At last, they have the final clue. But will it be enough to make the killer confess to his deed?

There's only ONE ANSWER!

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DETECTIVE SCHOOL Q.

Chapter 11: A Killer is Caught

Kyu stood in front of them all, a strangely grim expression on his face.

"So we're all here."

Five sets of eyes looked at each other with suspicion and distrust.

Mei. Momoko. Musashi. Rei. And Mitsuru.

The four Class Q students were opposite them, and they were dead serious.

"What's this about?" asked Mei.

"Why did you call all of us here?" asked Momoko.

"We've called you all here to bring you some very important news," Ryuu began.

"As you all would know, three people have been murdered in the past few days. The first was Makoto. Shinji's death followed soon after. And then, Sumika was killed," said Meg.

"We all know that, some crazed wacko did all this, right?" said Mei carelessly.

"Wrong," said Kyu.

"It's the complete opposite. The murderer is, in fact, a very organized and through person," said Ryuu.

"The killer went through great lengths to cover his tracks," said Shizuko.

"He leaves messages on computers, taunting investigators, boasting of his intelligence," continued Meg.

"So, as you can understand, this isn't some insane piece of work. It's a labor of passion. Someone who holds something against the three victims," said Kyu.

"Right," said Ryuu. "The killer, whose traits we've just elaborated to you…is someone in this room."
The five students sitting opposite them suddenly reacted.

"How dare you say something like that!" said Mei.

"This is ridiculous," said Mitsuru.

"You've got to be joking," said Musashi.

"What's your proof?" said Rei.

"No way," said Momoko.

"Calm down," said Kyu.

"How can you expect us to calm down when you just accused all of us of having to do with these outrageous killings?" retorted Mei.

"And what do you have that proves that one of us is the murderer?" said Musashi.

"There are three clues!" said Kyu.

"The first clue was the state that we found Sumika's body in. The second was the note that she had clasped in her hand when she died. And the third clue was a piece of evidence that we found in Sumika's bedroom."

"Three clues. And there can only be ONE ANSWER!"

"Spare us the drama," said Mei in an annoyed tone, "and give us details."

"You want details?" Shizuko challenged. "Why don't you ask the killer yourself?"

"I would, sure, except for one thing. You haven't told us who it is," said Musashi, who had gone purple with impatience.

The four undercover detectives looked at each other knowingly.

Shizuko made a noise that sounded very much like "Tch."

"We know we're right," said Kyu, raising a finger to point.

"Isn't that right, MUSASHI?"

If it was even possible, Musashi's face went an even deeper shade of purple.

"How can you accuse me of this? What's your proof? I thought that the killer never left a trace when he killed!" Musashi protested, clenching his fists.

The rest of the Kokuryo High students backed away from him in disbelief.

"That's right," said Ryuu in his usual calm voice. "The killer never left a trace when it came to his planned killings. Like we said earlier, he was organized."

"But he made a very big mistake when he killed Sumika," said Shizuko. "His kill was too rushed. He had no time to plan, much less leave a message on her computer, like he always did at other murders."

"That mistake was our first clue," said Kyu. "In his haste to get away from his stabbing, he never bothered to check if his victim was alive."

"Which brings us to hint two: the note we found in Sumika's hand," said Meg.

Meg brought out the crime scene photograph which showed Sumika's "dying message".

"This is the note we found in her hand," said Meg.

Musashi smirked. "What's the big deal? Sumika screwed up, all she did was scribble some lines. What's the proof in that?"

"That's where you're wrong," said Shizuko, staring him down. "This is the first thing that incriminates you, Musashi."

"Oh yeah? Well, tell us then, how does this mark me as the killer?"

"That's what I'm doing," said Shizuko. "Observe."
She brought out a piece of paper. "There are three sets of these so-called meaningless scribbles. At first glance they all don't make sense. Take each line into consideration. If you put the first set of scribbles in this way…."

She held up the paper. "Does it make sense now?"
The students were stricken. "It's a Japanese character," said Rei with interest.

"Yes," said Shizuko. "And in the same way, when we do the same thing to the other lines…"

She wrote something else on the paper and held it up. "See? And you can probably guess what this spells."

Mei, Momoko, Mitsuru, and Rei looked at the paper, then stared at Musashi, whose face had been drained of the purple and now just looked pale.

"It says 'musashi'," said Momoko.

Shizuko nodded. "Basically what Sumika did is separate the brush strokes from one another, to confuse the killer if he ever came back to the scene to clean up his 'mess'."

"And if that isn't enough proof," said Ryuu, "There's our third clue."

"Right," said Kyu.

Meg took over this one. "On the day that Sumika was murdered, she called Shizuko on her cell phone, saying that she had a lead on the killer. Although we didn't know for sure who exactly she suspected, she was still killed that same day, possibly soon after she had told us about her idea."

"On that very afternoon, you, Musashi, ran right into Shizuko and me in the corridor, didn't you?"

"So what if I did?"

"You told us that you'd been running from Shinji's buddies. You told us that they'd been bullying you. In truth, you were running from the scene of the crime that you had just committed!"

"That's not true!" Musashi yelled.

"It is," said Shizuko.

"When you ran past us, I distinctly remember that you had one of your cufflinks missing. Shizuko noticed it as well," said Meg.

"And that was our third clue," said Kyu. "We returned to the crime scene when we realized what you had done. We looked for something, even the smallest shred of evidence."

