No one understands the laws of Collider better than me.

Suddenly targeted, Mr. Banno retorted loudly:

"I was just about to go out to buy groceries when I was electrocuted! You guys should be going after that woman!"

However, because there were still traces of oil-based pen writing on his face, specifically the pink "I love you," he no longer had any imposing presence, no matter how loudly he shouted. Instead, he looked like a substandard clown.

"That mysterious woman's hand looks unnaturally white. Look at this photo. Although you seem to have fainted in it, is it possible that this terrifyingly white hand is your own?"

"Are you kidding me, officer? My right hand is clearly resting on the back of my head! That's someone else's right hand!"

Kitahara Masaki found it amusing to see this person stubbornly denying everything. Forging such a photo was very simple. He first called Takagi and Chiba over, and then had them both lie down.

“Look—the two people are lying in opposite directions, with one person’s left hand under the other person’s head, just like the other person’s right hand is under their own head.”

Inspector Megure also took out his phone and took a picture, and found that it was indeed the case, meaning that the Polaroid photo could not prove that a third person was definitely present at that time.

The clown, his trick exposed, became even more ridiculous, and he began to defend himself:

"Yes, I'm having relationship problems with Iiyama, but I can't possibly kill her for that reason. There's absolutely no need for that!"

Kitahara Masaki shrugged and said:

“I don’t care about your motives at all, Mr. Banno. Even if you killed her because she stole a piece of candy, it has nothing to do with me. All I need to do is prove that you killed Ms. Iiyama. As for why you killed her, what does that have to do with me?”

Banno, who was being stared at by Kitahara Masaki, slumped to the ground, looking completely dejected. Although Kitahara Masaki's words had broken his defenses, it didn't mean the case was solved.

Now we need to find evidence of his crime and deduce how he managed to write such neat words on his face.

Chapter 333 Coincidence? There are no coincidences in the world of Detective Conan!

Kitahara Masaki couldn't think of an answer for the time being, so he went to the house of Wakasa-sensei next door. The children had already finished dinner, and there was a large screen in the living room with a tiger painted on it that was about the same height as Conan.

"Who drew this tiger? It's very well drawn."

“Ayumi thinks so too! This was drawn by Wakasa-sensei!”

While washing dishes, Rumi Wakasa heard Masaki Kitahara's praise and scratched her head shyly, looking quite embarrassed.

"Kitahara-kun, do you know how that criminal wrote on his face?"

"Not yet. Normally, even if someone writes on your face, they wouldn't write very neatly. But the three words on his face, besides being very neat, seem to be a bit blurry at the beginning and end."

"Oh, indeed, when the three characters 'I love you' are written vertically, the top and bottom parts of 'me' and 'you' are not very clear."

Kitahara Masaki took a ballpoint pen out of his pocket and said to Conan:

"Try it and see if you can write those three words on your face."

Eh?

"If you don't want to write it, I can write it for you."

"No, no, I can write it myself."

Then Conan started scribbling on his face. Seeing that Conan could only draw on his face, Kitahara Masaki felt much better.

"It seems that even writing a single word was difficult for him, so the perpetrator must have used other methods to write the words. Could it be that he asked his girlfriend to write them first, and then killed the victim after she finished writing them?"

"But in one of the two photos taken at the scene, before those three words were written on his face, his girlfriend was already lying next to him, so it shouldn't have been written by his girlfriend."

Kitahara Masaki looked at Conan, whose face was smeared with red paint, and silently took out his phone to take a picture of Conan with the fish-shaped paint on his face. He then sent the picture to Kudo Yukiko, believing that the mother would definitely like her silly son.

"Hey! Don't take pictures! And who did you send these pictures to?"

"It's just for your mom, so everyone can have a good time, isn't that nice?"

"I'm unhappy! Delete it right now!"

Conan ran up to Kitahara Masaki, only to find that even if he jumped, he couldn't reach the phone in his hand. He was thinking about unscrewing the knob on the sneakers, but when he saw that Genta was asleep on the tiger screen, Conan immediately ran to wake him up.

"Genta, Genta! Get up! You're sleeping on the tiger screen!"

After the children woke Genta up, Conan looked at the paint on Genta's face and said irritably:

“Genta, the paint on the screen isn’t dry yet. You’ve wiped it off by sleeping on it.”

"sorry."

Conan and Kitahara Masaki looked at the half-face covered in yellow and black paint and suddenly realized the method the criminal had used. The words on his face weren't written by hand, but rather printed on.

"Kitahara-nii, I've figured out the criminal's method!"

