Detective Conan and Fugou Keiji Balance: Unlimited characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō and Tsutsui Yasutaka, respectively.
Warnings: Mild language
Unintentional One-Upmanship
By Taliya
"Hakase… I know you've been looking forwards to this for months, but why did I need to come along?" came the petulant voice of one six-year-old Edogawa Conan as he trailed the inventor into the convention center.
"Now, now, Shini—ah, Conan-kun," came Agasa Hiroshi's eager but placating voice as he led them to the registration line for the Japanese Inventors' Expo, "I wanted to see if there is anything that you might find useful yourself. It isn't all just for me."
Conan gave the professor a skeptical stare. "If you say so, Hakase."
The pair made it to the registration booth and obtained nametags to hang around their necks with elasticized cord. Conan glowered at the way his name badge dangled below his waist, and instead used the safety pin on the back to pin it to the lapel of his blue jacket. They passed a standing banner next to the exhibit hall listing the primary sponsors for the event. From the bottom, there is bronze, silver, gold, platinum—and at the top…
"Presenting Sponsor: Kanbe Conglomerate," Conan read. The duo plunged into the exhibit hall, where rows upon rows of booths are lined up, displaying all manner of interesting machinery and technology. A frigid blast of the air conditioner as they walked by a doorway made Conan infinitely glad that he had worn his blue jacket inside. Conan's eyes roved interestedly despite himself, and he docilely followed Hiroshi as the older man greeted acquaintances new and old, gushed over displays, and argued over potential usages. On multiple occasions he was dragged into the conversations, demonstrating a few of the items he had on him.
Both Conan and Agasa had agreed upon a set list of items to share at the expo. The detective had not wanted to reveal all of the professor's inventions for fear that the knowledge would somehow make it back to the ears of the Organization, and he knew that he needed every advantage he could get. The inventor had understood and agreed, even if he was disappointed that they would not be able to show off everything he had made for the de-aged teenaged sleuth.
The duo stopped at various booths, which were just curtain-partitioned spaces reserved for specific exhibitors to display their goods on tables with decorative skirting to hide their support struts. Conan ended up repeatedly showing off how his shoes, suspenders, and ball belt worked as the day went. Agasa had brought extra refill cartridges for the belt, though he had ensured that the ones he brought were not the ones containing the fireworks balls. There was no need to accidentally set the convention center on fire, after all.
The detective loitered near a booth displaying a rocket-powered scooter as he tuned out the friendly argument the inventor was having with another woman amidst the general susurrus of the convention participants. He both marveled at the fact that there was a literal rocket engine attached to the scooter and wondered why anyone had ever felt the need to attach a rocket engine to anything other than a rocket.
The skateboard Agasa had made for him was different—there were no rockets anywhere to be found, thank you very much.
The clack of heels approached, but Conan disregarded the noise and continued his perusal of the rocket engine. "Hello, bouya," came a sweet, female voice to his right. The detective turned to find a woman half-squatting beside him, hands on bent knees and expression kind. "I saw you earlier demonstrating the shoes and belt."
Conan grinned widely, emphasizing his physical age. "Hello nee-san, you liked them?"
The woman straightened as she nodded with a smile. "Very much so. Actually, I have a few questions, if you don't mind?"
"Mm," he hummed, glancing at the professor, who was now passionately gesticulating with his hands to demonstrate something. "Really, you should ask Agasa-hakase. He makes all of these things for me," he answered.
"I see—well, he seems a little busy at the moment," she said with a slight wince after taking a peek at what the man was doing. "Ah, where are my manners? Kanbe Suzue, pleased to meet you."
"Kanbe…?" he murmured, recognizing the name. "Oh, you're one of the sponsors! Edogawa Conan, pleased to meet you," he said with a bright smile.
Kanbe smiled. "Such a polite boy you are, Edogawa-kun. Would you mind if we sat over there?" she asked, pointing to the tables over in the refreshments area. "I would love to talk to you more about how you use Agasa-hakase's inventions."
"Ah, I'll let him know where I'll be first, if that is okay?"
"Of course," she said, smiling indulgently.
Conan pattered over to the inventor's side and nudged him. "Hakase?"
"Hm?" Agasa answered, eyes and most of his attention still on his debate partner.
The detective rolled his eyes at his neighbor's state of distraction. "I'm going to be over there talking to Kanbe-san, okay?"
Hiroshi absently hummed some sort of agreement before continuing his side of the raging fishing torpedo—he really did not want to know—argument.
Conan ambled back to Kanbe Suzue, curious as to what she wanted to ask him. "Thank you for waiting, Kanbe-san," he said as he approached her side.
She turned towards one of the rest areas near the refreshments, where round tables with chairs have been arranged for tired participants to rest their feet. "Not a problem. Would you like me to get you a drink or snack, since I plan on making myself a cup of tea?"
