SailorStar9: With Chapter 131 posted, I present Chapter 132 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?

Pairings: Established!Furuya Rei (Amuro Tooru)/Mizuno Ami

Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and pairing.

Chapter 132: The Secret Hidden By the Cards

Time passes...

"Draw, Yaiba!" Mitsuhiko played his card. "'Shake My Hand'."

"A rare card?" Genta was stunned.

"I recently acquired it." Mitsuhiko grinned. "My rare card makes you my friend, which means I win."

"I demand a rematch!" Genta snapped.

"Bring it on." Mitsuhiko accepted the challenge. "Haibara-san?" he heard Haibara sigh.

"Boys sure love their battles, don't they?" Haibara muttered.

"Despite how it seems, this is a cerebral game." Fumio pointed out. "Trading card games are currently hugely popular among young adults, too."

"It's true." Professor Agasa agreed. "This store used to only sell used books, but now..."

"Looks like they're pretty popular." Conan gawked.

"Super rare cards are really expensive." Genta added.

"Haven't there even been thefts about it?" Haibara reminded.

"Only a few cases." Mitsuhiko soothed.

"A few cases too many." Fumio mumbled.

"Does that make it a harsh game where only the wealthy win?" Haibara asked.

"We don't appreciate you saying that." Nitta Tsukasa cut in.

"Nitta-san and Masaki-san." Mitsuhiko instantly recognized the two players. "They're both top player who frequently appear in TCG tournaments. Nitta-san, in particular, is a hero who uses cheap cards to defeat opponents with decks full of expensive rare cards."

"Even the have-nots can defeat the haves." Nitta commented, picking up Genta's deck and shuffling it and then drawing the topmost card to reveal the 'Tiger Break' card.

"Genta, you could've won." Conan realized.

"The truth is, I just can't afford to buy rare cards." Nitta remarked.

"Don't say that, Nitta." Masaki chided. "Watching made me feel like my life wasn't hopeless after all."

"Enough of that crap." Zaizen Daigo scoffed. "Ultimately, money is everything."

"What's their problem?" Genta snorted.

"That scary man is called Zaizen-san." Mitsuhiko whispered.

"Does that mean they're also tournament regulars?" Fumio reasoned.

"But he's the opposite of Nitta-san." Mitsuhiko nodded. "He's the 'final boss' of tournaments who crushes opponents with the rare cards he bought for a fortune."

"Your turn is up." Zaizen reminded. "It's our turn now. Move it."

"Sorry." Nitta winked at the kids, settling down with Masaki to play a tag match against Zaizen and his tag-along, Kuno Osamu.

"I guess the four of you frequently play against each other." Conan noticed. "You all seem to have assigned seats."

"We became friends through tournaments." Nitta explained.

"No, we're rivals." Zaizen corrected, pulling out his deck.

"Your family just happens to be rich." Masaki snorted. "You don't have to be such a showoff. Now, you're getting violet?" he mocked, seeing Zaizen glare at him. "Does this mean you you don't mind me exposing that?"

"Masaki-san, what do you mean by 'that'?" Fumio whispered.

"Well..." Masaki smirked.

"I'm sorry." Zaizen immediately apologized.

"You too, Kuno." Masaki cut Kuno's sniggering short. "You're in no position to be laughing at Zaizen."

"I was just following orders." Kuno stammered.

"Let's get started." Nitta cut in.

"I'm going to the bathroom first." Zaizen excused himself.

Just as everyone was walking away, the bookshelf behind Masaki fell on him. A frightened Kuno backed into the fire hose reel cabinet behind him, triggering the fire alarm and causing a mass panic in the bookstore.

After the store assistant found out it was a false alarm, he calmed the customers down.

"Where's Masaki?" Nitta noticed his partner was missing.

"I haven't seen him." Professor Agasa replied.

The group returned to the card table to find Masaki crushed under the fallen bookshelf.

""It's no use." Professor Agasa felt for a pulse. "He's dead."

"Crushed by a shelf?" Sansei snorted. "How unlucky."

"Looking for something?" Conan noticed Kuno peering under the bookshelf.

"Oh no." Kuno stammered and fled.

Conan's attention was caught by the nail sticking out from the shelf top.

After Takagi and Chiba was called in...

"The deceased is Masaki Naoto-san, 28 years old." Chiba recited from his notes. "The cause of death is a cerebral contusion. His head stuck the floor when he was crushed by a shelf. Were you friends with the victim?"

"Yes." the grieving Nitta replied.

"But why did the shelf fall?" Chiba wondered.

"Normally, the legs are fixed in place so they won't fall." the store assistant explained. "But we happened to be rearranging a section of the store. That shelf is part of that work."

