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I haven't really had time to closely examine the case but I suspect the solution has something to do with the color of the tea. For Amuro, the nickname "Zero" ("Rei" in Japanese) is another Gundam reference. The Gundam character Amuro Ray's given name is pronounced the same way zero (Rei) is in Japanese. I suspect there will be another real reason for Amuro's nickname in-story though. Amuro seems pretty young when he met Elena, like 6-10 years old. (He really does seem to be a Black Organization child.) That would place his meeting with Elena back before Shiho was born, assuming she really is 18. It seems that Elena and Atsushi knew they were going away/dying before even Shiho was born. Given how close Amuro seems to be to the Miyano family, I wonder of that has something to do with the reason he hates Akai. Does Amuro know the whole story behind Akai's betrayal? Amuro didn't seem incredibly upset that Shiho apparently died though so I'm not really sure about that theory. We do know Amuro's skin color is relevant for some reason according to the interview with Gosho, so that is something to keep in mind. Now that Amuro knows Conan met Rikumichi and that both Shuuichi and Rikumichi touched Conan's cellphone (from eavesdropping on Jodie) the only information Amuro is missing is knowing Conan has two identical cellphones and that he loaned one to Jodie in order to get the body in the truck identified. Those two pieces are all Amuro needs now to deduce how Akai faked his death.

I'm not going to do much additional work on the child identity problem until some more clues come up. It's been analyzed to death by a bunch of people already. The main reason the mother theory is as popular as it is is because we only have one female Akai we haven't seen, the child looks like a girl, and is wearing girls clothes. (And maybe talks femininely, but I haven't seen the raw text.) Normally that would be pretty indicative of gender, but we already have had one Akai family trap already who thinks it is acceptable to pretend to be male when it is convenient. (See bathroom use in Blush Mermaid.) Regarding the mother theory in general, if I assume that the child is the mother shrunken, then it really bothers me that the clues presented so far only consist of appearance (big boobs, looks like Shuuichi and Masumi), location (America, which would be a lie in this context), and possible history (maybe met Ran in the past). Usually mystery people whose identities we don't know yet are doing things rather than just existing in the story. Bourbon was activated and put on a mission about Sherry, Vermouth has something she wants to look into in Japan so she isn't going back to America, the boss is contacting his subordinates and ordering them about. Doing things is usually what differentiates suspects from clues that are people (in this case the mom would be a hint about what to expect the middle brother to be like). If I had to pick an APTXed Akai family member theory (instead of another non-shrinking theory), I'd choose the brother over the mother despite the girl look. The brother is doing things in Japan (contacting Masumi). It continues the trend of misleading-looking Akais. The cough bothers me for the same reason. Why have the child be sick at all? In Detective Conan, coughing like that typically implies a rough voice, so it will sound gender ambiguous when the anime rolls around, or to anyone listening in on bugs. When flipping back to the Makoto case when Sera texts her brother, I noticed again that the hand on the phone looks like the style Gosho uses to draw young people vs older males like Okiya and Amuro. That's merely my impression rather than an objective observation; I didn't bring it up back then because Gosho's not perfectly consistent with hand styles and there was no reason to suspect the brother could be a child at that point. Re MeitanteiSonoko's theory about the Silver Bullet and a Miyano connection, there is no evidence. We haven't heard about anyone other that Elena and Atsushi working on Silver Bullet, nor anything about Silver Bullet being used on someone (excluding APTX 4869 here). That doesn't mean it didn't happen, but without evidence, one story is as good as any other. James Black has a good alibi against being the boss. In Kir's introduction case, when Gin asked the boss by phone for permission to kill Kogoro, James was driving the car with Jodie and Conan in it. He couldn't text Gin back without Jodie and Conan noticing.

