Chapter 282: "Mission: Impossible"
Sera Masumi was desperate to distance herself from any connection to her big brother, and she forced a note of casual indifference into her voice. "Besides, having similar eyes is just a coincidence, isn't it? For all we know, plenty of other people out there have eyes just like mine."
"Fair enough. Come to think of it, one of the kids in the Detective Boys has eyes pretty close to yours too, Sera."
Xiayu tossed the remark out idly, and Sera barely registered it — her attention was locked entirely on the question that followed. "Speaking of England, that would be MI6, right? So tell me, Sera — do you have any relatives in MI6?"
Like, say... your mother?
Honestly, the first time Xiayu had learned that Akai Shuichi — the ace of the FBI — had a mother working for MI6, she had found it genuinely staggering. Since when could the immediate family of a single household hold posts in the intelligence agencies of two different countries? Did no one ever stop to wonder whether Akai Shuichi or Akai Mary might leak something?
And then there was the small matter of three siblings under one family carrying three different surnames. In a way, Xiayu had to hand it to Akai Mary — the woman really was something else.
Without acknowledging Paimon's jab, Xiayu widened her eyes at Sera Masumi, as though the question had been nothing more than a passing fancy.
At the sudden mention of MI6, Sera very nearly leapt out of her seat in shock.
She had barely finished hearing about her big brother at the FBI, and now MI6 — the agency her mother belonged to — had come up out of nowhere. If Sera weren't absolutely certain she had never once crossed paths with Xiayu during all her years in England, she might have suspected the woman knew exactly who she was... and knew things no one was supposed to know.
"No way that's possible!" Before Sera could get a word of protest out, Sonoko beat her to it. "Okay, sure, Ran met the FBI just a little while ago, and MI6 is pretty famous in England, but that doesn't mean just anybody living over there knows people from MI6. Am I right or am I right, Sera?"
Sonoko fixed her with a look of utter confidence.
"Y-yeah. You're right, Sonoko." Sera nodded along, smiling stiffly.
Awkward as she felt inside, the relief was very real. Desperate to escape the perilous topic, Sera hastily played up her detective's curiosity and turned to Xiayu. "Oh, that reminds me — Sonoko said you're a detective, Xiayu. Would you mind telling us what kind of cases you've cracked?"
"Wouldn't mind at all." Catching sight of the faint sheen of cold sweat at Sera's temple, Xiayu magnanimously let her off the hook.
Going along with Sera's lead, Xiayu gave a brief rundown of the cases she had solved. "Though most of my commissions are really just finding lost cats. Uncle Mouri is the one who's a true great detective."
"Oh, don't sell yourself short — you're amazing too, Xiayu. There've been plenty of times you've figured out the culprit faster than Dad." If Ran was honest with herself, there were moments when Xiayu really did outshine her father. Dad could be hopelessly unreliable now and then.
"That's a little odd, though," Sera said, tilting her head. "If all that's true, how come I've hardly ever heard your name before, Xiayu?"
The media shouldn't have let a story like that slip through its fingers. Yet before today, Sera had turned up almost nothing about the person called Natsume Xiayu — even though, before setting this operation in motion, she had made a point of digging up everything she could about the people surrounding that Edogawa Conan kid.
"I don't really like being in the spotlight, and a friend of mine is a journalist — she helps keep my name out of the papers, so the media hardly ever covers me." Xiayu offered the explanation lightly, then waved it away. "Anyway, I'm not the interesting one here. The way Sonoko introduced you, I thought you'd be more curious about Uncle Mouri. Didn't you two already agree to head over to the Mouri Detective Agency together after dinner?"
"We did. But honestly? I'm more interested in that Conan kid than in Mouri the detective." At last, Sera had arrived at the question she had been wanting to ask all along. "Back when we cracked that ghost murder case at the Beika Hotel with Ran and the others, I could tell how sharp Conan was. I was really hoping to sit down and have a proper chat with him this time."
"Huh? But Conan went to stay over at Professor Agasa's house with the Detective Boys today, didn't he? I remember Diluc telling me Klee went along too." Xiayu glanced at Ran in question and received a firm nod of confirmation.
"Aww — talk about bad timing..." Sera's shoulders sagged, and her head drooped in disappointment.
She had arranged to meet Ran today with a plan in mind: stop by the Mouri Detective Agency first and quietly observe Edogawa Conan's behavior. Sera was convinced Conan was exactly the person she suspected he was, and she had hoped to use the visit to gather more clues supporting her hunch.
But with the boy absent for the day, Sera found herself wavering — was there even any point in going to the Mouri Detective Agency now?