“Let’s start with a simple explanation of our school trial!”
    
The elevator led them down into this eerie mock-courtroom. The stands were in a ring - there were sixteen of them, but of course the people present would only fill up fifteen. That meant one was leftover, which was filled by some strange grayscale portrait of the victim. In other words, the picture of that mask… was crossed out in what looked like blood.

“The result of the trial is determined by your own votes. If the correct culprit is chosen, they alone will be punished.”

As Monobear ushered everyone to their places, he said the portrait was just so “everyone could be included” and so “they could be here in spirit”. Or something stupid like that.

“However... if the wrong person is voted for… everyone but the culprit will be punished. The culprit alone, having managed to fool everyone, will get to leave our beautiful school behind!”

They knew these rules. Why was he repeating them? Why was everyone assigned a place? Whatever. Conan was beside Ran, and that’s what mattered to him. Kyouko was almost on the opposite side so he was able watch her reactions to their arguments.

“Okay, let’s start! Just so we have a starting point… let’s talk about how the victim died! Kyahahaha!”

“Even the Monobear File says the victim died from head trauma,” Amuro began.

“I didn’t see a blunt weapon a’ th’ scene,” Kazuha pointed out, “so th’ killer took it away from tha scene, or…”

“...Or the weapon was stuck in the room, right?” Sera completed. Smirking, she addressed some of the others.

“There is something that could be the weapon on the crime scene, but let’s ask, just in case. Did anyone find the murder weapon somewhere else in the school?”

“Kuroba-kun and I searched just about the entire school together,” Koizumi announced, “and we found nothing of the sort!” From a few seats over, Kuroba snorted.

“But, who could get an investigation done with you around…”

“Couldn’t the killer destroy the evidence?” Sonoko asked. She didn’t participate in the investigation, so she wanted to be able to get in a word among the chatter. “I think there’s an incinerator in the trash room, right? They could have used that!”

“There are two things wrong with that,” Hakuba said. “First, you need a key to reach the incinerator.”

“Which I still have,” Hattori said, holding up the key in question. Conan remembered they had thought it was strange that Kirigiri didn’t ask for it back. So they kept it. Hakuba smiled and continued.

“Second, there was no time to destroy evidence. Soon after the crime, Conan-kun and Mouri-san left the room and met Kirigiri-san in the hallway. One of them would have seen the killer escaping.”

There were plenty of directions to take this, but, everyone could see the one obvious one. Sonoko was the one to say it out loud.

“...Eh? Then, wouldn’t that make Kirigiri-san the killer?”

Kirigiri didn’t say anything regarding the accusation. She didn’t deny it, but she raised another possibility.

“Is there a chance the killer was still hiding in the room when Edogawa-kun and Mouri-san left?”

“Even if they stayed there ‘til mornin’, it would’ve been impossible. Someone woulda seen them. All fifteen’ve us were outside th’ room.”

“Also, you can’t leave the rooms without a key, right?” Conan chirped up. He wanted to remain quiet for most of the trial, but he couldn’t help but point out a few things. “Once Ran-neechan and I left, no one should have been able to enter or leave the room, since I had Naegi-niichan’s key!”

“...Hey.” Kuroba, while no detective, was clearly observant. He had been thinking about the case, despite seemingly leaving it up to the detectives. “If the killer didn’t have a means to get out, then how did they get in? Someone would have had to open the door to both the victim and the killer, right?”

“Ah! Ran-san!” Kazuha looked over enthusiastically - the woman she was addressing blinked in shock. “Y’ coulda opened the door, right? Th’ killer was one’ve us, so ya let them in! Y’ saw the killer, right? Who was it?”

She was repeating the detectives’ theory from earlier, but Ran hadn’t heard this yet. She looked so lost as her eyes darted back and forth - everyone was staring at her.

“I… I don’t remember what happened. I-I’m sorry everyone…”

There was a clear drop in enthusiasm in the room. They had no witnesses, it seemed. Only evidence.

“Seeing the crime being committed before her must have been traumatizing,” Hakuba explained, “so she must have blocked the event out. In any case, it’s the only possibility unless there are spare keys.”

“Monobear, confirm that. That there are no spare keys.”

Shockingly, Kirigiri was the one to demand this. From his seat, the bear tilted his head.

