The Takahashi Residence: No Trespassing
"Hey, hey! Kudo, did Miss Raiden just pull out some kind of blade over there?"
Hattori Heiji didn't have any of Edogawa Conan's gadgets to help him, but his eyesight was sharp, and even from a distance he could make out the movements of Raiden Ei — just barely.
He had watched her make a drawing motion, and then, as if out of nowhere, a blade seemed to appear in her hand.
He turned to Conan in disbelief for confirmation.
"Uh......" Conan stared blankly in that direction, mouth slightly open, his expression growing less believable by the second. "Yes. Miss Raiden just pulled a sword out of her chest!"
Even though he had seen it with his own eyes, once the words left his mouth Conan couldn't help yanking off his glasses and scrubbing hard at his eyes, half convinced his vision had failed him and he'd witnessed a hallucination.
But when he put his glasses back on, Miss Raiden was still standing over there — and now she was holding a long, violet-hued katana.
He hadn't been seeing things after all?!
And whether it was his imagination or not, he couldn't shake the feeling that ever since Miss Raiden drew that blade, the sky seemed to have grown a shade darker.
Conan looked up and, sure enough, found a few dark clouds drifting across the sun, as if rain might be on the way.
Conan furrowed his brow, unease pooling in his stomach. Something about this felt like a very bad omen — and combined with Miss Raiden's sudden appearance and her utterly inexplicable behavior, he couldn't help turning toward Hattori Heiji, wanting to ask when exactly the police car was supposed to arrive.
"Ow! That hurt!"
Suddenly, before Conan could get a word out, the car slammed to a stop. Hattori and Conan were thrown forward by their own momentum, only to be yanked taut by their seatbelts, crying out at the sting.
"Mister driver, do you even know how to drive? Why'd you brake out of nowhere?!" Hattori leaned forward irritably, thumping the driver on the shoulder.
"Didn't you see it? Lightning just struck the road up ahead!" The driver shot a stunned glance back at Hattori before whipping around to stare out the windshield. "If my reflexes hadn't been quick, that bolt would've hit my car!"
"Come on, what are you talking about? Lightning striking out of a clear blue sky? Not a chance......" Hattori Heiji was clearly skeptical, and as he spoke he followed the driver's gaze forward. Sure enough, there was a small crater in the road ahead — but that hardly proved it had been blasted there by lightning.
Yet before Hattori could even finish, a dazzling bolt of lightning tore straight down from the sky and struck the road barely a short distance in front of them.
With a crack — not particularly loud — a small pit was blasted into the ground, dust billowing into the air.
Hattori Heiji's eyes went wide, his mouth hanging open, not a single word coming out. Never in his wildest imagination had he expected his skeptical objection to be shot down so spectacularly, and so quickly.
"There really...... there really was lightning that struck down!?" he muttered under his breath.
He whipped his head around and locked eyes with Edogawa Conan, and in Conan's gaze he found the same stunned disbelief — Conan had seen it too. It hadn't been a hallucination.
Then, as if determined to leave the two of them no room to fool themselves, several more bolts of lightning flashed down in an instant, hammering the road ahead without pause.
"Hey, Hattori... do you get the feeling these lightning strikes are deliberately targeting the road to stop us from going any farther?" Conan asked in a low, uncertain voice, his face grim as he stared at the spots being struck ahead.
"No way...... it's got to be a coincidence. There's no way lightning could have a mind of its own!" That was what Hattori said out loud — but his brow was furrowed, a flicker of doubt showing in his eyes, his voice thin and unsteady. Clearly the same suspicion had taken root in his own mind; he just couldn't bring himself to believe something so impossible.
But the driver, it turned out, harbored the very same thought. His face etched with fear, he stared ahead and said, "Look, fellas, you saw it yourselves. It's not that I don't want to take you where you're going — there's just no way I can drive through something like this! How about I turn around and take you both back? I won't even charge you the fare."
"No. We have a reason we absolutely must go there." Hattori and Conan both refused the driver's offer.
In the end, only Conan and Hattori were left standing at the roadside. They watched the lightning flash and flicker across the road ahead, and a powerful sense of dread welled up in both their chests. If those strikes really were deliberate, were they connected to Miss Raiden's sudden appearance? And what kind of power — what kind of purpose — might be hiding behind them?
But the two exchanged a glance, and in each other's eyes they saw the same unshaken resolve.
Whatever it took, they were going to the Takahashi residence — to stop, by any means necessary, whatever private act of vengeance Miss Raiden seemed all too likely to carry out!