The Other Group
The warehouse fell silent, the only sound the faint, labored breathing of Miyano Akemi where she lay crumpled on the concrete floor.
It wasn't long before that silence was broken.
Conan had finally arrived, skateboarding at full tilt. He froze at the sight of Masami lying in a pool of her own blood — then, with no time to hesitate, sprinted to her side.
"Hang in there, Masami!" Conan shouted, hoping his voice could pull her back from the edge.
"Co... Conan..." Hearing him, Miyano Akemi forced her eyes open, stunned to find him standing before her. "Who... who are you, really?"
"Edogawa... no. My name is Kudo Shinichi. I'm a detective." Conan looked at the extent of her wounds and knew there was nothing he could do. Grief stricken, he gave her his true name.
Then, from Hirota Masami's own lips, Conan learned the staggering truth: the people who had shot her belonged to a vast organization shrouded in mystery — the very same organization that had turned him into a child.
With her dying breath, Akemi pressed the correct key to the rental safe deposit box into Conan's hand, told him where it was hidden, and begged him to retrieve its contents before the organization found them. "Please, little detective."
Conan watched her eyes flutter shut after those final words, and closed his own in sorrow.
In the end, he hadn't been able to save Masami in time.
He gathered himself, then took out his phone and called Inspector Megure to report it.
But the moment he lowered the phone and bent down to check on Masami one last time, something struck the back of his skull with brutal force. Consciousness fled him in an instant, and his last thought was — why didn't I hear any footsteps?!
Xiayu watched Conan slump to the ground, knocked cold by the rock she'd thrown. She felt a twinge of guilt, but it didn't slow down the speed at which she destroyed the evidence.
Then she knelt beside Miyano Akemi and studied the motionless figure on the floor, asking uncertainly, "Kokomi, is she really still alive?"
"Don't worry, Traveler. I've been using Vow of the Moonjelly to sustain this young lady's life force at the barest minimum. As of now, she should be in a state of suspended animation." Sangonomiya Kokomi walked slowly to Xiayu's side, a translucent jellyfish drifting along behind her.
As Kokomi drew closer, Akemi's breathing gradually returned, and the bleeding began to slow.
Once Akemi's wounds had healed about halfway, Kokomi withdrew the Vow of the Moonjelly. It was better if Miyano Akemi stayed unconscious for what came next — neither she nor the Traveler wanted the woman to know too much.
They had saved her, true — but mostly because of who she was. And given how much she cared for her little sister, Miyano Shiho, she would be relatively easy to control. The plan was simple: stash her on Tsukikage Island for now, remove the bullet, let Kokomi finish treating her, then smuggle her out of the country and settle her at Dawn Winery. If the day ever came when they had to face Akai Shuichi, she could prove very useful indeed.
And when Miyano Shiho eventually became Haibara Ai, all they'd have to do was tell her that her sister had left the organization — and that her own reappearance would only bring Akemi danger. Surely then she would cooperate nicely. After all, they weren't as cruel as the Black Organization; they had no intention of forcing anyone to kill. Right?
Xiayu scooped Akemi up into a princess carry and followed Kokomi down to the shore, where they boarded a speedboat hidden nearby and set off for Tsukikage Island.
Suddenly, Paimon's voice chimed inside her head.
"Traveler! Noelle just messaged in — she got the one billion yen out of the rental deposit box, no problem! She says nobody saw her. Traveler, you're amazing! Money and people, all secured nice and smoothly!"
Xiayu gave a small nod. Noelle certainly worked fast — she'd only just forwarded the location Akemi had given them, and the money was already in hand.
Although...
A dark line crept across Xiayu's forehead. Paimon, could you not phrase it like I'm the bandit here? Robbing money AND kidnapping people?
Paimon tilted her head, puzzled. "Isn't that... exactly what happened?"
Of course not! At worst I'm just a wolf eating wolves! Xiayu protested her innocence.
Long after the speedboat had put distance between them and the shore, the faint wail of sirens drifted across the water from the direction of the warehouse.
"Sounds like the police have arrived. Traveler, hold on to the handrail — we're about to speed up." With that, Kokomi pushed the throttle and the boat leapt forward.
Xiayu grabbed the rail with one hand and shielded Miyano Akemi with the other so she wouldn't be flung overboard. If they lost her now, half a day's work would go to waste.
Meanwhile, back at the warehouse, Conan stirred awake to the shriek of approaching sirens.
He opened his eyes and instinctively reached back to feel his skull — but no matter how he probed, he found nothing wrong. Something heavy had just struck him, yet there was no pain at all, as if the blow had been an illusion. Before leaving, Xiayu had in fact told Kokomi to treat Conan as well — she knew exactly how hard she could hit, and she'd been a little worried she might have scrambled the kid's brain.
Conan looked toward the spot where Masami had been lying — and found nothing but a dried stain of blood. The body was gone! He instinctively scanned the surrounding area for traces, but turned up nothing, as if the corpse had simply vanished into thin air.
By then, Inspector Megure and his team had located the warehouse. Conan told them everything he knew — everything except anything touching on the Black Organization.
In the end, based on Conan's testimony and the evidence at the scene, the police concluded that Hirota Masami had taken her own life to escape culpability.
At the same time, given the disappearance of the body, the mismatch between the key Conan provided and the deposit box, and the fact that the one billion yen had evaporated without a trace, they concluded that another group had been present at the scene — a group that had knocked Conan out, swapped the keys (in truth, the key had been switched while it was still in Miyano Akemi's hand), made off with the billion yen, and — for reasons unknown — carried Hirota Masami's body away with them.
Though not a single lead pointed to who this group might be, the billion-yen robbery case thus drew to a close.
At the organization's base, Gin was reading the news report as it aired.
"Another group? Could it be the FBI?" Gin pulled out a cigarette and lit it, took a drag, then drew it away from his lips as he turned to Cointreau standing beside him.
"Unlikely. The FBI wouldn't take that billion yen." Cointreau took a sip from his glass and drifted a step further from Gin's cigarette smoke.
Gin observed his reaction and let out a scoffing laugh. "Still hate the smell of smoke that much?"
"Smoking is bad for your health." Cointreau said it with a perfectly straight face, then began to lecture him. "You really should cut back, you know. Watch out for lung cancer."
"Lung cancer? You think I can still get that, after being injected with that drug?"
Vodka stood by in silence, listening to the two of them, not daring to interject.
"Miyano Akemi's body disappeared. What do you think — is she still alive?" Gin didn't wait for Cointreau's answer before circling back to the earlier topic.
"You're the one who pulled the trigger. You should know better than anyone: normally, a shot to that spot is a guaranteed kill." Cointreau dismissed the speculation with an air of indifference.
"Fair enough." Gin drained his glass in one swallow and left his seat.
"Aniki, wait up!" Vodka hurried after him.
Cointreau watched Gin's retreating back and said nothing.
That's right. Normally.