Let's take a god's-eye view of the situation on this bus.
Besides the robbers, Jodie, an FBI agent, was sitting with Vermouth of the Black Organization. Behind them sat the Grim Reaper and Sherry, the Organization's traitor, followed by the Detective Boys and the Professor. In the last row sat another FBI agent, Akai Shuichi, pretending to be an ordinary passenger.
A mythical creature was standing by the door.
Yimi had been skipping Detective Boys group activities a lot lately, and Mitsuhiko and Ayumi seemed especially worried about her.
There was a reason Professor Agasa was so popular with the Detective Boys. Perhaps because he was already in his fifties and still a lonely bachelor, he showed the children seemingly endless patience.
For example, when they made a fuss about wanting to go skiing, the Professor spent some time studying a skill he did not know at all, only to end up catching a cold.
Three minutes before the incident—perhaps even less—Conan had been sitting in his seat with one hand resting on the back of Ai's hand, staring fixedly at the back of "Dr. Araide's" head.
Around the moment the man boarded—more precisely, in the interval between his boarding and the masked man in the very back getting on—Ai had suddenly lowered her head and started acting the way she only did when she encountered the Black Organization. In fact, the oppressive presence coming from both front and back left her short of breath for a moment.
"Here..."
The other members of the Detective Boys and the Professor were all here too. That inevitably made Ai worry that she might drag everyone else into danger. At this moment, part of her was glad Yimi had refused to go skiing, while another, contradictory part of her regretted not forcibly bringing the girl along. At least Yimi could protect Ayumi and the others from getting hurt, instead of becoming a fuse for disaster like Ai herself.
Without noticing Ai's expression, Conan kept staring fixedly at Dr. Araide in front of him.
There was no mistake. Dr. Araide was a member of the Black Organization. Had Yimi already known that that day? But if so, what benefit was there in saying in front of a bug that she could turn small?
Conan tried as hard as possible to think from the assumption that Yimi was on his side. In the end, he could come up with only one explanation—Dr. Araide was an undercover agent?
His thoughts happened to break off right there, at the exact moment the two men in ski clothes hijacked the bus.
For an instant, both Conan and Ai wondered whether those two robbers were actually members of the Black Organization. After all, who seriously hijacked a bus in a populated area these days? Nearly half the passengers on this bus were old people and children. How much money could they possibly have?
"You bastard! What the hell are you doing?!"
One robber had been dragged out, and the other reacted quickly, pointing his gun straight at the beggar's forehead. Everyone on the bus had their hearts in their throats.
Even if they were not the ones about to die, nobody wanted to watch someone get shot right in front of them—especially when these violent criminals would continue threatening everyone else's safety afterward.
The beggar stopped moving, even though when he boarded he had looked like some sinister Dementor.
He shifted the kitten in his arms to the same arm that held the scales. Conan, already deeply suspicious, carefully noticed this detail. The furry ball that looked almost like a panda at first glance nestled obediently against the beggar's chest, head lowered as though sniffing something.
In truth, the cat was not so fat that it looked unhealthy. It only seemed perfectly round when curled up, and its fur was very clean... What Conan found strange was this: could a beggar really raise a cat that well?
Yimi, meanwhile, was completely baffled. She had put quite a lot of effort into tracking these robbers, including visiting the jewelry store they had attacked to search for the scent they left behind. Yet just when she finally got close enough to face them, they exposed themselves as bad guys in front of everyone.
Was there any point left in a detective investigating the case?
Of course there was. Counting heads while nestled in her Stand's arms, Yimi was delighted to discover that only two of the three robbers had shown themselves.
The robber who had been dragged off the bus climbed back up. Judging by his appearance, that fall had apparently hurt quite a bit.
"Get inside!" As if it were only natural, he kicked the ill-mannered beggar, but failed to move him at all.
Once the other robber saw his partner return, he handed the job of taking revenge and making an example of the beggar entirely to him, then aimed his own gun at the driver. "Drive! You're only allowed to circle around inside the city, got it?!"
"Y-Yes!"
The robbers failed to notice the indescribable expressions appearing on some passengers' faces. They certainly had no idea that the random bus they had chosen somehow contained the Grim Reaper, the FBI, the Black Organization, and a mythical creature all at once.
