Even with their own lives hanging by a thread, they still had the mood to sleep soundly.
With a scoff, Kurumi equipped the voice changer and adjusted it to a male voice.
"Knock, knock, knock!" Kurumi knocked on the door and said, "Inspector Megure, the little boy from Detective Mouri's family is here. He says he wants to see Mr. Mouri."
Hearing the officer's report from outside, Inspector Megure, without suspecting anything, glanced at Mouri Kogoro, who was still reading the newspaper. Hearing this, Mouri frowned and said irritably, "Honestly, what does that brat Conan want this time?"
With that, he stood up, preparing to go outside and see what Conan wanted from him.
However, what Mouri Kogoro had not expected was that when he opened the door, he did not see an officer or Conan. Instead, the officer who should have been standing outside was already lying on the floor.
"!"
Realizing instinctively that something was terribly wrong, Mouri Kogoro was just about to shout when a sharp pain struck his neck. The next second, he lost consciousness.
Quickly catching Mouri's falling body, King Crimson gently laid him on the floor.
Adjusting the voice changer to sound like Mouri Kogoro, Kurumi feigned annoyance. "Honestly, Conan, what do you want now?"
"Hmm? A secret? Fine, but if it isn't something important, get ready to eat my fist!"
Inside the room, hearing Mouri Kogoro's voice outside and noticing nothing unusual, Inspector Megure kept staring toward the bedding before losing consciousness.
"Taken care of!"
Standing behind Inspector Megure, Kurumi's stunning face wore a cruel, icy smile.
"Now... let's play a game in peace."
Drawing a dagger from her waist, Kurumi, having decided to make the two of them play a true fight to the death, walked toward the bedding.
Something's wrong! Less than a meter away from them, Kurumi's expression suddenly changed.
"There's no breathing? Could it be...!"
Quickly having King Crimson pull away the bedding, Kurumi saw not Nishimoto and Kuroiwa as she had expected, but two convincing decoys made from nothing more than clothes and wigs.
"Damn it!"
Realizing at once that she had been played, Kurumi's expression instantly turned cold.
Her slightly narrowed eyes were filled with fury at having been toyed with.
"A feint? Or a switcheroo?"
Glancing at Megure, who lay slumped over the desk, Kurumi forcibly suppressed the killing intent in her heart and surveyed the surroundings.
Sure enough, she found the suit Kuroiwa should have been wearing on a coat rack.
After quickly searching through it, Kurumi found a listening device stuck to the inside of the clothes.
"I got careless..."
She mocked herself for having treated the police like a cat playing with mice, only to be played in return.
Putting the listening device into her pocket, Kurumi silently left the room.
She needed to know exactly what had happened here last night!
61 Never Give Up
By this time, Kurumi had returned to the clinic, and the gentle smile she usually wore had long vanished from her face.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
Her hands clenched tightly into fists. Beside Kurumi, King Crimson, with its two faces, one large and one small, wore equally savage expressions, as though it sensed her fury.
Silent, Kurumi sat in a room on the first floor, staring blankly at something unknown.
Meanwhile, Mouri and Megure, whom Kurumi had knocked out one after another, slowly regained consciousness.
"What happened?" Clutching his neck, Mouri Kogoro climbed up from the floor and looked around in confusion.
Seeing the officer lying beside him, Mouri Kogoro immediately sobered up and recalled what had happened before he passed out.
I remember... an officer said that brat Conan had come here looking for me.
As he recalled the events, Mouri Kogoro seriously checked the officer beside him.
"Knocked unconscious?" Enduring the pain, Mouri Kogoro suddenly thought of something and hurried back into the room.
Sure enough, Inspector Megure was also slumped over the desk behind it, apparently having suffered the same fate as him.
"Inspector Megure! Inspector Megure!" Slapping Megure's chubby face, Mouri no longer cared that the man before him was his former superior. Right now, the most important thing was waking Megure up.
Only after Megure's old face had been slapped bright red by Mouri did he finally wake up groggily with a hissing groan.
"Mouri, my boy?"
Seeing Megure's dazed state, Mouri knew he had not fully woken up yet.
But he could not worry about that now.
"Inspector Megure, we were both knocked out by a criminal! The officers outside were too!" Mouri Kogoro hurriedly described what he had seen outside.
Hearing Mouri Kogoro's words, Megure immediately snapped awake. "What? What did you say?"
Drawing a sharp breath, Megure hurried into the hallway.
Seeing several officers lying on the floor, Megure's face darkened.
Taking out his radio, Megure swiftly ordered the officers guarding the first floor and the exterior to gather on the second floor.
He needed to know what exactly had happened here.
Clearly, Kurumi had no idea what trick the police were playing.
Likewise, the police led by Megure had no idea how that mysterious criminal had managed to directly knock out the officers on the second floor without alerting anyone, then knock out Mouri and Megure as well.
More than half an hour later.
After settling the injured officers, Mouri and Megure sat in the room with grave expressions.
Judging from the criminal's methods, they had concluded that the culprit still lurking in the shadows possessed skills far beyond those of an ordinary person. Likewise, the culprit's target had been Kuroiwa and Nishimoto, the two men under protection.
"Fortunately, if we hadn't moved those two somewhere else yesterday, we probably would have found nothing but their corpses when we woke up."
Mouri Kogoro spoke with considerable relief.
"Indeed." Megure nodded, fear lingering in his heart. "But the culprit didn't harm the officers. All of us, including ourselves, were only knocked unconscious." Megure analyzed, "From that, it seems the culprit isn't brutal enough to harm unrelated people just for revenge."
