Fic - The Mystery of Yomiyama, Part 2
Title: The Mystery of Yomiyama, Part 2
Fandom: Detective Conan/Another
Genre: Crossover, Mystery, Supernatural
Rating: PG
Characters: Conan Edogawa, Ai Haibara, Detective Boys, Tatsuji Chibiki, cameos from various members of the Another cast
Word Count: 5,497
Part 2
Conan yawned as he waited in the games room of the hotel for Haibara to arrive, idly looking out the window at the cool autumn night. He had promised himself not to stay out too late when he had slipped out of the room he shared with the other two Detective Boys, so he hoped the girl would arrive soon. Luckily, Genta and Mitsuhiko had already gone to sleep, so he didn’t have to worry about making up a plausible excuse for sneaking out. He would have preferred to meet somewhere more private, but he didn’t want to raise any suspicions by having the security cameras see him somewhere that a student wouldn’t normally be.
“Good evening, Kudo-kun,” Haibara said as she entered the room, and he nodded back at her.
“Sorry to call you out so late,” he replied, as she settled onto a padded bench he was sitting on.
“It happens.” Haibara brushed off the apology with a shrug, then stated, “So you believe that something unusual is happening in Yomiyama. What do you know so far?”
“Not much aside from what I told you earlier. Someone whose name ended in ‘wa’ either died or had their funeral within the past few days, and the two elementary students seemed to think that ‘it’ was linked to the person’s death. Apparently, ‘it’ is a semi-regular occurrence, if what they heard from their parents is true.”
The detective paused, seeing that Haibara was looking at in intently. “I don’t have enough information to draw any conclusions, so I need to investigate this most recent death somehow. Which is why I need your help - both to keep the others distracted from what I’m doing, and to act as my cover.”
“The project we need to do should provide a sufficient excuse to do research at the local library,” the girl said with a nod, catching on to his meaning immediately. “And since the groups haven’t been decided, it should be easy enough to sign up as partners. Although, Yoshida-san and the others might not be too happy about it.”
“I don’t want them to get involved any more than I have to until I know more about the situation, “ he said quietly, looking out the window again. The situation might be dangerous, and he would never forgive himself if any of them got hurt.
“Yes, it might be wise to try and protect them for the moment.” There was silence for a few minutes, then she said, “The investigation might be difficult, given our present appearances, but if we’re smart and careful, we should be able to find something out. I’ll inform Kobayashi-sensei of our partnership tomorrow morning.”
Turning away from looking at the quiet city, he nodded. “Sounds good. Now, we just need to decide on a research project to use as cover for our investigation. We have the option of making a final decision after we’ve looked at what’s available if we don’t come up with something tonight. Do you have any ideas so far?”
Haibara leaned forward as he finished speaking, and the two of them began to plan what they would do next.
- - -
“Too bad we can’t all be in a group together…” Mitsuhiko looked rather down at the news that Conan and Haibara would be doing a project by themselves, but Conan suspected he was more disappointed that he wouldn’t be working with Haibara than anything else.
“That just means that we’ll just have to do an awesome project by ourselves! We’ll go to the school library right now and see what we can find. Right?” Genta said as they walked out of their temporary classroom for the next two weeks. He, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi had formed their own group, and Conan was sure they would have a blast doing it.
“Yeah! I’m sure we’ll come up with something great!” Ayumi added, giving Conan a confident smile.
“Now, now, this isn’t a competition…I’m sure Kobayashi-sensei will be happy if both our groups turn in good assignments,” Mitsuhiko cautioned, looking amused as his friend’s antics.
“She might be, but I won’t,” Genta muttered with a frown, and Ayumi giggled at his expression.
“If we hurry, we can probably do a little bit of looking before the other groups get there. Are you guys coming too?” Mitsuhiko asked as they came to intersecting hallways and stopped. One way led to the library, while shoe room lay in the other direction.
“No, Haibara and I are going somewhere else,” Conan said with a shake of his head. “We’ll be back at the hotel before dinner, though.”
“Heh. Slacking off already, Conan? You’ll never win that way!” Genta taunted with a smirk.
“We’ll see about that, Kojima-kun. Let’s go, Edogawa-kun. We have work to do,” Haibara said, taking a few steps towards the shoe room.
“See you guys later!” Conan said over his shoulder as he followed her, the others calling goodbye as the headed for the school’s library. Once the rest of the Detective Boys were out of earshot, he muttered, “They’ll never find anything but boring topics here. I’m surprised Mitsuhiko’s not going to the public library like us.”
“Boring for us maybe, but not for them. They’re young after all, and are just learning about things we already know about,” Haibara reminded him, smiling faintly as he looked at her curiously. “We were like them once, remember?”
“I guess…but I don’t ever remember acting like they do,” he grumbled as they entered the shoe room and went to their assigned lockers.
“I’m sure Mouri-san would disagree if you asked her.”
“Hmph.” Annoyed at her teasing tone, Conan put on his outdoor shoes in silence, adjusted the backpack, and said pointedly, “We can either wait for the next bus or walk - which would you rather?”
“Hm…it’s a nice day, so how about we walk?”
The boy looked up at the sky as they exited the school, seeing that while the sky was mostly cloudy, it didn’t seem likely to rain. They had plenty of time before dinner, so a walk it was.
- - -
“So…according to the papers for the last two weeks, six people whose family names ended in ‘wa’ died,” Conan announced, looking up from his notebook. They were at the very back of Yomiyama’s public library, seated at a table tucked into a corner and well away from any other visitors.
“That seems reasonable for a city of this size,” Haibara commented. “Anything odd about who they are and how they died?”
“Nothing I can see. From oldest to youngest: Hayakawa Daishin, 73, died peacefully in his sleep. Furukawa Chiho, 61, died in a single-vehicle accident. Nozawa Junji, 58, died of a heart attack. Yoshizawa Hironari, 40, died from an accidental gunshot wound inflicted during the robbery of a store. Akazawa Kazuma, 15, died after choking himself to death. Narusawa Keiji, 12, died of his injuries after a hit-and-run accident. Suspects have been arrested in the robbery and the hit-and-run and are awaiting trials.”
“I don’t see anything that would point towards anything unusual going on. Perhaps the children were just upset that someone they knew had died?”
“No, I don’t think that’s it. Neither of them seemed particularly close to the person who had died, except that girl mentioned that her brother was in the same class as the person,” Conan said, then blinked as a realization came to him. Another look at the list of names confirmed his suspicion.
