Disclaimer: Me no own. Applies to previous and following chapters.

The case is actually just an excuse since I'm having a writer's block with how to proceed with Kaito and Shinichi's relationship in this fic. You'll probably see the progress in the next chapter, or perhaps its in this one?

Well, read to find out! ;)

Kaito came from a family of phantom thieves; from the Phantom Lady, Kuroba Chikage, to the original Kaitou KID, Kuroba Toichi. So, of course, when he found his Mom, slowly stroking his hair as he woke up in tantei-chan's house... he wasn't surprised, "What the heck are you doing here?" he asked, slowly sitting up, mindful of the bandages around his torso. He didn't need a repeat of Shinichi's bandaging. He winced remembering it.

"I told you I was coming here, didn't I?" she said softly, smiling at her son as she rolled the desk chair slowly backwards.

He looked at her, frowning.

She raised her hands, an act of surrendering, smile still pasted on her mouth, short hair framing her petite face, "I wanted to visit this place," she explained, looking around the room, as if reminiscing, "One of your Dad's students owns this house, you know."

"You mean that pretty lady you keep talking about before, right?" he asked, still frowning. What the hell is she getting on about? He inwardly complained, "That's your only reason?"

She pouted at him, rolling back towards him to slap his left shoulder, "That's mean, Kaito." she muttered, "She was a good friend of mine, you know, and ever since her daughter's name kept coming up in the newspapers abroad, I wanted to see. The great Kudo Shinichi." she announced her name with exaggeration, "Aren't you lucky you got saved by her?"

He chuckled, "I guess I am." he agreed, "I don't even want to imagine if Nakamori-keibu was the one who found me."

She laughed, "Maa, it seems Lady Luck is still with you."

He laughed with her, "I guess She is."

-dsf-

"Well?" Megure-keibu chided, arms crossed as he regarded Shinichi and the four suspects, "Who's the culprit, Shinichi-kun?"

Shinichi nodded to the inspector, face passive, "The victim, Yoshikawa-san, had told me who the culprit was herself, you know." she stated, a small smirk in her face, "...She left a dying message."

"She what?" the inspector bristled, voice booming as he looked to his subordinates, "No one told me about this!"

Shiratori frowned, "I thought you knew, sir."

"This is my first time visiting the crime scene, so I didn't know as well." Sato said calmly, gaze falling towards a newly returned Takagi.

He screamed in realization, "...I forgot." he confessed, a sheepish look on his face as he rubbed the back of his head, "I was about to tell you, actually.. but then I saw Shinichi-san."

The orange-suited inspector narrowed his eyes at Takagi, temper gradually rising, "You idiot!" he shouted at him, making everyone in the vicinity cringe at the loudness of his deep voice.

"I'm sorry!" Takagi bowed, only earning a thump to the head.

Shiratori chuckled while Sato frowned. In the sidelines, Shinichi was seen slowly standing up from a crouch near Kawa Mizuno, "Can we get on with this, keibu?" she interrupted the bunch, gaining the attention of everyone in the room; the four suspects, Kawa Mizuno, Yoshikawa Mitsuo, Kawaouji Kimiko, Kawamoto Michiko, and the police officers huddled all around them.

Megure-keibu cleared his throat, realizing the riot that their small moment had resulted in, "W-why, yes, of course."

"As I've said," she started, pacing around the suspects and heading to where the victim was found laying a few meters away from the ledge she hit herself in, "the victim left a dying message... containing the characters 'ka', 'wa' and 'mi', and two continuous curves all written from the blood in her mouth. This was all located right beside the ledge where she hit herself. Which wouldn't make sense, since her body was found meters aways from it."

"Could it be a message left by the culprit?" Takagi asked, frowning as a thoughtful look came over his face, "But then, the culprit would've made sure that the body is right beside it."

"Yeah." she agreed, smiling at Takagi, "So, I'm quite sure that the victim left it herself."

"But why was her body away from it?"

