(Double Chap)
Of course, when dealing with the police, Conan didn't spill everything. He simply mentioned that the person who killed Councilor Nomiguchi was likely among the guests who had received a purple memorial handkerchief.
A high-profile murder like this, committed in broad daylight, was definitely a major case.
The police couldn't detain everyone, but bringing in seven suspects for questioning? Still manageable.
Soon, officers began searching for the seven people listed at the front desk.
Even though the list didn't include photos, anyone invited to such a high-level memorial service usually had some degree of fame—enough that a quick online search would do the trick.
At that moment, Sato Miwako was also scanning the crowd.
As she passed by the banquet hall, she casually glanced inside and spotted Jiangxia.
Right next to him stood Pisco—known to her as Kenzo Masuyama—who also happened to be on the purple-handkerchief list.
Two out of seven, just like that.
Without hesitation, Sato took off across the banquet hall in a diagonal dash, chasing them from the main entrance to the side corridor.
Unfortunately, the pair had already disappeared down the winding halls, and a wrong turn at the corner delayed her for a few precious seconds.
Still, she'd found them in time. Looking at the beaten-up expression on Pisco's face, she couldn't help but feel: Mm. Perfect timing.
And so, two purple-handkerchief holders were brought in by the police and led to a designated room.
To avoid looking suspicious, Pisco had no choice but to cooperate without protest.
That didn't stop him from shooting Jiangxia the occasional venomous glare—his face so twisted with resentment it looked like he'd swallowed a pot of nails.
...
Contrary to Pisco's expectations, this wasn't the usual "ask a few questions and send them on their way" routine.
This time, the police weren't just holding them—they were also blocking all outside communication.
Pisco thought of Sherry, still locked away in the wine cellar, and silently cursed Jiangxia for delaying him.
But he managed to comfort himself: At least I locked the door before leaving.
The wine cellar had only one entrance, and besides that, just a chimney barely over a meter wide.
An adult might be able to brace themselves against the inner walls and climb up. But Sherry, in her current fun-sized form? Not happening.
Plus, he'd left his laptop behind in the wine cellar during the chaos of trying to capture Jiangxia.
That computer had a tracker.
Now that communication was cut off, Gin and the others would surely follow the signal and arrive soon.
In fact, before Gin even showed up, there was supposedly another unnamed organization member lurking in the area who was supposed to be backup.
...Except that person had yet to appear.
Honestly, what a loser. Signed up for cleanup duty and then ghosted when things got messy.
Despite the rising flood of frustration, Pisco evaluated the situation and felt it was still under control. Worst case, he'd have to split the credit a little once everything was over.
With that, he gritted his teeth, sat down with the world-weary dignity of an old cadre, and waited for interrogation.
...
Meanwhile, Inspector Megure, having followed up on Shinichi Kudo's tip, had detained the purple-handkerchief suspects.
But after that initial burst of confidence, he realized something—Kudo had no solid plan beyond this.
And the evidence they had? Barely circumstantial.
That meant they couldn't hold these people for long.
As he mulled over the problem, Inspector Megure's gaze inevitably returned to Jiangxia.
Among all the guests, only seven had received purple handkerchiefs—and somehow, Jiangxia was one of them.
That made things complicated.
Since Jiangxia fit the exact pattern Kudo had flagged, maybe he had insights into what made this detail important.
Even if he was currently running on fumes and cheap hotel wine, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse.
Megure recalled Jiangxia's usual performance—his deduction speed was absurd. Like an instinct.
If anyone could sniff out the killer, even in this messy state, it was probably him.
The more Megure thought about it, the more hopeful he felt.
He leaned over and gently tapped the youth, who was slouched near the window, gaze fixed vaguely on the snowy scenery outside.
When Jiangxia returned to his senses, Megure quickly laid out the details of the current case in a low voice.
Then, as if passing on state secrets, he added, "If you suspect anyone among these six, don't say it out loud. Just whisper it to me."