For some reason, Megure suddenly felt that this mysterious person seemed to have a rather solid moral code.
But that thought only appeared in Megure's mind for an instant before he pushed it away.
As a police officer, especially an inspector of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Megure Juzo would never allow this criminal to continue acting so brazenly.
But then came the problem.
Based on what he had learned from the other officers, those guarding the first floor and the exterior had not noticed anything out of the ordinary.
It was as though the criminal had been on the second floor of the Community Center the entire time.
How had that been possible?
That question filled both Megure and Mouri's minds.
Elsewhere, after Aso Narumi took a shower, changed clothes, and came downstairs, she saw Kurumi sitting alone in a chair. Judging from her expression, she seemed to be sulking.
Puzzled, Narumi assumed something had gone wrong with Kurumi's operation and asked worriedly, "Kurumi? Did something happen?"
"They're gone." Kurumi's voice was incomparably cold. "We were played by those police and detectives."
"Gone? What do you mean?"
Faced with Narumi, Kurumi quickly suppressed the anger in her heart.
She took several deep breaths before slowly saying, "The police moved Kuroiwa and Nishimoto long ago. What was in the Community Center before was merely a cover they set up."
Kurumi shook her head. "The trail has gone cold now. And after what I did earlier, the police will definitely tighten their defenses even further. If we try to act like before, the odds of success won't exceed thirty percent."
King Crimson's ability could be called invincible, but only in one-on-one situations or when the other side did not have a numerical advantage.
Now that she had alerted the enemy, she would likely be facing police officers going all out. If she still treated this as a cat-and-mouse game, she would be the one to suffer in the end.
Hearing Kurumi's words, Aso Narumi did not blame her for the failed operation.
Instead, she walked behind Kurumi and gently embraced her.
"It's okay, Kurumi." Narumi's soft voice entered Kurumi's ears. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm already happy as long as you're safe."
Kurumi's heart suddenly skipped violently.
Yes, during the time she had spent with Kurumi, Aso Narumi still harbored hatred toward those people.
But if Kurumi were hurt while helping her take revenge, Aso Narumi would rather temporarily let go of that hatred.
"I know, Sister Narumi." Kurumi slowly placed her hand over Aso Narumi's hand against her chest, and her tone softened. "But I'm unwilling to fail like this, you know? Ever since I joined the Organization, my mission success rate has been one hundred percent. I've never failed before." At this point, Kurumi's voice was filled with pride.
"I never failed in the past, and I absolutely won't fail now!"
Once Kurumi became serious, her presence was overwhelming.
If those two scum were still being hidden on the island by the police, then even if she had to dig three feet into the ground, Kurumi would find them and bury them with her own hands.
And if the police had transferred them away beforehand, then even if it was the Metropolitan Police Department, she would storm it!
62 You're Finished—Kurumi Holds Grudges
I feel like this is getting a little draggy. This wasn't what I had planned.
I can't figure it out...
I'll speed things up for now and get through this as quickly as possible.
It might get a little messy.
The main text begins below—
That afternoon, Tokyo.
Before leaving Moon Shadow Island and returning to Tokyo, Kurumi had specifically told Aso Narumi to remain still on Moon Shadow Island and wait until the police left the island in a few days before coming to Tokyo to find her.
As for why Kurumi had suddenly returned to Tokyo, it was mainly because she had learned through the Organization's informant within the Metropolitan Police Department that Inspector Megure had secretly transferred Kuroiwa and Nishimoto back to Tokyo the previous night and placed them in temporary custody at the Metropolitan Police Department.
Upon hearing the news, Kurumi was angry, but she also lamented that Tokyo's police had finally gotten smart for once.
Now, if Kurumi still insisted on taking revenge, what she would have to face was the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and its police force. Moreover, if Kurumi was not mistaken, Inspector Megure had likely already warned his Tokyo colleagues to be careful when transferring the prisoners.
To be honest, this was becoming rather troublesome.
After returning home, Kurumi began considering her options.
According to information provided by the informant within the Metropolitan Police Department, Kuroiwa and Nishimoto were currently being held there. Once written approval came from their superiors, the two men would be sent directly to prison.
If Kurumi allowed matters to continue, then once those two were locked in prison, it would become incredibly difficult for her to make a move.
Therefore, given the current situation, Kurumi believed the best time to act would be when the Metropolitan Police Department transferred the two men. She could attack the prison transport vehicle directly on the road.
After all, the game of cat and mouse was over. Kurumi now only wanted to kill those two men and wash away the humiliation of having been played!
After calling the informant and telling them to keep watch over the Metropolitan Police Department, Kurumi went to the storage room on the second floor.
The cramped room was stacked with tools and miscellaneous items. Everything looked like an ordinary household storage room, without the slightest hint of anything unusual.
However, as a member of the Organization—and because of her own interests—Kurumi had specially installed a hidden compartment in the storage room.
Pressing a concealed switch known only to her, a hidden door roughly one and a half meters tall slowly opened in what had appeared to be a wooden wall.
Without hesitation, Kurumi crawled inside. In the pitch-black space, she familiarly turned on the lights.
The white light dispelled the darkness around her and illuminated her surroundings.
From the outside, the hidden compartment Kurumi had arranged did not seem much larger than the storage room. But standing inside, one could see that the space was far larger than the room outside.
After all, Kurumi had specifically converted an entire room during renovations in order to hide things that could not see the light of day.
Such as... weapons and equipment!
Yes, several tall metal cabinets stood in this space, while a long table occupied the center of the room.
After entering the password to unlock the cabinet, Kurumi pulled open its two doors.
Before you continue