Conan: I'm Really Not Tokyo Ghost Story

...Okay, the former might be somewhat plausible, but the latter is pure nonsense.

If I had to pinpoint a reason, it would probably just be Sano's twisted sense of humor.

Of course, it's not entirely a matter of bad taste.

When Sano was trying to carry out the mission of capturing the criminal, he discovered a rather troublesome logical problem.

The task requirement was to apprehend criminals and send them to the police station.

Leaving aside the former, surely the latter doesn't mean that Sano should personally take the criminal to the police station?

If that were the case, Sano might have been able to replicate the rise to fame of the "Beihua Hammer Man" in the past, but now he is "injured," so how could he possibly do such a thing?

After much deliberation, Sano felt that the mission should ensure that all the criminals arrested were brought to the police station in "his" name.

But the definition of this "self" is hard to say.

Anyway, Sano's experiment showed that leaving the "Black Mask" card on criminals was a viable method.

They can send criminals to jail in their own name without having to go near the police station and worry about being detained. Moreover, they can arrest and hang them as soon as they are arrested, saving them the trouble of "sending" them.

This achieves multiple goals at once.

"promise."

Sano wrote a number on a card and tossed it to Asai Narumi: "Contact me if you need anything, or if you don't need anything at all, especially if you discover a criminal. I'd be happy to help you out anytime."

Asai Narumi took the card, glanced at it, put it in her pocket, and nodded: "So, are you going to continue tonight?"

"OK."

Sano slung his backpack over his shoulder, waved, and left: "I still have to work overtime. You can have fun."

Once he had separated from Asai Narumi by some distance, Sano quickly deactivated his mask form, took out the cat demon earrings, and entered his black cat form to begin searching for new prey.

……

Sano truly hadn't expected Asai Narumi's call to come so quickly.

Just two days later, Asai Narumi called Sano, saying that he had accidentally discovered a group of very dangerous criminals.

The enemy outnumbered them and had more guns, while Asai Shigemi was outnumbered and outgunned, so he dared not make any rash moves and called on Sano to come and help resolve the situation.

...A criminal gang with guns, where did Asai Narumi find this treasure?

Sano recalled the recent news reports, and it seemed that nothing major had happened.

So this group of criminals either just gathered to prepare for action, or they are probably members of a deeply entrenched criminal organization that has been hiding for a long time.

Asai Narumi is quite lucky to have run into this... Could it be that she ran into one of her colleagues?

Maybe it's even Gin?

...To be honest, after these days of hard work, Sano himself is well aware that it will be difficult to catch two hundred criminals within the mission time limit by simply arresting some scattered criminals.

Not to mention, Sano also has an organizational mission to complete.

Therefore, if you want to ensure the completion of the mission, it is definitely not enough to just catch those lone individuals. It is better to catch those groups and organizations that are gathered together.

But as mentioned earlier, such gangs are either hard to find or extremely hard to come by; without the luck of Asai Narumi, it's very difficult to encounter one.

But what if it really comes to a point where there's no other way...

Using members of one's own organization to inflate performance figures might seem like a good option.

Sano quickened his pace and finally spotted a white figure hiding in a corner.

Sano quickly deactivated his black cat form and entered his masked form, then moved closer.

"How is the situation?"

Asai Narumi, who was keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings, was startled by a sound coming from behind her. She almost dropped her scalpel in fright. After barely managing to control her instinctive reaction, she looked at Sano with suspicion and uncertainty.

When did this guy arrive? How come he's so elusive?

"Ok?"

Receiving no response, Sano tilted his head and asked again, "Where is he?"

"Ah...it's over there, I've been keeping an eye on it."

Asai Narumi snapped out of her daze and pointed to the warehouse at the other end of the street: "There should be nine people in total, and each of them has a gun. I'm not sure if they have any more lethal weapons. There are lookouts outside. I think we should sneak in and take them out one by one, just in case..."

"Okay, just wait here, I'll take care of it."

Sano interrupted Asai Narumi and walked straight towards the warehouse, leaving Asai Narumi stunned.

"Wait, wait a minute!"

Asai Narumi never expected that the temporary teammate she called for help would choose to recklessly charge in.

Those were a gang of armed thugs, did they have to be so confident?

Then, the two men who were pretending to be taking a break at the warehouse entrance but were actually just spacing out noticed Sano walking towards them, and Asai Narumi following behind.

