No one understands the laws of Collider better than me.

Is it a chronic viral infection...?

In other words, Kikuta was infected with the virus before the police arrived to protect him. His illness at this point was likely preordained by the person who infected him, so that they could leave the fortified area and go to the unsuspecting hospital.

Kitahara Masaki sighed. If he were the one in charge here, he would watch Mr. Kikuta slowly die. But now Amuro Tooru is here too. Whether or not Kikuta is transferred is not up to him, but up to the higher-ups of the Metropolitan Police Department and the National Police Agency.

The higher-ups, of course, wouldn't allow Mr. Kikuta to live and die in such a way. Upon receiving Kitahara Masaki's report, they immediately ordered them to escort Mr. Kikuta to the hospital.

Kitahara Masaki didn't ride in the same car as Amuro Tooru, but instead with Koshimizu Nanatsuki. This deputy had already noticed Kitahara Masaki's lack of interest in this series of cases and asked:

"Inspector Kitahara, you don't seem very interested?"

"Sigh—I worked so hard to investigate the case before just to help that kid Takagi get revenge, but now I realize that nobody is paying attention to Takagi's case anymore."

"That was unavoidable. With so many presidents and entrepreneurs of large companies dying, the Metropolitan Police Department would have paid more attention to protecting them, not to mention that there were two assassins like Napoleon."

"Hmph! Those who died were nothing but sycophantic good-for-nothings. Takagi is much more important than them."

Hearing Kitahara Masaki's inappropriate words, Koshimizu Nanatsuki didn't say anything, but the corners of her mouth couldn't help but turn up in a smile. After all, a boss willing to protect his subordinates is a rare breed in Japan, especially since he's the man Koshimizu is in love with.

However, after saying his angry words, Kitahara Masaki still had that poker face that showed no emotion when he got off the bus. After checking the identities of the hospital's doctors and nurses with Amuro Tooru, he pushed Kikuta into the operating room to wait for the surgery.

Chapter 342 Rum, who wanted to fish in troubled waters

"Speaking of which, how did he contract the chronic virus? Didn't the Metropolitan Police Department send people to protect him after Napoleon left behind his photograph?"

Kitahara Masaki shook his head at Amuro Tooru's question. He didn't know how Rum had infected Kikuta, and he still didn't know where Rum was hiding.

"Why don't we ask his wife? I think she might know some clues."

While waiting for the doctor to treat him, the two of them found Mrs. Kikuta, who was crying and sobbing. The jewelry she wore was not beautiful at all. Just as Kitahara Masaki was about to ask her a question, the lady was still giving him flirtatious glances, as if she was trying to hint at something.

Upon witnessing this scene, Kitahara Masaki naturally followed Conan's example and made a hasty exit to relieve himself, leaving Amuro Tooru to question him.

After the lady finally left, Kitahara Masaki returned to his room and asked if he had obtained any clues.

"Mr. Kikuta has been staying at home most of the time recently, but before Osamu Kasai was assassinated, a strange thing happened. When the presidents of those big companies were having tea, the fire protection system suddenly malfunctioned, and the fire sprinklers on the ceiling made everyone present wet."

Kitahara Masaki nodded. So Rum had started planning this long ago.

"It seems that the fake Napoleon infected all the targets with a virus with an incubation period in advance by using fire sprinklers. He used a vicious method to gain an advantage in the duel with the real Napoleon."

"Yes, although it's a clue, so much time has passed that we probably won't find anything out. Now we can only wait for those two Napoleons."

"Hehe, we may not even be able to wait for them. In the end, this goal is no longer important. What matters most to them is whether the other party can disappear."

This is the most troublesome thing now. Unlike before, when he could disappear briefly, eliminate his target, and then reappear, Amuro Tooru by his side wouldn't give him any chance.

What's more troublesome is that he doesn't know if Rum will use the same methods to assassinate him again. If he has planted a lot of explosives at the hospital in advance, even if Kitahara Masaki can sense the danger, he won't be able to prevent a large-scale explosion.

It's unclear whether they're waiting passively for something to happen or just waiting to be killed.

Two hours later, the doctor came out of the operating room and said that Kikuta's condition had stabilized. He had thought the two police officers in charge of guarding him would be happy, but both Kitahara Masaki and Amuro Tooru had a blank expression. For them, it would be easier if Kikuta died sooner, so they could go home and continue doing what they wanted. Now they still had to keep an eye on this guy who was never a good person to begin with.

"Hehe, Mr. Sasao, it seems we'll be staying here for quite a while."

"Yes, I wonder if Officer Kitahara has ever had the experience of being a SP for someone else?"

"Yeah! Where did all the real Security Police go?"

"Most of the SP's top officers were forced to resign due to a previous failure. Because of their negligence, a former prime minister was assassinated, so basically the police in the SP department have been labeled as incompetent."

Oh—then he should thank the top Graves player in the Japanese server.

"Sigh, I have more important things to do."

"Does Inspector Kitahara have another case on his hands?"

