Double Chapter
The battered, middle-aged editor looked at Hattori Heiji and the uniformed police climbing out of their cars and burst into tears: "I surrender!"
Hattori Heiji: "...?"
Heiji glanced at Toyama Kazuha and the three kids, who all looked stunned. Then at Jiangxia, who was lounging on a little sofa nearby, looking oddly worn out. Finally, his eyes dropped to the balding man hugging his leg, sobbing into his pants cuff.
…This guy's face didn't have a scratch, but as he squirmed desperately across the lobby floor, his shirt rode up to reveal strip-shaped bruises all over his shoulder.
"…" Heiji wiped a hand down his face. He hadn't been here for the show, but he could guess what Jiangxia had done…
A puzzled police officer came up behind him and frowned. "What's going on?"
Heiji startled a bit, then bent down to yank Mikami's collar back up to cover the bruises. He dragged the man upright and handed him over, clearing his throat awkwardly: "Uh… he had a sudden change of heart. Says he wants to confess everything."
"Huh?" The tall officer was baffled.
But seeing Mikami clinging to him, snot and tears pouring out, radiating pure "just arrest me," the officer figured he understood. Another case of a killer whose crime got exposed by a detective, only to regret his life choices and break down in front of the law. They'd seen this situation a million times.
He loaded Mikami into the police car and shut the door.
—He'd meant to have the man sit in the hotel for questioning first, but Mikami refused to step back inside, so they had no choice.
…
Heiji watched the car door close, secretly letting out a breath.
…Sure, Jiangxia's methods were a bit illegal. But he probably did it to protect the innocent people stuck here.
And besides, even if Jiangxia's beatdowns looked brutal, he never went after someone unless they'd tried to attack first. It just always spiraled into an "oops, overdid it" vibe… Still, Heiji felt like an accomplice sometimes, which clashed with the law-abiding detective image he prided himself on.
But then a mixed-race bear child tugged at the police officer's sleeve and pointed under the sofa — out came a slightly bent rifle. Heiji's spine straightened.
So they'd been dealing with an armed guy. In that case, taking him out first made total sense. Who knew if he had another mini-gun stashed somewhere?
…
With the hotel murder wrapped up and the culprit more cooperative than expected, the only ones arriving late were some local reporters. Haibara Ai spotted them immediately. She yanked up her hood to hide her distinct hair, slapped on a cartoon mask to cover her face, and ducked behind the wide bulk of Professor Agasa. Her actions were smooth and practiced — clearly not her first rodeo.
The police didn't notice. They left a few officers behind to collect evidence while the rest, after jotting down everyone's contact info, loaded up to head back to the Spider Mansion — the other half-finished case still waiting.
Jiangxia tagged along too.
Next, he planned to catch a boat to Tsukikage Island, and the Spider Mansion was closer to the pier anyway. Plus, a young officer seemed to recognize him. When he spotted Jiangxia, he practically bounced over, excitedly dumping every detail he knew about the new murder there — like feeding coins into a vending machine that spit out solved cases.
Jiangxia listened silently. When the rookie finally paused, eyes sparkling with expectation, Jiangxia dropped a mild: "That Rob's a bit suspicious." Then he shut up. If there was a fresh corpse waiting, obviously a Detective Conan universe high school detective like him had to go poke it.
…
Jiangxia, Heiji, and Kazuha piled into one police car, while Rob squeezed into another. Both sides tactfully avoided looking at each other — Rob didn't even try to start the truck again. Jiangxia's puppet clay jammed so tight in the keyhole that it gave him the illusion the engine was permanently dead.
Back at the Spider Mansion, only Heiji stayed to tackle the tangled family mess. Something about this case must've unlocked his hidden potential — he'd already gathered plenty of clues, just needed to string them together.
With the solving mostly done, Heiji turned to Jiangxia with a sigh. "While you were off handling the Takeda side, I got a lot out of their maid. I think I finally get why Takeda Misa suddenly hanged herself back then."
Kazuha, who'd been eavesdropping from the front seat, perked up at this. She twisted around, eyes wide. "Why?"
"It was Rob's note — the one he left when he disappeared three years ago."
Heiji's eyes drifted to the police car ahead, where Rob sat sulking. Then he traced a few letters in the air for Kazuha: "When asked to describe Misa, he wrote 'shine' — meaning she was like light to him. But Misa's English was awful. When she read it in Japanese romaji, she read it as 'shi-ne'..."
Kazuha froze. For a second, the tragic absurdity made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Jiangxia, meanwhile, felt a weird tingling on his shoulder. Not psychological — an actual physical prickling.
He turned to the window and saw, reflected in the dark glass, Miss Spider perched on his shoulder. Her spindly legs were gripping him tightly, nowhere else to cling to. The translucent bamboo hat on her head drooped low as giant tears rolled out beneath it, pooling at her chin, dripping into her clothes… then cycling right back to the ghost fetus inside. A surprisingly economical process of sadness.
It did eat away at her killing intent, though.
Jiangxia thought about the fresh supply he'd harvested from the balding editor and decided to be generous, for once. He pulled out a ghost mint, lit it, and took a drag — soothing his overnight fatigue and topping up Miss Spider's tank so she wouldn't cry herself flat later.
The lighter snapped. The tip glowed red as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke.
