SailorStar9: With Chapter 112 uploaded, I present Chapter 113 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 113: The High School Girl Trio's Secret Café, Part Two


"I remember now." Naomura gaped. "Something Saraie-san kept carefully locked in his locker. It was his tablet. He often typed on it while smoking. Maybe that's what was stolen."

"What was he typing?" Megure asked.

"I asked, but he never told me." Naomura replied.

"It was his blog." Motosu supplied. "That man wrote a food blog under the handle 'the Stuffed Professor'. He made a lot of posts disparaging rival restaurants. That's why it's so difficult to handle. My restaurant was hard up because of that blog."

"That's why you stopped Sonoko-kun from telling him the address of Poirot and its delicious sandwiches." Sera realized.

"Why do you and the manager have different family names when you're siblings?" Takagi inquire, keeping the toolbox. "Is it because the manager is married?"

"I'm getting married next month." Hasunuma informed. "My brother's father-in-law was apparently a stubborn man. He said he wouldn't let him marry his only daughter unless he took his name and took over the restaurant. He had no choice."

"Isuzu-chan, since your family started its own branch of the restaurant, have they not been victimized by that man's blog?" Motosu recalled.

"They're barely keeping the place open." Naomura sighed. "But the restaurant is as deserted as ever. They're apparently drowning in debt."

"Are you sure that business isn't going under because of his blog, so you killed you?" Mouri accused.

"I would've complained to him like Motosu-san did." Naomura snapped. "I was the restaurant's poster girl."

"I had no idea Saraie-kun was running that kind of blog." Hasunuma admitted.

"Even though you lived with him for a year." Motosu cut in.

"That's irrelevant right now." Hasunuma stammered. "It was five years ago." she informed the detectives.

"Then, it's possible he's threatening to show embarrassing photos of you from when you two dated to your fiancé unless you paid him." Mouri surmised. "If he was causing mischief with this blog, then it's all the more likely."

"He didn't have any money problems." Hasunuma protested. "He was going to be the new manager after I got married and quit my job."

"He mentioned that to me, too." Naomura added. "He said that since he'd be the next manager, I wouldn't have to worry about money if I became his girlfriend."

"Which means the culprit is the former chef." Mouri turned his attention to Motosu.

"How did I carry the vase back here?" Motosu retorted. "I returned the keys when I quit. I dislocated my wrist." he showed Mouri his bandaged wrist. Ask the hospital, then. They should have the X-rays."

"What's going on?" Sera asked, seeing Conan's frustrated expression. "You can't figure it out?"

"I don't have a clue." Conan admitted.

"I figured out the trick." Sera supplied. "Unfortunately, I don't know who the culprit is yet."

"I figured that out when we entered the changing room." Conan snorted. "And also, the trick they used."

"An outsider?" Mouri echoed. "You're saying this murder was committed by an outsider, Inspector?"

"I'm saying it's possible." Megure replied. "When the nearly 30 kilo vase that is the murder weapon is filled with water, I doubt any of them could lift it. There aren't any tools here that could be used to break the padlock on the victim's locker. This window was open when Saraie-san's body was discovered. If it was left open, then someone could have entered through the window at night and carried the vase here. They could've seen Saraie-san smoking with the window open from outside, entered through the service entrance and clubbed him to death using the vase. An incredibly strong someone who could swing a water-filled vase weighing over 40 kilos and smash the padlock."

"That's a decoy." Sera supplied. "I doubt the culprit was particularly strong at all."

"I got them, Mouri-san." Takagi called out. "A padlock and two spanners."

"Let's get started." Sera grinned. "First, the padlock. If you jam both spanners into the U-shaped spanner of the locked padlock and apply your weight from above..." with a downward press, she broke the padlock."

"There aren't any marks left on the locker that would indicate the padlock was broken using spanners." Mouri pointed out.

"That's because after killing Saraie-san, the culprit removed the key from his body, unlocked and removed the padlock, broke it using the method I just showed you and then reattached it to the locker." Sera explained. "They even ransacked the inside of the locker so it looked like the culprit was after the contents of Saraie-san's locker."

"Those tools aren't enough to swing that vase." Mouri reminded.

"They don't need to swing it." Sera corrected, putting on the gloves she carried around. She then purposely dropped one of the two spanners, causing it to roll under the cupboard. "Could you get that spanner from underneath the drawers?"

"Why do I have to do this?" Mouri complained, lying on the ground to retrieve the spanner.

"They forcefully dropped the vase on top of the victim's head like this." Sera demonstrated, lightly tapping the vase's bottom on Mouri's head. "After propping the victim up like this, they placed the flowers they had in the locker in the vase, filled it with water and pushed the vase towards the blood splatter on the floor caused by the impact. This removed the blood splatter, while also creating the illusion that the vase had always contained water."

"Socks." Conan cut in. "You were wearing socks earlier." he lifted the bottom of Naomura's pants. "So why weren't you now? Why did you take them off?"

"I'm a sweaty person." Naomura explained. "They were drenched in sweat. They were gross, so I took them off."

"I see." Conan nodded. "So, it's not because you got blood on your socks when you dropped the vase? There's something under the drawers." he peered underneath the cupboard.

"Is that a pearl earring?" Sera frowned.

"It looks like it's stuck on the floor." Conan added.

"You asked Saraie-san to use the vacuum to suck up the earring underneath the drawers using the narrow host attachment." Sera found the vacuum cleaner. "If it was stuck there with glue, it would've been difficult to get. So, while he was lying on the floor, you dropped the vase on him."

Conan opened Naomura's locked and a pile of empty water bottles fell out.

"She divided the water into plastic bottles and hid them in her locker." Megure realized.

"Why, Isuzu-chan?" Motosu asked.

"He criticized my family's restaurant on his blog as well." Naomura admitted. "Though it's gone now since my parents killed themselves over their debt. At first, I had no intention to kill him; my father fell ill so my mother was cooking instead. It's true the quality of our dishes had declined. I decided to get a job here because I heard the owner of the blog was a waiter here. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind. Do you know what he said when he met me? He wrote on his blog that the quality of the food had dropped. He claimed to be disappointed after dining regularly at our restaurant for years. But he never ate our restaurant's food. He criticized us based on rumors and our image. I couldn't forgive him for that, so I dropped a vase on the head of a man who called himself 'the Stuffed Professor' with a stomach full of murder."


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