It had been a long time since he had enjoyed a proper home-cooked dinner.
As Ritsu sat at the table, he suddenly felt that slowly extracting Akemi from the Organization in this manner had been the best decision he could have made.
The warm stewed chicken, paired with refreshing pickled radish and spinach mixed with tofu and sesame oil, tasted infinitely better than the instant noodles he usually lived on.
After dinner, Ritsu voluntarily washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. Drying his hands, he walked into the living room and picked up the shoulder bag resting on the sofa. He took out two items and handed them to Akemi, who was engrossed in an overly melodramatic 8 p.m. television drama.
"I prepared a new identity for you. From now on, you don't have to work at the bank anymore."
Akemi accepted the document envelope. After opening it, she found a teaching license inside, along with an appointment letter naming her the new art teacher at Teitan Elementary School.
"Sis, didn't you mention in your last letter that you're studying Fine Arts at Nanyang University? What kind of job do you want after graduation?"
"If I can... I'd like to become a teacher someday."
She never expected Ritsu to be so thoughtful. He had actually remembered something she had casually mentioned the very first time they met.
Carefully placing both documents back into the envelope, Akemi could hardly contain her excitement.
"Thank you, Takashi! I can't believe you remembered something like that so clearly. Don't tell me you actually—"
"Stop right there."
Ritsu gave her a deadpan stare.
"You seriously need to work on your acting. Anyone can tell when you're lying."
He already knew exactly what she was about to tease him with.
"And yet," Akemi smiled, "the first half really was sincere. Honestly... there are so many things I should be thanking you for."
"Even if we might not actually be related by blood, you and Shiho are still my little sisters. Isn't it only natural for an older brother to protect his younger sisters? Family doesn't need to say 'thank you.' It just makes us sound like strangers."
Even so...
There was still one thing Ritsu couldn't understand.
Were they really unrelated by blood?
There was undeniably a strange sense of familiarity drawing them together. But he had merely been a child raised by the Akai family.
'Looks like I'll have to investigate my own background somehow... Though I can't exactly march up to Akai and ask him outright.'
Then he suddenly remembered something Akemi had once said.
—"I just remembered something Mom told me before she died. Dai... should be my cousin."
His eyes widened.
"Akemi, you mentioned before that your mother told you something, that's how you knew Akai was your cousin, right?"
"Hm? That's right." Akemi nodded. "Mom told me she had an older sister. Her original name was Mary Sera, but after she got married, she changed her name to Mary Akai. Why?"
"It's nothing. Go ahead and enjoy your drama. I need to go inside and sort through some files."
"Okay. Do you want me to pour you a glass of Calpis?"
Ritsu stopped in his tracks. Looking down with a faint smile, he replied, "No. Just a cup of hot milk instead. I finally managed to quit drinking that stuff."
Quitting something you loved...
Even learning to smoke instead...
Akemi let out a quiet sigh.
That wasn't something just anyone could do. To swap the places of everything you loved and everything you hated, very few people could manage that.
'You really are trying to turn yourself into someone else.'
'Someone who never even existed.'
...
Entering the bedroom, Ritsu didn't head straight for the laboratory. Instead, he sat down at his desk and began thinking.
There was no easy way for him to leave Tokyo right now.
Which meant, he had to find a way to make Akai leave America.
The FBI's current target was Vermouth. So the simplest solution was to lure her back to Tokyo.
Then another thought crossed his mind.
The unfinished sample of APTX4869 that Vermouth had taken. He still had no idea who she'd given it to.
If the recipient had survived by sheer luck, that person could become a major obstacle to everything he had planned.
With that thought, Ritsu picked up his phone and called Vermouth. He wanted to confirm who had taken the drug.
Only by identifying the subject could he accurately judge APTX4869's effects.
"You've got excellent timing," Vermouth answered with a chuckle. "Calling to stop me from using APTX4869?"
Ritsu blinked in surprise.
He hadn't expected the timing to line up so perfectly.
"Oh? Then how about letting me listen while you administer it? Maybe it'll give me inspiration for developing an antidote."
"An antidote?" Vermouth narrowed her eyes at the target waiting in the distance with a paper cup in hand.
"Our antidote?"
She smiled.
"Now that's something I'd love to see. Why don't you enjoy today's little performance instead? Since she's connected to the Miyano family... she's our mutual enemy."
"So listen carefully. Listen to the agonized screams of someone being poisoned to death by the very drug created by her own younger sister."
After saying that, Vermouth slipped her phone into her pocket without hanging up, making sure Augier would hear everything that followed.
'Someone connected to the Miyano family...'
The name Mary Akai suddenly flashed through Ritsu's mind.
His expression changed instantly.
He hurried into the hidden room, connected the speaker-enabled phone to his computer, and launched software he had personally developed to trace Vermouth's location.
Less than thirty seconds later, the location appeared on the screen.
[London, England]
Combined with Akai's British heritage and the mention of an older sister, there was little room for doubt.
Vermouth's target... was the very person he had been trying to find.
Mary Akai.
Footsteps echoed through the phone. Then came the voice of an unfamiliar woman.
The name she spoke, however, left Ritsu puzzled.
Was Vermouth disguising herself as someone else to meet Mary?
"You're late, Tsutomu."
'Tsutomu? Why was Vermouth impersonating him?'
His question was answered almost immediately.
"Sorry, Mary. It's been so long that I completely forgot where our old meeting place was."
The man's voice Vermouth imitated was instantly familiar to Ritsu.
It was exactly the same voice he remembered saying
—"Fifty-fifty."
His pupils contracted violently.
Although many fragments of his childhood memories had returned, most of them centered around Akai.
As for the man who always used that catchphrase...
He had never known his name.
Now...
He finally did.
His name was Tsutomu Akai.
Shuichi Akai's father, and Mary Akai's husband.
"Right in front of MI6 Headquarters... Vauxhall Bridge. I'd completely forgotten we used to meet by the bridge railing."
"And? Have you figured out who murdered Koji Haneda?"
"No. I only know they're part of an enormous organization. They caught wind of my investigation, so I've had no choice but to keep running for my life."
'MI6 Headquarters?'
Could the Akai couple actually have connections to MI6?
And...
Koji Haneda.
Wasn't that the very case Rum had bungled seventeen years ago?
Ritsu frowned as he digested every word of the conversation.
If he remembered correctly, Koji Haneda's name had appeared on the APTX4869 death list. He knew very little about the seventeen-year-old case itself.
Only that it was Rum's one major failure.
'Looks like I'll have to find a way to pry everything about the Haneda case out of Vermouth.
Right now, there's virtually no information available.'
'Someone has clearly gone out of their way to erase it from public view.'