Rum Arc Discussion Thread (Plot + Characters)

[jason342]

A)the only possible reason i could think of for kohji's dying message, was that it was merely a pure act of desperation, meaning that kohji did not know if anyone would be able to solve the mystery of the murder using his message as a hint, unless he either had a false sense of hope in the japanese police who seem to be fairly incompetent when it comes to sniffing out BO activities (a testament of course to how well the BO clean up leaving no traces, rather than the whole police department being being terrible at their jobs) or he had an outsider as smart as shinchi with the detective personality and wits to see through the smoke shrouding the mystery of the Haneda case (i.e Rumi or kuroda).

c)As to why rum didn't eliminate her as soon as possible, it could be because she was of use to them at the time as she had connections to the american secret service agencies, or simply because the time was not right to eliminate her. Anokata has has history of using his employees to the limit of their usefulness I.e pisco, miyano's and when they exceed that usefulness they are disposed of. Remember Gin originally wanted to kill akemi after she failed to carry out a practically impossible mission, which she ended up succeeding in.The same tactic is used with the miyano's, although we don't know the specifics of whether the silver bullet project was a success for anokata, but after he was done using them their labs were burnt down.

[k11chi]

Desperation can be in many forms. It could have been something very sudden (remember the Masumi-Makoto case where the guy could have survived had he kicked the door open, but instead he tried to stand up while the bathroom stall was filled with water) or the first thing to come to his mind.

[Zerozaki4869]

Spoiler:

The dying message that Kouji was so desperate to write in his last moments (ASACA RUM) makes me even more suspicious of Asaka the bodygaurd.

It's strange, assuming, of course, that Kouji knew Asaka, and that he would highlight their name alongside Rum's. Kouji surely knew that this could lead to a manhunt for Asaka.

I just can't help but think that Asaka could have betrayed him in his final moments, it's quite possible that Kouji overheard Rum's name from Amanda before she was killed (again pure speculation based on the possibility of Amanda having links to the BO) then, at that point, he could have made the connection between Asaka and their code-name RUM.

Besides, like many other people have said, just because Amanda had connections to the CIA and FBI doesn't mean that she wasn't linked with the BO: she could have been an informant for them that exceeded her usefulness.

A) How a code-name of a faceless and unidentified killer would help anymore than the alias which the killer used?(Rum was unknown to both CIA and FBI)
B) Why using the less effective identification (Rum) with more effective identification (Asaka) to obfuscate the whole message?
C) If Rum was Asaka then why Rum didn't kill Amanda earlier? He would have plenty of time to pull it off. Why did he choose such a time of inconvenience?

We don't know whether the FBI and CIA knew Rum or not. We only know that they screwed their job. But we know that only from Gin's words. It could be that Rum made their job fine, but Gin doesn't like them and is looking for nonexisting holes.

For this reason maybe better was to use "Rum" than "Asaka", because while "Rum" is a permanent code name (and people can make connections), "Asaka" might be just a temp name that will lead to nowhere. In other words, the FBI/CIA might already have files regarding Rum and add a yet another murder to these files. For Asaka they won't add anything, because they don't know that alias.

C) Maybe the reason for that was that Rum got the order to kill her pretty late. Maybe Rum's mission was to see whether Amanda betrayed the BO, and after informing the HQ that she indeed did, the HQ decided to immediately murder her. Or maybe Rum seen something that would be against the BO and decided to act immediately and kill her. Read: the murder of her was not planned at all, but due to some unexpected events Rum was forced (or had no choice but) to kill her.

We know it Jolly well. If Rum was already known by CIA and FBI, then Kir and Akai wouldn't have termed the existence of news about Rum a new development.
Gin refers that Kohji case was job which Rum screwed up. The room was in a disarray, Bo figured out the dying message that's why they did send Vermouth and Bourbon to investigate the ASACA song case. So letting a dying message and failing to clean up amounts to screw up in BO standards.
You see, the problem with your proposition is that you're assuming
a) Haneda knwe Rum's codename.
b) Rum's codename and every other details is there with the law enforcement.
c) Haneda knew that law enforcement knew about Rum.
We have no proof for first one. We have implicit evidence provided by Akai and Kir's statements against the second proposition. The thirs proposition becomes worthless after this findings.
I would rather urge you to do a through re-reading from the beginning of the Rum arc.

