"Kurumi, what should we do next?" Thinking about how the remaining two had already been placed under police protection, Narumi felt troubled. At the same time, she picked up a piece of hamburger steak and placed it in Kurumi's bowl.
"Well..." As she enjoyed the food Narumi had prepared for her, Kurumi said with complete confidence, "Don't worry. Between Kuroiwa and Nishimoto, only one of them will survive."
Conan's Clash with Kurumi (1)
It was rare for Kurumi to get to eat food personally cooked by a beautiful girl, and her mood instantly became incredibly cheerful.
"But how are you going to do it?" Narumi had already learned from Kurumi that those two scum had been placed under police protection. As for why the police had not immediately taken them back to Tokyo for detention, she had roughly guessed it: if they really did that, they feared the culprit still hiding in the shadows might carry out even more frenzied retaliation.
So, rather than let other innocent villagers get hurt, it was better to use those two scum who deserved to die anyway and make their sinful lives contribute something.
"Isn't it simple?" Kurumi bit into the tender, juicy hamburger steak. With her cheeks puffed out, she looked as adorable as a hamster. "When people fall into the despair of losing their lives, they'll desperately cling to any lifeline that can save them. And what's even more interesting is, if two people are facing only one straw that can save their lives, heh heh!" Kurumi smiled. "What happens next is obvious."
"Oh!" After hearing Kurumi's words, Narumi showed an understanding expression.
"So that's why you said you'd make them turn on each other, right?" Narumi had another question. "But I think that's just your twisted sense of fun. You never planned to let either of them live from the beginning."
"Of course!" Kurumi spoke as if she were talking about killing two fish for dinner. No matter how those two fish were cooked, their final destination would still be the dining table.
However, just as Narumi was about to ask what Kurumi intended to do, the pleasant expression on Kurumi's face instantly turned incomparably serious.
"Quiet!" Kurumi raised an index finger to her lips, closed her eyes, and frowned slightly, as though listening for something.
"?"
Startled by Kurumi's sudden movement, Narumi wanted to ask what had happened. But because she trusted Kurumi unconditionally, she still listened, closed her mouth, and gently set down her chopsticks.
Within Kurumi's senses, she had vaguely heard the sound of a window opening downstairs.
Opening her eyes, Kurumi whispered to Narumi, "Looks like someone has already set their sights on you."
Hearing Kurumi's words, Narumi's eyes widened as she stared at her in disbelief. "No way? Could it be him?"
At that moment, Narumi suddenly recalled how she had been approached by that big-headed brat earlier today.
Seeing Narumi's expression, Kurumi roughly guessed one possibility as well.
"Let's not worry about who's downstairs for now. If it's just an ordinary thief, that's one thing. But if it's that guy..." Kurumi felt a headache coming on.
Although she had considered the possibility of this situation, if the sneaky person downstairs really was that lawless Conan, then if she hurt him, Vermouth definitely would not let her off.
But if she did not teach him a lesson... Kurumi felt too angry to accept it.
That stifling feeling made Kurumi extremely annoyed.
So, she set down her chopsticks and said to Narumi, "Wait here. I'm going down to see just who that guy downstairs is!"
With that, Kurumi stood up and left the dining table.
Seeing Kurumi's aggressive manner, Narumi worriedly reminded her, "Um, don't beat him to death!"
A few hours earlier, Conan had found Doctor Asai increasingly suspicious the more he looked at her. He had secretly followed her all afternoon, trying to prove his suspicions.
From the time Doctor Asai returned home to when she went out to buy groceries, Conan had considered sneaking into her clinic while she was away. But he had not expected Doctor Asai to be so vigilant. Not only had she locked every first-floor window, she had also checked every single one before leaving.
Furthermore, Doctor Asai had bought quite a lavish selection of ingredients from the market. After asking around, Conan learned that one evening, the island's female doctor had even drunk at a village izakaya with Kurumi. They had likely gotten completely drunk, and Kurumi had been the one to send her home.
If they merely knew each other, would they really be that close?
Conan increasingly felt that Doctor Asai had a problem.
After making an excuse to Mouri Ran that he wanted to wander around the island, Conan spent the entire afternoon crouching in the bushes behind the clinic, trying to find a way inside.
Finally, after night fell, Conan circled the clinic several times and found a window at the back with a somewhat old lock.
