Teitan High looked like a perfectly ordinary Japanese high school.
Of course, Karasawa had no real authority on what a "normal" Japanese school should be. But as long as no freakishly large-nosed gym teacher came charging out with a volleyball to the face and gave him some P5 cutscene whiplash, it passed the vibe check.
It was a weekend. The school was quiet. Not a single student in sight.
Karasawa pulled out the black document folder from his bag and handed the stack of forms to Amuro Tooru, who led him from office to office—form after form, bow after bow, stamp after stamp.
Because of Karasawa's special circumstances, the bureaucracy was especially bloated. His previous student record had been voided after his expulsion. He had to fill out everything from scratch. Over an hour of pure paperwork hell.
The upside? He finally got a glimpse into the original Akira Karasawa's background. Some of the application info was pre-filled.
His father: Karasawa Kazukawa.
His mother: Karasawa Leona.
Mixed-race.
Originally from Kyoto.
Eighteen years old. Previously attended Kyoto Izumishin High School.
That school name rang a vague bell, but Karasawa didn't care enough to dig. He was already living above Conan's café. His guardian was Bourbon. What could possibly top this level of absurdity?
Then he saw the names of his parents, and memories stirred.
No emotion. No warmth. No closeness. Just fragmented images: academic conferences abroad, cold video calls. They were both scholars stationed overseas. Karasawa Akira had been left behind in Japan to study. They barely saw each other.
Even when he was arrested, accused, put on trial—they hadn't returned. Just hired a lawyer and outsourced their involvement. The boy was crushed in a mechanical farce, no allies, no defense.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Karasawa stared at the signature line of the last document, his pen hovering over the names of those distant, absent parents.
From his perspective, the entire case had been executed with horrifying simplicity. No intricate plot. Just brute force: coerced testimonies, falsified evidence. No watchdogs, no media, no help. A minor crushed in silence. The juvenile protection laws meant to shield him had been weaponized to hide the truth.
And if the Black Organization had even the slightest connection to this mess…
Then hell, who knew if his parents were even alive anymore.
"Something wrong?" Amuro asked as they stepped out of the principal's office. He caught sight of Karasawa standing still, staring down at a sheet of paper.
"No, I'm done." Karasawa forced his expression into one of quiet gloom, still playing the socially-crippled teen to perfection. "Sorry for all the trouble. You've been helping me all day."
Amuro accepted the pile of papers with a smile. "I accepted the role. A guardian takes care of their responsibilities. There's no need to apologize."
Karasawa muttered under his breath, "A guardian's duty, huh…"
Amuro's sharp ears caught that. He scanned the first page, where the parental section was clearly marked.
Having fully accepted the "rejected and emotionally stunted youth" narrative, Amuro mentally filed it under tragic character development.
Poor kid, Amuro thought, knowing the context.
Poor kid, Karasawa thought, knowing none of it.
Thus, two people trapped in layers of masquerade reached a wordless, mutually misunderstood consensus.
They left the school in silence, both weighed down by different flavors of existential pain.
Back at Café Poirot, the sky was already dimming. They'd returned just in time for closing.
Amuro handed Karasawa two keys after the final cleanup. "This one's for the café, this one's for the attic. Since the café's open all day, be sure to lock the attic when you leave. Safety first."
Karasawa listened politely, nodding—but his attention wavered as two figures approached from across the street, silhouetted in the golden slant of evening light.
One tall and slender, long black hair brushing her waist.
One small and compact, in a little blue blazer, bow tie at the throat, oversized glasses.
Hand in hand, the two passed Karasawa and Amuro, heading for the stairs beside the café.
Yep.
Yep.
No doubt about it.
Karasawa mentally revised his earlier theory.
It wasn't "Shinichi hasn't been knocked out yet, and the Organization's already sniffing around me."
It was "While Shinichi is getting knocked out, the Organization's also already sniffing around me."
Same day.
Same beginning.
He'd woken up on the train, and Kudo Shinichi had probably just walked into Tropical Land.
He watched the two ascend, then accepted the keys from Amuro with a nod.
"You should go rest. Unpack. Take it easy," Amuro said gently, watching Karasawa fiddle with the keyring, trying to loop them together.
For a second, Amuro reached out, hand halfway raised to ruffle his hair again—
Karasawa dodged cleanly.
Seriously, Bourbon. You want to act? Fine. But quit petting people's skulls like we're a litter of stray cats.
Amuro blinked in mild surprise, then chuckled. "Fast reflexes."
Karasawa bit back a quip about head-patting stunting your growth. Didn't quite fit his current tragic persona. He turned and retreated into the café instead.
"I'll go rest, then."
"Good night, Karasawa-kun," Amuro called after him, smile slowly vanishing once the boy vanished upstairs.
He turned, made his way to his car, and pulled out his phone.
[Contact with target established. No trace of referenced documents found in his belongings. Should we proceed as planned?]
He sent it. Then opened a hidden encrypted channel and composed a second message.
[Any new intel from Kyoto PD? What have they found on Karasawa Akira's case?]
He ran a quick sweep of the Mazda RX-7—standard check for bugs or tracking devices—then slid into the driver's seat.
The café behind him was dark, save for a sliver of warm yellow light seeping from the stairwell above the bar. The attic door must be closed. He couldn't see anything inside.
Karasawa Akira.
A special case.
Juvenile offenders charged with aggravated assault were already rare. For a minor to receive such a sentence, the violence had to be severe. Malicious. Dangerous.
And yet… instead of incarceration, he was placed on probation and shipped across the country.
Was this legal?
Was the judgment clean?
Or had the Organization pulled strings?
If so… how deeply had they infiltrated the justice system?
Two message notifications pinged in.
[No changes to the plan. Maintain contact. Gain the target's trust. He's the only one who might know the document's location. Monitor his social interactions. Unless you can act without alerting the police, do not attempt interrogation.]
[No updates from Kyoto PD. Assigned officers Itoki Ichiro and Sato Ken deny involvement with the case. Current best lead remains Karasawa Akira himself.]
Amuro read both, then wiped the messages clean.
"Such a troublesome kid," he murmured.
How did a high schooler get mixed up in something like this?
But this was also a golden opportunity.
If the Organization wanted something from Karasawa—some document, some secret—then Karasawa was a pressure point. A potential crack in the wall.
A chance to pry open their true goals.
"To our mutual good luck, Karasawa-kun," Amuro muttered, stepping on the gas and speeding off into the night.
Three jobs, no rest. Bourbon's shift was only beginning.