BONUS CHAPTER#9
Soon after, Kid returned to the villa with Conan in tow.
He grabbed Conan's hand, slammed the doorbell, then released him—letting the child collapse dramatically at the doorstep like he'd pressed it himself. Then Kid darted off to the side of the building, slipping back into his room through the window with practiced ease.
A few seconds later, Ran Mouri opened the door.
She blinked, looking around in confusion, until her eyes landed at her feet. "Conan?!"
Sonoko Suzuki and Jiangxia Tongzhi appeared behind her a moment later.
Sonoko squinted at the sprawled child. "That little brat probably wanted to keep playing so badly, he snuck back without Uncle Mouri noticing, and then fainted at the door from a fever."
Jiangxia nodded thoughtfully, stroking his chin in sync with her, but said nothing. He just stood there with the pensive expression of a man solving world hunger.
The three of them brought Conan back to his room.
On the stairs, they ran into Katsuki Doito bounding down enthusiastically.
Now back in his "tool person" disguise as an innocent bystander, Kid feigned worry. "Oh no! What happened? Leave it to me. I'm a med student—I'm good with this kind of thing."
Internally, he was already freaking out. Better check if the kid's lost a chunk of meat or grown a surprise bite mark. If so, it's straight to the hospital. Maybe we can still save him... maybe.
—
Meanwhile, Kogoro Mouri had finally driven into a signal zone and called Inspector Megure.
The police, however, said they couldn't move until morning. Though there was a mountain road, it was too risky at night. Helicopters might smack into power lines or trees, and there weren't any safe landing zones anyway. All they could do for now was some intelligence gathering.
Back at the villa, people were starting to sense that something was... off.
"The Escape King" and "Shadow Master," both supposed to be part of the day's magician's gathering, were still MIA.
Yoshinori Ara, the villa's owner, tried calling them, but the line only gave a busy signal.
Jiangxia eyed the phone cord trailing behind the cabinet. Cut line, he thought. He already had a few clues lined up in his brain.
The others, however, clearly had never been within 10 meters of a real case and started chatting about the party instead. After all, "The Escape King" was supposed to act as chairman and plan the night's events, and now, without him, the whole thing was falling apart.
That's when Kikue Tanaka, eyes glinting murder and mischief, smiled and suggested, "Why don't we just elect a temporary chairman?"
Toshiya Hamano, the one who had earlier cosplayed as an adorable girl, immediately piped up, "Since it's a magician fan meetup, let's choose the chairman with magic!"
Jiangxia and the others nodded in agreement. They all pretended not to notice that Kikue and Toshiya had been whispering conspiratorially earlier—after all, this whole "magic election" idea had clearly been planted by Kikue in Toshiya's easily-excitable head.
The rules were absurd in true magician fashion: First, they needed slips of paper with everyone's names. Then, a blindfolded innocent bystander would randomly mark the papers.
A circle (○) meant "interim chairman," an X meant "banquet director," and a triangle meant "bathwater heater." Toshiya would then dramatically "divine" who got which role.
Of course, it wasn't really magic. Kikue, the name-writer, was in on the trick. She'd already drawn the symbols faintly in pencil beforehand, and the blindfolded bystander would get handed a pen with no ink. Pure theatre.
All they needed now was an unwitting "tool person" to act as their blindfolded volunteer.
Toshiya's eyes gleamed as he looked at the room's youngest: Sonoko Suzuki.
But just as he was about to say her name, Jiangxia wandered casually between them, blocking his path like a divine shikigami summoned to ruin the vibe.
It'd look way too suspicious to step around him now.
Toshiya's eye twitched. He quickly redirected his gaze.
—Truth be told, he'd already recognized Jiangxia as a detective earlier but said nothing, not wanting to get upstaged.
Now, he was panicking. What if this guy yanked off his blindfold mid-performance and exposed the whole trick?
His eyes darted around until they landed on Katsuki Doito, the medical student who had just come downstairs.
Simple-minded. Gullible. Bingo.
Jiangxia noticed the shift in attention: "…"
Oh right, he thought. Kid's around. He always manages to ruin people's magic tricks.
Kikue had also noticed Toshiya's hesitation.
Recalling her old chat logs with "Red Herring," she decided Toshiya was probably overthinking things. So she turned her back to the group and sent Toshiya a discreet wink.
She believed Jiangxia would make a better tool person. She had no idea he was a detective—she just remembered he usually spoke in a sweet, naive tone. The ideal innocent.
Toshiya misread the wink entirely. He now believed Jiangxia was an accomplice, just a very subtle one.
He even recalled Jiangxia strolling through the room earlier, like someone window shopping for attention. That must've been the signal.
"…Then, I'll ask for your help," Toshiya said, approaching Jiangxia a bit reluctantly.
The "magic" results were in: Naoko Kuroda was crowned interim chairman, Kikue was assigned to heat the bath water, and Toshiya got punked by his own accomplice—ending up as banquet director, stuck in his room planning party surprises solo.
He left, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, unsure where it had all gone wrong.
Jiangxia didn't leave immediately. He lingered, staring thoughtfully at the marked papers.
He had learned this pose from other detectives in the Detective Conan universe. You had to look thoughtful right before a case kicked off. Very standard. Very qualified.
Everyone soon dispersed to do their assigned jobs.
—
While fetching water for the bath, Kikue Tanaka made her move.
She slipped upstairs, entered Toshiya Hamano's room, and strangled him.
Turns out, her forum account had originally belonged to her grandfather, Hiduen Harui—a legendary magician. That's why her online presence seemed so "elderly"—because, for a while, it literally was.
A while back, Harui saw people gossiping about his old escape stunts and decided to pull off one more extreme trick. Unfortunately, he didn't make it out alive.
Then came the mocking from "The Escape King" and Toshiya Hamano, who treated his death like a punchline.
And that's what activated Kikue's murder protocol.
Thus began the classic internet feud escalation: from arguing in forums to "I'm coming to kill you through the Ethernet cable."
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 13/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:2/10*