Chapter 489
Wrath and Greed: The Second Mission Walkthrough
Aoyagi Akira could be considered an egalitarian.
He chooses targets without regard to their age, gender, race, country, or personal relationship with them; he simply picks whoever is most useful.
Aoyagi Akimitsu felt little remorse for choosing Karasuma Mochizuki.
He wasn't really close to this grandmother; his knowledge of her came entirely from his foster mother, Karasuma Sakura's, occasional recollections of the past. As for Godivaser, he had never mentioned her to his brothers.
Karasuma Mochizuki's abilities were average, but she was the second member of the Karasuma family to officially join the organization, after Karasuma Renya. The organization's higher-ups all knew her and her identity. The death of someone like her would be a perfect excuse to take action.
As for how to deal with her, Aoyagi Akimitsu had already figured it out.
He planned to reveal to the Public Security Police that the organization's former leader was Karasuma Renya, and that the renowned Karasuma family was still fully supporting the organization to this day.
He doesn't have a particularly good impression of official agencies like the police and the FBI, but he is aware of one fact.
—To completely eradicate a criminal organization that has been operating for decades and spans multiple countries, we must rely on the power of these official agencies.
The police sent in several undercover agents who had been investigating the organization's leader on and off for over a decade without finding anything. That didn't matter; he would just tell them directly.
Of course, this "direct" doesn't mean he went to a police officer or sent an anonymous letter and confessed everything. He had worked at the FBI for several years and knew very well that these people wouldn't accept all intelligence that came out of nowhere.
Some things, some truths, will only be believed by them if they see them for themselves and investigate them themselves.
After confirming that Rum and Karasuma Mochizuki had arranged to meet in Gunma, Aoyagi Akimitsu began his operation, planning to lure the Public Security Bureau there.
He chose Itakura Taku as bait.
He chose the people; it was Gu Qiao who did the work.
The programmer she was put in charge of after Tequila's death had his every move under her control. During her final visit, she manipulated his consciousness, convincing him to join the organization.
Gu Shao knew he had a habit of keeping a diary. After leaving that time, she removed all the surveillance equipment so that he would leave behind a diary written by himself, one that acquaintances could confirm was written in his own voice and not a forgery.
She took the person away, and she was also responsible for the cleanup afterwards. She copied the diary into a USB drive and, based on the network of contacts that the organization had found out about Itakura Taku, sent it to the murderer she remembered who would kill Itakura Taku. They used to be friends.
Gu Shao was waiting to see how long it would take for him to hire a detective or call the police, but Aoyagi Akimitsu was too lazy to wait and burned down Itakura Taku's house.
The original culprit was restless after receiving the diary. He hated Itakura Taku so much that he would kill someone, but when he saw him mysteriously disappear, he began to worry.
After learning that Itakura Taku's house had been burned down, the man became increasingly uneasy. After some thought, he contacted two other company employees who had done business with Itakura Taku, pretended that they had just discovered that he was missing, and the three of them went to the police station together.
Since this concerns the organization, and the diary mentions Glenn, an important member, the police will definitely send people to investigate.
Aoyagi Akimitsu wasn't in a hurry to start their investigation. He looked through the embassy's records and saw that he needed to go to Gunma for some business, so he took on the job and planned to go to Gunma openly and legitimately.
He just didn't expect that the Mori family, or rather Conan Edogawa, had also received a request from Gunma, and that family happened to be related to the organization and the Karasuma family.
This forced Aoyagi Akimitsu to re-examine the existence of Edogawa Conan.
To ensure that this special being would not cause his plans to fail, Aoyagi Akimitsu proposed to travel with them.
……
This plan seems important, and it is indeed important, but in practice, it's not as troublesome as the Pramia incident, and there's plenty of time. After meeting with Karasuma Mochizuki, Rum went to neighboring Nagano. He will only return to Gunma after dealing with the troubles in Nagano.
Just as Aoyagi Akimitsu had predicted, his body gradually deteriorated over the past few days, causing him immense pain. The cause could not be found, but he stubbornly endured it, not daring to let others know.
Aoyagi Akimitsu didn't seem to care about the disappearance of the international students and tourists. He even had the leisure to chat and read on the bus. He finished reading a highly-rated social realist mystery called "The Scream" that he had bought earlier.
He was interested in the female protagonist's fall from grace and subsequent murders of her husbands for insurance money. What interested him even more was that many of those husbands didn't know her; she had exploited a loophole in Japanese marriage registration that allowed couples to register their marriages without the couple's presence and by submitting documents unilaterally.
Just then, as the car passed Itakura Taku's temporary lodging in Gunma, Aoyagi Akimitsu looked up and saw Morofushi Kagemitsu and Ishigami. They had their backs to him and didn't see him.
He hadn't expected them to be here. It was quite a coincidence; both of them were acquaintances of his.
Upon seeing Morofushi Kagemitsu and recalling the plot from the book, an idea suddenly flashed through Aoyagi Akimitsu's mind.
Since there are such big loopholes in Japan's marriage registration system, he could try registering once to see if he could gain legal protection for his spouse.
Given that same-sex marriage is not permitted in Japan, Akimitsu Aoyagi decided to use a false female identity, but the name on the registration form would be her real name.
He shared this plan with Tani, who has been in Nagano next door for the past few days, but she will come to Gunma this morning to put Itakura Taku's medical report in a prominent place to remind the police to go to the hospital.
Aoyagi Akimitsu first announced that she was getting married. The groom was Mr. Morofushi Kagemitsu, a former undercover agent of the organization who was unaware of the situation. He kindly told her that if she succeeded, she could also consider registering with three other people who couldn't die, and incidentally test whether bigamy could bring her a halo.
He received a reply at the hotel.
[Greed: Gin is on his way to Gunma and is expected to arrive tonight.]
Gu Shao completely ignored the topic of marriage and only spoke about important information.
While inwardly complaining about her lack of humor, Aoyagi Akimitsu couldn't help but grumble about Gin working overtime again, which Gin then said aloud, and was overheard by Edogawa Conan.
Unfortunately, he didn't know who he was talking about.
In fact, Aoyagi Akimitsu had anticipated that Gin would come to Gunma.
The head of drug research within the organization has been changing frequently. First it was Karasuma Mochizuki, but because she hadn't achieved any results for a long time, she was replaced by Gin a few years ago.
Unfortunately, he didn't take charge for long. Karasuma Renya gradually became distrustful of Godivaser and naturally didn't trust Gin, who was closer to his descendants. Three years ago, he replaced him with Rum.
After Godivaser took over, he outwardly did not revoke the authority of all the senior executives, including Rum, but in reality, he had already been secretly investigating. This investigation naturally uncovered the underhanded activities of the Takeuchi family over the years.
Rumors of trouble within the Takeuchi family had been circulating for several years, around the time Karasuma Mochizuki delegated authority to Gin. Seeing that Gin was a relative and felt it inconvenient for him, she offered to handle the matter herself. Due to her special status, even Gin was willing to give her some face, so she agreed.
This is how the hidden danger was sown.
Karasuma Mochizuki would have handled things as usual, but shortly afterward, Karasuma Sakura got into trouble. She needed a lot of manpower and laboratories to conduct research outside the organization, so she covered for the Takeuchi family.
Now that the matter has been exposed again, Gin, who agreed to it back then, also bears responsibility. Knowing that his past negligence led to this, he accepted the mission.
And Aoyagi Akimitsu, who hadn't had a proper conversation with him in a long time, was waiting for him here. (End of Chapter)