Chapter 226 Twenty Gachapon

Morofushi Jingguang didn't hear Furuya Rei's answer at first, but he wasn't surprised. He continued to talk without thinking, "There is another thing that I've always been concerned about. Why was it that after you heard what I said before, your first reaction was that the other party was in disguise, and you didn't waver from beginning to end?"

Even though both of them knew about Akae's death, they had never seen the body, and the death information was just a line of words on a piece of paper. Therefore, Morobushi Kagemitsu always had the thought that "Akae might not be dead yet."

He also knew that once he had made up his mind since childhood, he would not easily change it, and his will was so strong that no one could find a way to shake it.

Given Toru Amuro's cautiousness and the various doubts about the incident that year, they had clearly previously privately speculated about the possibility that Akae-san had faked his death. However, since the appearance of the detective, Toru Amuro's thoughts have never changed, and he decisively rejected all other possibilities without even verifying them.

This behavior is actually even more unkind than making unwarranted guesses about Akae's survival status.

And, a piece of information was revealed.

Why is Zero so convinced that the detective is someone else in disguise, no matter how many similarities he finds between him and Akae? Morofushi Kagemitsu wondered.

Amuro Toru glanced at him and gave the same explanation as Morobushi Kagemitsu's inner guess: "Of course it's because I had already seen 'aka' a year ago."

"...But, that was someone else's disguise aka."

really.

A year ago, Toru Amuro and Kagemitsu Morofushi finished all their other tasks in advance and came to Kyoto before the anniversary of his death as they did in previous years. They had deliberately gone their separate ways and tacitly agreed to meet outside the cemetery gate.

After visiting Akae, Toru Amuro hurriedly left because he received a new urgent task. Morobushi Kagemitsu said that he would stay inside for a while, so when he bumped into Souta at the gate of the cemetery, Toru Amuro was alone.

Then the man appeared. He looked exactly like the owner of the tombstone he had just visited. Even his voice was the same. He stood behind him with a guitar bag on his back and shouted in a very natural tone: "Zero."

Toru Amuro broke out in a cold sweat on the spot.

It's not that he thought it was his friend's ghost, but even though his eyes told him that the person in front of him looked and sounded the same as Chijiang, why couldn't it be Chijiang? His soul also told him, "No," this person was not Chijiang Nayue.

He spent some time to coax away the child who accidentally came in from Sota, and then suppressed the chilling suspicion in his heart that his identity had been exposed. He stared at the 'Akajiang Nayue' expressionlessly for a while, and called out the other person's real name: "...What are you doing, Bermode?"

Chijiang Nayue looked indifferent, and looked exactly the same as the person in his memory, until the other party seemed to get the answer they wanted from his reaction, and showed a mysterious smile that would never appear on Chijiang's face: "No, nothing, I just came to confirm one thing."

"Oh? Have you confirmed it?" Amuro Toru's cold face suddenly turned into a faint smile, and he asked curiously, "Come to think of it, what is your new fake identity... Is that name calling me?"

In front of him, ‘Akajiang Nayue’ resumed the familiar voice of the Thousand-Faced Witch, lazily raised her index finger to her lips: “Tsk—secrets make women more feminine, Bourbon.”

Vermouth left just as inexplicably as he had appeared.

Toru Amuro had no way to stop her. He was on high alert, fearing that this was a trap or that the other party was trying to use that nickname to trick her into doing something. So he could only wait and see.

"......? Why are your palms so sweaty? Did something happen?" When they finally came out after the event, they found that Amuro Toru was still there, and Morofushi Kagemitsu asked in confusion.

Amuro Toru breathed a sigh of relief and did not tell Morobushi Kagemitsu about this on the spot, because that would only cause his young friend to worry too much, which would be dangerous for both of them.

So at that time, Toru Amuro just shook his head: "Nothing, I just met a child."

…

After hearing everything that happened when he was away, Zhu Fujingguang held his forehead with a headache: "I'm talking to you——"

Amuro, who had been hiding his childhood friendship, looked away guiltily and said stubbornly, "I investigated many times afterwards and confirmed repeatedly that it was indeed a coincidence that Vermouth appeared there. Her original target was definitely not me. She just happened to run into me, so... and she really didn't know my undercover identity yet. She just knew the nickname."

Now that his nickname has been exposed, Toru Amuro knows that his first reaction revealed his flaw, so he won't try to hide it now, as that would make it seem like he's trying to cover up something more obvious.

"Anyway... I thought the detective was the same, but his face wasn't disguised... Did he get plastic surgery to look like Aka?"

As he spoke, Amuro Toru lowered his head and looked at his hands. He used these hands to repeatedly confirm that the detective had not disguised himself. "Well, although I have thought about it, everyone's bones, muscles, and skin conditions are different. It is impossible to completely change into another person's appearance."

Morofushi Jingguang thought of this and agreed with it, and raised the same question that needed to be verified: "I checked it too, he doesn't have a voice changer, he has always used his own voice."

If everyone can use the ability to change their voices at will like Vermode, she wouldn't be the only "Witch of a Thousand Faces". Both of them also have some knowledge of this and know that constantly changing into someone else's voice is not only abnormal in terms of technical difficulty, but also extremely damaging to the throat.

