Chapter 34: The Overwritten Floppy Disk of Akemi Miyano

It was unclear which part of the plan had gone wrong. Things were not unfolding as Nara Hikaru had anticipated.

Nara Hikaru’s gaze swept across the face of the assailant before him. Without a doubt, by the standards of Beika Town, the man was handsome. His physique resembled that of a male model one might see in a magazine. But why would such a person come to kill Masami Hirota?

With a sudden, violent flick of his wrist, Nara Hikaru wrenched the arm of the man he was holding. A sickening creak of strained joints echoed in the air.

"Ah! It hurts!!!"

The assailant’s arm was instantly dislocated by the force of the snap. The agony made it impossible for him to maintain his composure, and he let out another cry of pain.

"It looks like you've had some plastic surgery, haven't you?" Nara Hikaru asked in a low voice, having noticed the unnatural stiffness in the man’s facial expressions.

That single sentence seemed to strike a nerve. Ignoring his own pain, the assailant lashed out at Nara Hikaru with a furious shout.

"Why are you pretending to be ignorant now?! Masami Hirota, are you still trying to insult me? Or have you even forgotten my name? I am Yo Shirakura! Don't you remember me?!"

Yo Shirakura? Who was that? There had been no record in the intelligence files of any grudge between him and Masami Hirota.

Ignoring the inexplicable assailant, Nara Hikaru released his grip and delivered a swift, precise strike. Shirakura immediately lost consciousness, slumping limply to the floor and drifting into a peaceful sleep. Although he did not know who the man was, he had clearly come with the intent to kill Masami Hirota. Since that was the case, he would simply let the police handle him when they arrived. He had no interest in the personal entanglements between Shirakura and Hirota.

*Whoosh.*

Nara Hikaru pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Conan. He asked, "Have you reached Shizuoka Prefecture and retrieved the floppy disk?"

At that moment, Conan, who was rummaging through the old family home of Masami Hirota in Shizuoka, snatched up the phone during a brief pause. He sounded a bit disgruntled.

"It’s not that fast! Masami Hirota said Akemi Miyano only left some floppy disks with landscape photos here. He didn't even store them carefully; he just tossed them aside..."

"Hmm? Haibara, you found it? Where is it... Oh? In that box nearby?"

The "Death God" elementary schooler felt a sense of unease. It sounded as if someone had deliberately placed it there. But when Inspector Megure had taken Masami Hirota in for questioning, Hirota had explicitly stated that he hadn't looked at the disks Akemi Miyano had given him recently. It shouldn't have been in that box. Could someone else have entered Hirota's residence and gone through the disks beforehand?

After briefly informing Conan about the location of the disk, Haibara Ai pulled out a laptop. She disconnected it from the network before inserting the disk to read the data. According to her memory, this disk should have contained research materials on APTX-4869. If she could retrieve them, the progress on the antidote would accelerate significantly, as reverse-engineering the drug without the original data was nearly impossible.

However, Haibara Ai let out a gasp of shock. "How is this possible? The data on this disk is wrong! This isn't the APTX-4869 material!"

Hearing her exclamation, Conan quickly rushed to her side. His eyes scanned only the third line of the data, and his brow furrowed immediately.

"Pisco? Kenzo Masuyama? A car company chairman?" Conan muttered. "This is definitely not research data for APTX-4869. This is a list of the Black Organization's strongholds in Beika Town! Only an internal member could have obtained and delivered this. Haibara, are you certain you sent the APTX-4869 data back then?"

Seeing the distribution charts that clearly required high-level security clearance, a chill ran down Haibara Ai's spine. It wasn't a matter of whether she had sent the wrong disk; the problem was—

"I didn't even know the Organization's distribution in Beika Town. You have to understand, I was just a researcher; my movements were restricted. My sister probably knew more about the organization’s setup than I did!"

"Wait... there’s some residual data... the readout shows fragments of the APTX-4869 research materials. Someone opened this disk before us and read the data."

Her voice trembled with disbelief. "The Organization’s data was written onto the disk later. That means someone came here before us, found my sister’s disk, read the research, and then overwrote it with the Black Organization’s distribution list for Beika Town!"

"That person even went to the trouble of placing the disk among the ones Masami Hirota used most frequently!"

"Who on earth would do this? And who else knew that my sister considered Masami Hirota a friend?"

Facing Haibara’s disbelief, the elementary schooler simply adjusted his glasses and sighed. He knew that asking Haibara anything else right now would likely yield no results. After all, the only person who might have known the answer was Akemi Miyano herself, and Haibara had essentially ceased to function, becoming a broken record of shock. Expecting her to solve this mystery now was unrealistic.

"In any case, Yan Shuangying, I’ll be heading back to Beika Town with the disk shortly."

"I’ll make a copy for you. Do you want to come to Professor Agasa’s lab to pick it up yourself, or should I send it to a location of your choice?"

On the other end of the line, the boy’s voice sounded quite cooperative, though it always left one wondering if he was hiding something or planning to trip up his allies.

Nara Hikaru, however, was indifferent. Whether it was the Japanese Public Security or the Black Organization, if they targeted him and dared to show their faces, they would die. Conan couldn't even get close to the Public Security; at most, he would drag Inspector Megure along to set an ambush, and the quality of the officers in the First Investigative Division was hardly worth mentioning.

"I will come to Professor Agasa’s lab tomorrow to collect the copy," Nara Hikaru said, hanging up the phone.

He pushed open the dormitory door. Checking the time, he decided it was time to leave. Since Gin hadn't appeared by now, it was highly unlikely he would show up at all. Nara Hikaru had no intention of waiting any longer. He would find a public phone booth to alert the Metropolitan Police Department to make the arrest, and then he would leave. He could continue with his original plan.

Beyond that, he needed to re-evaluate his plan for the day and figure out exactly where things had gone wrong.

Why hadn't Gin come?