Part 9

-prologue-

-Prologue-

-Old Schoolhouse Chapter (Part 1)-

Exploration Recall

After eating lunch at the dorms for the first time, beginning to explore the school...

Exploring the dorms for the first time at night...

Tama takes Ran on an exploration of the school...

After Ran and Tama split up, Ran's solo exploration...

Ran: [Miss Sakura where are you let's hang out]

After a few moments, Ran's phone vibrated with Ann's reply.

Ann: [I'm at the observation deck.]

Ran: It was lovely, the school is lovely. Anywhere with you is a lovely place, miss Sakura.

Ann: ...

Ann: I mean, did you enjoy spending time with Tama? In fact, how do you feel about the other students in general?

Ran: Eh, whatevs. As long as Miss Sakura's here, everyone else, giant shrug, they can go do whatever.

Ann's hands convulsed in Ran's grasp, and Ann adopted a concerning expression Ran hadn't seen on her before.

Ran had hoped that telling Ann that she didn't care much for anyone other than Ann would let Ann understand her feelings of goodwill, but had it backfired?

Ann: ...I'm really having a lot of trouble accepting such strong emotions from you.

Ann: Only the real Ann Sakura should be the one to accept your feelings, and I'm not the one you're looking for in your heart, so...

Ann seemed to be pondering how to express her thoughts.

Ann: ...So I don't have the privilege to accept them.

Ann, noticing Ran's shadowed expression, immediately pivoted.

Ann: But, if it's only memory loss that's causing this, and I still have the exact same self as the Ann Sakura from your heart,

Ann: Then I'm obligated to accept your feelings, for the sake of the original Ann Sakura. Honestly, this is putting the current me in a real conundrum.

Ran: (I see. She's been distancing herself from me, despite what she said to me in the rain, because she's started to feel like she's diverged and become a different being than the original Ann Sakura, and that's why she can't accept my feelings.)

Ran: No, Miss Sakura. You could have just completely ignored me, and continued to live the way you wanted to, but now you're feeling burdened by the need to properly respond to my feelings.

Ran: The fact that you're considering my feelings at all is proof that you are the person that I love.

Ann: Perhaps this is also for me. After all, if I recover my memories, then the present me will no longer exist anymore.

Ran: Whaaaaaat, come on, you'll always be-

Ann reached out with a finger, and stopped Ran's words by sealing her lips.

Ann: Ran, let me ask you this.

Ann: Between the current me, and the Ann Sakura who has recovered her memories, whose side would you stand on?

Ran: Of course I'd hope that you could recover your memories, miss Sakura, but-

Ran: (What is it that I love, anyways? It's not the memories, right? It should be the being, not the memories, and the being in front of me is unquestionably miss Sakura, so I should... choose her?)

A voice in Ran's head tells her that memories were unimportant- that two people who were together could always create more memories together.

Ran: (It's not that simple, though. The experiences I shared with miss Sakura were irreplaceable. Miss Sakura saved me from my suffering- I need those memories!)

Ann cups Ran's face in her hands.

Ann: I'm sorry, Ran.

Ann: This question is something that we should be facing, together.

Ann: Ever since you've come here, I feel like I've changed a bit as well. The things you've said have made me ponder things more.

Ann: If we continue to live under the same roof like this, perhaps both you and I will change even further, and eventually we'll reach an answer to all these questions.

Ran leans in, bringing her face close to Ann's.

Ran: Miss Sakura, would you... kiss me?

Ann blinked, and then giggled.

Ann: Why're you so fixated on making out, anyways?

Ran: Ah, well, because, uh.

Ran was having trouble getting the words out through her embarrassment.

Ran: Because, before, when I was upset, or when I was crying terribly, miss Sakura always kissed me to make me feel better.

Ann: Is that how you're feeling now? Upset?

Ran: I mean, yeah. Like, all the time, all day.

Ann held the sides of Ran's head, then, and lightly kissed Ran on the forehead.

Ann: Will that do?

Ran: Yes! Yes it will!

Ran hugged Ann by Ann's waist.

Ran: Thank you, miss Sakura!

Ran, still paranoid for good fucking reason: Hey, where's Tama, though?

Ran: Didn't Tama go to help you as well?

Makoto: Tama? What about her?

Ran: Tama took me on a tour around school, but halfway through the tour she said she wanted to go find you, so we split up. Have you not seen her?

