-----
-----
Early in the morning, a police helicopter finally arrived, and everyone was rescued. But it was only then that they realized—aside from Toito Takuki, who had disguised himself as Kaito Kid and escaped—two other people had completely vanished without a trace.
One was the mysterious young man A-Fei, who had come to stay the night, and the other was Kiyohiru Sugama, who had been working part-time at the villa.
Everyone searched the entire villa, inside and out, but there was no sign of either of them.
"Weird... The rope bridge is broken. There's no way they could've gone down the mountain overnight," Ara Gi muttered, frowning deeply.
"Forget it. Let's get you all back first, and then we'll come back to look again," Inspector Megure finally decided, and everyone boarded the helicopter.
Just before takeoff, Conan turned to Inspector Megure and said, "Inspector, I found a strange card in the villa."Originally, Conan had planned to go check out the location mentioned on the card himself, but when he realized it would mean hiking five kilometers through snowy mountains, he figured that was impossible and decided to hand the matter over to the police.
As soon as Megure saw the contents of the card, his face changed dramatically."Conan! Where did you find this?!"He had to verify whether this thing was legit—ten bodies were no joke.
"I found it at the spot where Kaito Kid was standing before he flew off," Conan answered honestly.
Kaito Kid… So this was something he left behind?If it was him, then spotting something unusual in the snow from the sky wouldn't be impossible. But… what about this "A-Fei"?Was that Kaito Kid's new alias?
Not long after, the police followed the address written on the card and found a cabin deep in the woods. The lock had already been broken, and the door was slightly ajar.When they pushed it open, every officer at the scene froze in place, their eyes wide with horror, their bodies shaking uncontrollably. Conan gasped so sharply at the sight that he almost passed out from lack of air.
Luckily, Ran was still on the helicopter and hadn't seen it—otherwise, she probably wouldn't sleep for months.
To call what was inside "bodies" wouldn't be accurate anymore.It was more like… puppets—puppets made from the corpses of young girls.Each one had an eerily lifelike expression frozen on its face, all locked in grotesque poses. No matter how you looked at them, they were beyond disturbing.
...
Somewhere in an abandoned factory, A-Fei shoved Kiyohiru Sugama onto the floor like a dead dog. His voice was cold and numb:"I brought you the man you wanted."
A gray-haired man immediately fell to his knees in front of him, tears streaming down his face."Thank you! I finally got justice for my daughter…"
"I didn't kill him," A-Fei said. "Just severed the tendons in his hands and feet. I figured you'd want to take revenge yourself."
"Thank you, Mr. A-Fei!" the man sobbed, bowing repeatedly.
Without another word, A-Fei turned and walked out into the snow-covered courtyard, standing still under the falling flakes.
A few moments later, screams of agony rang out from inside.Fortunately, this was private property—if anyone else had heard those screams, they'd be scared out of their minds.But A-Fei showed not a shred of sympathy. The man screaming inside had who knows how many innocent lives on his hands. Just the girls turned into puppets in the forest cabin totaled ten—who knows how many more were like the client's daughter, with their bodies still missing?
Sugama had fully weaponized his twisted mind—aside from his sick obsessions, he never left any clues behind, which is why he'd gotten away with it for so long.
If A-Fei hadn't stepped in, he probably would've kept killing.
The snow was still falling. A few days later, the police finally identified the dead girls—they were all people who had gone missing in recent years.
When the parents learned what had happened to their daughters, many of them fainted on the spot.
Although the police tried to suppress the news, word still got out, and panic spread like wildfire.
Outrage poured in from the public, demanding that the killer be brought to justice.The pressure weighed heavily on Inspector Megure.Putting aside whether Sugama really was the killer—even if he was, he had already been taken away by that mysterious A-Fei.Where were they supposed to find him?
Just when the police were at their wit's end, someone delivered Sugama's corpse to the police station.Nobody knew how the body got in—it became a full-on mystery within the department.
The police quickly issued a statement:"Suspect Kiyohiru Sugama committed suicide out of guilt."
"....."