"Orange juice, if you wouldn't mind," he replied shyly.
The woman nodded and left, and Conan took the time alone to study her. Kanbe Suzue was a beautiful woman: she was tall slender with wide, striking silver eyes set in an oval face. Her long, black hair shone with a silk-like sheen, and her clothing, a tasteful khaki belted affair, screamed of understated wealth. From her small clutch, she produced a bag of what he assumed to be tea, tossing it into her cup before filling it with hot water. She snagged a handful of napkins and a bottle of iced orange juice from the bin full of various fruit juices on her way back.
"Here," she said, setting the bottle down before him with the napkins so that he could wipe away the condensation.
"Thank you," he said, popping the top and taking a sip. He waited until she had taken a sip of her own beverage to ask, "So what did you want to ask me about?"
Kanbe Suzue gracefully clasped her hands on the edge of the table. "I would like to ask specifically about your glasses, Edogawa-kun."
Conan frowned. "My glasses?"
"Yes," the woman confirmed, "I've never seen a pair quite like yours."
"I'm not sure what you mean, Kanbe-san," he replied, abruptly wary of her interest.
Kanbe smiled gently even as she leaned slightly forwards to better study them. Conan, in response, leaned backwards to keep her from decreasing the distance between them. "The frames and lenses are thicker than what I'd expect for a child your age, and the curvature of the lenses are wrong for someone with corrective needs—rather, they appear as though there is no optical correction at all." She moved backwards after registering his unease, and instead gestured a delicate hand in his direction.
"Apologies for making you nervous, but I'm just so curious. Would you mind if I took a look at them?"
"Ah, sure," he reluctantly agreed with a nervous chuckle escaping him. He lifted them off his face and placed the accessory in her waiting palm.
An expression of shock crossed her features. "They're… heavier than I expected," she remarked as she brought the frames up to her face for closer perusal. "What are they made of? Wha—!" She yelped, startled as she somehow pressed the button to activate the tracking grid on the left lens. "Oh, wow!" she breathed, holding the glasses up to better peer through the digital overlay. "What is—?"
Conan snatched the frames from her and deactivated the tracking grid, pressing them back onto his face with more force than necessary. "It's nothing—!" he said with an anxious giggle.
"It didn't look like nothing, Edogawa-kun," she refuted with a mild pout at having the glasses snatched so rudely from her.
"It's a game Hakase installed on the lens!" the miniature detective fibbed, "It helps with my map reading skills since I always get lost!"
Kanbe cocked her head in interest. "Oh? How does it work?"
Deciding that if he was going to run with the game idea, he might as well show her the display. "The game sets a marker on the lens, and I have to navigate to it." He activated the tracking capability once more and pointed at a location on the overlay to demonstrate.
"Sounds like an impressive amount to tech you have hidden away in your glasses, and to be able to read maps at your age!" she commented with a smile. "How old are you?"
Conan upped the childishness of his acting. "Six! And Hakase does his best to help me. The games make learning more fun."
Kanbe's warm smile was indulgent in addition to curious. "Edogawa-kun, would you mind if I showed your glasses to a relative of mine?"
"Eh? I—" he began, but he was unable to answer as she had already begun speaking to… nobody?
"Daisuke-sama," she said, pressing fingers to her sole left earring, "I'm in the back refreshments area. I have something I would like to show you." She let go of her ear, and Conan guessed that her earring contained some sort of microphone communicator within. Hakase would love to see that. "He'll be here soon."
Conan nervously chuckled at the idea of meeting whoever it was she had called. "So…" he began uneasily, trying to make conversation, "who were you spe—"
A series of small but concussive explosions came from the exhibitors' section of the floor, along with alarmed shouts. Conan flinched as the speaker built into the one of the arms of his glasses screeched with some sort of radio feedback, and he tore his spectacles off to relieve his ear of the unbearable static. He vaguely noticed that Kanbe had clapped a hand over her earring as if in similar pain.
There was a small but clearly visible plume of black smoke that could be seen over the tops of the exhibition partitions, and he wondered if that would set off the fire alarm and sprinklers. The detective cautiously set his glasses back on his nose, relieved to find that the radio static was gone.
"Oh dear…" the woman murmured, clearly worried at the sight.
Conan was about to jump out of his chair to go and inspect what had happened, but paused as a voice called out above the ruckus. "Sorry! Sorry, it was a malfunction!" Relieved that there was apparently no emergency that he needed to scamper off to, he settled back into his seat. The haze was also not enough of an incentive to set off the sprinklers, so Conan happily considered it a potential disaster successfully thwarted.