Makoto blinked once, causing her long eyelashes to droop.

Makoto: No, maybe we just happened to miss each other?

Ran: Tama said she sent you a text. Did you not get it?

Makoto: Let me check.

Sai: You dropped it while fixing the generator, I bet.

Makoto: Possible, but if so I'm also blaming you for that one.

Sai: How is it my fault?

Makoto: Well, I only called you to help me carry something too heavy for me to move myself, remember? And since I knew you were swimming, I didn't bother trying to text you. If it was anyone but you, I'd have looked for my phone to text them and realized it was missing way sooner.

Sai rolls her eyes.

Sai: That is the most bullshit chain of logic I have ever heard.

Makoto: Anyways, as recompense, please do me a favor and text Tama with your phone, will you?

Sai: Sure, whatever.

Sai: Looks like Indou forgot to charge her phone again. You've gotta remind her about that more.

Makoto: Oh no. Well, Tama's not going to leave until she sees me. I bet she's just zoning out somewhere because her phone ran out of batteries and she doesn't know what to do about it on her own. Let me go check the power room again.

Makoto carries the big toolbox that she was presumably using to fix the generator to the tool room, and then leaves the dorms. Sai, on the other hand, notices that Ran and Ann are holding hands.

Sai: What, finally got a chance to speak, so now you're not letting her go?

Ran: Exactly! I'm never letting her go ever again.

Sai: Well, as long as you don't suddenly decide to run away with her and drag her out into a rainstorm again. I still remember how you straight up sent me flying last time I got in the way.

Ran: Please never mention these things again.

Ann laughed.

Miho: Oh, hello everyone. The power seems to be back.

Sai: Well, perfect time to relax a bit, then. Let's go to the kitchen and I'll whip you up a drink.

Sai: Ibuki, this place has basically everything, by the way. Coffee, milk tea, red tea, whatever caffeinating agents you could possibly want.

Ran: (I feel like Sai is singlehandedly keeping the school from falling into depressing monotony all on her own.)

Just as Koizumi said- when it rained here, it always rained consecutively for several days.

Sai: Don't you usually go for the milk tea?

Miho: It's because we just had the barbecue today.

Sai laughs as she reaches for one of the higher cabinets in the kitchen.

Sai: Counting your calories? I'm sure Toyama wouldn't care even if you gained a bit of weight.

Miho rolls her eyes.

Sai: Of all the times for the door to jam. Sorry, Miho, looks like we're not having any red tea this afternoon. Do you want something else?

Ran: (Wait, that whole cabinet is for nothing but red tea??)

Miho: I guess I'll have some green tea instead, then. The cabinet's broken?

Sai craned her neck and checked the cabinet's hinges.

Sai: Mm-hm. It's not a big problem. I'll come back with a screwdriver and fix it real quick later.

Ran: WHAT?!

Ann: Is- something wrong?

Ran: No, just- nevermind.

Before, Ann Sakura would only ever drink coffee- with way too much milk and sugar added, on top. Ran had been influenced by her, and had taken to drinking the same type of coffee.

Ran: (It's so weird to realize that miss Sakura's different from before through little details like these...)

Sai: So, Ibuki, what'll it be? How about a strawberry-flavored milk?

Ran: What the hell, no. Give me an iced coffee, with extra sugar and milk.

Sai: Gotcha.

Sai: Makoto says she still hasn't found Tama. She says she's going to keep looking.

Miho: Indou-san tends to get anxious whenever she's too far from Asakura-san. I doubt she's gone far.

Ran: The two of them have a special relationship, don't they?

Ran: (After hearing Aya talk about how Tama and Makoto might have an intimate relationship, I'm even more curious what the nature of their relationship is.)

Miho: Mm-hm. Indou-san really clings to Asakura-san. And Indou-san's quite the blockhead, on occasion, so Asakura-san takes particular care to watch out for her.

Ran: A blockhead? I thought you all said that murders with Tama as the culprit tended to be... particularly heavy-handed in methodology.

Miho: Yeah, exactly. That's a super blockhead thing to do.

Ran: Has miss Sakura ever drawn the culprit role before?

Ann, who is perfect and pure and can never do wrong: No.

Ran sighed a sigh of relief.

Outside, the storm started intensifying. Cracks of thunder could be heard outside the window, and the sound of raindrops on the windows, for some reason, gave Ran a craving for the coffee that Sai was preparing for her.

