The night wasn't over yet. Right after Kid's shocking appearance, the Black Organization made their move.
They blew up the power supply of the skyscraper and detonated the 45th floor, trying to flush out "Sherry" from the banquet and kill her.
When Haibara Ai had called her sister's home two days ago, Gin and Vodka had been in the room and learned she would attend the banquet. They decided to eliminate the traitor along the way.
Their original reason for coming to the Twin Towers was that one of the skyscraper's programmers had once been a member of the Organization. But he betrayed them, hacked into the Organization's system using Tokiwa Group's main computer, and stole critical intel.
Following the digital traces, the Organization tracked him here and confirmed his betrayal. They killed him, then planned to blow up Tokiwa Group's main servers to erase the data. At the same time, they would force Sherry out and assassinate her.
The elevators shut down. Only the sightseeing lift was still working. Inspector Megure ordered women and children to take the elevator, while men had to use the stairs.
"This bombing must've been the work of that bastard Kaitou Kid. That bastard, I'll catch him for sure." Mouri Kogoro loudly declared, unknowingly clearing Kid of blame. As always, most of what he claimed was wrong. This time too—it was clearly the Black Organization, not Kid.
"Mouri, now isn't the time for that. Get people out quickly, the fire is spreading." "The power room's gone, even backup power is out. The fire suppression system is completely down. If we don't move, the flames will reach us. Get to the passage on the 60th floor and cross to Tower B."
The Twin Towers had two buildings—one tall at 75 floors, one shorter at 65. Bridges connected the two at the 45th and 60th floors.
"Women and children first. Thank god the sightseeing elevator still works."
Sonoko, Ran, and Conan stayed behind as the Detective Boys went down earlier, joining the last group to leave. Conan was deep in thought. He already knew Kisaragi Hōsui had killed the councilman, so he asked Professor Agasa to keep an eye on him. The programmer's killer was likely Gin, since the victim was holding a silver table knife—"silver" as in "gin." The bombings, Conan figured, were also targeting the servers on the 45th floor.
But something didn't add up. The Black Organization was ruthless. Why would they leave a sightseeing elevator open? Could it be…?
Conan remembered Haibara's phone call, then thought of Sonoko's hairstyle, which looked almost exactly like Sherry's. The sightseeing elevator, with its wide view, was also the easiest place to be spotted.
Could it be…? Conan quickly adjusted the focus on his glasses, zooming in on the opposite tower.
Gin's sniper rifle was already locked on Sonoko. Conan's heart froze, but being quick-witted, he immediately came up with a trick: "Sonoko-neechan, your underwear is showing!"
"Wha—?!" Sonoko flailed, pressing her skirt down in a panic. "No way! No way!"
Gin pulled the trigger, but because Sonoko ducked, the bullet missed and instead hit the elevator's control panel, stopping it midway.
"Gin!" Liu A'dou hadn't left after stealing the prize. He was still inside the banquet hall. With only the murderer Kisaragi and him left, A'dou now raised a pure-white sniper rifle and aimed at Gin. "Here's a gift for you."
Bang!
The rifle roared. The bullet screamed through the air and slammed into Gin's gun.
"?!!" Gin immediately released his weapon, unable to see who had fired at him. Liu A'dou had held back—otherwise Gin would already be dead.
Was this all a trap from the start? A setup by Sherry to assassinate him? For a brief moment, Gin thought it was possible. No… impossible! "Blow the bridges." No matter what Sherry planned, she would die here tonight. Gin's eyes gleamed with malice.
Boom! Both skybridges collapsed, cutting off the last escape route.
"Who the hell are you?!" Kisaragi Hōsui stared at Liu A'dou. At this moment, A'dou was disguised as Secretary Sawaguchi of Tokiwa Group.
"Someone stopping you from making another mistake." A'dou released his grip, and the sniper rifle in his hand vanished into nothing.
With tricks like this, if Kisaragi hadn't known before, now he was sure. "You're Kaitou Kid."
"That's right." Liu A'dou pulled a confession letter from his pocket. "Old man, confess. If you admit your crimes, there's still a chance Mount Fuji will return. If not, then in this life, the next, and the one after that, you'll never see Mount Fuji again."
"You… how could Mount Fuji be stolen?" Kisaragi still struggled at the end, clinging to the thought that maybe it was all fake.
A dying murderer's desperate resistance. "Seems you love yourself more than Mount Fuji. I'm disappointed. Then Mount Fuji will stay with me."
The truth was, this painter wanted revenge because the Twin Towers blocked the view of Mount Fuji from his villa. That's why he killed the councilman who supported the project, and also targeted Tokiwa Mio. But the latter was saved by A'dou.
Kisaragi saw Kid raise a strange-looking gun. Then everything went black, and he knew nothing more. Kid stuffed the confession letter into his arms—case closed. The timing was just right, the Detective Boys should be coming back soon.
On their first trip down, Ayumi and the others had given up their spot in the elevator to a mother with a baby, so they hadn't escaped. Conan couldn't leave them, so he'd return. And this banquet hall was the perfect stage for his showdown with the thief.
The bridges were gone, the elevators were dead. Now the only way out was the rooftop, to escape by helicopter. But the Black Organization wouldn't let that happen. They'd planted remote bombs on the rooftop, timed explosives in the banquet hall. They wouldn't stop until Sherry was dead.
"You all go up to the roof first." Conan spotted figures still inside the banquet hall and realized Kisaragi was here. He and Haibara Ai slipped inside.
The lights were long gone. The hall was like a cauldron roasting over fire, hot below, cold above.
Orange flames licked upward from the lower floors, while pale moonlight poured in from the shattered observation windows above. Heat and chill clashed violently in the hall, yin and yang colliding.
This would be the place, on Earth-13, where Kaitou Kid and Edogawa Conan faced each other for the first time—etched into memory.
"??" It wasn't Kisaragi, but Secretary Sawaguchi??
Conan didn't need a flashlight to see the figures clearly. There was Kisaragi Hōsui, unconscious on the floor.
"Hey, Edogawa, what's going on?" Haibara Ai whispered.
Conan's mind blazed like a storm, eliminating every impossibility until only one impossible possibility remained—the truth. He ignored Haibara's question and calmly delivered his deduction. "Miss Sawaguchi, you are Kaitou Kid!!"
The moment those words dropped, Haibara's expression twisted in shock. Kid was supposed to be a man, wasn't he? And Sawaguchi had been inside the banquet hall all along, while Kid had broken in from outside.
But even if Conan was right, Liu A'dou still answered in a woman's voice: "Little boy, do you have any proof?"