SailorStar9: With Chapter 18 uploaded, this is Chapter 19 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 19: The Jet-Black Mystery Train: Intersection


"The fire from five years ago?" Noto echoed. "What does that have to do with this?"

"We already know." Mouri stated. "We confirmed with the Shizuoka prefecture about that incident. Your name was among the survivors' names. Isn't that right, ex-defense force member of the parring partner who died in the fire, Noto Taisaku?"

"I got this scar from that incident." Noto pointed to the scar on his right cheek. "Not that I was hiding anything."

"Come to think of it, when we first met, you had something on your right shoulder, right?" Mouri inquired. "The tools to perform a sealed room trick, perhaps?"

"It's my shinai." Noto retorted. "See?" he unwrapped the bamboo stick. "After this train was to reach Nagoya, I made plans to spar with a friend."

"Oji-san." Conan voiced. "Could you try running down the corridor for us? We may have seen the back of the culprit running away from us. So can let us film you running?"

"I was rescued from that fire alongside Murobashi." Ando confirmed. "Although I wouldn't have mentioned it unless I was asked."

"That large bag in your room." Sera peered in. "What is it?"

"That was a painting I was asked to analyze." Ando replied. "But unfortunately, it ended up being fake."

"Mind if we take a look?" Mouri stepped in. "It's pretty heavy." he lifted the portrait.

"The frame is made of solid gold." Ando explained.

"What is your relationship with the magnate?" Mouri asked.

"That man was a collector." Ando answered. "He introduced me to many paintings. But, most of them burned up in the fire."

"You must be a strong oji-san to carry all that weight." Conan noted, tugging at the bag's strap. "Please run down the corridor." he requested.

"I'll never forget that fire." Komino admitted. "Because of that fire, I have to depend on this wheelchair."

"So the fire injured your legs." Mouri noted.

"For that reason, I won't be running in the corridor like everyone else." Komino insisted.

"But your maid, Sumitomo would be able to, right?" Conan asked.

"It may well be that I was to marry that magnate's grandson who died in the fire." Idenami confessed. "I myself was rescued from that fire, but why must I run down a corridor to show you?"

"Just once." Mouri insisted. "Just to be sure. Could you remove the chain and let us in?"

"If you want to come in, you're gonna need a warrant." Idenami retorted.

"About that watch you found in your room, has it since rang?" Sera asked.

"As you can see, I left it out." Idenami stepped aside. "It hasn't rung once. Right there." she pointed. "Right on top of the sofa."

"It seems hidden from view from this gap." Mouri noticed.


In her makeshift autopsy theater...

"Well," Ami droned, having cut open Murobashi's brain. "What do we have here..."

On the side table, were the three extracted bullets she removed from the body.


In Car 8's corridor...

"Now that we're all here." Noto spoke. "What do you want?"

"Hasn't he figured it out?" Idenami suggested.

"The investigation is still on, actually..." Mouri refuted.

"But the kid called us out of our rooms." Sumitomo stated. "He said the Sleeping Kogoro was about to begin his deduction."

"Weren't you saying that earlier, oji-san?" Conan piped in. "You worked out the gist of the trick." slipping behind Mouri, he fired his tranquilizer dart to the back of the older man's neck and causing him to slump onto the conductor's chair.

"This must mean that Mouri-sensei has solved the case." Amuro stepped in. "The incident in Room B wherein Murobashi was first shot."

"Who are you?" Idenami glared.

"I'm Mouri-sensei's number one apprentice, Amuro." Amuro smiled.

"The locked room murder." Conan confirmed. "I solved it the mystery the second time I went into Idenami's Room E."

"You're not serious about me being the murderer?" Idenami demanded.

"It occurred to me when I looked into your room past the chained-locked door." Conan corrected. "When your door was chained, it was only possible to see most of one sofa. But when Conan found Murobashi's body in Room B, even with the chain, you could still see the opposite sofa."

"Maybe the kid didn't look properly?" Idenami suggested.

"Probably, there was an extra link, increasing the field of view?" Amuro suggested. "The gap of the door increases, revealing more the room from the outside."