Miho: I hope she brought an umbrella..

Miho: Well, once she calls in an SOS, I'll go bring her an umbrella.

Sai: Had to add the sugar beforehand, since we don't have any molasses here. Let me know if you want more.

Ran: You should really have added the sugar after cooling the coffee.

Sai: Gee, little miss genius, if you're so good at this why don't you do it from now on.

Ran: (Miss Sakura is always so beautiful! 😍 )

Ann: Well, it's not bad. But I don't particularly like it that much either.

Ran: (I guess her body remembers how to enjoy coffee, but not her heart??)

Ran: It's probably Sai's fault for making it badly.

Sai: Well, looks like Ibuki's been officially demoted to the tapwater-only caste.

Ran: Yano-sama, I overspoke foolishly. Please forgive my trespasses and spare me.

Koizumi: Hello, everyone. Is everyone enjoying tea together?

Koizumi limped into the room out of the rain, closing an umbrella as she entered.

Miho: Yes. How's your wound doing?

Koizumi: It still hurts, but the medications have helped.

Ran: (Wound? Oh, probably from falling down the cliff yesterday.)

Ran: (I hope it's not serious...)

Barista!Sai: What'll you be having, Koizumi?

Koizumi: A milk tea, please. Heavy on the tea.

Sai: Got it. We've only got green tea left by the way. Will that be fine?

Koizumi nods.

Sai began preparing Koizumi some tea, but was interrupted by the sound of her phone.

Miho: Sure. I'll pick Aya up as well while I'm at it.

Sai: Koizumi, you don't need to bother going anywhere. You sit tight, I'll make you some tea.

Koizumi: A-ah. Thank you, and I'm sorry...

Miho darted over and gave Koizumi a quick massage-like pinch on her shoulder. Koizumi, apparently ticklish, giggled.

Miho: No need to apologize. Get some rest.

Sai: Though it's possible Tama's died. In that case, it might be time for the Great Detective Ibuki to return to the stage oncemore!

Ran: Ughhhhhhh. Please don't make fun of me.

Ran grimaced at Sai, before realizing that, unbeknownst to herself, her attitude to the deaths of others around her had also subtly changed while she wasn't paying attention.

Ran: (They really don't treat death like anything to be worked up over. And even I don't panic as much anymore when thinking about their deaths.)

Ran: (I'm sure it's because miss Sakura is next to me and giving me strength.)

Ran: Let's go, miss sakura. We can share an umbrella.

Ann: Ran, did we ever go swimming together, before?

Ran: Oh, sure. Though initially I didn't know how to swim, so I mostly just watched you swim from the shore. Same thing when we visited the seaside- I just stayed on the beach by myself.

Ann: The seaside? You're talking about... the summer vacation of the first year of high school, that you mentioned once?

Ran: Yeah, we visited the seaside a lot of times. A lot of things happened there.

Ran Ibuki sank back into memories- moonlight, fine sand, and ocean waves.

Ann: I've tried once or twice. My body remembers how to swim, but I'm not very used to it yet.

Ran: We should go swimming together later, then! Pick a time when Yano isn't present.

Ann: Yes. Though I expect that Sai will always be present.

Ran: (Kinda freaky, if you think about what we're doing. We're basically trying to find a dead body, here.)

Ran: We'll have to wash our shoes thoroughly once we're done here.

Ann: Yeah.

Ran Ibuki turns and pushes open the doors to the gym. The rain covers up the creaking of the old iron doors.

Even though it was still theoretically light out, the rainclouds covering the sky had turned the gym completely dark.

Ran: (Exactly like that time I came here at night.)

The school's total area is significant, and it's fully equipped; the chemicals in the lab room might well be utilized eventually. 🧪

Does it ever stop raining here?? 🌧️

Is there anything that Sai [doesn't know how to make]/[won't do]? (translator's note: 'make' and 'do' are the same character in chinese. so this could either be saying that sai's able to make any dish, that she has no behavioral fetters, or, most likely, ambiguously both to be maximally ominous.)

The culprit, to tama... (translator's note: this is a sentence fragment that could plausibly end in two ways. it could be asking 'what's the relationship of the culprit to tama?'- or it could be asking 'just what did the culprit do to tama?', both are grammatically possible here in a way that's not easy to replicate in english grammar structures.)