"To hide it, of course." She answered, pacing around once again, "The crux of this deduction lies in the wound from her mouth and the missing tooth."

"Tooth?" Mitsuo asked, "What tooth?"

Shiratori piped in, explaining the details to the suspects, "Apparently, the victim had lost a tooth from the fall she sustained from Kawamoto-san's push, which resulted in her losing a tooth, specifically her right molar tooth."

"What does that have to do with this?"

"Plenty." Shinichi answered, "The dying message means, as stated, that the culprit has the given characters in their name... The two parallel curves beside the character 'mi'... denotes water(mizu)."

"...Then, the culprit..." Kimiko muttered, leaning heavily in her cane as her head slowly looked to the accused:

A wide-eyed, bewildered and frightened Kawa Mizuno.

"W-what are you saying?" she exclaimed, "How could I have killed her when I was just here to shop?"

"The victim's husband had stated that she disappeared right before they met up again here at the crime scene, saying, and I quote, 'I'll be disappearing to a place where I would feel nice.'" she explained, smiling as if she caught a mouse by its tail, "The only plausible place that would make you feel nice would be, well, a spa. Is that not right, Kawa-san?"

She huffed, "That doesn't prove anything, Kudo-san," she proudly said, crossing her arms on her torso, "So what if she went to the spa before she came here?"

"So she did? And a full treatment, right?"

Mizuno blinked, stuttering, "..Well.. Yes, s-she did."

Shinichi snorted, turning to face The crowd, "Let me explain the trick then, to further shed light on this truth.

"The victim, as stated, had been at the spa Kawa-san works at, and as usual, she asked for her to do the massage," she explained, looking from one person the the next, "the poison, as I have confirmed with the coroner just a few minutes ago when you lot were... busy, was administered in her upper back, through oil."

"You narrowed down where in the body the poison was administered?" Takagi exclaimed, "It would have taken at least a day to fully analyze the body, how do you know it was on the back?"

"The way she acted."

"...Acted?" Sato echoed, a frown dusting her features.

"Yeah," Shinichi said, looking to her, "Before we had headed here, I asked the coroner to bring the body to the morgue... and who was it that had reacted to this?" she asked, the others gazing at her dumbly, "The overly nervous Kawa-san, who's attitude changed from the quiet, nervous suspect to a demanding one."

Realization dawned on them as their heads slowly turned to look at the accused. Shiratori, ever the skeptical one, had a frown on his face as he turned to Shinichi, "But if we analyzed the body, within a day we could have narrowed it down that she did it, why the obvious trick?"

"Well, if my deduction is correct, this wasn't a premeditated murder, and the culprit acted on impulse," she explained, frowning and her hand-on-chin pose in effect, "plus, I'm quite sure that she's ready to leave the country the moment the she's released, it'll be hard to track her down then."

Shiratori nodded, accepting her explanation, "So, do you kno-"

"Evidence!" Mizuno shouted, stance changing to defensive, feet apart and hand held steady at her sides, "You can't pin me down without evidence!"

"I was just getting there, Kawa-san," she said confidently, turning to Takagi, "Do you think you can check the folds of her pants Takagi-keiji?"

Taken out of his stupor of watching the truth be revealed, Takagi jumped at the mention of his name, "Y-yes!" he shouted, crouching down to rummage through the folds of her pants, "Excuse me while I do this, Kawa-san," he muttered politely, pulling out a blood-soaked molar from her pants, "Is this it, Shinichi-san?" he asked as he turned to Shinichi, holding the tooth in between his gloved thumb and forefinger.

"Yeah," she nodded, turning to Mizuno once more, "That is evidence that you came in contact after she fell, which, if my memory serves me right, shouldn't have happened since you met with her a few minutes before Kawamoto-san fought with her."

Mizuno bit her lip, frowning, "T-that could've been placed in my pants by the culprit to frame me!" she claimed, "Besides, your memory doesn't count as evidence!" turning to the crowd looking at her, "You can't possibly believe what she's been spouting!"