Carefully inserting a wire into the gap between the two windowpanes, he successfully opened the lock. Without feeling at all that he was breaking into someone's home, Conan quietly opened the window and climbed inside.
Who knew where this brat had learned such lockpicking skills.
Taking off his shoes to avoid making any noise, Conan carefully searched the dim first floor of the clinic.
Since the first floor of Doctor Asai's house was a clinic open to the public, there was no shoe rack by the entrance.
That meant Conan's plan to investigate the people in the building through their shoes had come to nothing.
Smelling the faint fragrance of cooking in the air, Conan, who had not eaten dinner and was hungry, turned his attention toward the stairs leading to the second floor.
However, just as he was about to stick out his head and listen for sounds upstairs, a set of footsteps suddenly drew closer and closer.
Someone's coming down!
In alarm, Conan hurriedly hid in the shadows.
As the footsteps came closer, Conan finally saw the back of the person descending from upstairs.
It's her! She never left!
Conan would never forget Kurumi's figure, which had already left a deep impression on his heart.
Just from her back, Conan determined that the person walking downstairs was Tokisaki Kurumi, who should have left Moon Shadow Island yesterday.
Could all of this have been done by her and Doctor Asai? Peeking out slightly, Conan noticed that after coming downstairs, Kurumi merely stood at the foot of the stairs without making any other movement.
As the atmosphere grew heavier and heavier, Conan's heart began pounding.
If his guess was correct, Kurumi, a member of the Black Organization who knew he was actually Kudo Shinichi, would absolutely not spare him.
But it looks like she hasn't noticed me.
Just as Conan was comforting himself, Kurumi spoke.
"Since you're here, why are you still hiding there?" Kurumi's tone was full of teasing. Suddenly, she turned around and looked directly at Conan's hiding place.
"Am I wrong, Kudo Shinichi?"
Kira Yoshikage's Famous Scene Returns
As the lights on the first floor turned on, Conan emerged from the darkness with an extremely tense expression.
Having his name called out by the other party once again, Conan had a bad feeling.
In response to Conan's question, Kurumi curled her lips into a cold smile and slowly walked toward him.
"Enough! Don't come any closer!"
Feeling increasingly threatened, Conan raised his hand, activated the watch on his left wrist that could fire anesthetic needles, and aimed it at Kurumi.
"Don't move!" In his panic, Conan was already prepared to shoot Kurumi with an anesthetic needle and take the chance to escape.
"If you move even once, I'll attack immediately." Though Kurumi standing before him had no weapon, Conan somehow constantly sensed a deadly threat from the girl's petite body.
Kurumi naturally knew all about Conan's little toy. But for Kurumi, who possessed King Crimson, even if Conan were pointing a gun at her right now, it would be useless.
Standing about three meters away from Conan, Kurumi said calmly, "My name is Tokisaki Kurumi. I'm sixteen years old. I live in an inconspicuous residential district in Tokyo, and I don't have a boyfriend."
Kurumi's inexplicable self-introduction made Conan even more nervous, and sweat gradually trickled down his face.
Yet Kurumi continued without noticing at all. "I work for the Organization. I go home by ten every night at the latest. I don't smoke, and I only drink whenever I feel like it."
"Every night, I go to bed at eleven, and every day, I make sure to sleep in."
"Before bed, I drink a cup of hot milk, then read novels in bed until I'm completely relaxed before going to sleep."
"When I wake up at noon, I stay in bed for a while longer, leaving behind not the slightest bit of fatigue or stress."
"The doctors always say I'm very healthy after my checkups."
The calmer Kurumi was, the more frightened Conan became.
In a slightly trembling voice, he asked, "What exactly are you talking about?"
"Me?" Kurumi raised her hand and kindly explained, "I'm saying that I hope to live a carefree, lazy life without leaving any regrets behind."
Her right index finger lightly touched her temple, and Kurumi's aura instantly became cold and cruel. "But if I really have to fight, I won't lose to anyone."
Beside Kurumi, where Conan could not see, King Crimson's sturdy form appeared along with her rising presence. Its fists were crossed before its chest, and its two pairs of eyes stared fixedly at the trembling Conan.
Of course, Conan had no idea Kurumi was reenacting a famous scene and could not see King Crimson's Stand. Likewise, King Crimson's face had not turned into Killer Queen in that infamous broadcast mishap.
