Conan: I'm really not the mastermind behind the scenes

Metropolitan Police Department.

A police officer returning from a mission stepped into the room and, through the one-way glass, saw the two people in the special interrogation room.

Ishigami was extremely agitated, looking as if he wanted to smash the head of the person behind the interrogation table onto it, while the seventeen-year-old boy who had been brought back stared at him expressionlessly.

The boy's back was ramrod straight.

"Still haven't gotten any answers?" He turned to the other two people standing next to him.

One of them shook his head, looking displeased: "He's very stubborn, and you can't force him."

Sometimes the power of netizens is even greater than that of the police. Although the Japanese police set up a firewall in time to block it, they could not stop some people who went through special channels to log back in and saw the video again, and even uncovered the identity of Shin Kadoya.

The police already have a bad reputation, and if they are exposed for abusing underage suspects, it will only make matters worse—this time they can't directly control public opinion, and the platforms that are talking the most are all American companies.

The returning police officer sighed: "I have no leads either. I searched the Metropolitan Police Department and the surrounding streets, and I checked all the surveillance footage, but I couldn't find the wolf that Morofushi and the others were talking about."

His job was a little easier than others; he was responsible for finding the wolf that delivered the tablet to the police.

The Japanese wolf went extinct many years ago and is only found in zoos. If he hadn't seen the wolf on the parking lot surveillance camera and heard it howling, he would have suspected that the two people had made a mistake.

When his colleague next to him heard that he also had no clue, he frowned, but when he looked into the interrogation room again, his frown gradually relaxed.

“It doesn’t matter if we haven’t found him yet. The most important task now is to rescue Jiang Teng.” He snorted. “Zhu Fushi just called. He deduced Jiang Teng’s location based on those clues and has already gone there. Jiang Teng’s supervisor has also sent a lot of people with him.”

"That's good." The returning police officer breathed a sigh of relief, then asked in confusion, "Wait, since you guessed the location, why is Senior Ishigami still inside wasting time with him?"

Sometimes, intense interrogations are also a significant mental drain on the interrogator, especially when the suspect is uncooperative. Police regulations stipulate that interrogators must be rotated periodically.

It's almost 2 PM now, and the people inside have been waiting for nearly three hours.

"I don't know," my colleague said. "I went in and tried to talk him out, but he wouldn't come out. I don't know why, but I felt like he was a bit tense..."

Another police officer, about the same age as Ishigami, who had been silent until now, turned and glanced at them.

"Fujita," he called to his colleague, "go in and let Ishigami come out to rest."

"it is good."

The colleague, who was getting a little bored standing there for too long, immediately responded, knocked on the door, and entered the interrogation room.

The stone statue, resembling an angry bull, was about to unleash its fury and discontent upon seeing someone enter. But just as it was about to speak, it noticed the person at the door nod to it.

He paused, then fell silent, left the interrogation room, and closed the door behind him.

My colleague walked over and sat down across from the interrogation table.

He sized up the seventeen-year-old boy before him, deciding to take a more conciliatory approach. After all, Ishigami had just proven that brute force wouldn't work.

So he spoke in a tone that suggested he was a caring older brother: "Kadoya-kun, I remember you're only seventeen years old this year, right?"

Although they didn't get any information out of him, they had at least detained him here for almost three hours, and they already knew his identity and family background.

Before me is an orphan whose father is unknown and who lost his mother at the age of ten. It is likely that he turned to crime because he did not have proper upbringing from his parents.

"..."

Shin Kadoya, who had been silent until now, looked up. His greasy bangs clung to his forehead, and his eyes, hidden beneath the wispy hair, were cold and full of wariness.

His colleague met his gaze and softened his tone:

"You attempted murder, which is the most serious crime. Even if you are a minor, you will be severely punished. Are you really willing to jeopardize your future for this?"

Shin's eyes flickered.

The colleague was overjoyed, thinking she had persuaded him, and planned to press on:
"—Kadoya-kun, think about your mother." He looked at him with a sincere expression. "Although she is gone, all mothers in the world have the same thoughts. I think she would want you to live a good life."

"........."

Shin Kadoya looked at him calmly.

……

The police car arrived at Donghai Village.

