The Terminal Spreads
But seeing that Xia Yu didn't seem inclined to elaborate, Mouri Ran tactfully let it go and pivoted to a new topic instead. "Oh, right — isn't that a Terminal Miss Kamon is wearing on her wrist? I remember it only went on sale recently, and they've been selling out everywhere. I had no idea Miss Kamon had already managed to get one."
At Ran's question, Banba Ryota nodded, looking a little put out about it. "Yeah, they've been flying off the shelves. Tons of people are scrambling to buy them, and Hatsune just had to join the frenzy. It took me forever to snag a matching couple's pair."
He held up his wrist with a flourish, showing off that the Terminal on his arm was unmistakably the twin of Hatsune's.
"Besides, there's no reason for you Mouris to be jealous of us, you know." Banba's gaze dropped to Mouri Kogoro's hand, and he pointed at the Terminal there with a teasing grin. "You've already got one yourself — and more than one, at that. Truly befitting a famous detective, getting one for every member of the family with something this hard to come by. You even splurged on the kid who's living with you."
At Banba's words, Conan instinctively looked down at the Terminal on his own wrist, his expression turning complicated.
The truth was, Mouri-oji-san had never bought it for him.
Given the way the old man burned through whatever spare cash he had, there was no way he'd have money left over for something like this — something that looked so thoroughly unnecessary.
The Terminal had actually been a gift from Xia Yu. Not just the one on his wrist, either — Kogoro, Ran, and every one of the Detective Boys had received one. Practically the whole household.
It had happened the day after they watched the performance in Osaka, when Xia Yu had shown up with a whole pile of Terminals and told them to pick whichever they liked.
Ran had felt awkward about accepting such an extravagant gift from a friend, but Xia Yu had explained that she and Ningguang were friends — she'd gotten all of them at cost, barely spending anything at all.
In the end, Ran couldn't out-stubborn her, and she'd had no choice but to accept the gesture.
Of course, Ran later found a way to give Xia Yu a present of roughly equal value in return, and the friendship between the two had grown noticeably closer ever since.
Within just a few days of getting their Terminals, the Detective Boys had grown completely accustomed to them — these days they used nothing else to keep in touch with each other.
Conan, however, knew that the Jade Chamber behind the Terminal's development belonged to the Teyvat Syndicate, and a sliver of doubt had never quite left his mind. So whenever he exchanged sensitive information with Okiya Subaru, he still relied on their old methods. And Okiya, for his part, did exactly the same.
Now, faced with Banba's half-mocking, half-teasing remarks, Mouri Kogoro proved remarkably unbothered, and he candidly explained where the Terminals in his household had come from.
When he finished, he heaved a long, heartfelt sigh. "Ah, the pace of technology these days is just beyond belief! When I first got mine, I was completely lost — hadn't the faintest clue how the thing worked. This little brat understood it better than I did."
With that, he pressed down hard on the top of Conan's head, earning himself an exasperated eye-roll from the boy.
Banba burst out laughing at the sight.
The two of them traded a few more pleasantries, but before long Banba seemed to grow restless in his seat. He rose, waved a hand at Kogoro, and hurried off in search of fresh company to drink and chat with.
Bourbon, who was serving other guests across the restaurant, appeared to pay the corner no attention — yet a thread of his awareness had never left it, and least of all Xia Yu.
He had, of course, noticed the moment Xia Yu abruptly called out to stop his employer, Kamon Hatsune, on her way out of the room.
Wondering whether some connection existed between the two women that his investigation had somehow missed, he'd then watched them fall into conversation about the Akasha Terminal — and noticed that nearly everyone at that table was wearing one, the little boy included.
Bourbon brushed a finger, almost imperceptibly, over the Terminal on his own wrist — the one provided by the Teyvat Syndicate, then inspected and modified by the Organization. A complicated feeling settled in his chest, leaving a distinctly sour taste.
How was it that these underworld organizations kept outdoing one another in technology, each more formidable than the last?
Since the Jade Chamber had released its product, the official research institutions hadn't even managed to produce a passable low-spec imitation of the finished device.
The one small comfort — and it was a meager one — was that the Black Organization couldn't crack the Terminal's technology either. At most, they could inspect the devices for unauthorized add-ons or slip in a few extras useful for the Organization's operations.
If anything, that only sharpened Bourbon's wariness toward the Teyvat Syndicate.
An organization with technology this advanced, talent stacked upon talent within its ranks, and a working relationship with the Black Organization — mysterious, and entirely beyond anyone's control. If he weren't currently deep undercover within the Organization, unable to make a single careless move, Bourbon would have found a way to approach its people and start digging long ago.
Even stretched thin as he was, Bourbon — no, Furuya Rei — had still managed to arrange for a few Public Security agents to infiltrate the Jade Chamber as a company and gather as much intelligence as they could. As for the other members of the Teyvat Syndicate, he hadn't yet come up with a good way to get close to any of them.
And that man within the Organization — approaching him remained a last resort, an option reserved for when there was no other choice left.