He had been...
Seen through!
Ryuhiko's eyes widened slightly. Upon hearing those words, his breathing nearly stopped. Looking at Ichiba, who had turned around with that easygoing, careless air and a smile as though he had seen through everything, the corner of Ryuhiko's mouth twitched faintly.
For a moment, he did not even know what to say.
"Just as I thought..."
Then, in the next second, Ichiba, who was likewise watching Ryuhiko, curled his lips into a knowing smile.
What? Hearing that, Ryuhiko's expression changed completely, becoming exceedingly ugly.
This guy!
In the next instant, his ugly expression was replaced by anger. Clearly, Ryuhiko was truly furious.
Ichiba had done it deliberately. He had deliberately mentioned the Bearded Man and Sister A'ju's names as a test. From the start, Ichiba had not been certain what he had done—he had merely suspected it. Perhaps he had linked the Bearded Man's team and Sister A'ju's team failing to arrive to him, but he had not been sure. After all, by the time of the second contact, neither team could be reached, and there had been no intelligence that could conclusively prove they had met up.
From Ichiba's perspective, he did not know that Ryuhiko had joined up with the two teams. During the second contact, only the two of them had raced straight toward the Central Tower.
There was no direct evidence or intelligence proving that they had met, much less that he had poisoned them and rendered the two teams unable to move.
In other words, Ichiba did not know that the two teams becoming unreachable had been part of their strategy.
All he had needed to do was play dumb.
This had been that idiot Ichiba's test.
And he had fallen perfectly into that idiot Ichiba's trap. He had lost