Shinichi Kudo Returns ~Confrontation with the Black Organization~ (Novel)
- This article is about a Detective Conan novel. For the drama special of the same name, which was based on this novel, please see: Shinichi Kudo Returns! Confrontation with the Black Organization
| Novel 4 | |
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| Information | |
| Title: | Shinichi Kudo Returns ~Confrontation with the Black Organization~ |
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| Japanese Title: | 工藤新一の復活～黒の組織との対決～ |
| Release date: | December 19, 2007 |
| ISBN: | ISBN 4-0912-1255-7 |
| Publisher: | Shogakukan |
| Creators | |
| Original work: | Gosho Aoyama |
| Author: | Takahisa Taira |
| Case | |
| Cast: | Conan Edogawa Shinichi Kudo Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Sonoko Suzuki Ai Haibara Shiho Miyano Miwako Sato Wataru Takagi Juzo Megure Hiroshi Agasa Gin Vodka |
| Suspects: | Misuzu Kotobuki, Mimi Kotobuki, Sumika Abe, Kyomi Kawata, Daigo Miura, and Shoichi Amano |
| Case solved by: | Shinichi Kudo |
| Chronology | |
| Prev novel: | « A Challenge Letter to Shinichi Kudo ~Prologue Until Goodbye~ (Novel) |
| Next novel: | The Witch of Ejinbara » |
| List of novels | |
Contents
Cast
Gadgets
Case
Situation
Karen Kotobuki, the top contender to win the Miss Japanesque competition, received a threatening letter, saying that she would be stabbed in the heart and made into a marionette, and if she struggle she would suffer death. Karen is neither impressed or intimated, however. Therefore, her mother Misuzu and her sister Mimi, along with the head of the election committee Daigo Miura, visit Mouri Detective Agency to ask Kogoro to become Karen's bodyguard during the competition, which will be held in the new SONOKO Hotel, which is owned and run by the Suzuki Company, and named after Sonoko Suzuki, the chairman's daughter. Seeing that this is a chance to meet beautiful ladies, Kogoro quickly agrees. However, after hearing something from Miura, Kogoro is so surprised that he slips on the stairs and breaks his leg, rendering him a hospital bed patient. Therefore, Ran is asked to go in his place, since Miura learned that Ran is good at karate. Ran is even registered as a contender instead of just being a bodyguard, as it will be easier to keep an eye on Karen that way.
That evening, Professor Agasa takes Ran, Conan, and Haibara to the hotel. Sonoko, who also attends the cometition, greets them and lead the group to Karen's room. Upon arriving, they hear Karen talking harshly to Sumika Abe and Kyomi Kawate, two other contenders. Misuzu and Mimi are also in the room. While the group is talking, a hotel employee brings tea and cake for them. Unbeknownst to them, the chef lost Karen's recipe for the cake, so he picked some random types of wine to bake it instead. When Conan mentions about the letter, Karen doesn't seem to care, and show everyone a throwing knife, which is stuck in her garter.
Sonoko then asks Ran to call Shinichi to ask him whether he can attend to the case. After leaving Karen's room, Conan prepares to call Ran back, however he is suddenly seized by a very familiar seizure. Haibara also begins to suffer the same seizure. They realize that there is Baijiu in the cake they have both just eaten. They just barely manage to hide in a room to ride out the transformation back to their actual ages. As the room contains clothes for laundry, they manage to get some outfit. After a first startled meeting with Haibara's adult form, Agasa is asked by Shinichi to take Shiho out of the hotel while he remains to check out the threatening message. However, after Shinichi leaves, Shiho insists on staying, as she want to investigate the recipe for the cake in order to create the antidote.
While investigating, Shinichi meets Shoichi Amano, a marionette manipulator. He gets to try controlling one of Amano's marionettes, and then hears Amano's story about a woman who only wants to become more and more beautiful, and then she can neither see her reflection nor hear what other people say about her appearance. Shinichi then stays to watch the contest. However, Ran, who is currently in backstage, notices him and approaches his location. Desperate to avoid a meeting and uncomfortable questions, Shinichi enters an elevator, but Ran spots and instantly recognizes him, and storming into the elevator cabin, she clutches him tearfully. With no other option left, he decides to reveal himself. He then asks Ran to keep a close eye to Karen when he investigates, which she agrees. Right after that, Shinichi learns from Agasa that Shiho is still in the hotel.
As Shinichi enters the floor where Karen's suite is located, he sees Mimi knocking frantically at Miura's door (which is at the end of the corridor) and Miura answering it, whereupon she accuses him of kidnapping her sister. Ran, who just left the stage, tells Miura that Shinichi is Kogoro's assistant to hide his involvement, and Miura confidently allows them to search his suite, to no avail. Mimi and Miura tell them that Karen's appearance for the next part of the contest will be that she is hoisted onto the stage hanging from wires. Just before preparing to change dresses, Karen was about to take a shower and has gone missing since, as well as the dress she wanted to wear for her entrance. As Mimi is leaving to continue searching for Karen, Shinichi overhears Miura saying something about a marionette. Miura reveals that Misuzu was the one who made Mimi join contests after contests, but that didn't come to fruition, unlike Karen who just kept winning. Shinichi sends Ran back to the stage and then goes after Mimi to help her search. When they arrives at Amano's room, Mimi demands to know if Karen is inside. It was then that Shinichi learns that Amano used to go out with Karen. After learning that Karen is not inside, they go to search the understage, where the hoist has been prepared for Karen's entrance. They are shortly joined by Amano, who is about to go on stage. Shinichi then sees Amano noticing something on his marionette. Just minutes away from the next stage of the show, Shinichi and Mimi separate to look for Karen. Only a few seconds before the next part, the director's assistant announces that Karen has assumed her position, and the show is continued. But a sight of horror awaits the spectators as Karen is hauled upon the stage hanging limply in the wires and manipulated like a marionette – and with her own knife sticking from her chest – before she is dropped down onto the stage, dead!
