I'm Kindaichi Hajime and this is another story from my middle school days.
Miyuki and I get swimming lessons,
but a girl is taken to the hospital after an accident at the diving pool.
Everyone blames it on an evil spirit, but I'm skeptical.
I'll solve the mystery behind the accident... that is, the crime!
I swear it in the name of my grandfather!
The Case File of Young Kindaichi Returns
Evil Spirit of the Diving Pool
Evil Spirit of the Diving Pool!
Honusuke is cute when he's sleeping, too.
So peaceful...
But even being generous, I can't bring myself to call this sleeping guy cute.
W-What the hell was that?!
Are you up?
Don't give me "Are you up"! What are you tryin' to do, drown me?!
What? Drowning's something you're good at.
Huh. You mean Kindaichi-kun can't swim?
That's right! For example, during summer vacation of our third year in middle school...
H-Help!
Come on! Stop sinking when you practice kicking your legs!
Easy for you to say! But everybody's got strong and weak points.
Oh, Miyuki-chan!
Hayamiya-sensei!
Hayamiya Aoi
So this is the boy you were telling me about on the phone who can't swim.
Her boobs are huge!
I'm sorry, Hayamiya-sensei, paying extra for private lessons like this...
No problem. Besides, we go way back.
Thanks to our school's stupid upcoming swim meet, I'm being forced to take these classes...
It's good for you! If you use this as an opportunity to learn how to swim...
Sheesh! You make it sound so simple!
Anyway, this is like a real-ass pool, huh?
Well, we use it for high diving and synchronized swimming as well as swim races.
I'm surprised that girl is fine bein' all the way up there.
That was awesome!
Isn't she great? Only three middle school students at our swimming school
can jump from the high dive there.
One of them is the girl who just dove, Ushio Miharu-chan.
Ushio Miharu
Another one is Nijieda Mitsuyo-san, who's going to dive now.
Nijieda Mitsuyo
Whoa! But maybe the first girl was better...
I think so too, but I guess the experts disagree.
Nijieda-san is the one who won the nomination
to get into Fudou High School with its famous College of Physical Education.
Huh. Is that so amazing?
Of course! That high school's swim team is one of the tops in the nation
and trains for the Olympics!
And the third person who can dive from there is Mizuki Runa-san.
Mizuki Runa
She's not quite as good as the other two, but she's still talented, right?
I hear they actually expect great things from her with synchronized swimming.
She does have a nice body.
What is this swimsuit?!
Did you see that?!
W-What was that for, Mitsuyo?!
You're always wearing that old, ripped swimsuit, so I just finished the job!
I resent how you try pulling on people's heartstrings by playing poor!
T-That's cruel...
I'll compensate you.
I just bought a new one, so why not change into this?
I'm exhausted. Think I'll take a little break.
Hey! Nijieda-san!
Are you okay, Miharu?
Runa...
That was terrible.
Rumor has it Mitsuyo used her money's influence to nab that nomination
and I bet she's taking it out on you!
Miharu!
I guess even athletes have their problems...
Who are you?!
Huh. Nanase-san's childhood friend...
That's right. The idea is for him to learn how to swim this summer.
I'm Mizuki Runa. Nice to meet you.
You know, it looks like that Miharu girl is really being bullied.
By that rich bitch-type, Mitsuyo or whatever...
Those two used to be friends, actually.
But ever since that nomination came up, they've been at odds.
Nomination?
Miharu's parents own the small rice shop over there.
Ushio Rice Shop
Normally, a family like that couldn't send their kid to a swimming school like this.
But her old friend Mitsuyo invited her to join the school
and Mitsuyo's parents even paid for it...
...but now, they're not putting up a single yen.
Miharu works late cleaning the school
and in exchange, she gets free tuition here.
Huh. It's like, where did their friendship go?
Maybe it's the curse of the Evil Spirit of the Diving Pool.
Curse?
Apparently, a girl committed suicide in the diving pool a long time ago.
S-Suicide?!
Yeah. And supposedly her ghost appears every night.
Miyuki, at least let me sleep on our days off!
Forget it! The swim meet is in just five days!
But you heard about the evil spirit...
She said weird things keep happening at the pool.
It's just a story! Now come on!
Fudou Swimming School
The three divers are already lined up...
Who cares about that?!
Great job from the first diver and rice seller, Miharu-chan!
Enough, Hajime-chan!
What are you doing, Miharu?!
If you do a back dive and hit the water that far out, you won't get a decent score!
Leave me alone!
If the body isn't perfectly positioned when it hits the water, it can be pretty painful.
At a height of ten meters, making a mistake has even cost some divers their lives.