Ran: (Nobody's saying anything about starting the investigation. They're all worried about Asakura, surely. As well as..)

Ran: (The way that Tama's body was found, it gives off a malicious feeling.)

Ran: (Though, well, dividing the corpse into multiple parts would be even freakier, and they said that's happened, before- but at least splitting up the corpse theoretically has the benefit of making the autopsy and investigation harder. This is just- unnecessary.)

Ran: (Well, we can't wait here forever. I'll break the ice this time.)

Ran: Let's begin investigating the corpse. We can... put her back to normal, after we're done investigating.

Miho: ...Sure. The school has a designated area for corpses, so once we're done we can grab a bodybag and carry her over.

Ran: (Thank goodness miss Sakura's case was solved so quickly. I don't know if I could have handled seeing miss Sakura in a bodybag.)

Ran: The neck muscles and skin display exaggerated torsion lines. It feels like the result of an overwhelming pulling force.

Ran: If the culprit had slit the victim's throat, that would have made it far easier to twist the head- but the culprit chose, rather, to rotate the muscles, neck, and spine together.

Ran: (Why is it always the fucking neck? First miss Sakura, now this? What do you have against necks??)

Aya: Just how much force would it take to twist the whole neck around, like that??

Koizumi: is it like- in those special forces movies where the super agent just, breaks someone's neck from behind by twisting their head?

As Koizumi spoke, she pantomimed the action. It was a terrible imitation. Had she not verbally described her intent, nobody could have deciphered just what her clumsy little wiggle was meant to be.

Ran: Impossible. Nobody could do something like this with their own strength alone. Even wringing an infant's neck like this would be difficult. The vertebrae would shatter, and the fragments would be very likely to pierce the skin.

Ran: Compared to inflexible bone, twisting the skin and muscles as well- these two things require completely different orders of magnitude, power-wise.

Ran: Besides, those from-behind ambush attacks you see in movies do exist in real life, but they don't work by twisting, but rather impact.

Sai: How's that? Enlighten us.

Ran: Basically, it's hitting the target's neck with your two hands from different angles, resulting in vertebral dislocation. The goal is to cause the major veins and arteries in the neck to become compressed or even to break, leading to dizziness or death for the target.

Aya: Woooow. You learn something new everyday! Ran-chan sure knows a bunch.

Sai: So I guess all the time you didn't spend hanging out with Ann, you spent it staring at medical documentaries.

Ran: You two really have a snark no matter what kind of situation it is, huh.

Ran: Anyways, point is, to twist Indou's neck like this, you have to use some kind of tool.

Ran: Any ideas? You all should know better than I do what kind of equipment you've got available in this school.

Sai: Oi, Asakura! There's a bunch of junk in the toolshed, ain't there? Any of it useful for this kinda thing?

Ran: (Well, I checked the toolshed myself, that one time. I didn't see anything special. Though it may have been deeper in the room than I bothered looking.)

Makoto Asakura raised her head. Her eyes were only half-open, and the strands of her hair were plastered on the tall bridge of her nose. Rainwater dripped down from the corners of her eyes, making her look as though she was weeping.

Makoto: Even if there was, I couldn't possibly have come up with the idea of using them to make someone's head go on a carousel ride.

She sounded no different than usual.

Makoto: If we're just talking about things that spin- electric drills, screwdrivers, pipe wrenches, crowbars. But peoples' heads are way bigger than the heads of screws. There's nothing these tools could do for that.

Ran: (Massive bloodloss, with sprays everywhere. It's consistent with this method of murder.)

Ran: (Probably related to the state that Indou was in, when the culprit killed her.)

Ann: Those look like marks left by ropes.

Ran nodded.

Ran: The markings on the wrist are quite irregular. They look like scratches caused by repeated abrasion.

Ran: If we had a real coroner, they could figure out if the wounds had been made before or after death. Unfortunate.

Miho: They were made when she was alive, right? The wounds look like they were caused by struggling.

Ran: I thought of that too, but...

Ran: (If the victim tied up Tama's hands, and then dragged her away, that'd be a different story.)

Ran: (Very clean. Normally you'd think that, since it rained outside, the shoes ought to be quite dirty.)

She looked at it. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, other than that it definitely wasn't mud. It was a bit rough, and somewhat greenish.

Ran: (No clue what this is, but let's make a note of it.)

