Chapter 121: A World-Shaking Battle Full of Conan-Science Power
At this moment, Gin experienced the true taste of a "broken heart."
This was not a metaphor, but a literal description. Shinichi Kudo's palm strike had indeed used Stand power to synchronize and share his own heart-shattering injury with Gin.
Any ordinary person would have hit "GG" instantly. Even Gin coughed up a violent spray of blood, his body stumbling forward. But he was extraordinary; gnashing his teeth, his trench coat billowed as he abruptly vanished before hitting the ground.
When he reappeared, he was several meters up in the air, soaring down like a hawk. The muzzle of his Beretta M92F glinted with a sharp, cold light. Amidst the deafening roars of the Black Dragon of the Killing Calamity, he opened fire on Shinichi Kudo in rapid succession!
Shinichi, whose body was continuously mutating toward the form of "Xiao Hei," watched the incoming guaranteed-hit bullets with eyes that grew increasingly feral. He took a step forward and likewise vanished, reappearing above and behind Gin. Although the bullets curved through the air to pursue him like a swarm of angry hornets, they did not hinder Shinichi's assault on Gin!
However, Gin was a veteran of a thousand battles. It was difficult to make the same trick work twice on him. With another flare of his coat, he teleported away again, appearing in another part of the sky to rain fire upon Shinichi, who then teleported to follow.
Back and forth they went, locked in a fierce, unceasing clash!
Squatting to the side and "cracking sunflower seeds," Mo Yu critiqued this second round of the Red-versus-Black showdown:
"It's quite a faithful tribute to the original work!"
By "tribute," Mo Yu didn't mean the rivalry itself, but the frame-skipping teleportation they were using. Mo Yu's own Xiao Hei body moved like a ghost, and while he hadn't understood the principle at first, seeing Gin do it made it clear.
In the original Detective Conan anime, such scenes were common: a character would be in the basement one second and on the rooftop the next. Strictly speaking, this wasn't unique to Conan; it's a necessity of anime storyboarding. If a process isn't essential to the plot, it doesn't get screen time.
The Bleach anime was the same, but after becoming world-bubbles, those worlds "fixed" themselves—climbing stairs took exactly as long as it should. However, the Conan world-bubble was different; it faithfully restored the anime's logic. Processes were skipped entirely in favor of frame-skipping movement.
If personified, the Conan world-bubble was like a cosplayer with severe OCD, obsessively mimicking every detail of the source material. This meticulousness resulted in a very "subtle" effect. The scene of Shinichi and Gin teleporting through the sky, trading dozens of blows without their feet ever touching the ground, was not exactly scientific, but it was extremely Conan-scientific.
And the "Conan-science" didn't stop there. Gin's guaranteed-hit bullets flew through the air, drawing dozens of black arcs, but they could never catch Shinichi. The bullets were so dense they looked like a swarm of bees buzzing after him. Gin's Beretta fired manically without the need to reload. Whether the reloading process was "skipped" during teleports or the world simply ignored the concept of magazine capacity in favor of "Hollywood Lone Hero Infinite Ammo Mode," Mo Yu leaned toward the latter.
Mo Yu understood. The power level of the Conan bubble was high because it dealt in Laws.
As of now, Gin was still a mortal, but his status as a Saint of Slaughter was active. The "Heavenly Killing Intent" wreathed him in a towering fortune. Settings like "guaranteed hit" and "guaranteed kill" were part of his Stand. But other settings—like infinite frame-skips, infinite ammo, and even HP Locking—were granted directly by the world's killing intent.
Yes, Gin currently had his HP locked. Without that, Shinichi's initial strike would have pulverized his heart instantly.
A Gin leveraging the power of a Saint of Slaughter was, in Mo Yu's opinion, a bit ridiculous. If Gin carried these "World-Law Settings" into the Bleach world and fired a shot, Aizen might find himself clutching a shattered heart and shouting, "How can a mere heart-shatter kill me!?" before hitting GG. (Well, maybe not Aizen, since his fortune was also vast, but others would be in trouble.)
Witnessing this legendary battle, Mo Yu found himself reflecting on the nature of power. In the Silver Sea, where bubbles are born and extinguished, what is the "True Power" that persists across all settings?
The settings of the Conan bubble involved Causality, which seemed more mystical than Bleach's Reishi. But on closer inspection, the distinction was arbitrary. Converting Reishi to Reiryoku to interfere with reality is also a causal law. Why is Reishi absorbable? Why not Vitamin B2? The scientists of Bleach saw these as fundamental truths, but Mo Yu saw them as specific environmental variables.
