desamontello12: Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding! While I was writing about Renjo-san and the knife in Chapter 5, I wasn't trying to imply that she was having suicidal thoughts. I meant that she might accidentally cut herself in the shock following the news.

Viewers, please read and review. I realize that it's been a few years since the anime stopped, but I'd really appreciate your thoughts (although any flames will be blown away by Wendy Marvell from Hiro Mashima's Fairy Tail).

Warning: This longer-than-usual chapter contains spoilers from the anime.

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective School Q. Amagi Seimaru, Sato Fumiya, and Animax do.

Kinta, Kazuma, Megu, and Ryuu sat in the waiting room, their bodies tense with anxiety. Kinta's foot tapped the ground in an unsteady, erratic rhythm. No one commented on the annoying habit, because they knew that Kinta had trouble sitting still (It was a miracle that he managed to sit through class!). Kazuma was tapping into his laptop frantically, inputting his observations into a program that compared health so that he could gauge how badly off Kyuu was. Megu and Ryuu were silent, despite the fact that they were thinking so hard that staff and patients walking by expected smoke to come out of their ears.

However, no one knew that the four were thinking about Kyuu. Each of them was remembering special moments they had each shared with him, and were now revisiting them in order to calm themselves as they waited for the doctors to be done with their friend.

Kinta's memory

During a train ride on the way to a fishing trip, Kyuu and Kinta had received a phone call from Dan-sensei about an assault on a man, at a crime scene within driving distance from a train station they had passed by. To their surprise, as they gazed at the picture of the man, they realized that it was the ex-boyfriend of Minazuki-san, the nice, beautiful woman they had just been sitting across from.

If you thought that Kinta was startled at the coincidence, he was shocked when Kyuu told Dan-sensei about his suspicions about Minazuki-san being the attacker. However, when the mystery otaku explained his reasoning, the martial arts practitioner felt indignant, since he understood that they were being used as Minazuki-san's alibi.

However, he was really impressed with how Kyuu played a trick within a trick on her, in order to get her to admit that she hadn't really been on the train for the past hour. After she had explained her motive and broken down, he was struck by Kyuu's kindness and sincerity towards her at the end, and was a little saddened to hear about his childhood, living with a single parent.

Later, as they left the train after finding out that the victim had survived, Kinta said, "Ne, Kyuu. About what you told Minazuki-san…I won't tell the rest of Class Q, if you don't want me to."

Kyuu was silent for a few moments as he thought about his classmate's words. Eventually, he replied, "Arigato. I know they're my friends, and won't make fun of me about my background, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for anyone to know that yet."

Kinta nodded. Then, to get rid of the seriousness, he ruffled Kyuu's hair, teasing, "I bet that I'll catch a bigger fish than you! Who knows, since you're so small, maybe one of the fish could pull you in, and you'll get some impromptu swimming lessons!"

Kyuu grumbled and chased after him as Kinta took off running, both laughing all the way.

Kazuma's memory

Kazuma couldn't believe it. It was such a clever trick…he didn't want to believe that Takigawa-sensei, his home economics teacher, could do such a thing. But all the evidence said otherwise. As a detective of DDS, he couldn't just ignore the evidence and be ruled by his emotions.

He felt a comforting hand on his shoulder. Turning to its owner, he saw Kyuu giving him a reassuring look that seemed to say, "It'll all work out. You'll see." Inwardly, he realized that Kyuu (and honestly, probably Ryuu as well) had known the answer before he had figured it out, yet the dark-haired boy had allowed him to solve the case on his own... with a little help from him and the others.

Giving Kyuu a small, grateful smile for giving him the opportunity, as well as the show of support, he ran off to confront his favorite teacher.

After he had gotten his Takigawa-sensei to accept the 30 million yen lottery ticket he had indirectly given her, Kazuma walked off with his hands behind his head. Turning the corner, he bumped into someone, and staggered, his glasses knocked askew. Pushing them back into place, he saw that it was Kyuu. The mystery otaku gave him a small, apologetic smile. "Ah, gomen, Kazuma. I didn't see you there. I was waiting for the bus."

"It's fine, I'm okay" said Kazuma, still so happy at how the case ended.

"So," asked Kyuu. "did you find a way to help them both? Your teacher and her son?"

