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[BIG CHAPTER]
Now, it was Shiina who fell into deeper confusion.
She stared blankly at Akira, completely unable to grasp the meaning of his words. All the testimonies and evidence seemed like strung pearls, linked one after another, laid out before him, so how could they be met with such a denial? Why would he quibble? He shouldn't be that kind of person.
"Words alone prove nothing." Akira seemed to see through the doubt in her eyes, his tone still calm, even carrying a hint of frank suggestion. "How about I take you to my room to see?"
Shiina was silent for a moment. This deduction should've ended with her resounding conclusion, but now it felt as if it had been forcibly diverted onto a side road.
She looked up at his frank profile and finally nodded, her voice carrying a subtle tension. "...Alright."
The two walked side by side down the dormitory hallway, the corridor lights casting intersecting shadows on the floor, their footsteps echoing with unusual clarity.
Shiina's mind replayed the interlocking evidence—the choice of the alt account buyer, the efficiency of the form, and the computer in the bedroom... Each seemed like a nail pinning down the truth, yet Akira's denial earlier had been too frank, making her waver slightly.
"We're here." Akira stopped in front of room 402, pulled his room card from his pocket, and swiped it cleanly over the sensor. The lock clicked softly, and he pushed the door open without the slightest hesitation.
Shiina followed closely into the room, her gaze drawn as if by a magnet, immediately shooting toward the desk. It was empty. Not to mention a laptop, not even a pen or a piece of paper could be found. It was almost deliberately clean.
Akira turned around, his gaze meeting hers. "You see, do I have a computer in my room?" He paused, then added, "Of course, you can also search the room to confirm whether there is one."
"...Then I apologize for the intrusion." Shiina hesitated for a few seconds, but still nodded. At this moment, her detective mindset was in absolute command. Since she had the owner's permission, there was no reason to refuse.
She thought for a moment and first walked toward the bathroom. After carefully scanning it, she opened the cabinet below to check, then looked up at the ceiling, specifically tapping it with her finger to confirm there was no possibility of a hidden compartment, before slowly walking to the center of the room.
Then, she thought for a moment and simply squatted down, her gaze directed under the bed.
It was empty, with nothing inside.
Akira's room had almost no furniture, at most only a wardrobe provided by the school, which would be enough to hide a computer.
'Could the truth be hidden in the wardrobe?!'
As this thought emerged, her first reaction was to think of the famous scene from Ryukishi07's "Umineko When They Cry."
He truly surprised her once again.
She had a strange feeling that he was probably doing it on purpose, just as she'd deliberately placed "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" on the table back then.
"Can Shiina-san make such a deduction merely because the cabinet is here?" Akira asked again at this moment.
Shiina was startled, not expecting him to have thought of the same thing as her.
This line, indeed, came from Furudo Erika.
Unfortunately, just like the twin trick in that work, the wardrobe was ultimately empty.
She pondered for a moment, then walked straight over and pulled open the cabinet door. As expected, there was only a school uniform and a tracksuit inside, nothing else.
'Could it be that he anticipated my anticipation and moved the computer in advance?!'
'But when I called him downstairs, he clearly left within about three minutes! Even if he took the elevator or stairs, he shouldn't have been ready so quickly!'
'Moreover, he can't read minds, so how could he have known that I'd already guessed his true identity?'
But then she thought, she herself had only figured this out this afternoon.
'Perhaps... he never hid the computer in the room from the start?'
Shiina's fingertips unconsciously traced the wardrobe door panel, the cold touch making her thoughts even clearer.
She rescanned the entire room. The empty walls had no shelves, and even under the bed was clean enough to see the floorboards.
Such a space, rather than being deliberately used to hide things, was inherently devoid of anything to hide.
"You seem to have thought of something?" Akira's voice came from behind her, carrying a subtle hint of a smile.
She turned sharply. He was leaning against the doorframe, his eyes as calm as a deep pool. "What if the computer was never in this room to begin with?"
She spoke tentatively, her pace unconsciously quickening. "You took three minutes to come downstairs, but if the computer wasn't here at all, moving it wouldn't require any time."
Akira raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying I'd deliberately go out at nine in the evening, run to where I hid the computer, and write the form? Not to mention the time it'd take to go back and forth, and the trouble of finding a place to hide, the computer's battery life alone wouldn't last. Your deduction doesn't seem to hold up."
Shiina was genuinely stunned this time.
He actually used her own deduction to refute her.
"That's right! I sent the form at nine o'clock that evening, and if there was no computer in the room to begin with, then he'd have to leave his room and go to where the computer was hidden to process it. This logical chain indeed has a flaw."
"Since there's no computer, then how did you...?" Shiina's words caught in her throat.