Kanbe returned her attention to him. "Well, I don't think anyone was expecting that. You were—sorry, excuse me," she apologized and cut herself off, eyes distant as her attention was drawn elsewhere. Her left hand went back up to her earring, confirming Conan's suspicions about it being a communication device. "Yes—understood." Expression more relaxed, she grinned. "Apologies once again, you were saying?"
"Who was that and how did you talk?" he asked, rewording his question.
"Ah. That was Kanbe Daisuke, the one I wanted you to meet," she readily replied.
Conan blinked. "Oh. Do you own the Kanbe Conglomerate?"
She huffed in amusement. "Ah, no. Daisuke does. He's the heir, though he actually already runs it."
"What do you do then, Kanbe-san?"
"I help Daisuke with whatever he needs," she answered vaguely. "There really isn't a particular role that I play."
The detective frowned in confusion. "I see…" he said, though his tone clearly suggested that he did not and that he was not overly pleased with the fuzziness of her response.
"Do you normally wear bowties?" she asked, derailing the previous conversation.
"Sometimes yes, sometimes no," he said, not liking her interest. How was she picking out all of the professor's gadgets? Were they really that obvious? "Why?"
Kanbe shook her head. "It's not an accessory I see often on young men your age."
The detective grinned widely, again emphasizing his apparent age. "It just goes with this outfit!"
"So it does," she agreed, "and it looks like its seen quite a few adventures considering how it's lightly fraying on one end."
"It is?" he asked, blinking. Were the electronics on the back exposed?
The woman leaned forwards to point at a corner. "Yes, on this si—"
"Ah!" he interrupted, very obviously pulling away from her hand. "I see, I see!"
"I'm sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?" Kanbe asked, leaning back once again and deliberately placing her hands in her lap as she frowned. "I have to admit I'm not used to talking to children your age."
Conan immediately felt terrible for treating her so rudely. "It's okay," he admitted, able to relate. "Sometimes I don't know how to talk to people my age either." His eyes widened as he registered what he had thoughtlessly mumbled aloud.
Kanbe was staring at him curiously. "What—"
"Suzue." An exceptionally well-dressed man strode up to them clad in a pressed, black monochrome three-piece suit. His hair was slicked away from his face, giving a clear view of his silver eyes. Along with how his facial structures were similar to the woman before him, it was clear that he was somehow related to her.
"Ah, Daisuke-sama," Kanbe greeted as she stood, and Conan hopped off his chair as well. "I wanted to you meet Edogawa Conan-kun."
"Hello," he said, "pleased to meet you."
"Pleased to meet you. I am Kanbe Daisuke," he said succinctly, and Conan realized the man before him was the heir to the Kanbe Conglomerate. "Suzue, you mentioned something to show me?" Daisuke asked, his manner abrupt and distant.
Suzue smiled. "Oh, yes. Would you mind, Edogawa-kun?" she asked, once again gesturing to his glasses.
Feeling it would probably not go over well to refuse, he hesitantly agreed and activated the tracking capability. "I—ah, sure, okay."
"Edogawa-kun has a game built into his glasses that helps him with navigation practice," she explained as she handed the glasses over to Daisuke for inspection.
"I see," he muttered, scrutinizing the display on the left lens.
"Ah, there you are Conan-kun!"
Agasa's voice was a relief to hear. "Hakase!"
Suzue's face lit up. "So, you're the professor that Edogawa-kun was referring to!"
"I—yes?" the mustached man answered, mildly confused by the recognition.
"Kanbe Suzue, pleased to meet you," she said, immediately introducing herself.
"Agasa Hiroshi, pleased to meet you," he said in kind.
"Kanbe Daisuke," the heir introduced curtly. "These glasses are… interesting."
Agasa shot Conan a quick, worried glance. "Oh, yes… I made them specifically for Conan-kun."
"Why did you decide not to display them?" Suzue asked, puzzled. "The fact that you managed to fit GPS hardware and software into frames that look barely larger than normal is quite impressive."
"Oh, Hakase can't afford a booth," Conan blurted out before the professor could get in a word.
Agasa slightly cringed. "Oi oi, Conan-kun…"
Suzue looked disappointed. "Something like this we would have very happily sponsored."
"Well, it does more than just tracking…" the professor said with a nervous laugh.
"Tracking…?" Daisuke murmured, his interest piqued.
"Hakase!" Conan hissed sharply, knowing that the mustached man had unintentionally caught him out on his game lie to Suzue.
The event sponsor nodded. "Please expound."
Flustered by Conan's agitated glare, Agasa hesitantly explained. "I… put in a tracking mechanism that can follow a signal within a twenty-kilometer radius into Conan-kun's glasses. It helps because Conan-kun here is a detective and he uses it to track suspects."
Suzue was kind enough to ignore his lie about the game. "That's amazing!" she said instead, clapping her hands together in delight.
Daisuke was nodding as well. "Interesting What else does it do?"