I thought when Conan said the girl who looks like Sera, he was referring to Sera. The girl in the photo is def Sera now, so that was incorrect in the end. Known facts about the child: • Conan thinks the child is female. Outfit appears to be a high-neck pleated top, hoodie jacket, and hat. A pleated top, assuming that is what it is, is considered female-only clothing in Japan as far as I know. • Child has neck length, blond, curly hair. It's noted to resemble Char Aznable's. • Middle school aged-looking according to Conan, so approx 12-15 years old. Height is intermediate between Conan and Ran. • Has eyes like Akai Shuuichi. • Highly likely to have been hiding in Masumi's bedroom. Masumi preventing Conan from entering the bedroom and the child was later shown emerging from her room later (876). • Conan thinks Masumi showed the child's picture to him intentionally, although the purpose is unknown. Some notes about the facts • Wearing a hat indoors is somewhat secretive, but also common for Akai family. Speculation Conan suspected Masumi was warning someone to hide in the text to her brother Conan seems surprised that Masumi would so quickly cancel a meeting with her brother (876: pgs 4), especially after Masumi noted earlier that she has no idea what the brother has been doing of where he has been. (859: pgs 6-7) Conan gets the suspicious "..." watching Masumi text her brother happily, suggesting that she is doing something he finds suspect. Conan then decides to pry around the apartment, something Masumi in turn was alert to. Since the child in the photo was shown on the bed, Conan may have just been intending to match the patterns with his memory of those he saw on the phone picture to ascertain where the photo was taken. That said, I think Conan is assuming Masumi's text was a warning to stay hidden, especially after he was blocked from the bedroom. Conan suspects there is something important about the child Conan chases after the child in the crowd in a hurried and almost panicked fashion. The last time he did that sort of thing was when Scar Akai appeared and when he thought Bourbon might have gotten some serious information. That doesn't imply the child is evil, but certainly suggests that Conan thinks the child is important enough to track down immediately and get emotional about. Bugging the room pretty much confirms Conan's intentions as well as his belief that the child is not bad because he risked his bug being found and traced back to him. Conan's assumption that the child is a girl should be taken with a grain of salt Conan could very well be correct about the child being a girl. That said, Masumi already fooled Conan into thinking she was male. Androgyny might be a recurring theme for the Akai family. Even though the child appears in girl's clothes, if the child is a boy in hiding (wearing a hat indoors suggests this may be the case) then they may be using their androgynous appearance as a simple disguise. Reason why Masumi would show Conan the child's picture Conan thinks Masumi deliberately showed him the picture of the child in 875. Masumi has also been relatively free with information regarding her family. It may be that she is inviting Conan to make a deduction about the child's identity. If Conan is wrong about why Masumi wanted him to retrieve her phone, I can only think of a few other options. Maybe she wanted his fingerprints? If that is the case, couldn't she have gotten them already from something else he touched? Maybe she left the camera on and was filming his face close up as he collected it? Maybe it was recording his voice? (If it is the voice, Masumi could have purchased a recorder earlier, or recorded Conan during the deduction scene.) Theories about the identity of the child Facts about Masumi's family This is the information about Masumi's family she has given us so far. Most of it is self reported, so if she is lying everything goes out the window. • Masumi's nuclear family consists of five individuals ....• A father who is dead ....• A mother, well endowed, currently living in America. Resembles Masumi and the eldest son. ....• An oldest son, thought to be dead, who looks like Masumi and his mother. Heavily implied to be Akai Shuuichi. ....• A middle brother living in Japan who doesn't look like Masumi, Shuuichi, or their mom. ......Smart as opposed to strong, probably 28-29 years old, and has been advising Masumi on cases by phone. ......His whereabouts and work are unknown according to Masumi. His last name isn't Sera or Akai. ....• Sera Masumi herself Masumi claims that she doesn't have any more relatives close enough to depend on. (876 pg 3) It is unclear whether this means that her family are all the relatives she has, or she could have more relatives, but they aren't close enough to support her. She says she is being financially supported by one of her dad's friends. The identity of this backer is unknown currently. This information appears to exclude another blood relative in Masumi's nuclear family, which confuses Conan. That leaves us with a few options • Masumi has lied about the number of siblings she has. • Masumi has lied or does not know about (i.e. doesn't know they are related by blood) having additional relatives she is close with, one of which is the child. • The child is not considered part of Masumi's family by Masumi. • The child's strong resemblance to the Akai family is coincidental. • The child is an offspring of one of her siblings. • The child is in fact one if her family members, implying they were shrunken somehow. Detailed Breakdown of above listed ideas Masumi lied about the number of siblings she has or the relatives that she has If the child is another blood sibling, the span of her mother's childbearing years is minimum 13-14 years, assuming they are born of a single mother. Also I would expect to see clues that Masumi lied about her family per the Gosho-writes-solvable-mysteries-which-means-there-should-be-clues-somewhere principle. If the child is a relative of Masumi's then it doesn't explain why she would want to show Conan the picture, unless she was afraid of letting Ran and Sonoko know she had relatives. Masumi doesn't know the child is a blood relative of hers In these cases it is unclear why Masumi would want to show Conan the photo of someone she doesn't think is related to her. • Masumi's backers may be blood relatives of the Akai family, but Masumi does not know this yet. The child is related to her backers. • The child is a secret offspring of the father or mother. It is unclear when Masumi's father died. If he had a child