Blood Type
Even though Edogawa Conan had already guessed that the Organization was preparing to make a move, running into Hondo Eisuke—the very boy he currently had his doubts about—at a hospital the very next day still felt a little too fast even to him.
At the moment, Conan was at Beika West Hospital with Mouri Ran and Suzuki Sonoko, paying a visit to one of their classmates. They had been worried sick after hearing that his appendix was on the verge of bursting—only to arrive and find the guy still in the mood to daydream about cake and cream puffs.
Once the visit was over and they had said their goodbyes, Sonoko couldn't resist venting a few complaints out in the corridor—and it was right there that they ran into Hondo Eisuke, clutching a photograph and asking a doctor about something.
Since their stomachs were growling anyway, they invited Eisuke along to a hamburger shop to fill up. The instant Conan laid eyes on him, he had his guess: the boy must have learned that Mizunashi Rena had been admitted to some hospital or other, and was going around making inquiries.
And when Sonoko suddenly called out to stop him, Eisuke—true to form—was once again bumped by someone passing close by and went sprawling. By now, Sonoko and Ran had long since stopped being surprised. Conan felt quietly thankful that he was standing far enough away this time to avoid being dragged down with him.
"Are you sure this really isn't Mizunashi Rena? You know, that Nichiuri TV anchor who's on leave right now?"
At the hamburger shop, Sonoko held up the photograph Eisuke had accidentally dropped back at the hospital, eyeing the woman in it with open disbelief.
"She really does look like her, though a lot younger than she is now," Ran said, leaning in over Sonoko's shoulder to study the photo herself.
"No, she isn't. Um..." Eisuke denied it. "That's my sister."
"Your sister?!"
"No way—the TV anchor is your sister?!"
Sonoko and Ran both looked up at him, faces full of astonishment.
"Ah—no, that's not it." Eisuke shook his head frantically. "She looks a lot like her, but the person in this photo isn't Miss Mizunashi."
Then he explained his situation to them.
The woman in the photograph was his older sister, Hondo Hidemi. She had always taken good care of her little brother, and once, when an accident left him fighting for his life, she hadn't hesitated for a second to give him transfusion after transfusion of her own blood—that was what brought him back.
The two siblings had always been close, but ten years ago his sister ran away from home, and he had never seen her since. He had been searching for her ever since, determined to at least tell her one thing: thank you.
"Then how can you be so sure Mizunashi Rena isn't your sister? Anyone who shows their face on TV might have to hide their real name, you know." Sonoko craned her neck toward him, leaning in close and narrowing her eyes at the hesitation written across his face as she laid out her theory.
"Oh, that's right—I know a way we can find out whether Miss Mizunashi is really your sister, Eisuke." Ran suddenly raised a finger as an idea came to her.
She turned toward Conan and asked with a smile, "Conan, do you remember Charlotte, the girl who lives in the apartment above Miss Mizunashi's?"
Caught off guard by the sudden mention of that name, Conan blanked for an instant before coming back to himself and nodding quickly. "Yeah, I remember."
Then it dawned on him why Ran had brought her up. "Oh, right—Miss Charlotte is a reporter for the Beika Daily, and she lives right upstairs from Miss Mizunashi. She might know something useful."
Granted, the two women hadn't seemed all that close—and Mizunashi Rena had been taken away by the FBI the day after they were formally introduced. Still, Charlotte was hardly an ordinary person herself, so who was to say she didn't know something after all.
But when had Ran and Charlotte gotten so familiar with each other, anyway? He hadn't seen the two of them meet up even once.
Conan gave Ran a half-lidded look, grumbling silently to himself.
Then again, come to think of it, everyone who bore a Vision did have a certain magnetism about them. No wonder Ran had hit it off with her.
No time like the present—Ran immediately pulled out her phone and dialed Charlotte.
Before long, the call went through, and Hondo Eisuke watched Ran with nerves written all over him.
After the usual pleasantries, Ran got to the reason she was calling.
When she had finished, Charlotte said, "Ran, from what you've told me, that boy—Hondo Eisuke—very well might not be Miss Mizunashi's brother."
"Why not?" Ran asked, baffled.
"Because going by what you said, this Hondo Eisuke is type O. But I've read some of the early reporting on Mizunashi Rena—she once donated blood to a type AB patient, and she's received transfusions herself as well. That makes her type AB beyond doubt."
Charlotte summed it up: "And blood from a type AB person can't be transfused into a type O patient. In other words, the sister who gave Eisuke her blood and Mizunashi Rena don't share a blood type. Which means they shouldn't be the same person."
"So that's how it is," Ran murmured, sounding a little deflated.
Listening in from the side, Conan had arrived at the same conclusion: Hondo Eisuke's sister and Mizunashi Rena were not the same person.
And factoring in what he already knew about Hondo Eisuke's father, he couldn't help suspecting that Mizunashi Rena's resemblance to Hondo Hidemi was no coincidence at all—that she might have deliberately gone under the knife to steal her face.
The real Hondo Hidemi had quite possibly been killed by the Organization already, with Mizunashi Rena surgically remade in her image to take her place—and perhaps even to serve as bait, fishing out anyone who might come asking questions.
Conan turned to look at Eisuke. The boy sat with his head bowed, hands clenched hard in his lap, as if struggling to hold something in. Clearly, the same suspicion was taking shape in Eisuke's mind too.
"Wait, hold on—I just thought of something. There's one more situation you all should know about."
Ran, having gotten what she needed, had been about to thank Charlotte and hang up when the reporter called out to stop her, as if something had just occurred to her.
At those words, Sonoko, Conan, and Eisuke all turned toward the phone, curious—could Charlotte know about some special circumstance after all?
"What kind of situation?" Ran asked.
"Hmm..." Charlotte mulled it over for a moment before speaking. "Well... the thing is, a person's blood type can change."
"Blood types can change?" Ran's eyes went wide and her voice rose; try as she might, she couldn't imagine how a person's blood type could possibly change.
A spark went off in Conan's mind. There was, in fact, one circumstance that could change a person's blood type.
And Charlotte's next words confirmed exactly what he was thinking.
"Mm." Charlotte affirmed. "If a person has had a bone marrow transplant, their blood type will change."
"Ran, ask your classmate whether he's ever had a procedure like that—or, failing that, have his blood type retested and see whether it's still O. If it's O, then the resemblance between the two is most likely pure coincidence. But if it's AB... then Mizunashi Rena really is Hondo Hidemi."