The screams were ear-splitting, and a combination of screams from different people, men and women, cut straight into everyone's ears.
Ichijō Mirai was motionless, looking alive, but in fact he had been gone for a while.
"It stings," He said softly to the system, "it stings the brain."
It was as if the tofu brain had just been scooped into a bowl, and before he knew it, hot chicken soup had been poured on his face.
"Do you have any clue?"
System: [...]
It didn't do it...
The screaming continued for a few seconds before it died down.
Suzuki Sonoko said uncertainly, "So, that was Ms. Ikeda?"
She paled and immediately turned her head to look at Suzuki Ayako with some panic and fear: Ikeda Chikako looked dead, while her sister, just a minute ago, was knocking on the door of this dead person's room, trying to talk to the other person.
...If Ikeda Chikako died in her bedroom, does that mean that Suzuki Ayako and the murderer were once just a door away from each other?
It's a suspicion that gives Suzuki Sonoko the creeps.
Suzuki Ayako also reacted as an afterthought, instinctively rejecting the idea that 'Ikeda Chikako was dead', and shaking her head backwards, "No, but I was at the door all the time, and I could hear movement in the house, and there was no sound in the room, it was very quiet, so there's no way that Chikako could have been killed in her bedroom...?!"
If the murderer waited for Suzuki Ayako to leave the room, that's too short a time to have done it.
Upstairs, Takahashi Ryouichi, who was halfway down the ladder, spoke urgently, "Then isn't it possible that she's not dead?!"
He hurriedly jumped off the ladder and rushed down the stairs, about to rush out of the villa, "That guy probably just took her captive!"
"If we get there in time, we might still find her!"
The impact of the creepy bandage freak and Ikeda Chikako's pale, stiff cheeks was so great that most people didn't really react, and their minds went blank as if they were buffered.
When they heard Takahashi Ryouichi say, 'There's a possibility that we can save Ikeda Chikako', they saw him rushing out, and without thinking, they wanted to follow him.
Ichijō Mirai:"..."
He wasn't going to stop the murder.
It wasn't his business anyway, and stopping it would be a lot of trouble, a lot of explaining, and even if he did stop it at the time, the murderer might come back a second time afterward, so stopping the first time would be a waste of time.
People are always going to die, so instead of caring about other people, we should minimize the trouble for ourselves.
But only if it has nothing to do with you.
Now that it's dark and the jungle is pitch black, if Takahashi Ryouichi encourages everyone to rush into the dark jungle before they realize what's happening, they'll all be separated by the darkness of the jungle naturally.
The killer could strike again.
This time the target is Ikeda Chikako, and next time, it'll be Ichijō Mirai and the other outsiders who saw the murderer change his clothes.
Detective games aren't much fun.
It's fine when I'm at work, but during non-working hours, if Ichijō Mirai is interested, he can play a little bit, but right now, because of a headache, his patience level is low.
Very impatient.
"Just a moment, please," He said, tugging steadily at the back of Conan's collar to keep the boy from rushing out, "Mr. Takahashi,"
"Mr. Murderer, before we go to the body of the deceased lady, why don't you remove the evidence from your 'stomach' first."
And patting Conan's head without moving, "Stop struggling, the collar will rip if you do."
He almost lost it.
How could a child be so strong...
From the moment the Bandage Freak flashed through the window with Ikeda Chikako, causing a chorus of screams, Conan was about to rush out and give chase without Takahashi Ryouichi's encouragement.
But Ichijō Mirai was quick to catch him.
He's a bit anxious: the Bandage Freak won't get far with either a person or a corpse, so he might be able to catch up with him in time!
It wasn't until Ichijō Mirai spoke, and the words spun around in his head twice, that Conan stopped struggling and managed to get a translation: the murderer was Takahashi Ryouichi.
...What?
What?
He loaded up, and loaded up, and looked up at Takahashi Ryouichi just in time to witness him stopping mid-run in a daze, his face plummeting from its normal flesh-colored hue to a pale paper-thin one.
Takahashi Ryouichi: "What, what?"
"What are you talking about?"
The turn of events was so unexpected that even the murderer, not to mention the others who lacked perspective, had a bit of a hard time reacting to the fact that he was nervously executing the finishing touches of his murderous plan one moment, and then he was called out on it the next.
Sweat dripping down his forehead, Takahashi Ryouichi laughed dryly, "What, what is this gentleman talking about?"
