"Hey, wait a minute!"
"Didn't we agree on tomorrow morning?"
"It's pouring out here!"
Heiji and Kogoro were, unsurprisingly, a hundred percent against the idea. Being dragged along by Tsuneo in this weather was the last thing they wanted. It was nearly dinner time; on a rainy evening like this, nothing sounded better than finding a cozy little tavern and sharing a few bottles of sake. Kogoro, in particular, had absolutely zero desire to practice judo in the mud.
"By the way, Kazuha-neechan," Conan interjected, looking at the three men entangled in their petty dispute with a look of pure exasperation. He turned back to Kazuha. "Is it possible you left your wallet at that shop? The one where you bought the disposable camera?"
That's what you get, Conan thought. You two shouldn't have been bragging about your judo and kendo skills during lunch. Now you've piqued the mechanic's interest, and he isn't going to let it go.
"Now that you mention it, that is a possibility," Kazuha said, nodding thoughtfully.
Losing five thousand yen wasn't the end of the world, but that lucky charm was irreplaceable. As long as she had that, she felt like she could weather any storm.
"Let's go back and ask!" Ran and Kazuha immediately took off, sprinting toward a nearby convenience store.
"You have a sharp memory, Conan-kun," Ikumi Kyoda remarked, standing still under her umbrella and offering the boy a warm, knowing smile.
"Hehehe…" Conan rubbed the back of his head, laughing sheepishly. Great, another person with eyes like a hawk...
BOOM!
Suddenly, a sound like a thunderous explosion ripped through the air.
Tsuneo, Heiji, Kogoro, and Conan all snapped their heads upward, searching for the source of the noise.
"What was that?" Heiji asked, his brow furrowed. "Who'd be setting off fireworks in the middle of a rainstorm?"
"Over there!"
Despite the rain, the grounds were still dotted with tourists. Tsuneo followed the gaze of the gasping crowd toward the Tenshu-kaku. High atop the castle, a figure was suddenly bathed in a brilliant, terrifying pillar of fire. The person was thrashing wildly, their arms flailing against the dark sky as muffled screams echoed down.
Tsuneo's eyes narrowed. I have a vague memory of this... but only a fragment.
A second later, the person's foot slipped. The burning figure plummeted from the heights of the Tenshu-kaku.
"Move!"
Heiji shouted, already sprinting toward the spot where the body was set to impact.
"Uncle, call an ambulance!" Conan yelled over his shoulder as he tore off his jacket, prepared to use it to smother the flames.
"Right!" Kogoro scrambled to pull out his phone.
"Hey! Can you hear me? What happened?!" Heiji reached the body first. The rain and Conan's jacket had already extinguished most of the fire. The man on the ground was still twitching, a flicker of consciousness remaining in his eyes.
No one would choose a rainy day to climb to the top of a historical landmark just to self-immolate. This wasn't a standard suicide.
"No… bu… naga…" The man's face was charred a sickening black. He lifted a trembling finger toward the sky, forced out those two broken syllables, and then his hand went limp. His eyes stared blankly at the dark clouds above as the last of his breath escaped him.
"It looks like you were right," Ikumi said calmly, walking up to the corpse with Tsuneo holding the umbrella over her. "The cases really do follow you."
Ever the professional, she was already pulling a pair of white latex gloves from her bag. Unlike Heiji and Conan, who tended to dive headfirst into things with reckless abandon, Ikumi moved with the practiced precision of an expert.
"Hey, you two 'unrelated personnel'—back off. Don't interfere with the examination," Tsuneo said, using his free hand to shoo Conan and Heiji away.
Honestly, Tsuneo thought, wandering around a crime scene without gloves. Amateurs.
Looking at the victim, Tsuneo figured the fall was the primary cause of death. Despite the horrific burns, the man's clothes hadn't even finished burning through. Dropping from a roof thirty or forty meters high was a death sentence regardless of the fire. If he'd stayed on the roof a few minutes longer, he might have burned to death; as it stood, the impact had done the job first.
"Give me a break," Heiji muttered, shooting Tsuneo a dry look. Since when am I 'unrelated personnel' in my own city?
"Did you catch the time of death?" Ikumi asked, looking at Conan's watch.
"Uh… yeah!" Conan checked his watch, mentally subtracting a minute to account for the fall.
Ikumi performed a cursory check of the body's condition, careful not to disturb the scene or break any protocols. She wasn't a medical examiner anymore, and she knew they had to wait for the official police presence to conduct a full investigation.
"I really didn't expect the place we were touring this morning to become a crime scene by tonight," Ikumi said, peeling off her gloves and stepping back.
"The lethality of this particular group is quite high," Tsuneo said with a smirk.
Setting Ikumi's own detective instincts aside, the combined 'bad luck' of Kogoro, Conan, and Heiji was a statistical nightmare. One death was likely just the opening act for an Osaka trip.
Because they were so close to the station, the police arrived within minutes. Leading the charge was a familiar face: Inspector Otaki.
"Man, Inspector Otaki, you really have your work cut out for you. Cases two days in a row?" Kogoro remarked, standing by with his arms crossed.
Somewhere back in Tokyo, Inspector Megure was likely feeling a sudden, inexplicable surge of professional jealousy.
"It's the job," Otaki said with a weary smile. He turned to Kogoro, looking impressed. "But I have to hand it to you, Mouri-san. How did you already know his name was Yuji Kato?"
The body hadn't been searched yet; the Sleeping Detective's reputation for being 'god-like' seemed well-earned.
"The crest," Ikumi said, gesturing toward the four members of the tour group standing a short distance away.
Indeed, the man who had fallen in a pillar of fire was the missing 'Toyotomi Hideyoshi' of the group—the man they had failed to see earlier at the Tenshu-kaku.
"The Paulownia crest… the mark of the Toyotomi clan," Otaki noted, nodding to Ikumi and Tsuneo. He recognized the mechanic, and he'd crossed paths with the former medical examiner-turned-detective once or twice before. He quickly began questioning the tour group about their strange roleplaying game.
"So, do any of you have any idea why Mr. Kato would want to take his own life?" Kogoro asked the four travelers.
"No… we have no idea," they replied in unison, shaking their heads.
"And how are you so sure it was a suicide?" Otaki asked curiously. The police had only just arrived; he wondered what lead Kogoro had found.
"Look at the weather. It's a heavy rain," Kogoro explained, his voice taking on that familiar, self-assured tone. "No one would climb out onto that roof by accident in this. Furthermore, he was wearing a heavy wool overcoat—material that catches fire easily. It's the perfect setup for someone looking to end it all in a spectacular fashion."
Kogoro leaned back, a smug grin spreading across his face. It was a neat, logical package.
"A masterful deduction as always, Mouri-sensei," Tsuneo said, giving a polite, two-beat round of applause.
"Hahaha!" Kogoro's chest puffed out with pride.
Ikumi, however, merely frowned. What kind of nonsense are these two spouting?
"Still, Mouri-san… it really is uncanny how people seem to die wherever you go," Otaki muttered, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. "It's like you're possessed by some kind of spirit."
The rumors were true. Wherever the Sleeping Detective walked, the reaper followed.
"Actually, since we're in Osaka, you should probably blame the Superintendent's son," Kogoro whispered, casting a thumb toward Heiji. "This is that dark-skinned brat's turf."
He shook his head firmly. "This time, it's definitely not me!"
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