Kitahara Masaki nodded. This case was actually quite simple. Now that the last doubt had been resolved, all that was left was to find evidence. However, judging from the criminal's mental state, there was no need to use a magnifying glass to look for it anymore. He would probably break down under the pressure and confess everything on his own.

"Then you go and talk to them. Anyway, this case isn't very interesting."

Kitahara Masaki didn't mind letting Conan solve the case; he wanted to see Wakasa-sensei's reaction anyway.

"Wakasa-sensei, could you please keep an eye on those children for me?"

"Oh, no problem. But isn't Officer Kitahara coming over?"

"No need. I'll give these kids the chance to shine. If possible, I'd like to think about getting them jobs in the Metropolitan Police Department in the future."

"I see, so you're training them from a young age?"

"Not really, it's just that I want them to be exposed to related matters more often. When they really grow up, I guess they won't be interested in these kinds of reasoning games anymore."

Genta shouted from the side:

"Brother Kitahara, I will keep solving cases! Brother Amuro hasn't been contacting us lately either."

"Haha, who told you guys to be so amazing, completing all the cat-finding requests?"

Looking at Kitahara Masaki and the children's easygoing demeanor, Wakasa Rumi suddenly felt that this famous police officer wasn't so far removed from them. After telling Genta to quickly wash his face, she went to the next room to listen to Conan's deductions.

Meanwhile, Inspector Megure next door looked helpless. After all, Kitahara Masaki always involved these kids in cases. But now, seeing Conan scribbling on something, he asked curiously:

"Conan, will this be enough to print the words?"

"That's right. Write 'I love you' on a transparent folder, then turn the folder over and trace the words over with a water-based pen. Then carefully press the side of the water-based pen with the words onto your face, and the words on your cheek will look like they were written on. So those three words weren't written by some crazy female fan at all; it was clearly a scene directed and acted by the murderer himself."

Conan then imprinted the words onto the other side of his face, which was still bare. Now both sides of his face were covered in words, but one side was a mess of symbols that looked like scribbles, while the other side had neat handwriting. The top and bottom parts of the three vertical words "I love you" were a little hard to see because a person's face is only so big, and when the words are imprinted onto an uneven cheek, they will naturally appear blurry.

"I see, that explains it all. If our police find the folder used in this crime and the foundation used when disguising themselves as women, then they will be irrefutable evidence!"

Just as Mr. Banno, whose identity had been completely revealed, was about to kneel down like the other murderers from the previous hundreds of episodes, he suddenly ran forward, naively believing that as long as he escaped from here, he would still have a chance.

When Conan saw the culprit rushing towards him, he was about to give him a tranquilizer dart, but Wakasa-sensei immediately tackled the children to the side, giving Banno enough space.

Thinking he could escape, Banno didn't notice his footing and tripped over Wakasa-sensei. He fell in front of the door and was about to get up and continue running when Wakasa-sensei spun around and elbowed him directly in the head, knocking the poor Banno unconscious.

Wow! The teacher is amazing!

"Haha, no, I don't know what happened either, it was all because that person bumped into me."

Kitahara Masaki was about to leave when a large number of reporters suddenly poured in from the stairwell and crowded around Banno's door. Every reporter kept taking pictures, and the group of children told the reporters that the murderer was Wakasa-sensei who had subdued him.

How did the reporters arrive so quickly? The police haven't even released any details about the case yet. Could it be that—

Kitahara Masaki stared into thought as he looked at Wakasa-sensei, who was grinning foolishly in front of the camera.

Chapter 334 Unlucky Takagi

The news of Ms. Wakasa knocking out the murderer quickly appeared in the newspapers, and Kitahara Masaki's subsequent investigation revealed that the reporters who arrived so quickly had all received anonymous phone calls informing them of the murder, which is why they arrived so fast.

I see. It seems that those reporters were all called by Ms. Wakasa. So her purpose must be to have the reporters record her involvement in this case.

So what's the purpose? To become famous? Or is it an act of declaring war?

Just as Kitahara Masaki was looking at the photo in the newspaper of the murderer and Ms. Wakasa, Rum sent another message, urging him to report on the news about 'Napoleon' as soon as possible. But in addition, he also asked Kitahara Masaki to help him investigate Ms. Wakasa.

After putting away his phone, Kitahara Masaki first sent over all the police's deductions about 'Napoleon,' emphasizing that 'Napoleon' had a twisted sense of justice and his own moral compass. Basically, he was trying to lure Rum—'Napoleon' was a vigilante who hated criminals and considered himself a champion of justice. He believed that Rum would soon be able to devise a plan to lure him, and then Kitahara Masaki could take advantage of the chaos to capture this disgusting old man who thought he was the mastermind.

