Detective Conan
The Haunted House of Class 2-C
Chapter Two
by
sgamer82

In a second floor classroom, a third year student was giving a lecture to anybody who would listen about the discoveries of Newton. His voice was dry, his tone was nonexistent, and he spoke as if every person in the room already knew the scientific terms he was using liberally.

Mitsuhiko Tsubaraya was having the time of his life.

As much as Mitsuhiko loved his friends, attempts to talk science with any of them were exercises in futility. Ayumi tried, but she didn't have Mitsuhiko's aptitude for the subject and often got left behind the more he got into a particular topic or theory. In Genta's case, Mitsuhiko generally had to explain every little thing, which grew frustrating quickly. Ai could hold a conversation with ease, even outside her own areas of expertise, but her desire to cast off as much of her old life as possible meant she never did more than occasionally indulge Mitsuhiko. None of them had the passion Mitsuhiko did, which made it all the sweeter to meet like minded students who loved science in all its forms as much as he did.

I wonder if this is how Conan-kun feels when he meets other Holmes fans, Mitsuhiko thought.

Mitsuhiko's pleasure came to a halt as a song interrupted the lecture. A song that came from his own pocket.

"Is that the Kamen Yaiba theme song?" someone whispered.

In the back of his mind, Mitsuhiko wondered if he could convince the others to change their ringtone along with their name. Despite that, Mitsuhiko felt no embarrassment at having his favorite show's song as a ringtone.

There was only one reason that ringtone was used.

Mitsuhiko stood up, bowed his apologies as he explained he had to take care of something urgent, and left the room. He hoped he would have time to come back before the day was over, and that he hadn't just made a terrible impression with the club he hoped to join when he started attending, but there was no helping that.

Mitsuhiko was already on the second floor so finding the second year classroom Ayumi's message indicated was a simple matter. There was a small crowd around, but none of the urgency Mitsuhiko so frequently saw when a crime has just occurred.

Soon after Mitsuhiko arrived, a stretcher emerged from the black curtain over the door. Mitsuhiko's eyes widened. He had seen plenty of people carried off after injury or death. This, however, was the first time he had seen a stretcher carried on one end by the spirit of Death itself.

"It's a haunted house," a girl's voice said from behind him. Mitsuhiko jumped, turned around to find Ai.

"That explains the shinigami," Mitsuhiko muttered. "Where are Ayumi-chan and Genta-kun?"

"Still inside," Ai answered. "Kojima is shooing people out of the room and Ayumi wants you to join her to look at the crime scene."

"What actually happened?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"I'm not entirely sure myself, but it looks like Ayumi and Kojima prevented someone being murdered. You'll probably get details from Ayumi."

"All right. Are you coming, Ai-san?"

"No," Ai said, almost before Mitsuhiko had finished speaking. Mitsuhiko looked at the door, saw the black curtain, and understood. Ai shook herself and reached into her bag. She passed Mitsuhiko a small, old fashioned instant camera then pulled out her own phone.

"I'm watching the door and keeping track of anyone who leaves so we can work out a pool of suspects. I sent a message to Kojima to do the same on the other side. This crowd is making it hard to watch both doors at once."

Mitsuhiko nodded and went inside to meet with Ayumi.

Mitsuhiko found Ayumi in a curtained off section of the classroom near the window. The first thing Mitsuhiko noticed was Ayumi has changed her glasses. Instead of the thin pink framed glasses she preferred normally, she wore glasses with large black frames and much larger lenses. Glasses that, along with the serious expression on Ayumi's face, never ceased to remind any of them of the boy Shinichi Kudo had once posed as.

"The victim is Shuuya Kaniguchi-sensei, this class' homeroom teacher," Ayumi said as soon as she saw Mitsuhiko. She gestured to a gallows with a pulley and cut rope hanging from it. The rope's other end was tied tightly to the main post of the gallows. "Genta-kun and I found him hanging here. Genta-kun managed to hold him up so he stopped choking while I got some students to help get him down safely. We had to cut the rope." Ayumi's serious expression faltered for a moment. "You think Miwako-san will be mad?"

