Application
Personal Information
Name: Bird
Age: 19
Personal LJ: inkedfeathers
Email / AIM / MSN: wishingstarof7nights@yahoo.com or foldingpaper@windowslive.com
Current Character(s): N/A
Character Information
Character Name: Haibara Ai (Western Order: Ai Haibara)
Fandom: Detective Conan (Meitantei Conan)
Source: It's greatly popular in my part of the world, but I suppose it's a bit obscure in English-speaking fandom... ^^; http://www.detectiveconanworld.com/wiki/Ai_Haibara
Character History: After her parents' death, Miyano Shiho's only living relative was her older sister Miyano Akemi, who didn't speak much at all to her about their parents.
Even though they were close, they rarely saw one another because the Black Organization saw little potential in Akemi and plenty in Shiho.
So Akemi lived an ordinary life, attending school and then college in her home country of Japan, going on field trips, going to parties, and making friends. The only difference between her and an ordinary Japanese woman was that she was near constantly under the surveillance of the Organization she was born into.
In contrast, Shiho was sent to study abroad in America at a very young age and became a top researcher and scientist in the Organization upon her return at the young age of eighteen. It's heavily implied that the research she performed was an extension and expansion on her late father's own work.
Because of her importance in the Organization, Shiho was given the alcoholic codename Sherry.
She led scientists in the Black Organization into creating the drug Apoptoxin 4869 (APTX 4869), nicknamed the Prototype Detective, for an unknown purpose, but the Organization found it worked as a very useful poison as it left no trace in the victim's body after killing them, so the drug was used as a method of killing those who get in the way of the organization. Shiho always hated the way it was used, because she never intended to make a poison.
But the drug also had different effect on the handful of lab rats which it didn't kill: it reversed the aging of their bodies and shrunk them down to juvenile size. The chances of the drug having this second effect were so small as to be nearly non-existent, but it was possible. She did not mention this second effect in any of her lab reports, but she did not forget it.
The Black Organization kept a list of people who were taken out using this drug and all the deaths were confirmed except for one. Kudou Shinichi, the famous highschool detective. Shiho saw it and changed the record to say it was confirmed, after she led two separate inspections of the Kudou residence to confirm his death, even though she discovered something unsettling the second time (his clothes from primary school were missing- which suggested he might have shrunk like the rats), so she remembered his name.
Akemi, who was still considered an outsider to the Organization, only began to become more involved with it to free herself and her sister from its clutches.
The Organization gave Akemi a mission (to rob one billion yen), expecting her to fail and use that failure as an excuse for executing her (because she was romantically involved with a man, Akai Shuuichi, who turned out to be a spy for the FBI).
An executive agent of the Black Organization came at the end of her mission, which Akemi successfully completed, only to kill her, following the orders of the Organization.
She was left for dead on the docks and died in the arms of the shrunken detective Kudou Shinichi (now going by the alias Edogawa Conan to hide his identity).
After her older sister's seemingly senseless murder (she was never told about Akai Shuuichi, her sister's boyfriend, being a member of the FBI), Shiho became very depressed. She halted production of the drug demanding an explanation for her sister's execution, but was marked as a traitor and threat to the Organization for her actions.
She was handcuffed and left by Gin and Vodka to await her execution. Left with no other choice but to take her own life in one final act of defiance, she took a pill of her own drug, APTX 4869.
Instead of killing her, she underwent a painful transformation back into her childhood size, which allowed her to slip free of her handcuffs and escape through a very small laundry chute.
Remembering Kudou Shinichi's name, she sought his home, believing him to have shared her fate and therefore being the only person who could possibly understand and help her.
She collapsed as soon as she arrived at her destination, but the Kudou residence was now empty; this is because Edogawa Conan had taken to living with his childhood friend, Mouri Ran, at her father's detective agency while keeping his true identity secret from them.
The unconscious Shiho was found by the kindly old Professor Agasa, who was one of the few people who knew that Kudou Shinichi survived and is currently living his life as first grader Edogawa Conan, solving mysteries in hopes of defeating the Black Organization and returning to his old body. Professor Agasa had equipped Conan with many gadgets of his invention to help him achieve his goals and decided to take in the girl he found lying on the street, drenched in rain, and help her as well.
Together, they decided it was best that she also took on a new name: to hide her identity from the Black Organization, which had no mercy for traitors.
So, they decided on the name Haibara Ai, based on Cordelia Gray (the character 灰 in her name means "ash" and this haracter used in the name of the colour "gray"), and V.I. Warshawski (V.I. upside down = "Ai"). Agasa suggested using the Chinese character for "love" to spell "Ai," but she preferred the character for "sorrow," which is pronounced the same way.
Under her new alias, she enrolled into Teitan Elementary and became Edogawa Conan's classmate.
After following Conan and his friends from school on a case, when the children were gone, Haibara later revealed to Conan in private that her name was not in fact Haibara, but Sherry. He knew that the names of the Black Organization members who tried to kill him were Gin and Vodka, so he was horrified. Haibara deceived him into believing she had killed the Professor and that Conan and his family would follow, so Conan ran off to see the Professor and found him relaxing in his home, in his usual manner, while Haibara settled down to read a magazine.
After this initial period of mistrust and deception, Conan and Haibara formed a very strong friendship and partnership.
Another high-ranking member of the Organization Shiho escaped, named Vermouth, discovered her true identity after bugging the professor's home and stealing some documents. Disguised as Dr. Araide (the school doctor at Teitan Highschool), Vermouth had been studying Haibara. FBI agent Jodie Sterling (who was undercoverer as an English teacher in the same school, pursuing Vermouth) realized the girl was Vermouth's target, so she picked up who she thought to be Haibara in her car, with "Dr. Araide" in pursuit, but "Haibara" turned out to be Conan in disguise as her to protect the real Haibara and investigate Vermouth and her ties to the Organization. Unfortunately, the real Haibara had gotten wind of what happened and followed, revealing herself and hoping to end the Black Organization's pursuit (and protect her friends) by allowing herself to be killed. Ran was also hiding in the trunk of the car, because she was suspicious, and emerged only when she heard the gunshots to protect Haibara from being killed by Vermouth (so Ran missed the conversation which revealed the Haibara's true identity)- and honestly, the plot got a bit ridiculously confusing at this point with everyone one-uping everyone else and throwing off disguises.
The important part is that Haibara was saved from being shot by Ran and FBI agent Jodie.
