Chapter 80: Done with It Once and for All
Following Matsuda's strict instructions, Inspector Megure deployed a swarm of police officers to sweep the red train halted at Nanbeihu Station. The search yielded nothing but frustration. So far, they had uncovered a dozen crude, fake bombs sitting in a neat row on the train cars, mocking their efforts. The real explosive remained entirely unaccounted for. This glaring absence pointed to a singular, grim reality: the location detailed in the cryptic fax was never Nanbeihu Station to begin with.
Matsuda stood under the harsh fluorescent lights, his brow deeply furrowed. He stared down at the crumpled fax in his hand, his eyes tracing the printed characters over and over, pondering exactly where his deduction had gone wrong.
Across the city, Toru Amuro was quietly tracking the very same incident. A few discreet orders to his subordinates in Public Security had secured him a direct copy of the fax. His eyes scanned the text, and his initial instinct mirrored the police force's conclusion. Nanbeihu Station.
He lowered the paper, his jaw tightening. It was too obvious. A simple, straightforward riddle did not fit the psychological profile of the arrogant bastard who had treated the entire police force like playthings three years ago.
Amuro's grip on the paper tightened until the edges crinkled. This phantom had stolen one of his closest friends. He had nearly taken Matsuda's life as well. If Matsuda walked blindly into another trap today, the heavens were not likely to grant a second miracle. The police academy days felt like a lifetime ago. The Class Rep was gone. Hiromitsu was gone. Matsuda was the only thread left tying him to those sunlit days. He refused to let anything else happen to him.
At the very least, he needed to crack this code and step ahead of Matsuda just this once. But what else could represent something red? What else fit the parameters besides a train?
A sudden flicker of light from the television screen across the room caught his attention. A breaking news banner scrolled across the bottom: An elevator inside Tokyo Tower had suffered a sudden mechanical failure, trapping a young woman and two children suspended high above the ground.
A sharp jolt of clarity struck Amuro's mind. The pieces snapped together. The 'blood-stained base' mentioned in the code. It was the Tokyo Tower elevator.
The realization brought a cold sweat to his palms. This was bad. Since the elevator had already stalled, the bomb was likely already active., this culprit always played with a pair. If the pattern held true to the last incident, the location of the second explosive would only flash on the display in the final three seconds of the countdown. Amuro grabbed his keys, his boots hitting the floor hard as he sprinted for the door. He had to get to Tokyo Tower immediately.
Meanwhile, high above the sprawling Tokyo skyline, the interior of the stalled elevator was bathed in the dim glow of emergency lights. The metal box had jolted violently just moments before, grinding to a sickening halt. Natsume leaned against the cool metal wall, letting out a soft sigh. She assumed it was a simple mechanical failure, completely unaware that a bomb was the true cause. After all, a certain bespectacled harbinger of doom named Conan was nowhere in sight. By all logical metrics, her chances of encountering actual danger today should have been incredibly low.
"Traveler."
A soft tug on her sleeve drew her attention downward. Nahida stood quietly beside her, her large, perceptive eyes fixed straight up. A tiny finger pointed toward the ceiling hatch.
Natsume understood the silent cue immediately. Bending her knees, she used her momentum to launch herself upward. Her hands caught the edges of the maintenance hatch. With a sharp push, she popped the metal panel loose and hoisted herself onto the dusty roof of the elevator car. She swept her gaze across the shadows, and after a brief search, her eyes locked onto a foreign object strapped to the machinery. A bomb.
Natsume stared at the device, a deep sense of speechlessness washing over her. She had gone out of her way to avoid Conan and his chaotic orbit today, hoping for a peaceful afternoon of leisure. Yet she still hadn't escaped the plot and had run headfirst into a live explosive.
Who had even planted this thing? Encountering it so suddenly, completely devoid of context, she had no idea how she had been dragged into this mess.
"How are you all holding up in there? Do not be afraid, we will get you out right away." The muffled, authoritative shout from beyond the outer doors signaled the arrival of the police. Heavy tools clanked against metal as they prepared to force the outer doors open to rescue the trapped civilians.
When the heavy doors finally parted, the resulting gap was painfully narrow. Because the elevator car had stalled awkwardly near the upper section of the floor, a grown adult could not possibly squeeze through the opening.
A shadow fell over the gap. Matsuda dropped to his stomach, pressing his face near the opening to peer into the dim interior. He forced his usually gruff voice into a softer, more reassuring register. "Little girls, do not be afraid. Keep your eyes on me and come closer. You will be perfectly safe once you crawl through this hole. But wait, wasn't there supposed to be another girl with you? Where is she?"
Nahida stepped forward, her expression entirely serene. "Mr. Police Officer, we are not afraid. Trav—Sister Natsume just climbed up to the top of the elevator. We have to wait for her to come back down."
Matsuda studied the two small faces looking up at him. The green-clad girl was remarkably composed. Beside her, the little girl in the bright red dress was practically bouncing on her heels, her eyes sparkling with unhidden excitement. There was not a single trace of fear between them. Were they simply too young to comprehend the danger they were in?
But that name. Natsume? Could it be the Natsume Natsuki he knew? Had she genuinely stumbled into another bombing scene?
Crouched in the dusty gloom above the elevator car, Natsume caught the distinct, gravelly timbre of Matsuda's voice drifting up through the open hatch. She blinked, the gears in her mind turning as she mentally checked today's date. The pieces fell into place with a heavy thud. She finally recognized exactly which case was unfolding today.
