Conan: I've been linked to the tech tree system.

Akai's gun barrel instantly turned, the bullet grazing Vermouth's boot heel and embedding itself in the concrete pillar. Toru Tono seized the opportunity to pounce on James, but froze the moment he grabbed his coat—the British man's eyes held no fear, but rather a cunning glint of a successful plan.

“Surprise.” James whispered in a perfect London accent. With the click of a hidden compartment opening, Toru Tohno saw the miniature recording device concealed in his robes flashing red. “Thank you all for your cooperation in completing this counter-surveillance exercise.” He turned to the stunned public security police officers. “Now we can inform Mr. Kazami that the organization is indeed monitoring police channels.”

Shiho Miyano suddenly let out a cold laugh. When Toru Tono turned his head, he found her staring at Shuichi Akai's nape—there was a fresh scratch mark there, faintly visible under his black turtleneck sweater. This detail reminded him of three days ago in the fire escape of the Beika Hotel, when a drunk man claimed to have seen a long-haired man arguing with a blonde woman.

"So this is a joint operation between the FBI and the Public Security Bureau?" Conan's questioning voice carried a coldness beyond his years. "Using ordinary citizens as bait?"

“Ordinary citizens wouldn’t carry a British Army Intelligence Directorate Six encryption device,” Toru Tono suddenly spoke, a thin metal disc he’d swiped from James’s pocket between his fingers. In the afterglow of the setting sun, the crown emblem on the chip’s surface gleamed with a ghostly blue light.

An eerie silence filled the police car on the return journey. Shiho Miyano gazed at the fleeting night view outside the window and suddenly murmured, "I saw that person with the cherry blossom tattoo in the organization's medical records three years ago."

Toru Tono's grip on the steering wheel tightened abruptly. In the rearview mirror, Shuichi Akai's car continued to follow at a leisurely pace, like a cheetah lurking in the night.

“It’s going to rain,” Shiho Miyano suddenly said. Toru Tono then noticed that her hand had been resting on the car radio, the channel frozen on the NHK weather forecast. The girl’s nails were neatly trimmed, the nail beds a sickly pale purple.

As the first raindrop struck the windshield, Tohru heard her murmur, almost drowned out by the sound of the rain: "What are you looking for?"

The question seemed directed at the dozing detective team in the back seat, or perhaps at the FBI agent in the rearview mirror who maintained a safe distance. Toru Tono tapped his knuckles on a photograph hidden in the dashboard—a yellowed photograph showing Elena Miyano holding baby Shiho, with a man in a deerstalker hat adjusting some kind of precision instrument in the background.

The rain intensified, and the moment Toru Tono turned on the windshield wipers, he caught a glimpse of Shuichi Akai's car suddenly changing lanes. The black sedan disappeared at the intersection leading to Tokyo Tower, its red taillights resembling congealed blood.

The roar of the engine tore through the rain as Toru Tono's police car slashed a sharp arc along the highway. The red dot on the car's navigation system flashed incessantly, indicating that the target vehicle was moving towards the mountains of Saitama Prefecture. Shiho Miyano's breathing was clearly audible in the cramped car; she clutched her blood-stained P&A pendant tightly, her knuckles turning white from the pressure.

"Pandacar..." Toru Tono suddenly swerved to avoid the falling rocks. "James is implying the hijackers are driving a police car!"

Conan, sitting in the back seat, instantly realized: "So the traffic accident Officer Takagi mentioned was a diversionary tactic!" He quickly activated his tracking glasses, and a map of the surrounding police presence appeared on the lenses. "The patrol car signal has disappeared three blocks away!"

As if confirming his deduction, a piercing electrical buzzing suddenly came from the walkie-talkie. Vermouth's languid voice, mixed with the sound of rain, came through: "Little detectives, want to see the secret inside the panda's belly?" In the background, there was a faint metallic clanging sound, like the crisp click of a gun being cocked.

Chapter 204

Shuichi Akai's black sedan suddenly darted out from a side road, its windshield wipers flailing wildly against the windshield. Toru Tono caught a glimpse of the emerald ring on his left ring finger glowing eerily, flashing in sync with the GPS device—confirming his suspicions about a transnational tracking device.

"There's a heat source in the tunnel ahead!" Shiho Miyano suddenly pointed to the infrared detector. On the instrument screen, orange-red dots representing the human body were moving inside the tunnel, and one of the dots had an abnormally low body temperature.