Sai: How long're you going to stare at her boots.

Ran: I just feel there's something not right going on here. The boots are really clean.

Koizumi: Indou-san really loves that pair of boots. She always cleans them off so diligently before placing them back in the shoe cabinet, every time she returns to the dorms.

Ran: Mm, yeah, I can tell.

Ran: (If the bottoms of the shoes are clean, then... Tama was carried here by someone? Or she was in this room from the beginning? Or the killer cleaned her shoes up for her?)

Ran: Even if she's like this now, Indou's face is still fairly adorable.

Ran: (Thank goodness her eyes are closed. Otherwise I'd be even more scared to look at her.)

Ran runs her hands up and down the bruises, and feels a granular texture under her finger.

Ran: (Oh, so that's how it is.)

Ran: (Sphenoid bone fracture- and based on the touch-feel, probably a radial fracture.)

Aya, waving her hand in the air: Miss Ran, I have a question!

Ran: Since when was I your teacher? Anyways.

Aya: What's a spheroid bone?

Ran tapped Aya's face, in the area between her solar plexus and the outer ends of her eyebrows.

Ran: That part of the skull is the sphenoid bone. Don't bother to write it down, just know it's a thing.

Aya: Will it be on the test, professor?

Ran: Fuck off!

Aya laughed her butt off, giggling nonstop until Miho bonked her on the head.

Ran: Asakura, do you have an oversized pipe wrench, here?

Makoto: A pipe wrench? ...Ah, I see what you mean. There's a wrench meant for measuring the diameters of pipes. Pull that to its maximum width and it just about can clamp a human head.

Aya: Sensei, I have another question! What's a pipe wrench?

Ran stepped up to Aya and placed each of her index fingers on Aya's sphenoid bones.

Ran: Imagine a wrench except the clampy bits on the head can change their positions.

Ran moved her fingers back and forth, across Aya's face.

Ran: Basically like that. The clampy bits can expand and contract, and there's markings on the handle that let you measure the clamped object's size.

Aya: Ohhhh, I remember now. I think we used something like that when we were fixing those super-thick water pipes and ventilation shafts.

Miho: That's right. The whole dorm got flooded that time, and everyone worked together to help Asakura-san fix everything.

Ran: Then we'll have to check the tool room after that. If there's a big enough pipe wrench there it should be possible to twist someone's head that way.

Ran: Just clamp right onto Indou's head, and then turn her by the handles. Probably.

Ran: If you're all familiar with that thing, the culprit probably can't just move it willy-nilly. It'd be weird to see it appear somewhere it had no reason to show up.

Koizumi rubs her own neck, before speaking.

Koizumi: ...It sounds like it'd hurt a lot...

Koizumi looked nervously at everyone's reactions, as if she was afraid that she'd said something wrong. Or something that nobody had wanted to bring up.

Ran: Yep. If we weren't in this school, this kind of case would definitely be treated as a revenge killing.

Ran: But you all can't possibly be harboring hate for your classmates, right?

Miho: Of course not.

Miho nodded extremely quickly. The speed of her reaction gave Ran a bit of warmth, on the inside.

Ran: (I hope not, too.)

Ran: Anyways, what exactly the murder weapon was isn't as important as what restrictions a weapon capable of doing this to the corpse must have on it.

Ran: Things like requirements for the user's physical strength, the amount of space required for using it, the amount of time needed to make this wound. All this, combined with the state of the corpse, can easily nail down the murder weapon, and give us a lot of information.

Ran: That's why most murderers don't choose extremely strange methodologies and tools. The more unique your crime scene is, the more constraints you put on yourself, and the easier it is for others to deduce the truth.

Ran: That's why most police investigators would conclude that a scene like this must be the result of either a revenge killing or some other kind of special case.

Sai: You sure are great at repeating things that everybody else already knows out loud, Ibuki.

Ran: Can't help but feel like you're damning me with faint praise. Feel free, I guess.

Ran: Most importantly for this case, there's a massive limitation for the culprit, and I still haven't seen that limitation manifest at the scene so far.

Miho: And that is...

Ran grinned.

Ran: Something must have been used to affix Indou's body in place.

Ann nods. It seemed like she was waiting for Ran to say that for a long time.

Ann: When the culprit turned the murder tool to twist Tama's head, her body must have been fixed in place somehow. Otherwise Tama's whole body would start rotating along with her head.