"We have no reason not to, Kawa-san," Shiratori piped up from her left.

"Well, if you want a more concrete evidence, then I'll give you one." Shinichi announced, once more obtaining center-stage as the crowd looked at her.

"As been stated a few minutes ago, the poison was administered as oil through her back," she explained, approaching Mizuno with slow, precise steps, "The real question lies in where she obtained the poison."

"It is true that Tetrodotoxin is hard to obtain unlike Potassium cyanide, and whatnot," Sato murmured, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear, "From what I know, its found usually on sea creatures," she looked up at Shinichi, "right? But how then?"

She nodded, "Well, I'm not sure how she obtained it, but," she confessed, stopping right in front Mizuno, "this right here," she touched her blouse just above her breasts and pulled out a small jar containing some black liquid, connected to a chain made to look like a necklace, "is the poison, right Kawa-san?"

"H-how did you-?" she stuttered, mouth open, panic-stricken eyes staring at the tiny jar Shinichi was holding.

Shinichi let go, turning to face the crowd again, "Behavior analysis." she stated simply, shrugging, "You kept gripping it so hard that its becoming too attention-seeking."

Kawa Mizuno, twenty two, cried, "It was her fault!" she exclaimed, face in her hands as tears seeped through them, "She killed my father!"

"...Killed?" Takagi encouraged, people have reason to kill, but just because they think it justice, doesn't mean it is.

"That's right!" she screamed, dropping he hands and staring at Takagi with already red eyes, "He loved her! And she just threw him away like garbage! The next thing I know, he committed suicide right in front of me! Do you know how that made me feel?" she elaborated, a desperate tone in her voice, "At first I thought that they just broke up, but then when I asked her about it this morning, she actually *bragged* about making him kneel and beg for her, and that her and her husband had been going at each other, finding someone to fool with just to get on each other's nerves!" she shouted, looking at Mitsuo, a frown on his face, eyes cast down to hide his guilt, "He was the only family I had left."

-o-

Cuffs were clinked on, and Shinichi stared at Mizuno as she was brought to the awaiting squadcar, "Can you tell me where you got the poison?" she called out, it's no wonder curiosity really did kill the cat if she herself couldn't stop one small question escape her lips, "...just for reference." she muttered lamely as an afterthought, a small blush dusting her cheeks.

Mizuno gazed at her from the squadcar's window, handcuffed hands clasped in her lap as she looked towards the front, eyes staring at something that wasn't there, "My father was a fisherman quite fond of octopuses especially the blue-ringed one... when he caught one a few years ago, he extracted its toxin and placed it in the jar, then he gave it to me..." she explained, smiling wryly, "He told me that it was going to protect me... I guess it only gave me trouble, huh, meitantei?"

Shinichi shook her head, a sad smile plastered on her face, "It did save you," she said, "if it weren't for that necklace, you would have continued living with the guilt and burden of having killed someone... at least now you know you can atone for that sin you have committed."

She snorted, "I guess so." and the car drove off into the setting sun.

I was planning on making this a bit longer... until I heard what had happened to DCTP. like WTF? Screw FUNimation, go f*%$ yourself. I've been keeping track of DC for over 4 years now. Came across DCTP about 2 or 3 years ago... then this happens. Like shet. And FUNimation hasn't even continued the series, its not like DCTP is claiming ownership in North American rights. I would've been fine if they just took down conan-tv, BUT EVEN THE FANSUBS? AND I'M SERIOUSLY GONNA CRY IF THEY START CLAIMING THE MANGA AS WELL! Sigh. I feel like I lost a part of me.

Thank You DCTP for your very hard work. Appreciate everything you guys do. I just hope there will come a day you guys can go back to fansubbing this series. :)

Does anyone know any other group that fansubs Detective Conan? BECAUSE I AM NOT GIVING UP ON THIS SERIES.