[He's lying...]
Without even a second's hesitation, only hearing Ichijō Mirai's voice that bites out some laughter, Jodie directly submits her judgment and firmly chooses to never revise.
And he submitted the translation: Rum, this member of the organization is a victim, and I am a victimizer :)
That's very 'Master'.
She fell silent, and realized that Akai Shūichi had also fallen silent, probably realizing perfectly that Ichijō Mirai was not a good person underneath his human appearance.
For a while, a silence was shared between the two ends of the headset, with only the sound of the piano, which was obviously loud but silent, flowing quietly.
Eventually, Ichijō Mirai spoke first: "What's wrong?"
"...What's your face?"
Even though she knew that she wasn't 'Miss FBI', and Ichijō Mirai couldn't see her own expression without being in the restaurant, when she heard this inquiry with a pause in the prefix, Jodie subconsciously sat up straight and adjusted her expression, asking her heart to look right.
She was a little busy adjusting a few keys on the monitor and the monitor that was turned off, and then adjusting them back one by one, straining her ears to listen to Akai Shūichi's answer.
Akai Shūichi's reply was very ladylike in the nineteenth century, with an aesthetic of maintaining decency even with his eyes open to gibberish, "Nothing, I'm just surprised that someone could make you a 'victim'."
After that, he suddenly followed up with, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it."
Uh-huh?
Why are you suddenly sorry?
There was no point in suddenly apologizing, was there? Suddenly apologizing that you didn't mean anything else just makes it sound even more weird.
"It's okay," Ichijō Mirai quickly replied, "If you're really sorry, you can turn left and go straight for ten meters, ma'am."
Ten meters to the left? That's a window... Oh, it's a polite way of telling Akai Shūichi to go to hell.
Jodie reacted for a moment, and quickly realized that Akai Shūichi's sudden apology was probably because he knew something about Ichijō Mirai, knew that he had offended the other person, and that she didn't know, and that's why he felt sudden and surprised.
She immediately tensed up and listened to the response of Akai Shūichi, who was suspected to have angered that bad guy.
"I'm genuinely puzzled," Akai Shūichi continued as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't heard the polite and gentle advice to die, "that Rum could victimize you?"
"From the tone of your voice, you seem to be quite upset about it."
Ichijō Mirai didn't suggest Akai Shūichi's death again either, smoothly replying, "Yes, I have a grudge."
"He was a rather cruel member of the organization, who took great pleasure in toying with others, and loved to see the pale cheeks of newcomers to the organization who panicked when they messed up a mission," he stopped speaking in a gentle tone, and his voice flattened out, "Compared to a guy like him, Gin was all too kind-hearted to be too soft-hearted."
Huh?
Jodie translated: Rum and 'Master' are the same, they are both bad guys who like to play with and tease others, they are quite hateful, or at least they are hateful to 'Master'.
And out of trust in Ichijō Mirai, I didn't hesitate to put my stamp of approval on this translation the moment it came out: [Low credibility].
Because...
"Pale cheeks of panic?"
Akai Shūichi repeated, telling his feelings truthfully, "It sounds as if the person who was toyed with and failed in his mission was your..."
"or your brother.
"I can't imagine your face going pale one day."
Jodie couldn't help nodding her head: yeah, yeah, that's why she didn't hesitate to put her stamp on it, and even though Ichijō Mirai was making it sound good, she had a hard time imagining that the asshole who could easily play the FBI like a fiddle would ever go pale because of a failed mission.
What's even harder to believe is that Rum can play 'Master'.
...So the FBI, who can't even handle Ichijō Mirai, will never catch Rum?
As an FBI agent, Jodie hates to see her enemy so powerful.
But as an FBI agent who had already fought Ichijō Mirai, Jodie's reasoning said that he didn't believe that anyone could play that asshole like that.
Ichijō Mirai's tone was still flat, "Can't you imagine?"
He commented in an even flatter tone, "I think you can."
If the ups and downs of tone could be displayed like an electrocardiogram, Ichijō Mirai's tone was now flattened into a straight line of wildly bouncing cues.
"I don't know where Rum is right now," He said, "but you can find out... come on, I'm sure you'll be able to get rid of that guy."
He added, "It doesn't matter if you can't."
"It doesn't matter to me. Even if you can't find him and get rid of him, I can still get my revenge. But if you can't find him, can you get revenge... that's probably not possible."