“If the girl said her older brother shared a class with them, then that means only Akazawa Kazuma and Narusawa Keiji qualify, since the rest of the deceased are too old to be in school,” he explained, sliding his notebook towards Haibara.
“What if they were an adult student or took night classes?” she asked, testing him.
“There’s too much of an age difference between the girl and the others to be siblings, unless her parents had her at a very late age,” the detective insisted, knowing he was onto something. He should have seen it before really, but he had been too caught up in the idea of solving a mystery on his own that he hadn’t made the connection.
“That means we must find out more information on Akazawa-san and Narusawa-san,” Haibara said, reaching for the pile of papers that she was been looking through earlier. “I believe the death announcement for Narusawa-san contained some personal information…”
While she searched, Conan flicked through his own pile, eventually locating Akazawa’s announcement.
“Narusawa-san died ten days ago after being hit by a car on his way home from school. He attended Yomiyama Elementary and leaves behind his mother and an older brother, Ken’ichi,” Haibara read after scanning her article.
“Akazawa-san died four days ago after committing suicide and left behind his parents and a younger sister, Izumi. He attended Yomiyama North Middle School, Class 3-3. Does it say what class Narusawa-san was in?” he asked, surprised at the reference to the class number.
“No, it doesn’t,” she confirmed, looking surprised as well. “They don’t usually list the class, do they? Perhaps it is significant in some way?”
“Maybe.” In a place the size of Yomiyama City, it was possible a lot of people would have known Akazawa, so why include what class he was in?
“Wait…one of the students mentioned that this most recent death ‘makes two so far’, so there must have been another death within the past few months to make people think the two were connected. Let’s check the papers tomorrow and see if anything comes up.”
- - -
“I think I found something,” Conan announced as he looked up from the newspaper spread out in front of him. “One Ikenori Shogo died late last month from an unlisted illness. He was also in Class 3-3.”
“So that’s two students from the same class dead in less than a month. Perhaps Akazawa-san was his friend and his death drove him to kill himself?” Haibara suggested as he passed the paper to her.
“It’s a possibility.” Conan frowned as he ran over the conversation again. Two dead so far, and one student concerned while the other wasn’t. And there was the fact that all of this had happened in early fall instead of in the spring. “Something still doesn’t seem right, though. Why would the girl be worried about her brother, unless he was also at risk of committing suicide? Maybe this Class 3-3 has a history of mentally unstable students?” It was a stretch, but perhaps the school’s administrators put all the troublesome students in one class so they wouldn’t disrupt the others.
“It might be worth looking in to, especially if something like this has happened before,” Haibara agreed, rising from her seat. “I shall go ask the librarian if we are allowed to use the microfilm reader so go gather some microfilm rolls from the past few years.”
“Sure.” As he trotted off towards the microfilm section, Conan decided to gather all the rolls dating back to 1990, figuring that looking at the death and funeral notices from the past six years would be a good starting point for future research, if any was required.
He walked up to the microform machine with an armload of film canisters to find Haibara and the librarian waiting for him. The librarian, an older woman, returned his smile and greeting, but he detected a nervousness about her that made him suspicious.
“Your friend here says that you need to look at past issues of the paper for a research project. Is there anything in particular that you two are looking for?” the woman asked as she set up the machine and loaded the first reel of film.
Ah, so Haibara had left it to him to come up with a cover story. “We want to see how the local paper has changed over the years, and our teacher said that looking at past issues was a good place to start,” he improvised, giving her a cheerful smile. There, something simple yet broad enough to allow them to narrow down a more specific topic later if they had to.
“What an interesting topic! Here, let me show you how to use this machine. I know it’s a bit old-fashioned, but we don’t have enough money to digitize past issues of the paper yet,” the woman explained before launching into a tutorial of the microform machine. Conan figured that both he and Haibara already knew how to operate it, but given their current appearance, they had no choice but to listen and ask age appropriate questions.
Finally, they were left alone, and Conan took a seat. “This may take a while, so if you want to go do something else, I won’t mind,” he told his companion. They still had an hour to spend before they had to return to the hotel, and he had a feeling more microfilm reading would be needed in the future.
“I do not mind waiting while you look,” she replied, giving Conan a faint smile before heading back in the direction of their table.
Shrugging, the detective turned to the machine in front of him and examined the front page of the paper that was displayed on the screen. It was dated to late May of this year, and after a quick look through it, he would be moving backwards into 1995 and beyond. He quickly discovered that looking through death announcements and the like was extremely tedious, even for someone like him. Most of the deaths were common to this type of town - illnesses, heart attacks or natural causes, but there were a decent amount of accidental deaths and murders.
“Found something,” Conan murmured, sitting up straighter as his eyes landed on the words ‘Class 3-3 of Yomiyama North Middle School’. The death had occurred in February of last year, and the deceased were a student and her father who had perished in a car accident while driving in a snowstorm. He relayed this to Haibara and added, “This is only one death linked to the class, so we need more proof.”
She nodded and returned to her book as he resumed searching, flicking through the information faster now that he knew what to look for. Half an hour later, he was staring at the screen, shocked by his findings. “This…This can’t be possible,” the detective breathed, leaning back in his seat.
“What is it, Kudo-kun?”
Slowly, he turned to face Haibara, struggling to wrap his mind around the facts. “In the past five years, 60 people either in or related to Class 3-3 have died. Some of them have been murders, but the majority have been accidents of some kind.” Conan paused, then corrected himself. “At least, the papers list them as accidental deaths…”
His shock was mirrored in Haibara’s eyes, and he realized that she had drawn away from him while he had been speaking. “That’s an incredibly large amount of deaths for a place like this,” she said after a few moments.
“Could they be related to the Black Organization?” He hated to ask, but he had to.
“While they certainly like to make deaths look accidental, I do not think so,” she replied with a shake of her head. “I never once heard any mention of Yomiyama in relation to their activities, so I still do not believe they are operating here. I also know you wish to investigate this more, but it is getting late so we best leave it until tomorrow.”
Frowning, Conan glanced at his watch and confirmed that it was time to go. “Alright,” he agreed as he started to shut down the microform machine, “we’ll pick up from here tomorrow. Do you want to keep our topic for our project the same or change it?” Looking through the local paper had been rather interesting, and he had spotted some entertaining stories on his way to the death announcements.
