SailorStar9: With Chapter 174 uploaded, I present Chapter 175 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 175: Ballad of the Woman Who Loved Cake
Time passes...
In an abandoned building...
"I'm certain." Mitsuhiko stated. "It's this building."
"Just the thought of this mansion becoming a factory that makes tasty cakes..." Genta drooled.
"It's kind of exciting." Ayumi added. "I want shortcake and mont blanc."
"In that case, I'd like cheesecake and apple pie." Mitsuhiko remarked.
"Then, I want chocolate cake, roll cake, pancakes and flapjacks." Genta declared.
"Isn't that..." Ayumi noticed a hand sticking out from a pile of rubble on the ground.
Just then, the person still under the rubble burst out, frightening the three kids and causing them to faint.
Wordlessly, the person walked off, driving pass Conan in her red sports car.
"This must be the place." Conan looked up ahead at the abandoned mansion. "Pull yourselves together." he shook the unconscious kids awake after finding them on the ground. "A corpse came back to life?" he echoed.
"A hand reached out from beneath the debris." Mitsuhiko stammered.
"It started moving and a woman wearing red emerged." Ayumi added.
"Looks like the zombie was injured." Conan spotted the blood trail leading outside the mansion.
On the road...
"Isn't this place..." Conan stopped outside a Western Confections Paradise store and noticed a woman eating a slice of strawberry cake, a similar woman had also been sitting at her seat and eating the same cake the previous week. "Those colors..."
"Aren't they a similar color to the debris?" Mitsuhiko wondered. "Her leg is injured." he noticed the blood stain on the woman's stocking as she walked out.
"It's got to be her." Genta insisted.
"After her." Conan instructed.
Outside the Western Confections Paradise's main factory...
"This is the Western Confections Paradise's main factory." Conan realized, the kids having followed Ito Yayoi to the main building. "Over here." he led the others to the direction of the service entrance.
Just then, they heard Ito's scream in horror.
In the building's backyard...
"What's the matter, Yayoi-san?" Ogawa Hiroshi hurried over.
"The president..." Ito wailed.
"Onii-chan." Hiroshi entered the preparation shed, finding his elder brother, Ogawa Akira, drowned in a sink of red bean paste. "Call the police." he told Ito, picking up a colorful handkerchief that was left on the floor. "And let everyone in the office know about this. I'll tell my wife."
"This has turned into a serious situation." Mitsuhiko noted. "Let's split up and gather information. Detective Boys, roll out."
After Megure's team was called in...
"The deceased is Western Confections Paradise company president, Ogawa Akira-san, 35 years old." Takagi reported. "Mizuno-san determined that he died of suffocation when his face was pushed into the sink filled with red bean paste."
"What an eccentric murder." Megure noted. "Was the victim making a huge amount of red bean soup or something?"
"Despite being the president of a Western confections factory, he apparently had become absorbed in Japanese sweets making recently." Mouri supplied.
"What are you doing here?" Megure turned to his former subordinate.
"I thought I'd assist in the investigation since I'm already here to pick up the kids as their guardian." Mouri answered.
"Inspector, I've brought the people who discovered the body." a police officer informed.
"You're the victim, Ogawa Akira-san's younger brother and Vice-President, Ogawa Hiroshi-san." Megure addressed the two suspects. "And you are the president's secretary, Ito Yayoi-san. Our coroner has put the estimated time of death to be about 12pm."
"Where were you at that time?" Takagi questioned.
"Around that time, I was crushed beneath some concrete." Ito answered. "At the ruined building where we're planning to build our new factory. I was supposed to meet the president there. But no matter how long I waited, the president never showed up. I was overwhelmed with sadness and went on a violent rampage. Then, the concrete fell, crushing me beneath it. Apparently, I was unconscious for some time until I was awoken by the dreadful voices of the Detective Boys."
"Hiroshi-san, what were you doing around that time?" Takagi inquired.
"I returned to my apartment to have lunch with my wife." Hiroshi replied. "We had last night's leftover sukiyaki over rice."
"Conan-kun." Mitsuhiko reported back. "A lot of facts came to light: the president was trying to develop Japanese sweets to sell at Western Confections Paradise, but the VP is strongly opposed, which caused friction between them."