"She's said before better a living victim than a perfect crime scene," Mitsuhiko assured her. "I think we'll be fine."

Mitsuhiko took in the scene for himself.

"Should I assume we are ruling out accident and suicide?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"We are." Ayumi nodded. "Pattern recognition aside, Kaniguchi-sensei had a reputation for being strict and was apparently doing regular inspections."

Mitsuhiko nodded. Neither trait lent itself to getting hurt by self-inflicted injury or pure chance. A lengthy history of encountering such incidents also meant the Detective Boys tended to assume ill intent first and foremost.

"In fact, that's how he was lured here."

Before Mitsuhiko could ask, Ayumi picked up a plastic bag with an mp3 player inside.

"Genta-kun and I found sensei partly because this was playing. We heard a girl's voice begging forgiveness. If it was out of place, then no way it wouldn't have brought him in here."

"From there, it's just getting the noose around him and pulling," Mitsuhiko finished. "With the pulleys on the rig it wouldn't necessarily need someone very strong, either."

"Which gives us a huge suspect pool," Ayumi said. "There were several students in here at the time, not to mention anyone going through the haunted house just before or at the same time sensei did."

"Maybe not as big as you think," Mitsuhiko said. "Not even serious delinquents would attack a teacher lightly, nevermind try to kill him, no matter how bad he was."

Ayumi pondered this then nodded.

"I think you're right. If it was a student, there is probably a pretty big grudge involved to get past that respect for authority." Ayumi reached into her skirt pocket, pulled out a badge, and began speaking into it.

"Ai? Genta-kun?" she said into it, continuing only after both responded. "Could you start questioning the students? Find out if anyone had a serious grudge against Kaniguchi-sensei."

Ayumi put the badge away once the other two acknowledged and turned to Mitsuhiko.

"While they take care of that, I want to get your opinion on a couple things here."


Genta and Ai started with the obvious and most easily accessible students, the two girls dressed as a murder victim and their ghost acting as ticket takers. They were currently explaining to anyone who asked why the haunted house was currently closed. At Ai's suggestion, they were saying there was an accident with one of the displays that needed to be cleaned up.

The girls, Ai and Genta were surprised to learn, were actually identical twins under the makeup, which worked quite well with their choice of costume. They were also quite happy to cooperate, since Ai's advice prevented a panic and a lot of prying questions. Those questions would come when the police arrived, but by then they wouldn't be the ones having answer them.

"A grudge against sensei?" asked Reimi, technically the younger of the twins and the one dressed as a ghost.

"Well, nobody particularly likes him," the elder twin and murder victim Reiko answered. "But someone who would want to… to… that?" She shook her head.

"What about Tsuyoi-kun, Onee-chan?" Reimi asked. Reiko hit her palm with her fist.

"Jouburou Tsuyoi-senpai?" Ai asked, recalling the literature club boy Ayumi had spoken to. The girls looked momentarily confused and whispered along themselves before answering.

"You might be thinking of his younger brother," Reimi said. "We're talking about Hayate Tsuyoi-kun. He's in our class and the haunted house was his idea."

"The class all liked it, but Kaniguchi-sensei was dead set against it," Reiko continued. "He was insisting on some educational literary thing. Tsuyoi-kun's drama club advisor, Chouno-sensei, actually managed to convince Kaniguchi-sensei to go along with the idea, since it was so popular."

"But just because Sensei agreed didn't mean he was happy about it," Reimi said, picking up from her twin. "He accused Tsuyoi-kun of going over his head, getting an outsider involved, and disrespecting his authority. That's when Sensei insisted he'd be inspecting the house regularly to make sure it was just what he approved of and nothing more."

Ai wrote down what she was told, but couldn't help thinking this all seemed like a reason for Kaniguchi to try and kill Tsuyoi rather than the reverse. On the other hand, given his membership in the drama club and how involved the designs and costumes were, the boy clearly had an artistic bent. Artists had become temperamental for less than an authority figure actively trying to interfere with them.

"Anyone else you can think of?" Genta asked. "Did Tsuyoi-senpai have a girlfriend or something?"

