Chapter 253
Near the Big Black Building, watching the police cars swarming in, Vodka wanted to speak but hesitated.
This time, it really was thanks to Usuha Izuki's tip-off that allowed them to evacuate in time and blow up that bar... he really couldn't bring himself to say it!
Just thinking about having to thank Usuha Izuki made Vodka feel as if ants were crawling all over his body!
And they still didn't know what happened with Tequila's death. It was so sudden, and no matter how he thought about it, it seemed related to Usuha Izuki. He was still considering whether to report Usuha Izuki to his superiors.
Vodka silently drove the car away. Gin's gaze moved from the police cars as he continued typing on the laptop on his knees, frowning.
Gin used Vodka's account to email Usuha Izuki asking what exactly had happened.
No matter how bad his relationship with Usuha Izuki was now, Gin would suppress his personal emotions when it came to work and try not to let it affect business.
Since Usuha Izuki hadn't hidden anything and directly told them about Tequila's incident, it was only natural for him to inquire about the follow-up.
Usuha Izuki sat in the passenger seat of Matsuda Jinpei's car. After receiving the email, he brazenly replied to the organization member right in front of the police.
[Based on this writing style, this is Gin, right? Why are you using Vodka's email?]
Gin: "..."
Asking the obvious! Why was he using Vodka's email? Wasn't it because his own email had been blocked by Usuha Izuki!!!
Due to years of experience, Gin had developed almost a conditioned reflex to Usuha Izuki. This ordinary reply made him feel his blood pressure rising slightly. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, decided to hand it over to Vodka to handle, and took over driving himself.
Vodka was relegated to the back seat, looking at his boss's head as he drove, feeling somewhat pained.
He didn't want to communicate with Usuha Izuki either!
But the situation being what it was, Vodka could only take over this job, his hands already habitually inserting various patches like "I don't mean xxxx" throughout the main text to avoid being nitpicked by Usuha Izuki.
When reviewing after writing, Vodka couldn't help thinking that this job really could only be done by him. If his boss had continued earlier, he'd probably be angered to death today.
After sending the email, Usuha Izuki didn't reply for a long time.
Just when Vodka was wondering if his email had also been blocked, Usuha Izuki called directly.
"Typing is too troublesome, let's just talk directly."
Usuha Izuki, finally dropped off at home by Matsuda Jinpei, began his daily colleague communication: "Simply put, Tequila was rather unlucky. Two colleagues had a conflict and one wanted to kill the other. The plan was arranged perfectly, but he stuck his nose in where it didn't belong. If he didn't die, who would?"
Vodka: "...I don't understand. What kind of plan exactly?"
"Oh, Tequila's transaction partner was originally supposed to be blown up, but Tequila exchanged cases with him, so Tequila died instead. What do you call acting righteously? This is what you call acting righteously—he really, I'm crying to death."
Vodka understood, though of course he didn't fully believe it. He would still quietly pay attention to the police's version of events later and compare it with Usuha Izuki's account.
This game company was a major corporation. With such a serious incident as an explosion and death at a game launch event, they would definitely hold a press conference to explain.
It felt like Usuha Izuki had no need to lie about something so easily verifiable... it was just that if he believed this version, he could only say Tequila was too unlucky—even one day earlier wouldn't have resulted in this outcome.
"Thank you, I understand. So if there's nothing else..."
Usuha Izuki stopped Vodka's tentative attempt to hang up: "Since Tequila is dead, shouldn't we settle some accounts?"
"...What accounts?"
Vodka's previously relaxed heart tensed up again.
What was the situation? Did Tequila owe Usuha Izuki money he hadn't repaid? That shouldn't be right—these two should have had no contact... oh right, Tequila had bumped into Usuha Izuki today.
Vodka thought he understood: "He's already dead. No matter how he offended you before, when a person dies, it's like a lamp going out. If it wasn't something major, don't hold grudges."
Usuha Izuki was unmoved: "Do you remember when you sent Tequila to tail me a few years ago?"
Vodka recalled and had some impression.
He never imagined Usuha Izuki could hold grudges going back so many years—it had to be five or six years ago!
"I remember. He lost track of you halfway through. Is there a problem?"
During that entire tail job, Tequila never even met Usuha Izuki face-to-face. If even that could offend Usuha Izuki, then Vodka would really think Usuha Izuki was being unreasonable.
"I was dressed so conspicuously and dragging a suitcase, yet he still lost me. I told you at the time that Tequila was incompetent, do you remember?"
Vodka: "..........."
Ah, this—dead memories suddenly began attacking him.
Usuha Izuki sighed: "I used my own personal experience as an example to explain, but you just wouldn't believe it. Now look what happened! The mission failed, and we don't even know how much that transaction partner knew. If you had listened to me earlier, wouldn't this have been fine? My eye for people is so accurate!"
Vodka's grip on the phone tightened.
It wasn't just that the mission had failed—they had even blown up the bar in that building that served as their base as a precaution. The Boss had already been telling his boss to keep a low profile recently, and now this happened again...
Vodka had always acknowledged that Usuha Izuki was accurate at reading people. In previous years, everyone thought he was only inaccurate when identifying undercover agents—either due to personal vendettas or to make it seem like he was working by using an exhaustive method. Now everyone was much more cautious about this.
Now that Usuha Izuki brought this up, Vodka couldn't help but wonder if Usuha Izuki was hinting at something.
As he thought about it, Vodka couldn't help but glance at Gin driving through the rearview mirror, then quickly looked away before the other noticed.
