After school at Teitan Elementary.
"That last shot was so cool!"
"Yeah! I never knew a girl could be that good at soccer. It's hard to imagine that just last week, Yimi only knew how to hug the ball and run around like a kitten."
"Hmph-hmph." Yimi proudly craned her neck.
"..."
She was simply absurdly strong. No goalkeeper dared catch a ball she kicked, so the game had turned from soccer into dodgeball...
Of course, Conan did not say that out loud. He simply stood nearby and watched the little girl bask in wave after wave of praise, her smug little mouth practically puckering into three lobes.
This brat had gained quite a lot of popularity at school in all sorts of ways. Cute appearance + able to get along with the boys + calls people small fry... The last one did not count. If first graders were not too embarrassed to do that sort of thing, she might even start finding love letters in her shoe locker.
"Conan, why do you keep staring at Yimi?" Ayumi nervously stepped in front of Conan's line of sight.
"Huh? I was just thinking about how I would've blocked that last shot. Look, Haibara likes watching her too, doesn't she?" Conan smiled and tried to bluff his way through it. "By the way, the Professor says he developed a really unusual new game and absolutely wants us to go try it at his house."
Of course, the reason that game had been developed was not particularly pleasant.
"I'm not, going." The kitty shook her head.
"Huh? Why?" Mitsuhiko and Genta looked at her in confusion. Normally, Yimi was the most enthusiastic one whenever they went to the Professor's house.
...
It was not because she was holding a grudge over Ai scolding her earlier.
She was no longer allowed to use the anesthetic needles, so Yimi needed to find another path.
Between television dramas, novels she only half understood, and all the time she had spent living at Kogoro's after school, she had finally begun to grasp the truth behind the mission: the word "detective" referred to a profession.
She really should have realized that much earlier. But after joining the Detective Boys, Yimi had assumed the mission had nothing to do with a profession. Only recently had she noticed that Kogoro normally worked in an office, while the Detective Boys normally just played around.
Yimi had plenty of fun herself, but she could not keep going like this. No matter how much she liked playing, she had to remember her main purpose in this world.
"What are you messing around with now?" Mouri Kogoro lowered his newspaper and looked at the tiny child dragging a desk toward the entrance.
"I'm opening, Yimi Detective Agency." Yimi answered honestly. Then she tore off a piece of paper, copied the sign for the Mouri Detective Agency, and glued her own sign to the desk.
Kogoro stood up and held out a hand toward Yimi. "You can play detective later. You got your math test back last time, didn't you? Eri specifically called and told me to check your grade."
"The test, I lost it." Yimi's eyes drifted away.
Seeing through such an old trick, Kogoro nodded. "Makes sense. If you'd done well, you would've run over to show off already. What a shame. If there's no test paper, I guess dinner tonight can only be an all-green-pepper feast."
"Ugh..."
Yimi unhappily grabbed her schoolbag, dug out the paper, and handed it to Kogoro.
The grade was definitely not very satisfying. Eighty-five might have been quite good in a higher grade, but for a first-grade test, it was enough to make a parent pay attention.
Kogoro turned the paper around and looked at the problem she had gotten wrong. It was a word problem: You have ten apples. You give two to Mom, four to Dad, and one to your older brother. How many do you have left?
Yimi's answer: Borrow two from Conan. His test has ten too. Then everyone here can have three, and everyone on his side can have two. That makes it fair. I'll pay him back on the next test.
The problem was worth fifteen points.
"..."
"He won't lend me any." Yimi tucked her hands together and answered gloomily. She had thought she and Conan should at least count as friends.
If she had known, she would have written Genta instead. After the test, Genta said he was willing to lend her some.
For reasons no one quite understood, Yimi successfully saved herself from having to eat green peppers for dinner.
She dragged the desk to the entrance of the Mouri Detective Agency, sat down behind it, and began her entrepreneurial venture. Along the way, she even unlocked an achievement called [Riding the Hype].