After barking at the driver, the robber moved toward the rear and set down the long package strapped behind him.
At the same time, his partner was not idle either. He lowered his gun and fired straight into the beggar's shin, punishing him for his earlier rudeness.
"Aagh—!"
Yet the one who screamed was instead the square-faced woman behind them. She clutched her bleeding calf and glared at the two robbers with an expression that could only be called resentful.
What had just happened?
Everyone froze. Yimi did not want to terrify these Muggles, so whenever she used Love Train in this world, she also used a Miracle to suppress the special effects as much as possible. The robber who fired could still have seen something if he watched carefully, but unfortunately he was wearing goggles to hide his real face.
The passengers glanced back at the woman, then quickly looked away for fear that staring too long would draw the robbers' attention. Most of them decided that the bullet must have become a ricochet thanks to Robber Number Two's excellent marksmanship, and shrank toward the windows in horrified afterthought.
Robber Number Two looked baffled too. How could he miss from point-blank range? And even if the bullet ricocheted, shouldn't it have hit the accomplice standing in the middle?
As the beggar slowly turned toward him, the robber refused to believe what he had seen and fired another shot at the man's thigh.
"Ah!" The square-faced woman in the back screamed again.
Akai Shuichi subtly scooted a little farther away from her and stared deeply at the beggar in front.
At this point, resentment finally boiled over inside the woman.
Those two had told her to board first and act as their lookout, using chewing gum as a signal if anyone on the bus behaved suspiciously. In truth, they must have wanted to trap her here and kill her directly, then split the money between themselves!
A person who had lost all reason would not stop to think about whether that made sense. She simply pulled a gun from inside her clothes and fired wildly at her other two accomplices. Robber Number One, standing in the middle, took several bullets and collapsed on the spot.
"Are you insane?!"
Robber Number Two tried to swing his gun toward her in shock, but the payback for firing those two shots finally arrived.
Annoyed, Yimi had no intention of giving him more chances to drive everyone else crazy. The beggar's skeletal hand seized his gun hand. As the man howled in pain, those fingers dug into the body of the gun and crushed the bones in his hand along with it.
This guy!
Conan stared at the scene in horror.
That was a Tokarev pistol, not some cheap plastic toy.
After letting go of the suffering robber, the beggar walked toward the rear seats under everyone's shaken gaze. Nobody knew what he intended to do.
It really did feel like a Dementor sweeping through a train carriage in a Harry Potter movie. The man himself seemed to radiate a sinister chill.
Professor Agasa could not help raising an arm protectively in front of the children, as though this person felt even more dangerous than the armed robbers.
"Who the hell are you?!" the woman shrieked in terror. She tried to threaten him with her gun and stop him from approaching, but in her rage she had already emptied the entire magazine into her accomplice.
The old-fashioned scales clattered as they swayed. The beggar crouched beside the robber in the middle, who had been shot full of holes. The air fell so silent that the faint beeping from inside the package could finally be heard.
"What's that sound?" someone asked, swallowing hard.
"A-A bomb!" the woman in the last row supplied the answer.
The robbers had planned to kill everyone on the bus once the job was done, but when that man fell, he had accidentally struck the switch inside the package!
"..."
After that scream, nobody cared about anything else. Everyone panicked and rushed out of the bus. Naturally, no one was paying attention to the robber by the door anymore, and the result was a very serious stampede.
"Wait! Somebody help me!" The woman limped desperately toward the exit.
Only after getting outside did Conan realize Haibara was nowhere beside him.
"This is fine..." Ai, who had just been terrified that she might get Ayumi and the others killed, had turned pessimistic again in the very next moment.
As though everything would be all right if she died, even though she had only recently resolved that she absolutely had to stay alive long enough to see her sister again...
"Meow~" Yimi looked at her in confusion, then had Famine grab Ai by the collar and violently fling her out through the window.
"You...?"
Strangely, Ai felt no pain from crashing through the window. It was as though a pair of gentle hands cradled her and delivered her safely to Conan's side.
The bomb exploded, and fire instantly flooded the entire bus. Conan vaguely thought he saw the figure inside meet his eyes for a moment, but the only thing that came flying out through the hole blasted in the window was a furry ball, grumbling furiously as it ran off in the opposite direction.