"Tequila couldn't have predicted this kind of thing—that his transaction partner was being targeted for assassination..." Vodka still tried hard to speak up for Tequila.
Usuha Izuki countered: "Where did they usually meet? Couldn't they have conducted the transaction at their usual meeting place? Why choose a game launch event that completely clashed with Tequila's temperament? He's two meters tall and draws attention no matter what he does, yet the transaction process was made so complicated—was he afraid the front desk wouldn't remember him? Why couldn't they use those self-service package storage lockers? If he couldn't think of any of this, what is it if not incompetence?"
Vodka: "................"
Damn, this was somewhat irrefutable. After hearing Usuha Izuki's analysis, he even felt Tequila's death was somewhat self-inflicted!
After all, he knew Tequila and his transaction partner usually met at that bar that he and his boss had just blown up. Thinking about it carefully, if they had chosen that bar, nothing might have happened. At most, the transaction partner wouldn't have shown up—maybe already blown up—but that wouldn't have implicated the organization.
Such a simple solution, yet Tequila insisted on playing games, managing to mess everything up with his fierce-as-a-tiger operations, even dragging him and his boss into it!
—Tequila really deserved to die!
Vodka couldn't help but have such thoughts.
When he realized this, Vodka quickly started chanting in his mind and decided to quickly end this conversation before he was left with only disdain and resentment for Tequila: "I understand. I'll refer to your opinions more in the future."
Only then was Usuha Izuki satisfied and hung up.
Gin frowned: "What did he say? Why should we refer to his opinions?"
This wasn't the first time Gin had heard Vodka talking on the phone with Usuha Izuki. Usually, Vodka was mostly dismissive, rarely making such solemn promises. This made him feel something unexpected had happened.
Vodka sighed: "Refer to his evaluations of organization members... because he said five or six years ago that Tequila was unreliable and incompetent... sigh, thinking about it now, if Tequila was this useless now, how useless must he have been five or six years ago? If we had listened to Botanist earlier, we wouldn't have had to blow up a base we were so used to using... Tequila really got what he deserved."
Gin: "...???"
Wait, wasn't Vodka's attitude changing a bit too quickly?
Before taking the call, Vodka's attitude toward Tequila was still sympathetic, muttering things like "so unlucky, to actually run into Botanist." How did he suddenly become so coldly critical, saying "got what he deserved"?
The entire process was just a phone call with Usuha Izuki lasting less than five minutes!
Usuha Izuki was truly terrifyingly powerful!
Gin alertly warned him: "Be careful, you're being influenced by Botanist."
Vodka paused, then said hesitantly: "This time what Botanist said made quite a bit of sense. The evidence and facts are all laid out, not like before when he couldn't produce anything and just spouted nonsense everywhere... Tequila really did poorly on this mission. Just his choice of transaction method alone shows he doesn't deserve this codename. If we had listened to Botanist years ago and stripped his codename, we definitely wouldn't have assigned this mission to him..."
Gin: "..........."
Had Usuha Izuki evolved? Even Vodka, who usually reflexively resisted whatever Usuha Izuki said, was starting to believe him...
Gin felt a sense of crisis.
At this time, Usuha Izuki, who had just told Vodka he was too lazy to type, had already happily compiled the events into an email and sent it to the Boss, once again proving his eye for people.
After sending the email, Usuha Izuki discovered Bourbon had sent him one that he hadn't had time to read yet.
Earlier, Scotland had said he was busy and asked Bourbon to help with cleaning. Usuha Izuki felt it didn't matter—as long as the house didn't get dusty—so he agreed.
Bourbon's email was asking if he had any free time recently.
Usuha Izuki: [If it's just cleaning, I don't need to be there, right? Don't tell me you can't pick locks.]
[You won't even give me a key? That's really your style. But if you're not there, how do I know what can be touched and what can't? I can't understand Scotland's verbal descriptions, and you have way too many duplicate useless things at home. Really not considering throwing some away?]
Usuha Izuki immediately became alert.
Who dared throw away his props! So what if they were duplicates! Their attributes weren't duplicates!
However, he also knew this was probably Bourbon's way of wanting to meet with him, so he didn't hesitate much and replied directly.
[Let's make it this Saturday then.]
If Bourbon dared to suggest meeting directly like this, he must have intelligence he cared about to tell him, right?
Had something else happened in the organization recently? Surely it couldn't still be about discussing Miyano Akemi's matter? That was ancient history!
Meanwhile, during a break from writing his report, Vodka looked up at the direction Gin was driving and quickly reminded him.
"Boss, you're going the wrong way. We should have turned left back there."
"I'm not going the wrong way. We're going to the research facility to find Sherry now."
Vodka was startled: "Ah, right, Sherry already knows..."
Originally, Miyano Akemi's death was being kept from Sherry, her sister. Since Akai Shuichi's escape, the sisters' meetings, phone calls, emails, and such all required approval, so it wouldn't be exposed for a while.
But Sherry still knew about Miyano Akemi being under investigation and had been very worried about the results. She hadn't seen Miyano Akemi for a long time. Calculating the time, applications for meetings should have been approved, but they were rejected instead.
After making a fuss for a long time, she finally learned that Miyano Akemi was already dead. Sherry was greatly shocked and, after getting up to work for two days, went on strike again.
Vodka asked: "She keeps demanding the truth. Are you sure you want to tell her?"
After all, it was his boss who decided to kill Miyano Akemi!
"There's nothing that can't be said." Gin said coldly. "If she wants to hate someone, let her hate Botanist and the FBI."