Vermouth agreed to give up on killing the escaped scientist Sherry and did not share the truth of Haibara and Conan's true identities with the Organization, due to an old debt to Shinichi and Ran, who rescued her from death a long time ago.
Haibara has since been working on an antidote to her drug to allow Shinichi to return to his true size.
This progress is hindered by the fact that all her important documents relating to the drug were destroyed by the security system when she tried to access them from a computer that was foreign to the Organization, leaving her to work from the ground up.
However, Haibara has yet to decide whether or not she will take the antidote herself once she finds a permanent cure.
Although Haibara remains somewhat prone to bouts of depression for a very long time, even if she's no longer suicidal, she does find much-needed closure in regards to the family she never knew, when Conan discovers some cassetes hidden in an apartment many years ago by a young Akemi.
Believing them to contain valuable clues as to the Organization's members, whereabouts, or objectives, he listens to a couple of the cassettes, before apologizing to Ai, because everything he heard was deeply personal and meant for Haibara alone.
The cassetes turned out to be voice messages recorded by Shiho's mother Elena before Shiho was born, one message of birthday wishes for her daughter (one message for each year) who she knew she wouldn't be able to watch grow up.
Conan then said, that the rumours were wrong: Elena Miyano was a genuine, heaven-sent angel.
As for her father, although she did not know it at first, he turned out to be a colleague of Professor Agasa's; according to the professor, he had always seemed like a kind, friendly man and not at all what Haibara had been led to believe.
Character Personality: Having never truly been a child before, Haibara finds it very difficult to act like one. Unlike Conan, who does it as though it were second nature to him (Haibara attributes this to his being the son of a once famous actress), Haibara rarely acts her apparant age. She is every bit as jaded, cynical, and sarcastic as the eighteen year old Miyano Shiho, and has no interest in acting childlike; it's usually only with Conan's prompting (and/or bribing, with promises of designer handbags), that she will act anything remotely like a child... or if she suspects someone to be dangerous to her or others, in order to avoid suspicion.
She can act childlike, if it's an absolute must, but it's exaggeratedly saccharine and can be rather disturbing to anyone who is used to her true personality. She is much more skilled at crying at the drop of a hat and faking illness.
She hides her feelings well and is very stoic. She refuses help even when she is sick and weak, prefering to maintain an illusion of strength than to depend on others and leave herself in any position of vulnerability. If she must depend on others, she's more likely to give orders than ask for favours. If she must ask, it will be very forced.
She masks her fear with anger and once spent an entire day acting bossier than usual, having others open doors for her, and generally being in a foul mood, all because she had lost her anti-static accessories and is too scared of static electricity to want to touch anything herself.
When Conan laughed at her for it after realizing why she had behaved that way, she got angry, but later followed the advice he gave her to avoid the discomfort of the electrical discharge. When she found that following his advice works, she smiled and seemed to be in an exceptionally rare good mood, which Conan found a bit creepy.
As Shiho, her older sister Miyano Akemi was possibly the only person Shiho was close to. Even then, Shiho was somewhat distant in her interactions even with her sister and they corresponded by exchanging floppy disks with pictures outside of their rare face-to-face meetings.
On occasion, Haibara does allow select others to see a kinder, softer side to her, but this is a very rare and exclusive privilege. She shows kindness more easily to animals, than to humans, such as when she smiles kindly and holds a puppy, choosing it because it was different from the rest (an outcast, like her).
... however, Haibara is still Haibara is still Shiho is still Sherry, so she asks the little Pappilon if it would follow her and if she's killed like Queen Mary was, "when the dew on the guillotine vanishes, [if] he will drown himself in the Seine river, like Mary's dog did, following me in death."
Most adults notice there is something off and very strange about the girl.
She carries herself with stoicism and an undeniably mature aura. She speaks little, but when she does, it's either in sarcastic remarks or depressing analogies. She usually speaks only briefly, unless there is something she feels the need to explain, or if she's using some sort of extended metaphor.
She often fields any questions Conan directs to her about the Organization, believing that the less he knew about, the safer he'd be: this is often in the form of either closing the topic with a shortly stated "it's dangerous," "you should stop," or giving a very seriously spoken, if very vague answer that may or may not relate to resurrecting the dead, that she then suggests was all farce by smirking and asking, "I wonder if that answer is satisfactory?"
She also has a fondness for fashion and is often found reading fashion magazines, when she isn't busy researching to create a possible cure for APTX 4869. Earlier on, Haibara would even request designer handbags (Sai Brand!) as payment for helping Conan solve a case, by lending her acting skills.
In addition, Conan once found her adult name, Miyano Shiho, in the list of names of participants in a draw for sacred arrows at a mermaid's shrine, that were said to grant immortality and everlasting youthful beauty, based on the legend that whoever eats mermaid's flesh becomes immortal. He couldn't believe that Haibara would ever want such silly things, but it's entirely possible that she would considering her interest in fashion and beauty... or, if one were to take some of the hints about the Organization's true goals ( Vermouth's line "we can be of both God and the devil, because we are trying to raise the dead against the flow of time" and Haibara's line "those who stand against the flow of time will be punished...") into account, it could be that the original purpose of her and her father's research truly was creating an elixir of immortality (and perhaps that is why another member of the Black Organization, Vermouth, never ages no matter how many years pass) and/or a way to bring even the dead to life.
Of course, the latter part is only educated guesswork based on what incomplete evidence we do have...
Although she was initially avoidant when it came to dealing with others and even solving mysteries, after Conan assured her over the phone that a boy who had just moved in was not related to the couple claiming to be hist parents, Haibara took it upon herself to investigate with the help of the Detective Boys, putting off calling the police (which was all that Conan advised her to do) until after they finish. It does get them into trouble, but they also end up saving the kidnapped boy, with some help from Conan over the phone.
While she's very intelligent, practically on the same level as Shinichi, her deductions sometimes miss the mark. She's a biochemist, not the Heisei Holmes. Misunderstandings and wild assumptions are entirely possible, particularly if she's not taking something seriously (Conan thinks it's not a good idea for her to meet Akai, so Haibara asks him if he's a lolicon; when Conan makes a face, Haibara takes it as proof that she must have been right!).
One thing that has hardly changed is that Haibara has a rather depressing worldview and sees in things such as sunsets and flowers more reason to be saddened. She sees the sunset as the sun's last, futile struggle against death and laments the fragility and ephemeral nature of flowers.
At first, Conan could not bring himself to trust or even like Ai, because of his strong aversion to killing, no matter the circumstances. Knowing that she was responsible for creating a drug that was used to kill so many, he could not bring himself to trust her.
