Detective Conan: I'm a Boy, But They Treat Me Like a Big Sister — Chapter 28

Chapter 28: The Death God Elementary School Student Goes Online

Tōhō Getsukai stood by in silence, watching the scene unfold for a few seconds. When this girl got serious, she was somehow more intensely focused than when she was cramming for her exams.

“I’ll take this pair back and wash them properly,” Ran said, looking up at him. Her large, earnest eyes were filled with absolute conviction. “They can still be worn after a good scrub. It would be such a waste to just throw them away.”

No, the point isn’t the shoes.

The point is that your posture—squatting on the pavement, carefully scrubbing my footwear—is going to make every passing tourist think I’m running some kind of twisted child labor ring.

Tōhō Getsukai reached out, resting his palm on top of Ran’s head. His fingers brushed through her soft, long black hair, gently twirling a strand near the crown. Ran’s shoulders gave a slight jump, and a furious pink flush crept up the tips of her ears. She didn’t stop wiping the shoes, but the frantic scrubbing noticeably slowed to a shy, rhythmic polish.

He withdrew his hand. The head pat. Always the ultimate, inescapable killer move against a maiden’s heart.

“Help me watch my things. I’ll go over there and find Shinichi.”

Ran immediately lifted her head. “I’ll come too—”

“Be good. Wait for me in the shop.” Tōhō Getsukai pointed a slender finger toward an open-air beverage cafe a short distance away. “The police have already cordoned off his side. It’s crowded, noisy, and you won’t be able to help even if you go. I’ll just take a quick look and come right back.”

Ran bit her lower lip, hesitating for a second before nodding obediently. “Then… come back early, Sister Tōhō.”

“Mm.”

Tōhō Getsukai turned on his heel and strolled toward the roller coaster. After a dozen paces, he glanced over his shoulder. Ran was sitting exactly where he told her to, perched at an outdoor table with those dirty shoes resting on her lap, continuing her careful cleaning. The couples at the adjacent tables were stealing utterly bewildered glances at her.

Honestly, it was a surreal painting: a breathtakingly beautiful high school girl sitting in the middle of a vibrant amusement park, completely ignoring the rides to bury her face in someone else’s footwear.

…

Tōhō Getsukai crossed the fountain square, smoothly bypassing the dense crowd gathered outside the yellow police tape. The entire roller coaster perimeter was locked down tight. Inspector Megure’s booming, authoritative barks echoed from half a street away.

Ignoring the commotion, he pivoted toward the maintenance passage on the park’s west side. A battered “Authorized Personnel Only” sign blocked the alley’s entrance. Without breaking stride, he slipped past it into the shadows.

Towering metal wall panels lined the narrow corridor, hiding the park’s internal machinery, while exposed pipes and ventilation ducts crisscrossed overhead. Thirty meters in, the cheerful, looping amusement park music abruptly faded, muffled by the heavy steel plating. Only sporadic, distant cheers filtered through the gaps.

He inhaled deeply. The rhythmic, golden energy of Hamon Breathing surged through his veins, pushing his five senses past their natural human limits.

Instantly, his hearing sharpened. A hundred and fifty meters down the alley, hushed, gritty voices drifted through the stagnant air. They were speaking rapid Japanese peppered with English underworld jargon.

Tōhō Getsukai slowed his pace to a predatory glide, his footfalls making absolutely zero sound against the rough concrete. He pressed his back against the cold corner of a brick wall and peeked around the edge.

Ahead lay the park’s abandoned storage sector, a desolate stretch of rusted shipping containers lined up like dominoes. The sky had completely darkened by now, casting long, jagged shadows.

Vodka’s hulking, square-jawed figure stood by a graffiti-stained wall, a heavy black briefcase gripped in his meaty hand. The case was popped open, revealing thick, neatly banded stacks of cash. Opposite him, two nervous men in dark trench coats muttered in low voices, one frantically scrolling through a digital ledger on his phone.

A standard peripheral transaction for the Black Organization. Dirty, routine, and utterly boring.

But Tōhō Getsukai’s gaze didn’t linger on Vodka’s blocky silhouette. His attention locked onto the deep shadows further down, right at the corner of the storage yard.

Crouching behind a rusted container was a familiar figure in a blue jacket.

Shinichi Kudo.

The high school Great Detective had literally just cracked a gruesome roller coaster murder, and the second he looked up, he had spotted the suspicious-looking Vodka wandering into a restricted zone. The insatiable itch of a detective’s instinct had dragged him straight into the abyss.

Now, Shinichi had his entire body plastered against the corrugated metal, poking half his face out to spy on the illicit deal. He held his phone tight against his ear, though it was impossible to tell if he was recording audio or dialing the police.

A wicked, highly un-maidenly smirk curled the corner of Tōhō Getsukai’s lips.

He had been waiting for this exact day for a very, very long time. The legendary, canon-defining scene was about to unfold right in front of him.

Silently retreating deeper into the shadows of his corner, he found the perfect vantage point—a completely concealed gap with a flawless line of sight.

He slid his smartphone from his pocket, booted up the camera, switched to video mode, and cranked the resolution straight to 4K.

Target locked.

This was premium, exclusive content for the entire internet. The absolute defeat of the arrogant Shinichi Kudo.

In the distance, Shinichi’s entire focus was glued to the briefcase of cash. He was completely oblivious to the elongated, lethal shadow detaching itself from the gloom of the passage directly behind him.

