Just as old man Suzuki was reaching the peak of his impassioned speech, ready to script the final, glorious chapter of his autobiography, he suddenly froze as if struck by a paralysis spell.
"Don't move!" he bellowed, his voice echoing through the room. "Nobody move a muscle!"
"..." Kogoro Mouri had no idea what kind of eccentric drama the old man was playing at now, but since it sounded serious, he stood rooted to the spot, not daring to twitch.
"What is it? What happened?" Inspector Nakamori asked, concerned that the old man had worked himself into such a frenzy that he'd had a physical collapse.
"Just don't move!" Jirokichi barked. Then came a bizarre, wealthy-man threat: "If you dare move, I'll make sure you never walk in front of me again!"
Tsuneo and the others stood outside the doorway, watching the three of them perform a high-stakes game of "statues."
"Woof!"
Lupin, still wearing his goggles, suddenly lunged forward. He didn't go for a thief, however; he tackled Kogoro Mouri to the ground. As the detective tumbled, a small, shimmering object fell from the hem of his trousers and clattered onto the floor.
"A contact lens?"
"..." The Sleeping Detective had been a victim of pure collateral damage. It seemed that in the middle of Jirokichi's grand gesticulations, one of his lenses had popped right out and hitched a ride on Kogoro's leg.
"Wait, Uncle Jirokichi, is there something wrong with your eyes?" Sonoko asked, clearly surprised. She hadn't known her uncle wore contacts.
"When a man reaches seventy-two, he can't exactly expect every part of his body to follow orders anymore," Jirokichi said, carefully retrieving the lens. He gave Lupin an appreciative pat on the head.
Conan stared blankly. You'd never know it from looking at him... this Suzuki elder is a force of nature.
"I will catch that fellow within my lifetime, mark my words!" Jirokichi's fighting spirit was fully restored.
"Why are you so obsessed with catching Phantom Thief Kid specifically?" Nakamori asked, genuinely puzzled. As far as he knew, the two had never even met. To put up a priceless jewel as bait and burn through a fortune just to issue a challenge—what was the point?
"Kid... just hearing that name reminds me of how he stole everything from me! I will never forgive him!"
"I, Jirokichi Suzuki, will be the one to apprehend him with my own hands! I won't allow anyone to stand in my way!" The seventy-two-year-old's presence was momentarily staggering.
"Let me tell you something. Over the past few decades, I have accumulated countless honors. Every time I achieved a new feat, it was guaranteed to be front-page news. There was only one exception!"
"That time... could it be?" Kogoro ventured a guess.
"Exactly! That brat didn't just steal the front page; he stole the second page, too! My historic achievement of flying a human-powered aircraft around the entire world was pushed back to the third page!"
"Can you understand the humiliation?! Can you feel the depths of my despair?!" Jirokichi grabbed the detective by his lapels and shook him violently.
"I... I think I can imagine..."
"Good! Then we catch him tomorrow, and I return to the front page where I belong!"
Only now did everyone realize the petty, headline-driven grudge that fueled this high-stakes rivalry.
"Did the Professor make some new gadgets lately?" Conan looked up and whispered to Tsuneo.
The things Agasa Hiroshi built—like the hang glider with built-in propellers—could fly, but walking through the air without leaving a trace? That seemed impossible even for the Professor's genius.
"The creation of magic props is a strictly guarded secret," Tsuneo replied. He hadn't bothered asking about those specifics.
Beyond the gadgets that helped in a fight, the Phantom Thief's toys weren't particularly interesting to him. Even if you held them in your hand, their effectiveness depended entirely on the user. In the hands of a master, a simple length of rope could become a work of art.
Was the trick a success? Extremely so—provided it wasn't performed a second time.
"Midnight tomorrow..." Conan muttered. He knew he had one more chance to crack the trick, and his mind was already spinning with theories.
The crowds that had gathered for the performance had long since dispersed. The lights in the surrounding office buildings had mostly dimmed, leaving the streets to a few straggling salarymen with briefcases, hurrying home with weary expressions.
"It's already ten o'clock," Kogoro said, checking his watch. At this hour, he felt he should be having a hot bath followed by a cold beer, not wandering the streets.
"No! Stop it!"
A scream pierced the night air.
Ah... sounds like trouble, Tsuneo thought. Then again, when this group walked the streets together, was "trouble" ever far behind?
Tsuneo, along with the three members of the Mouri family, hurried toward a closed storefront and peered around the corner.
The scream had come from a young woman in her early twenties. She was dressed in professional office attire, and judging by the look of sudden interest on Kogoro's face, she was quite a beauty.
Opposite her stood two men who looked completely out of place in this business district. They were dressed in loud, "trendy" clothes, their hair dyed in gaudy colors despite being in their thirties. They had their hands in their pockets and wore arrogant, thuggish sneers.
The confrontation was happening near the back entrance of a corporate building. A few passersby had noticed, but the two men looked dangerous enough that no one dared to intervene.
"Go get 'em, Ran," Tsuneo said, giving the girl with the trademark hair-spike a gentle nudge.
Whatever the context, the men were currently tugging at the woman's handbag. It was a clear-cut case for a bit of neighborhood justice.
"What are guys like that doing in a place like this?" Kogoro looked up at the surrounding skyscrapers. He wasn't worried about Ran's safety—two low-level thugs were nothing to her—but the location was odd. The owners of these large corporations and their security teams usually didn't tolerate street punks on their doorstep.
"The tall one seems to know her," Conan noted. "He called her 'Meiko' just now."
"It's either a messy romance or a family dispute. Either way, I can already smell a crime in the air," Tsuneo remarked. He noticed something in the woman's eyes—a look that suggested she might not be as fragile as she appeared.
"Give me a break..." Kogoro grumbled at Tsuneo's dark intuition, but he pulled out his phone anyway. It was probably best to give Inspector Megure a heads-up.
Even if it was just a mugging, it was a serious matter—especially since the two men had just pulled out knives.
Indeed, as the group analyzed the situation, Ran had moved in with a sharp, decisive strike. The two men staggered back, cursing under their breath, before reaching into their pockets to produce two nearly identical folding knives.
"Are those knives a matching set?" Tsuneo asked, his hands beginning to itch for action. He stepped forward with a stride that looked casual, his face wearing a deceptively harmless expression.
"Yeah, Megure... send an ambulance while you're at it."
"The situation is definitely getting 'serious'..." Kogoro added into the phone as he watched Tsuneo approach the thugs.
"..." Conan, meanwhile, kept his eyes fixed on the woman.
He couldn't smell the "scent of crime" Tsuneo had mentioned. To him, the woman's reaction to her sudden rescuers seemed perfectly normal.
Wait, wait, wait!
Warning!
Tsuneo, don't use someone's head to test the thickness of that iron gate!
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