Kaiya POV

"R-Ran you can use your karate on opponents later right?" I paled as she punched the wall, leaving a dent.

"I am participating in another championship game and Shinichi can't attend again?!" Ran huffed.

"I'm sure he's quite busy..." I glanced at Conan sheepishly. I would not want to be in his place right now.

"Umm Ran-neechan, I can videotape your match for Shinichi-niichan." Conan offered nervously.

"Ran, calm down." Sonoko told her. "How about we go to a cake buffet at Haido Hotel if you win the championship?"

"You don't mean the cake buffet I've been wanting to go to?" Ran asked eagerly.

"That's the one!" Conan and I nodded.

"Then I'll definitely win the championship!" Ran had fire in her eyes.

********

"Ran?" Sonoko and I tried to find the locker rooms.

"Oof!" I exclaimed as I bumped into another girl.

"Eh?! Who are you? You look just like me!" she exclaimed.

"Like dopplegangers!" I stared at her in disbelief. "Umm... I'm Kaiya Matsuki... are you participating in the tournament?" I indicated to her uniform.

"That's right! I'm Hina Wada, second year at Haido High! I will definitely win the tournament this time!" she exclaimed fiercely.

"No Ran will -" Sonoko began to argue but I clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Umm what she meant was good luck!" I gave Hina a closed eye smile as she left. Sonoko let out a sigh of relief as I released my hand.

"What was that about?" Ran approached us.

"That girl looks just like Kaiya-chan!" Sonoko told Ran.

"You mean Hina Wada? Now that you mention it, I think so too!" Ran agreed.

"Well good luck on your tournament!" we told Ran and joined Conan at the stands to cheer her on.

********

"It's Ran versus that girl Hina Wada again in the final rounds!" Sonoko said worriedly. "But they look evenly matched!"

"Come on Ran-neechan you can do this!" Conan shouted.

"I'll be back in a moment." I whispered to them and quickly left the stands. An idea suddenly popped up in my head.

********

I ran to the place behind the designated area for the match and waved at Ran.

"Umm Kudo-kun says that he is sorry he had to go to another case so he couldn't make it but he wishes you good luck!" I motioned to my phone.

"Shinichi!" Ran said angrily and an angry aura surrounded her.

********

"Congrats again on winning the Kanto Karate Championship, Ran!" we cheered as we rode the bus.

"Oh it's all thanks to the new move sensei taught me." Ran smiled. "And that mystery geek..." She pouted.

"What did you tell her during the final match?" Conan whispered.

"Nothing much..." I smiled innocently at Conan.

"As promised I'll take you to the cake buffet at Haido Hotel, so eat lots okay?" Sonoko told Ran.

"Uh huh! I'll be sure to eat lots and get stronger!" Ran's mood immediately improved..

"But what did that detective geek Shinichi-kun say when you told him about your victory?" Sonoko asked Ran. "You also gave your answer to his confession in London right?"

"Well I told him about my victory via text but..." Ran blushed.

"What?!" Sonoko yelled in disbelief. "Shinichi-kun is probably wondering 'That Ran, why hasn't she responded to my feelings? She probably has someone else in her heart.'" Sonoko dramatically exclaimed. "He might get tired of waiting and have a change of heart. He's incredibly popular, you know?"

I looked at Conan and silently laughed.

"Come on, I'm not like that." Conan whispered to me and crossed his arms.

*********

"Groper!" Sonoko suddenly exclaimed. My eyes widened as I saw a person with a fedora hat behind Sonoko. It was Masumi Sera!

"Wait Sonoko, she's not -" I tried to say.

"Ran, it's payback time!" Sonoko said to Ran, who launched a karate attack at Sera. Sera immediately blocked the attack with Jeet Dune Ko.

"Hold on a minute! She's not the groper!" I got in between Sera and Ran.

"Kaiya-neechan is right." Conan explained. "I saw the person seizing the hand of the person responsible for touching Sonoko-neechan's butt. That's how Sonoko-neechan mistook that person for the groper."

"The real groper is him." I pointed to the man that Sera was grabbing.

"So the groper was you?!" Sonoko shook her fists angrily, and chased the groper off the bus when we stopped.

**********

"Forgive me, I almost kicked you without making sure." Ran said to Sera.

"No problem, I'm just glad we cleared up our misunderstanding. Besides, you're my type." Sera said to Ran and leaned in closer to her. "Just joking! Where are you headed?" Sera laughed.

