Judging from his appearance, this 'FBI investigator' was about thirty, with a hard, typical American rugged look, a wide jaw that had already passed its youthful period, not very good skin, a light green under the eyes, and red blood in the eyes.
He looked like a serious investigator who had been tossing and turning for half the night because of the excitement and anxiety of the big operation.
It's the look of a rough man, the look of a tired man who is shaken up by a sudden accident, but when he blinks his eyes, he shows the playfulness of a high school girl.
It's a playfulness that's a bit on the intimate and mischievous side, and a little bit cute and badass.
Belmode's body and voice are still male, but his look is feminine, and at first glance, it's so cut off that it gives people who don't know what's going on the impression that the male head isn't theirs.
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
He was creeped out.
But it wasn't Belmode's cutthroat and contradictory feeling of being possessed by a female ghost that triggered the Valley of Terror, it was the face of a male FBI agent winking playfully.
Akai Shūichi is blind, and the victim is only himself.
Ichijō Mirai pondered whether or not to report it, silently turning his chair so that the back of the chair was turned to an angle on the wall where Akai Shūichi and Belmode could not be seen at the same time, and adjusting his position on the back of the chair so that he could pretend that he was a corpse.
He heard Belmode, like a real FBI agent, give a short, simple report of the main points, and then hesitantly give a detailed report.
This time, she used a tone of voice that was very much in line with stupidity, but not self-consciousness, with a 'Ah, did I pass by the murderer, I don't know', a very FBI tone.
It wasn't obvious, but to Ichijō Mirai, who had already discovered Belmode's identity, it sounded so obvious that it was like a fisherman who had caught a 20-pound fish walking back to his home ten miles away, and he didn't need to see or even hear it; he could smell it just by smelling it.
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
He swiveled his chair around again and reached up to press his chest, tempted to sigh at his work injury, but resisted at the thought that if he did, Akai Shūichi would not only be unharmed, but would also notice the anomaly.
While one's own success is a cause for joy, one's enemy's success is even more hateful. The enemy's success was unforgivable when he was wounded.
He could only pretend to be a melancholy toy slumped in a chair.
But he's a man who, even when he's sitting quietly in a corner, has the strength to win the attention and vigilance of those around him with his extensive criminal record.
In the fourth or fifth second of Ichijō Mirai's deathly silence, Akai Shūichi took a break from his thoughts and asked, "What's wrong?" with a sideways glance.
"Do you have an idea about this case?"
You want to intervene?
The FBI is specialized in solving cases, this case is not that difficult, Akai Shūichi sensed the message in Belmode's words, and already had an idea about who the murderer is and how to search for the murderer.
Ichijō Mirai, who is still remembering his previous behavior of delivering the murderers one by one like a prophet checking out the werewolves, seems to be very good at finding the murderer, and is probably interested in solving the case.
If he was interested and wanted to get involved in the case, Akai Shūichi was going to go along with his plan.
"No," Ichijō Mirai shook his head crisply and casually, "I think I got a bone fragment stuck in my chest when I jumped off the building earlier, and I'm feeling a little delicate right now, so you can just ignore me."
Of course he didn't jump straight down, but to reach the ground in a few seconds from the top of a building that high would be a relief.
Before reaching the ground, Ichijō Mirai took advantage of the building's original building bumps, like a defenseless rock climber looking for a place to pause and cushion himself in the air, and finally leapt to the ground from a five or six-meter-high glass wall.
When he landed, his injuries weren't too serious, and he was alive and well for three days without being instantly relieved of his wounds.
Akai Shūichi knew that Ichijō Mirai was alive and well, but hadn't asked directly, not knowing if he was 100% alive and well or 80% alive and well, and at that, he frowned, and was about to say something when he glanced at Belmode and changed his tone to, "Uh-huh."
"Jodie's already at the scene, I'll pull up the CCTV and send it to her later, you go home first, Ryan."
As if remembering something, he asked casually, "By the way, why are you here today? I thought you were needed at the hospital."
Belmode looked a little confused, "Well, that's okay, then."
"Hospital?"
She hesitantly moved her feet, had already turned her head, but turned back again, her face was full of hesitation, her voice was also lowered, like she had accidentally bumped into the scene of her boss's disgrace, and wanted to immediately run away with the wind tightly pulling her hair out, but because it was related to herself, she had to whisper a reminder, and was very afraid that she would be held in contempt by her boss's social animal, "That, Mr. Akai, I'm not called Ryan, I'm called Owen."
"I haven't been to the hospital lately either..."
