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Y/n POV:
After our little exchange, I had discussed the remaining information I had about my brother with Ranpo. There wasn't much for me to say since I wasn't told much to begin with. I had just told him things I remembered about him in case that might help him, like personal things but not too personal. Despite telling me that I didn't need to tell him such information, he still attentively listened to what I had to say, although he did take a few snack breaks in between our discussion.
"Right then, I'll use my Ultra Deduction to solve this mystery" Ranpo says, pulling out a pair of glasses. "Ability: Ultra Deduction..." he says as he places the glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Hm? Intriguing... For some reason, I'm only able to solve part of it" he says.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"I mean, whoever is behind this has gone through a lot of trouble to cover up their tracks and mislead us. Once I figure one thing out, it leads me to several different conclusions and some dead ends. I can't see a clear conclusion" he says, slightly shocked.
"Well, what do you have so far?" I ask.
"So far, I can confirm that your brother didn't run away, he was kidnapped. As I'm sure you have suspected, your mother is involved in this but she herself didn't commit the actual kidnapping, she assigned that task to someone else, the real mastermind of this case. The mastermind's true target isn't your brother though, it's you. They are just using your brother to draw you out so it must be someone that knows you and your family. I can't say what their true adjective is for sure, but it involves you to trade yourself for your brother in some way. But I won't let that happen" Ranpo says.
"We won't let that happen" I hear Dazai say as he walks up to the table along with the silver-haired guy.
"We'll also be helping with the case of your missing brother. My name is Atsushi, by the way" the man now known as Atsushi says.
"It's nice to meet you, Atsushi-kun" I say, smiling at him.
"First things first, I think we should examine the places that your brother had visited recently" Ranpo states.
"Sure thing, I wrote down a few places that I think he went to. I examined his room and found his calendar with all his plans. There weren't many places written down since he mainly used it for special occasions and errands" I say before taking out my notepad from my bag and reading the first location. "First, I have written down that he went to the local library around 2 weeks before his kidnapping, or more like 2 weeks before my parents noticed he was missing" I say.
"Do you know what he went there for? Like, was he looking for a specific book or books?" Dazai asks.
"Um, he just labeled it as 'Go to library' but I did see a couple books in his room before the police took them in for evidence. They both had a symbol on the cover that I had never seen before. I tried to look up the symbol but I couldn't find anything relating to it. I also saw a newspaper that had several different accidents and events, although I'm not quite sure why he was interested in this one specific accident. The accident involved a car crash where an unidentified newborn girl had died, the rest of her family surviving. The family's names remained anonymous as well but it was stated that it was her parents and her brother that were with her in the car. Another article was ripped out from somewhere else and was taped to the side of the first article, but it was written in a foreign language so I wasn't able to read what it said" I explained.
"Can you describe what the symbol looked like, roughly?" Dazai asks me.
"It kinda looked like a mouse. Like the silhouette of a mouse head, one big circle for the head and two slightly smaller circles for the ears. The ears had swirls in them but the head remained empty so it could be something else" I explained.
Dazai looked surprised for a moment but his expression returned back to normal rather quickly.
"Is there anything else in your brother's room that could help us?" Atsushi asks.
"I don't think so, but I do have the newspaper with me. It was the only thing I was able to sneak out of his room" I say as I reach into my bag and pull out the newspaper, placing it on the table.
The three detectives looked over the contents of the newspaper, taking in the details I had failed to remember and mention.
"You're adopted, right? From a different family from your brother?" Ranpo asks me.
"Yes, why do you ask?" I say, confused on what that has to do with anything.
"I think your brother might have been trying to find your biological parents, or at the very least, your origin" Ranpo explains.
"So, he thought the baby girl in the accident might have been me? That she didn't actually die?" I say, understanding what Ranpo was implying, a little shocked by his prediction.
"It's a small hunch, but it's most likely the case that he believed that, since the baby's body was never found nor was there much information circling around the car crash itself or what happened to the family afterwards. They might have staged the accident to make it seem like you had died but in reality, they gave you away" Ranpo states.
I open my mouth to speak but no words are able to escape. I don't know how to take in this information. I have no clue how I should respond to that. I want to say that that is absurd and couldn't possibly be true; but then again, I don't know anything about my birth parents. What Ranpo said could quite possibly be true.
"W-Why would they go through all that trouble to make it seem like I'm dead?" I ask, managing to speak a full sentence.
"In the particular area where the car crash was staged, it was seen as disgraceful to abandon a child, for any reason. Anyone found guilty of such a treacherous act would be shunned and stripped of any status they had, leaving them with nothing. Your parents probably didn't want to deal with the repercussions of giving you away so they made it seem like you tragically parted ways" Ranpo explained.
"Ah... I see..." I say, lowering my gaze to my intertwined hands that lay atop my lap. "You know, Haru had asked me one day if I wanted to find out information about my birth parents and where I was from. I told him that I didn't need to since I already had two loving parents and the best brother I could ask for... I never would've thought that he would go looking for them on his own" I say, keeping my gaze on my hands.
"It's possible that maybe something happened to spark his search for your parents" Atsushi suggests.
"That is a possibility. If that's the case, then perhaps your mother caught your brother in his search for your parents and ordered someone to 'take care' of him. What are your thoughts, Ranpo-san" Dazai states, adding on to Atsushi's comment.
"I think you guys might be right. Based on what Y/n has told me so far about her brother, he wouldn't do this without a good reason. There needed to have been an absolute need for him to know this information. Something that goes beyond just finding out about your history. Something much more imperative" Ranpo states.
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YOU ARE READING
A Series of Mysteries ~ Ranpo x Reader
FanfictionY/n L/n never knew her biological parents nor did she ever really care to know them. She had loved her adopted parents and that was enough for her. But one day, when she decided to visit her parents and adopted brother, she discovers that he's gone...