The answer, he realized, was hidden in his own Godhood. Even across bubbles with different laws, Godhood retained its glory and power, though its manifestation varied. In Bleach, he was the Soul King; in Conan, he was the Divine Xiao Hei.
Existence itself is power.
His thoughts were interrupted by a spike of intense heart pain. Mo Yu looked up. The swarm of guaranteed-hit bullets had finally compressed the space available for Shinichi to teleport. Several rounds had pierced Shinichi's chest—straight through the heart.
Mo Yu's "Xiao Hei heart" was inside Shinichi, and Mo Yu felt every bit of it. But for a man who had been the Final Boss of a Genesis tournament and fought the strongest Reapers until he was ground into dust, this pain was nothing.
Gin's bullets, condensed from the world's killing intent, dealt True Damage to the Xiao Hei body. But Mo Yu wasn't worried. Damage is not Death. In this law-oriented world, a vast chasm lay between the two.
Mo Yu had told Gin: "Killing a Xiao Hei is possible, but only for a true Hero." That wasn't flavor text; it was a Law. In the Conan anime, when had a "Xiao Hei" (shadow silhouette) ever been killed before their identity was revealed? No matter the attack, it only resulted in "wounds" used later as evidence.
In this OCD-ridden world-bubble, that law was active. As long as the darkness obscuring his identity remained, Mo Yu—or the "Moriarty" silhouette—would never reach the "Truth of Death." No matter the injury, some logic would always bypass the fact of dying.
The same applied to Shinichi now. Despite being hit by "lethal" bullets, he remained vigorous, even growing more feral. He was using the Perfect Crime authority to transfer his injuries elsewhere via the "Sinful Blood."
Mo Yu had lied when he told Shinichi the heart would fail and he would die. It was originally just a "Zuo Wang Dao" deception to make the boy believe in the die. He hadn't expected Shinichi to choose death willingly.
Mo Yu respected that. He had restricted himself from interfering in this game. Family, love, and the law were all obstacles for Shinichi, but the biggest obstacle was the World's Laws.
The "Xiao Hei Identity Protection" law.
The "Protagonist Protection" law—the world wouldn't let Shinichi Kudo die before he became Conan.
Shinichi's own Demon of Light fortune, which—though currently a "salted fish"—would not let him commit suicide easily.
This was an uphill battle for Shinichi. He had to defeat not just Moriarty, but Destiny itself.
But Shinichi was not disappointing him. Guided by detective instinct, Shinichi had found a way to break the "Xiao Hei Immortality" law: Usurpation.
As the fight progressed, Shinichi's human features were fading, replaced by dense darkness. Simultaneously, Mo Yu's Xiao Hei body was growing faint. Shinichi wasn't trying to unmask the shadow; he was becoming the shadow. He was usurping the role of Moriarty. Once the usurpation was complete, there would be no "identity to reveal"—the shadow was Shinichi. The immortality would waver and fail.
This was the beginning of victory. But would he reach the end?
Mo Yu turned his gaze to the distance. If the world wanted to stop Shinichi, what would it do? The answer was simple. Based on original plot tropes, Mo Yu could bet that Ran Mouri was on her way. Love is the hardest gate to pass.
Shinichi was currently paying the price for his usurpation. Infinite killing intent was piercing his soul, but the price made him even more terrifying.
Gin felt this most acutely. Even though they had over-estimated the "monster," the Organization was still being outclassed. Shinichi's frame-skipping was now superior to Gin's. The snipers outside were useless; even Gin's lethal shots wouldn't stay "lethal."
And Shinichi was hitting back. In the blink of an eye, he would appear next to an Organization member, and in the next, they would fall silent. Gin heard his teammates go dark over the comms one by one. Rage and a creeping dread rose within him.
Finally, Shinichi landed several meters away and extended his left hand.
That hand was no longer human skin and bone. It was deeper than darkness, a condensed manifestation of primal horror. Even from a distance, Gin felt the danger. He tried to frame-skip away, but found himself entangled in invisible threads of darkness.
The result of the total fusion manifested in that left hand.
"While moving... it is very reasonable to suddenly sprain your ankle..."
The familiar line, whispered by Shinichi, echoed in Gin's ear. Gin's pupils shrank.
The power of Perfect Crime was Moriarty's, but in practice, it had its distinctions. Moriarty's Left Hand symbolized the infinite processes and forms leading to death—be they coincidence, necessity, natural, or unnatural.
End of Chapter
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