Kyouko Kirigiri was late again.
    
It seemed she couldn’t get a break in this situation. Something clearly kept her awake on the first night, and the second night she determinedly guarded the... crime scene. Conan didn’t know about the third night, but he heard from others that she woke up early. Was she desensitized to this situation enough that it allowed her to sleep peacefully? He wouldn’t admit to how fitful his sleep was to anyone. 

Could she possibly have gotten used to those types of deaths…?

And now it was the fifth day of their capture. According to Hakuba, Kirigiri had been up late to deal with something important, but he allegedly confirmed she was in her room that morning. He requested that no one bother her until she awoke, so naturally, all enquiries on the situation fell onto him. For a moment, he was strangely hushed about it, but it didn’t take long--

“Kirigiri-san spent last night in the library,” Hakuba revealed, with a hint of a smile, “reading through all the documents in the back room.”

“Why would she do that?!” Sonoko questioned. 

Sato picked it up from there with her two cents: “I imagine she wanted to confirm the contents of everything in there. From my understanding, it’s all very important.”

“So she was checking to make sure nothing was stolen?” Takagi asked. 

“That, and,” Sera said, “probably making sure nothing else would be stolen right under her nose in the future.” Kazuha regarded this with a worried expression.

“D’ya think th’ masterminds would do that? They prob’ly took wha’ they needed already, right?”

“The more likely scenario is,” Haibara said between sips of tea, “she doesn’t trust us to leave those secrets alone.”

An eerie silence fell over them. Perhaps some people wanted to protest and protect Kirigiri’s assumed opinions, but no one could really deny it. She was distant and clearly worked on her own schedule.

“Perhaps it’s a mixture of the two,” Koizumi concluded, flipping her hair back. “She thinks we may steal them. Which means she has reason to suspect there could be damning evidence against one or many of us in those files.”

With a little grin, she glanced at Kuroba. Conan didn’t really know what it meant, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Actually, Conan noticed the magician hadn’t been very emotive this morning. Curious, because even in some of the more serious situations, he was full of cheer. At the very least, he often would be straight-faced with a light in his eyes to show he was at least still among them.

But not now. He seemed distant - his body was here but his mind was far, far away. The small detective wondered if he had trouble sleeping or something strange happened to him. Or maybe if it had to do with the conversation at hand about Kirigiri.

Whatever it was, he was clearly closing off everyone else to it.

“Well, that means we don’t have to wait up for her, right?” Kuroba stood up, feigning nonchalance.

“In that case, I think I’ll head off now. There was something I wanted to check out, so I want to make sure I don’t forget about it. See ya!”

“Ah, Kuroba-kun, wait--!”

But Kuroba was already heading out the door, waving away whatever Hakuba had to say to him. The detective didn’t follow after him, so he was gone within seconds.

“I think I’ll be leaving too,” Koizumi announced as she rose from her chair. Unlike Kuroba, she was confident and proud during her departure and wore a strange smile. Conan was sure she was going to follow the other boy, considering how much she tried to attach herself to him, but after a grand farewell, she left the cafeteria and headed in the opposite direction. 

It didn’t take long for everyone else to trickle out as well. It left Conan with an uneasy feeling but he couldn’t figure out exactly why. He hoped this didn’t become routine: people leaving earlier than agreed upon. Maybe people would stop showing up, depending on how their situation played out.

He wanted to talk to Kirigiri about this. She went through this already. She was only being held back by herself now, so maybe she would offer answers if asked the right questions. 

...But that would have to wait. Because she wasn’t here.

For now, what did they have to do around here? There was the case of Chihiro Fujisaki, but the crime scene was in the ladies’ change room so he had no reliable way of exploring there without being yelled at by others. Sera and the others spent yesterday scouring the scene anyways, and today she mentioned she would be searching for information on Genocider Syo. 

Assumedly, that meant the secret library and the dorms were hotspots. Although, perhaps the latter was a bust considering no one had mentioned anything strange that could have related to a serial killer. 

Then again, he could see some people hiding that information from everyone else. 

Then there was that Junko Enoshima-- oh, they had to solve her case, didn’t they? In the gymnasium… Perhaps he would work on that today. There was so much he wanted to do, and who knew when it would be too late to do any of it…

As much as he didn’t want to believe someone here would kill someone... with how the masterminds handled the first case, he couldn’t tell for sure.

...So. Recap. He wanted to speak with Kirigiri at some point, but she was allegedly in her room. He also wanted to go through the files in that secret library, but Sera et al might be there for awhile. There were several people he wanted to talk to as well, but most of them effectively made themselves unavailable with an early exit or were preoccupied with Fujisaki’s case.

By process of elimination, that left him to work on the truth behind the murder of Junko Enoshima.