The two had contacted the local police on their way there, so as soon as they got out of the car they saw local patrol officers and two middle-aged men in suits, presumably managers of the local nuclear research institute.

The patrol officers were somewhat nervous, and the manager appeared even more uneasy. Due to the urgency of the situation and the sensitive nature of the matter, they revealed their police identities during the initial contact.

“Um… gentlemen,” one of the managers said, “you’re here to enter this abandoned nuclear fuel processing plant of JCO, right? We’ll take you in right away.”

Zhu Fujingguang looked towards the warning line.

After the Donghai Village incident, although other organizations did not withdraw, the factory involved was still shut down, and barriers were set up within a radius of several hundred meters.

My colleague frowned: "Are you planning to just walk in? Without protective gear?"

He began to suspect that the two men's unease was feigned.

"That's not what we meant." The person in charge saw his doubt and quickly explained, "We have been sending people in regularly to check the values, and the values ​​in the outermost area have been trending towards normal for a long time. Those professional protective suits are very troublesome and inconvenient for walking. You can put them on after you've gone in a little further."

His colleague accepted this explanation and said to Morofushi Kagemitsu, "Let's go in with them first. We don't know when reinforcements will arrive, so we can't just wait here."

Morofushi Kagemitsu, thinking of Eto Daizo who had been put into the barrel—which should be a barrel of nuclear waste—was about to reply.

The next second, an alarm blared through the sky!

The enormous sound was deafening, giving everyone goosebumps. Several managers who were usually quite comfortable with their work were startled and rushed to check the area behind the cordon.

A flash of blue light streaked past in the distance.

One of the managers screamed, "It's a gamma radiation alarm! A nuclear reaction just happened inside!!"

Zhu Fujingguang's pupils suddenly contracted.

……

Morofushi Kagemitsu arrived at Donghai Village at 1:30 PM. It was half an hour later before he put on full protective gear and stepped into the factory with the professional handling personnel.

The factory has been abandoned for a long time, surrounded by weeds, with dust covering the machines inside, and some tables piled with documents and work supplies.

Rain drifted in through the window, dampening the windowsill. Everything before my eyes seemed frozen in time on the day the disaster struck many years ago.

A professional, carrying a pocket-sized radiation measuring instrument, walked forward cautiously, as if clearing a minefield. Upon reaching a doorway, he suddenly stopped.

"The values ​​have increased; the radiation dose in the operating room is four times the normal value."

His words made the team members who came in with him tense, realizing that this was probably where the incident had occurred.

"The closest area is only 4 times..." The person in charge who came with us breathed a sigh of relief, "It's not serious, much better than the one back then."

Morofushi Kagemitsu hadn't uttered a single word since he entered. He slowly pushed open the door, the metal door creaking in the air.

The control room was large, but unexpectedly, they didn't see any equipment. It was completely empty except for one person lying on the ground, his chest rising and falling indistinctly.

People are still alive.

Morofushi Kagemitsu's breathing became rapid. The usually composed man felt as if his heart was being squeezed by several delicate, slender fingers, and a woman's soft laughter rang in his ear.

I want to give it to you.

"—As a reward for your successful completion of the task today."

He forced himself to ignore the inexplicable sounds, walked past everyone, and headed in that direction.

Then his steps froze on the spot.

A man lay there, his exposed skin red and swollen, his dyed hair plastered to the floor, his fingers twitching at his side, and there were several thin, long scratches on the back of his hand, as if he had been scratched by fingernails.

The police officers who came in with him were stunned:

"Who is he?! Where is Eto?!"

……

at the same time.

At Hibiya Park near the Metropolitan Police Department, Miwako Sato had to stop in front of a bollard. She, Wataru Takagi, and Conan Edogawa quickly got out of the car and ran towards the Liberty Bell.

As Takagi Wataru ran, he reported, "Inspector Shiratori and the others have arrived and have already dispatched rescue personnel to the water to retrieve the body. They also found a witness who said he saw someone who looked a lot like Kadoya Shin in the vicinity this morning!"

"Then it should be correct!" Sato Miwako said happily.

Conan Edogawa didn't say anything. He threw his tablet in the car, held only his phone, and tried to follow the two detectives whose legs were much longer than his.

