Guardian Angels (Saimatsu)

Out of Control (Chapter 17.)

Shuichi's POV:

We walk out into the brightly lit trial room. Kaede and I walk to our podiums, which were moved next to each other. Everyone else moves to theirs. We look around, and we see that at Ryoma's old podium, there was a picture of him. It had three pink lines running from the bottom of the frame upwards. What a brutal way to die. I would feel bad for him if he didn't try to frame Kaede.  

Me: "All right. Let's get started."

Maki: "Agreed."

Me: "I think that the first goal would be to determine when the murder occurred."

Kaito: "Sounds good! Any evidence to help us out there?"

Me: "Well..."

I open up my Monophone and find the image of the clock.

Me: "It was 8:30 pm when we found the body. Gonta was last seen at 1:00 pm, when he showed us the new bugs."

A few people shiver when I say that. Most notably, Tsumugi.

Korekiyo: "But that's over seven hours for someone to kill him! We need to narrow it down further, or we will never catch the killer. Unless, of course, you can't?"

Me: "What?"

Korekiyo: "Do you not have enough evidence? Are you not the Ace Detective that we thought you were?"

No, there is some evidence that can help us to narrow down the time. I look through all of my evidence. The bloody knife, the bug sorting sheet, and the various different reports, but then my eyes catch something.

The vial with the green liquid.

I hold it up.

Me: "This vial is the evidence that we need."

Korekiyo: "And how do you plan to solve it with that?"

Me: "Whatever this liquid is, it's fresh."

Korekiyo: "But what is it?"

I think I can tell what it is. The fact that I only found an extremely small amount of it on the ground, and the noxious green color both seem like a good place to start guessing.

I close my eyes and I start to think.

___ _____

B.

B__ B____

O.

B__ B_OO_

U.

BU_ B_OO_

G.

BUG B_OO_

L.

BUG BLOO_

D.

BUG BLOOD.

Me: "That's it!"

...

Me: "The liquid in this dial is the blood of one or more bugs."

Tsumugi: "Oh, that's... lovely..."

Himiko: "Nyeh, it's impressive that you were able to figure that out, but what does that have to do with the time of the murder?"

Me: "Well, the blood of bugs dries and hardens much faster than human blood. I'd give it around three hours maximum until it starts to dry."