Conan: I'm Really Not Tokyo Ghost Story

Looking at his empty wallet, Takagi Wataru finally realized something was wrong.

"Hey, that's too small-minded. You can only get reimbursed by Inspector Megure if you pay for it."

Sano put one arm around Takagi Wataru's neck and patted his chest with the other, coaxing him gently, "Look, we came here to take a statement, and we've been taking statements until now, so we definitely need to eat dinner, right?"

“But if we pay for our own meals, then it won’t be considered an extra expense due to taking statements. However, if you cover all the expenses for everyone, then it can be considered a public expense, and only then can it be reimbursed reasonably.”

Takagi Wataru frowned, scratching the back of his head for a long time without managing to straighten it out.

"But……"

"But you big dummy, you've already paid, why are you still talking so much?"

Sano tugged at Takagi Wataru's wallet and grinned slyly: "Anyway, if you don't ask Inspector Megure for reimbursement, you'll definitely be broke before your next paycheck. Whether you should claim it or not is entirely up to you. You can also choose not to claim it and just swallow the loss. Anyway, the people at the celebration party probably won't care."

Upon hearing this, Takagi Wataru was instantly stunned and began to question the meaning of life.

"Ha, this guy actually used Inspector Megure's subordinate as a knife, that's really despicable."

Ai Haibara picked up a fried shrimp and made a sarcastic remark that was hard to tell if it was gloating or not, which made Conan's lips twitch involuntarily.

“Indeed, if things are done this way, Inspector Megure will probably have no choice but to reimburse Inspector Takagi, since it was Inspector Megure who asked us to take statements, and it was Inspector Megure who asked Inspector Takagi to take statements from us.”

"Now that Officer Takagi has suffered such a great loss because of... giving a statement, Inspector Megure, as his superior, cannot ignore it... although Officer Takagi may suffer a lot afterward."

Chapter 291, 290, (Together) Getting close to your daughter? No, getting close to your wife.

Thinking of this, Conan's gaze toward Takagi Wataru involuntarily turned pity.

...It was already painful enough that I couldn't win over the person I liked, and it's true that I was forced to stay and work overtime. Now, I'm being used by Sano as a tool to get revenge on Inspector Megure.

That's truly tragic.

After all that had happened, Takagi Wataru tossed and turned in bed all night, and finally, after much struggle and hesitation, filled out the reimbursement application form.

There's no other way; if I don't get reimbursed, I might starve to death today!

And so things have turned out the way they are now.

...After learning the whole story from Takagi, Inspector Megure was furious and immediately called Sano, intending to have a serious argument with him.

As expected, no one answered the phone.

Inspector Megure's impotent rage.jpg

Meanwhile, Sano had no idea that Inspector Megure had called him, because he was busy replying to Gin's messages.

"How's the progress?"

Having learned from his previous experience, Gin didn't call Sano this time, but only left a text message, which Sano didn't discover until the morning.

Keep nagging, keep nagging, you're starting to nag again, don't you get annoyed?

Sano pursed his lips and typed out three words.

"We're working on it."

Inside the black Porsche 356A, Gin glanced at the text message he had just received on his phone, then at the newspaper headline, "Toto Bank robbery solved by famous high school detective Sano..." and let out a deep breath.

Calm down, calm down.

Third time's the charm, that's right, let's give Sano another chance.

If this guy shows up again, clearly busy with those insignificant cases but still trying to fool himself into thinking he's "working hard," then...

Let's send someone else to investigate the Black Reaper.

As for Sano?

They can be assigned tasks that require more motivation.

Anyway, I happen to have a pretty tight schedule right now.

Meanwhile, after washing up and leaving the house, Sano did nothing else but change his disguise and prepare to meet with Kaito Kuroba.

Actually, not only on the Suzuki family's ship, where Sano, as Kokushi, made an appearance in front of Kuroba Kaito, but even before that, this guy had been frantically sending Sano messages, trying to meet him.

Sano simply ignored it.

...However, there's one more thing that must be mentioned when talking about Kaito Kuroba.

That was yesterday, on the way back from the Metropolitan Police Department, when Conan mentioned to Sano that the Mori family and others had gone to the castle together.

Sano didn't remember much of the rambling stuff, but he did remember two things.

First, Kogoro Mouri confidently vouched for Natsumi Kosaka, saying he would persuade Shiro Suzuki to give her the Egg of Memories, etc... I don't know where he got his confidence from.

Although Shiro Suzuki did indeed give it as a gift.

...They really are rich and powerful.

I should have tried asking Sano too; maybe I could have gotten an 800 million egg for free.

