"exactly. The culprit who murdered Matsumoto-san…" Shizune flipped her hair and paused before pointing her right index finger confidently to a certain person. "is you!"

Everyone immediately turned to the direction she was pointing and their eyes widened in shock.

"a-are you kidding me?" Kitagawa Yuri snapped at the young detective and put a hand on her chest. "why am I the murderer!? Don't make blind accusations! Even if I did kill the president, how do you think I did it!?"

"Kudo-kun…" Megure worriedly looked at her.

"Kitagawa-san" She started. "First you called Matsumoto-san and asked him to meet you. Since it was you, he wouldn't think twice, I'm sure. Most probably, you used some sweet words to seduce him to come and set the restroom as the meeting place to give him some ideas making the chance of him coming much more higher. Then when he arrived, you made sure no one was around and shot him." The brunette motioned the action with her hand and smirked.

"but the police found no gunpowder residue on me! How do you explain that!?"

"oh, that's easy. I'm sure you prepared a similar dress to the one you're wearing and changed into it."

Kitagawa clenched her teeth and growled. "if so, where is the dress now?"

"if I was you, I'd already dispose of it. Throwing it in a rubbish bin would be risky so I'm guessing you cut it real small and flushed it down the toilet right after you changed."

"if so, that means you don't have any proof." Akashi chose to interrupt. "And what about the murder weapon? Where is it now?"

"since the police already searched the entire place and found nothing, the culprit must still in possession of it."

"but, Kudo-kun. We already did a body inspection and checked their belongings but the murder weapon was—"

"that's right! I didn't have anything resembling the murder weapon!" The woman crossed her arms and raised her head angrily. "don't make stupid accusations when you don't have any proof!"

Not affected by her words, Shizune confidently said, "K Y KUCHI."

"huh?"

"this is the victim's dying message. What do you think it means?"

"how should I know?"

"this dying message was written by Matsumoto-san during his last breath to reveal the killer's name."

"K Y…Kitagawa Yuri…" Akashi muttered.

"are you serious?" Kitagawa laughed and shot a finger to Yasekawa. "If it's someone with the initials K Y, wouldn't he fit? His name is Yasekawa Kanato"

"also K Y only in a different order…Kudo-kun, she's right. You can't make her the culprit by just that and also the other part of the dying message which is KUCHI…what does that mean?"

"Inspector, next to the CHI character there's a small blood stain trailed to the deceased's finger. This means that word he wanted to write didn't end at the CHI character."

"even so, we don't know what the word is" Megure exclaimed.

"exactly. Looks like your deduction is really flawed, young girl" she smirked.

"Kitagawa-san, why didn't you bring a mirror?"

"eh?"

"usually, women would bring a compact mirror so that it would be easy to fix their make-up but when you showed your belongings just now, there wasn't a mirror anywhere."

"I- I thought that I wouldn't be needing it so—"

"Also, I see that even though you brought a lipstick, you're not applying it. Is there a particular reason?"

"n-now that you mention it…"

Kitagawa clenched her fists and glared at her. Seeing that she wasn't going to argue, Shizune continued with her deduction.

"the KUCHI in the dying message wasn't the KUCHI from mouth but, the KUCHI from lipstick. He was implying to the lipstick you brought"

"I see!" Takagi who was silently listening exclaimed. "The victim wanted to write KUCHIBENI (lipstick) but he died before he managed to write it!"

"but, how can a lipstick kill someone like a gun?" Akashi questioned. He had many disagreements on it.

"it can." Yusaku voiced up. "there's a metallic item which looks like a lipstick but if you pull the bottom and then push it, it can serve as a normal gun*."

"if it's not the weapon we're looking for, I'm sure you wouldn't mind letting the police check the lipstick, right?"

At the lost of words to argue back, Kitagawa collapse on the floor and kept her head low. "I..killed him…"

"why? Is it because of the sexual harassment he did to you?" Haruka asked.

"hmph. Like I'd kill him for a trivial reason like that. That man…That man killed my only brother, Seichi, two years ago!"

"eh?"

"Seichi…" Yasekawa mumbled. "are you talking about Sakaguchi Seichi? But he committed suicide!"

"that man drove him into suicide!" She clenched her teeth and started to tear up. "He pretended to help my brother by publishing his artworks but instead of publishing them under my brother's name, he published it under another artist he favored. My brother didn't know about this until one day he sent one of his artworks to an exhibition but got rejected because they said it was a copy of another artist's."

