The semi-transparent Mermaid floated beside Kid and covered her mouth as she yawned. She had been boredly thinking that humans swam so slowly when, as soon as she turned around, she suddenly found that the Phantom Thief had disappeared.
The Mermaid froze, her gaze falling on the trail of bubbles on the surface. "?"
...Hadn't they said the Phantom Thief never gave up?
She had wanted to see the fighting spirit of modern young people, and this was all there was to it?
The Mermaid sighed, shook her head, and plunged into the water.
Kid paddled desperately, but he still kept sinking. Just as he thought his next appearance in the news would be as "Kudo Shinichi's corpse," his arm suddenly tightened.
In the dim night, a hand grabbed him and forcefully pulled him out of the water, then dragged him forward through the waves.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
Kid choked until he was dizzy. After taking a while to recover, his blurry vision gradually cleared.
Then he realized that he had actually been saved—the hero who had descended from the heavens pulled him along with one hand and swam with the other. Though she did not seem to be putting much effort into it, she moved incredibly fast, making it feel like a dream.
By the faint moonlight, he looked to the side and was surprised to see that his rescuer was not the "lifeguard uncle who happened to be passing by" that he had imagined, but a slim, delicate woman.
The waves that had just caused him such enormous trouble were unusually gentle before this woman. They were practically like a pack of simps crowding around her and pushing her forward. Kid benefited from it too, no longer needing to painfully struggle against the seawater.
Kid's gaze shifted