Kir made the statement about Rum that they're on the run. Since almost nobody in the BO knows who really Rum is, it must mean that Rum doesn't work on the field but rather in the HQ, or somewhere else where they can work alone. It also means that it is pretty rare when they themselves join the action, and rather they want to use other BO members to do the work. Since Rum decuded to work on thid personally, Kir decided to inform her allies that the BO takes this thing seriously this time.

Since Haneda made a RUM death note, it must mean that 17 years ago Rum was already a code named member, and therefore there is a huge chance that the FBI/CIA already heard of them. Maybe back then they were not a second in command, but pretty sure they didn't get their code name for nothing. So maybe there ae files about him.

Haneda didn't need to know whether the law knows Rum or not. He figured that it will be better to use a code name (hoping someone already heard of it) than nothing or a name that might be fake (since a murderer wouldn't murder using their real name, but rather using a fake name).

Did he know about Rum and the BO? Maybe, but also maybe he randomly just heard that name from Amanda. And decided to write it because it is always better to make any death note than not making a note at all.

A) Prolouge of the scarlet arc, file 898, It's explicitly stated that nobody in the FBI knew about Rum. Akai heard about the name 2-3 times during his infiltration stint.

B) Kir didn't know the existence of Rum beforehand, if she really had known then she would have told Akai much earlier, like during the Kir arc. But she didn't cause she herself came to know about this development much later. It also proves CIA also didn't know about Rum, else Kir's dad would have mentioned this to Kir before her time of infiltration and her target would have been Rum.

C) I'll give you an example, fake personas(A person can't drastically change height, weight, voice etc. So witnesses are more likely to pick on such similarities. That's why there's the concept of lookout notices but not codenames of wanted criminals.) can be traced but without any other information a person can't be traced only based on the code name of his; if Asaka was Rum and he killed Haneda, then why Haneda didn't write only Asaka, why he was so sure that the code name would be known by everybody? I don't feel like repeating myself but you're jumping the gun again and again.

D) Where is the proof that Haneda knew Rum's code name?

E) Where is the proof that CIA and FBI knew about Rum, 17 years ago?(It's implied that Rum is not known both by FBI and CIA.)

F) Where is the proof that "Haneda's message had two parts RUM and Asaca?"

[Swagnarok]

I've been thinking about it all day, and I carefully re-read the "Case from 17 years ago" page on the Wiki, and I've come up with the following alternate explanation:

Tsutomu Akai got into trouble with those "horrible people" (i.e. the BO) prior to the Kohji death case. Because both things were 17 years ago, the natural assumption is that Tsutomu had to flee because of something about Kohji's death, but the opposite (that Tsutomu fleeing ultimately led to Kohji's death) might be true instead.
Anyways, he sent a message to his family saying, "Yo, consider me a dead man, go hide out in Japan for a while."

And so the Akais weren't heard of again for a long time.
Shukichi Haneda was somehow connected to Kohji, and the BO knew this. They also knew that Kohji was acquainted with an old woman named Amanda Hughes. Amanda, meanwhile, was connected to the CIA/FBI somehow, and she knew those people would likely come after Kohji because of his connection to them (it's even possible that Kohji was raised by Mary and Tsutomu).

They intercepted a letter from Amanda inviting Kohji to come to America and take part in a chess tournament. This was really so that he could be safe in America for a time, until the FBI/CIA/whatever could determine whether his life was in danger, and if so, what should be done to keep him alive.

So, the Men in Black sent Rum to America. He impersonated Amanda's bodyguard Asaka and was there to greet Kohji when he arrived. He probably carried the hand mirror as a means to subtly look back to make sure no one was trailing him.

Amanda and Kohji stayed at the same hotel, but in different rooms. The day before the tournament she and Asaka paid him a visit, bringing food and tea and stuff. They sat down on the sofa and socialized or whatever, while Asaka used this as an opportunity to spike Kohji's tea with the early version of APTX-4869. It was a fairly short visit, and after they left, Kohji started feeling the effects of that drug. But because it was an early prototype or whatever, it didn't kill him right away, though he knew he was going to die.