"Hiroshi-san." Ogawa Hanako had also arrived to the scene.
"Hanako, over here." Hiroshi told his wife.
"HIs wife sided with the VP and also opposed the president." Mitsuhiko continued.
"I got a bunch of information too." Genta has also returned. "Apparently, the murdered president planned to convince the VP and his wife who opposed him and build a Japanese sweets factory in that ruined building."
"Come to think of it, Ito-san said she was grateful your terrified voices woke her up." Conan stated.
"The thing is..." Ayumi started.
"The other way around." Mitsuhiko admitted. "We did scream in terror."
"Tell me more about it." Conan pressed.
After clarifying what had happened...
Having lured Hiroshi away from Ito and Hanako, Conan informed the company's Vice-President that the culprit was not Hanako before relaying his plan to the older man.
"Do the Detective Boys like cake, too?" Ito spotted Mitsuhiko, Genta and Ayumi looking through the kitchen's viewing window. "I enjoy cake, too. I love it dearly. I haven't thanked you yet, for testifying that you found me crushed underneath concrete in the ruined building. I sensed you fearfully entering the ruined building then."
"We were laughing then." Mitsuhiko remarked.
"You used the Detective Boys to fabricate an alibi." Conan cut in.
"I finally found you." Mouri snorted. "How dare you..." he trailed off mid-sentence when Conan tranquilized him.
"This case is a sad ballad of woman who loves cake." Conan used Mouri's voice to begin his deduction. "This ballad began one week ago at the Western Confections Paradise cake shop in Haido City when the woman learnt of the Detective Boys' plan to explore a ruined building. This morning, the woman who loved cake went to said ruined building. Using a long thread and plywood boards, she rigged some debris to fall automatically. Conan found some of this contrivance in the ruined structure. On the path between the ruined building and Western Confections Paradise, she left a trail of blood beforehand so the Detective Boys would follow it. She returned to the office and waited for the right moment to speak to the VP's wife. The VP's wife headed to the ruined building in a red car where she triggered the tripwire and was crushed beneath the debris. And then, awoken by the laughter of the Detective Boys who had arrived, she failed to notice their presence and hastily left out of ear. At that time, Conan saw a red car driving down the hill. Since the VP's wife didn't return to the office until after the murder, she must've returned home and taken a shower. Meanwhile, the woman who loves cake headed to the president's office as though nothing had happened. She waited for an opportunity to kill the president, left behind the VP's wife's handkerchief she'd stolen beforehand and left. The VP and his wife suspected each other. The lies they told ultimately fabricated an alibi for the woman who loves cake. For the woman who loves cake, predicting the VP and his wife's actions and manipulating them was a simple task. After all, she's the secretary. Then, the woman who loved cake waited. She wore clothes similar to the VP's wife, stained her ankle with blood and ate cake while she waited as though she was waiting for a lover for the Detective Boys to follow the trail."
"What proof is there that I killed the president?" Ito demanded.
"There's no evidence." Conan agreed. "But what about the VP and his wife's testimony? I know the woman who loves cake poisoned the VP and his wife and tried to kill them. But, don't worry. What do you see on the other side of the glass?"
Ito turned and was shocked to see both Hiroshi and Hanako working on the cakes in front of them, relatively unharmed.
"I told them." Conan declared. "I had them pretend to be poisoned without them eating the matcha cake. The police told me earlier that they found poison in the cake."
"I couldn't forgive the president." Ito sank to her knees. "How could my beloved Western Confections Paradise make Japanese sweets of all things? At first, they opposed the idea, but the VP and his wife were just as guilty for accepting the president's suggestion. Western Confections Paradise was my dream. My precious Western Confections Paradise needed to be paradise of Western confections, true to its name."
"We heard everything." Megure came in with Takagi.
"Ito Yayoi-san, could you tell us more about that at the police station?" Takagi requested.
"I understand." Ito relented.
Later that weekend...
"Crème brûlée?" Ami quirked a brow at the French dessert Amuro brought along as an after-dinner treat.
"This is just an experimental version." Amuro handed the blue-haired coroner a dessert spoon. "Dig in and give me feedback."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.