Ran: That's right! Miss Sakura is right as always! Gold star! You're so smart!

Aya: Hey, what's with the bias?

Ann: Oh, no, no, I only thought of it after Ran brought it up. Ran's the real genius here.

Ran: Well everything I learned, I learned from you, miss Sakura! So you're the actual genius here-

Sai: Yes yes okay you're all fucking geniuses can we just get a move on god damn.

Ran: Actually that's it. I guess she must have been moved, because of the lack of the... body-affixing thing here. And the method was definitely a complete rotation of her head. That's... about it.

Miho: ...How terrifying. It must have been grueling for both the murderer and Tama.

Ran: I'm more worried that the culprit enjoyed it.

Ran: Eh? What's this.

She reached out and touched the area under Tama's waist, just a bit above her buttocks. There was some moisture there.

Ran pulled her hand back and smelled it.

Ran: (The smell of grass? Plants, for sure.)

Aya: Wow, Ran-chan's spirit animal really is the dog.

Sai: Ibuki, what the fuck are you doing??

Ran: Just- miss Sakura please help me with this?

Ann: Alright.

Indou Tama's tongue had taken almost a 90 degree turn, bending towards the right side of her mouth cavity, causing her cheek to bulge slightly.

Ann: Why would a tongue take such a strange form?

Ran: Lemme take a look.

Ran reached out with the index finger of her left hand, and repeatedly massaged Tama's tongue.

Sai: No, seriously, what the fuck.

Koizumi had covered her mouth for some reason, and was blushing fiercely.

Aya: Damn, Ran. wolf-whistles.

Makoto heard the commotion and looked up, but quickly lowered her head again.

Ran: Shush, I've almost got it.

Ran extracted her finger, now coated in Tama's saliva from Tama's mouth.

Ran: I've figured it out. Indou's hyoid bone was broken, and the tongue itself is a highly flexible and tensile muscle. Contracting under high tension, the muscle broke as well, causing the tongue to flop listlessly to one side as if it'd been snapped at the root.

Miho: ...So, this implies that...

Ran: Let me check something else.

Ran: If Indou's C2 or C3 vertebrae were dislocated, that plus the situation with the tongue would basically be enough to confirm that she was strangled while alive.

Ann: She clearly has other injuries on her, though.

Ran: Right. So it's very possible that the strangling was just to make Indou faint, rather than kill her immediately. Strangulation by hand has a certain degree of difficulty to it, but there's still some of us here who could pull it off. If ropes were used, then any of us could have strangled Indou.

Ran: We can't do a formal autopsy, but we can cut the corpse open can't we? It'll all get fixed either way, won't it.

Miho: Sure. We've done incisions on the corpse like that before a few times, it won't be a problem.

Aya: The first time we cut a corpse, it was mine, you know. I can confirm that Miho has penetrated into my body at least once before!

Miho: As if I had any interest other than to get you back as soon as I could. I threw up at least thrice, that time.

Ran: That's all the evidence the corpse can give us, now. Next up, I'll have to ask everyone where they were at the time of the incident.

Ann: The range of possible times for death are between the last time you saw her and- well, just now, when we discovered her corpse. It's a massive range.

Ran: I'll start. After Tama and I split up, I went to the music room and visited Aya. Then, I returned to the dorms and stayed with miss Sakura for a while. After that, I went downstairs and had tea with Sai and the others.

Sai: No, wait, there's an assumption you're all making, which is that you and Tama actually split up.

Sai: For all we know, you killed her right then and then used her phone to text Asakura.

Ran saw that Makoto was staring at her from under the shadows cast by the messy strands of her hair.

Ran: (Fuck, that's terrifying.)

Ran: It's possible, but once I split up with Tama, I immediately moved on. The time between my visits to Aya and miss Sakura wasn't long, and it wouldn't have been enough for me to kill her.

Ran: But I don't have exact times for when I talked to her anyways. If you really don't trust me, feel free to extend the timeline all the way back to when I left with her after the barbecue in the first place.

Ran: Furthermore, let's make a note of when Asakura received the text from Tama's cellphone, as well. That will be important. I'm sure that any suspicions on me will be dispelled in time.

Ran spoke confidently and lightly, mostly because she really wanted to get Makoto's piercing gaze off her back. It was giving her the creeps.

Ran: It's your turn now, everyone.