"The killer is Mr. Suwa?" The room buzzed with disbelief.
"Hold on, are you serious?" Kogoro Mouri scoffed, crossing his arms. "This place is littered with sword marks, but the victim was holding the blade all wrong. There's no way it's Suwa!"
"Of course it was deliberate," Kiichi Higashino said, his voice flat, almost bored. "Jumping to conclusions about the killer's swordsmanship based solely on how the victim gripped the weapon is sloppy reasoning. Plenty of people who don't practice kendo know how to hold a sword properly—take Rachel Moore, for instance. And someone skilled in kendo could easily fake a clumsy grip to throw us off."
"The real key," Kiichi continued, "is the order of events."
"Order of events?" Kogoro's brow furrowed in confusion.
"Let me ask you this, Mr. Mouri," Kiichi said, fixing him with a steady gaze. "If you were the killer, would you leave behind a clue that points directly to you?"
"Of course not!" Kogoro snapped. "I'm not an idiot!"
"Exactly," Kiichi said. "If the killer was framing someone first, they wouldn't make the mistake of staging an incorrect grip. No matter how careless they were, with a photo of the victim holding the sword right there in plain sight, wouldn't they at least glance at it?"
Inspector Megure's eyes widened as the pieces clicked into place. "But if the sword marks were made first, to create the illusion that the killer didn't know kendo and messed up the grip… that fits perfectly!"
"It's what they call hiding in plain sight," Kiichi said with a faint smirk.
"Maybe the killer's counting on us to overthink it," Suwa Yuji shot back, his voice tight. "And what proof do you have that the sword marks came first?"
Kiichi's smile didn't waver. "Trust me, I know far more about a killer's mind than you might think."
Conan, watching from the sidelines, felt a twinge of unease. He glanced at Rachel, then back at Kiichi, his heart racing for reasons he couldn't quite pin down.
"It's not just that the sword marks came first," Kiichi went on, his tone sharp now. "Those marks were made to cover something up, weren't they, Mr. Suwa?"
Suwa's face glistened with sweat.
"Mr. Mouri and the others aren't deaf," Kiichi said. "If a fight this intense had actually happened, they'd have heard something. And let's talk common sense—after taking a deep stab wound to the back, no normal person could keep fighting. But then, this was a crime of passion. It's only natural you weren't thinking straight after the kill."
Kiichi pressed forward, relentless. "Here's how it went down. You came to visit this afternoon and got into a heated argument with the victim. In a rage, you grabbed the decorative sword from the room and struck him from behind, mortally wounding him. But you left behind evidence you couldn't erase. To cover it up, you staged an exaggerated fight scene, complete with sword marks, and used the incorrect grip to steer suspicion away from your kendo expertise."
"Lies are like that," Kiichi said, his voice low. "Tell one, and you'll need a dozen more to keep it going."
Conan's eyes flicked to Kiichi, then to Rachel, his stomach twisting. Something about this felt… off.
"There's more," Kiichi said. "Mr. Akutsu's missing message? That happened because you were tampering with the scene when he called. You heard how much he valued that dragon carving, so you left it untouched and rewound the answering machine to erase his message."
"That's nonsense!" Suwa barked. "By your own logic, he could've done that on purpose!"
Kiichi sighed, almost pityingly. "You didn't listen. Everything a killer does is to avoid suspicion. The best way to do that is to leave no trace of yourself at all. If you could've erased those incriminating marks, you would've. No one leaves clues pointing to themselves unless they're covering for something undeniable."
"And let's be real," Kiichi added. "If Mr. Akutsu were the killer, he could've just smashed or stolen the dragon carving. Problem solved. Oh, and your story about the phone call? Full of holes. You called knowing he wasn't home—why show up anyway?"
Suwa bristled. "I made plans with Mr. Maru earlier. He said he had meetings at 4 and 5, so I thought coming early was fine. This is all just your theory! Where's the evidence?"
"Evidence?" Kiichi's grin widened. He waved over a pair of officers holding an evidence bag. They unfurled it, revealing a bloodstained shirt and pants.
"Recognize these?" Kiichi asked.
Suwa's eyes widened. Even Conan froze, stunned.
"You made the scene chaotic on purpose," Kiichi said, "but you can't fake that much blood. Your clothes had to have been soaked in the victim's blood. You might've ditched the shirt, but you couldn't exactly walk home without pants, could you? Lucky for you, no one noticed on your way back."
Kiichi's gaze hardened. "I know how killers think. Once the adrenaline fades and you're back at your dojo, the fear sets in. You wouldn't dare burn evidence in broad daylight, not with even the slightest chance of getting caught. It was easy enough to send someone to your place and find this."
Suwa's head bowed, his voice barely a whisper. "It was about the sword."
He confessed, his words heavy with regret. To settle a debt, he'd pawned his family's heirloom blade, Kikuchiyo. When he tried to buy it back, Maru Denjiro had already sold it, smugly claiming it as interest. The betrayal had driven Suwa to murder.
"You had to cover it up," Kiichi said, cutting him off. "Because he carved something on that cabinet that pointed straight to you. My guess? Your name, scratched with the blade itself. You tried to hide it by messing up the drawers, but the marks were obvious the moment I walked in."
Rachel gasped, her eyes wide. "That's incredible… maybe even better than Shinichi…"
Conan bristled, itching to argue, but he couldn't. He was still piecing together a photo puzzle for evidence, and Kiichi had already found the bloody clothes. The guy had seen through the killer's setup from the start—there was no way he hadn't arranged for that search early on.
It was like Kiichi had the killer's mind mapped out completely.
This guy's unreal, Conan thought, a chill running through him. It's like facing Dad…
Suwa was cuffed and led away, his head hung low. The dramatic scene from the original timeline—where Suwa's wild sword swing nearly cost Kogoro his life and left Rachel in tears—never came to pass.
Kiichi, blissfully unaware that Conan had mentally ranked him alongside the legendary Yusaku Kudo, didn't seem to care either way. One thing was clear to him now, though.
Slacking off and letting Conan take the lead? Not happening.
Conan's detective skills weren't cutting it. A case this straightforward, solved in a minute flat, and it still took him this long?
No wonder they kept me away from him.