She explained that she changed the Organization's records to say that he was confirmed to be dead so that the Organization would not find him and kill him before she could have the chance to meet him and that she protested against the continued development and production of her drug, in addition to demanding an explanation for her sister's death, but was denied by the Organization and marked as a traitor.
She wondered if he wanted to get rid of her, for being such a troublesome little girl, but Conan called her an idiot (in a familiar, almost accepting sort of way), saying he'd be in trouble if they found her. All he insisted on was that she be enrolled in the Teitan Elementary School. She'd be far more suspicious if she wandered around freely.
Although Conan was initially suspicious of Ai, he grew to value her as a partner, and thought of her as a friend. He also felt sympathy and a great deal of regret, when she showed him what he believed to be her first geniune expression of her feelings, when she broke down crying, while asking him why he didn't save her sister. She found out that he had been investigating the case of the One Billion Yen Robbery (which Akemi was tasked with in exchange for her and her sister's freedom). He had solved so many mysteries as a child, from the shadows and unknown to almost everyone around him, and brought culprits to justice, while treating them fairly and preventing their deaths. But he considers that case to be one of his greatest failures. He watched Akemi die in front of him, but had no way of finding those responsible.
Although she, like Conan, find the Detective Boys more annoying than helpful when trying to solve a case, eventually, she has grown extremely fond of the children, even though she remained quiet and still somewhat withdrawn. She did begin to act in a more friendly manner, speaking with them, occasionally teaching them, going to watch games together, and sharing their things. She also became fiercely protective of them overtime and they are who she worries most about when she thinks of the Black Organization finding her: the thought of them killing her terrifies her, but the idea that these innocent children could be killed because of her weighs more heavily on her mind.
Haibara became particularly close to the only other female in the group, a seven year old girl named Ayumi.
With time, her friendship with Ayumi deepens and she starts to see her more and more as a best friend and little sister. Eventually, she even allows Ayumi to call her "Ai-chan" to convey this closeness, which is Ayumi's exclusive privilege. Even the other Detective Boys, although Haibara cares for them, are not allowed to refer to her in such an informal manner.
While Haibara attempts to teach Ayumi and the other Detective Boys about the world and some of its harsh realities, Ayumi also manages to teach Haibara the value of courage. Although Ayumi is still so young, she wanted to see the robber with her own two eyes and bring him to justice rather than run away and hide (despite Haibara telling her there was also courage in hiding herself), because Ayumi does not want to live a life in which she's constantly running away from her problems.
This struck a chord with Ai, who as Shiho, attempted to take her life (and even attempted to do the same as Haibara in the bus hijacking case, staying inside the bus with a a bomb , knowing it was about to detonate) to escape her miserable fate and so she won't burden those around her. Following this, Haibara refused the Victim/Witness Protection Program, deciding to continue living as Haibara Ai rather than having her name and school changed and being forced to adopt a new persona all over again, even though this had taken place as a result of a close call with the Black Organization member Vermouth, who discovered her identity.
Haibara reaffimed her decision not to run away from her fate anymore.
Her friendship with the Detective Boys and especially with Ayumi, has also given Haibara a priceless chance to live as a child, the way she never could in the past.
At first, she is exceptionally cold to Mouri Ran, Kudou Shinichi's childhood friend and love interest, which Conan speculates to be due to her lack of experience with kind and caring people. But after Ran saves Haibara from the Black Organization member Vermouth and shields her with her body, Haibara begins to see similarities between Ran and her sister Akemi.
Since then, Haibara has grown far more accepting of Ran.
A second reason for Ai's initial coldness and aversion to Ran might possibly be Ai's growing feelings for Conan. She does not speak of her feelings for him, however, knowing that he and Ran were meant for one another. Whenever she does suggest an attraction to him, she plays it off as a joke: when Conan stopped her from committing suicide by jumping in front of a train (which was actually misunderstanding). She understood that he had believed she was about to jump, so she reminded him that she had already made her decision not to run away from her fate, following the advice he gave her in the Bus Hijacking Case, when he rescued her from the bus just before it exploded.
After reminding him of what he told her, she asked him if he would protect her.
He was stunned by her question and they spent a moment in silence, before she brushed it off, saying "of course, I'm not the weak little princess who asks for help like you think I am."
This manner of teasing is common in their relationship. She often suggests that she's interested in him, only to play it off as a joke. She has even gone so far as to confess to loving him from the day they first met, only to pass it off as a joke. Even if she did have feelings for him, she knows she can't pursue him because of Ran.
She does mock him for keeping Ran in the dark and breaking her heart by making her wait all this time for Shinichi's return, but she also knows it's dangerous for him to tell her the truth. Conan felt he should tell Ran the truth, because she was once again suspecting Conan and Shinichi to be one and the same, confirming it when she gives Conan her blood on the sole basis of sharing blood types with Shinichi. Haibara's response was to sneak into his hospital room at night, and point a gun at him, claiming that the Black Organization had found out about her and had taken Professor Agasa hostage, and that she would be allowed to return to working for them on the condition that she kill Kudou Shinichi. She says he should be grateful, because she'll kill him first, so he won't have to see the dead faces of his friends after the Organization inevitably kills them.
When she pulled the trigger, however, only roses came out, and she revealed that it was all an act... but if given the choice, that's what she would have done. Even if she claims it's far more realistic to assume they'd both be killed, along with everyone else associated with them, and reminds Conan never to let his emotions blind him to how dangerous their situation really is.
Although she is ordinarily calm and collected by nature, she has a near crippling fear of the Black Organization and is haunted by her fears even in sleep: she has a nightmare involving Gin the night before their reunion on the Beika City Hotel rooftop.
She seems to have something of a sixth sense for the Black Organization and its members, instantly getting chills and becoming even more withdrawn, although her stoic mask breaks and her fear becomes apparant, whenever their names are mentioned or she feels their presence nearby.
She is especially frightened of and hates Gin. At school, Haibara has a flashback to her nightmare about being found by him in the street, and when Ayumi innocently grabs her hand, wanting her friend to come out and see the snow, Haibara uncharacteristically snaps at her, "don't touch me!" because she mistook her for Gin.
Her intense fear of Gin is understandable in light of his killing her sister, in addition to his ruthless nature. He is also fixated on her, to the point of unhealthy obsession.
Although she freezes in terror when she senses the presence of Black Organization members, she was much calmer- outwardly at least- when she confronted Gin on the snowy rooftop, in her true form (she had previously drank Paikaru, which reversed the effects of her drug, but it has only a one-time effect, and was not a true antidote). She exchanges words with him casually in her usual sarcastic manner.
