"Mm, 'forming' isn't quite the right word. When I first started operating under that name, this so-called group only had me in it."
Ignoring Tooru Amuro, who had been choked into a coughing fit, Tangze lifted his teacup and, unusually, explained the path his thoughts had taken.
While using the name Phantom Thieves of Hearts had indeed involved plenty of meme potential, when the Maru Denjirou case occurred, his decision to directly bring out the Phantom Thieves and declare the existence of the Phantom Thief of Hearts had not been based solely on the original setting. Tangze had had plenty of plans of his own as well.
And this was something he had never explained to anyone else.
"Part of it was necessary for Cognitive Science. I imagine you've already guessed that—the more people recognize and know about the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, the more we can accomplish. Declaring the Phantom Thieves' existence was inevitable. But at the time, all I knew was that the case surrounding me was connected to the Organization, that my identity was extremely dangerous, and that I could face pursuit and interception from the Organization at any moment. To avoid being put in that passive position, I had prepared myself to abandon my identity."
That casually spoken phrase, "abandon my identity," made Tooru Amuro's brow twitch.
What immediately came to mind was that group—no, team—whose members Tangze had more or less managed to verify.
Almost all of them, including Hoshikawa Teru and Akemi Miyano, and naturally those former police academy classmates of his, were people who no longer existed to society. They were dead.
"Abandon your identity? Like accepting FBI witness protection, or accepting our help back then and faking your death?" Tooru Amuro knowingly asked, testing the waters.
Just as he expected, Tangze shook