Chapter 23: Bourbon's Suspicions
Mouri Detective Agency. Morning.
Sunlight streamed through the blinds, casting striped patterns on the floor.
Ding-dong—
The doorbell rang. Conan put down his manga and went to get it.
Standing in the doorway was a young man with blond hair and dark skin, a cheerful, sunny smile on his face. He was holding a cake box.
"Hello!" he said brightly. "Is Mr. Mouri in? My name is Tooru Amuro, and I'd like to ask him to take me on as his apprentice!"
Tooru Amuro. Codename: Bourbon. An agent of the Black Organization, sent to infiltrate the detective agency. His smile was flawless, but behind it, his eyes were sharp and calculating. Becoming an apprentice was just a pretext. His real mission was to uncover the truth behind Kogoro Mouri's skyrocketing case-solving rate. The man once known as "Sleeping Kogoro" had been acting far too strangely lately.
"Ah, Dad just stepped out," Ran said, peeking her head out from the kitchen. "But he should be back soon. Please, come in and have a seat, Amuro-san."
Amuro smiled and entered the office, his eyes subtly scanning his surroundings. It was tidy, but it didn't feel like the office of a top-tier detective. Conan stood off to the side, silently observing this new "apprentice." His instincts told him there was more to this man than met the eye.
A few minutes later, Kogoro returned, a horse racing form in his hand. He was a bit taken aback to see Amuro, but after a brief introduction, his signature smug grin appeared, his tongue even lolling out in delight.
"Oh? You want to be my apprentice? AHAHAHA! It seems the fame of the Great Detective Kogoro Mouri has spread far and wide!"
Amuro offered his compliments and the cake at the perfect moment. Kogoro was ecstatic, puffing out his chest and immediately agreeing to take him on.
For the next few days, Amuro settled into his role at the agency. He helped with clients, organized files, and occasionally tagged along to crime scenes. He was like a sponge, absorbing every piece of information. And he was like a hunter, patiently observing his prey.
He started to notice a pattern. Whenever Kogoro was faced with a complex case, he would always find an excuse to briefly leave the scene—a trip to the restroom, a smoke break outside. It was never for long, just a few minutes. But every time he returned, his eyes would be different. They would be incredibly sharp, as if he could see through any lie.
And then, he would cut straight to the heart of the case with a stunningly brilliant deduction.
It was as if... he had become a different person.
Outside on a tree branch, a Kyubey rolled over and scratched its head with a hind leg.
[Non-Human beings Chat Group]
SpongeBob SquarePants: This new guy seems super smart! Do you think he'll figure out Mr. Mouri's secret?
Tom Cat: [Cat_Peeking_from_behind_Door.jpeg]
Kyubey, Giver of Hope: The human capacity for investigation is strong. However, without directly observing the contract or the transformation, it would be difficult to reach a definitive conclusion based on behavioral patterns alone.
At the scene of a bank robbery.
The police were stumped. The robbers had been clean, leaving no useful clues behind. Kogoro stood behind the police tape, his brow furrowed. Amuro stood just behind him, watching his expression intently.
"I need to use the restroom," Kogoro said suddenly, and headed for a nearby convenience store.
There it is again, Amuro thought, watching him go.
Inside the convenience store restroom, Kogoro locked the door. When he emerged a few minutes later, his eyes had that familiar, all-seeing sharpness, if only for a fleeting moment. He returned to the crime scene and walked directly up to Inspector Megure.
"Inspector," he said, his voice low and steady, "I know who the culprits are." He then laid out a perfectly logical analysis of the robbers' escape route and their likely hiding place. Every detail was flawless.
Following his instructions, the police found the robbers in a nearby abandoned apartment building, along with all the stolen money.
Applause erupted. Reporters swarmed.
"Mr. Mouri, you've done it again! How did you deduce their escape route so quickly and precisely?"
"Haha! For the Great Detective Kogoro Mouri, it was a piece of cake! I simply observed the subtle clues the criminals left behind and cross-referenced them with the surrounding environment!"
"Did you face any particular challenges during your deduction?"
"Challenges? There are no challenges that can stand before me! As long as you observe and think carefully, any mystery can be solved!"
"You're truly incredible, Mr. Mouri!"
"AHAHAHA!" Kogoro basked in the glory. He loved this feeling, solving a case with a clear head... even if it wasn't with his own power. Thanks to this new ability, he was even starting to suspect the truth about Conan, but he could also understand why the kid was doing what he was doing.
Amuro stood on the edge of the crowd, watching the spectacle. Kogoro's deduction... it was almost inhuman. That ability to instantly grasp the key to the entire case... was such a thing really possible?
That evening, as Amuro was leaving the agency, a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye. A small, white figure. It flashed past a corner in the stairwell, impossibly fast. A cat? No, it looked like... it had long ears? He frowned and quickly went to investigate.
The stairwell was empty. There was nothing there.
In another part of the city, a mission of darkness had just concluded.
In a derelict factory, the air still smelled of smoke and blood. Gin was gone from the second-floor window. Down below, Vodka took one last look at the corpse of the traitor they had just eliminated. The fool had thought he was safe behind thick, bulletproof glass. He hadn't counted on Gin's new ability to fire a magic beam that curved in mid-air and blew his head off.
Vodka flexed his hands, the memory of ripping a reinforced steel door off its hinges still tingling in his palms. The clunky, gray maid's dress was awkward, but the power boost from the contract was undeniably effective. He quickly cleaned up the scene as instructed.
Back in the black Porsche 356A, Gin didn't start the car. He closed his eyes and extended his fingers. Several nearly invisible threads of black magic snaked out from his fingertips, connecting to a modified communications device in the car. The threads pulsed faintly as they sifted through the Organization's internal chatter and the feeds from their high-priority surveillance targets.
Suddenly, Gin's eyelid twitched. His magic had latched onto a faint, deeply hidden signal anomaly. It was disguised under normal communication protocols; without his supernatural senses, it would have been impossible to detect. But to Gin, the intent behind the signal—the whisper of betrayal, the link to the CIA—was as bright as a bonfire in the night.
"Heh..."
The black magic threads tightened, boring into the source of the rogue signal. The complex encryption shattered instantly under the brute force of his magic.
The hidden message was laid bare.
The sender's codename: Kir.
"Finally... caught you, you rat."
Vodka sensed the sudden shift in his boss's aura and immediately tensed. "Boss?"
"House cleaning," Gin said, his voice as cold as ice. "Kir is a traitor. Vodka, prepare for a 'hunt'."
Meanwhile, deep within the Organization's leadership, reports of "Witches" and other related phenomena were piling up. These twisted beings, the "byproducts" they left behind (Grief Seeds), and the incredible powers displayed by these new "contractors"...
To the higher-ups, they were all beginning to show a unique... and exploitable... value.