Toru Tohno's pupils contracted sharply. Images of the cryogenic hibernation pods he had seen in the Moscow black market three years ago flashed through his mind—equipment the organization used to transport important "cargo." He slammed on the gas, and the police car shot into the tunnel like an arrow, its headlights illuminating the old bloodstains splattered on the walls.

"Stop!" Shiho Miyano suddenly grabbed Toru Tono's arm. At the end of the tunnel stood an overturned Panda police car, a huge swastika drawn in blood on the door. Shuichi Akai's car was parked five meters away, and in the direction he was aiming his gun, three men in bulletproof vests were dragging James toward an armored vehicle.

"Cherry blossom tattoo!" Conan's exclamation was drowned out by the gunshot. The collar of one of the hostage-takers opened during the struggle, and the metallic luster of an electronic chip could be faintly seen under the dark red cherry blossom tattoo—this was the tissue-implanted tracker that Shiho Miyano had seen in the medical records.

Vermouth's laughter suddenly echoed through the tunnel dome. She hung upside down from the ventilation duct opening, her long silver hair cascading like spider silk, a detonator flashing red in her hand: "Guess what I put under the police car chassis?" Before she could finish speaking, Shuichi Akai suddenly turned his gun, the bullet piercing precisely through her right hand holding the detonator.

Tohru Tohno lunged at James, but as she grabbed his coat, she touched cold metal. A miniature recording device slipped from James's arms, playing a chilling excerpt of dialogue: "...37% infiltrated the public security system... codenamed Operation Sakura..."

“Surprised?” James’s eyes gleamed with even more cunning, his pure British accent turning into a Kansai dialect. “This is a Christmas gift from your Metropolitan Police Department.” He suddenly tore off his mask, revealing his true face covered in burn scars—it was none other than the public security undercover agent who died three years ago in a laboratory explosion, Kazami Yuya’s partner at the same time.

Shiho Miyano suddenly trembled violently as memories flooded back. Seventeen years ago, on a rainy night, the cherry blossom-shaped chromosome marker on the genetic map her mother was working on perfectly matched the tattoo she had now. She staggered backward, bumping into Toru Tono's firm chest, and smelled the faint scent of disinfectant on him—strikingly similar to the smell of her father's laboratory from her childhood memories.

"Grab them!" Fake James roared, pressing the remote control. The armored vehicle's roof suddenly flipped open, and the modified Gatling gun began to spin and preheat. Shuichi Akai swung out a grappling hook, wrapping it around Shiho Miyano's waist and pulling her away from the danger zone in the instant the hail of bullets rained down. Toru Tono tackled Conan and rolled behind a load-bearing pillar, bullets exploding in dense sparks on the granite.

Vermouth's laughter, mingled with Russian curses, faded into the distance. Suddenly, Shuichi Akai tossed him a USB drive, his emerald ring sparking at the data port: "The answer you're looking for is inside." He gave Shiho Miyano a meaningful look, then turned and disappeared into the smoke.

The torrential rain poured down, washing away the bloodstains inside the tunnel. Toru Tono gripped the USB drive tightly, a burning pain shooting through his palm. Conan picked up the communicator left behind by the fake James; the last message on the screen sent chills down everyone's spines—"Target C7 has been contacted. Phase two of the APTX plan has been initiated."

As Shiho Miyano gazed at the ashes rising from the wreckage of the armored vehicle, she suddenly recognized the pattern of a certain type of ash. It was encrypted letter paper used by the organization's high command, last seen in the incinerator on the night her sister Akemi was murdered.

“This is not the end.” Toru Tono wiped the blood from her face, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the family photo hidden in her collar. In the rain, the outline of Tokyo Tower was faintly visible, like a giant syringe piercing the clouds.

The doorbell rang at the café, and Tohru Tono placed the packaged tiramisu on the entryway cabinet. Moonlight streamed through the French windows, slanting across the living room and casting a silvery line beside Maya Tachibana, who was curled up on the sofa. The blue light from the television screen flickered on her face, making her usual sweet smile appear somewhat eerie.

"Welcome home~" Tachibana Maya swung her delicate white feet, her bunny ears from her cartoon pajamas trembling slightly with the movement. "Shiho-san is in the lab, saying she's adjusting the degradation formula for APTX4869."

Toru Tohno's fingertips unconsciously traced the bandage on his ankle. A memory suddenly flashed through Shiho Miyano's mind as her trembling eyelashes on the bus, and the lab's combination lock beeped softly. As he turned, he caught a glimpse of Maya Tachibana, her eyelids lowered, her thick eyelashes casting butterfly-wing-like shadows on her cheeks.

