"Were you pitying her, or did you simply not want to see another unfortunate soul like her?"
Tangze's question in response to Vermouth's sentiment was very direct.
Curacao might not have held much significance at this stage, but she had a role of her own in his upcoming plans.
Understanding Vermouth's true thoughts about Curacao would be helpful as well.
"Pity?" Vermouth laughed at his choice of words. "That's an interesting way of putting it. I thought the prerequisite for using that word was at least some disparity in status and standing."
"Doesn't that apply to you?" Tangze countered. "I don't mean that your status is particularly high, but..."
"But that her status back then was too low?" Vermouth tilted her head. "You know it too, don't you? Whether we stand inside or outside, whether we're trapped behind glass or not, makes no difference to us."
Tangze tapped his fingertips against the leather of the steering wheel, silently accepting her words.
He was not truly Hayato Tonokuchi, so he had never actually shared experiences similar to hers. But from the records his parents had left behind, from everything he had seen and heard within the organization during his long time as Kumeru, and from Ai Haibara's descriptions—sometimes candid, sometimes evasive—he could roughly understand what Vermouth meant.
As previously suspected, Vermouth was highly likely to be Renya Karasuma's descendant. Yet she probably had not been born naturally, and the purpose of her birth had not been to continue a bloodline or preserve a life. Rather, because the Karasuma family, with its difficulty producing heirs, could not find a suitable direct descendant to test the effects of APTX, she had been created as a "custom-made lab rat."
Some of that came from Tooru Amuro's intelligence. Taken together, her situation truly differed greatly