Everyone present was either wealthy or high-status.
A wrong accusation would cause a scandal.
A correct accusation would cause a war.
And the most dangerous outcome? A correct deduction without evidence. The kind that gets a person "accidentally" eliminated by the powers that be.
In short, even if they found the killer, they'd hold off on any announcements until the arrest was airtight.
...
Jiangxia, now suddenly full of spoiler-laced plot recaps courtesy of Megure, gave a slow nod.
He'd already decided to take the day off from solving murders. So whatever Megure said, he'd just nod along and act cooperative.
Once the inspector was placated, Jiangxia turned back toward the window.
From here, he had a good view of the road—useful for judging the right moment to sneak off to the wine cellar.
...
Meanwhile, in the wine cellar—
Haibara Ai slowly woke up, her ribs aching from the hard floor.
She groggily lifted a hand to her face, blinking up at a high ceiling.
The old chandelier above her flickered dimly. As the shapes came into focus, fragments of memory clicked back into place.
The murder in the banquet hall… the chaos afterward… someone drugging her…
She sat up with a jolt and looked around.
The room was large, the walls covered in old, flaking paint. Wooden paneling ran along the base.
Wine racks filled the center of the room, dusty bottles stacked like relics of some forgotten age.
A wine cellar. Clearly.
No one else was visible.
Still disoriented, Haibara listened closely—and suddenly, she heard something faint calling her name from her coat pocket.
She reached in and pulled out a small, badge-shaped device, about the size of a thumb.
The Junior Detective League badge.
Made by the Professor.
Earlier that day, while trying to tail Conan, she had just grabbed whatever coat was near the door. Turned out, it came with a tracking device.
Lucky coincidence… or divine intervention?
She hadn't left the house in a while. The coat she was wearing now was the same one from her last outing with the elementary school kids—and inside the pocket, the badge had been left behind and forgotten.
By contrast, Conan, in his rush to break into Gin's car, had completely forgotten his own badge.
After realizing Haibara Ai was missing, Conan's first instinct was to search the crowd for Jiangxia, hoping for his help. But Jiangxia was nowhere to be found, and his phone didn't connect.
Left with no other options, Conan turned to his final hope—the Professor.
Professor Agasa was still waiting in his beat-up little Beetle on a snow-covered road nearby.
Conan contacted him and asked him to try reaching Haibara's badge. To his surprise—and immense relief—he discovered that she actually had it on her.
But the relief was short-lived.
Maybe it was due to a dying battery, or maybe the signal was just bad, but the GPS marker on the badge flickered erratically on the screen, giving only a vague location somewhere around Beika Hotel. The audio communication was patchy, too—it was unclear how long the signal would even last.
—
In the cellar—
Haibara Ai stared quietly at the badge that had been calling her name. After a brief pause, she picked it up, answered a few questions, and relayed everything she'd observed so far to the people in the car.
Then she stood up and walked to the wine cellar door, turning the knob.
It was locked from the outside. Confirming this, Haibara fell silent.
The fire in her usually sharp eyes dimmed.
She spoke softly into the badge, her voice almost lifeless:
"All the research data on the drug… everything I know about the Organization… it's in a hidden folder on the laptop. The Professor knows the password. After they take my body, you can use that data to continue researching APTX4869 and the antidote."
"Also… after this, more people will realize the drug can shrink adults. You won't be able to act so freely anymore. Hide yourselves carefully… don't get the Professor or Jiangxia involved. I've said what I need to. That's enough. Don't contact me again—you'll only be dragged down."
"…Wait!"
On the other end, Conan's expression twitched.
Because of the choppy signal, Haibara's words came through in pieces—but the intent behind them was loud and clear. She sounded like she was leaving a last will and testament.
This won't do…
Conan urgently tried to bring her back from the brink:
"It's not over yet! Jiangxia's at the Beika Hotel today too. If he finds out you died right under his nose, he's bound to start investigating for real. With his skills, it won't take long before he uncovers the Organization. And once he does… things will get really dangerous—for him, and for the rest of us. So please… even if it's just for that, don't give up."