The cold light from the negative pressure laboratory seeped through the cracks in the door. Shiho Miyano stood in front of the control panel, the hem of her white lab coat fluttering slightly in the ventilation system. The centrifuge hummed rhythmically, and twenty pale purple reagents were arranged on the test tube rack, refracting an icy sheen.

“Sample from the 17th iteration.” Without turning around, she picked up the silvery-gray powder from the microbalance with tweezers. “Dimethylnitrosamine, a commonly used tissue stabilizer, was detected in the C4 plastic bomb used by the robbers. Conan just sent a scan.”

Toru Tohno's pupils contracted sharply. His memory rewound to the moment of the explosion, to the lower back exposed when Jodie kicked—the outline of an FBI badge should have been there, but now it gleamed in his mind as the cold light of Gin's Beretta gun handle. He reached out and pressed down on Shiho Miyano's trembling shoulder, finding that the holographic projection in front of her was frozen on a microscopic image of a metal fragment, its surface etched with a raven totem under magnification three thousand times.

“The hijacking is a cover,” Shiho Miyano’s voice was like a taut string. “The organization needs to test the applicability of the new miniature detonator in the public transportation system; those stupid hijackers are nothing more than guinea pigs.” She suddenly coughed violently, the test tube rack vibrating and emitting a faint, mournful sound. Toru Tohno then noticed that she was clutching three empty adrenaline syringes in her left hand.

A piercing alarm suddenly blared from the negative pressure chamber. Shiho Miyano staggered backward, the collar of her lab coat slipping down to reveal bluish needle marks below her collarbone. When Toru Tono caught her limp body, he smelled the familiar bitter almond scent—the aroma of APTX4869 metabolites, mingled with the cedar scent in her hair, weaving a deadly web in the red alarm light.

“The accelerated cell division that started three hours ago…” Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the front of his shirt. “We must… find the replacement enzyme for base pair 81…” Her broken words were interrupted by another spasm. Tohru Tohru felt the body in his arms growing cold, just like when he was twelve years old and held his mother’s gradually stiffening corpse.

The negative pressure system suddenly stopped working. A faint metallic scraping sound came from the vent. Just as Toru Tono reached for the ceramic dagger at his lower back, the fire sprinklers on the top of the laboratory activated without warning. Water streamed down Shiho Miyano's pale face, freezing into blood-red raindrops on her eyelashes.

Chapter 205

The sirens ripped through the rain along the Muzu River, and Toru Tono floored the accelerator. In the rearview mirror, Shuichi Akai's black sedan was like a ghost, biting at him fifty meters away, the windshield wipers slicing scorching arcs across the windshield.

"The temperature sensor shows the freezer is moving!" Shiho Miyano's fingers swiped rapidly across the tablet, where a blue dot on the infrared image was moving towards the Saitama mountains at 80 kilometers per hour. Her pale face appeared bluish in the screen's glow, and the cherry blossom stains on the back of her neck were faintly visible beneath her wispy hair.

Conan suddenly grabbed the back of the front seat: "The fork in the road at three o'clock! That's the abandoned Saitama Steel Plant!"

Toru Tono jerked the steering wheel, the tires screeching on the wet road. In a hidden compartment under the passenger seat, a yellowed photograph slid out with the centrifugal force—the image of Elena Miyano cradling a baby appeared and disappeared amidst the bumps. Shiho Miyano's breath caught in her throat; a deep tremor in her veins made her instinctively press her hand to her chest.

"Watch out!" Shuichi Akai's warning blared through the walkie-talkie.

Vermouth's silver motorcycle swooped down from the viaduct, the indigo flames from her modified exhaust pipe leaving streaks of light in the rain. A Molotov cocktail she tossed with one hand traced an arc through the air, and as Toru swerved to avoid it, he caught a glimpse of pale blue pills mixed in with Genta's vomit in the back seat—the same ones that had disappeared from the vitamin bottle at Professor Agasa's house three days earlier.

“An improved version of APTX?” Shiho Miyano’s voice was like a taut string. She quickly took a sample and sealed it, but froze when her fingertips touched the engraving on the surface of the pill—it was a unique mark she had left in the tissue laboratory when she was a child.

