In a game, you're guided to find the truth of a case by following hints step by step. When all the clues are gathered, the truth is revealed. But in reality, there are no hints to guide you. Taking a few extra steps or missing a few can lead you to miss crucial clues, turning the entire mystery into a chaotic mess. This is exactly the situation Taichi and the others are in.
If this were a normal disaster story, they've already completely messed up the script with Mordred and Raikou's strength and the exploration abilities of Kotoko's Yokai. A chain of interconnected clues? That's non-existent. Even if there were, the group's chaotic and spontaneous actions would have completely disrupted it.
As a result, Taichi and his friends have yet to find the connection between the Visitors and the mastermind, nor do they know the motive behind this reckless act.
Why, What, Where, When, Who, How. Out of these five W's and one H, they only know that the Hannya-masked figure is the suspected culprit and that this culprit seems to be targeting people like Taichi who can maintain their physical form on the boundary between life and death. They know nothing else.
"If this were a detective story, then the culprit has already won."
"But if it's not a detective story, then finding the culprit and defeating them is our victory."
Taichi looked at the scene of the highway entrance, which was completely filled with Visitors, and sighed.
"None of us are detectives," Akane said with a shrug. "And the detective is watching from outside, looking horrified."
Outside the sealing barrier, a small boy in a suit and bowtie, wearing oversized glasses, stood there with a grim expression, his eyes fixed on the chaos and supernatural beings within the barrier. Not far behind him stood Ai Haibara and Professor Agasa, whom Taichi had just recently seen. It was a shame he couldn't see the other two detectives currently active in Tokyo, Saguru Hakuba and Kogoro Akechi.
"Um, can you four please get down first?" The Ittan-momen, who was being used as a flying vehicle, asked, struggling. "I can't hold on much longer."
"Are you saying we're heavy?" Ann asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's not a physical weight; it's a spiritual torment," the Ittan-momen said, almost in tears. "The sheer authority Lady Raikou radiates is almost killing me."
"Oh, is it my fault?" Raikou said, gently touching her cheek and looking down at the Ittan-momen with a troubled expression.
"No! Absolutely not! It's my fault for being so useless!" The Ittan-momen was terrified, but it was even more afraid of offending Raikou, so it could only hold on.
"Master, how long can this sealing barrier last?" Raikou turned to Taichi and asked.
"Well, it consumed enough energy to prevent X from transforming for a short period of time. Even though it covers Shibuya and a few surrounding areas, it can last for ten days to half a month without a backup power source. The Visitors' efforts to drain it are pointless, since X anticipated this and set up countermeasures in the barrier. Not only are the Visitors' efforts negligible, but once the sun rises, the light will instantly replenish any lost energy." Taichi replied. "Of course, I also have the authority to remove the barrier after this is all over. X left me that permission."
"Prince X is truly a wise sage," Raikou, as one of the Heroic Spirits who witnessed X setting up the barrier, held him in high regard.
"...Taichi, you seem to know a lot about that Ultraman," Ann, the only person there who didn't know the full story, looked at Taichi with confusion.
"I met that Ultraman once before," Taichi said calmly. "He warned me about the barrier's purpose." It was pointless to deny his connection to Ultraman, as it would only increase suspicion. It was better to admit that he had communicated with him.
"Did that Ultraman even tell you his name?" Ann was quite interested in the Ultraman story.
"Not exactly. I just call him that because of the 'X' on his chest," Taichi said, showing he didn't want to talk about it anymore. "You have to keep this a secret. Otherwise, it'll make people jealous."
"Yeah, I get it," Ann said, nodding in agreement. "We're so close, and when I heard you met and talked to Ultraman, I was already jealous. I can't imagine how others would feel."
"Raikou, are you sensing anyone watching us?" Taichi turned to Raikou and asked. The reason he was so nonchalantly riding on the Ittan-momen's back was to lure the culprit out. But when he saw Raikou sadly shake her head, he sighed. They were in such a visible location, yet the opponent still wouldn't show themselves, which meant the culprit was very wary of the power that Raikou and Mordred had shown. Even with the two groups separated, the opponent still wouldn't take a risk.
"It seems the culprit has many flashy tricks, but their actual power is far inferior to Raikou and Mordred's," Taichi guessed. The barrier around Tokyo, the fog, and the Visitors that came with it were all things the culprit had created using methods Taichi and his group couldn't understand. Or maybe those things were already there, and the culprit just used a certain method to flip a switch that had always been "off" to "on"? There were too few clues to come to a conclusion.
"By the way, now that our location is so clear, why aren't the Visitors attacking us anymore?" Ann asked, unable to understand. "Didn't they attack us on sight before?"
"That's why I said the Visitors are like robots with pre-set programs," Taichi said, shrugging. "Before, their program was to attack all the living people inside the barrier who could move freely, but now, they're solely focused on draining the seal."
"However, this allows me to confirm one thing."
"The culprit definitely has a way to control the Visitors."
"Dr. Agasa, did you find anything?" On the highway, Conan pulled his gaze away from the strange group of beings enveloped in the "invisible wall" and turned to Dr. Agasa, who was furiously typing on his laptop in front of the Beetle.