"What do you mean, I'm the murderer? I was just talking to everyone when that bandage freak left with Chikako, wasn't I? How can I be the murderer when I was in everyone's view from the beginning to the end?"
"And Chikako doesn't have to die, right?"
"If he's leaving with someone, he'll be slower than normal, so if we go after him, we might be able to..."
Ichijō Mirai interrupted, "If we chase him into the dark jungle, he will naturally spread out, and it might create an opportunity for you to attack Suzuki-san, Mouri-san, or me, and kill us all, right."
Now is not the hand in hand patiently teach children boring work time, although still need to say clearly, but no longer need to explain word by word, from the two or three kinds of ideas to argue separately and appropriate examples, he quickly cut through the weeds, pull a clear line: "in the afternoon to the villa, we had accidentally opened the door of all of you, there are a total of three people,"
"The parties involved will remember that, won't they?"
Takahashi Ryouichi guessed what Ichijō Mirai was going to say.
He wriggled his lips a few times, and before he could get the words out in a cold sweat, Ichijō Mirai continued, "Among them was Mr. Takahashi Ryouichi,"
"However, the Mr. Takahashi who was changing his clothes had a thin body instead of the current bulging belly, and at that time, Mr. Takahashi's clothes were piled up with layers and layers of bandages."
"I didn't really care about it at first, but it was only when Suzuki-san told me about the attack, explaining the assailant's appearance and the question, 'Why would someone attack them and try to kill them when they had just arrived at the villa and had no quarrel with anyone?' That's when it all came back to me."
"Right," He looked to Suzuki Sonoko, "Ms. Suzuki?"
Suzuki Sonoko tried to remember: was Takahashi Ryouichi a thin man?
She didn't pay much attention.
Although the door had been open for two or three seconds, long enough for everyone to see Takahashi Ryouichi's posture and figure, Ichijō Mirai was next to her, and Suzuki Sonoko felt nothing but embarrassment.
In front of the crush accidentally lose face, but also a throw three times, even if the crush did not show any unusual expression, but they want to immediately delete the memory or take the time machine back to a few minutes before the reversal of the future of the kind of embarrassment.
And also a little angry: how one two three are not closing the door to change clothes, do not know how to protect themselves ah!
In retrospect, she could only recall Ichijō Mirai's slightly raised eyebrow.
But Suzuki Sonoko clearly remembered the last part of 'relaying looks and questions' and nodded without hesitation, "Uh-huh!"
She looked towards Takahashi Ryouichi's chubby stomach and hesitated, "Uh, that, Takahashi-san, could you lift up your shirt?"
And hastily added, "We girls can turn our heads."
If it were anything else, Takahashi Ryouichi would have been able to argue, but 'the stomach', he really couldn't, and dared not lift it up, but could only remain silent with a sullen face.
"Regardless of your original figure, it's actually a private matter, and I shouldn't have said anything even if I had accidentally glimpsed it," Ichijō Mirai spoke up again, running down the line of reasoning that had been singled out, "but when I thought about it, I remembered that there were bandages among your clothes, the kind of bandages that are used on the faces of bandage freaks."
"My first thought was to suspect that you were the Bandage Freak."
"But if you're the Bandage Freak, what about the figure that just flashed outside? You were on the second floor, in full view of us, breathing and talking, you can't be a dummy, can you?"
Here, Ichijō Mirai slowly repeated, "A dummy,"
"This jocular self-reflexive question has given me a suspicion."
He looked at Takahashi Ryouichi's face, which had paled to the point of being as pale as the bottom of a pot, "Just now, when the Bandage Freak slid past, the screams rang out, and you, Mr. Takahashi, opened your mouth to speak, there wasn't anything loud enough to suppress the sound, was there?"
"For example, the sound of two people pulling an almost invisible rope and falling to the ground from the second floor up."
"After the Bandage Freak and Ms. Ikeda flashed past the window, there was no sound, as if they hadn't hit the ground and were still swinging in the air," He reminded, "Just now, all I saw was the Bandage Freak's bandaged face, and Ms. Ikeda's pale cheeks, and the rest of the world was hidden by the cloak that blended in with the darkness."
"My guess is that Mr. Takahashi on the second floor wasn't the dummy, the dummy was the bandaged freak outside the window, and a dummy isn't quite capable of carrying a real person, much less landing without leaving too much of a sound,"
"So, I'm afraid Ms. Ikeda is now dead?"
"What just appeared outside the window was just a dummy and her head."