"Are you mistaken?"
Akai Shūichi nodded with an unchanged expression and admitted it outright, "It's a mistake... I wasn't paying attention and thought you were Ryan from Jodie's group... I'm sorry."
"Oh, oh," Belmode nodded her head repeatedly, making a series of gestures that included a clear look at Akai Shūichi's face and a sigh of relief when she realized that her boss looked fine, and then rubbed her head, "I'll be going back, then?"
She left.
But she left the bugs and pinhole cameras behind.
Ichijō Mirai adjusted his posture once more, sighing silently as he pressed his chin against the back of the chair once more, and greeted Kamikazu affectionately.
No wonder Belmode had been using a nickname like 'Cow Cat' for so long after she met him, it was genius to pick a nickname so quickly and accurately.
He's a cow cat himself.
"The FBI and Jodie over there will take care of the murder," Akai Shūichi said when only two people were left in the surveillance room again, "I thought you didn't have a sense of pain?"
Then why is there a subtle sensation in the chest?
Not having a sense of pain was something that sounded good at first, but was actually very dangerous, such as Ichijō Mirai speeding down the stairs, and if he had suffered an injury that he hadn't noticed, or was hidden inside his body and not visible, it could have been delayed to an irreversible degree.
Even with his incredible self-healing.
"It's a feeling that's churning in the abdomen, not very comfortable, and flooding the chest," Ichijō Mirai replied, 'probably tasting the complex flavor of 'bitterness', don't worry about it, it's not important."
He turned his chair back around and gave Akai Shūichi a big, unabashed smile: though he was hurt, Akai Shūichi would definitely be more hurt than he was when he learned that Belmode had actually been in the surveillance room.
The enemy's defeat is a joy to behold.
Ichijō Mirai was already trying to control his laughter so that Akai Shūichi wouldn't realize that something was wrong and follow up on it, and he said as if nothing had happened: "You only brought some of the FBI with you, and you're responsible for their abilities by giving them direct responsibility for the murders."
Akai Shūichi looked at Ichijō Mirai steadily, paused for a few seconds, and still didn't ask, 'you just looked a little upset, why are you suddenly happy again, happy and upset, what's the reason for that'.
He glanced at the coffee in his hand, and then looked at the coffee he had just handed to Ichijō Mirai, and realized that without realizing it, the cup of coffee was already in the far corner of the table.
And so he remembered: this Mr. Savior was fond of feeding people all sorts of strange liquids, but he himself didn't like strange liquids or bitter things.
...Or, of course, he doesn't drink anything handed to him.
With the image of Ichijō Mirai drinking blood wine only to spit it out with glee still fresh in his mind, Akai Shūichi said in a flat tone, "Jodie's in."
And: "The FBI is not so bad that they can't solve a murder."
Especially since they had familiarized themselves with the airport in advance, briefly making it their own, with a large number of their own people and complete surveillance.
If they couldn't solve the case, then the FBI was too much of a loser, and Akai Shūichi didn't think he needed to be too concerned about the murder.
Ichijō Mirai answered, "Oh."
He propped his chin up and thought for a few seconds, "Another plane has landed."
Akai Shūichi looked sideways, his hand pulling up a surveillance camera where the plane could be seen from afar, his eyes settling on it, "It's a plane coming from Los Angeles to New York."
Raising an eyebrow, he picked up a pre-printed passenger list from the side and handed it to Ichijō Mirai, "There's someone we both recognize on this plane."
Huh?
Ichijō Mirai took the list and found that it contained the personal information of all the passengers on the flight from Los Angeles to New York.
Each page was devoted to a single passenger, a large list of names with small print, like a job application file, and in the upper left-hand corner of each page was a photograph of the passenger, not a mug shot, but something like a snapshot or a color security camera screen shot, with a small line underneath briefly describing the passenger's clothing and attire.
Ichijō Mirai's fingers ran over the black pages, opened them up, and realized that the first passenger marked in black was the person Akai Shūichi had described as his acquaintance: the man who had been killed by the serial killer.
The actress who had been targeted by the serial killer.
In the photo, she was at the airport, looking like she was about to board a plane, wearing a black irregular-skirted dress with a black belt around her slim waist, a large hat on her head, and only half of her beautiful, reserved face showing.
She is smiling at a fan, signing autographs in her hand, with the light of a flash from the photo shoot on her body.
The person who took this picture was among the fans.
It could have been taken by the FBI disguised as a fan, or the FBI could have found it in a photo posted by a fan.