He suspected that Amanda was Rum and that she had poisoned him. He became determined to kill Rum in his last moments, so he went over to Amanda's apartment. When she opened the door he killed her, and as Asaka was absent at the time he used the opportunity to use Amanda's sink to wipe the blood off and wetting Asaka's hand mirror for whatsoever reason, absent-mindedly forgetting to turn it off afterwards, and then he took the hand mirror back to his room and started stabbing it with a pair of scissors in order to make the dying message PTON, which stood for "Pawn TO (k)Night", a chess/shogi reference. In other words, Kohji, an expendable pawn, had succeeded in killing Rum, the "knight" of the enemy.

Asaka/Rum re-entered the apartment to find Amanda dead, and he figured Kohji probably did it. He panicked and re-entered Kohji's apartment. He fought with Kohji, who defended himself with the scissors. Kohji was weak by this point, and Asaka succeeded in beating the crap out of him, but before Asaka could finish killing him, APTX-4868 finally finished the job. Kohji just suddenly died there on the spot, and Asaka panicked and ran.

The real Asaka, who was absent the whole time, had to go into hiding after the police made him their main suspect, and the misinterpreted dying message didn't help his case any.

(P.S. Kudos to whoever it was that came up with the "Pawn to Knight" theory!)

[k11chi]

Sounds more like a normal case plot without connecting to the bigger picture.

[Zerozaki4869]

I've been thinking about it all day, and I carefully re-read the "Case from 17 years ago" page on the Wiki, and I've come up with the following alternate explanation:

Tsutomu Akai got into trouble with those "horrible people" (i.e. the BO) prior to the Kohji death case. Because both things were 17 years ago, the natural assumption is that Tsutomu had to flee because of something about Kohji's death, but the opposite (that Tsutomu fleeing ultimately led to Kohji's death) might be true instead.
Anyways, he sent a message to his family saying, "Yo, consider me a dead man, go hide out in Japan for a while."

And so the Akais weren't heard of again for a long time.
Shukichi Haneda was somehow connected to Kohji, and the BO knew this. They also knew that Kohji was acquainted with an old woman named Amanda Hughes. Amanda, meanwhile, was connected to the CIA/FBI somehow, and she knew those people would likely come after Kohji because of his connection to them (it's even possible that Kohji was raised by Mary and Tsutomu).

They intercepted a letter from Amanda inviting Kohji to come to America and take part in a chess tournament. This was really so that he could be safe in America for a time, until the FBI/CIA/whatever could determine whether his life was in danger, and if so, what should be done to keep him alive.

So, the Men in Black sent Rum to America. He impersonated Amanda's bodyguard Asaka and was there to greet Kohji when he arrived. He probably carried the hand mirror as a means to subtly look back to make sure no one was trailing him.

Amanda and Kohji stayed at the same hotel, but in different rooms. The day before the tournament she and Asaka paid him a visit, bringing food and tea and stuff. They sat down on the sofa and socialized or whatever, while Asaka used this as an opportunity to spike Kohji's tea with the early version of APTX-4869. It was a fairly short visit, and after they left, Kohji started feeling the effects of that drug. But because it was an early prototype or whatever, it didn't kill him right away, though he knew he was going to die.

He suspected that Amanda was Rum and that she had poisoned him. He became determined to kill Rum in his last moments, so he went over to Amanda's apartment. When she opened the door he killed her, and as Asaka was absent at the time he used the opportunity to use Amanda's sink to wipe the blood off and wetting Asaka's hand mirror for whatsoever reason, absent-mindedly forgetting to turn it off afterwards, and then he took the hand mirror back to his room and started stabbing it with a pair of scissors in order to make the dying message PTON, which stood for "Pawn TO (k)Night", a chess/shogi reference. In other words, Kohji, an expendable pawn, had succeeded in killing Rum, the "knight" of the enemy.

Asaka/Rum re-entered the apartment to find Amanda dead, and he figured Kohji probably did it. He panicked and re-entered Kohji's apartment. He fought with Kohji, who defended himself with the scissors. Kohji was weak by this point, and Asaka succeeded in beating the crap out of him, but before Asaka could finish killing him, APTX-4868 finally finished the job. Kohji just suddenly died there on the spot, and Asaka panicked and ran.

The real Asaka, who was absent the whole time, had to go into hiding after the police made him their main suspect, and the misinterpreted dying message didn't help his case any.

(P.S. Kudos to whoever it was that came up with the "Pawn to Knight" theory!)

Brace Yourself, Manga based counters are coming.

