A few days passed, and Conan did not feel any better. If anything, he felt worse. All he wanted to do was lie on his couch and try to block out the white noise that permeated his thoughts. Fear and anger bubbled up in his chest. He couldn't afford to do anything but track down Gin! Time was of the essence, so he put in the sleepless nights, the hours of research on his computer, the time to patrol the town for any sign of Organization activity. His irritation at the lack of results quickly grew until he felt like a volcano ready to erupt at any second. The rope tightened around his neck everyday as he forcefully shoved down feelings of hatred; for Gin or for himself, he didn't know anymore.

School was a waste of time, a needless distraction. He had much, much bigger fish to fry than the next poetry test or lab report that he was going to ace anyway. There was a killer on the loose, and Conan would be damned if he didn't do something about it. He was always out of the building not five minutes after the end of the day, heading to his apartment to try to pin down Gin. He didn't have time to try to get information out of Fenton. He was on a deadline, and every day passed with the fear that someone was going to get killed because Conan couldn't act fast enough.

The sound of the bell pulled him back to reality. Mr. Lancer came around to pick up the in-class essay he had supposed to have been working on. He hadn't of course; he had far more pressing matters to attend to. He quickly shoved his list of possible candidates for where Gin could be hiding into his pocket before Mr. Lancer approached his desk, who frowned as he picked up the blank sheet of paper. "Come see me for a minute before you leave," he muttered.

Great.

After everyone else had left, Conan stood in front of Mr. Lancer's polished wooden desk covered in papers with his arms crossed.

"Mr. Edogawa," he started, "You seem distracted. The first week you were here, you were getting excellent grades. Your records indicate the same pattern before you moved here. Why aren't you doing your work anymore? I hate to see a bright student like you ruin their future."

I don't have a bright future anymore. If I did, I wouldn't be here right now, Conan thought, but he bit back the retort. It was his fault the whole thing had happened anyway. "Sorry," he said monotonously instead.

"Anna Karenina, what is the matter with everyone? It's Casper High spirit week! Look," he pulled out a mini sparkler with the school colors from the top left drawer of his desk and handed it to Conan, "I know you're new here, but do try to cheer up. And I know just the thing!" He stood up and Conan groaned. He already knew what was coming before Mr. Lancer started dancing around. "One, two, three, four, when we're done you will be sore! Five, six, seven, eight, Casper High is super great!"

Conan forced a smile on his face. "I'm fine, Mr. Lancer. Really. And, uh, thanks for the sparkler?"

Sighing, Mr. Lancer pinched the bridge of his nose. "All right. I know I'm your teacher so I'm not a first choice, but you can talk to me about anything. I can help you."

"No, you really can't," Conan spat. Mr. Lancer didn't get it; how could he? Conan was alone, and he always would be. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He turned his heel and stormed out of the room. Cheer up, he says! Just because it was his oh-so-precious spirit week did not mean Conan had to be all smiles and laughs. Mr. Lancer didn't know who was prowling around Amity Park. Maybe he would even be the next victim, and Conan would be powerless to stop it unless he could actually focus without everyone breathing down his neck to be a happy little songbird. He really couldn't stand it.

"Ah, Conan," Mrs. Owens, his third period teacher, said as soon as he stepped into the room, soft chatter reaching his ears. Beakers, pipettes, and little bottles of chemical solutions littered the black lab tables along with notebooks and pencils. "Dr. Spectra wanted to see you again before the assembly this afternoon. She sounded—"

An explosion cut her off and the entire class collectively rolled their eyes as they ducked under the tables. Conan looked behind him into the hall just in time to see a streak of black and white zoom past him in the air, followed by a glowing green panther. This was new. But, an elaborate trick like that usually meant nothing good, so he took off after them, ignoring the hiss to get in the classroom from the teacher. He would ordinarily think that this was part of the Amity ghost hoax, but inside a school with no readily available means of publicity? No, something else was going on here.

He slid around a corner and slammed into a row of lockers to see the back of a kid in a black jumpsuit and short white hair facing off against the cat that could talk, apparently. "You're just a scared little kid! What are you gonna do, cry us out of town?"