"This is……"

After a moment of stunned silence, the two almost immediately realized: "Black Mask, and White Reaper!?"

"Damn it, they've actually targeted us!"

One of them reacted quickly, immediately drawing his gun to fire. Asai Narumi also threw a scalpel without hesitation, hitting the other's wrist and interrupting the spellcasting.

Sano glanced back at Asai Narumi. Wasn't he told to just stay in the back? Why did he have to follow?

However, Sano didn't forget that there was another guy ahead. After Asai Narumi interfered, he didn't bother to pretend anymore and just sped up and rushed over.

"Boom!"

Asai Narumi wanted to throw another scalpel, but it was too late. The man frantically fired two bullets.

Sano twisted his body, passed between the two bullets, knocked the other person unconscious, and then knocked out the person next to him with a scalpel stuck in his wrist.

"Hide well."

Sano glanced back at Asai Narumi and gave her a second and final reminder.

They're not like those kids in the small squad anymore. They need to know what they should and shouldn't do, otherwise Sano won't even help collect their bodies if they die.

After saying that, Sano pulled up the warehouse shutter door, just in time to meet the eyes of the other criminals inside who had noticed the commotion outside and were warily about to pull up the shutter door.

"Damn it!"

With a shout of anger, all seven men drew their guns and fired simultaneously. Seeing this, Asai Narumi had no time to think and immediately found cover to hide.

"Da da da, bang bang bang..."

The gunfire was like firecrackers going off during Chinese New Year, never stopping.

Asai Narumi shrank his neck, not daring to stick his head out at all.

This is probably the end for us.

...Actually, Asai Narumi had seen the reports about "Black Mask being able to dodge bullets".

However, media reporters are often the kind of people who deliberately exaggerate the facts and create sensationalism in order to generate traffic.

Therefore, Asai Narumi did not take this setting to heart.

And even if Black Mask really could dodge bullets, he could only dodge a few at most.

With seven guns firing simultaneously, even a god would probably be defeated here.

...That was what Asai Narumi originally thought.

But as the gunfire continued for a minute without stopping, Asai Narumi finally realized something was wrong.

After hesitating for a second, Asai Narumi held out a scalpel and used the reflection to observe the situation outside.

"Damn it, is this guy a monster?!"

The criminals, who had already changed magazines, watched the black figure that kept flashing and dodging all the bullets, their foreheads covered in cold sweat.

"Click!"

With the sound of an empty gunshot, Sano stopped dodging: "I said, are you still going to continue? If you still have magazines, hurry up and change them. The sooner you finish me off, the sooner I can hang you up. There are other criminals waiting for me. I'm very busy."

Hearing Sano's leisurely and lazy sarcasm, the criminals hurriedly started changing magazines and then began a third round of shooting.

Sano continued to showcase his bullet-dodging skills.

But this time, an unexpected incident occurred.

As the saying goes, if you walk by the river often, you're bound to get your shoes wet.

Even people who have walked for decades can occasionally stumble and fall due to carelessness, let alone dodging bullets, which is much more difficult to do.

In a space where he needed to move twice to dodge three bullets, Sano's body seemed to stiffen for a moment, and he failed to respond to his command in time.

"biu!"

The third bullet struck Sano in the shoulder, sparking a few flecks before bouncing off.

The gunfire stopped abruptly. Sano stood frozen in place, as did the criminals, who stared blankly.

"It hit, it hit you..."

After muttering something, one of the criminals jumped up excitedly: "I hit him! Did you see that? I hit him! I hit him!!"

"Holy crap, that's awesome!!"

The other criminals instantly surrounded the wide-mouthed criminal whose face was flushed with excitement, as if they wanted to throw him up in the air.

Sano lowered his head slightly, rubbed the white spot on his shoulder with his finger, and then touched it with his hand, as if he could vaguely feel a slight indentation.

...This thing is actually bulletproof?

Sano was somewhat surprised.

The restrictions on the Kamen Rider accessory mention that "the mask form will automatically disengage when it is severely damaged."

Originally, Sano didn't think much of it. He just used the masked form as a disguise. At most, this disguise wouldn't need to die. It would only be temporarily ineffective if the victim was seriously injured or even slightly injured.

But now it seems that this thing's defensive capabilities are not low, in fact, they can be said to be very strong.

To be able to stop bullets at such close range and appear to be unharmed, even iron armor wouldn't be much better.

In that case, Sano's understanding of that limitation was probably too superficial.