A) Okiaya Subaru(Akai-nii-san) categorically said to Conan that this case forced him to join the FBI and his father was involved in the case. Akai-san 10 years ago on the beach said to Mary that he would be doing everything possible to drag out the persons who had erased his father. So clearly you see, the timeline is made cleared by Akai-san himself.

B) If the prototype was a weak one, and Haneda had time in his hand then why did he rushed to Amanda's room, killed her, comes back to his room and leaves a dying message but never calls for medical help. Explain this? If a person is poisoned and thinking that he'll die why would he rust to kill a suspect but not rush to save himself by contacting a doctor or the hotel lobby?

C) How were the injuries happened to Haneda's face? It can't be Amanda according to your theory, else there would have been proof of a fight in her room. Why Kohji's fingerprints weren't found on Amanda's body? Why Amanda's cause of death was ruled uncertain?

D) If Rum already knew Haneda was poisoned with APTX then why would he go on and attack Haneda again? APTX is a sure-shot killer.

E) If Haneda was defending himself with scissors then why the body was found with signs of clenching scissors in order to cut something not grabbing it. If one is using the scissors as a weapon, then grabbing them will only work, not clenching them to cut something.

F) Why Rum was referred to a Knight??(There are stronger pieces in it, in Shogi there's silver and golden general, in Chess there's Bishop, Rook,Queen.) To refer the second in command of the BO Knight is an unworthy term.

I would suggest you to read the whole BO related cases again from chapter 898. You seem to be lacking in some basic information.

[Serinox]

A) Prolouge of the scarlet arc, file 898, It's explicitly stated that nobody in the FBI knew about Rum. Akai heard about the name 2-3 times during his infiltration stint.

Uhh, no, that's not stated anywhere in that chapter. Jodie and Camel haven't heard the name, but apart from that, we are not informed who knew about Rum beforehand. The FBI is a very big organization itself, you can't just say from Jodie and Camel not knowing that nobody in the FBI knows about Rum, especially if the FBI was really part of the case from 17 years, since there were other agents in charge back then.

[Zerozaki4869]

A) Prolouge of the scarlet arc, file 898, It's explicitly stated that nobody in the FBI knew about Rum. Akai heard about the name 2-3 times during his infiltration stint.

Uhh, no, that's not stated anywhere in that chapter. Jodie and Camel haven't heard the name, but apart from that, we are not informed who knew about Rum beforehand. The FBI is a very big organization itself, you can't just say from Jodie and Camel not knowing that nobody in the FBI knows about Rum, especially if the FBI was really part of the case from 17 years, since there were other agents in charge back then.

Uhh, yes. Jodie, Camel and Akai were handling the BO case under the supervision of James Black. It's a written rule for the intelligence agencies to give all possible information to the Infiltrator so that the infiltration procedure becomes smoother. Now if so that means if FBI had the information, they would have mentioned it to Akai for better performance but no such thing was stated to Akai or his team-mates. James Black is a big gun in FBI, so he must have equipped Akai with all possible inputs, but Rum doesn't appear in them.(Akai only heard the mention of the name 2-3 times in the BO.) So it's as good as explicitly stating that FBI had no prior info about Rum.

[k11chi]

A) Prolouge of the scarlet arc, file 898, It's explicitly stated that nobody in the FBI knew about Rum. Akai heard about the name 2-3 times during his infiltration stint.

Uhh, no, that's not stated anywhere in that chapter. Jodie and Camel haven't heard the name, but apart from that, we are not informed who knew about Rum beforehand. The FBI is a very big organization itself, you can't just say from Jodie and Camel not knowing that nobody in the FBI knows about Rum, especially if the FBI was really part of the case from 17 years, since there were other agents in charge back then.

Uhh, yes. Jodie, Camel and Akai were handling the BO case under the supervision of James Black. It's a written rule for the intelligence agencies to give all possible information to the Infiltrator so that the infiltration procedure becomes smoother. Now if so that means if FBI had the information, they would have mentioned it to Akai for better performance but no such thing was stated to Akai or his team-mates. James Black is a big gun in FBI, so he must have equipped Akai with all possible inputs, but Rum doesn't appear in them.(Akai only heard the mention of the name 2-3 times in the BO.) So it's as good as explicitly stating that FBI had no prior info about Rum.

No it's not, and Akai proves it. Akai knew of RUM but never mentioned about it, and KIR has less of a reason to give information as she's on thin ropes, following her father's footsteps. It's not stated anywhere. There's no written rule in the DC world because the characters now act on their own, look at Akai during Clash.

