Chapter 53: The Imaginative Minds Begin Their Speculations

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Once the smoke cleared inside the engine room, only Tooru Amuro and Conan remained, along with a scattered pile of skirts and lingerie tossed by Kaito Kid.

Amuro furrowed his brow and glanced around before slipping his gun back into the concealed holster behind his waist.

He cast a quick look at Conan, who was still coughing and rubbing his eyes, recognizing him as the elementary school student who was close to Tooru Karasawa, and casually asked, "You're Conan, right? Have you seen Karasawa?"

When the commotion broke out in the banquet hall, Amuro immediately recalled that Karasawa had been out in the corridor, so he pushed through the crowd to follow.

Before he could find Karasawa, he discovered Ran Mouri unconscious in a lifeboat.

He had no choice but to carry Ran down and hand her over to the police. Turning around, he saw the maintenance passage door to the engine room wide open, and there, the scene of Kaito Kid’s antics unfolded.

Conan was momentarily stunned and shook his head in confusion. His mind was still processing what he had just heard; instinctively, he shoved the piece of paper he’d caught into his pocket. It took him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t seen Karasawa for some time.

Amuro sighed deeply.

How could Karasawa disappear even on someone else’s yacht? Was he too elusive to catch?

The officers conducting the search happened to check the maintenance passage nearby. Several police officers with flashlights came down the steps, staring in surprise at the black pearl wrapped in a handkerchief in Conan’s hands.

“That’s the ‘Jet Black Star’!” Conan blinked, speaking in his cute child’s voice.

“Ah! You caught Kaito Kid!” a few officers exclaimed in surprise.

Amuro stepped back a few paces. Whether as Bourbon or as the undercover Rei Furuya, he knew he should avoid gathering around the police in front of others.

Conan noticed Amuro’s deliberate avoidance from the corner of his eye and frowned.

Would a normal law-abiding citizen instinctively avoid the police like that?

But the officers were all focused on the pearl in Conan’s hand, so Conan simply described how he had intercepted Kid and saved the ‘Jet Black Star’.

Soon, he intended to look for Karasawa and ask if he knew anything about his guardian.

Conan hadn’t forgotten how precarious Karasawa’s situation was.

Was Tooru Amuro truly just a guardian assigned by Karasawa’s parents?

Amuro didn’t pay attention to the wary gaze from the elementary schooler. He just glanced at the officers happily examining the pearl and shook his head silently, still nursing a headache. Kids these days dared to chase international criminals on their own—did every child have a detective dream now? This little boy was one, and even Karasawa seemed infected by it...

He quietly slipped away from the pursuing officers, head lowered, walking toward the deck to continue searching for the missing ward.

———

At that moment, Karasawa stood at the side of the deck, smiling as he observed Kaito Kid, now dressed in black, leaping off the ship.

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When Kid splashed into the water, Karasawa withdrew his “third eye” vision through walls and stood quietly amid the noisy crowd, silently watching the tarot card “Wheel of Fortune” floating before him.

After several cooperative tests, he had basically mastered the words needed to activate the tarot. Back on the penthouse floor of the Cup House Hotel, he had even tricked Kid into responding to his challenge.

Thank goodness the disguise worked so well—he better say thanks to Kid!

What a powerful cooperation! Karasawa wouldn’t let his precious wings be clipped, and when escaping with the grappling hook, he even took Kid along.

“Karasawa… big brother!” Before Amuro could spot Karasawa, it was Conan who found him, having just finished answering the police’s questions. After calling his name, he suddenly realized there were others around and added the “big brother” honorific as he rounded the corner.

“Looks like you made some new discoveries,” Karasawa crouched down to meet his gaze and quietly asked, “You ran into Kid again?”

“Not just ran into him—I caught him,” Conan leaned in with a serious expression. “And Joker showed up too, just as expected.”

At this, Conan looked at Karasawa, uncertain where to begin.