Kazuma couldn't help it. He stared, and blurted out, "How did you know?"

"Well, I had my suspicions as to why your teacher would suddenly commit insurance. From the way you spoke about her, she didn't seem like the type to commit a crime without a good reason. So what would she need the money for? And I knew that she didn't seem romantically interested at all in her coworkers at the school, and that she had a soft spot for kids. I put the pieces together and slipped off to the nursery, and saw her last name on the baby's incubator, along with all of the tubes attached to him, thus confirming my suspicions."

Kazuma stood in disbelief. How could someone so smart be so clueless sometimes? Time and time again, he kept being impressed by this stupid-looking boy a few years older than him, who was able to pull such amazing deductions based on seemingly unrelated evidence.

Remembering the question posed by said stupid-looking boy, and realizing he hadn't answered yet, he simply said, "Yes."

Kyuu grinned back, and whispered in his ear, "I'm proud of you," as he walked toward the bus waiting for him.

Megu's memory

Locked in a dark prison under the unknowing noses of DDS, Megu was angry. Angry at Kyuu for dragging her along with him on this wild goose chase, angry at herself for wanting to prove that she was brave enough to be a detective, and angry at Kinta for getting Kyuu to do his cleaning punishment for him and therefore making her offer her help. Deep down, she knew it couldn't be helped, since the circumstances were out of her control, but still. They were LOCKED in an underground chamber she was sure that no one in DDS knew about.

Then, that anger turned into fear and panic as she saw-and felt-the snake bite on her. Having seen a documentary on snakes, she knew that this pit viper was venomous, having caught a glimpse of it before Kyuu killed it. Before she could start writhing in pain, however, Kyuu had moved to her leg and started sucking the venom out. Despite the fact that she knew it was a common emergency treatment, she couldn't help but blush. What? His lips were making direct contact with her skin! What girl wouldn't be affected by that? However, she was awe-struck by how he was able to get the rest of Class Q to find them, and keeping a cool head through most of their adventure.

She was taken back to their first meeting, when he had deduced where the money that the man accusing him of stealing had fallen and landed. He always managed to surprise her like this, despite his social awkwardness and perverted comments.

So when he bowed deeply and apologized to her as she laid in the infirmary, she told him that it wasn't entirely his fault (which was true, since she had followed him down there), and that they should get past it. Besides, she thought with a smile, the experience wasn't all bad. After all, she got to learn more about one of her two enigmatic classmates.

Ryuu's memory

After the killer confessed during the case revolving the violin created by Kuzuryuu Takumi, Ryuu's heart raced as the memory of what Kaori had asked him earlier sunk in.

"Were you the one who solved all of the mysteries?"

He watched in shock as the killer attacked Kinta and took the knife from him, having gone insane due to Pluto's hypnosis. He muttered, "He who revealed the secrets of the gods shall fall into Tartarus!"

No, Ryuu had replied to Kaori-san. She must have figured out who had, and now he would pay the price.

No! I won't let that happen!

As the man rushed towards the frozen Kyuu with the knife, Ryuu interfered, pushing him out of the way. The knife went into his chest instead, leaving a fatal wound. As he fell unconscious due to the painful agony, he thought, "Is this the release from Pluto that I've been looking for?"

After he woke up and escaped the hospital after the visit from Sir Anubis, he stood on a bridge overlooking the train tracks. (Looking back, he wondered if he had been so willing to escape his fate as the head of Pluto that he was contemplating taking his own life.) However, before he could take a step and let himself fall-

"Ryuu!"

The call of his name made him freeze, and he turned to see Kyuu. As soon as their eyes met, Kyuu started rambling about Class Q searching for him.

He spoke with Kyuu, his desperation to find a way out of his situation building up until he blurted out, "Can I stay at your place for a while?" He then proceeded to ramble on, feeling more and more awkward until Kyuu placed his hands on his shoulders and smiled, declaring, "You're welcome to stay at my house. I don't really know why you're running away from your home, but I'm on your side!"

Ryuu's eyes widened. He couldn't believe that Kyuu agreed to it! As those last words hit him, for the first time in his life, he felt warmth in his heart. He had never felt so cared for by Kyuu and Class Q, and despite the fact that Kyuu knew nothing about his situation, he was still lending his support.

Right there and then, he knew that he had found his best friend.