Don't look at her with lust in your eyes!
Hajime-chan, control yourself!
Mitsuyo!
W-What?! What happened?!
Hey, Miyuki... I think something went wrong.
Y-Yeah. It made a huge noise. I hope Mitsuyo-san is okay...
Nijieda-san! What happened?!
It looks like Mitsuyo's jump was off and she hit the water hard!
Oh no! Somebody call an ambulance! Hurry!
Miharu! That!
W-What is this?!
Hair?! No!!
D-Don't tell me that's...
...from the Evil Spirit of the Diving Pool?!
One hour later, the police came after getting word
that Nijieda Mitsuyo was unconscious from hitting the surface of the water hard.
All right, Ushio Miharu-san.
Nijieda Mitsuyo-san dove in right after you, correct?
Y-Yes.
Mizuki Runa-san. You saw what happened, right? How did it look?
A-Actually...
Hajime-chan, control yourself!
...I think I was distracted by Nanase-san's loud voice...
I see.
Is it possible that she was also surprised by the voice and lost her balance in midair?
I-Is that possible?!
Of course it is. If she heard your shout...
W-Wait a second!
Even supposing that's what happened, Miyuki didn't do anything wrong!
I said something stupid, so she...
Miyuki!
It could be my fault! My fault that happened to Nijieda-san...
I don't think so.
It's the curse. The curse of the Evil Spirit of the Diving Pool...
Well, it was an accident, so don't beat yourself up over it.
And Sensei, please don't use this pool for the time being.
Yes, of course. We'll drain it for now and discuss how to proceed later.
What's that?
Even though it wasn't like that before...
Hajime-chan, what should I do?!
Don't worry, Miyuki. If my hunch is right, that might not have been an accident.
I'll prove that you're not the least bit in the wrong.
I swear it in the name of my grandfather!
Hajime-chan...
Once in a while, you can be depended on, Hajime-chan.
Ever since we were little kids, that hasn't changed.
H-Hey, Miyuki...
Something you want the police to look into?
Yeah. I haven't verified it myself, but I heard about it.
A kind of lake that even I couldn't drown in.
Fudouyama Municipal Library
What's wrong? It's not like you to study, Hajime-chan.
Yeah, well, I'm curious about something.
And with a rough calculation...
I did it! I was right. That's what it was!
I've solved all of the...
What, Mom?
Hajime, you're the one who squished the tofu, didn't you?
Sorry about that! Make it into mapo doufu. Oh, and I already seasoned it.
The nerve... And I was going to put it into the mushroom soup...
Ahem...
I've solved... I've solved all of the mysteries!
It looks like you're having fun...
The Case File of Young Kindaichi Returns
There!
Uh-oh! There's no point in running away. I got you on film.
The incontrovertible evidence is still at the bottom of the pool
and it'd be totally suspicious if they found it tomorrow morning. Right...
...Ushio-san?
You're responsible for Nijieda Mitusyo being in a coma.
You're the real "Evil Spirit of the Diving Pool", Ushio Miharu!
I don't believe it!
Miharu did that to Mitsuyo?!
W-What're you talking about?! I'm cleaning up for work!
And this plastic bag fell in the pool... so I was just retrieving it...
In the middle of the night?
W-Well, that's...
And you were doing it in the dark. It's suspicious.
W-Wait! How does that make me the bad guy?
I could see if I pushed her from behind, but I dove in first!
So how could I do that to Mitsuyo?
That's right, you dove in first. And hit the water way off the mark.
You're very talented, so it must've been an unusual mistake for you.
Well, it happens...
No. You wanted to make it look like the trick you set up didn't do you any harm.
I don't understand.
Is there a trick that can put a person into a coma when they dive into a pool?
Take a look at this.
B-Buckets?!
Yeah. At a glance, it looks like the buckets are filled the same.
And here I have two blocks of tofu.
When I drop the tofu into one of the buckets...
...the tofu sinks to the bottom intact,
but when I drop the other tofu from the same height into the second bucket...
It broke up!
W-What does it mean?
Even though they fell from the same height, why did only this one get crushed?
Detective, have a taste of this water.
Okay...
It's salty!
Sure it is. After all, it's super-concentrated salted fresh water.
Salted fresh water?!
Yeah. In Jordan, there's the Dead Sea,
a saltwater lake where people can float, even if they can't swim.
I hear you could really get injured if you dive in from a high place.
W-What?!
Is that true, Hajime-chan?
Yeah. So I put my nose to the grindstone and did some calculations.
So 30% saltwater is 1.3 times as dense as just fresh water.
Because of that, when something hits the surface of the water,
the impact is 2.2 times as great as fresh water.
