SailorStar9: With Chapter 60 uploaded, this is Chapter 61 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 do not own Sailor Moon or Detective Conan, I only own this plotline and the pairing.
Pairing: Established!Furuya Rei/Mizuno Ami
Chapter 61: The Moving Target
Time passes...
Conan was rushing home late one night when he heard a horrified scream. Conan turned to see someone falling from the top of a building and onto a man standing in the alleyway. Reacting quickly, he activated both the Anywhere Ball Dispensing Belt and Power-Enhancing Kick Shoes, using the soccer ball to send the falling man into a nearby rubbish crate.
"Are you all right?" the woman who just screamed rushed forward.
"I'm glad you're okay." Conan noted.
"You were nearly crushed by that man falling from the roof." the female witness related.
"Looks like he's okay, too." Conan examined the snoring Fukurokoji Sadao.
"Fukurokoji Sadao-san." the officer on patrol read the victim's identity card after Fukurokoji was taken to hospital.
"I wonder why he fall." Conan pondered.
"I think he was trying to kill himself." someone from the crowd spoke up. "He'd always talk about it in bars."
"I nearly got caught up in a suicide?" Komatsu Hitoshi muttered. "I've always had bad luck."
The next morning...
"It was an attempted suicide." Conan whined, having been dragged back to the crime scene by the Detective Boys. "That's nothing to do with the Detective Boys."
"Either way, we want to check out the crime scene." Mitsuhiko replied.
"It happened in our territory." Genta added.
"It's up ahead." Conan led the group to the alleyway. "What's Investigation Section One doing here?" he noticed the taped off area and Inspector Megure on scene with Takagi.
"That's him." the officer on patrol from the previous night noticed Conan.
"So, the kid with glasses is Conan-kun after all." Megure twitched.
"We wanted to ask you about last night." Takagi ran forward.
"So, it wasn't just an attempted suicide." Conan concluded.
"No," Takagi corrected. "The building had been closed over the holidays. The only way to the roof was to take the emergency stairs. But..."
"Fukurokoji-san was so drunk he couldn't stand." the patrol officer supplied.
"Then, he couldn't have climbed the stairs." Conan realized.
"It would've been impossible." Takagi agreed. "Someone must've have carried the plastered Fukurokoji-san to the roof and thrown him off. It wasn't an attempted suicide, but attempted murder."
"We think the culprit blended in with the crowd and left." Megure added. "Did you see anyone suspicious?"
"Can we see the roof?" Conan requested, after shaking his head in negative. "I might remember something."
On the rooftop...
"There are scratch marks, too." Conan instantly spotted the scratches on the railing.
"What are scratch marks?" Genta asked.
"Those." Haibara pointed. "See where the dirt has been wiped from the railing?"
"Fukurokoji-san's clothes must have rubbed against it when he fell." Ayumi reasoned.
"But why did the culprit bother to carry him up to the roof?" Conan wondered.
"They were trying to make it look like a suicide." Haibara pointed out.
"There are easier ways to..." Conan refuted. "There are scratch marks here, too." he spotted another group of scratches on another railing.
"Which means the culprit initially tried to drop him from there." Takagi realized. "But he resisted and ended up dropping him over there."
"Inspector." Chiba ran in. "Fukurokoji-san was drunk and doesn't remember anything from last night. Also, he said that since he's a loser in our competitive society, there shouldn't be anyone who resents him."
"But the fact of the matter is that he was nearly killed." Megure pointed out.
"We'll try to figure out where Fukurokoji-san went last night." Takagi said.
"The culprit made contact with him somewhere." Megure reminded.
"You look unconvinced." Haibara noticed Conan's pondering expression.
"Something's not..." Conan mused. "That man." he spotted Komatsu walking past the building.
Downstairs...
"This is it." Komatsu showed Yukigaya Daisuke the spot where he was almost crushed last night. "it was right here. This is where I was nearly squashed flat."
"I know you're unlucky." Yukigaya chided.
"You told your friend about your bad luck, too?" Conan entered the conversation.
"You're the one from last night." Komatsu instantly recognized Conan. "This is Yukigaya Daisuke. I'm proud to call him my friend."
"I've got to get going." Yukigaya made himself scarce.
"He agreed to stop by since we were in the area." Komatsu stated. "He's great at his job, and from a rich and distinguished family. He's confident in everything. We started working at the same time, but we're nothing alike. After all, he never experienced any kind of setbacks. Compared to him, I have terrible luck."
"You just happened to be here last night, too." Conan reasoned.
"I didn't happen to come here." Komatsu beamed. "I was waiting for someone. I got a love letter from a woman I don't know. Maybe it was because of all the fuss, she never showed up. She told me to wait in front of this building at eight. That's why I waited at the entrance at first. But then, my watch stopped. When I came here so I could see the clock, he fell off the roof. I've got pretty bad luck."
