Reality or Dream
Raiden Ei raised her naginata without a moment's hesitation and brought it slashing down hard at Conan. Her movement was swift and decisive, utterly without mercy, leaving him no chance to react at all.
Conan's eyes went wide as he watched that impossibly sharp blade come hurtling toward him. He wanted to struggle, but his body might as well have been frozen solid — he couldn't move so much as a finger. All he could do was stare as the cold gleam drew nearer and nearer, despair and frustration boiling up inside him.
"Aaah!"
The scream tore out of him as his whole body jolted, and his eyes snapped open. He flung off the covers and bolted upright in one convulsive motion.
He was gasping for breath, his chest heaving, his forehead slick with sweat, his eyes full of fear and unease — as if he had just lived through a terrible nightmare.
It took him a good while to get his breathing back under control, and even then he couldn't quite shake the panic of having been cut down only moments ago.
Just then, a few sets of light footsteps came pattering toward the door.
"Conan, get up already! You're the only one still in bed!" Ayumi pushed the door open and called out with a grin.
"Yeah, Conan, how'd you sleep so deep today? We called you a bunch of times and you never stirred," Genta said as he filed in behind her, sounding puzzled.
Mitsuhiko hurried to Conan's side and eyed his sweat-soaked face with concern. "That's weird — why are you drenched like this? Did you have a nightmare?"
"Oh~ so even the great detective has nightmares, huh? Go on, tell us what you dreamed about," Haibara said, curiosity coloring her voice.
Looking around at his friends crowded close, Conan took a deep breath and let his racing heart slowly settle.
Was everything before this just a dream? he wondered.
The memory of that lightning-fast blade flashing down at him was still vivid — the chill of it seemed to linger around his heart even now.
Every last detail was etched clearly into his mind. Could all of that really have been something he dreamed up? And if it was a dream, how on earth had he come to dream something like that?
Everything that had happened last night had been so sudden, so harrowing — he needed time to sort through his thoughts.
After brooding for a moment with his head down, Conan lifted it and brushed off Mitsuhiko's and Haibara's questions with a flimsy excuse.
Haibara saw straight through the deflection, but with the other kids around she only gave a small scoff and let it go. The rest of the children, satisfied that Conan was all right, relaxed.
Then Conan asked them about what had happened the night before.
Genta found it a little odd — hadn't Conan been with them all evening? Why would he need to ask? — but he gave a quick rundown anyway.
"After we finished watching the match yesterday, we went off to play hide-and-seek. Did you forget, Conan?"
"That's right," Mitsuhiko added with a nod. "But after a few rounds it got really late, so Ayato-niisan came to find us and took us back to get some rest."
"And then this morning we all got up, Albedo came to pick up Klee, and a certain somebody just would not wake up no matter how we shouted — so he missed Klee's goodbye entirely," Haibara said, rolling her eyes.
"Oh, right!" Ayumi suddenly remembered, brightening. "Nahida came with Albedo-oniichan too!"
Then she drooped a little, her head sinking. "Too bad she only stayed for a moment before leaving. We didn't even get to really talk with her."
"Nahida!" Conan pressed urgently. "You all actually saw Nahida?!"
Sensing something off in his tone, Haibara frowned. "We did, yes. Why? Is something wrong with her?"
Conan hesitated, but in the end he didn't tell Haibara about the nightmare-like experience from before.
After all, it really did feel like a dream — his memories didn't line up with anyone else's. And when Mitsuhiko said it had been Kamisato Ayato who brought him back to his room, a hazy, corresponding image had flickered through his mind.
By now, he half suspected it really had been nothing more than what the heart dwells on by day, the mind dreams by night — he'd been turning over Raiden Ei's behavior at the Takahashi house all day, so was it any wonder she'd shown up in his sleep swinging a blade at him?
But hearing that Nahida, whom he'd seen just last night, had truly appeared this morning left him uncertain all over again.
Once he was up, Conan washed his face and did the bare minimum of his morning routine, then slipped away from the kids and ran off to trade intelligence with Subaru Okiya.
"So let me see if I have this right," Subaru said after listening. "Last night, you saw Raiden Ei, Zhongli, and Nahida gathered in the pavilion. Their conversation turned to the Takahashi family, this Miss Raiden took offense, produced a blade out of thin air, and tried to cut you down?"
Conan considered, then nodded firmly.
"And then you woke up, perfectly fine, and now you have no way of confirming whether last night was a dream or reality?"
Conan nodded again.
Subaru fell into thought for a moment, rubbing his chin. "Going by your account, I'd say it's far more likely you were dreaming, Conan."