to let her get butchered just because some bored Outer Gods wanted to watch a tragedy unfold.
"Ignorance, initiate a complete media blackout on Ward 20. Shut down the streetlights in that specific sector," I ordered, rolling my shoulders as a deadly, conceptual weight settled over my aura. "Tsukasa, keep the police away from that area. Tell them it's a classified anti-terrorism operation."
Tsukasa nodded firmly. "Understood. Good luck, Jay."
"I don't need luck," I said.
I raised my hand, slicing a jagged tear in the fabric of space. Through the rift, I could see the dark, quiet street of Ward 20, just a few blocks ahead of where Utaha was walking.
I stepped into the portal, leaving the command center behind. It was time to show the anomalies exactly whose world they had invaded.
The quiet streets of Ward 20 were bathed in the dim, flickering light of the streetlamps. I stepped out of the spatial rift, completely masking my presence.
A few yards ahead, Utaha Kasumigaoka was muttering to herself, scribbling furiously in a notebook. Behind her, Rize Kamishiro stepped out of the shadows, her Kagune erupting from her back with a sickening crunch.
Rize lunged, aiming to skewer the high school novelist.
Clang.
I didn't even turn around. I just stood between them, holding up a single finger. Rize's razor-sharp Kagune struck my barrier and stopped dead, the kinetic force completely nullified.
Rize's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "What...?"
"You're being noisy," I sighed.
I flicked my wrist. A wave of localized spatial compression slammed into Rize. She didn't even have time to gasp before the gravity crushed her flat against the pavement, knocking her out cold. I opened a small portal beneath her, dumping the unconscious Ghoul into a stasis vault for my clone and keine to dissect later.
Utaha, who had dropped her notebook, was sitting on the ground. She was trembling, but her crimson eyes were wide with intense, unadulterated fascination.
I pulled out a sleek, silver cylindrical device—a memory nullifier I had my clone reverse-engineer last week.
"Kasumigaoka Utaha," I said, spinning the device lazily.
"You just saw something you weren't supposed to. Usually, I'd just flash this light, wipe your memory, and let you go back to writing your light novels."
Utaha stared at the device, swallowing hard.
"But you wander around Tokyo a lot for inspiration," I continued.
"So, let's make a deal. Option B: You keep your memories and work for me."
"Work... for you?" Utaha blinked, her writer's curiosity overriding her fear.
"Doing what?"
"A glorified patrol officer," I shrugged.
"You just walk around the city like you usually do. If you see something weird, something supernatural, or people getting eaten, you call my company. That's it."
Utaha narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"And my writing? I'm not giving up my career to be a ghostbuster."
"You can write whenever you want. Consider this a side hustle," I said.
"As for the pay... standard corporate daily allowances in Japan max out at around 10,000 to 20,000 yen for executives. My company's absolute minimum daily patrol budget is 100,000 yen. You use it for snacks, coffee, taxis, whatever. And if you don't spend it all by the end of the day, the rest goes straight into your personal bank account."
Utaha's jaw physically dropped. One hundred thousand yen a day? Just to walk around and write her novel?
She scrambled to her feet, dusting off her skirt with a perfectly composed, albeit slightly greedy, smirk.
"I accept. Where do I sign, Boss?"
"Add this LINE contact," I said, tossing her my phone.
"Now come on. I have a Prime Minister waiting."
Utaha nearly dropped the phone.
"...A what?"
NEXUS Corp Headquarters, Tokyo
Utaha stumbled slightly as we stepped out of the portal and into the hyper-advanced underground command center of NEXUS Corp.
Standing at the central table was Tsukasa Mikogami, the twenty-year-old Prime Minister of Japan. He offered Utaha a charismatic, polite smile, causing the high school novelist to freeze completely in starstruck shock.
Meanwhile, my clone—Ignorance—was groaning, massaging his temples as he leaned over the holographic console.
"I got the Ghoul," I told him.
"Start the autopsy."
"I don't care about the Ghoul right now,"
Ignorance grumbled, glaring at me. Because our memories had just synced, he really want to flip a table now.
"Do you have any idea how much administrative paperwork a multiversal Isekai invasion is going to generate? The sheer volume of undocumented refugees... It's literally fucked up, you fucking original."
"Stop complaining, i know its fucked up," I dismissed him, turning to Tsukasa.
"Tsukasa, the Ghoul was an anomaly. A dimensional refugee. But there's a bigger problem coming. Mass Isekai summonings. Whole classrooms, individuals, getting dragged into fantasy worlds."
Tsukasa crossed his arms, his politician's brain immediately shifting gears.
"A massive leak of human capital. We need a task force. A shadow agency."
"Call it the NSAA or whatever. I don't care about the naming," I waved my hand.
"NEXUS will fund it and provide the tech. But the funny part is, you and the other six Geniuses are actually on the target list for one of these summonings."
Tsukasa blinked, his composure slipping for a fraction of a second. "Us? Targeted?"
"Yeah. Sometime during your winter vacation in two months, your private jet is going to get swallowed by a rift, and you'll all crash in a medieval fantasy world," I explained casually.
Utaha, who had finally regained her senses, stared at me.
"Wait, you're telling the Prime Minister he's going to get Isekai'd, and you're this relaxed about it?"
"I mean, I could stop it," I shrugged, leaning against the table. "But honestly? I think you guys should go."
Ignorance snorted in agreement.
Tsukasa raised an eyebrow, intrigued rather than offended. "You want the leadership of this country to get exiled to a magical dimension?"
"Think about it capitally, Tsukasa," I grinned, pointing at the holographic map.
"If you guys get summoned, you act as a perfect dimensional beacon. I can use your signatures to pinpoint the exact coordinates of that fantasy world. Once I have the coordinates, I can open a stable gate."
Tsukasa's eyes widened slightly as he caught onto my line of thinking.
"Exactly," I smirked.
"A completely untouched, medieval world filled with new magical resources, unmined ores, and zero corporate regulations. You guys go in, establish a political foothold using your genius brains, and I'll send NEXUS Corp in to exploit their natural resources a little."
Tsukasa stared at the holographic table for a long moment. A slow, highly calculating smile spread across the young Prime Minister's face.
"A complete monopoly on a parallel world's economy," Tsukasa murmured, adjusting his suit.
"No international trade laws. No foreign sanctions."
"Infinite profit," Ignorance chimed in, already pulling up resource management spreadsheets.
"So, what do you say?" I asked.
"Do you want to cancel the flight, or do you want to play fantasy politics for a few months and make us trilions?"
Tsukasa chuckled, a sound that would terrify any rival politician.
"I'll tell Ringo to start packing her survival gear. We take the flight."
I nodded in satisfaction. The Outer Gods wanted chaos? I was going to turn their little Isekai game into a hostile corporate takeover.
"Utaha," I called out, tossing her a sleek black credit card. "Welcome to NEXUS Corp. Start patrolling tomorrow. Oh, and if you see any trucks driving suspiciously fast toward teenagers... let me know."