The Phantom Thief of Hearts! But Conan

"Thank you for riding the Tokyo Metro. This train is bound for Shibuya Station. This train is down for Shibuya..."

A gentle, flat female voice woke Tang Ze from his sleep.

Just as he groggily opened his eyes, Tang Ze subconsciously tensed the muscles in his back, instantly becoming alert and awake.

This wasn't his bedroom. He had been lying in his warm bed just a moment ago.

Realizing this, he immediately softened his breathing and raised his head at a natural pace, scanning his surroundings.

The train, packed with people shoulder to shoulder, its interior lined with advertisements and slogans, the slight sway of its movement, and the rhythmic clatter of the tracks, bright sunlight streamed through the large windows, falling upon him.

A train, this was a moving Japanese train, and he...

Tang Ze lowered his head and examined himself.

A crisp, light blue jacket, a white shirt, a dark green tie, it looked like a school uniform from some academy. He was currently clutching a black commuter bag with his arms.

He unzipped the bag and took a peek. An umbrella, glasses case, planner, tissues, pencil case, wallet – standard student essentials.

There was also a black folder in the inner pocket. Glancing at the passengers around him, who were silently looking down at their phones, Tang Ze decided against taking it out to flip through. Instead, he nudged it aside and used his fingertips to sift through the papers inside.

Barely making out the heading on a document, Tang Ze felt a jolt, like an electric shock.

"Notice of Withdrawal" and "Probationary Supervision Order."

He had just saved his three-week playthrough before sleeping, and he immediately understood.

He had, possibly, transmigrated into the protagonist of Persona 5.

This was the opening cutscene of P5, wasn't it?!

Tang Ze's emotions were incredibly complex.

He felt a mix of anticipation and confusion. He felt like he should be happy, after all, he knew the plot inside and out. But he didn't know what to be happy about, as his future seemed a little bleak.

However, if this was P5, shouldn't his school uniform be black? What was this outfit he was wearing...?

Tang Ze steadied himself and took out his wallet, hoping to find more evidence of his identity.

There were several ten-thousand-yen bills in his wallet. Spreading them out, he could see his student ID tucked into a transparent side pocket.

The moment he recognized the card, Tang Ze's mind went blank, his pupils widening in shock.

"Teitan High School Student ID

Year and Class: 2nd Year, Class B

Name: Akira Karasawa"

On the left was a two-inch ID photo of a boy with light brown hair and blue eyes, looking straight ahead with a blank expression.

A very handsome face, good-looking, but the round, bright cat-like eyes with upturned outer corners and the upward-sloping eyebrows gave this young face a sharp, aggressive edge.

It was strange, very strange. It looked like a blend of his own face and the face of the P5 protagonist. Simply put, if they had a child, it would look like this.

Tang Ze quietly met the gaze of the boy in the photo.

As a radiating pain shot through the back of his head, fragmented memories flashed before his eyes.

An empty alley in the deep night, blinding headlights, a young woman calling for help, a middle-aged man reeking of alcohol and flushed red, bumping his head against a roadside flower bed during an argument and shove.

Then, the flashing red and blue lights of police cars, the blindingly cold light of the interrogation room, like surgical spotlights, the resounding echo of a gavel falling in a silent courtroom...

That was right, it was definitely the P5 setting. He had become a young offender who tried to do the right thing but was falsely accused and convicted of severe assault. Now, he had left home alone and arrived in Tokyo to complete his one-year probationary period. This was essentially a suspended sentence requiring him to live under supervision, with his conduct during this period determining whether he would be sent to a juvenile detention center.

But what was with Teitan High School?!

If he had transmigrated into the Detective Conan world, based on their one-year timeline, how many years would his probation last?!

Tragic, it was incredibly tragic.

Only thanks to his excellent self-control was Tang Ze able to avoid a contorted expression. He merely pursed his lips, took out his phone from his bag, and opened the front-facing camera to look at his current face.

Perhaps the cat-like eyes made him look younger, but the brown-haired boy in the lens appeared a little younger than his actual age, around fifteen or sixteen. His brown hair hung loosely to his cheeks, and his eyes were a light, full blue, making his pupils seem to glow, dazzlingly bright.

Due to the mental shock he had just experienced, he was frowning with a troubled expression, his straight mouth pushing his cheeks out into little puffs.

Alright. I'm quite good-looking, just a bit too cute.

Tang Ze, who was a full decade older than his current appearance, sighed and wearily turned off the camera.

What else could he do? He had already transmigrated. Could he jump off the train and commit suicide now? A person has to live.