The second incident involved the artist, Qian Jiangyi, being found unconscious in a public restroom after the castle expedition.

To put it bluntly, the one who went in with the team is a fake; it could only be Kaito Kuroba.

None of that matters. What matters is that on the afternoon of the day he returned from the castle, Kaito Kuroba appeared at the Mori Detective Agency in his true form.

Of course, this guy is wearing Shinichi Kudo's skin.

Of course, in Conan's eyes, that was not Kaito Kuroba's true form. He only thought that the other party wanted to repay a favor because he had saved his pigeon, so he disguised himself as "Shinichi Kudo" to help him out.

Of course, if Conan hadn't mentioned it, Sano would have forgotten that on the ship earlier, Ran Mouri seemed to have started to suspect this kid's past.

Never mind, they're all trivial matters.

"It's so hard to see you."

Sano raised his head slightly, glanced at the middle-aged man who had descended from the sky, and said with a sneer, "Don't say that in front of me, it makes me want to snap your neck."

Kaito Kuroba, hidden behind the human skin mask, choked.

"Alright, let's get down to business. What's the deal with that brat detective on the Suzuki family's ship, and that short-haired mixed-race girl next to him? Although I'm not particularly curious, that girl seems to be Akemi's sister, right? The picture you sent last time was hers, wasn't it?"

Watching Kuroba Kaito ramble on and on, Sano raised an eyebrow and replied, seemingly off-topic, "Akami-nee, your relationship with that guy is heating up pretty fast."

"Ok?"

Kaito Kuroba hadn't expected Sano to have such a tricky focus. After rolling his eyes, he nodded and asked, "Yeah, what's wrong? Are you jealous? Jealous of hers, or of mine?"

"If I said I was jealous of you, could I just snap your neck right now, just in case?"

Faced with Sano's question again, Kaito Kuroba was stunned: "No, big brother, don't scare me. I was just joking. Can you not take it so seriously? I'm a coward."

"Then get to the point."

Kaito Kuroba: "..."

Didn't you change the subject first?

"What I mean is, could you have a good talk with Mingmei? After you sent her the photo of that little girl, she became much calmer, but she still looks depressed every day. I'm worried that if she continues like this, she'll get sick sooner or later."

For some reason, Sano felt like he was seeing a father figure in Kaito Kuroba, a boy who was clearly younger than Akemi Miyano.

It's rare for them to have such a serious conversation; you could even say he's lowering his stance towards Sano.

"So what do you want to do?"

Sano asked Kaito Kuroba what he thought.

"It's simple, just let them meet."

Kaito Kuroba paused, then said, "What I mean is, by using my disguise technique, we can have Akemi-nee contact that little girl under a different identity. That way, her identity won't be exposed, which would be a win-win situation."

"Yeah."

Sano picked at his fingers listlessly.

"..."

Stop just saying "Really?" and finish your sentence!

Kaito Kuroba was furious, but he had to swallow his anger.

Just as Kaito Kuroba had calmed down and before he could launch another attack, Sano's reply arrived.

"Sure, you can do whatever you want. I have something to do, so I'll be going now."

"……Why!??"

Kaito Kuroba choked on his words, calling out to Sano in disbelief, "You...you...you agreed?"

"Yeah, why can't I agree to that?"

Sano said impatiently, "My requirements have always been very simple: don't let her reveal her true identity, so as to avoid exposing her faked death and my friend's problem. Since you are all confident that she won't be exposed, then whatever you do is entirely your own business."

"At most, I'll intervene when I sense you're courting death, and if you're already courting death, I'll clean you up in time."

"If you're only insisting on meeting me to talk about such trivial matters, then I must remind you, don't let it happen again."

Kaito Kuroba stared blankly at Sano's retreating figure, still looking completely bewildered.

It turns out the other party didn't care about this at all.

So much effort was put into preparing so many persuasive arguments, and I relentlessly bombarded them with text messages day and night to build rapport and try to meet in person—

What is the purpose of all this?

...Outsmarting the air?

Sano had no idea what Kaito Kuroba was feeling at that moment.

However, to be honest, even if Miyano Akemi's true identity were exposed, it would be unlikely to have a significant impact on Sano.

After all, there were so many core members present at the time, and DNA testing was conducted after "Akami Miyano's" death, confirming that the deceased was indeed the target.

Under such circumstances, no one discovered that Miyano Akemi had faked her death. Who can be blamed for that?

What? Miyano Akemi and even Kuroba Kaito said that it was Sano who saved people... or strictly speaking, it was Rye?

Is there any evidence?

No?

Then what's the point of saying anything?