"And we did find it," said Ryuu, holding up a plastic bag labeled "evidence".

"I believe this belongs to you," he said, dropping it on the table.

Inside the little bag was a small gold cufflink.

Musashi's eyes widened at the trinket. He swayed a little from his position, and then, fell to his knees in a sign of defeat.

"Fine...It's true. I killed them."
Musashi stared at his hands, which were shaking. "I killed them all…"

"Why, then, Musashi?" asked Kyu. "Why'd you do it?"
Musashi got a hold on the table, and then told his story.

"Makoto and I…we were going out."

"What!" cried Momoko. "But…that means…"

"Yes, it's true; I was the guy that no one knew about. No one knew that we were dating, all that everyone in this school knew was that Makoto had found some cool guy, maybe even one of the older college boys. No one ever even gave a thought that she could fall for an average guy like me."

"But then, something changed. Our dates became less frequent, she became colder towards me, and finally, things just…stopped. She never mentioned anything about breaking up yet, so I had no idea what was going on…I found out, too late, that she had another guy."
Mitsuru spoke up. "You mean…"

"Yeah, Mitsuru. I caught them before you did."
Mitsuru came up to him and slapped him, right on the cheek. "You idiot! Why didn't you tell me right away?"
Musashi didn't seem to care about the red slap mark on his face, but continued his story. "I was too shocked. And angry. I thought, how could she do this when she nas me? I loved her, wasn't that enough? Did she have to go off with some guy who thinks he's all that for dating more than half the girls' population in the school?"

"I didn't think anymore. I wanted revenge. I hated them all, all of them who think that they're better than everyone else just because they're popular, just because loads of people admire them…I wanted to show that even someone they never even noticed, someone they never even knew, could have power. Power that was stronger than all of them put together…I could take their lives!"

"Well, you've taken your last life, Musashi," said Ryuu coldly.

"Yeah, so you caught me. Whatever. I've done all I wanted anyway."

"Oh, sure, Musashi. You did what you wanted. It's great, really, you killing off the popular people in this school," said Shizuko sarcastically. "But here's something you don't know about them, the same way they don't know about you. They're just ordinary people, Musashi. Ordinary people, like you, who are forced to be in the spotlight for the sake of being known. You don't know just how much they suffer just to be in that spotlight. Their lives are open books. There's nothing that they can keep to themselves anymore. They don't have a private life, like you "unknown" people do. Don't you even think that even those popular people have faults, have weaknesses? Don't you think that even they think that your ordinary lives are something that they really want?"

Musashi looked up at her, shaking. "I…I never thought of it that way…"

Moments later, Detective Iwashizu and his officers took Musashi away. Musashi hung his head in shame and regret as the police car drove him away.

Shizuko watched them go, a strange expression on her face.

Rei came up behind her. "That was a nice speech back there."

Shizuko shook her head. "It was nothing. He had to know the real consequence of what he did."

"I think he learned more than that," said Rei. "By the way, I had to ask, why'd you call me in there with the rest of them?"

"Eh, I have a confession to make," said Shizuko with a sigh. "You were on my suspect list from the day I first met you."

"Why is that?" the blond boy asked, amused.

"I don't know. I thought you were suspicious."
Rei laughed. "I get that all the time."
Shizuko gave him a small smile. "Well, anyway…"

"Shizuko," a voice called.

She turned around. "Ryuu."
He came up to her. "Detective Iwashizu wants us to explain how we got involved in this case."

"Oh."

Rei raised an eyebrow in interest. "How did you guys get into this school just when the murders began?"
Shizuko looked at Ryuu for a second, and then grinned. "Well, you see…"

She and Ryuu brought out their DDS notebooks. "We're from DDS."
Rei choked. "What? DDS? The detective school run by Morihiko Dan?"

"Yeah," said Ryuu.

"No wonder you guys got this case so fast," said Rei in admiration.

The foursome returned to DDS later that day in high spirits.

"WE DID IT!" cried Kyu, dancing around. "All right!"
Meg was laughing at Kyu's antics. "We did a pretty great job, didn't we?"

"Yeah," said Shizuko, grinning.

Ryuu was wearing one of his rare smiles. "This was a pretty interesting case."

"I can't wait to get another one!" said Kyu, skipping along the hallway of the old school building.

As they opejned the door, Mr. Hongou was there to, er, greet them in his usual manner. "You're late. Sit down, all of you."
The four of them looked at each other and winced. "I hope we do get a case soon, at least we can get away from Mr. Hongou's torture, I mean, lessons," said Kyu.

Ryuu, Meg and Shizuko laughed, only to be quieted by Mr. Hongou's punch against the blackboard.

They all paid rapt attention to his lecture on trailing people…

However, Kyu seemed a bit less interested than usual, gazing out inot the sun that was shining outside their window.

I wonder if I'll ever become a real detective, he mused.

The sun danced merrily outside, shining its rays through the glass pane.

He looked at his classmates: Meg, with her amazing memory; Ryuu, who was one of the greatest in deductive reasoning; Kazuma, with his computer; and Kinta, their very own martial arts expert. And then, of course, there was their new member, Shizuko. Who knew what else she could do for them?

I'll never give up, though, he decided.

If a detective gives up, the case will remain unsolved!

-:owari:-

rants: FINALLY it's finished! Did you all like it? tell me! and, as always…

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