SailorStar9: With Chapter 8 uploaded, this is Chapter 9 of this fic. (Sighs) Guys and girls, is it too hard for you to leave a review, instead of just putting this fic up on your favorited list and story alerts?
Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and potential pairing.
Pending pairing: Furuya Rei/Mizuno Ami
Chapter 9: The Life-Threatening Broadcast of Love: Desperate Situation
In the Police HQ...
"How is he?" Matsumoto asked. "Is Takagi alright?"
"He's been lying face-down for the last three hours." Chiba replied. "He just seems quite exhausted."
"The police notebook Takagi dropped earlier." Matsumoto barked. "Has anyone reported finding it?"
"No, we haven't heard anything yet." Shiratori answered.
"Have you been able to contact the families of the three suicide cases that Takagi inspected in the Records Office last week?" Matsumoto inquired.
"The family of the first woman, the medical student, Tokugi Yuko, lived in Kochi." Megure reported. "But they moved half a year ago, and we haven't been able to locate them yet. The second woman, the English teacher Kuruma Natalie, was born in Hokkaido, but her only blood relatives were her parents, and when they were on their way to pick up their daughter's corpse, they got caught up in a traffic accident and both died. And it seems the hostess Hikoue Kyôka, lied about her birthplace while working, so her background is unknown. But from what a friend at her workplace said, she'd sometimes slip into the Hakata dialect."
"Shikoku, Hokkaido and Kyushu..." Matsumoto mused. "They're all/ far enough to need to stay overnight."
"All three suicides happened on the same day, right?" Shiratori wondered.
"It's be a year the day after tomorrow." Megure confirmed.
"The picture started shaking." Chiba exclaimed.
"This is an earthquake." Matsumoto realized. "Contact the Japanese Meteorological Agency and find out the epicenter. If this is live footage, we can narrow down the location. Don't fall, Takagi."
"Yesterday and today up until now, there have been no earthquakes in any of Japan's 47 prefectures." Shiratori responded.
"Don't tell me..." Megure gaped. "He's aboard?"
"Or something could have landed on the camera stand, causing it to shake." Ami pointed out.
"There's a crow." Megure blinked when, as if on cue, a Western Jackdaw crow came into the camera's view.
"What does that mean?" Matsumoto wondered.
"Most likely, as Mizuno-senpai deduced, the crow landed on the pole or whatever the camera is fixed to and the picture shook from that impact." Shiratori surmised.
"Anyway, there is an extremely high chance that this is the act of someone connected to the suicide cases who bears a grudge." Matsumoto concluded. "Contract the local jurisdictions keeping detailed investigative records and check for the suspect."
In Sato's car...
"Sorry about keeping you so late today." Sato apologized. "I bet you're all tired from the questioning."
"Shouldn't you be more worried about him?" Genta wondered. "Detective Takagi will get sleepy when it gets dark."
"Don't worry, Takagi is usually a peaceful sleeper." Sato assured. "It's just that we're on stakeouts, we take naps in the car."
"Perhaps the kidnapper has a grudge against Detective Takagi from one of the suicide cases." Mitsuhiko surmised. "If it was actually murder, then since Detective Takagi decided it was suicide..."
"I don't think that's it." Conan refuted. "If that was the case, he should hold grudges against the other detectives and forensic officers who came to the scene, and it doesn't seem that anyone asked for any of the three cases to be re-investigated."
"All three cases happened the day Date-san died in a traffic accident." Sato agreed. "And Takagi was in a daze at the scenes, so since I'm an Assistant Inspector, I'm the one who decided they were suicide. If he has any grudge, it should be against me."
"What if it was that woman going to medical school?" Genta wondered. "Maybe she hit that Date detective then committed suicide."
"The person who hit Date-san was arrested at the scene." Sato informed. "Tokugi had caused a different accident."
"How about the English teacher?" Ayumi piped in. "Maybe she was dating Detective Takagi."
"No way." Sato instantly insisted. "The calendar on Natalie's place had 'date' written all over it in English, but no detectives could go on dates every day like that."
"Then, isn't it the hostess?" Mitsuhiko pressed. "Maybe she killed herself because her boyfriend was caught by that Detective Date. And that detective is good friends with Detective Takagi."
"It was Date-san who caught Hikoue's boyfriend, but she hung herself in a fit of emotion when the papers the day after Date-san said that her boyfriend was marriage fraudster." Sato explained. "There's no reason to hold a grudge against the police."
"I think it'd be a good idea to find out more about Detective Date from other people." Conan suggested. "I can't help but wonder about Detective Date's given name being 'Wataru', just like Detective Takagi."
The next day...
"It's no use, Superintendent." Detective Sugita reported. "We contacted the network provider, but it seems that an overseas server is being used. We've requested the co-operation of the local investigation authority, but..."