As for Ms. Wakasa, judging from Rum's actions, it suggests that Ms. Wakasa and Rum had a hostile relationship in the past, which is very likely related to Rum's defeat more than ten years ago, or even that defeat caused him to lose an eye.

So it seems Rum has a lot of tasks to do—first, investigate whether there is a mole, then find the whereabouts of the Miyano sisters, then eliminate 'Napoleon' who has repeatedly thwarted the organization's plans, and finally deal with Ms. Wakasa.

It's really pitiful for this old man. He's clearly the organization's second-in-command, but he still has to work on the front lines. However, this is also a drawback of the organization. Although it recruits a large number of elites from the intelligence organization, when there are important missions, the BOSS can only entrust those missions to trusted people.

Only three days after receiving information about 'Napoleon', Kitahara Masaki, who was still wondering what Rum would do, suddenly received news that Takagi had been shot on his way to work and had been taken to the hospital.

"Inspector Megure, which hospital is he in now?"

"It's at Beika Hospital. I just contacted the doctor, and he said there's no danger to her life, but she'll definitely need to rest for a while. I've already gone to cordon off the area. I'll leave everything to you, Inspector Kitahara!"

Inspector Megure's voice trembled noticeably with anger, indicating that this case had greatly angered him. However, after hanging up the phone, Kitahara Masaki began to worry. If this was indeed Rum's elaborate scheme, meaning that he had once again excluded everyone from his plan, then Kitahara Masaki would no longer have the intelligence advantage he had before.

We can only take it one step at a time.

Upon arriving at the hospital, they saw Takagi lying weakly on the hospital bed. When he saw Kitahara Masaki, he tried to get up, but Kitahara Masaki pressed him back down.

"I'm sorry, Kitahara-senpai."

"You've been shot, luckily it didn't hit any vital organs, otherwise you would be dead."

"Yes, I also feel very lucky, but I didn't see the prisoner's face. The prisoner escaped before I could react."

"Hmm—that criminal probably knew you'd pass through that alley on your way to work, so he attacked when there were no security cameras. Don't worry, if someone dares to attack a police officer, the Metropolitan Police Department has probably already set up an investigation headquarters. I believe they'll find the criminal soon."

After comforting Takagi for a few moments, Kitahara Masaki went to the scene and found that there were very few clues there, or rather, there were practically no clues at all.

The found bullet casings only indicate that the perpetrator used a standard .38 caliber all-metal bullet. There were no footprints or hairs at the scene, meaning we don't even know why the person shot Takagi. Was it a random attack? Personal grudge? Or revenge against the entire police force? Based on the scene—it's impossible to determine. Even the system's magnifying glass couldn't find any evidence.

Kitahara Masaki also mobilized a great deal of resources to find the culprit. In order to test Rum's reaction, he even used the lowest-ranking members of the Black Organization to search for armed people in Tokyo and located the criminal that Takagi had personally arrested.

Even so, they couldn't find a single suspect. The police even found all the people who claimed on social media that they were the police officers who shot the officers, and conducted a thorough investigation into those who liked to make boastful remarks. In the end, they found that most of the people who made such outrageous statements online were students or unemployed people.

Thus, the investigation stalled. During their spare time, the members of the First Investigation Division went to the vicinity of that alley to inquire about related information, making Takagi, who was still in the hospital, feel very embarrassed.

"Thank you all for your help."

"Don't worry, we have to find that culprit no matter what!"

Seeing Sato's declaration, Takagi was so moved she almost cried.

“We are currently investigating extremists who harbor resentment towards the police. Given the previous attempted bombing case involving the Metropolitan Police Department, the investigation headquarters is not ruling out the possibility that this is an organized crime attack against you.”

"Huh? But I wasn't involved in the Fourth Investigation Section's work."

"Sigh, the criminals may have just thought it would be easy to attack you, so they did. But if that's the case, then the fact that they haven't committed another crime or made any statement about it for such a long time makes it impossible to know what they're up to."

Just like the previous hacker group 'Tsukuyomi', they always do some inexplicable things. Perhaps if the bombing case had succeeded, they would have revealed that they were the criminals. However, after Kitahara Masaki notified the police to come to the rescue, their wishful thinking was shattered.

So perhaps this time will be the same; Takagi will only suffer minor injuries, which will not serve any purpose other than angering the Metropolitan Police Department.