After making their way to the riverbank above the waterfall, Jiangxia and Hattori Heiji hauled the body up by the rope.
One end of the coarse hemp rope was tied tightly around Toshimi Ebihara's neck; the other end was looped around a wooden stake firmly driven into the bank.
Jiangxia gently laid the body on the ground by the water. Conan immediately crouched beside it, and the three of them examined the rope tied around her neck.
The rope was twisted around several times, a tangled mess of knots. It was hard to tell if it had been tied by someone, or just tangled naturally by the current.
Still, the timing and location of Toshimi Ebihara's appearance were just too convenient. And even though the river was turbulent, it didn't seem forceful enough to wrap a body up like this in just a few minutes.
So naturally, Conan and Heiji leaned toward one conclusion: murder.
Jiangxia looked down at the body silently.
After all, this whole mess was technically the mermaid's doing... And the mermaid isn't human. If you round it off a bit (just a little bit), that makes this death an accident. Right?
Hattori Heiji frowned. "She'd already drawn the sacred arrow. Why would she go running into the woods at a time like this instead of collecting it?"
A voice answered from off to the side: "She was heading to the mermaid's tomb."
Jiangxia turned to see who'd spoken. It was a short-haired woman with a mushroom-cut: Naoko Kuroe, one of the three people who'd drawn dugong arrows earlier—and also one of the "lucky arsonists" who'd torched the shrine warehouse three years ago.
Naoko Kuroe clutched her divine arrow tightly. "Nami must've thought the movement by the waterfall was a sign from the mermaid—some kind of signal. So she rushed into the mountains. She was too hasty. Should've at least waited to get the dugong arrow before doing anything rash."
The mention of a "mermaid tomb" immediately set off alarm bells in Conan and Heiji's minds.
They remembered it being brought up before—on the boat ride here, Kadowaki Saori had mentioned the term. But she hadn't explained it in detail.
…
Naoko Kuroe didn't know the person they burned in the warehouse three years ago was actually human.
So, like her two accomplices, she truly believed the charred bones found in the ashes belonged to a real mermaid.
When she solemnly gave directions to the "mermaid tomb" to the outsiders, Jiangxia nodded along politely—but his eyes were fixed on the dugong arrow in her hand.
It's getting chilly. That arrow's going to snap soon.
…
It was getting late. After they'd finished inspecting the scene, the group carried the body back down the mountain.
Toyama Kazuha, Ran Mouri, and Suzuki Sonoko had been too freaked out by the "mermaid corpse" hanging from the waterfall to follow them up. Once they came to their senses, they immediately called the police and tried to help—like seasoned, trauma-hardened support characters.
Unfortunately, there wasn't even a police station on Mermaid Island, and the sea was so rough that reinforcements would take a while to get here.
Jiangxia handed the recovered body over to the islanders and returned to the hotel with the others.
He was ready to finally collapse and get some rest. But as soon as he stepped into his room and before he could even close the door—everyone else just casually filed in after him.
Jiangxia: "?"
"Since the police can't get here anytime soon," Heiji said, flopping into a chair and adjusting his perpetually tilted baseball cap, "we'll just have to handle this ourselves for now. I've got a bad feeling. Real bad. Like... this isn't over yet."
Jiangxia: "…Hmm."
That's actually pretty accurate, unfortunately.
Conan sat down beside him, clutching his earmuffs like a child with a security blanket.
Lately, Jiangxia's case-solving speed had started to seem almost... normal. Still faster than most detectives, but no longer at terrifying, scanner-level speeds. Maybe he was hitting a bottleneck?
Conan had trouble imagining what Jiangxia would even look like breaking through a bottleneck. Probably something involving quarks and other quantum particles.
In any case, he and Heiji were on the same wavelength this time. They both had a sense something was off, and quickly agreed: better to rope in Jiangxia now and crack the case together, before another victim popped up.
As for the earmuffs—well, Conan found that combining the words "Jiangxia" and "solving a case" always raised his blood pressure. Earmuffs helped keep his brain quiet enough to think.
He wasn't alone, either. Just a moment ago, he'd seen Heiji reach toward his own pocket—probably going for his earmuffs—then hesitating and pulling his hand back.
Hattori Heiji's inner monologue was uncannily similar.
Trapped on an island with barely any signal, no new mystery novels to binge, and not even homework to distract him, Heiji had a lot of time to reflect on life.
And in a rare moment of clarity, he realized something: at least for now, he simply couldn't beat Jiangxia in deduction. No matter how many times he tried, he just couldn't outpace the guy.
So instead of competing, why not just... team up? Solve the case with some dignity. Treat Jiangxia like a living answer key—always right there, casually blurting out spoilers.
As long as Heiji didn't declare a rivalry, he couldn't lose a rivalry.
And besides, solving cases wasn't supposed to be a competition anyway.
There's only one truth in the end—which meant what mattered was not who solved it, but the process of solving it, and what you learned along the way...
Resolute, Heiji yanked his hand away from his earmuff pocket and sat up straighter.
…
If they ruled out the mermaid ghost as a fluke and treated Toshimi's death as a proper murder case, then beyond the physical evidence, one thing really stood out:
Why did she run into the mountains in the first place?
Answering that question would be key.
So far, their best leads were the Mermaid Festival... and the mysterious "mermaid tomb" that Naoko Kuroe had mentioned.
Especially the tomb—there wasn't much official info about it. All they really had was that throwaway line from Naoko about "mermaid bones in the warehouse."
Even on the island itself, the tomb wasn't common knowledge. Most of the locals knew it existed, sure, but they had no clue where it actually was. Rumor had it that only Shimabukuro Kimie and someone she trusted knew its real location.
So they'd need to ask around on the island.
But it was already too late tonight. Busting into people's homes for an interview at this hour would just get them scolded—or worse, told nothing useful.
Better to start fresh tomorrow.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 25/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:2/10*