"There's always a way to solve it."
"I'll leave the preliminary investigation to you, Jii-chan!"
Kaito had made up his mind to accept the challenge. He was already preparing to send out his formal heist notice.
"Hey, you didn't call me over just to try and recruit me to your side, did you?" Tsuneo asked, his voice laced with suspicion.
He had a decent relationship with the Suzuki family. It wouldn't be hard for him to slip into the museum under the guise of a detective. Knowing this guy, he's probably thinking of wearing my face as a disguise...
"It's not about that. It's about that Organization."
"I simply felt that Master Kaito might require your assistance," Jii-chan explained with a polite smile.
The intelligence they had gathered last time had indeed been invaluable, but the danger was escalating by the day. The Organization had been steadily funneling assassins into the area.
"My advice? Just call the police..." Tsuneo remarked. He could feel the trouble they were facing shifting gears. It had started with a few handguns; now they were dealing with fully-equipped safe houses boasting heavy ordnance. A wave of professional hitmen was clearly on the horizon.
"I've told you already, I don't need any 'special training,'" Kaito said, resting his chin in his hand. "With my skills, how could I possibly lose to a bunch of low-level thugs?"
"Special training?"
"You mean... training?"
Tsuneo's interest was suddenly piqued. He had assumed Kaito wanted him to go out and trade lead with the assassins. But if it was just about training... Kaito was probably a bit behind Heiji or Ran in a straight fight, though he fared better once his gadgets came into play.
"Hey, what's with that look?"
Kaito caught the strange glint in Tsuneo's eyes and instinctively leaned back a few inches.
"You should probably spend more time refining your gadgets," Tsuneo said with a chuckle. "Go visit the Professor more often. Heck, you might as well ask him to be your godfather at this rate."
After seeing the "Tropical Rainbow" bomb the Professor had invented last time, Tsuneo wondered if there was any assassin alive who could actually stand their ground against the old man's genius.
"Professor Agasa?" Kaito recalled the last time he saw the man conducting experiments in his lab. His legs felt a bit weak at the memory. It was lucky that Jii-chan acted as a quality control filter; otherwise, Kaito's magic props might have turned into weapons of mass destruction long ago.
"Exactly. That 'Self-Ascension' Spiral Glider of his? It's sharp enough to take an enemy's head off," Tsuneo said, nodding as he took a sip of his juice.
'Self-Ascension'... not a bad name, right? I came up with it myself!
Kaito stared up at the ceiling in silence, refusing to comment.
"By the way, your grandfather's surname was Kuroba, right?" the Repairman suddenly asked, recalling a conversation with Yusaku Kudo that had managed to shock him for an entire year.
"Well, obviously," Kaito replied, looking exasperated. "What kind of question is that?"
"And do you know what your grandmother's maiden name was?"
"What are you even getting at...?"
Kaito turned a confused gaze toward Jii-chan. Was he the one with the problem, or had the "Dark Knight's" brain finally short-circuited?
"How about I give you a hint?" Tsuneo's expression was uncharacteristically excited, his mind racing with the implications.
Kaito and Jii-chan both tilted their heads, staring at the Repairman in unison.
A hint?
"Kudo!"
"..."
Jii-chan, who had been busy polishing a glass, paused as his brow furrowed. That surname sounded incredibly familiar...
"You—are you kidding me?!" Kaito sputtered. His IQ was high enough to instantly connect the dots. The "Kudo" Tsuneo was referring to undoubtedly had everything to do with a certain high school detective.
No, that's impossible. I've never heard anything about this. How would this guy know?
"Interesting, right? I had the exact same look on my face when I found out," Tsuneo said, nodding with immense satisfaction.
Jii-chan looked at the stunned, silent Kaito and asked, "Are you implying, sir, that Master Kaito's grandmother might share a bloodline with that young detective?"
The whole thing sounded like a bizarre tall tale.
"Yeah. Honestly, that kid probably should have been named Kuroba in the first place..."
Evening.
Tsuneo drove Kaito back to Professor Agasa's house.
Ikumi was still tied up with her work; it seemed she had more than one case to process today. Meanwhile, Conan and the other kids had actually been productive for once—they had returned safely without stumbling across a single murder.
"I heard the situation on your end is getting dangerous, so I figured you could use this. It's a custom-made bulletproof vest," Professor Agasa said, handing over a new piece of gear to the Phantom Thief.
It was based on the same model the Dark Knight used, refined through several iterations of high-tech tinkering. It provided full-body protection while remaining incredibly light, ensuring it wouldn't hinder Kaito's acrobatic movements.
"You should probably find a gun and test it out later just to be sure," Tsuneo advised.
"..."
Conan had come over to get a spare pair of glasses, only to find the Phantom Thief here getting an equipment upgrade.
"What are you staring at?" Kaito snapped, shooting a sideways glance at the "Great Detective." Who would want to be related to a guy like this...
Ever since Kaito had helped him out by disguising himself as Shinichi Kudo, the two had become somewhat more familiar with each other, though the rivalry remained.
"This!"
Conan snatched the magazine from Ai Haibara's hands and flipped to the page featuring the eccentric old man. He shoved it in Kaito's face.
It was the advertisement for Suzuki Jirokichi's challenge. Given the thief's competitive nature, there was no way he would sit this one out.
"He might end up helping you out again next time, so you'd better be a little more polite," Ai said, snatching her magazine back and crossing her legs. Her tone was as flat and detached as ever.
"..." Kaito was speechless. Between the two of them, there wasn't a single "normal" child in this house.
"Having those two in the same room... it always gives me a strange feeling," the Professor whispered to the Repairman after Kaito had left. He was referring to Kaito and Shinichi.
"It's because he isn't wearing the white cape right now," Tsuneo said with a small smile.
When facing the Phantom Thief in the middle of a heist, the Great Detective would chase him to the ends of the earth. But in moments like these, they shared a silent understanding—a mutual agreement to keep each other's secrets and stay out of each other's way.
"Oh, right. What was that about the police report you two mentioned earlier?" the Professor asked, turning to Ai and Conan. "I thought you said no cases happened today. Why the police?"
"It was nothing serious," Conan said, shaking his head. "Just a prank played by an elderly woman who wanted to protect her family."
The family Ayumi was visiting had once owned two incredibly valuable scrolls. Since the time of their ancestors, these scrolls were seen as the family's guardian deities.
However, to fund her son's wedding, the old woman had sold one of the scrolls to buy an apartment. Coincidentally, in the same year the scroll was sold, her husband died at sea. Ridden with guilt, she became convinced that selling the "guardian" had cursed the family.
When a merchant started eyeing the remaining scroll—worth tens of millions—she staged a fake theft to discourage anyone from pursuing it, hoping to keep her family safe. Once Conan solved the riddle, the police decided not to press charges. All in all, it was a happy ending.
"Well, that's a rare stroke of luck," Tsuneo remarked, though he secretly felt a cold sweat for the family.
Perhaps those scrolls really were guardian deities. Otherwise, with the God of Death himself paying a visit, how could they have possibly escaped without a single drop of blood being spilled?
"I really don't like that look in your eyes," Conan said, turning his head away.
That "I'm-surprised-nobody-died-because-of-you" look was something he could definitely do without.
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