“Huh? Well, okay! There are no copies of any keys! Each is one-of-a-kind! I don’t need to speak in red for you to believe me, right?”

“There we go!” Sera exclaimed, “Ran-san opened the door to the killer and the victim. Then, the killer murdered the victim and left the room.”

“So… the killer has to be Kirigiri-san, right?” Takagi confirmed.

“She was the only one in the hall!” Conan said. In his mind, no other evidence was necessary. There was nowhere else the killer could have gone.

Kirigiri didn’t falter. She appeared to have no worries and instead began calmly asking questions.

“Why didn’t I enter my room straight afterwards? It’s right next door, after all. There would have been plenty of time for me to escape.”

“Y’ prob’ly wanted ta be there when someone left th’ room so y’ could keep an eye on th’ scene.”

Kirigiri seemed to ponder this possibility that Hattori proposed… and proceeded to wave it away.

“In that case… let’s talk about the order the victim and I entered the room in.”

Conan blinked. Well, it had to be… wait. Wait a minute. Oh no.

Kazuha thought hard about it. “Kirigiri-san was first, right? Ran-san woulda attacked if th’ first thing she saw was a suspicious person…”

“But… the victim had to be further in the room than Kirigiri to be killed like that,” Amuro said, “and it wasn’t a surprise attack, so could the victim have entered first?”

They had already established that the victim died from the force used when they hit the bolted window. The window couldn’t be moved, and it was towards the back of the room. It was close to where the bed was.

“Did everyone see the knife under the bed?” Hakuba asked. “It only appeared in the room after the murder according to Conan-kun, so either the killer or the victim brought it in. If it was Kirigiri-san, she would have killed the victim with it, correct? But the knife has no blood on it.”

Sonoko jumped on that, hoping she had a good idea: “Couldn’t you just wash off the blood?”

Hakuba shook his head. “There was no time for the culprit to do so. Additionally, there is no running water in the dormitories during the nighttime. It would be impossible.”

“So do you mean the victim brought it in?” Sato asked. Hakuba nodded.

“My theory is: Kirigiri-san entered first, with the victim behind her. Perhaps the victim planned to kill someone and used Kirigiri-san as a way to enter the room. But for whatever reason, she found an opportunity to attack and murder the victim before they could act. So she did.”

Takagi, who couldn’t exactly think at the same pace as the other detectives, was shocked. “So Kirigiri-san was working with the victim?” 

“She either helped them hide from tha beginning, or th’ victim threatened her. Perhaps with th’ knife... holdin’ it t’ her back as they entered th’ room… She managed ta get behind th’ victim, an’ pushed them into tha plate over th’ window. Th’ force’f tha’ action killed them.”

“It was a noble act, but… unfortunately, Kirigiri-san still committed murder.” Hakuba looked somewhat disappointed and regretful that things had turned out this way. Throughout all this, Kirigiri didn’t change her face once. But now…

“...First, I have to ask: does anyone know where that knife came from? The knife that the victim had…”

Sonoko huffed. “What? Didn’t it come from the kitchen?”

“Actually,” Koizumi said, with a strange and mysterious smile on her face, “that’s impossible. All the kitchen knives were accounted for. Kuroba-kun and I checked.”

“It didn’t look much like a kitchen knife anyways,” Sera said nonchalantly. “Doesn’t that mean the victim just brought it from… wherever they came from?”

Kirigiri shook her head. “It came from somewhere completely different, actually. Unless, you wish to tell me the victim had been hiding in Mouri-san’s room - or, Maizono Sayaka’s room - all this time.”

Something clicked with Conan and a few of the others. However, many were still left out of the loop.

“Wait a minute!” Takagi said, just as confused as many of the others in the room. “Why was that knife in Ran-kun’s room?”

“In Enoshima Junko’s room,” Kirigiri began, looking strangely satisfied, “Suzuki-san found a box filled with weaponry. There were a few knives, and they all had the same design. If we looked at the contents of that box, we would confirm the knife from this case and the knife from that box are one and the same. Along with Suzuki-san, Toyama-san, Mouri-san, Hattori-kun, Edogawa-kun, Hakuba-kun, and myself knew of the box’s existence. We moved it to Mouri-san’s room for safekeeping.”

“Ehh? You guys kept that a secret from us?” Sera whined, a bit offended. From her dramatization, it looked like she understood why, but was still upset that she was left out.