"This is a pretty heavy shelf." Ayumi pointed out.

"I don't think it'd fall that easily." Fumio agreed.

"Maybe someone pushed it?" Genta suggested.

"Actually, several witnesses saw the shelf fall on its own." Chiba corrected. "I don't think it was pushed."

"The shelf looks pretty old and it has some heavy things on it." Zaizen shrugged. "It was an accident."

"What is this?" Conan piped in. "Look at this." he turned to Chiba.

"Looks like something rubbed against it." Chiba frowned.

"It looks quite new, too." Fumio added.

"It must have happened when it fell." Zaizen insisted. "This is clearly an accident."

"Sound like you're desperate for this to be an accident." Conan remarked.

"Is there some reason you don't want an investigation?" Fumio's suspicions were piqued.

"You and Masaki-san had an odd argument." Professor Agasa recalled. "He threatened to expose something."

"Are you hiding something?" Chiba pressed Zaizen.

"Masaki was blackmailing me." Zaizen shouted out. "During the last tournament, I looked at my opponent's deck before our game."

"That's a serious breach of the game rules." Fumio stated.

"Masaki was secretly filming me doing it, and then..." Zaizen muttered, recalling how Masaki had showed him the video he filmed as evidence. "I didn't do it." he insisted. "Kuno was also being blackmailed for helping me cheat. Well, I call it blackmail, but he just took a few rare cards."

"Besides, when that shelf fell, none of us laid a finger on it." Kuno reminded. "How could we have pushed it?"

"What is it?" Ayumi wondered, Takagi chasing the kids off the crime scene.

That's it. Conan's eyes widened as an idea came to him and he ran over to the fire hose reel cabinet, only to slip on a fallen card. "Thanks, Nitta-san." he spoke, Nitta helping him up. Now, i have all the cards I need. He pieced together what happened.

"We checked the area around the shelf and the entire store, but we didn't find anything suspicious." Chiba informed Takagi.

"Could you wait one moment, please?" imitating Professor Agasa's voice using the Voice-Changing Bow-Tie, Conan cut in. "This isn't an accident but a murder. The way the shelf fell makes it hard to believe this was an accident. Isn't that right, Kuno-san? You watched it happen right in front of you. You must've felt it was strange, so you were compelled to examine the area around the shelf afterwards. However, there was someone who acted strangely when the shelf fell. That was you, Nitta-san. Before the fall, you moved away from the table to avoid Kuno-san's gaze. You could've walked directly to the side, but you specifically walked diagonally forward and even pushed us out of the way. And why is that? Because it would've been difficult to topple the shelf by moving to the side. In order to guarantee a fall, you had to move forward. Your body was tied to the shelf using a transparent thread like a nylon string. That would explain your strange movement and why the shelf fell immediately afterwards. You looped the nylon string around the nail on top of the shelf beforehand. While we were distracted by Genta and Mitsuhiko's game, you attached the other end to the back of your belt. All he had to do was avoid Kuno-san's gaze and naturally move away from the table. He used everyone and everything like they were cards in his deck, like a true TCG strategist."

"Excuse me." Chiba inspected the back of Nitta's belt and confirmed there was a string mark on it.

"You're all taking this seriously?" Nitta burst out laughing. "More importantly, where's the nylon string?"

"You probably already retrieved it when we were evacuating." Fumio reasoned. "It's most likely already flushed down the toilet."

"Unless it's found, your deduction is mere fancy." Nitta smirked.

"We're just getting started." Conan refuted. "What I've been explaining is only how you toppled the shelf; a camouflage meant to make us think that's how Masaki-san died. It's too convenient for him to have simply gotten unlucky when it fell. He was actually killed after the shelf fell. After drawing everyone away using the fire alarm, you were left alone to kill Masaki-san. Then, you met up with us like nothing happened."

"You don't have any evidence." Nitta protested.

"There is, on your legs." Conan corrected. "Detective Takagi, please get the forensics."

Having the forensics officer shine a luminol flashlight on Nitta's trousers, blood splatter was found on the pants, proving Nitta to be the killer.

"The shape and size of blood splatter tell us plenty of things." Fumio added. "For example, the distance from the victim and the direction the killer was facing."

"Realty isn't a card game." Conan scolded as Nitta fell to his knees. "Blood flies when you defeat someone and you lost because you failed to consider that."

"Why did you do that?" Takagi inquired.

"I was at my limit." Nitta wailed. "I couldn't keep winning with just cheap cards." he then revealed that he had snuck into the bookshop to steal rare cards at night, only to be caught by Masaki. "He blackmailed me. My crime was different from your petty cheating." he turned to Zaizen. "I had committed a crime."

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