Kazuha, half lost in thought, turned to see Jiangxia smoking like it was the most normal thing in the world. She felt she should say something like, "You know that's illegal for you, right?" or "The cop's right there…"
Then she peeked at the rookie driver — the poor guy was still so absorbed in the tragic misunderstanding that he hadn't noticed the underage buddhist detective puffing away behind him.
Looking at Jiangxia again — and recalling what just happened — Toyama Kazuha thought that maybe this was just another stress-relief method for Jiangxia. That cigarette didn't even smell like tobacco; more like certain "special" plants… Maybe it only looked like a cigarette but was actually some strange medicine made by that eccentric doctor in Tokyo.
In the end, she just quietly stared at the thin trail of smoke and said nothing.
Hattori Heiji, meanwhile, didn't bother with such complicated thoughts — his mind was stuck on how to handle the "shine" situation.
Detectives shouldn't hide the truth, but that misunderstanding about "shine" didn't really affect how they'd close the case.
"Let's not mention it yet." Jiangxia felt Ms. Spider tugging on his sleeve more insistently, so he opened his mouth just in time to sway Heiji's gears:
"'Hanging oneself over shine' is just a guess. There might be other hidden reasons. Better not to feed the police uncertain details — it's not favoritism, just avoiding confusion."
"!" Heiji blinked. The second half sounded pretty reasonable. "You're right."
The young police officer driving: "…"
They were talking about "hiding things from the police" right in front of him. How rude.
…But whatever. Since everyone was pretending he didn't exist, he'd just pretend he didn't hear it either. He sighed and became an emotionless driving tool.
After Heiji resolved his mental struggle, he felt a burst of leftover energy and turned a suspicious eye on Jiangxia.
"Wait a sec — you didn't look surprised at all when I told you about this tragic misunderstanding. Did you already know?"
"…"
Jiangxia had actually meant to put on a shocked face, but he'd been interrupted by Kazuha. Then he got distracted by Ms. Spider's watery eyes, worrying about the tears dripping somewhere he couldn't collect later. For a second, he'd forgotten to fool Heiji properly.
But with these high school detectives and their overactive imaginations, it was still salvageable.
He bit the tip of his ghost mint cigarette, voice calm and faintly indignant: "It's not only surprise on the face that counts as surprise."
—He even needed a cigarette to steady his nerves; wasn't that more serious than just widening his eyes?
Hattori Heiji: "…"
Technically, that made sense. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling Jiangxia was just humoring him.
But when he thought about it, it lined up: that afternoon on the way to the Takeda place, Rob had casually used words like "shining" to describe Misaki Takeda. Then there was that police fanboy who'd happily dumped all the Spider Mansion gossip into Jiangxia's lap.
When Heiji added it all up, he realized it was perfectly normal for Jiangxia to piece together the "shine" misunderstanding before he even opened his mouth. After all — it was Jiangxia. Those who know, know.
…
Once the Spider Mansion was wrapped up, and Ms. Spider's request was resolved, Jiangxia dropped the last bit of his ghost mint into a portable ashtray. He caught Heiji's suspicious-glowing-enlightened look, and without a word, strategically pretended to be asleep.
From the bits Heiji had just spilled, Jiangxia could tell the Kansai detective had already figured out the whole case before they even got dragged into the hotel mess. Heiji was just tangled up over Rob's "shine" note, plus the sudden murder at the hotel had thrown him off schedule.
Now that it was all sorted, Jiangxia figured that by the time he "woke up," Heiji would have done the final deduction on his own.
…Hopefully, future clients, after reading about how inviting Heiji might land them in a fiasco, would think twice — and instead pick a certain friendly, efficient high school detective from Tokyo.
Yes, that would be ideal.
…
After Heiji stopped fretting about "shine," he wanted to double-check his entire reasoning with Jiangxia — like comparing homework answers. If the answer key is sitting right there, who can resist peeking? Heiji certainly couldn't.
Just as he turned, ready to poke the "sleeping" Jiangxia awake, Kazuha's hand flew out and clamped over his mouth.
"Don't disturb him — I heard he ran into that kid Conan yesterday and got forced to stay up all night."
…Although Kazuha herself didn't really get what "meeting Conan" had to do with pulling an all-nighter, she'd heard Jiangxia explain it that way to some old guy and the kids earlier, and none of them had refuted him. So she figured it must be true.
Hattori Heiji, though, instantly understood.
Jiangxia ran into a case on his way here too?
That would be in tomorrow's newspapers for sure. He'd buy a copy and study it properly…
Heiji glanced sideways at Jiangxia's peacefully "sleeping" face. This guy actually blamed Kudo? He himself could stumble into two murders just stargazing, and then tack on another case on the same day? That was three in one day. Hiss… what kind of walking corpse magnet was this guy?
Heiji felt an odd sense of cosmic injustice.
But then again, to ordinary citizens, he probably looked the same way — a moving crime scene generator. Maybe it really was some weird fate: the sharper your detective skills, the more cases came knocking.
…No, no, the world is material. Believe in science. There's no such thing as fate.
Heiji fell into a mild existential crisis.
…
When they arrived at the Takeda residence, Jiangxia used Heiji's deduction time to slip off to a quiet corner nearby.
But no suspicious men in black showed up to greet him.
His phone still had no signal — no calls, no texts, not even an email.
Staring at the empty inbox, Jiangxia started to worry that Gin and Vodka had found his habit of attracting murders too troublesome and just abandoned him altogether.
So heartless. A proper cadre's tool should come with an off-switch.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 37/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:4/10*