"No, I can't figure out the structure of that invisible wall at all," Dr. Agasa's forehead was drenched in cold sweat. "It's a field that human society has never touched before."
"Isn't that enough?" Ai Haibara shouted, hugging her arms in distress. "That invisible wall was probably set up by Ultraman to protect us. Why are we trying to analyze a field we've never been involved with before? Let's get out of here!"
"I don't deny that Ultraman might have done this to protect us, but what about the people inside this invisible dome?" Conan replied, his face grim. "Inspector Megure, Officer Takagi—they're all in there. We don't know if they've been assimilated by those 'freaks,' killed, or imprisoned somewhere."
"But this place is too conspicuous!" Ai Haibara shouted, annoyed. "With so many bizarre people gathered here, it won't be long before this becomes the focal point of all of Japan, and even the world!"
"Are you trying to expose your existence to the whole world, Edogawa?"
Conan's expression froze. After standing still for dozens of seconds, he lowered his head and turned around.
"Dr. Agasa, pack up. Let's go."
Lately, the appearances of monsters and Ultraman had skewed Shinichi Kudo's perception of the real world. Because of this, he had even tried to tie "that organization" to aliens on several occasions. Even when solving cases, he would occasionally get paranoid, wondering if aliens or ghosts were behind it all.
Thanks to the guidance from his father in America, he had gradually returned from idealism to materialism. But the strange events of last night and today had ruthlessly ripped open a corner of the world's truth right in front of him. The reason he was so insistent on finding the truth, besides his detective's passion for it, was that he wanted to regain the confidence he had lost due to the multiple anomalies that had been revealed to him recently.
But Haibara's words jolted him awake. The eyes of the entire world would be on this place—that was no exaggeration. He could "secretly" investigate that organization from the shadows, but he absolutely could not expose his existence to the world. Otherwise, those who were secretly searching for traces of monsters and Ultraman in the world's dark underbelly would not let go of even the slightest possibility, even if that possibility was a child who looked only six or seven years old.
On the highway, the Beetle was heading back the way it came. At an intersection, a Chevrolet crossed paths with it and drove off in the opposite direction. But Ai Haibara, sitting in the passenger seat, clutched her chest with a pale face.
"Ai-kun?" Dr. Agasa, who noticed Haibara's discomfort immediately, became anxious.
"Haibara? What's wrong?" Conan, who was brought back to his senses by Dr. Agasa's voice, looked at Haibara in the passenger seat and saw a very familiar look on her face. "Don't tell me... someone from that organization was in that car just now!"
Conan immediately turned to look out the back window. But he could only catch a fleeting glimpse of the car's taillights.
Dr. Agasa's Beetle had already changed course.
"Dr. Agasa! Let's go back!" Conan shouted, his face grim. "I knew it! Those freaks must have been infected by some virus developed by that organization!"
"Kudo!" Ai Haibara stared at Conan. "Are you so eager to die?! Or have you not learned anything from your multiple encounters with the organization?!"
"I've told you many times, that organization has no connection to aliens! Otherwise, the drug I developed would never have taken fifteen or sixteen years to get to this point! That organization only has a handful of projects related to drug and virus development, and none of them match the existence of those beings inside that invisible wall!"
"Stop making excuses for your reckless behavior!"
Haibara's eyes were full of disappointment. Conan, on the other hand, calmed down. The atmosphere inside the Beetle was silent for the rest of the drive.
Screeech—
The Chevrolet stopped two meters in front of the sealing barrier. Shuichi Akai got out of the driver's seat with a look of indifference. Without his hat, his slightly long hair was messy in the evening wind. He calmly walked to the barrier and reached out to touch it.
It felt like glass, but it wasn't cold. The barrier was quite thick; he could even estimate its thickness based on where the strange figures disappeared and the position of his own hand. As a top-notch sniper, Akai's eyes were exceptionally sharp. He just briefly scanned the area and found an unusual black dot far from where the flying figures were crashing into the wall.
Returning to the car, he took out his sniper scope from the back seat and looked in that direction. The sight of four people riding on a long, sheet-like cloth made him freeze for a moment. But then he saw that the strangely dressed woman suddenly turned her gaze toward him, her aura changing instantly. The feeling was so sharp that if the distance between them wasn't so great, Akai would have thought they were less than five meters apart.
From her expression, it was clear she had discovered his presence. She even signaled the only male next to her and pointed in his direction. But from the bewildered looks on the others' faces, no one else had seen him.
Akai ground his teeth in frustration. Damn it, where did this monster come from?!
This weird world with ghosts and gods really wasn't a place for a master sniper like him. In all these years, besides the time the monsters and Ultraman first appeared, this was the second time Shuichi Akai had cursed and lost his cool. Not even the news of Akemi Miyano's death made him feel this depressed. If the organization hadn't been defeated yet and his father's whereabouts were still unknown, Akai would have considered resigning and returning to the UK to care for his elderly mother and younger sister.
He put the scope down, scratched his head, and then picked it up again...
"Shit! I knew something felt off! Why is my knit cap on that guy's head?!"