"What are you all staring at?" The robber, feeling his pride increasingly wounded, raised his gun fiercely and shouted, "Stop looking! Everyone stay put, you hear me?!"
Only then did the crowd, frightened, turn back around and sit down properly. Only Vermouth and Jodie remained staring in shock at the back.
Jodie couldn't understand it—her ex-boyfriend, the FBI's strongest ace, was slacking off during a mission to tail Vermouth and chatting with a beautiful woman he had just met.
Of course, she didn't believe it was anything romantic. Shuichi Akai wasn't that kind of person. Hmm, definitely not.
Meanwhile, Vermouth next to her was even more baffled.
She certainly knew Shuichi Akai—the FBI undercover agent who had infiltrated the Organization, been exposed, and defected; the former Rye, now investigating her.
She also knew Qianben Xixi—Gin's subordinate, a new bottle of Asti, who had joined the Organization after Shuichi Akai's defection. But… seeing these two sitting together and flirting, she was utterly confused.
"Hey, have you two looked enough?!" The robber's face flushed red as he pointed his gun at them. "What's so interesting? Should I send you to heaven to take a better look?"
"Ah, sorry, sorry." Jodie replied with a strange Japanese-accented English, laughing. "We'll sit down right away."
"Hmph." The robber turned away, displeased.
Behind him, Jodie and Vermouth glanced at each other simultaneously before quietly averting their eyes.
Two women who were constantly scheming against each other, for once, shared the same thought and felt an unexpected sense of connection.
While everyone was lost in their own thoughts, Conan was the only one still racking his brain to solve the robbery and get them out of this predicament.
Since his companions were all unreliable, Conan had to figure it out on his own.
He first took out the earring-shaped mobile phone from his pocket, intending to call Inspector Megure and inform him of the situation.
"You little brat, what are you doing?!" Conan had only pressed a few numbers when the robber suddenly appeared, yanking him to the ground. "Stay put! Or don't blame me for being rough!"
The robber didn't care whether the child was hurt, cursing as he picked up the phone from the floor. "I'm confiscating this! No more tricks!"
Conan got up from the ground, wincing in pain. He wasn't scared or injured, just a bit puzzled. He had taken out the mobile phone when both robbers were focused on the road ahead, yet before he could even finish dialing, he was caught.
Could it be… He narrowed his eyes, considering a possibility. There might be another accomplice sitting behind him.
Taking the chance to sit back down, he stole a glance at the back row. Besides Qianben Xixi, there were three others.
The first was the man behind him, Shuichi Akai, who kept coughing and refused the medicine offered to him—suspicious.
He had reason to suspect the man wasn't actually sick but was deliberately using the coughing to alert his accomplice, the robber.
No… Conan dismissed the thought when he noticed Professor Agasa in the front row also coughing incessantly.
If both were coughing at the same time, it would be impossible for Shuichi Akai to use that method to alert the robber, so it probably wasn't him.
Now only the elderly man with the hearing aid beside him and the aunt who had been chewing gum remained.
The hearing aid could potentially be a communication device… so his suspicion was the greatest. But the aunt beside him couldn't be completely ruled out either.
Conan kept pondering, but there were too few clues to be certain.
"Bastard, you old man, you're not being honest—hand over the communication device!" A sudden shout interrupted Conan's thoughts.
At the front of the bus, one of the robbers snatched the walkie-talkie from the driver's hand. "Hey, listen up on the other end! I've hijacked this bus. If you don't want anything to happen to the people inside, get five billion ready for me right away. Otherwise, I'll kill them all, got it?!
…That's right! Five billion. You have fifteen minutes. Once it's ready, leave it in the tunnel leading to Takaiido!"
After saying this, the robber hung up without waiting for a response.
Something's off. Conan frowned after hearing the robber's words.
The robber had been stationed at the front of the bus the whole time, so logically, the driver shouldn't have had a chance to contact the outside world. And also… going to such great lengths just to rob a bus?
After all, truly wealthy people wouldn't take the bus. Even if the passengers carried valuables like phones, jewelry, and wallets, the total wouldn't amount to much.
Although the robber later used the bus as leverage to demand a ransom of five billion from the police, why didn't he just call the police with the ransom demand from the start? Clearly, this was a spur-of-the-moment decision.
So Conan was more inclined to believe the robber had some other purpose, though he couldn't figure it out just yet.
But just because he couldn't figure it out didn't mean others couldn't. At this moment, Qianben Xixi, who had been observing from the back row, gradually formed a clear guess based on her vague recollection of the plot.
She remembered that this bus case seemed to be related to a jewelry thief. Considering the current situation, she thought she had a rough idea of what the robber was trying to do.
If her guess was correct, this should actually be a professional jewelry theft gang, skilled and experienced. Even after committing multiple robberies, they remained at large.
This gang sent two people to pose as bus robbers, drawing the police's attention—perhaps even aiming to divert all police resources toward pursuing the bus. Meanwhile, the other group, the real leader and main members, would take advantage of the chaos to boldly rob a jewelry store in broad daylight.
After all, at night, jewelry stores would lock their most valuable pieces in safes and activate security measures, making robbery more difficult.