More than twice as great?!
When the impact from a normal high dive is great enough...
The impact from a normal dive is about 400 kilograms.
But this is 2.2 times as dense, so the force of the impact is 880 kilos.
T-That could break a person's neck.
But how could the water in this pool have been changed to salt water?
It would take tons or maybe dozens of tons of salt
to make this huge pool into salt water like the Dead Sea.
That's right. That's why the plastic bag was needed.
I bet you snuck in here late last night
and put in a plastic bag five meters deep and two meters within the landing point.
You used strong gut to fasten the four corners.
Ushio Rice Shop
You stole a large amount of salt from your family's rice shop's storage area
and poured it into the giant plastic bag.
Considering a bag of that size, you'd need roughly 400 kilos or more of salt.
It must've taken a lot of effort.
You had it set up directly under that diving board.
You'd created a little "Dead Sea" in the landing area.
You purposely missed the landing spot,
knowing that it would make Nijieda Mitsuyo fired up about not missing it herself.
You tricked her into landing right in the middle of the "Dead Sea".
And then you made it look like you were saving her by diving in first.
You quickly cut the hidden gut with a small pair of scissors,
got her out of the plastic bag, and made it sink to the bottom of the pool.
The ghost story you spread about the "evil spirit" is a bunch of bull, too.
As for the hair that was all over you when you got out of the pool,
I bet you'd gathered it up while cleaning.
Afterwards, you knew it'd be all over for you if someone found the plastic bag,
so you used the hair as a prop,
scaring everyone with the "evil spirit" so no one else would go in the pool.
H-How did you know?!
It was your swimsuit that did it!
Swimsuit?
After the incident, white salt stains appeared on your swimsuit.
Sweat can't account for all that salt, so you must've been in salted fresh water.
The police examined your towel and detected a great deal of salt content.
I'm sure they'll find salt in the remaining pool water, too.
Just as I'd bet the same amount of salt disappeared from your family's rice shop.
I didn't imagine this would happen...
I never thought it would cause a major accident like this.
I just wanted to hurt her enough so she couldn't dive for a while.
She looked down on me for being poor
and stole that nomination from me with her money!
Even though she knew the circumstances at my house, she...
You've got it wrong, Miharu-chan!
What do I have wrong?!
Only an awful person would rip my swimsuit in public and then show how rich she is!
I thought that was terrible too, so I confronted her about it afterwards.
Otherwise, she would've kept diving with that tattered swimsuit.
She's starting at Fudou High School next week, so how would that look?
No matter what I said to her, she'd just take it as being mean, so I ripped it like that.
Well, the swimsuit I gave her is like my congratulations for getting the nomination.
Wait a second. You got the nomination...
I turned it down. A nomination based on money is meaningless, right?
Mitsuyo-chan, y-you...
I wonder why this happened to us.
You know, Sensei, if the two of us get even better and are both chosen for the Olympics,
maybe we can be good friends again...
I have a dream.
A dream?
Synchronized diving...
I want to team up with Miharu and have us both win medals together.
That's my dream!
I-I d-didn't know...
I'm sorry, Mitsuyo!
Miharu...
I hear Nijieda-san came out of her coma.
Although they don't know if she'll ever be able to dive again.
Knowing those girls, it'll be fine.
They've got the courage to dive from that high up.
I bet she'll get better, the two of them'll make up, and they'll aim for a medal together.
Yes. I'm sure you're right.
But you've got a more immediate goal to aim for, Hajime-chan.
The swim meet is in three days!
You'd better be able to swim 25 meters by then...
Hey! Miyuki! I-I can't!
I can't! I can't! I can't! I can't! I can't! I can't!
H-Help!
M-Miyuki! Did you do it to me again?!
I didn't do anything!
Liar! You're the only one who would do a silly prank like...
What is this?! Did you put something in my mouth?!
I said I didn't do anything!
Then who...?!
D-Don't tell me...
You did it! I'll make yakitori outta you!
Hey! Wait! I'll teach you to take a dump on my head!
He's usually hapless like this,
but he also takes after his grandfather as Japan's greatest detective.
Even if I am the only one who knows it, Hajime-chan!
Cafe Owl
Stop flying around, dammit!
The Case File of Young Kindaichi Returns
A sad case occurred three years ago.
The culprits, who were minors at the time, are being picked off one by one.
What?! Old man Kenmochi is the Executioner?!
Superintendent Akechi, do you suspect the old man?!
The Case File of Young Kindaichi Returns! Inspector Kenmochi, Murderer, File 1!
Inspector Kenmochi, Murderer
Old man, where'd you go?! Come back! Old man!