BONUS CHAPTER#5
Vermouth pressed her forehead, heart tangled in knots.
It figured.
Fortunately, she wasn't the type to wallow for long. She was decisive. Sharp. A true cadre of chaos.
Soon enough, she had a new plan.
—Since this whole mess started because she couldn't figure out Ouzo's true position on the "Kudo Shinichi" situation, why not solve that first? Find out what caused the shift in his attitude toward Cool Guy.
Once she calmed down, Vermouth sat on the edge of the bed, thinking carefully. A faint outline of a strategy took shape.
She realized the only reason she'd rushed back to kill Ouzo earlier was the fear that, if she hesitated, Ouzo would silence Cool Guy first.
…But if she could ensure Ouzo couldn't do that—at least not before she figured things out—then she wouldn't have to kill him yet.
As this thought clicked into place, Vermouth turned to glance at the peacefully sleeping Jiangxia. Everything suddenly felt so simple.
She stood up, walked over to the utility room next door, and retrieved something. Then she fished around in her big shoulder bag and pulled out—
A pair of handcuffs.
With these, she calmly returned to Jiangxia's room.
–––
A dozen minutes earlier
Conan was speeding down the street on his skateboard, phone clutched in one hand, trying to pry intel from Ran Mouri.
He'd called Yukiko Kudo first—just in case his mom was playing some elaborate prank with Professor Agasa's voice changer. It was exactly her style.
But no luck—Yukiko was in America. Not her.
Next, he'd tried Sonoko Suzuki.
Thankfully, she was alive and not in a basement. Ran was fine too. Turned out, the earlier phone call in Ran's voice definitely hadn't been from Ran.
But then came the bombshell—Ran had gotten a call from "Kudo Shinichi."
Using Jiangxia's phone.
Conan's blood ran cold.
Whoever had made that call could imitate voices perfectly, knew Kudo Shinichi was still alive, and even knew he was Kudo Shinichi.
Even if they didn't know before, they certainly would after making those two calls.
And Jiangxia's phone… had been used. But neither Ran nor Conan had heard Jiangxia's actual voice at any point.
This was getting beyond the usual "murder case of the week" and edging dangerously into "tragic noir thriller" territory.
Still, since Ran and Sonoko were unharmed, the culprit likely wasn't from the Black Organization.
Their style didn't involve psychological pranks—they just dropped bodies and moved on. This whole bizarre stunt reeked more of that mysterious troublemaker "Anonymous."
Still, Conan couldn't relax.
Even if it was Anonymous, there was no guarantee there weren't some perverted crazy-persons in there with a love for chaos and zero chill.
He hung up with Ran and immediately called Professor Agasa.
"Professor, have you gotten any weird calls from Jiangxia's number recently?"
"Huh? No, nothing like that." In Beika Town, Professor Agasa scratched at his singed hair, blinking in confusion. "Why, what's going on?"
At that moment, Conan rolled to a stop at a red light.
He balanced on the board, phone still to his ear. For now, he wasn't rushing—he didn't even know where to rush to.
"Someone used Jiangxia's number to call both me and Ran," Conan said, brow furrowed. "And they could imitate our voices perfectly."
"Professor… you haven't sold any of your voice changers to strangers recently, have you?"
–––
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 20/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:3/10*