“I am fine with keeping this topic. Researching a rural paper seems like something none of the other groups will think of, so it should make for a unique assignment,” Haibara said with a smile they walked back to return the microfilm rolls.
- - -
“And just where do you think you’re going in such a hurry?” Conan froze at the accusatory tone in Mitsuhiko’s voice, and turned around to find the boy frowning at him.
“He’s probably trying to sneak off to go find a case to solve!” Genta said as he wiggled into his backpack.
“No, no, it’s not that!” the detective said quickly, waving his hands as his friends glowered at him. He had been hoping to slip away from the group as soon as class let out, since he really didn’t want them following him and Haibara this afternoon.
“Then what is it?” Mitsuhiko demanded, and Conan tried to smile as he scrambled for an answer. A half-truth would just have to do.
“I have a lot of work to do for our assignment, and since I don’t know how long it’ll take me to find the information I need, I wanted to get to it as fast as possible.”
“Oh…” Mitsuhiko suddenly looked ashamed, and Conan relaxed when he said in a kinder tone, “You are really taking this thing seriously, aren’t you?”
“Yeah…I’m sorry for not spending a lot of time with you guys, but I’ll make up for it, I promise.”
“You better! Hey, how about we do something Saturday after our morning classes!” Genta exclaimed, apparently buying his explanation.
“Yeah, that sounds like fun! See you later, Conan-kun!” Conan waved goodbye to the two boys before leaving the classroom, feeling slightly guilty about what he was doing to his friends. It wasn’t that he liked lying to them - far from it. But he couldn’t risk them getting involved when he had so little information to go on, especially since a lot of the cases he picked up tended to turn dangerous without much warning.
Haibara wasn’t in the shoe room when he arrived, so he assumed she had gone on ahead and quickly changed into his outdoor shoes before jogging out of the school. They had decided to not go to the public library again, instead electing to attempt to gather information directly from the source. As Conan headed for Yomiyama North Middle School, he couldn’t help but feel that he was making progress. He had started with a scrap of a name only a few days ago, and now he knew that something odd was happening in relation to one particular class. And he was determined to not only find out exactly what it was, but who was responsible for it.
“Good afternoon, Kudo-kun,” Haibara greeted him as he walked up, the detective smiling back. “Classes don’t let out for another half hour, according to the secretary.”
“You went in and asked?” He was surprised that she had been so bold, but her child appearance had probably helped in this instance.
“I did. I said that we were out-of-town relatives of one of the students, and that we had permission to sit in on their club this afternoon,” she replied with a shrug.
“Good thinking. We’ll have a consistent answer if anyone asks why we’re there. I was thinking that the library would be a good place to start, assuming we can get inside.”
Haibara nodded in agreement and returned to the book she had been reading, while Conan folded his hands behind his head and stared at the school. It didn’t look all that conspicuous - just a plain four-story building made out of concrete, with an athletics field attached to it like any other school. It seemed an odd place for something sinister to happen, but he had learned by now that crimes took place in the unlikeliest of places.
Conan let his mind wander while he waited, wondering how Ran was doing. He had called her a few times since they arrived in Yomiyama, but he hadn’t had to chance to have a meaningful conversation with her as Shinichi in a while now. Perhaps he should do so tonight, if he was able to. Checking in with Professor Agasa or Hattori might be a good idea as well, since investigating things from the outside might open up new leads.
The sun was low in the sky by the time the school doors opened, releasing a flood of students, many of them dressed warmly against the mid-autumn afternoon. Shoving his hands in his pockets, the detective adopted a bored look and listened in on the conversations that were taking place as the students left the school grounds.
“Mami-san, are you sure your parents won’t mind if I come over?” one girl asked, getting a smile and reassurance that it would be fine from her friend.
“Takabayashi-san, do you think you did well on the test despite all the time you missed?” a girl asked the sickly-looking boy beside her as they walked by.
“I think I did alright. Mochizuki-san lent me his notes, and those helped a lot,” the boy replied quietly, and Conan looked after them, wondering what was wrong with him.
The next bunch of students weren’t quite as talkative, so the boy focused instead on the students themselves. A girl with reddish-brown hair done up in pigtails walked apart from everyone else, looking downcast, followed by a boy with dark hair and glasses walking with another boy with light brown hair, but the latter seemed more focused on the girl in pigtails in front of them than talking to his companion.
“Fujioka-chan, wait up!” A girl with brown hair suddenly darted between two students coming out of the school gates and dashed down the road, laughing and teasing the two girls who ran after her that they were too slow. By now, the flow of students had eased to a trickle, and Conan decided it was time they go in.
A female student held open the door for them as they entered the school, and smiled when Conan thanked her. He looked around for a moment, then murmured quietly to Haibara, “Did you see a map of the school anywhere?”
“No, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find the library.” Granted, they had four floors to search, but he assumed a lot of those were classrooms and thus could be skipped over. “We’ll have to be careful of the teachers, though,” he added, not liking the thought of getting caught before they had a chance to do some research.
While it would have been easier to search if they split up, he didn’t want to take any further risks in a strange place, so they wandered the halls side-by-side, occasionally glancing in the open classroom doors. Many were occupied with students who were cleaning up for the day, while others were empty or had teachers doing paperwork in them. The halls seemed old-fashioned to him, having wooden floors and wood panelling on the walls that reached up to the bottom of the windowsills, with the walls and ceiling being painted a dull white. Finding nothing on the first floor, they climbed to the second, narrowly avoiding walking into a teacher as they got to the top of the stairs.
“I’m sorry!” Conan exclaimed, giving the woman his best wide-eyed apologetic look. The woman appeared to be in her late twenties and had long brown hair and light brown eyes. As he stared up at her, the detective was struck by how beautiful she looked and was momentarily envious of her students.
The teacher looked at them for a moment, then smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. Still, you two are awfully young to be here! Are you looking for someone?”
“We’re looking for the library. Our cousin is supposed to meet us there, but he didn’t tell us where to go!” he answered with a pout, seeing out of the corner of his eye that Haibara was nodding along with his story.
“What a mean cousin you have!” the woman replied, then added, “You’re on the correct floor at least. The library is down at the far end of this hall on the left-hand side. If your cousin told Chibiki-san that you were coming, the library should still be unlocked.”
