Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan.

Investigations

The explanation took about the better part of an hour, and they spent another thirty minutes answering the inspector's questions, with an additional ten minutes convincing him all of it was true. Even after that, he didn't seem completely convinced. So Dr. Agasa was asked to come in, and then out again to get all of Conan's discarded gadgets. (He later left in a huff when his services and his words did nothing to yield the inspector's confidence.) The watch Shinichi still had on his wrist—a souvenir of the event that changed all of their lives as well as a spiffy device to tell the time (with another more entertaining ability added to that)—whisked a confused officer off into slumber, the bowtie voice-changing mechanism was tested out by the inspector himself, and still there was no true evidence that what had happened had happened, although it was undeniable that all of Conan/Shinichi's victims mostly solved mysteries in the same manner—as if they were asleep. There was a sliver of a chance it could have all been coincidence, but as Shinichi had learned long ago, a sliver of a chance sometimes made the greatest difference. Finally Inspector Megure shook his head and sighed in resignation. "Fine, there's a chance your story is true, but I won't put any charges against Ai. First of all, to me, she still seems like a seven-year-old, at least to me—" at this, Ai scowled "—and putting her in jail just…well, it tugs at my conscience, and second of all, she did help you out by making the antidote to the APTX thing, so I suppose that's punishment enough."

Shinichi and Ran, who had each been secretly considering force-feeding the inspector the aforementioned pill to diminish his doubts, regardless of the fact that there wasn't any antidote left, sat up in surprise. "O-okay…" they said simultaneously.

"Besides, there's more important things to get to," Megure said, getting up and opening a door on the other side of the room. Gin and Vodka sat in identical chairs, and this time, neither coat nor hat shielded their features. Instead, they wore the classic uniforms of prisoners, not to mention handcuffs that tied their hands behind the back of the chairs they were confined in.

"Gentlemen—" Shinichi, Ran and Ai raised their eyebrows at the unlikely association "—we'd like to ask you a few questions," began Inspector Megure.

"Shoot," muttered Gin. "Although you might as well as hell not, since we're not giving one damn thing away."

Ran cringed. Even after he was caught, the icy tone and devil-may-care countenance of Gin still retained its superiority, yielding in no way to shame, or despair, or humility. He didn't seem capable of those feelings.

"We'll see…Gin, was it? We'll see," said Inspector Megure, taking a notepad from his pocket and flipping to a page. He ordered for Vodka to be taken back to his prison cell for questioning after Gin, and waited until the officers that had accompanied him into the prisons returned and left the room, leaving only Shinichi, Ran, Gin, Ai, and Inspector Megure.

"Let's get started, shall we?" He took a seat behind a desk and motioned for the others to sit themselves on the bench along the wall. "First of all, how long is it since you and Vodka were first admitted into the organization?"

"Long time," answered Gin curtly.

"Please specify."

"Twenty, thirty years, I guess. Vodka got drafted five years after I did." It was useless to tell whether he was lying or not just by his expression or tone alone.

"So then you must know a lot about the Kurozukume," observed the orange-attired policeman.

When Gin gave no answer, nor any indication that he had even heard Inspector Megure, but the latter plunged on, not even daunted in the least. "How exactly is it run?"

"There's a leader. And he does the running," replied Gin in the same fashion as he had to the questions before, curtly, answering them completely, yet not giving any extra information away nor speaking a word more than he had to.

"I see…" muttered Megure, in a tone that implied just the opposite. "And who is this leader?"

Gin snorted and didn't answer.

"All right then, don't," he said complacently before turning to the three who sat, looking bored, on the bench. "Ai, do you know the name of this leader?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," answered the girl whose feet didn't even touch the floor to the inspector. However, her eyes were planted on Gin. Them, along with the smirk upon her lips, suggested that she was enjoying herself. ". Or at least, that's what they—and I—called him."

"Rum!" He looked from Ai, to Gin, to the locked door, obviously thinking about Vodka. "Uh, why are they all named after alcohol?"

"That was what I was wondering about, too," said Ran.

"Ditto," said Shinichi.

Ai shrugged, her eyes still on Gin, whose face had twisted into a very obvious display of fury and shock at the seemingly seven-year-old girl. "You—you're…!"

"You mean Sherry? Miyano Shiiho? Yeah, that's me," replied the smirking girl in an offhanded manner; however, her apparent delight at Gin's turn of expression conveyed otherwise.

"I should've noticed…should've known. You look way too familiar to give anyone a sound mind. You took that pill, didn't you? And that turned you small, which is how you've managed to escape us for so

long! You were the one who invented something to turn that detective brat back into himself, weren't you?"

"Excuse me, but I think you're the one to be answering questions, not me," she replied, shifting her gaze from her sister's murderer to Inspector Megure. "Inspector, go on."

Shinichi briefly wondered how the policeman would feel about being bossed around by a seven-year-old, but he seemed to take it well enough.

"How many people are there in the organization?"

"Enough to bust me and Vodka out no problem," answered Gin without a second's hesitation.

"I was thinking about a number," Megure pointed out.

Gin shrugged. "Only our boss knows exactly how many there are."

Inspector Megure turned to Shinichi for confirmation, who turned to Ai, who shrugged again.

"Estimate."

"Fifty or so, I guess."

Inspector Megure scribbled something onto the notepad and asked, "Are they all around Tokyo, or are they in different parts of Honshu, too?"