On the topic of Black Organization members, Gin (for reference, the same high-ranking agent who executed her sister and failed to kill her and Shinichi) is somewhat obsessed with Sherry/Shiho. The official databook suggests that the two might have had a romantic relationship in the past, although it is neither confirmed nor denied in explicit terms. Their familiar interactions during their reunion on the Beika City Hotel also aid this theory, with Gin waiting on the roof in the snow for Shiho to kill her there, as opposed to killing her in a much more efficient manner by shooting her in a chimney (he claimed a filthy chimney was an unsuitable place to kill her and that he wished to kill her in a more beautiful place so that he could let her "death flower bloom."). When he told her he had waited for her to emerge, she apologized (sarcastically, of course) for making him wait for her in a cold place.
He also made comments about her disguise not suiting her, although her red blood glimmering on the white snow was beautiful.
Even when he did shoot at her, he never shot her anywhere that would kill her instantly, despite his great skill. He seemed to be intentionally prolonging her execution for whatever reason; it's fortunate that he did, as it gave Conan enough time to find and rescue her.
As for Subaru Okiya, a mysterious young man who Conan had allowed to live in the Kudou residence, Haibara felt the same pressure from him that she feels whenever she confronts a member of the Black Organization. When faced with him, she goes into a shock and clings tightly onto Conan's shoulders. She reacts to hearing the Black Organization member Vermouth's Japanese name, Belmot, in a similar manner, wrapping her arms around herself and silently cowering.
When she had to confront Okiya directly, however, she was able to overcome her fear well enough to move away from Conan and calmly and coolly question him as to his motives, without betraying her fear.
Powers: She was a very valuable scientist to the Black Organization and is very intelligent. She's capable of making powerful drugs (anything that can cause your entire body to shrink into a child's has got to be!). She is, of course, very knowledgeable in the natural sciences, biochemistry especially. She's also knowledgeable in regards to some other subjects, like history, classical music, and literature. She can shoot a handgun.
On the subject of the apoptoxin, we know is that it works based on speeding up the process of apoptosis (cell death), which is why it made such a good poison. For some exceedingly rare subjects, in addition to increasing the rate of cell death, it also increases the rate of cell production and multiplication, which is the only real explanation given in canon for why it seemd to reverse the aging process. Which... almost makes sense in theory, but one wonders where they acquired the necessary nutrients to expend that much energy in the process. And how they avoid cancer with their cells dividing at such an unnatural rate... No more information is given in canon.
As for why the Chinese wine Paikaru works as a one-time only temporary cure to the apoptoxin, your guess is as good as mine.
Taking her prototype antidotes too often is also dangerous, because as shown by the decreasing amount of time Shinichi is able to stay in his real body after taking them, one can become immune to its effects: so it's best that he waits until she makes a finished, permanent antidote instead of constantly taking her prototypes.
She also has a sixth sense for members of the Black Organization, although she's beginning to have doubts in it as the feeling will grip her and then leave with the same people still in her presence.
She claims that Black Organization members not only wear black clothes, but that they carry a "scent" unique to them (Conan has no idea what she's talking about, as she smells entirely ordinary to him).
This ability is not always reliable, as the feeling sometimes has a habit of coming and going, even while the people around her remain the same.
Samples
First person: Hello. [It's a quiet, but firm female voice; it sounds surprisingly mature, in stark contrast to her physical appearance of a small blonde child of about seven years, apart from the curiously developed bust, with a permed bobcut and large blue eyes. She had a very grave expression, however, suiting her voice.]
This is Haibara Ai.
I live in Beika City. I'm a student at Teitan Elementary, first year, Class- [She stopped herself for a moment, remembering Conan's advice to act more like a child. With an inward sigh, she continued, forcing her voice to sound lighter and more confused- the end result was almost comically exaggerated.] A-a-and... and... and!
I don't have any idea where I am!
[She turned round blue eyes up to blink in an over-the-top display of innocence at the screen. She even worked up a few tears.] C-can you please help me and tell me how I got here?
[Deciding that was quite enough embarrassment for a lifetime, she decided to end the feed there. She's not likely to keep up this act for long, unless she can find a VERY good reason to keep playing the role of a clueless child. Still, she certainly wasn't going to willingly and intentionally reveal her true age either.]
Third Person: The strange, sullen little girl with the strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes had closed herself off in one of the many buildings affixed to the branches of a massive tree, as she has been doing for days since her arrival.
For how youthful the little girl looked, with her soft and rounded cheeks and modest height, the way she carried herself was not at all childlike, lively and playful, but instead proper and restrained and her features had a harshness to them. She rarely smiled and her eyes did not display even the faintest glimmer of naive curiousity.
The odd little girl did not play or seek the company of others her age. Her days were spent in solitude
She was still half-convinced this was the dream, even if what preceded it had hardly felt like reality.
But today, she could not even distract herself from such thoughts with her studies or even give herself momentary reprieve in light reading fiction.
The cynical, skeptical part of her, that was always the most dominant, refused to wholly believe in the reality of this place. But little by little, with the passing of days, her belief in this world began to build up, like snowflakes accumulating into thick blankets of snow.
With a wry smile, she closed the thin book, unfamiliarly light in her hands, to set it down before commenting to no one in particular, "it's just like the butterfly's dream, isn't it?"
Maybe it's not a question of whether he dreamt of the butterfly or if he was the butterfly's dream... perhaps he existed as both.
She reached into her pocket to take out her cell phone. It was the same that she had in Japan and the same that she had awoken from her butterfly's dream beside. The wallpaper was still her candid shot of Professor Agasa's sleeping face.
She never thought she'd miss the sound of his snoring. Her subconscious couldn't have been so cruel as to fabricate such a cacaphony, so she knew that was not only a dream; she had not been in a coma for years and simply dreamed all of her past memories if she still had these pictures as proof of the life she lived. Perhaps this, too, was real, even if it did not conform to the laws of the world she knew.
She put away her cell phone. Initially, she had believed herself to have been drugged and kidnapped. Now, it was no longer possible to believe it was all a drawn out hallucination, she began to wonder if this was some sort of afterlife. If it was, she might accept it someday. If she no longer existed in the world she left behind, then, this meant that death's foreboding shadow would no longer loom over those most important to her. With her departure, the chain that linked them to the Organization was broken. It was not of her choosing (she promised Conan not to run away), but maybe it was for the best.
Perhaps, here, she could finally find some peace...