"To Haido Hotel." Ran responded, both her and Sonoko blushing slightly. They must have thought that Sera was a boy.

"What a coincidence. I'm headed there too." Sera replied.

"Conan-kun, what's with that expression?" I teased him. He was clearly jealous. "Did you know that actually -"

"Thank you for earlier." Sera winked at us. "Especially you, little boy."

My eyebrows twitched. Why do I keep getting interrupted every time I want to tell them that Sera is actually a girl.

***********

"According to the Internet, the cake buffet is on the second floor." Sonoko looked at her phone.

"Then let's take the elevator." Conan suggested. While we were waiting for the elevator, I overheard Sera asking the front desk if the hotel had a room.

Soon enough, the elevator opened, only for Conan to bump into a woman who told him that we shouldn't use the elevator as it led to the renovated annex.

***********

"What do you mean the cake buffet is closed?" Sonoko demanded angrily.

"My apologies, there were more customers than we expected." the man at the counter said. Aww I really wanted cake though.

My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden scream from outside. Conan and I ran to the parking lot to see an unconscious man bleeding from his head. I ran to take the man's pulse and shook my head.

"What happened here?" Conan asked the group of people.

"We were in the car backing up when this man fell from the window." a woman (Toshiro Hirukawa) explained. Hirukawa suddenly pointed above. "Oh! I thought just saw somebody there!"

***********

Conan and I accompanied the group of people to the roof to investigate.

"Careful, Conan-kun!" I warned as the elevator opened unexpectedly behind him. Apparently the elevators were double sided at this hotel.

Soon we arrived on the roof to see a pair of shoes placed neatly on a jacket.

"It's a suicide?!" everyone exclaimed.

"The person I saw earlier was probably the wind fluttering the jacket. It's all my fault... I was too harsh with my words." Hirukawa sobbed.

"It's not a suicide." Conan remarked.

"It's a murder, right? Conan-kun." Sera appeared on the roof. "Normally people wouldn't remove their shoes before committing suicide. That's only something you see in the movies for dramatic effect. Besides, the victim was inebriated right? Due to my line of work, I have pretty good ears, and I overheard your conversation earlier. So a drunkard wouldn't have been able to place the shoes on the jacket neatly."

"So where's the culprit?" one of Hirukawa's friends asked.

"I bet that person will be arrested real soon. I asked the security guard to watch over the elevators." Sera explained.

"Just who are you?" another of Hirukawa's friends asked.

"Sera, a detective. Just like this boy over here." she grinned at Conan.



*************

"There was no one else in the annex besides the victim?" I asked Takagi when the police arrived.

"According to the security guard, only you guys passed." Takagi explained.

"The deceased, Teigo Uesumi was the son of the hotel owner and they made an exception and let him have his own room in order to avoid the media. In the past, he was arrested for being the ringleader of a remittance fraud, but was acquitted on insufficient proof. He became enraged at the reporters, and drove away the hotel guests with his behavior." Megure added.

Hirukawa then explained that she and her friends were victims of the remittance fraud, and Uesumi was willing to apologize to them when he sobered up. So they went out to purchase a recording device when Uesumi suddenly fell in front of them in the parking lot.

"In that case, Uesumi might have been tied to a string or something." Takagi proposed, since there wasn't anyone else in the annex.

"While I was waiting for the elevator, I'm pretty sure it stopped on the 2nd and 6th floor." Sera recalled.

"And it seems that only one elevator was working." Megure said.

"What about the security cameras?" Conan asked.

"They were all covered up when Uesumi graffitied the walls of the annex. Megure replied.

Hirukawa and her friends suggested that it could have been the ghost of an elderly man, as that was once Hirukawa's father. Hirukawa's mother was a victim of the remittance scam and fell into shock, so she had to be hospitalized. Hirukawa's father, who used a wheelchair, had a room next to Uesumi and begged him every day to apologize to his wife. However, once Hirukawa's father learned of his wife's death, he commited suicide, thus starting the rumor of a ghost.

"And where was your father's room located?" Megure investigated further.

"It was on the second floor." Hirukawa explained.

***********

We saw graffiti all over the second floor, and Chiba was there inspecting a wheelchair attached to an extremely long string. Apparently Uesumi used it to scare the guests. Conan noticed that the wheelchair had marks indicating that it bumped into something, and Sera noted that the string was attached to broken rubber bands.

"Could the wheelchair have been used to commit the murder?" I asked Conan and he nodded.

