SailorStar9: With Chapter 66 uploaded, this is Chapter 67 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 67: The Ventriloquist's Illusion, Part One


Time passes...

Bright blue fluorescent paint dripped down from the ceiling onto the floor. The camera panned out to reveal a woman slumped over a backed chair in darkened surroundings and a heavily huffing Tengan Riichi. The lights then turned back on, showing Tengan holding a large vase and blue paint coming from the woman's mouth and a large patch of in the woman's hair.

"It's him." Tengan muttered. "He's the one who ordered me to kill my beloved wife with my own hands." he turned and pointed the vase to the ventriloquism doll sitting on a chair. "Don't you have anything to say?" he lunged at the smug puppet.

"Don't say such scandalous things, Partner." the puppet laughed. "You and I are one. I am you and you are me. You ordered yourself to do it."

"Stop messing around." Tengan snapped.

"I can't breathe." the doll gulped when Tengan choked him. "What are you doing, Partner? Stop it, Partner."

"Die." Tengan snarled, tightening his grip on the doll's neck.

"Now all that's yours is mine." the puppet chuckled, stabbing Tengan in the chest with a knife. "Who shall I possess next?" he turned to the audience.

It was then revealed that Mouri, Ran and Conan were at a ventriloquist show.


Backstage...

"Anyway, why did the popular ventriloquist on the verge of his big break, Tengan Riichi, hire you, dad?" Ran wondered.

"Who knows." Mouri replied. "He said he'd fill me in after the show and invited me to today's performance."

"What on earth is going on?" Tengan Kazuko demanded in an empty room. "What was today's performance about?"

"Just before the curtains went up, he said he was changing the program." Togawa Haruomi, Riichi's student, explained.

"Do you think he knows about us?" Kazuko was worried. "He's been acting strange lately. He's been muttering to himself. I'm scared of him." she hugged Togawa. "Someday he actually might..."

"Excuse me." Mouri coughed. "Where is Tengan-san's dressing room?"

"You're Mouri Kogoro-san." Togawa greeted.

A pained scream that rang from Riichi's dressing room and Mouri hurried over.

"Get out!" Riichi demanded, a knife in hand to stab his ventriloquist doll. "Get out from inside of me."

"Stop." Mouri acted, stopping Riichi from plunging the knife in.

"Please stop, sir." Togawa pulled Riichi back.

"You and I are one." Riichi laughed, taking on the ventriloquist puppet's voice. "You can't force me out, Partner. I'll do exactly what you want to do. If you can't do it, I'll do it for you, Partner."

"No more!" Kazuko wailed.

"Please stop." Riichi regained his voice. "Please get out from inside of me."

"No way." the ventriloquist doll mocked.

"If you won't leave, then I'll do this." Riichi turned to Mouri and grabbed the knife. "Let go of me." he struggled against Mouri who kept him captive.


In the hospital...

"Tengan-san has regained consciousness and is asking to see you." the registry nurse informed Mouri.

"I hope you'll forgive my disgraceful display, Mouri-san." Tengan apologized, his ventriloquist puppet on his raised knee. "I am ashamed. They suspect I have a dissociative identity disorder or a split personality. But they can't say for certain that I do. The doctors were vague."

"You do the same thing, Partner." the ventriloquist doll retorted. "You've always been shy and unable to speak your true feelings. I've even the one who proposed to your wife."

"It's embarrassing, but if not for him," Riichi admitted. "If I'd never encountered ventriloquism, my life would be..."

"At rock bottom, Partner." the ventriloquist doll teased.

"What do you want Kogoro-oji-san to do?" Conan asked.

"The truth is..." Riichi started.

"Are you sure you want to tell him, Partner?" the ventriloquist puppet inquired.

"Shut up." Riichi clumped a hand over the doll's mouth. "The truth is I may kill my own wife at his urging." he buried the puppet under the bed blanket. "When I'm home alone, I can hear him even though I'm not practicing ventriloquism. I can only imagine his voice coming from inside me. The part of him that's inside me. In other words, it must be me."

"That was supposed to be our secret, Partner." the ventriloquist doll freed himself. "You can't expect me to keep quiet. That woman is having an affair with your apprentice."

"If they love each other, I'm willing to get a divorce." Riichi told the puppet.

"You're lying, Partner." the doll sneered.

"I don't know what's happening anymore." Riichi sighed. "I don't know if I'm playing the doll or he's speaking from inside of me. I'm afraid of him, of myself. I'm afraid of what I'll do if I lose consciousness. So, I want you to watch me, Mouri-san. Watch me so I don't kill my wife."

"I'm sorry." Mouri rejected. "Tengan-san, I'm a detective. Consulting with medical specialists here would be a more sensible choice."

