Chapter 445 - 56 (Bonus - for 100 Power Stones)

Chapter 445: Chapter 56 (Bonus Chapter for 100 Power Stones)

Looking over the police headquarters, which had dissolved into chaos, Kogoro straightened his collar and answered a phone call first. "What is it? I’m busy over here."

The call was from Kisaki Eri, so even though she could not see him, he had instinctively tidied his appearance first.

"Did Yimi run over to your place?" Eri’s voice carried an unusually obvious note of panic.

"You should call Ran. I’m not at home right now. Did that brat hit her rebellious phase early?" Kogoro walked farther outside, away from the noise inside police headquarters.

Inspector Megure had also received a call just now, then announced, "We have a mole," and started trying to identify people by pinching their faces. Unfortunately, this spy did not have Kaitou Kid’s ability to throw down a smoke bomb and vanish on the spot. Instead, he kicked Yamato Kansuke in his good leg—the one opposite the leg supported by a cane—and then jumped out a window like Superman.

Since Irish had done all of that while wearing Chief Matsumoto’s face, and Matsumoto was the most authoritative person in the room, quite a few people had failed to react immediately. Police headquarters was now in an uproar, and nobody knew where the real Chief Matsumoto was.

Eri let out a breath, making no effort at all to hide her anxiety. "I already asked Ran. Yimi isn’t with her, and she isn’t with Professor Agasa either. I thought maybe she went looking for you. She’s always admired you so much. We had an argument just now, and she turned into a cat and ran away. Honey, I’m telling you..."

"Turned into a cat? What nonsense are you talking about?" Kogoro’s first reaction was to think that his wife was so frantic her head was not working properly, but he still listened seriously to the whole story.

So their adopted daughter could turn into a cat. Eri had discovered it by accident, and now the child had run away from home because she was afraid Kogoro and Eri would hate her? The kid might even have suicidal tendencies.

At least, that was how Eri saw it.

For the moment, Kogoro chose not to think about why that girl could turn into a cat. He had already suffered one shock back when he first saw her with cat ears.

After reassuring his wife a few times, he hung up and turned toward the exit. "Inspector Megure, I need to go deal with a family matter."

Of all times, she had to cause trouble now. That girl was barely over seven years old, wasn’t she? What suicidal tendencies could she possibly have? How come he had never seen any sign of that when she was with him?

"Hold on a moment, Mouri-kun." Megure grabbed Kogoro and pinched his cheek, just in case that spy had accomplices too.

The moment he finished, Inspector Megure received another call. This time it was not on the landline used for reports, but on the flip phone he had recently replaced his old brick phone with.

It was Officer Takagi, one of Megure’s subordinates. While Conan was trying to beat the police to the real culprit, the police were hardly useless themselves.

Yimi had casually used psychokinesis to save one of the victims on the expressway. They might only have met once and failed to remember each other, but as long as the police questioned that victim carefully, it was not difficult to connect all the victims to the fire from two years ago.

Takagi and Sato had gone to investigate Mizutani, the boyfriend of the woman who died in that fire two years ago. Like Conan, however, they found only Mizutani’s neighbor.

"Sawamura-san said that about two hours ago, an elementary-school boy came by with a white-haired girl to ask questions. They used Kogoro-san’s name," Takagi said over the phone.

"Mouri-kun?" Inspector Megure looked up at Kogoro, puzzled. "You’re letting children work as your assistants again?"

"How could I possibly?"

Mouri stopped in his tracks. He immediately realized Megure’s call had to involve one of those two brats. He rushed back, snatched the phone out of Megure’s hand, and demanded, "Did you see Yimi? A little girl with prematurely white hair!"

"Uh... Sawamura-san—the neighbor—said she came with Conan to ask about Mizutani-san. He said it was on your instructions, Mouri-san," Takagi answered.

He then continued talking about the case. "Sawamura-san said Mizutani-san and Honjo Nanako-san were deeply in love while she was alive. After Nanako-san died, he never managed to move past it and has lived with guilt ever since. He also said the couple’s favorite hobby was stargazing."

