Inside the fire escape on the fifty-fourth floor of Building B of the Twin Tower Skyscraper, the air was thick with the smell of blood.
To keep the blood from soaking the floor behind him, Ritsu had no choice but to hunch over, bracing himself against the handrail with his elbow as he struggled to catch his breath.
Every step he had taken while escaping had pulled at the wounds across his back, leaving him drenched in a cold sweat.
What troubled him now was figuring out how to get home.
Driving himself back was obviously out of the question.
He still had a mission to complete. He had to go to Pisco's residence and destroy every piece of evidence related to the Organization.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Hurried footsteps echoed from above. Judging from the sound, they didn't belong to an adult.
"...Edogawa?"
There was no immediate reply.
Instead, after hearing the weakness in his voice, the footsteps became even faster as they descended the stairs.
Haibara had finally managed to find an excuse to send Agasa to wait in the parking lot, giving herself the chance to search alone for the missing Ritsu.
Seeing that he could barely remain standing, she hurried over.
"Can you still walk? I'll help you to the elevator."
"My lady, you're so tiny." Ritsu sighed with a helpless smile,
"How exactly are you planning to support me? Are you going to take the temporary antidote you made and turn back into Shiho? Because I'm pretty sure there aren't any clothes here that would fit you."
Even now, he still had the energy to joke.
Haibara shot him an annoyed glare, opened the first-aid kit from Agasa's trunk, and took out her phone to call her sister.
"Onee-san, it's me. Can you drive over to the Twin Tower Skyscraper in Nishitama City?"
At home, Akemi had been watching a variety show when her younger sister unexpectedly called.
For Shiho to contact her like this, something had to be wrong.
"Did something happen to Takashi?"
'Takashi... What an affectionate way to address him.'
If Macallan ended up with her sister, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing—Wait.
'If it was Macallan, wouldn't that make things even stranger?'
Haibara turned toward the pale-faced Ritsu with a complicated expression.
After several seconds of silence, she uttered something so shocking that Ritsu nearly coughed up blood.
"...You're not holding a grudge, are you? You didn't marry my sister just to get revenge?"
The implication was obvious
—"Rye turned you into the person you are now... Did you seduce my sister just to get back at him?"
Ritsu's eyes went wide. For a long moment, he couldn't say a word.
'Did she seriously think I was that kind of lunatic?!'
Even Akemi, listening from the other end of the phone, was speechless. It seemed Ritsu had finally revealed his true identity to Shiho.
She let out a quiet sigh.
"Shiho... it sounds like you learned a lot of strange things while you were in the Organization."
"I-I didn't learn anything strange!"
"Let's not worry about that right now. I'll head over immediately. Just wait for me."
Ritsu stared resentfully at Haibara.
The grievance in his eyes was practically overflowing. He genuinely couldn't understand how she had managed to imagine him as that sort of person.
It was beyond absurd.
"So that's really the kind of person you think I am? Heh... I guess everything I did today was for nothing.
"A liar who tells too many lies stops being believable. Who knows whether you have ulterior motives?"
That single word—Liar.
Instantly robbed Ritsu of anything else he wanted to argue.
With a sigh, he turned around and exposed the bloodied wounds across his back to Haibara. In a quiet voice, he muttered,
"...I never wanted to lie."
He had never wanted to become a liar. But after everything he had experienced, living honestly had become impossible.
Originally, he could at least face one side as his true self.
But now?
If the people at the National Police Agency ever found out he was still alive, he couldn't even imagine what kind of chaos would follow.
Hearing those words, Haibara unconsciously became gentler as she used the tweezers to remove the tiny shards of glass from his back.
The concern in her eyes was genuine.
But what occupied her thoughts even more was how had he survived these past two years?
Or rather how had he lived through the past seven years?
To become a codename member of the Organization's operations division, his hands inevitably had to be stained with blood.
As a Public Security officer who stood on the side of justice, whenever he had killed a target during a mission, what kind of resolve had he carried?
"...You're not lying to me this time, are you?"
"Is Sasajima Ritsu really your real name?"
Ritsu paused for a moment.
It seemed he had lied for so long that no one could easily believe him anymore. A faint smile appeared on his face as he turned sideways.
"I'm not lying. That really is my name. How about this? Someday I'll take you to visit my grave."
"It's tucked away in a pretty inconspicuous corner of Beika Cemetery."
'...His grave?'
Haibara quickly understood why Ritsu had become someone who lived behind endless lies.
He hadn't chosen this path willingly.
As Augier, he had the Organization behind him. The Organization was his support.
As Onizawa, he had Akemi, and he had the MPD. Both were there to support him.
But as Ritsu, as his true self...
There was no one standing behind him. His only place to return to was that lonely gravestone.
Beneath six feet of earth, which only empty coffin that paints a grim possible future of his life.
"You still have some APTX4869 left, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do. But I don't think there's any reason to make the antidote right now."
"I know. Even if the antidote is completed, I still can't reclaim my original identity until the Organization is destroyed."
"But... I have something I want to ask."
Haibara hesitated briefly before continuing.
"When did you first start planning to use APTX4869 to help me escape from the Organization?"
Ritsu instinctively tried to shrug casually. Unfortunately, the movement pulled at the stitches in his back. A sharp pain nearly twisted his expression.
He inhaled sharply and immediately stiffened his body.
"After I found out Kudo had become Conan because of the drug, I started planning around that possibility.
To rescue both you and your sister, I came up with more than fifty different plans over the past two years."
"You're unbelievably bold. Weren't you afraid they'd discover you?" Haibara asked.
She had grown up inside the Organization. She had spent her entire childhood under its surveillance.
Of course she had dreamed of freedom. She had wanted to run away with her sister. But she had never possessed the courage to do it nor the ability.
Ritsu looked upward.
It wasn't really that he was brave. He simply believed that only he could do it. And now that he knew the Miyano sisters were actually his cousins...
How could he possibly abandon his own family?
"Because you're my little sister. So even if I was terrified...I still had to save you."
"...Little sister?"
Scratching his cheek awkwardly, Ritsu began explaining the bizarre family tree.
"I don't remember much from before I was four years old. But I really did grow up living with the Akai family.
After I turned four, I was sent to live with distant relatives in Saitama Prefecture."
Haibara's hand froze in the middle of disinfecting his wound.
She looked up.
"...Who's Akai?"
"Rye. His real name is Shuichi Akai. He's an FBI agent."
The moment those words left his mouth, Ritsu noticed Haibara's expression darkening.
He quickly added, "He's your first cousin. His mother and your mother were sisters."
"...Huh?"
Haibara immediately decided that she didn't particularly want that cousin. The man sitting in front of her looked far more like an older brother.
"That's... honestly a shame. If possible, I'd rather Akai be the one to change his last name."
"Actually, Rye isn't a bad person. He's just... a little too full of himself."
That was hardly surprising, considering the family he came from.
The photograph Vermouth had sent him surfaced in Ritsu's mind once again. The overwhelming orange aura seemed to radiate from it all over again.
Ahem...
Speaking of which, should he tell Akai about what Vermouth had done to Mary the next time they met?
'...Nah.'
He'd think about it when the opportunity actually came.
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