Now, they only needed to go to the store pretending to be wealthy customers buying jewelry. They could trick the staff into bringing out the valuable pieces from the safe and then simply loot everything.
Qianben Xixi guessed that the unfortunate jewelry store was likely in Mihana Town. By the time passersby noticed the jewelry store robbery and reported it, the main police force would be preoccupied with the bus case, pursuing it in the opposite direction. By the time they could spare officers to return, the jewelry store robbers would have long since fled.
Moreover, on one side was a matter of life and death, while on the other was merely property loss. She believed the police might abandon the jewelry store and focus entirely on rescuing the hostages on the bus.
Once the bus hijackers received the message that their accomplices had safely escaped on the other side, they would choose to withdraw directly. The best approach was…
Qianben Xixi glanced at the two yellow ski equipment bags lying quietly on the floor of the bus—most likely containing the bombs prepared by the hijackers.
It seemed they intended to burn the entire bus, leaving no evidence behind, and fake their deaths to escape. Of course, snatching the five billion yen ransom along the way would be an unexpected bonus.
As Qianben Xixi was thinking, she noticed Conan in the front row stealthily slipping away from his seat again, crouching beside the yellow ski bags, attempting to open and inspect them.
This guy is still so reckless, Qianben Xixi thought, somewhat exasperated. Don’t you know what your current combat capabilities are? With Conan’s intelligence, after what had just happened, he should have already realized there was an accomplice among the passengers in the back reporting to the hijackers. Yet he still dared to come out and test the waters.
But since it was Conan, he probably wouldn’t be in any real danger. Qianben Xixi reasoned that at least the FBI and Vermouth on the bus wouldn’t let anything happen to him—the classic protagonist treatment.
Sure enough, as soon as Conan crouched down, the hijacker noticed his suspicious movement and rushed over with a gun.
"Kid, it seems I’ve been too lenient," the hijacker sneered angrily, pointing the gun at his head with a menacing grin. "Since you little brat won’t behave, I might as well send you to the afterlife."
Seeing the hijacker was about to get serious, Conan showed no fear, staring straight at him without saying a word. Instead, Vermouth in the front row felt her heart skip a beat, wanting to step in and intervene.
But the next moment, she found herself conflicted.
Asti was here. Although Asti didn’t yet know she was Vermouth, as long as she remained in the Organization, she would eventually learn that Vermouth had once impersonated Dr. Araide and had stepped out to protect Conan on the bus.
If Asti grew suspicious and reported this to Gin, given Gin’s nature, he would undoubtedly become suspicious of Conan’s identity, possibly even discovering that he was the "deceased" Kudo Shinichi, and then eliminate him.
This was a price Vermouth couldn’t bear. Compared to the Organization, these two hijackers were nothing more than appetizers.
Cool Guy might not die at the hands of the hijackers, but he would certainly be killed by the Organization.
Vermouth felt trapped in a dilemma. Even if she explained it as part of her kind-hearted Dr. Araide persona—protecting a child merely to better maintain her disguise—this reasoning might convince the Boss, but given Gin’s cautious nature, he would rather kill mistakenly than let any suspicion slide.
So now, she could only hope someone else would step in.
Vermouth anxiously glanced at Jodie beside her.
Jodie seemed visibly tempted to act, but the other hijacker appeared to be watching them closely.
Vermouth then looked toward Shuichi Akai in the back row.
But the moment she saw that man, she realized that given his exceptionally calm demeanor, he might not rashly intervene to protect an elementary school student he didn’t know. Unless the child was truly in danger…
But Vermouth didn’t dare to gamble. Even if Cool Guy wasn’t in mortal danger, she didn’t want to see him get hurt. So she shifted her gaze to Qianben Xixi beside her.
But Qianben Xixi, at that moment, wasn’t paying attention to Conan at all. Instead, she was intently watching… Shuichi Akai beside her.
Vermouth was shocked once again. Aren't you Cool Guy's friend?! Aren't you the Sister Natsuya Cool Guy always talks about? Weren't you just happily whispering with Cool Guy when you got on the bus?!
Why, when Cool Guy is in danger, are you looking at the man beside you?!
Vermouth was shocked yet again. Aren't you afraid of exposing yourself and making Cool Guy suspect your true identity? If you're exposed, the Organization won't go easy on you. The key point is…
Does Shuichi Akai really have that much charm?!
So, does Gin know about this? While shocked, Vermouth silently lit a candle for him in her heart.
For a man with such strong pride, what could be more infuriating than his subordinate falling for his arch-enemy?
How tragic, Gin.
Perhaps Vermouth's complex and shocked gaze was too intense to ignore. Qianben Xixi turned her head and looked at her in confusion.
What's going on? She was a bit confused.
She had finally figured out who the robber's accomplice was—the aunt chewing gum at the far end of her row.
When Conan made his move, she had been keeping an eye on the woman out of the corner of her eye. She saw her blow a bubble, deliberately stick it to her right cheek, and then pretend to remove it while using the opportunity to signal to the robber in the front row, who was watching the rearview mirror.
But why was Vermouth suddenly staring at her? And with such a strange look?
Why aren't you going to save Conan? Why are you looking at me?!