Seeing her sitting at the entrance playing a role-playing game, Kogoro merely yawned, crossed his legs, and went back to reading the newspaper, occasionally scratching his neck.
Waiting for customers was difficult. Even Kogoro often went without commissions. He was famous, but a lot of the time people simply died wherever he happened to go, and after solving the case he did not necessarily get paid a commission at all.
"I remember you're..."
Lucky Yimi had barely taken out her game console when a shadow fell over her. She looked up and saw a refined-looking man with glasses bending down to look at her.
Yimi had never met him. He was the school doctor at Ran's school, and the Black Knight in that stage play had originally been supposed to be played by this very doctor.
Oh, and the current Dr. Araide was being impersonated too.
Vermouth was the person impersonating him. She was also the female celebrity Yimi had anesthetized at Haido City Hotel, and a member of the Black Organization.
The Organization's file on Kudo Shinichi had been marked "executed." Vermouth had once been saved by him and cared a great deal about what had happened to him, so she came to confirm the matter herself.
At the memorial gathering, Vermouth had merely looked a little longer at the girl in front of her because of Yimi's unusual hair color. Apparently that frightened the little girl beside Yimi, and this horrible brat immediately fired an anesthetic needle at Vermouth.
Yes. Vermouth had watched with her own eyes as this girl shot her. Yimi had then apparently used Vermouth's identity to expose Pisco, causing her quite a lot of trouble, even if Pisco would most likely have died there anyway.
As for the real Dr. Araide, Vermouth had originally planned to personally deal with him before taking his place. Unexpectedly, just as she was about to act, Dr. Araide got into a traffic accident right in front of her.
Her instincts told her there was definitely something wrong with this kid. More to the point, did that situation not sound remarkably similar to "Sleeping Kogoro"?
On top of that, Yimi was effectively the little sister of Vermouth's other "angel," Mouri Ran. After confirming during the stage play that Kudo Shinichi was not dead, Vermouth came to investigate.
"This is, Yimi Detective Agency." Yimi imitated Kogoro's tone.
Then she noticed that something seemed to be missing. Under Vermouth's puzzled gaze, Yimi scampered back inside and crawled under Kogoro's desk.
Kogoro had long since gotten used to her running around everywhere. He instinctively moved his feet aside to make room.
Then he looked toward the desk blocking the entrance. "Hey, brat, what's the idea? You're keeping a guest outside."
"It's fine, it's fine. She's a very lively child. I don't think I saw her last time."
Vermouth gently moved the desk aside and came in. She carried a gift as an excuse for the visit and looked around. "Ran isn't here?"
"She went out with friends." Kogoro accepted the gift, then glanced at the smaller one. "Go pour some tea."
Ran normally handled the tea. It was about time the little one learned to help out too.
"Oh." Yimi crawled back out from under the desk, already holding the teapot.
She poured a cup right to the brim and handed it to Vermouth.
"Thank you..."
Vermouth decided not to dwell on why the cup had been filled completely. Instead, she first considered the possibility that the girl might poison her right here in the detective agency, in front of Kogoro, whose true nature was still suspicious.
Smiling, Vermouth experimentally took a sip.
By the time her sense of smell raised the alarm, it was already too late. Her taste buds had gotten there first.
Baijiu.
...
Vermouth returned to her car without having learned anything useful and sat there thoughtfully.
Apparently this kid had been taken in about a month ago by Mouri Kogoro's wife, which was how she became Ran's little sister. From the stack of police records Vermouth had conveniently stolen while playing Dr. Araide, Yimi seemed to crop up in quite a few cases, and the culprits often suffered sudden deaths...
That liquor had been pretty cheap. There had not even been enough aroma for her to smell it in advance. Was that deliberate? She should not have drunk it, but given the personality of the person she was impersonating, Dr. Araide would probably be gentle and forgiving toward a child.
She started the car, then remembered something and stopped again.
Too late. A traffic officer conducting routine checks had already stepped in front of her with a breathalyzer.