“Great. Thank you very much!” he said with a slight bow, giving her a wide smile. Haibara thanked her as well, and they waited for a moment for the teacher to go down the stairs before starting towards the far end of the hallway.
“That went well,” the girl commented, glancing out the windows at the courtyard below.
“Yeah, it did,” he agreed, feeling more confident about being in the school now that they had successfully convinced a teacher that they should be there.
When they reached the library door, Conan paused for a moment, listening carefully to hear if anyone was inside. All was quiet, so he tried the door and smiled when it slid open easily. Apparently Chibiki-san hadn’t locked up for the day before they left.
“Excellent. Now, where should we start?” he asked after a final look down the hall to make sure no lingering students were looking their way. He had a few ideas, but outside input was always good to get.
“If we’re looking for information on the students themselves, previous yearbooks seem like a good place to begin,” Haibara answered, gazing at the tall shelves of books that filled the room.
“Assuming this school has a newspaper club, their back issues might provide some information as well,” Conan mused, walking slowly down the aisle between two shelves. “But we have to figure out how to reach-”
He broke off suddenly as he came to the end of the aisle, his gaze landing on a student sitting at the table at the back of the room. She had chin-length black hair with square white eye patch covering her left eye and had no doubt heard everything they just said. Conan remained frozen for a moment in surprise, scrambling to come up with a decent explanation of why they were there, but only managed a weak “G-Good afternoon…”
“Hello,” the girl replied bluntly, her visible eye shifting between him and Haibara. “The yearbooks are on the middle shelf at the back, and I think the bound newspapers are in the same area.”
“Uh…thank you, oneesan,” he replied after a moment of stunned silence, both weirded out and intrigued by the girl.
“Are there any step-stools around we could borrow?” Haibara asked politely, edging past him to take a few steps towards the student. Clearly she was also interested in her, and Conan briefly wondered if it was because the older girl seemed reclusive. Why else would she be alone after school in the library?
“No, but I can help you get a book you can’t reach.”
They thanked her again and went to look for the yearbooks, Conan breathing a sigh of relief once they had shelves of books between them.
“Does she bother you that much?” Haibara asked softly as they scanned the middle shelf, narrowing in on the books they wanted.
“I’m not sure. There’s just something unsettling about her.”
“Perhaps to you, but I quite like her. Besides, some may find your interest in murders unsettling.”
Conan narrowed his eyes at the jab, set to grumble about Haibara’s distant nature, but was unable to as she plucked a book off the shelf and thrust it at him, saying, “Here’s the yearbook for 1990.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, accepting the next four yearbooks as she handed them to him. Haibara went to look for the newspaper section while he lugged the armload of books back to the table the student was sitting at, deliberately putting them down at the farthest point away from her. He had no idea what they might find while researching, and so didn’t want to take the chance of an outsider catching on to what they were doing.
“Excuse me, I don’t suppose you could help me with the bound newspapers? They are out of my reach,” Haibara asked a few minutes later, causing both Conan and the older girl to look up from their respective books.
“Sure.”
The detective shrugged and looked back down at the yearbook, examining the list of names yet again. Nine students were listed as having died during the course of the 1990-1991 school year, and Conan asked himself why no one in town found that unusual. Perhaps in a city the size of Tokyo, that number of deaths would seem normal, maybe even small, but in a place like Yomiyama? It was too many. Far, far, too many. Something was definitely happening here, and he was going to get to the bottom of it.
The student and Haibara returned with the bound newspapers while he was writing down the names of those who had died, but the older girl didn’t ask any questions, merely returning to her book. As his classmate began to browse the newspapers for the year he was looking at, Conan pushed his notebook towards her and murmured, “See what you can find on those students.”
He finished with the yearbook and moved onto the next one, once again writing down the names of those students who had died. This list was shorter however, containing only six names. The school yearbooks and newspapers also didn’t list those connected to class 3-3 who had also passed away, meaning he would have to go back to the newspapers at the public library to get a full list of names. He would have done it yesterday, but he hadn’t expected to run across such a high death count then.
“What are you two doing here?” Conan looked up at the harsh question to find himself being stared at by an older man. He long white hair sharply contrasted the black clothes he wore, and his eyes seemed hard behind his glasses.
“We’re doing research on our project,” Haibara replied nonchalantly, and the boy swallowed hard as the man’s piercing gaze was turned on her. While the man was distracted, he took the opportunity to flip his notebook closed and slide it into his lap.
“And what project would require two elementary students to come to a middle school?”
“Our project is how the town’s newspaper has changed over the years, and we thought looking at a school’s newspaper might be helpful,” she replied calmly.
The man walked over to the table and looked at the books open in front of them, eventually focusing on Conan. “And how does this school’s yearbooks play into that?”
“Um…” That was a good question, but the detective thought he had a good answer. Time to act like a child. Assuming an innocent expression, he said brightly, “Well, the newspaper doesn’t always have information on its members and stuff printed in it, right? I figured if there was any changes to the school paper or something, it might be noted in the yearbooks. Lots of useful things are written in them, right, ojisan?”
“I suppose…” The man still didn’t look convinced, but he seemed to accept the answer. His next words still made Conan’s stomach plummet. “You seem to have gathered a fair amount of information already, so I suggest you take what you have and go home. And if I catch you back here again, I’m informing your teacher and your parents about it.”
“Alright…” Disappointed, they began to back up, the boy listening as the man spoke quietly with the student who had been with them.
“They weren’t causing you any trouble, were they, Misaki-san?”
“No, they were very well behaved.”
“Good. I don’t suppose you could escort them out? I’m nearly ready to go home, so I‘ll be closing the library soon.”
“Of course, Chibiki-sensei.” Conan shrugged his backpack on and glanced at the man. He must be the librarian, then. From the way he had acted, Conan had assumed he was the principal or someone like that. It only took a few minutes to return the books to their places, and then the student walked with them to the front gates of the school. He thanked her and waved good bye when they parted a block later, then shoved his hands in his pockets and thought about what he had learned.
“Something bad is happening,” he said at last, knowing he was stating the obvious. “Too many students have died for it to be an accident, that much I’m now certain of.”
“I agree. That seems to leave only one possibility,” Haibara said, looking at him seriously. They were thinking the same thing, then.
“Yeah.” He stopped and looked back towards Yomiyama North Middle School. “There’s a serial killer in this city, and they’re targeting Class 3-3. And I’m going to stop them.”