Conan wasn’t the last to leave the cafeteria, but he lingered more than necessary to avoid innocent questioning. Unfortunately, all the people he was interested in speaking with were among the first to leave, so he didn’t bother with requesting someone accompany him. Hattori would be working with Sera, so Conan would have the investigation all to himself. Not a bad thing - his solo moments where he wasn’t in a panic had been minimal here.

On the other hand, he didn’t forget the presence of the masterminds. They made an attack on him once (with foul play from all sides - a sixteenth person intending to kill him, and the masterminds clearly intending to kill their own agent), and they weren’t afraid to play dirty. That was another thing to ask Kirigiri about - was the previous mastermind like this? From what he could pick up, it seemed like that was not the case, but…

As expected, nobody was in the gymnasium that morning. No one followed him either, so he could immediately get to work.

It took a moment to find the blood - it was merely a few dry smudges by the stage that blended in relatively well with the wooden panels. No dying message like Maizono’s case, and there was no sign of a weapon from what was available to them. Junko Enoshima’s card didn’t offer a murder weapon. All Conan knew was that she died in the gymnasium from several stab wounds. The photo and the placement of the wounds led him to believe that Enoshima was pierced with spears. But… that only raised more questions.

Where the hell did the culprit get a spear in this place?

Recalling the picture of the wound locations, it was more likely that the weapon stabbed her from above. So that either meant the culprit was one of the taller students (Oogami or Oowada perhaps), or...

He looked up at the ceiling. It was darker among the rafters, and Conan doubted he would find some sort of spear dispenser without finding a way up there. But he would try his best by turning on the light from his watch and staring above for however long it took.

It actually took several minutes before it caught his eye. There it was. And if he squinted, he thought he could see some brown… dried blood, perhaps? It was likely genuine if it was from however long ago. These masterminds didn’t bother applying fresh blood, and the previous mastermind didn’t bother properly cleaning it. It looked like this mechanism was merely reset - or perhaps abandoned - without much thought. The spears might not have even been cleaned off, which would explain why the blood was all the way up there.

If this was the murder weapon, maybe Junko Enoshima was killed by the mastermind.

From what little Conan knew about the mastermind, he didn’t understand why they would do such a thing, but he had to consider all possibilities. Was, perhaps, Enoshima working with them? Did she do something to displease them? Someone set up this trap, so someone intended to use it. It was likely that Enoshima’s murder was premeditated. 

There was still one question, however. The one question that stopped him at every turn since the moment he woke up in that classroom.

Why?

In a normal case, motives were much easier to find. One could analyze behaviours and relationships. But this was something that happened in the past and behind soundproof walls. There were little to no motives to find, and it was difficult to study people he never knew. 

Perhaps he should start examining the dorms. All of them - not just Enoshima’s. But where could he start…?

“Oh, Conan-kun. This is a surprise.”

Entering the room was Subaru, who was making his way over to Conan’s location. It had been awhile, so the detective couldn’t imagine he followed him here. He must have had the same idea.

“Subaru-san! Are you investigating that Enoshima-neechan’s death too?”

He nodded, looking down at the blood before them, “Everyone else is preoccupied with the case of Fujisaki Chihiro and Genocider Syo, so I figured I would work on this one instead.”

“Me too! But…” Conan looked off to the side. He didn’t have to act like a kid in front of this person - at least not as much as usual. He still had to act for the cameras, after all. So he sobered up a little bit, just still kept a light tone in his voice.

“...There’s not much here. I’m pretty sure something suspicious happened to her, and that’s why there isn’t much information.”

“Do you think that, perhaps we’re dealing with the previous mastermind’s influence on this case?”

Ah. He was glad he wasn’t the only one to come to that conclusion. Conan wondered if it was a blessing or a curse to have a group of intelligent people like this, and he wondered how the actual class fared.

“Maybe.” He was tempted to continue and maybe hint at a theory or two, but he recalled an important question that he could only ask this person.

“Oh, um… You investigated the library with Amuro-san, right? Were you two in that secret library at the same time?”

“We were,” Subaru confirmed, glancing upwards for a moment. “Ah, might you have a flashlight on you?”

Conan turned the watch light back on and shined it at the spot he was sure he was looking for.

“Did either of you take any files away from there?”

“Not a single scrap. He was in my line of sight the entire time - thank you, that should be enough.” 

Conan turned off the light and hummed in satisfaction. That meant before Kirigiri read through all those documents, no one had the opportunity to take them. He recalled Subaru’s group was actually one of the last to arrive in the cafeteria, and before that morning’s search, no one should have known that room was even there (except Kirigiri, but it was unlikely she visited before that).

If anyone took anything, it would have been after this morning. Only Hakuba knew Kirigiri was at the library during the night, and soon he could probably ask her if anyone entered during that time…

“Thank you, Subaru-san!” Conan chirped, making his way out of the gym, “I’m done here! Good luck on your investigation!”

A “good luck” was offered in return, and Conan was in that trophy room once more. Now that this was settled, it was time to check on something else. Perhaps he would see if the resident Sleeping Beauty was available for a chat…