"They're spread out across Japan, and some in other countries."

Megure set down his pen, his heavy mustache not quite hiding his scowl, and clasped his hands, gloved as always, over the notepad, glancing at Gin over them. "You know, Gin, if you give us any valuable information, you're let out of jail much earlier than otherwise, maybe even up to ten years in advance. So I'll ask you again: Where is your boss, this—" he glanced down at the notepad "—Rum guy?"

Gin didn't say anything. Right when everyone else in the room thought he wasn't going to answer, he said, "He's right here in Tokyo. There's a hotel on Beika Road—the Beika Hotel. Right now, the headquarters is at room 5079, and the office is in 5080."

Megure nodded, and from the way he grinned, he was obviously pleased with Gin's cooperation. "Thank you, and if all goes well, I'll see to it that you'll have an early dismissal."

Gin was taken away to his cell while Vodka entered the room and was chained to the same chair his former partner-in-crime had been contained in. Inspector Megure fired at him the exact same questions as he did Gin. It took another forty-five minutes or so to pry all the information from him, but they matched Gin's reasonably enough, and afterwards Vodka was taken away, too. Megure made sure that the footfalls of the prisoner and the officers accompanying him had died away before standing up and turning to Shinichi, Ran, and Ai. "Thanks to your work, kids, it seems we may be able to put a stop to the Kurozukume yet." Shinichi raised his eyebrows, Ran blinked, and Ai snorted at his term of address. After all it wasn't the policewho had invented the drug and counter-drug that had exposed the Kurozukume's illegal acts, nor was it they who caught two high-ranking agents of the aforementioned syndicate.

"I'll send out the majority of the Tokyo police force after them, and we'll finally put this case to rest," continued the inspector, not seeming to notice the others' reactions.

"Wait, Inspector Megure," said Shinichi, standing up. "I've a feeling you shouldn't do that."

Megure sighed and sat down in resignation. "And why not?"

"Gin mentioned before that there were enough people to bust them out of jail no problem, right? Well, if there is, why did he give you information on where Rum is after you said he would be out of jail plenty of years early? He could've been bluffing earlier, but isn't it strange that he would tell us Rum's whereabouts so readily?"

"But Kudo, both he and Vodka gave us the same answer. It couldn't have been made up," reasoned Megure in a tone that suggested he knew Shinichi was on to something. He only questioned to encourage the young detective further.

"True, but that could've been the last place Rum was. Remember, he's the leader of a syndicate, so he's got to move around a lot so as to not get caught, whether it's by the police or if it's by a company he's double-crossed or something. As to Gin and Vodka giving the same answer, maybe it was something they were told to say, just in case they might land themselves in a situation like this one." He jerked his thumb unnecessarily at the locked door leading to the prisons.

The hand went to his chin, his thumb and index finger forming the familiar sideways "L" shape the others knew so well. "It's just a hunch," he said to himself out loud "but maybe there's a reason for choosing the Beikan Hotel of all places. If you thought you were onto something, inspector, you said yourself you were going to send the majority of Tokyo's police force there. Maybe that would alert him, if there happens to be a bunch of police cars around the hotel, and he happened to see it, he would know something was up. Meaning that he, or someone working under him, would have to be near or at the Beikan Hotel. Anyone even moderately clever would try to use everything to his advantage. Everything. So the best way to go about this is to go there, and try to find some information about where he is, without alarming him."

Ran stood up. "Meaning you need an inconspicuous someone to go. And that would be me."

Shinichi turned sharply around. "No way."

Ran sighed. "Look, I said I'd help you bag every one of them in any way I can. And so far, I haven't done much."

"That's where you're wrong. If it wasn't for you, we would've never caught Gin and Vodka. Besides, you might get—"

"—hurt," Ran finished. "As you might."

An echo from last night. He sighed, shaking his head in resignation, drawing a laugh from Ran, who said, "Then it's settled."

"Ran, I'm coming with you," announced the only seated occupant of the room. "Besides, who's to suspect a little girl? I do look too much like…well, like myself, but just a little touch-up, and no one will notice." Ai forced a smile, and then realized that it was a true one. "Besides, the Kurozukume being what it is is partly my fault, and Kudo—" she glanced briefly at Shinichi, then turned back to Ran "—I give you my word that I'll protect Ran for you."

Both Shinichi and Ran turned scarlet, but they couldn't say a word in denial. There was a pause, and Ran finally said, hoping to avert the way the conversation was headed, "So…uh, when do we start?"

"I still can't see why I can't come," Shinichi said at the same time, with the same intention as Ran.

There was another lapse of silence. Ran broke it again, this time by herself, as she answered, "He-llo! You know, you are Kudo Shinichi. You were on TV before, never mind the newspaper about twenty times! If I were the leader of the Kurozukume, I, for one, would at least touch myself up on what's going on in the world."

"Well…remember that time on the roller coaster? No one recognized me then…"

"I'm not sure if you want to take that chance again, Shinichi," she returned, in a tone that implied the end of discussion.

"Okay, fine," he said. "But you guys watch out, 'kay?"

"We'd better," said Ai in an undertone.

"So when do we start?" asked Ran again.

"As soon as possible, if we can manage it," answered Shinichi, still a bit reluctant.

"We can." Ran headed for the door.