Though King Crimson was not particularly good-looking either.
"Y-You bastard!"
Feeling increasingly endangered, Conan pressed the anesthetic needle's firing button without hesitation.
With a whoosh, a tiny silver-white needle shot rapidly from the watch's launcher toward Kurumi.
Conan thought Kurumi before him would be directly knocked out by the anesthetic needle. Especially when she showed no sign of dodging and remained standing there, the heart he had been holding in suspense finally settled down.
But what appeared before him the next moment made Conan stare in shock, his eyes and mouth wide open.
Kurumi had vanished!
The Kurumi standing in front of him seemed to disappear from before his eyes in an instant.
And the anesthetic needle she had fired also vanished directly into the darkness.
"I told you, if it comes to fighting, I won't lose to anyone!"
Kurumi's voice suddenly came from behind Conan. At the same time, Conan felt himself shoved forcefully and fell straight to the ground.
It's over!
Though he had no idea how Kurumi had suddenly appeared behind him, the current situation was obviously extremely unfavorable to him.
Noticing Conan still trying to get up, Kurumi, feeling she needed to teach this brat who did not know his limits another lesson, had King Crimson step on Conan's back and forcibly pin him to the floor.
"I don't understand. Why do you insist on watching me? Aren't you afraid of dying?!" Kurumi walked up to Conan, bent down, grabbed his hair, and viciously forced him to raise his head.
The killing intent in her eyes was not concealed in the slightest.
Knowing he had no more chances, Conan still poured the anger in his heart onto Kurumi despite his despair.
"I know! But it's because of people like you that I ended up like this!"
Seeing the mixture of pain and hatred on Conan's face, Kurumi looked somewhat helpless. "But the ones who turned you into this were Gin and Vodka, not me!"
Finally, having gone from knowing nothing at all to learning the codenames of the two men in black from that night, Conan did not choose to give up.
"But you're together!"
Faced with Conan's idiotic question, Kurumi let go of his hair.
Patting away what might have been Conan's dandruff from her hand, Kurumi said disdainfully, "Even people in the same organization form their own cliques. Are you so sure I'm on the same side as them?"
Perhaps because looking down on Conan made her feel much better, Kurumi continued, "If your intelligence as a Great Detective is only this shallow, then tell me—why has no one come to silence you yet?"
Hearing Kurumi's words and simultaneously feeling the force pinning down his back vanish, Conan quickly climbed to his feet and asked between breaths, "What do you mean?"
After the quick-witted Conan noticed from Kurumi's words that she seemed not to be on the same side as those two men, although his vigilance had not diminished, the hatred on his face gradually faded.
"Exactly what it sounds like." Kurumi shrugged. "Although I'm also in the Organization, in some respects, there's no conflict between you and me. In fact, we might even be able to... cooperate!"
Hearing that Kurumi, a criminal, wanted to cooperate with him, a partner of justice, Conan naturally refused.
"In your dreams!"
Kurumi pursed her lips. Conan's response was exactly what she had expected.
"Tch, you really are an annoying little brat." Frowning as she restrained the urge to have King Crimson punch this four-eyed kid in the face, Kurumi patiently said, "Whether you believe me or not is your business. But I'm warning you, you'd better stop meddling in my affairs. Otherwise, you might not even know how you died."
Kurumi's warning reminded Conan of what had happened earlier.
He stared at Kurumi, unable to think of a rebuttal for the moment.
The Choice Kurumi Offered
The sounds Conan made while being threatened by Kurumi downstairs naturally caught the attention of Narumi upstairs, who was already feeling nervous.
Because she knew that childish voice likely belonged to the brat from Detective Mouri's family, Narumi panicked as she worried that he had discovered she and Kurumi were actually the masterminds behind everything.
What should I do... Although she had long prepared herself for the possibility of being exposed, when that moment truly arrived before her, Narumi was still so anxious that she lost all composure.
She was not afraid of death. She simply did not want all her efforts to come to nothing before she had avenged her great hatred.
Hearing Conan's angry shout, Narumi looked around. Completely panicked, she rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a kitchen knife, and charged downstairs.
Of course, Narumi still had kindness in her heart and would not use the knife to slaughter Conan outright. She only intended to threaten him.
Before you continue