"Very well." Riichi sighed. "Togawa, bring the car around."

"I thought you were staying here tonight." Togawa blinked.

"He said to bring the car around." the ventriloquist puppet snapped. "You're as useless as ever."


The next day...

"Togawa-san?" Ran picked up the phone. "Tengan-san killed his wife?"

"Please help him, Mouri-san." Togawa pleaded over the loudspeaker. "Please help my master."


In the police headquarters' interrogation room...

"You took sleeping pills and was asleep?" Takagi repeated.

"I was afraid I'd lose myself." Riichi confessed. "I've been taking them every day lately."

"So, this morning, you were roused by your apprentice and attendant, Togawa Haruomi-san, who came to pick you up for work and realized your wife had been killed." Takagi noted. "Last night when you returned from the hospital, was your wife still out of the house?"

"Lately, she's been going out at night a lot." Riichi replied. "She seems to come home while I'm asleep.

She's enjoying the nightlife." he suddenly took on his ventriloquist puppet's voice. "When that cheater died, my partner was snoring in bed. I killed her." he reverted back to his original voice. "The man inside me ordered me to kill my wife. You're saying that after I backed up your alibi?" he took on the ventriloquist doll's voice again. "And stop blaming me, Partner. I'm just a doll. You're the one who actually did the deed, Partner."

"This looks familiar." Megure noted, he and Mouri were watching outside the interrogation room. "Does he really have dissociative identity disorder? Maybe he's trying to make us think that so he won't be found criminally responsible or we'll drop the case against him."

"It's not totally unthinkable." Mouri admitted. "After all, psychiatric tests aren't 100% accurate. In that case, leave it to me, Inspector."


In the Tengan apartment...

"The victim was here." Mouri compared the photos forensics had taken. "And the weapon was here."

"Only Tengan-san's fingerprints were on the weapon." Conan pointed out.

"Based on their position, he grabbed the trophy that was sitting here, raised it above his head and brought it down on the back of the victim's head who was sitting on the couch and drinking sake." Mouri demonstrated.

"What's this?" Conan peered over the trophy counter.

"Go home already." Mouri picked Conan up to remove him.

"Oji-san, look at that." Conan spotted a recorder on the loudspeaker box.

"Is this a speaker?" Mouri retrieved the woofer. "There's one over there, too. And over there. And they're wireless. That means..."

"There must be a recorder somewhere sending sounds to them." Conan was crawling on the carpet. "I found it." he located the recorder taped under the coffee table.

"This is..." Mouri looked around, Conan pressing the play button and the ventriloquist puppet's voice sounded from speakers.


In the police headquarters' interrogation room...

"We found your fingerprints on this recorder and these speakers." Takagi showed Togawa the two pieces of bagged evidence.

"They're mine." Togawa admitted. "They've been missing for about a week. Where did you find them?"

"They were set up in the living room of Tengan-san's apartment." Takagi answered. "It was set periodically to play this." he played the recorder.

"What's the meaning of this?" Togawa gaped. "Is this what my master mentioned?"

"Togawa-san, you're trying too hard to feign ignorance." Megure informed. "During your voluntary appearance and search at the station, we found this inside your bag." he pulled out the bagged glasses.

"Those are mine." Togawa confirmed "I lost these a while ago, too. What are they doing there?"

"But there's another problem." Megure stated. "Do you know what this is that's stuck to here?" he pointed to the smudge inside the spectacle lens.

"Is it blood?" Takagi realized.

"The DNA test indicated that it's the victim's blood." Megure remarked. "It probably got on them during the attack."

"You think I killed her?" Togawa realized.

"Togawa-san, where were you around 2am this morning?" Takagi questioned.

"I was practicing at home." Togawa replied. "My master said he'd check my progress first thing in the morning, so I was up almost all night."

"This is the spare key to Tengan-san's apartment that you were holding onto." Megure took out the bagged key.

"As his apprentice and attendant, I need it." Togawa pointed out.

"Either way, you have no alibi for the time of the crime and you could freely enter and leave the scene of the crime." Megure declared. "I heard you and the victim had a special relationship."

"It's true that something happened between us." Togawa confessed. "My master scolded me every day for my inexperience and she was kind to me. She felt lonely because he was always so busy. It was just once; just a one-time mistake."

"But the victim wouldn't leave you alone. "Megure continued. "You became anxious for your future as a ventriloquist and thought she was in the way. So, you killed her. You made Tengan-san believe he had dissociative identity disorder and tried to put the blame on him."

"I regret my relationship with his wife." Togawa insisted. "I respect my master. I would never do that. I didn't kill her."


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