SailorStar9: With Chapter 182 uploaded, I present Chapter 183 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 183: The Unstated Alibi

Time passes...

"All ones." Genta gawked at the digital clock above a watch shop that indicated '1:11'.

"What's so special about it?" Mitsuhiko twitched.

"It means I'm lucky today." Genta declared. "I might be having eel bowls for dinner tonight."

"We're leaving you guys behind." Conan reminded.

"That was a police officer." Ayumi noticed an officer riding by on a bicycle.

"It felt like he was rushing to a crime scene." Haibara pointed out.

At the bottom of a staircase in the nearby park...

"Take your time." the above-mentioned police officer soothed a sobbing old lady. "Tell me what happened."

"I was pushed by a strange young woman on the top of these stairs." the old lady cried.

"Hey, onii-san." Conan called out, spotting Usui Eiichi hiding by a wall. "Did you happen to see someone suspicious?"

"I didn't see anything." Usui stammered and beat a hasty retreat.

"Maybe he did see something." Conan noted.

"Then why did he say he didn't?" Haibara deathpanned.

"Maybe he doesn't want to get involved with the police?" Conan suggested. "Maybe he himself has done something wrong."

Around Beika City...

"If he's about to get up to something..." Mitsuhiko stated, he and Genta were sent to trail Usui.

"Then we'll stop him." Genta decided.

"We figured out." Conan called out the girls. "He's over there." he pointed to a café nearby.

In front of the Beika Station...

"We have no idea what's he's doing." Genta admitted after he and Mitsuhiko reported back.

"First, he headed to the shopping center." Mitsuhiko recalled. "Next he headed to a 100-yen shop. Then he wandered around the area for a while. He wandered around Beika City for about an hour while closely watching the time. Then he got on a train and left. Normally someone doing something wrong would sneak around and avoid being seen but he did the opposite."

"He repeatedly took actions to draw attention to himself." Conan mused. "There's something wrong about that Kanieda guy. He had a cell phone, right? So why did he receive a call at the café? He got on an inbound train. He should have headed in the opposite direction if he was going home in Shikabone City. Since that train stopped one station over at Midoridai, maybe he was planning on doing something here in Midoridai." he led the group to alight at the Midoridai Station.

Outside Midoridai Station...

The Detective Boys exclaimed in shock when they saw Usui being taken away by a police car.

At the Midoridai Police Station...

"His name is Usui-san?" Conan gawked.

"Usui Eichii-san, who lives here in Midoridai." Takagi confirmed. "We even checked his driver's license."

"Then why did he lie about being Kanieda from Shikabone?" Haibara wondered.

"Detective Takagi, why did the police pick him up?" Conan asked.

"He's a person of interest in an injury case." Takagi replied. "Just now, behind Midoridai Park, a woman who lives nearby found a man who'd been struck on the back of the head with a log. The victim is Hachiya Takeru-san from Midoridai. According to his neighbors, he's not a nice person. Usui Eichii," he related, Chiba having found a pen with the initial 'E.U' on it near the crime scene. "He's the man we identified as our primary person of interest."

"Hachiya was attacked around 1pm today?" Conan blinked. "Then, he's innocent."

"He has an alibi." Haibara supplied.

"He was in Beika City around that time." Mitsuhiko added.

"He forgot something in Beika City while he was there." Conan pulled out the lighter that was left in the café. "His fingerprints should be on this. He denied it?" he blinked.

"He said it must've been someone else." Takagi nodded. "None of Usui-san's fingerprints were on the lighter you turned in." he added after the forensics came back with the report. "The man you saw in Beika City wasn't Usui Eiichi-san, but someone else."

The next day...

"Your neighbor Kanieda Akira-san is in hospital?" Conan blinked when Tone, Kanieda's neighbor informed the Detective Boys.

"Apparently, he was hit by a car yesterday afternoon on the other side of the station." Tone recalled. "If you kids have business with Akira-kun, why don't you come with me? I was just on my way to visit him."

At the hospital...

"According to the nurse, he's not seriously injured." Tone added. "But he's still hasn't regained consciousness."

"They look similar, don't they?" Mitsuhiko was struck by the similarities between Kanieda and Usui.