Conan caught Haibara glaring at him from across the room. Apparently she was unhappy about this too.

He could only imagine that Kirigiri wanted to throw discord among them as payback by revealing their secret. But he had to admit, this was a good point.

“...Kirigiri-san raises a good point,” Hakuba said, echoing Conan’s thoughts. He spoke slowly, still trying to process the information - perhaps his stance on the truth behind this case was wavering…?

“We can explain how the victim entered the room Conan-kun and Mouri-san are in, but we can’t use the same reasoning for the room next door - which was empty that night. I assume you two had the key, correct?”

“That’s right!” Conan chirped. “We even moved to that room right after we woke up and found the victim! So, there’s no way that someone else had the key!”

Ran wouldn’t bring a stranger to the other room. The stranger wouldn’t wait until they came back to Conan’s room to make a move. This made no sense.

“Uh, what if…” Kuroba scratched the back of his head and hummed, trying to fit the pieces together. “...What if, it wasn’t the victim that had the knife, but it was Kirigiri-san? Maybe she took it before that night - like when you found it, or when she stopped by Mouri-san’s room…”

“There were six of us watching her when we found it,” Hakuba said, “so that’s impossible. As for the latter…”

“Um, Kirigiri-san… has never been in my room.”

Ran still didn’t look very comfortable, but at least she was a bit more focused than before. 

“Aside from me, no one has… Not since I moved that box there, anyways…”

And Ran has slept in Conan’s room every night since then, so he knew she was telling the truth (not that he would have doubted her otherwise). No one had the opportunity to go in there, unless they found some alternate way in that didn’t involve Ran’s help.

Something gnawed at him. He met Kirigiri’s hard gaze, and realized she knew something. He didn’t know what that something was, but it probably wasn’t good news for him. While everyone else was puzzled, she opened her mouth to address the boy.

“Edogawa-kun. You witnessed something, didn’t you? Something I did that night, after we found the body…”

“Eh? Um…” He knew what she was talking about, but he wasn’t sure what it meant. He didn’t know what she took, after all.

“After Ran-neechan and I left the room, you went in and looked at the body… Ah, you took something, right? It was kind of silvery and shiny, I think…”

Conan hadn’t mentioned it because it had completely slipped his mind. So many other things in this case were more important, after all. So he and Kirigiri were the only ones that knew of that event. And the latter smiled ever-so-slightly, and it made the young detective’s stomach drop.

“The thing that I took… did it look like this?”

She retrieved this something from her pocket. A key. It certainly wasn’t one of the dorm keys. The most obvious point for that was that it had a Monobear face on it instead of a nametag.

“Maybe? ...Y-Yeah… That’s what it was…”

“Oh, there it is!” Monobear hopped from his seat and shimmied over to Kirigiri. “Thanks, Kirigiri-san! I’ll just be takin’ that back--”

As Monobear lunged for it, Kirigiri swerved out of the way and held onto the key tightly with one hand. The other hand was open palmed towards Monobear, signalling that she would definitely stop him if he tried anything.

“You took it off the board, and now you have put it back on.” Her voice was strong and confident. “Now this piece will be staying on the board. Understood?”

“Gulp…” After a moment’s hesitation, Monobear sighed and trudged back to his seat. “Fiiiine, finders keepers, I guess…”

Returning to the conversation at hand, Kirigiri looked back up at the group.

“Please recall: Monobear told us that no keys had copies. Each was one-of-a-kind. However, the wording implies there could be two different keys that open the same door. This key is very special - it can open any door in the school.”

The horror sunk in within moments. 

“As Edogawa-kun just testified, I took this from the victim. The victim had the key. Therefore, my presence - and Mouri-san’s - was unnecessary to open the door to either dorm room.”

“Why didn’t ya say so earlier?!” Hattori’s palms slammed down on the stand before him. “Why did ya take it from tha crime scene?!”

“This key was stolen from me when I entered the school. I wasn’t ready to have such a valuable object taken by the masterminds again. We already have an example of what they can do with it.”

“Kirigiri-san,” Sato began, trying to keep calm, “are you trying to imply the victim broke into the rooms using that key?”

The silver-haired youth said nothing, but she really didn’t need to. But a few people weren’t able to accept this turn of events, especially after she remained quiet for so long. Sonoko grit her teeth and turned to address Kirigiri.