She remembered the bomber. The one seeking twisted retribution against the police force because his partner had been struck and killed by a car. Three years ago, he had planted two bombs—one at the Ferris wheel and one at Beika Hospital. His signature move was a cruel psychological game: withholding the location of the second bomb until the final three seconds of the first bomb's countdown. It was a sadistic trap clearly intended to force the bomb disposal officer to sacrifice himself, or otherwise ruin his reputation. If it had not been for the timely intervention of her cheap brother back then, Matsuda would have been blown to ash three years ago.
Her lips curled into a cold sneer. He really was a piece of scum.
Now that she knew exactly whose script she was trapped in, Natsume had zero intention of playing along with the culprit's arrogant game.
She pulled up her system interface, her fingers dancing across the ethereal screen. She drafted a quick message to Kaeya, instructing him to find a suitably untraceable method to leak the location of the second bomb—Teitan High School—directly to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
With the secondary threat handled, she turned her attention back to the blinking explosive in front of her. She reached out, her fingertips brushing the cold casing, wondering if the system would allow her to pull it into her inventory.
A faint pulse of energy confirmed it. Ah, she could! This would solve the problem entirely.
The heavy device vanished into thin air. Natsume swung her legs through the hatch and dropped gracefully back into the elevator car, dusting off her hands. She crouched down near the narrow opening, offering a bright, entirely unbothered smile to the detective peering in. "Officer Matsuda. What a coincidence to meet again."
Matsuda stared at her through the gap, his expression twisting into a complicated knot of relief and sheer exasperation. "It really is you. Meeting you at a bombing scene yet again... I really hope we do not have this kind of coincidence anymore."
"Alright, now isn't the time for chatting," Matsuda sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Let these two children out first. As for you, I will have the rescue team pull you out from above later." He paused, his dark eyes narrowing slightly. "By the way, did you see anything strange on top of the elevator just now?"
Natsume maintained perfect eye contact, her expression a mask of innocent confusion. "No. I thought there might be a bomb or something dangerous up there too, but when I went up to look, I found nothing. I thought it was a bit strange myself."
Matsuda's brow furrowed deeply at her words. That shouldn't be right. An empty roof completely contradicted the culprit's established methods from back then.
But the ticking clock in his head reminded him of his priorities. The puzzle could wait; getting the people out of the steel trap was all that mattered right now.
Once everyone was safely hauled onto solid ground, Matsuda immediately commandeered a harness. He lowered himself onto the roof of the elevator car, sweeping his flashlight across every inch of the metal surface. Just as she had said, he found absolutely no bomb.
While he stood in the dark shaft, his jaw tight and a grim shadow falling over his features as he wondered if the opponent had planted the explosive somewhere else entirely, the chaotic clamor of arriving backup echoed through the corridor. Officer Sato and Officer Takagi rushed onto the Tokyo Tower scene, trailing a very familiar group of children from the Detective Boys.
Sato caught her breath, immediately delivering the critical update to Matsuda. An anonymous person had just sent the exact location of the second bomb to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Inspector Megure had instantly dispatched specialists to dismantle it.
Soon after, the radio crackled to life with the final confirmation. The bomb at Teitan High School had been successfully neutralized, and the culprit had been cornered and captured. Everything had been resolved with incredible smoothness. The only lingering shadows were the baffling mysteries of who had vanished the bomb from the Tokyo Tower elevator, and who had possessed the foresight to tip off the police.
Miles away, Toru Amuro let out a long, shuddering breath, the heavy tension draining from his shoulders as he heard the culprit was caught. No one had sacrificed themselves this time. He pulled out his phone, his thumb flying across the screen as he drafted a secure message to Kazami. He wanted to bring the culprit directly back to Public Security. Although Amuro had no intention of taking the man's life, he was more than prepared to bring him into an interrogation room and 'entertain' him properly.
Even if just for the sake of the sacrificed Hagiwara Kenji, he absolutely refused to let that bastard sit comfortably in a standard prison cell.
His phone vibrated violently in his palm. He answered the call from Kazami, listening for only a few seconds before his eyes widened. "What did you say!? He is already dead?"
On the other end of the line, Kazami Yuya's voice was tight with stress. "Yes, Mr. Furuya. According to the news from the Metropolitan Police Department, while the culprit was being transported, he was hit in the head by a bullet fired from nowhere. He died on the spot."
Amuro lowered the phone slowly, the line going dead. He stood frozen, completely baffled. Who exactly had the capability to do this? Was it the same ghost who had sent the message to the police?
Far above the chaotic city streets, perched on the cold concrete edge of a distant high-rise building, Cointreau methodically broke down the heavy sniper rifle in his hands. He packed the sleek, blackened components away, his expression entirely devoid of emotion.
It was exactly as he had expected. He never should have relied on those police. Seven long years, and they had failed to catch a single culprit. This time, their incompetence had even dragged innocent bystanders into the crossfire.
also, even after being caught, a man like that likely wouldn't have faced much true punishment behind bars. Cointreau refused to give the opponent a chance to keep living. What if the police failed to watch him properly? What if they let him escape to cause trouble all over again?
He snapped the weapon case shut, the sharp click echoing in the wind.
Only in death is it done with once and for all.
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]