Silver-gray hair spilling over broad shoulders. A sweeping black trench coat.

His left hand rested casually by his side; his right hand gripped a heavy, solid iron pipe.

Gin.

Tōhō Getsukai steadied his phone, keeping the frame dead center.

Gin’s approach was a masterclass in assassination. His footsteps were carefully controlled, the soles of his shoes striking the concrete precisely during the microscopic intervals of Shinichi’s own breathing.

Five meters. Three meters. One meter.

A chill finally spiked down Shinichi’s spine. He whipped his head around, his eyes widening in pure horror.

“The detective game ends here!”

Bang.

A sickening, hollow thud echoed through the alley. The iron pipe connected flawlessly with the back of Shinichi’s skull before the teenager could even finish his turn.

Shinichi’s eyes rolled back. His body went rigid, then collapsed straight down, violently eating the concrete. His phone flew from his limp grip, bouncing twice before skidding half a meter away, landing face down in the dirt.

Gin stood over the motionless body, slowly lowering the bloodied metal rod.

Hearing the brutal impact, Vodka abandoned the terrified buyers and jogged over, stopping beside Shinichi’s crumpled form. The two men in black exchanged a few muted, cold words.

Then, Vodka reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and produced a sleek, metallic pillbox. He popped the lid and extracted a single, ominous capsule.

APTX4869.

Gin squatted down. His black-gloved hand clamped around Shinichi’s jaw, prying the unconscious boy’s mouth open. He shoved the experimental capsule past his teeth, grabbed a half-empty bottle of mineral water from his coat, and ruthlessly poured it down Shinichi’s throat.

He held the jaw shut, waiting a few seconds to confirm the involuntary swallowing reflex. Satisfied, Gin released his grip and stood up, brushing off his coat.

On the ground, the comatose Shinichi began to violently convulse. His limbs jerked in unnatural, terrifying spasms. Thick beads of cold sweat erupted across his forehead, and his chest heaved frantically beneath the blue jacket, fighting for air as his very cells began to tear themselves apart.

Gin watched the agonizing display with dead, apathetic eyes for a few seconds. Then, he turned his back and walked away. Vodka hurried after him, their synchronized footsteps quickly fading into the labyrinth of the amusement park.

Tōhō Getsukai lowered his phone, having thoroughly enjoyed his front-row seat to the drama. The 4K recording came to an end.

He waited a full two minutes, his enhanced hearing confirming that the assassins’ footsteps had completely vanished from the perimeter.

Only then did he step out of his hiding spot.

His brand-new Mary Janes clicked sharply against the concrete. Tap. Tap. Tap.

He approached the dark patch of shadow where Shinichi lay.

Actually, no. To be perfectly accurate, it was no longer Shinichi Kudo. Sprawled in the dirt was a child wearing a high schooler’s blue jacket—a body that had violently shrunk down by three entire sizes.

The clothes swallowed the tiny frame. The sleeves trailed nearly two feet past his miniature hands, and the trouser legs were bunched up in massive, comical folds around his tiny ankles.

Tōhō Getsukai squatted down, the hem of his skirt pooling neatly around his knees.

He switched his phone back to the camera app.

Click.

A front full-body shot of the oversized laundry pile.

Click.

A side profile close-up, perfectly capturing those chubby, toddler-like cheeks and the sweat-drenched bangs plastered to his tiny forehead.

Click.

An overhead masterpiece: the massive blue jacket spread out on the dirty ground like a blanket, with a seven-year-old boy unconscious in the center.

Tōhō Getsukai swiped through his photo album, checking the crisp resolution. He nodded in deep satisfaction.

Shinichi Kudo was dead.

From this night forward, the world would only know Conan Edogawa.

Down in the dirt, the shrunken boy stirred with a weak groan.

His heavy eyelids fluttered, parting just enough to reveal a blurry, spinning slit of the world. His brain was on fire, his vision swimming in a hazy fog.

The very first thing his unfocused eyes registered was a pair of black, low-heeled Mary Janes standing mere inches from his face.

The delicate leather strap buckled neatly across an instep so flawlessly white it seemed to catch the moonlight. The curve of the ankle bone rising from the shoe was unrealistically elegant, possessing a fragile, stunning beauty.

The last shred of logical clarity in the detective’s melting brain desperately tried to command his muscles. He wanted to tilt his head up. He needed to see the face of the woman attached to those shoes.

But he couldn’t lift his head.

Not a single muscle in his neck, his arms, or his agonizingly small body would obey him.

His hazy gaze lingered on those pristine Mary Janes for less than two seconds. Then, his eyelids fluttered shut, and his consciousness sank completely into the black abyss.

“Tsk… didn’t completely lose consciousness, huh,” Tōhō Getsukai murmured, his voice a dry, amused whisper.

He stood up, towering over the former Great Detective who was now nothing more than an elementary school student passed out in the dirt. Slipping his phone back into his pocket, Tōhō Getsukai turned around and retraced his steps through the alley.

Stepping out of the gloomy maintenance passage, the bright, neon lights of Tropical Land washed over him once more.

The park’s cheerful BGM was still looping endlessly. The massive Ferris wheel rotated lazily against the night sky, and oblivious tourists strolled down the paved paths in twos and threes, laughing and chatting.

Nothing in the world had changed.

Except, of course, for the height of a certain high school Great Detective.