"So that's how it is..." Ran Mouri sighed wistfully after hearing Tangze's explanation. "You and Sonoko really thought this through..."
"Yeah. Actually, it was Sonoko's suggestion. The inspiration came from Yusuke." Tangze shrugged, attributing the source of the idea to this incident. "You've probably heard about how his teacher plagiarized his work."
"Oh, yes, I did hear about that. Apparently, he was a somewhat famous painter, renowned as an artist who devoted himself wholeheartedly to his work, only to have been secretly plagiarizing his students' creations for years. He used favors and seniority to suppress them, keeping talented students from standing out..." Recalling what she had seen in the news, Ran Mouri could not help sighing. "I can't believe there are teachers like that. It's terrible."
"Mm. Then you probably also saw that the reports mentioned how his teacher held on to many of his own works instead of selling them, falsely claimed they had been stolen, then approached several collectors interested in his art. He told them the pieces had actually already circulated, but could not be publicly displayed again for various reasons, and asked whether they would be willing to take them privately." Naturally steering the conversation toward this story modeled entirely after the real Yusuke Kitagawa's case, Tangze pointed meaningfully out the window.
"You know quite a lot about it. The news I saw only briefly mentioned those details, saying he used fakes to make a lot of illegal income or something... Oh, oh!" Ran Mouri suddenly understood. "So you two...!"
"Shh." Tangze raised a finger, stopping her from continuing, and smiled. "As long as you understand."
Yes, this was the relatively reliable "best of both worlds" solution Tangze had come up with.
Sonoko Suzuki had offered such enthusiastic help with her overpowered abilities because she wanted