SailorStar9: With Chapter 23 uploaded, this is Chapter 24 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 24: Dancing Demon at the Noh Mask Mansion, Part Two
In the shrine...
"To tell you the truth, Mouri-san, this woman's actually the daughter of the mask artist, Kodo." Izumi supplied. "Though her mother divorced him and went back to her maiden name, Mibuin. You shouldn't mind." he informed Mibuin. "It's not like it's a secret. Whenever he was in a good mood. Kodo would crave masks over there. You used to play there as well. She was furious when she heard that Akaza was selling her father's creations on the cheap."
"Of course, this means she has the motive to kill him." Mouri noted, Mibuin walking over to the carving tools kit to rearrange the tools.
"Please don't take that seriously, Mr. Great Detective." Mibuin chided. "I'll go and get some fresh tea."
"The Inspector's really taking his time." Mouri noted.
"I'll go and check the entrance hall." Toba offered.
"She's a very attentive girl." Izumi praised. "I don't know what I'd do without her.
Just then, Mouri jumped and pushed Izumi out of the way of the falling idol statue.
Outside...
"What's this?" Conan spotted the dropped Noh mask on the grass beside the well, he and Ran had escaped Seikanji. "A Noh mask?"
"Nagata-san!?" Ran peered into the well and saw the drowned museum manager in the water.
"Fire!" Mouri called out.
"Let's enter through that small door there." Conan suggested, he and Ran rushed over to the small door at the bottom of the wall. "It won't open." he tugged at the wooden pane. "The peg must be fastened. It's a little bolt for fastening sliding doors.
In the shrine...
"Curator." Toba hurried back,
"Dad, open this little door." Ran shouted from outside.
"Take the curator outside." Toba instructed.
"Where's the curator?" Conan asked, crawling in.
"Toba-san took him outside just now." Mouri replied.
"And Moyono-san?" Conan inquired.
"She went to get some tea a little while ago." Mouri answered. "Let's get out of here. What's this? I can't open this." he pulled at the door handle, to no avail.
"Let's use the small door." Ran suggested.
"Our exit." Mouri gaped when a pile of burning lumber blocked their path,
"Over there." Conan spotted the door leading to the back. "There's a door."
Outside...
"That was close." Mouri heaved in relief.
"This is..." Ran blinked.
"The Noh theater." Conan supplied.
"There's an exit." Mouri spotted the side door, only to be burnt by the heat when his hand touched the handle.
"Dad, over there." Ran pointed to the windows above them.
"A Noh mask?" Mouri spotted a female figure looking down at them from the opposite building. "It's that woman."
"More importantly, how do we get out of here?" Conan looked around.
"The ladder." Ran instantly saw the ladder. "If we climb up the ladder, we should be able to get outside through that small window.
"This is bad, Ran-nee-chan." Conan remarked, being the first out. "The next building is too far away."
"We'll use the ladder as a bridge." Ran decided.
In the next building...
"They must have built this annex more recently." Conan noted, the trio finally made it to safety.
"Either way, let's move." Mouri urged. "That woman was here. There's got to be way out. An internal phone?" he heard a phone ring. "Where's it coming from? Toba-san?" he took the call. "So, you're safe?"
"I took the curator and went to the kitchen." Toba related. "The fire hasn't reached here yet."
"Be careful." Mouri warned. "To be safe from that executive and that Mibuin woman, you should stay hidden for a while."
"We've informed the police, so it shouldn't be much longer." Ran added.
"Stop it, nee-san!" Toba suddenly screamed over the phone.
"What's wrong?" Mouri demanded when the line went dead.
"So Hatsuho-san Moyono-san's little sister?" Ran realized.
"In any case, we should hurry." Conan urged. "Something could have happened to them."
"Someone's lying there." Ran spotted Seikanji on the floor as they hurried down the fire escape.
"It's the executive." Mouri realized.
"Where are the others?" Ran was worried.
"In the kitchen." Mouri replied. "Let's go."
Turning the corner, the three found Mibuin and Izumi in the pond and Toba face-down on the stones by the pool.
"Hasuho-san." Ran hurried towards the stirring Toba. "Are you all right, Hasuho-san?"
A while later...
"I knew of the plan my sister and the others were hatching." Toba sobbed, after the three bodies were taken away for autopsy. "Yet in the end, I had no choice but to kill her: stabbing my own sister. I'm a horrible sister."
"It's not your fault." Mouri assured. "She might have killed you instead."
"Inspector Megure." Takagi ran in. "Akaza Naruya-san, Seikanji Tatsurou-san, Nagata Seinosuke-san, and Mibuin Moyono-san have all been confirmed dead. Curator Izumi narrowly escaped death. We can't question him yet, but since the wound has he same shape as the chisel Mibuin-san was holding, we can conclude that she was the one to attack him."
"A chisel?" Conan echoed. "I see." he connected the dots.
"I didn't manage to stop her." Toba admitted. "My sister bore a grudge against the curator, because he sold our father's creations cheaply overseas through Akaza-san."