The three ran to the vicinity of the Liberty Bell, where they saw the police cordon in the distance. A group of curious onlookers had gathered outside, and police officers were trying to persuade them to leave.

The three squeezed through the crowd to the police line. The policeman who had been advising them recognized Sato Miwako and Takagi Wataru, said "Thank you for your hard work," and didn't stop them. He didn't notice the child following beside them.

Conan Edogawa immediately spotted Shiratori Ninzaburo with his back to them, and in front of him was the same large barrel that looked exactly like the one in the video.

"Officer Shiratori!"

When Takagi Wataru saw him, and then saw the bucket and the lid next to it, he exclaimed happily, "Great! It's been salvaged..."

The conversation ended abruptly thereafter.

Conan Edogawa wasn't tall enough, so he jumped onto a large rock nearby. After finally getting a clear view of what was inside the barrel, he was completely immobilized.

Eto Daizo sat inside. He rested his hands on his lap in a relaxed posture, one hand clenched tightly, the fingertips of the other mangled and bloody. The oxygen cylinder lay between his legs.

“The time of death is over an hour.” Shiratori sighed. “The lid was stuck. He tried to escape, but couldn’t. And the angle at which it was stuck was very subtle; it would only get stuck there by pushing it from the inside…”

Conan Edogawa remained motionless.

A voice resounded in his heart.

—Just as I expected.

At that moment, Sato Miwako received an email. She answered it with a grim expression, then her expression worsened: "The police have also found someone in Donghai Village. The person is still alive, but..."

She felt a little reluctant, but she continued speaking anyway.

"He was exposed to severe nuclear radiation at close range and has been sent to the National Institute of Radiation Sciences."

Takagi Wataru was a little confused: "Isn't Inspector Eto here? Who did they find over there?"

Miwako Sato put down her phone: "Do you remember the thug in the embassy bombing case who took advantage of the chaos to deliberately place a prank bomb in the shopping street and attempt to rob people? That's him. The merchants didn't prosecute him, and he was released shortly after the case was closed."

"Why would he..." Takagi Wataru wondered.

"Because he was the one who killed Kadoya's mother seven years ago, along with Inspector Eto."

Conan Edogawa lowered his head.

"At the time, two teenagers committed a crime together, killing someone. The former prosecutor believed that their methods were heinous and they must be severely punished. However, one of them had a special family background, so when he took over the case, he was 'reminded' that he should treat them leniently."

He knew it a long time ago.

In the case involving Daizo Eto, which lawyer Masayoshi Sakaguchi took over back then, there were actually two criminals.

The former prosecutor told him that the two men had confessed immediately after their arrest, before the police intervened, that one of them physically assaulted someone and the other recorded it on video. However, the police couldn't find the video, so it wasn't considered evidence.

The skin flakes found between the deceased's fingers were indeed not from Eto Daizo, but from someone else. That person had been scratched, and to avoid getting the wound in dirty water, he only took photos and held down Kadoya Shin, and did not go near the pond.

Moreover, he had long ago vaguely realized...

"That online live stream wasn't a real live stream; it was a pre-recorded one," Conan Edogawa whispered. "The actual time was probably an hour earlier."

The weather is off. It started raining in Tokyo at 8 a.m. today, and the rain is covering a large area, but the sky in the background of the video is just overcast, and the windowsill is dry.

It's so obvious.

However, because he didn't want to accept that Eto was dead and that Kadoya had killed someone, he never, or rather, dared not, think in that direction.

He couldn't... save him...

Conan Edogawa fell into a low mood.

He didn't notice a figure appear silently and walk slowly behind him.

……

Metropolitan Police Department.

"You attempted murder, which is the most serious crime. Even if you are a minor, you will be severely punished. Are you really willing to jeopardize your future for this?"

Nobukazu Kadoya looked at the public security officer in front of him.

He felt a fire of anger burning fiercely in his heart.

In his extreme anger, he couldn't help but recall the scene from the factory a few hours earlier.

"But you won't be so lucky today."

The man who had approached him stepped aside as he spoke, and he stepped forward to examine the active-duty police officer they had attacked and captured once more.