Inspector Megure leaned closer to listen and nodded as realization dawned. "That’s exactly why the locations where the seven victims were attacked form the shape of the Big Dipper on a map, and why the killer left seven-pin mahjong tiles with a dot pattern resembling the Big Dipper on their bodies. But then why did one victim have a one-pin tile?"

"I don’t think that’s it." Kogoro lit a cigarette and, for once, did not immediately accuse anyone. "If this Mizutani really loved Nanako-san that much, he would never use something romantic that belonged only to the two of them as a murder message."

He looked at the heavyset officer in front of him. "Inspector Megure, has anyone gone to investigate Nanako-san’s other relatives yet? If not, when you send someone, have them ask whether those two brats, Conan and Yimi, have already been there."

Kogoro could not help caring. Why was the brat Eri believed might be suicidal so obsessed with this case? And why had Conan dragged his adopted daughter along with him?

* * *

Yimi kicked a pebble along the ground, wondering whether Queen had calmed down yet. It had already grown dark while she was running around outside with Conan.

She turned toward him and asked curiously, "Did you catch, the culprit?"

Conan nodded and pushed up his glasses. "I’ve basically figured it out. The culprit has to be the person who did that thing back then."

Yimi: "..."

Kogoro’s line of reasoning was actually not bad. The serial killer was Honjo-san, whom they had just visited. His motive was revenge for his younger sister, who had been unable to board the elevator and escape the fire two years ago.

After investigating all day, Conan had naturally figured that out too. The killer was a perfectionist who chose murder sites according to the shape of the Big Dipper. Earlier, when Conan knocked on the door of Mizutani-san, Nanako’s boyfriend, he had noticed that the nameplate on the home was hanging crookedly and the handwriting was very messy.

By comparison, Honjo-san’s notebook was obsessively neat in its formatting, and the seven victims’ crime scenes formed a perfect Big Dipper on the map.

On top of that, the motive for the murders was no longer simple revenge. The truth was even uglier.

Conan had originally thought that someone pushed Honjo Nanako out of the elevator during the fire two years ago, leaving her trapped on the sixth floor to suffocate in the smoke. But Honjo-san’s notebook showed that all seven victims had sent flowers to the family to mourn Nanako-san’s death.

If only one or two people had sent flowers, it might have been guilt. If all of them sent bouquets, though, it could only have been gratitude. In other words, Nanako-san herself had voluntarily stepped out of the elevator and given the chance to survive to the others.

Honjo-san, who had carefully recorded every bouquet people sent, could not possibly have been unaware of that. Yet he still attacked the survivors with the thought, Why should my sister have given you the chance to survive? You cannot be forgiven. In doing so, he made his sister’s voluntary sacrifice meaningless instead.

But Conan still could not tell the police yet.

Irish, who had collected his fingerprints from the clay and the Black Knight helmet, was hiding among the police, waiting for the real culprit to be caught so he could seize the flash drive containing the list of undercover agents from Honjo-san. The flash drive itself came second. Conan only hoped Irish had not yet reported that Conan and Kudo Shinichi were the same person to the Organization’s higher-ups.

"There were eight people he couldn’t forgive. The one left has to be Mizutani-san himself, because of his guilt."

Conan reasoned aloud. "Mizutani-san and Honjo-san have already met once. Honjo-san may use Mizutani-san’s guilt to talk him into killing himself."

"Sawamura-san—the neighbor—said the couple loved the Big Dipper and Polaris. One of the victims had a one-pin tile, which represents Polaris... Then the remaining point for Polaris would be..." Conan called Ai and asked her to help determine where the last position fell on the map.

"Conan." Yimi looked at the darkening sky and called his name.

"What?"

"I’m about to, leave." Yimi had decided to say goodbye to him after all, then go back and continue saying goodbye to Queen.

After being desk mates for so long, she no longer thought Conan was Child Emperor, just as Tatsumaki was not Madoka.

"Now? Well, yeah, it’s already pretty late." Conan did not try to stop her. He had never intended to bring Yimi along in the first place.

Yimi was about to continue, but Ai answered the call.

"Haibara? I’ll make this quick. About that case I mentioned earlier..."

"What are you planning to do?" Ai asked.

"Go stop someone who wants to kill himself from going to another world," Conan replied.

"Meow?" Yimi closed her mouth and became interested.