| Murder | |||||||||
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As panic breaks out and the TV cameras in the room are turned away from this horrifying sight, it briefly records Shiho storming inside, and as Ran wants to ask Shinichi about what has happened, she sees him talking to Shiho (actually urging her to leave the hotel at once lest the Black Organization would detect her presence from the live broadcast), and Shinichi earns himself a confrontational reproach from Sonoko and Ran's devastation upon seeing him with another woman. However, Shiho refuses to leave, and as Shinichi fears, Gin and Vodka indeed spot Shiho in the live footage on the Internet and immediately proceed to the hotel. Shinichi entrusts Shiho into Ran's care, and Shiho calls herself "Hairi" in order to avoid giving herself away. The police soon arrives, and Inspector Megure takes official charge of the investigation, in which Shinichi asks him to keep his involvement a secret once more.
Shinichi quickly familiarizes Megure with the background information to the case. Meanwhile, Shiho, instead of leaving, is still searching the kitchen for the alcoholic spirit which was used in making the cake. When Shinichi finds out and tells her to leave, Ran inadvertently bursts in on their conversation and overhears (and misinterprets) Shiho's statements about her and Shinichi's fates being linked, leaving her all the more devastated. Shinichi then asks Ran to get Shiho to Agasa's house. But as they proceed to the outside of the hotel, where Agasa is waiting, Shiho suddenly senses danger, which comes her way in the form of a Black Organization assassin wielding a knife. Ran is able to disarm him and drive him away, but Shiho flees back into the hotel; the assassin is subsequently executed by Gin for his failure. Shocked to the core and concerned for Ran and Agasa's safety, Shiho asks Shinichi to abandon her if the Black Organization catches up with her, a suggestion Shinichi refuses to accept. When questioned by Ran and Megure, Shinichi and Agasa claim that "Hairi" is Shinichi's new assistant.
Back with the case, it is surmised that the murder of Karen and her suspension from the wires must have taken place in the 27 minutes between the time she had left the stage to take a shower and when the director's assistant had noticed her below (assuming that she was still alive and just as contemptuous as usual). Afterwards, Megure and Shinichi begin to question the main suspects in the case, which includes all of Karen's entourage and her two competitors. Misuzu and Mimi state that they has been looking for Karen; Miura, that he has been making several telephone calls from his room; Sumika and Kyomi have apparently spent the time in question together in Kyomi's suite to get prepared; and Amano has been preparing for his performance. Shinichi and Shiho then are met with a sensation that the effect of Baijiu is running out, so they say that they will go search for clues. When they are alone later, Shinichi admits to Shiho that he knows that Ran is suffering from their forced separation and that he intends to revert to his former self no matter what it will take, just for her sake. Shinichi later discovers a peculiarity in the murder's live footage. Shiho notices a trail of blood leading from the understage to Miura's room, however Shinichi notes that the trail is fake, used to frame Miura, meaning that Karen was indeed murdered in this understage.
Just as Shinichi finally discovers the missing link to the murder case, he and Shiho experience another seizure, meaning that they will very soon revert back to their child form. When met by Ran, who does not fail to notice his weakened state, he asks her to assemble all suspects and Inspector Megure for the final confrontation of the culprit, partly to have her avoid seeing him transforming back to Conan. Ran complies and leaves, but not before promising Shinichi to hold onto her trust for him until he is ready to tell her everything.
When all are assembled, with Amano handcuffed since the police believes they have the proof that he is the culprit, Shinichi exposes the real murderer and the motive behind it.
Just as the case is finally closed and Shinichi intends to entrust Shiho to the protection of the police, he suddenly notices her missing and rushes back into the hotel, Ran in pursuit. In fact, Shiho is about to pack up all the alcoholic drinks in the kitchen for analysis, but with the police withdrawing from the hotel, Gin and Vodka finally make their move and penetrate the facility. Shinichi finds Shiho, and in a surge of relief Shiho embraces him right in front of Ran. Shiho finally decides to tell Ran a half-truth about her relationship with Shinichi: that Shinichi is in fact her protector from the associates of a culprit she had hired him to expose.
The three prepare to leave immediately, but just before she follows Shinichi and Shiho, Ran decides to make a phone call to her father to come with a police helicopter. But with his seizures coming more frequently, and thus with his re-transformation being imminent, Shinichi knocks out Ran with his Stun-Gun Wristwatch. When they hear Gin approaching, Shinichi stays behind as a decoy to cover Ran and Shiho's escape. Upon seeing Shinichi fleeing, Gin correctly assumes that he is Shiho's "knight protector" and intends to get his body and thus force her out of hiding.