by another woman, then it is possible that the child was raised with that other woman instead, and Masumi was not aware of the relationship. Also, if somehow her mother concealed a pregnancy from Masumi, it's possible that the child is a secret sibling. The child is not considered part of Masumi's family by Masumi One solution is that Mrs. Akai remarried and had another child after the death of her first husband, who had Shuuichi, middle brother, and Masumi. Masumi for some reason doesn't consider this step-child a part of her family. This sort of logic seems weird to me, but maybe there is customary thinking to explain this? The child is an offspring of one of Masumi's older brothers • Her middle brother is 28/29 which would make him a teen parent if that was the case. • Shuuichi is older and theoretically could have had a relationship with another woman early on. That said, Shuuichi hasn't acted like he has a child (unless the woman he impregnated kept the child secret from him). Jodie is 28 and would have been a teen mom. No past girlfriends of Shuuichi old enough to have had the child are known to exist. The child is in fact one if her family members, implying they were shrunken somehow. The APTX 4869 theory. Gin mentioned that Shinichi was the first, or at least one of the first people APTX 4869 was tested on. That is backed up by Haibara implying that the Black Organization hadn't been using it as a poison for too long. Her test of APTX 4869 on Numabuchi was blocked by him escaping. That implies that any shrinking going on will be recent in the case of APTX 4869, or really old to the tune of 18 years if Silver Bullet is involved. Silver Bullet was never mentioned as being tested on people, so APTX 4869 is more likely. Haibara, in her intro case, did give a warning that she thought more people might shrink which would be disastrous if discovered, so Shinichi should hurry up and make Kogoro famous and break the Org. A shrunken person would explain why Masumi showed Conan the child on her phone, inviting him to figure out that he and the child have the same problem. If Conan thinks he is dealing with a shrunken child, it explains why he took off running after the kid in an extreme way and bugged their room. Then there is the problem of why anyone would be dosed with APTX. Amuro trying to lure out Shuuichi by killing one of his family? The person got caught investigating something? The middle brother shrunk Out of all the various candidates, the middle bro makes the most sense. If he is the child, he looks different from Masumi and Shuuichi with his light hair color, something Japanese people are sensitive to. I could see Masumi saying he looks different from she and Shuuichi, even though their eyes are similar. If the middle brother is feminine-looking to the point where he is mistaken for a woman (in contrast to Masumi's masculine appearance) then the brother might be posing as a female child because it is a convenient disguise, especially if he doesn't know who is trustworthy. The middle bro has failed to tell Masumi where he is and what he is doing and refused to allow Masumi live with him, all things he would be doing if he was trying to hide his shrunken state from her, or what Masumi would say to others if Masumi was covering for him. It's strange that Masumi appears to have realized Conan is Shinichi (see discussion on The Wizard), but she hasn't informed her middle brother (who is in a similar state) about this discovery and working with Conan prior to the Makoto parking lot bathroom drowning case. If she knew her brother was shrunken, I would think that she would try to probe Conan to figure out what happened earlier on. She hasn't done so yet. The only way I can reconcile this is if the brother had been keeping his shrinking a secret from Masumi up until the text message with Conan's picture in the Makoto parking lot drowning case. Then he himself figured out Conan was Shinichi (maybe he met Shinichi in the past too). In between Twin Bets and Red Woman, he broke his prior secrecy and called a meeting with Masumi because he wants info on someone else with his condition. Masumi takes a picture of her brother at this time and shows it to Conan in the Red Woman Case, hoping Conan will figure out there is someone else like him too. Masumi really did intend to meet with her brother at the hotel where she claims to be living now (which is different than the short hotel she was shown to be living in before.) She changes plans to have Conan, Ran, and Sonoko come over so that the brother could get a look at Conan for himself, and so Conan can learn more about her brother's shrunken state. In case they see her later at a different hotel (the one where Masumi really lives), Masumi lies about moving out soon. Masumi keeps Conan from going in the bedroom is so he doesn't realize she doesn't live there (and because the brother was hiding in there). The brother wears a hat indoors when going to the scene of the crime in order to be sneaky. This explanation doesn't account for how the brother knew Conan was a good detective. (He would have had to know about Conan ahead of time - see middle brother theories on knowing Conan is Shinichi) If the brother is the child, that means as an adult, he probably looked a bit like Okiya, because siblings typically have similar builds. That would explain Masumi's instant startled reaction to Okiya, but uncharacteristic failure to follow up on any suspicion later. She realized he wasn't who she thought he was at first. Masumi's mother shrunk Well the child would be a girl. I don't really know what else to add onto this. Masumi's mother hasn't been active in the storyline the way the middle brother has. Masumi said her mother was in America, which could be a lie. Almost all the other information about Masumi's mother is physical appearance related. Maybe the mother met Ran in the past, because Masumi asks Ran to back an assertion that her mother is big chested, implying that Ran must have seen her in the past. Akai Shuuichi shrunk Shuuichi is definitely Okiya, so this doesn't work. Characteristics Okiya possesses that Shuuichi has, but the middle bro might not have: Black Org feeling Ran's feeling they have met before Quote "Don't make that face" and Haibara's feeling Okiya and Shuuichi are similar Knowledge on how to operate Conan's tracking glasses despite not having seen them before as Okiya Able to "predict Shiho and Akemi Miyano's moves" Likes bourbon whiskey. Left handed. The presence of Yukiko while Okiya was living in the Kudo house. Yukiko is good in disguise.