"It's easy to fill out forms using office software on a phone." Akira interrupted her, his tone as calm as if demonstrating a simple arithmetic problem, while taking out his phone from his pocket. "It doesn't necessarily have to be a computer."
He lit up the screen and deliberately turned the phone toward her. The icon of an office software was clearly displayed on the screen, with the words "Installed" below it.
Shiina's gaze involuntarily drew closer. The icon was indeed a commonly used office app on the market. Although its functions weren't as comprehensive as the computer version, it was sufficient for processing forms.
"This..." She opened her mouth. All those deductions about "needing a computer" suddenly deflated like a punctured balloon in her heart.
'What exactly is going on...? There's an office app. He couldn't have predicted my thoughts, and ever since I started stating my deductions, he hasn't even touched his phone, which means those apps were indeed installed by him beforehand!'
Shiina pondered for a moment. It seemed that investigating along the computer line was indeed not feasible.
Since this path was blocked, it was better to explore the truth from a different direction.
"There's an even simpler way to verify whether you're 'that person,' Shimizu-kun." Shiina's gaze now fixed directly on Akira's phone.
"What method?"
"Transaction records can't be deleted. If you let me see your expenditure records, and if there's a capital flow exceeding two million, then 'that person' must be you." Shiina said clearly after a brief thought. "'That person's' friend list should include the student council president. After all, the president received money from Ryuuen, and logically, he'd transfer the money to you. Moreover, you couldn't have bought a dummy account without spending any points. At least at the time of purchasing the dummy account, you must've made a transaction with your main account. If I'm not mistaken, there must've been at least one transaction between you and your class teacher, Chabashira-sensei, and one of them must've been the expense for buying a dummy account."
She naturally hadn't prepared only the "computer" as a starting point.
The dummy account was also a crucial link in her chain of deductions.
Among the three pieces of information she just mentioned, as long as Akira matched any one of them, even if he didn't have a computer, he'd still be the one who "purchased surveillance from the school."
Especially the last point about the transaction for purchasing a dummy account—she was almost 100% certain about that.
This was her ultimate trump card, hidden in her heart, capable of overturning all other deductions.
Initially, out of consideration for Akira's privacy, she hadn't intended to reveal it directly. But now, with the argument about the computer overturned, she had no choice but to lay out this trump card.
"Almost perfect evidence..." Akira nodded unconsciously, a hint of admiration in his voice.
He truly hadn't expected to be pushed to such a point by her.
These three deductions were indeed more precise than the last.
There'd indeed been several large transfers between his dummy account and his main account. He'd also used his main account when adding Student Council President Horikita Manabu—the president was a person to be respected, and adding him with a dummy account would seem too disrespectful.
And that last deduction, in Akira's opinion, was a decisive blow.
If it were in a deduction game, this statement would be enough to override all other conclusions.
This was precisely the case: no matter how he tried to avoid expenses, at the moment of purchasing the dummy account, he had to use points from his main account to complete the transaction.
This was an absolutely unavoidable step.
Because in this school, transaction records simply couldn't be deleted.
He'd already received a notification when he purchased the dummy account that the records of point flow were completely transparent to the school. How could they allow students to privately delete transaction records?
"Since you say so, then you should've already obtained the accounts of the student council president and the Class D homeroom teacher, right?"
"Hmm... not yet." Shiina shook her head, a little embarrassed. She hadn't expected things to develop to this point either.
"Then you can ask Ichinose-san and inquire about those two people's accounts from her. If I tell you directly, it might be suspected of misleading you. If you check the relevant information with my phone, it should be easy to find out the truth."
"...Okay." Shiina nodded. Although she was puzzled as to why Akira could remain so calm, she quickly contacted Ichinose and obtained the two accounts.
She didn't suspect that Ichinose would deliberately send incorrect accounts. She trusted Ichinose's character.
Moreover, such matters were easily exposed—teachers' accounts were all verified with real names.
Shiina specifically checked with her own phone and indeed saw that Chabashira's account had a real-name verification tag next to it, clearly confirming it was the teacher's own account.
"Watch me." Akira said, walking over to her and deliberately angling his phone screen so she could see it clearly.
He first searched for the student council president using the account, but the result showed no such person.
"This..." Shiina froze instantly. Before she could recover, Akira opened the transaction records of his phone account.
In the total interface, both income and expenditure amounts didn't exceed one hundred thousand.
What caught her even more off guard was yet to come: Akira specifically searched for transaction records related to Chabashira's account, but the page was empty, without a single transaction information.
Shiina stared blankly at the phone.
The blank space on the screen was like a mirror, making her confident deductions seem somewhat hasty.
How could this be? She'd clearly calculated every step—the large transfers, the president's friend slot, the transaction with Chabashira-sensei... These pieces of evidence, which should've entangled him like chains, now all became broken links.
