"You're not actually Disciple of the Magician, are you?"
Tooru Amuro, who had been frowning at his phone with no signal whatsoever, turned around at those words and, sure enough, saw Saguru Hakuba's confident face behind him.
That was getting a little personal. No one else at the gathering had questioned it, yet this uninvited guest had pointed it out for no apparent reason. Amuro raised an eyebrow and began considering whether this kid had really used family connections to investigate someone's computer IP address.
Oh, it wasn't that he had trusted Hakuba before. He simply felt that someone as high-ranking in the police world as Superintendent General Hakuba, even if he were willing to give a younger family member some convenience, would not use such an easily traceable method.
"Oh? What makes you say that?" Amuro put away his phone, his face once again piling on a false smile. "You make it sound as though you're an active member of the group too."
"How do you know I'm not?" Hakuba countered before answering in a leisurely tone. "You may not know my working style. I'm the sort who prepares as thoroughly as possible before taking action. Once I find evidence, so long as there is hope of solving the case, I never care about the cost. On the way here, I had already gone through the group's recent discussions. Honestly, your image is far too different from the profile behind that account."
Only paying attention to recent, familiar subjects, never speaking up when the topic was something they did not understand, trying hard to conceal their lack of social experience, yet always unable to hide that immaturity between the lines...
Though it might have been somewhat presumptuous, Saguru Hakuba was willing to believe that the owner behind that account