Conan: Science Cartoonist Kudo Yuji

"This is really interesting. I didn't expect the boy to react so strongly when Otaki mentioned Uchitake-sensei's statement to Ono Takuya."

Sitting on the sofa like a spectator, watching the black smoke from the explosion and fire obscure the sky, Kudo Yuji urged Hattori Heiji to quickly show everything that happened in the interrogation room on the office's large screen.

As seen in the video, Takuya Ono initially didn't take Otaki seriously, but when Otaki started reading Uchitake-sensei's notes, he stared at Otaki with the same intensity as when he heard Yuji Kudo speaking at the beach.

"When we talked about how we planned to make Mr. Uchitake the key suspect in this case, he even rushed towards Mr. Otaki."

Seeing Otaki suddenly have several bloody marks on his face in the video, Hattori Mamoru's impression of Ono Takuya dropped even further, almost to the bottom.

"And he himself was shouting that he was the one who bombed the West District, which is to say that he took most of the blame for Uchitake's crimes." Conan wondered, "Besides his mother's death, Ono Takuya even mentioned Matsuki's death, saying that he induced him to commit suicide."

"But what is this? Is it anger at us for arbitrarily convicting Uchitake-sensei? Is Ono... having a change of heart?" Hattori Mamoru, who had little experience, turned to his father, waiting for Hattori Heiji to answer him.

"This is probably not what you want. Both he and that woman, Uchitake, have an undisguised hatred when they talk about each other. They would never say or do these things to protect the other."

"What if we don't view this case as a crime?"

Nohara Maki raised her hand and, under everyone's gaze, shared her opinion: "When we were at the beach, whenever we talked about the affair between Sasaki Kiyose and Ono Takuya's mother, the boy glared at us hatefully. It's probably because he doesn't consider himself an illegitimate child."

"You mean, the reason he lost control of his emotions was because our words mocked Ono, his lover?" Kuroba Rize shook her head, rubbing her chin. "No, the boy who didn't react to his mother's death, I think he thought we were mocking him."

"What Maki-nee said about this case and the heinous things..."

"I was wondering if the reason why Uchitake-sensei is so desperately taking the blame upon himself is because Ono Takuya himself wants to do the same thing." Nohara Maki felt her father move slightly beside her; he seemed to be scratching his head.

"You mean, Ono Takuya thinks what he did is absolutely right, even proud of it, and Uchitake, realizing this, took a lot of the blame upon himself in order to prevent him from succeeding."

This is the first time I've ever seen two sides who both hate each other and are frantically taking the blame for each other. It's true that you see everything when you live a long life.

"The bomb ended up killing his father, which is hard to explain."

Conan noted, "He takes his identity as Sasaki's eldest son very seriously. How could he blow up his own father? So it seems the bomb wasn't made by him."

"It's hard to say. Maybe he made the bomb, but it accidentally ended up in Mr. Uchitake's hands, so Mr. Uchitake took it to blow up his father."

A child yearning for a legitimate status should be especially careful about his father's approval, and perhaps killing his parents was Uchitake-sensei's true revenge. (End of Chapter)