Name: Bird
Age: 19
Personal LJ: inkedfeathers
Email / AIM / MSN: wishingstarof7nights@yahoo.com or foldingpaper@windowslive.com
Current Character(s): N/A
Character Information
Character Name: Haibara Ai (Western Order: Ai Haibara)
Fandom: Detective Conan (Meitantei Conan)
Source: It's greatly popular in my part of the world, but I suppose it's a bit obscure in English-speaking fandom... ^^; http://www.detectiveconanworld.com/wiki/Ai_Haibara
Character History: After her parents' death, Miyano Shiho's only living relative was her older sister Miyano Akemi, who didn't speak much at all to her about their parents.
Even though they were close, they rarely saw one another because the Black Organization saw little potential in Akemi and plenty in Shiho.
So Akemi lived an ordinary life, attending school and then college in her home country of Japan, going on field trips, going to parties, and making friends. The only difference between her and an ordinary Japanese woman was that she was near constantly under the surveillance of the Organization she was born into.
In contrast, Shiho was sent to study abroad in America at a very young age and became a top researcher and scientist in the Organization upon her return at the young age of eighteen. It's heavily implied that the research she performed was an extension and expansion on her late father's own work.
Because of her importance in the Organization, Shiho was given the alcoholic codename Sherry.
She led scientists in the Black Organization into creating the drug Apoptoxin 4869 (APTX 4869), nicknamed the Prototype Detective, for an unknown purpose, but the Organization found it worked as a very useful poison as it left no trace in the victim's body after killing them, so the drug was used as a method of killing those who get in the way of the organization. Shiho always hated the way it was used, because she never intended to make a poison.
But the drug also had different effect on the handful of lab rats which it didn't kill: it reversed the aging of their bodies and shrunk them down to juvenile size. The chances of the drug having this second effect were so small as to be nearly non-existent, but it was possible. She did not mention this second effect in any of her lab reports, but she did not forget it.
The Black Organization kept a list of people who were taken out using this drug and all the deaths were confirmed except for one. Kudou Shinichi, the famous highschool detective. Shiho saw it and changed the record to say it was confirmed, after she led two separate inspections of the Kudou residence to confirm his death, even though she discovered something unsettling the second time (his clothes from primary school were missing- which suggested he might have shrunk like the rats), so she remembered his name.
Akemi, who was still considered an outsider to the Organization, only began to become more involved with it to free herself and her sister from its clutches.
The Organization gave Akemi a mission (to rob one billion yen), expecting her to fail and use that failure as an excuse for executing her (because she was romantically involved with a man, Akai Shuuichi, who turned out to be a spy for the FBI).
An executive agent of the Black Organization came at the end of her mission, which Akemi successfully completed, only to kill her, following the orders of the Organization.
She was left for dead on the docks and died in the arms of the shrunken detective Kudou Shinichi (now going by the alias Edogawa Conan to hide his identity).
After her older sister's seemingly senseless murder (she was never told about Akai Shuuichi, her sister's boyfriend, being a member of the FBI), Shiho became very depressed. She halted production of the drug demanding an explanation for her sister's execution, but was marked as a traitor and threat to the Organization for her actions.
She was handcuffed and left by Gin and Vodka to await her execution. Left with no other choice but to take her own life in one final act of defiance, she took a pill of her own drug, APTX 4869.
Instead of killing her, she underwent a painful transformation back into her childhood size, which allowed her to slip free of her handcuffs and escape through a very small laundry chute.
Remembering Kudou Shinichi's name, she sought his home, believing him to have shared her fate and therefore being the only person who could possibly understand and help her.
She collapsed as soon as she arrived at her destination, but the Kudou residence was now empty; this is because Edogawa Conan had taken to living with his childhood friend, Mouri Ran, at her father's detective agency while keeping his true identity secret from them.
The unconscious Shiho was found by the kindly old Professor Agasa, who was one of the few people who knew that Kudou Shinichi survived and is currently living his life as first grader Edogawa Conan, solving mysteries in hopes of defeating the Black Organization and returning to his old body. Professor Agasa had equipped Conan with many gadgets of his invention to help him achieve his goals and decided to take in the girl he found lying on the street, drenched in rain, and help her as well.
Together, they decided it was best that she also took on a new name: to hide her identity from the Black Organization, which had no mercy for traitors.
So, they decided on the name Haibara Ai, based on Cordelia Gray (the character 灰 in her name means "ash" and this haracter used in the name of the colour "gray"), and V.I. Warshawski (V.I. upside down = "Ai"). Agasa suggested using the Chinese character for "love" to spell "Ai," but she preferred the character for "sorrow," which is pronounced the same way.
Under her new alias, she enrolled into Teitan Elementary and became Edogawa Conan's classmate.
After following Conan and his friends from school on a case, when the children were gone, Haibara later revealed to Conan in private that her name was not in fact Haibara, but Sherry. He knew that the names of the Black Organization members who tried to kill him were Gin and Vodka, so he was horrified. Haibara deceived him into believing she had killed the Professor and that Conan and his family would follow, so Conan ran off to see the Professor and found him relaxing in his home, in his usual manner, while Haibara settled down to read a magazine.
After this initial period of mistrust and deception, Conan and Haibara formed a very strong friendship and partnership.
Another high-ranking member of the Organization Shiho escaped, named Vermouth, discovered her true identity after bugging the professor's home and stealing some documents. Disguised as Dr. Araide (the school doctor at Teitan Highschool), Vermouth had been studying Haibara. FBI agent Jodie Sterling (who was undercoverer as an English teacher in the same school, pursuing Vermouth) realized the girl was Vermouth's target, so she picked up who she thought to be Haibara in her car, with "Dr. Araide" in pursuit, but "Haibara" turned out to be Conan in disguise as her to protect the real Haibara and investigate Vermouth and her ties to the Organization. Unfortunately, the real Haibara had gotten wind of what happened and followed, revealing herself and hoping to end the Black Organization's pursuit (and protect her friends) by allowing herself to be killed. Ran was also hiding in the trunk of the car, because she was suspicious, and emerged only when she heard the gunshots to protect Haibara from being killed by Vermouth (so Ran missed the conversation which revealed the Haibara's true identity)- and honestly, the plot got a bit ridiculously confusing at this point with everyone one-uping everyone else and throwing off disguises.
The important part is that Haibara was saved from being shot by Ran and FBI agent Jodie.
Vermouth agreed to give up on killing the escaped scientist Sherry and did not share the truth of Haibara and Conan's true identities with the Organization, due to an old debt to Shinichi and Ran, who rescued her from death a long time ago.