“That doesn’t make you innocent! I mean, we don’t know what you were doing in the hall, right? You could have planned all this out! You could have... planted the key on the victim and made sure Conan-kun saw you take it!”

Kirigiri just stared at the crowd before her, thinking about what to say next. Finally--

“It was coincidence. I didn’t think there would be anyone in the hall at such an hour, so I left to do something.”

Koizumi smirked, clearly not buying into Kirigiri’s excuse. “Oh? Do what, if we may ask?”

“To dispose of something.”

“Where? In th’ incinerator tha’ I have tha key fer?”

Kirigiri shook her head calmly. “In the restroom. It was something written on paper. The rooms don’t have running water at night, so I was going to soak it into becoming illegible.”

Conan noticed a change in expression in Hakuba. It seemed he knew what it was, and now he was slowly starting to believe in Kirigiri again. 

“...Was it that ‘secret’ of yours?” The blond detective asked. “You didn’t want someone to find it… so you were going to destroy it that night.”

“Since I was standing in the corridor all night, I never had a chance to destroy it or put it away.” Kirigiri took a folded envelope out of her pocket. Her grip on it was firm, like she couldn’t trust the people around her to let her hold it.

“Could we see what it says?” Amuro asked with a smile. “I mean, it could very easily be orders from the mastermind, couldn’t it?”

Panic flickered in her eyes, and she didn’t say anything for a moment. At last, she looked at Ran.

“Mouri-san, I’ll let you read it. You can tell everyone whether it’s related to the murder or not.”

“M-Me…? Okay…” 

The two ladies stepped back from the circle and the envelope exchanged hands. Without a word, Ran took out a folded piece of paper, and shakily looked over it. It was a short message, because almost immediately she looked up with a somber look.

“I-I’m sorry, Kirigiri-san…”

“It’s fine. Please don’t worry about me.” She took the secret back and they both returned to the heat of the trial.

“Um, Kirigiri-san’s letter… It really is a secret… But I don’t think the masterminds could control her with something like that… Well, I don’t think so...”

“B-But!” Sonoko looked frantically between them, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Now we don’t have a suspect! Who killed the victim?!”

“Let’s start from th’ beginning!” Kazuha shouted. “Now tha’ we know about th’ key...!”

(A silence had blanketed many of the detectives. They saw it. They knew the truth. The truth that had been the most obvious answer from the beginning, but they didn’t accept it…!)

“The victim entered the room that Conan-kun and Ran-kun were sleeping in,” Takagi began, “and they brought a knife in with them. The knife came from Ran-kun’s room, which they also used the key to enter.”

“They were going to kill someone!” Sonoko reasoned, “So, they came close to the bed… um…”

“They tried to kill… me or Conan-kun…?”

Ran looked so torn as she tried to envision what happened. She really forgot, didn’t she? Conan cursed himself for not waking up earlier than her - maybe he could have stopped this from happening…!

“If they had access to the cameras,” Sera noted, “the target could have been either one of you. But… I have a feeling they didn’t realize you were in there until it was too late.”

“The masterminds seem to have extensive knowledge on us,” Hakuba said, “so why would they take the risk of attacking a karate champion?”

So that meant…

“He was trying to kill Conan-kun…? He was…?”

It almost looked like this discussion was painful for her. Ran’s eyes widened and she was struck with terror.

“The victim entered the room,” Amuro explained, slowly going over what must have happened, “and he accidentally woke you up, right, Ran-san?”

“I woke up and… he had the knife…?”

There were tears beginning to shed as she stared blankly at the returning memory. Conan tried to get her attention and calm her down, but it seemed no one could hear him.

“Y’ had no choice but t’ attack him… An’ in th’ darkness, ya hit him with enough force into th’ window…” 

“I-I was scared… I couldn’t let him hurt Conan-kun…! So I jumped up and kicked him…!”

“R-Ran-neechan…! Shhh, it’s okay, don’t worry, you didn’t do it…! Sh-She didn’t do it!”

Conan reached for Ran’s hand and squeezed it tight, raising his voice to address everyone else in the room.

“Why wouldn’t they know she was in there? They have cameras! It makes no sense!”

“It makes plenty of sense if you understand their thought process,” Kirigiri said. “I couldn’t tell you what the victim was thinking, but I’m certain the masterminds would have sent them to your room regardless of who was there.” She paused to think.

