Detective Conan
Little Miss Maple
by
sgamer82

I must make quite a sight, Onee-chan...

A few hours ago, I was a teenage genius about to be executed for disobedience. One attempt to join you later, I'm a fraction of my original height, draped in clothes that had once been a perfect fit, and stumbling through the rain with no destination beyond "as far from where I had been as possible". It was a small mercy that it was late at night. Between that and the rain hardly anyone was out to see the little girl in oversized clothes staggering for her life.

Every step I took hurt. It was a struggle just to move my legs. My feet were bare, and a corner of my mind wondered what the Organization would make of the shoes I'd been forced to abandon. There had been pavement, so there wouldn't be any child sized footprints to give me away. I'd ducked through a park at one point, and between that and the increasingly wet city streets, I was certain the next time I looked down at my feet the sight would be horrible.

I kept going despite all that. I needed to get as far as I could. I ignored the pain in my legs and feet. I ignored the weariness left in the wake of the long spent adrenaline rush I had felt on realizing I could escape. I told myself that I had to keep moving, that I could not stop. I knew that the moment I did, that would be it. I was tired. I hurt. I was moving on pure inertia and the moment I stopped, whether exhaustion finally took me, I passed out from the pain, or simply tripped over a fold in my now far-too-large lab coat, that would be the end. When I fell I would not get up again. I had to make sure I got somewhere safe so that I would at least stand a chance at waking up again.

I vaguely noticed the terrain around me. High walls and gates, nameplates announcing the identities of the people behind those walls. Lights coming from windows. I'd entered a residential area. I continued for a few steps more before I heard a gate creak open behind me.

"Hey, wait!"

I stopped. I turned my head and saw a man approaching with an umbrella.

"Are you hurt?" he asked. "Where did you come from?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I stopped. My momentum had halted, and with it any ability to continue forward. My legs gave out at last and I collapsed in a heap at the feet of the man who had noticed me. The last thing I remembered hearing was his voice, from strangely far away. He sounded distressed.

I awoke, but did not open my eyes yet. I was honestly afraid to. What if that had all been a dream? What if I was still handcuffed to that pipe. With that thought it occurred to me that if I was still cuffed to that pipe I wouldn't be nearly so comfortable. I wasn't sitting on a floor secured to the nearest solid object. I was lying on my back on something soft. My head was slightly elevated.

A bed. And a pillow, too.

I began to think that perhaps the handcuffs were the dream. I hoped so, Onee-chan. If they were then I could just wake up, call you, and have a laugh about the whole dumb thing.

Then he spoke.

"Good morning."

My thoughts screeched to a halt at that voice. It was a man's voice, the same man from last night. I opened my eyes to look and had to remind myself that he wasn't actually a giant, that it was I that had become small. He sat beside the bed. Behind him I saw a futon, suggesting he'd slept next to the bed he'd given to me.

The night's events came back to me. Everything from taking APTX-4869 and experiencing its non-fatal side effect to encountering the person now sitting at my bedside. I must have reacted badly when that all came back to me because the man immediately tried to offer comfort.

"Hey, now, it's okay," the man said. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise."

His tone was gentle. Of course it was. As far as he knew he was simply reassuring a scared little girl.

"My name is Shinichi Kudo," the young man said. "What's yours?"