Trying to ignore words he knew weren't meant for him, Conan scanned the hallway and the figures for any signs of the solution to the trick. But he couldn't find anything; no wires, no platforms, no nothing. How on earth were they pulling this off? And who were they? Before the kid could reply, the cat lunged, sending them both through the floor. Literally through the floor. He looked around at the scratches and dents on the doors and walls that definitely hadn't been there earlier that day and then bent down to examine the spot on the mottled vinyl composition floor they'd gone through.

There had to be an explanation, right?

A more thorough search of the area turned out no further clues, completely vexing him for the first time in a long time. As far as he could tell, there was absolutely no indication that there had been any illusion at all, but there was just as equally no way that that could be true.

Before he could do a triple check, Mrs. Owens marched down the hallway. "Conan!" She held up a finger. "First rule of Casper High: do not run towards the ghosts." Another finger came up. "Second rule of Casper High: you listen to your teachers and do what you're told. You could have been hurt!"

Conan was genuinely taken aback. She really believed in ghosts? Maybe it was an elaborate setup, but there was no way ghosts existed, and that was that. He was reasonably sure he would have seen one by now with the sheer amount of murders he'd solved. "But ghosts aren't real."

Now Mrs. Owens looked taken aback. "Don't tell me you moved here without ever hearing about the ghost attacks?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah, I heard about the attacks, obviously, but it's all a charade to make Amity Park a tourist attraction. Everyone knows that. I mean, it's indisputably fake. I've seen videos on the news where wires are clearly visible."

Mrs. Owens smoothed down her light pink skirt and said, "I don't know what kind of rubbish those news stations have been playing, but I can assure you that ghosts are very real, and you better believe it for your own safety. Now come on; it's only thirty minutes till the spirit assembly in the gym."

Sure enough, half an hour on the nose later he sat on the crowded aluminum bleachers surrounded by the most unenthusiastic teeangers he'd ever seen in his life. And he'd seen a fair number of teenagers involved in his cases. He spotted Fenton's friends sans Fenton himself sitting on the opposite bleachers with concern written plain on their faces. Shockingly enough, this did not seem good.

The cheerleaders came out, catching his eye. If he could really call them cheerleaders with the apparent lack of zeal for anything they were doing. Come to think of it, when he got out of his own head for a minute, everyone in the room seemed...less than chipper. Surely spirit week didn't have that kind of effect on the entire student body? This was just unnatural.

The cheer ended and the speaker (introduced as Jazz Fenton, instantly giving her Conan's full attention) came out under the rather...interesting-looking giant spirit sparklers. They looked a little like satellites, and Conan briefly wondered where the school had gotten money for that and not for replacements for comically outdated textbooks.

"And now we'll start the chain of spirit dominoes, representing each student, and how one impacts another, and so on and so forth. When it reaches the end, we'll celebrate with the spirit sparklers!" Jazz said with enough pep for at least half the student zombies in the room. Well, more power to her he supposed. She tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear as she bent down to start the domino line.

Someone standing behind the makeshift stage pulled out a remote about the size of the palm of his hand and pressed a red button on it, starting up the sparklers. The round silver tips began to heat up and glow red. As the ring of light grew bigger, Conan squinted to get a better look. His eyes widened as he and realized: those were not sparklers. Those were actual lasers! This was an assassination attempt!

He leapt up and hurriedly made his way through the mass of people, his heart thumping as he watched the domino line get closer and closer to the button to set it off. How had he not seen it coming? Those weird dish things were obviously not sparklers, and now someone was going to die—

All in a split second, the black and white blur streaked out of the wall and across the room, taking Jazz Fenton with it. It disappeared through the opposite wall, and Conan, ignoring the shout of Mr. Lancer to sit back down, ran towards the door, slowing down at the sound of voices. He raced down the stairs to the basement level to see some kind of creature pinning the kid in the suit against the wall. Its claws dug into his shoulders, and it was right up in his face, blocking his features.

"Not a ghost, not a boy! Who cares for a thing like you? A creepy little boy with creepy little powers!" it screeched. What the hell was that supposed to mean? And what was more, Conan was struck by how much it sounded just like Dr. Spectra. But that thing couldn't possibly be her? How did it even work? It was like a shadow with mass.

