"Who the hell are you people!"
As the figurehead of an illegal organization—a true underworld boss—this gaudy, middle-aged man did not act rashly. Instead, he bellowed a demand for their identities.
He had managed to survive into his late forties with all his limbs intact precisely because he knew when to be cautious. That caution had saved his life more than once. Looking at the situation rationally, could anyone who drove a truck through a reinforced steel door be considered "normal"?
Faced with thirty or forty armed men, this guy was just standing there, hefting a massive wrench and wearing a grin.
It was a chilling, unsettling smile.
"Can't you tell? I'm here to 'fix' you all..." Tsuneo said, idly swinging the heavy tool in his hand.
"Hey, hey, isn't this going a bit too far?"
Kogoro Mouri muttered from the truck. Behind the bald leader, dozens of thugs had already drawn their weapons—iron pipes, long knives, and jagged clubs glinted under the warehouse lights.
"Dad, keep an eye on Conan!" Ran took a deep breath and stepped out of the vehicle to stand beside Tsuneo.
Even she felt the intensity of this "practical training" was a bit high. At any moment, someone might pull out a firearm.
"Come!"
In an instant, Tsuneo's aura shifted.
The leader of the Lion King Society glanced at his "elite" subordinates, but for some reason, he hesitated. A primal instinct told him that the man standing before him was something terrifying—something predatory.
Before he could process the thought, one of his top enforcers let out a bloodcurdling scream and charged.
"I'll kill you!"
Thud!
Did it even take two seconds?
Probably not.
The boss felt a cold dread sink into his gut. Tsuneo hadn't even changed his expression as he swung the wrench. He didn't look like a man in a fight; he looked like a man swatting a particularly annoying fly.
The boss hadn't even seen how Tsuneo dodged the machete, nor could he comprehend how his "tough" subordinate—who usually handled three men at once—had folded so easily.
"Get him!"
"Hack him to pieces!"
In every gang, there are always one or two people responsible for shouting to bolster morale. It was a standard tactic; if you made enough noise, you could convince yourself you had the upper hand.
Ignited by the sudden violence, the thugs—mostly men in their twenties and thirties—felt their blood boil. They surged forward in a chaotic wave.
Baseball bats, long blades, daggers, and even wooden stools were swung with lethal intent.
"Where are you aiming? The liver is right here," Tsuneo remarked, his voice sounding oddly disappointed.
He watched as Ran delivered a flying kick to a man's chest. With his left hand, Tsuneo caught a thug's wrist, pinning it in place, while his right hand brought the wrench down in a devastating "liver shot."
These people were coming at them with knives, ready to carve them into steaks. There was no need for politeness.
"AARRGGHH!!!"
The man serving as a "teaching aid" let out a raspy, agonized wail before his body went limp, collapsing into a heap on the floor.
"I mean... what is wrong with that guy?!" Kogoro sat in the truck, originally intending to look for a hammer or something to help. But Tsuneo was a whirlwind of mechanical violence. In a matter of minutes, eight or nine thugs were already horizontal.
"It's... it's probably like an adult bullying a group of toddlers who just learned to walk," Conan muttered, struggling to find the right words.
It was glaringly obvious. Despite the overwhelming numbers, Tsuneo dodged every attack with effortless grace. He would even reach out and catch a full-force swing from a lead pipe with his bare hand, wrench it away, and then smash the heavy end into the owner's face.
"Boss!"
Within minutes, the only person left standing among the rank-and-file was the man responsible for the shouting. He spun around, frantically searching for the middle-aged leader.
He was gone.
The Boss had vanished.
"Tsuneo-san! He's heading that way with the woman!" Ran called out. She had personally handled six or seven of them and was breathing slightly hard. She pointed toward the side exit of the warehouse.
It seemed the "fearless" leader was attempting a quiet exit through the back.
Whoosh!
A long blade spun through the air, whistling as it flew. Clang! It embedded itself deep into the sheet metal of the side door, blocking the latch.
Tsuneo picked up two more discarded knives and stood up. It was a distance of several dozen meters, but in his hands, the blades flew straight and true.
"Don't you have guns? Why aren't you using them?" Tsuneo asked.
Hiroki had already dug up everything there was to know about the Lion King Society—their business dealings, their associates, their secrets. Nothing could be hidden from the AI.
"They're... they're in the car..." The boss realized he was finished. His face paled as he looked at the "fixer."
Based on the methods used, this didn't feel like a government operation. Who is this guy? Why is he tearing my world apart?
"Is... is that Kogoro Mouri?!" The woman beside the boss recognized the man with the mustache who had just stepped out of the truck.
The world-famous "Sleeping Great Detective"!
"A detective???" The boss stared, bewildered. Why on earth would a detective be here, doing this?
"Ahem. I think it's about time we called Inspector Megure, don't you?" Kogoro said, looking at the carpet of groaning thugs. He was a bit worried about their survival. If people started dying, things would get messy.
"Don't worry, I know first aid," Tsuneo said, crouching down to check a pulse.
"I guarantee they won't die. Not a single one!"
"..."
Besides, there were still plenty of gang members on their way here, currently being diverted by Hiroki's "fake signal."
Around dawn.
A fleet of police cars swarmed the abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city.
"What in the world are you people doing!" Inspector Megure was genuinely furious.
The scene was a disaster. Dozens of people were lying around in various states of unconsciousness, and a separate group had been tied up with industrial rope and dumped outside. He had nearly run over them when he drove in.
"It was legitimate self-defense!" Tsuneo said, having already tucked his "tools" away.
The Boss of the Lion King Society could testify to it. They were a den of iniquity—illegal firearms, drug trafficking, forced labor. They had even planned to target the Mouri family because two of their members had been hospitalized earlier.
Tsuneo argued that he had only "accidentally" broken the warehouse door, at which point dozens of armed men had rushed out to kill him.
"..." Megure felt a headache forming behind his eyes as he listened to Tsuneo's logic.
"Everyone, back to the station. You too, Ran-kun."
The portly inspector clicked handcuffs onto the trembling boss of the Lion King Society and shoved him into a patrol car. After Tsuneo had listed so many specific crimes and provided the evidence to back them up, the boss was far too terrified to resist.
Tsuneo was interrogated for several hours. It wasn't until the sun was high in the sky that the police finally let him go.
"What took so long?"
Kogoro Mouri checked his watch and let out a long yawn. Several different officers had rotated through the room, and even Megure had gone in twice before they finally released the "fixer."
"It was all because of that 'Dark Knight' guy," Tsuneo said, wearing an expression of pure, misunderstood innocence.
"What about him?" Kogoro asked curiously.
"The police suspect I might be him..." Tsuneo said, shaking his head.
It was a natural suspicion. Taking down an entire gang single-handedly wasn't exactly a common occurrence for a civilian.
However, Inspector Megure had ultimately decided that there was no need for a deeper investigation into his "dear Tsuneo-kun." Between Tsuneo's track record of helping solve cases and his general rapport with the force, he had managed to shake the suspicion—for now.
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