"Doctor, have you and Edogawa gone out?"
"Where are you going so late at night?"
"I'm staying at Yoshiki's place tonight. He'll take back tomorrow."
"Don't worry."
Beep... beep...
2-22, Yoneka-cho
After Conan and Dr. Agasa hurried back to the house in a panic, they imdiately began searching for Haibara Ai's whereabouts—but they couldn't find her.
Finally, Dr. Agasa heard Haibara Ai's voice in the recording on the house phone.
"Ai-chan..."
Dr. Agasa called out in a trembling voice.
Although Haibara Ai had never called him "Grandpa" or anything of the sort, to him, she had already beco family.
"She won't be... taken away by Hayashi Yoshiki, right—?"
"Don't worry, Doc."
Although Conan's heart was also racing and he couldn't fully calm down, he still comforted him.
"I wasn't discovered. Hayashi Yoshiki doesn't know his identity has been exposed. In other words, he'll maintain his usual image. He won't attack those around him."
"Is... is that so?"
"That's right."
Although his mind was a ss, Conan was very sure of this point.
He walked over to the sofa and sat down to think.
Hayashi Yoshiki... Cointreau, Vodka, Gin...
When he first saw Hayashi Yoshiki standing alongside those two in the suffocating basent last night, the shock and fear nearly crushed him.
But now that he had cald down and thought about it carefully, Hayashi Yoshiki's identity was riddled with contradictions.
Could he really be a loyal mber of that organization?
Was he truly soone who supported them?
Not to ntion his usual behavior—the way he risked his life to save Ran in the Twin Towers skyscraper incident couldn't have been faked. Nor could his protection of Conan on the hijacked bus when they were both staring down the barrel of a gun...
He knew Conan's body had shrunk after Gin fed him that poison, and he also knew about Haibara's true identity... As a mber of the organization, he would have recognized Haibara as Miyano Shiho, the person the organization had been desperately hunting, yet he had kept it secret until now.
Even the Beika Hotel incident was full of suspicious gaps regarding Hayashi Yoshiki's sudden appearance.
Looking from this angle, the dark, sinister figure Conan had painted of Hayashi Yoshiki slowly began to fade into gray... maybe even white.
But there was one thing Conan could never forget.
Hayashi Yoshiki's performance when he played Moriarty in Cocoon didn't seem like re acting. And the smile on his face—the one he wore as he coldly chopped off a man's hands and plunged a dagger into soone's abdon at Gyokuryuji Temple just two days ago—that couldn't be erased.
[Kumayama Shunta]
[Cause of Death: Sudden Death]
[At 23:21 on December 23rd, placed seven rcury bombs in random lockers in the last row of the temporary lockers in the basent of Kembashi Station.]
[The bombs were set to detonate at 4:27 a.m.]
[Additionally, the bombs were rigged to explode imdiately if anyone opened the locker doors.]
[Left Kembashi Station imdiately after installing the bombs.]
[Sudden death 23 days later.]
The Death Note could not be used to directly cause the death of a third party.
In other words, you couldn't write: drive a burning car into a crowd to kill others or carry a bomb into a crowd and blow yourself up. Any attempt to control soone's cause of death in a way that would harm a third party would imdiately be deed invalid, and the person would simply die of a heart attack forty seconds after their na was written.
This was an extrely interesting rule.
A rcury switch bomb is incredibly dangerous. Even the slightest vibration can shift the rcury inside and instantly detonate the device.
Lockers, by nature, vibrate easily when opened. After all, they're part of a single structure, and most people wouldn't think to open them gently—especially soone like Gin. When he wants to kill, he certainly doesn't tiptoe.
This is what made the situation so fascinating.
If Gin opened the locker → the rcury bomb wouldn't detonate → the condition for third-party death wouldn't be t → Kumayama Shunta would die of a heart attack forty seconds after his na was written.
But the fact that Kumayama Shunta didn't die of a heart attack and instead carried out the plan precisely as written ant there would be no third-party deaths → the rcury bomb would not detonate → Gin would not open the locker.
As for why Conan, who was hiding in the locker, didn't trigger the bomb—
In that environnt, he couldn't make a sound, couldn't move, couldn't escape. There was no way for him to accidentally activate the bomb while sneaking in or out of the locker.
The whole setup was just... beautifully written.
Right now, Conan was probably questioning his entire existence.
At that ti, Hayashi Yoshiki actually wanted to open the locker—just to scare him.
But if he, the owner of the Death Note, had made a move and frightened Conan, causing him to shake the locker, there was a risk that Kumayama Shunta would die of cardiac arrest on the spot, and the rcury bomb in the locker would imdiately detonate.
Hayashi Yoshiki would never take that risk.
And besides, Yoshiki had other plans for scaring Conan.
"Already awake? How did you sleep last night?"
Lifting his eyes from the papers in his hands, Hayashi Yoshiki smiled at Haibara Ai, who was rubbing her sleepy eyes as she walked out of the guest room.
"Good morning..."
Haibara Ai yawned, looking just like a lazy kitten.
After doing this, she seed to wake up a bit more: "You're up so early?"
"Yeah, I suddenly couldn't sleep."
Hayashi Yoshiki smiled gently.
"Insomnia?"
Haibara Ai walked over to him and carefully inspected his wounds. "They've lightened a lot."
"Looks like your dicine really worked."
"Of course."
"What do you want for breakfast?"
"McDonald's, I guess."
Haibara Ai answered nonchalantly.
Hayashi Yoshiki happily patted her head—in fact, when they passed by McDonald's on the way back, Vodka had asked if she wanted him to buy more. But it was just after five o'clock and McDonald's hadn't started their breakfast service yet.
"Then let's go. By the way... can I ask you a favor? If Dr. Agasa or Conan contacts you later, don't answer, okay?"
"Why..."
Haibara Ai, who had been lazily responding at first, grew more alert the more she listened.
Finally, she opened her eyes wide, staring blankly at Hayashi Yoshiki.
He gave her a gentle smile.
"Is that okay, Xiao Ai?"
Seeing that, Haibara Ai slowly nodded.
"Okay."
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