Hyouka - Volume 03 - The Kudryavka Sequence - Welcome to KANYA FESTA! (1)

"The odd one out would be [KU]. You had skipped [KU] and didn't steal
anything from that.
"Of course, had you followed the greeting card's procedure, then you
wouldn't have 'stolen' from [KU], but make it 'lose' something.
"The question now would be, why would you not have [KU] lose anything?
By skipping one character, you would have destroyed the meaning behind the
word 'Juumoji' (ten characters). While Satoshi said it's because the Global
Act Club was so heavily guarded that you've opted to avoid it, I do not
believe that is the case. If we follow 'Juumoji's' modus operandum, it just
wouldn't feel natural. It would feel totally random for you to just skip one
character and then target [SA] as the final target," (TL Note [SA] comes after
[KU] in the Gojuuon)
I took a brief pause. As my throat was getting dry from the low moisture,
"To abandon the aesthetics of keeping within ten characters would be too
unnatural, no matter how I think about it, it doesn't make sense for you to
skip [KU]. But what if you had not abandoned that aesthetic, what if you had
stuck to the natural order of things? In other words, what if 'Juumoji' had
actually worked according to plan?
"...... What if you had also made [KU] lose something?
"Based on the message on these greeting cards, your message would have
been: '[KU] had already lost something to begin with, so there was nothing to
take from it'. What if that were true?"
I took a glimpse at his expression, which remained unchanged. Was he
prepared for me to turn him in, or did I guess incorrectly? No, there was no
sign of weakness from him. Then I'll have to go on,
"How about this? 'The owner of [KU] has lost something beginning with
[KU] to begin with. - Juumoji' Indicating that it was not 'Juumoji' that had
taken from [KU],"
Silence. Expecting that he would make no response, I went on,