"You mean that'll take some time?" Matsumoto guessed.
"And even if we did find out the source, it could be routed through many more countries." Detective Sugita added.
"An investigation will take much long and by the time we find out, Takagi will be frozen to death." Matsumoto remarked. "How's Takagi doing?"
"He seems very weak." Chiba reported. "He's been moving about all night long."
"Even if he's trying to warm himself up, he's just wasting his strength." Megure noted.
Outside the Police HQ...
"'It's not a date?'" Conan echoed after Sato informed him. "Detective Takagi really said that before he left two days ago?"
"Yumi made a joke asking if Takagi as going on an overnight date at the onsen, but he just said that with a scowl on his face." Sato nodded. "Anyway, you said on the phone that you realized something."
"The way the guy who handed us the tablet talked was a bit odd." Mitsuhiko piped in. "He said 'Don't wait too long, it will spoil in one or two days.'"
"That's strange." Sato agreed. "If he said 'Tomorrow, or if you wait, the day after tomorrow', I could understand, but..."
"Maybe he's a foreigner proficient in Japanese?" Mitsuhiko proposed.
"But he really looks Japanese." Genta pointed out.
"Among the three suicide cases, was there anyone connected to Hokkaido?" Conan asked.
"The English conversation teacher, Kuruma Natalie, was born in Hokkaido." Sato replied.
"Then someone connected with her may well be Detective Takagi's kidnapper." Conan declared. "In Hokkaido dialect, 'the day after tomorrow' is said as 'tomorrow and the next day'. She was probably Detective Date's girlfriend. What she had written in English on her calendar almost every day was not 'date'. 'Date' is spelt D-A-T-E. If you read it as romaji, it's the name Date. It was probably a symbol that Detective Date was staying over. Just like Detective Takagi said, 'it was not a date'."
"I see." Sato realized. "I assumed D-A-T-E meant the English word 'date' because she was an English teacher."
"And you said that she planned to go out on a date on the day she committed suicide, right?" Conan reminded. "If that meant he'd promised to take her somewhere; maybe she waited for him without knowing about Detective Date's traffic accident and took her own life out of despair, thinking she'd been dumped? Detective Takagi probably finally realized that a year later, and wanted to tell the truth to her family."
"That reminds me, Takagi was apparently looking at a photo booth sticker in his notebook and crying." Sato recalled. "It's possible that he'd just confirmed it was Natalie in that photo booth sticker from the case records last week."
"But wait a sec." Mitsuhiko cut in. "Isn't that about Detective Date?"
"It's nothing to do with Detective Takagi." Genta agreed.
"And how about if she told her parents not that her boyfriend's name was Date, which could be confused with the English date, but that he was Detective Wataru from Police HQ?" Conan posted a question. "And if Detective Takagi contacted Natalie's family saying 'I want to meet with you to report something about her'."
"They thought that the 'Detective Wataru from Police HQ' who'd abandoned her and drove her to suicide had finally turned up without any worries a year later, and Takagi ended up like that." Sato concluded. "But when Natalie's parents were going pick up her corpse, they had an accident, and..."
"Then who picked up her corpse?" Conan asked.
"I think it was an elderly teacher from the same English conversation class." Sato remembered. "He also picked up her belongings. That reminds me, the agency involved reported a while ago that the teacher collapsed into tears when they gave him her corpse. They came from the same town, and she was like a daughter to him."
"Then, it's got to be true." Conan confirmed. "He's the one who kidnapped Detective Takagi. Looking at the emails on her phone, he convinced himself that it was Detective Takagi who dumped her and made her commit suicide."
In the Police HQ...
"The suspect has been confirmed." Matsumoto announced. "His full name is Fuemoto Ryusaku. Last month, he left the English conversation class due to an illness, and is thought to have returned to hos hometown in Hokkaido. His residence in Hokkaido is unknown, but based on the knowledge that he has yet to vacate the flat he previously lived in within the city limits, there's a chance that he might still be hiding there. Hurry there and capture him as soon as you find him. Make him spit out Takagi's location."
In Fuemoto's apartment...
"Go ahead, the door is open." Fuemoto responded to the doorbell. "So you've finally managed to find me." he twirled his wine glass in his hand. "I thought I might end up dozing off and pushing the bomb's trigger while I was waiting."
"Is this him?" Sato took a photo of Fuemoto and sent it to the Police HQ.
In the Police HQ...
"There's no mistake." Mitsuhiko confirmed.
"That's the old man." Genta agreed.
In Fuemoto's apartment...
"Now, tell me where Takagi is." Sato demanded.