Conan could only shrug helplessly as the cat was let out of the bag. "It can listen in on conversations with the associated microphone that I built for it, and it also has telescopic and night vision capabilities," the inventor admitted with an apologetic glance.
"That's incredible!" Suzue was visibly impressed. "Daisuke-sama's sunglasses are capable of primarily identification and monitoring of people within immediate eyesight through access to HEUSC."
Both non-Kanbes sent her a quizzical look. "HEUSC?" Conan asked.
"HEUSC is an AI that allows us to access identification information, amongst other things. Incredibly useful in a pinch," she explained.
"That does sound useful," Agasa mumbled to himself.
"What other things have you invented?" Daisuke asked, inserting himself back into the conversation.
"Agasa-san had Edogawa-kun demonstrating his power-enhancing sneakers, elasticity suspenders, and ball-dispensing belt earlier," Suzue reported.
Daisuke frowned at the detective. "And the watch?"
"What?" Conan asked, confused.
"It seems a bit… bulky for one so young," he said, eyes narrowed on the device on Conan's wrist.
"A-All it does is tell time, Kanbe-san!" he sputtered, pitching his voice and expression to forcefully shove the fact that he was very much a child in their faces. "Promise!"
Daisuke hummed. "If you wouldn't mind, I would still like to take a loo—"
Conan felt utterly wretched for admitting—if only to himself—that the sound of someone screaming in terror was a relief from the discomfiting scrutiny of the Kanbes. He snapped his head in the direction the scream came from and ran.
He really should not have believed that his luck regarding avoiding catastrophes would hold true for once.
Daisuke followed the boy—Edogawa Conan—at a brisk but still sedate pace towards the origin of the scream, though he had to wonder what possessed the child to run towards a scream, as opposed to away. Though… the mustached inventor, Agasa Hiroshi, had mentioned the boy being a… detective…? At his age?
There was a small crowd gathering around one of the booths on the fringes of the exhibition area. Edogawa dove straight into the crowd, nudging his way between legs to get inside. Daisuke quietly pushed his way through with polite apologies.
He had just broken through the inner circle of people when Edogawa's high, boyish voice demanded, "Block all the exits! No one leaves this room!"
It readily became apparent why he had shouted the orders because behind the table where the exhibitor usually sat were the legs of someone lying on the ground. The body had crumpled off one of the two provided chairs and was halfway under the table, from what he could tell. He pressed the back of his earring. "HEUSC, activate the building's lockdown sequence."
"Initiating lockdown sequence," the AI replied, and the building's mechanical gates unrolled themselves from the ceiling to physically barricade every door with access to the outside. Yells of surprise echoed down the outer hallways, along with the weighty slams of metal on concrete flooring.
The Kanbe heir had not quite believed the inventor when he had mentioned Edogawa being a detective, but this—this was so far beyond any expectations he had held regarding the boy. He rounded the table to stand inside the compartmentalized exhibitor's space, pulling out his phone as he did so. He intended to get in contact with Katou so that the MCPTF assistant inspector could call in officers from Division One, but was surprised to find Edogawa already on the phone with… an Inspector Megure? He paused in his dialing to listen in.
"—ace-up and halfway underneath one of the exhibition tables." He watched with a furrowed brow as the boy got on his hands and knees and crawled under the table skirt like a little heathen. "There's no smell of almonds so he wasn't poisoned with cyanide, though he does have some foam coming from his mouth."
… who is this child that knows what cyanide smells like…?
Daisuke squatted and pulled the table skirt up so that he could see the boy, subtly sniffing for that almandine scent even though he knew he would not be able to detect it. Edogawa was taking pictures with his phone, nonchalantly documenting the body while there was little disturbance to the site as he continued to communicate with this Inspector Megure in a low volume on speakerphone. Daisuke watched silently as the child worked while mentally comparing him to what the dirty blond man he oftentimes called a partner would have done in the same situation. He found that he imagined the justice-driven detective would have done the exact same thing as the boy, though it was somewhat difficult to envision since he had never seen Katou on a murder investigation site.
He slid his sunglasses on to begin cataloging details, though the dimness of the lenses combined with the darkness beneath the table made seeing anything rather difficult. HEUSC was able to visually identify the victim as Taniguchi Akihiko, age thirty-two, from Saitama. The man probably had a broken nose, possibly even missing teeth, based on how the area around his nose and mouth were coated in red. That there had also been a bloody stain on the edge of the table made it seem as though he had fallen and smashed his face on the corner before he had hit the ground. His nametag was face down but off to the side by his shoulder; the orange ribbon adhered to the bottom confirmed that he was an exhibitor.
"HEUSC, identify who was registered to this booth," he muttered.