"You found someone else to deal with Rum?" Ssked Akai Shūichi immediately.
"You guess," Ichijō Mirai smiled anew, and his tone fluctuated, taking on a smirk and gentleness, "and what Ms. Jodie asked me to do,"
It was as if Jodie took the initiative to visit him and requested something, and he had to agree to it because of his soft heart, instead of him taking the initiative to seek Jodie's cooperation, when he talked about it, his tone was difficult, "But, it's Ms. Jodie's private matter, I was surprised when I heard about it, too,"
"...Can I say it?"
Can I say it in front of Akai Shūichi?
Jodie turned on the microphone and whispered, "Yes."
She said, "He's already talked about your father."
Since Ichijō Mirai had already talked about Akai Shūichi's father in front of Jodie's ears, it was certainly okay to talk about Jodie's father in front of Akai Shūichi.
Not asking about Akai Shūichi's father, but asking about Jodie's father was a subtle and direct way to sow discord that was not explicitly stated, but known to everyone in the room, and Jodie knew it well.
At the sound of her voice, Akai Shūichi said, "She said yes."
"Trust you that much?" Ichijō Mirai pretended to be surprised, but quickly told the truth, "I asked a member of the organization to investigate, and found out who the member of the organization was that killed Ms. Jodie's father."
"Her codename was Belmode."
Unconsciously, Jodie's fists clenched, her eyes glazed over, she repeated the code name she'd just heard, squeezing it out between her clenched teeth, "Belmode?"
"The Codename member who killed Ms. Jodie's father, destroyed her childhood in a raging fire, and has lived a very different life ever since," Ichijō Mirai's tone was a bit gentler, and seemed to sympathize with Jodie's current mood, giving her confirmation once again, "is Belmode."
"She's always moving around New York, she has an almost unbelievable disguise, she can disguise herself as another person, and when she's in disguise, even if you look at her cheeks from a close distance, only two or three centimeters away from her, you can't see anything, it's almost as if she was born to be in disguise."
He said: "Ms. Jodie since the FBI, so in recent years, you must have more or less contact."
"-Because she knows you exist."
What?
Jodie had to loosen her overbitten lips and teeth to make a sound in a warlike tightness, "She knows of my existence?"
Akai Shūichi helpfully forwarded the query, Ichijō Mirai still positive, "Yes, she knows you exist, at least in."
He thought for a moment, counting the time, "Four or five years ago,"
and simply stated the more precise point of the event, "She knew of your existence, Ms. Jodie, when there was the cleanup of the FBI in Tokyo."
It was a fairly accurate time, and it was at this point in time that Ichijō Mirai asked Belmode himself.
It was also a time of misunderstanding.
Jodie subconsciously uttered, "Belmode was involved in that operation with 'Satan'?!"
To her, 'Belmode' was an unfamiliar codename, but in just a few words, she had become quite adept at calling it out in a hateful tone.
She realized that after Akai Shūichi had relayed the question, Ichijō Mirai had visibly thought for a few seconds before replying, "It's kind of related."
It's true.
Jodie didn't doubt for a second that the kind of guy who could exterminate people's families in cold blood, and who wouldn't even spare a child, could be involved in the FBI's three mass disappearances in Tokyo, and she immediately believed it.
"She," She tightened her brow, organizing her words a few times, and was just about to ask Belmode about the connection when she realized something and her voice trailed off for a moment, "Wait,"
"'Satan'? Messiah'?"
She'd known both codes for a long time.
She'd known the former for nearly five years and the latter for less than a month, and she'd never made the connection.
It wasn't until she mentioned 'Satan' in front of 'Messiah' that she suddenly realized that the two code names seemed too special, especially when they appeared together.
She couldn't help but furrow her brows even more, and then unfurl them as she lowered her voice: "'Messiah' and 'Satan' are related?"
But Akai Shūichi did not relay the question.
"I'll tell you later," He said to Jodie, and asked Ichijō Mirai, "It sounds like you're friendlier to Belmode than you are to Rum?"
A reaction is an answer.
Jodie had gotten her answer: there was a connection between the two.
She curled her tailfinger, and heard Ichijō Mirai's correction, "Not 'seems', but yes, I do have a soft spot for Belmode than Rum."
