"What do you mean Ehara Tokio is missing?" Kogoro Mouri asked in confusion as he set down his coffee.
"Just that—missing." Konno Shiro pushed up his sunglasses, carefully wiped his laptop with an expression of reverence, and added, "I haven't seen him all day."
"Could it be he's the organizer, realized something went wrong, and decided to never show up?" Old Master Kaneshiro pushed his sunglasses and laughed twice. "Jiang Yuan really is the kind of coward who only dares hide behind a screen."
"Old man, you know Mr. Ehara?" Kogoro Mouri looked at him, surprised.
"Of course I do. He's the one who killed my son." Kaneshiro Genichirō stomped his cane and sighed.
Conan's attention sharpened instantly, and he looked at Kaneshiro Genichirō: "Grandpa, you're saying Jiang Yuan Shinan killed someone?"
"The master is referring to a game program he treated like his own child," explained Lin Jingjiang, the servant standing behind him.
"Ehara's a scumbag. He's got talent, sure—but he never uses it properly." After finishing his cleaning routine and applying a protective coating on his laptop, Konno Shiro added casually, "He's a notorious hacker. You should ask Mr. Maeda and Ms. Sayama about him."
Akiko Sayama, who had clearly been off all day and was wearing large sunglasses, turned her head aside with her arms crossed.
Maeda Satoshi patted her back gently, sat closer to her, and answered in her place: "Akiko's brother—also my friend—started a software company a few years back. Business was good. They'd even gotten funding from a major bank. But then Jiang Yuan hacked their product."
Kamijou Hideko snorted, holding a cigarette between her lips: "I remember that software. He tried to sell it to me. Once I found out where it came from, I immediately dropped the deal..."
"...but it was already too late." Maeda Satoshi sighed, holding his frail fiancée. "Akiko's brother lost everything after the leak. The investment got pulled. The partners and investors came after him. He couldn't take it and... jumped from a building."
Akiko Sayama leaned quietly into Maeda Satoshi's shoulder without a word.
Her eyes behind the sunglasses were swollen red.
Last night, she'd been so distressed. She'd watched the Phantom Thief of Heart vanish wearing the Dark Night Baron's costume. After replaying the video twice, she deleted it.
When Maeda Satoshi came back to the room, she broke down crying for the first time in years.
The always-proud Akiko Sayama had rarely shown just how deeply her brother's death had wounded her.
But the Phantom Thief who claimed to punish her enemy seemed to lift the weight on her shoulders. Her bottled-up emotions burst. She cried all night in her fiancé's arms, finally falling asleep with her face buried in his chest.
Today her eyes were swollen, and her voice hoarse. If Maeda Satoshi hadn't insisted, she wouldn't have left the room.
"Acong," she suddenly called him in a raspy voice.
"Hmm? What's wrong?" Maeda patted her gently, like comforting a child.
"Let's have the wedding when we get back," Akiko Sayama said, looking at the silver ring on his hand and reaching out to hold it.
Last night, that simple silver ring had become the anchor in her heart.
As she communicated with the mysterious man calling himself the Phantom Thief of Heart, she kept touching it unconsciously—and eventually agreed to his request.
…To leave the outfit representing sin in the place he had designated.
She had also let go of the hatred and sorrow that weighed down her soul.
"Eh?!" Maeda was surprised and froze. "Didn't you say… you didn't want to…"
"I changed my mind." Sayama Akiko smiled, leaned her forehead on his neck, and whispered, "You're right. My brother has been gone for so long... I should let it go."
Maeda Satoshi's eyes shimmered with both heartache and relief. He held her tightly: "Akira..."
Conan watched the couple embrace with a puzzled expression. He didn't quite get why the scene suddenly felt like a romance drama, but he figured the memory of her brother's death had triggered an emotional release.
Still, his mind was analyzing what everyone had just said.
"So… you guys didn't come here for the virus?" Conan asked, confused. "You didn't come here specifically because of Jiang Yuan Shinan?"
Everyone here seemed to have some grudge against him… it felt strangely familiar.
"Maybe they did. I have no interest in hackers or whatever." Konno Shiro, who remained the most aloof, packed his precious computer into his briefcase. "But I am interested in viruses..."
"If the organizer really is Ehara Tokio, then I doubt we'll get our hands on that virus," Kamijou Hideko said with a sneer, flicking her cigarette. "Given his personality, if he really had something that dangerous, he'd have used it already to extort someone. There's no way he'd share it."
Mouri Kogoro leaned toward her, eyes gleaming at her backless dress. "You seem to know him well, Miss Kamijou."
"Hmph, of course. He's my ex-husband." Kamijou Hideko gave a shake of her head, her long curly hair rippling over her smooth back.
"Huh?" Kogoro blinked. "I wouldn't have guessed..."
As the group sat at the open-air restaurant sipping tea and chatting under a surface of friendliness and veiled probing, Conan suddenly caught a black blur out of the corner of his eye.
That strange dream from last night flickered in his memory, and he instinctively turned to look.
A black cloak and white mask dropped suddenly from above, landing with a heavy splash in the swimming pool below—startling the tourists and sending up a wave of shrieks.
He rushed over at once. "What happened?!"
Could it be… was the missing Jiang Yuan Shinan thrown down from up there...?
But when he saw what it was, the question stuck in his throat.
"Top hat, mask, cloak and robe..." Kazawa crouched beside him, peering at the things floating on the surface.
"This is the Dark Night Baron's outfit, right?" Kamijou Hideko had come over too, instantly recognizing the iconic mask.
She looked up and saw the semicircular terrace where Conan had nearly fallen yesterday.
"Why toss this down all of a sudden? Is someone playing a prank?" Konno Shiro frowned as the soaked fabrics slowly spread in the water.
Akiko Sayama, seeing this scene, tightened her grip on her fiancé's hand. Her eyes welled up with tears again.
She knew… this was his answer.
The mission of the "Dark Night Baron" was complete.
Conan was the most on-edge of them all.
He fell into deep thought, silently watching everyone's reactions, then looked toward the hotel lobby, scanning for any trace of the missing Jiang Yuan Shinan.
And then—he froze.
A chestnut-haired figure, dressed in a black shirt and pushing a massive silver suitcase with his left hand, was walking away from the front desk toward the main entrance.
Too far away to make out the face—but the color scheme instantly triggered a name in Conan's mind.
Akechi Goro...?
"What are you looking at?" Kazawa stepped into his line of sight and turned to look, then asked, "See something?"
"...Nothing." Conan shook his head and looked away, watching the others fish the outfit out of the pool. "Maybe I imagined it."
Akechi Goro being here on vacation too… what a coincidence. Especially since his usual look was completely different.
Since Akechi Goro appeared, he had never changed out of that khaki double-breasted jacket and black slacks. No matter the situation, he always wore that outfit.
Maybe it was just the similar hair color playing tricks on him.