“...No. I think Mouri-san’s presence… is the reason they sent the victim there.”

“Huh?!” Sonoko exclaimed. Everyone was trying to make sense of what they were hearing. “Are you saying the masterminds wanted one of their own to die?”

Calm as ever, Kirigiri nodded. “They don’t care about who lives and who dies. They likely didn’t even inform the victim of Mouri-san’s presence. As long as it causes despair, they don’t care…”

Conan was struggling to find a way out of this. Nobody wanted to believe it, but the truth was slowly settling in. But Conan wouldn’t accept it. This couldn’t be the truth. Never.

“Ah! W-What about a seventeenth person?” The gears in the little boy’s head turned as he threw together this new theory. “I-It wasn’t possible earlier because we thought we needed someone Ran would-- Ran-neechan would know for someone to get into the room. But with that key, anyone could have gotten in! Maybe even an eighteenth person! Or a nineteenth!”

“Conan-kun, if someone left the room after the murder, Kirigiri-san would have seen them.”

Hakuba was trying to be understanding and gentle. Maybe it would have worked on a kid, but Conan wasn’t actually a child. He was a stubborn teenager named Shinichi Kudo.

“She could be lying!” Conan snapped. “She’s always lying to us! We keep trusting her word on things but we don’t have any proof--”

“I have one more piece of evidence.”

Silence. With wide eyes, Conan slowly focused on Kirigiri.

“...You’re full of it.”

The silver-haired girl smiled sadly. “You’re right. Rather, I… have plenty of evidence. I apologize, I’ve never been a good liar. But I only need one to reveal the absolute truth behind this case.”

No. This couldn’t be happening. No way…

“There’s something we all heard in the morning. We all heard something when we all first saw the body together as a group. What was it?”

“It was…” Kazuha started, “...tha’ announcement, right? Th’ one tha’ Monobear made…”

“Correct. But the body was discovered before that, wasn’t it? By Edogawa-kun, Mouri-san, and I. Why didn’t it go off then?”

“Perhaps a certain number of people need to discover the body?” Okiya suggested.

“So you’re saying,” Sera clarified, “that there can’t be an eighteenth person because the announcement would have went off after you, Conan-kun, and Ran-san found the body?”

Kirigiri was silent for a moment before turning to address Monobear.

“Tell them how many people need to discover a body before you play the announcement.”

“Ehh? Well…” The bear rubbed its paws together and looked away nervously.

“C-Couldn’t I just say… I held off out of the kindness of my heart? It was beary late, after all. I didn’t want to wake everyone up…!”

“You could say that…” Kirigiri had been calm for the entire trial, but it looked like Monobear’s antics were irritating her slightly. She knew how the trial was going to end, so she was unhappy about prolonging it any further.

“...You could say that only if it was the truth. Answer my question.”

Monobear whined. “Okay… The number of people who need to discover a body before I make my announcement… is three.”

“But that’s how many people there were!” Sonoko exclaimed, exasperated. “Can’t you count properly?”

“Hey! I’m very good at counting all the way to six! Two thumbs, two paws, two feet!” He crossed his arms and huffed. “Three is no problem for a bear like me!”

“I could have him tell you the other rule regarding the announcement,” Kirigiri said, “but I believe you’ll have an easier time accepting it if I use logic instead.”

Kyouko stood tall with her arms disappearing behind her back. Edogawa was staring at her from across the court, clearing wishing he could say something to turn this case around.

But Kyouko Kirigiri was not the murderer. She knew the answer to this case as soon as she walked into the room that night.

“Here are the facts: the announcement will be made once three people have discovered the body. Edogawa-kun, Mouri-san, and I make up three people. So why wasn’t it made?” She paused. “...Let us assume there truly was an eighteenth person who was the true culprit. That means… a minimum of four people discovered the body. How could this be? Does anyone have a suggestion?”

“...The culprit doesn’t count,” Amuro concluded. “If they did, they would technically be ‘discovering’ the body immediately after murdering them. So we would only need two extra people to find it.”

“Three people who are not the culprit must discover the body,” Kirigiri continued. “If a seventeenth person was the culprit, the announcement would have sounded when I entered the room. However, it did not. Therefore…”

Conan knew where this was going. Kirigiri was staring right at him. This was no longer between her and the fourteen of them. It was between her and him.

