SailorStar9: With Chapter 111 uploaded, I present Chapter 112 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 112: The High School Girl Trio's Secret Café, Part One


Time passes...

Conan and Mouri were spying on Ran in the Komehana Café, only to realize that she was merely meeting up with Sonoko and Sera.

"It's so good." Sonoko gushed, the girls biting into their order of club sandwiches.

"These club sandwiches are good." Ran agreed.

"They're perfectly toasted, too." Sera nodded.

"But they're not as good as Amuro-san's." Sonoko pondered. "I'm so envious of Mizuno-san."

"Excuse me." Saraie Daiki served up Sonoko's coffee. "What café are you talking about? I'd like to try it. If you could please tell me..."

"Don't tell him." Motosu Toshinori barked. "If you tell him, he'll write about it in his blog. That café might have to close down. I'm on the brick of shutting down my own café because of him."

"Sir, please don't make false accusations against me." Saraie chided.

"I know you're the famous food blogger 'The Stuffed Professor'." Motosu snapped.

"Give me a break." Saraie soothed. "If you don't stop now, I really will destroy you." he smirked. "I still have a lot of other methods at my disposal. We lost a lot of customers because you made our chef quit. What's wrong with reducing a rival restaurant's patronage? I wish you'll call it 'business efforts'. Don't forget the only reason I haven't crushed you yet is because you're the boss' younger brother."

"Saraie-san?" Naomura Isuzu called out. "What are you doing? We've got food piling up."

"I'm finished here." Saraie assured. "I'll be right there. Anyway, have you given any thought to becoming my girlfriend?" he whispered to his co-worker.

"I told you I wasn't interested the other day." Naomura reminded.

"The current manager will be retiring when she gets married and I'm next in line." Saraie stated. "You don't have to worry about money again. You changed your hairstyle to escape your debt collectors. I don't know why you borrowed money, but if you become my girlfriend, I'll protect you. I've got a lot of influence with those guys."

"You all." Hasunuma Tamao rebuked. "Why are you standing around chatting? We've got customers waiting to order."


After lunchtime...

"Naomura-san." Hasunuma voiced. "One of the big vases we had displayed at the entrance is missing." she pointed to the empty spot by the door.

"I don't think I saw it when I arrived this morning." Naomura replied.

"Could you look for it?" Hasunuma requested.

After a while, Naomura suddenly screamed from the changing room.

"What's going on?" Hasunuma hurried in. "Naomura-san?" she stopped in front of the changing room. she opened the door to see the bludgeoned waiter slumped on the floor.

"Saraie-san?" Naomura knelt beside her co-worker. "Wake up."

"Don't touch him." Sera barked. "Let me take a look."

"Ran, call the police." Mouri instructed. "Hurry. And an ambulance."

"Don't bother." Sera corrected, feeling for a pulse. "You only need to call the police. He doesn't have a pulse."

"We don't know who killed him yet, but it must've been someone quite strong." Mouri spotted the bloodied vase on the floor. "Not only did they club him to death with this giant vase, but they even broke through the padlock on the locker and stole something.


After Megure's team was called in...

"A vase, huh?" Megure mused. "While searching for the vase that is the murder weapon, you came to this changing room where you found Saraie-san's body?"

"The manager asked me to look for it." Naomura replied.

"One of the two we had displayed by the entrance is missing." Hasunuma confirmed.

"Do you know when the vase went missing?" Takagi asked.

"I'm not sure." Naomura frowned. "Usually, I'm first to arrive at the café and clean. I think it was gone by then,"

"I'm the last to leave since I lock up." Hasunuma added. "The vase was there last night."

"Are you two the only ones with the keys to the café?" Megure questioned.

"Saraie-san had a key to the entrance, too." Naomura supplied.

"All our cooks have keys to the service entrance." Hasunuma added. "They've got prep to do."

"Start by questioning all the cooks in the kitchen." Megure instructed. "See if they saw anyone enter this changing room immediately before or after the victim. Did you see anyone from inside the café?" he asked the others.

"We knew about the staff-only entrance since we saw it, but..." Sera started.

"We were chatting at our table." Sonoko supplied.

"We weren't watching it carefully." Ran frowned.

"However, the detective watching us might have seen something." Sonoko teased.

"I didn't see anything." Mouri stammered.

"Inspector Megure." Takagi reported back. "I finished questioning the cooks in the kitchen. Apparently, no one left the kitchen during the estimated time of death between 1:30 to 2:00. Also, the changing room can't be seen from the kitchen entrance. They don't know who entered the changing room during that time. But a former chef of this restaurant came to the kitchen to provide instruction."

"That's my younger brother." Hasunuma informed.

"That's correct." Motosu was brought in for questioning. "During that time, I came to the kitchen to provide some cooking instruction at my sister's request. But I didn't know he was in the changing room. Besides, I'd never kill anyone."

"Couldn't you have predicted that the victim would come here?" Sera cut in. "This room stinks of cigarettes. There's an ashtray packed full of cigarettes of the same brand. The victim's mouth smelled strongly of cigarettes. Is the victim a heavy smoker? Then, you must've known he'd show up eventually if you waited long enough."

"Saraie-kun's the only employee here who smokes." Hasunuma spoke. "The entire staff would've known he came here frequently to smoke. But the weapon is that vase, right? It may be hollow, but it seems pretty heavy. None of our employees could swing that thing around."

"She's right." Takagi winced, lifting the vase. "It's about as heavy as a30kg bag of rice."

"That locker with the broken padlock..." Megure started. "Was that the victim's?"

"That's Saraie-kun's locked." Hasunuma nodded.

"Which means the culprit may have been after its contents." Takagi surmised.

"It's been badly ransacked." Megure noted, opening the locker. "Do you have any idea what was stolen?"

"I'm not sure." Naomura admitted. "Only its owner would know for sure."

"The culprit really smashed the padlock." Megure mused.

"Does this café have a toolbox?" Sera asked.

"There's one on those drawers." Naomura pointed.

"I see pliers, a hammer, screwdrivers and a spanner." Megure inspected the toolbox. "None of those could break a padlock like that."

"The only other thing in here are these screws and nails." Takagi added. "Sorry." he stammered, one of the screws slipping from his fingers and rolled underneath the cupboard. He reached in to retrieve the screw when he spotted a white ball.


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