Chapter 48: The Phantom Thief and the Detective

"...A family heirloom, the world's largest black pearl..."
"...1412, it looks like a file on a wanted criminal..."

Conan, who had been attentively listening to the conversation among the others, glanced sideways to find Karasawa sitting with a notebook, scribbling away and not paying attention at all.

He quietly sat up straight in his chair and leaned forward to see what Karasawa was jotting down. Karasawa abruptly snapped the notebook shut and looked over with a condemning gaze. "Don't peek at other people's privacy."

Conan didn't manage to see the exact content, but he caught a glimpse of what looked like numerous names arranged very neatly in rows. He asked in a low voice, "What are you writing down? Didn't you say you came along because you wanted to hear about the Phantom Thief?"

"Just some inconsequential things. You can just pretend I'm writing in my address book." Caught red-handed while slacking off, Karasawa gave a light cough, flipped open a fresh blank page, and began diligently recording the information being exchanged between Sonoko Suzuki and Kogoro Mouri as if taking proper notes.

What else could his name list possibly be? Naturally, it was a list for a thorough beating—no, a list for reform.

Anyway, he was the Phantom Thief of Hearts, not Light Yagami. Writing names in a notebook wouldn't actually result in anyone's death; the worst that could happen was stealing a few of Kogoro Mouri's clients, so he felt entirely unperturbed.

Conan narrowed his eyes and scrutinized him skeptically for a moment, then half-heartedly withdrew his attention.

"I can't believe you're actually interested in a petty thief like that, Karasawa," Conan said, supporting his head with a thoroughly unenthusiastic expression.

"What? Aren't you interested in the 'Phantom Thief'? I thought a eighth-grade-syndrome detective like you would inevitably spend your time chasing after these mystical criminals."

"Eighth-grade syndrome? Who has eighth-grade syndrome? Stop talking nonsense. I am a legitimate detective, alright?"

Karasawa first extended his left hand. "The 'Sherlock Holmes of the Heisei Era', 'The Savior of the Japanese Police'..." Then he extended his right hand. "The 'Arsène Lupin of the Heisei Era', 'The Magician under the Moonlight'..."

Conan's ears flushed red as he protested in a low voice, "I didn't make up those exaggerated nicknames!"

"But you seem to love them very much, 'Holmes'." Karasawa let out a hum and continued to tease him.

Kogoro Mouri was frowning as he looked over the advance notice letter filled with riddles. Raising his head and seeing the two of them whispering together nearby, he said with dissatisfaction, "What are you two murmuring about?"

"We're discussing the Phantom Thief," Karasawa immediately sat up straight.

"These pretenstious guys." Kogoro Mouri was already utterly sick of the Phantom Thief. "Those newspapers are completely ridiculous too, insisting on tying me and the Phantom Thief together. It's so annoying."

The mastermind behind it all, Karasawa, wore an obedient and innocent smile.

"Let me see!" Seeing the paper clutched in Kogoro Mouri's hand, Conan immediately lunged forward.

Riddles, codes, and crime advance notices possessed a fatal attraction for a detective. Conan, who had just claimed he wasn't interested, instantly perked up.

"April Fool,
When the moon separates two people
Under the name of the 'Dark Star'
Invited upon the surging waves
I shall surely arrive"

Reading the contents word for word, Conan's eyes sparkled as he grabbed the paper, clearly captivated by the riddle.

Karasawa's pencil didn't stop moving. He raised his eyebrows with satisfaction and wrote the words "Beika Hotel" on the paper.

Ran Mouri looked left and right, inexplicably feeling a sense of exclusion in this space populated entirely by either detectives or phantom thieves.

"I don't get it at all." Kogoro Mouri sighed. "Anyway, the time is April 1st, April Fools' Day, right?"

***

"Amuro-san..." Karasawa looked helplessly at the person standing with folded arms at the entrance of the stairs. "I already promised you I wouldn't go. I'm just coming down to pour some water."

Amuro Tooru tilted his head without stepping aside, clearly unconvinced by his explanation.

Raising his hands in a gesture of surrender, Karasawa opened his palms, causing the key looped around his thumb to jingle. "I'll hand over the key first, alright? I told you, I really won't go."

Unmoved, Amuro Tooru reached out and snatched the ring of keys, flipped through them to confirm they belonged to the cafe's front door, and unceremoniously shoved them into his pocket.

Karasawa might look obedient, but in reality, he was full of mischievous ideas. Amuro Tooru wasn't going to let his guard down. If Karasawa really stayed out of trouble as he claimed, Kazami wouldn't need to work overtime anymore.

"Then I'm leaving for the day. I'll return it to you tomorrow morning." Amuro Tooru put on the suit jacket draped over his arm, firmly locked the door, and jiggled the handle twice to make sure it was completely secured. Only then did he glance at Karasawa, who had walked into the bar counter to pour water, and left with a slightly relieved mind.

Standing in the dimly lit cafe, Karasawa watched Amuro Tooru's retreating figure as he headed toward his Mazda, and waved goodbye in high spirits.

Then, he walked up to the loft and called out softly, "Twenty Faces."

The pitch-black cloak of Twenty Faces unfurled in the unseen world, and Karasawa's Teidan High School uniform transformed in the next second into an all-black phantom thief outfit.

He spun around in front of the mirror, making sure there were no flaws, and then touched his own hair. In the next instant, his fluffy chestnut-short hair was replaced by white hair, smooth and obedient, reflecting a metallic silver sheen under the lights.

Of course, Karasawa hadn't learned some sort of transformation jutsu; this was a wig.

One day, while the Phantom Thief of Hearts was running and fighting in the Shibuya subway, a sudden flash of inspiration struck him.

Since a toy gun could be treated as a real gun in the cognitive world, and an unsharpened blade could be treated as a real knife in the cognitive world, could a wig be treated as real hair in the cognitive world?

After all, theoretically speaking, his thief outfit wasn't entirely unalterable. If he wanted to, he could easily pull out and switch into many strange outfits using the game system; the cognitive world was subjective at its core.

No sooner said than done, the very next day he bought a white heat-resistant synthetic wig and brought it into the cognitive world.

And the test results were stellar. It didn't look like a wig at all; both in appearance and to the touch, it felt entirely like real hair.

Although this disguise was a whim, it was also an insurance policy Karasawa had set up for himself. After all, while chestnut hair wasn't particularly rare in this world, if Karasawa himself and his future alter ego, the "Phantom Thief of Hearts," all shared the exact same hairstyle and hair color, then—to say nothing of else—a gut-feeling detective like Conan would trigger a critical success on his intuition and tear off his disguise in no time.

Have you ever noticed that Gin only had to pick up a single strand of hair to immediately mutter, "Ah, Sherry!"?

As for why he chose white, making him look even more like 9S... that was even simpler: because it looked cool!

Besides, a phantom thief wearing black clothes, black trousers, and a black eye mask—if he were to have black hair on top of that... when he made his entrance in the dead of night, nobody might even be able to see him. How could that possibly work?

"I already said it won't have any impact. Don't worry, Amuro Tooru." Karasawa took out his phone, tapped on the navigation app, and smoothly transitioned into the Otherworld. "The one going to join the commotion is 'Joker', what does that have to do with me, Karasawa Akira?"