Once and For All
Acting on Matsuda's advice, Inspector Megure had dispatched officers to search the red train at Beika South Station.
But so far, all they had turned up was a pile of fake bombs — a dozen or so duds, and not a trace of the real thing. Which meant the location implied by the fax was not Beika South Station after all.
Matsuda stared hard at the message on the fax, racking his brain to figure out where his analysis had gone wrong.
Meanwhile, Amuro Tooru had his own eye on the bombing case. He had his Public Security subordinates pull some strings to get their hands on the fax's contents, and his own first reaction upon reading it was exactly the same: Beika South Station.
But it was too obvious — too easily guessed. It didn't fit the criminal's style at all, not after the way the man had brazenly toyed with the police three years ago.
Amuro wanted to catch this criminal as quickly as possible. This bastard had cost him a close friend, and had very nearly killed Matsuda too. If Matsuda walked into another of his traps this time, there would be no second miracle.
Over these past few years, their class president and Hagiwara had both been taken from him as well. Matsuda was the only friend left from his police academy days — Amuro refused to lose him too.
At the very least, this time, he wanted to be one step ahead of Matsuda: crack the riddle first, and find the criminal himself. But... something red. Besides a train, what else could it be?
Just then, a news flash came on the television: an elevator at Tokyo Tower had malfunctioned, trapping a girl and two children inside.
A lightbulb went off in Amuro's head. That was it — the "bloodstained base" in the riddle referred to Tokyo Tower's elevator.
No good! The elevator had just had its incident — the bomb might already be counting down. And there was a second bomb besides. If this played out like last time, with the second bomb's location only revealed in the final three seconds, then...
Amuro sprang into action at once, deciding to head for Tokyo Tower to assess the situation himself.
Inside the tower's elevator, when it had lurched violently to a halt, Xiayu had simply assumed a mechanical failure — the thought that a bomb might be involved never crossed her mind. After all, with Conan nowhere around, the odds of her stumbling into danger were supposed to be vanishingly low.
"Traveler."
Nahida tugged at Xiayu's sleeve, and when she looked over, pointed up at the ceiling of the elevator car.
Xiayu understood at once. Bracing off the handrail, she leapt upward, pushed open the hatch in the elevator's ceiling, and pulled herself out on top of the car. After a brief search, she found exactly what shouldn't have been there — a bomb.
She was rather speechless. Here she'd been hoping to slip away from Conan and the others and enjoy herself for once, and somehow she still hadn't dodged it — she'd walked straight into a bomb.
But who had planted the thing up here? There'd been no warning, no lead-up whatsoever — she honestly couldn't figure out how she'd gotten dragged into this one.
"Are you all right in there? Don't be scared — we'll have you out of there very soon." The police had finally arrived at the scene, preparing to force open the outer elevator doors and get everyone to safety.
When the doors opened, it became clear the car had stopped in the upper reaches of the shaft. The gap was far too narrow for any adult to squeeze through.
When Matsuda arrived, he lay down at the opening, peering down at the two children in the car, and softened his voice as much as he could. "Hey there, little missy. Don't be scared. Keep your eyes on me and come on over to your big brother here — crawl out through this hole and you'll be safe. By the way, weren't there supposed to be a girl with you two? Where is she?"
"We're not scared, Officer," Nahida replied. "Tra— Big Sis Xiayu just went up on top of the elevator. We're waiting for her to come back down."
Matsuda studied the expressions on the two little girls' faces. Sure enough, not a shred of fear — if anything, the little one in the red dress looked almost excited. Were they simply too young to realize they were in danger?
But — Xiayu? Surely not the Natsume Xiayu he knew. She'd run into another bomb?
Up on top of the elevator, meanwhile, Xiayu heard Matsuda's voice, thought about today's date — and finally realized which case this was.
If she remembered right, the bomber had done it all for revenge on the police after his partner was run down by a car, planting two bombs three years ago — one on the Ferris wheel and one at Beika Hospital. The bomb on the Ferris wheel only revealed the second bomb's location in its final three seconds of countdown, a scheme designed so that the officer defusing it would either die or be disgraced. If not for that free-load-in brother of hers, Matsuda would have died three years ago.
Hmm... Yeah. A real piece of work, this guy.
Now that she'd placed the case, Xiayu had no intention of following the criminal's script.
She used the system to send a message to Kaeya, asking him to find a way to quietly pass the location of the second bomb — Teitan High School — along to the Metropolitan Police Department, without leaving any trace of how they'd learned it.
Then she reached out and touched the bomb, curious whether she could stow it in her backpack.
Ah — it worked! Well then, no problem at all.
Xiayu dropped back down through the elevator's ceiling hatch, and spotting Officer Matsuda, greeted him with a smile. "Officer Matsuda! What a coincidence — we meet again."
Matsuda looked at her with a face full of complicated feelings. "It really is you. Running into you at another bomb scene — honestly, that's exactly the kind of coincidence I could do without."
"Right, this is no time for chatting. Get these two children out first. As for you — I'll have someone haul you up from above in a minute."
"Oh, and — did you see anything strange up there on top of the elevator?"
"Nope," Xiayu said. "I actually thought there might be a bomb or something up there too, but when I got up and looked, there was nothing. I thought that was a little odd myself, honestly."
Matsuda's brow creased. That couldn't be right. This didn't match the original criminal's methods at all.
But now was no time to puzzle over it. Getting everyone out of the elevator came first.
Once everyone was rescued, Matsuda found his own way up to the top of the elevator car to look around — and confirmed that there was, indeed, no bomb to be seen.
Just as his face was darkening with the suspicion that the bomber might have planted the device somewhere else entirely, Officers Sato and Takagi arrived at Tokyo Tower with the children of the Detective Boys in tow.
They also brought Matsuda the news that the second bomb's location had been sent to the Metropolitan Police Department by an unknown party, and that Inspector Megure had already assigned specialists to disarm it.
Before long, the bomb at Teitan High School was defused, and the criminal was arrested without a hitch. Everything was resolved smoothly — with one loose end: nobody knew who had taken the bomb from atop the Tokyo Tower elevator, or who had sent the tip to the police.
When Amuro heard that the criminal was in custody and that not a single life had been lost this time, he let out a breath of relief as well. He texted Kazami, intending to have the man transferred into Public Security's hands. Amuro had no plans to take his life — but bringing him in for a proper "reception" was entirely doable.
If only for the sake of the fallen Hagiwara Kenji, there was no way he could let that bastard sit comfortably in a prison cell.
"What did you say!? He's already dead?" Minutes later, Amuro took the call from Kazami, repeating his words in shock.
"Yes, Furuya-san. According to what we've heard from the Metropolitan Police, while they were transporting the criminal, a bullet fired from somewhere unknown struck him in the head. He died on the spot."
Amuro hung up the phone, thoroughly baffled. Who on earth had done this? The same person who had tipped off the Metropolitan Police?
At that very moment, atop a high-rise in the distance, Cointreau folded up his sniper rifle.
He'd known better than to count on those police. Seven years, and they couldn't even catch one criminal — and this time they'd nearly gotten someone else caught in the blast besides.
And even in custody, the criminal would very likely have come out of this unscathed. Amuro wasn't about to give him the chance to keep on living. What if these so-called police took their eyes off him for a moment and let him slip out again to cause more trouble?
Only in death would this matter be settled once and for all.