Haibara has since been working on an antidote to her drug to allow Shinichi to return to his true size.
This progress is hindered by the fact that all her important documents relating to the drug were destroyed by the security system when she tried to access them from a computer that was foreign to the Organization, leaving her to work from the ground up.
However, Haibara has yet to decide whether or not she will take the antidote herself once she finds a permanent cure.
Although Haibara remains somewhat prone to bouts of depression for a very long time, even if she's no longer suicidal, she does find much-needed closure in regards to the family she never knew, when Conan discovers some cassetes hidden in an apartment many years ago by a young Akemi.
Believing them to contain valuable clues as to the Organization's members, whereabouts, or objectives, he listens to a couple of the cassettes, before apologizing to Ai, because everything he heard was deeply personal and meant for Haibara alone.
The cassetes turned out to be voice messages recorded by Shiho's mother Elena before Shiho was born, one message of birthday wishes for her daughter (one message for each year) who she knew she wouldn't be able to watch grow up.
Conan then said, that the rumours were wrong: Elena Miyano was a genuine, heaven-sent angel.
As for her father, although she did not know it at first, he turned out to be a colleague of Professor Agasa's; according to the professor, he had always seemed like a kind, friendly man and not at all what Haibara had been led to believe.
Character Personality: Having never truly been a child before, Haibara finds it very difficult to act like one. Unlike Conan, who does it as though it were second nature to him (Haibara attributes this to his being the son of a once famous actress), Haibara rarely acts her apparant age. She is every bit as jaded, cynical, and sarcastic as the eighteen year old Miyano Shiho, and has no interest in acting childlike; it's usually only with Conan's prompting (and/or bribing, with promises of designer handbags), that she will act anything remotely like a child... or if she suspects someone to be dangerous to her or others, in order to avoid suspicion.
She can act childlike, if it's an absolute must, but it's exaggeratedly saccharine and can be rather disturbing to anyone who is used to her true personality. She is much more skilled at crying at the drop of a hat and faking illness.
She hides her feelings well and is very stoic. She refuses help even when she is sick and weak, prefering to maintain an illusion of strength than to depend on others and leave herself in any position of vulnerability. If she must depend on others, she's more likely to give orders than ask for favours. If she must ask, it will be very forced.
She masks her fear with anger and once spent an entire day acting bossier than usual, having others open doors for her, and generally being in a foul mood, all because she had lost her anti-static accessories and is too scared of static electricity to want to touch anything herself.
When Conan laughed at her for it after realizing why she had behaved that way, she got angry, but later followed the advice he gave her to avoid the discomfort of the electrical discharge. When she found that following his advice works, she smiled and seemed to be in an exceptionally rare good mood, which Conan found a bit creepy.
As Shiho, her older sister Miyano Akemi was possibly the only person Shiho was close to. Even then, Shiho was somewhat distant in her interactions even with her sister and they corresponded by exchanging floppy disks with pictures outside of their rare face-to-face meetings.
On occasion, Haibara does allow select others to see a kinder, softer side to her, but this is a very rare and exclusive privilege. She shows kindness more easily to animals, than to humans, such as when she smiles kindly and holds a puppy, choosing it because it was different from the rest (an outcast, like her).
... however, Haibara is still Haibara is still Shiho is still Sherry, so she asks the little Pappilon if it would follow her and if she's killed like Queen Mary was, "when the dew on the guillotine vanishes, [if] he will drown himself in the Seine river, like Mary's dog did, following me in death."
Most adults notice there is something off and very strange about the girl.
She carries herself with stoicism and an undeniably mature aura. She speaks little, but when she does, it's either in sarcastic remarks or depressing analogies. She usually speaks only briefly, unless there is something she feels the need to explain, or if she's using some sort of extended metaphor.
She often fields any questions Conan directs to her about the Organization, believing that the less he knew about, the safer he'd be: this is often in the form of either closing the topic with a shortly stated "it's dangerous," "you should stop," or giving a very seriously spoken, if very vague answer that may or may not relate to resurrecting the dead, that she then suggests was all farce by smirking and asking, "I wonder if that answer is satisfactory?"
She also has a fondness for fashion and is often found reading fashion magazines, when she isn't busy researching to create a possible cure for APTX 4869. Earlier on, Haibara would even request designer handbags (Sai Brand!) as payment for helping Conan solve a case, by lending her acting skills.
In addition, Conan once found her adult name, Miyano Shiho, in the list of names of participants in a draw for sacred arrows at a mermaid's shrine, that were said to grant immortality and everlasting youthful beauty, based on the legend that whoever eats mermaid's flesh becomes immortal. He couldn't believe that Haibara would ever want such silly things, but it's entirely possible that she would considering her interest in fashion and beauty... or, if one were to take some of the hints about the Organization's true goals ( Vermouth's line "we can be of both God and the devil, because we are trying to raise the dead against the flow of time" and Haibara's line "those who stand against the flow of time will be punished...") into account, it could be that the original purpose of her and her father's research truly was creating an elixir of immortality (and perhaps that is why another member of the Black Organization, Vermouth, never ages no matter how many years pass) and/or a way to bring even the dead to life.
Of course, the latter part is only educated guesswork based on what incomplete evidence we do have...
Although she was initially avoidant when it came to dealing with others and even solving mysteries, after Conan assured her over the phone that a boy who had just moved in was not related to the couple claiming to be hist parents, Haibara took it upon herself to investigate with the help of the Detective Boys, putting off calling the police (which was all that Conan advised her to do) until after they finish. It does get them into trouble, but they also end up saving the kidnapped boy, with some help from Conan over the phone.
While she's very intelligent, practically on the same level as Shinichi, her deductions sometimes miss the mark. She's a biochemist, not the Heisei Holmes. Misunderstandings and wild assumptions are entirely possible, particularly if she's not taking something seriously (Conan thinks it's not a good idea for her to meet Akai, so Haibara asks him if he's a lolicon; when Conan makes a face, Haibara takes it as proof that she must have been right!).
One thing that has hardly changed is that Haibara has a rather depressing worldview and sees in things such as sunsets and flowers more reason to be saddened. She sees the sunset as the sun's last, futile struggle against death and laments the fragility and ephemeral nature of flowers.
At first, Conan could not bring himself to trust or even like Ai, because of his strong aversion to killing, no matter the circumstances. Knowing that she was responsible for creating a drug that was used to kill so many, he could not bring himself to trust her.