Exiting to the phone's home screen, he found the red and black Otherworld Navigator app icon exactly where he expected it to be. A graffiti background made of red and black lines had a red eye cut out, as if staring at Tang Ze outside the screen.

He tapped it, but nothing happened.

He tapped it again.

After tapping it six or seven times, Tang Ze gave up and turned off the screen.

Useless software, can't open it, can't delete it. I'm tired, just let it all burn.

He wondered if he had inherited his own three-week save file. Even if he didn't get the stats, could he at least bring over his Persona compendium, which he had spent so long optimizing? Please, the script was already so convoluted, was it inhumane to make him spend his life tediously synthesizing in the consciousness space?

At the moment he was silently lamenting this, everything around him suddenly fell silent.

The black-clad phantom thief turned and appeared on the screen, and a very familiar P5 system interface unfolded before his eyes.

Tang Ze stared blankly at the interface in front of him, instinctively reaching out to tap the item option.

"Whoa!" Seeing the packed item inventory, Tang Ze exclaimed in surprise.

P5's New Game+ saves don't carry over character levels or anything like that, but they do bring over all items, money, and resources like recorded masks synthesized in previous playthroughs.

Great, he had his Lv. MAX character from his third playthrough! He could survive this! He was still rich too!

This was his third playthrough save, where he'd grinded to the money cap!

Even though many options were still grayed out, Tang Ze felt much more at ease.

His cheat had arrived!

Exiting the interface, the surrounding sounds flooded back into his ears. Tang Ze saw that none of the other passengers even glanced his way, and he finally relaxed, leaning back in his seat and letting out a breath.

Only now did he have the leisure to start examining the phone in his hand.

He didn't know if it was a new phone or an effect of his transmigration, but the phone had almost no content. The photo album was empty, and the contacts only listed his father and mother. He didn't know if he truly had no classmates or friends, or if his status as a juvenile delinquent had severed almost all his past social connections.

The inbox contained only one email from his father. In it, his father described the lodging he'd found for him in Tokyo in a very cold, formulaic tone. He said it was a shop run by a good old classmate, with an attic available for living. The classmate currently lived abroad, and the shop was managed by family and staff. The attic was completely vacant and could be lent to him for a year, and it was very close to his new school.

As for his son who was about to live alone in Tokyo, the letter only contained two chilling sentences: "During your observation period, you must contact the probation officer regularly and remember to abide by the rules," and "Don't cause trouble for anyone this year, keep a low profile. If you mess up, you won't get a second chance."

"What the heck..." Tang Ze scrolled through the email, reading each line, his fists clenching tighter and tighter. "Is this something a real father would write?"

It wasn't just the cold relationship; the tone was almost hostile, as if he were truly an irredeemable criminal.

Tang Ze took several deep breaths, suppressing the rising anger, and continued scrolling. Finally, at the end of the email, he saw the address of his destination.

5-3-9 Beika Town, Tokyo Metropolis, the Polo Cafe.

Tang Ze stared at the address, falling silent.

He should have realized it sooner. Sleeping in a cafe attic was probably some unchangeable, fixed design.

Isn't this a coincidence? There's a cafe right below the Mouri Detective Agency!

If he remembered correctly, when the plot progressed to the Bourbon arc, Tooru Amuro would come to work at the cafe.

Which means—

He was about to become classmates with Ran Mouri and Shinichi Kudo, a neighbor to Ran Mouri, and a colleague of Tooru Amuro?

Why is this happening.jpg

Given Conan's plot tendencies, he'd probably end up being a suspect, a victim, or the culprit. Otherwise, it wouldn't be polite.

Thinking about it carefully, with his current setting, he was perfectly suited to be the culprit.

Wrongfully accused, thrown out like trash to live alone, severed social ties—someone filled with such grievances and resentment was practically a destined culprit, appointed to take revenge on society.

As for being a victim, it would depend on whether the scumbags who framed him would use the original owner's case as a stain on his record. Roughly counting, the involved politician, the female employee he saved, the police and prosecutors involved in the case—not a single person in the chain from top to bottom was clean.

Being a suspect was even simpler. With his record, it would be an insult if the First Investigation Division didn't put him through the three-or-four-choice selection at least four or five times, considering the weight of a serious juvenile offender.

While Tang Ze's thoughts were racing, the announcement on the broadcast about the approaching Shibuya Station pulled his attention back.

The terminus of this train was Shibuya. He needed to get off and transfer to go to Beika Town.