"Realizing what had happened, my brother confronted Matsumoto and said that he would reveal it to everyone but he was told that even though he did, no one would believe him. My brother then got shunned by many because he tried to send a copied artwork to the exhibition and he chose suicide…I found out the truth one month ago by coincidence from the artist that stole my brother's artwork when he got drunk. After learning about it, I changed my last name and swore revenge on Matsumoto"

"I had no idea my husband did that sort of thing…"

"but, why did you commit the murder here?" Shizune asked softly. "if you killed Matsumoto-san at his own home, it would've been easier…"

"if I did it during the party, I thought that the number of suspects will increase and the risk of me getting caught would be lower but I guess I was wrong…" A tear rolled down her cheek and she raised her head up. "Matsumoto must be laughing at me from the other world right now…"

Megure nodded once to Takagi. He walked over to Kitagawa and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Kitagawa-san, please follow us to the station."

After the police and the other two guests left, Mr. Akashi went over to Shizune and patted her a few times on the shoulder, laughing heartily. "that was a brilliant deduction, Shizune-kun! You certainly are your father's daughter!"

"t-thank you. But dad," she turned to Yusaku who was smiling widely. "you didn't have to cut in and tell the murder weapon..I could've done it myself, y'know.."

"I couldn't take it anymore. Keeping quiet really kills" He replied with a goofy grin.

Shizune rolled her eyes and moved over to Akashi wearing a big smile on her face. "what do you think?"

"about what?"

"how I solved the case, of course. What do you think about it?"

"it wasn't bad. Even though you're not the type to know such feminine stuff, you managed to solve it." he smugly said.

"what do you mean by that?" she huffed but then grinned. "well, it's thanks to my mom that I could solve it. She was the one who told me about the mirror"

"Is that so…but why are you asking my opinion on your deduction?"

"eh? Now that you mention it, why am I…" She tapped her finger on her chin and looked up to the ceiling.

Akashi let out a short sigh and shifted his gaze to their parents who walked over to them.

"Shizu-chan, we have a little something to tell you" Yukiko smiled sweetly at the two which sent shivers down Shizune's spine. "the thing is, your father and I are returning to America because Akashi-san's company's branch over there needs some management"

"Kudo-san is the perfect person for the job, you see"

"why thank you, Akashi-san"

"and?" Shizune crossed her arms "That's not all, isn't it?"

"well, we feel a little worried about leaving you to live alone in the mansion—"

"even though I've been living alone in Tokyo while you guys were fooling around in America?" She interrupted Yukiko.

"that's Tokyo. You know the area perfectly so there's no need to worry but this is Kyoto. You hardly know the place." Yusaku explained calmly.

"so, your father and I have decided that you will be staying in the Akashi residence for some time. Akashi-san himself suggested to do so"

"I see...wait, what!?" Shizune shouted in shock.

"see? I told you she would flip out~" Yukiko grinned while holding out her hand to the two males, forming a V sign with her fingers.

"mom! Why do I need to stay here? not that I don't like this place but I can manage myself perfectly—"

"by eating bento from the convenience store on a daily basis or sometimes eating the food Ren-kun brings?"

That immediately shut Shizune up. Without her knowing, the Kudo couple had already packed their stuff along with their daughter's clothes because they were leaving for America after the party.

"why is life doing this to me…"

Shizune lamented and Akashi couldn't help but chuckled.

"are you so against living here?"

"of course. 'cause that means I have to live under the same roof as you."

"Seijuro, please bring Shizune-kun and her luggage to her room while I see Kudo-san and Yukiko-san off"

"yes father."

"for now, this'll be your room."

Akashi gestured for her to enter and he set her stuff next to the bed. Shizune looked around the room. It was very big. A desk is set beside a queen sized bed and the bathroom is only a few steps away from it. 'as expected from the Akashi's…' She thought.

"well, enjoy your stay."

After he left, the girl changed into her night attire and threw herself on the bed. Never in her whole entire life would she expect that she would be living under the same room with Akashi's and his family. Feeling bored, she flipped open her phone to find someone to bother. Her eyes turned soft when she saw a picture of her and Ren at the amusement park which she set as her wallpaper.

'Ren...wonder how's he doing right now…maybe I should give him a call sometime to not let him worry'

At the same time, the said boy was also wondering how his childhood friend was doing in Kyoto. "Shizune…" he mumbled softly. Noticing it was already late, he switched off the lights and went off to sleep.

*got it from an episode in Detective Conan's live action series. It's quite hard to explain how it works…

yea I know...the case and the proof and everything sucks- "OTL
but it was the best I could come up with xD
maa- hope you liked it though-