Shuichi Akai's car suddenly accelerated and blocked his way. As Toru Tohno slammed on his brakes, he saw the disguised police car rush into the rusty factory gate. With a deafening crash as the iron gate slammed shut, the emerald ring on Akai's left hand and the miniature receiver in Toru Tohno's pocket watch suddenly resonated, emitting a high-pitched buzzing sound.

"Electromagnetic lock!" Conan's retractable harness hooked onto the fence railing. "Give me thirty seconds!"

Shiho Miyano stopped the Detective Boys, saying, "The thing on the wall is a modified version of a high-voltage electric grid; touching it will trigger a neurotoxin spray." She tore open the bandage on her sleeve, revealing a miniature decoder implanted in her wrist, her pale fingertips tapping rapidly in the rain. Toru Tono noticed that the frequency she had cracked was perfectly synchronized with the vibration frequency of Akai's ring.

The moment the iron gate swung open, Vermouth's laughter echoed from above. Hanging upside down from the gantry crane, the red glow of the detonator in her hand illuminating the faintly visible electronic cherry blossom tattoo on her collar: "Guess what surprise I put in the freezer?"

Akai's bullet grazed her ear, but when it struck the steel cable of the gantry crane, it sparked an eerie flame—the color of the special metal made Tohru Tono's pupils shrink sharply. Seventeen years ago, in the Munich military factory bombing, this kind of steel cable containing scandium alloy caused three hundred casualties.

"Watch out for the cargo container!" The moment Toru Tono tackled Shiho Miyano, a ten-ton steel coil crashed down. Akai's grappling hook tangled around the refrigerated container, his emerald ring sparking brilliantly against the steel cable. Amidst the deafening clang of metal, Tono heard Conan's exclamation—a top-secret MI6 document slipped from James's jacket, blood seeping from the "Sakura Project" in the header.

The hostage-taker, disguised as a policeman, suddenly ripped open his uniform, revealing a full-back cherry blossom tattoo that glowed in the rain. Shiho Miyano's pupils contracted sharply as memories flooded back—the bionic skin samples embedded with sensors on her mother's lab table perfectly overlapped with the electronic petals dancing before her eyes.

“Gene receptor…” She staggered back, feeling the warmth of Tohru Tono’s body against her waist. The faint smell of disinfectant on the man subtly overlapped with the scent of her father’s laboratory.

Akai's gunshot rang out again, the bullet precisely piercing the chip in the back of the hostage-taker's neck. Vermouth seized the opportunity to throw a smoke grenade, and Toru Tono, through the thick smoke, touched the frost on the surface of the freezer; the extreme cold instantly made his fingerprints stick to the metal surface. Shiho Miyano's scream and Conan's roar rang out simultaneously—behind the glass window of the freezer, Akemi Miyano's pale face was thawing.

"Cell viability 92%..." Shiho Miyano's monitoring instrument beeped. "They used APTX-4869 for cryogenic dormancy!"

Tohru Tohno's pocket watch suddenly vibrated, and the moment the hidden compartment popped open, Akai's ring and the photo frame inside lit up simultaneously. The handwriting left by Elena Miyano appeared in the rain: "When cherry blossoms bloom on the snowfield, take her to see the truth."

"Get down!" Akai roared as the shockwave from the explosion hit. Toru Tono shielded Miyano Shi beneath him and saw the countdown timer on the fake James's chest stop at 00:00:01—it wasn't a bomb at all, but an ultrasonic transmitter.

As the high-frequency sound waves caused everyone to kneel in agony, seven black armored vehicles crashed through the factory perimeter wall. Kazami Yuya's figure, gun in hand, appeared as a silhouette in the headlights, and the cherry blossom tattoo peeking out from the collar of his subordinate behind him mirrored the pattern on the hostage-taker's body.

With a shout of "Police investigation!", Akai suddenly shoved the freezer into Tohno's arms. In the instant their bodies touched, Tohno saw the scratch marks on the back of Akai's neck—the shape of Vermouth's fingernails was exactly the same as the ones seen in the Beika Hotel's surveillance footage.

"Take her away!" Akai's lips were drowned out by the roar of the propellers. Toru Tono looked up and saw the organization's helicopter hovering low, with Chianti's sniper rifle already locked on Shiho Miyano's forehead at the cabin door.

The torrential rain pounded against the glass curtain wall of Tokyo Tower, and Toru Tono's keyboard left afterimages in the dark room. In the holographic projection, the resonance data of Akai's ring was overlapping with the MI6 file provided by James, and Shiho Miyano's blood sample separated into strange pale gold layers in a centrifuge.

