Conan: Science Cartoonist Kudo Yuji

"Go up the mountain from here and you'll find the shrine."

Standing at the mountain pass, Hattori Heiji pointed at the scattered torii gates looking up from the bottom and asked the three people next to him to pay attention and look.

"Sure enough, the third, sixth, and ninth shrines are all a little wider than the other shrines."

Facing the speechless expressions of the other three, Kuroba Kaito used Aoko's voice and said in surprise, "Hurry up, hurry up, there must be clues next to those torii gates."

"Hurry up, hurry up..." Yuji imitated it in a somewhat artificial way: "If Sister Aoko knew that you dressed up as her to pick up girls, I'm afraid Mr. Kuroba would never be able to return home in this life."

"Hey, I'm warning you, don't tell Aoko!" Kaito immediately raised his finger and pointed at Yuuji, his eyes full of murderous intent.

"Is it reasonable for you to threaten me, Kaito?"

Yuji waved his hand in front of the magician's eyes: "Are you too full?"

"Ahem, anyway, don't tell Aoko..." Kuroba Kaito rarely lost his momentum: "Also, Officer Nakamori and the others are at the shrine. The fox-eyed shrine maiden recognized that I was in disguise, so I lied to her that my name was Kudo."

"Why Kudo?" Conan rolled his eyes. "It's not nice for a thief to call us by our name. Is your Kuroba not presentable?"

[You have a really sharp tongue, great detective.]

Kuroba Kaito tossed his long hair and stepped onto the stairs, heading towards the torii gate on the first floor. Looking at Yuuji and Conan following him, Hattori Heiji suddenly remembered the new ring on Xiaolan's hand and realized that the Kudo brothers next to him were almost out of sight.

"Hey, Hattori, what are you doing? I can hardly see you anymore."

Because of the steps and the greenery on both sides, Conan could only see the hat on Hattori's head if he didn't stretch his neck, urging him to come up quickly.

[I came to Hakodate to confess my feelings...]

Walking slowly, Hattori Heiji remembered running around Hakodate a few days ago just to find the best place to confess his love, but now...

Why did Kudo take the lead after all the preparations? He confessed his love at the place where Kudo Shinichi proposed to him. What kind of thing is this? The disappointed Osaka people sighed under the gaze of the Kudo brothers. "What's wrong? You look so unlucky."

Conan, who was trapped in the happiness trap, pushed the indecisive Hattori and asked him to observe the Torii with the three of them.

"The different widths mean that the stone foundations under the pillars on both sides should extend further, right?"

Kuroba Kaito knocked on the torii first to confirm that it was all classic old wood. He squatted down, covering his skirt, and while stroking his hair, he slowly cleared the weeds next to the stone base with his right hand.

"Sure enough, there is something carved on the stone foundation."

Kuroba Kaito hurriedly called the three people to come and look, pointing to the straight line to the south in the carving of the Eight Directions Diagram.

“The first one is the South.”

"So the two platforms above should also have similar directions. The key is where to use them."

Yuji pinched his chin: "There are still three stone slabs in front."

"I have an idea. Is that really the front?"

Conan suddenly raised his hand and asked, "Just like Yuji did so many bad things to get the code paper, the first step to cracking the code is to get here, so the Eight Directions Diagram should be the first piece."

"That makes sense. The Eight-Point Map is a riddle at the shrine. The full star and the moon are a hint that you must go to Goryokaku on a clear night."

Hattori Heiji shook his head and decided to resolve this matter first before thinking about confessing his feelings.

"No matter what, what we need to do now is to go up and figure out the other three torii gates." (End of this chapter)