The "Cocoon" Launch Event, Part 2
The adults standing beside them had seen the whole thing too. Watching the other children around the hall still roughhousing and kicking a soccer ball back and forth, Mouri Kogoro remarked, "These kids certainly have energy to burn. Then again, aren't there an awful lot of children at the venue today?"
He gave the children around them a once-over, then poured himself a glass of wine, took a sip, and went on with a note of feeling. "The Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner's grandson, the grandson of a financial magnate, a politician's son — the second and third generations who'll be carrying Japan's future on their shoulders have all turned up here, just about."
"It's practically a miniature of Japan's ugly hereditary system..." Haibara muttered.
Kogoro, Ran, Sonoko, and Xia Yu, who stood close by, all turned their heads at her words and fixed Haibara Ai with startled stares for coming out with something like that.
"And along with that hereditary system, humanity's mistakes will keep repeating themselves, over and over..." Haibara seemed entirely oblivious to the odd looks being cast her way, finishing her opinion as though she were simply thinking aloud.
Xia Yu eyed her curiously, then couldn't resist griping to Paimon. 'Wow! Haibara put that beautifully — she hit the nail right on the head about this system's fundamental flaw. Though even knowing it, I doubt Japan will ever change.'
"Traveler, why not?" Paimon didn't quite understand. "Why won't they change it if they know the system is bad?"
'Because it works in favor of Japan's upper class,' Xia Yu explained simply. 'And they're the very people who decide how society's resources get handed out — they'd never allow anyone to take too much of what's theirs. The hereditary system does a splendid job of protecting the resources they hold from being snatched away by others, so of course they won't change it.'
'Besides, it's none of our business. As long as Japan's system has nothing to do with the mission, we don't need to bother with it. Honestly, in a sense this system even helps certain gray — and black — organizations grow. Resources and power concentrated in the hands of a few, and those few usually... hmm, Paimon, you know what I mean.' She left it there, trusting Paimon would understand her meaning.
"Traveler, you mean they're usually scared of dying? Or just plain greedy?" Paimon said. "You're right — it really is quite convenient for organizations, huh."
After Haibara finished, silence hung over the group for a while. Conan, judging the atmosphere had grown unbearable, leaned in to Haibara's ear and reminded her that those were not the sort of words an ordinary elementary schooler could produce.
Haibara had no choice but to play the part, chirping in a cutesy, childish voice that she had heard all of it on TV.
Only then did everyone withdraw their gazes with a round of sudden understanding — right, of course. How could a little child have come up with all that on her own?
"But have they really been airing that kind of thing on TV lately?" Ran murmured, recalling the bits of knowledge Conan had claimed to pick up from television during past cases, and half-wondering whether she ought to start paying attention to what children's programs actually showed these days.
Still, she didn't dwell on it. Instead she turned to Sonoko — who had, for once, gone to the trouble of dressing up properly today — and thanked her. "Sonoko, really, thank you for getting us and the kids in here with you today."
"Don't mention it. Honestly, this is as far as I can take you — a look around the venue. There are only fifty badges that let you officially join the Cocoon project's game, and the organizer, the Sindora Corporation, gave the Suzuki Group just the one. Sigh... no way I get to play the game with Ran and Xia Yu now." Sonoko's voice sank with disappointment.
"Um... Sonoko, if you're talking about this badge..." Xia Yu hesitantly lifted her right hand and showed the badge in her palm to Sonoko and Ran, "...then I should have one."
"Xia Yu, how on earth do you have one of those?!" Sonoko was floored. Even she, the young lady of the Suzuki Group, had only managed to secure a single badge — so how had Xia Yu come by one? With all the second and third generations gathered at the venue, not every one of them had a badge either.
Suddenly, something occurred to Sonoko. "Could Miss Ningguang have given it to you?"
Xia Yu nodded, confirming her guess.
"Ahh — Miss Ningguang is so good to you! I wish I were that close with her too." Sonoko's voice dripped with envy.
Conan, meanwhile, said nothing at all.
He was long past being surprised by Xia Yu's connections with those people. If anything, the day she turned out not to know someone wearing a Vision would be the day he'd be astonished.
Still — this was Sonoko he was talking about. Wasn't she usually far more interested in handsome men? It was rare indeed to see her this fond of a woman.
"Sonoko, that's no problem at all," Xia Yu said. "Ningguang should be staying in Japan for a while. Once the launch event is over, you could go see her more often..."
Xia Yu broke off mid-sentence — and then, under everyone's bewildered stares, whipped her head around and slammed a fist into the incoming soccer ball, knocking it straight back to where it had come from.
Bam!
"Oww — that hurts!" The impact was followed by a little boy's pained wail.
Everyone looked over at the sound. A slightly chubby little boy in a formal suit — one who looked a good deal like Genta — was sitting on the floor, craning his head back to keep the blood from his nose from staining his clothes. A soccer ball lay rolling beside him, and three other boys had crowded around to check on him.
Conan saw it at a glance: the boy on the floor must have kicked the soccer ball toward Xia Yu, and been bowled over by the very ball she punched back.
That said, the kid seemed to be suffering from nothing worse than a nosebleed; he ought to be fine otherwise. Facing a child, Xia Yu must have held back a great deal.
Of course, that was only Conan's assessment. His three friends clearly saw it very differently.
The moment their friend's nosebleed finally stopped, the three marched up to the group, introduced themselves briefly, and then demanded that Xia Yu apologize to their friend.
And so everyone finally learned the names of the four boys who had spent the whole event kicking a soccer ball around the hall and turning it upside down: Moroboshi, Kikukawa, Emori, and Takizawa — every last one of them the offspring of famous political or business figures.
Hearing the boys insist, utterly self-righteous, that they had done nothing wrong, and then brazenly demand that Xia Yu apologize exactly on their terms, Xia Yu refused outright.
Just as Moroboshi, the ringleader of the four, was gearing up to start threatening her, the developer of Cocoon, Kashimura Tadaaki, appeared in the nick of time and stopped them in their tracks.
'Paimon, that should be that boy Hiroki's father, right? How did it go — is everything all set?'
"Traveler, don't you worry!" Paimon chirped. "Paimon has already stationed Kokomi near Kashimura. If it comes down to it, she can absolutely keep the man alive."
'That's good.'