After a few seconds of looking at the photo, Ichijō Mirai thoughtfully flipped through the pages to the next black labeled page and found a middle-aged man dressed in a black suit, wearing a bowler hat and a cane, with only the lace folded up at the neckline, a square scarf at the lapel, and a necktie in a non-black outfit.
In the photo, he is undergoing the security check with his arms wide open, only the side of his face is exposed, apparently not noticing that someone is photographing him.
There's no flash this time, so it looks like the person taking the photo isn't as dumb as a lizard, but is a normal person.
Ichijō Mirai flips to a third blacked-out profile page, curious: "Going to the trouble of photographing passengers as they board the plane, do you think Belmode wears black clothing?"
If his memory of the last few months had been erased, he would have raised an eyebrow in surprise and said it was impossible.
Stupid criminals were caught long before they became international criminals, especially ones who wore distinctive clothing all the time.
But thinking about Gin...
I think of Gin, who wears a suspicious black trench coat whenever and wherever he goes, even to places like amusement parks, and who has made the organization's stealthy Man in Black style known to all, despite the fact that parents passing by may be wary of the "this guy is a criminal" look around their children, and who wears black clothing even in his sleep.
I also thought about Belmode who had just appeared: dressed in a black suit.
"..." Ichijō Mirai rephrased, "Indeed."
He nodded convincingly, deeply impressed by Akai Shūichi's genius idea, "No wonder you're the FBI of this world... you really do specialize in your field, and know exactly how criminals of this world think."
"You're a gentleman of compliments," Akai Shūichi glanced over, 'You always have a way of saying compliments in a derogatory way, very few people can get that 'complimented, but also scolded' thing just right."
"That's not true," Ichijō Mirai said modestly, "not as true as you are when it comes to the members of your organization."
Then he asked, "You showed me this lady specifically because you thought?"
That Belmode would disguise herself as the actress?
Because that actress had met Akai Shūichi and had dealt with the FBI, if Belmode was on the plane, after getting off the plane and 'discovering' the traces of the FBI, would he deliberately pretend to be someone the FBI had contacted out of provocation?
"I don't know much about Belmode, I can only sketch a one-sided, thin impression," Akai Shūichi said lightly, 'that thin impression tells me 'she's a person who doesn't skimp on enjoying excitement'."
There was just one problem: the two members of the organization he knew so far were, to put it nicely, hedonists who would enjoy the thrill of it, and, to put it bluntly, lunatics who would pull in the hate value.
There are a lot of people like that in the organization... After all, it's the 'organization behind Satan', so it's normal that there are a lot of organization members who are happy to lick the edge of the sword... Maybe they're all bloodthirsty maniacs like Satan, that's why the secrecy is so airtight because the bloodthirsty maniacs made the witnesses pass away...
Ichijō Mirai was right in front of her, Akai Shūichi's face didn't change, as if she wasn't thinking about anything, thinking hard about the enemy, "I think, there's a certain possibility that, after finding out about the FBI, she'll provoke them instead of retreating."
"At the very least, she'll try to silence me and Jodie."
An airport ambush. Obviously, they know about Division. Of course they want to silence them.
...But since almost everyone in the world knows about the existence of the 'Satan Organization', there's no need to silence them, is there?
Akai Shūichi remained unchanged, "I don't think it's very likely, but just in case, I've made preparations."
I'm prepared because I don't know Belmode, but I know you."
"If, however, you were my colleague," Akai Shūichi added, "which, of course, you are."
"You're good, brilliant, could easily fulfill all the tasks of your superiors, and, if serious about solving the case, could even reduce the time it takes to solve a case in New York to one-half or one-third of the current level,"
"So," He said, "every second you're not there, I get a little uneasy, you're out of my sight and out of my mind for more than a day, I get uneasy and wonder what you're up to, for more than a month, I'll look into what you're up to, for more than half a year, I'll..."
After a pause, Akai Shūichi didn't go on, saying only, "I won't be able to stop watching you."
This is a very polite, very intelligent Mr. FBI.
Ichijō Mirai translation: you're so upside down, so out of anyone's field of vision, so upside down that your coworkers, including Belmode, are probably watching you, and since they're watching you, there's a good chance they know you're dealing with the FBI, and will be aware of the Actress Lady's presence, and will be more inclined to play the Actress Lady, whom she's more familiar with, than the other strangers on the plane.
"..."
Nice euphemism, but don't use it next time.
That's slander!
What's wrong with more than six months?
He hasn't done what he wants for over half a year! Isn't he a friendly player?