Of everyone who had come to Hachijōjima Island, Ai Haibara, who understood the Phantom Thief Troupe most deeply, would definitely stand with Tangze. Of the rest, Professor Agasa was not close enough to Tangze for that, the Mouri father and daughter and Sonoko might not truly understand the nature of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, and the bratty kids... were just bratty kids.
After carefully counting them all, Conan realized that the people around him either knew almost nothing about the truth, knew only a little, or were plainly closer to Tangze. No matter how he counted, he could not find anyone with whom he could properly discuss his thoughts.
With that gloomy expression, he boarded the flight back to Tokyo. Watching Naomi Argento sit affectionately beside Ai Haibara made him feel even stranger.
How should he put it? Conan knew that his sensitive nerves had been touched, and carefully looking back over Tangze's actions at a time like this was unwise.
Contradictions had priorities. With the Organization, such an enormous problem, still unresolved, questioning a friend at his side first was not a wise choice. Yet his overactive brain simply would not stop.
He looked at Tangze across the airplane aisle, pulling a blanket over himself, and finally threw out the question that had been lingering in his heart.
Could Tangze and Joker be the same person?
To be honest, he could produce quite a few arguments both for and against it that deserved deeper discussion. The key point now was not what he thought, but that Conan could not help wanting to verify that the thought itself was not absurd.
Yet once he returned home, before he had even asked many people about Tangze, Conan's thoughts shifted even further.
"Tangze? You're asking what I think of Tangze?" Wataru