Eto Daizo's face wasn't covered by a towel, so this time he could see his face clearly. That face, etched deep in his memory and repeatedly recalled in his nightmares, instantly turned deathly pale.

"Do you remember him?" the person next to me asked softly.

As soon as he finished speaking, his voice changed.

"I……"

Eto Daizo couldn't utter a single word.

He seemed ashamed, or perhaps afraid of something horrific; his contracted pupils trembled slightly.

Nobuyuki Kadoya looked at him, ignoring the people around him, and said, word by word, "But I've always remembered you. You even went to my mother's grave today to disturb her, and that's where we attacked you."

Eto Daizo remained silent, his gaze falling on another person beside Kadoya Shin. Kadoya Shin followed his gaze.

The stranger who had visited him a few days earlier, brought him what he wanted most, and who had joined him in the attack today had an ordinary, unremarkable Asian face that one could easily find anywhere on the street.

Seeing him looking at her, she even gave him a friendly smile.

"Xiao Xin, let's first hear why this policeman wanted to disturb your mother, so we can decide how he should be executed. What do you think?"

Nobukazu Kadoya nodded: "Okay."

After a moment, he remembered something important and asked hesitantly, "The video footage over there..."

"It's okay. I'll edit it before releasing it, and I'll make sure most people won't be able to tell the difference," the other person reassured them.

Only then was Kadoya Nobu relieved, and he went to see Eto Daizo.

It was only then that Eto Daizo recovered from his shock, his face gradually turning pale. However, when facing the boy in front of him, his originally powerful words of justice became hesitant and stammering.

"I just... wanted to apologize."

He said, "I want to repent to the dead. I have always regretted killing people and want to atone for my sins. I will go and save more people to make up for my guilt."

Shin Kadoya paused for a moment.

He hadn't expected this answer at all, and subconsciously looked at the people around him.

"How disgusting are you?"

The person next to him said lightly.

“You say you repent, but you have never visited the Kadoya family, nor have you ever come to Kadoya Shin in person to say even a single ‘I’m sorry.’ You don’t even know that he has been struggling financially for the past few months, with less than two thousand yen left, and that he would starve to death once he spent that little money.”

"I've seen plenty of people like you. You're not completely evil. You started killing for the thrill, but after you overcame your teenage angst, you started to regret it, but you're too afraid to actually commit anything."

"Because you are afraid of death, you dare not pay with your life; because you are worried about not being forgiven, you dare not appear in front of your family; you are even more afraid of others knowing about your past, because it will affect the father who is protecting you."

"So it's great to visit graves. You can avoid everyone, just stand there, and tell yourself with a clear conscience, 'I have admitted my mistake.' Even though you haven't actually done anything, the pain in your conscience is reduced."

"Those who claim to save more people to atone for their sins are doing the same thing. When a boss says this, it's because he feels guilty and it's easier to exploit the labor force. When they say this themselves, they're just comforting themselves."

"You can fool yourselves about this, but don't try to fool others. You can't fool them."

Kadoya Shin suddenly realized what was happening and looked at Eto Daizo with disgust and hatred once again.

Eto Daizo's face went from white to red, then back to white. His face became even paler than when the towel had just been removed.

“I didn’t…” he murmured.

The man, who had been talking non-stop, completely lost his gentle smile.

"Stop pretending," he said. "Just go die. I'll contact your dad to collect your body."

……

Kadoya Shin snapped out of his reverie.

The police officer in front of him was completely unaware that he was distracted and was still trying to persuade him:

"Kadoya-kun, think about your mother. Although she's gone, all mothers in the world think the same way. I think she would want you to live a good life."

Shin Kadoya laughed.

"is it?"

He said lightly, "But she died young, how would I know what she's thinking now? So let Officer Eto go down and ask her himself."

The police officer in front of him froze.

……

Hibiya Park.

Conan Edogawa, who was feeling down, felt someone tap his shoulder.

He jolted awake, looked up abruptly, and met a pair of light brown eyes.

All that could be seen was Aoyagi Akimitsu standing behind, holding an umbrella, dressed in all black. It was unclear when he had arrived.

The FBI agent glanced at him, then at the body in the bucket, showing no surprise, and slowly tilted the black umbrella toward him.

"Are you scared?"

He asked gently. (End of Chapter)