She explained that she changed the Organization's records to say that he was confirmed to be dead so that the Organization would not find him and kill him before she could have the chance to meet him and that she protested against the continued development and production of her drug, in addition to demanding an explanation for her sister's death, but was denied by the Organization and marked as a traitor.
She wondered if he wanted to get rid of her, for being such a troublesome little girl, but Conan called her an idiot (in a familiar, almost accepting sort of way), saying he'd be in trouble if they found her. All he insisted on was that she be enrolled in the Teitan Elementary School. She'd be far more suspicious if she wandered around freely.
Although Conan was initially suspicious of Ai, he grew to value her as a partner, and thought of her as a friend. He also felt sympathy and a great deal of regret, when she showed him what he believed to be her first geniune expression of her feelings, when she broke down crying, while asking him why he didn't save her sister. She found out that he had been investigating the case of the One Billion Yen Robbery (which Akemi was tasked with in exchange for her and her sister's freedom). He had solved so many mysteries as a child, from the shadows and unknown to almost everyone around him, and brought culprits to justice, while treating them fairly and preventing their deaths. But he considers that case to be one of his greatest failures. He watched Akemi die in front of him, but had no way of finding those responsible.
Although she, like Conan, find the Detective Boys more annoying than helpful when trying to solve a case, eventually, she has grown extremely fond of the children, even though she remained quiet and still somewhat withdrawn. She did begin to act in a more friendly manner, speaking with them, occasionally teaching them, going to watch games together, and sharing their things. She also became fiercely protective of them overtime and they are who she worries most about when she thinks of the Black Organization finding her: the thought of them killing her terrifies her, but the idea that these innocent children could be killed because of her weighs more heavily on her mind.
Haibara became particularly close to the only other female in the group, a seven year old girl named Ayumi.
With time, her friendship with Ayumi deepens and she starts to see her more and more as a best friend and little sister. Eventually, she even allows Ayumi to call her "Ai-chan" to convey this closeness, which is Ayumi's exclusive privilege. Even the other Detective Boys, although Haibara cares for them, are not allowed to refer to her in such an informal manner.
While Haibara attempts to teach Ayumi and the other Detective Boys about the world and some of its harsh realities, Ayumi also manages to teach Haibara the value of courage. Although Ayumi is still so young, she wanted to see the robber with her own two eyes and bring him to justice rather than run away and hide (despite Haibara telling her there was also courage in hiding herself), because Ayumi does not want to live a life in which she's constantly running away from her problems.
This struck a chord with Ai, who as Shiho, attempted to take her life (and even attempted to do the same as Haibara in the bus hijacking case, staying inside the bus with a a bomb , knowing it was about to detonate) to escape her miserable fate and so she won't burden those around her. Following this, Haibara refused the Victim/Witness Protection Program, deciding to continue living as Haibara Ai rather than having her name and school changed and being forced to adopt a new persona all over again, even though this had taken place as a result of a close call with the Black Organization member Vermouth, who discovered her identity.
Haibara reaffimed her decision not to run away from her fate anymore.
Her friendship with the Detective Boys and especially with Ayumi, has also given Haibara a priceless chance to live as a child, the way she never could in the past.
At first, she is exceptionally cold to Mouri Ran, Kudou Shinichi's childhood friend and love interest, which Conan speculates to be due to her lack of experience with kind and caring people. But after Ran saves Haibara from the Black Organization member Vermouth and shields her with her body, Haibara begins to see similarities between Ran and her sister Akemi.
Since then, Haibara has grown far more accepting of Ran.
A second reason for Ai's initial coldness and aversion to Ran might possibly be Ai's growing feelings for Conan. She does not speak of her feelings for him, however, knowing that he and Ran were meant for one another. Whenever she does suggest an attraction to him, she plays it off as a joke: when Conan stopped her from committing suicide by jumping in front of a train (which was actually misunderstanding). She understood that he had believed she was about to jump, so she reminded him that she had already made her decision not to run away from her fate, following the advice he gave her in the Bus Hijacking Case, when he rescued her from the bus just before it exploded.
After reminding him of what he told her, she asked him if he would protect her.
He was stunned by her question and they spent a moment in silence, before she brushed it off, saying "of course, I'm not the weak little princess who asks for help like you think I am."
This manner of teasing is common in their relationship. She often suggests that she's interested in him, only to play it off as a joke. She has even gone so far as to confess to loving him from the day they first met, only to pass it off as a joke. Even if she did have feelings for him, she knows she can't pursue him because of Ran.
She does mock him for keeping Ran in the dark and breaking her heart by making her wait all this time for Shinichi's return, but she also knows it's dangerous for him to tell her the truth. Conan felt he should tell Ran the truth, because she was once again suspecting Conan and Shinichi to be one and the same, confirming it when she gives Conan her blood on the sole basis of sharing blood types with Shinichi. Haibara's response was to sneak into his hospital room at night, and point a gun at him, claiming that the Black Organization had found out about her and had taken Professor Agasa hostage, and that she would be allowed to return to working for them on the condition that she kill Kudou Shinichi. She says he should be grateful, because she'll kill him first, so he won't have to see the dead faces of his friends after the Organization inevitably kills them.
When she pulled the trigger, however, only roses came out, and she revealed that it was all an act... but if given the choice, that's what she would have done. Even if she claims it's far more realistic to assume they'd both be killed, along with everyone else associated with them, and reminds Conan never to let his emotions blind him to how dangerous their situation really is.
Although she is ordinarily calm and collected by nature, she has a near crippling fear of the Black Organization and is haunted by her fears even in sleep: she has a nightmare involving Gin the night before their reunion on the Beika City Hotel rooftop.
She seems to have something of a sixth sense for the Black Organization and its members, instantly getting chills and becoming even more withdrawn, although her stoic mask breaks and her fear becomes apparant, whenever their names are mentioned or she feels their presence nearby.
She is especially frightened of and hates Gin. At school, Haibara has a flashback to her nightmare about being found by him in the street, and when Ayumi innocently grabs her hand, wanting her friend to come out and see the snow, Haibara uncharacteristically snaps at her, "don't touch me!" because she mistook her for Gin.
Her intense fear of Gin is understandable in light of his killing her sister, in addition to his ruthless nature. He is also fixated on her, to the point of unhealthy obsession.
Although she freezes in terror when she senses the presence of Black Organization members, she was much calmer- outwardly at least- when she confronted Gin on the snowy rooftop, in her true form (she had previously drank Paikaru, which reversed the effects of her drug, but it has only a one-time effect, and was not a true antidote). She exchanges words with him casually in her usual sarcastic manner.
