Tangze fell silent for a moment.
Though he did not know how far Conan's understanding of "deception" was from the truth, he was not wrong.
Tricking his detective friends was nothing more than a bit of malicious amusement, and a convenience for his own actions. From beginning to end, his true enemies had never changed. The people Tangze had deceived most were never them.
Seeing that Tangze did not immediately refute him, Conan knew he had indeed struck the heart of the matter. The last taut string in his mind finally loosened.
Conan's feelings toward Akechi Goro had always been complicated.
Even though he had disliked the man's approach to solving cases from the moment they met, Conan had initially regarded him as a capable peer—until he learned that his true identity was Shigeyoshi Tonokuchi's illegitimate son.
By the time Conan learned that, he had already heard from the police that after Shigeyoshi Tonokuchi died horribly at the venue, before they could continue investigating his unresolved bribery case, Tonokuchi's residence had gone up in flames. All of Tonokuchi's direct relatives had perished in the fire, making the case impossible to pursue any further.
The investigation had been forced to end, and the organization's objective had already been achieved. Akechi Goro, the sole surviving survivor, had become increasingly suspicious.
Later, after clashing with Kumeru several times, Conan had already vaguely sensed that something was wrong.
Once that identity fully overlapped with Akechi Goro's, those subtle premonitions had been confirmed to some extent.
"You really do trust your own brain as much as ever," Tangze finally remarked after coming back to himself.
Never mind what bizarre chain of reasoning Conan had used to reach that conclusion—getting every step of the deduction wrong while still landing on the correct answer was something Conan