Phantom Thief of Heart!but conan

Chapter 797: Kuroba Kaito: The Phantom Thieves of the Heart? The Phantom Thieves of the Heart!
"Is it enough to just sign here? No need to add some congratulatory message or anything?"

"No, no need, this is fine..."

When Conan approached the agreed location, he saw Goro Akechi sitting under a parasol and being surrounded by two girls asking for his autograph.

Goro Akechi, who had a thick stack of file books at hand, was obviously very busy, so he looked somewhat helpless when he raised his head.

But facing the two girls' bright and expectant eyes, he still smiled kindly, took the photo from the girl's hand, and wrote a line of elegant handwriting.

"Thank you for your support. However, if you are still a student, don't spend too much money on these meaningless things." He handed the photos back and looked at the school nameplates on the girls' chests. Like a responsible idol, he reminded them gently.

"I know. I won't cause any trouble for Mr. Mingzhi." The fingertips of the girl who received the autographed photo trembled slightly. It can be seen that she was very excited. "I, I will find a way to go to the office more often to take care of your business!"

Goro Akechi looked amused by her and smiled a rather brilliant smile, "Miss, it's not a good thing to have the opportunity to take care of my business. You know, I no longer accept ordinary commissions. Don't hurt yourself for meaningless things. If you want to support me, I have a new variety show that I will participate in next week."

"Got it. Please keep going!"

I don’t know if it was because of what he said or because of his smile, but the girl’s face suddenly turned red. After bowing vigorously with her schoolbag, she ran away without looking back.

"Ah, don't skip classes and come to the TV station. I will remember to check it." Mingzhi shouted at the girl's back as she ran away, shook his head with a smile, and opened the document in his hand again to review it.

Conan, who was standing aside and watching the whole process, curled his lips.

Is this guy really lacking normal emotional circuits as Tang Ze said? He has never seen anyone more pretentious than this guy.

When in front of the public and outsiders, doesn't this mean you know how to be a perfect idol that no one can find fault with?

Although it was subtle, Conan still put some strength into his hands and tugged at the person he was holding, indicating that it was time for him to go over and say hello to Akechi.

Wearing a hood with his entire face hidden inside, Kuroba Kaito rolled his eyes, but managed to control his expression. He walked over with the elementary school student in his hand and sat opposite Akechi Goro.

Since it was agreed that he had to talk to Goro Akechi, and what he wanted to talk about was important matters concerning the organization's secrets, there was certainly no way that Conan could really come over here in the guise of an elementary school student.

Although in theory asking Tang Ze to join in is the safest choice, this is after all a matter involving the organization. He was also worried that if Akechi Goro revealed some inappropriate information in his words, it might affect Tang Ze. After careful consideration, he still chose the identity of "Kudo Shinichi".

It is more reasonable and safer for another famous high school detective in Tokyo, who is also a detective and has never met each other, to want to meet Goro Akechi and talk about some profound topics.

So he chose to contact Kuroba Kaito, a friend who could fool even Xiaolan for a short time with a little disguise, and have a face-to-face conversation using his own identity.

Hearing the sound of the chair being pulled away from the opposite side of the table, Akechi Goro raised his eyes slightly, glanced at the hiding Kuroba Kaito, and then glanced at Conan wearing a mask, his eyebrows raised: "Why, is it a popular trend to bring a child as a mascot or assistant when working as a detective in Tokyo? Thanks for the reminder, I'll keep an eye on it when I have time."

The number of contacts was not many, and Conan thought that the other party should not be able to see his identity, so his eyebrows twitched twice.

What he said was clearly pointing out the relationship between Conan and Mouri Kogoro, so he was mocking Kudo Shinichi who was related to him.

Did he really see something, or did he just want to mock...?
After saying this unfriendly opening remark, Akechi Goro lowered his head again, not caring at all about what they would say next, and asked indifferently: "Tell me, what is the matter with you looking for me? Let me make it clear first, even for Tang Ze's sake, I will not give you a discount."

Conan's eyebrows jumped again.

Goro Akechi, due to his high exposure on TV and popularity brought by his appearance, his commission fees are already higher than Kogoro Mori.

It’s hard to say how good his business ability is, but it’s certain that Toru Amuro made a lot of money from this entrepreneurial venture.

Kuroba Kaito glanced at Conan, whose expression was stiff, with sympathy.

He didn't know whether this unfortunate little detective could convince Goro Akechi with his words this time, but it seemed that the other party had temporarily gained the upper hand.

It has to be said that in this kind of verbal confrontation, those without quality do have the upper hand.

He fiddled with the switch in his hand, and Kudo Shinichi's voice came from his hood: "Hello, nice to meet you. I'm Kudo Shinichi, a detective. Although we haven't met before, I guess you should have heard of my name, so I won't introduce myself."

"Of course I have heard of it. Thinking carefully, I think I should thank you more. Without the foundation you laid, people of our age who want to become private detectives will face great obstacles." Akechi Goro nodded, his attitude still a little perfunctory, "But you haven't appeared for so long, and there are rumors outside that you are dead."