Haibara Ai: "…"
The first part of that speech made her heart ache.
The second part made her want to scold him.
…Every time Conan ran around shouting about tracking down the Men in Black, while Jiangxia—the actual Organization member—strolled past him like a shikigami on holiday, she felt that maybe the title "Great Detective Kudo Shinichi" was a little… overhyped.
Still, Conan's words raised a new kind of fear.
If the Organization found out she'd been living outside for so long—alive, healthy, neatly dressed in children's clothes—it would be clear that someone had taken her in.
And the Organization… didn't like loose ends.
Even if they didn't kill her right away, they'd interrogate her. Thoroughly. Truth serum, hypnosis, whatever tools they had. If she cracked—even by accident—she'd doom the Professor, the kids… even Jiangxia.
A scene began to form in her mind—blood-stained Beika streets, lifeless familiar bodies strewn across the snow, and her own trembling form, soaked in red.
She broke into a cold sweat.
Until now, she'd only thought about being killed. But now… she realized that being captured might be far worse.
To avoid putting everyone else at risk, she had only two options: die quickly, or escape.
Haibara's gaze slowly turned to a nearby table. Specifically, its sharp corner.
A few seconds later, she turned away and looked at the chimney in the corner of the cellar.
Then back at the table. Then back at the chimney.
Back and forth her eyes went, flickering with uncertainty.
A few meters away, on the top shelf of the wine rack, Miyano Akemi—her deceased sister—lay on a pad of puppet clay, her translucent Q-version sleeve twitching anxiously. She looked ready to drop down at any moment and hold her skirt down mid-landing like a battle angel.
Meanwhile, Conan's voice crackled out from the badge, updating her:
The police had detained the suspects and confiscated their communication devices. If they could identify and arrest "Pisco" before the holding period ended, she'd be safe—for now.
Haibara Ai listened in silence.
She also quietly sensed the vaguely divine gaze watching her from the ceiling beams.
She began to think.
…If she had to escape, it wasn't impossible.
Her eyes finally rested on the chimney. Her dust-streaked fingers reached into a hidden inner pocket of her coat and gripped a small box inside.
The wine cellar's chimney was too narrow for a child to climb.
But an adult body…
Haibara gritted her teeth and made her decision.
She pulled out the box, still faintly warm from her palm, took out a single capsule, and swallowed it with effort.
It was one of the temporary antidotes to APTX4869.
It had all started late one night—when a child who called himself "Xiao Bai" carried her, unconscious, into the Professor's house after her escape.
That same kid had climbed through the Professor's window again sometime later and brought her a strange liquor: "Piakaru."
He said that if someone who'd shrunk due to APTX4869 had a cold and drank it, they could temporarily return to adult form.
At first, Haibara assumed "Paikaru" was some homemade liquor brewed by Xiao Bai's dad or grandpa—maybe even some experimental antidote made by the mysterious Anonymous.
But after doing a deep dive into its origins, she found out it was just regular, ancient Chinese liquor.
Apparently, Anonymous had stumbled upon its effects by accident.
Still, using the information and sample Xiao Bai gave her, Haibara managed—after several trials—to synthesize a few doses of a temporary antidote.
She never told Conan or the Professor.
Xiao Bai had warned her:
Keep everything secret.
Never give the antidote to anyone besides the Anonymous.
So once she'd managed a successful formula, she quietly waited for someone from Anonymous to come and collect it.
And judging by Xiao Bai and that other one—who looked suspiciously like her sister—Anonymous members seemed to have a habit of appearing and vanishing like ninjas. So Haibara began carrying a few doses with her, just in case she ever bumped into one of them.
But after all this time, no one came.
No one climbed through her window again. No one asked for the antidote.
It was like Anonymous had forgotten all about her.
Still, she kept the capsules on her—just in case.
And now, just in case had finally arrived.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 50/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:3/10*