Not even one hit!
"Actually, your deduction just now had one most important oversight." Akira's voice held a hint of almost imperceptible seriousness, as if adding the final piece to this confrontation. "Students who want to buy a dummy account don't necessarily have to go through their homeroom teacher."
He looked up at Shiina's slightly changed expression and continued. "The student council in this school has enormous power. Since 'that person' could contact the school through the president to rent surveillance, there's no reason they couldn't directly purchase a dummy account through the student council. After all, for them, bypassing the homeroom teacher would actually be a more secure option. Therefore, your reason for targeting Class D was actually untenable from the very beginning."
This statement was like a decisive blow, unexpectedly opening up a blind spot in Shiina's logical chain.
"This...!" Shiina's eyes widened suddenly, and she froze in place.
Akira was right. The student council indeed had such authority.
In fact, the moment she saw his phone account, her resolve had already wavered. Those clear registration records and flawless account information had almost already confirmed that the person in front of her wasn't "that person."
"I'm sorry... I misunderstood you, Shimizu-kun." Her voice dropped, filled with deep regret. "And I went on and on with so many proud deductions..."
Before she finished speaking, her cheeks flushed, burning from her earlobes all the way to her jaw.
All those interconnected analyses and relentless interrogations now seemed like a self-important farce, making her wish she could crawl into a hole in the ground.
She instinctively lowered her head, her gaze falling on the floor cracks at her toes, her voice even trembling with embarrassment. "I took too much for granted..."
"It's okay, really, it's okay." Akira waved his hand at her. "There are indeed many suspicious points about me. It's perfectly reasonable for you to suspect me. This way, you shouldn't think I'm the one who 'rented surveillance,' right?"
"...Mm! Um... I'm sorry, then I won't bother you anymore... I'll go back now! Um! I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!"
Shiina's voice still carried lingering shyness. She quickly turned around, fumbling to pull the doorknob.
She practically fled Room 402, and the moment she closed the door, she could still feel that calm gaze behind her.
The cool wind in the corridor blew across her cheeks, but it couldn't dissipate the warmth that spread from her ears to her neck. The confident deductions and sharp questions from earlier now felt like tiny thorns pricking her heart, making her uncomfortable with every step.
It wasn't until she turned the corner of the hallway, took the elevator, and returned to her own room that Shiina collapsed onto her bed like a deflated ball.
"Ugh... how embarrassing," she murmured, pressing her hand against her burning cheeks, a sigh as faint as a mosquito's buzz escaping her throat. This self-important 'investigation' ultimately ended with her own discomfiture.
So, he knew from the start that he wasn't the 'culprit,' yet he went along with her, playing the part of detective and suspect?
What's more, she'd been so smug at the time, saying things like, "I'm not Miss Sherlock Holmes," and even threatening to "let him off the hook"... Looking back now, she felt like an immature chuunibyou.
No! Not even a middle schooler would make such flawed deductions!
"I'm so stupid!" She clapped both hands over her face, feeling the scorching heat of her skin through her fingertips. "How am I going to face him now...?"
In his eyes, she was probably just a weirdo who'd gone too far reading mystery novels.
However, she felt that there shouldn't be any problem.
By tomorrow, he should still speak to her with his usual attitude, right?
"After all... he clearly knew he wasn't the 'culprit,' yet he still put so much effort into playing along with my deductions."
Embarrassing as it was, the disappointment in her heart from having her deductions overturned was, imperceptibly, replaced by a more subtle emotion.
She couldn't quite articulate what kind of feeling it was, only that her heart felt warm and pleasantly comfortable.
Just then, her phone vibrated. Shiina picked it up and saw a message from Ryuuen.
{How's the investigation into the person who rented the surveillance cameras coming along?!}
{I apologize. My deductions had a major flaw. I overlooked the student council's situation and need to re-evaluate the information.}
{You really are useless. Don't investigate this matter anymore. I've given you a month, which is long enough.}
{Next, you should go tutor the other Class C students with their homework, since your academic performance is quite good.}
{By the way, I'll tell you that my plan is to target Class D starting from the third month, beginning with those in their class who participate in clubs.}
{Especially those few good-performing members of the sports clubs. Those guys are probably all simple-minded and brawny. A few words of provocation, and they'll likely resort to violence.}
{I'm not telling you this to ask for your opinion. I just think you're one of the few smart people in Class C, so I'm just informing you.}
Shiina stared at the message on the screen, her brows slightly furrowed.
In the third month, Ryuuen would make a move on Class D?
Fortunately, however, his target seemed to be limited to those participating in clubs.
So, Akira... he probably hasn't joined any clubs, right?