Having said this, he finally raised his head and looked at the young man sitting opposite him, smiling.

To Conan, that smile looked like a wild beast baring its fangs.

Unable to leave the rhythm of the conversation to the other party, Conan took a deep breath, quickly adjusted his breathing, and began to speak in a leisurely tone: "You seem very dissatisfied with me. Why? I believe I have never offended you in the past. Or are you unhappy because I discovered your connection with Tang Ze?"

His "friendship" with Tang Ze is itself very subtle.

If what Tang Ze described was true, the scene when the two of them first met must not have been pleasant.

One is the child of an experimenter, the center of the entire experiment and the most important subject of treatment; the other is a victim of human experiment who was abandoned by his father and given to the organization as consumables. The two of them are actually in completely different positions.

But because of the influence of experiments and drugs, his trust in Tang Ze comes from the bottom of his heart.

It was as if Tang Ze had suffered from the aftereffects of the experiment that had brought him pain, and he had been artificially shackled. It was not surprising that Goro Akechi felt threatened when he discovered this and then showed aggressiveness.

In response, Akechi Goro sneered.

"You seem to have made a mistake, 'senpai'." Holding his chin, Goro Akechi hid the sarcastic arc of his mouth under the cover of his gloves, "No matter how you imagine the situation between the two of us, I have said that Tang Ze is my friend, a real friend. Don't pretend to be Tang Ze's savior here, and self-righteously think that I am a danger who needs to be isolated."

"Isn't that you? Let's be frank. You and the group of people who hurt him have the same background. You are not a good person who can be trusted." Conan said directly.

Putting aside the information that Karasawa voluntarily provided, Kudo Shinichi was apparently a detective who had accepted Karasawa's commission and was investigating his case, so there was no problem with him saying something shocking.

Relying on the cover of this identity, Conan bluntly pointed out the fact that Goro Akechi might be related to the organization.

Regardless of whether he became alienated from his father because he was thrown into the organization as an experimental subject by Shigehiko Tsuchiguchi, it cannot be denied that like Miyano Shiho, his parents were already members of the organization when he was born.

Did Miyano Shiho join the organization on her own initiative? Wasn't it that after her talent was discovered, she was completely regarded as a member of the organization, or in other words, the organization's property?

When she tried to resist this fate and escape from the organization's control, she was regarded as a traitor and was hunted down mercilessly.

What a ridiculous definition, traitor, as if she had a choice in the past.

"Why, is this why you came to me? Because you think I'm in league with those people, that I'll hurt Tang Ze, and that my purpose wasn't pure from the beginning?"

Mingzhi seemed to be amused when he heard this, and bent his back with laughter.

There was no shadow in that smile, it was as if he was truly happy, which made Conan finally feel that there might be something wrong with this guy's brain circuit.

"Don't be ridiculous. He knows my past and my current situation. He understands me better than you think." Having stopped laughing, Akechi Goro straightened up again, looked back at Conan calmly, and gave a shocking answer, "If there really is a risk of being quarantined, it should be you. The one who should have died, 'Kudo Shinichi'. If I hadn't come, and if it had been anyone else, do you think Karasawa would still be alive today? He should have died a few days after arriving in Tokyo."

————"Is it the news from Ireland, brother, brother?"

After receiving the email, Vodka opened it and checked it out of habit, then turned around and was about to summarize the contents to tell Gin, but he saw Gin frowning and staring in a certain direction outside the window, as if he didn't hear what he said at all.

Vodka sighed inwardly, knowing that Gin probably didn't hear anything because of the noise, but he didn't dare to call out to him again, for fear that Gin would lose his composure and sacrifice himself first.

Since the organization's undercover list disappeared with the death of the carrier, Ireland, who was in charge of the matter, suffered the consequences, and Gin, who was responsible for cleaning up the mess everywhere, also suffered a bad outcome.

Ireland has infiltrated the investigation team, and it is the right thing to do to get the list back before the police find out. However, the organization naturally cannot put all its eggs in one basket, and must be prepared for what to do if it is exposed.

So, recently Gin has been driving around Tokyo, collecting a list of people to be killed, ready to act according to the circumstances.

As soon as the news of Ireland's failure came, he would detonate the bomb and send those undercover agents on record to death.

In Vodka's opinion, Ireland's failure might be a good thing for his big brother. His big brother really needs to blow something up to calm down.

And now, Gin, who had just set up an explosive, was stuck in a busy street. The noisy voices and advertisements everywhere were pouring into the car, and the sound insulation of this old car could not suppress it at all.

Vodka was very good at reading the air and kept quiet, then followed Gin's gaze and saw Kumail's bright smiling face.

...It was really a brilliant smile, with eight teeth showing, and it made even the vodka in my stomach feel a little nauseous.

Especially when he thought about the shady things Kumail had done not long ago in order to get Adachi Toru, a grassroots member, back to Tokyo, and the selfie of him standing outside the ICU, he couldn't help feeling disgusted.

Could it be that Kumail felt the joy of the Ripper when he stabbed Thomas Sindorah to death and started to like this method?