“...it is impossible for an umpteenth person to be involved with this crime!”

Conan refused to give up, even if the world was against him.

“The mastermind is the one who decides whether the announcement goes off or not! They could have acted that way to hide--”

Kyouko shook her head, raising her voice so she could drown out Edogawa’s voice. “There is no reason for them to do that. The mastermind wants us to despair and that’s impossible if they are unfair. We’ll only get angry and want to fight back. They want to break our spirit. An umpteenth person is impossible. The only suspects in this case are Conan Edogawa, Ran Mouri, and Kyouko Kirigiri. The culprit is, without a doubt, among these three.”

“N… No way…” Conan was grasping at straws that didn’t exist. But excuses kept tumbling out of his mouth anyways.

“You… You could have followed the victim when they entered…”

“The victim would have had to be facing me for the wound to be on the back of their head,” Kyouko said, reminding everyone of this fact. “The victim would have seen me attacking them. They had a knife in their hand. They would have killed me first.”

She paused, eyes darting away for just a moment. 

“...Besides, I don’t have reflexes or strength like Mouri-san. It would have been impossible for me to be the culprit.”

“You’re lying…!”

(Kyouko was lying. 
And she was sorry.)

“It is impossible for Kyouko Kirigiri to be the culprit,” Kyouko announced loudly. No one could argue this anymore.

“Now let’s look at Conan Edogawa.”

“Eh?” Conan’s eyes widened and he nervously examined the faces of those around him. Everyone was listening to what Kirigiri had to say. Any allies he had at the beginning were gone. It was too late.

“Could Edogawa-kun be the culprit?” Kirigiri asked. Without waiting for an answer, she shook her head. “Of course not. The victim had a knife and was going to kill someone. He does not have the strength to fight an adult-sized human. There was no time to set up a trick for an attack he never expected. Unless you want to claim that you were in cahoots with the masterminds and thus knew there would be an attack that night?”

Trapped. No way out. “I… N-No…”

Kirigiri nodded, satisfied. “Therefore, Conan Edogawa cannot be the culprit. By process of elimination… Ran Mouri, you must be the culprit.”

Everyone turned. Nobody wanted to face the truth, but there was nothing else to be said. Tears were endlessly trailing down Ran’s face as quiet sobs shook her frame.

“I… I…” She swallowed hard and stared down at the ground. “...K-Kirigiri-san is right… it was… me… I-I’m sorry…”

“D...Don’t be silly, Ran-neechan! Of course it wasn’t you… You’re just being framed…!”

“Conan-kun, it’s okay.” She smiled softly at him, holding back her tears so he wouldn’t have to worry. 

“I remember now. I did it. He came into the room and I saw some light reflect off the knife... “ She took a few breaths and her voice cracked. “I… I kicked him as hard as I could... to get him away from us… But I didn’t realize that I…!”

There was a loud yawn that begged for everyone’s attention.

“Okay! I think I’ve heard enough!” Monobear stretched and bounced in his seat ecstatically as he spoke, and the enthusiasm made everyone sick. 

“I think we should move onto the vote now, okay? Please use the switches in front of you to vote for the culprit! And don’t think of not voting, or else you’ll be punished!”

No. No way. There had to be some other answer…! If it went on like this, Ran would die, wouldn’t she…? 

At the very least, Shinichi had to make sure Ran could believe that she was innocent…!

“Upupu… Start the voting! I wonder… will you choose the right answer? Or the wrong one? Ahhh, I’m getting all fired up!”

Shinichi stared at the switch in front of him. No way. He had to stop this. He wouldn’t let Ran die. Not now, not ever. He had to… do something else…!

The roulette spun around and around…

...but no matter how much he willed it, it stopped on “Ran Mouri” and followed with disgustingly cheery fanfare.

“Well, whaddya know! You guys got it!” Monobear hopped off his chair and waddled over to soak in the thick layer of despair. Plenty of people were glaring at him because they knew this wasn’t right.

“Congratulations! I thought for sure you would all be wiped out on the first round because of Kirigiri-san! She knew the answer right from the beginning - isn’t that right? That’s my Kirigiri-san - such a smart cookie!”

Kirigiri said absolutely nothing to him. Instead, she walked over to Ran, who was doing her best to hold back her sobs.