The automated butler answered, "Booth thirty-five. Registrant: Taniguchi Akihiko. Invention: Olfactory VR Immersion System."
Daisuke watched as blue eyes—sharper and far less nervous than he had seen previously during their conversation—studied the body with eagle-eyed intensity. The photographs were emailed to the inspector—how and why did he even have Division One officers' contacts in his address book?—and he finished up his call and hung up. It was only then that Edogawa noticed his presence.
"Megure-keibu said he and his team are twenty minutes out," he said with a childishness that Daisuke was almost entirely certain was a façade. The way he had rattled out his observations on the phone proved that there was a mind behind those overly large glasses, and one that he would do well to keep tabs on. "You should try to stay back or you might contaminate the scene," he said apologetically.
The Kanbe heir found it more than a little insulting to be talked down to by a child. He tugged the tactical wallet from his inner coat pocket and flashed his badge at the boy. "I'm also an inspector," he said somewhat cattily as he snapped it closed and replaced it. "Something which you are not."
Edogawa's gusty sigh drifted from the dim underside of the covered table. "I wasn't trying to antagonize you, Kanbe-san. I'm just trying to follow crime scene procedure, and I've never seen you at a crime scene before."
"Tell me your observations thus far," he commanded instead after a moment of hesitation. He had found that he could neither refute the boy's logic, nor could he snap at the boy for giving him fair warning. Edogawa honestly had not known that he was part of the police, if the way he had spoken on the phone was any sort of proof of his familiarity with some portion of Division One. He tugged his sunglasses off in building annoyance.
"No cyanide poisoning, though—" The boy clicked on a flashlight that shone through the face of his watch—validation flooded through Daisuke as his suspicions regarding the watch was confirmed—and grazed it over Taniguchi's body slowly, like a spotlight searching for an escaped convict. The light stopped over Taniguchi's chest, and Edogawa squinted and frowned as he studied the white fabric of the dress shirt, mumbling quietly to himself, "Is that—?"
The event sponsor hesitated a moment before awkwardly shuffling—he adamantly refused to get on his hands and knees and crawl like an uncouth barbarian—under the table to get a better look at what had caught Edogawa's attention. There were creases on the front of the shirt that were rather bizarre for a dress shirt, as they were chaotic and centered over the man's heart. Daisuke hummed as he noticed a slight color change in the white of the fabric, and he narrowed his eyes as he realized the color difference resolved itself into a faint, sweat-dampened handprint.
"Chest pain," he inferred, "possibly a heart attack?"
"Not a heart attack," Edogawa swiftly negated, though his expression indicated he was focused inwardly on his own analyses of the evidence and therefore not really paying any attention to Daisuke. "Most heart attack victims do not foam at the mouth unless he was also having seizures at the same time."
Irritation flared in his chest at the boy's instant rejection of his hypothesis, though he ruthlessly quashed the emotion. Edogawa was a child. Daisuke could more than control his temper.
"Do you know who he is?" Edogawa asked, the lenses of his glasses glinting from the light that managed to make it under the table.
"Taniguchi Akihiko. He's the exhibitor registered to this booth," he stated.
The boy nodded and began crawling towards him. The pair emerged from the table to a rather large crowd. "Can anyone identify this man?" Edogawa called out, despite the fact that Daisuke had just informed him of the victim's identity. He resisted the desire to do something to the boy in aggravation.
There was a handful within the spectators that claimed they could, and they were promptly herded to the front. Daisuke watched as Edogawa, with Agasa's help, skillfully cornered the three men into expressing some form of resentment towards the late Taniguchi and realized that suddenly, he had three potential perpetrators—all of which, coincidentally enough, were also exhibitors at the convention. The Kanbe heir also abruptly comprehended that Edogawa, for all of his lack of maturity as far as physical age was concerned, was far from a slouch as a detective in general.
Daisuke's estimation of the boy grudgingly went up.
Between himself, Suzue, Edogawa, and Agasa, they created a wide perimeter around booth thirty-five, excluding the three suspects. It would give the Division One officers the space needed to do their job, and after they were done creating the invisible barrier, they waited for the policemen to show up.
Or rather, Daisuke utilized HEUSC to look up published papers, legal patents, and email conversations regarding Taniguchi's work while Edogawa squeezed himself into a corner of the exhibition booth and studied the layout from his vantage point, his head swiveling and craning this way and that. The Kanbe heir was not quite sure what the child found so interesting about the ceiling; he even went so far as to use some capability of his glasses to gaze at something in the struts before smirking and then disappearing into the crowd.
Daisuke wondered what it was that had caught the boy's attention and had never wanted a pair of glasses so badly—especially since his own seemed so woefully, technologically inadequate in comparison. He found that he did not enjoy the sourness of the feeling that was curdling in his stomach.