"The truth about Project Sakura..." He pulled up a scanned copy of his mother's experimental log, and the record from March 17, 1974, suddenly began to self-delete. Toru Tono quickly inserted the key containing the scandium alloy chip, but a warning box popped up on the screen—dual biometric authentication was required.

The basement door suddenly opened, and Shiho Miyano walked in carrying coffee. Her loose collar revealed a cherry blossom-red mark on her collarbone. "Your temperature has risen another 0.3 degrees," Toru Tono tossed over an infrared thermometer. "The APTX antibody is engulfing the modified genes."

“It’s better than becoming a test subject.” She inserted the USB drive into the terminal, and the monitoring footage from Akai instantly filled all six screens. In the footage, Kazami Yuya was having a secret conversation with Vermouth, and the cherry blossom tattoos on their wrists formed a complete electronic circuit.

Toru Tono suddenly zoomed in on a certain pixel: "Look at the police station's digital clock." Shiho Miyano squinted—the time reflected on the glass was 17 minutes ahead of the actual time, which was exactly the time difference between when Koji Haneda was murdered.

“They’re replicating the murder from seventeen years ago…” Shiho Miyano’s fingertips traced the frozen APTX sample, “but this time they’re using…”

“Live gene recombination,” Toru Tono continued, pulling up a scan of the cryo-incubator. At Akemi Miyano's heart location, a miniature infusion pump was releasing a pale blue liquid. “The tissue disguised the APTX Phase II agent as platelet preservation fluid.”

The alarm suddenly blared, and all the screens flashed red simultaneously. Conan's location signal appeared on the Tokyo Tower observation deck, followed by thirty moving heat sources. Toru Tono grabbed the electromagnetic pulse device disguised as a pen and glimpsed Shiho Miyano injecting an inhibitor into her wrist—the needle holes were arranged in the shape of cherry blossoms.

“It’s time to close the net.” Shiho Miyano ripped off the voice changer from around her neck, her hoarse voice suddenly transforming into a cold, piercing female voice. Toru Tono’s pocket watch snapped open at that moment, revealing his father’s handwriting on the back of his mother’s photograph: “Protect her, until the cherry blossoms fall.”

As they rushed into the downpour, Akai's black sedan was parked on the street corner. James, in the back seat, ripped off his silicone mask, revealing Kiel's haggard face: "Bourbon has already initiated a purge within the Public Security Bureau, but we need Dr. Miyano's genetic key..."

Tohru Tono helped Shiho Miyano into the car, then turned and walked towards the subway station. In the instant they passed each other, Kir heard his whisper, hidden in the rain: "Tell Akai that the ultrasonic waves from the emerald ring will kill him."

Chapter 206

The sirens ripped through the rain along the Muzu River, and Toru Tono floored the accelerator. In the rearview mirror, Shuichi Akai's black sedan was like a ghost, biting at him fifty meters away, the windshield wipers slicing scorching arcs across the windshield.

"The temperature sensor shows the freezer is moving!" Shiho Miyano's fingers swiped rapidly across the tablet, where a blue dot on the infrared image was moving towards the Saitama mountains at 80 kilometers per hour. Her pale face appeared bluish in the screen's glow, and the cherry blossom stains on the back of her neck were faintly visible beneath her wispy hair.

Conan suddenly grabbed the back of the front seat: "The fork in the road at three o'clock! That's the abandoned Saitama Steel Plant!"

Toru Tono jerked the steering wheel, the tires screeching on the wet road. In a hidden compartment under the passenger seat, a yellowed photograph slid out with the centrifugal force—the image of Elena Miyano cradling a baby appeared and disappeared amidst the bumps. Shiho Miyano's breath caught in her throat; a deep tremor in her veins made her instinctively press her hand to her chest.

"Watch out!" Shuichi Akai's warning blared through the walkie-talkie.

Vermouth's silver motorcycle swooped down from the viaduct, the indigo flames from her modified exhaust pipe leaving streaks of light in the rain. A Molotov cocktail she tossed with one hand traced an arc through the air, and as Toru swerved to avoid it, he caught a glimpse of pale blue pills mixed in with Genta's vomit in the back seat—the same ones that had disappeared from the vitamin bottle at Professor Agasa's house three days earlier.

“An improved version of APTX?” Shiho Miyano’s voice was like a taut string. She quickly took a sample and sealed it, but froze when her fingertips touched the engraving on the surface of the pill—it was a unique mark she had left in the tissue laboratory when she was a child.