Part 1 | Master Post | Part 3
Fandom: Detective Conan/Another
Genre: Crossover, Mystery, Supernatural
Rating: PG
Characters: Conan Edogawa, Ai Haibara, Detective Boys, Tatsuji Chibiki, cameos from various members of the Another cast
Word Count: 5,497
Part 2
Conan yawned as he waited in the games room of the hotel for Haibara to arrive, idly looking out the window at the cool autumn night. He had promised himself not to stay out too late when he had slipped out of the room he shared with the other two Detective Boys, so he hoped the girl would arrive soon. Luckily, Genta and Mitsuhiko had already gone to sleep, so he didn’t have to worry about making up a plausible excuse for sneaking out. He would have preferred to meet somewhere more private, but he didn’t want to raise any suspicions by having the security cameras see him somewhere that a student wouldn’t normally be.
“Good evening, Kudo-kun,” Haibara said as she entered the room, and he nodded back at her.
“Sorry to call you out so late,” he replied, as she settled onto a padded bench he was sitting on.
“It happens.” Haibara brushed off the apology with a shrug, then stated, “So you believe that something unusual is happening in Yomiyama. What do you know so far?”
“Not much aside from what I told you earlier. Someone whose name ended in ‘wa’ either died or had their funeral within the past few days, and the two elementary students seemed to think that ‘it’ was linked to the person’s death. Apparently, ‘it’ is a semi-regular occurrence, if what they heard from their parents is true.”
The detective paused, seeing that Haibara was looking at in intently. “I don’t have enough information to draw any conclusions, so I need to investigate this most recent death somehow. Which is why I need your help - both to keep the others distracted from what I’m doing, and to act as my cover.”
“The project we need to do should provide a sufficient excuse to do research at the local library,” the girl said with a nod, catching on to his meaning immediately. “And since the groups haven’t been decided, it should be easy enough to sign up as partners. Although, Yoshida-san and the others might not be too happy about it.”
“I don’t want them to get involved any more than I have to until I know more about the situation, “ he said quietly, looking out the window again. The situation might be dangerous, and he would never forgive himself if any of them got hurt.
“Yes, it might be wise to try and protect them for the moment.” There was silence for a few minutes, then she said, “The investigation might be difficult, given our present appearances, but if we’re smart and careful, we should be able to find something out. I’ll inform Kobayashi-sensei of our partnership tomorrow morning.”
Turning away from looking at the quiet city, he nodded. “Sounds good. Now, we just need to decide on a research project to use as cover for our investigation. We have the option of making a final decision after we’ve looked at what’s available if we don’t come up with something tonight. Do you have any ideas so far?”
Haibara leaned forward as he finished speaking, and the two of them began to plan what they would do next.
- - -
“Too bad we can’t all be in a group together…” Mitsuhiko looked rather down at the news that Conan and Haibara would be doing a project by themselves, but Conan suspected he was more disappointed that he wouldn’t be working with Haibara than anything else.
“That just means that we’ll just have to do an awesome project by ourselves! We’ll go to the school library right now and see what we can find. Right?” Genta said as they walked out of their temporary classroom for the next two weeks. He, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi had formed their own group, and Conan was sure they would have a blast doing it.
“Yeah! I’m sure we’ll come up with something great!” Ayumi added, giving Conan a confident smile.
“Now, now, this isn’t a competition…I’m sure Kobayashi-sensei will be happy if both our groups turn in good assignments,” Mitsuhiko cautioned, looking amused as his friend’s antics.
“She might be, but I won’t,” Genta muttered with a frown, and Ayumi giggled at his expression.
“If we hurry, we can probably do a little bit of looking before the other groups get there. Are you guys coming too?” Mitsuhiko asked as they came to intersecting hallways and stopped. One way led to the library, while shoe room lay in the other direction.
“No, Haibara and I are going somewhere else,” Conan said with a shake of his head. “We’ll be back at the hotel before dinner, though.”
“Heh. Slacking off already, Conan? You’ll never win that way!” Genta taunted with a smirk.
“We’ll see about that, Kojima-kun. Let’s go, Edogawa-kun. We have work to do,” Haibara said, taking a few steps towards the shoe room.
“See you guys later!” Conan said over his shoulder as he followed her, the others calling goodbye as the headed for the school’s library. Once the rest of the Detective Boys were out of earshot, he muttered, “They’ll never find anything but boring topics here. I’m surprised Mitsuhiko’s not going to the public library like us.”
“Boring for us maybe, but not for them. They’re young after all, and are just learning about things we already know about,” Haibara reminded him, smiling faintly as he looked at her curiously. “We were like them once, remember?”
“I guess…but I don’t ever remember acting like they do,” he grumbled as they entered the shoe room and went to their assigned lockers.
“I’m sure Mouri-san would disagree if you asked her.”
“Hmph.” Annoyed at her teasing tone, Conan put on his outdoor shoes in silence, adjusted the backpack, and said pointedly, “We can either wait for the next bus or walk - which would you rather?”
“Hm…it’s a nice day, so how about we walk?”
The boy looked up at the sky as they exited the school, seeing that while the sky was mostly cloudy, it didn’t seem likely to rain. They had plenty of time before dinner, so a walk it was.
- - -
“So…according to the papers for the last two weeks, six people whose family names ended in ‘wa’ died,” Conan announced, looking up from his notebook. They were at the very back of Yomiyama’s public library, seated at a table tucked into a corner and well away from any other visitors.
“That seems reasonable for a city of this size,” Haibara commented. “Anything odd about who they are and how they died?”
“Nothing I can see. From oldest to youngest: Hayakawa Daishin, 73, died peacefully in his sleep. Furukawa Chiho, 61, died in a single-vehicle accident. Nozawa Junji, 58, died of a heart attack. Yoshizawa Hironari, 40, died from an accidental gunshot wound inflicted during the robbery of a store. Akazawa Kazuma, 15, died after choking himself to death. Narusawa Keiji, 12, died of his injuries after a hit-and-run accident. Suspects have been arrested in the robbery and the hit-and-run and are awaiting trials.”
“I don’t see anything that would point towards anything unusual going on. Perhaps the children were just upset that someone they knew had died?”
“No, I don’t think that’s it. Neither of them seemed particularly close to the person who had died, except that girl mentioned that her brother was in the same class as the person,” Conan said, then blinked as a realization came to him. Another look at the list of names confirmed his suspicion.
