Chapter 41: The Onion Man's Routine

Mouri Ran carrying a few shopping bags and holding the oddly named little boy by the hand as they walked past the Poirot Café made Toru Amuro frown.

That morning, Toru had heard Karasawa mention taking the kid upstairs out for fun, so why was this child returning first with the girl from upstairs, and where was Karasawa?

This kid was also quite strange. Karasawa didn't seem like the type to get close to anyone. Even though they frequently walked home from school together, he and Mouri Ran maintained a moderate social distance, and Toru had never seen him actively seek her out—especially given that Mouri Ran was an exceptionally pretty and striking young woman.

Karasawa didn't resemble a teenage boy at all. Toru had never seen him show any special treatment toward a beautiful member of the opposite sex like Mouri Ran, nor did he display the restless, eager, or attention-seeking traits typical of adolescents. Amuro guessed this was related to Karasawa's unusual family background, or perhaps his identity as a juvenile offender had suppressed his true nature.

That was until this child named Edogawa Conan appeared.

When Karasawa, driven by anxiety over Conan's whereabouts, rushed out the door without even packing his things and ran all the way after the car, Amuro's astonishment was beyond words.

Karasawa had inexplicably become close with this elementary school student very quickly, with their communication growing increasingly frequent. That very morning, he had been called out of the house by a single phone call. A high school student building a friendship with an elementary schooler, to the point where Karasawa would even show a rare, relaxed posture when conversing with Conan—this puzzled Amuro and made him somewhat uneasy.

Bourbon certainly wouldn't report such an abnormal situation upward, but he wasn't the only surveillance agent arranged by the Organization.

Over the past few days, the Organization seemed to have undergone some changes, and the instructions sent down were becoming increasingly urgent. The importance of the information held by the Karasawa family seemed to have been elevated once again. The innocuous surveillance reports he had been submitting could no longer meet their demands, and whether they would resort to more extreme methods remained to be seen.

If the Organization ultimately failed to find what it wanted from Karasawa, Edogawa Conan, having been the person closest to Karasawa in recent days, was very likely to become the next target.

Karasawa had gone out with him on several occasions, and Rye's report might have already reached Rum's desk...

Let's hope things don't develop in the worst possible direction.

Karasawa's case had exposed the unreliability of the public security department, and he couldn't manipulate the system to transfer and protect Karasawa in the short term. The Organization's operations were escalating, and by that time, this child's fate...

The business smile on Amuro's face maintained a flawless curve, concealing his anxious state of mind.

He already deeply understood what he would lose by being an undercover agent. Yet every time he was forced to witness evil happening, or even participate in creating it with his own hands, overwhelming negative emotions would swallow him whole, time and time again.

At least this time, he would try his best to pull this child—who had been dragged into the quagmire by the dead corners of the judicial system and the dark sides of power and money—out of the abyss.

"Karasawa-kun, welcome back." Enomoto Azusa heard the wind chimes at the door ring, looked up to see Karasawa, and greeted him with a smile.

After getting along with him these past few days, she quite liked this boy. He was neither noisy nor disruptive, thoughtful in his actions, and gentle and quiet to the point of making people feel a little heartbroken. After all, a child's maturity was usually forged through hardship.

"Enomoto-san, Amuro-san, I'm back."

Karasawa still used polite language, just like any other day, but Amuro sensed his low spirits and turned back to observe him with a probing gaze.

Karasawa was indeed in a low mood.

Shuichi Akai had hit him with a heavy dose of plot-shattering truth right off the bat, and he had walked the entire way back without managing to digest it all.

The setup this stitched-together world had given him was an absolute disaster!

Not only had he joined the Seira family deluxe combo package, but he was nowhere near as useful as Shiho Miyano.

Shiho Miyano was a genius researcher, while Karasawa Akira was, at best, a hostage used to keep the Karasawa couple in check. Now that his parents were dead, this hostage still held the key inheritance, making him entirely like a piggy bank waiting to be smashed.