Before Conan could react, Jazz Fenton sprinted down the hall (she was okay!), shoving him out of the way. She barged into the room holding some metal object in her hand, out of breath and with her hair out of place.

"Hey!" she said, making the shadow thing look over its shoulder. Its shining green eyes unsettled Conan. "I don't know this kid. But I hope it's okay if he gets a second opinion." She pressed a button and a shiny metal suit began building itself around her, a little too big in some places but manageable,

What is this, a bad sci-fi movie? Conan thought. He had no damn idea how to react to all of this. Come on, move it. Do something.

He watched as Jazz Fenton pulled a trigger on the inner part of the weird handle-suit-making-thing and pointed it at the creature. A beam of bright blue light (it reminded him of the unnatural color of Danny Fenton's eyes actually) ripped its way out of it and hit the shadow thing square in the back, knocking it off of the white-haired kid, who immediately crumpled to the ground.

Was this one of those inventions Fenton's parents had told him about? Just what were the Fentons up to all day?

He was about to go in and help the kid when the shadow thing's form wavered, cracks spreading all across it like it was a broken vase. It then peeled like a sunburn, but at an impossibly accelerated rate. Underneath the costume was Dr. Spectra, but she looked like she'd aged a few years in one afternoon. Jazz Fenton kept the beam of whatever it was steady, and Conan was going to yell at her to stop, for God's sake, that was a person! But the beam produced the same effect across Dr. Spectra's skin. It was like she was molting, with the skin falling in a ring around her feet as she got older and older and older.

Conan was really going to gag.

At the same time, was that beam like a reverse apotoxin? He shoved that thought aside and locked it away into the deepest recesses of his mind. After everything...Kudo Shinichi was dead, and he should stay dead. The very idea that he could ever go back to his old life was poison.

"No!" Dr. Spectra frantically touched her face, tugging on loose skin and wrinkles. She turned away from Conan to hide it before straightening again. Conan took a step back as she turned her neck a hundred and eighty degrees with a sickening snapping sound, laying her eyes on Jazz Fenton. "You. You did this," Dr. Spectra hissed. She hobbled forward, a faint green light emanating from her hand.

Without a second thought, Conan jumped in front of her and Dr. Spectra stopped, the smile widening. She began to whistle. That tune...Conan stood frozen to the spot, fear coursing through his veins. Green goop dripped from her fingertips, staining her suit as she brought it up to cup her cheek. His heart raced, his mind flooded with anxiety. Nanatsu no Ko came slowly from her lips, her eyes filled with horrible laughter as they bored into his own. "I knew it," she mouthed.

She knew. Conan didn't know how, but she knew. Was she working with Gin? Did Gin know? It was so loud, like a million cicadas all compressed in his brain and screaming ceaselessly. He took a deep breath; he had to pull himself together, at least for now.

He heard a thunk behind him and watched a thermos roll across the floor towards the kid in the suit, who was tentatively standing up. He was bleeding the same green substance from his shoulder. As he stood up, his face came into full view. All fell silent. It was Danny Fenton. In a weird getup and with white hair, but the facial features were unmistakably the same. What the hell?

He uncapped the thermos and Conan thought, What's he gonna do? Throw soup on her?

A beam of light similar to the one from the "Fenton Peeler," as he saw now on the label, shot out from the thermos and sucked Dr. Spectra inside, warranting a double what the hell!? There was no way. There was no way there could be a trick like that. He doubted even Kaitou Kid could pull off such a thing.

The room fell dim once again, with the broken overhead light and the rather grimy walls. Nobody moved.

"Danny?" Conan asked in surprise, breaking the silence. "What the hell is going on here?"

A panicked expression crossed Fenton's face, and he opened his mouth to reply. Before he actually could, Conan's feet began to slide across the floor and he looked up to see Jazz Fenton with an iron grip on his arm and dragging him off.

"Aah, ghost!" she yelled in horrifically fake fear as she pulled him along. "Don't worry, I'll get you away from the ghost!"

"Ghost? That's Danny!" Surely she could see that plain as day?

She scoffed. "Uh, yeah, Danny Phantom. Amity Park's local ghost hero? Jeez, gotta keep up with the times."

Okay. So Fenton was caught up in this ghost hoax thing or...whatever it was that had happened back there.