"Anyway, what was he doing on the south side of the station?" Tone was puzzled. "He thinks it's bad luck. Akira-kun has been living with his mother since his father passed away. About a year ago, his mother had some dentures made by a well-known dentist named Saruwatari-sensei on the south side of the station. Shortly afterwards, something unfortunate happened. She fell asleep while wearing the dentures and they got caught in her throat. She didn't wake up after that."

"You said Kanieda-san's accident happened yesterday afternoon." Conan stated, the group were now seated in the hospital's yard. "Did it happen around one?"

"I heard it was just after one." Tone revealed.

"That's the same time Usui-san started wandering about Beika City." Conan started to piece everything together.

At the Midoridai Police Station...

"Have we met?" Usui blinked at the Detective Boys.

"We met yesterday at Beika City." Conan beamed. "We weren't wrong; it was really him. Kanieda Akira-san asked you to lie, didn't he? He wanted you to be his double in his plot to kill the dentist."

"So, he was planning a murder." Megure noted, the Detective Boys revealing the bundle of rope and gloves they discovered among Kanieda's belongings.

"It may have been unjustified, but Kanieda-san couldn't forgive Saruwatari-sensei and attempted to avenge his mother." Conan stated. "Suspicion would've fallen on him due to his motive. That's when he happened to see Usui-san and came up with a way to avoid getting caught. He attempted to fabricate an alibi for the time of the crime by using this man who looks just like him. You seem to be unemployed, so you probably did it for money." he addressed Usui. "Yesterday, on the day of the planned murder, Kanieda-san had Usui-san cut his long hair to look like his own and sent far away from Shikabone City to Beika City. He had him enter a café he'd picked up beforehand and waited from the right moment to place a call that allowed him to create numerous witnesses for the alibi. Furthermore, by leaving behind a lighter with his fingerprints, he had physical evidence as a backup. With his fake alibi secured, Kanieda-san headed out to murder Saruwatari-sensei. That dentist accepts appointments until noon. Even if his appointments ran over, he'd be done by 1 pm at the latest, and then eat lunch at home. Kanieda-san would sneak into his home and kill him using that rope."

"If the dentist didn't show up after 2pm when his afternoon appointments started, naturally someone would go check on him and discover the body." Haibara added.

"Since he clearly would've been killed during his lunch between 1pm to 2pm, you just needed to fabricate an alibi for that one hour period." Conan continued. "Meanwhile, you witnessed an old lady being pushed by someone down some steps in Beika City. But you couldn't testify. If you came forward as a witness, the police would ask your identity. Even if you wanted to claim to be Kanieda Akira from Shikabone City, the name on your license would be different."

"You kept fabricating Kanieda-san's alibi." Genta stated.

"And repeatedly took actions people around town would remember." Mitsuhiko recalled.

"You hid the fact that you had an alibi because the alibi was part of an evil scheme." Haibara accused.

"You didn't want to be suspected of injuring Hachiya-san." Chiba realized.

"So, you hid it, believing it to be better than the police discovering you were helping a murderer." Takagi also came to the same realization.

"Your scheme was all for nothing, though." Conan declared. "While heading for Saruwatari-sensei's house, Kanieda-san was involved in a traffic accident and never managed to attack the dentist."

"You mean I could've said from the start that I was fabricating an alibi in Beika City?" Usui exclaimed.

"You fool!" Megure roared. "It was a coincidence that you didn't become an accomplice to a murderer."

"You're absolutely correct." Usui sighed.

"I got the idea when I saw that Usui guy arguing with Hachiya a few days ago." Kakimoto Sueko was brought in for questioning in regards to Hachiya's attack. "I could get back at Hachiya and frame him for it. I picked up the ball-point pen he dropped and used it yesterday. Even if Usui had an alibi, I figured you guys would do something about it."

Later that night...

"Wait, then what about that old lady?" Amuro asked, swallowing his soba.

"Apparently..." Ami mused, biting into the salmon roe of her kaisendon. "She faked being pushed."

"Pardon?" Amuro gaped.

"Seems like she's the trouble-making grandma who delights in creating a commotion just for the heck of it." Ami shrugged.

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