Tokyo.
The dimly lit Araide Clinic.
Behind tightly drawn curtains, a hand stripped of its disguise reached out beneath the table lamp and flipped through a thick stack of newspapers.
Vermouth murmured softly, "Izu, Okinawa, Chiba..."
Where would the next place be?
She had only wanted to distract Uzo for a little while, but now... why had he gone off and never come back?
"If Uzo keeps playing around outside, that would certainly save me some trouble. But the problem is, that kid packed up and took away the core of my investigation..."
Thinking of Tokyo, which felt exceptionally empty despite only a few people being missing, Vermouth sighed. She seemed to have grown a little more haggard.
"Besides..."
Her gaze fell on some particularly telling details.
"'Jiang Xia's lawyer friend'... Could this person who occasionally appears between the lines be Curacao?" The discovery made Vermouth's heart tighten slightly. Everything suddenly felt indescribably strange.
"Why has Curacao been staying with Jiang Xia? Their meeting in Izu was indeed arranged by me, with the purpose of using her to lure Uzo away... but what about afterward?"
Why had they continued appearing together in these later cases?
"Could Curacao have developed something like Stockholm Syndrome, unwilling to leave Uzo's side?"
The absurd thought flashed through her mind... then, because it was too absurd, Vermouth silently dismissed it.
"Curacao's capabilities are reliable, and she isn't mentally fragile enough to be easily manipulated. Otherwise, I wouldn't have dared place her so casually beside Uzo."
"Even taking ten thousand steps back, even if Uzo really clouded her judgment and she willingly followed him wherever he went... Curacao is Rum's confidant, and there's no need to mention her usual workload. She couldn't possibly neglect her own missions for that—anyway, the reason the two of them have