It was at this moment that Toru Amuro suddenly thought of another issue that was completely unrelated to the topic they were discussing, but had been bothering him for a long time.

"…So, in the end, why did he use my name?" He was lost, confused, and very puzzled.

—

On the other side, after entering the castle, the family doctor who had been contacted in advance took Matsuda and the unconscious detective into the lounge, put the patient on the bed and gave him a simple check-up. In the end, he could only come to the conclusion that he was "overworked."

To be honest, Jinpei Matsuda didn't really believe it, but he had to believe it for the time being. He could only make the decision in his heart to "call an ambulance if the detective doesn't wake up in half an hour."

Originally, he and Hagiwara were planning to stay and take care of the unconscious detective, but when they thought that they could take advantage of this precious opportunity to ask Amuro Toru what was going on with them, they repeatedly reminded Conan to be careful, and then they decided to leave this mature and volunteered child to look after his own brother.

This is normal. Anyone who has been in contact with Conan for a period of time will not really regard Conan as a childish first-grader who needs care.

Until the lounge is completely empty.

"Everyone is gone, Zero... no, that Yue brother." Conan Edogawa said suddenly while sitting on the chair beside the bed.

As soon as he finished speaking, the black-haired young man on the bed trembled his eyelashes and slowly opened his eyes. His eyes were clear and it was obvious that he had been awake for a long time.

No, there was actually no coma at all.

The young detective, who was lying on the bed with his eyes drooping in boredom, thought without any guilt.

The moment he saw the tombstone, Akae Nazuki did receive a memory, but it was not what Conan thought. What he saw was the mission experience of Akae in this world when he was still active as Kalua in the organization... Those can be simply and roughly classified as "criminal records."

To be honest, this experience is not something that Akagi Nazuki would take seriously. However, if you look at it from the perspective of the amnesiac Gachapon brother, Zero, who has always thought that he is probably not a good person and is barely on the red side, and who cares a lot about his younger brother's education, suddenly recovers some of his memories and finds out that he is a killer.

He is still a killer of the organization that turned his brother into a child.

Wow, what a stomach-wrenching plot...but he wrote it, yeah.

Akae Nazuki skillfully suppressed the complaints in her heart, and the moment her eyes met Conan's, she quickly got into character.

"...Did I make you worried, Conan-kun?"

The young man's face, resting on the snow-white pillow, turned almost as white as the pillow fabric. He blinked his only bright eyes and spoke in a soft and slow tone: "Okay, what do you want to know? Or, where do you want me to start explaining?"

The detective, from the way he appeared to his mysterious past, from his interpersonal relationships to his social identity as a deceased person, each one is an inseparable mystery for a curious detective like Conan, and each one is enough to make Conan excitedly ask a hundred or eighty questions to find out the truth.

Especially after knowing that the detective's affairs are related to that organization, Conan should have persisted and gotten to the bottom of the matter, as he is eager to obtain intelligence from the organization in order to turn himself back into an adult.

But the bright, round blue eyes on the child's face stared at the detective on the bed for a while, and finally spoke: "Will you still have headaches in the future?"

Conan actually knew that the detective came to his room every night to tell him the so-called bedtime stories not just to "play the role of a qualified brother", but also because the detective himself had a headache every night and couldn't sleep at all.

He was still a child and couldn't get medicine, so he had to ask the doctor to prescribe a can of painkillers, and secretly put it into the detective's room while the detective went to the kitchen. After that, neither of them mentioned the matter openly, but the time for bedtime stories in the evening was quietly reduced a little.

After gradually getting used to it, Conan felt that the bedtime story... was actually not bad. After all, the detective's voice was really nice and hypnotic. But in comparison, he would rather see the detective have a good sleep.

It was not known whether the headache was an old problem of the detective or a side effect of amnesia. Before he opened his mouth, Conan had a bunch of urgent problems in his mind that needed to be solved. He thought about them over and over again, and in the end, the only thing he could ask was this.

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, the child regretted it. He covered his face and his ears turned red. He was in agony and thought to himself why he said that. Didn't he make the atmosphere awkward? And it had nothing to do with the current situation!

Through the gaps between his fingers, Conan carefully observed the expression of the detective on the bed.

——The detective laughed.

It was not a fake smile, nor was it a polite smile. The detective's mouth corners were curled up and his eyes were curved like crescent moons. It was a real and incomparable joy that was visible to the naked eye.

"I'm Conan-kun's Gachapon brother, that's really great."

The detective's hair was messy and his eyes were bright. "You won't have headaches anymore. Although I don't remember my past completely, it's my own body after all. I can still promise you this."

"But even if you don't have a headache and can't sleep in the middle of the night, I can still tell you a bedtime story, right?"

The black-haired, blue-eyed little boy snorted, jumped off the chair and trotted to the bed, holding in his hand his favorite mystery novel that the detective had given him before.

"What is the patient saying?" Conan opened the book calmly and said stubbornly, "Now it's my turn to tell you a bedtime story, Brother Yue."

The detective laughed even more happily, not showing any of his coldness in front of others. He stopped laughing before Conan got really angry and nodded gently: "Okay, I'm listening. Thank you for your help...brother."