"What's the big deal of one extra link?" Noto inquired.

"It's a huge deal." Amuro assured. "Normally, chains are set to a length that disables people from putting their hands inside. By increasing the number of links by one, it's possible to lock the room from the outside."

"He's right." the conductor confirmed. "It's six. There are five links in the chains for all other rooms, it's only in Room B that there are six."

"With this, it's no longer a locked room mystery." Amuro stated.

"But if someone was loitering around, wouldn't the conductor have noticed?" Sumitomo pointed out.

"He says that he was in the hallway the entire time." Komino remarked.

"Someone was peeking at me through the door." the conductor spoke.

"Who was that?" Noto demanded.

"They weren't very visible." the conductor stammered. "It was when the train entered the tunnel."

"So, the culprit might've escaped." Ando commented. "Perhaps they ran to another car."

"It certainly could be an outsider." Idenami mused. "There shouldn't be anyone that'd do something like this here since the attendant was familiar with all of our faces."

"But what if the risk could be removed using this little sound?" Conan asked.

"That's the sound of the bell." the conductor noted, hearing the bell chime.

"But from whom?" Noto wondered.

"Me." Conan piped in. "I went to Room B and rang the bell. I recorded the sound to play it back. The conductor heard the noise but didn't see the corresponding light to any room. So you just assumed it was Room A."

"Room A's lamp had ran out of batteries." the conductor confirmed. "So I was worried that Noto-sama' would be angry if I didn't come when he asked."

"So, at the doorway of Room A when Noto and the conductor were arguing, the door of Room B was opened by Murobashi, right?" Conan pressed.

"He was on the phone with someone." the conductor nodded.

"I see." Amuro realized what had happened. "That was the moment, wasn't it? When the culprit entered Room B; the corridor is narrow enough so that when a door is opened, the doors block most of the passage. If Room B's door was open, the conductor at Room A wouldn't see the culprit sneaking from the opposite end of the corridor."

"The culprit probably called Murobashi saying 'there's some disturbance outside the room, has something happened?' just as the train entered the tunnel." Conan continued. "If the culprit called Murobashi just as we went through the tunnel, the culprit came out of his room and approached Room B. It wouldn't be too surprising to think that they'd move the conversation inside because the train prevented any communications on the phone."

"But what would the criminal and Murobashi be talking about?" Noto wondered.

"Probably the mystery quiz that happens on this train each year." Conan responded. "The culprit pretended with fake cue cards that Murobashi had been selected as the victim, himself as the murderer and my daughter and her friends as the accomplices. He proposed the vanishing body trick wherein Murobashi who was in Room B of Car 7 switches with my daughter and her friends. In actuality, Murobashi should've booked Room B in the first-class car. So these fake cue cards had been prepared for an emergency. My daughter and her friends were to delay the anybody coming to Room B in Car 7, playing as detectives. He chose the children to play the detective role, but the trick didn't last long. Almost instantly, the plot fell through. They came back to the first-class Car along with the children, where the crime took place."

"So what then?" Noto pressed. "We understand how the culprit moved to Room B, but when did the culprit come out of the room?"

"If he killed Murobashi the instant he went into Room B, the conductor in Room A would've noticed something." Idenami reasoned.

"But he didn't." Ando stated. "So the person who is most suspicious is the conductor who saw someone peering out of the doorway."

"Which door is it?" Idenami asked.

"The door was at the end of corridor from where I was." the conductor replied. "It was when I went in front of Room E, so I thought it was Noto-sama of Room A."

"Don't go making accusations like that." Noto snapped.

"I can reveal the identity of this man." Conan stated. "But before that, let's hear the coroner's report. If you will, Mizuno-san?"

"Quite unfortunately, Sera and Conan's initial diagnosis of the cause of death is wrong." the female coroner spoke up. "I found not one, but three bullets in Murobashi's body."

"Three?" Amuro blinked, looking at the three extracted bullets that were placed in a clear evidence bag in Ami's hand.