Furthermore, he learned from Shuichi Akai that because his parents had recognized and concealed Shuichi's identity early on, Shuichi was completely aware of the relationships among the Miyano, Akai, and Karasawa families. In this world, Shuichi hadn't entered the Organization through sheer persistence and a romance born of tragedy, but had been recommended into it by Karasawa's parents.

Presently, Shuichi Akai's blood relation to Karasawa hadn't been exposed—otherwise, he wouldn't have been the one assigned to the surveillance mission—but the very fact that he could enter the Organization was thanks to a recommendation from the Karasawas, marking him as someone who would be placed under heavy surveillance. As long as he hadn't given up on the idea of destroying Gin, this was a massive landmine.

The death of the Karasawa couple was an ignited fuse, and when it would finally blow up in his face depended entirely on how long the fuse was; sooner or later, it would arrive.

The situation looked grim.

He hoped that Shuichi Akai, this specialist in克亲戚 (bringing misfortune to relatives), would act a bit slower. With the competence of those teammates of his, trying to capture Gin was nothing more than a pipe dream.

Here was a thought, though he couldn't be entirely sure: Shuichi Akai coming to find him was probably already about making arrangements for his final affairs—ah no, preparing an escape route—otherwise, once he finished his ambush on Gin, he wouldn't stand a chance to send Karasawa away.

Was he actually preparing to make his move?

Karasawa quietly looked over at Amuro.

Furuya-san, save me!

"Huh? What is it?" Amuro met his gaze, looking bewildered.

Go make Rye call it off! Everyone outside is a bunch of useless teammates! Akemi Miyano, Shiho Miyano, and he were all grasshoppers tied to the same rope; once the bomb that was Shuichi Akai went off, none of them would survive!

Yet when Karasawa opened his mouth, he only said, "It's nothing."

The priority of Karasawa's Black Organization disguise plan had been elevated once again; he needed to lay some groundwork for his upcoming actions.

He briefly integrated his current information and decided to plant some foreshadowing for Amuro first, so as not to let his abnormal movements prematurely alert this sharp undercover agent and introduce variables into the plan.

First, he had to make use of the undercover agent's need for intelligence and the kind heart of the public security side, for example... Shuichi Akai knew about the death of his parents, and there was no reason Amuro shouldn't.

"Amuro-san, can you get in touch with the owner of this café?" Karasawa asked softly, maintaining his dejected state. "My parents arranged for me to stay here as a guest; they must have contacted him, right?"

Of course he could be contacted, but contacting him was useless, because staying here as a guest was never arranged by them. Amuro asked with a puzzled expression, "Why do you suddenly want to find the owner? He's not in the country right now, and there's no telling when he'll reply..."

Karasawa let out an "oh," and dropped his head, looking absent-minded.

"Are you in a bad mood today?" Amuro's intelligence agent instincts were triggered. He instinctively adjusted his expression and said in a non-aggressive, gentle tone, "You weren't like this when you went out this morning. Did something happen out there?"

Without reason, Karasawa wouldn't press about his parents' situation. As far as he knew, they had lost contact for several years.

Therefore, Karasawa must have discovered something.

As Toru Furuya, his heart couldn't bear it, but as Toru Amuro, he had to seize this opportunity to keep questioning him.

Karasawa was not unfamiliar with this act; he knew the performance had begun.

However, a performance partner was precisely what Karasawa needed.

Play the game deep enough, and who can tell what's real and what's fake?

"I have a really bad feeling about this." Karasawa sat before the counter, resting his fingertips together against his forehead. "Can you help me contact the owner and ask about my parents' recent situation? During the trial, I asked their defense attorney, but I didn't get an answer."

Amuro stood straight behind the counter, lowering his gaze.

Karasawa looked very fragile right now. He leaned into his hands, his half-open blue eyes lacking focus, and Amuro's line of sight caught the unguarded back of Karasawa's neck.

This clueless child was like a sacrificial offering led to the slaughter; anyone could seize his vital weakness and easily strip away his value.

Toru Furuya looked down at him with pity in his eyes, and then Amuro reached out, gently patting the boy's drooping head, as if unflinchingly slicing open a prey's throat.

"Why would you think that, Karasawa?" he asked in an even softer tone, "Did you receive some kind of news?"