Shuichi Akai's car suddenly accelerated and blocked his way. As Toru Tohno slammed on his brakes, he saw the disguised police car rush into the rusty factory gate. With a deafening crash as the iron gate slammed shut, the emerald ring on Akai's left hand and the miniature receiver in Toru Tohno's pocket watch suddenly resonated, emitting a high-pitched buzzing sound.

The rusty iron gate slowly opened under the action of the hydraulic system, allowing Toru Tono to see the three Panda police cars parked inside the factory area. The trunk of one of them was slightly open, revealing half of the metal shell of a refrigerated compartment. Suddenly, Shiho Miyano's tablet emitted a piercing alarm—indicating that Akemi Miyano's vital signs were fluctuating violently.

"They've initiated a rapid defrosting process!" Her nails dug deeply into her palms. "Exceeding the threshold will trigger cell breakdown!"

Shuichi Akai suddenly swung his grappling hook and climbed onto the factory roof, while Toru Tono burst in through the side door. The rusted steel frame groaned beneath his feet, and he saw two men in bulletproof vests escorting James toward the central furnace. The cherry blossom tattoo on the collar of one of them gleamed electronically under the searchlight, identical to the insignia of Yuya Kazami's subordinates in the Public Security Police.

"Watch out for electromagnetic pulse!" Shiho Miyano's warning came a step too late. Toru Tono's tactical watch suddenly went black, and his pistol vibrated abnormally—the bullets in the magazine were magnetized and attracted to the chamber. The criminal disguised as a police officer raised his modified electromagnetic rifle with a cold smile. In the instant the muzzle flashed blue light, Akai's bullet pierced precisely between his eyebrows.

"Get down!" Toru Tono tackled Shiho Miyano behind the steel beam. Vermouth's long silver hair fluttered in the crane control room thirty meters away, and the detonator in her hand was connected to the emergency system of the cryogenic chamber.

“It’s time for an upgrade.” She pressed the red button, and the glass dome of the cryo-chamber suddenly popped open. Akemi Miyano’s eyelashes trembled, and white mist spilled from her pale lips—a sign that the APTX Phase 2 drug was vaporizing.

Shiho Miyano's pupils contracted sharply. Images from seventeen years ago flooded back: her older sister holding her hand as they waited outside the laboratory, her mother, Elena Miyano, adjusting genetic maps behind bulletproof glass, and her father, Atsushi Miyano, wearing the same cherry blossom pendant on his pocket watch chain.

"Antibody serum!" She suddenly ripped open the metal case she carried with her. "Tono, buy me ninety seconds!"

Toru Tohno rolled to avoid the hail of bullets, his electromagnetic pulse device exploding into blue arcs of electricity amidst the thugs. Akai's sniper rifle fired in bursts from above, each bullet precisely severing the IV lines in the cryo-chamber. Conan's retractable harness entangled itself in the crane's steel cable, his soccer belt gathering power in his palm.

Vermouth's laughter suddenly froze. She watched as Shiho Miyano injected the pale golden liquid into her sister's vein, the blue light of the APTX drug gradually receding within Akemi's body. "This is impossible..." The Thousand-Faced Witch showed panic for the first time, "Elena's original data clearly..."

“Mother foresaw your tampering long ago.” Shiho Miyano’s fingertips traced the frost on the surface of the cryo-chamber; the seemingly chaotic scratches were actually genetic code left by Elena Miyano. “The real Sakura Project is an antibody, not a weapon.”

Toru Tono's pocket watch popped open at that moment, and the words on the back of the photo emerged in the moonlight: "When cherry blossoms bloom on the snowfield, the truth will eventually break through the ice." He suddenly understood why his mother insisted that he study electromagnetic engineering—the design of those intricate circuits was a perfect match for the unlocking mechanism of the cryo-chamber.

The screeching of brakes echoed outside the factory area as seven black armored vehicles surrounded the scene in tactical formation. Kazami Yuya's figure, gun in hand, appeared as a silhouette in the headlights. The cherry blossom tattoo peeking out from the collar of his subordinate behind him was a mirror image of the design on the hostage-taker's body.

With a shout of "Police investigation!", Akai suddenly shoved the thawing Miyano Akemi into Tohno Toru's arms. In the instant their bodies touched, Tohno Toru saw the scratch marks on the back of Miyano's neck—the shape of Vermouth's fingernails in the Beika Hotel's surveillance footage was exactly the same.