As they reached the staircase to the first floor, Mr. Lancer jogged down the stairs with renewed glee. "Miss Fenton! Your disappearing act worked wonderfully. There's still a little heaviness, but everyone's spirit has lifted monumentally! Come on now. And Mr. Edogawa, do sit down and stop running off please."

Disappearing act? Those lasers literally left a scorch mark on stage!

The rest of the school day passed by without much else happening other than Fenton's more fervent avoidance of him than usual. But he wasn't paying attention anyway. His mind kept running through what had happened over and over again, trying to find some kind of reasonable explanation for it all.

And that aside, Dr. Spectra—or whoever she was—knew Ano Kata's phone number, which was extremely alarming for more reasons than Conan could count. And the question was whether she was working separately from Gin or not. He wasn't really counting on it, not with his luck. He had a cap on how long he could keep this up; Gin might skip town, or he might just decide to do away with everyone he'd been in contact with and then him. Conan had to catch him before that happened. He clenched his jaw. He couldn't let Gin kill anyone else!

When school was over, Conan shut himself up in his apartment as soon as he could. He plopped down onto the couch as soon as he had locked all the doors and windows, the overwork quickly catching up with him. His eyelids felt like lead as he drifted out of consciousness, Gin's image appearing in his dreams, morphing into Dr. Spectra's peeling form.

He awoke with a start in the evening, the stars peeking out behind clouds hidden by the night sky, to the shrill sound of his phone. Seeing it was Jodie-san, he hurriedly reached over to his coffee table and flipped it open right on the last ring.

"Hello?" Conan shifted the phone so it was squished between his ear and shoulder as he got up and sat in front of his computer.

"Ah, hello, Kudo-san. I got a secure line set up for us so I don't have to run over to your apartment so much anymore. I talked to Black-san, and he talked to his superiors, and long story short, Interpol said they were going to send an agent to back you up with the threat of rebuild."

"Oh, good. Sorry to inconvenience you so much with the meetings! Should I expect this Interpol agent to be checking in with me?" He typed AMITY PARK GHOSTS into the search bar.

"I expect so. Anything to report?"

Conan sighed. "A lot, unfortunately. That weird counselor at Casper High I mentioned? Penelope Spectra? She whistled Nanatsu no Ko in front of me. Very deliberately. I think she knows...I don't know about my identity specifically, but that I'm lying about it." He didn't mention that that made him want to hide under his covers and never come out.

He could practically hear Jodie-san cringe. "Are you serious? Ooh, that's not good. All right, stop any patrol you've been doing until your backup arrives. I'll tell Interpol to send their agent on the next plane to Amity Park, and until then I'll alert the local police force to be on watch for suspicious activity. We'll look into 'Penelope Spectra's' history, but I doubt anything will turn up. If you think you've been found out, maybe you should skip school for a couple of days too. Your call. Just stay safe, okay?"

"I'll try," Conan replied. "I'll talk to you later. Doing some research on that lead."

The call went dead with a click and Conan scrolled through search results. It was practically all news reports with the fake videos he'd already seen save for one anonymous Myspace page detailing different ghost sightings around Amity Park. The pictures uploaded with it were the real deal—they looked like what he had seen at school.

His ears picked up a creak from the other room. Adrenaline rushed through him as he silently got off his chair and pulled out the pistol hidden in his jacket. He crept towards the slightly cracked open door, looking for any signs of an intruder. There was no one there.

He heard another creak and kicked the door open, darting into the room with his gun loaded and ready to go. "Who's there? Show yourself!" he shouted, turning this way and that in a frenzy to try to find whoever it was.

There was a muffled yelp coming from the direction of the old wooden door—the one that led directly outside instead of through the lobby of the building. He cautiously walked over, keeping a sharp eye on his surroundings. "I'm warning you! Come out now!"

Suddenly, the door flew open and he heard the sound of loud footsteps running away from the scene and down the street, but he couldn't see anyone. He ran out onto the street, gun at the ready, but they were already gone. Every shadow seemed to hold a pair of watchful eyes, all waiting for him to slip up and get killed.

Dread settled in his stomach as he went back inside and triple-checked all the locks. He was living his worst nightmare of the past eight years.

Something was wrong in Amity Park.