What happened tonight was far more than just stopping a phantom thief from stealing.

First, there was definitely some connection between Kaito Kid and Joker. Joker’s two appearances seemed aimed at preventing Kid’s escape, as if he wanted to capture him. However, judging by his words and actions, he didn’t have much intent to attack Kid directly. For one thing, considering Joker’s even more agile skills, if he truly wanted to trap Kid, he wouldn’t have just taken a flash bomb. His appearance seemed more like an intentional observation, as if verifying something.

Second, Joker did not deny Conan’s assessment of his advance notice letter. From what he said, this person’s purpose was more deliberate than previously thought. It was necessary to investigate those previously visited by Joker; perhaps a pattern of his movements and range could be uncovered.

Lastly—and the hardest to bring up with Karasawa—was Tooru Amuro. This man was definitely not an ordinary waiter. Even if he was licensed to carry a gun, his decisive shooting into the smoke could not be the action of a regular professional. Either he was a dangerous criminal, perhaps a gangster, or he had long-term firearms training and great confidence in his marksmanship.

Under Amuro’s complete control, Karasawa felt deeply uneasy...

Karasawa didn’t know what complex scenarios the quick-witted detective had imagined and just nodded to continue the conversation, “So… what did you find out?”

Seeing Karasawa’s innocent smile, Conan sighed with a weariness beyond his years, feeling he would have to shoulder it all alone for the time being and wait for some investigation results before confiding in such a naive friend.

“You, huh.” Conan gave Karasawa a heavy pat on the shoulder. “Be more careful.”

How could he have been around such dangerous people for so long and noticed nothing? Where had his amazing intuition gone?

“Huh?” Karasawa was puzzled by the sudden pat.

“Well, that Joker might be watching the Mouri Detective Agency,” Conan recalled the white-haired man disguised as himself and felt uneasy. “He might have discovered my true identity.”

Karasawa understood this was because Conan had seen his disguise back then. He smiled inwardly but showed a faint look of concern: “Are you sure? Could he be connected to the black-clad attackers who assaulted you?”

“Don’t know.” Conan’s mood darkened as he pulled the advance notice letter from his pocket and handed it to Karasawa.

Karasawa was very familiar with the contents but still took it seriously to examine.

“You seem very interested in the crows lurking in the shadows.

Here’s a chance for you to grasp a feather from the crow.”

Beneath these lines was a clearly cut-out newspaper ad for the “Full Heaven Game Launch Event.”

———

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“Achoo!” Kaito Kuroba sneezed loudly as he sat on the lifeboat, shivering in the cold night wind wrapped in a blanket.

Kouji Terai helplessly tightened the blanket around him and said, “Weren’t you ready with the glider? Why jump straight into the sea? You’ll catch a cold, young master.”

Kaito sniffled and responded gloomily, “Something unexpected happened.”

First, a kid saw through his disguise, then the phantom thief who was even more adept at scaling walls messed with his mindset, and he almost got shot. Tonight had been far too tumultuous.

He scratched his wet hair and didn’t tell the ever-worrying Terai about the thrilling ordeal but asked seriously, “Did my father have any other disciples? Ones I don’t know about?”

Young Kaito had met his two senior apprentices before, but after reviewing all possibilities, he couldn’t find a likely candidate for Joker.

It couldn’t be his Aunt Yukiko’s son, right? He remembered that person was a detective.

“As far as I know, the master only had two other apprentices beside you…” Terai frowned. “Did you encounter someone?”

“Yeah, I probably met a troublesome opponent,” Kaito said, staring at the water-damaged edges of a card in his hand, reading the moonlit characters.

On the red card, the calligraphy was as flamboyant as before, tightening Kaito’s throat.

“A pigeon flying toward freedom

and a crow like us who can only dance in shadows—

what do they have in common?

The answer is...?”

“Kuroba,” he read his surname aloud, clutching the red card tightly.