"They're both members of the same organization, but the degree of their conscientiousness is a bit different."
"I know it seems rude to say that Belmode is kinder in front of Ms. Jodie, but she is indeed one of the kinder members of the Organization, and like Gin, is incredibly kind in comparison," Hhe said sincerely, and gave an example, "What the Organization is like, and what happened to your father, you must have already understood, is that those guys are cold-blooded, heartless people"
"But when a group of cold-blooded, heartless, cruel people get together, there's always a degree of variation/"
"There are some members of the organization who are quite..."
"There are many behaviors that Gin and Belmode strongly disapprove of. Obviously, they are not in charge of their own areas, and the best way to protect themselves is to ignore them as if they don't know, but they have repeatedly raised objections, expressing their disapproval no less than ten times, both explicitly and implicitly, and they have even mocked individual members of the organization as cold-blooded maniacs, and they have also contemptuously pointed out that individual members of the organization are not human beings, but rather, they are subversive cows and cats."
Ichijō Mirai told the truth: "For example, they disapproved of the cleanup of the Tokyo FBI."
And again, to tell the truth: "Rum never expressed his disapproval."
He's telling the truth, so he's quite justified.
Jodie: "..."
Disagreeing with the decisions of crazy, cold-blooded bloodthirsty people does mean they're not that cold-blooded.
But then again...
Isn't it human nature to disapprove when the other guy is 'Satan'?
It doesn't mean that Gin and Belmode are good, it just means that they still have a basic human nature, that they're human beings, that they speak human language.
How much of that 'humanity' is there, whether it's a sliver, a sliver, or a sliver, is up for debate, because: "Cow cat?"
Akai Shūichi slowly pronounced the adjectives Jodie cared about, and stated her feelings in an unbiased, fair-judgmental tone, "...It sounds like they seem to have a good relationship with 'Satan'."
"If, by 'individual organization member' you mean 'Satan'."
Jodie nodded repeatedly, and heard Akai Shūichi continue, "Then I can understand that you have good intentions towards Belmode."
"I'm surprised," Ichijō Mirai, who was being truthful, "'it sounds like you actually think 'Satan' is a cold-blooded, outrageous guy?"
Isn't that the consensus of mankind?
Not to mention the police, the FBI, or any of the forces of justice, even the vast majority of criminals believe that 'Satan' is a demon, simply inhuman, cold-blooded and ruthless to the point of having no bottom line.
Otherwise, they wouldn't call him 'Satan' by default.
He was a man whose death was so publicized that the black forces of the organization took a day off to celebrate the death of the Devil.
But Akai Shūichi said so...
Jodie immediately decided that 'Messiah' and 'Satan' were on friendly terms.
Friendly enough to make a guy who seemed a bit inhuman, but not so inhuman, tolerate that cold-blooded, bottomless guy.
With this judgment, she heard a bit of uncertainty in Ichijō Mirai's answer, "Right?"
"Isn't that the consensus?"
"Honestly, I should be the one to say that to you, right?" Ichijō Mirai's tone went flat again, "If I had known, I would have modified the wheels to make them say 'I'm surprised' and 'Are you okay?' at the slightest friction, and every time I step on the gas pedal, it would automatically tell you of my surprise and genuine concern."
That's cursing.
Akai Shūichi could tell that he didn't really understand what he'd done to piss off Ichijō Mirai to the point where he showed up sharpening his knife and deliberately targeting himself, but he was good at apologizing, "Really? I don't know what's bothering you, but I'm sorry."
Adding fuel to the fire, he immediately sidestepped the flames and digressed with a heavy enough focus, "You questioned Belmode directly."
"When inquiring about the death of Jodie's father, you directly inquired about Belmode."
Ichijō Mirai smiled, "Yes."
He volunteered the point that Akai Shūichi and Jodie were wondering, "Why did I dare to question Belmode directly, wasn't I afraid that she wouldn't tell?"
"No, she will."
"He that stabs me in the face shall die.
Belmode was a woman who dared to imply to her face that Ichijō Mirai was a cow cat.
He was sure that Belmode, with her beautiful spirit of facing death and not being afraid of being assassinated by a cowcat crawling through the netting, would be able to tell Jodie everything, even if she put a gun to her forehead, not to mention being questioned by him.
It's perfect for a trip to the Sanzu River.