"He started here." Conan headed towards the building entrance. "This place is directly under the other scratch marks.
"What is it, Conan-kun?" Mitsuhiko asked.
"The culprit's target moved." Conan realized why there were scratch marks in two different places. "The culprit was not only trying to kill Fukurokoji-san, but also trying to kill Komatsu-san by making it look like he was mixed up in a suicide. That also explains why the culprit lured Komatsu-san here with the love letter and had to carry Fukurokoji-san to the roof."
"In other words, the culprit is someone who hates both Fukurokoji-san and Komatsu-san." Mitsuhiko concluded.
"Someone has a grudge against you, right?" Genta asked Komatsu.
"No one has a grudge against me." Komatsu chuckled.
"Could you show us the love letter, then?" Mitsuhiko requested. "We need to confirm what happened wasn't intentional."
After the lunch break at the café where Komatsu's crush, Nagai Sakiko, was working at, Conan got wind that Yukigaya had asked Naga out previously, but was rejected by the waitress seeing how she had a crush on Komatsu. With that information at hand, he had an inkling on who the culprit was. After confirming with Takagi and Chiba on Fukurokoji's whereabouts the previous night, Conan ascertained the culprit's identity.
On the building's roof...
"Apparently, you want to talk to me." Yukigaya was called up to the rooftop with Komatsu. "I bought him as you asked."
"Sakiko-san." Komatsu spotted his crush with the Detective Boys.
"Yukigaya-san, you've never experienced disappointment before." Conan started. "But if that's who you are, it must have been really shocking when Sakiko-san turned you down for a date. That's why you came up with this plan. Komatsu-san, it was Yukigaya-san: he's the one who wrote the love letter and dropped Fukurokoji-san from here. He pretended to be a woman and sent the letter. Last night, he led the plastered Fukurokoji-san out of the bar, carried him to the roof and tried to drop him on Komatsu-san. Though, he failed to kill him as planned."
"How would I benefit from killing Komatsu?" Yukigaya questioned.
"It would be a blow to Sakiko-san." Conan answered. "If his plan succeeded, Fukurokoji-san and Komatsu-san would have been beyond saving. If Sakiko-san saw the letter, she would have been shocked. It would mean he suffered an unfortunate death because he was lured out by a woman. Then, you would've laugh scornfully at Sakiko-san for getting what she deserved. Isn't that exactly what you wanted, Yukigaya-san? That's why you had to have him bring the letter. It was the most critical tool to make Sakiko-san sad."
"Why would Sakiko-san be sad if I died holding a love letter from a woman?" Komatsu was confused.
"Notice already." Haibara deathpanned.
"What?" Komatsu exclaimed, seeing Nagai's obvious blush.
"It is because I turned you down for a date?" Nagai realized. "Just over that?"
"He couldn't forgive you." Conan declared.
"Not a confident man who'd never experienced disappointment." Haibara agreed.
"Wait, why did he try to kill Fukurokoji-san?" Komatsu wondered.
"It didn't matter who it was." Conan shrugged. "If you dropped a block, the police would know it was premeditated murder. That's why you had to drop a human: not even the police would imagine someone using a living human as a weapon. Fukurokoji-san was dropped only to take Komatsu-san's life: as a human weapon. You searched for someone you could use and you found Fukurokoji-san, since he always said he wanted to die, no one would find it odd if you dropped him off a roof. They'd just think he finally killed himself."
"There's no point in keeping trash like him alive." Yukigaya mocked. "In fact, just him existing in this world is unsightly."
"Yukigaya-san, we have some questions for you." Megure entered with Takagi and Chiba.
"He already acknowledged that he attempted to kill the two men." Conan informed.
"Without evidence, I..." Yukigaya started. "You can't corner the culprit. And because this culprit is a very exceptional person, there is no inconvenient evidence anywhere."
"We collected this initially, but we had no one to compare it to." Takagi took out the bagged hair strands. "It was stuck to Fukurokoji-san's jacket button."
"We'd like one of your hairs for reference." Megure requested.
"I can't believe I left a trace on that trash's jacket." Yukigaya sneered. "Even if it's my hair, I have plenty of excuses. But I'd never do anything so unsightly. After all, it wouldn't be like me to end the story without beauty."
Later that evening...
"Ami," Amuro voiced from her bathroom. "What is this?" he poked his head out, a silver bira-bira kanzashi with a dangling Kanagawa-wave ornament.
"I was wondering where that went." Ami remarked, spotting the hairpin in her lover's hand.
"Then, you were the one from back then..." Amuro realized who Ami was: the little girl he had always protected before he even met Morofushi Hiromitsu. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I thought you should've figured out who I was back at the Police Academy." Ami chided mildly. "I mean, how many blue-haired females do you know?"
"Point." Amuro conceded. "Sit." he sat Ami on a stool and bundled up her hair up in a side bun and secured it with the hair ornament.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.
