Klee's Dolls
The scene rewinds to a little earlier, when Miyake Koji and Mizuno Haruka were finally hammering out exactly how large a ransom they could get away with asking.
It was then that Mizuno Haruka noticed the little girl lying on the floor had a backpack on, and that dangling from the bag was a rather pretty red bead. Whether it might be some valuable gem, who could say — so she reached out and plucked it off.
Watching his girlfriend's movements, Miyake Koji spoke up. "Open up her backpack too. There might be something else worth money in there."
Mizuno Haruka thought that made sense and hurried to open the bag, only to lean in and discover, to her disappointment, that it was stuffed full of adorable little red plush toys. Unwilling to give up, she rummaged around inside with her hand, but couldn't feel anything else.
Finally losing all patience, she simply dumped the backpack's contents out onto the floor — and found the ground carpeted with those little plush toys, and nothing else.
"Big brother, big sister, why did you dump out Klee's Jumpy Dumpties? Kaeya's big brother will be mad if he finds out. But don't worry — if you didn't do it on purpose, Klee will put in a good word for you later!"
A darling little voice suddenly chimed in right behind Mizuno Haruka, startling her so badly that she didn't catch a single word of what had been said.
She whipped around to see that the little girl they had kidnapped had woken up and was now sitting on the floor, watching them with open curiosity, without a trace of fear.
"When did you wake up?" Miyake Koji had only just noticed the girl was awake, and he blurted the question out in shock.
Klee answered a little sheepishly. "Klee actually woke up back in the car, but it was going wobble-wobble so much that Klee fell asleep again. Klee just woke up now."
Miyake Koji and Mizuno Haruka: "..."
Both their mouths twitched at the same time. Could a kid who'd been dosed with ether really come around this fast?
It was precisely because they'd known she couldn't possibly wake up so soon that they'd left the little girl lying on the floor without tying her up. But now that she was awake, it hardly mattered — surely two grown adults weren't going to be beaten by one small child. They would just have to be careful about how they handled it, and keep the noise down so no one overheard.
Mizuno Haruka plastered on a smile and coaxed the little girl in front of her, doing her best to keep her voice gentle. "Come here, sweetie. The floor's cold — come over to big sister."
As she spoke, she started walking toward Klee, hoping to grab the girl before she could react.
Klee watched the big sister's approach and kindly offered a warning. "Big sister, you should watch your feet! Don't step on Klee's Jumpy Dumpties — they're actually not very stable. If they explode, Klee will be just fine, but the same can't be said for you and big brother, oh~"
This time Mizuno Haruka finally heard Klee's words clearly. But bombs? Explosions? It was probably just something a child had made up on the spot. She paid it no mind whatsoever and kept walking right along — and when her foot kicked into something, she didn't even glance down.
Klee watched helplessly as the big sister, ignoring her warning, kicked one of the Jumpy Dumpties — which promptly knocked into another one, and in a chain reaction, nearly all the Jumpy Dumpties on the floor began to move.
Then, before Miyake Koji's and Mizuno Haruka's disbelieving eyes, one of the Jumpy Dumpties exploded. Fortunately, it was some distance away from them, so their injuries weren't too severe. But one after another, all the Jumpy Dumpties began spitting sparks. At last the two of them snapped out of it and bolted for the door.
By the time Conan and the others, having heard the explosion, rushed to the scene, what they found was two soot-covered, blast-battered adults — and Klee, pristine and tidy, as if she'd never been kidnapped at all, let alone caught in an explosion.
The children immediately crowded around Klee, anxiously asking if she was hurt.
"Nope, Klee's fine. But those big brother and sister over there seem like they might be hurt." Klee shook her head, then turned a worried gaze on the two people lying off to the side, moaning without pause.
Haibara did her best to comfort Klee. "Don't you worry about them. They kidnapped a child for no reason, and they're claiming to make homemade bombs — when the police get here, they'll get a proper education."
She glanced over and gave their injuries a quick look, her tone going cool. "Besides, they can still cry out, which means they can't be hurt all that badly."
Conan: "..."
Hey, hey — is it really okay to say that in front of the little kids? And those two kidnappers already looked miserable enough as it was; there was no need to pour salt on the wound.
"Klee!"
"Kaeya's big brother!" Hearing a familiar voice, Klee looked up and beamed with delight to see that Kaeya had arrived, waving her arm at him at once.
Kaeya had rushed to his car and driven straight for the destination the moment he received Mona's message, but he'd arrived a step too late — he'd heard the explosion on the way. He'd pushed the speed even harder after that, which was why he'd only just made it to the scene.
Back at the car, Bourbon had been about to climb out and follow Kaeya. After hearing an explosion, he was genuinely worried about Klee and wanted to go see for himself. But Cointreau stopped him, pointing out that there were bound to be outsiders at the blast site, and the police would certainly be arriving at any moment — having themselves appear in front of too many people right now wouldn't be wise.
So Bourbon had no choice but to wait in the car for news.
Before long, the police arrived on the scene.
When Amuro Toru spotted a familiar figure among the arriving officers, he couldn't help feeling relieved that Cointreau had held him back. If Matsuda Jinpei caught sight of him here, and he happened to slip up and react like he knew the man, things would get very complicated.
After Inspector Megure and the others arrived and took stock of the situation, they learned that Klee was the victim — and since she was so young, they told Kaeya to take her home right away. They asked him to look after her feelings carefully; a small child suddenly going through something like this was bound to be frightened.
Meanwhile, the two culprits kept clamoring off to the side that the bombs weren't theirs — that it was the little girl's dolls that were the bombs — but obviously none of the officers present took this seriously. They all chalked it up to desperate excuses cooked up to dodge guilt.
If anything, it made them all the more indignant: Unbelievable. Not only do they kidnap such a sweet little girl, they turn around and slander her dolls as bombs. Do they think the police are idiots? That they'll swallow baseless nonsense like that?
Only Matsuda Jinpei harbored a sliver of doubt. After the flames of the explosion had died down, he'd combed the scene and found no bomb wreckage whatsoever. Had it all really been blown to nothing?
By this point, Kaeya and Klee had already come downstairs together with Mona and the Detective Boys to say their goodbyes — Mona still had her own business to attend to, and with Klee found safe, she had no intention of riding along with Kaeya. Besides, it wasn't exactly convenient for Kaeya at the moment. So Kaeya took Klee by the hand and led her back to his car.
Gazing at that car ahead, Conan could faintly make out two more figures inside.
Strange. Why weren't they getting out and going with Kaeya?