Afterwards we went to the 6th floor, only to be met with more obnoxious graffiti. At the end of the hall there was an open window with paint in front of it, and two paint cans scattered nearby on the floor. There was evidence that the only person who entered the annex could have done this.

"Our culprit is Hirukawa-san." Sera exclaimed. "If you would bring her here and set up the contraption per my instructions."

*************

Hirukawa and the others were in disbelief when Uesumi's death was revealed to be a murder, but Sera explained that the shoes and jackets on the roof were just distractions to hide the fact the Hirukawa actually used a contraption to commit the murder.

"Will you let us know your deductions, Sera-chan?" I told her.

Sera grinned and looked at Hirukawa. "First you got Uesumi-san drunk before placing him on the wheelchair on the second floor. Then you attached a long string and looped the end to a notch on the top of the elevator. Once you reached the 6th floor, you used the wheelchair to fling Uesumi-san out the window, before returning to the second floor." As Sera explained her deductions, the detectives reenacted the crime with the wheelchair and a dummy. The trick seemed to work perfectly, until the wheelchair stalled at the window.

"Hey, what's the meaning of this?" Megure exclaimed.

"The reactive force from hitting the wall should have already sent the dummy flying out!" Sera pretended to be confused. I had a suspicion that Sera deduced the whole trick but purposely gave a slightly incorrect explanation to test Conan.

I inspected the window. There must be something that gave the wheelchair more force.

"Kaiya-neechan." Conan motioned to me to help him.

************

"It was the paint cans!" I exclaimed. "Kudo-kun told me over the phone." I handed over Conan's phone to Megure.

"Kudo-kun?" the detectives asked in surprise.

"Once we phoned Shinichi-niichan he figured it out!" Conan lied and hid in order to use his bowtie to give the deductions.

"The paint cans should match the spilled paint perfectly." Shinichi reasoned and I aligned the paint cans to demonstrate. "Now please let the wheelchair run again. The paint cans should cause the footrests to slip under, tilting the wheelchair forward."

I set the wheelchair in motion, and this time, the footrest got trapped onto the paint cans, causing the dummy to catapult out the window.



"The definitive proof should be fibers from the victim stuck to the culprit from when the culprit placed the victim on the wheelchair." Shinichi explained.

The case ended as Hirukawa admitted to the murder, and explained that she did it in order to get revenge for her father.

**************

Sera POV

"So? Did you get the room yet, Masumi?" mother asked when I returned.

"Not quite... the rooms were all full and I ran into a little case earlier." I replied sheepishly. "But I met the boy Conan-kun!" I told her excitedly.

Mother shook her head disapprovingly. "We're moving hotels again, Masumi. We cannot trust the boy yet."

"But Mama, we just arrived in Japan only a few days ago." I pouted. I sighed and helped her pack. I know she means well and wants to keep us safe.

There's one more thing that puzzled me. How did Kaiya know that I was a girl?

**************

Kaiya POV

"Why... why does something bad always happen during my championship games?" Ran asked sadly as we took the bus home.

"Ran..." Sonoko and I looked at her expression. I understand how she felt... having another case occur and Shinichi not being able to watch the competition. Not to mention, we weren't able to go the cake buffet.

"Kudo-kun, are you going to leave your girlfriend like this?" I whispered to him, causing him to blush.

"Don't worry, I got an idea." he replied to me before turning to Ran. "Ran-neechan, I know something that will cheer you up." Conan-kun tugged on her sleeve.

"Thank you Conan-kun, but I..." Ran turned to him sadly.

"Look there! Isn't that your favorite curry restaurant?" Conan pointed out.

"Wow, you're right, Conan-kun." Ran looked out the window excitedly.

"Then let's get some celebration curry for dinner! My treat!" Sonoko grinned and signaled for the bus to stop.

**************

My mouth watered as my katsu curry arrived on the table. The katsu was crispy and delicous and the curry just melted in my mouth.



"Mmm it's so good." I mumbled, with food still in my mouth. "No wonder curry is one of your favorite foods." I said to Ran.

"There's another reason besides that." Ran said with a wistful smile. "Shinichi and I used to go to this restaurant when we were younger. Just being here... it feels like I'm with him again."

"Ran, you should respond back to Shinichi's feelings!" Sonoko urged. Conan choked on water at her comment and went beat red.

"There's so much I want to say to Shinichi." Ran told us. Then she looked at Conan-kun in concern. "Conan-kun are you alright? Your face is flushed."

"U-uh it must be the curry." Conan stuttered.