HEUSC informed him of Division One's arrival, and he had the AI allow the officers' entry through the main entrance to the convention hall. A trio of policemen entered the exhibit hall, two men and one woman, along with a small team of crime scene investigators.
"Megure-keibu!" Edogawa greeted, having heard of the officers' arrival. "Takagi-keiji, Satou-keiji!"
"Conan-kun!" the trio responded in various states of worry.
"Why am I not surprised that you are here?" the portly mustached one sighed rhetorically, to which Edogawa replied with a rueful giggle. He flashed his badge at the crowd. "Megure Juuzo, inspector for the Division One Homicide Unit."
Daisuke revealed his own badge. "Kanbe Daisuke, Modern Crime Prevention Task Force inspector."
"I've heard about you, Kanbe-san," said the woman. She smiled politely as she introduced herself. "Satou Miwako, assistant inspector."
"Takagi Wataru, sergeant," said the other man.
Megure cleared his throat. "What do we have?"
The event sponsor proceeded to introduce them to the crime scene, with the forensics team quickly setting in to take pictures, dust for fingerprints, and other assorted evidence collection tasks as the three homicide detectives took their turns evaluating the victim under the table. "Thus far we have no conclusive evidence regarding how Taniguchi-san died," Daisuke said after Takagi had pulled himself up to his feet. "I suggested heart attack, but Edogawa-kun believes Taniguchi-san's death was caused by something else."
"Something else?" Satou repeated, frowning. "The foam on his lips would indicate that it was not heart attack—drug induced, perhaps?"
"It's not by heart attack," Agasa stated suddenly from where he stood along the front fringes of the group of spectators. Daisuke was surprised to notice that the inventor looked somewhat flustered as all attention turned to him. The man coughed to gain a moment to collect himself, then gestured to the three that had been singled out earlier and introduced each of them, along with the reasons why they each had held some sort of grudge towards the victim.
The three suspects—Ogasawara Tsuyoshi, Sando Bunkou, and Kinomoto Rokuro—burst out into accusations towards not only Taniguchi, but towards each other, with their primary arguments being idea theft. Apparently the three, along with Taniguchi, had been a quartet of close friends back when they had attended university. Bickering over ideas and patents had led to them splitting apart, as each accused the other of stealing their ideas.
"Enough," Megure said, silencing them. Turning to Takagi and Satou, he questioned, "Well?"
The two officers gave their observations regarding the suspects, which just about fit what Daisuke had thought himself. Each of them had a seemingly valid reason to want to off Taniguchi, but all of them had solid alibis. Something just was not adding up.
"Would you mind if we checked Taniguchi-san's back?" Edogawa asked, and Daisuke took a moment to wonder where the boy, who had up until this point been rather underfoot pursuing his own investigation, had run off to before. "The fact that he hit his head on the table hard enough to bleed before falling might indicate that he might have been pushed by something."
Megure consented, and after moving the table far enough away to be clear of the body, Wataru carefully flipped Taniguchi's body over. Daisuke shot Edogawa a narrow-eyed glance as something like triumph flitted across the boy's expression. Taniguchi sported a small patch of barely dried blood on his upper back, indicating he had been shot by an exceedingly small or thin object. How had he known?
There was more discussion between the three homicide detectives, sprinkled in with denials from the suspects when questioned. Daisuke had to privately admit to himself that he honestly felt a little out of his depth; based on the facts that he knew, there was not enough evidence to arrest any one of them. And while he normally just wrote a check to get the culprit to confess, a premeditated murder like this was something he knew he could not erase with money. Here, money was not the motivating factor—and here, his unlimited balance was… not the most useful thing in his possession, for once.
That did not bother him overly much.
The fact that Edogawa was, to his mind, vastly outstripping him in terms of being a skillful detective, however…
That knowledge rankled.
A lot.
… which did not even take into consideration the various—and rather sophisticated—devices the boy had at his disposal.
Daisuke forcefully inhaled and exhaled slowly, momentarily ignoring how Satou and Takagi were arguing about something. He would deal with his newfound feelings of inadequacy later. Right now, there was a case to solve.
"Megure-keibu, If I may," Agasa said, interrupting the increasingly heated discussion between the three homicide investigators, "I might have some light to shed on how the crime was committed."
"Agasa-san," the inspector said with a small sigh. "Go ahead."
Agasa cleared his throat before he began. "I suppose it helps that I, too, am an inventor, as the trick involved in this case required inventing a device almost specifically for the purpose of killing Taniguchi-san." Everyone was silent, clearly interested in what insights the mustached man had to offer. "First we must begin with the distraction that occurred while Taniguchi-san was being murdered. I'm sure everyone noticed the series of explosions that occurred in the exhibit hall ten minutes ago?"