Gin's emotions were understandable. After all, he had just contacted Kumail in the morning about the situation in Ireland, and Kumail, who took advantage of the fact that his brother couldn't follow the radio signal to hit people, made a fuss about the organization's selection of people and the way things were done. Now he saw a magnified version of it that was several hundred inches high, and his brother didn't pull out his gun and just shot him. He was considered to have good self-control.

Seriously, can you find a way to put some pressure on Bourbon and ask him not to let Kumail appear on variety shows? Seeing him suddenly in broad daylight feels like seeing a ghost.

Outside the window, this talk show-like conversation variety show happened to be playing the part where the host was talking to Goro Akechi.

The screen was completely in close-up of Goro Akechi's face, with only the host's voice being heard.

"Akechi-kun is definitely the most popular detective of the new generation. In several online polls, your votes even surpassed many celebrities. Now that you are so popular, do you feel troubled by this?"

Goro Akechi tilted his head and made a distressed expression. The extent of the expression was just right, and his face was flawless in the close-up shot.

"There are some. After all, I am a detective, not a real star. My job is to investigate and solve cases. I have encountered fans who refused to give up harassing me no matter how well I explained and persuaded them. How should I put it? They didn't use bad tactics, but to be honest, no matter how cute they look, finding my email and sending me more than 100 text messages in an hour is really too much."

The host on the other side exclaimed in surprise, and then asked: "Hey, this kind of thing is really tricky for celebrities, so did the detective have any special method? How did you deal with it in the end? Did you call the police?"

"Ah, there is indeed a little trick." Akechi Goro curled his eyes and smiled wickedly, "I went to Kaito CH to register their names."

"Eh?!"

"It's quite effective. Go and say thank you to the Phantom Thief."

Mechanical canned laughter was added to the background sound, and the variety show's subtitles also gave a timely explanation - "Gorō Akechi: The most famous open anti-Phantom Thieves of Hearts."

Isn't this simply mocking the Phantom Thieves for being able to only solve minor problems like sasaeng fans?
The corners of Vodka's mouth twitched violently.

With such sarcastic words, is it really possible for the organization's plan to be implemented? What's wrong with the Phantom Thieves' brains that they can believe that Akechi Goro really wants to surrender?

After looking at Gin's expression, Vodka chose to swallow the complaints that were about to come out of his mouth, turned around and continued to follow the slowly moving vehicle in front of him, pretending to be deaf.

Really, Bourbon, please don't let him out, okay? He's afraid that one day his big brother will be mocked by Kumail again, and he will explode in anger...

Among so many experimental subjects, only Kumail has successfully awakened his power. If he dies at the hands of Big Brother, things will be difficult to resolve...

----

As Conan was being led towards home by Kuroba Kaito, his previous conversation with Goro Akechi kept replaying in his mind.

As expected of someone who has been in the organization for so long, Haibara Ai's sense of smell is indeed sharp enough.

According to her, the organization has been monitoring Tang Ze for eighteen years, and now they have finally brought him from Kyoto to Tokyo, leaving him in an isolated and helpless position. Of course, it is impossible to let him go at this time and make all previous efforts go to waste.

And now, to be able to maintain such a stable daily life, it must be that the organization has already gotten what it wanted from Tang Ze and has been temporarily stabilized. Keeping Tang Ze alive is also to maximize his value.

Goro Akechi's words further support this point.

"It's really cunning to arrange someone like Goro Akechi to approach Karasawa." Conan took a deep breath and looked up at the clear sky above his head. "Karasawa can't refuse a request from a friend at all."

If it was a tough measure, such as torture, perhaps with Tang Ze's tenacity, he would be able to withstand it.

But if the research results in his hands concern the life of his friend, and his friend is a guy like Mingzhi who has been trapped in the organization because of his father and is destined to be unable to escape from the organization since birth, Tang Ze might really compromise because of this.

If Tang Ze's parents had not left him such an opportunity to fight back by accident, it would have been a question whether Tang Ze could have kept what he had.

Goro Akechi's arrogant declaration was mostly true.

If someone else had been the monitor, Tang Ze might not have survived until now.

The only significance of Akechi Goro to the organization is that he is a tool to morally blackmail Tang Ze, but his loyalty is actually questionable, so he will not hesitate to accept the deal of exchanging antidote for information...

Tsk, even though I still feel like there's something wrong, I can only follow this route for now and try to maintain this balance.

"The guy who sneaked in, his code name is Irish Whiskey?" Conan, who was unknowingly led back to Ni-chome, pinched his chin and fell into thought.

Kuroba Kaito, who had been acting as a tool for posing for photos for the whole morning, glanced at the detective who was thinking hard and shook his head with sympathy.

It’s over. This unlucky little Kudo has probably been completely fooled.

Then he glanced at the silent house next door with a look full of condemnation.

I say, you, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, could it be that you really took all the desires you stole from the bad guys and ate them all yourself?

Although there is nothing wrong with being a thief who is a bit cunning, your hearts are too dirty...

(End of this chapter)