"One barely missed the pulmonary vein, one was embedded in the pulmonary artery and the third bullet was lodged in the parietal lobe." Ami continued her verbal report. "The two bullets in the pulmonary artery and parietal lobe contributed to Murobashi's death. Also, I found something else after cutting up Murobashi's brain; he had a blood clot in his frontal lobe. By my estimate, I give him about two to three months before he either develops a stroke or dies from a brain hemorrhage. And from the location where I found the bullet in the parietal lobe, I can be 85% certain that the shooter was less than 1 meter from the door."

"Thank you, Mizuno-san." Conan noted. "Now, allow me to reveal who the person was, it's you, conductor."

"Me?" the conductor exclaimed. "The man in the corridor? You're saying I'm the culprit?"

"No, the image you saw that time when you were in front of Room E was a mirror." Amuro revealed.

"The murderer stuck a mirror onto the inner side of his door." Conan explained. "When the conductor was in front of Room E, he opened the door of his own room so that he couldn't be seen upon the completion of the crime."

"But if the culprit was in Room B at the time, how did he open the door to his own door?" Idenami asked.

"He attached a fishing line to the doorknob, and passed it through the handrails by the window." Conan replied. "The trick could've been done if the position of the mirrors were too far or too close to Room B. Therefore, the only one who could've committed this murder could be in the middle of Rooms A through E; only the passenger in Room C could've done this. Ando, only you could have done this."

"A mirror?" Ando stammered. "How on earth would I be able to obtain a mirror as large as a whole door on board the train?"

"The painting you were asked to appraise." Conan stated. "If you placed about three slides of mirror glass in between the canvas, there would be enough. That painting was quite heavy."

"It was a solid golden frame." Ando protested.

"Nope." Amuro corrected, bringing out the painting. "Frame's wooden, with gold leaf plating. The painting's the heavy one. The inside is just as Mouri-sensei said it was." taking out a cutter knife, he removed the canvas. "Three slides of mirror glass. However, there is a spot of brown paint on it, oddly enough the same shade as the doors. A part of your trick was to stop the conductor from realizing he was staring at a reflection because the label of Room E would be reflected too."

"So, Ando?" Conan started. "Please explain these three mirrors. You can't say they've been put there before framing and you hadn't noticed the abnormal weight. Maybe we should ask the person who commissioned the framing of this painting, if such a person actually exists."

"And just so you know, Ando." Ami piped in. "Every firearm has a serial number. Once we enter the serial number into the police database, we can easily find out who that gun belongs to. Additionally, Ballistics have a way of retrieving a serial number that's been filed off."


Meanwhile...

Scar Akai opened the window in the room he had snuck into and kicked a suitcase out of the opened window.

"Isn't that a bit too much?" Yukiko chided. "It was my favorite, too. I loved that dress I put in that suitcase. Anyways, isn't it time you stopped doing things like this, Sharon?"

Said American actress pulled off her Scar Akai disguise. "How unexpected. This feud between us and your son. To think that you, the mother, would also become involved."

"I put myself up to it." Yukiko revealed. "I told him if the opponent is a star of the silver screen, then he better cast me, a legendary Japanese actress, as well. But what a shame. I was hoping to pick up that makeup technique that keeps that youthful glow even when we're being ravaged by age, but to see that's your real face? To think the great actress, Sharon Vineyard, as nothing but makeup."

"It was painful, though." Vermouth related. "Pretending that it's not just your face, but everything else that's aging too. Anyways, what you said to be when we crossed paths earlier, what was that supposed to mean?" she pulled her hair free.

"Exactly how it sounds." Yukiko responded. "Shin-chan says Ai-chan is on our side."

"How stupid." Vermouth scoffed. "You seriously think you'll beat us?"

"Don't you know?" Yukiko beamed. "Right now, Shin-chan is actually in the lead. That girl you left unconscious and slumbering in your room, Sera. We've already carried her to her room."

"Don't you work quickly?" Vermouth was impressed. "But the boy is in the middle of a deduction right now. Is there perhaps another player involved?"

"What do you think?" Yukiko giggled. "We might have a very special guest on our team."


SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.