A murmur went through the crowd, for everyone in attendance had heard or seen the series of cacophonous bangs and the resultant smoke column. "The malfunctioning invention, a 'Self-Basting Chicken Toaster', let out a succession of miniature explosions and coughed up a decent amount of smoke, though the small fire it started was quickly contained. The malfunction was actually orchestrated with the intention of covering up the moment in which Taniguchi Akihiko-san was murdered because during the commotion, Taniguchi-san was shot in the back with a tranquilizer dart."
"So the spot of blood—!" Satou gasped in realization, and Daisuke's thoughts rapidly followed along the same path. If there had been a detonation of a gun, the noises from the malfunctioning invention would have cleverly covered it up.
Agasa nodded. "The malfunction also had another function: it sent out a radio signal that triggered the gun remotely."
"It did!" Edogawa chirped, and Daisuke almost did a doubletake at the boy's appearance. Where had he disappeared to since Taniguchi had been flipped over? "Kanbe Suzue-san can confirm that, right, Kanbe-san?" he asked, addressing Suzue.
Suzue blinked before nodding. "My earring is a two-way radio connecting me to an AI that helps manage the Kanbe household. There was a loud burst of static right at the time of the malfunction."
Daisuke knew precisely what Suzue had felt, for his earring had done the same to him. It had nearly made him rip the rounded stud from his earlobe, torn flesh be damned. His eyes flitted to the boy once more, and he wondered if he, too, had been affected by the static if the professor's words regarding the glasses' technology held true. It was interesting to note that the boy made no reference to his own likely similar auditory troubles.
"Having said that," Agasa continued, "I posit that the radio signal triggered the gun holding the tranquilizer dart to shoot. Since there was no one holding the gun, something had to keep the weapon from flying off due to recoil—which meant a secondary device was put into place to absorb the shock of the recoil. The force of the recoil then triggered another mechanism attached to a pulley system to whisk the gun, recoil absorber, and the tranquilizer dart itself away so that it would appear as though Taniguchi-san had simply keeled over dead."
Takagi frowned. "But what kind of drug would kill that quickly…?"
"Secretions from poison dart frogs, high concentrations of potassium chloride, epinephrine… the fact that the dart targeted the man's heart points to either potassium chloride or epinephrine. However, consider Taniguchi-san also had frothy saliva on his lips, this element points more towards epinephrine being the cause of death."
The Kanbe heir had to admit that such intimate knowledge of chemicals was impressive. Agasa, despite having not shown any interest in medical-related inventions, certainly knew more than his fair share of biochemistry off the top of his head. He glanced at the body, eying the small circle of rusty red. It made him recall how they found out about it, which then—
—where was the boy anyway?
Edogawa had disappeared once again, and Daisuke glanced about, looking for the distinctive blue of his coat. At length he spied the child standing just behind the inventor, Agasa's bulk neatly shielding him from view. Edogawa was peering around Agasa's legs, sharp eyes watching the on goings of the case as he muttered into… his bowtie?
Daisuke barely refrained from outright squinting, but—there were dials on the backside of that red bowtie he was wearing, and the way he worked his jaw was almost flawlessly synchronized to whatever Agasa was saying. Silver eyes flicked up to the professor's face in disbelief as he first studied Agasa, then back to Edogawa. Repeatedly.
"—pulley system built into the ceiling that pulled all three items up once the recoil sensor was triggered, thus leaving no evidence behind at the scene of the crime aside from the dart's needle embedded into Taniguchi-san's back," Agasa said as he pointed up to the ceiling. The navy-blue coating made discerning details regarding the structure of the ceiling difficult, but Daisuke called for a scissor lift after being prodded out of his dazed epiphany by the inspector.
As they waited for the scissor lift to arrive, the professor—no, Edogawa with Agasa as his mouthpiece—continued his deduction. "The pulley's counterweight can be found where the distraction originally began, its fall from the ceiling masked by the smoke and noise. What do you think of my conclusions so far, Kinomoto Rokuro-san?"
"That—That's a lie!" Kinomoto roared, flustered. "There's no way I could have predicted that my invention would malfunction the way it did!"
Agasa frowned at Kinomoto. "If the counterweight is there with a string leading up to the ceiling, I'd say that would be my final piece of evidence. The radio signal had to have come from your invention."
"Takagi!" Megure barked, and the younger officer nodded sharply and squeezed himself through the crowd to confirm Agasa's—no, Edogawa's—words.
Kinomoto stuttered, "I—I'm being framed! My work was sabotaged!"
"I'm sure we can settle this fairly quickly," Daisuke spoke up, deciding that he at least needed to add his say as an inspector who was part of this investigation. "HEUSC, find Kinomoto Rokuro's blueprints for his… 'Self-Basting Chicken Toaster'," he said, repeating the name of the man's invention with severe distaste. He stared at the suddenly stricken man. "If the blueprints for your device includes a radio signal transmitter, then—"
"Fine, yes, I killed the bastard!" Kinomoto snapped, and the people standing next to him immediately backed up a few steps. "That asshole not only stole my ideas, but he also stole my girlfriend of three years. I wanted him to pay!"