“If the girl said her older brother shared a class with them, then that means only Akazawa Kazuma and Narusawa Keiji qualify, since the rest of the deceased are too old to be in school,” he explained, sliding his notebook towards Haibara.
“What if they were an adult student or took night classes?” she asked, testing him.
“There’s too much of an age difference between the girl and the others to be siblings, unless her parents had her at a very late age,” the detective insisted, knowing he was onto something. He should have seen it before really, but he had been too caught up in the idea of solving a mystery on his own that he hadn’t made the connection.
“That means we must find out more information on Akazawa-san and Narusawa-san,” Haibara said, reaching for the pile of papers that she was been looking through earlier. “I believe the death announcement for Narusawa-san contained some personal information…”
While she searched, Conan flicked through his own pile, eventually locating Akazawa’s announcement.
“Narusawa-san died ten days ago after being hit by a car on his way home from school. He attended Yomiyama Elementary and leaves behind his mother and an older brother, Ken’ichi,” Haibara read after scanning her article.
“Akazawa-san died four days ago after committing suicide and left behind his parents and a younger sister, Izumi. He attended Yomiyama North Middle School, Class 3-3. Does it say what class Narusawa-san was in?” he asked, surprised at the reference to the class number.
“No, it doesn’t,” she confirmed, looking surprised as well. “They don’t usually list the class, do they? Perhaps it is significant in some way?”
“Maybe.” In a place the size of Yomiyama City, it was possible a lot of people would have known Akazawa, so why include what class he was in?
“Wait…one of the students mentioned that this most recent death ‘makes two so far’, so there must have been another death within the past few months to make people think the two were connected. Let’s check the papers tomorrow and see if anything comes up.”
- - -
“I think I found something,” Conan announced as he looked up from the newspaper spread out in front of him. “One Ikenori Shogo died late last month from an unlisted illness. He was also in Class 3-3.”
“So that’s two students from the same class dead in less than a month. Perhaps Akazawa-san was his friend and his death drove him to kill himself?” Haibara suggested as he passed the paper to her.
“It’s a possibility.” Conan frowned as he ran over the conversation again. Two dead so far, and one student concerned while the other wasn’t. And there was the fact that all of this had happened in early fall instead of in the spring. “Something still doesn’t seem right, though. Why would the girl be worried about her brother, unless he was also at risk of committing suicide? Maybe this Class 3-3 has a history of mentally unstable students?” It was a stretch, but perhaps the school’s administrators put all the troublesome students in one class so they wouldn’t disrupt the others.
“It might be worth looking in to, especially if something like this has happened before,” Haibara agreed, rising from her seat. “I shall go ask the librarian if we are allowed to use the microfilm reader so go gather some microfilm rolls from the past few years.”
“Sure.” As he trotted off towards the microfilm section, Conan decided to gather all the rolls dating back to 1990, figuring that looking at the death and funeral notices from the past six years would be a good starting point for future research, if any was required.
He walked up to the microform machine with an armload of film canisters to find Haibara and the librarian waiting for him. The librarian, an older woman, returned his smile and greeting, but he detected a nervousness about her that made him suspicious.
“Your friend here says that you need to look at past issues of the paper for a research project. Is there anything in particular that you two are looking for?” the woman asked as she set up the machine and loaded the first reel of film.
Ah, so Haibara had left it to him to come up with a cover story. “We want to see how the local paper has changed over the years, and our teacher said that looking at past issues was a good place to start,” he improvised, giving her a cheerful smile. There, something simple yet broad enough to allow them to narrow down a more specific topic later if they had to.
“What an interesting topic! Here, let me show you how to use this machine. I know it’s a bit old-fashioned, but we don’t have enough money to digitize past issues of the paper yet,” the woman explained before launching into a tutorial of the microform machine. Conan figured that both he and Haibara already knew how to operate it, but given their current appearance, they had no choice but to listen and ask age appropriate questions.
Finally, they were left alone, and Conan took a seat. “This may take a while, so if you want to go do something else, I won’t mind,” he told his companion. They still had an hour to spend before they had to return to the hotel, and he had a feeling more microfilm reading would be needed in the future.
“I do not mind waiting while you look,” she replied, giving Conan a faint smile before heading back in the direction of their table.
Shrugging, the detective turned to the machine in front of him and examined the front page of the paper that was displayed on the screen. It was dated to late May of this year, and after a quick look through it, he would be moving backwards into 1995 and beyond. He quickly discovered that looking through death announcements and the like was extremely tedious, even for someone like him. Most of the deaths were common to this type of town - illnesses, heart attacks or natural causes, but there were a decent amount of accidental deaths and murders.
“Found something,” Conan murmured, sitting up straighter as his eyes landed on the words ‘Class 3-3 of Yomiyama North Middle School’. The death had occurred in February of last year, and the deceased were a student and her father who had perished in a car accident while driving in a snowstorm. He relayed this to Haibara and added, “This is only one death linked to the class, so we need more proof.”
She nodded and returned to her book as he resumed searching, flicking through the information faster now that he knew what to look for. Half an hour later, he was staring at the screen, shocked by his findings. “This…This can’t be possible,” the detective breathed, leaning back in his seat.
“What is it, Kudo-kun?”
Slowly, he turned to face Haibara, struggling to wrap his mind around the facts. “In the past five years, 60 people either in or related to Class 3-3 have died. Some of them have been murders, but the majority have been accidents of some kind.” Conan paused, then corrected himself. “At least, the papers list them as accidental deaths…”
His shock was mirrored in Haibara’s eyes, and he realized that she had drawn away from him while he had been speaking. “That’s an incredibly large amount of deaths for a place like this,” she said after a few moments.
“Could they be related to the Black Organization?” He hated to ask, but he had to.
“While they certainly like to make deaths look accidental, I do not think so,” she replied with a shake of her head. “I never once heard any mention of Yomiyama in relation to their activities, so I still do not believe they are operating here. I also know you wish to investigate this more, but it is getting late so we best leave it until tomorrow.”
Frowning, Conan glanced at his watch and confirmed that it was time to go. “Alright,” he agreed as he started to shut down the microform machine, “we’ll pick up from here tomorrow. Do you want to keep our topic for our project the same or change it?” Looking through the local paper had been rather interesting, and he had spotted some entertaining stories on his way to the death announcements.
