Conan kept pace right at Inspector Nakamori's heels, weaving through the chaos until they reached the vicinity where Helicopter Seven had captured the footage.
"Where is he?! Where's Phantom Thief Kid?"
Inspector Nakamori shoved his way through the crowd, barking the question at the officers stationed on the perimeter. He craned his neck, searching the sky, but the air was empty. Had he landed somewhere?
"We don't know, sir! After he passed behind that building, we lost track of him!" an officer reported, pointing toward a nearby commercial skyscraper. The guards had been scanning the area relentlessly, but the thief had vanished into the urban shadows.
While Conan—acting as the silent director of this investigation—surveyed the surroundings for any sign of the thief, a massive plume of white smoke suddenly erupted in the night sky.
It was Agasa's smoke bomb!
As the thick fog slowly dissipated, a figure in stark white appeared high in the air. The Phantom Thief stood at a staggering altitude, hands casually tucked into his pockets, looking down at the crowd with a calm, enigmatic smile.
"How… How is that possible?!" Nakamori stared at the scene, his jaw dropping in disbelief.
There was no hang glider on the thief's back. No visible wires, no specialized gadgets—nothing. He was simply standing in the empty air, motionless.
"A living person can't just ignore gravity and stand on nothing," Conan muttered, his expression equally stunned. He squinted, trying to pierce through the trick.
"Don't let him fool you! Kid must be suspended by balloons or wires! All nearby helicopters, move in and confirm the situation immediately!" Jirokichi Suzuki shouted over the comms. Even he was momentarily shaken, but his first instinct was to get a close-up for his documentary.
"Roger that. This is Helicopter Seven. Sir… there's nothing above Kid. The airspace directly over him is completely clear."
The pilot followed the command, circling the thief and broadcasting the feed back to the van.
"If there are no ropes from above, then that means…" Nakamori turned his gaze toward the commercial buildings flanking the museum.
Conan caught the hint. He reached the same conclusion: the thief must have strung a high-tension wire between the two buildings to support himself.
Inspector Nakamori immediately dispatched teams, sending officers racing toward the rooftops of both skyscrapers.
Soon, after scrambling up to a roof thirty stories high, Conan gripped the chain-link fence of the terrace. He knit his brows, staring intently at the white-clad thief suspended between the structures.
Nothing. There wasn't a single wire in sight.
"Ladies and Gentlemen!" Kid's voice rang out, amplified by a hidden sound system that gave it a haunting, cinematic echo. He threw his arms wide, greeting the sea of people below.
"Waaaaah!"
Since it was Saturday, the area was packed with young men and women. Most of them appeared to be Kid's devoted fans, and they erupted into a deafening roar, camera flashes strobing like a thousand tiny stars.
"On this night, before I truly make my move, I invite you all to witness the miracle I have created!"
As the words left his lips, Kid began to move. He took a step forward, then another, as if walking across a transparent platform in the sky. The sound of his footsteps—crisp and clear—was broadcast through the speakers, echoing off the surrounding glass and steel.
"He's… he's actually walking..." Nakamori gripped his walkie-talkie, his eyes bulging. He rubbed them so hard it hurt.
This was too much. This surpassed all logic. What kind of monster have I been trying to catch all these years?
"I see. So that's what he meant in the notice. 'Coming on foot to claim the treasure'—it wasn't a metaphor. He meant it literally," Kogoro Mouri remarked, finally piecing the riddle together.
As Phantom Thief Kid traversed the gap between the buildings, inching closer to the museum, Jirokichi Suzuki asked with a grim expression, "Can you tell me, Mr. Mouri… how on earth is he doing this?"
This was an opponent who had completely shattered the boundaries of his imagination.
"Kid-sama is so cool!" Sonoko squealed, completely disregarding the "Blue Wonder" jewel or her uncle's mounting frustration. A thief who could walk on air was, in her eyes, peak romanticism.
"This is Helicopter Three. The target is now over Shiodome Park. At this rate, he will reach the Golden Goddess statue on the museum roof in less than a minute!"
The report crackled through the radio. The stakes were high—the Golden Goddess statue, holding the Blue Wonder, had been placed on the exterior of the museum roof specifically for this confrontation. Of course, Jirokichi held the control switch in his hand.
"Kid will reach the Blue Wonder in twenty seconds," another pilot reported.
"I have no choice then..."
Jirokichi sighed and signaled his staff to activate the mechanism.
"Heh..."
Suspended in mid-air, Kid saw the movement on the museum roof and allowed a "just as I thought" smirk to cross his face. Naturally, no one would leave such a prize without a fail-safe.
In the crowd below, a certain "detective kid" had already reached down and clicked the dial on his power-enhancing shoes.
Tsuneo, who had wandered out to watch the show, noticed the movement from the corner of his eye. He quietly shuffled several steps to the side, maintaining a safe distance. He was genuinely afraid of getting "splattered with blood."
Neither of these "cousins" were particularly gentle when it came to their games.
Kaito Kid likely knew Shinichi Kudo's true identity by now, and he certainly understood the strange dynamic between them. Tsuneo wondered what would go through the thief's head if he actually got hit by one of those lethal soccer balls.
"The performance ends here for tonight! Tomorrow at midnight, we shall meet again at this very spot!"
Perhaps sensing a sudden surge of "killing intent" from below, the thief glanced back briefly. After addressing the audience, a sudden explosion of smoke enveloped him, and he vanished into thin air.
Faced with a phantom who came and went like a ghost, the Great Detective was left without a target to hit.
"Doesn't this violate some sort of professional principle?" Tsuneo, the "fixer," looked up at the empty sky with curiosity. Performing the same trick on the same stage for the same audience two nights in a row? That's a dangerous game for a magician.
"Quick! Into the museum!"
Inspector Nakamori found Jirokichi, and the group rushed toward the roof-access room. Since the thief had vanished directly above the building, there was a high probability he had already slipped inside.
As the heavy doors to the top-floor chamber swung open, they saw the Golden Goddess statue embedded in a wooden panel.
"What's the deal with this setup?" Kogoro asked.
"It's quite simple..." Jirokichi pressed a button on his remote, and the wooden panel flipped outward.
It was a classic bait-and-switch mechanism. Both sides of the panel held a Golden Goddess statue; with a single click, the real one and the decoy would swap places instantly.
"Hmph. A cheap trick like that… Kid would see through it in a heartbeat," Nakamori scoffed. He had zero respect for such low-tech security. Kid wasn't blind, after all.
"Of course. I don't expect this to fool his eyes for long." After witnessing the miracle of the air-walk, Jirokichi had gained a much clearer understanding of his opponent.
"Since you know that, then leave everything to the police tomorrow!" Nakamori demanded, wanting to flood the sky with police helicopters.
"No. That fellow said he would appear at the same spot tomorrow night. And I shall be here to welcome him with the proper hospitality!"
Jirokichi Suzuki walked to the window, his hands clasped behind his back.
"Proper… hospitality?" The group looked at each other, confused.
The old man turned around, his eyes burning with an intense, almost manic light. "Tomorrow, I will rent out every single building in the surrounding area! I will deploy five times—no, ten times the guards and helicopters!"
"I don't care how he's doing that 'air-walk' of his. If he dares to show his face again, I will catch him and use his capture as the grand finale of my autobiography!!!"
Everyone else: "..."
This old man has officially gone mad...
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