Genta's question got an undeniably giggly reaction from the twins. He grinned at Ai.

"There's no girlfriend," Reiko said. "But there is Yamagishi-san."

"Someone who would like to be a girlfriend?" Genta asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking. Ai understood now. They had apparently stumbled onto the class gossips.

"Oh, yeah. Her name's Hanae Yamagishi-san, and she's got it bad. It's obvious to everyone but Tsuyoi-kun. But…" Reiko leaned in conspiratorially. "She's a little… off. I mean, no girl likes hearing anything bad about the boy she likes but for Yamagishi it's like a bomb goes off, y'know?"

"The name hasn't really worked for years, anyway, Conan's not a member anymore-"

"Now hold on-"

Both Ai and Genta understood what the girls were suggesting. It sounded, however, like the Yamagishi girl's reaction was more extreme.

"She was furious at Sensei when he refused Tsuyoi-kun's idea," Reimi continued. "She started mouthing off to him in class, getting in trouble. It wasn't until Chouno-sensei talked to her that she stopped. Kaniguchi-sensei didn't, though."

"Because this Chouno-sensei stepped on his toes again?" Genta asked.

"Yeah," Reiko said. "They've hated each other every since she started teaching her last year."

"No idea why," Reimi said. Then she grinned. "But that just means there's tons of rumors. Jealously because she's so much cooler. Jilted lovers." The twins simultaneously gagged to show their opinion of that one. "Or even that she was an ex-student of his."

"He's old enough," Reiko interjected.

"But she's not young enough, Onee-chan," Reimi said. She turned to Genta. "Chouno-sensei is in her late thirties and divorced."

Genta took this all in.

"Anybody else come to mind?" He asked. The twins shook their heads. Genta offered the older girls a bow. Ai followed suit. "In that case, ladies, thank you for your help. If I may ask one more favor?"

The girls nodded. Genta gestured to Ai, who brought up her phone's gallery.

"Could you point out Tsuyoi-senpai, Yamagishi-senpai, and Chouno-sensei?"


"Hmm," Mitsuhiko rubbed his chin. "I don't know, Ayumi-chan. I agree the recording was unquestionably a lure, like you said. That being the case, the contents of the recording shouldn't matter. Anything would've attracted him."

"Then why not use anything? Why this… apology?"

"To keep the students from finding it first?" Mitsuhiko offered. "Unlike their teacher, they would be less likely to look for something like this if it blended in with the theme."

"Maybe, but I don't think so." Ayumi shrugged. "I just know that recording is more important than that."

Mitsuhiko said nothing and, instead, used the instant camera Ai had given him to take photos of the crime scene. Truthfully, Mitsuhiko suspected Ayumi was right in her assertion about the recording's importance. He didn't say so, however, because he knew how important it was for Ayumi to have someone to play the skeptic for her at times like this, when her deductions were based more on intuition than fact.

"Any ideas on just what the recording is, if it's not random?" Mitsuhiko asked after a few more photos were taken.

"One," Ayumi said. "I want Ai to listen to the recording, first. To make sure I'm not making something out of nothing. I think she'll recognize what I'm looking for."

Since the music player the apology was recorded on was evidence, Ayumi didn't want to risk tampering with it by playing it more than she had to. She had played the recording again only once, to record a copy onto her phone. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough for Mitsuhiko to get an idea of what she and Genta had heard.

"After that," Ayumi continued, "figuring out the culprit is going to depend on who Ai and Genta-kun find as suspects."


In Beika Middle School's parking lot, a car found its way towards an empty spot.

"Bad enough we couldn't bring any officers…" the man in the passenger seat grumbled.

"There's no helping it, Itagaki-kun," the woman driving replied. "The principal wanted to avoid a panic. If it had been anyone but Ayumi-chan and her friends who came across this we might not have heard about it until after the festival, or at all."

The young man grumbled further at the mention of the Detective Boys. She sighed. If getting married had come with one regret, it was that she and Wataru couldn't be partners in the field anymore.

No helping that either, Miwako Takagi (née Sato) thought to herself. He'll just have to learn for himself what those kids are capable of.