It's a complicated situation but there's no such thing as as good as said about it rofl.

[Swagnarok]

Relevant:
https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/fol ... ut-rum.jpg

[Serinox]

Asking a person he has never really met, of whom he doesn't really where she is, whom he suspects to be Asaka, the killer of Koji Haneda and/or to be Rum, about Rum? Yeah, sure, sounds like a good idea from his perspective. Not.

[Swagnarok]

Spoiler:

I've been thinking about it all day, and I carefully re-read the "Case from 17 years ago" page on the Wiki, and I've come up with the following alternate explanation:

Tsutomu Akai got into trouble with those "horrible people" (i.e. the BO) prior to the Kohji death case. Because both things were 17 years ago, the natural assumption is that Tsutomu had to flee because of something about Kohji's death, but the opposite (that Tsutomu fleeing ultimately led to Kohji's death) might be true instead.
Anyways, he sent a message to his family saying, "Yo, consider me a dead man, go hide out in Japan for a while."

And so the Akais weren't heard of again for a long time.
Shukichi Haneda was somehow connected to Kohji, and the BO knew this. They also knew that Kohji was acquainted with an old woman named Amanda Hughes. Amanda, meanwhile, was connected to the CIA/FBI somehow, and she knew those people would likely come after Kohji because of his connection to them (it's even possible that Kohji was raised by Mary and Tsutomu).

They intercepted a letter from Amanda inviting Kohji to come to America and take part in a chess tournament. This was really so that he could be safe in America for a time, until the FBI/CIA/whatever could determine whether his life was in danger, and if so, what should be done to keep him alive.

So, the Men in Black sent Rum to America. He impersonated Amanda's bodyguard Asaka and was there to greet Kohji when he arrived. He probably carried the hand mirror as a means to subtly look back to make sure no one was trailing him.

Amanda and Kohji stayed at the same hotel, but in different rooms. The day before the tournament she and Asaka paid him a visit, bringing food and tea and stuff. They sat down on the sofa and socialized or whatever, while Asaka used this as an opportunity to spike Kohji's tea with the early version of APTX-4869. It was a fairly short visit, and after they left, Kohji started feeling the effects of that drug. But because it was an early prototype or whatever, it didn't kill him right away, though he knew he was going to die.

He suspected that Amanda was Rum and that she had poisoned him. He became determined to kill Rum in his last moments, so he went over to Amanda's apartment. When she opened the door he killed her, and as Asaka was absent at the time he used the opportunity to use Amanda's sink to wipe the blood off and wetting Asaka's hand mirror for whatsoever reason, absent-mindedly forgetting to turn it off afterwards, and then he took the hand mirror back to his room and started stabbing it with a pair of scissors in order to make the dying message PTON, which stood for "Pawn TO (k)Night", a chess/shogi reference. In other words, Kohji, an expendable pawn, had succeeded in killing Rum, the "knight" of the enemy.

Asaka/Rum re-entered the apartment to find Amanda dead, and he figured Kohji probably did it. He panicked and re-entered Kohji's apartment. He fought with Kohji, who defended himself with the scissors. Kohji was weak by this point, and Asaka succeeded in beating the crap out of him, but before Asaka could finish killing him, APTX-4868 finally finished the job. Kohji just suddenly died there on the spot, and Asaka panicked and ran.

The real Asaka, who was absent the whole time, had to go into hiding after the police made him their main suspect, and the misinterpreted dying message didn't help his case any.

(P.S. Kudos to whoever it was that came up with the "Pawn to Knight" theory!)

Brace Yourself, Manga based counters are coming.

A) Okiaya Subaru(Akai-nii-san) categorically said to Conan that this case forced him to join the FBI and his father was involved in the case. Akai-san 10 years ago on the beach said to Mary that he would be doing everything possible to drag out the persons who had erased his father. So clearly you see, the timeline is made cleared by Akai-san himself.

B) If the prototype was a weak one, and Haneda had time in his hand then why did he rushed to Amanda's room, killed her, comes back to his room and leaves a dying message but never calls for medical help. Explain this? If a person is poisoned and thinking that he'll die why would he rust to kill a suspect but not rush to save himself by contacting a doctor or the hotel lobby?