“I am fine with keeping this topic. Researching a rural paper seems like something none of the other groups will think of, so it should make for a unique assignment,” Haibara said with a smile they walked back to return the microfilm rolls.
- - -
“And just where do you think you’re going in such a hurry?” Conan froze at the accusatory tone in Mitsuhiko’s voice, and turned around to find the boy frowning at him.
“He’s probably trying to sneak off to go find a case to solve!” Genta said as he wiggled into his backpack.
“No, no, it’s not that!” the detective said quickly, waving his hands as his friends glowered at him. He had been hoping to slip away from the group as soon as class let out, since he really didn’t want them following him and Haibara this afternoon.
“Then what is it?” Mitsuhiko demanded, and Conan tried to smile as he scrambled for an answer. A half-truth would just have to do.
“I have a lot of work to do for our assignment, and since I don’t know how long it’ll take me to find the information I need, I wanted to get to it as fast as possible.”
“Oh…” Mitsuhiko suddenly looked ashamed, and Conan relaxed when he said in a kinder tone, “You are really taking this thing seriously, aren’t you?”
“Yeah…I’m sorry for not spending a lot of time with you guys, but I’ll make up for it, I promise.”
“You better! Hey, how about we do something Saturday after our morning classes!” Genta exclaimed, apparently buying his explanation.
“Yeah, that sounds like fun! See you later, Conan-kun!” Conan waved goodbye to the two boys before leaving the classroom, feeling slightly guilty about what he was doing to his friends. It wasn’t that he liked lying to them - far from it. But he couldn’t risk them getting involved when he had so little information to go on, especially since a lot of the cases he picked up tended to turn dangerous without much warning.
Haibara wasn’t in the shoe room when he arrived, so he assumed she had gone on ahead and quickly changed into his outdoor shoes before jogging out of the school. They had decided to not go to the public library again, instead electing to attempt to gather information directly from the source. As Conan headed for Yomiyama North Middle School, he couldn’t help but feel that he was making progress. He had started with a scrap of a name only a few days ago, and now he knew that something odd was happening in relation to one particular class. And he was determined to not only find out exactly what it was, but who was responsible for it.
“Good afternoon, Kudo-kun,” Haibara greeted him as he walked up, the detective smiling back. “Classes don’t let out for another half hour, according to the secretary.”
“You went in and asked?” He was surprised that she had been so bold, but her child appearance had probably helped in this instance.
“I did. I said that we were out-of-town relatives of one of the students, and that we had permission to sit in on their club this afternoon,” she replied with a shrug.
“Good thinking. We’ll have a consistent answer if anyone asks why we’re there. I was thinking that the library would be a good place to start, assuming we can get inside.”
Haibara nodded in agreement and returned to the book she had been reading, while Conan folded his hands behind his head and stared at the school. It didn’t look all that conspicuous - just a plain four-story building made out of concrete, with an athletics field attached to it like any other school. It seemed an odd place for something sinister to happen, but he had learned by now that crimes took place in the unlikeliest of places.
Conan let his mind wander while he waited, wondering how Ran was doing. He had called her a few times since they arrived in Yomiyama, but he hadn’t had to chance to have a meaningful conversation with her as Shinichi in a while now. Perhaps he should do so tonight, if he was able to. Checking in with Professor Agasa or Hattori might be a good idea as well, since investigating things from the outside might open up new leads.
The sun was low in the sky by the time the school doors opened, releasing a flood of students, many of them dressed warmly against the mid-autumn afternoon. Shoving his hands in his pockets, the detective adopted a bored look and listened in on the conversations that were taking place as the students left the school grounds.
“Mami-san, are you sure your parents won’t mind if I come over?” one girl asked, getting a smile and reassurance that it would be fine from her friend.
“Takabayashi-san, do you think you did well on the test despite all the time you missed?” a girl asked the sickly-looking boy beside her as they walked by.
“I think I did alright. Mochizuki-san lent me his notes, and those helped a lot,” the boy replied quietly, and Conan looked after them, wondering what was wrong with him.
The next bunch of students weren’t quite as talkative, so the boy focused instead on the students themselves. A girl with reddish-brown hair done up in pigtails walked apart from everyone else, looking downcast, followed by a boy with dark hair and glasses walking with another boy with light brown hair, but the latter seemed more focused on the girl in pigtails in front of them than talking to his companion.
“Fujioka-chan, wait up!” A girl with brown hair suddenly darted between two students coming out of the school gates and dashed down the road, laughing and teasing the two girls who ran after her that they were too slow. By now, the flow of students had eased to a trickle, and Conan decided it was time they go in.
A female student held open the door for them as they entered the school, and smiled when Conan thanked her. He looked around for a moment, then murmured quietly to Haibara, “Did you see a map of the school anywhere?”
“No, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find the library.” Granted, they had four floors to search, but he assumed a lot of those were classrooms and thus could be skipped over. “We’ll have to be careful of the teachers, though,” he added, not liking the thought of getting caught before they had a chance to do some research.
While it would have been easier to search if they split up, he didn’t want to take any further risks in a strange place, so they wandered the halls side-by-side, occasionally glancing in the open classroom doors. Many were occupied with students who were cleaning up for the day, while others were empty or had teachers doing paperwork in them. The halls seemed old-fashioned to him, having wooden floors and wood panelling on the walls that reached up to the bottom of the windowsills, with the walls and ceiling being painted a dull white. Finding nothing on the first floor, they climbed to the second, narrowly avoiding walking into a teacher as they got to the top of the stairs.
“I’m sorry!” Conan exclaimed, giving the woman his best wide-eyed apologetic look. The woman appeared to be in her late twenties and had long brown hair and light brown eyes. As he stared up at her, the detective was struck by how beautiful she looked and was momentarily envious of her students.
The teacher looked at them for a moment, then smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. Still, you two are awfully young to be here! Are you looking for someone?”
“We’re looking for the library. Our cousin is supposed to meet us there, but he didn’t tell us where to go!” he answered with a pout, seeing out of the corner of his eye that Haibara was nodding along with his story.
“What a mean cousin you have!” the woman replied, then added, “You’re on the correct floor at least. The library is down at the far end of this hall on the left-hand side. If your cousin told Chibiki-san that you were coming, the library should still be unlocked.”