"Is it you then?" Fuemoto noted. "The senior detective that Wataru Takagi is in love with, I mean. I see. Just like he said, you're quite a beauty. But even so, he shouldn't have left Natalie." he sipped his wine.
"Now listen up before I end up hitting you." Sato snapped, grabbing Fuemoto by his shirt. "The man you kidnapped was Takagi Wataru, but Natalie's lover was Date Wataru. And he didn't dump her."
"But she said in an email that 'Wataru won't come anymore.'" Fuemoto stammered.
"Of course he wouldn't." Sato retorted. "As that day, he was hit by a car and died."
"That can't be..." Fuemoto was shocked.
"So hurry up and tell me where Takagi is." Sato pressed. "Don't tell me the wine was poisoned?" she realized when Fuemoto started choking. "Call an ambulance. Quickly."
"He..." Fuemoto choked out, before dying.
In the Police HQ...
"Sato, what happened?" Matsumoto ordered. "What's the situation? Did you capture the suspect?"
In Fuemoto's apartment...
"Superintendent, unfortunately, the death of the suspect, Fuemoto Ryusaku was just confirmed." Sato reported. "It seems that the wine he was drinking at the time we entered had poison in it."
In the Police HQ...
"The suspect is dead?" Matsumoto echoed. "Was he poisoned by someone?"
"No, the poison bottle was placed next to his wine bottle." Sato replied. "It seems that he decided to end his own life when the police arrived to start with. Seeing that he possessed a bomb, he likely intended to blow himself up if forcibly secured. And if he had time to talk, then he'd drink the poison and watch us despair. As it seem that the suspect held a grudge against the police."
"Did you tell him that it was a misunderstanding?" Matsumoto asked.
"Yes, I told him that he kidnapped Takagi Wataru because he mistook him for Date Wataru, also from Police HQ." Sato responded. "And that the motive for Natalie's suicide was not that he dumped him, but because he died in a traffic accident. But, by the time I could tell him, he'd already drunk the poison and before he could tell me Sergeant Takagi's location, he..."
"Could any clues be found at the suspect's residence?" Matsumoto inquired.
"We're searching now, but not yet." Sato remarked. "The only thing we found is Takagi's mobile, which was probably taken from him when he was kidnapped. In the inbox are several emails from the suspect, and among them, there's one saying that while the suspect did intend to come and meet Takagi directly, he felt unwell, so he would send Takagi an airline ticket he bought for himself and asked Takagi to use it to visit him. There's also an unsent email addressed to me which we believe was written by the culprit, saying 'A present from Detective Takagi was left in the shrubbery in front of the Police HQ.' So, he probably originally intended to hand over the tablet by doing so."
"But then he happened to meet children who knew Takagi and entrusted the tablet to them." Matsumoto mused.
"That way, there is no chance of it being taken by someone else." Sato nodded.
"Are there any other emails that hint at where Takagi is?" Matsumoto asked.
"No, just 'I'll meet you when you get to the airport'." Sato reported.
"Then, I'll leave you in charge of continuing to search the flat." Matsumoto instructed.
"It's unlikely they'll find something." Shiratori spoke up. "After all, we're up against someone who only gave us a tablet on which we can see a video of Takagi. Most of the functions have been disabled, all the markings on the back have been scraped off and the video is sent through an overseas server, so we can't tell its source. If he planned to commit suicide in front of the police to being with, then I don't think he would've left behind anything to pinpoint the location."
"Normally, we'd assume it to be the suspect's birthplace, Hokkaido, but..." Matsumoto sighed.
"Just in case, we're checking with local construction contractors, but there haven't been any reports of Takagi being spotted at a four-storey building site as shown in video yet." Megure commented.
"The only clue left is the video of Takagi." Matsumoto noted.
"If it started raining or snowing, we could narrow down the location, but it hasn't..." Shiratori pondered.
"The only thing that showed up was a crow." Megure stated.
"A crow showed up?" Conan cut in. "If you recorded it, then let us see it too."
"It's just an ordinary crow." Genta moaned.
"But, the neck is gray." Ayumi pointed out.
"Isn't that a Western Jackdaw?" Ami recognized the species.
"Sato reporting in." Sato returned. "All the data in his computer had deleted and we're trying to find out how he obtained the bomb, but nothing yet. How's Takagi?"
"Don't worry, he's still alive." Matsumoto assured. "Although he seems quite weak."
"Takagi's been moving around since yesterday." Chiba spoke up. "I thought he was moving because he was cold, but he was actually using the edge of the plank to try and cut the rope on his legs. And just now, he cut them."
"He's doing something with his legs." Sato frowned. "He dropped it." she gaped when Takagi let the sheet fall downwards. "Takagi, what are you trying to do? Wait a sec..." she spotted the bomb attached to the underside of the plank. "What's that? A bomb?"
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.