On the topic of Black Organization members, Gin (for reference, the same high-ranking agent who executed her sister and failed to kill her and Shinichi) is somewhat obsessed with Sherry/Shiho. The official databook suggests that the two might have had a romantic relationship in the past, although it is neither confirmed nor denied in explicit terms. Their familiar interactions during their reunion on the Beika City Hotel also aid this theory, with Gin waiting on the roof in the snow for Shiho to kill her there, as opposed to killing her in a much more efficient manner by shooting her in a chimney (he claimed a filthy chimney was an unsuitable place to kill her and that he wished to kill her in a more beautiful place so that he could let her "death flower bloom."). When he told her he had waited for her to emerge, she apologized (sarcastically, of course) for making him wait for her in a cold place.
He also made comments about her disguise not suiting her, although her red blood glimmering on the white snow was beautiful.
Even when he did shoot at her, he never shot her anywhere that would kill her instantly, despite his great skill. He seemed to be intentionally prolonging her execution for whatever reason; it's fortunate that he did, as it gave Conan enough time to find and rescue her.
As for Subaru Okiya, a mysterious young man who Conan had allowed to live in the Kudou residence, Haibara felt the same pressure from him that she feels whenever she confronts a member of the Black Organization. When faced with him, she goes into a shock and clings tightly onto Conan's shoulders. She reacts to hearing the Black Organization member Vermouth's Japanese name, Belmot, in a similar manner, wrapping her arms around herself and silently cowering.
When she had to confront Okiya directly, however, she was able to overcome her fear well enough to move away from Conan and calmly and coolly question him as to his motives, without betraying her fear.
Powers: She was a very valuable scientist to the Black Organization and is very intelligent. She's capable of making powerful drugs (anything that can cause your entire body to shrink into a child's has got to be!). She is, of course, very knowledgeable in the natural sciences, biochemistry especially. She's also knowledgeable in regards to some other subjects, like history, classical music, and literature. She can shoot a handgun.
On the subject of the apoptoxin, we know is that it works based on speeding up the process of apoptosis (cell death), which is why it made such a good poison. For some exceedingly rare subjects, in addition to increasing the rate of cell death, it also increases the rate of cell production and multiplication, which is the only real explanation given in canon for why it seemd to reverse the aging process. Which... almost makes sense in theory, but one wonders where they acquired the necessary nutrients to expend that much energy in the process. And how they avoid cancer with their cells dividing at such an unnatural rate... No more information is given in canon.
As for why the Chinese wine Paikaru works as a one-time only temporary cure to the apoptoxin, your guess is as good as mine.
Taking her prototype antidotes too often is also dangerous, because as shown by the decreasing amount of time Shinichi is able to stay in his real body after taking them, one can become immune to its effects: so it's best that he waits until she makes a finished, permanent antidote instead of constantly taking her prototypes.
She also has a sixth sense for members of the Black Organization, although she's beginning to have doubts in it as the feeling will grip her and then leave with the same people still in her presence.
She claims that Black Organization members not only wear black clothes, but that they carry a "scent" unique to them (Conan has no idea what she's talking about, as she smells entirely ordinary to him).
This ability is not always reliable, as the feeling sometimes has a habit of coming and going, even while the people around her remain the same.
Samples
First person: Hello. [It's a quiet, but firm female voice; it sounds surprisingly mature, in stark contrast to her physical appearance of a small blonde child of about seven years, apart from the curiously developed bust, with a permed bobcut and large blue eyes. She had a very grave expression, however, suiting her voice.]
This is Haibara Ai.
I live in Beika City. I'm a student at Teitan Elementary, first year, Class- [She stopped herself for a moment, remembering Conan's advice to act more like a child. With an inward sigh, she continued, forcing her voice to sound lighter and more confused- the end result was almost comically exaggerated.] A-a-and... and... and!
I don't have any idea where I am!
[She turned round blue eyes up to blink in an over-the-top display of innocence at the screen. She even worked up a few tears.] C-can you please help me and tell me how I got here?
[Deciding that was quite enough embarrassment for a lifetime, she decided to end the feed there. She's not likely to keep up this act for long, unless she can find a VERY good reason to keep playing the role of a clueless child. Still, she certainly wasn't going to willingly and intentionally reveal her true age either.]
Third Person: The strange, sullen little girl with the strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes had closed herself off in one of the many buildings affixed to the branches of a massive tree, as she has been doing for days since her arrival.
For how youthful the little girl looked, with her soft and rounded cheeks and modest height, the way she carried herself was not at all childlike, lively and playful, but instead proper and restrained and her features had a harshness to them. She rarely smiled and her eyes did not display even the faintest glimmer of naive curiousity.
The odd little girl did not play or seek the company of others her age. Her days were spent in solitude
She was still half-convinced this was the dream, even if what preceded it had hardly felt like reality.
But today, she could not even distract herself from such thoughts with her studies or even give herself momentary reprieve in light reading fiction.
The cynical, skeptical part of her, that was always the most dominant, refused to wholly believe in the reality of this place. But little by little, with the passing of days, her belief in this world began to build up, like snowflakes accumulating into thick blankets of snow.
With a wry smile, she closed the thin book, unfamiliarly light in her hands, to set it down before commenting to no one in particular, "it's just like the butterfly's dream, isn't it?"
Maybe it's not a question of whether he dreamt of the butterfly or if he was the butterfly's dream... perhaps he existed as both.
She reached into her pocket to take out her cell phone. It was the same that she had in Japan and the same that she had awoken from her butterfly's dream beside. The wallpaper was still her candid shot of Professor Agasa's sleeping face.
She never thought she'd miss the sound of his snoring. Her subconscious couldn't have been so cruel as to fabricate such a cacaphony, so she knew that was not only a dream; she had not been in a coma for years and simply dreamed all of her past memories if she still had these pictures as proof of the life she lived. Perhaps this, too, was real, even if it did not conform to the laws of the world she knew.
She put away her cell phone. Initially, she had believed herself to have been drugged and kidnapped. Now, it was no longer possible to believe it was all a drawn out hallucination, she began to wonder if this was some sort of afterlife. If it was, she might accept it someday. If she no longer existed in the world she left behind, then, this meant that death's foreboding shadow would no longer loom over those most important to her. With her departure, the chain that linked them to the Organization was broken. It was not of her choosing (she promised Conan not to run away), but maybe it was for the best.
Perhaps, here, she could finally find some peace...