After organizing his belongings, Ritsu rode his motorcycle to Tokyo International Airport.
By the time he arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport, it was around 3 PM U.S. time. If he was lucky, he might even catch a free dinner. American food wasn't exactly great, but they did know how to cook an outrageously expensive steak.
As long as they shaved a generous amount of white and black truffle over it like it was free, someone would definitely end up bleeding money.
Unfortunately, Ritsu's luck wasn't very good. After arriving at the airport half an hour early and finishing the check-in procedures, he noticed Shinichi and Ran excitedly chatting in the waiting lounge.
Why were these two high school students so free that they could casually fly off to New York right after school on a Friday?!
Whenever detectives and police officers got paired together, it always gave him the ominous feeling that he'd be forced into overtime work.
Ritsu decisively turned around and left before they noticed him. After speaking with airport staff, he successfully switched to the next flight.
Stay away from Kudo Shinichi, reject the double buff, eliminate all possibility of overtime.
Only after carefully leaving did he remember that he was currently using Augier's appearance. Even if he sat directly across from Shinichi in broad daylight, he probably wouldn't be recognized.
Sitting in the first-class lounge for the neighboring flight, Ritsu pulled out his phone and called Vermouth, informing her that his arrival time in New York would be delayed by an hour.
The originally scheduled 3 PM arrival became 4 PM. Since it was close to dinner time, Ritsu intentionally skipped the in-flight meal. He unlocked his phone and disabled airplane mode, but the moment the call connected, he heard an apology.
"Why are you apologizing? Don't tell me you're not planning to pick me up at the airport?"
"Yeah, something came up… sorry. I'll treat you to a big dinner tonight, so could I trouble you to head directly to the place mentioned in the email and wait for the little fish to take the bait?"
Hearing Vermouth use the phrase "trouble you" for once was rare enough that Ritsu simply replied, "Oh. I'm hanging up."
After ending the call, Ritsu checked the email that had just arrived late, only to discover that the destination was actually in New York.
"...Is that woman messing with me? Why didn't she say earlier that it was in New York?"
Frowning, he checked the distance from Washington Dulles International Airport to the destination. It would take at least two and a half hours by car.
Ritsu let out a heavy sigh and headed outside with his shoulder bag in hand. To complete the mission, he had no choice but to drive to New York.
Three hours later, after successfully arriving outside the abandoned factory, Ritsu paid the driver with the U.S. dollars he had prepared beforehand. Lowering the brim of his hat as he surveyed the surroundings, he once again took out his phone and called Vermouth. Unexpectedly, the call was answered very quickly.
Ritsu was about to speak when he noticed that the environment on the other end was noisy. There were also sounds of high heels stepping across wooden flooring and more than one pair.
Had Vermouth put her phone in her pocket and switched it to silent mode, causing her not to notice the call had connected?
As Ritsu was feeling puzzled, a somewhat familiar woman's voice came through the phone and it was speaking Japanese.
"Isn't this a little inappropriate? Their performance starts in forty minutes. Isn't it troublesome to bother them like this?"
"Don't worry. The first twenty minutes of the performance will use narration to guide the audience into feeling like the stage itself is the setting of a Greek myth."
The second voice made Ritsu freeze for a moment. It wasn't Vermouth's usual voice, but the voice she used while disguised as Sharon Vineyard.
What was this woman doing? Why had she suddenly disguised herself as Sharon? And that earlier voice… he felt like he'd heard it somewhere before.
Very quickly, he got his answer.
"Um, excuse me… what's that thing hanging from the ceiling?"
"That's a stage costume. It takes up too much space, so we hung it up there."
It was Ran's voice. No wonder it had sounded familiar, that earlier voice belonged to Yukiko, Shinichi's mother. Although he had no idea what Vermouth was doing, Ritsu understood that he could only wait for her to move somewhere appropriate before responding.
But then, shouting and screams suddenly erupted from the other end of the call. Clenching his fists, worry appeared on his face.
'Don't tell me something happened?!'
"Watch out!"
"It's the armor!"
Panicked footsteps rang out everywhere. From the earlier conversation, it wasn't hard to deduce that the stage costumes hanging high above had fallen, and everyone was trying to get out of danger.
"Ahhh! NO—!"
"Ran!"
Bang!
The massive sound of something heavy crashing onto the floor made Ritsu instinctively pull the phone away from his ear. Lowering his voice as much as possible, he asked, "Hey, Vermouth! What happened?"
Amid the chaos, Vermouth finally realized her phone call had connected. The moment she picked it up, she heard the usually calm Augier sounding distinctly anxious.
'This child was actually worried about my safety?'
Seeing that no one was paying attention to her, Vermouth softly replied, "I'll call you later. I'm fine."
The call was abruptly disconnected, leaving Ritsu confused. The person he was actually worried about was the name that Shinichi had shouted. Did that mean Ran had been hit?
After hanging up, Vermouth happened to hear Rose Hewitt say, "Exactly. That mirror is our guardian angel."
Frowning, she walked forward and stood in front of Ran, speaking with displeasure in her tone.
"Have you people figured this out at all?"
As everyone's attention focused on her, Vermouth, still disguised as Sharon Vineyard, pointed toward Ran behind her and sternly said,
"The one you should be thanking isn't the mirror or some god. It should be this girl!"
"Oh!"
The rescued Rose excitedly ran up to Ran, showing a bright smile as she gratefully said, "Thank you! It's thanks to you!"
Ran hadn't expected a famous star to grab her hand, and embarrassedly replied, "It was nothing really. You don't need to thank me."
Seth Lockhart glanced at his gold wristwatch and noticed the time was getting late. "We should prepare to go on stage."
Rose smiled and waved warmly at Ran. "Then let's chat backstage after the performance!"
"Okay!"
Watching the actors leave, Ran only then realized her left wrist hurt a little. Raising it, she discovered she had scraped it while saving Rose.
Shinichi hurriedly searched his pocket for a bandage, but before he could find one, Vermouth had already taken out her handkerchief and handed it to Ran.
"I told you, there's no such thing as gods in this world. If there were, you wouldn't have gotten hurt."
"Huh?"
After handing over the handkerchief, Vermouth walked toward the exit. Her footsteps paused briefly as she slowly said,
"Yukiko, I'll be heading back first."
"Sharon, aren't you going to watch their performance from the audience seats?" Yukiko asked curiously.
"Yeah, I originally planned to."
Vermouth withdrew her gaze. Thinking about what she was about to do, her tone gradually turned cold.
"But something suddenly came up. Tonight, I'm afraid an unprecedented storm is coming… so I'll be leaving first."
Her meaningful words left Shinichi and the others puzzled.
'What exactly did she mean by "an unprecedented storm"?'