"And what was your opinion of him?" Megure asked.
"My sister and I have different mothers and grew up separately." Toba replied. "And the curator is very kind to me."
"That's why you wanted to protect him when you heard about the plan to murder him." Megure concluded.
"Yes." Toba nodded. "So I sent a letter to Mouri-san but I couldn't stop my sister's madness."
"Was she also the one who killed her accomplices: the executive and the manager?" Megure questioned.
"I think so." Toba answered. "She said that if the two of them died, she'd get all the money. Inspector, even though I hadn't planned it, I nonetheless killed my sister."
"You grabbed a skewer from the kitchen, right?" Megure noted.
"I wanted to protect the curator, but please..." Toba held up her hands.
"The fact that you killed Mibuin-san remains unchanged, but it was clear it was legitimate self-defense." Megure remarked. "We'll need to hear a few more details at the station later. Mouri, I'll have to come too. The case is already..." he stated, seeing Mouri suddenly stumble and sat on the grass after Conan hit him with his tranquilizer dart. "Closed."
"Not at all, Inspector." Conan corrected. "Far from being closed, the culprit is crackling in glee over there. The first mystery was how Akaza-san had been killed. How did the culprit manage to poison the victim? Right after Hatsuho-san ate a bit of cheese, Akaza-san ate the same cheese and died. Does that mean the poison had been applied to Akaza-san's butter knife? However, seats were chosen freely at that time,so it was impossible to target someone specifically. There's only one way it could've been done: with the spoon that was used to take some cheese the first time. By applying poison to only the underside of the spoon, the cheese taken with the spoon would be fine, but at the same time, the remaining cheese would be poisoned. When Akaza-san died, the spoon that had fallen to the ground was replaced with a clean spoon while no one was looking. Because the trick would have been easy to see through if the spoon had remained the way it was. The only one who would have done that was whoever cleaned the cheese off the curator's clothes. You, Hatsuho-san, you're the only one. The real reason you sent me that warning was so you could use me as a witness. To make me testify that the three villains died and you survived through legitimate self-defense. When the fire confined me to the house for a while, you used the opportunity to kill everyone. But it have been problematic if I had died. That's why you let us see your face through the window. And the climax of the play was the call on the internal phone. At that point, you had already stabbed the curator and killed your sister."
"I wouldn't be capable of something like that." Toba protested. "My sister stabbed the curator with a chisel. I didn't have the chance to grab a weapon like that."
"It's true Moyono-san could have done that." Conan conceded. "After all, you tempted her to. Inciting her to kill the curator with the tools that your father loved. Nonetheless, you grabbed some skewers."
"Skewers are nothing like chisels." Toba protested.
"You killed you sister with a skewer." Conan insisted. "Mibuin Moyono-san may be a bad person, but maybe she trusted her sister? I don't think so. She must have guessed that her younger sister was the one who to send me that warning. So she would have considered you to be untrustworthy. So you went and killed the curator to convince her otherwise. When Moyono-san let her guard down as a result, you stabbed her with that skewer right from the front."
"But the curator's wound was caused by a chisel, right?" Toba stammered.
"That was your last fortification." Conan stated. "Unfortunately for you, fatal evidence of your trick remained. Being the culprit, you were really quite busy. It was just your bad luck that you didn't have time to get rid of the evidence. Conan, bring it over here."
"Here it is." Conan brought out the wooden chips he found in the water.
"They look like simple wooden chips." Megure peered at the two objects in Conan's palms.
"According to Kogoro-ojii-san, she made these herself." Conan replied.
"A V-shape is carved into them." Takagi looked closer. "Like the shape of the blade of a chisel."
"She brought two skewers with her from the kitchen." Conan explained. "Combining the two skewers so the cross section formed a V, she used these two wooden chips to hold them in that shape. Then she stabbed the curator with the resulting weapon."
"I give up." Toba snorted, releasing her hair-bun. "You win, kid. That's right; that's Toba Hatsuho's special murder weapon. Making it like a chisel the first time and then using only a single skewer the second time."
"Why would you kill your own sister, too?" Megure demanded.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Toba scoffed. "She was the curator's lover. While my mother and I were living in poverty, she was living in luxury using the curator's money. Now she suddenly wants to avenge our father? That's bull. That bastard Akaza sold off valuable Noh masks on the curator's order. And on top of that, he took after the curator and tried to make eyes at me. Disgusting. This museum's just for show. Burning it down and building a park instead is a much better use for the space."
"Takagi!" Megure barked,
"Curator Izumi's regained consciousness." Takagi reported after receiving a call.
"So he didn't kick the bucket after all." Toba snorted. "I thought his reaction had been lacking. The force of the stab sent the wheelchair into the pond and I didn't finish him off. I guess my endgame still needs some work."
"That's right." Takagi recalled. "The curator wanted to give his thanks to the boy. What's that about, Conan-kun?"
"I helped him out a bit." Conan replied.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.