"No, it's just that I haven't gone on a trip with my girlfriend in a long time, so I originally wanted to ask for leave, but the higher-ups assigned this task to me instead. I was even thinking that Napoleon might be able to—"

Rumble rumble—

Just as Kitahara Masaki and Amuro Tooru were chatting, the noise downstairs suddenly became louder, as if a lot of people were rushing into the hospital.

The two men exchanged a glance and used the radio to check on the situation downstairs with their men.

"Chiba, what happened?"

"Inspector Kitahara! There are so many patients flooding into the first floor now, we can't stop them from checking each one individually."

"Ask the patients what happened, and then go to the city to find out if there was any accident."

"Yes!"

The police are quicker to grasp the situation in the city. They arrived quickly to report the current situation: a restaurant had a mass food poisoning incident, a shopping mall had caught fire, and a drunk man had injured several passengers at a nearby station.

Amuro Tooru naturally understood that this was the work of the imposter Napoleon, but he wondered how the real Napoleon, who did not want to involve others, would respond.

Kitahara Masaki saw the flicker in his eyes and naturally understood that he wanted to talk about Napoleon. However, Kitahara Masaki did not want to pretend to be a middle-aged European man and play some kind of vigilante this time. His only goal this time was to deal with Rum!

At this time, several police officers were guarding Kikuta's ward, and the ward was crowded with patients who had poured into the hospital. Basically, there was not a single empty bed in the huge Beika Hospital.

Whether Rum managed to sneak in or not remains to be seen and requires a thorough investigation by the police.

Many terrified patients thought they had encountered another terrorist attack, but Kitahara Masaki patiently explained to them that it was just a coincidence that several things had happened at the same time. After seeing the police officer patiently explain things to them again and again, the patients finally calmed down and accepted their treatment.

In less than a day, almost everyone knew that Kitahara Masaki was at Beika Hospital, which meant that he had to deal with the enthusiastic crowds most of the time. Moreover, the number of people coming to the hospital was terrifying, so the task of guarding Kikuta fell on Amuro Tooru's shoulders.

However, this was a plan decided after Amuro Tooru and Kitahara Masaki discussed it. One of them was in the open, and the other was in the dark. For Amuro Tooru, this was an opportunity to capture two assassins at once. As for Kitahara Masaki, this was an opportunity for him to capture Rum.

Rum was also a patient man, and he didn't make any moves for a whole week, only keeping the hospital at full capacity. However, Kitahara Masaki could endure even longer than him. After all, unlike Rum, he wasn't determined to find Napoleon, who had caused the organization's many missions to fail. He was just a happy mole.

On the eighth day, Kitahara Masaki saw someone. He greeted the patients around him with a smile and pressed the send button on his phone. Ai Haibara, who was at home, saw the person Kitahara Masaki had told her to be careful of through the security camera.

Chapter 343 Shuichi Akai is too scary to look at.

That person was Kusuda Rikumichi, the absolute loyalist of the organization throughout the entire Conan series. He committed suicide when he saw that the person chasing him was Akai Shuichi. It can be said that he was so frightened by Akai Shuichi that he committed suicide. He was truly a man of "unyielding spirit".

He touched his bandaged neck, but didn't wander around the hospital. He had already received Rum's intelligence and orders. Rum had already found out which ward Kikuta was in and ordered him to kill Kikuta tonight in conjunction with other organization members in the hospital.

Although Rum found Kikuta's ward, he couldn't just fire an RPG into it. After all, his goal was to deal with Napoleon, who always ruined things for the organization, not to kill a capitalist who was already terrified.

Therefore, in order to lure out the real Napoleon, he had to give up the weapons of mass destruction and send his lower-ranking members to scout ahead. If they could find out where the real Napoleon was, that would be the best outcome. If not... then Rum would have no choice but to take the risk.

After seeing Kusuda Rikudo, Kitahara Masaki knew that Rum had finally lost his patience and sent these cannon fodder characters to scout ahead. Unfortunately, one of them was an unlucky guy who had been scared to death by Akai Shuichi and was recognized by Kitahara Masaki at a glance. So Kitahara Masaki wanted to see how Rum was going to force him to take action.

While talking to the patients, Kitahara Masaki slowly approached Kusuda Rikudo and used the hacking software developed by Ai to forcibly pair Kusuda Rikudo's newly purchased phone. Soon, Kitahara Masaki saw Rum's order to Kusuda, pondered for a while, and then put away the phone without warning Amuro Tooru.

Night fell quickly, and a four-man squad, wearing night vision goggles and carrying silenced pistols, crept toward Kikuta's hospital room.

These four people would be considered important even in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, but they were no match for the dream team of Kitahara Masaki, Amuro Tooru, Akai Shuichi, and Conan. Just as the four were about to sneak over, Akai Shuichi, who was lying in the hospital bed pretending to be a patient, was awakened. With his sharp eyes, he didn't need night vision goggles to see someone sneaking out of the ward.

Conan, who was living with the other children, was also suddenly awakened by his intuition. After putting on his glasses, he saw members of the organization walking past his hospital room.

