Chapter 304: Unnatural Power
After calming the frayed nerves of the remaining bystanders, a uniformed police officer approached Heiji to take his statement.
Heiji recounted the sequence of events that had led them to the estate. Naturally, he carefully omitted the illicit source of their initial clues—the ones confirming the Takahashi family's sabotage of the Kamisato clan's tournament venue. Instead, he focused entirely on the sheer devastation they had witnessed upon arriving at the Takahashi residence.
Conan stood nearby, nodding along to corroborate the Osakan detective's account. However, as Heiji described a woman named Raiden physically blocking their path and cleaving the massive Takahashi compound in two with a single swing of her sword, the officer's pen paused. The man's expression twisted into a mask of deep skepticism.
If the officer didn't personally know Heiji, and didn't know the high school detective detested frivolous pranks, he would have assumed the teenager was deliberately spinning wild fairy tales to mock the police force.
Even knowing Heiji wasn't the type to lie about a crime scene, the officer found his hand drifting instinctively toward the radio clipped to his belt. He fought the sudden urge to call for a psychiatric evaluation. Perhaps these two kids had simply been caught in a sudden earthquake and, paralyzed by fear, allowed their traumatized imaginations to overwrite reality.
As for the Takahashi family's butler sitting nearby... the officer glanced over at the older man. The butler's face was a hysterical, tear-streaked mess, his eyes wide and vacant. Concluding that the poor man had already lost his grip on sanity due to the sudden catastrophe, the officer abandoned any thought of questioning him.
Despite his overwhelming disbelief regarding Heiji's supernatural tale, the mention of a Kamisato clan member at the scene prompted standard protocol. The officer stepped away and contacted headquarters to verify Miss Raiden's whereabouts during the time of the incident.
It didn't take long for the dispatcher to relay the investigation results.
Ending the call, the officer turned back to Heiji. His face was a complicated canvas—three parts doubt, three parts concern, three parts helpless exasperation, and one part absolute disbelief.
"I've just confirmed it," the officer sighed, tucking his notepad away. "Miss Raiden is currently at the Kamisato estate. She is having tea with Miss Mouri and the rest of your group. They can all provide a rock-solid alibi."
The implication hung heavily in the air. It was physically impossible for Heiji and Conan to have seen her at the Takahashi residence just moments ago. The distance between the two estates was far too vast for anyone to traverse in such a brief window of time.
"As for your claim about the Takahashi residence being split by a sword strike..." The officer shook his head. "We just received an official bulletin from the Seismological Bureau. A localized, minor earthquake occurred directly beneath the Takahashi property. That massive fissure you saw was caused by tectonic shifting. Fortunately, there were very few casualties."
He pointed toward the covered body being loaded into an ambulance. "As for the head of the Takahashi family, the coroner suspects he was unfortunately struck by lightning during the freak thunderstorm induced by the seismic activity. That was the cause of death."
Heiji and Conan stood frozen, listening to the official report in stunned silence.
"How is that even possible?!" Heiji finally snapped, his voice cracking. "An earthquake?! You've gotta be kidding me!" Refusing to accept it, he stepped forward, practically snatching the officer's phone to read the forwarded dispatch himself.
Conan immediately leaned in, his glasses flashing as his eyes darted across the glowing screen, scrutinizing the Seismological Bureau's detection report.
Although the geological jargon was dense, the official seal was authentic. The data undeniably recorded a minor earthquake at these exact coordinates.
'Could she have used some sort of high-tech device to artificially induce seismic activity?' Conan muttered in his mind, his brow furrowing deeply.
He vividly recalled the terrifying image of Ei swinging her blade downward. His brilliant mind raced, spinning wild hypotheses. Was there a hidden mechanism inside that katana? Some advanced technology capable of manipulating atmospheric electricity to trigger a localized fault line collapse?
And the timing... how did she return to the Kamisato estate so quickly? He was absolutely certain the woman he saw was Ei. There was no way both he and Heiji had suffered the exact same hallucination.
The primary culprit was already dead, charred by a 'freak' lightning strike, but according to the files Heiji had intercepted earlier, several other family members were deeply involved in the sabotage.
Right on cue, Kamisato Ayato made his move. Upon 'learning' of the tragic accident at the Takahashi residence, the head of the Kamisato clan had immediately contacted the authorities. Playing the role of a concerned citizen, Ayato handed over a mountain of newly uncovered criminal evidence detailing the Takahashi family's illegal operations.
Armed with this sudden windfall of evidence, the police swept through the ruined estate, arresting more than half of the surviving Takahashi personnel on the spot.
Watching the arrests, Heiji and Conan felt a chilling certainty settle over them. The Kamisato clan had absolutely orchestrated today's 'accident'. Yet, they were entirely powerless. They had zero physical evidence. Relying solely on the word of two teenagers and a traumatized, hysterical butler would never hold up in court.
No matter how intensely frustrated the two detectives felt, their hands were tied. Defeated, they had no choice but to head back to the Kamisato estate, hoping to somehow figure out the trick behind Ei's impossible travel time.
Unfortunately, they racked their brains for the entire journey back, turning the puzzle over and over, but failed to find a single logical clue.
Back at the Kamisato estate, Conan immediately sought out Subaru Okiya, eager to exchange information.
In the quiet of the guest quarters, Conan learned from Subaru about Klee using her Jumpy Dumpty to blast fish in the pond, while Subaru listened intently to Conan's harrowing account of the destruction at the Takahashi residence.
Subaru adjusted his glasses, his fingers lightly stroking his chin as he pondered the situation. "So, could little Klee's Dodoco also possess some form of unnatural power, much like Miss Raiden's blade?"
Compared to the strictly logical Conan, Subaru—an elite FBI ace—possessed a much broader spectrum of life-or-death experience. He had encountered phenomena in the shadows of the world that science struggled to explain. Consequently, his threshold for accepting magic-like abilities was significantly higher.
Hearing that Klee wasn't the only one displaying impossible feats, and recalling the deeply unsettling impression left by Tartaglia's bizarre weaponry during their very first encounter, Subaru's mind began to connect the dots. He couldn't help but suspect a terrifying possibility: did every single member of the Teyvat Organization possess these unique, unnatural powers?
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]