SailorStar9: With Chapter 168 uploaded, I present Chapter 169 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 169: The Antique Tray Can't Be Hidden, Part Three

"Inspector Megure." Chiba reported back. "According to the housekeepers, the victim said he wanted to see the shocked expressions on his clients' faces when he showed them this parcel during his explanation. Perhaps his explanation is written on the trays is written on it."

"There certainly seems to be something written on it." Megure unwrapped the cloth to reveal the wooden box.

"It's written so beautifully it's illegible." Takagi pointed out.

"That's the box for the dish I asked him to appraise." Professor Agasa supplied. "The surface with writing on it is the lid. You can open it by sliding it upwards."

"May I take a look?" Subaru requested.

"From the looks of it, it doesn't seem connected to the case." Megure handed the box over.

"There's some paint missing on the back of the dish." Conan noted, the three detectives huddled together. "It looks like there are cracks on the bare spot, too."

"That's odd." Professor Agasa remarked. "When I found it, the paint wasn't peeling off."

"Professor," Conan started after Subaru flipped the dish over. "When you flipped over the tray, what was the orientation of the crane carved onto the front?" he handed Professor Agasa the photo he had taken of the crane tray beforehand.

"I think it was like this." Professor Agasa confirmed, returning the phone.

"Detective Takagi, try flipping their trays over again." Conan requested. "Flip them over sideways like you did before. Also, Detective Chiba, on the cushions insides the boxes..." he whispered.

"There was one." Chiba was surprised. "There was one box that had a bloodstain there."

"You guys." Sera addressed the three suspects. "What if I told you I could tell the real tray apart from the fakes without an appraiser? Remember what you said earlier, Professor Agasa? After being struck on the head with a spear, Nishitsu Hogen-san pointed at the real tray with his bloody finger. Nishitsu-san left a bloody fingerprint on the tray. When you flipped the tray over sideways, there was a crane pattern on the front and its beak is pointing in the same direction as the bloody fingerprint. Then, let's check it again. When you flipped over the tray, the bloodstain was pointing northeast, or at 1:30 on a clock face. Could you flip the trays over again based on that information? Rotate the trays so the blood is pointing at 1:30. When you flip them over sideways, the only crane with a beak pointing at 1:30 is the only tray in your box, Tojima Motoyaki-san."

"But why?" Takagi was puzzled.

"The trays were rotated so the blood is pointing straight up." Sera explained. "When a plate-like object with a mark is flipped over sideways and there's a mark in the same spot on the back, we tend to think the marks are in the same place on the front and back of the plate. That's only true when the mark is on the very top. Before the professor flipped over the tray, the bloodstain was pointing northeast, or at 1:30 on a clock. So, unless the crane's beak was pointing at 10:30, or northwest, it wouldn't end up in the same spot when it was flipped over."

"Then, it was Tojima Motoyaki-san who stabbed Nishitsu-san to death with a spear and swapped his own tray out with the real one." Megure concluded.

"Why would you assume that?" Tojima demanded. "Apparently, Nishitsu-san told Agasa-san that 'this is the real tray'. We don't know whether the real culprit overheard that or not. It's possible they simply put matching bloodstains on all the trays and returned them to their boxes in order to throw off the investigation. The real tray was in my box because mine happened to be the real one in the first place."

"You're being really stubborn, oji-san." Conan piped in. "After all, the other two couldn't have done it. The culprit struck the appraiser on the head with that long heavy spear." he pointed to the weapon. "The oji-san and oba-san aren't strong enough. If they tried to lift that heavy spear, they would've staggered, causing the tatami mat to make a creaking sound. Nishitsu-san would have noticed."

"Kid, I'll tell you something since you didn't seem to know." Tojima chuckled. "Nishitsu-san's hearing air was malfunctioning. So Nishitsu-san wouldn't have noticed if the culprit staggered or the mat creaked."

"How do you know that?" Conan asked. "Is it because he told you before you struck him? We realized the hearing aid was malfunctioning because the professor sent him a message."

"The message the professor sent Nishitsu-san 30 minutes before we arrived haven't been opened." Haibara confirmed. "If it was unopened because he didn't hear his phone's notification, we can assume his hearing aid had been malfunctioning since then."

"Tojima-san, didn't you say you didn't realize the object Nishitsu-san was wearing was a hearing aid?" Megure reminded. "Given that Nishitsu-san had been conversing with you normally, then as Conan-kun said, you must've learnt his hearing aid was malfunctioning when..."

"I didn't mean to kill him." Tojima confessed. "My daughter has a serious illness that cost a huge amount of money to treat. My last hope was the black lacquer tray I found in the storage. Since two other clients had brought in similar trays, I couldn't help myself. I came to ask for the results before the other two.

Five million... if I had five million more yen, I could afford my daughter's surgery."

"Your tray would have been enough to cover that cost." Subaru revealed. "Most likely, the other two trays aren't fakes, but studies; carved by famous engravers when they were young, they're impressive works modeled after the real tray. They can't compare to the real tray, but they're probably worth several million yen."

"More importantly, which box was the real tray in?" Chono pressed.

"I know who had the real tray." Conan spoke up. "When Tojima-san struck Nishitsu-san, the blood spray reached their boxes. Because of that, there's some blood on the trays and boxes, too. If the real tray was in front of Nishitsu-san when he was struck, that tray's box would've been empty at that time. So, the person whose cushion inside their box had blood on it, Chono-san, is probably the owner of the real black lacquer tray."

"What am I supposed to tell the owner?" Sakamaki moaned.

"If necessary, I'll lend my tray to your museum." Chono offered.

"My dish still remained unappraised." Professor Agasa pouted.

"The answer is written on the box." Subaru smiled. "'The harder you hide, the more obvious it becomes'. It means, the harder you try to conceal something, the more likely it is that others would discover it. Given that the name 'Kurisuke' was written at the end, your uncle Kurisuke-san probably repaired a dish he accidentally broke using glue long ago. Fearing it would be discovered, he painted the entire dish with a similarly colored oil paint to cover it up but suffered a severe scolding for it when he was found out. I believe he put the dish in a box inscribed with that saying as a lesson. Some of the paint had probably peeled off because Nishitsu-san used some solvent to remove it."

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