The Birth of Cointreau
With everything finally settled, the rhythmic thrum of helicopter blades drifted down from the sky outside the annex — after a long night of turmoil, they could at last leave behind the mansion that had buried so many lives.
As everyone boarded the helicopter, Chidorine Kohide finally couldn't hold back the question she'd been stifling all night. "So, who exactly are you? How do you know the history of the Twilight Mansion in such detail?"
Hearing her question, Morikawa tore his gaze from the window and the receding annex, answering with a resigned shrug. "I already told you — I just happened to be passing through. The only reason I know any of this is that an elder in my family did, and I happened to hear him mention it once."
"I certainly hope you're not deceiving an old woman like me," Chidorine said, making no further challenge. With that, she slid open the helicopter's door and leapt out.
As the others watched in stunned disbelief, Mouri Kogoro jumped right after her — caught Chidorine mid-fall, then unfurled the hang glider on his back, exposing himself as none other than Kaito Kid in disguise.
Aboard the helicopter, once the detectives realized that the "Mouri Kogoro" among them had been Kid all along, their eyes drifted, almost against their will, toward Morikawa. Clearly, they still suspected he had some connection to the phantom thief.
"I keep telling you — I really was just passing through," Morikawa could only reiterate, helpless.
Just how many of the detectives present actually believed him, however, was anyone's guess.
Xia Yu paid no mind to the bickering between Morikawa and the others. Her gaze remained fixed out the window, waiting to witness the moment the Twilight Mansion's outer walls peeled away to reveal the solid gold beneath.
Before long, bathed in the light of the newly risen morning sun, the entire mansion blazed with a dazzling golden radiance. Amid the gasps of everyone aboard, the Twilight Mansion at last revealed its true form.
In the days that followed, the police discovered Morikawa's broken-down car on the road not far from the mansion, along with traces of his footsteps on the surrounding roads — circumstantial proof that seemed to corroborate his story.
Only then could everyone bring themselves to believe that it truly had all been coincidence.
Once his car was repaired, Morikawa exchanged farewells with the detectives and drove off.
On the road, he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket.
He fished it out and glanced at the screen. The caller ID read — Gin. And before that call, several others had gone unanswered; a quick check showed they were all from Gin the previous night, missed because the signal around the mansion had been cut off.
He picked up. "Gin. What's so important that you're calling me out of the blue? And this many times, no less?"
Gin didn't answer. Instead, he asked about the night before. "Cointreau. Where were you last night? Why couldn't anyone reach you?"
Morikawa Sho — Cointreau — gave a small laugh. "Nowhere in particular. Just revisiting an old haunt. I'd heard a group of detectives was going to dig for treasure at the boss's villa, so on a whim I went to watch. Didn't expect them to actually find it, though. You know, back when I first met the boss, he tried to have me dealt with over that very treasure going unfound. Didn't take, of course."
Cointreau's mind drifted back to what had happened at the Twilight Mansion forty years ago — the time he had abruptly appeared in this world with no idea where or even when he was, carrying only a handful of fragmented memories of Xia Yu, from which he could dimly glean that her arrival still lay far in the future.
And when Karasuma Renya, that old man, learned that a complete stranger had materialized out of nowhere in his villa — with the treasure hunt already going badly — he decided to have this uninvited guest eliminated.
What happened afterward, of course, proved just how wrong that decision was. Even in his muddled state back then, Kong was hardly someone ordinary humans could handle. He dealt with the killers sent after him without the slightest effort.
It was then that Karasuma Renya recognized his value — and noticing how precarious Kong's condition was, the old man seized the moment to strike a bargain: Karasuma would provide everything Kong desired, and in exchange, Kong would serve him for the time being.
Knowing he might have to wait a very long while, and having no desire to sit idle in the meantime, Kong agreed without much conviction either way. And so Kong became the Organization's Cointreau.
In the beginning, even while valuing Cointreau's abilities, Karasuma Renya remained wary of him, quietly keeping the man shut out of the Organization's inner circle. Cointreau hadn't minded — after all, at that stage he was merely looking for something to pass the time.
Only when Karasuma Renya noticed that Cointreau's face never changed did he begin to grasp the man's true worth.
Gradually he let Cointreau in on the core operations, granted him ever greater authority, and finally even placed the Organization's European territories under his charge.
Karasuma Renya's aim was obvious: to bind Cointreau ever more tightly to the Organization, until he could never walk away.
In truth, Cointreau suspected that if the old man hadn't known full well he couldn't handle him, he wouldn't have bothered with such a slow, gentle approach — he'd simply have found a way to lay him out on a laboratory table, contributting his body to that obsession with immortality.
Speaking of agelessness, Cointreau's thoughts turned to Vermouth. Her unaging face was, in its way, another product of the Organization's experiments. But sadly, even that hadn't satisfied the old man.
He asked Gin, "By the way — did Vermouth not tell you where I was? I made a point of going to her to get a disguise."
"No, she didn't." The memory of how cagey Vermouth had been yesterday, hinting that Cointreau was off admiring treasure, made Gin's fingers itch. He wanted to punch a few holes through that smiling face of hers.
Seeing that Cointreau was unharmed, Gin moved to hang up. "If you're fine, then hurry back. We have an operation in two days."
"Wait." Cointreau stopped him before he could end the call. He paused a moment, then asked Gin a question. "If someday you had to choose between the boss and me — who would you pick?"
Gin's brow furrowed. He stared at his phone, wondering if he'd somehow dialed the wrong number. "What the hell is wrong with you? First your paranoid delusions, and now your brain's finally checked out entirely?"
Cointreau paid the mockery no mind. "Fine, assume my brain's gone. Anyway, nothing important — I'll hang up now."
"You—" But Gin had already cut the call first.
Listening to the dead tone buzzing in his ear, Cointreau blinked, momentarily caught off guard — then it dawned on him that the single word Gin had spat out before hanging up was his answer.
Cointreau smiled, gratified. So I really am a decent judge of character after all. Those years of mentoring Gin weren't wasted. Turns out I'm still more popular than that old fossil of a boss.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the line, Gin stared at Cointreau's name on his phone screen and thought: Tch. What has the boss done now?