“...I’m sorry it had to be like this. If there was another way…” Kyouko stopped with her mouth open and her eyes traveled away from the poor girl in front of her. 

Edogawa had tried so hard. Kyouko wished he could have come up with something to turn the case around, but there was no avoiding the truth.

“...If you had not been there, Edogawa-kun would have certainly been in the midst of a locked room murder. So… I must thank you. This is all incredibly unfair but… I hope you understand that I admire your strength. Don’t have any regrets - you did the only thing you could.” She paused, biting her lip.

“I promise to do my best too. I’ll… protect them all with my life. Don’t worry yourself any longer, okay…?”

Kyouko bowed and stepped back, unsure if she said too much. She knew nothing could be done, and she didn’t want to lie and say that everything would be okay. Ran nodded weakly, but Kyouko’s words didn’t seem to calm her - nor did they calm anyone else, for they all knew what was coming next. Monobear rubbed his paws together deviously, cackling quietly.

Even though they were at a dead end, Shinichi would do everything in his power to stop what was coming next.

“You’re not going to execute her, are you? It was in self-defense! You can’t…!”

“Murder is murder! Besides, she killed one of my most trusted and dependable men! My cause has been set back a whoooole bunch!”

“Ya sent him in there ta be killed!” Hattori shouted. “An’ we don’t even know where he came from! We never even knew who th’ victim was! It’s not fair t’ even have a trial fer someone we didn’t know th’ existence of!” 

Monobear stomped his feet childishly. “An unknown sixteenth member has always been in the script! It happened last time and it’ll happen again! How could I have a class reunion with only fifteen students? You’re all stupid if you didn’t see this coming!”

Shinichi found himself stepping between Monobear and Ran. He was so damn short right now, but if he could maybe get a good kick…!

“I won’t let you kill her! She doesn’t deserve it! In fact, no one deserves to be executed! Not even a cold-hearted killer! This is wrong!”

But whoever was controlling Monobear was fast, because suddenly the bear leaped forward and lifted Conan into the air by his neck. All he could do was flail uselessly and hope he didn’t suffocate.

“Little detective boy, don’t you ever shut up? I was going to make a joke that you misspelt the culprit’s name, but you were trying to sabotage the vote by picking someone different, weren’tcha? You would kill everyone here if it meant she could live, huh?”

The bear’s grip tightened.

“It was pretty fun to watch you and Kirigiri-san sabotage the court’s plans, but it’s over now! Justice needs to be served! I said I was fair, didn’t I?”

“L...Liar…”

“Ah?! How dare you! My mama taught us about the values of honesty! I’ve always been a bear of my word! Are you insulting her teachings?”

“What are you--?”

Razor sharp claws sprout from his free paw.

“You’re such a nuisance! Maybe I should kill you as well! Upupupupu!”

Without warning, a heel came down and smashed right into Monobear’s head. It caved in on itself and sparks shot out as the robot collapsed onto the ground. Conan fell to the floor in a short coughing fit, and towering above him was Ran Mouri.

“Conan-kun, are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah…”

Unfortunately, her act of courage was all in vain because another Monobear emerged from the shadows. And this one was even more angry than the last one.

“Grr! Violence against the headmaster is prohibited! We better move on to your punishment before you start breaking more rules and threatening the lives of everyone around us!”

“N-No!!”

“Don’t worry, Conan-kun.” Even at a moment like this, Ran crouched down to smile reassuringly at the young detective. Tears were forming at her eyes again, and she was shaking, but she was still putting on such a strong face…!

“You have to live, okay? You and everyone else have to get out of here!”

“R-Ran-neechan, you need to escape with us…!”

Ran’s voice was plagued by shaky sobs as she hugged Conan close. From somewhere in the room, Monobear’s booming announcer voice could be heard.

“I have prepared a very special punishment for our student stand-in, Ran Mouri!”

“I can’t go with you. It’s over… But you can get out, and when you do, I… need to you tell Shinichi--”

“Let’s give it our best! It’s punishment time!!”

“--that I’m really sorry.”

And right there, Conan Edogawa and Shinichi Kudo wanted to scream their forgiveness a thousand times over.

But it was too late.

-

GAME OVER

RAN MOURI HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY.
COMMENCING EXECUTION.