Not to mention Kitahara Masaki and Amuro Tooru, who were prepared in advance. The two had already pressed themselves against the wall, exchanged a glance, and then pulled out their Taser guns. Skilled and daring, they were naturally not afraid of actual combat. The most important thing now was to prevent innocent civilians from being affected and to catch these guys who dared to use guns in the hospital.

Kitahara Masaki waved his hand, and Amuro Tooru, who understood his meaning, pushed open the door. Then, the two of them, back to back, slid off the ground together, holding up their riot shields.

The members of the organization who launched a sudden counterattack were only carrying a silenced pistol, so the bullets they fired sparked as they hit the riot shield. The next second, they were shocked by the Taser and convulsed, then passed out.

"There are very likely more than just these two people."

"Hmm, but I didn't expect one of the Napoleons to have hired an assassin. It seems he was the fake one."

"Haha, that's true."

After dealing with the two assassins, they heard another strange noise coming from the corridor, coming from the two wards on either side.

Amuro Tooru made a gesture, and then the two of them went to check what was happening at the source of the sound. They both found a person who had fainted.

"These two men were also masked and were carrying silenced pistols."

"It seems there are other people in this hospital besides us. And the fact that he doesn't kill anyone other than his target must be the real Napoleon."

The two men, after a thorough search, quickly found listening devices on the two assassins who had fainted in front of other rooms. Kitahara Masaki shook his head at Amuro Tooru, and the two then turned the tables on them, tying up all four assassins and throwing them into another room guarded by the police.

Just after Kusuda Rikudo regained consciousness, he saw a group of shirtless men staring at him, which made him tense up. He thought he had wandered into the wrong film set and gone to another parallel world after drinking red tea.

The police began to interrogate the four assassins, but no matter what they asked, the four remained silent. After all, as members of the Red Team, Amuro Tooru and Kitahara Masaki could not use torture to extract confessions. However, they were not in a hurry. They could interrogate them slowly after they were sent to the police station.

"No need to rush, I can take you to stay with the police chief tomorrow."

One of the police officers flexed his muscles and told Kusuda Rikudo what names each of his muscle groups had been given.

"Which of you has a name associated with alcohol?"

The four assassins were thirsty and hungry, so a policeman performed a water-drinking trick in front of them, swallowing an entire bottle of mineral water in one go. Then he opened a fragrant instant hot lunchbox and ate it heartily right in front of them.

"Don't even think about it. These handcuffs are so tough that even if you twist your own arm like in the movies, you couldn't break free. So let me take a good look at how you guys are developing."

The third policeman groped them, intending to show them something nice, but even so, the four assassins still didn't confess anything.

The police officers Gan Wen and Cui Shan were defeated, which is quite absurd that these low-level members were all die-hard loyalists to the organization.

"What do you think we should do next?"

Kitahara Masaki, suppressing a laugh, asked Amuro Tooru while watching the chaotic scene at the Public Security Bureau.

"We have no choice but to move them. These four assassins must be sent to the police station, and Kikuta has recovered, so let's get him to the Public Security Bureau's safe house as soon as possible. It will be too late if that Napoleon, who cares nothing for innocent civilians, starts a massacre."

Amuro Tooru directly requested a transfer from the higher-ups in the Public Security Bureau. Hospitals are difficult to defend because they are crowded and dangerous places. If innocent civilians are affected, the situation will be uncontrollable. Now a Napoleon has made his move. It will be too late if we wait until he throws the bomb in.

The higher-ups finally came to their senses and approved Amuro Tooru's transfer request. As long as Kikuta was transferred to the Public Security Bureau's safe house, it would mean the end of this security mission. Kitahara Masaki had no reason to refuse, so he agreed to the idea of ​​transferring him as soon as possible.

After agreeing on the transfer plan, the police prepared three vans, intending to use them to move the four assassins and one person under protection.

As for the news that the police were to be transferred tomorrow, Conan and Shuichi Akai also learned about it through the bug on the assassin's body.

Chapter 344 I Have Quite a Few Cheat-like Helpers

The three vans set off from the parking lot the next day, and then began a long fishing trip. After driving for a full ten minutes, no one from Rum's side had ventured forward, so Kitahara Masaki immediately sent Vermouth a message that they could proceed.

Soon, three motorcycles caught up, pretending to take out infrared scanners and scan each van. Soon, Rum's lower-ranking members came out in full force, intending to capture all of Napoleon's men who had finally made their move.

"Masaki, with this number of pursuers, they probably won't be able to escape."

Vermouth's subordinates were naturally 'quasi-criminals' collected from all over Japan. Most of them were criminals like Rinka Nishitani who had been suspected or even forced to kill for some reason. Even though they had been trained by Vermouth for a period of time, they were still no match for the lower-level members recruited by the organization.

Kitahara Masaki remained silent. These people were originally his 'helpers' whom he had recruited to destroy the organization. Even if they were captured, they would not be able to reveal any information about Kitahara Masaki.

However, it would be too pitiful to use them as bait and expendable pawns.

Kitahara Maki was sitting in the third van, while the drone scouted the area around the first and second vans.