“Great. Thank you very much!” he said with a slight bow, giving her a wide smile. Haibara thanked her as well, and they waited for a moment for the teacher to go down the stairs before starting towards the far end of the hallway.
“That went well,” the girl commented, glancing out the windows at the courtyard below.
“Yeah, it did,” he agreed, feeling more confident about being in the school now that they had successfully convinced a teacher that they should be there.
When they reached the library door, Conan paused for a moment, listening carefully to hear if anyone was inside. All was quiet, so he tried the door and smiled when it slid open easily. Apparently Chibiki-san hadn’t locked up for the day before they left.
“Excellent. Now, where should we start?” he asked after a final look down the hall to make sure no lingering students were looking their way. He had a few ideas, but outside input was always good to get.
“If we’re looking for information on the students themselves, previous yearbooks seem like a good place to begin,” Haibara answered, gazing at the tall shelves of books that filled the room.
“Assuming this school has a newspaper club, their back issues might provide some information as well,” Conan mused, walking slowly down the aisle between two shelves. “But we have to figure out how to reach-”
He broke off suddenly as he came to the end of the aisle, his gaze landing on a student sitting at the table at the back of the room. She had chin-length black hair with square white eye patch covering her left eye and had no doubt heard everything they just said. Conan remained frozen for a moment in surprise, scrambling to come up with a decent explanation of why they were there, but only managed a weak “G-Good afternoon…”
“Hello,” the girl replied bluntly, her visible eye shifting between him and Haibara. “The yearbooks are on the middle shelf at the back, and I think the bound newspapers are in the same area.”
“Uh…thank you, oneesan,” he replied after a moment of stunned silence, both weirded out and intrigued by the girl.
“Are there any step-stools around we could borrow?” Haibara asked politely, edging past him to take a few steps towards the student. Clearly she was also interested in her, and Conan briefly wondered if it was because the older girl seemed reclusive. Why else would she be alone after school in the library?
“No, but I can help you get a book you can’t reach.”
They thanked her again and went to look for the yearbooks, Conan breathing a sigh of relief once they had shelves of books between them.
“Does she bother you that much?” Haibara asked softly as they scanned the middle shelf, narrowing in on the books they wanted.
“I’m not sure. There’s just something unsettling about her.”
“Perhaps to you, but I quite like her. Besides, some may find your interest in murders unsettling.”
Conan narrowed his eyes at the jab, set to grumble about Haibara’s distant nature, but was unable to as she plucked a book off the shelf and thrust it at him, saying, “Here’s the yearbook for 1990.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, accepting the next four yearbooks as she handed them to him. Haibara went to look for the newspaper section while he lugged the armload of books back to the table the student was sitting at, deliberately putting them down at the farthest point away from her. He had no idea what they might find while researching, and so didn’t want to take the chance of an outsider catching on to what they were doing.
“Excuse me, I don’t suppose you could help me with the bound newspapers? They are out of my reach,” Haibara asked a few minutes later, causing both Conan and the older girl to look up from their respective books.
“Sure.”
The detective shrugged and looked back down at the yearbook, examining the list of names yet again. Nine students were listed as having died during the course of the 1990-1991 school year, and Conan asked himself why no one in town found that unusual. Perhaps in a city the size of Tokyo, that number of deaths would seem normal, maybe even small, but in a place like Yomiyama? It was too many. Far, far, too many. Something was definitely happening here, and he was going to get to the bottom of it.
The student and Haibara returned with the bound newspapers while he was writing down the names of those who had died, but the older girl didn’t ask any questions, merely returning to her book. As his classmate began to browse the newspapers for the year he was looking at, Conan pushed his notebook towards her and murmured, “See what you can find on those students.”
He finished with the yearbook and moved onto the next one, once again writing down the names of those students who had died. This list was shorter however, containing only six names. The school yearbooks and newspapers also didn’t list those connected to class 3-3 who had also passed away, meaning he would have to go back to the newspapers at the public library to get a full list of names. He would have done it yesterday, but he hadn’t expected to run across such a high death count then.
“What are you two doing here?” Conan looked up at the harsh question to find himself being stared at by an older man. He long white hair sharply contrasted the black clothes he wore, and his eyes seemed hard behind his glasses.
“We’re doing research on our project,” Haibara replied nonchalantly, and the boy swallowed hard as the man’s piercing gaze was turned on her. While the man was distracted, he took the opportunity to flip his notebook closed and slide it into his lap.
“And what project would require two elementary students to come to a middle school?”
“Our project is how the town’s newspaper has changed over the years, and we thought looking at a school’s newspaper might be helpful,” she replied calmly.
The man walked over to the table and looked at the books open in front of them, eventually focusing on Conan. “And how does this school’s yearbooks play into that?”
“Um…” That was a good question, but the detective thought he had a good answer. Time to act like a child. Assuming an innocent expression, he said brightly, “Well, the newspaper doesn’t always have information on its members and stuff printed in it, right? I figured if there was any changes to the school paper or something, it might be noted in the yearbooks. Lots of useful things are written in them, right, ojisan?”
“I suppose…” The man still didn’t look convinced, but he seemed to accept the answer. His next words still made Conan’s stomach plummet. “You seem to have gathered a fair amount of information already, so I suggest you take what you have and go home. And if I catch you back here again, I’m informing your teacher and your parents about it.”
“Alright…” Disappointed, they began to back up, the boy listening as the man spoke quietly with the student who had been with them.
“They weren’t causing you any trouble, were they, Misaki-san?”
“No, they were very well behaved.”
“Good. I don’t suppose you could escort them out? I’m nearly ready to go home, so I‘ll be closing the library soon.”
“Of course, Chibiki-sensei.” Conan shrugged his backpack on and glanced at the man. He must be the librarian, then. From the way he had acted, Conan had assumed he was the principal or someone like that. It only took a few minutes to return the books to their places, and then the student walked with them to the front gates of the school. He thanked her and waved good bye when they parted a block later, then shoved his hands in his pockets and thought about what he had learned.
“Something bad is happening,” he said at last, knowing he was stating the obvious. “Too many students have died for it to be an accident, that much I’m now certain of.”
“I agree. That seems to leave only one possibility,” Haibara said, looking at him seriously. They were thinking the same thing, then.
“Yeah.” He stopped and looked back towards Yomiyama North Middle School. “There’s a serial killer in this city, and they’re targeting Class 3-3. And I’m going to stop them.”
Part 1 | Master Post | Part 3