There was so much to say that Ichijō Mirai briefly pondered for a few seconds: would it be easier to write a lesson plan of thousands of words, or to speak directly to the face and run a line?
Neither.
…Can all the murderers please be more careful and stop thinking about your broken trick of 'killing people in the crowd without being seen'. If you want to kill people without being exposed, just kill them all!
"Ms. Suzuki Ayako didn't hear any sound, I'm afraid it's because Ms. Ikeda is no longer in the room, but has gone out with you, who's 'renovating the roof and can justifiably stay out of sight'."
What little patience he had was falling fast, and his speech was getting faster, "You wanted everyone to go out, and I'm guessing that the rest of Ms. Ikeda's body is out there not far away, and you wanted to lead people to the body, and make them think that Ms. Ikeda died between the time that 'the bandage freak took her' and the time that 'the body was found,'"
Adding another point, "And to clean up the organ, and put the dummy back together, leaving only Miss Ikeda's head, which I assume you've been hiding in your stomach, and for ease of use and concealment, it should be inflatable."
"That can be verified when tomorrow morning, when the police come to search the surrounding area, as for now,"
This line of reasoning is a hairy and progressively impatient line of reasoning, and the more it ends, the more it blows up, almost analyzing Ichijō Mirai's level of impatience.
Ichijō Mirai doesn't leave room for the others to react, and goes straight to the most indisputable evidence, "Please lift your shirt, Mr. Takahashi."
Takahashi Ryouichi: "..."
The rest of the people who didn't have a chance to say a word, but were filled with the detective's reasonable assumptions, a little dizzy, and couldn't help but look at Takahashi Ryouichi's stomach: "..."
The whole room was quiet for a few seconds.
Conan took the initiative to take a few steps towards Ichijō Mirai, loosening the tightened collar a bit.
He stares intently at Takahashi Ryouichi, and in a childish tone, breaks the silence, "What's wrong with you, brother Takahashi?"
"To refute Mr. Mirai's words, wouldn't it be enough to simply lift up your shirt and reveal your real stomach?"
Suzuki Ayako: "Takahashi, why don't you..."
"Lift it up," Mr. Cameraman agreed with hesitation and trepidation, "It's just lifting up your shirt, your stomach can't really be fake, can it?!"
Takahashi Ryouichi: "..."
He wanted to say that even if the stomach was fake, it didn't mean anything, it didn't mean that he killed the person.
Can't a man have a quirk? His quirk was being fat.
But he couldn't lift it.
When he asked Ikeda Chikako out to meet him, chopped her up with an axe, cut up her body, and returned, he stuffed the head in his stomach for fear of meeting someone by accident.
Now, there is only a layer of empty stuffing waiting to be pressed down by Takahashi Ryouichi, and blood stains on the head.
Once lifted, there was no turning back.
...Oor rather, from the moment he killed Ikeda Chikako, there was no turning back.
No, from the moment I saw Ichijō Mirai.
"I knew it," Takahashi Ryouichi clenched his hands, "when that girl opened the door and I looked out in dismay, I had a bad feeling, a feeling that I would definitely be exposed."
Turning his head at the sound, he saw a panicked Mouri Ran, a frowning Suzuki Sonoko, and a partially exposed Conan, whose eyes were completely diluted into googly eyes.
These were not the things that caught Takahashi Ryouichi's attention the most, the thing that caught his attention the most was Ichijō Mirai.
It was Ichijō Mirai, who stood at the far end of the room, glancing over lightly and deepening a smile that seemed to have a deeper meaning on his face with just one glance.
It was a wonderful feeling that there were so many people, but Takahashi Ryouichi could see Ichijō Mirai at a glance, as if he could see him at a glance even in a crowd of people, a feeling of seeing a touch of gray belonging to a wolf in a vast flock of sheep.
It was the first time Takahashi Ryouichi had made up his mind to kill, the first time he had encountered such an indescribable feeling, and at that time, he had a vague premonition: 'Ichijō Mirai!
'Ichijō Mirai has discovered his disguise.'
Perhaps it was because of this premonition that Takahashi Ryouichi had been feeling a vague panic, when he saw Ichijō Mirai, when he felt Ichijō Mirai quietly staying on the spider's web that he had so painstakingly woven, pressing the spider's threads downward in an overburdened arc.
It was like the instinctive fear of a wolf meeting the wolf king.
And at that moment, it was realized.
Takahashi Ryouichi's back arched a little, and he lifted his shirt to reveal the fluffy padding bound to his stomach.
He said, "...It's me."