"Keibu!" Takagi called as he shouldered his way back into the cleared area around the body. "There was a sandbag behind the table tied with invisible thread that traced up to the ceiling."
Agasa pointed a finger up at the ceiling. "You should also find the gun, recoil sensor, and the rest of the dart hanging up there as well."
"Kinomoto Rokuro," Megure intoned solemnly, "I would like you to come with us to the police station. Satou-kun, inform the CSI team to include his invention and the pulley system as part of the evidence."
"Yes sir," Satou said and strode off to inform the crime scene investigation team of the latest developments to the case.
The scissor lift finally arrived, and the pulley system—along with the predicted gun, recoil sensor, and dart—was bagged and tagged as evidence. Daisuke watched the process from afar and wondered how a seemingly normal convention had gone so very sideways.
"Edogawa-kun," he said as the boy was coming back from having his statement taken by Takagi, "how did you know?"
The boy blinked quizzically. "Know what?"
Daisuke forced himself to swallow his pride and ask because, despite everything, he was damn curious about this child. "How did you know where to look for the evidence? Don't lie," he warned pre-emptively as the child opened his mouth to protest, "I saw you speaking for Agasa-san, and while I don't understand why you bother to hide it, I won't tell anyone. So, how did you know?"
Edogawa abruptly grinned, the expression almost feral. "No one ever thinks to look up," he said, and walk off before Daisuke could do little more than process that single sentence.
The event sponsor frowned hard at the boy's retreating back, thinking hard. Daisuke wanted to—wanted—
He trailed after the boy, approached Agasa from behind and bluntly asked, "How much?"
The inventor turned to face Daisuke and asked with a confused, "Sorry?"
"How much do you want for an exclusive contract to design for the Kanbe Conglomerate, Agasa-san? Whatever you're thinking, double it and it's yours." As for the boy staring up at him from Agasa's side… while he sorely wanted Edogawa directly on his payroll for his brain alone, he was still so very tragically a minor. Perhaps he could find a legal loophole of sorts? He would have to ask HEUSC when he was somewhere private.
He also wanted Katou to meet this insanely brilliant youth. Daisuke had a feeling they would get along well… though on second thought, perhaps they might get along too well.
"I…" Agasa sputtered, clearly blindsided by Daisuke's offer.
Edogawa gently tugged on the fabric of the professor's trousers to remind him of the boy's presence, his expression deeply worried about something regarding his offer. "Hakase…"
The conflict in the inventor's eyes was easy to see. "I'm sorry," Agasa finally forced out. "As much as I would love to work for you, I have prior obligations that I cannot leave unattended."
Daisuke hummed thoughtfully, gaze dropping to Edogawa. The child shifted nervously beneath his stare, not a trace of that earlier confidence during the investigation to be seen. "Understood," he finally answered. "Please let me know if you ever change your mind, Agasa-san." He nodded to the boy. "Edogawa-kun."
"Kanbe-san," they both replied in kind as he spun on his heel and stalked away, feeling oddly jilted.
He found Suzue a short while later, and they shared a quiet moment simply resting at one of the refreshment tables and sipping from bottles of Fiji water as he tracked the inventor-child pair around the floor. The two soon immersed themselves in a conversation with another exhibitor, the three of them animatedly discussing whatever happened to be the topic.
"HEUSC," he muttered as he pressed his earring, silver eyes narrowing as he stared at the now-laughing boy, "Pull up everything you can find on Edogawa Conan."
Author's Note: Holy shit, this fic blew up into something longer than I had imagined! But… seems like that's just the story of my life as a fanfic writer. This fic style was a little different in that I decided to try a no-internal-thoughts approach so that readers had to intuit what any given character was thinking. Let me know how you all liked/disliked it. Apologies to all the FKBU fans, no Haru this time. This fic sets up so beautifully for a potential multi-chaptered Conan-Daisuke partnership idea that would be so much fucking fun to write if I had the time. Maybe I'll pick the idea up eventually. Suzue wasn't putting her all into looking at Conan's gadgets—after all, she has no reason to suspect he's nothing more than an abnormally bright six-year-old. I fully admit I had so much fun getting Daisuke worked up over a child having so much more knowledge and experience in sleuthing and deduction than him—not to mention all the gadgetry envy. Can't forget that. Potassium chloride is used intravenously in lethal injections. Epinephrine injected directly into the heart was once used as a life-saving technique, but repeated failures dropped it out of emergency practice guidelines. I hope you enjoyed it.
Completed: 01.09.2020