C) How were the injuries happened to Haneda's face? It can't be Amanda according to your theory, else there would have been proof of a fight in her room. Why Kohji's fingerprints weren't found on Amanda's body? Why Amanda's cause of death was ruled uncertain?

D) If Rum already knew Haneda was poisoned with APTX then why would he go on and attack Haneda again? APTX is a sure-shot killer.

E) If Haneda was defending himself with scissors then why the body was found with signs of clenching scissors in order to cut something not grabbing it. If one is using the scissors as a weapon, then grabbing them will only work, not clenching them to cut something.

F) Why Rum was referred to a Knight??(There are stronger pieces in it, in Shogi there's silver and golden general, in Chess there's Bishop, Rook,Queen.) To refer the second in command of the BO Knight is an unworthy term.

I would suggest you to read the whole BO related cases again from chapter 898. You seem to be lacking in some basic information.[/quote]

Spoiler:

A can be explained away quite easily, or at least the way you put it can be. Tsutomu Akai would be "involved" in the case if his actions were why they killed Kohji in the first place. If Kohji was strongly connected to the Akais, Shuichi might've joined the FBI to investigate that, in tandem with the forced disappearance of his father. At this point, Kohji's murder may've been the only lead into the Tsutomu case, so investigating that was relevant to both.

B. It isn't just a question of medical assistance. APTX-4869 is an "untraceable" drug, meaning it's improbable the doctors would've been able to do anything for him, since its composition and effects were largely unknown. Assuming Kohji had some knowledge of this, he might've figured it was more worthwhile spending his last minutes trying to kill Rum rather than trying in vain to save his own life.

C. I already suggested that Rum and Kohji got into a fight, which would explain the wounds on Kohji's face and body. The question of Kohji's fingerprints, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal which I'll admit there wouldn't really be any explanation for. As for Amanda's death, one should note that the online poster might not have had all the information pertaining to the case but just a good bit of it, which would explain gaps like the cause of Amanda's death. However, it may be possible that he barged into her room, searched through her stuff, found some APTX in there, and forced it into her mouth, knowing that was the stuff used to poison him. She was a little old lady so I don't imagine there would've been much of a struggle.

D. Perhaps Rum expected the drug to kill him thoroughly and quickly, and he was surprised to find that Kohji was still up and about, after which he might've concluded that it didn't work.

E. I don't really see the difference. You don't have to grab scissors very hard to use them for cutting, so my guess is he just used them for stabbing the mirror, since he was clenching them.

F. Perhaps at the time Rum wasn't the second in command?

[Swagnarok]

Asking a person he has never really met, of whom he doesn't really where she is, whom he suspects to be Asaka, the killer of Koji Haneda and/or to be Rum, about Rum? Yeah, sure, sounds like a good idea from his perspective. Not.

Does he still suspect her, knowing that she's probably Masumi's and Akai's mother? Also, it would seem like finding her would be a simple matter of trailing Masumi home from school one day.

[Serinox]

Asking a person he has never really met, of whom he doesn't really where she is, whom he suspects to be Asaka, the killer of Koji Haneda and/or to be Rum, about Rum? Yeah, sure, sounds like a good idea from his perspective. Not.

Does he still suspect her, knowing that she's probably Masumi's and Akai's mother? Also, it would seem like finding her would be a simple matter of trailing Masumi home from school one day.

He has so far never gone back over his suspicions from the end 953, so for now, we have to assume he still holds the suspicions, until he thinks about Mary again.

[MeiTanteixX]

Asking a person he has never really met, of whom he doesn't really where she is, whom he suspects to be Asaka, the killer of Koji Haneda and/or to be Rum, about Rum? Yeah, sure, sounds like a good idea from his perspective. Not.

Does he still suspect her, knowing that she's probably Masumi's and Akai's mother? Also, it would seem like finding her would be a simple matter of trailing Masumi home from school one day.

He has so far never gone back over his suspicions from the end 953, so for now, we have to assume he still holds the suspicions, until he thinks about Mary again.

Reading between the lines, since he's suspecting that she was drugged by someone(from BO), I think his thoughts are indirectly implying that she has been dismissed as an Asaka and Rum suspect.

Ofc, we need to wait for a clear follow-up...

Spoiler:

...which we can expect in the upcoming chapter(File 994), since Sera is involved. Maybe this will become a Wakita case after all(as I predicted) and his suspicion follow-up regarding Mary's shrinking will tie in to a new suspicions regarding Wakita.